by Fields, MJ
I gnash my teeth under tight lips and pace myself. If I start engaging with her now, I’ll never make it through the week, let alone however long I have to stand it here.
“All right,” I say instead of the dozens of things I’d rather respond with.
When she pulls out a stack of tabloids from the cloth bag she takes to the grocery store, I do my best to ignore her obviously calculated attack. I recognize the covers. I should—I’m on them: my head buried in a hood, a newspaper folded and shading half of my face. Enoch’s lawyer ushering me toward that last luxury car I’ll ever step into.
“You should go with a dark brown again,” she says, flipping over one of the covers with my red locks on display.
“Maybe,” I hum.
That photo was one of the first ones, right before the trial.
Life’s funny. I made written promises to myself in a junk-store diary I bought for a dollar when I was twelve: I would never become my mom. But here I am…twenty-five years old, existing in the same kitchen she’s in…stuck just like she is, in a life that didn’t turn out anything like either of us thought it would.
The moment he opened his mouth at the podium in front of the packed finance lecture hall at State, Enoch Rostram breathed me in. He was this young, enigmatic spark of inspiration dressed like the men do in magazines I’d flipped through in the grocery line. He smelled of Gucci, and he wore crisp, white collared shirts that somehow didn’t feel douchey with the top two buttons undone. Not on him. He was a lion, pacing in front of hundreds of wide-eyed and naïve college freshmen business students all hoping to be the next Facebook CEO or Mark Cuban.
He was promising so much too. A one-year internship with Rostram Investment Holdings that wasn’t limited to only seniors. It was a chance to race to the finish line and come out ahead, and maybe land the single greatest job of my dreams.
“I got where I am not by playing by arbitrary rules like degrees and prestigious university titles,” he had said, waving off the squirms of our professor in the wings who clearly disagreed. “I got here by taking risks and choosing paths that aren’t expected. And today, I’d like to talk to each and every one of you.”
He was completely serious. I missed my next two classes waiting patiently in a line that wound through eighteen tiered rows of seats—just to get a shot at a one-minute Hail Mary to leave the boxing world behind for good. I wasn’t like the others in here. I didn’t want a hundred employees or a portfolio of clients with million-dollar accounts. All I wanted was the opposite of the life I’d always known. I wanted to be someone different and do a job that I was good at, and maybe have one of those nameplates on a door to a small office one day down the road.
I rolled the dice and, during my one minute, told Enoch just that. He offered me the job on the spot. I didn’t sleep with him until my internship was over—the day it was over, but still. He moved me into his Seattle penthouse, I dropped out of my degree program, and I got stars in my eyes at the prospect of becoming Mrs. Rostram.
He never even saw the Feds coming. Neither did I.
The final number plastered on every news site and front page from Seattle to New York was $1.4 billion. I know that number should be bigger. The money he took from me was a fraction of a fraction compared to the millions he squandered away from others in his Ponzi scheme, but when the house of cards came crumbling down, we were all left with the very same amount—nothing.
My bonus was getting my name attached to the biggest international fraud story to break since Madoff. There was also the little bit about me being pregnant that got leaked by one of Enoch’s lawyers. My “condition,” as his legal team referred to it, would buy him sympathy and reduce his sentence. They abandoned that idea two weeks later when I miscarried.
A month after that, they abandoned me.
My mom didn’t call to check on me once. Until I drained my checking account and could no longer make coffee-shop pay stretch to cover rent, utilities, and well…life, I managed to survive without calling anyone in my little family. Eviction has a funny way of making dead lifelines suddenly feel viable, though.
My mom flips the tabloid closed and nudges it toward the center of the table, her fingers just following orders in her next calculated move by spinning the cover image just enough I have to look my own, terrified self in the eyes.
“I’m actually really tired, so I’ll see Dad tomorrow.” I turn away, a little proud that I didn’t engage her and actually defied her by putting my visit with Dad off for the night.
“You start at eight, and really…the floor needs to be cleaned and the main office opened up for new registrants by then, so you should probably start at seven.” She pulls the magazines together again into a neat pile as a tight, satisfied smirk begs to grow on her lips. Her eyes flutter, still heavy with the day’s makeup, and eventually they open on me. “What? Did you think you were going to stay here for free and just…mooch off us?”
I press my tongue against the back of my teeth and force a small nod before rapping my knuckles against the side of the doorway.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I can feel my eyebrows pushed up on my forehead, wrinkling my skin. She reads my surprise; I can tell by the way her pucker tightens against the push of her smile that she is dying to flash at me like a silent checkmate and I-told-you-so rolled into one. But she’s not prepared for the girl who’s been through hell and back with literally nothing to lose.
“In fact,” I start, pausing to mimic her grin—the one she gave to me, “I’ll be ready by six so we can discuss my salary.”
Her eyes twitch, the right one just a little more than the left. I’ve fucking engaged, and it feels sickening and addictive all at once. Codependent mother-daughter relationships never really die, I guess.
“Oh…” My brow draws in. I do it for effect. I do it…to be a bitch right back to her. “Did you think I was just going to work for you for free?”
Our blue eyes duel and flicker in silence, and after a few seconds, I walk back out the way I came in and cross the yard made of stones and weeds to my uncle’s place. The familiar kick of adrenaline pumps my heart faster than I’m used to, and I hate that it feels good. I don’t like the person I am when I’m here. Unfortunately, this job is the only one I can get. I’m not sure what’s worse—being broke and homeless, or working for my mom.
I use my toe to push open my uncle’s front door, which he left cracked so I could get in. I’m relieved when the inside is dark, and I feel for the bolt lock, twisting it after I shut the door behind me. I let my head fall forward, resting it on the wood while my thumb rubs along the cool metal of the lock.
Darkness seems to be the only thing that soothes me lately. I like the idea that nobody can really see me. Maybe I just like the idea of being alone. There’s no one to begin to unload exactly what they think about Enoch Rostram on me—with all of the hate and vitriol I know he deserves, but somehow becomes my burden to bear just by having been the woman who was stupid enough to love him. I did love him. He was my fortune. He was also my curse.
Rolling my head on the door, I spin slowly on the balls of my feet until I relent to the idea of sleeping in this house tonight. My fingers trace along the familiar walls, the pathway to my temporary room the exact opposite of the one I grew up in. I count the stairs on the way up, all the way to twenty-eight, and then it’s only four steps until I’m able to close another door behind me and welcome the darkness in.
My bag sits at the foot of a bed I doubt has ever been slept in. The mattress is small—smaller than a typical twin bed—and it reminds me of my dorm room back in Seattle, the one I lived in during the internship. I didn’t appreciate that safe independence enough when I had it. I was too busy chasing a fantasy—bitter girl swept away by millionaire Prince Charming.
I push my bag to the side to sit next to it, unzipping the top and feeling inside for the softest T-shirt I can slip into for the night. My fingers stop on what I am pretty sure is my pl
ain white one, so I tug it out from the middle of the folded stack of clothes and stand to kick off my flip-flops and slip from my tank top, bra, and jeans.
The fresh shirt is hot from travel, warm from the Phoenix air outside and the stuffy room I’m in—my now home. The cotton clings to me as I move closer to the window covered by the same yellowed metal blinds that my uncle put in when he bought this pad. I twist the wand and tilt the slats open to the sky, bending the one near my sightline just enough to take in the scope of the stars. They may very well be up there, but I’ll never know. It’s all a muted gray, not quite black because of the light pollution put out from the city. I can see the heat at night, the way it swallows up anything pretty.
Breathing out a sigh of disappointment that I can’t even have the pleasure of stars anymore, I twist the stick again to close the blinds. Just before the slats flatten completely, my eyes catch a glimpse of the things below my window. Specifically, the shirtless man in black sweatpants leaning against an opened RV door, one foot propped on the step. His thumbs hang from his waistband, pulling the material lower on his hips than it was when I met him minutes ago. Muscular lines that highlight clear discipline in the gym run down his stomach and curve over his sides.
“Shut the blinds, dumb-ass,” I whisper to myself, somehow thinking chastising myself out loud will help me behave. My eyes don’t even blink, though, and my fingertips don’t twist an inch. Fifteen feet below, a man who apparently named himself Memphis stares up at the same dark-gray sky I found nothing in. He stares with eyes that are at peace above a mouth resting in a satisfied smile. This is what content must look like. I wonder if I’ve ever worn it?
His head rests cocked back against the metal siding of what seems to be his home, a tiny place on wheels with rusted trim and a broken-down vehicle cab unlikely to drive it somewhere else. He’s stuck here, too. Maybe he’ll never want to leave, though I can’t imagine that. His right hand moves from his waist to behind his neck, adjusting his position to look up at the bleak sky a little bit longer, but a twist in position brings his eyes right to my window. I don’t run, and I keep the blinds open to wait until he gives up on finding something up here.
Cradled in my darkness, I doubt he sees much, if anything at all. But the longer his gaze focuses on my window—on me—the more I wonder if, somehow, he sees things I no longer can. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.
“Close the window, dumb-ass.” I whisper my orders to myself again, and this time my hand obeys, twisting the blinds shut. My feet slide back to my bed, and I sit and fall back onto the blanket that smells of dust and stale air.
It’s too hot to sleep under the covers, so I push the material down underneath my body until it falls to the floor, the thin sheet not doing much to shield my skin from the springs I feel in the mattress, but at least smelling less of dust.
It’s only a minute or two before an RV door slams shut outside. My muscles twitch with the urge to rush to the window again now that it’s safe, but I have discipline too. Mine came the hard way. And the only boxer who’s going to break my heart is the one who gave me my name.
Two
Memphis
She doesn’t seem as screwed up as her family says she is. I’ve been working out here for more than a year, and I didn’t know the Valentines had a daughter until a few months ago when all that crap with that big-time financial guy was all over the news. When the story broke on the afternoon news, I was in the gym training with Leo and Mrs. V was working on the books in the office. We had on the small TV they used to keep tethered up in the corner. Mrs. V ripped that TV down the next morning, and nobody’s brought it up since.
I watched her kick the office filing cabinet so hard she dented it, and then she began to pace in the small area behind the desk, chewing at her nails and spitting off the ends while muttering swear words. When I asked what had her so pissed off, Leo didn’t want to tell me at first, but when Mrs. V went to get a trash bag and broom to sweep up the shards of glass and bits of plastic from the TV, he let it spill that the woman in the story was Archie and Angela’s daughter.
The first mention referred to the woman involved as Olivia Stone, but by nightfall the media had those details sorted out and reported her real last name. Mrs. V became obsessed with the stories, and I always wondered why she never went up to Washington to help her daughter—or why there weren’t phone calls. Leo wouldn’t answer my questions after that first conversation. In fact, he didn’t say her name to me again until two weeks ago, when he told me Oliva was coming to stay with him for a while.
I expected someone hideous. A real monster. Not the way she looked; I’d seen her on TV. I knew she was a pretty girl, but the kinds of shows that would blast her face on the screen never really showed what kind of person she really was. I know what she looks like running from a drugstore to a taxi, trying not to be caught by cameras or shouting reporters. And I know what she looks like when she’s staring off in the distance in a courtroom wearing whatever some lawyer probably told her to wear.
She struck me as a girl who might be quiet, I guess. I didn’t expect her to be funny. And I sure as hell didn’t mean to watch her last night, but damn am I glad I was standing where I was, when I was. The curves of her body peeking through that thin white T-shirt would have probably caught any man’s attention, but that’s not why I kept looking. I’m not sure I can pinpoint exactly what it was about the way she looked up at the sky, then down at me, but the feeling made a dent in the center of my chest. Not attraction—though she is definitely attractive, in a really interesting way. It’s more of a lingering side-effect type thing, like déjà vu.
I don’t think she realizes exactly how much of her I saw last night, because there’s not a hint of embarrassment in her today. She marched into the club this morning with a bang—literally. She was carrying this enormous box of files, and from the corner of my eye, I noticed she was balancing the box against the same office doorknob she was trying to twist open. Leo was wrapping my hands, and by the time I jumped up and rushed over to her, the files were on the floor and she was swearing.
“Nice job, hero. You got to me just in time to pick this shit up,” she said, tossing the torn box on the floor with the rest of the mess. She flung the office door open and has been sitting at the desk rubbing her temples ever since.
My inside voice keeps screaming “distraction” at me. It’s also telling me to quit being nice to a girl who seems to have a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder.
“You know, you don’t actually have to pick all of that up.” Leo’s words are slurred by the wad of chew pushed in the space between his gums and cheek.
It took me about twenty minutes to get the folders back into a pile. I can’t help her with the order the pages are supposed to be in, but I can be nice.
“Nah, it’s no trouble.”
I wrap the pages in what’s left of the cardboard and get to my feet just as Leo spits into the bucket by the office door.
“That’s Liv, always telling people what to do. Hell, she didn’t even have to tell you; you just went and became her bitch.” He laughs out hard, the ball-busting kind I’m used to from him, but his laughter stops and his cheeks sink when he glances through the open office door where his niece is staring at him with glowering eyes.
“What? You’re bossy is all,” Leo says, palms out to his sides as he takes a few meandering steps away before walking over to a group of regulars who just came in.
I give my attention back to Liv, and her eyes are no longer lasers on her uncle. Instead, they look heavy, sinking into her cheeks, which are slowly sinking back into her palms.
“I guess I need to do more speed work,” I say, grin twisting high on one side of my mouth. A snorty chuckle comes out. It’s my nervous laugh, and I can feel it brewing to come out again while Liv simply raises her brow and moves her focus to me.
“You know, because I didn’t get to you fast enough to…to…”
I step forward and
set the disorganized pile of papers on the end of the desk, the side flap of the box falling open the moment I let go.
“To stop the mountain of shit that is my parents’ business files from falling out of a box that’s been eaten by moths every day for the last six years?”
She touches the top of the files and slides a few of the folders around with her fingertip before breathing out a short laugh and falling back into the chair. It rolls a few inches backward with the force. She looks like an angsty teenager, stiff straight legs, holes in the knees of her jeans, and some concert T-shirt tucked into the front of her pants.
“That’s not moth damage. Box is just old. And yeah, sorry I was too slow to hold the paperwork mountain up.” I lean into the doorframe and wait through her sigh. I’m hoping she’ll look at me, but she doesn’t. I don’t know why I want her to. My friend Miles would say it’s because I need everyone to like me—abandonment issues and all that. Maybe he’s right. Whatever it is, after this attempt, I need to let it be whatever it is, because I can’t be distracted by a popularity contest for approval from one single person. I don’t have that kind of time. And the lineup of fighters I need to get through this year are only focused on one thing—knocking my ass out and putting me in my place.
I wait long enough for it to become awkward. Liv is lost somewhere far away. She isn’t sad about it, and she isn’t angry really. She’s resentful as hell, but mostly I think she’s just resolved to whatever place her mind is.
“Yeah, so…anyway. I’m just gonna finish my conditioning, so if you have anything else heavy, I can—”
She cuts me off.
“I’ll be fine.”
Her eyes move to me briefly and her mouth is tight.
“Okay,” I shrug and raise my brows. I’m not going to get a smooth exit from this conversation, so I just walk back to the speed bag where a chuckling Leo is waiting for me.
“She that way with everyone?” I pull the tape around my right glove tighter, ripping with my teeth.