Drunk New Yorker

Chapter 4

I unlocked the door and looked at the organized chaos of our new apartment. We were allowed to move in a month ago and we did the best with what we had, so it looked like rather nice dump with walls. We had a giant blue fluffy rug, I called it the cookie monster, that covered the entire living room.

Speaking of the living room, since the bedrooms were small we couldn't fit another bed into either of them, so somebody had to sleep on a pull out in the living room. After a shot competition we all learned something very important, it is very hard to get Jessie drunk (but possible), and Jade swears a lot when she is drunk. Since me and Jessie won the shot contest we got the rooms while Jade has to sleep on a pull out.

"Fuck you, Mariposa, vete a la mierda, zorra!" Jade said screaming at the TV as the commercial break started. She was sitting on the pullout, wrapped in a blanket and eating popcorn. Because Wednesday is telenovela day, it's the day that her favorite show Reina de la Casa is on, and because of this show she knows how to cuss in Spanish.

I sit down next to her and tried to grab a piece of popcorn but she slaps my hand. "Popcorn?" I said, making a puppy face,

"No."

"Popcorn?"

"If it will shut you up, than yes." She grabs the smallest kernel and hands it to me, placing it in the palm of my hand.

"Thanks for your generosity, madame" I say and pop it into my mouth. She put way too much butter on it. "But I have a question, isn't Mariposa dead?"

"No, that was Maria Álvarez, she got plastic surgery in order to look like Mariposa." Jade says as if this is the most obvious thing in the world.

I am about to respond but then my phone rings. I look down and see my mom's name, and I scowl. Somehow my mom always finds a way to insult me and everything I stand for, but I can't hang up or my mother will think I have been kidnapped and call 911.

"Ciao, mamma. Come stai?"

"Abbastanza bene grazie, e tu?"

"Bene."

My mom continues to ask about my new apartment and my roommates names. Of course I don't tell her their names, she might be a 62 year old woman, but damn, she is surprisingly good at finding out everything about someone.

My mom continues to ask me about my decorations, and of course I lie. I tell her that we have some nice chairs and a wonderful orange sofa, which is only a half lie, the sofa is orange, but I think it's more inline with wow-even-rats-wouldn't-sit-here rather than wonderful. My mother seem happy with this and then tells me she plans to see it herself.

"Non devi andare, mamma!" I said, trying to convince her to stay in New Jersey. She just tells me that of course she is coming, and she'll bring dinner as well. I quickly say goodbye and hang up.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" I yell.

"I didn't know you spoke Italian!" Jade said to me.

"You're not going to ask me why I'm screaming fuck?"

"You were talking to your mother, I would have asked you why you weren't screaming fuck if you hadn't been," Jade said to me, the commercial break was over, but she paused her show. Now Mariposa looked insane with her mouth half open and her eyes bugging out, and the gun in her hand. At that moment Jessie entered the apartment and sat down next to us. Jessie looked at the TV and made a weird face at it.

"Seriously you speak Italian?" Jade said not seeming to be able to get over it.

"Jade, I speak to someone in my family at least once a week, almost always in Italian, and we have been together in this apartment for a month, and you just now realized I speak Italian?" I said to her.

"I am incredibly unobservant." Jade said to me, with a shrug.

"You didn't notice her muttering in Italian?" Jessie said to Jade "I mean even goddamn Mariposa would have noticed that, and she didn't notice that Alejandro was having an affair Maria!"

"How dare you compare me to that puta." Jade said reaching for the remote.

"Before you watch Mariposa, what is she about to do? Kill her husband? Whatever, my mother is coming and I need you to get whiskey, and lots of it," I said getting up and starting to pace.

"Jessie, you need to go to that hipster coffee place, the one with that barista that flirts with you, and get them to give you Italian coffee. Not American, my mom can tell, and she will kill me." I said to Jessie. I walked into the kitchen and started to check the cupboards, I would need to find some food to fill up the cupboard.

"Calm down Rylie, when is your mom coming?" Jade asked me, still eating her overly-buttered popcorn.

"Saturday," I said. My mother has never visited any of my apartments in New York, I always convinced her to meet me at a restaurant or something.

"We have three and a half days, that's plenty!" Jade said, putting her finished bowl of popcorn, to the side.

"My mother is an immigrant who gave up everything to get her family a better life, and she constantly reminded us of that, and you're telling me to calm down?" I said to Jade, glaring at her. Jade held up her bowl of popcorn like a shield, I started to clean up the kitchen and I grabbed the knives. I picked one up and pointed it at Jade "Tell me to calm down again."

"Okay Rylie, time to put the knives away," Jessie said waking to the kitchen and grabbing the other knife.

"Make me."

"I will cut you," Jessie said holding the knife. I now realize that she had grabbed the bigger knife, and she is a foot taller than me, seriously I had never met six foot tall woman this menacing. Add that all up, plus the fact that on her period she stabbed a knife into the wall, and that makes someone I do not want to mess with.

"You're terrified of guns, but you're completely fine with knives?" I said raising my eyebrows.

"I am terrified of bullets hitting my beautiful face, besides you're terrified of your mother," Jessie said to me.

"And I am fearless!" Jade yelled from the living room.

"We all heard you scream at those chickens," Jessie said to her. Last Tuesday, at 4 am, Jade started screaming. Me and Jessie rushed in and we saw her wrapped in a blanket, shielding her eyes, because a bunch of chickens showed up on Youtube.

"They have dark, beady, eyes that stare into your soul! How are you not scared of them?" Jade replied.

"Sure they do, Jade, sure they do." Jessie says before she puts the knives away.

"Before I get the alcohol, I must ask, why do you need whiskey?" Jade said to me, she took off her blanket and I could see her day off shirt, the one with the pugs, I hate that shirt.

"Because for the next three and the half days I will be running on Irish coffee and fear," I said to her.

"Fair enough."

Now I need to find a moka pot somewhere. Maybe I can borrow one from the hipsters across the hall, or I can stuff it into my purse, which ever way is faster.