Saints Need Synners

I wake up in the morning to the sun streaming through the filmy white curtains, a pleasant warmth under the covers, and a big ass Persian cat on my chest. We stare at each other for a moment and I think I’m dreaming. I mean, I’m pretty sure I am. Gram and Gramps haven’t gotten a new cat since Socks passed, so it’s pretty much impossible that there’s a cat glaring down her nose at me right now. Besides, I’ve been having weird dreams with animals in them lately.

“Meow,” she says.

“Meow,” I say back.

And then her eyes get all huge like she’s a tweaker cat and she arches her back, her white hair fluffing up like an albino hedgehog. And then she lets out this vicious hiss, her teeth bared, little canines glinting. My eyes become equally huge. “Oh shit.” And without giving myself or the cat any warning, I roll from under the covers and onto the floor, the cat skittering beside me on her claws with an extremely pissed off ‘Rrraong!’ and the covers drooping in the aftermath of the bedding landslide at my side.

After laying there for a little while, contemplating on whether or not I’m losing my already iffy sanity, I clamber up from off the floor and cast a glance at the cat who’s now scratching at the door.

So they did get a new cat.

I shake my head and let myself and the cat out of the bedroom. A white ball of fluff goes tearing down the hallway, yowling in some sort of pussy cat victory all the way. I scratch the back of my neck and fix my pajama pants as I make my way into the kitchen where Gramps is sitting at the breakfast table, eating a Danish and reading the local newspaper. Gram is leaning over the countertop stove, frying up some eggs.

“Morning,” I say with a yawn, lifting my arms over my head in a luxurious stretch.

Gramps looks up from over the top of his newspaper and gold-rimmed reading glasses. “Hey, Moxie!” he greets me.

I smile.

Grandma rushes over on click-clacking heels and wraps me in a hug. “Hi, sweetie.”

“Hi,” I reply, unsure of what to do. I haven’t seen them since I was about seventeen years old, and this is how they treated me then, so they figured, why not resume three—almost four years later.

Gram lets go of me and looks at me in an admiring sort of way, which is a little awkward, so I’m relieved when she asks, “You hungry?”

I nod, welcoming the distraction.

Grandma clacks back over to the stove and stirs around the eggs and I go to sit down at the table across from Gramps. “Eggs, okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding through she can’t see.

And so I sit there at the breakfast table for a little while, literally twiddling my thumbs. It’s like I’m having a thumb war with myself, alternating winning thumbs just so it’s fair. “So… Where’s Marshie?” I wonder out loud to no one in particular.

Grandma answers. “Oh, she’s been up for a while. She had some toast earlier and said something about a barbeque and then went back downstairs.” She shrugs.

I nod and resume thumb wrestling.

And then, speak of the devil, Marshie comes from out of the basement. “City! You aren’t ready yet! Get dressed, kid! We gotta hit the road soon!”

I throw her a quizzical look and glance at the clock. “Marsh, it’s only nine o’ clock.”

“So?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little… early?”

“It’s called being punctual,” Marshie retorts. “Besides, I have to make guacamole.”

I look around the room for a little while and then my eyes go back to Marshie. “So?”

“Ugh!” she groans and then picks me up by the arm. “Come on!”

“But I have to eat.”

Marshie glances at Grandma, who’s extending her hand with a plate of eggs towards me. Marshie grabs the plate. “You can eat your eggs in the shower.”

“But!”

“No buts!” She shoves me towards the archway.

“Hey!” I protest.

“Hay is for horses!” Marshie chirps and then literally kicks my booty all the way to my room.



After an interesting showering experience consisting of scorching hot water and Marshie yelling at me through the door about how my fashion sense sucks, all while trying to enjoy some cheesy eggs, well… Let’s just say I’m not happy with Marshie right now.

I emerge from the steamy bathroom to be assaulted by Marshie’s blonde-headed fury and a hairbrush. She frantically tugs my hair through the brush, getting it stuck a few times and using some rather naughty words. My hair is pretty curly, like in the seventies porn star way, and it’s incredibly thick. So, lucky for her, this will certainly be an arduous task.

After oh, say… Fifteen minutes? My hair has been brushed and Marshie has left the room in frustration, which I’m happy about. Now I can finish dolling up on my own without any rude interjections.



At 10:30, Marshie starts to knock furiously on the door, so I decide to stop messing around and making her wait and I open the door with much finesse.

Marshie looks like she wants to strangle me for a moment, and then her face softens. “Aw! You look so pretty! So, you’re not completely hopeless!”

Ah, yes. Backhanded compliments.

But, Marshie pretty much looks so happy she could cry, so I just spin around in my happy little getup with a smile.

And then I notice what Marshie’s wearing.

“Uh… Marsh?”

“Yeah.”

“Your… Shoes… Are going to kill you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” She tosses a dismissive hand at me and then turns in her precariously high heels that match her entire fire truck red outfit.

I raise my eyebrows and follow behind.



“Don’t stop believin’!” I shout out the window.

“Shut off this… this…”

“Blasphemy?”

“What?”

“Bedlam?”

“The hell, City? I don’t even know what that means. I hate the eighties,” Marshie says, irritated.

I slightly turn down the volume and then lean back in my seat again. “What exactly does bedlam have to do with the eighties?”

Marshie glares at me over her bug-eyed sunglasses. “Do not shit with me, so help me god.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s Journey. Classic, I tell you. Do not diss. Dig. Appreciate. Respect. Love.”

“You’re shitting,” Marshie says, turning on her turn signal, getting ready to switch lanes for our exit off the highway.

“I shit you not. They’re classic and if you can’t realize that, you’re just shitting yourself, shitting your soul,” I say matter-of-factly.

“Can you even shit your soul?” Marshie asks, maneuvering over two lanes to the right.

“Yep.”

“Does that mean you can find soul diapers at Target or something? ‘Cause I’m checking the next time—“

“Marshie, you’re shitting your goddamned soul. Get over it. Or better yet, gain some respect for the fucking eighties. Your parents probably made sweet monkey love to this song and made you.”

“Exactly why I hate the eighties. Bad images, City. I’m scarred. How dare you bring up sweet monkey love? What kind of Maid of Honor are you?”

“A good one.” I turn my head to the side and grin at her, popping a pretzel in my mouth from the bag on the dashboard.

We quiet down for a moment when we reach the exit, slowly sloping down the off ramp to a red stop light.

“Almost there,” Marshie comments, doing a little shoulder shimmy.

I turn up the volume on the radio again. “They call me mellow yellow!” I belt out.

“Quite rightly,” Marshie stage whispers.



We arrived at 11:30, which Marshie was freaking out about, considering it to be late. Dead late. Not even fashionably late. We let ourselves in to the ginormous house in the prestigiously green, gated community full of hummers and backyard swimming pools, Marshie and I both nervous that we had the wrong house and that we were unknowingly sneaking through a stranger’s screen door.

Inside the house, the air conditioning is blasting and it feels good against my partially scorched skin. It’s strangely dim compared to the bright, cloudless sky. Marshie and I pad hesitantly through the dark entryway and through an archway to a huge kitchen, decked out with double ovens and slabs of sparkling marble. Marshie lets out a long whistle and puts her hands on her hips.

“You… think this is really the place?” I ask, leaning awkwardly towards Marshie.

Marshie flips out a piece of paper from her purse and reads it over. “Uh… Yeah. This is it.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then a blonde-haired woman enters the room, rubbing her hands against the front of her jean shorts. “Oh,” she says then looks at us carefully for a second. “Oh! Marshie!”

“Gena!” Marshie shouts back and they go in for one of those pitiful I-don’t-know-you-that-well-but-I-feel-like-we-should-hug hugs.

“So, who’s your friend?” Gena asks.

“Uh, I’m City,” I say, stepping forward slightly.

“Gena.” We shake hands.

“Hey, so, everyone else is out back and we’ve got hot dogs and burgers and veggie burgers and all that happy stuff. So… If you ladies will follow me…” Gena slides open the sliding glass door to the sound a huge splash and an aggravated voice screaming, “Fuck you, Rev! Go—”

“Shit your soul?” I presume as a sideways comment aimed towards Marshie.

“New people!” A tall, wet person in swimming trunks comes lumbering towards us.



“What the hell is this, the latin polka station?” the one I discovered is named Jimmy shouts and then starts doing an awkward jig with a hilarious expression, the beer positioned in the waistband of his shorts spilling its contents all over the flagstone patio.

I chuckle as I turn my head back to the table where all the girls are sitting, soaking up the sun and chitchatting. There’s Gena, the one who let us in and who we found out was paired up with Zacky, the rhythm guitarist. There’s Leana, who I though looked very familiar. I discovered she was a former porn star and I had seen one of her films in college with an ex-boyfriend, because I refused to have sex with him and we decided that watching porn together was the next best thing. She’s Jimmy the crazy-ass drummer’s girlfriend/almost fiancée she thinks. Then there’s Val, Matt’s-the lead singer with the huge smile- girlfriend. Lacey, Johnny the bassist’s girlfriend. And then there are a few other women who are old friends or neighbors- Rebecca, Yolanda, and Justine. And then of course Marshie and me.

“So, anyways…” Val says, kind of rolling her eyes.

Leana just smiles, almost proud I think.

“What do you two ladies do for a living?” Lacey asks, sipping on her daiquiri.

Marshie sucks up the remains of her drink and says, “I’m currently working on my communications major and doing some modeling work on the side.”

The girls kind of nod; Leana applauds a little and Gena says, “Nice.” Then the gazes look expectantly to me.

“Ahh… Unemployed for the time being. College isn’t my thing, really…” I smile a little and fix my eyes on the flagstone far away.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Lacey says and then is about to add something else when a shout comes from back at the house.

“—I’ve got a squirt gun and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Jimmy. Of course. He standing just outside the sliding glass door, loaded with two little squirt guns, poised at the ready and set for the kill.

“Bring it!” a voice shouts and suddenly Zacky pops up from behind the grill with a huge, pump-and-squirt water gun.

“Touché,” Jimmy says and then begins the squirting.

“Oh, I’m outta here,” Val says and is followed around to the front of the house by Marshie and Rebecca and Yolanda and Justine and Gena.

I was slow on the draw, so I manage to get caught in the crossfire. I settle on watching the battle from behind the patio table.

Leana runs out shouting, “Wooo!” and takes a running leap into the pool.

Matt jumps out from a bush and starts shooting out high-velocity bursts of water from a big ass gun with a shit-eating grin on his face. Johnny appears from under the water in the pool with a flick of his Mohawk and starts blasting Jimmy in the balls, or something in that general vicinity.

“Come on in, the water’s fine!” Leana shouts from the pool just as Jimmy awkwardly back flips into the deep end, assumedly to reload his squirt gun. She lets out a loud peel of laughter.

I shake my head so hard it feels like it’ll topple off. I’m not going out there. No way, José. Too much water and no bathing suit.

“C’mon!” she shouts again, motioning to me.

By then Jimmy has resurfaced and is getting pelted in the face with water from Johnny. Matt and Zacky are having a little side battle around the grill, letting out shrill war cries. And through the shower of water, he sees me, gets an ingenious idea and lifts himself out of the pool and comes shooting straight towards me.

“Ohhhhhh shiiiiiiit!” I shout in what seems like slow motion and scramble to my feet, running as fast as my legs will carry me, which is unfortunately not fast enough, because dripping wet arms are around my middle in a matter of seconds. I’m flipped upside down, my mouth and chin bouncing against chlorine-soaked swim trunks, and am lugged, my skirt flying up somewhere around my armpits, and I’m plunged face-first into the cool pool water.

Beneath the surface, I get a nose-full of water that burns like hell and it feels like my underwear are gonna fall off and I seriously need to get back up to the top. So I underwater doggie paddle so I’m facing the light and I reach the air. After taking a huge gasp, the first thing out my mouth is, “You dipshit!”

“That was hilarious!” Jimmy cries, on his back, laughing. All the other guys have stopped the fight and are staring, amused at the spectacle, yet a little tense. Because they don’t know me. And I’ve just been thrown into a pool.

I paddle over to the side of the pool where Jimmy is rolling around and I starting shoving his arm as hard as I can. “You. Are. Such. A. Dip!”

Jimmy is thrown into another set of giggles.

“I’m not even wearing a bathing suit!” I shout.

Jimmy quiets down immediately and looks at me seriously. “You wearing underwear?”

“What?-Ye-No. No, I’m not wearing underwear. I’m beautifully waxed and completely in the nude under this dress,” I say, dripping with sarcasm.

“That’s hot,” he says and I can practically hear Leana rolling her eyes. “Alright, alright. I’m sorry.” He stands and holds out his hand to me, I guess to help me out, but I have no plans of doing that. I pull him into the pool with a satisfied grin and then proceed to lift my own self out, not really caring that my undies are showing through my dress.

“Is it safe?” Gena shouts from the sliding glass door.

“Yep!” I rasp and then the procession of women come out through the door.

When Marshie comes out and sees me, she smiles and says, “You look like a drowned rat.”

“Thank you,” I reply, giving her a snarky grin.

“Ohmigosh! What happened to you?” Gena exclaims.

I hook a thumb over to Jimmy in the pool, figuring that it would serve as a sufficient explanation.

Gena rolls her eyes and says, “C’mon, I’ll get you a towel.”

I shrug and follow her into the air conditioning that feels very, very cool on my wet skin. I wrap my arms around me and shuffle up the stairs in the entranceway and then down a hallway and into a rather large hall bath. Gena sits me down on the toilet and grabs a fluffy white towel out of a big corner cabinet and hands it to me. “There ya go. I’m gonna get you some dry clothes.”

I wave her off. “You don’t have to do that,” I say.

“And Jimmy didn’t have to throw you in the pool,” she counters.

True enough.

I sigh. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be back.” And then she leaves the bathroom, the door still open.

I start toweling off my hair and wiping down my goose bump-covered legs, watching the empty white hallway.

Just as I’m squeezing most of the water out of the ends of my hair, I hear a sound from the down the hallway. I shrug it off, thinking it’s Gena coming back, and continue patting with the towel. But when the person comes to the doorway, it’s not Gena, rather a man all dressed in black and wearing dark shades and a hat.

“Uh, hi,” I say. I guess this is ‘Gates’, the missing member. The guys were talking about him having another fight with someone and that’s probably why he was gone.

His mouth turns down into a frown and he continues down the hall. Guess he was looking for the bathroom.

Gena comes into the bathroom then and hands me a small pile of folded clothing. “Hey, did Brian come in here?”

Brian? Is that his name?

“Uhm… That guy with the hat and the glasses?” I ask, kind of pantomiming it at the same time.

“Yeah. Guess it was him. Funny, he didn’t go to the backyard first…” She shrugs. “Anyways, hope these’ll fit you. Just come back down when you’re ready.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

Gena smiles and then leaves, closing the door behind her.



When Marshie and I leave, we have an invite from Jimmy, who promised to not put me in another pool against my will, to hang out at his ‘wicked awesome crib, yo’ sometime. And we say goodbye to everyone else and exchange phone numbers and ask each other if we have facebooks, that sort of the thing. And then Marshie and I are back on the road, driving back to Grandma and Grandpa’s.

“You’re Grandparents’ basement smells like moth balls,” Marshie complains.

“Sorry?”

“You should be. Switch rooms with me,” she says.

“Nice try.”

“What? Seriously, I might get some weirdo disease from the moth balls.”

“You wanted the basement,” I say.

“What? No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Nuh uh.”

“We’re not playing this game, Marshie,” I say.

“Switch rooms with me.”

“No.”

“Switch rooms with me.”

“No.”

I turn on the radio.

“Switch rooms with me.”

“Oh, Marsha.”