Oops, I've Fallen

“Oh please! I had three mimosas at the early serving of breakfast in the clubhouse this morning! I’m hardly under the influence!”

“Ma’am, do you realize that you struck a police vehicle with your cart upon your arrival?”

“That was a little tap!” she argues. “Give me a break!”

“Why?” Carly boldly insists. “You don’t give anyone else a break around here. Why should they give you one?”

“If I were your mother, I’d wash your mouth out with soap, you dirty little witch! Putting that obscene picture on Nan’s lawn shows just what a hussy you are. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Well, you’re not!” Carly shouts back. “Stella Page is, and lucky for me, she knows how to raise a badass bitch who doesn’t take shit from bullies like you!”

“Ladies, please,” Sgt. James says, trying to calm the situation. Sal and I glance at each other, and when I get a look at the crazy old bastard’s face, he’s positively beaming. Against all odds, I feel my face starting to lift into a little smile too.

“Arrest her!” Betty shouts crazily. “Do you hear the way she just spoke to me? Arrest her!”

“Ma’am, let us give you a lift back to your house,” Officer Higgins suggests. “Sleep off the mimosas and discuss your issues with this family when you’ve sobered up.”

“I can’t believe you’re treating me like a criminal!” she protests. “Stella and Carly Page are dirty little skanks, the two of them. I mean, look at the way they’re dressed.”

Carly sucks her lips into her mouth again and covers herself as she shoots me with eye lasers. I know now that I’ll never live down the ripping of this outfit until the day I die. Stella, however, looks like she always does, wearing a hot-pink jumpsuit with the jacket zipped down to reveal a large portion of her breasts. It’s revealing, sure, but now that I know her like I do, I can’t imagine her dressing any other way.

“Excuse me,” I assert. “Are you trying to slut-shame these two women right now? In the middle of whatever it is that’s brought the police to their lawn? You don’t even know what’s going on, and yet, you have no sympathy. Don’t you see that?”

“I know that the last time Stella Page had red and blue lights on her lawn it’s because your father got a little too frisky while they were doing their naughty business. You’re probably just like him, so I don’t want to hear boo from you!”

Her accusation makes my chin jerk back into my chest, and Carly gasps audibly. I don’t think either of us had fully considered the possibility of our parents actually getting it on despite their obvious fondness for each other.

“I’ll have you know my son couldn’t be more of my opposite,” Sal jumps in, making me roll my eyes. I can’t believe he’s going to point out my flaws right now, of all times. “Where I’m impulsive, he’s thoughtful, and where I’m crass, he’s class. Don’t you go talking about my boy like you know any goddamn thing about him. Maybe if you found a man to give you some naughty business, you wouldn’t be such a stuck-up bitch!”

Shocked at the complimentary things he says, I look at him again with renewed eyes and love. We may not see eye to eye very often, but it’s indisputable right now—my dad loves me, and I love him. “Thanks, Dad,” I find myself saying.

“Folks!” Sgt. James shouts over all of us. “Come on, now, let’s take it down a notch.”

“Arrest him! Arrest her! Arrest them all!” Betty screeches like a banshee and grabs Sgt. James’s shirt in a tight grip, yanking him forward. “I want them all locked up!”

Oh no. That can’t be a good choice…

Sgt. James doesn’t react to Betty, but he looks to Officer Higgins, signaling something with his hand, and Brian steps forward with a nod.

“Ma’am, release my shirt now, and I’m only going to ask you one more time to calm down,” Sgt. James orders Betty. She gulps like a fish, the outrage of her meltdown nowhere near leaving her face, but she does release the hold she has on his uniform shirt and steps back a few feet.

Though, her violence toward the officer doesn’t stop there.

When he apparently doesn’t do what she wants him to do, she goes back to throwing an outright fit.

“Do your job!” she shouts and steps back toward Sgt. James, slapping her hands at his chest. “Arrest them! Now! I demand it!”

Officer Higgins pops forward in a flash and grabs one of her wrists while Sgt. James grabs the other, forcing them behind her back as gently but pointedly as they can manage at the same time.

“Holy shit,” Carly breathes from her spot a few steps away, and I shake my head.