The Daughter of Charles (Char-) and Nancy (nai)
A girl with long, slender legs (her thighs are probably about as long as her arms) with a tan, dusky complexion and blonde, piecey hair that touches just at her sharp V of a jaw line, pushes her way out of the bottom floor of a sublet two-story house. There’s a light that’s left on upstairs, and Corey, her boyfriend, explains that the upstairs neighbor conveniently works third shift. She and Corey share the bottom floor.
She’s got a Smirnoff Ice in hand, and looks wild-eyed, or rather as wild as almond shaped eyes tinted underneath with sleepy bruising can look. She twists a smile from her thin lips. If anyone can flash a grin from ear to ear, it’s her.
“Who wants to do a shot of tequila with me?!”
This is Charnai.
She immediately becomes persistent and grabs at my hand like a little girl dragging her favorite stuffed teddy bear to an imaginary tea party. After looking for a minute for something more appropriate to put the tequila in, she settles on two mugs, one green and one orange, and begins pouring the Cuervo Gold.
“Is that good?”
The serving is generous, and more than a couple of shots worth, but she slams it back like it’s a single, not seeming to care. I sip cautiously, pop the top off of another Corona, and head to the bathroom.
I sit down on the padded seat and see directly across from me a metal grated cart with Plexiglas shelves littered with a plastic display of eyelash extensions and a Cottonelle wet wipes container, recycled as a case for her various hair extensions, most blonde, but a few brunette pieces mixed in. A curling iron, straightening iron, blow dryer, and hair dresser’s comb with its sharp end for easy parting mingled with each other, strewn about with cords intertwined and dangling to rest on one of the three levels of the cart. It made sense when a week later I was invited to her graduation from tech school, where she was studying cosmetology.
I flush and head back to the group of people outside and notice that she’s hopping from one lap to the next, then finding others to dance with to the bass-cranked stereo that is kept on in the background, and finally she gets to me and throws herself down clumsily onto my lap, puts her arms about my neck and begins to tell me how much she likes me, despite this being our first meeting. She was camera ready and with camera in hand. Playfully, we joke around about kissing--and we do. She snaps a couple of pictures, and in one pose, she pulls my lip so far from my face that it later looked like she was pulling skin taffy. After a minute or two, she grabs at my hand again and begins to tug me into the house with her.
“Erin, Come with me.”
The others around and myself are confused, shooting glances and question marks at each other, not knowing what this girl intends by pulling me in to some place private. My questions are dropped as she persists and then drags me to the bathroom and locks the door. We both have to pee, so she takes to the toilet first and unabashedly. I figured I’d just hover, one pant leg off, over the shower drain. I sit down on the edge of the tub as she pushes her coral camisole and jean covered body against the door.
“So how are you and Tyler doing?”
She asks, concerned. I voice my insecurities about the relationship, but was more interested in hearing her talk about Corey, who’s not only her boyfriend, but also Tyler’s best friend . The insecurities about her relationship with him were triggered by my own discontent.
“He’s so arrogant, you know?” she says.
Apparently she’d been with him since she was fourteen, a good three to four years by now, and his welcome had been worn out with her, as much as I’d observed that she’d worn her welcome out just the same with him.
She asks about my trucker tattoo, a memorial piece I’d gotten because of his passing, and from there we’re off on to the topic of dead fathers. Her father had committed suicide when she was young.
“Everyone kept it from me. They lied.”
She spoke with a still-hurt, repressed angry passion, citing the lie as one of the reasons why she’d wanted to get away from her family so quickly when she had become a young adult.
Suddenly, as the conversation slows, she unlocks the bathroom door and leans out of it, peering around to ensure no one else could see. She stretches herself into the room adjacent and pulls out a pack of Light 100 cigarettes.
“Can I get a light?”
I hand her my matches. She hands them back and I strike one for my own cigarette. Sometimes there’s nothing like the bond between smokers.
“Corey doesn’t know I smoke.”
She lights another immediately after she finishes the previous, and not long after a knock comes at the door.
“What?!” she yells.
“Are you smoking?” We hadn’t realized that the window was open, and now Corey’s come to the door.
She frantically throws the butt in the toilet and flushes, then cautiously opens the door.
“Nah, Corey, it’s just me.” I interjected, trying to keep her out of trouble.
“You know, Charnai, I’m not stupid. I just wish you wouldn’t lie to me.” and with that, he walks away and back outside. She closes and locks the door again. She sits for a minute and sighs out of frustration. She began to talk about how hard it is to be herself around him, about having to hide certain habits to keep him from being upset with her. Immediately I remember what Tyler had told me a few days ago.
“Corey caught her throwing up again.” Caught her, as if she were stealing or seeing someone else, as if it was a habit she could help instead of a disorder.
“I’ve got to pee!” a voice calls not soon after from the other side. It’s Danny, our curly blonde, dirty-headed and wide-eyed mutual friend. He’s gone from zero to smashed in what little time she and I have been in the bathroom.
“Can you wait a minute, Danny?”
He persisted for a minute longer, and then we heard nothing else. Charnai opened the door from where she was sitting on the floor in front of it to find Danny laying face down in the adjacent doorway.
“Give me my razor.” she whispers.
“What?”
“Give me my razor.” Her grin spreads smoothly from side to side as I hand her the razor I found in the tub. She begins to swipe a patch from his leg as Corey comes back inside and toward the bathroom.
“Aw, Char. Don’t do that!”
She throws the razor back in the tub as she and Corey try to pick Danny’s dead drunk weight up off of the floor.
“C’mon Danny! You can go pee now! C’mon! He said he had to pee.”
Charnai, with a sprightly bounce, heads back outside as Corey puts Danny down for the night. Not soon after, she was missing. It was noticeably quiet.
“Where’s Charnai?” I ask.
“Oh, she’s out for the night.” Corey tells me. The tequila had forced her into bed.
The next day when I went back, I was accosted by their two cats, both with a random stripe of hair missing. I petted them and headed inside where I saw clumps of cat hair on the living room rug and an electric shaver.
“Isn’t that awful?” Corey said. “ I told her she’d better not touch my cat again.”
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