by Marni Mann
“I won’t.” He glanced at me. His face was still soft. “What time do you want me to come over?”
“I’ll give you a key so you can come anytime, but between eight and ten would be best.”
“I’ll be here at nine.”
Her lips moved in her sleep, and her hands twitched. An empty ashtray sat on the nightstand; since she’d begun vomiting blood, she’d become too sick to smoke.
His fingers intertwined with mine, squeezing for just a brief second before he released. “She’s lucky to have you.”
Emma had said that to me once, just like Dallas. It was the first time she had visited my apartment. They had both asked to come over several times. Dallas’s requests eventually stopped.
But Emma’s didn’t.
***
I knew I had plenty of time before Emma’s train arrived, but I still jogged the few blocks to the station. I wanted everything to be perfect tonight. I had spent the whole day ensuring that it would be. I’d gone to the store and picked up fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cupcakes for dinner, and cleaned our whole apartment. Mom had just been getting out of bed when I’d left the apartment, and waiting on the bathroom counter were two aspirins and a large glass of water. I threw away the bottle of liquor in the freezer and the three half-bottles of wine in the fridge. Emma didn’t need to see those, and Mom didn’t need to drink more when she got home. I had planned it so Emma and Mom would only have a few minutes together before she had to leave for work.
“Charlie!” Emma shouted as she stepped onto the platform.
Logan, her brother, was right behind her, chaperoning her to my side of town. Where I’d been riding the train for years, Emma wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone.
“He’s driving me nuts,” she whispered during our hug.
He handed me Emma’s bag. “How far do you live from here?”
“Just a few blocks,” I said.
“I’ll walk you,” he said.
“It’s like two minutes from here, Logan,” Emma said. “We’ll be fine.” She dragged out the last word.
His eyes shifted between the two of us. “Will you call when you get there?”
“OK, whatever,” Emma said.
“I’ll be here tomorrow at eleven to pick you up,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I know; you told me twelve times on the way over.” She slipped her hand in mine and skipped toward the station’s door. “I swear…he’s worse than my parents.”
“I’m sure they’ve asked him to keep an eye on you while they’re out of town.”
“I think they’re paying him to make my life miserable. He wouldn’t like it, though, especially if I ratted him out to Dad.”
“Why? Is he having a girl over tonight?”
I had met a few of Logan’s girlfriends, and it seemed like he treated them decently. Better than that man had treated my mother. A few months had passed since I’d watched her and that nameless guy have sex on our couch. But the images had stayed with me, the vision of the happiness that had filled her face when his thighs had slapped up against her butt. The sounds were stuck in my head, too: how she’d begged for his love and demanded all of his attention, the noise the door had made when he shut it on his way out the next morning. I wondered if Logan had sex on the couch that Emma and I always sat on.
“Knowing him, he’ll have more than one over,” she said.
I laughed, but inside I shook. Emma hadn’t been to my apartment before, and she had never met my mom. I didn’t feel comfortable bringing her there…not after being at her house, her room all pink-and-lace, with lampshades decorated with fur. But with her parents out of town, she had convinced me to have her stay the night. I didn’t know if she had ever seen furniture that was full of holes, walls yellowed from smoke, and mattresses on the floor. I hoped she wouldn’t be turned off, and that she realized not everyone had as much money as she had.
If she was grossed out, she never said it, and she didn’t make a face when she stepped onto our stained carpet or through a stale cloud of Mom’s cigarette smoke. We stopped in the living room, and she smiled and said, “I’m so happy to be here.”
“I’m happy, too.” And I was, but for so many more reasons than she knew.
She followed me while I dropped her bag by the entryway of my bedroom, and she took a seat at the kitchen table when I asked if she was hungry.
“Starving! Logan wouldn’t let me eat any of the food Mom made. I guess he wants to save it for tonight. Whatever that means.”
I took the box of chicken and the container of mashed potatoes out of the fridge and set them on the counter.
“Can I help with anything?” she asked.
“No, I…” I stopped. Four bones rested on the bottom of the box, and a tiny scoop of potatoes was stuck to the side of the container. Mom must have eaten it all when I’d gone to pick up Emma. I glanced to my left, leaning back a few inches. Both cupcakes were missing from the pantry. I had told her—repeatedly—that this was Emma’s favorite meal, and how special this night was for me. But if I confronted her, she would yell and call me ungrateful, and embarrass me for not appreciating everything she did.
“Is something wrong?” Emma asked.
I turned around to face her. “I’m such a dummy. I forgot that I ate the chicken for lunch. How about some McDonald’s instead?”
“Yum!” She jumped out of her seat and skipped to my side, locking her arm in mine. “I know just what I’m going to get. Did you see that commercial for that big and juicy thing?”
Mrs. Hunt wouldn’t allow either of her kids to eat fast food and she made them promise they wouldn’t eat it behind her back.
“I’m just going to grab my purse. Give me two seconds.”
I unhooked her arm and went to my room. I had used my own money to buy the chicken and potatoes and cupcakes, and now I had only a few dollars left.
“You must be Emma,” I heard my mom say from the kitchen.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Williams.”
“It’s Miss, actually…Lilly will do just fine.”
“OK, thanks, Miss Lilly.”
“I said, drop the Miss. I’m too old for that shit.”
I threw the strap of my purse over my shoulder and rushed into the kitchen. Mom was opening and closing the fridge and freezer doors. I knew what she was looking for, and she wasn’t going to find it in the kitchen. But it surprised me that she was hunting for it so soon; she usually didn’t drink before work.
“I had a bottle in the freezer, Charlie. Where is it?”
“Emma, are you ready to go?” I asked.
Emma moved to my side.
“Where’s the bottle?”
“I never saw a bottle. If there was one, I didn’t touch it.”
Mom slammed the freezer door shut. There was nothing inside to rattle, but the whole appliance squeaked. She turned around and stood just feet from us. “Where’s the fucking bottle?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
I’d have to remember to take the trash bag out of our can when I got downstairs, to hide the evidence. I’d put it in our neighbor’s instead.
One of her hands quickly gripped my purse and the other reached for the strap on my shoulder. Within seconds, she was emptying my wallet.
“This is for the bottle,” she said, putting the few dollars I had in her pocket. “Now get the hell out of here. I don’t want to see your face while I’m getting ready for work.”
Emma’s body had stiffened; her eyes went wide and her lips parted. I clutched her hand, and pulled her toward the door, feeling her stumble behind me. In the year that we’d been hanging out, I’d heard the Hunts speak sternly but never yell, and they didn’t allow cursing in their house. I needed to find a way to downplay what had just happened so it wouldn’t leave Emma with a scar. I didn’t know if she would ever be back to our apartment again, but I didn’t want her to be scared of the thought.
It wasn’t the only time Emma heard cursing
from Mom that night. We had been asleep when she got home from work. The slamming door woke me. She yelled, “Shit, shit…fuck,” as she hit the living room wall, slamming against it so hard that I felt it shake as she fell to the floor. She didn’t have good balance when she drank. Then came the retching. I knew she wouldn’t clean it up now, and she wouldn’t be awake until tomorrow afternoon. Emma didn’t need to see it or smell it, so I tiptoed out of bed and got the rags and bucket from under the kitchen sink.
Mom was on her side in a fetal position, the puddle filling the empty space between her chin and knees. Her arm rested over it. I gently lifted her hands and moved her into a seated position. “I’m going to put you into bed.”
“Leave me here.”
“I can’t, I have to clean up your mess.”
“Leave me here,” she said a little louder.
I had shut my door, but our walls were thin and I knew how her sounds could carry.
“Please, Mom, let me take you to your room.”
“No!”
“Mom, please.”
I had tried my hardest to make up an excuse for the way she had acted earlier. Emma seemed to have understood—or at least she acted as if she did to keep me from feeling worse than I already did. But if she saw Mom like this, she wouldn’t ever come back. And if her parents found out that my mother was a drunk, they wouldn’t allow us to be friends anymore.
“I have the worst life,” she sobbed. “No one loves me…not any of those damn men I screw. They leave me, Charlie. They all leave me in the morning. You’re going to leave me, too.” She rolled to her knees, pulling her hands out of the puke.
The door opened behind me, but I didn’t turn around. Mom was almost on her feet. If I could just get her to her room without her saying anything else, I could tell Emma that Mom was sick with the flu.
“Don’t leave me,” she yelled.
“Mom, not now.”
She wobbled as she tried to stand. “You’re so ungrateful.”
I placed her arm around my shoulder, but she yanked it away. Then she put both palms on my chest and pushed.
“I wish I never had you,” she screamed.
The smell from the floor got stronger the closer I got to it. I caught my balance, stepped over the pile, and returned to Mom’s side. I slid an arm around her waist to guide her toward her bedroom.
“Don’t touch me.” She pushed my arm away again. “Don’t ever touch me.” Then she faced me. I knew what was going to happen before it actually did. It had happened before. Many times. Her arm drew back and her hand opened, and the next thing I felt was her fingers and her nails whipping over my cheek. “You’ve ruined my fucking life.”
“Charlie,” Emma shouted.
I fought back the tears that stung my eyes, the pain in my cheek, the knot in my throat, the anger in my blood. I fought them for Emma.
“Fuck you…both.” She stumbled past the entryway and down the hallway to her bedroom.
When her door shut, I fell to my knees and reached into the bucket for a rag. I still couldn’t leave the mess on the floor for Mom to clean up. I didn’t want Emma to have to smell it for another second. I couldn’t open my mouth to speak because I didn’t know what would come out.
Emma reached into the bucket and took out one of the rags.
I placed my hand on hers, not letting her move any farther, and shook my head.
“Let me help you,” she begged. I stared into her eyes; there wasn’t any fear or sorrow. There was strength. She carried enough for the both of us.
I released her fingers and began to scrub the carpet. I didn’t look up. I couldn’t. The tears were flowing faster than I could control. It felt good to release them, but I wanted them to stop. I wanted to tell Emma it wasn’t always like this; Mom didn’t always get sick on the carpet and slap me across the face. She didn’t always scream. There were days when she left me something special to eat, or gave one of her friends some money to take me to a restaurant.
“She’s lucky to have you, Charlie,” Emma said. “I’m lucky to have you, too.”
I didn’t think Emma had ever been to my section of town before; there was nothing over here that she or her family would want to visit. I doubted that she had ever watched a mother slap her child across the face and curse them out. I didn’t believe she had ever cleaned puke off of the floor. But she had now experienced it all, and she wasn’t running away.
As soon as I got old enough, though, I would be running the hell away from here. I had spent enough time at the Hunts’ to know the things that happened in my house weren’t normal. Mom smelled like liquor, wine, and cigarettes; she never hugged me. Mrs. Hunt’s arms would wrap around me at least twice during my stay; her clothes would smell of buttercream frosting, and she would kiss the top of my head, and tuck my side locks behind my ears. Her hugs felt like love. Mrs. Hunt was a mother.
Mom wasn’t. She didn’t deserve that title, and I would no longer use it.
She would now be Lilly to me. Nothing more.
***
Dallas’s voice pushed the daydream out of my head, reminding me that we stood in front of Lilly’s bed. The medicine had made her sleep through our whispers. Maybe I should have hired a part-time nurse to care for her while I was at work. It was more than just needing someone to care for Lilly, though…maybe there was a part of me that wanted to show my life to someone. Why Dallas, though? Did I want to reinforce that it hadn’t been his fault that things had stopped between us—that it was actually my fault? That I had wounds in my soul as large as the sores on Lilly’s back?
His fingers warmed my hand in the way that Emma’s had. He was still here, too; he hadn’t run away after stepping inside our apartment, viewing our mess, smelling the scent that wafted off her body. But something would eventually make him leave. They all left, like the ones Lilly had always brought home. Like Emma.
I wouldn’t let anyone leave me again.
“Why don’t you show me how to get her medicine ready?” he asked.
I avoided the puke stains in the hallway as though they were lines, like it was a game of hopscotch, as I’d done since I was a kid. I knew alcoholism wasn’t contagious, but I some how believed that touching the filthy circles would bring me bad luck.
As I got to the kitchen, I realized he was no longer behind me. He had stopped at the doorway to my bedroom, his hands holding the frame as his body leaned against it.
”There’s nothing special in there,” I said.
He shifted slightly to the side so I could squeeze in next to him. “I’ve always tried to envision your room, where you sleep.” His eyes moved to meet mine, stopping briefly before slowly traveling downward. He lifted my hand and clasped two of my fingers, squeezing them. “And where you touch yourself at night.”
He dropped my hand, and moved to the far side of my room where I kept all of my paintings. Most of them were wrapped and tucked inside my case, but Kerrianna was propped on my easel. Professor Freeman’s evaluation and an A grade was tacked to the wooden frame underneath.
“Her breasts look just like yours,” he said as he stood in front of her.
I was a B-cup, and so was Kerrianna.
“Most breasts this size look the same.”
“Not yours.” He looked over his shoulder. “I will never forget yours. The way your nipple fit between my teeth…”
He was the first man who had ever been in my bedroom. He looked sexy under the sparse light. His scent twisted with mine. I shifted my weight, the tingling becoming almost intolerable.
“This is a dark piece,” he said. “The darkest I’ve seen from you. Is there something you want to tell me?”
I shook my head. I had never tried to hide my body from him or anyone I had ever been with, and I didn’t need to cut my skin to find a release. I found it through sex.
He moved away from the painting, stopping a pace away from me. “Are you hurting yourself?” His breath hit my lips. It tasted like strawberry gum.
“Prove it to me. I couldn’t…I couldn’t bear the thought of you doing anything to your skin.”
I knew I didn’t have to show him anything, but I wanted to. I wanted him. I lifted my shirt up to my neck. The top of my breasts popped out of my satin bra. My stomach muscles tightened when the air hit my ribs. I still hadn’t moved from the entryway of my room. My door was open…and so was Lilly’s.
A tiny moan came from his mouth. The tips of his fingers landed at the bottom of my bra and they traveled to the waist of my jeans, hooking in one of the belt loops. He knew how effective his touch had always been, how his words were usually enough to make me wet. He pulled me a few inches closer. His eyes never left mine.
He was the type who would wait for my move. I could tell him what I wanted. I could beg. But Dallas wasn’t going to step from that spot unless I bridged the gap. So that’s exactly what I did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After I walked Dallas to the door and locked it behind him, Lilly yelled my name. It was time for her to take more medication, so I wasn’t surprised that she was awake and shouting out demands from her bed.
“I’ll bring your pills in a second,” I said from the kitchen. Before Dallas had left, I’d shown him which meds Lilly took and how to crush them. Since the powder was already on the counter, I only had to sprinkle it onto a spoonful of ice cream.
“Get in here right now!”
With each step that I took, one of my raw lips rubbed against the other, reminding me of what we had just done: the hours Dallas and his different parts had spent inside of me; the feelings he pushed out of my skin with each pump. From one delicious position to another, he knew my flesh. He made my blood flow faster. My heart raced, beating stronger in response to his rhythm. My clients pleased me, but only because it was part of the fantasy that we created. Dallas’s pleasure was real; he was solely focused on my body, how to stimulate each of my senses and the spots he could use to drive an orgasm. Even during the moments that I was giving him my mouth, he still touched me. He left with a key to our apartment and my new number. Did that mean things were going to change between us? Could it because of my work at the mansion? Did I want more of him rather than less? I didn’t know.