1 Straight to Hell (2 page)

I’m nothing if not thorough.

Rule number nine had been written specifically for my stepsister.  It said, “Thou shalt not let strange boys sleep overnight (either on the couch or in your bed).”

“You’re right.  I did break the rule,” I told Ari, thinking of the man on the couch.

“And eight, too,” she added.

For a moment, I couldn’t even remember rule number eight.  And when it finally came to me, I was shocked.  Eight was: “Thou shalt not leave prophylactics (either used or unused) lying about the house.”  Again, this rule was for my sister because I hadn’t needed prophylactics since long before my divorce.  Jasmine, however, had a very active love life.

“I never broke that rule,” I argued.

“Really?”  Ariel held up several square, foil packages.

 “Give those here,” I said, furious.  “Where did you get them?” 

“They were on the end table next to the couch.  They probably belong to that bald guy.”  Ariel’s eyes were alight with evil mischief.  “But you should have thrown them away, so you just broke number eight.”

I snapped my fingers at her to make her hand the condoms over.  She looked smug, but surrendered them.  It never occurred to me to ask how she knew what those things were.  Ariel’s mother had given her the flipside education to the ‘no boys, no drugs’ message most kids get at home.  Grace, however, looked on with heartbreaking innocence.  “What are those things, Mom?”

“Nothing.”  I shoved the condoms into the pocket of my robe.  “Just grab your coat and get going before you miss the bus.”

“But I need to change my clothes!”

I’d gotten careless with my laundry duties over vacation, and now dirty clothes piled on the floor like the slopes of Kilimanjaro. The previous night, I had tried to do a load before I went to bed.  But now, seeing the condition of the washing machine, I knew nothing had gotten clean.  There goes rule number two, I thought.  (Rule number two: Thou shalt not pick dirty underwear out of the hamper and re-wear it.)  “I guess we’ll all be wearing dirty clothes,” I said.

If there was any silver lining to this disastrous situation, it came from the fact that no one from my old neighborhood or Grace’s old school was there to witness it.  Because if they had been, every woman in the subdivision would have been roasting me alongside their coffee beans.

“What about breakfast?” Grace whined.

I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter and shoved it at her.  “Here, take this.”

“That’s not breakfast!”  Then Grace started to cry, and Ariel rolled her eyes and told her to grow up.  And then Jasmine shouted up from the basement for all of us to, “Shut the hell up already.  Some of us are trying to sleep!”

So that’s the way my morning started off.  Compared to other Monday mornings, it wasn’t all that bad, really.

With the two younger girls out of the house, I finally had a chance to deal with the other member of our tribe: my stepsister.

The townhouse had three-levels.  Ariel and Grace shared one tiny bedroom upstairs, and I occupied the one across the hall from them.  Jasmine dominated the basement.  Between us, like a kind of demilitarized zone, lay the living room and kitchen.  Ignoring the hairless wonder who was still gently snoring on the couch, I went downstairs and pounded on the basement door.  “Wake up!”

“Go ‘way.”

I opened the door and flipped on the lights.  Jasmine pulled the covers over her head, but I yanked them down again.  ““It’s Monday, Jas.  You promised you’d go find a job today.”

Jasmine is twenty-three; a college dropout who is convinced that the only thing standing between her and a career as a high-paid fashion designer is a run of bad luck and not a deficiency of talent, drive, and energy.

But what Jas lacks in skill and knowledge, she makes up for in looks.  I don’t mind admitting that I’m good looking – at nearly thirty-five, I have no wrinkles, I can still fit into my high school cheerleading costume, and not a single gray thread mars my auburn hair – but Jasmine is absolutely gorgeous.  Hers is a blend of our father’s Asian features – hair like black silk, flawless toffee-colored complexion, dark, exotic eyes – and her mother’s perfect cheekbones, impressive height and natural grace.  Needless to say, men fall for her.  Hence, the need for those two commandments on my list.

Jas glared at me and tore the covers out of my hands, pulling them back over her head.  “I’ll find a job tomorrow.”  Her voice was muffled from under the covers.  “Just let me sleep in today.”

“That’s what you said last week.  Which is now last
year
, in fact.  But you also promised to make a New Year’s resolution to get a job. Remember?”

On New Year’s Eve, Grace, Ariel and I had put on our pajamas and sat on the couch to watch the ball drop in Times Square, but I’d fallen asleep even before Ryan Seacrest had begun the countdown.  Jasmine, on the other hand, stayed out all night, not coming in until ten the next morning.  She was missing one of the shoes she’d borrowed from me, had put a dent in the front fender of my car, and was still drunk.  But she had promised to find a job, and I wasn’t about to let her slip out of it now.

“Jasmine, you getting up?”

At the sound of the male voice, I let out an ‘eep’ of surprise and turned around to face the hairless wonder who stood behind me in the narrow hall.

At least he had done the decent thing and wrapped the blanket around his waist to hide his skivvies.  He grinned good-naturedly and held out his hand.  “Tommy LaFevre.  Nice to meet you.”

“Lilith Straight.”

“Jas’s stepsister.”  His smile widened.  “Yeah, she talks a lot about you.”

I’ll bet, I thought.  “That’s funny because she doesn’t talk about you at all.”  I said it in order to make him flinch, but he only smiled serenely.

 “Tommy’s my spiritual advisor,” Jasmine said.

I snorted, unimpressed.  Was she kidding?  But, no, I could see by her reverent expression that she was not.  Only  my step-sister would be willing to take spiritual advice from an unemployed bum with a demon tattoo and more metal in his face than the hardware section of Home Depot.

“I’m helping Jasmine find her path,” Tommy said and glanced at Jas who was sitting on the end of her bed wearing nothing but a tiny chemise and a thong.  Watching him watch her, I wasn’t fooled for a moment.  Tommy could call himself a minister, a shaman, a monk, or even a witch doctor, but his eyes were crawling over Jasmine like a greedy bumblebee on the center of a daisy.  Spiritual advisor, my ass.

“Well, maybe you can help her find a path to the employment agency,” I said.  I started to walk past him to return upstairs, but he blocked my way.

 “You don’t believe me, do you?”  He looked troubled, like a little kid who had drawn a picture of a horse only to have the teacher call it a dinosaur.

I’m a master in the art of sarcasm.  I can draw blood at fifty paces.  “Of course I do.  And I think it’s wonderful that Jas is interested in religion.”

“Not religion,” Jas chided.  “Spirituality.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.  “Whatever.”

“Here, let me see your palm,” Tommy said and took my hand.  In the narrow confines of the hallway, it was impossible to maneuver out of his reach, so I unwillingly relented, if only to prove to Jasmine how inane all of this was.  His touch was surprisingly gentle as he lifted my hand close to his eyes and examined my palm.  “H-m-m.”

I was curious in spite of myself.  “H-m-m what?”

“Your lifeline is very short.  It stops here, but picks up again here.”  He tapped the center of my palm.

“Oh, let me see.  Let me see!”  Jasmine was suddenly crowding against me.

He studied my face and frowned, looking worried.  “And there’s something strange about your aura.”

I yanked my hand back.  “Oh, please.”  If there’s anything worse than a cliché, it’s a religious cliché.

“I’m not kidding,” he said.  “Something’s off.  Possibly something serious.”  He tugged at one of the holes in his ear.  “My sister’s aura was bloody red on the day…  Well, it was bloody red.”

“What’s going to happen to her?”  Jasmine’s eyes glowed.  She looked as excited as Ariel when she catches me breaking a rule.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I said, shoving myself in-between them.

“I know you don’t believe me, but do yourself a favor, okay?” Tommy said.  “Be careful today.  Wear your seatbelt.  Don’t give rides to strangers.  You know, that kind of thing.  Just in case.”

Jas made a farting noise through her lips.  “Are you kidding me?  Lilith wouldn’t cross the street without looking five ways.  She wouldn’t even dare
talk
to a stranger, let alone give one a ride.  For her, leaving the house without an umbrella is risky.  And she’d never…”

“Okay, Jas, we get the picture,” I said.

“I’m just saying, you’re a careful person, that’s all.”

I glared at her and started up the stairs.  “I’m leaving in an hour, and Jas – I’ll expect you to be gone by then as well.  And before you go, be sure to take out the trash.”

“That’s not my job,” Jasmine howled.  “That’s Ari’s…”

“That’s not what she meant, Jas,” the hairless wonder said.  “She’s talking about me.”  This time, I was pleased to see that he did look hurt.

When I was in elementary school, I was always the fat kid.  Not obese, mind you, but chunky.  The kind of girl who had to wear vertical stripes to look slimmer and never dared to be seen in a two-piece bathing suit.  This was because I had (and still have) the habit of eating whenever I got nervous.  And my mother was always making me nervous.

Now, I can see that my poor Grace is heading down the same path.  Nowadays, of course, we’d never say she was
fat.
  We use other terms like ‘unhealthy’ or ‘past her ideal BMI’.  But already, I can see she has a little gut overhanging the top of her jeans.  Don’t get me wrong – I love her the way she is.  But when I recall those days from elementary school when my classmates called me ‘Jiggle Belly’, I know that I have to save poor Grace from all of that.

Hence rule number three of the Straight Ten Commandments: no junk food.

But that afternoon, only twenty minutes before coming face-to-grill with the white Volvo, I was standing in line waiting to get my double Bates burger, large fry and a large Coke.  A
real
Coke, that is.  Diet is for wimps and diabetics.  After I’d paid, and the girl at the cash register placed the greasy, white bag on the counter, I grabbed my food with the enthusiasm of a junkie plunging a needle into her vein.  I was in fast food heaven.

Stopping for the Bates burger also made me late for my appointment, which also meant I’d broken rule number six (thou shalt not be late.)  And after I saw the SALE sign hanging in the boutique window across the street, I probably would have broken number seven (thou shalt not spend money frivolously), but I died before I had the chance.

Breaking these rules isn’t what sent me to hell, of course, but it certainly entered into the equation.  Because if I been paying more attention to where I was walking instead of fiddling with my cell phone, I probably would have seen the car before it hit me.  In fact, I might have even changed my destiny.  Who’s to say?  But one thing’s for sure.  If I hadn’t been trying to text my sister, I wouldn’t have broken the biggest rule of them all: number ten.  Thou shalt not upload or download porn from the Internet.

But then again, whether or not I actually broke number ten is a matter of opinion.  After all, I think everyone agrees that the definition of porn is subjective.  What’s pornographic to me, probably isn’t so bad for you.  If, for example, you think that using your cell phone to snap a picture of an enormous dildo that is peeking up at you from over the top of a middle-aged woman’s shopping bag and then e-mailing said picture to your stepsister because you want to prove to her that you are not a prude is pornographic, then so be it.