Amaya waved me away with the cigarette held between her elegant fingers. “Hey, you maniacs!” she yelled as I walked up the path toward the house. “We’ve had enough. You have until I finish this smoke, and then we’re getting in that motherfucking pool, or so help me . . .”
My cousins started shouting back, but I could no longer discern what they were saying. I smiled to myself as my shoulders relaxed. I loved hanging out with these girls, but I really didn’t want to talk about my life. It was easier to just pretend.
I walked through the Meads’ massive house, my flip-flops slapping on marble tile as the AC cooled my flushed skin. My aunt Emily was sitting at the island in the kitchen, flipping through an interior design magazine and sipping on a coffee made for her on the professional espresso machine in their butler’s pantry.
She looked up at me and smiled. Donna and Harlow got their blonde hair and athletic bodies from her and their round eyes from their dad.
“You girls having fun?” She brushed my hair off my shoulder as I leaned on the counter next to her.
“Yes.” My returning smile was genuine. My mother’s sister had never made me feel invisible. She’d also never made me feel awkward about my face or treated me differently because we didn’t have the kind of money she had.
“Where are the others?” She glanced behind me, in the direction of the tennis court.
“We’re all gonna jump in the pool soon. I just came in to get more watermelon juice.” I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “ After your daughters are done battling it out for the top spot in the Australian Open.”
“In this heat?” She shook her head. “Do I need to go tell them to knock it off?”
“No, no,” I rushed out. I didn’t want her to catch Amaya smoking. “They’re wrapping it up.”
My aunt nodded and smoothed my hair again. “OK. Oh, by the way . . .” She hopped off the stool, her understated perfume wafting toward me as she breezed past in a tailored shirt and khaki shorts, not a hair out of place. She picked up a MacBook and coiled-up charger off the side table. “We got Donna and Harlow new laptops for school, so I wanted to give you this one. It’s been reset and all that jazz.”
“Oh.” I took it reflexively, the sleek metal cool in my fingers. “Thank you . . .” I trailed off. I really was thankful, but I knew Mom didn’t like me taking things from my cousins. My dad would be fine with it. He knew my aunt’s gifts came from a good place, and he wasn’t too proud to accept the help. But my mom . . .
My aunt saw the uncertainty on my face. “Don’t worry about your mom. I’ll talk to her. You need a good computer for school.”
Her tone brooked no arguments, so I nodded. My current laptop was clunky and constantly crashing—often midsentence as I worked on an assignment. We couldn’t possibly afford a new one, so I hadn’t even mentioned it to my parents.
Aunt Emily took the laptop out of my hands again and set it on the bench. “You go on out to the pool. I’ll have the drinks and a snack brought out to you before I head off to lunch.”
“Thanks, Auntie Em.”
I did as she said, making my way through the open-plan living area, out through the French doors, and down another manicured path toward the pool. I would much rather have just gone to the fridge and gotten the damn drinks myself than deal with the awkwardness of having a servant bring things, but there was no point arguing with my aunt.
The pool was as ostentatious as the house, with curving edges, natural stone paving, and lush landscaping, complete with stunning views of California’s natural landscape. Umbrella-shaded loungers lined one side, towels already placed neatly on each one. I toed off my flip-flops and whipped my tank top off over my head as voices preceded the arrival of the others.
The girls walked up before I could get my shorts off. Donna and Harlow spotted me, and matching evil grins pulled at their faces.
“No,” I said as firmly as I could, throwing my arms out in front of me.
They shared a look and sprinted directly for me. Neither one seemed to give a shit that they were still fully clothed in their tennis gear as they tackled me into the water. All three of us splashed into the pool in a tangle of limbs and hair.
“Oh man, that’s refreshing,” Harlow yelled as we surfaced, spluttering and laughing. They waded to the edge of the pool and got out, removing their sodden tennis shoes.
“You guys are such dicks!” I smacked the water on either side of me, but I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my face.
“Hey, you wanted to get in the pool,” Donna teased, and I flipped her off. Somehow, her short, sleek haircut still looked neat and cute even plastered to her head.
“You did want to get in the pool.” Perfectly dry and unruffled, Amaya flipped her shiny black hair over her shoulder, lit another cigarette, and unhurriedly lowered her perfect ass to one of the loungers.
The sisters headed to the pool house to get their bathing suits, shedding wet white clothing as they went.
“Whose side are you on?” I arched a brow at Amaya as I headed toward the ladder, the denim tight around my hips. The shorts would be a pain in the ass to get off.
“Mine.” She shrugged. “Always mine.”
Just as I reached the ladder, a servant in black shorts and a collared T-shirt came down the path, carrying a tray laden with drinks and snacks.
I ducked my head and pushed off the ladder, diving back under the water. Better to deal with the wet denim for a few more minutes than deal with someone I didn’t know looking at my gross face.
I surfaced at the deep end and took big gulps of air, facing the verdant plants on the other side of the pool.
“He’s gone,” Amaya announced. She had stripped down to a white bikini that practically glowed against her smooth dark skin, her black hair gathered into a messy bun on top of her head.
I sighed in relief and swam back to the ladder. She gave me a warm smile as she waded in at the shallow end. The girls knew how self-conscious I was of my face, but they also knew I didn’t like talking about it.
Donna and Harlow came back out wearing swimsuits that probably cost more than my whole wardrobe, with geometric mesh cutouts, and joined us in the pool.
“I wish you went to our school, Mena.” Harlow pouted.
“Yeah, senior year would be epic with all of us together,” Donna agreed. Donna was born eleven months before Harlow, making them as close in age as sisters could be without being twins.
I nodded before kicking my legs up to float on my back. “Me too.”
I’d have given anything to go to their fancy private school, where I’d actually have friends. But I was stuck at my shitty public school, where I wished I didn’t exist—on a good day.
We spent the rest of the day by the pool, listening to music and talking, the girls telling me about their time away. We had lunch brought to us and hardly left the loungers other than to cool off in the water.
We all took photos on our phones, but when Amaya went to post one with all four of us squished into the frame, drinking watermelon juice through straws, I made her promise not to. I didn’t want anyone seeing the repulsive thing on my face, and I really didn’t want anything online that could be used against me. They argued with me, but I was pretty stubborn on this front, so Amaya ended up posting one with just the three of them. As usual, she added #DevilbendDynasty to the caption.
They’d started using the phrase last year, after we found a stack of photo albums in the Meads’ attic—our moms and grandmothers, generations of Devilbend women, in social clubs, at charity functions, sticking together, supporting one another. I knew the girls wanted to include me in the sentiment, but I wasn’t dynasty material—I was just a poor, ugly girl with no future.
My mom picked me up on her way home from work, coming inside to catch up with her sister while I squeezed in every last moment with the girls. I was pretty sure they argued about the laptop, but it came home with us, so my aunt must have won.
The carefree, light fee
ling I’d had hanging out with the girls was pushed out of my chest with every mile that took me farther away from them. As the manicured lawns and immaculate, tall fences gave way to tightly packed concrete buildings on the fifteen-minute drive home, some of that concrete settled on my shoulders, my reality weighing me down.
“Did you have fun with your cousins?” Mom asked as we parked in the lot behind our building. It was the first thing she’d said since we got in the car, both of us lost in our thoughts.
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic about it.” She chuckled.
I didn’t answer, and she was too tired to prod me any further. My mom had the same blonde hair as my aunt Em, but I got my thick, light brown hair from my dad. I also got his pale blue eyes. If only I had some of his height too. He towered over both my mom and me—but then, most people did.
After dinner and a shower, I went out to the balcony to let my hair air-dry.
The sun was beginning to set, casting everything in a warm yellow-orange hue. Even the shitty side of Devilbend—with the squat apartment buildings, the run-down park, and the shady area near the train station—looked kind of pretty in this light.
But it was an illusion. Under the golden light and summer shadows was hard concrete and graffiti, people struggling to survive, and me. I’d had an amazing day, but it made the evening even more bitter by comparison. Back to reality. Tomorrow I’d have to go to work at the diner—I’d picked up as many shifts as I could during summer. Then on Monday, it was back to school.
I rubbed the side of my nose and sighed, wishing for the millionth time I could scrub the ugly mark off. Wishing I could change just one thing about my life.
That was impossible, so I decided to paint the pretty sunset onto my face in the form of a smoky but vibrant eye makeup.
“Motherfucker!” My chair scraped against the balcony floor as I leapt up to avoid getting splatters of foundation on my white shorts. The bottle had just slipped out of my hand and smashed on the table. “Fucking fuck. God damn it!”
I growled in frustration as more than fifty dollars’ worth of goop, perfectly matched to my skin tone, went oozing over the edge.
“You all right over there?” A deep male voice came from the balcony next to ours, a shadow shifting behind the bamboo screen my mother had put up for privacy.
“Shit.” I froze, heat spreading up my cheeks. That was all I needed—some asshole to tell me off over my potty mouth.
Chapter 2
“YES. I’M FINE. Just dropped something. Sorry about the cursing,” I scrambled to reply, hoping he wouldn’t demand to speak with my parents.
He chuckled, sounding more amused now than concerned. “I don’t give a flying fuck about the cursing.” His voice was smooth—like the ocean on a calm day. Mellow and even on the surface, but underneath . . .
I smiled and relaxed my shoulders. “Well . . . fucking great then.” I rolled my eyes at myself.
“Must’ve been something important.”
“What?” I frowned, inching closer to the bamboo screen.
“The thing you dropped?”
“Oh!” I’d almost forgotten about the foundation. “Yeah, it was . . . expensive and . . . er . . . never mind.”
I suddenly felt shy. I didn’t want this random stranger with the beautiful voice to know I’d been that upset over makeup. I didn’t want him to think I was conceited.
“Fine. Keep your secrets.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. It made me smile too, but I ironed out my expression so he wouldn’t hear it. “Why would I trust you with my secrets? You’re a stranger. You could be an axe murderer.”
His laughter trickled through the tiny gaps in the bamboo and wrapped itself around my shoulders, sending a little shiver down my spine.
“I’m not a stranger. I’m your neighbor. You can trust me,” he said.
I realized I was just standing motionless in the middle of my balcony, staring at the bamboo partition. I reached for the roll of paper towels on the table and started cleaning up the mess. “Never trust someone who says trust me,” I quipped.
“Touché.” He chuckled again. “I’ll just have to earn your trust the old-fashioned way.”
“A cavity search?” I paused mid-wipe. Had I really just said that to a random?
But he didn’t even pause before answering. “I was gonna say drug screening, and you jump straight to finger in the ass? Brutal!”
“I don’t fuck around.” A laugh escaped at the end, part of it slight hysteria from the rush of relief that he hadn’t taken offence.
“No, you do not, neighbor.”
I couldn’t get enough of his smooth voice; his relaxed, casual tone was putting me at ease in a way I never had been with a person I’d never met. Was it the screen between us that allowed me to talk to him without feeling self-conscious about my face? Or was it him?
I couldn’t tell how old he was just from his voice. Not elderly, that much was clear, but was he my age? A college guy? Maybe he was in his thirties and married with three kids. I really hoped I wasn’t flirting with an old dude.
Was that what I was doing? Flirting?
I cleared my throat and deposited the last of the dirty paper towels into a handbasket, then wiped my hands with micellar water to get the foundation off. “So, you just moved in?”
The apartment had been empty for months. Their balcony was right next to ours, but that didn’t make us neighbors exactly. Our apartment was the last one at the end of the hallway on the eighth floor. Theirs was the last one at the end of their hallway, but we had to use separate entrances to the building. There were five entrances total—twelve floors of cramped apartments, thousands of people literally living on top of one another.
“Yeah, yesterday. Although I’m questioning the decision.”
“New neighbor scaring you off? Am I the one giving off axe murderer vibes now?”
“Hah! Nah. It’s the smell.”
I frowned and silently sniffed at my underarms. I’d just showered. I smelled like strawberries. “The smell?”
“Yeah. The whole apartment smells like feet.”
“Ugh, gross!”
“You have no idea! Every single room. Even the kitchen! If it hadn’t rained last night, I would’ve slept out here.”
I laughed. “Have you tried, uh, cleaning it?”
“Yes, thank you, smart-ass. We only got the keys yesterday. My dad had to work all day, so I did what I could on my own. Shampooing the carpets seems to have helped.”
He hadn’t mentioned a wife and kids! I did a little fist pump. He lived with his dad, but that didn’t mean he was my age. Oh god! What if he was, like, twelve, and he was just one of those kids whose voice had dropped early?
“Well,” I said, “I hope you get the feet smell out. It’s a shame we didn’t meet sooner. I could’ve told you this was a shitty place to live.”
“We’ve had worse. Trust me. Plus, if we hadn’t moved in here, I never would’ve gotten to talk to you.”
I bit my bottom lip to hold in the grin and leaned back in the chair. I had no idea what to say to that.
The sun had set; with my window of natural light for makeup application gone, I started to pack everything into my case. After the zip made an obnoxiously loud sound, he cleared his throat and spoke again.
“I’m sorry. Was that . . . weird?” Gone was the casual confidence.
“No!” I rushed out, then took a breath to calm my tone. “Not at all. Sorry. I just . . . got distracted. I like talking to you too.” I cringed.
“Good.” I could hear the smile in his voice again.
“So, you move around a lot?” I blurted to fill the silence.
“Yeah. We . . . my dad’s . . . yes, we move around a lot.”
Maybe he was as nervous and flustered as me. Why did that make my chest feel all warm and fuzzy?
The kitchen light flicked on inside. Mom or Dad would be checking on me an
y minute now. I didn’t want them to know I was talking to . . . whoever this was.
“Shit. I gotta go.”
“Oh, OK. Nice talking to you!”
“You too!”
I ducked inside and closed the sliding door behind me just in time.
“I was just about to come check on you, Sweet Chilly.” Dad leaned on the kitchen counter and chugged a glass of water. My full name was Philomena Ann Willis. At some point, before I had a say in it, my parents had started calling me Sweet Chilly Philly, and it stuck. The girls called me Mena. The assholes at school called me . . . Ugh! I pushed the thought out of my head. I still had a few days before I had to deal with them.
I smiled and poured myself a glass too. Mom was snoring lightly on the couch.
“I’m going to bed,” I said.
“This early?” We both glanced at the time on the microwave: 9:38 p.m.
“I’ve got work tomorrow.” It wasn’t a lie. One of the waitresses had called in sick, and I was more than happy to take the double shift. It would help me replace the foundation I’d just lost.
“Early one?”
“Yeah. Can I get a lift?” I’d get there half an hour early if Dad dropped me off before heading to work, but it would be better than walking and taking the bus in this heat.
“Sure thing.”
“Good night.”
“Night.” He waved me off, heading to wake up Mom.
The next day, I got home from my double shift around ten. Mom was already drifting off on the couch, but she startled awake when I came in and offered to heat up the casserole they’d had for dinner.
“No thanks. I ate at the diner.” The pay was shitty, but at least Leah—the owner of the aptly named Leah’s Diner—fed us when we worked long shifts. Leah had been friends with my mom in high school, and they’d reconnected when we’d moved back to Devilbend just before I started high school. Just before my life turned into hell on earth.
Actually, high school wasn’t hell—it was more like limbo. It wasn’t constant daily torture, although there was some of that too. No, it was punishment through alienation. Unless I was being sneered at, laughed at, or having something thrown at me, I didn’t exist.
Bully Me: Class of 2020 Page 43