Where the Staircase Ends(25)

We were standing in the kitchen waiting for Jenny Schlitz and Amber Grossman to arrive, passing the time with a game of Blind Man’s Bar. Jenny was perpetually late. She was the only person who could rival Sunny when it came to tardiness, but Sunny’s lateness was considered fashionable. With Jenny it was annoying.

Miss Violet Beauregard was in her usual state of panic at my presence, circling protectively around Sunny’s feet as she snarled in my direction. Her ears were large and bat-like, surrounded by tufts of matted yellow hair. The rest of her tiny body was splotched with bald patches, as if someone attempted to give her a haircut but the hyperactive dog couldn’t sit still long enough to let them finish the job. When she growled at me (which was pretty much any time she saw me), she exposed a row of ragged, half-missing teeth, and her tongue lolled out the side of her snout, making her look like a half-crazed jack-o-lantern.

“That dog is going to give itself a heart attack,” I said, eyeing the hideous creature as it bounced around Sunny on its hind legs.

“She’s just excited. Aren’t you excited Miss Violet Beauregard? Aren’t you? Yes, you are. You are excited, my sweet girl. Such a sweet girl.” Sunny cooed at her as she bent down to pet one of the dog’s oversized ears. It looked back at me with its bulging eyes, one of them veering off to the left slightly so I couldn’t tell for sure if it was looking at the wall or giving me the stink eye.

“Are you ready to play, or what?” I asked, nodding at the sweating glasses waiting for us on the counter.

The rules to Blind Man’s Bar were simple: each person got thirty seconds in the liquor cabinet to create a mystery concoction for their competition. The first person to puke was the loser.

“Drink up, bitch,” said Sunny, clinking her glass against mine with enough force to crack it. I held my nose while I chugged, thinking if I couldn’t smell the drink I stood a better chance of keeping it down. I still almost yakked the mixture back up twice.

Sunny slammed her empty tumbler down and made a gagging noise. “That was disgusting! Are you trying to kill me?”

I made a face and set my glass down next to hers, some of the mystery drink still sitting in the bottom. There was no way I could finish it all.

“Please, you’re the one trying to kill me,” I said between chaser sips of orange juice. “That was your worst one yet!” I tried not to laugh because I could barely hold on to my stomach. Laughing too hard would most definitely make me puke.

“Yeah, you don’t look so good,” she said, making a sympathetic face as she bent down to pat one of Miss Violet Beauregard’s bald patches. “Do you want to know what was in your drink?”

I shook my head. Ignorance was always best when playing Blind Man’s Bar. At least it was in my case; I didn’t have the stomach for it.

“Do you want to know what was in yours?” I leaned over the sink a little because I still wasn’t sure I was in the clear from barfing. I puked about half the time we played. Sunny, on the other hand, never seemed phased by my concoctions. The only time I ever made her yak was when I mixed pickle juice and bourbon together. Man, I got her good that time. She had to take a shower, re-do her makeup and everything.

Sunny sniffed her empty glass and made a thoughtful face while pretending to slosh something around in her mouth. “Was it tequila and Crème de Menthe?”

I nodded. “How do you do that? It’s disturbing.” I wrinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at her.

“I have the nose of a fine wine connoisseur,” she said in haughty voice, sticking her chin in the air and her chest out with pride. We both laughed at the truth of the declaration. Nine times out of ten she could identify my mystery mixes by smell alone.

“So how did Logan take it when you told him you were meeting him at The Fields instead of riding with him?”

I shrugged, trying to feign indifference, but the truth was he’d been pissed as all get out. He always got annoyed when I made weekend plans with Sunny instead of him, but this time he practically jumped through the phone when I told him. If he wasn’t being such a douche, I might have agreed to go with him instead, but I didn’t want to reward his childish behavior, so I held my ground and said I’d meet him there.

Sunny pulled the vodka out of the pantry and passed it to me so I could make us each a screwdriver. No doubt someone would bring a keg to The Fields, but we always pre-gamed in case. Plus, we never knew what kind of crappy beer we would get.

The doorbell let out a loud gong, sending Miss Violet Beauregard into another panicked fit as Sunny ran to let Jenny and Amber in. I added two more glasses to my line-up on the counter and filled them each with a fifty-fifty mix of juice and vodka.

“Howdy, bitch!” yelled Jenny, waving her cast in the air as she joined me in the kitchen. I noticed it was bare that night—no scarves or jewels decorating the surface, just the blue hospital-grade sling and the white bandaged surface of the cast. Amber followed closely behind in a cloud of perfume, swinging her hips and raising her arms in the air like music was blasting.

Jenny sidled up next to me, backing away from the half-crazed dog that snarled and yipped at her from the protection of Sunny’s arms.

“I think that dog might be retarded,” she attempted to whisper to me, but in usual Jenny form her “whisper” was audible from a mile away. Sunny scowled at us and kissed the writhing creature on the head.