feather

six: so i can make them mad

Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeep. I threw my alarm clock across the room, but then realized the noise wasn't coming from it. It was a car horn. Why? It was Saturday, so god would have to help me if I murdered someone for waking me up early. (That's just an expression. I'm actually not really religious since obviously if some all-powerful transcendental being did exist, he or she would not have let my parents exist). 

I pulled open my window and shouted, "Please stop making noise and being a little prick. I'm trying to sleep!" I'd just been in a permanently sour mood since yesterday. PMS maybe? Even the free meatball sub I got from waiter boy wasn't enough to cheer me up. 

More honks sounded. "Damn it!" I put on a pair of slippers, took the elevator because it was too early to walk down a two flights of stairs, and stormed outside onto my lawn. "I can hear your car all the way from the third floor through double-paned glass windows; will you please stop honking?" I asked, annoyed. 

It was waiter boy. He'd driven me home yesterday night after the date and hook-up fiasco. How was he up so early in the morning, and why did he have to be making noise and ruining mornings here, of all places? 

"Wow, you're one of those bratty, rich, spoiled girls," he commented, and leaned over and pushed the car door open. "I'm really bored. Entertain me." 

"By what, making out with you again?" I scoffed, rubbing my eyes. "I'm going back inside. It's too cold and early to be out here." 

"Don't leave me here," waiter boy whined, and stepped out of his honda civic, which had a cracked windshield and rusty tire rims. "I don't have anything to do." 

"Desperate much?" I asked, and then turned towards the house. "You can come in. But I'm going back to sleep. If you steal anything I will sue your ass after I have torn you a new one. Except for the vases on the second floor balcony. You can take those cause they're ugly." 

"I think I'll pass. Vasery isn't really my thing." 

•••

"What is the meaning of this?" I woke with a start to a booming voice. My father, purple-faced (sort of like an onion or beet, but one of the purple ones, obviously), was standing over me. If he was a cartoon character, smoke would've been pouring out of his ears. "We leave you alone for seven. Seven hours, and you have some hoodlum boy in your bed?" 

"Yup," I replied, pulling waiter boy closer to me. He'd just woken up as well, and we were apparently spooning in our sleep. "His name's—uh—" I blanched. We didn't even know each others' names.

"Taylor." 

"His name's Taylor and we've found true love and we decided to make babies. We're gonna name the first one, a girl, Laqueesha, and the boy Tyrone, and they're gonna grow up to be all street and thug just like their daddy," I replied, turning over and trying to pull the covers over my head. 

"You—I should—you—" my father stammered, too enraged to speak. "You better not have made any babies," He finally stated. "Investors are gonna start dropping if they see we can't even control our own daughter. How would they expect us to control our business and factories?" 

"Okay, jeez, sorry, I'll try to control my baby-making hormones from now," I said, rolling my eyes. My father was crazy. It always came back to the family business. I couldn't wear the red dress because that would mean I supported the Chinese manufacturers. That cartilage piercing? No, because then it implied we preferred Indian investors over rich oil Texans. Just what? I didn't see his logic sometimes. 

My father then looked at waiter boy with an expression of digust. "And... please get rid of this... child. He's so... dirty." With that, he stiffly stormed out of the room. 

I rolled my eyes. Basically, anyone who didn't glue their hair back with insutrial-strength glue and get mani-pedi's every week was considered dirty by him. In fact, Taylor here wasn't that bad. Sure, his dark hair was a little shaggy and he probably could use a little more... class, but he wasn't bad looking. His lip had a scar in the bottom left corner, probably a healed piercing, and a tattoo creeped up from under his shirt to his collarbone. He had hazel-brown eyes that looked like seaweed and pale skin; if anything, he reminded me of Percy Jackson, from Rick Riordan's books. But, you know, the thug version, with stripey tribal tattoos and a nose ring. 

Actually, he got the tattoos illegally then, because I remembered clearly you need to be eighteen in order to have a tattoo done on you. I was turned down by even the sketchiest tattoo parlors because no, they wouldn't tattoo "no ragrets" on my back without parental consent. Unless, he was eighteen. Dang, I really did not know anything about waiter boy—ahem—Taylor.

He was definitely not my father's type. "Hey," I asked him, grinning mischeviously. I was pissed at the world right now, and this would be the perfect way to get back at my parents. He was their worst fear: a poor boy who liked body art. "Want to be my boyfriend? Benefits include getting to make out with me, rides in my new car, and pissing off my parents." 

"Sounds better than my ma's life insurance policy," waiter boy shrugged. "Hell yeah, I'm in."