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I get on a website where Frank had told me he found his latest mistress. We don’t send each other Christmas cards or anything, but we run into each other every other month or so, sometimes more often. Frank’s office is only a few blocks away from my apartment.
Usually, we run into each other at a coffee shop we both go into. When I see Frank it doesn’t bother me. He was a time in my life that helped me get to a better place. He’s also a nice guy or I never would have agreed to be his sugar baby in the first place.
As I look over the website, I run through the profiles of some of the men and wonder if this is really the best option I have. A quick check of my bank balance tells me it’s pretty much my only option if I don’t want to grovel for an office job in this city. Since I don’t know what I want to do now, and need mo
re time to figure it out, I choose going with what I know. The website seems promising, there are more profiles in Chicago than there are in Boston, another plus.
While I was with Frank, we went to Chicago often and I feel like I know the city. Whenever we went, I was always sad to leave it. I build a profile and don’t bother to change out of what I’m wearing to take my profile picture. I’m not into all the sexy lingerie, there are only a few pieces in my closet, and all bought by Frank.
I consider putting my financial terms in my profile but see most women don’t. That’s fine, I’m not a hundred percent sure of how much I want to ask for monthly. The fifteen hundred a month from Frank had seemed high, before moving to Boston. Then when I got here, between school and household expenses there were times I had to ask Frank for more money for groceries and clothes.
With a heavy sigh, I wonder again if this is a good idea. As badly as I hated the accounting, there were up-sides to the job, mainly the pay. I also liked being accountable to no one for what I spent and where I went. I had made enough to spend the weekend roaming New England, getting to see places I’ve only seen on maps. Everywhere from Maine all the way into Washington, D.C. It was a far cry from the four bland, white walls of a home broken up only by crosses and bible verses that my parents raised me to believe was in store for me.
Yes, I traded my body in order to see all I have seen. It wasn’t all that different, though, from being taught I was to trade my body for being taken care of by my husband. I would be his responsibility, to keep our refrigerator filled with wholesome food I would be expected to have on the table for him. In return, I was to be a good wife. I was never to say no to my husband for anything he wanted of me. At least, my way I wasn’t required to push out baby after baby, and I said no to a lot of things.
Determined now, I start to make piles of my stuff. There are the things I couldn’t do without, the stuff I could maybe sell, and then a pile to give away. I work for hours before my stomach finally forces me to stop. Seeing nothing in the fridge interesting to me, and because I hate to cook, I order from the sushi place down the street for delivery.
“Hey, can I get in on your order?” Robin causing me to jump in surprise. With a muttered curse at her, I hand the phone over. When she’s done she hands me back my phone and we both sit down at the dining table to wait. “Sorry about the scare. I thought you heard me come in an hour ago.”
“No, I’ve been busy in my room. I didn’t get the job, again. I did get another job offer, which got me thinking. I’m not an accountant, I can’t stand it. I need to figure out what I really want to do. Don’t hate me for the short notice but I’m leaving Boston.”
Robin looks at me as if I told her I kicked a puppy then sighs. “I get it. I hate it but I get it. This isn’t an easy town.” She would know, her mother is fiery little Italian dynamo, her father was black and she had suffered heavy taunts for being mixed-race in South Boston. It didn’t help that her father had left her and her mother when he finished his residency and became a heart surgeon. In Robin’s words, he had traded up to a newer, blonder version. His child support always came late when it came at all. “I also get hating the accounting. Did you know I actually started in nursing but hated the blood and guts thing? At least I only wasted three months of my life before one of my advisors suggested dental hygienist. So, where are you off to find career 2.0?”
“Chicago. I’m, uh going to see if I can find a sugar daddy again.”
Robin knew about me and Frank. She had gotten the story out of me one night after too many bottles of wine and too many hours without sleep. Instead of judging me as some dirty whore, she had judged me as a stupid idiot for ending such a ‘sweet setup’ as she called it.
“Chicago, cool, Chitown, but it’s called Chiraq now, too. You know that right?” I love her for not even caring about the sugar daddy thing.
“Yes, I know about the Chiraq thing. It’s still more southside than north or the gold coast, which is where I will be asking to be put up.”
“Hmm... yeah, money goes a long way to keeping you safe, but it’s no guarantee. You need to be careful, okay?”
“Yes, mom.” The buzzer goes, the doorman signaling our food is here.
Robin pushes me back down. “I’ll get it, my treat. God knows how many times you’ve treated me. Be right back.”
Dinner is long and filled with memories of the things we’ve done together. I admit, yes, I thought when I first met her she was a flake and wouldn’t last. It was only her first and last month’s rent she handed me at the end of the showing of the condo that had won her the place.
She admits she had been in awe of how posh I’d seemed and used me as a standard on how to dress and talk. She’d scraped hard to win a partial scholarship to the University of Vermont, as much for the school as to lose her accent. Fresh out of school she had landed at my door determined to live in my neighborhood. Robin wasn’t going back to South Boston and the racist insults about the color of her skin. She figured the people in our neighborhood would be too polite to be blatantly racist, and she was right.
We laugh at how far we’ve both come. I had introduced her to buying quality clothes, the kind that lasted for years and were cut to look good on her plus size body. How to love her body and try to get her to understand she was more than her body. Most importantly, there was Supernatural, a show we shared as solemnly as we did the coffee maker we both are addicted to.
Robin had introduced me to reading for fun, instead of the memoirs and history books I read when we first met. I was still trying desperately to make up for religious homeschooling where the history of the bible was the only history I knew. She also introduced me to going to New York and seeing Broadway shows for a fraction of the price. Robin showed me how to have fun, simply to have fun. She also tried to teach me to knit, but we decided our friendship was more important than me learning to make a scarf.
We spend the night in my room boxing everything up, with me giving her everything, except the clothes, from the donated pile. Whatever, it was donation. Although Robin is also a size sixteen she’s taller than me by five inches and most of the clothes don’t work for her.
It isn’t until we’ve had three bottles between us and she buys the bed from me to make it easier to rent out my room that we both wonder if she’ll get to stay if I go. We scramble for my cell to call the landlord but it’s almost one in the morning. Since we’re asking a favor we decide not to piss him off with a late night call.
Robin sobers up as she wonders if she’ll have to leave, too. I sober up as I realize that my choice will have an effect on Robin. It’s not something I had thought of. Even though we’ve lived together the last five years, none of the choices I’ve made have ever really affected her.
The only reason I can afford the place is because my apartment is one of five in a brownstone owned by a business associate, Ivor, of Frank’s. As long as I could pay what Frank paid, which wasn’t what the place was worth, then I could stay as long as I wanted. I had no idea how valuable the empty room was until Robin had already moved in. If I had, I would have charged more and stashed the extra money in savings.
Fuck, I sway drunkenly toward the shower as I wonder about the plans I’ve made. It wasn’t too late. I could call Carl Winters. I could get his number from Frank. But another thing that gave me the creeps about the guy was Frank didn’t like Carl. Carl wasn’t a friend of Frank’s, just an associate who had been at a few of the dinners I’d gone to with Frank. I trust Frank’s opinion of people.
Out of the shower, I’m completely sober. As bad as I feel about what might happen with Robin I know I can’t stay. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I know whatever it is it isn’t happening in Boston.
The next morning I wake up to find Robin sucking up espresso. She grimaces, “It’s my second cup. I have a root canal first thing this morning to assist on. Can you call Ivor? It doesn’t matter what time it is, call me when you know.”
