I’ve already psyched myself up for being ignored. I’m prepared to wait. He’s working, he’s busy, he has responsibilities, yada, yada, yada. Just because he occupies so much of my mind, doesn’t mean I occupy his.
My phone chirps and I snatch it up.
Scott: You didn’t earn that $ on a pole, did you?
My jaw falls open. I am not going to laugh at that. I swear, I’m not. Except a giggle slips out as another message comes in.
Scott: Don’t pretend u didn’t laugh. Do u work tmrw? We cd meet for lunch.
My heart flutters.
Ellie: I work 5am-1pm. My lunch break is at 10, lol. After?
This time it takes longer to get a reply, but that doesn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face.
Scott: Ok. After lunch tmrw. See u 1 your work.
I may have done a little happy dance.
Scott
Fucking Jorgie. Though he’s still taking the job seriously, by the time he learns what he’s doing, I’ll either be nominated for sainthood or have an ulcer. His attention to detail is shit, and because he’s constantly yapping, Menendez, who I’ve paired him with, isn’t paying much attention either.
Luckily, I caught their mistake early. I came in this morning and something about what they had started yesterday afternoon didn’t sit well with me. Going over the blueprints proved me right and we spent the morning discussing the theory behind what we’re trying to accomplish here, and then dismantling and re-cutting. While it was obvious that Menendez grasped everything, Jorgie didn’t have a clue. But it’s early days. Right?
It’s only one o’clock and I’m already exhausted. Plus, today Rosa will be with her mother from 4:00-8:00 pm. Even though her scheduled day is Wednesday, Lolita, my ex, asked to change it for today. Which is fine. But like always, I’m anxious about the visit. I never know which to hope for; that Lolita will show up so Rosa won’t be disappointed, or that she won’t, so Rosa will be where I know she’s safe and cared for. It’s a draining state of affairs, made worse by the fact that I don’t get off work until 4:30 so I won’t be there when Rosa gets picked up.
I remind myself that these thoughts don’t belong at work, so I squash them down in an attempt to keep my head in the game. I’m going over the plans with Thomas, my right hand man, when my phone dings with a message. Thinking it’s my boss, I check it.
Huh. It’s Ellie and I realize that I’m smiling when I notice Thomas watching me smugly. My face falls to neutral. “Give me a sec.” I cross the room and open the message.
Opal: Hey, it’s me, Opal (ha, ha). I have the $ I O U.
Just seeing the name on my screen has me chuckling softly. I type out a response.
Scott: You didn’t earn that $ on a pole, did you?
As soon as I send it, I reconsider. Shit. Do I know her well enough to make that kind of a joke? Since I can’t take it back, I roll with it.
Scott: Don’t pretend u didn’t laugh. Do u work tmrw? We cd meet for lunch.
Lunch? Tomorrow? What the hell am I doing? They need to invent an app that recalls hasty, regrettable text messages. This girl is going to get the wrong idea. Except I get a bit of a rush when her response comes in right away.
Opal: I work 5am-1pm. My lunch break is at 10, lol. After?
I stare at the screen. She starts at five? In the morning? She’s got the shittiest work schedule on the planet.
“Who’s Opal?”
Jorgie appears like the grim reaper at my elbow, reading my screen.
“Opal sounds like a sixty year old lady, Scotty. I know you’re into older women, but I think you might be taking it too far.”
His voice scrapes like sandpaper across my nerves. “Don’t you have work to do?”
He shrugs. “Tell me who Opal is and I might get something done. Is she your new fuck buddy?”
“Or,” I say sharply, “you can mind your own business, keep the fuck-buddy references to a minimum at work, and do what you’re being paid for. I would hate for you to get fired.”
“Actually, I know the boss. He won’t fire me.”
“Don’t tempt me, Jorgie.”
“Come on, tell me who she is.”
“She’s no one. Go get some work done.”
“Fine. But I want to meet her soon. Is she hot? Hotter than Juanita?”
“Go,” I growl, staring him down until he finally backs away with a suspicious scowl on his face.
Scott: Ok. After lunch tmrw. See u 1 your work.
By 8:09 that evening, I’m going out of my mind with worry for Rosa. Lolita is nine minutes late and I’m pacing a hole in the carpet of the living room near the front door.
“Ven, mijo. Siéntate,” my grandmother implores me. Come and sit down.
Not likely.
“Tell me again about when she got picked up,” I ask in Spanish.
“I told you, mijo. Lolita was twenty minutes late, but she was sober.”
“But she was with a guy, right? Are you sure you didn’t recognize him?”
I swear, only another parent who’s forced to send their child into a potentially hazardous environment can understand this awful helplessness I’m feeling. My only consolation is that Lolita is a good mother when she’s not using, and when I talked to her on the phone on Sunday night and again last night, she sounded calm and lucid . . . but after what Jorgie told me about her hanging around with Richie Vasquez, I’m nervous as hell.
“I didn’t recognize him because he didn’t get out of the car,” she says with exasperation. “And Lolita seemed fine. Don’t worry.”
“Okay, you’re right.”
I face the room directly and the familiarity of the scene calms me a bit. My grandmother is sitting in her arm chair, knitting as usual, and Carmen and Daniela are sitting on the floor in their pajamas, coloring at the coffee table. The TV is tuned to one of those awful Mexican telenovelas. Everything is as it should be . . . except my daughter isn’t here. Nausea twists in my stomach.
I’ve made one big mistake in life: sex without a condom. In my defense, I’d just turned fifteen, and I thought Lolita was on the pill – we both did. Did you know it takes time to kick in? Unfortunately, Lolita didn’t catch that critical piece of information and I’d been equally clueless. God, we’d both thought we were being so mature about the decision; we talked about it, we planned it, we were in love after growing up together, and then we went at it like only two hormonally-charged teenagers can. It took about seven weeks before we figured out our error.
The pregnancy and the following six years have been hard, brutal at times, so I don’t blame Lolita for not being able to deal with it on a full-time basis. She didn’t have an adult behind her, giving her all the moral support she needed like I did. But dammit, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going out of my mind right now.
It’s 8:17 when I hear a car in the driveway. Wrenching the front door open, I tell myself to keep it together. Snapping at Lolita and starting a war between us is not in Rosa’s best interests.