The Lipstick Clique (11 page)

She had many questions for the young girl, and couldn’t wait to start asking them. She ran and ran in the darkness, passing by the tents of the people that she had slept beside and made acquaintance with for a few years now. She ran by the outdoor tents of the junkies, alcoholics, ex-inmates, even a few ex-Senators. Homeless was a circumstance that could happen to the most established people. It didn’t matter if they were white, black, or animals. Life still existed, and as long as she was breathing, she would always strive to do better.

__________

Lena had been forced to grow up quick. She still had naïve moments, but not nearly the amount of naïve moments that an average teenager would have. In order to survive, she had taken Milan’s instructions and mastered them like a professional. But instead of Milan being her leader and teacher, she had simply absorbed Milan’s mindset and now she was the young teacher of the older
Tarra
.

Tarra
had chased behind Lena after she saved her from getting raped by her father. When she caught up with her that night, they ended up sleeping inside of the Greyhound bus station hugged together in tears as if they were the best of friends. Indeed, they became best friends instantly. The only point of deception was that Lena had lied to
Tarra
about her age.
Tarra
thought that Lena was 19 years old, but in fact was barely even 14.

They had both gotten fake IDs, and they were enjoying life as feminine outlaws. They had managed to move into an apartment and had saved up quite a nice amount of money in a very short time. On both of their necks, they had a set of lips tattooed in red ink. They had the same matching lip tats in a trail going from their outer thighs by the kneecap, and wrapping around to the inner thigh. The lip prints went all the way up to both of their individual bliss.

Lena had
LC
tattooed on her wrist’s pulse, and
Tarra
had the same tat, but on her eyelids in red ink. Her skin was gold, and the way they had her eyelids shaded in red made it seem as if she were simply wearing red makeup. It looked nice on her with her red hair and red lipstick. Lena had induced her spirit into believing that no matter where she was on the planet, she had become and would always be, The Lipstick Clique.

Not only had Milan convinced her that she was the official Lipstick Clique ruler, but she had also managed to convince
Tarra
that she was the ruler and creator. She had convinced her that she was an official representative until death separated them from existence.
Tarra
had bitten the bullet and was learning all she could about robbery as the days went by. They had robbed everything from banks to gas stations, from trial robberies at mom and pop record stores to successful robberies in the most unlikely of places like car wash fund raisers.

They were paid. But unlike Treasure, Milan, and Skye – the original Lipstick Clique; the two of them spent money with reckless abandon. They bought gold, platinum, diamonds, silver, copper, iron, palladium, rhinestones, and chrome. Just about any damn thing that shined, they wanted it. When they went shopping, they usually spent everything they had. They were young and making their own money, and neither of them felt that a more wonderful situation than the one they were in could ever exist.

One day
Tarra
had suggested that they get them a
brand new
car.

“What kind of car?” Lena asked her thoughtfully.

“I don’t know Lena… I was thinking we should get us a new Dodge Challenger.”

And they got it. They stole a brand new Dodge Challenger straight off of the dealer’s lot at 2 o’clock in the morning. They knew they wouldn’t be able to drive it long before it got tracked down, but they had made many connections in that short period of time. They drove it to the chop shop and exchanged it for a cheaper car, a legitimate older model Toyota Avalon and a few thousand dollars in cash. The chop shop would break it down to the smallest denominator so fast, it would be like the car just left the face of the planet.

Even though neither of the girls knew how to drive well, they had always played it off as if they knew what they were doing. The most common tactic was for whoever was supposed to be driving, to find a place to park and be stationary for a while. After doing this for a while, they eventually began to become more comfortable with the wheel. They began to act the age that they claimed to be.

Since she was the leader, it was an unspoken assumption that most of the driving burden would be placed on Lena. She tried her best to drive the car after midnight only, when there was less traffic on the road, allowing more room for error.

One night they had been joy riding and scoping out a strip plaza that they were seriously considering for a stick up. They rode from north Columbus to south Columbus, scoping out as many robbery points and scenarios that they could possibly piece together. The immaturity was still prevalent between the two of them. Otherwise, they would long have realized that they could have just left the city and been better off as far as their names ringing bells in the streets.

Lena ended up getting off at the wrong exit, but when she got off, she figured that she would just see what they had on that strip anyways before they turned around. She drove and drove, looking at small department stores and pawn shops. After a while, she saw a Wal-Mart and got an idea. She had no intentions of robbing the Wal-Mart, but she wouldn’t mind catching one of those “ballers” leaving the superstore. It was not uncommon to catch custom painted vehicles on expensive wheels parked outside of a Columbus, GA Wal-Mart. The guys knew that it was the one place they could
always
go to pick up women. She took a left and swerved their car through the parking lot.

When she looked around, she only saw one car that looked like it was baller material. It was parked a bit off in the distance, almost as if the driver and passengers weren’t even going into Wal-Mart. The car was parked as if there were no parking spaces when it first came into the parking lot, and now everyone had left the parking lot except for that car.

Lena and
Tarra
looked at each other and nodded as they drove to where that car was sitting. They drove beside the car slowly to see how many people were in it, and when they looked inside, they saw no one at all. Lena and
Tarra
were
too
amped up after seeing that. They figured that they could get quite a bit of money for that car at the chop shop. “That’s a good steal!”
Tarra
cracked as she watched Lena loop around and pull up to the curb of the Wal-Mart entrance. Lena hit the unlock button on all of the doors and sat there waiting.

“What?”
Tarra
asked.

“Get out.”

“Get out for what Lena? We need to be up and at that car over there, not at the Wal-Mart door playing games.”

Lena exhaled. “We are going to get that car, relax. I want you to walk in the direction of the car and cover me from the angles that I’ll miss while I’m trying to drive one car and hotwire another one. I need you to relax. We got this.”

Tarra
smiled at Lena and got out with her pistol in tow. It made plenty of sense to
Tarra
. She felt like there would be no way for them to continue to have the level of success that they were having if she hadn’t been around to watch Lena’s back and cover her from all angles. She knew that she was indeed important!

Tarra
started walking and observing her surroundings. She figured that she would just wait to see who the owner of the car was in case he came out of the store trying to open fire on her girl. If that happened, she knew that she would have to turn the parking lot into a chalkboard. She wasn’t going to let her homegirl go down in any way.

She watched Lena drive all the way to the top of the road so that she could really get a bird’s eye view of the parking lot, and then watched her slowly turn around and head back in the car’s direction. While Lena’s car was driving towards the target vehicle, a white woman came out of the store speed-walking towards the expensive car.
Tarra
knew that Lena had to have spotted the white lady walking towards the car too, because she saw her slow down and take a left turn so that she wouldn’t appear obvious.

A sharp pain arose in
Tarra’s
side as she thought to herself that Lena was probably going to kill the white lady right there in the middle of the parking lot. She really didn’t want her to do that, because there was no real need to. It wasn’t like they didn’t have other options, and it wasn’t as if they were starving to eat. They were good, so no need to go all out on an innocent woman just because they envied what she possessed.
Tarra
knew right then and there that she would have to stop her.

She took off running toward the cutoff path between Lena and the target vehicle, causing Lena to slam on the breaks.

“Bitch what the fuck is your issue?” Lena screamed as she stared
Tarra
in the face. “Why the hell did you do that?”

Tarra
stood there dumbfounded, unable to answer. “I… I…”

She didn’t have an answer, and Lena was starting to become slightly irritated. “O.K…
Tarra
, get in the car, we’ll find another place to rob. It’s as simple as that.”

Tarra
happily jumped into the car and slammed the door when she got in. Lena placed her seatbelt back on and slowly drove the car back around so that they could exit the parking lot. But when they got to the exit,
Tarra
seemed to go crazy.

“Lena! Go back!! What the fuck! Go back!!! Go back now!!
Now!!!!
”

Lena looked at
Tarra
with a confused expression on her face. “Go back where? I thought –”

“Fuck what you thought Lena, take your ass back to the car now!”

Lena shrugged her shoulders and swung around to head back to the target vehicle. What she saw stunned her and
Tarra
both. In a pair of khakis and a blue Wal-Mart worker’s vest, she saw the man that tried to rape her in the park loading items into the back of the white lady’s car. The man unloaded the items out of the cart, then leaned in and gave the mysterious female a passionate French kiss. “
Tarra
… that’s your Dad!”

But she was talking to herself. Lena hadn’t even heard the passenger side car door open. She looked over and saw the door wide open, allowing the coolest breeze possible to pay her driving space a visit. She saw
Tarra
as she ran up to both of them with her gun drawn. She wanted to drive closer, but she didn’t know what the hell was going on. Normally, she wouldn’t have been nervous, but
Tarra
was scaring the living daylights out of her.

She watched as
Tarra
ran up on her Dad and the lady with her pistol drawn and with rage plastered across her face. Lena sat in place, stunned. She was unable to move; paralyzed by a plethora of emotions. She wanted to get out and help her friend, but she didn’t know what her friend needed help doing. She wanted to run over and kill her Dad for trying to rape her, but didn’t know if that was what
Tarra
was already about to do or not.

Vicky listened as Milan told her all about the plea deal that had been offered to her. She lay there in the prison cell and listened as Milan cried about how much time she was being forced to do in prison. She didn’t judge her; she only listened. She knew that what Milan really needed in her horrid predicament was to be heard. Vicky lay there and listened to Milan get it all off of her chest.

She spoke for two and a half hours straight about every single thing that had been bothering her. She spoke about some of the escapades that they’d endured on the streets, and listened to her as she kept voicing her concern about not hearing from her sister over the past six months. As Vicky listened, she wanted to help her, but she knew that there would only be one way to help her, and it would require her to hurt her in order for her to break her stubborn mindset. Vicky set it in her mind that she was going to put her plan into action the following day.