One
Sophie
Past
“Before you leave, I need to make something crystal clear.” My mother uncaps a tube of half-dried red lipstick as our reflections connect in the tiny bathroom mirror. “There’s love … and then there are things like love. Most people spend their entire lives confusing the two.”
“How do you know the difference?” My attention drifts to my cleavage, distracted by the way her vintage dress makes me look bustier than I actually am. The zipper almost didn’t zip, and the hemline is dangerously revealing when I sit, but this is all we have. I’m taller than her by four inches. Curvier than she was at this age—at least going off of the faded pictures in the photo album she keeps beneath her bed, the ones that paint a portrait of a woman with unrivaled vivacity, naivete in her idyllic soul, and an entire life ahead of her.
Blissfully unaware that the core of her beautiful life was mere years from rotting.
I wish I’d known her then, before she was a ghostlike shell of a woman.
I recall a certain memory of her perched on the end of my father’s heirloom sailboat on a late August afternoon. Wind whipping her sun-bleached hair. Skin as bronzed as it could get for a girl with her Swedish-Irish complexion. She grinned so wide it had made my cheeks ache in response.
She stopped smiling like that after he left us.
And I spent most of my teenage years bleaching my dishwater-blonde hair in hopes it would remind her of him a little less every time she looked at me. Though, of course, she thought I was going through some typical rebellious stage. I didn’t tell her the truth. I didn’t want to make her more sad than she already was.
“There’s no way to know for sure. I can tell you real love is rare, and there are a lot of fakes.” Mom exhales after being lost in thought. Her weary blue-gray irises turn glassy. I imagine she’s thinking of my father. The bastard. “If there’s anything I can teach you before I go—”
“Mom.” I cut her off and snatch the bullet of Revlon Ravish Me Red from her bone-thin fingers and ignore the fact that she’s wasting away by the second beneath her tattered terrycloth robe. I don’t like to talk about this. About the return of her cancer. About what could happen this time.
She’s not going to die.
I won’t allow it.
Swiping the color across my mouth, I purse my lips until it blends. Then I touch up a couple of spots with the pad of my ring finger, the way she used to do a lifetime ago.
“You don’t have to do this, Soph. You know that, right?” There’s a lack of confidence in her whisper-soft tone. “We can figure something out.”
“It’s fine. I promise.” We trade lies. I force myself to smile and hope she doesn’t hear the nervous rattle in my words. My fingers twitch. My heart gallops. My soul quakes. “I’m sure it’ll be fun. It’s just dinner.”
She and I both know this is the only way.
We’re less than a week from being evicted. And between her meds, our groceries, and my youngest sister’s physical therapy, there’s a very real possibility we’ll find ourselves on the street at some point in the near future.
“I’ll be home by ten,” I add, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Mom winces.
I don’t think she wants to hear all about it.
I don’t think she likes me pretending this is some date with a boy from school when in actuality some forty-something Rolls-Royce-driving businessman in a custom suit is whisking her seventeen-year-old virginal daughter off for a “dinner date.”
He promised it would only be dinner.
And he’s offering five hundred dollars for five hours of my time.
A hundred dollars an hour.
It takes me four weekend shifts at the café to make that kind of cash. Besides, if I wasn’t doing this tonight, I’d be lounging in my room blaring All-American Rejects and mindlessly scrolling Insta. This way, I can at least contribute to our bottom line and take a load off my mother’s chemo-drained mind.
“He’s super nice,” I tell her in an attempt to lift her spirits and quiet my nerves at the same time. He’s dined at the restaurant where I wait tables more times than I can count over the past several months.
He always dines alone.
Always pays in cash.
Always requests me.
Always leaves staring at me for noticeable portions of time.
My co-worker, Ciara, tells me I should report him, but he’s harmless. Plus, he’s my most generous tipper. And secretly, I’m flattered by his interest. That, and I might have the tiniest crush on him as well. The guys my age stare through me half the time. And the dates I’ve been on are never anything to write home about. Bargain matinees. Fast food dollar-menu dinners. Driving around aimlessly listening to horrible music in a car that smells like dirty football cleats and empty bottles of Mountain Dew.
“He’s so handsome, too,” I say. “Reminds me of those photos of JFK Junior you used to show us. You’d love his hair.”
I toss in a short chuckle under my breath and try to pretend what I’m about to do is no big deal.
I ignore the molten guilt that bubbles up from my center and burns the back of my throat.
I didn’t tell her he’s taking me into the city, or that we’re going to a private party near Lincoln Park—one that requires masks and a pass code.
It sounded like fun when he told me about it, and I loved the idea of getting dolled up and spending a few hours on the arm of some rich, fancy, attractive capitalist who looks at me like I’m the most exquisite thing he’s ever encountered.
Maybe it’s messed up, maybe it’s naïve to think anything could come of this, but there’s no denying the man gives me butterflies.
“Mom, stop,” I say because her silence is a weighted blanket on my shoulders. “This is so not a big deal. I promise. It’s literally just dinner.”
My phone buzzes on the bathroom counter. I exhale into the palm of my hand, checking that my breath is still fresh even though I’ve brushed my teeth twice in the past hour, flossed, and gargled thirty full seconds with a capful of purple Listerine.
My mother’s gaze narrows. “You said you weren’t going to kiss him …”
I roll my eyes and fight the heat blooming in my cheeks. The idea of my mom picturing me kissing someone makes me cringe. I might die of embarrassment before I set foot out the lobby of our apartment building.
“We’re going to be in his car.” I shrug off her suggestion. “Close proximity … just want to smell good.”
She stares for a second, as if she doesn’t believe me. I hold a lungful of stale air in case she protests. All she’d have to do is put her foot down, and I’d stay.
I might throw a fit, but I’d stay.
I’ve always been a good girl—a Golden Retriever of a daughter.
Dependable. Obedient. Loyal. Protective.
My mom is my whole world. My little sister, Emmeline, too.
I’d do anything for them …
… which is why I’m doing this.
I check my texts and shove my phone into the black satin clutch I used last year for junior prom. “He’s here.”