| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Cindy is a New York textbook editor by day, a hardboiled Jersey female by night. Her fiction has also appeared in Black Petals, The Beat, Hardboiled, Devil Blossoms, 13th Warrior Review, Red Fez, Zygote in My Coffee, and The Cynic. She has three collections of stories out: Angel of Manslaughter, Gutter Balls and Calpurnia's Window. She is the editor of the e-zine, YELLOW MAMA http://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/yellowmama/index.html. She is also a thrill seeker, a Gemini, and a Christian. |
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| © 2008 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| No Place Like Home |
| by Cindy Rosmus |
| "Shit!" Sabrina said.
As she'd reached the corner, the light turned red. Figures, she thought, sweating. Late again. Her first apartment, and she was a basket case. What if it was rented, already? Wanna be "on your own"? her mom had sneered. Don't come crawling home when they kick you out! Shut up, Mom, Sabrina said silently. "With a mother like yours," her shrink had said, "You might've been institutionalized!" Sabrina agreed. All her life, she'd been smothered by her nutjob mom. Sabrina herself was just neurotic. Okay, she thought. Obsessed with hatred of both parents. Now that her dad was dead, she and her mom were at each other's throats. Sabrina just had to move out, or else. When the light changed, she rushed across the street. On the phone, Cheryl the landlady had sounded cool. " 'Sabrina' !" she'd said. "Are you a teenage witch?" Sabrina had laughed politely. Her mom would've sneered something back. A nice building, Sabrina saw, as she approached it: pink brick and tan stucco, three floors. The lawn needed mowing, but this wasn't the day for it. It was ninety degrees, and grossly-humid. Out on the stoop sat two girls. Women, actually, about forty. Sabrina herself was twenty-three, dark-haired, tiny. One woman was tall, thin, and blonde. The other shorter, tanned, with hair the color of jelly apples. Both had on shades, but Sabrina felt the redhead's were hiding something: a black eye, or tears. Sabrina got those feelings, sometimes. "There's an old saying," the tall blonde said in Cheryl's voice, " 'Lay down with dogs, wake up with fucking fleas.' " The redhead just nodded. "Here she is!" Cheryl said, when Sabrina reached them. "My little teenage witch!" Sabrina laughed politely. Cheryl took off her shades. "Joy, Sabrina. Sabrina, Joy. Joy lives in Number Ten." "Hi," Sabrina said. Joy looked as "joyful" as a train wreck. From behind her shades, she checked out Sabrina. "Wait'll he sees her," Joy said. Sabrina's chest tightened. Whoever "he" was, was obviously bad news. She forced a smile. "Fuck him," Cheryl said. "You gotta get over him." "How can I," came out as a sob. "When he lives right downstairs?" Sabrina looked away. "With her," Joy added. "Raoul, the super," Cheryl told Sabrina. "S' got the 'Golden Dick.' " She got up, stretched her long legs. "Or thinks he does." "Oh, he does," Joy said mournfully. Then, to Sabrina, "You really a witch?" "Me?" "Know any love spells?" "No . . ." Sabrina was Italian, both sides. Old-world, both her crazy mom and late father. All her life she'd heard about curses, and stuff. "Too bad," Joy grumbled, glancing at the basement window beside the stoop. Raoul's, probably. "Just the other kind." Sabrina was sorry once she'd said it. Joy looked up. "Like putting people on ice." "The fuck is that?" Cheryl asked. "Put the guy's name in a plastic baggie with water . . ." Sabrina couldn't shut up. "Stick it in the freezer, and . . ." Very slowly, Joy got up. Her smile was horrifying. "He dies?" "Aw, shit!" Cheryl told Sabrina. "See what you started." She grabbed Sabrina's arm. "You wanna see this apartment or not?" "Yes!" "How big a baggie?" Joy asked, as they went inside. "My freezer's already full." In the foyer, Cheryl rang the bell labeled, "MARTINEZ: Superintendent." "Let's get it over with," she said. "You'll meet him eventually." Joy lifted her shades, wiped her teary eyes. "Lucky her." Four long rings, but no answer. "Where is that fuck?" Cheryl muttered. "He's supposed to be down there." "Oh, he is," Joy said. "With . . . her." "Meet him later," Cheryl said. They were on the first floor, headed for the stairs. "Joy lives there." As she pointed to Apartment Ten, the door to Eleven opened, slowly. But no one came out. Sabrina shivered. "A real nut lives there," Joy whispered. "Ouch!" she said, when Cheryl pinched her. As Eleven's door slowly shut, Sabrina thought of Thing, from The Addams Family. "One flight up!" Cheryl said. "It's right over mine," Joy told Sabrina, as they approached Apartment Twenty. "You better like Classic Rock." Cheryl unlocked the door. "And colors," she said, as they went inside. Jeez, Sabrina thought. Each room was brighter than the next: lime-green kitchen, tangerine living room, grape bedroom, banana-yellow bathroom. Ice pops, Sabrina thought of. "Want my shades?" Joy said sarcastically. "Raoul lived here before I made him the super," Cheryl said. "Looking for me?" said a voice from the hallway. Keys jingling. Joy stiffened. "In here, Raoul!" Cheryl yelled. A lean guy, also about forty, swaggered into the purple bedroom. Bare-chested, with dark, curly hair and eyes like hot tar. Attached to his cut-off shorts were a zillion keys. "Why didn't you answer the bell?" Smirking, Raoul looked behind him. A thin, smug-faced girl appeared. When she threw her arms around him, Joy gagged. "Busy," Raoul said, sighing. As he saw Sabrina, his eyes gleamed. She looked away, anxiously. "Yes, very busy," the smug-faced girl said. Clearly aimed at Joy. "Too busy to mow the lawn?" Cheryl said. "In this heat?" Sabrina stole a glance at Raoul, who boldly checked her out. "Want me to drop dead?" he said. Joy's smile was scary. "And who's this?" Raoul asked. "The new tenant?" "I'm Mandy." The girl tightened her hold on him. "His girlfriend." "Ya think?" Joy muttered to Sabrina, who was beginning to feel strange. Is it the heat? she thought. Nerves? I'll be on my own, for the first time ever. Is it just that? "Be lucky if anybody rents it," Cheryl told Raoul. "With these Easter egg colors!" Ice pops, Sabrina thought. Sweat dripped down her back. Maybe, she thought, they'll open a window . . . Raoul shrugged off Mandy, who looked pissed. As he got closer, Sabrina's heart raced. "If you want," he said, "I'll paint for you. Any color you like, baby." Baby, Sabrina thought. "White!" Cheryl said. "Paint it white. Cover all this shit. I ought to kill you!" "Please," Joy muttered. If Joy smiled horribly, Sabrina didn't see it. She felt. . . hypnotized. Raoul was so close, she could smell him. Sex, he smelled like. Sex with Mandy, and also Dial soap, vaguely, like he'd showered right before plunging into that braindead, smug-faced little bitch. "But you'd miss me," Raoul said. "You'd all miss me." Suddenly, the room got quiet. Like time stopped, they all seemed frozen in place. Then, Sabrina broke the silence. "White'll be great." "Fuckin-A!" Cheryl said. Sabrina couldn't take her eyes off Raoul. "I'll get right to it, baby," he told her. "What's wrong with us?" Cheryl ran to the a/c, and turned it on. "The power's still on, in here!" She wiped her sweaty face. "We've been dying, for nothing." "That a/c comes with the apartment," Raoul said. "So does the fridge," Joy said, from behind Sabrina. "With a big . . . empty . . . freezer." As Joy crept closer, Sabrina smiled so widely, her face ached. "How big a baggie?" Joy whispered, as Mandy snuggled up to Raoul. |
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| Sept. 2008 |
| 110 |