AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lila opened her mouth to answer, then closed it immediately. There was really no way to answer that.
At least her breathing, her stomach, and her temperature had gotten back under control.
“You don’t want to go? Have your recent troubles caused you to switch teams?” Helen asked.
“No. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Helen shrugged. “La Bodega has pool and alcohol and amusing company. That’s where I want to go.”
“I can’t drink.”
“I can. That is, unless you want to go to a café and talk. You have a great deal on your mind. I can see that.”
“Oracle’s light, no. The last thing I want to do tonight is talk about my feelings.”
“Good, then. We’ll do something far more interesting. I don’t have to work tomorrow, and now I have a designated driver who owes me one. Take me to La Bodega and promise never to speak of this night again.”
Lila turned the car around.
Helen’s self-satisfied smile didn’t fade, not even when they parked in the brightly lit parking lot of La Bodega. Cars crowded around the metal building. Techno music pumped through the cracked open door. A neon-yellow banana waved happily on the sign out front.
“Subtle,” Lila declared as they disembarked.
“I imagined that being dour in a place like this would be hard, but apparently, you have found a way.” Helen took her hand and led her across the parking lot, squeezing through the door as it opened.
The doorman skirted back behind the counter, his thick coat and hips barely squeezing by. “Twenty bucks each,” he grunted.
Helen handed over a bit of cash from her purse. He wrapped a couple of pink plastic bands around their wrists and jerked his chin toward a black velvet curtain. “No touching the boys,” he warned as they tugged the dirty fabric aside.
Inside, the techno pumped louder, crashing against Lila’s eardrums. Several men in thongs danced on a stage in the front, wearing black boots that reached halfway up their calves. A group of women hooted and hollered below, with sweaty, wadded-up cash in their fists.
While Helen threaded through the crowd around the bar, Lila headed to the pool tables, running her fingers over the smooth, worn felt. She’d never actually played the game before, though she knew the general principle well enough. Tristan owned a pool table back at the shop.
If she did have the baby, she wouldn’t have another chance to learn, especially if she signed a contract as a workborn. She’d work a full-time job, and without a father in the picture, she’d take care of the baby whenever it wasn’t in daycare. Government nannies would only take the child while you were at work or in the hospital.
She’d spend her days working and her nights changing diapers and feeding a baby. No end. No release. No time to do anything. No life beyond motherhood. When the chairwoman had talked her into reversing her birth control, she’d been promised Randolph nannies around the clock. She’d been promised an eager senator to take the baby during Father’s Week every month. She’d been promised a life away from the baby.
She’d not signed up for this. How did workborn women manage?
Was this why they married so often?
“Dour again? I only left you alone for two minutes.” Helen sipped some concoction made from pink and orange clouds. A tiny red umbrella leaned over the side, as though it had grown dizzy from the fumes. She handed Lila a clear, fizzy drink. “Yours is just soda. It’ll rot your teeth out, but it’s better for the baby than mine.”
“Yours is very festive.”
“There are places for boring drinks. La Bodega is not one of them.”
Lila’s palm vibrated in her coat pocket. While Helen inspected the pool cues, Lila checked her message.
Where are you? I’m at the oracle’s compound. Are you here? We need to talk.
Lila frowned at Dixon’s words and began typing out a reply. No. I’m with—
She paused, eyeing Helen as she rolled a few cues on the pool table.
—a friend. We’re somewhere else. Lila figured that if someone brought you to a strip club, then they could be referred to as a friend. Besides, she was fairly sure the doctor hadn’t lacked a designated driver.
Before Lila could slip her palm into her pocket, it vibrated again. I’m sorry about before. Tristan was being a brat, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I didn’t mean to scare you.
