Chapter 2
FAMILY QUARREL Mimosa belched.
"You're a pig!" Billy shouted. "Only pigs fart through their faces. Goddamn you, Mimosa, why the fuck do you have to do your homework here in the kitchen when I happen to be eating? You've got a whole goddamn fucking room to yourself. Even a little desk. And your phonograph too. Don't you want to listen to the Beatles? Bob Dylan? Play with yourself? That's what little thirteen year old twirps like you are supposed to be doing."
"Why are you eating in the middle of the afternoon?" she demanded. "You'll spoil your appetite for dinner."
"Who's cooking tonight?"
"Me!"
"That's why I'm eating now, you snotnose! Pure self-protection-nothing else!"
"I heard a new riddle in school today."
"Tell me."
"What's the clap?"
Billy scratched his head. "Gonorrhea."
"Uh-uh," Mimosa laughed, "try again."
"I give up."
"One handed applause!"
Billy grunted. "That's lousy! You mean to say we waste our money on a private school for you to get an education like that? Shit! If Andrea would listen to me, I'd have you out walking the streets!"
"Pig!"
"Fuck you!"
Mimosa grinned. "I'll bet you wish you could. Don't you, Billy? At night do you dream of my luscious and delectable nubile young body? Does that get you hot? Do you think of me writhing in passion?"
"I think of you dead," Billy said slowly. "Night after night I dream of your moldy corpse being eaten and sucked by worms. Little eels crawling through your nose..."
"That's disgusting!"
"And you're not even dead yet," Billy continued. "You're buried alive in this coffin. There's no way you can get out. The coffin's already been buried. Down under six feet of dirt. But outside you can hear the rats nibbling, eager to get in and start devouring your flesh."
"Only you could think of something as vile and nauseous and perverted and sick!"
"You're all alone, Mimosa, lying there and knowing that the little worms are on their way to your nose, your ears, your eyes, your ass, and finally crawling into your cunt!"
Mimosa lifted a dish from the table and hurled it at Billy's head. He ducked and the plate bounced off the wall and shattered against the refrigerator.
"MIMOSA!"
Andrea stood in the kitchen doorway. She had entered the room for the last act, just in time to see the plate flung from her sister's hand.
"Mimosa, what are you trying to do?"
"She's trying to kill me," Billy shouted. "That's what this little bitch is up to. One way or the other. Poison my food. Shatter my nerves. She's up to some kind of shit every minute of the day."
"That's not true," Mimosa screamed. "He was teasing me, saying the worst sort of awful terrible nasty things!"
"Shut up bitch!"
"Billy," Andrea snapped. "Just watch the way you talk in front of her. I don't know how many times I've told you the same thing. I mean it! There's going to be hell to pay from me if it keeps on much longer."
"My language?" Billy snorted. "Why don't you get it through your head that this little twirp is a two-faced conniving thirteen-year-old pudding of evil? She's deliberate! Everything she says is deliberate! In front of you she acts like God's little angel saint, but as soon as your back is turned she's flaunting her behind in front of me as if she were a cheap two-bit hustler working for nickels in the bowery!"
"Billy!"
"It happens to be the truth!"
"I want to see you in my room," Andrea said coldly. "There are a couple of other things I want to talk to you about. like this afternoon, for instance."
Mimosa perked up her ears. "This afternoon? Billy's appointment with the casting director? What happened this afternoon?"
"None of your business," Andrea said firmly. "Take your books off the table. If you have homework to do, the place to do it is in your room, not here in the kitchen. Things certainly aren't black and white, I can see that. Maybe Billy does fly off the handle at you with some ugly curse words, but I'm sure there must be some provocation on your part!"
"Me?" exclaimed Mimosa. "That's right, Andrea, blame me! I throw the dish at his head because of some of the most vile and obscene things I've heard said and suddenly it's my fault because my school books just happen to be on the kitchen table!"
"Enough is enough," Andrea said sternly. "I don't want to start delivering the 'now-I-am-your-guardian' speech again, but sometimes I wonder if you get the message. Both of you are my responsibility."
"Until I'm twenty-one," Billy reminded her. "Eight months to go."
"Eight months is eight months. That's beside the point. Let's go to my room, Billy. We have some things to discuss."
"I said what I had to say," mumbled Billy. "That's all there is to it. I'm done being dragged all over New York from one model agency to another like a piece of prize meat for sale."
"Privately, Billy," Andrea said sharply. "In the meantime, Mimosa, I want to see your things put away and dinner started. I believe you're the cook tonight, according to the schedule."
"My things are away," Mimosa replied. "And dinner won't take more than a few minutes. Whatever you have to say to Billy I think should be considered part of a family council session."
"You think!" Billy snorted. "No one I know asked your opinion. Besides, I made my point, Andrea, so let's skip the whole thing. I was just sitting here trying to eat my sandwich in peace when you two women started in bugging me!"
"What right has he got to eat?" Mimosa demanded. "If I'm making dinner tonight then I don't see the point in preparing anything if he won't be around to eat it!"
"What do you mean?" asked Andrea. "Aren't you having dinner at home this evening?"
Billy shook his head. "I have an audition tonight. One I got for myself. Not for a commercial on television, not for a magazine's fashion layout. . .an audition for an acting job."
Mimosa snorted.
"What sort of audition?" Andrea asked suspiciously. "Who for? What's it about?"
"For a play," Billy replied. "Off-Broadway, naturally, but at least they're looking for a legitimate actor and not just a beautiful body."
"I'll bet it's your friend Leo's play," Mimosa giggled. "The sexy one, where all the actors are going to be naked on stage and some of them even actually do it. Is that the play, Billy? That's the one! I bet it is!"
"I thought we decided about that, Billy," Andrea said. "We agreed that it would be bad for your career to be seen naked on the stage. Particularly in that play your so-called friend Leo is putting on. I read that script."
"So did I!" Mimosa interrupted.
Andrea shuddered. "It was vile. Some of the things Leo is going to put on the stage most people have never even imagined in private! I'd hate to imagine what an audition for that must be like! What do they do? Ask the actors to sleep with each other? Is that your idea of acting? How much talent do you need for that?"
"If I was going to sell my beautiful body," Mimosa said, "I'd want to get the most money for it I possibly could! That's all that would interest me. Off-Broadway is for the birds!"
"Nobody asked you!"
"I just mentioned my opinion!"
"Hold it!" Andrea shouted. "Really! Let's get down to some sort of order, or else we'll waste all our time arguing here in the kitchen."
"Family council!" Mimosa shouted. "Family council!"
"No," Andrea responded firmly. "Nothing of importance is up for discussion. If Billy's going to skip dinner tonight, that's his business. But perhaps more warning in advance would be considered polite next time."
"Sure," Billy grinned, "why not?"
"The rest of what I have to say to Billy is private," Andrea said with a meaningful glance at her sister. "I would appreciate your sweeping up the broken dish while Billy and I spend a few minutes alone."
"All right," Mimosa muttered, "but I don't think it's fair."
"Come on, Billy. It's time for our talk."
Billy hesitated. "I'm in a hurry, Andrea. I told Leo I'd meet him downtown at six o'clock."
Andrea glanced at her watch. "You have plenty of time. This is serious." She stared at her brother for a long moment, hoping her glance would be understood. Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen.
"She's the boss," Mimosa whispered. "You'd better do what the boss says."
"Go fuck yourself!"
"Wouldn't you just love that?" Mimosa laughed. "Wouldn't you just love that?"