7DSJ: Downtempo

by Shinzakura

March 26, PM: Up With People!

After Jolly’s engine sloughed off the excess flooding and we got back to where I tied up my sister’s bike, I rode back home. It was more than an hour, honestly, and I’m sure I’m going to hear it from my mother. After all, apparently the concept of estimation is only the domain of God, as far as she’s concerned.

So the moment I get onto the grounds, I see my aunt. She’s giving me that look, and oh boy, I think I’m in trouble.

“Pinkie?” she says in that exact tone, and yeah, I know I’m in trouble for something.

“Sweetie, we need to talk,” Auntie Cup tells me and I park the bike over by the bench to listen to her.

“Now, I want to make this clear: your parents don’t know about this, and your uncle and I decided not to talk to them about it.”

“About what?”

In response, she pulls something out of her pocket, and the moment I see it, I try not to freak. A dime bag of Hope’s stash. She planted it on me! How the hell did she do that?

“Pinkie, have you…?”

“No!” I tell my aunt, and it’s the truth. “That’s not mine, and I’m not covering for anyone! Honest!” She gives me that look of hers that I know she can practically read minds or something, but I’m telling the truth!

A few seconds later, she calms down. “I believe you, Pinkie,” she tells me. “Because I also found this with the bag.” She hands me a small note, and I read it.

A second later, I’m blushing. I…. I was raped and savaged by not just my boyfriend and his “friends”/clients/whatever, but by his sister, too – someone I’d fallen for just as much as I did for Atlas. And reading what Hope wrote down on that paper? For the first time since the incident I have to actually thank Atlas and Cicely, because I don’t think even they would suggest what Hope just did.

Those thoughts almost make me sick.

“Pinkie, are you okay?”

“No, Auntie, no I’m not. I…. Why would she do this?” It’s a genuine question. Why? I know Hope likes me in a physical way, but this….

I shudder, and I feel arms encircling myself as I hug myself for warmth. A second later, I feel a second pair, filled with love, holding me close.

“I’m here for you, Pinkie,” I hear Auntie Cup tell me, and once again I realize who my “real” mother is, in a sense. “I’m always here for you, sweetie.” We just sit there for a few minutes, and I feel loved, truly loved.

After a few minutes, I look at my aunt and say, “I have a couple of questions, Auntie.”

She chuckles. “I know you do. The first, yes, I know what this is, because well, remember, your uncle and I went to college in Santa Cruz, which has got to be the marijuana capital of America, I swear. And yes, I’ll be honest: I have smoked it before. My first boyfriend, a guy called Pure Imagination, well, he used to get high all the time and I joined him a couple of times. Our relationship ended because he started getting into harder stuff, and I…I wanted something different with my life. Fortunately for me, I met the nerdiest guy in my culinary class, and the rest is history.”

I giggle. “You’re kidding!”

“Nope. Even coming from here, I was worldlier than your uncle. And I think I needed that balance in my life. I’ve always been somewhat of a wild child, and your uncle brings that stability in my life.” She then took on her parental mode and said, “That being said, Pinkie, I don’t want you touching the stuff, understood? Not even experimentation. Things are different from when I was your age, and well…I have to be the parental type, you know.”

I smile. “I know,” I tell her, putting all my love into those two words. Besides, I honestly have no interest. Apparently Sunny and Rainbow have both tried it. Sunny said it just put her in a bad way (though knowing Flash I bet he took complete advantage of her, that asshole); and as for Rainbow, well she and her boyfriend tried it once, and she spent most of the next day throwing up. Between their warnings, that was enough to make the rest of us stay clear.

She looks at me again. “Okay, so what’s the second?”

“Well, you know how I got this, right?”

Her face contorts into a frown, though I know it’s not directed at me. “Well, I have my suspicions….”

I decide to tell her everything about the past couple of days and my actions with Hope, including what’s already obvious. She listens as always, and part of me wonders if I should tell her the truth about why I “broke up” with Atlas. But then I know she’s already worried about me as is, and I don’t want things to get nuclear at this point.

So, we sit for a few minutes, and afterwards, she says, “Probably for the first time in a while…I think your mother’s right, Pinkie. That Hope girl sounds like a bad influence, though I doubt it’s due to what her mother does; I talked to Prin yesterday and she seems like she and her husband are doing the best they can for their daughter.”

Something about that sounds wrong. “Auntie, Hope told me that Mrs. Amore and her husband had a vicious divorce and that he lives in New York. Also, he wanted to take her with him, but that she contested that.”

She’s got that look on her face. “Are you sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“Good. I’m going to arrange a meeting tomorrow with her to find out what this is about. Granted, it isn’t any of my business, but the way Hope is latching onto you sounds very unhealthy, Pinkie. Do you plan to run into her again?”

I want to say no, but that wouldn’t be the truth. “Yes, I was planning to meet with her in an hour. Do you want me to call it off?”

“I’d rather you did, but I’ll leave it to you, sweetie. I trust you.” My aunt hugs me again and I know that’s completely true. She then gets up from her seat and looks at me. “See you tonight, dear. Take care of yourself, okay?”

She already knew what I was going to do even though I didn’t say it.

Yup, mother computational skills. I really feel sorry for the twins once they get to be my age.

As I watch my aunt walk away, I could really use some advice from a friend. That I’m worried about Hope is obvious, as I am about Jolly. But I don’t know how to handle Hope other than walking away – and walking away never accomplished anything – and there’s no way I can protect Jolly from whoever’s bothering her.

I grab my phone and dial. Please let her be there. Please.

I hear a coughing fit on the other side, and I realize I called the wrong number. “Hello?”

“Oh, hi, Twily!” I say, trying not to let the awkwardness in my voice show. And oh, is there a lot of it right now.

“Sorry, Pinkie,” she says after coughing up a lung. “I’m really not feeling too good right now.”

“Yeah, I heard – chicken pox,” I tell her. “Sorry to hear that. You okay?”

“Much better, now that you’ve called. I swear, the only ones I’ve heard from is Sunny and Tavi – the rest seem to treat me like I don’t exist.”

“I don’t think that was intentional, Twily. We all hope you’re better. It’s just…you know, Spring Break.”

“Not for me – I get to play bedridden pariah.”

“Sorry. I wish I could do something to help.” I really wish I could. Aside from Twily being Sunny’s sister, she is one of my best friends, and hearing her cooped up in bed really sucks.

“Well, if you can get your hands on it, I could use some extra-strength calamine lotion for the back of my neck. It’s really bothering me – feels almost like something’s burrowing in the back of my head or something.” She paused, and then I heard her gasp.

“Twily, are you okay?”

“I just read on Wikipedia, one of the complications of chickenpox is inflammation of the brain! I could be in real trouble here!”

“You’ll be fine, Twily. I had it when I was eight, and aside from being the worst week of my life—” After all, the worst weekend of my life tops that…. “—I got over it. I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”

“Well, if you say so.”

“Trust me, what’s the worst that could happen? You lose your mind, slowly losing sleep and sense of reality then try to commit suicide by traffic while everyone you love doesn’t take it seriously?”

Twilight laughed. “Yeah, I saw that movie last night. Seriously, the 70s were weird for cinema. So, what did you call for?”

“Just to see how you’re doing, Twily,” I lie. “Didn’t want you to think that everyone had forgotten about you.”

“That’s so sweet! Thanks, Pinkie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I can think of a few things,” I sigh. Like, maybe getting a trustworthy friend for example.

“Pinkie? Is everything okay?”

“I….” I sigh. Twily’s a friend, and I need one right now. “No, it’s not. The truth is, I meant to call Sunny, and misdialed you, no offense. I’m really sorry.”

“No, that’s okay. Like I said, it’s been a boring week for me, so you really made my day, Pinkie, seriously. But why’d you want to call Sunny?”

I tell her, because I need a friend right now, and I can’t keep running to her sister every time, not that I do anyway. Maybe I should’ve called Rarity, but I didn’t, and I have to let this out, because I really need advice from a peer, because parental advice probably runs the gamut around here.

“Wow, sounds like you’re having a rougher time than I am,” Twily tells me before she punctuates it all with a coughing fit. “Sorry. I really must’ve caught Ultimate Pneumonia Plus Alpha or something.” I can hear her take a drink of something before she continues. “Anyway, this Hope girl sounds like bad business, Pinkie. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I owe it to her to explain why I don’t want to deal with her anymore, and I kinda prefer doing things in person. Besides, maybe talking to her will make her change her mind.”

“Or maybe she’ll care even less, given that you’re headed home in a few days, Pinkie. I know you don’t want to hear that, but Devil’s Advocate and all. The fact is that when you’re here, you’re not there, and out of sight, out of mind. She could very well change her stripes now, and change them back five minutes after that.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“Because I once knew a girl who was the worst…and she’s not that anymore. And that means a lot to me.” More than I can say, probably. “And if she can change, so can anyone. I have to have that faith, because if I don’t….” I don’t know what else to say anymore.

So, it’s not surprising when Twily comments, “I know. I get it. And I believe in her, too – I always will.” And I can hear the love in that. Sunny’s a lucky girl to have someone as caring as Twily in her corner.

And so am I.

We talk for a few more minutes, about idle things and if there’s anything she wants me to bring for her from this area. She’s not sure, so I offer to bring her one of the farm’s paperweights. They’re made from the leftover detritus that’s unusable for the main product, and Dad likes to give them out as souvenirs for clientele. It’s good to talk to her, and I think I may have made her day.

Finally, she yawns and says, “Pinkie, I hate to break this call – I really do – but I need to get some sleep. I’m feeling exhausted right now.”

“Okay, you hang in there, Twily,” I tell her, “and you’d better be well by the time I get back, or otherwise – mango pineapple smoothies from the café, got that?”

I can hear her giggle. “I’ll take one anyway, Pinkie. Later!”

“Later!” I tell her as I hang up the phone. Okay, that’s done. And I think I did more to convince myself than to hear whatever advice Twily gave me. Come to think of it, all she really did was play sounding board. Maybe I needed that.

I sigh. “Well, I’d better go get ready for tonight. It’s going to be one for the books, no matter what.

“So, where are we going?” I tell her. We’re in her mother’s car again – she says she has permission this time, but I’m not sure I believe that – and we’re heading out of town.

“Don’t worry, we’re gonna have fun tonight, okay?” she tells me and I don’t know what I should feel about that. There’s danger, and there’s danger.

“So you’re not going to tell me?” I ask, knowing it’s probably going to fall on deaf ears at best.

“What’s there to tell? Don’t be such a stinky pussy, Pinkie,” she tells me. “You’ll have the time of your life, I promise.”

“Well, that’s rude.” Seriously, it is. I would never refer to anyone I know as that, especially someone who is supposedly a friend! Seriously, that’s just low fucking class. Maybe that’s another warning.

Well, in for a penny, in for a dollar, I guess. “Don’t be such a bitch, okay? I’m just curious.”

She gave me a grin – actually gave me a grin! And I thought Rainbow could be nuts at times! “Now that’s more like it! For a moment, I thought you went all wishy-washy on me.”

We then sped on for a few more minutes until it was really dark – really dark. And while the farm can get dark at night, it doesn’t get this dark. And in the distance, I see a house with lights on – all sorts of lights on. Seriously, the top windows are strobing like a dance club, and I can already start to feel the thump of whatever bass is playing.

A chill goes down my spine, and I feel a pit sinking in my stomach. So much about this is so familiar. So terrifyingly familiar. Still, as we come to a stop, I get out of the car, but you can be sure that I’m going to be on my guard.

“We’re here,” she tells me.

“Where’s here?”

“Don’t worry about it. Here to see some friends of mine. Trust me, you’ll love them.” I probably won’t, and I’m probably making a big mistake right now, one that I hope I can get out of.

As we go in the house, I see a ton of beer, and I smell more weed. There’s a few people on the couch, watching TV, and I can see two girls making out, ignoring all of the other stuff. In the back porch, there’s actually a couple of guys making out, so I guess it evens out. Still, the amount of it all seems very familiar, and right now I really wish I’d brought my purse. There’s a small can of pepper spray that Rarity bought me after the whole incident, and while I may not need it, it probably would be my lucky charm right now.

“Hey, there’s a guy I gotta go talk to. I’ll be right back.” I then see her walk over to someone wearing a high school football jersey. He’s got gray-and-sky-blue hair and pink eyes, and he’s built like a linebacker, obviously. He seems nice, certainly more than the asshole that’s filming those two girls…or the girls, for that matter. Hope and the guy talk for a few, and then she decides to come back. “Hey, I gotta go upstairs – there’s some asshole that owes me money, and this is my best chance to get it back.” She then waves the guy over. “Cloudcover here will take care of you.” She then looks at him and says, “Cov, Pinkie’s my best babe, so you’d better treat her right.”

He reaches over and grabs a couple of bottles of water. Smart guy. “Don’t worry, Hope, I got her.” Hope then heads off, and as she does, Cov gives me a drink. “Here. Throat can get pretty dry in a party like this.”

I take it, telling him thanks as I quickly look at the bottle. It’s sealed, so that’s good, but I still get the feeling something is going to go bad.

“Hey,” Cov tells me, “want to take a walk?”

“Sure,” I tell him. Maybe then I’ll get the chance to run away from here.

We walk a ways towards the cornfield and I hear comments about “Cov’s taking another girl to the cornfield!” and “Cov’s gonna shuck her with his big ear, for sure!”

We reach the cornfield, just out of sight of everyone else, and I decide to turn to him – only fair. “If you think you’re going to do to me what those guys say you plan to, I’d strongly suggest backing away now or I’ll break you in two.”

What I was expecting was him to get all in my face and intimidate me with his muscles.

What I didn’t expect was for him to pull out his wallet and car keys. “Look,” he tells me, “I’m actually going to try to get you out of here. Over there is my car. And if you don’t trust me, take my wallet and car keys. I’ll tell them you hit me over the head with a rock and stole my stuff.”

“And if I go with you?”

“I’ll drop you off at your house. I’ll tell the guys that you and I had some fun times, and you might have to back up my story. But I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, is it? You don’t look like a local girl.”

“I’m not.”

He walks over to me and puts his wallet in my hands. “You hold on to that until we get out of here. I feel like going for a snack. You up to it?”

An hour later I’m at a diner outside of town only a few miles away from my parents’ place, and I’m trying to keep my emotions in check, and not because I haven’t taken one of my pills lately. I…I honestly don’t know what to think, so I take another drink of my chocolate peanut butter shake and try to process this absolute mess I’ve gotten myself into.

On one hand? Cov? Well, part of me now kinda regrets not growing up here, because he is definitely boyfriend material. Handsome, funny, and above all…brave. I’m not the first girl he’s “covered” for. In fact, the waitress serving our food, a teenage girl named Lemon Meringue, outright told us we don’t have to pay for our food, because Cov saved her last month.

The other part of the equation is what Cov told me he suspects: that there’s something like the Club operating at that house, and that the ringleader…might be Hope. I actually had to head off to the bathroom to throw up and fight off crying. I almost walked into that hell, and even though I would’ve protected myself…Oh God….

I decide to tell him about my experiences with the Club. Not that experience; only the girls know and I’m never going to tell anyone else. No, I tell him about the fact that I’m from Canterlot and that I know many of the girls who were impacted. He in turn tells me that there’s nothing like the Vibe here, only “old fashioned roofies” and that the water bottles we had were probably the only two things in the house that weren’t spiked. He tells me that even though his dad is a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department, they’re not really looking much into the roofie rumors, because they have so many other things going on.

“So these guys get away with it?” I ask him, trying to restrain my temper, but not entirely succeeding. I think he gets it.

“Pinkie, this isn’t like Canterlot,” he tells me. “There, I’m sure you probably have a ton and a half of cops who can focus on things like this. Out here, if it doesn’t happen in Bentonville, it’s up to the Sheriff’s Office, and…well, you probably have more cops in one precinct in Canterlot than there is on the force here in the County.”

“So it’s up to guys like you? Cov, don’t get me wrong, I’m appreciative and all that, but…you’re not a superhero. They don’t exist.” Yeah, so says the girl who was using magic six months ago. Hypocrite, thy name is Pinkamena Diane Pie.

“I don’t think of myself as that.” He gives me a sad look and said, “There was this girl I know, by the name of Violet Star. She was a sweet girl, didn’t do anything to anyone and…one day, they found her in a field, where she’d choked on alcohol. She didn’t live.” He turned away. “This happened the night before she and I were supposed to go out on a date. It wasn’t until a couple of months afterwards that I overheard a couple of guys bragging about what really happened.”

“So you’re saying this is about revenge?” I ask him.

“I…I don’t know. I mean, Violet wasn’t my girlfriend and I don’t know how our relationship would’ve turned out or even if we would’ve had one. All I know is that Radiant Hope’s name was brought up as ‘the girl who got right in there’ and that a lot of girls in our town are afraid of her. What does that tell you?” He took a long sip of his root beer float and then added, “I had to do something, Pinkie.”

To our surprise, Lemon Meringue sat down. “I’m on my break,” she explains. “Listen, I don’t know who you are or what’s up, but you’d better listen to this guy, okay? That bitch Radiant Hope is bad news, and unless you want to end up with her up in your snatch, you’d better listen to Cov here.”

I know I should feel offended, but thankfully Cov is for me. Have I mentioned he’s definitely boyfriend material? “Merry, lay off her, okay?” he tells her.

“Cov, I know you like to play the hero, but this little girl from LA—”

“Canterlot, not Los Angeles,” I correct her.

“What the fuck ever! Anyway, you shouldn’t bother if she’s too stupid to listen to us cornpone back country hicks.”

Okay, she just pressed the button labeled DO NOT PISS OFF PINKIE. “Listen, Merry – it is Merry, right? Shut the fuck up right now or I will stuff your head into one of these ice cream shake glasses. I’m not some girl that thinks everyone here is straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard or something. Plus, I was born here – I live with my aunt and uncle in Canterlot, but I’m not one of those people who’s here slumming it just to stare at the rubes, okay? I get what Cov is doing – I’ve been there, too. One of my co-workers at my uncle and aunt’s café is a friend of mine and she was screwed over by her boyfriend, who was a member of the Club, so I’ve been helping her get through it.”

Merry and Cov are looking at me and I think I have their attention.

“So, let’s get to the case at hand: if I’m right, I….” I stop speaking and just shake.

“You okay?” Merry asks me.

“No, it’s not – this girl who lives next to my mother and father just tried something with me…” Something that’s happened to me before, no less! “…and when I’m gone, my kid sisters could be in trouble!”

“Give me their names,” Cov tells me, “and I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

Sorry, ain’t nobody got time for that, certainly not this Pinkie! “No, I’ll do it myself. I won’t see Inkie and Blinkie hurt because of her.”

In hindsight, I should’ve seen this coming, but even for all my worldliness, I’m still too naïve for my own good. AJ would’ve spotted it a mile away. Rainbow would’ve already threatened her and Sunny would’ve turned her scheme right back on her. As for Tavi, Flutters, Rares and Twilly? They would’ve known something was up and would have rightly stayed away. But not me, because as smart as I am, I’m incredibly stupid.

“Pinkamena! Do you know what time it is?” My mother’s standing right at the door and meanwhile, Cov’s just driven off. Surprisingly, he actually works for my father, a part-time job during the summer, which is how he knew how to get here.

A phrase Blossom taught me is coming to mind, part of the Russian that she learned as a kid from her grandparents. What’s the phrase? Oh yeah - Сука Блять.

“Pinkamena, I’m waiting for an answer, young lady,” she growls.

“Mom, it’s only midnight, okay?” I tell her. I’m actually tempted to say the phrase in real life, when I see my aunt approach.

“Pinkie, can I talk to you for a minute?”

As expected, Mom turns on Auntie Cup. “She is my daughter and my responsibility!”

I watch as Auntie Cup fold her arms and glare at her sister. “Stop being a bitch, Quartzie. I swear….”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, Dazzle. I will not let you turn Pinkamena into a godless heathen like you!”

I sigh inwardly. So much for whatever progress we made this past Christmas. I make my choice. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Come with me, please.” As we head upstairs, I can feel my mother’s stare burn a hole in the back of my head. I know how she’s going to react later. She’s afraid that Auntie Cup is really my mother, not her. She’s not wrong. Maybe there’s another universe – even the one Sunny comes from, the one she doesn’t mention where I have a counterpart – I’m closer to my parents than my aunt and uncle. But that’s not this reality and I’m not that Pinkie.

We get up the steps and Auntie Cup looks at me with worry. “Pinkie honey, you know even we don’t let you stay out that late unless we know where you are. And we didn’t. So, mind telling me?”

“I….” How to say this without setting off my family’s alarm mode? “I went to a party with Hope, and I didn’t like it there. Cov didn’t either and so we left. We spent the past couple of hours just talking at the diner down the road and that’s all there was, Auntie, really.”

“You sure?”

I nod. “With all the stuff that we just went through with the Club out back home? I don’t want to end up like those girls—” Because I’m already a lying whore, I chastise myself, “—and I wouldn’t want you to worry about me like that.”

“Okay, I believe you.” She pulls me in for a hug and I lean into her. Kinda funny. Auntie Cup’s not exactly what you would call fat – she’s got a build that would be called “beefy” if she were a guy, and she’s not rail-thin like my mother – but hugging her always seems right. Again, maybe because in my subconscious she’s the maternal one and Mom is the stranger.

I swear, my life is either seriously fucked up or I’m going to be a case reference in some psychology textbook someday, just watch.

Auntie Cup lets go of me and says, “Tomorrow, Mrs. Amore and her husband will be here and we’re going to talk to them about everything. I want you to be there as well, Pinkie. Also, promise me that you won’t be hanging around Hope until we leave, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I think about the plans I’ve made with Merry and Cov and the discussion we had while we were driving her home.

“I won’t, I promise.”

I really hate lying to my aunt.