17. 17
17
“Randall Bryant Nussbaum, what the hell is this?!” Sherri Nussbaum screamed, motioning to two stripped-down kids in their early twenties making out on her pool table. Beside her, others stood, some in bras or shirtless, covered in stripes of neon body paint, each carrying red plastic cups with a look of horror on their faces. Two more were on the spiral staircase, unwilling to halt their heavy petting long enough to pay her any mind.
“Shut… this party… down!” Sherri howled, her tight, perfect ponytail of salt-and-pepper hair swinging like a pendulum as she whipped her head around. “Everyone… go home! I swear to God, I will call the police! Is that what you want?”
“For what? They’re all over twenty-one, Mom. Just chill ,” Randall muttered casually before taking a swig straight out of a bottle of Hennessy.
“Chill? You want me to be fucking chill? You didn’t work for a goddamned thing in this house. I did!” She poked herself in the bony chest so hard it left a red mark.
Her stormy gray eyes glanced around. “Get out of my house! All of you! Out!”
She stomped the heel of her Manolo Blahnik’s on the marble floor so hard that it snapped off, nearly toppling her over. She caught herself on a Roman pillar, nearly taking it and the thirty-five-thousand-dollar Ming vase atop it to the ground.
As some of the strangers reluctantly filtered out the front door, Sherri scrambled through her purse and found her phone. She dialed, tapping a long, beige nail against her pursed lip.
Finally, the person on the other end picked up.
“Yes, hi, Mr. Jessup. I need your services.”
A young, shirtless man smiled at her, and she shooed him away angrily.
“I’m afraid it can’t wait. Tomorrow, my husband is coming back from a work trip to Canada to celebrate his birthday, and tonight, my idiot son decided to throw a fucking rager .”