Call Me, Poppy

  “Ummm. Dah! Of course. Want me to talk to Miss Vive? She’s standin’ right here.”

  “No. I merely wanted your thoughts, is all.” I wasn’t comfortable asking for help.

  “Ah, huh. You don’t sound too good.”

  Yuk. I flung a wad of saliva off on my sleeve, swallowed, and replied, “I’ll live.”

  “Is Birdie being her usual self?” Taddy’s voice became serious, “Lex, are you okay? Did something happen?”

  “Daddy is in Tokyo. Jack Daniels has been Mom’s only source of nutrition since I’ve moved in. And Kelle came over today and celebrated with her.”

  “Nooo.” Taddy screamed so loud that I thought she’d blown-up my phone.

  “Yup. They’re on her bed going at it.”

  “Holy Mommy Dearest on a wire hanger! That is fugged up.” She muffled the phone for a few seconds and shouted some more.

  In the background, I heard Bergdorf’s security team asking her to leave their store if she didn’t calm herself down. Taddy was always getting herself kicked out of there.

  The phone sounded as if it had changed hands.

  “Lex! Hey girlie, it’s Vive.”

  “Hi.”

  “Taddy went to go pay for her fuzzy sweater.” Vive giggled. “Honey, I’m sorry to hear about your Mom and Kelle.”

  “Me too.” I closed my eyes wishing I’d blend into the carpeting.

  “Let me call my driver to haul your wardrobe. We’ll be in Soho within an hour.”

  “Really?” I sat up from the floor. “You’re serious?”

  “Honey, you wear Chanel. I don’t kid about couture.” Vive cackled.

  Farnworth Firewater liquor heiress Viveca Farnworth was the only Avon Porter student who’d talked to me and Taddy when we’d started going there. Labeled “tabloid girls” from the start, everyone had avoided us, except for Vive.

  A few years later, the school had gone co-ed, admitting Blake on a scholarship. No one had talked to him either. That’s pretty much how the Fab Four had started.

  “Pack up your life. We’ll load it into the limo. There’s a street-bike parking space on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street for Vamp. The doorman stands in it all day long, scratching himself. No one uses it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Honey, who on the Upper East Side rides a friggin’ motorbike?” Vive snorted louder and longer than before. “The spot is all yours. Stay the entire semester. Hedda Hopper will be so happy to have you with us.”

  Hedda was a Lhasa Apso that Taddy and I had bought for Vive after our stint in juvie. It was the week her parents had forced her to give up the baby. The pooch didn’t fill the hole in Vive’s heart for the love of her child, but it gave her something to care for. We were like fifteen.

  I wiped my eyes. “Thanks, Vive. You and Taddy are the best.”

  “Oh and Lex, before I forget—”

  “Yes.” I sniveled.

  “You’re gonna get through this. Birdie cares for you. She’s just sick. Kelle, on the other hand will be gettin’ a piece of my mind when I see him in my journalism class in a few weeks. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  I hung up and started packing. From YSL to Gucci, I shoved and stuffed anything and everything that would fit. All the while, I chomped on my gum and highlighted in my head the top ten fears and worst moments of my life. In chronological order, they were:

  Puberty advice to pad my bra, or not wear one at all. I was nine then.

  A locked refrigerator. No parent should starve their child. Birdie had called it food monitoring.

  Paparazzi which has tormented and snapped photos of me (usually when I was at my worst) my entire life. Such as…when I’d eaten a chocolate and vanilla twist cone, dipped in a raspberry hard shell and dusted with rainbow sprinkles. Purchased from a Mister Softee truck, parked on Madison Avenue—while standing outside in one hundred degree weather with one hundred percent humidity, in a horizontal-striped-sheer-stretchy poly-blend sun dress—which had ridden itself almost entirely up my bum. How I knew it had ridden up my bum? See number 5.

  A Vicodin, given to me by Dad to stop my hysteria, instead of a band-aid or a hug, after I’d fallen and scratched my knee on Madison Avenue while running from the Paparazzi. I was like eleven.

  The photos of my backside, at the ice cream truck, appearing on the cover of The Manhattanite Times the very next day. The headline had read, “Alexandra the Great Swallows for Mr. Softee.”

  A mother who has and forever will have a hotter body, prettier face, and better hair than I do. Even when I’m seventy years old and she’s like dead.

  A father who was never around. Years have passed without him walking through our front door. I’m not sure he even knows Birdie sold the Central Park West mansion and moved to Soho last year. I should probably give him the new address.

  The fear I’ll never meet or exceed my parent’s financial or professional success, regardless of what industry I work in. According to the economics class Vive and I took our senior year, I have less than a five percent chance to make it as an adult without riding my folk’s coattails to maintain this lifestyle. Poor Vive, her family is the second richest in North America. She has less than half a percent.

  Infamy! I’ll forever be associated with the Easton’s.

  Birdie and her full-on, balls-to-the wall sex with my high school sweet-heart. I had loved Kelle Sterling Dolley. Or at least, I thought I had.

  Fifty minutes later, my toiletries, shoes, and day-evening-school wear were all thrown into nine Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunks. One garment wasn’t going to see the Upper East Side, my striped-stretchy dress, circa childhood from hell. I found that effer in the back of my closet. Birdie must’ve packed it when we’d moved downtown.

  “I cannot believe I didn’t burn you ages ago.” Alone, I shouted out loud to the dress as if I were a mad woman, because I was. I carted that rag of bad memories to the bathroom and threw it in the tub.

  “Ah-ha!” In the medicine cabinet, I found an aerosol can of StrawberryNet’s Ultra Mega Super-duper Hold Extreme Hairspray. I doused that dress and lit a match. “Burn, baby, burn!”

  On my way out, I dumped a shoebox of photos into the inferno too. “I bid you adieu.” They were of Kelle and me from prom, homecoming dance, and our winter formal. It was all there.

  Peaceful and quiet, the penthouse seemed unoccupied. Birdie had probably passed out.

  I jammed two more nicotine gum pieces in my mouth. Jaw tensing, teeth snapping, I chewed up one mofo of a wad, I imagine no one had ever chewed before or has since.

  The elevator doors opened.

  Onto the lift I pushed one case in, then two, and so on. I turned back to get my purse and my helmet when “lover boy” approached.

  He acted as if he’d arrived mere moments ago.

  “Lex.” Puffy lipped and woman-handled, Kelle’s red eyes didn’t make contact with mine. His attempt to kiss me on the cheek failed when I pushed him away from me.

  “Get lost Kelle.”

  “Whaa?” He played innocent.

  “I saw what you and Mom did. For crying out loud, residents as far away as Staten Island could probably hear you two with all that moaning and groaning.”

  “Ugh.” He raked his fingers through his light brown hair. Flipping his part from left to right, Kelle stood there, speechless.

  “Say something for yourself!” I so wanted to fight. Growing up Easton had taught me to throw punches and kicks.

  “Sweets.” He air-pumped his hands in a “let’s calm down, I’m stoned” kinda way. “I came to get you. You were out. Mrs. Easton gave me blow. I got too high. We smoked to chill. The end.”

  “Now you’re doing cocaine?” In two short hours he’d gone from gorgeous to hideous, right before my eyes.

  “Just a few lines. One thing led to another. Mrs. Easton’s clothes popped off. Mine did too.”

  “Popped off?” I repeated his malarkey. Rolling off my tongue, it tasted as
if I’d licked Hedda Hopper’s curvy tail, complete and utter dog-do. On instinct, my right foot jetted out. “Hmmm.” I gauged the distance. Kelle needed a kick in the head. I owed him at least that. Dang, he was too darn tall for me to give him one.

  “Whaddya want me to say.” He grimaced annoyingly, and in his mind and in his world, I bet he walked on some kind of mythical water, making him impervious to any repercussions.

  The urge to hold him under his own Kool-Aid, till every ounce of air had left his lungs, tore at me with temptations ten times stronger than my usual cravings to go to Dylan’s Candy Bar.

  Now I understood why women on the TV show “Oh Snapped” had whacked their hubbies in acts of rage and passionate revenge. Their victims had earned it. Regardless, there wasn’t a swimming pool in this Soho high-rise for me to even try drowning his sorry ass.

  “Well?” he asked again.

  Where would I start with the inventory of things this moron could say to me?

  “How ‘bout, I’m sorry?” I suggested. My eyes finally locked with his.

  Not only did we both know that “us dating, him taking my Lady V,” was way over, but he wasn’t sorry.

  “Lex, no matter what happened, I came for you. Come. Be with me.” In a thick manipulative tone, he beckoned me.

  “Go f—”

  “Babe, come to Kelle.” With kahunas bigger than coconuts, Kelle caressed his gym-toned chest. Ever so slightly, he lifted up the front edge of his shirt, a smidge, enough to lower my focus from his soon-to-be-busted face onto his cheating body’s six-pack, navel, and happy trail patch.

  The blankety-blank knew right there that what he just did always made my scalp tingle, insides flip-n-spark, eyelashes flutter, and Victoria Secret’s oh so wet.

  Well, not anymore, sistah!

  Sheepishly I held a breath and flashed my teeth giving him a bit of Geri Halliwell’s sexy persona, Ginger Spice from the Spice Girls.

  All fake, of course. Oh there’d be more. I still had to get through Baby, Scary, Sporty, and Posh Spice. Trust me, Sporty was my favorite.

  Walking over to him, I got all Baby Spice first. I traced my pointer finger over the horse emblem on his Polo shirt. One of the many gifts I’d bought him, months ago, when he’d turned eighteen.

  He flexed his pecs when I glided a thumb over the navy blue cotton. Inhaling Mother’s signature perfume, Dirty Birdie on him, more commonly referred to by the fragrance industry as an instant hit. I gave his nips a teasing pinch. He winked. And in those flat green eyes, I saw something fuglier than I’d ever thought possible, narcissism.

  Maybe he thought I’d forgive and forget.

  What a pigtard.

  Good Lord, I wanted to get all Scary Spice and stab him with my vampy nails. But they weren’t acrylic like Taddy’s or jewel-tipped like Vive’s. They weren’t even buffed like Blake’s to scratch up Kelle’s soon-to-be-f’d-up face. Instead, I’d asked him the dreaded question, the one that would either confirm or dismiss my own foolishness.

  “Was today your first time screwing my mother?”

  His mouth, which had kissed my neck and whispered in my ears—the one I had dreamt one day would go down on me, nibbling slightly on my clit, saying goodbye to Lady V hung wide open.

  A thick, pinkish tongue, the one I had fantasized would flick my nipples while in our hotel room overlooking the Champs-Élysées as he thrust his fat cock deep inside me, twitched.

  Nothing came out.

  Zilch!

  Kelle had already said enough. But I still had to hear the answer. Birdie sure as fudge wouldn’t tell me what’s what in a gazillion years.

  I grabbed onto his shoulders. I shook. I demanded. I screamed. “Tell me the truth!”

  “No. It’s not.” His forehead wrinkled. Amazed by his admission of guilt, I guess.

  “Pathetic. That’s what you are.” Drawing my nicotine lips close to Kelle’s wide, hanging-open mouth, I spit my gum and all the Cujo-ish saliva I had built up all afternoon down his silicone-sucking throat.

  “You—fat, dumb cunt!” He yelled, gagging and wiping himself.

  Hearing those words was worse than any bullet to my heart. More painful than watching Kelle share himself with Mother, and never once with me.

  In a flash, I got all Sporty Spice and kneed him in the balls—once, twice.

  Bent over with the wind knocked out of him, Kelle grabbed at his nuts. He shouted more of the same mean ugliness at me.

  “I want an apology!” Cupping my hands together into one fist, I used all my might, stood on my tippy toes, and down-punched the back of his head.

  He dropped to his knees. And then I had my shot.

  Bam! I kicked in his once-beautiful face. The buckles on my knee-high biker boots jingled and then ripped his skin worse than any acrylic, jeweled, or buff nail ever could.

  Dang that felt good.

  Violence was never the answer. However, when used in moderation, it was nothing shy of total fabulousness.

  “Fuck Lex.” Up on his feet, he stood taller than I’d ever seen. He charged me.

  Feet planted firmly, I stood my ground and kept my blue eyes on his crazy ones.

  He slapped the right side of my face then punched my left.

  Shit. I flew a foot or two back but managed not to fall. Jeeeez, I thought I’d see stars. And I’d figured those white snowballs might return perhaps, in blizzard form. Candy dots with vibrant colors too. Or at the least, my cheeks would’ve felt stung by a bumble bee.

  I felt nothing. No pain. Not the loss off him. Not the stab in my soul from Mom. Why? I guess because after all of this was said and done, I still had me! Tomorrow I’d be eighteen. Life was so much better than this. It had to be.

  “Sorry.” Covering his mouth in regret, he muttered that I had every right to hit him and he had never intended to hurt me.

  “Whatever.” It was what it was, and what it was, was ugly. He never loved me.

  “You and I didn’t have to be like this, Lex. We’d been together for a while. We weren’t having sex.” He buried his fists into his jean pockets.

  Why was it that whenever a boy wasn’t getting laid by his girl, he’d use any excuse to destroy her?

  “That was your choice. Not mine.” My back straightened.

  I hated this subject. I’d tried too many times to seduce him. In the process, I’d lost myself and the love I once had for who I was.

  “Lex, look at you. I’m not. I can’t—”

  “Shut up, Kelle. We’re over!” Swallowing a scream, I grabbed my purse, riding gloves, and helmet.

  “You promised…you’d lose the weight.” Pathetically he defended his right to treat me less than human.

  I stepped into the elevator, pushed the button, and said, “My size isn’t of concern to you anymore.”

  His arms came wide blocking the doors from closing. He slammed the hold button.

  “Stop, I’m done with you.” Ready to ride Vamp out of here, I put my biker gloves on.

  But I had to look at Kelle one last time. Not for who I thought he was, but for what he really was. Could someone you’d grown up with, who you’d loved so much been that blinded by Birdie’s fame? I tried to sense if he had any remorse that I might’ve overlooked.

  Catching his image in the mirrored interior of the elevator car, he posed and seemed not at all regretful for today, but rather proud of sleeping with her and not me.

  While the Queen of Rock must’ve been a huge notch on his belt, he’d given new meaning to her song, “Lucifer’s Mistress.” He truly was the devil in disguise.

  Vive had one said, “I wished I had a penis—I’d whip it out and take a leak on him.” She was a little less tactful than Taddy with her words of wisdom.

  Anyways, we’d been eating dark chocolate mousse, overhearing some cocky boy trash-talk his girl at The Black Tea Room after she’d asked us what we’d been devouring. The girl had recognized me from before at the women’s department at Saks trying to buy something to wear.


  Her face had reddened with humiliation from the way her boyfriend had treated her in front of us. I had been taken aback that she didn’t get up and leave his boney butt. Instead, she’d sat with her guy, had ordered nothing, and watched him eat. All the while he’d lectured her on what she should and should not put in her mouth.

  Then and there, I’d promised myself I’d never date a douche bag like him. Little had I realized I’d been desperately dating him all along.

  Looking at Kelle in the elevator, loving on himself, I realized even if I were to lose this weight he probably still wouldn’t love me. I finally understood what Vive had meant. Men who use woman do it because it makes them feel better about themselves. They will always treat women as they please but only if we let them. I didn’t get that till now.

  “Where are you going?” He noticed my trunks of clothes.

  “Some place where I’m loved.” Nudging my helmet against him, I pried his hands off the door.

  “Later Easton.” He acted too cool for me and released the hold button.

  The panel lights flashed.

  “Tell Mom, I said, thank you, for this favor.”

  “Huh?” Arms crossed, he stood in the foyer.

  “Today, I saw many things go on in that bedroom but protection wasn’t one of them.” My grip on the helmet tightened. I clenched my thighs, ready to unleash the nastiest revenge of all. Yes, worse than anything I’d seen on “Oh Snapped.”

  “Mrs. Easton’s eggs are already scrambled and fried.” Kelle laughed.

  “Spare me.”

  “Rubbers don’t fit right. I hate the way they feel.” Without a care in the world, he walked back into the main room all smug. Goading me, he glanced and pointed at the hallway to Birdie’s room, then back to me and invited, “Join in the fun. Mama’ll show you how it’s done.”

  I’d sworn I’d never tell. After today, all bets were off.

  “Oh Mister Dolley, it ain’t Mama’s eggs or your lover boy comforts, I’m talking about.” Pushing the ground floor button, I finished, “it’s Birdie’s herpes that’ll get ya.”