And Another Thing! (Adolescent Fiction)

4/3

       And, another thing…if I have to see another blonde-haired know-it-all before lunch, I’ll explode!

        Dory flipped the notebook shut sending strands of her black hair floating upward, which then settled over her black rimmed glasses. As usual, she was peering over them instead of through them. Her mom was always yelling at her at the most unexpected times about it. She would be calculating the number of minutes that had passed since her mom first brought that creep Carlos home, and out of nowhere a voice would boom as if out of the sky. “Dory! Your glasses are not for decoration; get them on your face where they belong!” Remembering this, she smirked, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, noting with satisfaction that there was only 43 minutes and 12 seconds until the bell rang.

            Time dragged along unwillingly much like the nails of her dog scraping futilely on the floor of the veterinarians office. Mr. Scott, her history teacher rambled on unintelligibly about something or other in 1912. When the bell finally rang it sent desks scraping, bags flying, and hormonal adolescents mobbing for the door.

            Dory stacked her text books neatly, placed them in her back, tucked her notebook under her arm, and joined the herd. “Excuse you Dora!” It was Dawnell, the girl going out the cutest boy in the school. Dory shifted her eyes to the floor. “Get outta my way!” Dawnell screeched. “Yeah, go write in your dorky notebook.” said another, and the two girls pushed past her. Dory waited until she couldn’t hear them talking anymore before she timidly untucked her notebook, flipped it open, and jotted. I hate her! Then she snapped it shut with satisfaction and moved toward the hallway.

                        4/3

       Dear Dawnell,
       You sickening, spoiled rotten snob. Nobody actually likes you, you know. They’re just pretending. Also, Jason is only going out with you because you made out with Hector, and he wants to see if he can getfarther with you. Everyone knows that. Plus, everyone knows that you read like a 3rd grader. I’d tutor you though…When hell freezes over.

Sincerely way smarter than you,
       Dory.

           
            Dory flipped through her notebook and smiled. She had less than 20 pages to go before she completed it. Inside was everything she had ever wanted to say to those snobs at school, and especially to Dawnell. Dawnell could think and say whatever she wanted but one day, when Dory had reached her limit, she would be prepared to tell her a thing or two.


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            “What the hell Dorine!” Dory cringed from her room at the sound of his voice. “All I asked was to watch the damn game! That’s all I asked!” She could hear her mom trying to soothe him, but it was no use. “You know what? Forget it!” Carlos screamed, followed by a door slamming. Dory felt her chest tighten and her face redden. Her mom was a coward.

            Even though she had everything in its proper order, her light off, three pillows on her bed, sheets and blankets tucked in and top sheet folded neatly over, sleep wouldn’t come. Something was bothering her, but she couldn’t pinpoint its origin. In her mind she saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table sorting bills with an oppressed look on her face. But something was shifting, changing somehow about her image. Her face began to morph into the image of her own. Dory opened her eyes with a start and shook the image from her mind. Tonight would be a long night.
 

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A High Priced Prostitue Suspects Her Best Customer is Falling in Love With Her

“Crap Cassie! Crap, Crap, Crap!”

“What!?”

“It happened again tonight!”

“What?”

Sandra pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and threw her hips to the right, waiting. “No!” Sandra nodded dramatically. “He looked at me with those…those eyes, the kind that try to get inside you.” she said, and then plopped down on the edge of the bed with a sigh. “He even asked about my childhood today and if I stay in contact with my folks!” Cassie sat up with renewed interest. “What’d you say?”

“I said he was being nosy and what was up with the interrogation? He said he was just curious and wanted to get to know me better. I just finished getting dressed and said I’d see him next time. “What am I going to do?” she said as she toppled over on the bed. “Well…” Cassie said with a smile, “Do you like him?”

“What do you mean!?” Sandra shot back, sitting up so fast, she nearly fell of the bed.

“Oh, please! You know you’ve thought about it!” The bed bounced up as Sandra stood up. “It doesn’t work like that, and you know it. This is awful and it screws up everything.”

Cassie rolled her eyes, Sandra was always melodramatic, and picky. She’d never forget the night that Sandra had agreed to take a new customer as a referral from a regular. She came home that night and talked for an hour about how disgusting he had been. She said he was hairy beyond belief and balding. “Somebody needs to shave that man’s back and glue it on his head!” She had said. Cassie had just laughed because she had seen this man before and he was all right. He looked better than half her clients and his hair was nothing more than a little thin but she had let her go on and on about the “horror” she had endured, and only smiled, the way she was smiling now. She sat back and wiggled in her pillows, she might as well be comfortable for this.

“He’s my best customer, and he’s loaded. That’s $500.00 per meeting, and you figure once a week, that’s $2000.00 a month, just from him. I mean, he’s changed my whole schedule, I could even afford to stop seeing Jess, and you know how weird that guy was. Remember how he insisted all the lights were off? What was he hiding anyway, a tumor? An “I love Mommy” tattoo? Anyway, I saw him three times last week…Three! That would be what…” she paused, looked up at the ceiling as though a giant calculator was affixed to it.

“$6000.00 a month.” Cassie chimed in.

“Yes,” Sandra noted as if she’d known all along, “$6000.00 a month! Just think of what I could do with that money! I don’t want to do this forever; it was supposed to be temporary. That money could really help me break away.”

            She looked over at Cassie who was still listening, and it was a damn good thing too, Sandra couldn’t stand partial listening. To her it was like partial sex. “Nobody wants to have sex as if the persons mind is on their taxes. They’re either in or out.” She had said in one too many lectures when she perceived no one was paying attention anymore.

“But now that he wants to see me so often and he looks at me with that…look, it’s all falling apart. He’s falling in love with me! Soon he’ll profess his undying love for me and then what am I going to do? When I tell him our relationship can only be professional he might go nuts, then he’ll definitely cut ties with me because it will be too painful for him to have my body without my heart.” Cassie rolled her eyes, she was being melodramatic again. “Then BOOM!” Sandra yelled making Cassie jump. “$6000.00 down the tube, just like that!”

            There was silence as Sandra waited for Cassie to respond. Cassie stared and a smile crept across her ace. “Maybe you’re approaching this from the wrong angle Sand.” Sandra just stared, she wasn’t catching on. “If you play your cards right there,” she continued and then paused for dramatic effect, “you could get the money and retire from the biz.” Sandra was intrigued. “Okay,” She said slowly, “What are you suggesting.”…

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