Beyond Blonde (10 page)

What in Moses’ name …?

I marched over and tapped Sarah on her back.

“Sophie, baby! How’s it hanging, shnookums?” She giggled. Then George giggled.

Guys don’t giggle. Shnookums? She swayed and smiled dreamily. “Sarah, you’re wasted! How could you do that? We haven’t even been here an hour.” I glared at George, who grinned back at me.

“Not poshible,” she slurred. “Just had the one Southern ’n’ Sheven, not even.”

“It’s true.” George could not stop giggling. “I got it for her
and she hasn’t had another one. We’ve been dancing.”

“You’ve been groping, you mean.” I looked back at the coffee table. Kit was still putting on an energetic floor show. Madison was nowhere to be found. Our platinum reputation would take a hit if these two kept going at the rate they were going. Rick was joined by Stewart Allen and Ben Wheeler in cheering on Kit. I grabbed Sarah’s hand and started walking to Kit. “Help me get her off.”

“Sure, shnookums. Hey, Kit!” Sarah waved at her like Kit was on the other side of the street. “Sophie thinks you gotta get your butt down, girl!”

Kit waved back and blew me a kiss.

“Need some help with your team, shnookums?” Oh get me a gun, it was David. He smiled at me. He’d never smiled at me before. Alert the press! He was amused all right. David kept smiling, even though he was bimbo free.

“No thank you, coach!” I
retorted.
I’ve been working on my retorts since the second practice. I just didn’t think I’d be retorting at a party.

David leaned into me. “If you girls can’t handle your liquor, you shouldn’t be at the big boys’ party. Things happen at Anita’s. Go away, little girl.” He leaned in even closer. “You don’t belong here, Sophie.”

I got a little woozy when he said my name. Then I came to. What the hell! How dare he? “First of all,
coach,
we’ve been to plenty of Anita’s parties!” Which technically wasn’t the God’s honest truth. We’d only been to a couple over the years. The rumours, come to think of it, were that the parties had cranked up lately, but Madison had arranged to meet
Billy here and the rest of us were dead keen to see and be seen.

“Second of all,
coach,
I don’t drink!” I waved my bottle. “I just pretend to.” Why was I telling him this? Shut up, shut up! “And third,
coach,
they are
NOT
drunk. They haven’t had enough time to get drunk!”

Kit chose that moment to belt out a rollicking rendition of Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” mixed into the Canadian national anthem. Rick was seething with unrequited love, or something.

I had to get that girl out of here. Sarah boogied up beside me.

David grabbed my arm. “They’re pissed.” I swear he was growling. “Get them, and you, out of here. It gets worse. And stop calling me coach!”

I tried to wrench my arm free. “Sorry,” I said,
“assistant coach!”
He gripped tighter. It felt like I was standing in front of a furnace. Thank God, I couldn’t blush. “And, I keep telling you, they’re not drunk! Kit, get down off that coffee table right now!”

“Shophie’s right. We’re shober,” said Sarah just before she puked on his shoe.

It was a small barf.

More like a spit up, really.

At least it got Kit off the coffee table. She was over in one bound opening up her little party purse. “I have a Kleenex. There!” She whipped out a tampon and started dabbing his shoe with it.

Somehow I did not disintegrate. David still had me by the
arm, though more gently now. He was chewing his cheek. Papa did that too. When he was trying not to laugh.

“What in God’s name!” Finally, the Mounties had arrived. Madison was here. “Why is Kit mopping up your shoe with a tampon? Did she throw up? She threw up! Are they pissed? How could they be pissed? They’re pissed!” Sadly, this entire set of accusations was aimed directly at me.

David burst out laughing. I could have killed her.

“Oh yeah, well, where were you?” I demanded in a demanding type of whisper. “And it better be good.” I’ll show her. Two can play at this game. Why was
I
responsible for them? “Well?”

“I was breaking up with Billy on the back deck.”

“Oh, right, ‘courage hug.’”

David let out a long slow whistle while Kit seized this opportunity to crumple over onto the floor and stay there.

“They’re drunk!” Madison threw up her hands. “And you’re blushing!” Apparently, we were back to blaming me again. “I’ve never seen you blush!”

“I don’t blush,” I reminded her.

David turned me toward him. “Maybe not, little captain, but your cheeks are a very becoming shade of firehouse red.” He had two clear-as-day dimples when he smiled that way. I wanted to kick him.

“I do not blush!”

“Well you do now, and they’re plastered.” Madison tried to lift Kit and got nowhere.

“No, no, no, no,” explained Sarah.

George weaved over to us with a glass of water for Sarah.
“No guff, man.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t get her loaded. All she had was one drink and we shared a brownie.”

“Great brownies!” agreed Kit from the floor.

Madison, David, and I looked at one another. “Hash brownies,” nodded David. “That’d do it.”

Hash? Holy Moses. “Is this like permanent? Are they going to be okay?”

“Not after I kill them for being terminally stupid,” said Madison.

“They’ll be fine tomorrow,” David sighed. “But we better get them home.”

“I got my wheels.” George tried to pull himself up to his full height, which was impressive, but he was still half a head below David.

David turned to him. This could turn into a pissing contest. “You’re stoned, man. Chill out okay? I’ll bring ’em home.”

George’s eyes narrowed. You could tell he didn’t want to leave Sarah. George was two years older, but David didn’t flinch. They stared at each other. Finally, George put his arm around a heavily listing Sarah. “I’ll help you get them to the car.”

“We’re all staying at Madison’s tonight,” I offered.

“Lucky me.” David winked. “One-stop shopping.”

George and David somehow stuffed Sarah and Kit into the car, despite them both insisting on a slow dance out in the middle of the street. We put them on either side of Madison in the back, while I got in the front with David. Even in the dark, I could tell he found this whole episode enormously entertaining. I tried to keep my cringing and whinging invisible,
but then they launched into a hash-brownie version of Frankie Valli’s “My Eyes Adored You.” Frankie Valli struggles with that song. It was excruciating. Even if David Walter never said anything about tonight, about any of this, he knew, and he knew that I knew that he knew, and he … oh never mind. It was embarrassing, period.

They finally shut up as we pulled into Madison’s circular driveway. After much negotiation, we decided that Madison and I would haul in Kit, while David helped Sarah. Halfway up the walk Sarah stumbled and David swooped her up like it was an afterthought. He just picked Sarah up and carried her the rest of the way, including up and into the house and up all those stairs to Madison’s room. It was not something that I was ever going to forget. He didn’t even break stride. I felt my cheeks fire up again. Thank Buddha I don’t blush, no matter what they said. Fabi came out in curlers and rescued Kit from Madison’s death grip as David trotted back out.

“Hash brownies,” mouthed Madison to Fabi like it would mean something to her.

Fabi nodded and helped Madison with Kit. Meanwhile, I ran back to the car to retrieve our purses. David draped himself over the car door as I reached into the back seat. “Practice is Monday morning at 7:30 A.M. Think you can have your team ready,
captain
?”

“No problem.” I grabbed all the purses. “You can go now. I can take it from here.” Instead, he sat on the hood.

“Hmm.” He shook his head. “I think I better wait until you get in. God only knows what end of trouble you could get yourself into between here and the doorway.”

I got hot again. Maybe I was going through menopause. None of this was making sense. “It’s okay, really. You can go home now.”

“Home?” He crossed his arms and looked at his watch. “It’s not even midnight, little girl.” His voice low and smoky.

Now I was cold.

“As soon as you’re safe, I’m going back to the big boys’ party.”

The girls, those girls at Anita’s. He was revolting.

“Good night, Sophie …”

I ran up the walkway.

“You’re welcome!” he called.

If we weren’t at Madison’s, if I wasn’t freaked about waking up the whole neighbourhood, wouldn’t I just slam the door,
hard.
“Thank you, David,” I said through gritted teeth and without turning around.

“Why, you’re welcome, Sophie.” I swear I could hear his smile. I did hear his car door open and shut, and then the engine catch and go. Safely on the other side of the door, my heart thumped so hard I thought Fabi would come running.

Madison appeared at the top of the stairs. “What a night, eh?” She waved at me to hurry. “Thank God David was there.”

“I suppose,” I muttered, dragging my feet and thumping heart up the stairs.

“Did you see him just toss Sarah into his arms? I mean, oh my, wow!”

“Yeah, oh my,” I said.

“He is like nobody else!”

I bet he was speeding, couldn’t wait to get back to
them
.

“We owe him now.” She folded her arms dramatically, a gesture worthy of Auntie Eva. “You have to promise to behave better around him.”

“What, me? Why?”

“Because he saved our ass tonight, Sophie Kandinsky, and you know it.”

David being smothered by them. Doesn’t matter, didn’t matter, why would I care? I didn’t care. “I don’t care!” I said. Madison looked momentarily confused. Apparently we were having a whole different conversation.

“Well you should! I need you to promise to behave, Sophie.”

“He’ll be extra unbearable now, all high and mighty, so full of himself, besides he’s the one that’s all snotty to me!”

“Sophie …”

“Yeah, yeah.” This was going to take some serious face time in front of my altar. I even made a sign of the cross as soon as we turned off the lights. Didn’t help. I heard him whispering all night long.
Go away, little girl, go away, little girl, go away
…

“So vat is it, buboola?”
Auntie Eva was fussing with coffeecake, bread, schnitzel, kielbasa, sausages, hard-boiled eggs, and pickles. Everything you need for a quick snack. Instead of going home after spending the night at Madison’s, I asked a mildly mortified Kit to drop me off at Auntie Eva’s. I had to reassure her the whole way that the previous night’s damage was limited, thanks to the ever-so-smug David. We did not revisit her tampon-mopping or table-hopping.

Mama had showings all day, and I just didn’t want to trip around an empty condo. So, here I was at crazy Eva’s. She was whipping out Royal Crown Derby teacups and Waterford crystal shot glasses. “Auntie Eva, it’s just me. This is so not necessary.”

“Shhht, shhht!” she said, brandishing a knife. “Iz not every day my baby buboola comes to see her Auntie Eva. It iz an occasion.
Da?
” She resumed kielbasa cutting. “Vy do you
tink I put up vit your koo-koo Mama and Papa? It is only for you, because
you
are dat fantastik and beautiful!”

I defy anybody not to melt in the face of that much enthusiastic adoration.

“I love you too, Auntie Eva.”

Uh-oh. Mistake. She thundered over at lightning speed, carving knife in hand, and smother-hugged me. An Auntie special where your face is shoved into voluminous bits of fabric, 72-Hour Wonderbra, and Auntie mass.

Just before I was about to pass out, she returned to the kielbasa. “So vhy are you greasing me vit your present?”

I thought about it … and then let it go. I shrugged and bit my lip. Then, “You mean,
gracing me with your presence
?” I couldn’t help myself.

“
Zat
is vat I said.” But her heart wasn’t in it. She raised an eyebrow and sat across from me. “Are you maybe feeling a depressing coming on after all? Vas ve vrong in tinking you are not sensitive enough for a depressing?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “What does a depression feel like?”

“If you got to ask,” she smiled, “you don’t got von. You are not maybe drinking too much? I know you crazy kids …”

“No, Auntie Eva, I drink my shot of brandy with you guys and that’s pretty much it.” We picked up our glasses, clinked to a hearty
“Živili!”

To life.

But I was still feeling pretty lifeless, all in all.

She eyed me. “Have some kielbasa, eat. Iz not good for your breasts if you get too skinny.”

“Is it made with pork?”

“
Pa
sure,” she said proudly. “I got it from za Ukrainian butcher.”

“Sorry, Auntie Eva, I can’t eat pork. It’s against one of my religions.”

“But za Hindu peoples eat pork. I asked to za Indian lady next door. Cows are a problem, but not za pig.”

Hindu? How did she get Hindu? “No, Auntie Eva, I’m a Buddhist Jew.” But then again, Hindu might be fun. I made a note to myself to look it up as soon as I got back home.

“Oh.” She looked confused. “So za Buddhist part cancels za Jewish part, no?”