“Whatever. Later, Ellie,” Stu said, climbing up into his truck and I was left standing there feeling completely unsettled.

-Ellie-

“This one is adorable! It even has a little balcony!” Dania squealed. The realtor, who had introduced herself as Barbara, stood just inside the door with a fake smile plastered across her smug and judgmental face. She had been irritatingly condescending since Dania and I had arrived at the apartment complex on the north side of Wellsburg.

She had taken one look at Dania with her protruding belly and instantly made up her mind about the two of us. The sad thing she wasn’t entirely wrong. Her preconceived notions were entirely too accurate.

Yes, Dania was the flaky unwed mother who continued to smoke like a chimney and drink like a sailor. And I was the brash and aggressive friend with little education and even less class.

We were a white trash duo from the wrong side of the tracks.

“Now this one is $450 a month and that includes utilities. The landlord is strict with rent payments and they are expected on the first of every month. If you are more than three days late more than once, you will be evicted,” Barbara, the realtor explained, her eyes darting toward Dania, who was still freaking out over the awesome cabinets.

I narrowed my eyes while crossing my arms over my chest. “I understood when you explained it the last two times, ma’am,” I said coldly. Yeah, I get it. We weren’t the ideal renters. But she didn’t have to be rude about it.

Dania came over and pulled me by the hand down the short hallway. My friend was thrilled because this was the last three-bedroom available in our price range. Low-income housing wasn’t exactly hard to come by in Wellsburg but given the space Dania insisted we needed, it didn’t give us a lot of options. It was amazing how picky she was when right now she was living in a studio apartment with a broken toilet.

This apartment was situated in a rundown part of town. I wasn’t entirely sure how Miss Realtor Lady could look down her nose at us when our potential neighbors would include a known meth dealer and a woman rumored to turn tricks at the truck stop off the highway.

Apparently, unwed mother and her bitchy friend were near the bottom of Barbara’s list of shitty people.

I wasn’t impressed with the interior. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t that great either. However, it would be a decisive step up from the place where I currently lived. There didn’t appear to be a mold problem and the locks seemed to be working. Health and security were both pluses.

“You’d get the smaller room of course. I’ll need the big one and the baby will need the other larger one for all of his stuff,” Dania was prattling on. I tried not to get pissed about the fact that I was helping her out and she was shafting me with the box room.

She had been insistent that we needed enough space for the baby, even though still refused to commit to raising it. More proof that Dania’s thought process wasn’t rooted in reality.

I took a deep breath and counted backwards from twenty. Blowing up would end up in a nasty scene that I didn’t want to have in front of the asshole realtor.

“Sure, whatever,” I muttered, heading back out into the living room.

Barbara was texting on her phone and looking extremely put out. Her cheap polyester suit had to be sweltering in the late September heat. West Virginia was experiencing an extended summer, with temperatures soaring into the nineties for over three weeks now.

Barbara’s makeup was smearing under the layer of sweat on her face and I smirked as she tried to fix her sagging hair.

“When will the place be available?” I asked, openly laughing at her pitiful attempts at straightening her appearance. “I think you’re starting to melt, sweetie,” I batted my eyes innocently and pointed to a glob of foundation that was running down her cheek.

She huffed and pulled out a tissue from her pocket, blotting her face. “It won’t be ready for another month or two. The landlord has to do some work on the unit to get it up to code. But if you’re interested, I’ll tell him to put you on the list for consideration,” she said waspishly, obviously annoyed that I’d noticed her crappy makeup job.

“That would be great. But put it under my name, Ellie McCallum. I’ll be the only one on the lease,” I told her with a glare, daring her to argue with me. I knew Dania’s credit was shot and while mine wasn’t great, it would at least pass the required check.

“Fine. I’ll let him know. I have your phone number. So I’ll be in touch if I find anything else that suits your needs,” she said, already opening the door to herd us outside.

Dania was still oohing and ahhing over the place and I was sick and tired of breathing the same air as Miss Makeup Impaired.

Barbara didn’t even bother waving goodbye when we parted ways. Nasty bitch.

“Let’s go get something to eat! I’m starving!” Dania said, rubbing her belly.

I still had to finish my reading for tomorrow’s class and I was hoping to get a shower before my shift at JAC’s in a couple of hours, but Dania wasn’t one to recognize the word no.

And given the state of her growing stomach, she couldn’t say no either, I thought hatefully.

I parked back at my apartment and we walked over to Ma’s Diner, which was only a few blocks away. As we walked toward the parking lot, my stomach rumbled at the thought of Ma’s famous Key Lime Pie.

I had been eating lunch there for most of my life. The little I could remember of my childhood hadn’t been pretty. But I could remember coming here for Sunday lunch after one of my foster families took me to church. And that was a memory that didn’t suck.

I was probably eight or nine when I lived with the Owens’ family. They were an older couple. Their biological children had already grown up and moved out of the house.

I hated being there. Mrs. Owens was a bible-thumping nut job and her husband had hands that he couldn’t keep to himself.

The six months I stayed in their home are hazy at best, thank God. As with much of my past I had effectively shut down the pain and refused to think about it again. But I did remember the church.

We spent four hours every Sunday listening to sermons. I had loved it because it kept me out of their house. It meant that for those four hours I could relax and not worry about Mr. Owens catching me in the bathroom or walking in while I was changing. I didn’t have to tiptoe on eggshells around Mrs. Owens else I be forced to kneel on birdseed as penance.

And when church had finally finished and before my stomach would begin to curdle with anxiety at the thought of returning to their house, we’d go to Ma’s Diner. And I would be allowed to get a slice of Key Lime Pie that Ma made fresh every day.

Dania and I slid into a booth near the back. I picked up the menu, my fingers sticking to the cracked protective plastic. I skimmed the items but it wasn’t necessary. I got the same thing every time I came here.

“Can you take me over to the Family Planning Center tomorrow? They’re holding a car seat and crib for me that I need to pick up. My caseworker with Healthy Families said she’d get me a Wal-Mart gift card so I could get things for the baby’s room. I was thinking trucks or some shit.”

I barely listened to Dania. I knew that her sudden burst of maternal interest wouldn’t last long. In the months since she discovered her pregnancy she had flip flopped between total denial of her condition to an excitement level typically reserved for five year olds on their birthdays.

Despite her lip service about getting a crib and picking out drapes for the baby’s room, the truth was later tonight she’d be at Woolly’s getting drunk and taking some guy home to screw.