Pink Flamingos

The First Adventure

The further I walked down Wicker Street, the more nervous I got. My thoughts all headed in the same direction – I was making the wrong decision by going to the party. Why did I even think it was a good idea in the first place anyway?

I suppose I wasn’t entirely dislikable, but I had never been popular; or social, or even very fun. The only thing I knew how to do was keep to myself – I spoke when other people spoke to me, but that was really where it started and ended. I couldn’t help that I was no good with other people, I was just born that way. Some people are meant to be on their own, just like some birds are meant to migrate for the winter – it’s a fact of life, experienced by everyone. Or at least, that’s what I always told myself.

But as hard as it was to continue forward, I couldn’t quite bring myself to turn around and go home. Maybe my heels were simply too high to move that way, or the perfume that Mama Heather had put on me had gone to my brain and flowers were blooming in my head instead of across my skin, but something within me wanted desperately to walk through that door bravely, even if I spent the night feeling very sorry for myself. To simply be free and fun was an act of courage. Even if it was only for one night.

Of course it was only for one night. “After all,” I said out loud, feeling each word leave my red lips with the certain weight that truth always held, “everything is temporary.”

The house looked picture perfect, sitting proudly like the ripest, juiciest peach in all of the tree of suburbia, in all of the forest even. With its white picket fence and manicured front lawn, it looked like something out a movie. Two pink flamingos on the lawn of the house across the road watched me warily as I walked up the driveway and rang the doorbell.

I heard it echo throughout the house, accompanied by loud footsteps, laughter and incomprehensible yelling. With every passing moment, I felt more and more worried. The world was spinning too fast all of a sudden.

The door swung open, revealing Barbara with a wide, friendly smile. There were a menagerie of curious faces peeking out behind her, girls and boys ready to evaluate the new company. Cocoons were hatching within me, birthing butterflies that bashed against my stomach lining. I swallowed nervously. “Hi.”

“Hey! Come in, come in.” She ushered me through the door, her hand on the small of my back. I had never seen her so dressed up before – she looked beautiful either way, with little pink lips and big teased hair. I tried to smile and simply relax. What felt like a million sets of eyes watched intently as I smoothed down my dress. There was whispering among them.

“Guys, this is Nancy!”

I waved shyly to the chorus of scattered greetings, some loud and some soft. Barbara told me everyone’s name but I tuned it out and forgot it as soon as I heard it. All I could do was regard the others with wide eyes as I anxiously adjusted my dress, over and over and over again.

“Now,” Barbara said excitedly, “someone get Nancy a drink!”

The party began again just as quickly as it had slowed to a stop so that everyone could meet me. I saw one of the girls rush off with little strides so as not to topple over in her heels, her skirt bouncing up and down as she ran, and turn the dial on the radio. Others started mixing up drinks, or congregated into circles and started talking animatedly. I watched as people laughed and vodka was mixed with fruit juice.

A girl came over to me with a cheery smile on her face and handed me a small glass filled with something brown. “Do you remember my name?” She asked as she handed it to me.

“Not at all,” I confessed, staring into the glass and swilling the liquid around, watching as it sloshed up to one side without a drop spilling, then the other. I wondered what it was, but I didn’t want to ask – after all, it could have been something that everyone knew and I didn’t want to seem dumb.

She said, “I’m Amy,” and tucked a spare piece of blonde hair behind her ear. “Word of advice – swallow it all in one go,” she giggled.

I put the glass to my lips and tipped my head back, letting it swirl in my mouth and trickle down my throat. Whatever it was, it tasted bitter but I couldn’t bring myself to spit it out. Amy watched curiously, as though she was seeing what I was going to do. I wanted her to think that I could hack it.

I coughed at the burning in my throat as I finished the last of the drink. My eyes flickered between my red lipstick stain on the glass and Amy expression. Her head was tilted to the side and she gripped the hem of her pink dress, as though she was the nervous one and not me. Or maybe it was both of us anyway.

“Like it?”

I spluttered. “Totally.”

“You know,” she said gently, leaning in closer, “if you didn’t like it but you still wanna get buzzed, next time I’ll just mix it with juice or something instead of giving it to you straight.”

With a sigh, I said, “I’d appreciate that.”

She took the glass from me, her hand brushing past mine, before she flounced off back over to the drink table. Two boys had taken command of the alcohol supply – one was short in a too-big blue dress shirt and a cheeky smile and the other one was taller and wore a green Hawaiian shirt. I wondered if he was part of Eddie’s pack that I had seen when I first came to town.

They were mixing drinks for themselves using everything on the table. I watched as they picked up every available bottle and poured it into a shot glass. As my own throat itched and my stomach began to churn, I began to imagine what would happen if they drank the whole thing. Probably just a whole lot of throwing up, I assumed.

Amy was making drinks for me and her. She set two little pink glasses down in the table and poured in something that looked like lemonade, before adding a whole lot of what I thought might have been vodka, or at least something similar. She did it with scientific precision, every movement important and careful.

Whatever she gave me first was already starting to take its effect. It was a big mistake, I thought to myself, to not have dinner before all of this. I felt myself smile naturally at nothing. The room felt loud and hazy.

Barbara seemingly appeared from nowhere and reached down to grab my hand. Her blue fingernails dug into my skin ever so slightly. “You had a drink already?”

It took me a moment to process what she was saying. “Yeah,” I said slowly, “Amy got me one.”

“What’d she give you?”

“I’ve got no idea.”

She smiled cheekily. “Well, come hang out with us anyway!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her beckon Amy over. She teetered towards us with a drink in each hand. “We’re just gonna be sitting in the TV room, it’s mainly the other girls. The guys always have to get out their energy and their stupidity before they join us, ya know? It’s just like that sometimes, but god knows I love ‘em all.”

I nodded carefully. It was like her words were floating through the air, out of her mouth and reaching my ears at their own pace. It felt like we were all underwater. Amy passed me a drink. It smelled better than the last one.

The two girls led me through the door to the TV room, their arms hooked through mine, our drinks held carefully and steadily so as not to waste even a drop. I heard the radio host announce in a booming, important voice that the station was going to start playing Elvis hits. It sounded like it was coming to me from another world. ‘Viva Las Vegas’ came on just as the girls shut the door behind us.

The curtains in the TV room were drawn, leaving it dark with the exception of one lamp glowing dimly. A girl with tight black curls and a long purple dress was spread out on the beat-up sofa. Three other girls formed a cluster on two mattresses that had been set up on the floor. They giggled and passed around a bottle of something.

“Here’s a refresher!” Barbara said happily. “You already know Amy.”

Amy waved and took a sip of her drink before joining the other two girls on the mattresses. Her pink mini dress slid up her legs, exposing her knickers, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Everything about her seemed loose and relaxed.

“That’s Angela,” she gestured to the girl on one of the mattresses in the bright green dress, dotted with little gold details. I smiled a little. Angela reminded me of a disco queen, there was something very Diana Ross about her. She waved at me with a friendly smile.

Barbara continued. “That one’s Tammy.” She pointed to the other girl on the mattresses, lying back and laughing her head off. The bodice of her white dress shook with every giggle. “It’s her house.”

“And that’s Cindy.” The girl lying on the sofa nodded in acknowledgement and waved me over with a lazy smile.

“Nice to meet you all,” I said quietly, hoping that I sounded more confident than I felt. They went back to their conversations, speaking fondly and continuing to pass the bottle around. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, only that it was something clear – vodka? Schnapps? Who knew?

“This,” Barbara said to the other girls happily, “is Nancy.”

Barbara pushed me into the crowd of girls and Cindy grabbed my hands, leading me to the couch as I stumbled through the pile of bodies, furiously apologizing for all the fingers I was sure that I stepped on. I fell down beside her with a sigh and a smile. She smacked her red lips before settling into a grin.

“What brings you around these parts anyway? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“Barbara invited me.”

“Of course,” she smiled and said playfully, “she’s always picking up strays. You’re new in town, aren’t ya?”

“I moved here from San Francisco a few weeks ago.”

With slightly slurred words, she began to tell me all about how she had always wanted to go to San Francisco, and by extension, the rest of California, but had never gotten the chance – she said that it had always been her dream, but she had never left Essexville. “It’s not all bad,” she said, “but god, I’d love to see the world. And I’d start right with California.”

Cindy continued, “As soon as I’m done with school – and ya know, I do care about that a little, I think it’s important to finish and be traditional, and just stick with whatever gets ya through all that bullshit and everything,” she held up her half-full glass. “But anyway, I’m gonna borrow someone’s car, grab a few of my gals and just head straight for California. I’d love to visit Hollywood too. Have you ever been to Hollywood, Nancy?”

“Once, when I was about 6 or 7.”

“So? What was it like?” There was a certain childlike enthusiasm about her, like a certain curiosity drove her to need to know everything. She was the kind of person who would ask why the sky is blue, but you can bet that she would ask it with integrity.

Drawing upon my memories, I told her everything that I could – that the city is ugly but the weather is beautiful. That the entire town feels like a movie set and that everyone you meet wants to work in the industry. That people are either lovely or horrible to you and there’s really no in between. That the traffic is bad and it takes a really long time to get nowhere.

I told her about how my dad took me to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood Boulevard, and we spent the entire day measuring our hands and feet with infamous celebrities. He said I was Marilyn Monroe and he was Clark Gable, but that was only a few years after they both died, so in hindsight it was kind of a morbid thing to say. By the end of the day, my knees were grazed from kneeling on the concrete.

I didn’t really know why I told her as much as I did, or if it was just the alcohol getting to my brain or something. Much to my confusion, she was still listening with a wide smile on her face. The world was starting to look like a dream – everything was a little hazy, and the room didn’t seem to tilt on the right angle.

I laughed at the thought of it all being upside down. Without knowing what was going on, Cindy laughed too. Maybe she was living in a dream as well.

The bottle made its way around the room to me. The neck was covered in lipstick stains of various colors. I took a swig, letting it swirl around in my mouth before realizing what a grave mistake that was, and then swallowing it as quickly as I could.

“Do you live in the suburbs?” I said curiously.

“Yeah,” she said, “all the uncool people do. You’re at the trailer park, aren’t you? I think Barbara said something about it.” I nodded, to which she responded, “That’s so cool!”

Cindy and I passed the bottle between us while we continued to chat. “Do you miss San Francisco?” She asked.

“Not really,” I confessed, “I just don’t really like Nevada. Actually, that’s not true. I just don’t like Essexville. But I’ve always wanted to go to Vegas.”

Her face lit up. “Me too! My parents got married in Vegas.”

“I just want to go, I want to have an adventure.”

“Just bribe someone to take you,” she said, “it can’t be too hard to find someone with a car and very little sense of purpose.” We both laughed.

She opened the little bag that sat beside her and got out a packet of cigarettes. I watched as she artfully slid one out of the box and pressed in between her lips, leaving a little bit of lipstick around the yellow end. She flicked the lighter and pressed the flame to the tip, waiting until it glowed to take it away. Without ever moving her hands to take the cigarette, she took a few drags, the smoke wafting upwards and circling around her head like a halo.

“Do you want one?”

I said, “I’ve never tried one before. Aren’t they bad for you?”

“I guess so. But it’s polite to offer, isn’t it? So, do you want one? Or you can just have a drag of mine if you want. But it’s not like you have to have one.”

I didn’t have time to answer. Tammy stood up abruptly and then fell over again, making everyone, herself included, giggle. She stumbled over to the sofa and pushed us both aside so that she could open the only window in the room.

“Smoke if you want,” she said, “but for god’s sake just do it out the window! I don’t want my mom to know. And besides, it smells foul.” She wrinkled her nose up.

Cindy only laughed. “Fine, fine, I’ll blow out there. But the neighbors better not smell anything.” She flicked her ash out the open window before taking another drag and blowing it in the same direction.

“Oh c’mon,” Angela said, not even bothering to move. “They’re on the other side of the street, around the front of the house. If they’re gonna complain about anything, it’ll be the music.”

Amy rolled her eyes and then mumbled under her breath, “Buzzkills.”

“The neighbors across the street are awful,” Barbara explained for me, “and they hate us having fun. I don’t know, maybe they’re just bitter because they’re old or something. But they’re always coming over and shouting at us to turn the music down, or just to keep quiet, or trying to bust us for drinking. They’re even nasty about mini dresses. They’re a bit extreme, if you ask me.”

There were murmurs of agreement and nods. “Everyone hates them,” Angela piped up again.

“They’re so obsessed with those weird pink flamingoes on the lawn,” Barbara said. “Every day the wife goes out and just looks at them for a while. And the husband polishes them every day too.”

“They’re like, my grandparents’ age,” Amy said. “But my grandparents are nicer.”

“Oh, so can we party at your grandparents’ house next time?” Cindy asked with a smirk.

“Only if we send them to bed early and then hide their hearing aids,” Amy giggled.

Drinks kept being passed around until the whole world was spinning. The boys joined us eventually – they knocked on the door in Morse code and came bearing liquor and laughter. There were five or six of them, but at that point everything was a bit of a blur and they may as well have been one person.

Eventually, we ended up in a sort of clump on the floor, lying on top of one another and yelling about anything and everything. I was sandwiched between Cindy and a guy called Mick, or Mike, or Matt, or something along those lines. I couldn’t really hear him well.

We discussed everything and nothing. I didn’t remember much of it afterwards, only that it was beautiful. It was about love and s*x and the future and the past and friendship and what it meant to be human and everything in between. I wanted to live in our words.

“You know what?” Amy said eventually.

“What do I know?” The boy in the Hawaiian shirt asked. I thought his name was Eric or something, but I didn’t know for sure and, after hearing all about the first time he had s*x and how he cried in the bathroom both before and after, I felt that it was too late to ask.

“We should steal those f*****g pink flamingoes! The one on the neighbors’ lawn!” She exclaimed.

“But guys,” in a moment of sudden surprisingly sober clarity, Tammy piped up and said, “they know where I live!”

“It’ll be a stealth mission then!” Cindy said.

Together, we formulated a plan. Originally, it was going to be Eric and another boy called Robert before Amy protested; “I came up with the idea, that means I should go!”

“Why do you even wanna go anyway?” Angela asked.

Amy shrugged and said innocently, “I live for the thrill of the kill.”

“Shouldn’t it be two boys though? We’ll probably be faster.” Robert said matter-of-factly.

Barbara sighed. “Grow up, Robert. And Amy’s right. It was her idea, she should get to do it.”

Eric and Amy were going to sneak across as soon as the lights in the neighbors’ house went out, take the flamingoes out of the lawn as silently as possible and then run back to Tammy’s house to safety and victory. We turned the radio off and tiptoed to the front of the house. Everyone was whispering, murmuring and giggling. I stayed silent, but Cindy was holding my hand.

Over the next ten minutes or so, we watched the neighbors pass by their windows, silhouetted against the drawn blinds. They were our personal pantomime. We saw them arguing – the man paced, the woman gestured wildly and angrily. She was much shorter than he was, and he walked with a slight limp.

“I feel kinda bad about this,” one of the boys whispered to me. He was the one that I had seen mixing up drinks before, in the shirt that was too big for him. “He’s a veteran, y’know. Served us all in that big Vietnam war. But he’s pretty rude anyway. He seems to hate everything we do.”

“Surely we’re just enacting some kind of karma on him then?” I suggested, trying to clear my own conscience as much as his.

“Yeah sure, it’s something like that. It’s karma.”

We held a collective breath. Eventually, the lights flickered and then went out altogether. Cindy squeezed my hand.

Amy quietly slipped her pumps off. She laid them down neatly on the floor, making sure they were exactly straight next to the welcome mat. Eric whispered something to her but I couldn’t quite make it out.

Anticipation was growing. I could hardly breathe but for once it was – excitement? I didn’t know if it was just the fact that I had been drinking, but all of a sudden, the idea of stealing a lawn ornament made me feel alive. It hadn’t quite hit me yet how pathetic my life was.

Amy reached for Eric’s hand for reassurance, and then together they began to creep across the street. They looked like little mice, sneaking gradually and gradually closer for the slice of cheese. I supposed that the mouse trap was the neighbors, ready to snap at a single moment, or a single loud sound.

I whispered to Cindy, “What do you think will happen if they get caught?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, I guess that they’ll get caught and then we’ll all get busted for having a party,” she said.

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about it like that. My heart sped up and I shifted closer to her. I hoped that she didn’t notice that my hands had started to shake.

Michael, the boy standing next to me, handed me a flask. “Drink this. It looks like you need it,” he said with a grin.

I swallowed it in one gulp, feeling it pour down my throat and gather like a dead weight in my stomach. I didn’t like it, but the point wasn’t to like it – the point was to like what it could do. And what I could do as a result. “Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

We waited. Amy and Eric were distant figures in the dark on the other side of the street, illuminated only by streetlights. Every second stretched on and on. I tried to take comfort in Michael and Cindy.

They both chose to take one flamingo each, grabbing them by their curved necks and shimmying them to uproot them. One popped out suddenly and launched Eric back, the flamingo landing on top of him. Robert chuckled.

Amy learnt from his mistakes and was slightly more successful. She rocked in back and forth until it popped suddenly out of the ground with a large squelching sound. She stumbled back before regaining her balance.

Eric got up shakily before falling over again. She giggled, her laughs like soft wind chimes blowing down the street in the breeze. As he started laughing too, she helped him up and they leant on the flamingoes.

Angela was the first one to start cheering. The excitement spread like wildfire until we were all squealing, laughing, chortling and shouting. Eric and Amy stood proudly beside their spoils of war.

We all forgot the caution that we had been so obsessed with only a moment ago. There was nothing except celebration. Cindy pulled me into a tight hug, she was so close that I could smell her perfume – it was some strong sweet scent that made my head spin even more.

Then, the lights in the neighbors’ house flicked on.

Their silhouettes appeared once again, first the short wife’s as she stumbled out of bed and stretched her arms, then the husband and his uneven walk. They moved past the window until they were both out of sight.

“Run! Fuckin’ run!” Barbara shouted, gesticulating wildly.

Amy and Eric bolted across the street, waving the pair of pink flamingoes over their heads wildly. Tammy pushed the front door open and it slammed against the wall with a loud bang, rebounding and smacking Michael in the face as he ran in. I followed him as part of a human chain, with him in front and Cindy behind me, our hands all linked.

Everyone stumbled through the door at once, falling over each other. Amy and Eric were last, slamming the door behind them. Someone shut the lights off. We all stood in the dark with heaving chests and baited breath. The pink flamingoes were still being held by their skinny pink plastic necks.

We all gathered around the two windows, cautiously peeking through the curtains. We saw the husband open the door, his wife in tow, but he never made it onto the lawn. He squinted into the darkness before shutting himself and his wife away inside the house again.

We watched their silhouettes cross the upstairs windows again before the lights flickered off. The show had come to an end for the night. I hoped they weren’t too angry the next day.

“I can’t believe we got away with that,” Amy whispered. “I can’t believe we got away with this!”

One of the other boys – Jim? Jack? Jeffrey? – laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so excited.”

“That gave me such a rush!” She exclaimed excitedly. “Turns out I love committing crimes!”

“All you did was steal a lawn ornament from Tammy’s shitty neighbor, Amy.”

“Yeah, but who knows what I’ll do next?”

Robert hit the light switch, then turned the radio up again. We caught the last of the Elvis special, but I can’t remember which songs they were playing. At that point, the clock had just struck midnight.

Tammy quickly rushed away before returning with a drink for everyone. I didn’t quite know what it was, but I didn’t really care. It was some sort of pink color and it tasted sweet. “Here’s something to celebrate our victory!” She said happily.

“Here, here!” Michael yelled.

“I propose a toast,” Eric said in an especially serious voice, raising his glass above all of ours. As soon as our laughs died down, we listened intently.

“You guys are the f*****g best, and there’s no other group of people that I’d rather ruin my liver with,” he began. “And no matter what happens, I know I’m always gonna remember the night that we stole two pink flamingoes from a bunch of old people that defended our country a decade ago.”

Cindy murmured to me, “It doesn’t sound so good when he puts it like that, does it?”

“And no matter what happens,” Eric continued,” I’ve always got your backs and I know you guys ‘ve got mine. And I f*****g love you all. Except Robert. Robert, I’ve got your back but you’re the worst,” he declared with a smile.

Robert laughed his head off. I never really understood guys and why they always wanted to insult each other. But I let it go wordlessly and kept listening instead of questioning.

“I don’t care what we do with the f*****g flamingoes, I don’t care if Amy turns to a life of crime after tonight, because this whole thing is so cool that I’m gonna tell my kids about it. And maybe they’ll think I’m lame because they expected some story about cocaine or something, but I’m still gonna tell them about it all the f*****g time. Anyways, let’s do shots!”

With a cheer, we all downed our drinks. In the pitch black, the whole world felt light. My heart was so happy that it felt like it was going to explode.

“Anyway,” Angela said, “what are we gonna do with the pink flamingoes?”

Tammy said anxiously, “We can’t keep them here. My parents might find them, or the neighbors might come over for dinner and see them. They’re very friendly with my folks, unfortunately.”

“The new girl should keep them!” Eric exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Barbara said, “Nancy should have them!”

“It’s like an induction into the group,” Cindy said excitedly. “We’re like a cult!”

It was definitely sweet of them, but I knew I didn’t need them. I laughed. “That’s real nice, but-“

“No ‘buts’!” Eric yelled happily. “Keep ‘em, keep the f*****g flamingoes!”

“You’ll remember tonight forever then,” Michael said with a smile.

Not like I’m ever going to forget it, I thought to myself. After all, it was the only crime I ever witnessed – even if it was only small.

Barbara handed the flamingoes to me, one of their necks in each of my hands. The uneven plastic scratched my fingertips but I just held on tighter and laughed. “I’ll keep them,” I announced.

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur. I remember drinking more, laughing more, talking more and living more. I remember feeling like the luckiest girl in the whole world because I felt that I had finally found people that I could connect to. Everyone was having fun and being young.

I vaguely remember being carried home by Eric, and Cindy walking beside us both and chattering animatedly with slurred words. I hoped I didn’t tell them everything, but there would have been nothing stopping me at all. My inhibitions were gone, and that is the key to freedom.

The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache and a churning stomach. I laid in bed moaning, burying my head in the pillow. Even the meagre sunlight that streamed in through the windows was too much.

My face was still covered in makeup from the night before, smudged all up and down my cheeks. My dress and shoes were thrown carelessly in a messy heap on the floor. There was lipstick on my arms for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp.

But I looked at the two pink flamingoes propped precisely up against the wall and smiled to myself despite it all. There was no way to be sad – after all, I had had my very first adventure. It was the first of many.