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“Valeska, where are you going?” Marija pleaded.
“To suck a few virgins dry,” Char teased.
“Out!” Valeska snapped. Marija went over and sprayed her cheeks with kisses, before Valeska made her grand exit. For the rest of dinner I was stuck with the three remaining members of the cast. Raven went on for an hour about my star charts and how everything in my life seemed to be in retrograde. She told me that being a Pisces with a moon in Scorpio made me the universe’s most stubborn little seafood platter. When she got to the part of my oversensitivity and distancing, I felt the sudden urge to say something slick out the mouth. However, Char beat me to it.
“Bitch please, every man is that way,” he laughed, playfully running his fingers through his long, cherry red weave. Marija quickly yelled at him for cursing and volunteered Raven to help her take out the trash. Once they were gone, I decided to play twenty questions with the big, black question mark.
“Why are you dressed up like a girl?” I asked.
“Why are you dressed up like boy?” he asked, without even skipping a beat.
“Cause… I am boy.”
“Well, then there you go. Let me tell you a little somethin’, somethin’, EZ. It’s all just one big show,” he laughed. For Round Two I decided to up the ante.
“You’re gayer than a bag full of rainbows, aren’t you?”
He laughed hysterically and slapped me on the back with his Disco gold acrylics.
“Well, my boyfriend says yes, but my girlfriend disagrees. Those two fight like cats in heat.” Before I could respond, Marija returned and announced that it was getting late, which is standard adult code for bedtime.
Death
For the next week, I managed to avoid all contact with the bizarro Barbie dolls. I hid in my room all day and would sneak down the hall for some mandatory minerals at midnight. They never once complained or tried to tempt me with God-awful game nights. I could have been using their cough medicine to freebase for all they knew. I was tempted to clean out their medicine cabinet just to really fuck with them. However, a little winged Esperanza kept tapping her foot to some disappointed Latin beat on my shoulder. One night, they left one of their doors open. Marija was asleep in a queen-size bed that only served to accent how tiny she really was. Her little noodle legs were lost inside of an overstuffed red comforter. I walked one step down the hall, before realizing that I had forgotten my mini flashlight. When I passed by the room again, I almost pissed myself. Valeska was now curled up at the edge of the bed like some kind of domesticated cougar. Her eyes flickered open, and I quickly evacuated the area, before she started puking up pea soup and giving free head spinning lessons.
I spent the rest of the night under the bed with a butter/ imaginary buoy knife trying to assess the situation with watered-down adult reasoning.
“She must have been hiding behind the door or something,” I kept repeating like some kind of mental patient mantra. How could anyone be that fast? I thought, before nodding off into nightmare nappy land. The next morning I heard a car pull up, before the shop was even open. I knew that busted up fan belt and muffler combination by heart and made a mad dash out the back door. I caught her before she even managed to get one foot out of the car.
“Esperanza,” I screamed. I bum-rushed her back inside.
“Bueno–.”
“Drive…just drive,” I screamed, before she could even finish.
“Ezekiel, what’s going on?” I quickly told her everything that had happened since she had sold me out. She laughed her way through half of it and tried to remain serious through the rest.
“She just appeared out of nowhere!” I screamed, finishing up with my close encounter of the third kind. She seemed to only hear the part about Valeska sleeping in Marija’s bed.
“That’s not strange, caramelo. I slept with my little brothers all the way until college. Mi Madre would always say ‘Beds are a privilege.’” It was official. I had become another victim of adult selective hearing. Marija met us at the door wearing a long techno-colored overcoat.
“Good morning,” she said, holding the door open for us.
“I just wanted to drop by all of the paperwork that you’ll need for when Ezekiel starts school next week,” Esperanza said, freeing a manila folder from her purse. Valeska sat at her desk slowly shuffling a pack of cards, while looking at Esperanza in a way that made my arm hair stand up and salute the ceiling.
“Thank you so much! Would you like some tea?” Marija asked, motioning towards the stairs.
“That sounds wonderful,” Esperanza replied. Valeska quickly got up from her desk and wrapped her anaconda arms around Marija’s tiny waist, before following them up.
“Are they really sisters?” I whispered to myself.
“From other misters, maybe!” Char’s voice rang out from the door way across the room. I turned my head just in time to see Raven elbow him directly in the ribs.
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About Christina Ginfrida
