Drama Dolls: A Novel: [Dark, Suspenseful, Fast-paced, Exhilarating] (3 page)

Mixing in with passing intersections, parked cars, fire hydrants, and sidewalk cracks was Emily’s faint cheerleader face coming into focus through the car window’s reflection. The frightening image, coupled with the claustrophobia of the mask crowding Brittney’s face, her nostrils encumbered by thermoplastic polymer, caused her to fall in and out of a stupor.

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The Doors had entered Jeffrey’s life when high school graduation was within grasp. A group of friends, one whose father worked the graveyard shift, together they would hang out in Paul’s basement, drinking Milwaukee’s Best. Listening to his older brother’s music. Queen, Steve Miller, the Doors, they all were on constant rotation.

Paul’s mother lived in another state; a recent divorce resulting in Paul learning to “deal” with it.

Passing the time, the friends tossed empty aluminum cans into a pile. Miller singing “The Joker,” the late night chill sessions started with their core group of buddies. Poker hands dealt - seven card stud, five card draw - the games helped idle away the hours until it was time to sleep. Until it was time to repeat the cycle.

A half dozen kids avoiding the police in a relaxed state until adulthood.

Gradually, the monotony forced Paul to invite others. Football players, jocks from other lettered sports, high school cheerleaders, hippies, and underclassmen, they all came and went at their leisure. One night could see a dozen folks while other evenings could witness entire classrooms of students.

The basement crowd filtered into the living room, which then made its way into the attic. Students did their laundry when they spilled vodka and other identifiable liquids. There were semen stains that mixed in with cigarette ashes while the spin cycle ran. Random panties and boxer shorts fraternized with Paul’s clothes. Loose change, house keys, necklace charms, they all consorted in an ashtray to be collected later. As the parties continued, the lost and found emptied until the ashtray was used for its intended purpose, a dropping point for cigarette butts.

Pizzas were delivered in bulk. The driver becoming familiar with the gatherings, he would stop over after his shift. He became a regular, singing along with Freddie Mercury. Dancing along with the Doors. In uniform, jumping up and down while the music blasted, he hit the high notes in key. All the while, his plastic badge was being shuffled around the house. The pizza guy ruled “Fat Bottomed Girls.” A background filled with music lessons, the gang soon discovered. Those were the days Jeffrey was “normal.” The days before he met Her.

Now, anytime a Doors, or Queen, or Steve Miller song played, the confused and lost boy came out in Jeffrey. The internal dialogue, it said, “Break on through to the other side.”

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Lena slammed on the brakes. A wild squirrel running across the street. Coming out from her reverie, Brittney shook her head. “Sorry,” Lena said.

Fleeing the scene, with Brittney riding shotgun, each block looked the same. Houses in one area were dated back to Victorian times - a historical district. Queen Anne styled homes. Unbalanced facades covered by wraparound porches. Overhanging eaves with decorative support brackets. There were dentils around the roof outlines on a number of the houses. The Victorian homes, they had front-facing gables. Their towers, shaped like polygons.

Terraces made of brick, roofs from slate.

The Queen Anne houses were surrounded by brick roads. Uneven bricks with different shades. Red, orange, brown, they all mixed together to add class to the community. Driving into the block was driving into another time.

The cheerleaders drove by a pink, purple, and green-colored painted lady with a square tower as its focal point. The tower was perfectly centered. Behind it toward the back of the house, extending up to the heavens, was a colossal chimney. Wooden shingles to match the trim. The front porch’s balustrade was recently painted. One spindle replaced due to wood rot, its color standing out to those walking by.

An open-door event showcasing the homes’ interior was peddling donations for the neighborhood’s beautification project. “Help keep our neighborhood timeless.” There were signs posted in the yards of various houses. White cardboard canvases stapled to stakes in the ground.

Lena pointed to a sign. “We should go to that,” she said. In a plastic info tube, hanging from the wooden post, was a stack of flyers promoting the cause. “I would love to see the insides of these houses.”

Pulling over to the side of the road, shifting into park, Lena ran out to grab details. Handing the information to Brittney, she drove away. “Read it to me,” Lena said, her mouth forming a smile.

Scanning the leaflet, Brittney cleared her throat and offered out the information. “Designed by the same architect, the historic beauties are unique but share similar floorplans,” she said. Pulling the paper closer to her face, Brittney said, “Handcrafted plaster outlining the ceiling gives each house an identity. Although the design molded into the plaster is comparable, the custom imprints are often slightly skewed.” Where decorative plaster was nonexistent, there was embossed wallpaper covering the ceilings.

Inside the painted ladies, dumbwaiters were for showing off. Many of them were not functional. A few of the dumbwaiters on the block were boarded up, making them a novelty for guests.

The darkness made it difficult to read. Brittney slid her body, holding up the flyer, using the passing streetlights as illumination. “The back staircases, once used for the help, are, today, generally used for shortcuts to the back bedrooms or second routes to the upstairs.”

Busy wallpaper, filled with floral patterns primarily colored red or blue, spanned the walls of dining rooms and parlors. The curtains often matched the wallpaper’s pattern so that it flowed continually throughout the house. Made from fabric such as velvet or silk, Victorian era homes’ window dressings consisted of curtains, cornices, and valances. Holding the curtains back were cords and tassels.

Scanning the document, Brittney said, “The parlors were for entertaining. These rooms are where the family’s antique furniture shines. Ornate couches and chairs are a must in this room.”

Bedrooms were painted plain colors to complement the quarter’s use. Brittney, squinting to read the remaining information, said, “A boy’s room would typically be blue and a girl’s room would typically be pink.”

Barb, screaming over the front seat, said, “How is that any different than today?”

And Lena, excited with the opportunity to expand her tastes, said, “Can we go?”

Turning the flyer over to inspect the back, giving it a once over, Brittney flipped it back around so the information was in front of her. “What’s today?” Looking up to the dome light, a calendar forming in her brain, Brittney said, “We missed it. It was today.”

Lena’s body dropped. Her mouth curled downward. Eyes on the road in front of her, she said, “Poopy.”

The Victorian era shrinking behind them, the Drama Dolls approached another neighborhood.

Lena pointed toward a row of Second Empire houses. Derived from architecture during the Second French Empire, the houses dated back to 1865. “Look at that one,” Lena said. Barb leaned in between the headrests, propping her elbows up on the bench of a seat, to catch a glimpse.

A steep mansard, or curbed roof, on top of a rectangular tower was as high as the tree in front of it. The tower, centered in the middle of the symmetrical home constructed from red brick, was topped with iron trim. “The brackets under the roof are amazing,” Lena said. Releasing her foot off the gas, the getaway car slowing down to a crawl, she said, “I can’t believe how ornate they are.”

Turning her head to admire the roof, Brittney said, “Corbels. Those are called corbels. They support the cornices of the roof – the ledges.” Folding the Victorian flyer in half, Brittney slid the piece of paper in the side door’s pocket.

Lena, impressed with Brittney’s knowledge of old architecture, counted the corbels as they passed. The speed of the car prohibited her from being successful, the elaborate brackets beginning to run together.

The clear black of the night, the space between each house, broke the monotony of the blurry supports. Next to the brick beauty was an abandoned house waiting to be rehabbed. Chipping at the paint, patches of dry rot needing repair, the empty house had a lot of work ahead.

The Second Empire’s roof shingles were falling over themselves. Some were dangling off the edges. Other shingles in the grass in the front of the dwelling. Two of the four columns that supported the porch were off their posts, with sturdy steel beams in their place. The columns, sanded down to their original wood, they were perched up against the house’s side.

The front porch was sagging on one end. The joists underneath needing reinforcement. A partial railing constructed, many of the rods were missing or rotted. A ceiling fan hanging from the porch roof appeared to be the only item in working condition.

Furrowing her lips at the eyesore, Lena said, “I bet these houses cost a lot of money to restore.” The windows on the second floor were missing shutters; however those inside the porch area were still intact. The shutters still hanging were chipped and rotting.

Barb, she said, “You’d easily dump a couple hundred grand.”

Her feet propped up on the dashboard, above the glove compartment, ankle pain receding from not having weight on it, Brittney leaned her head back on the headrest. Her hair was blowing from the air coming in the open window. The warm breeze squirting into the small holes of the mask.

Reaching her hand over toward Brittney, Lena cupped the resting cheerleader’s kneecap and began massaging it.

Finishing the block of Second Empires was an asymmetrical mansard on top of a wooden house’s left side. The way the house was positioned on the corner closed the block perfectly. A painted beauty, chrome yellow with Venetian red window trim running up and down the exterior, caused Lena to say, “Wow!”

Barb, leaning up to the window to see the entire house, said, “Looks like a Victorian McDonald’s.”

The inner voice, whispering into Brittney’s ear in Victorian slang, said, “I would like fries in my sauce-box.”

Turning the corner, Barb’s body shifted toward the middle of the car, shoving a bag of jewels into the passed out Drama Doll. “Easy on the turns,” Barb said to Lena.

Rotating her head, addressing Barb, Lena said, “Oops.”

Barb cut a look to Brittney’s propped up legs. Following her stare, Lena quickly released her hand from the kneecap. Hands returning to the wheel, the car rolled through the remaining historic block.

The architectural neighborhoods finished with an aesthetic block of Richardsonian Romanesque style homes. Combining characteristics from French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque charms, the castle-like mansions, mostly made from stone, were throwbacks to medieval Europe.

“These works of art were named after the architect Henry Hobson Richardson,” Brittney said. Her head cocked at an angle, observing the row of houses, she said, “These are the cream of the crop.”

Each house, comparable in design, had short, unusually shaped columns, feudal type arches, and cylindrical towers, which were the main focal points. Pointing up toward a Richardsonian success, Brittney said, “The architect was very eccentric. He had an eye for individuality.” Various gabled roofs - side gables, front gables, and cross gables - were typical for the houses.

“Incredible,” Lena said, the neighborhood passing by in a flash. When they passed a stretch of Victorian houses intermingled with Colonial Revivals, Prairie, Foursquare, and Neo-Gothic type abodes, the Drama Dolls knew they were getting close to their drop off point – Brittney’s house.

Wrought iron fences passed by. Their individual posts made Brittney dizzy. Fences on top of retaining walls. The blocks in the wall spanning the house. Cracks in the blocks, they were as long as the wall itself.

Detached garages doubling up as the car drove passed, Brittney’s vision became cloudy. Square garage doors zipping by, all the same size, each complemented a house.

The voice of intoxicated reason said, “You are acting like you’re half-rats.”

Her eyes closing to a squint, the streetlights shined their laser beam lights into Brittney’s pupils as her head began to spin. Everything slowed down, her life going back to the first birthday after losing Her.

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A change in venue altered the guest list. No longer at the ritzy country club, invitations went out to those who knew Jeffrey before the wedding. Those he felt comfortable around. Those who genuinely knew him.

Comprised accordingly, the party hosted a few couples, married friends, and those who’d disappeared a half-year into their marriage.

The cake was rerouted to an old stomping ground. A bar and grill, one of many pre-marriage hangouts that had disappeared after the nuptials. A few bartenders recognized the name on the reservation. Anticipation building, stepping into the establishment was like he’d never left at all.

“Jeffrey!”

The back room displayed a sign made from cardboard letters. The words HAPPY BIRTHDAY! intertwining together, the sign was sagging like a hammock. Purchased at a party store, the juvenile decorations made Jeffrey feel youthful.

Jeffrey’s body lifted at the familiarity of the bar. When he saw bartenders from his past, his face brightened up. The setup was still how he remembered it. Tube televisions replaced with flat screens were the only noticeable change. The same beer lights hanging overhead, jukebox with antiquated selections, and bar stools fraying at the edges all made him feel comfortable. They made him forget Her momentarily.