Wealth Pt. 01

"Girl better watch it," he guffawed. "Give herself a black eye, huh?"

Chapter 3

Anita smirked as she handed in her homework assignment in Economics class; the assignment had silenced Marco once and for all.

"Supply and demand," she had asked him. "The price of green beans goes up, what happens to the supply of lima beans?"

He had stared at her.

"Come on, smart guy; you're so smart, tell me. Green beans go up too much, what happens to the lima bean crop?" Anita demanded.

"Um..." Marco stammered.

"Oh, maybe economics is too hard for you since you've never had a job," she sneered. "Let's try some Algebra, huh?"

"Yeah, I did all right in that class," he preened.

"X plus Y squared is eleven and Y is four, solve for X," she said.

"Ha ha, God, you're so stupid," he crowed. "Really? They got you studying that shit? Y is four so eleven minus four is..."

"But Y is squared," Anita corrected.

"Right and eleven minus four is seven, so X equals seven, dummy."

"Marco, you not listening," Luther laughed.

"Four times for is sixteen, so sixteen plus seven is twenty three, wow, Marco, you right; X has got to be seven, thank you," Anita sneered.

"Fucking bitch, shut up!" Marco screamed, punching Anita in the breast.

Luther quickly lumbered over and held Anita back from slashing her brother's face with her blade. Louisa was none too happy with her boyfriend, not missing the fact that Luther held Anita back from harming her brother, hands firmly cupping Anita's breasts.

"Socialism, huh?" Coach Dumas asked the class when all the homework had been gathered. "As Margaret Thatcher said, 'the problem with Socialism is, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.'"

"But the rich need to pay their fair share," Anita responded, parroting what she'd heard out of Luther's mouth, out of her mother's mouth, out of their political candidates' mouths for years.

"Oh that is like such bull!" Toni snapped.

"Yeah, you would say that, fucking rich bitch," Anita sneered.

"And that's one detention, Miss Lopez; we do not use language like that in my classroom," Fred called.

"Oh, like just go back to DeGarde, stupid bitch," Toni sneered at Anita.

"And one for you, Miss Delacroix," Fred said. "Oo wee, I'm on a roll; anyone else want one?"

"May I?" Toni asked, pointing to the dry erase marker on his desk.

"Depends," Fred said. "What you going to do with it?"

"Show her something," Toni said.

She drew five circles on the board, putting a star in one of the circles.

"Okay, like you got this business and it like has a hundred people working there and they like make like ice cream, okay?" she asked Anita.

"Ice cream?" Fred smiled.

"And it like sells its ice cream to these like other people," Toni said, pointing to the other circles.

"And they're making a lot of money, right?" Anita asked.

"I'm not finished," Toni snapped.

She erased one of the circles.

"And these people like go out of business, but the ice cream place still needs to like pay the same bills, you know? Like payroll and taxes and cost of goods so they like go up on their prices and..."

"And that's not fair," Anita said.

"And it's like too high for these people so they buy their ice cream from like China and..." Toni went on and erased a second circle.

"Love me the Chinese ice cream," Fred agreed.

"And they like have to go up even more and so these people quit selling ice cream and like start selling frozen yogurt which is so gross," Toni said and erased a third circle.

"Raspberry with chocolate syrup," Caitlin corrected.

Gross," Toni smiled, shaking her head.

Toni looked at Anita.

And they like go up even more and now on one buys their ice cream 'cause it's like so high and they go out of business," she said and erased the circle with the star in the center. "And all their employees are now out of like their jobs and there's like the milk people and the chocolate people; they're not making money either, 'cause the ice cream people are gone."

She put the dry erase marker on Fred's desk.

"Still like think they need to pay their fair share?" Toni asked.

Anita had to shake her head no.

"Because like, they are. They are paying their fair share," Toni concluded and sat back down.

"And that's exactly where Germany found itself in the post-World War One era," Fred said, launching into his lecture.

And yet another of her long held beliefs fell to the wayside. In Earth Science, Mr. Cousins had forced Anita to rethink her position on global warming.

The man didn't deny that the earth was slowly warming. But he did point out that there was absolutely nothing man could do to reverse the process.

"Twenty five thousand years ago, the earth was a solid ball of ice; you saw that really cute movie?" he asked, pointing to a drawing of the Earth covered in ice. "So what happened to the ice? Were we flying around, driving around back then? Were we spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere back then?"

"So we don't need to recycle?" Anita asked.

"No, no, that's not what I'm saying," Mr. Cousins smiled. "Just because we can't stop it doesn't mean we need to make it worse."

In Physical Education class Anita ran around, chasing after the basketball. Afterward, she grabbed her threadbare towel and cheap bar of soap and followed the others into the showers.

"Damn," Toni smirked to Susan, and gestured toward Anita's profusion of hair.

"Really!" Susan said and pointed to her own hairless pussy.

"Ever heard of a razor blade, huh?" Caitlin asked, showing Anita her own landing strip of red hair.

"Yeah, tried that once; fucking itches," Anita admitted.

"Baby oil on it," Susan offered.

"Yeah but you don't like have to rub it in for like an hour afterward," Toni teased.

"You don't?" Susan feigned innocence.

"No," Toni laughed.

"Then why you do me for that long?" Susan asked.

"Oh you bitch!" Toni squealed.

Wednesday's meal was tacos, but this was made with ground turkey instead of greasy low grade ground beef. If Pam could have gotten seconds and thirds, she would have.

After school, Anita let her bus driver know she had earned herself a detention, and then reported to Sister Lucy's classroom.

Sister Lucy's idea of serving out detention was to sit quietly for one hour. Not talking, not studying, not reading, and not playing on your phone. Sitting. For an hour.

If a student asked to be excused to go to the restroom, Sister Lucy would point to a metal wastebasket. In her forty four years of servitude at St. Thomas Aquinas, only three students had actually used the wastebasket.

Anita was sure she would go insane before the unbearable hour was up. Toni likewise fidgeted in her seat, watching the clock slowly drag its way around the dial.

"And, think you two can refrain from mane calling in the future?" Sister Lucy finally asked.

"Yes ma'am," both Anita and Toni said.

They left the classroom.

"Listen, like I'm sorry," Toni said, resting a hand on Anita's forearm. "I think we like really got off on the wrong foot somewhere."

"You know what? I'm sorry too," Anita agreed.

"Friends?" Toni asked.

"Sure," Anita gratefully said, holding out her right hand.

Toni stepped up and kissed Anita, squarely on her lips.

"Good," she giggled. "I like hate being all like not nice to people."

Toni even drove Anita home. If the girl thought ill of the dilapidated trailer Luther and Louisa rented, she said nothing. She just gave Anita another kiss on the lips and told her she'd see her tomorrow.

Both Luther and Marco, however, did notice the Lexus automobile and peppered Anita with questions about the car and the car's owner.

"Uh yeah, Marco; she does have a boyfriend and he can kick your ass, Anita said.

"Fuck, Luther, like I know what she paid for it?" she snapped at Luther.

Anita was grateful for the somewhat healthy meals St. Thomas Aquinas fed her; her suppers were usually from a nearby fast food restaurant. The electric stove in the trailer was normally used to reheat food and only two of the burners actually worked. The back one had two settings only, off and very high.

After their meal was shoveled down, Anita cleaned the table and began her homework.

That night, after dragging the razor over her legs and underarms, Anita gritted her teeth and hacked away at her dense growth of pubic hair.

Susan was right; baby oil did help. Anita did giggle to herself; maybe it would have been fun to have someone else rub the oil into her skin for her.

Chapter 4

Toni obviously took the word 'friend' very seriously. The moment Anita stepped off her bus, Toni was there. She gave the girl a quick kiss, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to where she and Boyd and Caitlin and Susan were lounging.

Once there, Toni did not let go of Anita's hand.

Boyd tried to insinuate himself into the conversation, mentioned several times that he was the quarterback for the St. Thomas Avengers, flexed his muscles several times for Anita's benefit.

Toni glared at her boyfriend, but did notice that Anita did not respond to Boyd's blatant flirting. She squeezed Anita's hand a little tighter in appreciation. Anita looked over from her conversation with Susan and smiled at Toni.

Pam looked over as she lumbered down the steps of bus one sixteen and frowned. Her new friend was now with the cheerleaders. That meant, yet again, she no longer had a friend.

Anita saw Pam and waved the girl over, though.

Within minutes, Caitlin, Susan, Toni, and Boyd were sorry Pam the Ham had waddled over; she was doing her best to monopolize the conversation.

Jeremy Leblanc, however, found out that he and Pam had a few things in common, including a love of caramel popcorn.

"There's this place, 'Popcorn Heaven' in the Galleria?" Pam enthused. "In Houston? They make the caramel popcorn right there, in front of you; I always like get two or three pounds every time I go there; any of y'all ever go to the Galleria?"

"Right in front of you, huh?" Jeremy asked.

The first buzzer sounded and Toni finally let go of Anita's hand as they raced into the building, out of the unbearable humidity.

In Physical Education class, all groaned as Coach Francesca Cuccione brought out the dreaded volleyballs.

"Oh quit your whining, a little sweat never killed anyone," she ordered and herded the protesting girls outside.

"Pam, I swear to God, you fall on me I'll kill you," Susan threatened as she took her place next to the large girl.

"Boo!" Toni complained when she and her new best friend were put on opposite teams by Coach Francesca.

The twenty four year old woman smiled; just yesterday, the two girls had been ready to kill each other. Teenagers were so fickle, so flighty.

Friends or not, Toni and Anita both played to win and the competition was fierce.

"Yay!" Toni cheered when Coach Francesca blew the whistle the final time and let the hot, sweaty girls go inside.

"Yay!" Anita groaned.

"Yeah, like we won!" Toni said.

Anita peeled her shorts off, baring her bald crotch and staggered into the showers.

"Ooh, nice," Toni commented, brazenly looking at Anita's crotch.

"You do the baby oil thing?" Susan asked.

"Yeah, but had to rub it in myself," Anita said and the girls laughed.

"I've been thinking about doing that," Pam said, trying to horn into the conversation.

They entered the cafeteria and Anita noticed Boyd and a few other football players sitting at one of the tables, already eating their lasagna lunches.

"Listen, like, I know he's your boyfriend, but..." Anita hissed to Toni.

"Like don't worry about it," Toni hissed back.

The got their trays and walked right past Boyd's table and sat down with Jeremy Leblanc.

"Can we sit here?" Susan sweetly asked the profusely blushing boy.

"Hey," Pam said, taking the seat next to him.

"Hey, ass wipe, that's my seat," Boyd growled at Jeremy.

"That's rude, Boyd; like there's a seat right there," Toni said, pointing to a seat next to Pam.

"Oh, hey listen," Toni said, ignoring Boyd. "Like this Saturday? My daddy needs his cars washed; like can you make it?"

"Oh, Barry's having another car wash?" Caitlin asked, excited.

"Barry? Uh, don't you like mean 'Mr. Delacroix' there, bitch?" Toni asked the smiling red head.

"Maybe to you," Caitlin said smugly. "Remember? I'm his next wife."

"Oh this I got to hear," Pam said, preparing to interject her own story.

"We're all like at my house, you know, it's just like a sleep over and stuff," Toni said.

"And Toni's got like a million cats," Susan said.

"Shut up, it's like three cats; just three," Toni corrected.

"I had this sleep over once, my cousin and..." Pam started.

"And Susan's like uber-allergic," Jenee," a pretty half Asian, half African American cheerleader said.

"But we didn't know that," Caitlin agreed.

"Hell, I didn't even know I was," Susan said. "Never been that close to one before."

"And she starts turning blue," Alexis, another blonde cheerleader said. "And she's laying there, gasping and can't breathe."

"My cousin's nineteen, but she's already a junior at UNC," Pam said.

"And like Caitlin runs to get my daddy," Toni said.

"And knocks on his door and when he says 'who is it' instead of saying 'Caitlin' like any normal person would," Jenee picked up the story.

"She like says 'your next wife' like a big goof ball," Toni said.

"God! He is so hot!" Caitlin whooped.

"What'd your mom say?" Anita asked Toni.

"They're like divorced," Toni shrugged.

"But Ms. Stacy was pretty pissed off," Alexis said.

"But what happened to Susan?" Pam asked, finally realizing that no one was interested in her story.

"Her? She died," Alexis shrugged.

"Who's Ms. Stacy?" Anita asked.

"Yep. I'm dead," Susan agreed.

"Her dad's girlfriend," Alexis said.

"Like started stinking," Toni said.

"Even worse than she usually does," Jenee said which earned her an elbow punch from Susan.

"Yep, buried her in the back yard," Caitlin said.

"No, really, what happened?" Anita asked.

"They'd just opened that hospital, that Trauma Center?" Susan said. "Thank God."

"And Barry..." Caitlin said.

"Mister Delacroix," Toni corrected her friend.

"Called Susan's mom then drove her to the hospital," Caitlin finished.

"And two thousand dollars later, I'm all better," Susan declared.

"Well, like wouldn't go that far," Toni teased.

"Hey Toni? Eat me," Susan said.

"Like anyway, you come?" Toni asked Anita.

"Come for what?" Anita asked, having forgotten what had begun the conversation.

"The car wash," Toni laughed.

"Oh, I uh, I don't..." Anita hemmed.

"Oh but you have to!" Toni whined.

"No way to get there," Anita admitted.

"Tell you what, like you just spend the night at my house and we'll go," Toni declared.

"This Saturday?" Pam asked, scraping the last of the lasagna from her plate.

"Yeah, Barry likes us to get there by ten," Caitlin said.

"Mr. Delacroix," Toni corrected, shaking her head at her friend's smirk.

"Oh darn, I can't," Pam said. "Me and Jeremy's going to the Galleria."

No one told Pam, she wasn't invited.

"Oh well, maybe next time," Jenee said magnanimously.

"So bring like your bathing suit; you got a bathing suit, right?" Toni asked Anita.

"Yeah, why?" Anita asked.

"Barry likes us out there in our bikinis," Caitlin said.

"And he like pays us fifty dollars each," Jenee said.

"Fifty... To wash a car?" Anita asked, sure they were making that up.

"He's got like twenty cars," Toni said.

"Twenty?" Anita said, shocked. "Why's he got so many cars?"

"Her daddy owns Superior Motors," Alexis informed Anita.

"That fine ass car place? On fifty two?" Jeremy asked.

"Uh huh," Caitlin said, scraping the last of her lunch off the tray.

The next morning, Anita packed her bikini, even though it was a little too small for her, her best sleep shirt, and a pair of shorts and a tank top, along wither flip flops.

Louisa complained when Anita asked her to make her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her lunch.

"What? I'm not paying all that money for them school lunches just so you can eat a peanut butter sandwich," the woman shrilled.

"You're not paying a penny for that lunch," Anita wanted to say, but saw that she only had five minutes to get to the bus stop anyway so hustled out the door.

"Mr. Hardy, I'm not riding the bus home tonight," she informed the old man that drove their bus.

"Oh? You not in any kind of trouble again, huh?" the man asked.

"No sir," she smiled.

Louisa had not asked, Luther had not asked, they both just grunted to acknowledge that they'd heard her when she let them know she was spending the night at a friend's house.

"No, sir, I'm spending the night at a friend's house," she said.

"Good, good. Pretty girl like you, you ought to have you plenty of friends," he said and swung the door of the bus closed.

Toni greeted Anita with her usual kiss, directly on the lips, and took the duffel bag and locked it in the trunk of her car.

Anita noticed, with some satisfaction, Boyd was with the group of football players, apart from the cheerleaders group.

She groaned inwardly; Pam, however, was standing right on the periphery of the cheerleader group.

"Like, why you like her?" Toni asked Anita.

"I don't, I mean, not really, but Sister Andrea assigned her to be my buddy," Anita hissed.

Anita, Toni, Caitlin, and Jenee were tolerant of Pam's barging into the conversations, tolerant of Pam's boastfulness. If they said they had one pencil, Pam said she had two. If they said they had one notebook, Pam said she had two. If they said they had one pimple, Pam had two.

Susan, however, was unwilling to tolerate it for very long.

"Hey, Pam? Shut up. God, not every conversation's all about you, huh?" she snapped, and then went back to telling Alexis about Sherman Loomis' shortcomings as a boyfriend and lover.

Chapter 5

Anita wasn't sure what she had expected; Toni drove a nice car, and Anita was sure that the earrings the girl sported, and the crucifix she wore on the dainty chain were real diamonds. She had been sure Toni would live in a nice house, but the three story house was overwhelming to her.

The rich chocolate brown brick was offset by stark white columns and a gleaming white double door. The brass handles glittered in the afternoon sunlight. The nine windows that she could see were all sparkling clean. The grass was clipped short; the shrubs were trimmed and shaped, the flowers bright and healthy.

Toni screeched to a stop in front of the garage doors and hopped out of her car.

Inside was just as intimidating to Anita; there were no stale smells, no sour odors. She was sure the St. Elizabeth Trauma Center did not smell as clean as the Delacroix house did.

"Ola Mees Toni, these you friend?" a very short woman, long black hair pulled into a severe bun asked.

"Yes Miss Alverez; this is Anita Lopez; she like goes to my school," Toni smiled. "Anita? This is Miss Alverez; she's like our housekeeper."

"Ola," Miss Alverez said. "GO wash up, banana bread and meelk in breakfast nook, okay?"

"Ooh!" Toni enthused and pulled Anita into a small half bathroom.

The thick slab of bread was still warm and Anita used the fork to eat it. Toni did not use the fork, simply broke off pieces of the bread and dunked it into the ice cold milk.

"Next time just like use a bowl, huh?" Anita teased her friend.

"Like, shut up," Toni smiled.

Anita picked up the small plate and her empty glass, but Miss Alverez suddenly appeared and took those from Anita's hands.

"Go, go, I geet these," she said.

"Thank you," Anita said.

"Yeah, thanks, Miss Alverez," Toni said and pulled Anita to the stairs.

Toni's room was exactly what Anita would have expected. A large, fluffy looking bed, massive chest of drawers and matching dresser and even a matching desk. The furniture did not look as if it was made of pressboard or cheap veneer. The small vanity had a mirror; Anita could see the small light bulbs that surrounded the mirror.