Dirty Girls

Fights and Bets

Caution: Language gets terribly vulgar

“Ayyyyyyyyyyyyy, we want some p----What the fuck?”

My eyes wandered frantically around the diner as I held my palm tightly against Sarah’s lips. After only a few minutes of being in the diner she was still as drunk as ever and she smelled horrible.

Like perfume mixed with the stench of a skunk and malt beer.

Gross.

“Here ya go, is that all for ya tonight?”

The waitress, a petite girl with vampire like skin, doe brown eyes and black curly hair set three cups of coffee on the rickety Tampura table with a friendly smile. Bobby gave her a quick nod, gave her his pearly white smile and replied in his deep rumble, “That’s it. Thank you.”

Hell, no that’s not all, can you take my drunk best friend and drown her in the strongest caffeine you have?

“Um, can I have a order of stuffed french toast?”

Unlike me, Sarah can’t hold her liquor. Well…I can’te either, I won’t lie, but she’s small…nothing but bones and on an empty stomach she’s the drunkest bitch you ever did see in your life. It’s utterly horrible.

She mumbles something against my hand, “Sarah, shut up.”

Sticky hair, half frizzed beyond recognition whip against my face as she leans forward and mumbles something else, “Sarah.”

And then I felt something wet between my fingers, sticky and wamr and…

“Ew!”

I pulled my hand back so fast she nearly fell forward, if it hand’t been for Bobby reaching across the table to grab her then she would have.

“Right away.”

With my palm pressed against Sarahs forearm and Bobby reaching forward I turned in the direction of the waitress and blushed. I hadn’t realized she was still there, but she smiled reassuringly, “Hard night?”

“Hell yeah,” we replied in unison.

After a cup of coffee Sarah lay against my arm snoring and muttering about hermaphrodites chasing after her boyfriend. I just assumed that she had combined her love life with the hangover.

“Knocked out.”

“On her birthday.” I concluded with a shake of my head.

The next day she would be raging about how she had wasted away her birthday before it ever began.

“You look really nice.”

Caught up in some weird shape on the ceiling of the restaurant I jerked my head as well as my thoughts back to reality and stared at Bobby perplexed, “What?”

I’d heard what he’d said, I could literally say each word verbatim with the same tone, but somehow my logic and hearing weren’t adding up. In irritation he blew out a breath and pressed two palms against his dark 5 o clock shadowed cheeks, “I said YOU look nice.”

Did I?

Yeah, I’d thought that the minute I stepped out of my shanty of a house and ambled down to my even worse car, “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to be smug and shit.” He muttered.

“I wasn’t being smug.” In all honesty I wasn’t.

At least I didn’t think I was, but still he leaned against his cushioned seat and took a deep breath before he continued, “Do you hate me that much?”

Hate?

Him?

I couldn’t possibly. I twirled a stray braid around my finger, wrinkled my brows into two downward errors and enunciated, “Hate? I don’t, what are you talking about?”

“That look, it’s like you don’t like me. What did I do to you?”

A thin string of drool dripped from Sarah’s mouth and slid onto my bare arm, it took all the will in the world and then some not to push her away, trow up the cross sign and proclaim, “I’m clean, I’m clean!”

“No, I do like you. What’s the problem?”

Didn’t I like him?

“Whatever, if you gonna sit there and lie at least give me a good one.”

I’m not the one to play with, especially when I’m confused. I held Sarah in place as I stared Bobby down and pressed my free hand against the flat of the old table, “Why don’t you tell me what your fucking problem is? Huh? How about THAT!”

He obviously was the one with the issue and not me.

“Things like that, you don’t have to curse at me like that. You don’t have to bitch at me like I fucking stole something from you Mia.”

And I didin’t have to take his bipolar shit either, car or no car I was about to leave.

“Whatever.”

I fished around in my purse until I found the cash and added a two dollar tip before slamming it onto the table.

“Where are you going?”

By then I’d had Sarah by the arms, half dragging and attempting to wake her up as I moved throughout the diner. A few people whispered, some stared, but for the most part they were about their own business. I didn’t answer Bobby, but he scrambled along behind me, “Ok, aight, that was a bitch thing to do. I’m sorry. God, Mia, I’m sorry.”

I’m fucking tired of sorries, bitch fuck YOU and your muthafuckin SORRIES YOU BITCH!!

I would have thrown the bird in the air, but I had to keep Sarah up, and then she was drooling on me. The only bad thing I could do to Bobby was curse him out in my head.

“Mia, for real. I’m sorry.” Came out in deep breaths and pants.

With Sarah’s body half lying on the ground I turned around, “You’re always sorry. And for what? For being a jerk? You talk about me, but what about you!”

He stood there on the sidewalk, night life all around us with his white shirt untucked and tailing around his hips. I stomped, my black sandals made a loud slap against the cement and I continued, “What about you Mr. Big Shot? You say I’m a bitch, you say I’m smug. And what about you?”

His shoulders slumped, his head hung low as I battered him with all the words I’d never said but should have, and for the first time I was able to say the words I feared. I bit my lip and took a deep breath, “It was a bet wasn’t it?”

“Right?”

I hoped, begged and pleaded within myself. I watched as his head rose and he stared at me with regretful eyes, “What did Marcus win for my virginity?”

Bobby had to know, that was his friend. But as his head rose more and more I knew that I had my answer, I knew I had, “Nothing.” Bobby answered.

But I wasn’t through yet, I steeled my self, narrowed my eyes and held onto Sarah’s body as tightly as I could, “What did you win for helping him?”

My pride..

My dignity..

My reputation.

“Nothing.”