Ungrateful Little Scamps
I.
"Would one of you get that damned door already!?"
Harleen Dennis shuffled into her living room, glaring at her teenaged granddaughters with frustration. Delia sat with her bare feet on the coffee table, polishing her toenails a deep shade of red as her tongue poked from the corner of her mouth in concentration. Deidre, beside her, was buried in a magazine and smacking her gum loudly. Both clad in opposite pink and white striped pajamas with their blonde hair up in high ponytails, they neither stopped or acknowledged that their grandmother was even in the room.
"Delia Anne, Deidre Renee. I'm talking to you!" Nana Harley nearly shouted as she stood in front of the television, hands on her hips and a scowled on her wisened face. Neither girl looked up from her task as the doorbell continued to ring almost endlessly. Ding dong, ding dong, di-di-di-ding dong.
"It could be a murderer. You should answer it." Deidre decidedly replied, turning the page of her magazine as her grandmother steamed. She snatched her cane from its resting place against the end of the shabby pink sofa, grumbling all the way as she walked towards the door.
"Ungrateful, rotten little... I oughta..." Nana Harley mumbled as she opened the door rather ferociously, and the graying woman on the other end looked at her expectantly. She stood a foot taller than Harley, with long gray hair billowing down past her shoulders and thick rimmed glasses resting on her petite nose. She crossed her arms over her chest and walked in.
"Okay, I want to hear the whole story." She stopped in front of the couch and looked down at the girls, who still hadn't shifted or even acknowledged her presence. Nana Harley shut the door behind her, shaking her head.
"Good luck, I've been trying to get them to talk since I bailed their sorry behinds out of jail." Harleen headed for the kitchen, her friend still standing in place."I only know the story that the police told me after that other hooligan they were running around with confessed. They aren't speaking to me, Pam."
"And do you really believe that he came back?" Pam lowered her voice as she followed her friend into her kitchen, standing in the doorway. Harley sighed to herself, sitting in her seat and looking down into her coffee cup. This was a conversation she had been dreading.
"He was working on something, something he was trying to keep secret even from me. It sounds crazy, Pam, but I believe it." Harley laughed joylessly. "I tried so hard with those two, and look at what happens. I guess it's true what they say about karma."
"Forget about that, Harl. The girls will survive. You and I both know this could have been a lot worse if in fact it was really the Joker that roped them in. It's you I'm worried about." Pam sat down across from Harley. She rested her cheek against the palm of her hand.
"Oh, Red, I gave up on those dreams a long time ago. You know that, after I had Lukey...," She glanced up at the family portrait hanging next to the wall clock. Luke, her son, standing tall and slender with sandy blonde hair and brown eyes, arm around his brunette wife Whitney, with two blonde toddlers in pigtails standing in front of their beaming parents. Her heart panged sadly. "I just... I wanna know for sure. But the girls..."
"Delia, Deidre! Get your asses in this kitchen NOW." Pamela boomed, causing even Harley to jump. Two loud exhales could be heard from the livng room, and moments later the twins emerged in the doorway, side by side. Deidre popped her gum, and Delia rested her hands on her hips.
"What?" The latter snapped, and Pam raised a freshly manicured brow at the young blondes. Harley had seen that look numerous times; every single time Pam wore it, it was because someone was discussing the Joker. It had been a very long time since she'd worn it.
"How exactly did all of this happen?"
Deidre rolled her eyes. "We were at the clubhouse, like always. And this guy just strolled on in like he owned the place."
"Said he was holding auditions for some Jokerz to join in on a big heist." Delia picked up, both Pam and Harley's eyes following to her. "J-Man tried to get in his face and the old guy popped a cap in his sorry ass."
"Which is really what he gets for standing us up that night," Deidre added, tapping her sister on the arm. Delia nodded and 'hmm'ed, and Deidre continued. "So, being two very attractive and impressionable young women, I guess they pegged us as easy targets. We got roped in."
"Corrupted," Delia confirmed, and poor Nana Harley looked near tears, thinking privately that this was what her parents must have felt like when she had turned to her own life of crime, under the wing of a charismatic psychopath. What she gave up a portion of her adult life for. The thought of watching her girls go through the same thing was mortifying, and also, somewhere buried deep down in her heart, the thought of the Joker betraying her once more by putting her sweet little girls through this was almost unbearable. Pam, however, sat cross-armed and still.
"Bullshit," She muttered. "I know a liar when I see one."
"But Auntie Pam-"
"Don't you Auntie Pam me, Deidre. Who's the one that bailed you two out of county for petty theft when your Nana was in Hawaii?" The elderly woman reminded them, and the twins glanced at one another. Dear Auntie Pam had poked a major pinhole in their perfect cover story. Harley gasped and looked at her granddaughters. "What? Why, you little-"
"Harl, not the time. Bigger matters, remember?" Pam interrupted, and Harley glared at her granddaughters with a look that told them they would be hearing about this little secret later. "Now, ladies, do paint us a realistic picture of what happened. I damn well know nobody corrupted you."
To Be Continued...
Disclaimer: I own nothing.