“Morning.” Ann walked into the kitchen in her pajamas, her short blond hair was in a mess and she was clearly half asleep. She sat down, crossed her arms over the table and put her head down.
“Good morning to you too,” Maria responded with a beaming smile on her face. She was in a good mood this morning, like every morning. She was an early bird, the fact that there was only one bathroom in their three-bedroom apartment, was also a motivation. She always woke up early to be the first one to use it. She stood from the table and poured Ann some coffee in her favorite mug.
“Where is Lee? She’s going to be late for school…and why are you always so damn cheerful?” Ann grunted back at her. Maria placed the mug in front of her and went back to her bowl of cereal.
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, again. She must be getting dressed.”
Ann’s headshot up, she had one of her evil grins on. “Actually, I had the best dream ever!”
Maria put her spoon down, leaned back in the chair and looked at Ann. She knew whatever was coming next would be very interesting.
Ann always had an over active imagination, but her dreams were way funnier, graphic and sadistic sometimes but funny. When someone got on her nerves, she would imagine all kinds of ways of revenge, and she would settle the score with the person in her dreams. She always woke up happier when she’d annihilated the person.
“Who did you kill now?”
“Steve…” Ann said with so much glee.
Steve was their roommate’s boyfriend and Ann hated him with a passion. He was certainly attractive, tall, wide shoulders, a toned body and a face to kill for, but he was repulsive when it came to everything else. He dropped out of high school, didn’t have a job, he was sloppy and ungrateful, he treated Lee like a mindless drone, rather than the woman he claimed to love, and worst of all, he believed he was God’s gift to women and acted like it.
Ann saw through his façade of a loving boyfriend. She saw him for who he was an opportunist. He claimed to love Lee but the only thing he loved about her was her money. The part that annoyed her most was that Lee was like his puppet, he pulled the strings.
Maria on the other hand, tried her best not to have any opinion of Steve. The only thing she did was to try and keep Steve and Ann as far away from each other as possible. She knew Lee was attached to him, and all she wanted was her friend to be happy. But they both stepped in to stop Lee when his demands were outrageous.
“Of course, who else would it be?” Maria had that heard-it-all-before voice, but that didn’t stop Ann. She looked even more excited. She stood up to dramatize her dream, almost knocking over her coffee.
“He was on set, on a beach. He was acting as this hot surfer—he wishes he could act, he wishes he was hot, but anyway, he was on his surfboard, waiting for this huge wave. When it got closer, he started paddling, and then he jumped on his board, with one of his stupid smiles pasted on his face, ready to ride the wave, all of a sudden…”
She paused, her eyes grew bigger and so did her smile. Maria waited, she was giggling, very amused by Ann’s efforts to add suspense to the story.
“Out of nowhere, a white shark came out of the wave and caught him between its teeth. He was screaming, crying for Lee to help him, ‘Lee, help me, help me!’” She poorly mimicked Steve’s hoarse voice as she threw her hands around. She tried to crease her face to look scared but her smile was stubbornly stuck on her face.
Maria almost fell off her chair. She had her arms around her stomach, laughing hard.
“And this is the best part, Lee stood at the shore waving at him with a big smile on her face, ‘bye Steve! I hope that shark doesn’t bring him back’ then the director turned to her and said ‘I wish it would, we need another shot.’” Ann was waving out the window, acting the part of Lee in her dream.
Maria was in stitches, she was laughing so hard tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks.
“What’s so funny?” Steve walked into the kitchen, shirtless. His presence irritated Ann; she wasn’t smiling anymore. Maria stopped laughing. She had her hand over her mouth, hiding her wide smile.
“If only…” with that Ann sunk into her chair, back to her former mood.
Maria bust out laughing again, she stood up and ran to her room to get dressed. She also didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire, she was in too good of a mood to have it destroyed by their fights. Ann and Steve couldn’t last five seconds in a room before they were at each other’s throats.
“So are you going to tell me what the joke is about?”
“You! Did your clothes run away from you? There is a garbage bag in the top drawer, I know for a fact that will stay faithful to you.”
“What, is my chest turning you on?” the corner of his mouth rose in half a smile, ignoring her last statement.
Ann covered her mouth with her hand and made a gagging sound. “I just puked in my mouth.”
Steve was pleased to have irritated her. He reached over the table to grab the box of cereal. Ann jumped for it first and placed it on the floor beside her.
“Hey what’s your problem?”
“You,” she gave him a cut look then sipped at her coffee. “There is a new rule. You are only allowed to eat food that you’ve paid for. Did you pay for this?” She picked up the box and shook it in his face.He stayed quiet but he was fuming. He gave her a look that screamed murder. Ann didn’t flinch. She placed the box back on the floor and went back to her coffee, “Didn’t think so.”“Ann…” he called out her name between clenched teeth.“You didn’t pay for my name either, so don’t say it.” She stayed cool, ready to challenge his comeback.Before Steve could speak, Lee rushed into the room. She was in a hurry to get to her therapist’s office before she headed to school. She could feel the tension in the room; it was all too familiar to her. She looked at Ann’s cool face then at Steve’s heated face, he was glaring at Ann. So far Ann was winning this fight.“I don’t want to know what you are fighting about. I’m going to miss my appointment if I don’t leave now. And I don’t have the time,
Merilee met Maria and Ann at the last group home she was placed in. She was ten then and had been in four different group homes already. She was a loner, never bothered to make friends because she wasn’t sure how long she would stay. Ann and Maria were best friends then, complete opposites of each other.Ann was a sarcastic, cynical, twelve year old. Her druggie mother abandoned her when she was six. She never depended on anyone, got what she wanted through her own efforts. She never cried because she knew it would never solve anything. She was cold and straightforward, if she didn’t like you she made sure you knew it. Her attitude had made it difficult for adoption, but she didn’t care. She had survived in the worst of situations and had learned to be independent. She wasn’t into making friends, but Maria had tugged at her heart.Maria was eleven when she came to Ann’s group home. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was nine. For a whole year, her relatives had passed her ar
Lee pulled the little green golf into the Edgeview high school parking lot. She was lucky to have found a parking space right next to the science building. Her therapy had run a little late and she was now five minutes late for biology, again. Miss Don wouldn’t be too patient with her this time. It was her third strike, and that meant detention or massive mountains of homework because calling her legal guardian, Ann, had proved useless in the past. She rebelled against authority worse than Lee did.On therapy free days, it took her close to five minutes to get to school, but when she did go to therapy it took her half an hour.She ran down the brightly-lit corridor full of student lockers and the red Eagle’s football team banners hung everywhere. She stopped at the glass door and straightened out her ruffled hair. She held her backpack in front of her to cover the large brown coffee stain on the hip of her blue jeans. She had driven to school in a frenzy and spilled the entire cup on
Ann, Maria, and Lee walked into the deli at four for their shift. They had Lee’s inheritance, but they only used it to pay for their tuition, so they went to school in the morning and worked in the afternoon and nights to pay for other expenses, something they had already grown accustomed to.Maria and Ann were in their second year of varsity in Strayer. Lee was glad she was going to graduate soon, she wanted to be with them, feel and look grown up like they did.Steve however, never understood why they insisted on working. He had tried on several occasions to make Lee withdraw a large amount of money and splurge it on a weekend in Vegas. She never budged, Ann and Maria also made sure of it.Trying to explain to him how important it was to save as much as they could was like trying to teach a cow how to milk itself.“I am so exhausted!” Lee whined, as she put her apron on.“We are all tired,” Ann said as Lee walked past her and picked up a tray. Maria was already clearing the tables,
Before Ann could say anything, Maria who was now standing next to Lee spoke in a low angry voice.“First of all, shut up! I’m getting sick and tired of your stupid constant tantrums. We are in public. Did dogs raise you? Have some manners. Second of all, if Lee wasn’t…in like with you, I would have helped Ann throw you out a very long time ago. All you do is reap from our hard work, Lee’s father’s hard work. You are just a leech! For once, be a man and get a bloody job!”All three of them stared at her, shocked. This was a first. Maria had always been very patient even with the most infuriating people. Ann was starting to rub off on her.“Yeah! That goes a hundred times for me. Good job, Maria!” Ann was punching her fist in the air, excited by the new victory. Maria was inches away from the end of her martyrdom.She turned to Lee, her face apologetic, completely ignoring Ann and her cheers. “I’m sorry, but my patience has run out.” She turned and left to serve a couple that had walked
It had been close to a month since Steve left. Lee’s room seemed bigger, with just her things in it. She hated to admit it, but she missed him. She laughed at herself. It was pathetically unbelievable.There finally were quiet mornings, the water and electric bills were lower, and all she could think of was his absence. She was sulking, she didn’t mean to but she couldn’t help it.It was a beautiful Saturday, the middle of spring, hot, sunny and green. She tried working out the frustration at the boxing ring, when that didn’t help, she tried the shooting range.“Imagine those cardboards are Steve. Aim low, you’ll feel much better.” Ann shot three times in the middle of the cardboard man’s legs, and then put two in his head and one in his heart. Maria giggled as she copied Ann’s targets. Lee on the other hand missed all her shots.“Come on Lee, you are a better shot than that! You’ve had a gun in your hand every Saturday since we left the orphanage. You couldn’t willingly miss if you h
“Where does he go all day and all night? He only comes back for close to two hours a day before he disappears again. And he sleeps once a week, on Sunday!” Joe sounded concerned and anxious.Ash and Billy were with him in the AA room. They had moved out of New York to Orlando Florida, in a secluded area. Their house was surrounded by trees and wildlife and was miles away from the next house and civilization.Ash thought the move was best for their new member, to be away from the memories and the people who knew him. He was supposed to be dead. That and the fact he now wanted to stay in Florida, after putting up a spirited fight for over five years. He never understood the change but he didn’t question his decision. It was one less thing to fight about.They had been at the Big Cyprus reserve close to ten years and had grown to like the place. Billy was against the move at first, but the place grew on him especially since Ash let them fix an AA room—Alcohol and Amusement room. The room
Billy what are you doing! Ash demanded when he stood up.We are going to join them.Joe and Billy were on the move. Ash was reluctant; he wanted to stay put. He was in no mood to hit on anyone, even if she was wearing nothing but whipped cream.Ash, come on!No!Don’t be rude. You have an opportunity to be with someone other than Sabrina, now come on!No! Fine, we’ll send her over.Ash growled under his breath. He hated having women forced on him. Billy and Joe were already at their table chatting up the blond and the brunette. He moved quickly and reached their table and stood next to the girl they had met at the bar.“….and this is Ash. Ash, this is Ann, that’s Maria and you remember her, she’s Lee.” Billy introduced them with a cocky smile on his face.Ash felt awkward and out of place. With a formal tone