"In Which Reality is a Delectable Case of Kismet Bullsh*t"

(Pt. 2)

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2:47 PM

Encontrarse

I swear, I almost thought he was a mirage — a visual construct in my mind — until the group of girls were giggling in his wake. 

Biting my lip, I tamp down this unusual twinge of disappointment — and the urge to go to every nook and cranny to find him.

"I swear, one minute this stupid hangover's gone. Then the next, it comes back like a bitch," Tamieke grouses, redirecting my attention back to the group.

"What did you even drink that night?" Tia wonders curiously.

"Better yet, why were you even in jail?" I specify, resting my cheek on the palm of my hand.

"Apparently, the dirtbags last night were too fragile for a bit of 'tumble'. We didn't know one of them was the police chief's younger brother." Tamieke grits his teeth.

Joule, who had been content in nursing his hangover with a mobile game, stares at him curiously with bloodshot eyes. "Why would you call them dirtbags? It's the useful part of a vacuum cleaner." 

"The same reason why bathroom tissues are called asswipes –they full of shit," Tamieke explains derisively, flipping ebony locks of corkscrew curls over his shoulders while he does his ass-dance under the table.

"You tackled two of them and broke their arms," Kiana says in a censoring note, stirring the remaining contents of her drink.

"Can't hate me for a rough hump in the dump," he justifies, blowing a raspberry.

"You humped a lamp after," Emile reminds him.

Tamieke groans, his face buried in his meaty palms. "Let's just all agree that night was a complete cluster-fuck."

"Not really," Jhett chirps. "I got a date."

Emile dramatically sucks a deep breath. "Traitor!", he exhales harshly, shoving a finger at his best friend's mole. "You didn't even lift a finger."

"You're not the only one," Joule – and, I can't believe it – sing-songs.

This time, it was Tamieke's turn to react and do an Emile impression of shock – eyes protruded and mouth dead-open. "What?! Show me!"

He snatches Joule's phone and sifts through his messages.

"Ew, he screams trust-fund baby. Them boys are too soft," he snorts.

Just hearing those three words, Emile and Jhett snap out of their silent fight and scramble on either side of Tamieke, squeezing in to get a peek of the guy's picture.

Joule taps his chin thoughtfully, a few stubbles of hair already growing all over his jaw. "I plan to cancel, anyways. I am sending him a text message denying his proposal of a hook-up."

Tamieke nods approvingly. "Aight, I'mma do you a favor and write it for you. Knowing you, you might've made it sound like it came from a lawyer."

"It's called intelligence and class. You might want to try it sometime," Joule retorts.

"I'll take 'some time'," Tamieke twiddles his fingers, tongue popped as he starts typing. "'Hey, wink emoji. You seemed rich. I am not. Please change that. Thank you.'"

"You didn't even say 'no'," Joule indicates, gesturing for his phone back.

"Oh, trust me. He'll get that as a 'no'," Jhett says reassuringly with a flapping-wrist motion. 

Emile claps his hands. "So, anyone. Did anything else happen last night? Tia?"

"I ran to our meetpoint and waited there only to go back and find  you being shoved into a police car. Need I say more?" she says in a bland tone, the bruises under her eyes saying otherwise.

That was Tia-Speak for something interesting did happen, but she doesn't want to talk about it.

To be honest, I kinda get why she's not so keen to share.

Witnessing your friends get thrown in jail, fretting over your best friend's life while she suddenly disappeared for the rest of the night, and wasting hours in jail trying to bail said friends out. 

Needless to say, Tia was tired as fuck.

I'll let that detail go. I can just grill her about it later.

"Sounds boring," Emile immediately decides.

Tia sends him a withering glare.

He gestures at me with the flip of his hair. "Ave?"

I blow a phantom lock of hair from my face as I recount snippets of my memories from last night. Where should I even start?

"Oh"— I swat my hand in the empty space in front of me —"nothing special really.  I only got kicked out of the club's back door and went here for some coffee. I ran into some Freddy Kruger*-wannabes who wanted to mug and rape me, but I kicked their asses. Ooh," I say, a note higher. "I also had sex with Ozz's new tenant."

"You got laid!" Emile and Jhett exclaim, fingers interlaced with each other, their collective euphoria echoing throughout the room. 

This sends a few curious heads to snap into our cozy little corner. Even Carlos, the day-time bartender, pauses from shaking his cocktail shaker.

"Of course, that's all you heard," I whisper bitingly, not entirely surprised that they would zero in on that particular phrase. "Because being almost sexually assaulted is a normal occurrence for women. Oh, how do we live in such dark times?"

Tamieke tuts. "You broke your dry streak! I told you countless times that a self-service* ain't gonna clear the cobwebs off your lady cave* so you bet your ass we're celebrating!"

"Aside from my thankful mortification of your unnecessary announcements regarding my sex life, shouldn't you be considering that the reason we're all suffering hangovers is because we were drinking in the first place?"

"Says the casual alcoholic," Tamieke murmurs to Joule.

Joule hums pensively, elbows bent on the table, his fingers crisscrossed underneath his chin. "Taking our past drunken jaunts into account, I find it highly unlikely that we would be easily susceptible to the meager amount of drinks we had, unless..."

Knowing where he was going with this, I finished for him. "A drug was slipped into our drinks."

Kiana gasps, pounding her fist on the table "Now that you said that, it does make sense."

Tamieke snaps his fingers. "That drink!"

We all nod, which means there was only one person responsible for this.

"What are you guys looking at me for?" Emile asks in a high-pitched squeal, clearly feeling attacked and guilty.

Silence looms in. I swear you can cut through the tension with a butter knife.

But, most importantly, this was the only thing we needed to invigorate us from what's left of the effects of our hangover — well, the anger (and, let's not forget Lola Clarita — wherever she may be!).

Tia leans over him, but it was the looming accusation within her eyes that crowds him in further. "You're the one who kept serving us drinks. You administered something in those drinks."

Emile's pale face flushes into a deep shade of red, his expression puckered in outrage.

"What kind of a question is that? Yes! And, I couldn't have done it without Tilda Swinton* here," he aims his thumb towards Jhett.

I slam my hand on the table. "What.Did.You.Put.Inside?" Say the wrong words, and I will kill you two, I silently promise with a glare.

Emile takes a deep breath, avoiding the hostile expression behind our eyes. "I may have put in some Absinthe. T-B-H, I don't get what that man was so hyped up about. It looked green and shiny, and it totally made Ave kill the dancefloor... with her comedic dancing, of course." 

I scowl at the unwanted reminder. This explains so much of my odd behavior last night!

While I was secretly finding different ways on how to murder them, the rest of the caucus was still in an uproar.

"You served us a green fairy?!" Kiana cries out, hurt and betrayal spurring her voice to an octave higher.

"Fool of a Took!* How much did you even put in?" Joule inquiries, abandoning his lax stance.

"A tablespoon-ish?" Emile replies, uncertainty crossing his expression.

We all glare at him in cold deadly silence.

"Fine, a shot!" He admits in a whiny voice.

"Really?" Tamieke squints an eye, his incisors exposed.

There was no way we would be that affected by just a single shot!

Jhett throws up his hands. "Double-shots!" He tosses me a cautious look, his ashen complexion dulling a bit more until his hair and freckles were the only signs of color on him. "Triple, if you drank from the Emerald Sunrise!"*

I groan. That explains things even more. Forget murder, my body is honed for homicide!

With just a simple stretch of my arm, I could reach over the table and choke the life out of them. Nobody would say anything. 

Tia would most likely lend a hand in dumping their corpses in the middle of the lake, based on the emotions swirling on her face.

Tia gasps, highly piqued. "You, tosh!* You could've ended them up mentally crippled, or worse."

"Lighten up, Tea," Jhett feigningly thumps her shoulder. "Don't be so dramatic. Our night didn't take that much turn for the worse"

I growl through my gritted teeth, rising from my seat. "Exactly, what could've been worse than starting a fight in a club and getting banned? I'm just relieved I fucked a stranger last night who happened to be Ozz's new tenant, and I left my favorite leather jacket with him!"

"You don't sound relieved," Jhett mumbles quietly.

"You have tons of those jackets," Emile dismisses so nonchalantly, I wanted to throw this butter knife in my hand and use him as target practice.

"It was the only one without blood and grease on it!" I shriek, standing over them.

Kiana nudges my arm, motioning me to sit down.

Nobody messes with my jackets. Nobody.

Tamieke grunts, massaging his temples. He obviously didn't want this issue to escalate any further. "You know what that means, right? You two are in for it now. The rest of the group will gather tomorrow and decide on a punishment."

Emile balks at the idea. "Big deal, so we got thrown into jail. Kiana and Joule just had their first slap on the wrists. Ave got some piece of ass last night. As far as we're all concerned, it's a win-win."

"Seriously?! Don't you understand the severity of your actions? I went into jail, this does not look good on my college applications," Joule stresses in borderline hysteria, his fists tugging at the short tufts of hair on his head. 

"Chill, Joule. Look on the bright side, at least now you won't be tagged as a boring nerd. Right, Ave?"

I nod in agreement. For one thing, he wasn't wrong there.

"Nothing says street cred and a holistic personality* than being in jail with a rap sheet." I nod.

Tia decides to interrupt our conversation, sliding her phone back into her pocket. "That was my dad. It seems the charges were dropped."

"Well, there goes to you for not being a nerd," Emile laments, raising his half-empty glass and shaking his head in disappointment.

Joule drops his shoulders, undeniably relieved. "Thank you. I think I have reached the level of insanity I can handle."

Jhett coughs drily. "You think this is crazy? We've done crazier shit than these while partially sober."

Joule touches his lips with a pensive look. "Point taken. I doubt anyone can ever forget these two"— he gestures towards Tamieke and Emile — "out-drinking three members from the swim team and raiding the Dunkin Donuts bar at Spencer's afterward."

Emile groans. "Can you not remind me, that memory traumatized me throughout junior year."

Tia clicks her tongue. "Nobody told you to lick the powdered sugar off every donut."

"I don't care about that. It's the two pounds I gained."

Tamieke splutters the remains of his 'special juice' in the air. "Bitch"— he briskly wipes his face with his sleeve —"a cop thought we snorted coke, and the only thing you remembered was your tiny weight gain?"

Emile flips his hair over his shoulder. "At least we didn't cause a certain sushi restaurant to lose its business because we liberated the entire menu."

Kiana slumps her shoulders, quietly fiddling with her straw.

Tia pats her back.

"And that was the day Sushi was born," Tamieke says in a BBC News* narrator voice. "They couldn't even point it back to her."

I sigh. "I had to admit those were good times." 

 Emile bobs his head repeatedly. "Exactly, for once we did something reckless because we were drunk. So, why be guilty now?"

Tia snorts. "Apparently you never heard of the words, 'accountability', nor the philosophical saying 'The end does not justify the means'."

Tamieke holds up one hand in surrender. "Clearly, nobody is at fault... except for Emile and Jhett who's clearly to blame. But for once, I just want to think they did something right in a very wrong way. Mostly, for these two hoes to shut up."

"Yes!" Emile and Jhett cry out, taking that as a get-out-of-jail-free card* from our punishment. 

Oh, if only they knew.

Just then, Sly comes back to our table with my steaming bowl of soup and a shot glass.

I stop him before he can disappear like the ninja that he is. "Hold up, Sly. I didn't order this."

His coppery face stretches into a wide grin. "Compliments from a gentleman."

I glance down at the glass, not really ready for another drink just yet when a glint of silver catches my eye.

Jhett gushes, hands thrown over his mouth. "Damn, bitch! Jewelry on the first move. You're on another level! Who knew your luck just needed a good screw."

He high-fives Emile who's straining to catch a glimpse of my 'bounty'.

I watch them with narrowed eyes as I tip the glass over and a charm bracelet drops into the palm of my hand. "What the fuck!"

I look up to Sly in question. "Who did you say sent this?"

"That? Well, let's see," Sly pretends to think about it for a moment, trying to build up some sort of anticipation. He gives up on that when he senses the look of downright impatience on my face.

"I think he just went on stage," he motions to the foremost interior of the restaurant where the stage is proudly displayed.

(To Be Cont.)

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And, the plot thickens!

Will we ever know who he finally is in the next chapter?

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*[F/N]*

Freddy Kruger— a character created by Wes Craven and is the main antagonist of the slasher film series A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Self-Service — a euphemism for "masturbation".

Lady Cave — (slang) means "vagina".

Tilda Swinton — a critically-acclaimed British actress. Emile particularly refers to the actress' captivating hairstyle known as the Tilda Swinton Fauxhawk.

Fool of a Took!— (LOTR reference) a phrase delivered by Gandalf,  expressing his exasperation that Pippin was acting against the reputation of a Took by being a trouble-maker.

Emerald Sunrise — a vibrant green cocktail that puts a spin on a Tequila Sunrise. Jhett refers to the same drink Ave had continually drunk in Episode 8.

Holistic Personality — Most selective colleges and universities in the United States have holistic admissions. Grades and test scores matter (often a lot), but the school wants to get to know the student applicant as a whole person.

BBC  News— (short for the British Broadcasting Corporation) a British organization that broadcasts programs on radio and television. One of their distinct qualities is the Posh accent being used by the narrators and news anchors.

Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card — a metaphorical way to refer to anything that will get someone out of an undesirable situation or allow them to avoid punishment.

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Copyright © 2017 Lei André