NO LONGER THERE

STRAND SIX

PINK FISKAR SCISSORS

She was pissed.

I never called Roxy, and she thought I was dead. It took her five entire minutes to realize the rationale of me actually being as dead as I was in her mind and talking to her on the phone were incompatible.

When it clicked, she admitted I was right, calmed down, then reamed me out all over again for being a an inconsiderate dip wad. I love Roxy. Hershey Kiss, formally known as Lisa, loves her too. That's why she Whodinied my phone and yapped with Roxy like she paid my bill.

They bonded when Roxy came home with me last year for Christmas break. Those two had a lot in common, Hershey Kiss and Roxy. Beautiful chocolate skin, pretty hazel eyes and the love of all things blingy, expensive and colorful. Although I had the luxury set up, Roxy slept in Hershey Kisses' room for two weeks.

"It's a big ass rainbow" was Roxy's response when I asked her why.

She was right. It was a big ass rainbow. The only room in the house allowed to have real color. It was the last room at the back of the hall. No one would ever see it, but that's not the reason it was the only room in the house allowed to have real color.

Clarence is the reason Hershey Kiss has a rainbow room. He talked it over with Lillian first, like we all did about all things because Lillian Rose Reed always knew what was best, for everybody. She said no. It was more like a, "Clarence James Reed, you have lost your damn mind," kind of no. But, now that you've met Lillian, you get the point.

Hershey Kiss cried. She was five at the time. That age when daddy's will fight fire breathing dragons wearing nothing but gasoline drawers for their chubby, snaggleteeth, pig tail wearing five year-old baby girls. Well, Lillian was the fire breathing dragon and Clarence had on gasoline soaked drawers.

She was on call that weekend and busy as hell. So was Clarence, turning Hershey Kisses' room into a big ass rainbow. I told you Daddy owned his own business, what I didn't tell you was that it's a professional painting company.

Yep, Clarence had the advantage in this situation.

Not a drop of paint was out of place. They came in like Seal Team 6, painted the big ass rainbow room, the last room at the back of the hall, the only room in the house allowed to have real color and left before Lillian, the clueless, fire breathing dragon, could make it home after the first twenty-four hours of her seventy-two  hours on call.

My cool as a cucumber Nana and I were impressed. Daddy was proud. Hershey Kiss was all snaggleteeth grinning, and it was a lovely Kodak moment in the Reed household. After that, it didn't go so well.

That age when daddy's will fight fire breathing dragons wearing nothing but gasoline drawers for their chubby, snaggleteeth, pig tail wearing baby girls was close to being the last fight Clarence would ever have.

Lillian was a zombie that weekend. Still, nothing gets by her. There had to be a glitch in the time-space continuum when she came home after the first twenty-four hours of her seventy-two hours of call and collapsed in bed, never uttering one word about paint.

My cool as a cucumber Nana and I had a bet going. I said two days. Nana said two minutes. Lillian was so tired, she didn't even smell the paint. We all walked around on eggshells that weekend too, nobody more than Clarence.

I believed he preferred that beatdown Black Jack the super-flexing bull gave him not once, but twice, over what he imagined Lillian was going to do when she saw Hershey Kisses' room. After all, it was a big ass rainbow.

It took her two days to see it. And when she finally did, Lillian lost her mind. You thought that Oscar worthy display of distress was impressive at the hospital? Lillian's drama was on steroids at home, in Trophy Club, inside the only room in the house allowed to have real color, Hershey Kisses' now big ass rainbow room, the last room at the back of the hall.