“My talents are clearly wasted and he was married, now he’s single and ready to mingle.” She cocks her head and crosses her arms like she’s entitled to this date with Jimmie who is Hannah’s woefully absent biological father. I don’t have a way to respond where she’ll see reason, so I don’t. I don’t even point out that Hannah’s dad offered her child support which she turned down.
“Flowers.” My mother calls to us from the kitchen. Her voice is husky and chipped away from decades of being a smoker. She coughs loudly and I hear her wheeze. I worry about her after the latest medical briefing on the news.
“Ma?” I pull myself together and walk into the kitchen of our two-bedroom apartment. My room is technically a closet with a window and access to the fire escape. Lavender shares her bedroom with Hannah much to her displeasure and our mother has the master bedroom where she’s hoarded issues of The New Yorker for the last five years since my dad’s death. I happen to like the magazine, I just wish she’s let me recycle it. At this point, it might end up becoming emergency toilet paper if I can’t find any at the store.
“Are you going to the store?” She inquires.
“I am. I have a list.” I pass her the folded paper so she can write on it. She pulls out a pen and scribbles on it handing it back.
“Can you get me some of my flavored sodas? Black Cherry, but not the store brand.”
I go back into my room and pull out my purse checking my wallet. I have my debit card and some twenties. My paycheck gets deposited tomorrow, but if I need a cab with all the groceries it’s going to dig into my resources on top of my portion of the rent. Part of me wants to grumble, you get what you get and you don’t get upset, but I hold back my temper. It’s my momma and I love her. I’m totally stealing a few sodas and keeping them in a bottom drawer, for just in case.
“Yeah, sure Momma. I’ll get your soda, the toilet paper, and Hannah’s fruit snacks.”
“You’re a good girl, Laurel.” Ma pats my cheek and shuffles away to the open window where she has her cigarette resting on an old soap dish. The wind blows in the smoke and I swear I’ll never get the smell out of my hair.
“I need tampons too. Super. The good ones.” Lavender shouts.
I roll my eyes. Are there ever any good tampons?
“Money, please?” I hold out my hand. Lavender doesn’t pay toward anything and while I have a good job at an advertising company, I’m also the only one in the house gainfully employed and supporting the four of us.
“I’ll catch you next time.” She slaps my hand away and saunters back into her bedroom closing the door. Figures.
“Can I come with you?” Hannah looks up at me with her baby blue eyes killing me.
“Sorry Hannah Banana, Auntie has to go to the store alone. Lots of people have a bad cold and I don’t want you to get it, okay.” I soften the reality, no need to scare her.
“Okay. Make sure you put on your safety costume.” She skips off to the sofa and continues watching her cartoons. I’m waiting for her school to close. One more thing Lavender will inevitably dump on my lap saying I’m a better teacher. I’d be a better mother sometimes except for the whole birth part. I hate downplaying the seriousness of what’s going on, but Hannah is seven and maybe on the autism spectrum. She’s super smart but has trouble with other concepts and I don’t want her upset. It takes forever to calm her back down and I’m barely hanging on as it is.
I grab my purse, jacket, and a mask I made from a scarf thinking the walk will do me good. I haven’t heard from my Text guy yet, and after last night, I don’t know if I will. We were supposed to meet for the first at a posh bar in midtown. He texted to cancel without an apology. Rejection hurts, but after talking to him online for the last three months this almost hurt worse.
I wish I never messaged VWkingston.
4
Van
I’m pretty sure I’m catching feelings for Laurel.
Big words considering what a jackass I’ve been this week. Ignoring her during the video calls and rushing through the assignments with staff. I should have told her from the start it was me, but that would have quashed the last three months all together.
When I finally figured out that my online girlfriend, thank you IT was Laurel, I hung onto her every word since she pinged me. I stopped dating and fooling around. Last night I was supposed to meet her and finally disclose my identity to her, but I flaked with no apology. My best friend got into it at a bar near my place and I had to bail him out when he called me. He was a shit friend who ruined last night.
I surmise that Laurel is shy and skittish. She’s smoking hot behind her thick rimmed glasses which she hides behind. Under normal circumstances, I would have never approached her, but her witty comebacks and sensitive soul bled through the phone screen giving me more joy than any woman I’d ever been with.
Now I’m stuck clear across the city for the foreseeable future. If I told her now, she’d be hurt and angry and I wouldn’t get to talk to her which given the current state of things I couldn’t bear to lose her too. I look down at the message I sent her last night cancelling and contemplate messaging her. The longer I wait, the worse it will be. I bite my lip and hunker down to craft another more suitable apology text. I write three times and erase it just as quickly. She probably thinks I’m flaky as shit. I don’t blame her, but I’ve been dancing to her tune for three months letting her pull the strings on how fast this thing progresses or doesn’t, and now we’re here, stuck, and I can’t even face time her.
Finally, I compose my mess
age to her.
VWkingston: Hey sweetheart, I’m really sorry about last night. My buddy got into something and called me to bail him out. It took longer than I realized and I missed you. I really missed you.
So much for not sounding like an idiot and a tad creepy. I might as well tell her how my heart speeds up when I know she’s in the office and how I’ve stalked her camera roll since IT told me how to remotely check company phones. The phone goes through the motion of showing me several dots popping up. My heart beats in time with the dots.
FlowerGirl23: What kind of trouble?