Drama Dolls: A Novel: [Dark, Suspenseful, Fast-paced, Exhilarating] Read Online Free

older brother’s music. Queen, Steve Miller, the Doors, they all were on constant rotation.
    Paul’s mother lived in another state; a recent divorce resulting in Paul learning to “deal” with it.
    Passing the time, the friends tossed empty aluminum cans into a pile. Miller singing “The Joker,” the late night chill sessions started with their core group of buddies. Poker hands dealt - seven card stud, five card draw - the games helped idle away the hours until it was time to sleep. Until it was time to repeat the cycle.
    A half dozen kids avoiding the police in a relaxed state until adulthood.
    Gradually, the monotony forced Paul to invite others. Football players, jocks from other lettered sports, high school cheerleaders, hippies, and underclassmen, they all came and went at their leisure. One night could see a dozen folks while other evenings could witness entire classrooms of students.
    The basement crowd filtered into the living room, which then made its way into the attic. Students did their laundry when they spilled vodka and other identifiable liquids. There were semen stains that mixed in with cigarette ashes while the spin cycle ran. Random panties and boxer shorts fraternized with Paul’s clothes. Loose change, house keys, necklace charms, they all consorted in an ashtray to be collected later. As the parties continued, the lost and found emptied until the ashtray was used for its intended purpose, a dropping point for cigarette butts.
    Pizzas were delivered in bulk. The driver becoming familiar with the gatherings, he would stop over after his shift. He became a regular, singing along with Freddie Mercury. Dancing along with the Doors. In uniform, jumping up and down while the music blasted, he hit the high notes in key. All the while, his plastic badge was being shuffled around the house. The pizza guy ruled “Fat Bottomed Girls.” A background filled with music lessons, the gang soon discovered. Those were the days Jeffrey was “normal.” The days before he met Her.
    Now, anytime a Doors, or Queen, or Steve Miller song played, the confused and lost boy came out in Jeffrey. The internal dialogue, it said, “Break on through to the other side.”
    ----------
    Lena slammed on the brakes. A wild squirrel running across the street. Coming out from her reverie, Brittney shook her head. “Sorry,” Lena said.
    Fleeing the scene, with Brittney riding shotgun, each block looked the same. Houses in one area were dated back to Victorian times - a historical district. Queen Anne styled homes. Unbalanced facades covered by wraparound porches. Overhanging eaves with decorative support brackets. There were dentils around the roof outlines on a number of the houses. The Victorian homes, they had front-facing gables. Their towers, shaped like polygons.
    Terraces made of brick, roofs from slate.
    The Queen Anne houses were surrounded by brick roads. Uneven bricks with different shades. Red, orange, brown, they all mixed together to add class to the community. Driving into the block was driving into another time.
    The cheerleaders drove by a pink, purple, and green-colored painted lady with a square tower as its focal point. The tower was perfectly centered. Behind it toward the back of the house, extending up to the heavens, was a colossal chimney. Wooden shingles to match the trim. The front porch’s balustrade was recently painted. One spindle replaced due to wood rot, its color standing out to those walking by.
    An open-door event showcasing the homes’ interior was peddling donations for the neighborhood’s beautification project. “Help keep our neighborhood timeless.” There were signs posted in the yards of various houses. White cardboard canvases stapled to stakes in the ground.
    Lena pointed to a sign. “We should go to that,” she said. In a plastic info tube, hanging from the wooden post, was a stack of flyers promoting the cause. “I would love to see the insides of these houses.”
    Pulling over