“Yes, and I’m guessing the nosy man flirting with poor Shelly was Gage. He was probably trying to extract as much dirt on me as he can. He’s representing a company in suing mine.”
“Ahhh…I know, I heard. I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t get the feeling the man was Gage, though. If you’ve seen that handsome boy it’s hard to forget him, especially all those tattoos.”
Nodding, in agreement, I mutter. “I guess you’re right. I know he’s from around here, but I’ve not met him before now. I know it’s not a huge town, and I can’t know everybody. But, you’re right he’s hard to forget.”
Chatting a few more minutes about Roni and this mystery man, I hug Barbie again and head out. I want to get home and raid Roni’s closet tonight before we go out to the Devil’s Den tomorrow. She needs a presentable outfit to wear, especially if this is her and Bob’s coming out party; coming out of the bedroom that is.
“Seriously? Veronica Ann Phoenix, you have the worst and most disgusting closet I’ve ever fucking seen!” I’m past my breaking point. I don’t know how this crazy woman finds anything in her apartment. It looks like an entire horde of gremlins got lose in here and trashed the place. No woman should live like this.
Standing in her bedroom, it doesn’t smell like anything but sex and ashtrays. It’s vile. Now…don’t get me wrong, I understand that Bob smokes. I really do. But smoking in here after sex is totally cliché, not to mention stinky and just plain gross. I can’t see a stitch of her carpet. Which, if I remember correctly, is a beige of some sort. It’s covered in piles of clothes, pop bottles and blankets. Her bed isn’t even close to being made. The pillows aren’t even on it. And one of the blinds is hanging half off its track.
I can’t believe this woman is my best friend. I have no idea how I’m going to find a single clean thing in this place that would be acceptable for her to wear.
Sitting on the edge of her queen sized bed, she grunts. “Yeah…I know it’s pretty bad, huh?”
Pretty bad? She thinks this is pretty bad? I saw a pizza box sitting on her coffee table growing some serious green hairy mold when I walked into her living room. That is not pretty anything. It’s a rank biohazard, and it’s disgusting. I will need to perform a complete decontamination process on myself when I head back down stairs, into my nice, clean and most importantly, pleasant smelling home.
Correct me if I’m wrong. Say you walk into a place, it’s a pigsty, but it smells half way decent. It doesn’t seem as bad, does it? Then picture yourself walking into a place just as dirty but smelled like rotted garbage, musky come, and cigarettes. Then…how would you feel? Probably how I do, because that’s what the rest of her place smells like. N.A.S.T.Y.
Stepping on a mountain of something, I’m not sure what it is. It looks like clothes, but I’m not lifting the pile to find out what might be underneath. Rats are probably nesting in here.
“It’s not pretty bad. It’s real bad. We both have a lot of money and you need to use it to have a biohazard cleanup team to come in and decontaminate your living quarters.” I state is as evenly and calmly as I can. And I mean every single damned word.
“I know.” She slumps and I bend down to pick up what resembles a black something, off the floor of her bare closet. There isn’t a single thing hanging in here, and the floor of it has another mountain of what I assume are clean clothes piling up. Or I pray it’s that, because I don’t want some blood crazed clothes monster to manifest and attack me. The organisms living in this place could probably sustain an entire ecosystem. A clothes monster doesn’t seem so far out of reach.
Raising the black something into the air, I shake it hard; pinching it between two fingers to unwrinkle the ball it’s cemented in.
Ah…it’s a shirt. Holding it out, I examine it. It’s not a shirt I think I’ve ever seen Roni wear. It’s a V-neck cotton tank with a cute flaming red heart in the center. This will have to do. I don’t have the stomach to look much longer.
Showing it to her, she shrugs. “Yes?” I press further.
“It’s fine. I don’t care.”
Alright, something’s up.
Climbing through her gross clothes in my heels, pencil skirt and silk white pheasant top, I get close enough to her bed that I rest a hand on her shoulder.
“What’s up, Sassy Britches?”
“I don’t want to go.”
Okay, now she’s moping. I’d mope too if I lived in a place like this, but I know that’s not what she’s referring too. Dating and Roni don’t exactly mix, just as me and dating don’t. Except our reasons aren’t the same, per say. Mine is mainly a physical one with emotional baggage. Hers is a tomboy one. In her mind and the way she acts, she’s not so much of a girl as she is a guy. She fits in with men, she likes manly things, she dresses like a dude, has the sex drive of a dude. Although she doesn’t have a gender identity problem, she’s okay with being a woman and having a vagina and a set of nice knockers. We’ve talked about this many times. Just as most men suck at dating. She sucks at it just as much, if not worse. I think it’s fear that gets its big ugly nose in the way. Fear that whomever she’s with will expect her to be something she’s not. She could never and would never be like me. I’m girly and female to my very core. She’s not. That’s one of the things I love most about her.