Free Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie Page B

knew I was drinking or taking drugs, she’d ground me forever. All T.Y. was worried about was making sure I didn’t get a hangover. The whole health kick is something that he and Sandie had been into for a while. On his way out, he put a handful of oval, peach-colored pills on the nightstand.
     
    “Those are papaya enzymes,” he told us. “They’re good for your digestion.” Then he flashed that movie-star smile and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
     
    With a little time to kill, Marie and I decided to go to the rec room and play pool for a while. Mom had agreed to let us convert the garage into a rec room, sometime around our fourteenth birthday. We painted a mural on one wall, with this crazy prehistoric fantasy type of scene. In swirling fluorescent colors, we painted a dragon about to devour a naked woman with a baby in her arms. In the background there was a volcano erupting and spewing neon-red lava, with various stars, planets, and flying creatures hung in the skies above the scene. We also had a couch, and the pool table, and best of all a ladder that led up to a second floor where there was a twin bed, Lava lamp, and table . . . This was in case anyone needed to crash for the night.
     
    Marie had a new boyfriend, Steve, who lived just down the street. I caught them up there once, making out. As grossed out as I was to see my sister with a guy, it was better at least than her being with Derek. We hadn’t seen Derek since the rape. Not seeing him around made it a hell of a lot easier to pretend that it never happened.
     
    With a clunk, I accidentally sank the cue ball into a corner pocket. “Goddammit!” Marie laughed and said, “Nice one, doofus!”
     
    With Marie beating me at pool as usual, it was relief when I heard Vickie honking her horn outside.
     
    “Oh, tough break.” I smiled. “I’ll finish beating you next time . . .”
     
    Marie flipped me the bird, and we said good-bye to Sam and T.Y. before jumping into Vickie’s old red Chevy.
     
    Vickie was a good friend. She was eighteen and had already graduated from high school. Whenever I wanted to ditch school, she’d pick me up in her car and we’d take off to waste time, listen to music, and hang out . . . People said that we could have been sisters, and it was true: the resemblance was really uncanny. She’d even cut her hair into a shag around the same time that I did . . . although she drew the line at dyeing it every color of the rainbow.
     
    Vickie was beaming when I got in the car with my suit and tie on. “Whoa!” she said. “Cherie—you look radical! Man, you look just like a female David Bowie!”
     
    If there was any compliment in the world that was guaranteed to make me feel amazing when I was fifteen years old, that was it. I looked out of the window, grinning. Yeah, I thought to myself, I AM the female David Bowie. After all, I could move like him, and I could sing along to all of his records perfectly.
     
    “Dammit, I AM David Bowie!” I announced.
     
    Marie tutted and rolled her eyes. “You’re a weirdo, Cherie, I swear to God.”
     
    “Fuck off,” I told her, wrinkling my nose. She folded her arms and looked out of the window. I could feel the anger bubbling in my chest. It hurt because I knew that she really did think I was a weirdo; this wasn’t just some sisterly teasing. This was the Marie I had to put up with when she was hanging out with her stupid “popular” friends. Well, FUCK THEM, I thought, tonight I was going to have fun. Nobody was going to ruin that for me—not even Marie.
     
    Vickie lived with her mom in a modest home in Sherman Oaks. But this weekend her mom was away, so Vickie decided it was good opportunity to throw a blowout party.
     
    “So, who’s coming tonight?” Marie asked as we arrived at Vickie’s place.
     
    “Ah . . . a lot of people. Danny, Paul, Gail . . . A few others . . .”
     
    I knew Gail through Marie. She was a strange one, and no doubt