Usually the night is never young for me because it’s always old, but tonight I don’t have a choice, because my brother, Lance, decides to throw a party in honor of it being the first weekend of summer. Although usually impressed by Lance since he has managed to keep his party and social life away at our city home, he disappointed me and brought the party to our quiet plantation home is Slaughter, Louisiana.
I sit in my leather rolling chair next to the large window of my study, and reluctantly doggy-ear the page of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, and let my bare feet touch the cool marble floor. I try not to let my anger get the best of me, but I’m just too pissed and end up slamming the book on the wooden desk across from my fireplace, and look outside the large window that takes over the entire right side of my room.
A girl runs topless across our side lawn and heads straight for the forest; another eggs her on with her fist in the air and is missing her pants and I guess she decides to grab and idiot and make them her hair dresser because her hair is cut diagonally from her right ear to her left shoulder. Lance has somehow managed to hang lights on the oak trees that surround our house, and it looks very pretty and makes my smile. A big group of kids are dancing to…what sounds like…Royals by Lorde and I somehow wish it isn’t Lance working the DJ, but shake my head because I know better. I want to think the music sucks, I do, but I don’t, and just when I think it can’t get worse, a huge rock breaks through my window and nearly scratches my marble floors with its sharp edges.
I look at the size of the rock and my eyes get wide, because I can’t imagine how someone can hum a rock that heavy that high, and when I look through the hole (yes, it is that huge to where I can fit my head through it) I see a girl with a black Mohawk and raccoon eyes pointing up at me. And it’s weird, because she wears a pink tight dress and I laugh.
“You…Charlotte?....You’re Charlotte Snow?” she slurs.
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s me,” I say. I decide to keep it cool, because I really don’t know this girl, and really she didn’t deserve to see my anger just yet. I raise an eyebrow to challenge her.
“What is it…” she says, her arms are open wide in the air, like she’s offering – showing – herself to me bared,“ are you too good enough for us? Stuck up there in your…your tower…j-j-just…just deciding to put us below you?”
I almost want to pull up a chair and talk to this girl, but the glass’s edges are piercing into my skin, so all I can think is …I am so above you…and keep it short.
“I do not think I’m above you, stranger,” I say. “I know I’m above you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“NO!” she screams. A couple heads turn her way, look up at me, and then back down at her. And so I wait, even though I’m not patient. I feel myself smiling, entertained by her boldness and decide to stick around for the show. “Just because you and your brother…and you’re spoiled little brat of a sister live here doesn’t mean that you own the place…the world is not yours! It will never be! Other people matter too!”
I realize that everyone has pretty much left me and this girl alone.
“You know…I get that you are trying to be someone. Really, I do. But the truth of the matter is, is that I’m a realist and you came to me, which means…you want to hear it, right?” I smile. “Let’s keep it pragmatic. In real life, you mean nothing. You think putting your two cents in about politics or about religion or society matter? They don’t! What do you think this is, a movie? This isn’t Mohawk in a Pink Dress vs. The world. This is real. Real life. Do you understand? So please…darling…go slit your wrist where someone cares. Because that’s not here.”
