Chapter Twenty-Five

Lake

I was being laid off my job at the liquor store.  Seven dollars an hour, off the books and barely enough to get by but I was still devastated.

Aggie said it was because they were closing down soon.  The landlord raised the rent for the sole purpose of getting rid of her.  She felt bad about it, so on my last shift, we sat in the closed store and had a drink.  “They say they’re opening some nice bar here,” she said, pouring me a plastic cup of something watery brown.  “So, here’s to hoping they don’t get none of those pretty girls in little shorts or you folks are gonna have a hard time next door.”

I heaved a sigh.  I couldn’t even plan to work at the new bar because it wasn’t opening for awhile and when it did, the shifts would conflict with the ones I had at the place I was already working.

“Maybe it’s time to start stripping,” Aggie cackled.  I handed her a preemptive napkin.  Every time she laughed, she hacked up a lung.

“No.  I think I’d rather not.”

For the money, I had started considering going from waitress to stripper.  But I never found the nerve to merely ask anyone about it at the club.  I didn’t judge the girls that did it.  I had fantasies of being one of them the few times I went to strip clubs with Callum and his friends.  But here, the idea of stripping lived in the same place in my heart where I was a shitty person.  A fraud.  It lived in a place that told me I never belonged in New York with Callum and I’d die in Sunstone.  None of the people who once loved me would be happy to see me if I went home.  I had already morphed into someone none of them would ever recognize.  They’d feel dirty and disgusting for having ever associated with me and I’d be their burden to overcome.

The paranoia was strong.  Relentless.  I had nothing else to think of so I imagined all sorts of humiliating scenarios, like someone from Callum or his father’s circle having their car break down on the highway, maybe during a business trip in Virginia.  They’d find a place to kill time and walk into a strip club for shits and giggles.  It would be novel for them to see what Bumblefuck tits and ass looked like compared to the bodies they admired at gentleman’s clubs in Hell’s Kitchen.  They’d wrinkle their noses upon walking in, declare the need for a strong drink and then laugh at the girls on the stage.  And then they’d see me.  I could imagine their faces when they did and it made me cringe so hard every time it felt like it had actually happened.  I imagined them getting over their shock, joking that they weren’t all that surprised and then sneaking pictures till images of me undressing for sweaty men and toothless truckers had spread like wildfire to reach Callum and Caroline.  And then they’d die of shame all over again.

“Hey, sweetie.  I got some news for you.”

I was surprised to see Shanna outside when I got home that evening.  She’d been in the midst of one of those weeks where she just shut herself in her trailer and didn’t come out.  They happened every once in awhile and when she finally emerged from her funk, I’d be sitting there waiting for her, my figurative tail wagging like a dog whose owner went away for too long.  She’d give me the forceful hugs against her giant bosom that I honestly loved and we’d pick up right where we left off, making margaritas, watching TV and acting like nothing ever happened.  I never asked why she holed up sometimes because she never asked about my problems either.  And I was already pretty sure that her tick had to do with her hoarding addiction.  I wished I could be a truer friend and actually help one day – had spent countless nights Googling the first steps of trying to get into a hoarder’s home to clean the space.  But I always chickened out.  What I read was discouraging and I didn’t want to piss Shanna off.  I needed the reliable joy of our friendship more than I needed to save her, which was horrible.  I tried not to think of what an awful, unfeeling survivalist I’d become but sometimes, out of nowhere, the bell rang in my head and screamed that I was shit – that I was losing my good parts and becoming head-to-toe, good-for-nothing useless.

“Baby, your momma hurt herself today,” Shanna said.

“What? What happened?”

“I don’t know but I heard her scream and then Hunt drove her to the hospital.  I came out to see if she was okay when she came back and she seemed fine, she was walking, but she had one of these on her arm.”  She bent her arm to mime a sling.

“Oh.”  I breathed out.  “So she’s fine.”

“I don’t know.  I been hearing her wailing all day.”

My mood soured further when I went into the trailer because I knew that Trish was about to be an uncontrollable nightmare for at least the night.  I didn’t know how badly she was hurt but she was definitely going to milk her injury with me and Hunt till making a full recovery.  The second I got in, I saw Hunt taking care of her.  He turned with exhaustion to the door and shot me a look that said you should just walk back out.  But I didn’t do it and soon enough, Trish was crying at me.

“Baby!” She was on the stool in the kitchen, a sling on her right arm.  “You spilled water in here before you went to work this morning!” she accused me.  I didn’t argue despite the fact that I hadn’t been in the kitchen all day.  “I slipped and I shattered my whole fuckin’ elbow!” I went through the motions and apologized.  I asked what I could do and offered to make her dinner, get her a beer, buy some painkillers.  She sniffled pathetically for ten minutes and finally moaned, “No, no, no.  It doesn’t hurt that bad, baby.  That’s the worst part.  It doesn’t even hurt that bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“It… it just…”

“What? Is it Dean? You’re afraid he’ll get mad?” I came home to new holes in the wall yesterday and thanked God that he’d stormed back to his office before I even saw him.

“No… no… I just…” Trish couldn’t speak.  I was losing patience so Hunt took the reigns.

“ER bullshit.  It cost way too much money.”

No.  My heart sank.  “How much?”

Trish wailed dramatically.  “We got nothin’.  We’re fucked, Lake.  We’re fucked, fucked, fucked!”

The last I counted the money she had stashed, it was close to a thousand again.  Now, apparently, it was back to zero.  “How?” I demanded.  “Let me see the bill! How did you even get a bill so fast?” In college, I didn’t get a bill for the stitches in my foot till at least several weeks after going to the ER.  They sent it to the townhouse and Caroline called Callum in tears, asking why I hadn’t told her that I’d gone to the hospital.  He said it was because we didn’t want to make her cry over nothing the way she was doing that very second.  According to Callum, Caroline got quickly indignant and forced herself to swallow her sobs and brightly ask how he was doing at work, though the occasional hiccup escaped her throat since she was clearly still emotional that I’d been in some sort of pain without her knowing.  Thinking about that story made me want to die as I sat in front of Trish and her frenzied bawling.  I missed Caroline so much it made my chest burn.

“Don’t,” Hunt said when I was on the couch that night crying silent, angry tears.  He handed me a wad of toilet paper.  “I’ll get a second job and we’ll get the money back.”

“It’s time to sell the rings,” I said bitterly.  He had agreed with Trish to hold onto some of Caroline’s jewelry because the closest pawn shops had given unsatisfactory offers.  They were too lazy to drive a long way to better locations and Trish wouldn’t tell me where she hid them from Dean.  “I got laid off from the liquor store.  There’s going to be a nice bar next door and they’re going to take business from us.  I’m going on two job interviews tomorrow but I don’t think we can just keep hoping that what little money we’re making is going to pile up to be enough soon.  Especially not with all these emergencies.”