Chapter 6 – Geralynn
Chapter Six
Geralynn
Nicki and I stumble into her brother’s kitchen and I nearly jump out of my skin as Renzo emerges from the darkest corner like an eerie vampire. His cologne creates a toxic cloud around him that only adds to Renzo’s fucked up aura.
“You ladies want some pizza? I popped a frozen one in the oven.”
His house is so ridiculously fancy that they actually have one of those $20,000 kitchen ranges that you only see on HGTV. I would be impressed if I didn’t know he was an entitled monster who inherited all his money from his dad.
Nicki doesn’t seem suspicious, which calms me down a little, even if Renzo’s gaze doesn’t leave my face. He makes me deeply uncomfortable for a strange reason that I can’t place. I told Nicki those sativa heavy strains only make me paranoid. I must be reading into things.
“Please stay for dinner,” Nicki asks, pressing her hands together. “I’m having a stylist come in tomorrow to turn me into a blonde and I need moral support.”
“Is that your deep trauma?”
“Mind your business, Renzo,” Nicki snaps at him. Her standing up for herself saves me from having to do it myself.
“Fine,” he says. “You two clearly consumed enough marijuana to knock out a hippo, so I’ll stay close.”
“Don’t you have anything better going on?
Like a girlfriend?” Nicki teases him. Renzo’s eyes flicker over to me and I shiver again.
Luckily, I have a hoodie on from our trip to the cold ass dock, so I can hide my physical responses from him.
He scares the crap out of me still. It doesn’t stop me from standing up to him, but I agree with Nicki that I would much prefer it if he were somewhere else.
“Dad wants me to keep a close eye on you tonight. He must be suspicious,” Renzo says. I get the sly suspicion that he isn’t telling the truth, but I have no direct evidence of that at all.
“Whatever,” Nicki says. “I’ll make us cocktails.”
“Just what you need. More alcohol,” Renzo sneers almost every word he says.
His persistent arrogance over everything disturbs me to my core.
Nicki is so much better than the men in her family from everything I’ve seen and heard.
He has no right to judge her for alcohol consumption when he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have your own family members steal your autonomy away.
His gaze drops to my chest and I feel my nervous system overreact.
I don’t know why I find him so strange and unnerving.
Nicki ignores her brother’s tone and pulls ingredients for her cocktail out of the cabinets.
I don’t know what she has planned for me, but I didn’t drive so as long as I can walk, drinking a little cocktail can’t hurt.
“Renzo,” Nicki says. “You need to chaperone us next weekend. I’m taking Geralynn over to Cornell University to visit.”
The condescending tone drips off of Renzo’s next statement. “Why would Geralynn need to visit Cornell.”
I waited a year after college to give it time, but I want to give it my best shot and actually go to grad school. Of course Renzo finds a way to look down on that.
“Because she’s super smart and needs to apply? What kind of question is that?”
“I thought she was a janitor,” Renzo says in a condescending tone.
Heat tingles around the tips of my ears again.
I hate the way he talks about me like I’m less than nothing and even if I am tough in the face of Renzo’s constant jabs, it hurts to think that we still live in a world where men like Renzo feel comfortable tearing other people down.
I resent this man so deeply that I wish I could break the glass open and cut him. Instead, I have to satisfy myself by glaring at him and slicing him open with the most hateful gaze I can muster without provoking Renzo to react directly.
“Shut the fuck up,” Nicki says with bluntness she attributes to her Italian heritage. Nicki always told me that Italian women are bitches because they had to put up with the biggest assholes of men in their country. I can’t say she’s wrong when I’m faced with Renzo.
Nicki silences her brother by presenting him a cocktail.
“It’s a negroni,” she says.
Renzo glances at the drink. “It’s a bit too brown.
” He glances at me for a beat and I try not to read into his facial expression.
I don’t care. Renzo’s opinion of me doesn’t matter at all.
Nicki doesn’t appear interested in her brother’s critique of her negroni.
She carries my cocktail towards me off the counter.
He sips the negroni. “So much vermouth.”
“It doesn’t have too much vermouth,” Nicki snaps. She turns to me with a smile and hands me a mysterious pale yellow drink with bubbles.
“This, my dear friend Geralynn, is a limoncello spritz, because you are too good for the basic aperol spritz.”
“What’s in it?”
“Love,” Nicki says. “And the nicest prosecco I could find in Renzo’s cabinets.”
I have to stop myself from glancing nervously at Renzo for approval. Instead, I take the flute glass away from Nicki and bring the drink to my nose. The dry bubbly liquid sears the inside of my nostrils but it smells good. Whatever Nicki made for me, I trust her.
“Where’s your cocktail?” Renzo asks her. Nicki holds up a bottle of Absolut.
“I put some water in this,” she says. “That should get me drunk.”
“Do you ever worry about a man wanting to marry you?” Renzo asks her.
My skin crawls with disgust at the misogynistic and strangely controlling comment.
Why should he care about that? Times like this, I feel sorry for Nicki and the family she was born into.
Stuff doesn’t matter if you have no freedom and every man in your family blatantly treats you like an object.
“Just drink you stupid asshole,” Nicki says.
She tips the vodka to her lips and instinctively, I join her.
The first sip of the limoncello spritz is incredible.
Nicki has always been a talented bartender.
After work, I need a strong drink that comforts me on the way down.
Yummy. The bubbles leave just a slight burn that rips my troubles straight out of my head.
I can almost pretend Renzo isn’t in the room with us.
“Nicki, this is good…”
The first sip comes with a sudden, strange side effect. There’s a tangy aftertaste just along the roof of my mouth and when I press my tongue to the spot where the after taste gets strongest, a powerful tingling sears down my arm.
Ouch. I tell myself that I must have smoked too much weed and I’m imagining things.
More of that delicious limoncello spritz should help sort out that weird tingling.
I have a second sip and although I don’t get the tangy aftertaste, the tingling gets stronger.
I cast a glance at Renzo, who isn’t looking at me at all.
Hours slip through my fingers. It’s like watching a movie and hitting fast forward, speeding up each time you hit an emotional high point. There are so many voices that they drown out my own thoughts. There are a few moments of consciousness where I get glimpses of control again.
Was it something in the drink?
Nothing feels real and I’m not myself, but I’m awake and things keep happening that I agree to with active enthusiasm. This has to be a strange, drunken dream. I have to go to sleep so that I can wake up and take control again. I don’t want to exist in this dream world.
I want control. The discernible absence of any sense of what I’m doing fills me with a deep and primal dread that overwhelms every part of me. I’m in the passenger seat of a horror movie and trapped with a villain.
I just want to wake up.