Letting Loose. Joanne Skerrett

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СКАЧАТЬ I indulge my little tropical fantasy?”

      “Go ahead and indulge. Just don’t forget to join the rest of us in reality when you’re done. So what’re you doing tonight?”

      “Me? Nothing. I’ve gotta make up a pop quiz for Monday.”

      “You’re so mean.”

      “It’s the only way I’ll know they’re doing the reading assignment.”

      Whitney snorted. “You know they’re not doing the assignment.”

      I knew she was right but still…I didn’t mind ragging on my kids, but it bothered me when other people did.

      “Screw the quiz. Let’s go to Milky Way. It’s salsa night,” she said.

      “Salsa as in dip?”

      “No, Amelia, salsa as in dance.”

      I groaned. “I dunno, Whitney. What kind of people are gonna be there?”

      “What do you mean, what kind of people are gonna be there? You live with two stoner hippies and you’re worried about the crowd at the Milky Way?”

      “At least they’re familiar stoner hippies.”

      “Come on, let’s go out. You’ll probably meet a cute guy. Either way, it’s better than staying inside.”

      “Where’s Big D?”

      “Ugh. I think he’s starting to catch feelings. He asked me to go away with him for a weekend.”

      “Really? That was fast.”

      “I’m, like, a whole weekend? With you?”

      “What’s wrong with him?”

      “Too smooth. Too clean-cut. Not spontaneous enough.”

      “Oh,” I said, “no edge.” That was the next requisite to breathing when it came to Whitney’s taste in men: lots of edge, meaning a bad boy.

      “Right. So, you coming or what? I can almost hear the music; I gotta shake something tonight.”

      “Fine. Fine. I’m coming.”

      I couldn’t say no to her. Whitney and I were practically sisters. She’d spent her childhood being shuffled from foster home to foster home and had been through so much family psychodrama it was a miracle that she’d ended up so successful. She was a scrapper, unafraid of anything or anybody. I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I saw her living out all the things that I was afraid to do, and most times all I could do was shake my head in wonder. She was the big sister who I was always trying to keep up with. So I almost always found myself going along with her. Even now when I’d much rather stay in my warm room and reread Drew’s e-mail again and again. I wondered what the temperature was on Dominica. Probably a balmy eighty-five degrees, the moon was probably full, stars big in the sky, and waves lapping at the shore…

      Chapter 5

      A couple of hours later, I was in my Beetle, the gauge read thirty-two degrees; so much for the temporary warm-up. My tires swished over the slushy side streets that led to Whitney’s house.

      Whitney worked for Microsoft, but she hardly ever left her apartment. She telecommuted to Redmond, Washington, and traveled there a few times a year. Her life, when she was deeply involved in a project at work, was actually quite stable. It was when she was in love that things went haywire. I was praying that she would not meet anyone new tonight. There hadn’t been anyone to speak of for about a year and things had been relatively calm. Somehow, she’d vowed to be celibate for a year, and miraculously she’d almost pulled it off. Then that Duncan guy came along. But she’d been threatening lately to get back on the wagon, or was it off the wagon?

      She looked pretty as usual. She’d dyed her dreads a light, light brown, and against her caramel skin it added a touch of exoticism to her prettiness. Whitney, petite and slim, could eat like a linebacker and it never showed on her hips because she worked out like a freak. I’m talking two hours of hardcore cardio six days a week. She wore tight, tight jeans and a pretty pink camisole top with a black leather jacket. I wore my slimmest size 14 black pants and a black ruffly georgette top. I topped it off with a funky necklace I’d bought from Banana and my new chandelier earrings from Macy’s. I felt tall and glamazon-like in my favorite snow-proof three-inch heels.

      I actually felt cute tonight. Those pants actually felt comfortable, and my thighs were not screaming against the seams as they were when I first wore them. Maybe those spin classes—that I could never finish—were working after all.

      “Look at you, girl!” Whitney said, looking me up and down as I stood in the doorway of her Hyde Park house. “You losing weight?”

      “You think so?”

      “Yes, I can definitely see the diff,” Whitney said.

      Well, if Whitney’s critical eye could see the diff, then there must be a diff. My mood soared.

      I looked at myself in Whitney’s mirror in her gigantic but spare living room. Yes, I did look a little bit smaller than, than, than, what? Than I’d felt since I don’t know when.

      “When you gonna get rid of that perm and go natural?” she asked, pulling at one of my shoulder-length locks.

      “Girl, my mother would kill me!”

      “You’re a grown woman, Amelia. Besides, isn’t her hair natural now?”

      “Yeah, but she said that look wouldn’t work on me because I don’t have fine features like her. You know, I took my daddy’s nose and some of his color….” I was mocking Whitney, but those were Grace Wilson’s words to me, verbatim.

      “See, that’s why I’m glad I don’t have a family. I don’t need anybody talking to me like that.”

      I shrugged. “Let’s go.”

      I played Amel Larrieux in the CD player and Whitney snorted. “Why do you listen to that neo-soul crap? Why don’t you just go all the way and listen to jazz?”

      “It’s the same thing; besides, I like to hear people singing.”

      “Amelia, it’s not the same thing. And Billie Holiday can sing better than any of those chicks out there today.”

      “Thanks, Whitney. If it weren’t for you I’d probably never have known that.”

      She rolled her eyes at me as we pulled into the dinky parking lot. The Milky Way was just a neighborhood hangout for the most part, nothing fancy. There was a pool table, billiards, a few other game kiosks off to the side, but on Saturdays those were mostly abandoned for the dance floor. I hadn’t danced in a long time and I was feeling the urge.

      Before we had even put away our coats, a tall, green-eyed guy with dark hair approached us. He looked Mediterranean. Well, Whitney did tend to date the rainbow. She gave him her killer smile. Here we go, I thought. If only he knew what he was in for, he’d run in the other direction. Of course, that was my envy talking.

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