“I win, I win!” Paul cheered in victory, waving his hands in the air as the Playstation 2 control fell into the lap of his black cut-off jeans. “I am the champion, my friend,” Paul broke into song.
“You’re playing the beginners’ round, Fool,” Benji bursted Paul’s bubble, patting him genially on the shoulder as Paul frowned.
“Mrs. PacMan isn’t as easy as it looks, Dick,” Paul differed, hurling himself into Benji as they crashed onto the floral-print Queen bed of room 376 of the Los Angeles Ramada. The boys were in LA to check out the final mix of the CD and fix anything that needed to be tweeked before in went into mass production next week. It was kind of odd having stuffy people in business suits with you in your sacred “domain”, the studio, to voice their smug opinions. It wasn’t like that with the first album.
“Where’s Billy?” Joel asked as he strolled out of the bathroom, pink boxers with white bunny faces on them and a teal towel wrapped loosely around his neck his only attire, water droplets clinging to his mussed black hair and slightly sculpted chest.
“Someone’s got you whipped,” Paul pointed at his boxers with a laugh, losing his balance and plummeting from the bed to the dark green floor.
“You must be referring to my mother who buys me embarrassing gifts just to see me cringe because she knows I won’t complain,” Joel differed, scooting briskly back into the bathroom.
“Whipped,” Benji agreed with a smile, leaning over the bed to help Paul up, Billy abruptly reentering the room, a glistening smile on his pale face, a tan package tucked gently under his arm.
“Dude, what is up?” Benji asked curiously, hopping off the bed and crouching down to the package to inspect it, “You’re reminding me of a Mentos commercial with the way you’ve been acting.”
Billy ignored Benji’s inquiry and placed the package on the wooden bar area in their mini-kitchen, ripping like a dog through the paper and opening the white box, a mound of perfectly crafted no-bake oatmeal cookies lying there waiting to be devoured, a pink note blocking Billy’s reach. He picked up the note, and with Paul and Benji reading over his shoulders like gossipers, he read…
Dearest Scratchy,
Thought some cookies would bring a smile to your face if you were feeling down or something. I hope the final CD review will be good and quick so you can come back and see me lol! I miss you already.
Love,
Toran
“Must have Fed-Exed them here,” Billy commented, placing the note on the table top, “We’ve only been gone 2 days.”
“Someone looooooooooves Billy,” Paul crooned, batting his eyes and putting on a silly grin for Billy. “Billy and Toran sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-“
“Dude,” Billy began, pushing Paul’s grotesque interpretation for a girl away, “No wonder you don’t have any chicks.”
“So she’s your chick?” Benji inquired curiously, trailing Billy to a 2nd bed like a puppy wanting a treat.
“Well…no…” Billy stammered, plopping down on the bed and leaning back, glancing over to the cloudy, muggy day outside the window, “Not officially.”
“She will be yours,” Joel guaranteed, jumping out of the bathroom in a black NFG T-shirt and cut-off red Dickies, wiggiling his eyebrows widly, “Oh, yes, she will be yours…”
~*~
“Are you here, Toran?” her friend and co-worker Krys called, letting herself into Toran’s loft apartment, Toran no where to be found, both of them scheduled to be at work in an hour. Toran’s television was turned off, her tan couch and loveseat in front of the front door unoccupied, her kitchen to the left with white cabinets and a white fridge untouched, her oak kitchen table free of leftover food, her bathroom door on the left open. The paintings of Latin artist like Salavador Dali and Frida Kahlo hung lifelessly on the white walls. Krys’s 5 inch clear heels clicked against the oak floor as she walked past Toran’s cherrywood bed dressed with dark purple sheets and comforters on the right and peeked out of the back balcony doors. Toran was sitting on a white lawnchair, a cigarette smoldering in her left hand as she gazed with thought into the busy, brilliantly sunny day, her limp hair swinging through the breeze.
Even with all the busyness of the city, Toran felt absolutely alone sometimes, like now. She felt as if she was an ant in this wide world, insignificant to everyone. She may have had money, a nice place, a good life but something was missing. She needed someone to be her friend for better or worst, being away from Billy even for a few days driving her crazy. She took a long drag from her cig and exhaled, Krys opening the sliding door and stepping out onto the black wired balcony with fake grass to assure nothing falls through the cracks, grazing her blue nails along the brick wall. “Where ya been, girlie?” Krys asked her, Toran turning around quickly in a fright, Krys sitting down in a lawnchair next to her, her big brown eyes falling on Toran’s black ashtray, “You never smoke.”
“Only when I have my period,” Toran differed, inhaling one last drag before putting it out in the ashtray, “Or when I’m sad.”
“What’s eating you?” Krys asked genially, Krys being her only real friend in Manhattan, all the other people too catty and hungry for everything, her and Krys meeting at a club when Toran first moved to NYC, Krys getting Toran’s foot in the door at “Leather & Lace.”
“Well, I told you how I found Billy, my childhood friend,” Toran began, closing her eyes briefly before turning towards her, looping one leg over the arm of the chair, “It’s just killing me not seeing him all the times like when we were young.”
“You told me he was in a band, right?” Krys asked, pulling a light brown slice of dirty blonde hair behind her ears as she searched for the name of the band.
“Good Charlotte,” Toran finished her thought, scratching her freckled cheek as honks leaping up at then from 85th Avenue below.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Krys agreed, tapping her fingers on the knees of her Bubblegum jeans as she leaned back in the chair, “Well, you told me how their new album is coming out in October and how it’s so anticipated. Hell, I’ll probably pick it up. He can’t be everywhere at once, Toran. He has to focus on that right now.”
“Yeah,” Toran reluctantly agreed, snatching her Newport cigarettes and tapping a new one into her hand.
“I think it’s for the best right now, anyway,” Krys informed Toran, sending Toran in a slight daze with her words as Krys took the cigarette away, Toran’s pale eyes narrowing at Krys suspiciously.
“What do you mean by that?” Toran asked a little forceful.
“Oh, nothing bad, chicky, Promise,” Krys assured her quickly, holding her hand to the chest of her tied-up button-down black shirt, “Just…you’re the hottest thing at the club. Guys pour in to see you. You work the crowd so well and it shows with your tips. You shouldn’t have anything to distract you, just like Billy shouldn’t be distracted from his music.”
“I didn’t say we were going out,” Toran gruffed, hating when people assumed things, grabbing her cigarette back and crossing her arms over the chest of her bashe tube top, Krys then stealing her purple lighter.
“I know,” Krys responded, tossing the lighter up and down like it was a baseball as Toran looked around for the lighter, the glimmer of sun off it snatching her attention as she lunged for it, “It’s just…girls like us, we can’t have boyfriends.”
Toran shot her an inquizzative look as she lit up, the wind blowing out the cigarette on the first try, her lightning bolt scar a little more sensitive than the rest of her body as the wind scratched against it.
“We’re strippers, entertainers, bending to the will of our customers,” Krys began her monologue, holding her hand out dramatically, “We can’t be tied down. We’re young, we’re beautiful, we’re sexy. We aren’t girls who are content to be homemakers and mothers by the time we’re 25. We’re more ambitious We need to seem available but never be available unless the price is right. Besides, if we had boyfriends, they would go crazy if they knew we were stripping and sleeping around for cash. Who wants a girlfriend like that?!”
Toran didn’t see herself as such a bad person as Krys was describing, smoke floating from her pink lips, even though she did remember feeding some of those lines to Billy. “But…can’t you not…control…who you like…maybe…”
“Speak no further,” Krys warned her, cupping her long fingers over Toran’s mouth, fearing she was trying to allude to the “L” word. “Just think of yourself. You don’t want to get hurt by him when he gets fed up with what you’re doing and calls it quits. Happened to me. Or, better yet, think of Billy. Don’t put him onto an emotional rollercoaster. Some people can’t handle the ride.”