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"Look!" she held her hands out, palms up, "I am turning black."
Everyone around the table focused on her fingers, dark and shadowy.
"Black people don't have black palms." Clint looked her in the face and smiled.
"Well, I am turning reverse black then." "See," she turned her hands over, "nothing on this side. When I wash the "dirt" off the soapsuds are blue. I think I have cyanide poisoning." She went off to the bathroom, cleaned up, and then sat back down on the velvety pink dining chair.
All five of the people around the table started to eat after Josh did his customary celebratory toast. This one focused on tainted love, blossoming hate, and Valentine's Day.
She brought anchovy penne this time. It was a favorite of her online pal. Obviously she had done something wrong, it was a horror. It neither smelled nor looked appetizing, so she picked up the container and threw the pasta in the garbage can. "I won't insult anyone's senses anymore." The fishy smell permeated the kitchen.
An hour after dinner the group was gathering in the great room, sitting on squishy couches. The girl was reading the latest issue of "Stuff" magazine, reading the juicy parts out loud to her friends.
"Damn my hands are black again." She placed the magazine down on the teak coffee table and surveyed her palms.
"This started on Friday, two days ago."
Kist interjected, "Do you want me to call my mother? She has a medical book where you start with a basic question, answer and then follow it through with more answers until it tells you what you have."
"No. Thanks though…I don't want to end up at the ER today. I can see it now. "We have a girl here who is turning black and washes out blue. There is no such disease/condition. She may be certifiable."
"Okay…up to you."
The girls checked out their matching red tea rose bushes the boyfriends had given them. Each one had a plastic fantasy stick that said, "Just Because." The guys got the roses free for purchasing a six-pack of Stella atrois, a brew from Belgium.
"You know the manufacturers should do this more often…give a present for the girls with the beer. It would make for better relationships." The men shook their heads in agreement.
The girls headed off to Kist's closet. "Take this." Kist said holding up a chenille sweater done in broad horizontal bands of blue shaded from sky to denim to navy. "My mother bought it for me. It will look better on you."
The girl took the soft sweater in her hands. "Okay." She liked it that her friend gave her the sweater although the girl hadn't wore a sweater in at least three years. The static electricity made her hair float up into a Kirilian aura; she preferred GAP sweatshirts.
Hours later back at the girl's house, she noticed her hands going dark again. She washed and blue suds appeared. Same thing as all of the other times. She took a washcloth and washed her face. BLUE. Now she was freaking out. Something was coming out of all of her pores. She took the washcloth to show her boyfriend.
"Why do you think its cyanide?"
"Didn't you watch "Quincy:ME?" If the dead person had blue fingernails it meant that someone poisoned them with cyanide."
He looked, smirked and said, "Hey Big Fat Liar." A commercial about the movie had been playing on television for the last week. The characters turn blue.
"Stop!" She said. She was pissed that he wouldn't even allow her a perfectly good freak-out.
Since she wasn't getting any sympathy or understanding she went back out to the living room. As she sat down on the couch she noticed blue on the backsides of the arms of her pink kiss-me Valentine shirt.
She took off her black leather Mary Jane's and noticed her socks had "chunks" of blue on the tops near her jeans. She stripped off her jeans and her legs were bright blue. She stripped off her stained shirt. She removed her white silk bra. She pulled down her white panties, no blue.
Naked, she walked back to the television room where her boyfriend had taken up residence.
"It's my fucking new jeans. Look!" She twirled around so he could see her blue legs.
"They forgot to wash all of the dye out of the jeans. I bought two pair, wore one on Friday, the other pair today."
"Smurf." The man started laughing at the spinning-naked girl. "You are something else."
"I am off to take a shower."
She came out all pink, no more blue, snuggled up in a yellow towel.
The man had a goofy retro MP3 playing on the computer…"red roses for a blue lady"
Ugh.
"I am going to kill that man."
