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Nikki Green is not Vernita. She wasn’t raised in some South L.A. ghetto with a drug-addicted mother and an uncle with wandering hands. She wasn’t even born Nikki Green at all. She was Nikkia Bell, beloved daughter of Jeanie and Lawrence who spoiled her rotten when they weren’t instilling wholesome family values.
There was a house in the suburbs, a mother who never missed P.T.A. meetings and a father who’d skipped a charity golf game to watch his little angel play a sleigh bell during her kindergarten Christmas pageant.
Nikki Green is not her mother.
But she can slice a bitch just like her.
--
Barbara Danube smells like Juicy Fruit. That’s the first thing Nikki notices, that even when’s she’s not chewing the shit the aroma lingers like it’s seeped into her skin. And she’s cheerful as fuck, the real kind, not that plastic desperation that hovers over her friends, her clique, her crew. That’s what they do at Melbourne High School, join crews. When bison do it, biologists called it grouping.
But yeah, Juicy Fruit. All the fucking time.
--
Barbara Danube’s mother is a killer. So was Nikki’s, but only one of them knows it.
--
So it starts like this. Nikki puts on her best “I’d be hot if it wasn’t for this chunky sweater and tragically bare face I’m rocking,” outfit and accidentally on purpose saves Barbara’s ass during English class. It’s Caesar, “The Ides of March,” which any dumbfuck should know. Barbara slips a note into her backpack after class.
Oh my god, you are awesome!!!!!
There are five exclamation points after awesome.
Five.
--
Nikki doesn’t love Sofie. She pities her which is probably close enough.
--
The juniors sit on the right side of the cafeteria and the seniors are on the left. The sophomores sit in back, but only at certain tables because the others are reserved for burnouts and drama kids who eat nothing and non-conform.
There is a small cluster of tables in the center, where the florescent lights shine the brightest giving the appearance of a spotlight. This is where Queen Barbara reigns. Her subjects are color coordinated white girls with arched eyebrows and clear nail polish. They all have brown hair.
“Come sit beside me.”
Barbara pats the chair beside her (well the back of it. There’s a girl in the chair that gives her a ‘fucking cunt’ look before she scoohes away) and motions for Nikki to join them. Nikki sits down and Barbara grabs her arm with cool, dry hands.
“You guys know Nikki right?”
--
Dr. Bell had a drinking problem before he found his wife stabbed to death on the kitchen floor. So when the one armed woman with the dark widow’s peak came for his daughter, he might have told her to “just take the goddamn kid.”
He doesn’t really remember.
--
Barbara is in love with Paul Dewitt. He is funny and smart, with floppy layered hair and no acne. He drives a Prius instead of a Jeep because hell yeah he gives a shit, and is a senior which means he knows what the fuck he’s doing.
Paul wants to fuck Barbara but she’s a virgin, so he’s been waiting. When Nikki meets them in the library his eyes keep falling to her tits.
“B.B. says you’re really smart.” He does that Chris Brown lip-lick thing that only works on Rhianna. “That’s cool.”
--
Elle Driver is a psychotic bitch.
--
Barbara enjoys having Nikki around. She likes to talk and Nikki’s a good listener, plus she’s black (not the black kind but sort of ambiguously black) not blond and perfect, so therefore not really competition; more like a new accessory that no one else has because Melbourne High is really white, like pre-MLK Day white, which yeah, they don’t even celebrate.
They’re good friends. They share secrets. Or at least Barbara shares secrets and Nikki makes shit up to seem fragile. And there’s a rumor that Paul’s sleeping with someone, who is not Barbara as she does not do that with anyone.
--
Little Copperhead’s first job is a fifty-four year old investment banker with a gift for financial planning and an unhealthy fixation on his bookie’s teenage daughter. Sliding the knife in gives her a thrill, like fucking with a dildo and she tells him as much while he’s bleeding out.
It’s the first time she’s ever had penis envy.
--
Paul has been with loads of black girls, and actually prefers them to…non-black girls.
He also likes rimming (though he’d never admit this to his boys), large breasts, masturbation, water sports, breath play (though he cried a little towards the end) being dominated, big asses, lesbian porn and toe sucking. He draws the line at pegging but is way too indignant to be convincing.
He does not like flat-assed-Barbie-doll frigid virgins. Not anymore anyway.
--
Bill loved B.B. Nikki was just another mistake he fixed by letting go.
--
Barbara Danube does not wear heartbreak well. She is bare faced and broken, with the type of stringy hair that only looks good on Kate Moss circa 1993. Her “tears” are shimmery thin films over her eyes that tremble with the promise of spillage but never quite deliver.
“I thought he was different.”
Nikki hands her a tissue and a piece of Juicy Fruit.
“People are lying assholes.”
--
Jeanie Bell taught her daughter that there was nothing to be afraid of. “Remember that,” she said as she snatched Nikkia’s nightlight out of the wall.
“And don’t let anyone tell you different.”
--
Nikki cries when she tells Barbara the truth. It’s not hard actually, she just thinks about her mother’s face when Beatrix threw the knife and it’s so fucking twisted, her seeing that shit that the tears start flowing, angry, pissed as fuck tears, but Barbara can’t tell the difference.
She tells her about Sofie, how she came for her after it happened. She mentions the arm thing and how Barbra’s mommy kept that shit for a souvenir. She explains that Beatrix Kiddo’s codename was Black Mamba and that she was a stone-cold killing bitch, same as Barbara’s daddy, who was killed for trying to keep her safe. She talks about Elle, her nasty empty eye sockets and O-Ren’s scalping, body parts she probably kept too. Nikki says she’s sorry, but “god B.B., I really thought you should know.”
Barbara embraces her, crying sloppy tears that actually feel real this time and not like some drippy soliloquy for her new friend’s benefit. She mumbles against Nikki’s shoulder, the words unintelligible besides the repeated claim that she has “no one, no one, no one except you. Just you Nikki.”
Now she’s almost even.
Now they’re just about square.
--
The room is silent. Nikki has moved the furniture (what little there was in the small apartment) to the bedroom, leaving only a dining room chair in the center. She is dressed in black, her hair hidden beneath a black stocking. She watches the front door and waits.
There is a sound, light footsteps followed by the slide of steel against leather. Nikki pulls her blade as the doorknob trembles, turns, unlatches with a soft click.
There’s no movement, no breathing, just the slow steady thump of Nikki’s heartbeat. The door swings open and a trickle of light spills into the dark room. She sees diamonds, a golden row along the sword handle, and dives to the right to dodge the first blow.
--
Nikki was Vernita’s baby girl. Sometimes she still is.
The End