Page 90 of Clint & Ivy
Standing next to Elle, I focused on the kitchen design choices. The lower cabinets were a pale blue while the upper ones were a light pink. The backsplash was a pastel glass mosaic. Bottles of various alcohol sat out on the counters along with serving dishes full of snack items.
“Drink this,” Elle said, handing me a shot glass with “Key West” printed on the side. “A little liquid courage. The flavor is mellow, and the booze doesn’t have a hard kick. It shouldn’t send you howling at the moon or drooling on the floor.”
“The one time I got drunk before, I puked all over the place,” I warned her.
Elle slid my hair from my shoulders and smiled. “That was when you got your tattoo, right? Well, I puked after my first tat, too. Let’s not blame the booze when it was probably your body’s reaction to pain.”
I sipped the drink. With so much fruity flavor, I barely tasted the alcohol. But within twenty minutes, I sure felt it.
“You’re so beautiful,” I told the green-haired woman later while crawling across the couch toward her. “Which one are you again?”
Laughing, she explained, “I’m the cool one. Stevie is the basic one. Which color is more basic?”
“Pink?” I said and looked at her sister.
“Exactly. When you see pink, think basic bitch.”
Stevie crawled over Elle to reach us. “I’m the good one. The reliable friend. The reasonable sister. She’s just a big bag of calamity.”
Cher insisted, “I’m the calm one.”
“No, it’s ridiculous how crazy you make people.”
I patted their faces and immediately forgot which one was which. “You look like twins.”
Pink-hair said, “We were born eight months apart.”
“Our mother couldn’t handle her birth control,” Green-hair added.
Pink-hair snickered. “Or she was super horny.”
“We looked so much alike as kids that people call us twins, but we’re not. Thank God, too. I don’t want Cher’s flat ass.”
“And I’m fine not having Stevie’s saggy tits.”
“You’re funny,” I mumbled and fell back on the couch.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Sabrina said from the family room entrance. “After less than an hour, you troublemakers have already gotten the Keebler elf liquored up.”
“Yeah, it’s terrible,” Goldie said, walking past them and joining me on the couch. “Why are you dressed like that, Farmer Sabrina?”
I looked at Sabrina, Moe, and Xandy dressed in matching overalls with no shirts, socks, or shoes. They looked like Uncle Dwight on our journey to nowhere. I remembered how I thought he looked so silly then. I felt the same way now with the three women.
Normally, I’d keep my feelings bottled up so as not to upset anyone. But something cracked inside me when I squealed at Clint the other day. Between my new confidence and the booze removing my filter, I pointed and laughed hysterically at the women’s farmer getup.
My laughter set off the not-twins and Goldie. Elle began playing a banjo song on her phone while Sabrina scowled hard at me.
I should have been scared. The skittish voice in my head warned I was making an enemy. I dismissed such talk. These women razzed each other all the time. My crazy laughing was nothing personal.
“Don’t pout, princess,” Goldie told Sabrina. “Your relaxed-lesbian look was bound to spawn giggles. Has your brother seen the three of you?”
Moe and Xandy glanced at each other and ran out of the room.
Sabrina grunted. “You’re teaching them to submit to a man’s will.”
“No, I’m teaching them to defyyourwill,” Goldie replied while I rested my head on the back of the couch and tried to stop laughing. “It’s different.”
As Elle and Sabrina barked insults at each other, I spread out on the couch and tried to stop spinning. Goldie crawled over me and stared down at my face.
