Chapter III: Atashi o shinjite! (Believe in Me!)

Saturday night and most teenagers would be on dates, hitting the Galleria mall or at Golf N' Stuff. But Sandy was used to spending the odd Saturday having dinner at Encino Oaks with the old people. She pushed her rubbery chicken cordon bleu around her plate smearing the oils from the overly buttered vegetables. She wore a pale blue dress with an antique lace collar, and a matching satin headband. In her peripheral vision she saw Johnny and his friends with a few girls sitting at a table laughing over their food, a waiter brought them soda refills. Sandy made a face at them, though no one noticed. By the buffet picking at the fruit were Amanda and her wrecking crew. Sandy goggled at the bitch's outfit, a shimmery fuchsia dress that hung off one shoulder with a wide silver belt and killer stilettos. It was befitting for a night club, not for the relatively conservative atmosphere of a country club. Then again Mrs. van Houten, a former pageant queen, thought every social venue was a competition.

"Sandy, I wish you'd smile." Mrs. Witten admonished leaning into her daughter. "These are important clients and it doesn't do the firm's image very good if its best ad agents had a daughter with a permanent long face." Image, day in, day out. Sandy was at least thankful her mother kept her job and stayed out of her way the majority of the time. But it was times like these that reinforced her leper status.

"You don't have to remind me mother." Sandy groaned.

"Then smile, honey." Mrs. Witten pressed giving her daughter the fakest million watt smile before returning to her conversation. Sandy mildly wondered if all this smiling had to do with the fact the clients her parents were courting were from Mighty Brite Toothpaste. She saw Amber, Ginger and Terri cluster around an empty table conniving, as always. The three divas nodded and Amber broke away taking with her a small plate with a pastry on it walking up to Johnny.

"Hi Johnny," Amber said with an undertone of breathlessness she thought was sexy. Johnny in the middle of telling a long joke that he thought was killer turned around blithely.

"Oh, hey Amanda." She set the pastry down in front of him.

"I thought you might like one of these cherry tarts. They're just dreamy…" Sandy stuck her tongue out offended by Amber's drawl, her appetite dropping off the radar.

"Cool, thanks." Just as Johnny was about to dig in, Amber stopped him and plucked the fork from his fingers and sashayed herself into an empty seat beside him. Sandy's face crumpled in disgust as she saw Amber proceed to carve little bits of tart feeding them to Johnny.

"Excuse me!" Sandy signaled a waiter. "I'd like some Pepto please. I think I'm about to be sick."

"Sandy!" Mrs. Witten reprimanded. "Control yourself!"

"'Control yourself?' Control yourself? Mother, you have no clue how much I control myself!" Sandy's voice began to carry and it attracted attention. "You know what? I'm gonna show you how much I control myself!" Sandy stalked over to the buffet.

"Sandy!" Her mother shouted after her to no avail. Eyeing a china tureen filled with Gazpacho she picked it up and hauled it over to Amber and her friends. The cheerleader shot from her seat and got in Sandy's face.

"What do you think you're-"

"Amber," Sandy gently interrupted her. "You're annoying." And hurled the soup on her, Terri and Ginger. They screeched and blindly tried to wipe the cold vegetable puree from their faces and dresses. Unfortunately Johnny ducked. Sandy picked up a glass water pitcher with ice chips floating at the brim.

"Don't you even think about it, Witten!" Johnny barked.

"This is the least of what you deserve Johnny Lawrence!" And she doused him catching Dutch behind him, the girl beside Dutch leapt from her seat in the nick of time. Tommy and Jimmy were under the table; Susan cowered behind Barbara who was shielded by Bobby. Sandy tossed the pitcher hearing it crash somewhere across the floor and admired at her handiwork.

Two birds with one stone. Awesome!

"Sandra Marie Witten!" Her father yelled, Sandy proud as a peacock turned and left the ballroom.

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On Lancashire Boulevard above a notary's office next door to the Chase bank was the Black Swan Ballet Studio. Interestingly enough, across the street on the corner adjacent of The Orient Express Restaurant was Kreese's Cobra Kai Dojo. Lara was the Black Swan's instructor's assistant, three days a week after school. Madame Tagantseva already clocked out for the day, leaving Lara to sort through her LPs and cassettes to rearrange and shelve them. Sandy alighted the bus across the street from the bank and crossed. On the side door with the studio's black swan decal Sandy punched the buzzer to be let in. Lara was in the boss' hole-in-the-wall office up to her ass in vinyl and cassettes missing their cases. She planned on asking her for a raise. When the buzzer went off she intended to curse out the obvious prankster that was out of their mind for hassling her.

"Get lost, jackass! The studio is closed!" Lara snarled into the speaker.

"Lara… it's me… Sandy. Can I talk to you?" Sandy's timid voice gave Lara pause. What in hell was she doing here?

"What do you want, Sandy?" Lara asked neutrally.

"To apologize."

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Sitting on Tagantseva's office floor surrounded by records an hour later, Sandy was feeling better after having a good cry and Lara was feeling a whole lot more forgiving. But she was far more impressed by her shy friend's blatant act of revenge.

"So after you slimed van Houten and her bitch monkeys, you put Lawrence and Dutch in the assed out version of a wet T-shirt contest!" Lara cheered. "I love it!"

"I'm still shaking!" Sandy admitted. "But, I don't think I would have let myself get so angry about it until I saw someone else do it first. Thanks Lara."

"Y'know, it's not so hard to get pissed at those assholes." Lara sing-songed. "But I guess we all need different types of motivation. However, how could you not get mad at those dick-waving assholes harassing you day after day?!"

"First off, it's not an everyday thing. We're not in second grade anymore." Sandy pointed out. "But when it happens, my parents give me shit about me not being their friend- like it's my fault!"

"And so naturally, you can't say shit about anything."

"Pretty much." Sandy sighed. "Anyway, it's not really about me being their friend, it's about my parents leeching Johnny's father's attention through me."

"I don't get it." Lara said a little guardedly.

"My parents work in advertising, Johnny's dad is an investment banker for one of those chichi firms downtown. If the agency that my parents work for get a PR account with that particular firm, the agency will make a hefty profit and my parents will get bonuses."

"And they were trying to accomplish this through you? That's gross!" Lara was disgusted.

"Mr. Lawrence is a scumbucket. He'll fuck anything young and firm with big tits." Sandy stretched out on the carpet. "Luckily, I'm not so big in the tits department. But he leaves a trail of drool everywhere whenever Johnny brings over a girl- and that was their whole plan."

"I'm getting the picture that life in Encino isn't as privileged as it's hyped to be." Lara reclined on her side.

"Nope. You've gotta have a strong stomach for it."

"I'm gonna regret asking," Lara began, "but what's Lawrence's mom like?"

"Bonafide pillhead. When she's not at the spa, she's usually nodding out somewhere."

"Think she could spare her kid a few?" Sandy laughed at Lara's remark. "Lawrence could use some, paranoid motherfucker…"

"What time is it?" Sandy asked.

"Ten-thirty," Lara replied not looking at the clock.

"Jesus… I've gotta go. But I can't go home, not after what happened."

"You can crash at my place." Lara offered.

"Is that cool?"

"My mother falls asleep early and it takes a thermo nuclear device to wake her up." Lara said rising and collecting her jacket. "I'll drive you back to Encino in the morning."

"Thanks Lara."

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The only light in the house was the TV's flickering blue glare from Ahna's bedroom. She had her blue tropical floral nylon kimono over her white satin slip as she slept listlessly on her brass queen-sized bed; the white down duvet was rolled down to the footboard. Silently Lara cleared the tray away on the nightstand, but kept the vodka bottle and glass there. She left the TV on and shut the door quietly behind her.

"We'll have to leave early tomorrow." Lara told Sandy in a rushed whisper. "My mother works most weekends and gets Wednesdays off." She deposited the tray in the sink to wash it in the morning. Lara gave Sandy one of her nightshirts and they shared her bed. They slept until five in the morning and shared a box of chocolate Pop Tarts on the back porch. Lara made instant Sanka for Sandy and a cup of Lipton lemon tea for herself.

"This has got to be the biggest house on the block." Sandy said oscillating her head drinking in what she thought as a charmingly aged atmosphere.

"It's pretty old." Lara shrugged her shoulders rocking herself on the swing bench by the balls of her feet. "A lot of these houses are recent developments. They're not much older than I am; at least that's what my dad used to say."

"The modern design is such shit." Sandy collapsed into one of the wooden porch chairs. "All repetition and no originality."

"You an expert?"

"My parents have accounts to do PR for all sorts of architecture and exterior and interior design firms. The reps would send them these catalogs and design samples in order to cook up ads. I liked looking through them. Everyone in my neighborhood is having their house redone, pulled apart brick by brick and putting up glass and marble. Futuristic flashy crap, like in Blade Runner. You saw that right?"

Architecture. The word alone rubbed Lara up the wrong way. Her eyes shifted unconsciously to the back door, inside there was a drafting table that had a layer of dust three or four inches thick.

"Yeah I saw that movie. Didn't get it." Lara said.

"Join the club." They finished their breakfast and piled into Ahna's blue jeep. Cruising through downtown Sandy asked if she could put on the radio, Lara gave the okay.

Father's just a voice

That you talk to

On the telephone

And mother's wrapped up

In some kind of business

She's better left alone

"Think you'll be grounded?" Lara asked.

"Naturally." Sandy said airily. "But I'll believe it if they could make it stick."

"So it's that way, huh?"

"They'll forget like they do everything else, and start all over again next time we go to the country club."

Modern Mom and Dad

Don't know what to say

They're always too busy

Or so far away

Modern Mom and Dad

They love you so,

They're holding out hope

For your tomorrow...

Genevieve,

It's all up to you

Genevieve

There's only so much

That Mom and Dad can do

Bobby usually had early starts on weekends to have the home gym to himself. All the equipment was from his father's stores, top-of-the-line professionally tested and certified. He gingerly walked around Johnny who slept soundly facedown in his sleeping bag looking to change into a pair of workout shorts and an old T-shirt.

Fifteen years old

Doing hard time

Learning wrong from right

Dreaming of places

You'd like to be

In the heat of the night

Trying so hard

To make them see

That you're so much older

Than you appear to be

Bobby heard the song from behind his closed window and he pushed aside the thin spring rust-colored curtains to see an unfamiliar blue jeep roll from around the corner. No one owned a jeep in this neighborhood; he thought but then saw a very familiar redhead and another girl in a blue dress jump out.

"Johnny!" He hissed trying to rouse his friend. "Johnny!" The blonde stirred and moaned wrapping his whipcord muscular arms around his head tighter.

"Five more minutes…" He grumbled.

"Johnny!" Bobby's tone was more forceful this time around. He reluctantly rose and stomped over like a petulant child to Bobby's side.

"What?" Johnny's voice was rough with sleep and he brought his fists to his eyes to rub away the cobwebs. Bobby pushed aside the curtain further and Johnny leaned forward to get a better look through the window pane. He braced himself planting his hands on the frame, his hands leaving partial prints on the glass.

"You're shitting me…" He swore watching Lara and Sandy approach the stained glass and walnut doors of Sandy's house just a little ways up the street.

Hoping to find

A woman in you

You'll do anything

That I tell you to do…

Sandy rooted through her purse for her keys. "You'd better take off. I don't want my mom accusing you of anything that's not true."

"Way of life around here?" Lara flicked her head at the houses across the street. Sandy fit her key into the lock.

"More than you know… I'll see you on Monday."

"Bye." Sandy waited until Lara pulled the jeep away from the curb to go inside. Nevertheless, she had the sneaking suspicion that her mother was already watching from the master bedroom window. But it wasn't her mother she had to worry about, Johnny and Bobby dropped the curtain back in place and began their day.

Genevieve

What's a young girl to do?

Genevieve

There's only so much

Mom and Dad could do

Growing up

In the middle of a danger zone…

Growing up

It's make it or break it

With this desperate crowd

This town is tough

And tougher

When you're on your own…

So please

Don't leave, Genevieve

All alone…

Oh Genevieve

Oh Genevieve