Grimelda (aka Stacy)

Grimelda (aka Stacy) is a friend of Meghan (OGW, 12/3/09).  Stacy is what’s known as an unreliable narrator – if you can make sense at all out of what she’s saying, she rambles so much.  It may be that she smokes too much pot.  It may be that she’s reluctant to expose her true feelings about losing her best friend.

Grimelda (aka Stacy):  Do you look at your toilet paper after you wipe, even when it’s pee?  You at least look after you poop, everyone does, or else how would you know that you were done wiping?  Well, it’s true, you know you do it too!  Truly, I’m not trying to be gross, I just have a hard time getting to the point sometimes.  Sometimes… LOL! More like all the time okay?  I admit it. 

What’s my point?  Oh yeah…

I glanced at the toilet paper wad in my hand, and I mean glanced, so it’s not that gross or that weird, I know what you’re thinking… oh yeah, I know, get to the point.  So I looked down at the toilet paper in my hand, and saw it tinted reddish-brown.  I’m getting my period, I thought, that explains everything.  OMG, I can’t tell you how happy I am.  It’s like I’ve been given this little glimpse that everything might turn out okay eventually, even though my life actually really sucks, plus I won’t be able to have sex – well, I could, it’s not against the law, but anyway Mark is definitely going to expect me to give him head for at least a week because the whole period thing freaks him out.  He’s so immature, why don’t I have at least a college boyfriend, I never should’ve gotten involved with a boy in my own grade, but he is hella cute and I should, I guess, consider myself lucky because he is also a pot dealer, and I love my weed, true dat...  What was my point?

Right.  I’m getting my period, and that’s why I’ve been bursting into tears and feeling like my life is starting to suck worse than ever.  It has nothing to do with my life falling apart, ripping at the seams, a hole in my life that I’ve been picking at all week making it bigger.  The hole is my friend Meg getting taken out of public school as if that will help, and it’s not her parents who are making her do stupid things like get high and steal her Dad’s coke and throw up after a few of us were just over there hanging out but Meg got out of control again…

Jesus fucking Christ, even I don’t know what my point was anymore.  Too much coffee!  Too much Red Bull!

Oh yeah, and my period.  I’ve been PMS’ing, and that’s why I can’t keep a smile on lately-seems-like-forever-but-it’s-not-really.  My heart has literally felt heavy, like a rock in my chest I’ve been dragging around.  No more Meg to share a locker with!  No more Meg to show up at school in a bumblebee-striped black and yellow, sparkling, I kid you not, leotard and matching yellow tutu with black tights and knee-high combat boots to cheer me up.  Or to piss off Miss Gotham.  Or to add color to our usual black on black combo.  Or just because her mother was wasted all weekend and didn’t do the laundry and her Dad’s girlfriend is too young to even know how to do laundry and I am definitely losing my mind, can you tell here?

But it’s just PMS. 

Whew.

I’m a nice kid, and I don’t usually go all mental and want to kick some parent ass.  Meg’s parents are Aholes and I don’t want to go all mental on them, I just want my friend back here with me, making the insanity more you know real or something.  Making it okay.

I will not kill her parents.  I will get through this.  We will get through this.  Although I’m going to their house today, and I think I’ll make use of my PMS and go ahead and be weepy and screamy and crazy because they deserve it.  Then later, I’ll be all, “Oh!  I just got my period!  No wonder I was behaving so badly!”  Yeah, that’ll work. 

See?  I feel better already.  

Rain

Rain:  Rain is Kayla’s (OGW 2, Oct.1,2009) best friend.  Rain’s mother recently took off to become a dancer in NYC, Rain’s father is an alcoholic.  This is the morning of the belly button piercing and the party Kayla was so eager to attend.

Rain:  My mother didn’t come home today.  She said she’d be here for the weekend, but she didn’t show up Friday night, and Saturday morning she called to say, “I’m performing at Dancespace tonight!  Remember that piece—“

I didn’t remember.  I didn’t want to.  Tears leaked over my cheeks.

“You can come to the city and see me tonight and stay at my friend Wendy’s apartment, you can sleep on the couch.  Are you happy for me?”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m proud of you.  You’re really making it on your own now.”

“I am.  It’s wonderful to feel the real me peeking out again, you know?  Not a wife or a servant or a – well, I’ll always be your mother, of course.  Can you make a ten o’clock train?”

“No thanks Mom.
“Oh! ...Oh.”

“You said you were going to take Kayla and me to get our belly buttons pierced before the party!  And you said you were going to be here!”

“Well Rain, I’m sorry, but this performance is important to me.  I have to dance, I just have to.  It’s my spirit, it’s my soul, it’s--”

“I gotta go.  Love you Mom.” 

Then I slumped against the wall, slid down to the floor, wrapped my arms around my knees and softly cried.  My father came in, sat next to me, put his arm around me, and held me while I cried harder.  “She never wanted to be my mother!  I ruined her life.”

Dad pat my back.  “You could never ruin anyone’s life.”  He got up.  The last remaining flap of hair on top of his head was standing on end. 

I smiled.  Getting up, I asked, “Juice?”

“The usual,” he said.

I made him a strong screwdriver that was mostly vodka, two ice cubes, and a splash of OJ.  “Can you take Kayla and me to get our belly buttons pierced today?  Mom was gonna do it.”

“I don’t know, noodle.  I’m not feeling so well today.“  He took a long swallow, then stared down at his hand, which was still shaking.  After finishing the drink, he was steadier.  “I’m not so sure I approve of you mutilating your body anyway,” he said.

“Dad…”  I poured him another drink, and just orange juice for myself.

“Yeah, okay, I guess.  If I’m feeling better.  I think I’m coming down with something.”

He said that every day, and I paid no attention.  “Oh Daddy, you’re the best!”  I said, and meant it.  If it weren’t for him, what would I do?  Sleep on some stranger’s ratty couch in New York City?  Not me.  I hated dancing, too, hated it!  Dad would never take off to find himself when I needed him.  He would never do that to me.

“I’m gonna shower.  You, eat something!  You’re too thin!” he said, peeling my arms off where I’d thrown them around him, and topping off his drink before heading upstairs.  “And make some coffee!” he yelled down.

“I’m gonna call Kayla and tell her she can come over.”

He didn’t answer.  I knew what he was doing, he was crying.  Crying over my mother.  Crying that we were left out of her new life, and because he had a pounding headache, and he had to deal with me and my friends – make us happy – anyway.

     Sighing and setting my face to “impassive,” I stopped thinking, and busied myself with making a pot of coffee.  I would drink it black today.  Thick and black to grow me up, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone, even Kayla, that I was afraid.