“Yeah, if you want to start your career as a sellout.” She makes a snobby face.
“I do.” I stare at her eating. It’s completely creeping me out. “Why do you eat like that?”
“I used to have braces,” she explains.
I stare at her.
“If you bite into things with braces they get stuck in your brackets and it looks like someone took a shit on your teeth.”
I stare at her. She could be pretty, but you can’t see it through the messiness.
It would be good to sit with Nikki like this eating pizza, drinking beer.
And she could be naked.
“Thinking about your girlfriend?” Emma asks, washing her pizza down with beer and belching.
“I don’t know if she’s my girlfriend.” Does Nikki like beer? I’ve seen her drunk. But I’ve never actually seen her drinking. I don’t drink. My dad is sober now but he wasn’t before. I used to smell it on his breath when he got in my face. Now the smell of it makes me sick. “But yes, I was thinking about her.”
“What’d she say about the interview?”
“I haven’t talked to her.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “What? Why not?”
“I haven’t talked to her at all.”
“Today?”
“No, since I’ve been here.” Seeing her face is making me second-guess myself and there’s a sick feeling growing in my stomach.
“Well, if she was your girlfriend, she’s not anymore, Buckethead.”
“Why?” My eyebrows move together.
“Girls need maintenance, my friend. Like a car. You can’t leave your car parked somewhere for a month and a half and expect it’ll be right where you left it, in the same condition, when you get back.” She looks at me, aghast. “Why do you think I hang around here? I’m waiting for Sebastian to fuck up and then I’m movin’ in. It’s the way it goes.”
A brick settles in my stomach. She works at a diner. People hit on her all the time. Not to mention Robert. “She knew I’d be working and I don’t call much.”
She has a shocked face. “And you guys were doing it, right?”
I hate Emma right now. She’s made me think of all the horrible things that could be happening while I’m away. Have I messed up? I’ve asked my mom how she was and she said she’s been working a lot because she had to pick up her hours and she was taking every available shift. I didn’t want to bother her if she was okay.
She shakes her head. “And you haven’t talked to her? You’re in so much trouble. If she likes you. If she doesn’t, you’re old news and she’s moved on.”
“I love her. I would rather see her.”
“That’s sweet and all, but how you feel doesn’t matter. All she sees is that you’re a million miles away from her, where other girls are, and you haven’t bothered to dial her number. You’re obviously fucking someone else.”
What if she did move on? What if someone moved in on her when she was weak? And if she didn’t move on, what if she hates me and is sad because she thinks I’ve moved on myself? I would be devastated, wouldn’t she be too?
I pull out my phone. I love you. I miss you.
I wait for the response, staring. I put it on the table in front of me and eat another slice. It vibrates and I pick it up immediately.
Go fuck yourself.
I chuckle. Oh shit.
Another text pops as I’m staring at my screen.
I thought you were different.
I bite my cheek. That stings. Shit. What should I say? What can I say? I fucked up. Nothing I say will mean anything. She can’t see what I’m doing, working, going to school, eating takeout.
I turn away from Emma and sit cross-legged, leaning forward. I’ll be home soon. Wait for me.
I frown at my phone, waiting for her response, feeling like a pile of shit. It chimes and I open the text.
Wait for you to what? To find someone you can take to art shows and won’t ask stupid questions? And I’m supposed to sit here and hope for the best for you? Fuck you, Ares.
I sigh and barely realize Emma slipped away. I just want you.
Right. Have fun, she responds.
I love you. I miss you. Wait for me.
Go fuck yourself, asshole. Enjoy your life.
I plunk myself away to my bed and fall into it.
Shit.
Chapter Forty-one
Nikki
My eyes are puffy from crying.
Again.
I examine myself in the full length mirror on the closet door.
Again.
I’m pretty. Beautiful, probably not. My hair is too long. I don’t look like a grownup. I don’t look like a twenty year old orphan who lost the love of her life to New York and a girl named Emma who can keep him without putting out.
Twenty years old today and nothing to show for it; working two stupid dead-end jobs for nothing, no home, staying with my best friend’s parents.
I need a complete change.
I don’t even want to wear my old makeup any more. I’ve been trying to hide the hurts but they’re still there so why try anymore?
I push all my stupid makeup into the trash bin. It’s satisfying.
I check on Dexter in his room. He’s passed out looking like a baby.
I get ready and run, ending up at my house.
I’d like to light it on fire.
I open the flaps of an empty box and start loading it up with the rest of my sewing stuff. It will be nice to start sewing again.
I look around the mostly empty house. I’ve thrown away so much. I don’t know if I’ll regret it later, but now I’m glad there’s nothing in here that is keeping me here.
I gather some last little odds and ends and walk back to the house.
I drop the box by the kitchen door and run into Natalie.
“Good morning.” I hug her. She gives good hugs. She’s a wonderful mom.
“Happy birthday.” She kisses my cheek. “Good to see you out of bed and looking better.”
“Thank you.” It’s good to be out of bed. So far. “I was wondering if there’s a good place to set up my sewing machine?” I ask, sitting at the bar. I’ve been craving the feel of fabric under my fingers. It’s been weeks.
She gives me a muffin and a bowl of fruit and yogurt. “Yeah. Do you want alone space or can it be anywhere?”
“Anywhere that has a table and won’t irritate anyone with the sewing machine sound.” I dig into my muffin and fruit. I can do this. I can move forward. “You make awesome food choices,” I tell her.
“Thanks.” She smiles. “I have a table in my studio. It’s a big table and it has a chair and I like the sound of the sewing machine. It reminds me of Marc’s eetsa. She used to sew all the time. I’d hear her as I fell asleep.” She smiles again, reminiscing. “Where do you want to go for dinner tonight? Same place or do you guys want to change it up?”
“I have to work.”
“Then what are your plans for the day?” she asks, taking the wrapper off her muffin.
“I have a long to-do list.” Not so much long as day consuming.
“Ooh. Let’s hear it.”
“Okay, in no particular order: I have to make new clothes that fit, so I’d like to go shopping for fabric, I want to chop off all my hair cuz I hate it, and I have to see some men about jobs.”
“Cool. Let’s do it. And I’ll take you out to a birthday lunch.”
“You want to come?” I’ve been pretty independent for a long time. Every time Natalie wants to be a part of my life it’s like a train derailment in my body.
“Yeah! For sure. And I want to take pictures. I’m in an inspiration rut.” She sips her cup of tea and puts a cup of coffee in front of me.
“Is Persephone home?” I take the coffee. It’s fixed the way I like it.
“She left first thing this morning. She said she had an appointment. I’m hoping it’s with the school and that she’s going back. I’m hoping you do that too.
” She smiles, hopeful. “But her stuff is absolutely everywhere and she needs to move those boxes to the shed like I asked her to. Someone is coming to interview me for a photography magazine this weekend. She’s going to do it today,” she says. “When were you planning on going?”
“As soon as I get Dex up. He needs his hair cut too.” Oh my God, I forgot he was hers now. Another train derailment. “If that’s okay. I keep forgetting he’s your kid now.”
“You know, there’s an old saying it takes a village to raise a child. We are a village and we will raise him together and he will turn out okay.”
“That sounds nice.” Natalie is amazing. I love her so much.
It hurts my heart.
“Okay. Let’s start the part two of your life.”
✽✽✽
Persephone left a couple of voicemails for me while I was working about her mom kicking her out and not being able to move boxes. I called back on my break and left work early to come take her to her dad’s house like she asked.
I’m outside their house. I’ve never heard Natalie yell like this. Everything was fine this morning when we went out.
There are clothes strewn about across the porch and a broken box. I put it all in my car.
Persephone is sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas, looking sick and tired. “Stop touching my shit!” she’s growling, dark circles under her dark eyes. “Stop throwing things at me!”
Natalie notices me and looks back at her daughter. “Your ride is here. Get out of my house.” Her voice breaks with emotion. “Take your stuff and leave! I don’t want to see your face! You’re bad medicine and I will not have it in my home!” She points out the door. “I’ll call your father and tell him you’re on your way. Anything you don’t get now I’ll send later.” She goes to the bar, defeated. She hands me a lunch bag. “Dinner for you.” She walks away with her shoulders slumped, not even looking at me.
Persephone gathers her stuff and walks out to the car.
I gather some more things, clothes and a makeup bag and a hairbrush. I look in my lunch bag. Some sweet potato fries, a hot sandwich and the best Brussels sprouts ever because Natalie made them. I get in the car, start it and drive, thinking about delicious food and how I never knew I liked Brussels sprouts until Natalie fed them to me.
I eat the fries like candy, they’re so fucking good.
Persephone is staring out the window, forehead on the glass.
It’s raining like cats and dogs outside. “So, what’s going on? What’s it all about, Alfie?” I pop a Brussels sprout.
“I had an abortion this morning.”
I look at her, shocked. “Are you serious?”
She continues to stare out the window. She looks so small, crushed. “It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. I was going to come home and go to bed and say I was sick but I guess I’m a bleeder so I had to stay there until I stopped hemorrhaging and they told me to stay in bed a couple of days and not to lift anything or bend over. So as soon as you left home my mom immediately starts yelling at me to clean my shit and I kept trying to tell her I’d do it later cuz I didn’t feel good.” She shakes her head. “But then she started giving me the fifth degree. I tried to go into my room and close the door but she followed me. So I got mad and told her and she totally flipped the fuck out. She started screaming at me in Indian talk.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she threw me out. She said I was bad medicine.” She starts blubbering. “She called my dad. She told him she gave up.”
I drive silently for a while. I don’t know what to say. I never thought it would be too hard to get an abortion but this doesn’t feel okay at all.
I squeeze her hand.
She squeezes back and now covers her face with her other hand and weeps.
I look out into the blackness and pouring rain in front of my headlights as I drive. I want to let go of her hand so I can go back to eating and feel terrible about it.
She pulls it away herself to blow her nose. “I like your hair,” she tells me. “It makes you look like the classy and sophisticated trick you are.”
I commence my Brussels sprout popping. “Thanks. I needed a change.”
“Yeah, maybe it’s good I’m going to my dad’s house. Maybe I need a change too. And I don’t need Ares to do it.”
I guess we can both live without him. “What happened? Why’d you do it?” I ask softly.
She sits back in her seat, looking out the windshield too. “They gave me a test when we went to the clinic about the whole chlamydia thing. I didn’t know we missed the appointment. I totally forgot. Did you get your shot?”
I stare right ahead at the lights on the road. “No.”
She takes a deep breath and blows it out between pursed lips. “You should take a test too, then.”
“I did. At the clinic. They told me I couldn’t get the next shot until I took another test.” My heart thumps in my chest.
“They didn’t tell me that. They didn’t tell me anything.” She shakes her head in disgust. “I slept with Robert. And I went to the lake house with Jimmy and you were right. It wasn’t good. Jimmy didn’t help me at all.” She looks out the window to brush away tears. “I thought about it for a few days. But how could I go that whole time not knowing what was gonna come out of me? And if anything other than a black baby popped out, then Robert and I would have no future. And I wouldn’t want any of the other ones’. I couldn’t do it.” She lets the tears fall down her cheeks.
I’ve never heard her sound so sad. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, holding her hand again.
She shrugs. “It’s embarrassing. I’m so much of a slut I got pregnant and don’t know whose it was? And I didn’t want you to say I told you so, you know? Cuz you did. And what could you have done? Not even Cher can turn back time.”
“You could have told me about the lake house. Rape doesn’t make you a slut, Persephone. I could have hugged you while you cried.”
“I know. But I can’t say it was rape when I was the one that went there.”
“You can if you didn’t want it.”
“I didn’t say no.”
We ride the rest of the way to Roslyn listening to the radio.
It’s snowing by the time we get there and I’m exhausted. Persephone’s dad comes out to help and I’m completely taken aback. He looks so much like Ares, but bigger and not as boy skinny. He hugs Persephone in a big bear hug and she snuggles into him, turning into a little girl in the safety of her daddy’s arms and I’m jealous.
Persephone introduces us and he shakes my hand. “Wes,” he tells me, quiet and smoldering like Ares, and I can tell he’s smiling with his expressive face, like Ares. “Are you staying the night? It’s late and it’s supposed to snow all night,” he says with a smooth, deep voice.
I can’t stay. I can’t imagine getting snowed in with him and Persephone. He looks and sounds too much like his son. “I have to work in the morning.” I can’t help the waitress smile. He’s a beautiful man. It’s a betrayal, knowing what I know about him, even if Ares betrayed me first.
“Go on inside, Pocahontas,” he tells Persephone and she goes. He looks at me. “She looks like the cartoon movie, right?” he flirts in his deep quiet voice, picking up her duffel. He grabs most of the other things and I walk near him, smelling his man smell, bringing the box to the porch. “Thanks for bringing my daughter. I’ll let Nat know you’re not staying.”
I nod and get in the car. “Nice meeting you.”
He waves, watching me leave.
If that’s how Ares is going to look in twenty years, Emma’s too lucky for her own Goddamn good.
Chapter Forty-two
Ares
“I can’t believe she would do this.”
I’ve been listening to my mom alternate between anger, disbelief and sadness for the last twenty minutes while trying to come up with a plan of attack for my workload. I have the plans for Bob’s store that I got a graphics commission for so I
can get a feel for it. It’s taking a lot more concentration than I wanted.
It’s scandalous but I know my sister wouldn’t have done anything like this unless she had a reason. I’m glad Jimmy won’t be tied to her forever. It is big, though. It wouldn’t be an option for me, and the fact that it was an option for her makes me sick to my stomach. “Where is she at now?” I put my stuff down.
“Nikki drove her to your father’s.”
I lean forward. “Nikki took her to Roslyn? To dad’s house?”
“Yeah, your dad was impressed by her, whatever that means. She took her up there and came back. She had work in the morning. She’s looking better. She wasn’t eating at all for a while. She asked about how you were doing and I told her about your new friend. She said she was happy for you.”
I frown.
My dad was impressed.
I know my dad.
I’ve been worried about Nikki small scale with diner losers and Robert. I didn’t think about my father. Everything she said is irking me. “What? Why wasn’t she eating? What friend?”
“Well, you know, she’s been having a rough time. Especially when Turtle died.”
“What happened to Turtle?” I feel like the air is being squeezed out of my lungs.
Something happened to her cat and I wasn’t there for her.
I hope I can fix this.
“I thought I told you. Turtle got hit by a car. They took it bad. But I think she’s doing better now.”
I frown, her words sinking in along with my stomach and the brick. “What friend were you talking about?”
“The one you were talking about going out with? Emma?”
“Emma?” My jaw clenches.
“How is she doing, by the way?”
My vision tunnels out and I can hardly breathe. “Mom! Emma is a lesbian! I’m not going out with her! She’s like a mouse boy!” I get out of my seat and push my hand through my hair.
This is worse than I thought.
“Oh. It’s okay though. I’m glad you’re making friends. That’s good.”
I can’t listen anymore. “Mom, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”
Chasing Stars Page 20