Chapter 3 Do something

Shit, shit, shit.

I hated Darla and Darla hated me. What the hell was she doing here?

I searched behind her to see if my friend Terry was lurking or perhaps hiding behind her. I wouldn’t put it past Terry and Darla to jump me, tie me to the staircase and loot my house. In my darker daydreams, this was how Terry and Darla spent their days. I was convinced this was not far from the truth. No joke.

Her eyes came to me at the window, her face was already scrunched up, making what could be pretty, if she used a less heavy hand with the black eyeliner and the blush, and her lip liner wasn’t an entirely different shade as her lip gloss, not so pretty.

“I see you!” she shouted and I sighed.

Then I went to the door because Darla would shout the house down and I liked my neighbors. They didn’t need a ten thirty in the morning, biker bitch from hell standing on my doorstep and shouting the house down.

I opened it but not far and moved to stand between it and the jamb, keeping my hand on the handle.

“Hey Darla,” I greeted, trying to sound friendly and pretty pleased with my effort.

“Fuck ‘hey’, is Terry here?” Darla replied.

See!

Totally spent her days looting. She once stole my boyfriend during our end high school party, now she was here trying to steal my friend too.

It took effort not to kick her senseless but I stopped my eyes from rolling.

“No,” I answered.

“She’s here, you better tell me,” she warned then she looked beyond me and shouted, “Terry! Bitch, if you’re in there you better come out here, right fucking now!”

“Darla!” I snapped, “Keep your voice down!”

She craned her neck and bounced on her toes, yelling, “Terry! Terry, you crazy, stupid bitch! Get your ass out here!”

I shoved out the door, forcing her back and closed it behind me, hissing, “Seriously, Darla, shut up! Terry isn’t here. Terry is never here unless I call her. You know that. So shut up and go.”

“You shut up,” she shot back. “And you get smart. You’re helpin’ her…” She lifted her hand, pointed her finger at me, her thumb was extended upwards and then she crooked her thumb and made a gunshot noise that puffed out her cheeks and made her lips vibrate. I would have taken a moment to reflect on how good she was with verbal sound effects if the serious as shit look in her eye wasn’t scaring the crap out of me.

So, instead of congratulating her on the only real talent I suspected she had, I whispered, “What?”

She dropped her hand, got up on her motorcycle-booted toes so we were eye to eye and said in a soft, scary voice, “D e a d, dead. You and her, you don’t get smart. You get me?”

Then I asked a stupid question because the question was asked often and there was always only one answer, that answer being yes.

“Is Terry in some kind of trouble?”

Darla stared at me like I had a loose screw. Then she lifted her hand, did the gun thing with the sound effect, finger pointed at my head. Then she turned around and walked swiftly down my front steps.

I stood on my front porch staring at her. My mind absently noted that she was wearing a tight tank top, an unzipped black leather motorcycle jacket, a short frayed jeans skirt, the wearing of which was a crime in several states for a variety of reasons both fashion and decency, black fishnet stockings and motorcycle boots and it was around forty degrees outside. She didn’t even have on a scarf.

The rest of my head was caught up with my friend and Darla’s sound effect.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I drove my car trying to tell myself this was a good plan and knowing that my first plan, the one where after Darla left and I went back into my house, I walked directly to the phone and called my father, was the right plan and this plan was garbage.

But my father and his wife Tere had warned me about being friends with Darla. It was approximately after they came back from the beach when they saw their good little god Darla on her knees in the living room, her head was between the legs of a bare chested man, his jeans already open, while his head lolled on the back of the couch in our house because he was passed out and Darla was so whacked on whatever she was taking she had no idea her activities were getting her nowhere.

And, incidentally, the living room was a disaster as was the rest of the house.

As you can probably see from this story, I was loath to bring my father into another situation involving Darla. Especially since this wasn’t the worst story I had, it was just, for Dad and Tere, the last. They were currently living a carefree, daughter’s friend visits free existence and I didn’t want to rock that boat.

Therefore, I didn’t call Dad.

Instead I thought of Darla’s boyfriend, Dreg. Dreg was a member of a biker gang and Dreg was as rough as they come. But I’d met Dreg during my college graduation day, I liked him then. But again Darla slept with him. Dreg was funny and he liked Darla. She was different around him. Not a lot, but at least she was palatable.

Okay, so Dreg was likely a felon but, as ironic as it was, he was a good influence on Darla and those didn’t come around very often, as in never. Not in twenty years. So, since I was getting the hint from Darla, her one and only friend, that Terry’s trouble was a little worse than normal, I needed firstly to do something about it and secondly, since this was Darla, I had to call in reinforcements or better yet, lay the problem on their door.