Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) (21 page)

“No, she doesn’t want a hit,” Gina interjected. “And you need to pitch that thing and keep it out of this apartment.”

“And who is this pretty young lady?” Sammy asked Shirley with a smile.

“This is my daughter, Gina. Sammy, you’re going to have to keep that shit out of here. I don’t want to go to jail because my roommate’s a pothead,” Shirley sighed at Sammy, more to appease Gina than anything else.

“It’s gone,” Sammy said, taking a final hit and walking into his bathroom. Shirley and Gina heard the toilet flush and then another voice from inside the bedroom.

“What the fuck are you doing, Sammy? There were a few more hits left on that.”

“Who is that?” Gina asked Shirley as Sammy’s bedroom door closed again.

“Some chick who’s been staying here with him for the last couple of days. She’s usually so doped up she’s not very coherent. I don’t know much about her.”

“Doped up? Shirley, sometimes I wonder if you have any sense at all,” Gina said, sitting down on the secondhand sofa and flicking the television on. She wasn’t in the mood to lecture Shirley about her choice of roommates, so she let it go at that. As she and Shirley sat in front of the television, a young woman with a crew cut and wearing only a T-shirt emerged from the bedroom and went to the kitchen. Gina got up from the sofa and followed her.

“Hi, I’m Gina. And you are?”

“Sherri, last time I checked. You guys got any cookies or anything? You know how a little reefer can give you the munchies?” the girl asked with a dazed expression.

“Reefer?”

“You know, pot. Sammy couldn’t score any hard stuff this week, so we’re having to settle for the ole mj. What’s good to eat in here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t live here, and I don’t believe you do either. Where do you live?”

“Well, I was staying in Silver Spring for a few weeks. Now I’m just sort of hanging out here,” the girl said before grabbing a bag of chips and returning to the bedroom.

Gina returned to the living room to find Shirley smoking a cigarette with Gomez curled up next to her.

“So, she’s been
staying
in Silver Spring. She apparently doesn’t
live
anywhere. Shirley, these people are bad news. You can’t rent a room to a bunch of drug addicts. You may land your ass in jail.”

“I know, sweetie. I’ll kick ’em out soon,” Shirley replied, paying more attention to the television than to Gina.

“Shirley!” Gina said in a strong whisper. “There’s a drug dealer and his whore in the next room. What are you going to do about it? No . . . don’t answer that. I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You have till the weekend to ask them to leave, and if you don’t, I’ll call the police. I’m serious, Shirley.”

“All right already! I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” Shirley replied, still distracted.

Before Gina could respond, there was a thunderous knock on the door.

“Who the fuck is it?” Shirley grumbled, not getting up or taking her eyes off the television.

“Where’s Sammy?” a man shouted from behind the door.

Shirley got up and opened the door. There was a tall, sickly-looking man standing on the threshold in a pair of faded jeans and a tank top, which exposed the various scars on his arms.

“Sammy here? We had a deal. Where is he? He better not have dicked me, man!”

“Dicked you?” Shirley asked before yelling toward Sammy’s room. “Sammy, you got company.”

The man looked more closely inside and saw Gina and Gomez sitting on the sofa. Gina was facing the other way, and Gomez was ignoring the whole scene. He always barked at the pizza delivery man and bit nasty women on Rollerblades, but a derelict looking to score some drugs comes to the door, and he couldn’t be bothered.

“Is this a private residence?” the man asked.

With that, Gina whizzed around. “Is this a private residence? No, it’s the fucking Drug Depot, and we’re a couple of crack whores! Yes, it’s a
private
residence,” Gina said to the man before getting up and heading for Sammy’s bedroom.

She turned the knob. “Sammy, get out here. . . .”

As she opened the door and looked in, she realized the bedroom was empty and the window to the fire escape was open.

“Well, looks like he
dicked
ya after all,” Shirley said with a gloating smile after peeking into the bedroom. “Maybe you can catch them if you hurry.”

“Regardless of what you do, you come back here, and I’m calling the cops,” Gina said to the man before pushing in front of Shirley and slamming the door in his face. She glanced out the peephole to see the man walking away from the apartment and down the hall.

“Shirley, what are we going to do? Sammy can’t come back here. That guy could be dangerous, and you don’t want to get caught in the cross fire.”

“Oh, Gina, you’re such a worrywart. He’s harmless. Did you see him? Even I could kick his ass.”

“Shirley, do you want to go to jail? If the cops come here and find a bunch of drugs, they’ll haul you away with the rest of them.”

Gina then grabbed the yellow pages and, after flipping for a few seconds, dialed the number for a twenty-four-hour locksmith. After she hung up, she pulled Shirley into Sammy’s bedroom.

“Okay, grab anything that’s his. We’re putting it in the hallway.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“Me? You’re renting a room to Cheech and Chong, and you’re asking me if I’m crazy? Do you know what kind of things these people are capable of? The locksmith will be here any minute to change the lock, and you’re not letting Sammy back in here. You’ll stay at my place until he comes to pick up his stuff. Honestly, Shirley, would you for once just think before you act. You’re going to end up getting yourself into some serious trouble.”

The Wild Side

“A
Sprite please,” Peter said to the waiter.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have Sprite. How about Mountain Dew?”

“No, Mountain Dew is loaded with caffeine. Do you have anything without caffeine?”

How the hell should I know, ya freak? “Afraid not.”

“Just water, then,” Peter said.

“Oh, go on, Peter. Live on the wild side and have a Coke,” Cheryl said, smirking at Peter from across the table.

“No thanks. I’ve been on the wild side. It’s overrated.”

“Really? When did skipping your vitamins one day last month constitute the wild side?”

“Shut up.”

“Testy, testy. Is Peter in a bad mood today?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Me too. Mondays suck.”

God, let’s just get through dinner, Peter thought, bored with trying to make small talk with Cheryl. When she asked him to dinner earlier that day, he figured he had to eat anyway, and with any luck he might get laid out of the deal. Truth be known, Cheryl wasn’t terribly into the evening with Peter either. Things seemed to be going pretty well with Cooper. She had been out with him again since their lunch, and they had had a really nice time, but she certainly wasn’t ready to send Peter packing yet.

“I’m thinking of getting a perm in my hair. What do you think?” Cheryl asked.

Well, I was just lying awake last night, pondering that very thought.... “I don’t know. Didn’t perms sort of go out in the eighties sometime?”

“No, no. They’re back in now. Two girls in my office just got perms.”

“And they would be from Manassas or Woodbridge?” Peter joked, referring to the far outlying suburbs of D.C. where girls with big hair in TransAms were more commonplace. “I’m not sure what you would look like with your hair any curlier than it is already, but whatever.”

“No, you nitwit. A relaxer to straighten my hair more. We call it a perm when we get our hair straightened. I’d be able to wear it much longer, but it would be a lot more work.”

“Well, then, go for it. You can go to Dennis.”

“That skinny gay white boy hairdresser of Gina’s? I don’t think so. Are you still going to him? Is he hot for your bod?”

“Yes, I still go to him to get my hair cut, and no, he’s not hot for my bod. At least I don’t think so. I’m sure he does okay without hitting on straight men.”

“So how are Gina and Linda? Are you sure they both aren’t lesbians? They spend a hell of a lot of time together.”

“Well, when I used to sleep with Gina, she definitely wasn’t a lesbian. I can’t vouch for now, but I doubt it.”

“Must we talk about you sleeping with
her.”

“You brought it up.”

“I did not.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I guess they’re okay. I haven’t seen Linda in a while. She has a new chick though. I met her once. She’s a hot Latin girl—looks like Salma Hayek. And Gina was over briefly last night. She wants me to go with her to her high school reunion.”

“Are you going?”

“I said I would.”

“So, she wants to pass you off as her date so she doesn’t look like the dried-up old spinster that she is.”

“I don’t know, Cheryl. I’ll just go and have a few beers and tag along. How bad could it be?”

“Well, I don’t think you should go. Let her hire an escort if she wants a date so bad,” Cheryl insisted, not at all happy with the idea of Peter escorting Gina anywhere. Gina was bound to look her best, and those kind of formal events always made people horny. Not that she had any right to care. She and Peter agreed that they were just friends—friends who had sex on a regular basis—but just friends nonetheless.

“I really don’t mind. It might be kind of fun.”

“Sometimes I wonder, Peter, if you want to spend so much time with her, why did you ever break up with her in the first place?”

“It’s complicated, Cheryl.”

“Complicated? How so?”

“I don’t know. I really liked her. She was . . . is so much fun. She’s pretty and smart and has a good sense of humor. And you don’t fool me, Cheryl. I know you’d take her back as a friend any day.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who severed our relationship. She did. But, okay, I do miss our friendship from time to time. But I still don’t get it, Peter. If you liked her so much, then why? Why did you end it?”

“I guess . . . I guess I just couldn’t deal with her drinking.”

“Her drinking? Do you think she has a problem?”

“I don’t know. I’m not saying she’s an alcoholic or anything. Well, maybe that is what I’m saying. I don’t know.”

“I never really noticed. Although in college we sure did drink a lot. But so did everyone. It’s just what we did.”

“I know. It’s not like she was a drunk or anything, or that she even got out of control that often. But every once in a while she’d get so drunk, it was like I didn’t know who she was anymore. We’d go to a party, and she’d drink so much. She didn’t know when to quit. Then, other times, we’d go to dinner, and she’d have a glass of wine or a beer and that would be it. It didn’t make any sense.”

“I remember an occasion or two when she didn’t have stopping sense. When she kept downing the beers one after the other and, come to think of it, she would freak me out a little sometimes too. But we’ve all had those moments. Peter, I remember last year, on the Fourth of July, you got so wasted you puked, and that still didn’t stop you. You went to the bathroom and heaved and came back and grabbed another beer.”

“I guess I shouldn’t throw stones, huh. Maybe her drinking wasn’t the reason. I don’t know. I just couldn’t be in a relationship with someone I worried was going to kill herself driving drunk or make a fool of herself at a party.”

“Well, far be it from me to defend Gina, but I think you overreacted.”

“Maybe. But one morning after Gina and I had stayed up late watching movies on HBO and drinking wine, I woke up, and she had wet the bed. That’s when I knew I had to end it.”

“She wet the bed?”

“We never talked about it, and I’m not sure if she even knows that I noticed. Anyway, what’s done is done. Gina and I are over, as a couple anyway. It’s much better for us to be friends. We get to enjoy each other but keep our distance at the same time.”

Kind of like you and me, Cheryl thought to herself. “Well, you won’t get any argument from me about that.”

“Excuse me for a second,” Peter said, getting up from the table to go to the bathroom. On the way, he stopped at the pay phone and dialed the number for Cameron Hartman, the analyst at work who snitched on him for misusing the Internet.

“Hello,” Cameron said after picking up the phone.

Peter breathed heavily into the phone for a few seconds and hung up. It was about the sixth time he’d done it since she busted him for surfing the Web at work. It seemed kind of stupid to him, but Gina assured him it was only the beginning of Cameron’s downfall.

Pizza Pizza

G
riffin pulled his Mercedes into the parking lot in front of Myers’ Books and Magazines. He climbed out of the car and sauntered into the store as if he owned the place, which he didn’t, but hell, he might as well have. He spent more time there than anyone else. He couldn’t even remember how long it had been since he started there.

“Hi, Brenda,” he said to the small Asian woman behind the counter as he walked by and gave her ass a quick pinch.

“Hey, G-man,” she responded with a smile.

Griffin walked past her and headed into the back. He went straight to his office and closed the door. As soon as the door shut behind him, he unbuttoned his shirt and threw it on the floor before reaching under his protruding belly and releasing the buckle on his pants. He kicked off his loafers, let them fling across the room, and slipped off his trousers. There was no need to remove his underwear—he wasn’t wearing any. He left his clothes on the floor (knowing Brenda would pick them up later) and walked toward his desk.

Enjoying the comfort and freedom of full nudity, except for the socks he kept on to keep his feet warm, Griffin grabbed some hoagie rolls from his desk drawer, split them open, and started layering it on—salami, ham, bologna, sweet peppers, mayonnaise (lots of mayonnaise), and a few slices of American cheese. It was up to Brenda to keep his refrigerator filled constantly, and if Griffin was ever low on cold cuts, condiments, or his other favorite junk food, she would catch hell. He poured a stack of Doritos on the plate next to the sandwiches, popped the top on a can of sparkling fruit punch, and flicked on the television and VCR that sat on one side of his wraparound desk. He managed to do all of this without having to get up from his chair. He had the room configured so the TV, refrigerator, and stash of junk food were all within arm’s length of the chair. He was about to dive into his sandwiches, when he decided he’d really rather have pizza—a nice deep-dish from Domino’s with everything. After all, he was
The Big G.
If he wanted pizza, he should get pizza.