It All Falls Down

by M Dauphin

  I grunt then spin to watch her walk in. The black tendrils of hair drape down her back and the boots she’s wearing go just to her knees.

  That can’t be her. She’s not from around here, she said it herself. We never once even talked about Oklahoma being on her radar… she’s a good girl in fucking Chicago. Jesus, Max, get your fucking head together.

  “Yea, man.” I chuckle nervously. “Just thought I knew that girl.” I nod towards the door and Deig spins, just quick enough to catch a glimpse of her before the door closes. He lets out a low whistle, then chuckles.

  “Damn, I know you don’t know that girl.” He laughs. “Fucking high class right there.” He nods to the car. “She’s a little too much, man. But hell on wheels, that ass.” He groans and curses under his breath. “Come on, let’s get you laid. Whatever funk you’ve been in tonight is really starting to annoy the piss out of me.”

  “I’m not going out tonight, man,” I huff, tossing the remains of my cigarette on the ground and snuffing it out with my boot.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I’m done with that scene, Deig. It’s like mixing business with pleasure, ya know?” I shrug and start up my truck then back out of our spot. A man in the parking lot throws me a nasty look when the rumble of the engine roars to life but I ignore him. I’m getting used to those stares. You’d think around here people would be used to the roar of a loud engine, but these fancy fuckers have gotten too used to their electric wimp toys to know the true sound of a vehicle.

  “There’s going to be some major pussy there tonight, Max. You’re seriously turning down college pussy?!”

  I chuckle and shake my head at him. He’s worried about everything under the sun except for adding a little spice, rash, and itch to his dick. Those college girls get around, and I’m not saying every one of them is carrying something… but the ones at those raves are more than likely carrying something I’d rather not have.

  “Nah, man. I’ll stick to my own means. I’d rather stay clean.” I chuckle, hopping out of the truck at our apartment complex.

  “Suit yourself.” He shrugs. “More for me.” He winks at me and I shake my head at him.

  “Have fun, man.”

  He nods, hopping down from the truck and walking towards his side of the building.

  Yes, we live just a few doors down from each other. We started out sharing an apartment, but the women he brings home and the women I bring home clashed… often. He’s the type of guy to fill a hole when he sees it.

  Me?

  Lately I’ve been more selective.

  It never used to be like this, but for the last few months I’ve seen a little more to life than filling holes.

  After I head in and grab a beer, I plant myself in front of the computer. Before I can even load Photoshop and pull up my work files there’s a knock on the door. Fucking Christ.

  “Coming,” I mumble, taking another swig of beer. I swing the door open, expecting Deig to be standing there begging me to come with him, but the face smiling back at me is a much more pleasant surprise.

  “Scott,” I say, smiling and opening the door wider. “Come on in.”

  Scott, my final foster father before the system kicked me out, is the closest thing I’ll ever have to a father. If mine were still alive, just from what I’ve heard, I’m certain he’d be a shit one.

  “How ya been?” He walks in as comfortable as sin in this apartment even though he’s only been here two other times.

  He lives about an hour from here and typically calls before he comes into town.

  “Good, real good, man.” I close the door and glance over to the counter to make sure my stash is put away. He’d be ruined if he knew how I afford this place. “What brings ya in?” Shoving my hands in my pocket, I lean against the doorframe in the living room and watch him grab a drink.

  “Gertie and I were out at a friend’s house. She wanted to go to the movies so I thought I’d stop in and check up on you. Make sure you didn’t need anything.”

  I smile a genuine smile, happy that there’s some good that came out of that foster system. He’s the only adult in my life that gave me a chance. He saw the troubled teen and tried forming him into something worthwhile.

  I’d say he did an ‘okay’ job. There are still parts of me that I’m sure he’d not be happy about if he knew, but for the most part I think I turned out okay.

  “I’m good, man.” I walk over and sit on the chair across from the couch as he sits with a beer in hand.

  “Nothing new going on with you?”

  “Nah. Work’s starting to amp up. Deig’s still partying like a crazy animal.” I chuckle.

  “You’re not?”

  “Not anymore. I think I’m just over it.”

  “Still use your darkroom?” He nods towards the hallway to the room we reno’d into a darkroom last year. It was our first and only big project together and it made my respect for him grow even more.

  “Yea, every now and then. It’s a good release,” I answer, smiling. Photography, though not part of Smudge, isn’t something I’ll ever be able to give up.

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  I chuckle and rub my hand over my short hair; a nervous habit.

  “No, Scott. No girl.”

  He eyes me and nods slowly.

  “You up for a blind date?” He grins as he takes a sip of his beer and I bark out a laugh. “I have a friend of a friend that just moved to town. A cute girl. She could be good for you.” He looks around the apartment and I know what he’s thinking.

  Bare.

  It’s bare, but that’s all I know. I don’t like clutter. I was never the kid that was able to keep tons of things because I was always switching houses. Clutter makes me anxious. I lived in a house once where I couldn’t see the floor because there was so much shit around. Hoarding, as I know it now, and the roaches in that house still give me the creeps.

  The less shit I have, the less dust that’s able to collect on them. The less dust, the less bugs. I just need clean and orderly. You wouldn’t think looking at me, what with the tattoos and scruff, but I’m a neat freak.

  “No, thank you,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “That stuff isn’t good for me.”

  “What, girls? Girls have always been good for you, Max!” he boasts, cracking a laugh at my expense. I can’t even count how many times he caught me sneaking girls into my room. It came to a point where he would just make sure I had condoms on hand, and I didn’t wake Gertie. There was no keeping my dick in my pants as a horny fucking teenager.

  “Dating, Scott. It’s just not my gig. I’m good here on my own. My own rules and no one to answer to.”

  “Just the way you always wanted it.” He shrugs and stands, finishing off his beer. “I should probably head back. Theatre’s about a half hour away and I’m her ride. She’ll be pissed if I leave her there alone.”

  “Thanks for stopping in, man, I really appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad I did, Max. It’s nice seeing you doing so well. You’ve done well for yourself.”

  “Thanks, Scott, it means a lot.”

  “Don’t be a stranger now,” Scott says, pulling me in for a hug before heading down to his truck. I watch him pull away and let my mind wander to a time when he wasn’t so gentle with me.

  Scott and Gertie never had a foster kid before me. I’m not certain why they started with me; never will be either. They have a son of their own who’s about three years younger than me, but the minute I walked into their house I wanted to burn it to the ground. It was just another house with people inside that didn’t really want me, nor did they care for me. They just wanted that check from the state for ‘helping’ a kid in need.

  I was an angry kid. I lost both of my parents before I was old enough to really remember them and had no other family to claim me. Ever since I can remember, I was shuffled from foster home to foster home. I never was adopted; no one wanted the kid with a tendency to destroy things. The older
I got, the angrier I got. The first week at Scott and Gertie’s house I swear they probably thought I was going to murder them in their sleep.

  Then one day something switched. They weren’t afraid of me, but rather… they were nice to me. They got me. They understood, and they did everything in their power to make sure my strengths shone through the darkness of my life.

  “Don’t let your past define your future,” Scott would always tell me. He never wanted me to be hiding behind the darkness that I started out in. He bought me my first computer, showing me the ropes of the design program he uses at work. He forced me to finish high school, though college was never something I was going to do, so he never really pushed it. Even after the system put me on the streets, he made sure I had a job all ready and a good amount of money saved to find my own place. He’s been there for me and he believes in me, and there are not many people in my life I can say that about.

  I walk back to my desk and grab my phone, clearing a few messages from deliveries I have to make tomorrow morning, and then open my laptop again. Work has been slow the last week or two, but things are starting to amp up and soon I think we’ll be sitting pretty. I need to get ahead on a few of my current projects, finish up a website, and make sure an ad is ready to run starting next week for a local bar, all before bed tonight. As long as the meeting tomorrow goes well and we secure this new client, I’ll have enough work on my plate to keep me busy for months.

  Typically we work with bars, barber shops, tattoo parlors… things that I can relate to. Deig’s forcing this meeting on me tomorrow because he says we need the client, which we do, but I have a fuck ton of research to do for it.

  I have no fucking clue how to market a boutique.

  “What about this one?” I hold up a blue shift dress and stare at Ava, a tinge of jealousy hits when she cocks her head at me from her stool across the room. She’s always so put together and it barely takes any damn effort. I swear, some days she rolls out of bed and BOOM, she’s ready for the day. Me? It takes me hours. To the point of putting together things the night before a big day just to make sure everything is perfect.

  “I don’t know, Nora. It’s a business meeting, not a date.” She shrugs and sips on her tea. “What about capris?”

  “Yea,” I mumble, heading back to my closet. She’s right, I shouldn’t be so nervous about this meeting, but this is a huge meeting for me. This is me giving up a part of my baby. The last six months I’ve been doing this on my own. All of the effort it’s taken to get this far has been from me and my best friend. We’ve hit a point, though, where it’s do or die. We need help. Not help in store, we’ve got that down pat, but help reaching more clientele. I’m well versed in the business side of things, but marketing is a different ballgame and apparently I’m not ‘as good at it as I could be’. At least that’s what Nick said. Nick’s… well… he’s Nick. We aren’t ‘official’, and I like it that way, but I know one of these days he’s going to want to push for something more and I just don’t know. I like my current status just exactly as it is. Free.

  He’s been supportive in this whole ordeal, amazingly. I never knew a man could care so much about women’s fashion, but he’s been super helpful. It hurt when he told me I needed to outsource some work; I wanted to be able to do all of this on my own. After some thorough research, though, I found that it’s not uncommon for places like mine to use help, as large or small as it may be.

  So I found this company, a local small business, and I got in contact with one of the owners. Marcus sounded nice enough on the phone, so I set up this meeting with him and his partner and am forcing Ava to come with me. She’s against hiring outside workers, but it has to be done. The store’s actually getting busy now and it’s all I can do to get time to eat a full meal at least once a day. There’s just not enough hours in the day.

  “How about this?” I ask, huffing as I walk back into the living room of our shared apartment. We moved in last month after living in my grandma’s guest house for about four months. This place is perfect for us. We’ve never been able to room together, so even though we’re both nearing on thirty years old, it feels like we’re back in college, gossiping and giggling on school nights. I freaking love it.

  “Cute.” She smiles at me. “You match our paint,” she quips, laughing. I spin and turn at the mustard colored wall behind me then down to my shirt.

  “Shit,” I mumble.

  “It’s cute, Nor. Just wear it, you look good.”

  “You sure?” I spin and twist, walking over to the mirror in the foyer. Our apartment is an older open concept but we’ve updated it with our own taste. The owner didn’t care what we did with the design of the place, so all it took was a little elbow grease and a few bucks to make this place our own. The hardwood floors shine now, the muted earth tones with splashes of color make the space seem bigger. The wall of windows facing the north lets in a soft glow most of the day, though there are days where I consider using drapes to block out the blinding sunlight glaring through.

  “Beautiful, babe,” she says, hopping off her stool. “I’m still uncertain why you’re so nervous about this though.”

  “Because, Ava. It’s my baby, and I’m about to hand over a piece of her to strange men that don’t know her!”

  “Jesus, Nor, it sounds like you’re selling off your first born to the highest bidder.” She laughs and takes her mug to the sink.

  “I am!” I shriek, realizing just how crazy I sound. The minute she spins to look at me, eyebrow raised, hands on her hips, I crack a smile. “Fine. So it’s not really my first born, but this store is my baby. What if we get a bunch of tech nerds that care nothing about the shop?”

  “Can you wait for the freak out until after the meeting? Please? As it is, I have to spend an entire morning in the shop with you, listening to you huff and puff about this, when you and me both know it’s the right thing to do. Hell, you have me believing it so you know it’s true.”

  “I know,” I whine. “I’m allowed to worry, Ava.”

  “Yes, Hun, you are. Just not like an old woman.”

  I groan and head into the office to collect everything for the day. I have a shipment coming in for the summer months and am launching a new candle line from a small local place down the street. So many new things are happening with the boutique in these next few months and I’m so damn excited for it, but I have to have someone to help me or I’m not going to make it. I know it, but that doesn’t mean I‘m happy about it. There’s a small part of me that feels like a failure because I have to ask for help, but I’m trying my hardest not to look at it that way.

  It’s ok to ask for help, Nora.

  “You ready?” I smile at Ava and sling my purse over my shoulder, then we head out the door and down the street.

  That’s the good thing about small towns, you can walk almost anywhere. Granted, this isn’t as small a town as some of the others around here, but it’s close enough, and has that perfect feeling. We can walk to work in less than ten minutes. It’s fantastic. The heat of the summer has started to weigh down on this part of the state, but it’s not too bad to handle yet. I’m sure there’s going to come a day when I think I’m dying and melting into the concrete, and when that happens I’ll be blaring the AC in every building and driving the few blocks to work every day so I don’t show up drenched in sweat. Until then, we’re saving gas and getting a short brisk walk in while we can.

  The morning continues without incident. The shop opened at ten, and by quarter after we already had full dressing rooms. Ava hasn’t left the register since shortly after and it’s almost noon by the time I’m able to take a break from helping customers. There was a UPS shipment that came in just after the rush this morning so if I wasn’t filling orders for things we’re out of, helping piece together perfect outfits for women, or making sure the dressing rooms were clean and ready to go, I was unloading new merchandise and getting it into the system as fast as I could to get it out to the floor. I’ve had
no time to prep for this meeting today. Last night I did a little, but today is the first day ever I was hoping the shop was slow so I could sit in the office and prep for this. My list of things I need this design/marketing team to do keeps growing, and if I don’t have all my ducks in a row today I’m going to look like a damn idiot.

  “Nor, you were up until midnight last night prepping. I’m sure it’s going to be fine.” Ava takes a swig of water and starts to straighten up a shelf as I flip the sign to closed.

  “You ready?” I huff, hands on my hips.

  “Whenever you are, sunshine. You sure you don’t want to check your hair or makeup again in that mirror?” She grins and nods to the mirror on my left and I roll my eyes.

  “Appearances are everything, Ava. I can’t show up looking like a hot mess when we’re supposed to represent a boutique.”

  “Definitely right there,” she adds, walking out the front door and locking it behind me.

  The lunch meeting is at a place just down the street. I figured if they wanted to check out the place after lunch, just to get a better feel of our style, we’d be close by. To say I’m nervous is an understatement, but I can do this.

  I can hand part of my baby off to a stranger. I can do this.

  “I can’t do this,” I whisper as we wait for the hostess to seat us.

  “It’s a business, Nora. You should be happy it’s growing so big that you have to ask for help. This is a good thing.” Ava takes me by the elbow and squeezes gently. “I’m proud of you, babe.” She leans in and hugs me, laying one of her sloppy kisses on my cheek, just like she does every time she senses me tensing up. I laugh and push her off me as the hostess comes back.

  “The rest of your party is already here. Please, follow me,” she says, smiling.

  Deep breaths, Nora. Deep breaths.

  We follow behind her, through the crowded restaurant, weaving our way around waiters holding trays full of Italian food that make my mouth water, and tables of busy families corralling kids.

  Jesus, kids. I know people like them, but I’m not a fan. Not at all. And why the hell would you bring a child to a restaurant this busy in the middle of the day? It’s never going to end well.