SERIES: Beautiful Like a
Rainbow
PART: 5 of 8
RATING: PG-13; eventual NC-17 (Explicit Heterosexual Sexual
Activity, Adult thematic material, language, adult content, character death,
trauma)
PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C
DISTRIBUTION: To Myself
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CATEGORY: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SEQUEL TO : Shotzette's "True Colors"; a true and
proper one more so than "With Words" could be.
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Early Show AU; Canon for Happy Days up to
the girls' first appearance.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Dare to dream.
(Lavenny, Shirlmine)
NOTES: An alternate version of the "True Colors" side
of things - much more romantic in nature.
***
Some days required an hour or
more of reflection before a mirror, and so Laverne blotted her nose with her
ratty powder puff and stared blankly at the pretty girl in the mirror.
In her new dress and shoes,
she nearly looked respectable.
Normal.
Wait ‘til those assholes at
the ball got a load of her. Laverne –
that slutty gutter-rat Laverne – one of them for the night! She’d show every last one of them.
A knock on the door. “Laverne!” Shirley bellowed.
“WHAT?” Laverne yelled,
screwing her imitation-pearl earrings into her lobes.
“Lenny’s here!”
She smiled, dabbed her wrists
with her best perfume, and wiggled out to greet him.
Lenny sat on the couch , his
expression comfortably surrendered – though his eyes brightened when she
entered the room. “You’re pretty,” he
whispered, as if that was a magical revelation.
She spun around for him. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” He wore a tux and tails, not a whit of him
mocking an occasion he apparently found solemn.
“How touching,” Shirley
sneered. “Get out! I’m expecting someone.”
Laverne’s eyebrows rose. Shirley hadn’t been in the mood to see
anybody since Carmine had gotten back on his feet and left their apartment the
day before. “Make sure you change the
sheets,” she retorted, turning around and heading out the door, Lenny dragging
behind her like an expensive purse. “I
don’t wanna have to wash it OR smell it when I get back!”
Shirley didn’t have a
come-back. She waited ‘til she saw
Laverne and Lenny’s legs shuffle past her window.
Then she grabbed her bag and
headed straight to the Boxer’s gym on fifth street.
****
The ball was everything
Laverne had imagined it would be – loaded with rich, stuffy white guys with big
wallets and even bigger egos. The
fixtures and walls were golden or ivory and shone with a clean sparkle.
In her little black gown she
walked, her head straight up and her eyes defiantly on theirs. More than one face shuddered and turned
away.
Sweet Lenny was
oblivious. “Ma, Pop – this is Laverne,”
he said, his voice caressing her name.
“This is my date.”
Laverne pasted on a
professional smile. “Hi,” she said, not
risking anything more.
The Kosnowski elders looked
her up and down, disgust on their faces.
“You’re ‘Laverne’,” the woman – Magda- said.
“That’s the name,” she said,
pasting on a phony smile.
“Son,” Lenny’s father-Kael-
spoke up, “I thought you said you were bringing a nice girl.”
“Laverne’s a nice girl,”
Lenny said, sweetly naive.
“But you see, she’s not…”
“What the rest of the world
would call ‘nice’,” his mother finished.
“She hasn’t been that for a very, very, very,” her glare seemed to
penetrate the faux luxury of her dress to see the grotty skin beneath. “Long
time.”
Laverne drew herself taller –
she’d be damned if she’d let these assholes insult her in front of Lenny – but
his voice took after her own.
“Mind your own business,” he
snapped. “Laverne’s my date – she’s a
nice girl to me, and that’s what matters.”
He’d stood up for her in
front of his parents – the fact made her heart skip a beat. “Thanks, Len.”
“Nah, it ain’t nothing,” he
grinned. “Can I get you something?”
“A little punch?”
Lenny took her old grey coat,
checked it, and returned with little crystal glasses of bright red punch. That cup joined many more through the night –
and a lot of food, which he couldn’t resist plying her with. Fed, they proceeded to dance awkward waltzes
under the moonlight.
By midnight she was aware of
the low hum they’d stirred up - the snickering – a low-pitched rumble behind
her back. Lenny’s hand tightened on
hers, urging her to ignore it. She felt
hot, sweaty, the fury rising inside of her as they twisted. She saw a white slip of paper between the
hands of a young Shotz executive she’d fucked for a raise a couple of years
ago.
Her hand a claw, she ripped
it from between his hands.
It was a snapshot of her,
lying nude on his bed, her eyes dead black holes.
A cruel smile twisted her
lips – Lenny’s icy fingers no detriment as she pressed forward. “This is what’s funny, eh?” more loudly, she called, “so this is what’s
funny?” She shrugged her shoulders. “S’not anything you ain’t seen before,
right, Henry?”
He twitched, turned toward
his date, “Honey, don’t.”
“He’s got a big red birthmark
right on his tummy, doesn’t he – looks like a strawberry. You should get it fixed…” she zeroed in on a
squirrely-looking older man with long white mutton chops. “Hey, Eddie! You cut your nails,” she smirked at his
stiff-shouldered companion. “Don’t you
hate the way he scrapes your clit when he finger-fucks you?”
“I certainly wouldn’t know,”
the woman sniffed.
“You wouldn’t? He finally started using his tongue! Congratulations,” she sneered.
“Young Lady,” snapped Lenny’s
father, “you need to leave. Now.”
She laughed bitterly. “You’re throwing me out for telling the truth?” She glared at the assembled masses. “You may think I’m a slut but I’ve never lied
about who I’ve fucked around with.
Doesn’t look like many of you’ve done the same thing when it comes to
me. And I’m too good to hang around with
a bunch of fucking phonies.” She saw
Lenny’s injured expression. For him, she
whispered, “I’m sorry, Len.” But she
marched right out to the back alley with
her head held high.
He followed her there, and
found her leaning against the brick wall, her face against it. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she sniffled – he
came closer and she winced away. “No. I don’t wanna cry in front of you.”
He wrapped his arms around
her, his face buried against the top of her head.
“I love you,” he said firmly.
She stiffened. “No.”
He turned her around and
repeated himself. “I love you.”
She struggled free of his
touch. “How the hell can you love me,
Lenny? You know who I am and what I’ve
done…”
He nodded his head. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
“How can’t it? I’m a whore…”
“That’s what they call you. I loved you back when we were five, and when you
was running around with Fonzie – and I love you right now. I’ll always love you.”
Something inside of her
forced Laverne to battle his words. “Half
of the Pfister family knows I’m
easy! They’re gonna make it hell for
you when you go back in there…”
“Don’t care about them.”
“That’s crazy. If you knew half of the things I’ve done you’d
never…”
“You’re forgetting, Laverne –
I was there. Remember the night you came
to me, and you said you was gonna trick Father Peacefield into telling the
truth about what he was doing to Shirley?
You told me to come with you, so you’d have a witness.”
She nodded. “You was late. I was alone with him and I….” she turned her
head. “I can’t tell you…”
He touched her shoulder. “Did that bastard hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Not in that way.”
“What did he say?”
The door opened, and a member
of the wait staff rushed through it, then tossed himself into the dumpster,
making horrendous retching noises. “We
gotta get away from here – somewhere safe….”
“Can you come to my place?”
“Yeah.” She wiped her eyes raw against the back of
her sleeve and took his hand. Her
victory had been small, but it had been a victory after all.
He hadn’t see her cry.
***
She found him in a back alley,
his face a mask of tension. “Hello
there, big boy,” she purred. “I went to
the gym for you, but no one there says you’ve been in…” she glanced down, at
his clenched hands.
And the gun in his grip.
“Carmine!” she gasped.
“They want me to throw it
tonight,” he said. “I can’t do, it Shirley.”
“Are you nutso?” she
complained. “What’s more important; your
life or your honor?”
“Without honor,” he told her
arrogantly, “living ain’t worth it.”
She grabbed him by the
lapels. “You crazy Sunuvabitch! You’re going to throw your life away for
nothing! Now, just when I started to….”
He smiled crookedly. “I wanna remember you like this, Shirl – all
bristled up. I’ve seen you mad so often
that I forget what it looks like when you’re happy.”
She pushed him away. “Men - you’re all alike,” she snapped. “You all think you run the show…”
“You’re scared I’m gonna
die,” he pointed out. “You’re crazy
about me.”
She laughed. “I’m not in love with you,” she said
hysterically. “You stupid…”
He holstered the gun in his
waistband, grabbed her by her ivory shoulders and pulled her close.
And only a family of rats bore
witness to their passion.