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Never The Same Again
Part 11
By: Ashley
“I hate this game,” Laverne said, taking a swig off of her bottle of Shotz.
“Why?” Rhonda asked.
“Because, all it ends in is people gettin’ mad at each other.”
Squiggy interjected. “Maybe this time it’ll end in people gettin’ lucky.” He raised his eyebrows in succession at Rhonda.
“Andrew, Rhonda does not like when you do strange things with your eyebrows like that,” Rhonda responded. “Oh, Laverne, what are you talking about, ‘people getting mad at each other’?”
Laverne rolled her eyes. “If you will recall, the last time Shirley wound up with puddin’ in her face.”
“But Shirley ain’t here,” Squiggy said.
“But you are,” Laverne quipped.
“Oh, Rhonda does recall,” Rhonda acknowledged. “Rhonda also recalls Lenny licking the pudding off of Shirley’s face.” Crickets chirped outside. “Oh, Laverne, you must get over yourself! Truth is fun!”
“I bet it’s even better drunk,” Squiggy said.
Squiggy was right. For awhile. Everything was going swimmingly until Lenny had to ask him, “If you could do anything to any one person in the room, what would you do?” After an answer that involved Rhonda, ropes, and honey, Laverne ordered him away with a simple, “Get out.”
“What?” he asked.
“Get out!” Laverne shouted.
“All right, woman, I’m out. No need to get your pantyhose in a wad.”
“Out,” she said pointing toward the door.
“You’re just jealous ‘cause I didn’t wanna do that stuff with you.”
“OUT!”
He shut the door behind him. Loudly.
“You, too, Rhonda,” Laverne said.
“But … Rhonda didn’t say anything.”
“Ya didn’t have to. Just breathing is enough. Now get out.”
She followed suit.
Lenny had started picking up empty beer bottles and was placing them on the kitchen table.
“You want me to help you with some of that before I go to bed?” Laverne asked.
“Nah,” Lenny said. “You ain’t slept in four days. And you drank enough beer to sleep for a month. You go on up.”
“All right, well … night Len,” she said. She had climbed halfway up the stairs before she stopped and looked at Len. “That baby sure is cute, huh?”
Lenny smiled. “Yeah, she sure is.”
“I just wish that…” Laverne halted. “Well. Never mind.” She started up the stairs again.
“You wish what?” Lenny asked, picking a bowl of potato chips up off of the coffee table.
“I just wish, well,” Laverne came down the stairs. “Len, if I tell you this, you can’t say nothin’ to nobody, okay?” He nodded as she picked up the bowl of dip and took it into the kitchen. “I always imagined Shirley with some short, dimpled baby with a head of dark curls, you know?”
“That don’t sound like Shirley’s baby,” Lenny said, taking a damp rag into the living room. “That sounds like Carmine’s baby.” He stopped abruptly and turned around to Laverne. “Ohhhhhhhhhh.”
“And I was right all along, too.”
“THAT’S CARMINE’S BABY?!”
Laverne smacked his arm. “No, you dope! It’s just, well … okay, you gotta swear you won’t say nothin’ about this neither.”
“On a stack of Bibles.”
“Shirley and Walter are getting’ a divorce.”
“A divorce?”
“Yeah. Which just goes to show you that she shoulda been with Carmine all along,” she said as she plunked down onto the sofa. “Even if he is a squat dancer.
“Wow,” Lenny said, clearly shocked, as he dropped onto the other end of the couch. “Shirley. A divorcee.”
“Yeah,” Laverne sighed.
Lenny sighed in response. “Well, Laverne, I’m pretty bushed myself so … if ya don’t mind … I think I’m gonna hit the hay.” He’d been sleeping on the couch for a few weeks now.
“Oh, okay,” she started to get up, but noticed something on the coffee table. It was an empty beer bottle. She picked it up with a childish smirk. “Ya know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of when we were little, and…”
“And ya broke that Coke bottle over my head?” Lenny asked.
“No, no. And it was a Pepsi bottle. It reminds me of all those times when we were little that we all used to play ‘Spin the Bottle’.”
“Ah, yeah,” Lenny said. “Those were the days. You know, I kissed my very first girl playin’ that dumb game.”
Laverne smiled. “Ya did?”
“Yeah.”
“Who was it?”
There was a silence. “I think you oughta go to bed, Laverne.”
“Who was it, Len?”
“I don’t know if I should…”
She gently poked her index finger into his chest. “Go on…”
“All right,” he took a deep breath. “It was you.”
She was stunned. “Me?”
“I toldja you shoulda just gone to bed,” he said with a small grin.
“When was this?”
“Ready Betty Wasaluski’s 14th birthday party. And boy was she ready.”
“Len…” Laverne said.
He looked over at her. She was just sitting there with the bottle in her hand, staring down at the table. “Yeah?”
Without saying a word, she turned the bottle on its side and gave it a quick turn. The mouth of the bottle landed on Lenny. She slid across the couch, put a hand on either side of his mouth, and kissed him.
To the surprise of all involved he pulled away. “Laverne, I don’t want you to get me wrong, ‘cause it was real nice and all but … you’re drunk.”
“I ain’t drunk!” she shouted. He arched an eyebrow. “Okay. Well. Maybe. Just a little. But so are you. You callin’ me insincere?”
“No… but I think I am callin’ you inebriated.”
“Lenny?”
“Laverne?”
“Shut up.” She grabbed his face and kissed him again, and he pulled away a second time.
“Laverne, I can’t let this happen while you’re drunk and don’t mean it.”
She sat back. “I’m not exactly fallin’ on the floor, here. It’s me you’re talkin’ to, Len. Me, Hollow Leg DeFazio.”
“I know, but I don’t wanna…”
“You’re not gonna.”
“Then how come I feel like I’m…”
“’Cause you’re stupid.”
“Hey, you said nobody could call me…”
“Yeah, but I can ‘cause I know you.”
“But why would you…”
“Oh, f’Pete’s sake Lenny would you just…”
“Kiss you?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
His mouth was warm and soft against hers. She hadn’t felt anything so safe since the night he found her and she held onto the lapels of his jacket.
“Lenny?’
He was kissing her neck. “Vernie…”
“You can touch me.”
“Oh,” he said, and put his arms around her waist while his mouth moved to her collarbone. He stopped for a moment to look at her. He had never seen her like this, her eyes closed, her mouth partially opened. “Oh my God.”
Her eyes quickly flickered open. “What?!” He said nothing. “Len, don’t stop…”
“Laverne, I have to ask you a question.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know how to kill a mood, you know that?”
“Do you want me?”
“…Now?”
“No, I don’t mean like … I meant … this is Lenny Kosnowski. The guy you’ve turned down time after time after time. The guy who kissed you and you thought he might have given you a rash.”
“Lenny, I already told you, I…”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I…” she wanted to answer, but something stopped her. “I don’t know.”
He sat up. “I knew it.”
“Len, I can’t… you… oh, what’s the use? Look, ever since that night when I… well, you know… when you showed up, it was like… I can’t even explain it. I mean, you weren’t there. And you always had been. And then, when I was lyin’ there, and I kept thinkin’ to myself, ‘This is it, it’s over,’ and you showed up … and I was so mad at you, you know, for leavin’? And then it was me you left over and I just wanted to …” she looked over at him. “Why d’ya have to ask questions?”
He concentrated on a spot on the floor. “’Cause I wanted to know.”
“Well, I wanna know, too. And I don’t. Okay? I don’t know why I was so mad at you leavin’. And I dunno why nothing was better to me that night than feeling your jacket and smellin’ SenSen on your breath.”
What seemed like an eternity passed between them. “I think,” Lenny said, “that we should go to bed.”
He had expected a simple, “Okay,” not the sobbing he heard now. “Laverne, what’s wrong?”
Her face was buried in her hands. It was the most pathetic thing he had ever seen. “I don’t wanna be up there all by myself. All I do is think about it. And him. And over and over. I’m tired of it, Len. Why can’t it just go away?”
“It will, Laverne. I promise.”
“But when?”
“I don’t know. But bad things go away. You know that.”
“Randy dyin’ didn’t.”
He sat there, trying to figure out what to do, what would help her. He put his arms around her. “I’m not going to let anything or anyone else hurt you. I promise.” She had buried her face into his chest; her fingers had practically implanted themselves into his shoulders. “Now, you gotta stop crying, Laverne. ‘Cause… if you don’t, I’m gonna start cryin’, too. And then I’ll look like a big sissy.” He took a breath. “You just keep holdin’ on, okay? I’m not gonna let you go.” He felt her nod against him. “Laverne?” He hesitated. “I…”
“You don’t gotta say it, Len,” she said. “I already know.”