“Long night?” Wyllah asked Deon as Deon stumbled out of the motel room into the bright blue day, rubbing her sleepy eyes, cladded in simply an oversized Chicago Cubs jersey and tassled hair. Deon lazily watched Wyllah pack up her suitcase, their towels, and other small items into the tiny trunk of the Firebird. “I didn’t see you come in.”
“You were out by Midnight, Fool,” Deon replied in a raspy voice, falling over the side of the car into the passenger’s seat, the leather warm against her bare skin. “I could have come in at 12:05!”
Wyllah smiled and gave her eyes a roll, slamming the trunk shut and walking in her Birkenstocks over to Deon, Wyllah leaning up against the car door. “But you didn’t, of course?” Wyllah replied with shifty eyes, Deon smiling sheepishly as she rolled herself into a ball, resembling a turtle that was stuck on its back.
“Nooo,” Deon admitted, shaking her tangled hair, scurrying up onto the leather seat with her knees. For someone who cared so much for her car, she sure abused it. “Where’s the Chex Mix?”
“In the trunk,” Wyllah replied, shaking her head as if she had a bug in her ear. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I not,” Deon defended herself, crawling over to the driver’s side and leaping out, running back to the trunk, flipping it open, and scooping up the Chex mix in her hands from their canvas San Diego Zoo tote food bad. Whether it was breakfast, lunch, dinner, or late-night snack, Chex mix was always a prime candidate for consumption. “I just hungry.”
Wyllah stared at her incredulously, her hands clasped to her hips, the light material of her patchwork skirt smooth against her palms, Deon standing there, staring into the trunk, absentmindedly munching away. “We had a grand time,” Deon responded blandly, stalking back into the Firebird.
“Now, is grand a synonym for boring or riveting?” Wyllah pondered, her tanned finger resting on her chin as she thought. Deon always tried to pretend, even convince herself, that the guys she likes she doesn’t care for. They were just food or rides or good times or ass. Wyllah knew better than that. And after a while of being exposed to that one person, Deon was convinced otherwise also.
“No, really,” Deon began to spill, leaning her feet against the black dashboard, “We swam, we looked for shells, we watched the moon…and made out.”
“I should of known,” Wyllah responded with feign disappointment, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically, her joints suddenly attacked with sharp pain. Wyllah nearly fell to the ground, and not like she’d feel anything with all the medication she was jacking herself up with.
“Are you alright?!” Deon cried, ready to leap out of the car.
“Fine,” Wyllah responded, lifting herself gently off her knees and putting on her best smile. It was an every day occurrence that Deon rarely saw.
“Anyway, it was innocent!” Deon exclaimed, flaring her arms to the side, making everything about herself again, Chex mix flying through the air. Wyllah beamed through her pounding headache and aching pain as she walked back into the motel room and picked up Deon’s black duffel bag. “Well…what about you and Joel? Or you and Paul?”
“Joel...” Wyllah replied, leaning one hand against the hood of the car to ponder and also to relieve her strained knees, “No…We didn’t have ‘that’ kind of connection. It was deeper than all that love at first sight jazz, like we’re long lost relatives or something. And Paul…” Wyllah smirked, kicking her toe gently into the sidewalk. “He seems a bit…horny.“
“They all are, Tots,” Deon informed her gravely, Wyllah’s wild hair flowing behind her as she tossed Deon’s bag into the trunk. “It was probably an act, anyway.”
“What’s the difference, anyway?” Wyllah responded, watching some cars glide across the parkway out to the beaches and the babes, the sun glinting off their tinted windows and sleek wax jobs. “We probably won’t ever see them again.”
“Yes we will,” Deon assured her, slipping her sunglasses on her face from the dashboard, a sly smile spreading across her face as she held a pretzel in between her teeth.
Wyllah glared at her with a bit of fright, strolling to the driver’s side of the car and leaning forward. “I am afraid to ask why.”
“I gave Benji my bra and cell number to be sure we do,” Deon beamed, her tounge scooting the pretzel inside her mouth.
“Your new one?” Wyllah asked curiously between snickers, pushing gently at the key chains that hung from the rearview mirror, not believing the things Deon did sometimes just for attention. “Is all your stuff packed?”
“Yep and yep, let’s hit the pavement!” Deon cried, resting the bag of Chex mix on the dashboard as Wyllah jogged to the blue door and closed it. Wyllah opened the driver’s door and polopped in, her and Deon laughing at the bouncing car. “These Chex mix people never put in enough bagel chips!” Deon exclaimed, resting her metallic blue polished toes on the dashboard as Wyllah shifted into reverse, carefully watching their exit. “Besides, What can I say?” Deon responded faintly, staring through the window panes of a pretzel, “He’s a special guy.”
~*~
“Why the hell am I up before 11,” Billy moaned, stalking slowly out of the elevator of the NYC Mariot, Paul, Joel, and Chris close on his tail. They collapsed in a maroon velvet waiting chair facing the elevators, absolutely dead from last night’s escapades.
“We have a meeting I think?” Chris asked, brushing his hands over his brown eyes.
“We shouldn’t have stayed out until 6,” Joel admitted, resting his head on his hands, his black MADE T-Shirt wrinkled from sleep.
“Thanks Captain Obvious,” Paul bitched, rubbing his stomach from hunger, too lazy to give him a slap on the shoulder for his efforts.
“I thought it was worth it,” Benji’s voice crawled from the elevator, Benji swinging a red bra around his finger, looking sharp in a black Ramones T Shirt and silk red tie, his face elated.
“Back to stealing, Benji?” Billy asked confused, Benji shooting him a dirty look.
“This was a gift from my Lady Fair,” Benji admitted, holding the bra close to his heart, Deon’s scent of strawberries and cream, lilacs, and wintergreen filling his nose. “And there are 7 digits written in…well, 11 with area code and all.”
“Lemme see!” Paul shouted, stumbling from the couch and grappling at Benji.
“I meant Deon’s number, Pauly,” Benji backed him off, “Not Wyllah’s.”
“You should wear it all day, Benj,” Joel told him, resting his hand on his uplifted knee, “It matches your tie perfectly.”
“Ya think?” Benji asked curiously, tying it around his short black spikes, shooting them a pixie smile. The gang burst into laughter while the other hotel guests burst into stares.
“100 bucks says you won’t wear that all day,” Paul betted him, pushing at the bra cups with his index finger. “Your balls aren’t that big.”
“How would you know?” Joel asked curiously, love making Paul flustered, “Have you had pillow talk with him or something, Paul?”
“I LIKE BOOBS!” Paul screamed on the top of his lungs, his verboseness causing the whole lobby to shut down with disgust.
“You’re on,” Benji challenged, swatting Paul’s hand away as a black limo honked for them outside.
“So what did happen last night between you and Deon?” Chris asked softly, speaking behind his hand as the 5 of them strolled towards the revolving glass doors.
“You mean between my Vixen, my Goddess of Pleasure, my Punk Rock Princess, my privet dancer, my baby girl?” Benji asked with excited eyes, making large gestures with every term. Chris nodded with interest. “I don’t kiss and tell,” Benji responded softly in Chris’s ear, Chris hitting him on the shoulder for leading him on, and chased him all the way into the limo…
~*~
“I love the smell of money,” Benji cooed, fanning his face with his newly earned dough as the boys strolled into their hotel room, Benji heading straight for the concrete balcony to view the magnificent orange being cast into the sky.
“I thought the waitress was going to shit her pants at lunch,” Paul said musingly, his loss of 100 dollars was at least humorous. The guys threw their sweatshirts on the floral print beds and followed Benji onto the balcony, the hustling of New York City life seeming to blur with the setting of such a brilliant sun, Benji spying a few other clusters of people staring at it’s whispy pink, dazzling orange, and sparkling yellow.
“You better share that money with Deon,” Billy suggested, popping a squat on a whickered loveseat, his feet hurting from the last-minute sightseeing trip around the city on foot.
“My partner in crime,” Benji laughed, his head lowered from slight embarrassment, his cheeks becoming enflamed with his emotions being written clearly across his face.
“You really like her, don’t you?” Chris asked sincerely, holding a crisp Heineken in his hand that he filched from the bar.
“Yeah,” Benji responded without hesitation, drumming his fingertips on the banister, saying his confession to the jutted skyline, “I feel so comfortable around her, like I don’t need to impress her or be someone I’m not. I could be the biggest cornball in the world and she’d be happy. Deon is truly beautiful, not only physically, but her personality is so…stunning. She oozes sex appeal with just her glare. She is so comfortable with herself that it makes everyone else comfortable with her, you know? I never laughed so much before or felt so at ease when…we kissed…like it was a natural thing.”
“I feel a tear coming on,” Paul cried dramatically, running his finger down his cheek, finding it funny that he knew all that after a night with this girl.
“Just because you don’t get any, Pauly,” Benji mocked him, chuckling a floral pillow from underneath him over at Paul’s head.
“So…what do you think about…Wyllah?” Joel asked casually, lowering himself into a whickered chair and digging his fingernails into the porous material.
Everyone peered at Joel’s expression. His eyes appeared troubled, sweat glazed his upper lip, and his fingernails were near the bleeding point from his excursions into the whickered chair. He looked trapped.
“What do you mean, Joel?” Benji asked suspiciously, rising from his seat and kneeling down next to his little brother, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Doesn’t strike you as odd how much Wyllah looks like us?” Joel confided, staring into identical eyes, her simple, yet sinister on someone else, crooked smile flashing through Joel’s troubled mind.
“She does have you guys’ nose and eyes,” Paul commented, reflecting on Wyllah’s natural, 60’s-like beauty. “But if she’s your guys’ triplet, does that mean I find you guys attractive too?”
“C’Mon, fellows,” Billy stormed into conversation, leaning against the banister, scratching at a mosquito bite on his elbow, “It’s so unlikely! It’s astronomical, even! A lot of people resemble other people all over the world. You know…there’s a theory that everyone has a twin in the world.”
“There’s two more of those two?” Chris asked skeptically, his humor inappropriate for Benji and Joel’s somber eyes, “God help the world.” Chris’s smile faded as Joel store at him, his frown literally breaking Chris’s heart. “Sorry, man,” Chris apologiesed briefly, staring down into his Billabong khaki pants.
“Besides, how could your parents keep something like that from you guys?” Billy steered the convo back on track, lightly punching his fist against the banister, “That’s so…unimaginable.”
“They’ve hid so much from us already,” Benji said slowly, staring into the concrete floor, remembering their fake happiness, the brutal lies, the inadequacy he felt when he was younger, and everything starting to click.
“Who knows what else we don’t know,” Joel agreed, clamping his hand firmly on Benji’s tattoo of Jesus Christ.