A security guard, who’d later take my virginity, nodded toward a door at the back of the establishment. We had less than twenty minutes before the movie started, so I ran across the strip club and opened the door without knocking, assuming it was an office or a second restroom I didn’t know about.
It was a closet-sized room.
Cricket was inside fucking a man I recognized as a regular patron of the club. He didn’t bother to stop when he saw me, and Cricket only looked partway alarmed by my intrusion. At fourteen years old, I was well versed in what went on at a strip club as grimy as that one had been, but I never once considered that my own mother would partake in such a thing.
To find out I was wrong changed everything.
It’s a cost I still pay for today.
I smear an entire tube of lipstick back and forth across my vanity mirror until my reflection disappears behind a red veil and shove my chair back to leave my room and the memory of Cricket behind to fulfill her legacy.
When I return home at night, I sleep with a knife under my pillow and the dresser pushed in front of my door.
I hope Camilla knows what she’s getting herself into.
The next morning, I’m on the treadmill when Camilla appears from her bedroom. Holding my finger up, I watch my heart rate rise on my watch and power through the last few seconds of my run until I reach my target heart rate. I slam my hand over the stop button without a cool-down period and jump off the treadmill, reveled by a rush of dopamine I take straight to the head.
“What’s up?” I pull my earbud out, breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth. Heat radiates from my cheeks and sweat drips into my eyes.
“I didn’t mean to distu—”
Patting my face with a towel, I say, “Camilla, what is it?”
“Is it okay if I make a pot of coffee?”
Slowly lowering the towel from my face, I stare at her incredulously. “You don’t need my permission to make yourself a cup of coffee. You don’t need my permission for anything. I’m not your mother.”
Camilla’s eyes sink to the floor and her arms hang at her sides, like a child set to be reprimanded for bad behavior. It’s an intense level of self-consciousness that has me doubting Inez’s judgment. What part of this girl reminds Inez of me and what makes her think Camilla can follow in my footsteps? I’m not a person of many words, but I don’t have a shy bone in my body.
“Inez warned me not to touch your things,” she answers. “She gave me money to shop for essentials before … before I earn my own, but…”
Snapping my fingers in front of her face, I say, “Look me in the eyes when you’re talking to me, Camilla.”
Heat warms Camilla’s cheeks and magnifies the gold flakes in her eyes, sprinkled among irises a shadow between orange and brown. They remind me of autumn and melted chocolate, and the idea immediately ebbs my annoyance. As soon as we make eye contact, she unfurls to display forced confidence. She’s blurry around the edges, but it’s a good start.
“If you can’t look at someone when you’re talking to them, it’s not worth saying at all.” I drape my towel over my shoulder and walk to the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker. “I didn’t get the impression that you’re the shy type at Hush. What’s different?”
“You don’t want me here.”
Smirking, I don’t bother to disagree and search the cabinets for the coffee pods. Caffeine isn’t my drug of choice, but the coffee aisle at the grocery store always smells so good and comforting. I sometimes grab a box impulsively, but I’m the type to make a cup and never drink it.
This coffee smells stale compared to the freshly brewed coffee at the shop downtown where I met Talent.
Closing my eyes against the memory of Talent sitting across the table from me with his decorated cappuccino and the pang of longing I feel for him now, I hand Camilla her mug and watch as she inhales the aroma.
Her eyes meet mine and she says, “Thank you.”
“Inez means a great deal to me,” I admit. “Whether or not I want you here doesn’t matter because she does, and so here you are. You’re free to do whatever you want, Camilla, I’m not your keeper or your mother.”
She winces at the mention of her mother, and I wonder if I’m not the only one with mommy issues.
“Two things: don’t go in my room and stay out of my way on the days that I work. There’s a lot we have to go over before you take your first appointment, but my clients are my number one priority. Respect my space, and we’ll be fine. If you disobey my requests, I’ll make sure Inez sends you packing.”
I miss Talent the most in the dark.
It’s worse once I turn the lights off and lay my head down—when my body and mind slow and my eyelids grow heavy. I yearn for him when the only sounds to accompany me are of my rhythmic breathing and the drum of my heart. The lullaby of my tired body pulls me to the edge of consciousness, but the ache of his absence lingers in the blurry space before sleep.
None of it makes sense.
What is there to miss?
Talent and I were nothing more than a miscommunication, some one-sided texts, and a few conversations that circled around anything too deep. But a week has passed since he left my apartment and I miss him.
As Camilla makes herself comfortable in her room, she saturates the area with her own scents and sounds. She likes Moroccan tapestry, scented candles, and she laughs too loud at the television she watches alone in her room. Inez has kept her busy most of the week, giving her a rundown on what happens behind the scenes before she learns hands-on with me.
So far, we’ve lived parallel lives within the same space, on the same track and heading in the same direction, but it’s impersonal and separate. We only cross paths when we’re coming and going, swapping courteous hellos and goodbyes. Dog spends his days with Camilla and nights with me, splitting time between us like a product of divorced parents.
Despite having a dog and a roommate, I am utterly alone.
Talent’s text messages may have been one-sided, but it was companionship I didn’t experience otherwise. Our conversation over coffee was tense, and I may have drunk too much at the bar and made a fool of myself, but it was human interaction outside of my normal routine. Talent was separate from Cara Smith and Hush—an indulgence of my own.
When he picked up his phone at the same time every night, it was my number he searched for. As he typed in the words meant for my eyes only, it was my face he imagined. And when I didn’t respond, he made the decision to try for my attention again the next night.
There’s not a single person in the world who knows what it’s like to sit across from me in a low-lit coffee shop besides Talent. He’s the only one who’s danced with me to live music. He knows my favorite Chinese food and wanted to share that meal with me.
On a grand scale, this might be trivial to someone with friends and family. But to a person who lives an existence as isolated as me—a girl who rarely hears my real name out loud, spends my time in solitude, and the only person I consider family sells my body for a profit—a single text message carries a lot of weight.
I miss him after a dreamless sleep, too.
When my mind rouses but my body needs to catch up, loneliness mopes in the paralyzed seconds before my eyes move behind my closed eyelids. Talent’s absence is tight between muscle and tendons until I point my toes and stretch my legs against my soft sheets. I miss Talent when I turn onto my back and blink against the dim light coming through my window as much as I miss him in the dark.