To Dorothy Bircher
Thank you for sharing your pain,
your truth, and your friendship.
The sisterhood, and this book, are stronger for it.
Today has been the absolute worst day of my life. Well, aside from the day I lost both my parents in a house fire when I was six. Not that I remember any of that night, nor much of my childhood before I arrived at my foster home twenty-one years ago.
This morning started with me spilling a cup of scalding hot coffee down the front of my only clean uniform, which meant I had to wear the grubby one I’d worn the night before and hadn’t yet washed. Made me feel as though I smelled of greasy hamburgers and girl funk all day.
Then, my on-again, off-again boyfriend, if I could even really call him that, broke it off with me during my lunch break. I could hear the voice of a giggling woman in the background. His latest conquest or ten. I’d thought he might have been cheating on me, but for some reason I had hoped there was more to our relationship. Perhaps it was because I was tired of playing the field. And in all honesty, the sex was awesome. No complaints there. Now I wondered if it was because he was sleeping with every woman who hit on him at work that he was so good in the sack. Another downside was that I’d be seeing Trey at work tomorrow night. And of course, he’d be all smiles and how do you do’s, playing me, while playing the field.
Grinding my teeth, I stared out through my windshield to the open, dark road and remembered what my jerkface boss at the diner I waitressed at said to me a half hour ago, prompting my bad day to become epically worse.
“You know, Simone, if you’d just be a good girl and give me what I want, I can easily ensure you a fifty-cent raise on your next check. And there will be more where that came from.”
Of course, this was after he’d done a little grab ass, going under the stupid pale pink uniform skirt they made us wear. When I turned around and slapped him across his smarmy face, he claimed he was going to complain to the owner that I was the one harassing him sexually, when it was the complete opposite. That slimy freak hit on anything that moved, making not only the other waitresses uncomfortable, but even going so far as to bother the female customers. Ones who coincidentally never came back for a repeat performance.
After I slapped him, I took off my apron, tossed it in his shocked face, and screamed, “I quit!”
At least that’d felt good.
At the time.
Now I was down yet another crummy-paying job, but I needed the money. I couldn’t pay for the business classes I was taking online at the community college if I didn’t have money for the tuition. The money I made bartending was my primary source of income where every penny I made went to rent, bills, and gas. On Sundays I helped the local florist Mama Kerri was best friends with for some quick cash under the table, but it wasn’t going to keep me doing anything but treading water. And living on the outskirts of Chicago in a safe neighborhood with great access to the city was not cheap. I’d get a roommate, but I already lived in a one-bedroom shoebox. If I did that, I’d be living on my own couch. The waitressing job I just quit brought in the money I needed for tuition and food. A lot of times I took home wrong orders or extras the cook set aside for me. I had three jobs and still could barely afford the crummy life I’d built for myself, but I wanted more. Hoped for more. Worked hard to achieve more.
I sighed heavily into the stale interior as I drove. More than anything, I wanted to live. To have a life where I could walk into a store one day and buy an outfit and not worry about what bill I wasn’t going to pay in its place. Maybe go out to dinner once in a while. Stop mooching off my foster mom and my sisters by way of free food and clothes. To this day I still took my laundry over to Mama Kerri’s, so I didn’t have to use up my hard-earned tips on quarters at the laundromat.
“I am so lame,” I grumbled. Not that anyone one could hear me. The radio in my car didn’t work and I couldn’t afford to fix it or get a fancy new CD player. One day, though, when I had my degree in business administration and could finally make something of myself, I’d get a shiny new car. One that didn’t require ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers in order to get it started every morning.
Seeing a gas station up ahead, I hit my blinker and drove my hand-me-down, four-door, fifteen-year-old Honda Civic up to a pump.
Digging through my purse I found a crumpled up twenty-dollar bill. “Woo hoo!” I did a little chair dance as I opened my wallet and grabbed the two fivers I’d received from a couple of nice people who had tipped me more than expected this evening. Thirty whole bucks on gas…AMEN!
Knowing I didn’t have enough in my bank account to use my card, I dashed into the store, waited my turn in line, and spent my last thirty bucks on gas for my car.
“Thanks, brother.” I waved and headed outside.
While my gas was pumping, I pulled out my phone and scanned the texts.
From: Sonia
I have a dinner in the city next month. Want to be my plus one?
I cringed as I read the message again, thinking of a way I could get out of it. I definitely didn’t want to get all dolled-up prim and proper to go to another one of my sister’s boring political dinners. Sonia was my only living blood relative and also happened to be a state Senator. Yep. The real deal. She managed hundreds of people and an entire state and has been doing so for the last four years. Youngest Senator there ever was. And here I couldn’t even hold down a job at a crummy diner that paid minimum wage.
Skipping over her message I reviewed the next from my foster sister Addison, Addy for short.
From: Addison
Will be in town this weekend. Coming back from a photoshoot with Blessing. She’s down to hook up too. Let’s party!
Now that sounded like fun. Hitting the clubs with two of my foster sisters was exactly what I needed to lift my mood. With fast fingers I responded with a Hell, yeah, and moved on to the next message.
Trey. Ugh.
From: Trey
Hey babe. Sorry about earlier. Still friends?
I rolled my eyes and snarled under my breath, ignoring his text too. God, I hated men like him. They broke your heart but wanted to stay friends? What was that? Then again, it’s not as if I was crying in my ergonomic tennis shoes over our breakup either. The kind thing to do would have been to let him off the hook. After the day I’d had, I was not interested in doing the kind thing, or even the right thing. I was going to let him stew in his crap a little longer, because in truth, the punk ass deserved it.
Making that decision had me feeling a bit more upbeat about everything. Not much, but a little.
The pump clicked that it was done refueling. I replaced the pump, grabbed my receipt, closed the gas cap, and moseyed into my car. As I turned around and got into my seat, I saw the cashier waving both his arms in the air. Weird. I squinted and noted he was making a “come here” gesture.
Whatever it was, I did not have the time to deal with it. So instead I waved wildly and smiled, slammed my door, and motored off into the night toward home. I needed sleep, tequila, and the other half of a burrito I saved from my Chipotle run yesterday.
Mmm. I could already taste the meat, rice, and bean-filled goodness that would hit my belly soon. A little squirt of lime, maybe some sour cream…heaven. My stomach growled and I pressed harder on the gas.