Rescued By A Kiss (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 1) (11 page)

I tried to tell her I knew them. “Ma, you see, I,” my answer cut short by the station wagon lunging forward causing my head to whiplash.

She stomped the gas pedal and took off at the green light, and Rick followed by moving into the lane behind us. At this point she started yelling at an even higher pitch. “See what you have gotten us into? Just shut up.”

Since this was not the first, or the most unusual behavior my friends witnessed my mother doing, I knew better than to try and explain. They kept quiet hoping to arrive home alive. Despite several attempts I made trying to explain that I knew these boys, she continued to scream, “Just Shut Up! You and your boy-crazy self are going to get us all killed! You have us in enough trouble already!”

Did I hear right? She thought these guys were dangerous? She would soon realize that, not only was I boy crazy, but I fraternized with the two sociopaths at the party.

My friend, Suzanne looked at me with the “you know it is no use” eye roll. She has been my friend since second grade and knows the caffeine highs my mother can ride.

I tried to calm her before she pitched a full blown conniption fit. She screamed back at me cutting me off, “Don’t Mom me, just shut up! Look at the mess you got us in.”

My mother had it on some greater authority that Rick’s family car was the vehicle of choice for the suburban hoodlum. I got a glimpse of the speedometer and she was doing 100 m.p.h. She began running red lights.

“I think I can lose these two.” She said checking in the rear view mirror as she increased the distance between us, only because Rick respected traffic lights waiting for them to turn green. There were no other cars out, only us in the station wagon and the boys in the Woody. It was unbelievable, but Rick and his friend Eddie kept up with us. She got angrier by the minute making her drive faster and more reckless.

Riding shotgun, was my sister. Sherry wore her Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ nightgown. She is two years younger than I, and an emotional diva. She could have been the eighth dwarf, Whiney. By age five she could increase the saga and drama when the order of events did not suit her by turning on the waterworks. Sherry had crying down to an art form and could dispense a flood of tears at a moment’s notice. She wanted to go to the party. My parents allowed me to go and said she had to wait another year. Once the car chase started she saw her opportunity to add to my misery.

The boys were still close when my mother decided to peel off into Suzanne’s quiet little neighborhood at eleven-fifteen 
P.M.
without slowing down. We were moving at warp speed through the sleepy streets of suburbia late at night going 80 m.p.h. My Mother got a lead on them and turned into someone’s driveway, threw the automatic into
PARK
, killed the engine, the lights and commanded all of us to HIT THE FLOOR!

Even though we all were down on the floor, hidden from view, it felt as though the station wagon glowed in the dark. It didn’t help that she parked right under a street light.

There we sat, on the floor of our car, Mother, Sherry, Terrie, Suzanne, Danielle and me, parked in a stranger’s driveway. Sherry had escalated whining to crying out loud. Suzanne, Terrie, Danielle and I sat on the floor in the back seat. I could see the three of them looking at me by the light from the streetlamp. They weren’t afraid, just resolved to the lunacy of my mother.

No one made a sound except for Sherry’s sobs.

After what felt like an eternity but in reality was about two to five minutes on my mother’s impatient clock, she gave the all clear. She thought it was safe to venture back on the road and take my friends home thinking she lost the boys. My mother backed out the driveway slowly. It is a wonder the people who lived there didn’t call the police on us. At the four way stop at the corner, there they parked. Rick and Eddie sat waiting at the intersection. When they saw our car, they rolled across in front of us, waved and turned in another direction. My Mother froze as if now they had us cornered. I did not wave back. I gave an inconspicuous head nod by way of acknowledgement. If my mother saw it I could explain it as a nervous twitch. The only one, besides my mother, who was terrified during the ordeal was Sherry. Sherry’s sobbing, along with my mother’s tirade, woke up my father when we arrived home.

My dad. He was so glad to hear my mother had not wrecked the car that he dismissed all of it until morning. He ran us all off to bed. Dad was the calm in the storm, although his sense of humor was a little thin that late at night.

That was almost thirteen years ago, and Rick called me, but my mother hung up on him.

I sat wondering if I was missing the station wagon or relieved it was finally gone.

I snapped back when Julia pulled into the drive-thru Daiquiri Shoppe. That’s the second time tonight I was lost in a bubble. The drive-thru remained open 24/7. “This should help calm our nerves. The usual?” she asked me.

“Yes, make it an extra large rum with three limes.” I said absentmindedly.

Kent and his two brothers, Kink and Kal, from the neighborhood owned and ran this Daiquiri Shoppe. These were some of the boys from the neighborhood who used to chase Suzanne and I around shooting us with rubber-band guns.

Kink stood at the window and took our order after exchanging pleasantries. Once he went to make our drinks, to go of course, Julia asked me, “Who names their kid, Kink? Is it short for something? Is it a nickname? That goes for Kal. What do you think?”

“I think it’s late. If you have an inquiring mind, you should ask them. However, it might come across as insulting. Just go with it, please, for now, or he might decide to spit in your daiquiri and I’ll get spit in mine by mistake.” After Kink made our daiquiris, Kent brought them to us, in extra large, lidded go cups, handing us the straws. He asked me how my parents were as he rang us up.

Julia answered, “Her mother is the same.” Kent smiled and gave us half off our bill by way of the neighborhood discount. Maybe he still felt bad over the rubber-band guns or because he liked looking right down Julia’s blouse. I thanked him. As we drove away from the drive-thru window Julia said, “I am glad I didn’t ask him about the name thing. We might not have gotten the discount. So, what is it? Does every guy in your neighborhood have the hots for you?”

“No. It just helps that I grew up in a neighborhood where the boys outnumbered the girls about ten to one. At the time, they thought those were great odds. Time had a way of letting them learn how that worked out in our favor.”

W
e left Stan’s
after we got our things and agreed to meet later that morning at his office to see about finding the station wagon. Then he drove us to my house. It was five-thirty 
A.M.
and the only sleep I had all night was the power nap at Club Bare Minimum. Stan told me he would start working on finding my mother’s station wagon when he got to his office. Julia and I made coffee while we sat and waited to deliver the bad news to my mother about how her beloved station wagon was stolen. Dante had my car back in the driveway just like he promised, parked right in front of his patrol car. He had me blocked in.

While we waited to face my mother about the station wagon, Woozie, our housekeeper, arrived at her usual time to start work. She was surprised to see us.

“You’re up early,” Woozie said to me by way of a good morning.

“No, not up early, out late. We just got in.” Julia answered a little too smart-alecky for Woozie’s taste.

“What are y’all up to?” Woozie started the interrogation looking at me.

“What are you doing here so early?” asked Julia by way of trying to avoid answering.

“Brandy knows why I gets here early. My son, Silas, brings me when he gets off his job. Not that I answer to you, Missy.” Woozie was our housekeeper who had been with our family since my Grandmother gave birth to my mother. She started working at fifteen and was now close to sixty. She took in foster kids and was great with them. Nothing gets by Woozie.

Julia continued as if Woozie wasn’t present. “Why do you feel you have to wait to tell Mommy the bad news in person about the car being stolen? I think you should just leave a note and call with good news once it’s found.” Every blue moon Julia has a good idea. Avoiding Dante and my mother was a double header, a two for one. I decided to leave a note.

When I finished I read it aloud for Julia and Woozie’s benefit.
Mom, please use my car until I locate yours. I think someone stole it while we were at Charity Hospital. I’m out trying to find it. Love, Brandy

“You got your momma’s car stolen?” Woozie was looking at me with her head tilted so I could only see one eye. She looked like a parakeet when she did this.

“I’m hoping she will be more concerned about me being at Charity than her car missing.”

“What was you doin’ at Charity? You white people don’t needs to go there unless you go and get yourself shot. If you not shot going in, you sure might get shot coming out.” Woozie had turned her head and was giving me the other parakeet eye.

“We didn’t get shot.” I said to the bird lady.

“Your momma is gonna pitch a conniption fit, even if her car has done had it. That car is as old as dirt. Don’t tell her I said that,” Woozie said in “who dat” speak.

Woozie’s secrets were always safe with me, just as mine were safe with her. She was there when I came home from the hospital and has always said to me that I was her favorite white child. I guess that makes her my favorite black mother. Woozie and I were careful not to offer that info to my mother or sister.

“You better walk and feed them dogs you brought home.” Woozie was always moving while she talked, either washing, dusting, straightening, or picking up stuff. She was steady, not fast, not slow. She could get more done in a day than I could in a week. She set up the ironing board and started filling the steam iron with water from a go cup. She squeezed the rim to make a spout so the water didn’t spill all over.

“That last one you brought here, has done jumped up on the back of that sofa, in that living room,” she nodded her head toward the front of the house, “and pulled down all your momma’s nice drapes. Then she tried to catch that little dog. It a good thing he run fast. He run so fast she couldn’t sees where he run off to. I sees him go under the bed hiding.”

“She didn’t hurt Geaux Cup did she?”

“No. I tell your daddy where he hiding and your daddy gets him out. Geaux Cup? Give that dog a good dog name like Rex or Duke. What about King? I like King.”

“Rex or Duke? King? Those sound like Mardi Gras names, not dog names.” Julia interjected.

Woozie continued to iron as if Julia was not talking or even here. “And then, that little dog goes and jumps up on your bed, after I makes it, and sleeps in the middle of them pillows. I tries to gets him off your bed but he hunkers down and growls at me.”

Julia added, knowing Woozie was listening even if she didn’t answer her, “Wait til her mother sees the one she’s got stashed at Stan’s office.”

“Not that Stan boy who used to live up the block? He still dress up like a duck? Something not right about that boy.” Woozie said as she pressed a killer crease in my dad’s work pants.

“Stan is an attorney now and he no longer wears the duck costume. Woozie, help me out. Geaux Cup isn’t growling, he’s talking to you. These little dogs are talkers. Please feed my babies and let them out for 10-15 minutes after I leave. He’s a lover not a biter. He’ll follow you anywhere for a piece of cheese. If I let them out now, they will start barking and wake up my mother.”

“Well, it sure sounded like he saying, ‘I ain’t gettin’ off this bed’ and, what kinda name is Geaux Cup for a dog anyway? I won’t be calling that dog Geaux Cup. He better not bites me. I don’t need to be getting me no rabies shots and missing no work. You got too many dogs as it is. Most people only needs one dog. How come you needs so many?”

The idea of rescue was lost on Woozie. She, like Julia, didn’t wait for answers to questions, just kept asking more. She and Julia had something in common, although I didn’t think it was a good idea to point this out. I kissed her on the cheek, said thanks, and then I packed a bag of clothes. I packed enough for a few days in case I had to hide out at Julia’s to avoid the wrath of my parents over the car. We high-tailed it out of there before my mother woke up and I had to explain the entire ordeal. We left Woozie swatting at the furniture with a dust cloth.

At Julia’s we showered, changed, and I tried to catch a few winks. At nine 
A.M.
I was wide awake and excited with the thought of meeting Jiff Heinkel today. My stomach went from butterflies to knots when I thought about how I was going to tell Dante about Jiff. Dante and I were close. My entire life with him flashed before me like floodgates were opened. We lived and grew up next door to each other. We played together since we were babies. He was my first friend, the first and only boy who told me he loved me.

I remember the day Dante told me he loved me like it was yesterday. I was five years old in kindergarten, and he was six years old in the first grade. Dante didn’t go to kindergarten so the first day of school was the first time we had been apart since I came home from the hospital. At recess, as soon as he saw me come out of my class, he ran up to me and hugged me and said he loved me. He has never said it since, but we played together every day at school until the “incident.”