8 Mile
Part I
Therese Szymanski
“I can’t believe your mother hasn’t turned on the air conditioning,” Cody’s sister-in-law said over the phone.
“You know her,” Cody replied.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Beg. Then go to the bar.”
So after begging, and getting her mother to turn on the A/C, Cody got in her car and took off. She was just in town for a long weekend, but figured she’d check out her old haunts while waiting for the house to cool off.
It was Thursday, so the only place to go was Sugarbaker’s. After all, the dance bars would be dead tonight. Unfortunately, the door was locked when she got there. She sighed. It was either back to the momster’s, or she could stop by the Rainbow Room for a beer and then back to mom’s. She’d use 8 Mile to get back, and maybe she’d take a peek in at the Rainbow. It’d be on her way.
But it wasn’t until she got there that she remembered how the Rainbow Room used to also be known as the Railroad Crossing. The traffic came to a dead halt from a slow, and very long, freight train crossing the road.
“Okay-fine,” Cody said as she put her car in park and sat back to enjoy her music while waiting.
The car in front of her had the gas door ajar, and the gas cap was dangling. She thought she should probably let the driver know. She started to get out of her car and realized that she was in a really bad neighborhood. Did she really want to leave her car running here? And would the people in that car freak if she walked up to their vehicle?
As the train went on. And on. And on. She decided even if someone tried to steal her car they couldn’t take it anywhere, boxed in as she was. And it looked as if it was just two women, probably mother/daughter, in the car in front of hers.
So she got out and came up with a bonus: the windows of the car were open, so she just called from a distance, “Do you mind if I close your gas cap?” Without waiting for an answer, she closed it all up and returned to her car. But she had noticed that she was wrong -- the driver of the car was a young blonde.
Cody had barely climbed in when the back door of the car in front of her opened and a woman she hadn’t yet seen before got out and came back to her car. Cody lowered the passenger’s side window.
“Hi,” the woman said. “Thanks for that. Are you going to the Rainbow Room?” She was young and slender, with bobbed brunette hair. In other words, she was a hottie.
Decision made -- home to mom or off to the bar with three young hotties? What a quandry!
“Um, yeah,” Cody said.
Part II
Laura DeHart Young
The Rainbow Room was not at peak capacity. But Cody didn’t mind because the sparse crowd gave her the opportunity to talk with the three lovely women she had followed in her car. One in particular, Sonya, made the little hairs on the back of her neck tingle.
“The moon must be in the seventh house,” Cody mumbled while paying for Sonya’s chocolate martini.
“You’re awfully cute,” Sonya said. “Do you always stop traffic for loose gas caps?”
“I believe in fate,” Cody replied.
“Ooooh, I could just pinch your cute little cheeks,” Sonya said with a giggle.
“Please don’t do that. At least not now,” Cody said with a smile. “Say, we’re ignoring your friends. Do you think they’ll mind?”
“No, not at all.” Sonya sucked on an olive, all the while staring into Cody’s eyes. “The three of us look after each other. We’ve been friends like forever.”
“Hey, you!” came an unfriendly voice. Cody turned around to find a tall, imposing dyke standing behind her, menacing eyes trained directly on her.
“Is there a problem?” Cody asked in her best butch voice.
Part III
Peggy J. Herring
“That’s my girl you’re chattin’ up there, Bucko,” the woman said. Cody imagined her wild red hair somehow matched her personality.
“Bucko?” Cody repeated. “You stuck in a ‘Happy Days’ time warp?”
“Get lost, Pinky,” Sonya said. “I’m not your girl, so leave us alone.”
“Now why are you talking like that?” Pinky said with a hint of a whine in her voice.
“Were you ever Pinky’s girl?” Cody leaned in to ask.
“Yeah, but we broke up,” Sonya said.
“How long ago did you break up?”
Sonya playfully held the olive between her perfectly white teeth. “Yesterday,” she said.
Cody rolled her eyes. “Well, hell.” To Pinky she said, “Sorry about that. My mistake.” She glanced at her watch and then scanned the crowd for anyone else who might appear interesting. Getting thumped by the likes of Pinky didn’t appeal to her at all.
“Hey,” Sonya said, “I thought we were hitting it off here.”
Cody smiled. “That was before I knew you had a girlfriend. It was nice meeting you both, but this buckerette has other plans already.”
“Damn you, Pinky!” Sonya said with a knuckle-poke on Pinky’s arm.
“What did I do?”
Okay, Cody thought. I’m outta here. At least in Mom’s hot house I won’t get my ass kicked.