The Boudreaux Sisters

Chapter 10: She Owes Me

Della arrived back home, the next day, feeling a multitude of emotions. One of those main emotions was happiness; for many reasons. One, Michael officially asked her to be his girlfriend the night before and two, she realized that she didn’t even need to buy the Onzancaire set at all. When Della got back home and eventually got settled in, she took the Onzancaire mixture out of her bag and placed it back in the fridge. She had told herself that she needed to clean out the refrigerator soon and when she did, she would toss it out. Della told herself to forget she ever even stepped foot into The Healing Center, let alone, making a purchase that she felt she so desperately needed. Well, not anymore. Della was officially off the market.

Lady and Desi decided to hang out at the mall one day, after school. Neither of them had any real homework to do. So, as soon as school let out, they both walked to the nearby train station and took a trip to the local mall. The homecoming dance was two weeks away and while neither of them had a date, they had already vowed to each other that they would be each other’s dates. After finding the perfect dresses, shoes and accessories, the girls got hungry and went to the food court to grab something to eat. As they sat down at a small table for two and began to eat, they started to gossip about their outfits, how they were going to get their hair done… You know, girly things. Suddenly, Desi spotted her crush, Darren Touissant walking near her and Lady’s table with a couple of guys she noticed from school.

Desi instantly got quiet in the middle of her and Lady’s conversation and started to blush. Lady noticed this and saw the direction of where her eyes went. She turned back around to confront her friend.

“You know, if you like him so much, why don’t you just walk right on up to him and ask him out to the dance?” asked Lady.

Desi almost spit out her lemonade that she was drinking. She grabbed a napkin to wipe her upper lip.

“Girl, are you fucking serious? I can’t walk up to that man and ask him something just so… bold. He probably doesn’t even know who I am.” said Desi, with a look of disbelief.

“Besides, I am way too nervous and scared to make such a strong move on one of the most popular guys at school. Then, he’s sitting over there with a whole bunch of his friends... That shit would be hella embarrassing if he turned me down.”

Lady took a sip of her drink and shook her head at Desi.

“Would it be embarrassing if your best friend was standing there, right along with you?”

Desi stopped in the middle of eating a fry and made direct eye contact with Lady. “Girl yes! What the fuck? That’s Darren Touissant. HELLO?! What if that man turns me down because he’s just simply not attracted to me? Plus, you know with my ability, I’d be able to hear what he really thinks. What if he was to think something super fucked up about me? Then, I’d just be obsessing over it for days… Months… Hell, maybe even years.” Desi shuddered, dramatically.

“Nope, I’m going to protect my mental health and just stay right here.” said Desi, as she finished off her last french fry.

Lady rolled her eyes and chuckled at Desi’s drama and her thoughts.

“You’ll never know until you try. My mama used to always say, ‘A closed mouth don’t get fed!’” Lady stated as she made eye contact with Desi, while sipping her drink. Desi rolled her eyes and got up to walk over to the nearest trash can to throw her food trash away. When Desi came back to the table, she noticed Lady was standing up and putting on a fresh coat of lip gloss.

“What are you doing?” asked Desi.

“Finna go get your man.” stated Lady. Before Desi could argue with her friend, Lady grabbed her hand and they walked over in the direction of where Darren and his group of friends were sitting. As they walked, Desi kept trying to pull her hand out of Lady’s but she had a really tight grip. Finally, they were standing in front of the table where Darren and his friends sat. Some of them got quiet and began to check both Lady and Desi out. Lady began to speak.

“Wassup, fellas?”

All of the guys, including Darren, said an equal “Wassup?” back to Lady. Then, she pointed at Darren and said, “Darren, right? I know you may not know me or my friend but, we know you.” she said and laughed flirtatiously.

Desi quickly looked at Lady and dropped her hand. Then, she folded her arms across her chest and began to think to herself, The fuck is she doing?

All of the guys began to laugh and look at Darren. Darren then responded by saying, “Yeah, I’m sure y’all do. Pretty much everybody at school knows who I am,” joked Darren. His entourage began laughing again and some agreed with him. Lady went along with it, smiling and nodding her head. Meanwhile, Desi continued to stand with her arms folded, trying not to snap.

“You look really familiar, though.” says Darren, with the statement trailing off, as he stared at Lady. Lady smiled, ignored the comment and pressed on.

“Anyways… Darren, do you know my good girlfriend, Desiree? I call her Desi but, this is her.” said Lady, as she motioned with her arms and hands as if to show Desi off. Desi stared at her, silently fuming. Then, she turned to look at Darren. Desi smiled a nervous smile but, still staring at Lady, out the corner of her eye.

Darren made eye contact with Desi and smiled back.

“Yeah, I know her. I mean, I’ve seen her in the halls at school. We follow each other, too, right?” asked Darren to Desi.

Desi blushed and replied back.

“Yeah, we do.” Desi smiled but, this time, it was a more comfortable and relaxed smile.

Darren nodded his head, smiled and said, “Yeah. I know her.”

“Well good. Do you think she’s cute?” Lady asked Darren bluntly.

Desi instantly dropped her smile and snapped to look at Lady.

This motherfucker here…, thought Desi. But she kept her composure. She lightly slapped Lady on the arm. Lady snapped to look at Desi but, sharply turned back around and shrugged it off.

Darren looked back at Desi, then, he turned to look at his buddies as if for confirmation. Most of them nodded their heads in agreement and then, Darren answered Lady’s question.

“Yeah, she’s cute. Why, wassup? You must be looking for a date to the homecoming dance?” asked Darren.

Lady pointed at him again and said, “You read my mind. Except, she’s the one that’s looking for a date.”

Desi placed her hand over her right temple and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and shook her head.

I did not know this girl was gonna put me on the spot like this. What the hell?, Desi thought.

“To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about going to the dance. That’s because I ain’t have a date, either. I wasn’t looking for one, either. Most of the girls that we go to school with seem like they for everybody. So, I just stay to myself and chill with my boys or whatever. You feel me?” said Darren.

Then, he made eye contact with Desi. Desi stared back and then looked down at her feet.

“I feel you.”, Lady responded in agreement. “Well, since neither of you have a date, how about y’all go together? Sounds like a move to me!”, Lady exclaimed.

Darren raised up from the table and walked over to Desi so they could exchange numbers. Afterwards, Desi and Darren began texting each other. Lady and Desi then decided to go ahead and leave the mall because it was starting to get dark outside. As they were walking to the train station, Desi thanked Lady for hooking the homecoming dance date up for her.

“You know, I wouldn’t have ever done that by myself. I wouldn’t have even been brave enough to walk up to that man and ask him out on a date, let alone just having a simple conversation with him.”

“It’s cool, girl. You know I got you. Plus, you think that don’t nobody notices but, I see how you always be staring at that man’s timeline on a daily. He don’t even post a lot but I get it. He is fine or whatever.” Lady said, jokingly.

Desi smiled in agreement. Then, Desi thought for a beat.

“Wait. Since I got a date, who are you going to go to the dance with?”

Lady thought about it for a minute. “Mmmm… I don’t know. I guess I ain’t think about that before I just took it upon myself to be your wingwoman,” Lady joked again.

Suddenly, the train arrives for Lady and Desi to board. They get on and sit down when Lady says to Desi, “I’ll probably just stay at home and watch movies or something. I haven’t even bought my homecoming dance ticket yet. I could probably wear this dress out somewhere or something,” Lady said nonchalantly, as she lifted up her shopping bags.

It’s homecoming night and Lady is at home, all alone. Della had left out, about an hour and half ago, to go on a date with Michael. They also had to see Darren off to the homecoming dance. Lady had been at home all day, stewing in her feelings because nobody had asked her out to the dance. Even though she was forward with approaching Darren for Desi a couple of weeks ago, she wasn’t as fearless when it came to the other guys at school. She didn’t really feel attracted to anybody enough to ask for a date and she felt as if some guys didn’t find her attractive, due to the permanent scar on her left cheek.

Shout out to you, dad, is what Lady would sarcastically think to herself while raising her eyes to look at the ceiling or sky, in reference to her deceased father. With Lady being at home that entire day, she decided to just watch old movies like she told Desi she would. She and Desi had been in communication off and on that day, as Desi was preparing for the dance that night. Desi was also posting her every move in preparation for the dance on her daily stories. Lady was watching her story, along with a couple of other people she followed from school, who were also getting ready for the dance that night.

As Lady continued to watch everybody’s daily stories on her phone and was also texting Desi back and forth, she realized she had lost time. She pulled down the lock screen on her phone and realized it was 8pm already. The homecoming dance started at 7pm. Lady got back on to social media and immediately saw that Desi had posted recently on her daily story. She tapped the circle and could see selfies that Desi had taken from when she was at the nail salon and while she was getting her makeup done by her big sister, Bri. Lady also saw a short video of Darren pulling into Desi’s driveway in a navy blue Chevy Malibu.

As Lady continued to watch Desi’s daily story, she could feel herself bubbling up with all of this anger and jealousy. Desi looked so pretty. She and Darren looked really good together, as they both wore matching colors of burgundy, gold and white. Darren was wearing a maroon colored Polo Ralph Lauren button down that was tucked into a pair of gold and white slacks and some all white Stacy Adams shoes. Desi wore the strapless and short, gold and white dress she bought a couple of weeks ago at the mall, with a rose corsage and red 4 inch heels. Her auburn red hair was pulled back into a low bun and she had small stringlets of curls in her face and around her edges.

The next post was a 30 second video of Desi shaking her booty on Darren. In the background, you could hear the bass and lyrics to “Back That Azz Up” by Juvenile and Darren was holding on to Desi’s waist, focusing on her behind. Then, that was it. That was the end of Desi’s story. Lady got so mad that she screamed out in anger and threw her phone against the wall. Her screen instantly cracked.

As Lady sat in her thoughts, fuming with rage over Desi having the time of her life, she began to have all of these mean and nasty thoughts about Desi. Desi wouldn’t have ever been having this much fun if I was her date. Hell, she wouldn’t have even approached that man to ask him out to the homecoming dance, if it wasn’t for me. She said so herself!

Lady took an exasperated deep breath and sat on the edge of her bed, with her legs shaking.

She owes me a thank you. A bigger thank you than the one she gave me when we were sitting at the train station, 2 weeks ago. She’s literally having fun in my fucking face and I don’t appreciate it at all.

Lady continued to sit on the edge of her bed, while staring at her cracked up phone that laid in the same exact spot she had thrown it 30 minutes ago. Then, Lady’s head popped up as she instantly thought about the Onzancaire mixture in the fridge. Lady also thought about the conversation that Della was having with one of her girlfriends from back home in Mississippi, one day.

‘“Girl, how about it turns out that I didn’t even need that mess? Michael had been feeling me all along. Yes, girl, he asked me to be his woman and everything. I’m going to eventually throw that shit out when I get around to it. Ain’t no need for it no more. So, how you been, girl?”’

Lady hopped up and flew down the stairs to the kitchen to see if it was still there. She was in luck, the Onzancaire mixture was sitting directly on the inside of the fridge’s door handle. She chuckled to herself, as she grabbed the bottle out of the fridge and closed it back. Then, she began to think to herself, Della is barely here because she’s always with Michael. She probably won’t even recognize this is gone until she realizes it’s gone. She’ll probably ask me if I threw it away for her. I’m going to go ahead and clean the fridge, so she’ll think I did. That’ll be one less thing for her to worry about. But she won’t even have a clue.

Lady began to turn on some music and started cleaning not only the fridge but the entire kitchen. By the time she was done, she had a plan in motion. Lady remembered Della talking to her about an upcoming barbecue Michael was having so that he could introduce her to his family. She also remembered Michael mentioning having Della and Lady spend the night that weekend.

That’ll be the perfect time. I’m going to make Darren fall in love with me, have him forget all about Desi and he’ll be my man, Lady thought to herself. She smiled, grabbed the plastic bottle and walked back upstairs to her room.