Get Ready for War (19 page)

“Don't be rude, Rich,” Spencer said. “Don't cut me off. Now on to physics class . . .”

Who? What? Physics? Was she serious? Like really, did she actually think I went to school for anything more than a fashion show and a popularity contest?

What a blonde!

Spencer kept going and all I could hear was, “
Whomp, whomp, whomp . . .
and
whomp . . . whomp . . . whomp . . .
and
whomp... whomp... whomp...
”

“Rich, are you listening to me?”

“Uhmm hmm.”

“Okay, now let me get to the goodness: Mr. Fine. The permanent substitute, Sanchez Velasquez.”

“Who?”

“The teacher . . .”

I should've just made up with London. Yeah, she was selfish, but she didn't compare to this low-standards trick.

“Excuse you.” Spencer snapped her fingers in my face. “Are you sleep-sitting? What's next, a snore? I've been talking to you about my new car, my bling, and how fine Mr. Velasquez was, and you haven't complimented me or agreed with me yet. All you've done is break out into songs! How thoughtless is that? What could you be going through? And by the way, what are we going to do about this masquerade ball?”

“What?” I blinked in disbelief. “You should be asking your friend Miss Fiends Anonymous about that, since she ruined it for us.”

Spencer twirled one of her curls. “You know what, Rich? If I wasn't being nice and we weren't getting along”—she patted my hand—“I would drop acid in my drink and douse you with it.”

Immediately I started coughing. All I could see was my skin melting off.

“And like you told Corey, I will peel your face off! Now I would hate to mess up your pretty face because I have nothing but love for you, Rich. But don't call that girl my friend.” She leaned in and whispered, “And by the way, you were right. She is on welfare. Because she wouldn't even be at Hollywood High if she didn't have a donor sponsoring her.”

“A donor!”

“Yes!”

“How in the heck did she get a donor?!”

“I think she starred in a late-night infomercial for Save the Children.”

“Whaaaaaat!” I rose from the bar and slammed my drink down. “I can't believe you are so selfish. Here I've been sitting and wallowing and drowning in my misery. Sad and practically depressed and you've been sitting on this juicy information! And you had to know it would cheer me up. And you wait an hour to tell me! You selfish beyotch!” I flopped back down on my stool. “You don't give a damn about me!” I pounded my fist on the glass bar, getting Johnnie's attention. “This time I need a double! Hennessy!”

“Now you're drinking Hennessy and mixing it with all that grease.” She looked down at my plate. “When did you eat all of those wings? Did you breathe those in, dungeon dragon? You'll be in the emergency room by morning. Johnnie, I'll just have another cosmo and an ashtray.”

Spencer reached into her purse and pulled out a cigarette. And just as I thought she was about to light it up, she twisted the cigarette butt and smoke started rising.

OMG. Don't tell me that she was walking around with an electronic cigarette. This girl was crazy. She took a pull from the cigarette, tooted her lips and blew invisible smoke. She squinted her eyes as if nicotine really rushed down her throat. “Girl, you don't know the half of it!” She set the cigarette in the ashtray.

“What half don't I know?”

“Girl, this here is going to kill you.”

“Shoot me then. Riddle me with bullets. Put the last nail in my coffin!” I said, excited, jumping up and down on the stool. “Give it to me, baby!”

“Camille's real name is Norma Marie.”

I deflated. “That's life support information, Spencer. You already told me that.” I picked up her electronic cigarette and took a pull.

“I bet you didn't know this then: Heather doesn't know who her father is. And Norma Marie won't tell her! How skanky is that?”

“Low-down, low-budget skanky.”

“Umm hmm, Heather has a drunk for a mother and an invisible daddy. A statistic, which is why she probably gets high all the time. The only thing she knows about her daddy is that he's black!”

“Black!” I screamed. “OMG. I didn't know Heather was black. I thought she was Mexican. That explains why she didn't know Spanglish. Because when I said you need to stop being a hoey-oh, she didn't know what I was talking about.”

Spencer gave me a blank stare. Then she turned to the bartender and said, “I'll take another one, please.”

“Come on, Spencer, keep going, I'm dying now. I need you to take me all the way to code blue.”

“Well, here's code blue for you—Norma Marie told Heather ‘no pills, no drugs, no crack, and no more talk about your daddy; he has a daughter and he doesn't want you anyway! ' ”

I gasped. “I wonder if her daddy is Lil Wayne!”

“Lil Wayne?” Spencer looked confused. “Isn't he like twenty-something? Too young to be her father.”

“Duh! A man is never too young, Spencer.” I took another pull of the cigarette and blew invisible smoke in Spencer's face. “They start making babies at six. And by the age of ten they start looking like men. That's what had me fooled a few years ago when I was thirteen going out with Kaareem. He was just about six feet tall, and come to find out he'd just turned nine.” I tossed a shot back and set my empty glass on the counter, signaling for another round.

Spencer looked stunned. “Nine? Rich. How desperate were you?”

“About as desperate as you were sleeping under that cardboard box with Joey. That wasn't a science experiment ; you knew he was homeless.”

“I was being nice.”

“No, you were being Captain Save-A-Ho. Ho for homeless!”

“Rich, don't you dare bring that up! You have called my daddy old, said Heather was my friend, and now Joey.”

“Oh, stop being so sensitive! Anywho, back to Heather.”

“Yeah, back to Heather before we get to rolling on the bar stools. Well, Camille is the one who found Heather's stash. And the day that I was at Heather's house she sailed all of Camille's bottles over the balcony. I thought I was going to be hit!”

“Dead. Buried and helping the devil out in hell. You have killed me, Spencer. Now reincarnate me. Do you know anything more?”

“Umm, no, I'm going to keep you dead. I like you dead better. Now kill me and tell me something juicy about Do-grilla! I can't stand that pound puppy!”

I couldn't help but stretch out laughing across the bar.

“Ruff! Ruff!” Spencer howled, causing me to laugh until tears fell from my eyes. At first they were tears of joy . . . at least until Jazmine Sullivan's “Need U Bad” eased through the speakers and she sang a line from the song. A vision of Knox danced before my eyes. Taking my tears of joy and turning them into tears of sorrow. And suddenly I could hear Knox's voice. Feel his touch. His scent floated beneath my nose. I needed him. I wanted him. I had to have him. But there was no way in hell I could get up from here and chase him. I couldn't fold. I couldn't give in and let him know that I loved him and wanted him back.

Spencer stood up from her stool and rubbed my back. “Girl, you need to pull yourself together. Your makeup is a mess. Snot everywhere. People are looking over here. You look horrible. What is wrong with you? We have to get you into the bathroom and freshen you up. Makeover central, here we come.”

I rose from the bar stool as Spencer grabbed our purses, looked over at Johnnie and said, “We'll be right back. Hold our seats.”

Once we were in the bathroom, Spencer locked the door and I stood over the sink crying. My shoulders shook uncontrollably and I could hardly breathe.

“Rich, get yourself together and tell me what is wrong.” She leaned on the counter, next to me.

I wiped my eyes. “I miss my man, Spencer. I miss him,” I snorted. “Oh Jesus. I need him.”

“Well, most people go to church, Rich. They don't do all this crying in the bar.”

“I'm not talking about Jesus. I'm talking about my man!”

“Which one?”

“Who do you think?”

“Corey?” She frowned.

“No!” I screamed.

“Jonathan? I thought you swore you would never talk about that again. That was a drunken one-night stand!”

“No! Not Jonathan! Knox—” Tears continued to pour from my eyes.

“Knox?” Spencer said, clearly confused. “What the flim-flam-fluck? You have a lot of miles on that cootie-cat. You've laid around the world and back. Your legs have been up in Guatemala. Iceland. Turks and Caicos. Jamaica, Australia, Aspen—”

“That's enough, Spencer. I have changed my ways. And I am a one-man woman!”

“Wow, miss a minute, miss a lot. So when did you settle down and become Mrs. Knox? I thought maybe y'all were just kickin' it.”

“Well, we were. But we weren't. And then we tried to make it work. And then, and then—” Tears caused my voice to tremble.

“Wait, Rich,” Spencer said. “Just slow down and tell me from the beginning what happened.”

I did all I could to keep my tears at bay and just as I went to tell my story, I noticed Spencer fluffing her hair and freshening up her makeup. At least London had the decency to give me eye contact. Spencer had no manners.

“Spencer, are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I'm listening. I just want you to get to the point. And I don't want lies. And no exaggeration. You didn't save the world. You didn't find weapons of mass destruction. If anything, you cheated on him or he has caught you in one of your lies. So what was it this time, Rich?”

“I would never cheat on Knox! And there were no lies. I really tried this time. He just couldn't accept me for who I was.”

“And who was that, Rich? A hot mess? Party girl? Boom-bop-pop, running from the cameras? Everything was about you and nothing about him.”

I paused. There she was, blaming me, just like Knox. “What are you two?” I asked. “Still best friends? I thought I broke that up in first grade.”

“You did, but I still know Knox. And I know that he is a nice guy. And his only flaw is that he loves you. It just baffles me. How he could be so in love with you and your vicious ways? But he loves your dirty drawls.”

I hated that Spencer made me laugh at my own expense. I wiped my eyes and said, “I love him. And I love him more than words can say. He's in everything that I do. All of my thoughts are about him. My life is crumbling, Spencer.” I broke down again. “And I keep fighting, and fighting, and fighting my feelings, trying not to love him. But ever since I was eight it won't go away.”

“Huh?”

“What I'm saying is that Knox wants to control me!”

“Knox? Knox isn't like that—”

Knock, knock!
cut across our conversation.

“I know no one's knocking at this door!” Spencer said as she marched over to the door and snatched it open. A woman attempted to step inside and Spencer blocked her path and said, “Turn your bootie-bop right back out that door unless you wanna be Maced.”

All the color left the woman's face.

“And you look like a man anyway. Now go use the men's room!” She pushed the woman back and slammed the door in her face. “Now back to you, Rich. I don't want to hear that sad, ridiculous mess you're trying to fool me with. I'm not London. And I know you. And I know that you were so busy trying to be in control that you lost the only man you love who could love you. Why he loves you, I have no idea and it's none of my business. But he does. But what I do know is that you are going to lose a nice guy if you keep your drama up. Now stop standing here crying and telling me you love him and go tell
him
. Now wash your face, freshen up that makeup, and go get your man!”

I didn't answer; instead I washed my face, touched up my makeup, and turned toward the door.

“Now what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to get another drink.”

I walked out of the bathroom with Spencer hot on my heels, saying something about me making the biggest mistake of my love life. I couldn't take any more of her buzzing behind me so I whipped around and said, “Just be quiet about Knox, already!”

“Okay, I'll be quiet. Lips are sealed. And I want you to be quiet, too. Because see, all those tears and snot and carrying on I will only do with you once. Now if you want to drink and act like Knox doesn't exist then there's nothing else to cry about. Let's drink up and be merry.”

“Exactly.”

“Fine then. Next round's on me.”

Our heels clicked back to our seats and a few moments later the lights went down and a smooth-sounding Jaheim-esque voice floated through the crowd. I closed my eyes and as soon as Knox appeared in my thoughts I quickly erased his vision by opening my eyes. A few moments later the stage lit up and there before me was Justice. Singing his heart out. Instantly our eyes locked.

He smiled.

My heart fluttered.

“Oh my God.” Spencer leaned into me. “Wasn't he at London's? Isn't that the same boy?”

“Yes. That's the cutie who came when you stormed out of her room.”

“Dangdropdownandgetchapopon. He's so fine I might need to change my panty liner. I feel moist.”

I didn't even respond to that. I just kept my eyes locked on his. Next to Knox he was the prettiest man I'd ever seen. I could easily get lost in his arms as he sang, “You have got to be the one for me/I've looked everywhere/I've been everywhere/And everything brought me back here to you...”