Read Online "The Flamenco Academy" by Sarah Bird - Free Book Online

got
the green chile along with the biggest thrill he would have all
week.
    “You got it under control, Cyndi Rae?”
Alejandro asked, as I assembled the three Fiestas, all the way.
    I nodded, already moving on to the next
order that Didi had stuck on the clip in front of me. “Under
control, Alejandro,” I said, as he headed out the back door,
smiling at the line of cars circling his business.
    He stopped at the door and gestured for me
to come closer. “Make her do some of the work.”
    “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”
    Alejandro and I glanced at Didi who was
leaning over so that a load of guys from Pueblo Heights High
School, the driver with a newly minted learner’s permit and his
mom’s Subaru Forester, could get a nice peek at the Steinberg
mammaries.
    “Hello, you wacky Whore-nuts.” The guys’
pimples flared red in excitement. “How many rocks of crack can I
get you gentlemen today?”
    One especially twerpy kid with the hair at
the front of his head waxed into a fin yelled out of the back
window. “Hey, where’s the other Skankette?”
    That was my signal to step forward and put
my arm around Didi’s shoulders while we yelled, “The hos are in the
house!”
    “Yo! Yo! Yo! Skankettes!” the boys shouted
as I waved my greasy spatula.
    I loved the psychological jujitsu Didi did
on her bad-girl reputation, turning the snickers behind her back,
the whispered “ho” and “skank,” into our badges of honor. So that’s
who we were, the Skankettes in Didi’s Scarlet Letter-red
Skankmobile.
    Alejandro snorted, shook his head, and
walked out. Maybe neither Alejandro nor I was wearing a black
T-shirt with thirty tour dates printed on it, but in our own way we
were both happy to be carrying the amps, happy to be part of the
show.
    For the next few hours, I fried sopaipillas
and boxed up enchiladas. I assembled tacos, burritos, and Mexi-dogs
while Didi applied lip liner, tweezed her eyebrows, restyled her
hair into a couple dozen twisted tufts of mini-dreadlocks,
scribbled a few orders, raved about Julian Casablancas, whom she
may or may not have actually met, and, mostly, worked the crowd.
Like groupieing, working the crowd was also something Didi
considered practice for when she became famous. She kept score of
how many return fans she lured back to Puppy, giving herself extra
bonus points for females.
    After the initial rush of backed-up cars
subsided, Didi handed the order pad to me and flopped back down on
the mop bucket where she exhibited her extraterrestrial ability to
fall asleep instantly, anywhere, any time.
    I got into a steady rhythm of taking orders
and slamming out the grub, not wasting any time playing up to
latecomers who were disappointed because they’d missed Didi. After
I told the last lonely loser who pulled up and asked if, by any
chance, “that other girl” was working today that Didi was
indisposed and would be appearing next Sunday as usual, I slid the
drive-up window closed. I had snapped on the yellow latex gloves
and was squirting bleach solution on the counters when Didi woke
up.
    “We almost through here?”
    “Uh, yeah, we’re almost through,
bitch.”
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Whore.”
    “Skank.”
    “Trollop.”
    “Strumpet.”
    “Harlot.”
    “Pox-ridden doxie.”
    “Doxie! All right, Hunker! The Hunker Woman
goes Shakespearean on my ass! Doxie? You are one wild woman!”
    I grinned. When I was with Didi I was one wild woman. She tugged on a pair of gloves and actually helped
me clean the counters for a while but ended up pretending she was a
proctologist and had to perform an emergency exam on me. I was
swatting and threatening to squirt bleach all over her anime outfit
when the phone rang. Didi answered the phone with one hand, “Allô!
Allô! Le Poop ay La Taco ici!” while she dipped the index finger of
the other hand in Crisco and poked it my way.
    The yellow latex finger with a white glob of
Crisco on the end froze, stuck out, pointing at