Friends & Neighbors—Part 1
Starring Teresa Alfaro
Teresa woke up, uncertain at first of where she was, or even who she was. There was a woman with very dark skin and braids talking to her through the screen door.
“Huh?” Teresa said, sitting up in bed—a twin pushed against a staircase in the foyer. When she sat up, she realized she was naked. “Oh, shit. Sorry, dude.” She half-heartedly pulled the sheet up over her breasts.
The woman didn’t comment, instead she said, “Soerdich Pizza.”
Right, Teresa thought. I’m at Malliry and Dens’ place in Soerdich.
She roughed up her own short bleached-blonde hair, then said, “Uh, yeah, sure. C’mon in.”
The delivery person came in, set the pizza down on a large trunk that was used as a coffee table in the foyer, between the bed and the door. Then she sat down on the couch against the wall, next to the trunk table. “Girl, I have had a day.”
Suddenly Teresa wondered if they knew each other. She certainly didn’t remember if they did. So she rubbed her eyes and just listened, hoping to buy some time or maybe get a clue. Absently, she said, “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, girl, I tell you what. It is hot as fuck out there today.”
Teresa noticed then the driver’s mask around her neck. Right, she thought, the plague is still a thing.
“When did you get your titties?”
“Huh?” she asked, thinking surely she must have misheard.
“I got mine at twelve,” the driver said. “They just got,” she made an expanding motion out from her chest. “Boom. Huge.”
Teresa chuckled, then batted at her bangs. “Right on.”
“Got my period around then, too.”
“Okay.”
“I have some serious fucking cramps right now, girl. I ain’t even lying.”
“Oh, shit, dude. I’m sorry. That’s the worst.”
“Yeah. When did you rub it for the first time? You know, touch yourself?”
Teresa thought about it. “Twelve, I guess? I mean, that’s when I came, I think. I was always touching myself. Like as far back as I can remember. My grandma was always on my ass about it.”
The driver laughed. “Girl, I know it. Mee-maw come atcha with a spoon, no joke!”
They both laughed, and Teresa was again uncertain if they knew each other or if the driver was speaking generally or trying to relate.
“Well, it’s forty bucks.”
“What?”
“The pizza.”
“Oh, right. Shit, dude. I just woke up, and tee bee aitch, I don’t remember ordering a pizza? And I don’t have my phone or wallet handy, so.”
The driver looked at the pizza box, examining one of the edges. “Dis fourteen ay or fourteen bee?”
“Uhhh, ay? I think? Pretty sure.”
The driver stood, pizza box in hand, opened the screen door again, looked at the side of the building. “Shit, dog, I got the wrong place.”
“Oh,” Teresa said. “Well, you know, no big deal, man.”
The driver left without saying anything else.
Teresa peered out the door from the bed, sheet still pulled up to her breastbone, and looked to see if the driver had gone to the other unit in the mansionetta. But she couldn’t see her anymore.
“Fuckin’ weird, man,” she said, then got up and walked naked through the house to the downstairs bathroom on the other side of the staircase, took a piss, then went back to bed.
to be continued next week
