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She either pretended to not hear me or couldn't hear me, I didn't know which. She'd been out until the early hours of the morning, doing God only knew what. I looked at the clock—she needed to be in Harvard Square in twenty minutes.
"Lila. Please. Rent's due, remember?"
She pulled the covers over her head and ignored me. She was going to get fired from yet another job. This one was Jamba Juice. The last one was Starbuck's. She'd gone from getting an
d losing jobs in the city's high-end restaurants to getting and losing jobs in the city's chains. She was so pretty, with her long, wavy blond hair and perfect skin, that she often got hired on the spot.
Then the trouble would start.
I looked at the five-foot-six, one-hundred-thirty-pound pile of trouble hiding under the blankets on my bed. Even though Lila was my older sister, I was the responsible one. I was the one who'd always taken care of her, even before our mother died. But she didn't seem to appreciate it. She treated me like a nagging, over-protective parent—except when she was trying to wheedle an allowance out of me.
I went out to the tiny kitchen and grabbed the portable safe I'd recently bought. I hated to spend the money on it, but I didn't trust my sister with cash in the house. I entered the combination and counted the money inside. One thousand dollars, courtesy of my last assignment.
Our rent was due in two days—nine-hundred ninety-five dollars.
It looked like I was going to be eating five dollars' worth of Ramen noodles—and only five dollars' worth of Ramen noodles—for the foreseeable future.
At least all my hooker clothes would fit.
Way to find the upside, Avery.
I bit my lip, thinking of my hooker clothes. Escort clothes. The madam had lent me two outfits for the assignments I'd done. One was a mini dress and thigh-high boots. The other was a filmy black dress that my tits had practically hung out of, much to the delight of the John.
I was going to have to call Elena again. I needed another assignment, fast. I didn't want to do it—not calling her, not any of what happened after that. But I'd made thirty dollars on my last waitressing shift. Our landlord had already started eviction proceedings against us twice. And since Lila didn't appear to be getting out of bed anytime soon, and I didn't want to start sleeping in a cardboard box on the sidewalk next month, I didn't really have a choice.
I checked the time. If I could get Lila up and throw some clothes on her, she might only be ten minutes late for her shift. Maybe it was salvageable. I hustled back to my room, throwing the door open dramatically, hoping to rouse her.
But she was already awake. She was sitting up on my bed, smoking a joint.
"Jesus Christ, Lila!" I wailed. "Put that out and go to work."
She shook her head and exhaled, causing a greasy, gray cloud of smoke to hang over my bed. "You should seriously try weed, Ave. You need to chill."
My heart sank. She just didn't get it. "I need to pay our rent."
She shrugged. "So go call your agency. They paid you a ton the last time."
She inhaled again and I saw ashes fall onto my bedspread. I fought back the desperate urge to smack her. Or cry. "That's really nice, Lila. You go ahead—just stay in bed with your joint. Don't you worry about getting fired from another job. I'll go sell my body for money so you can relax. I'll take care of everything." My voice was dripping with sarcasm, but my sister looked largely undeterred.
"Promise me you'll take care of her," my mom said. "Some people just need…help. Your sister's one of them."
My sister who was smoking a joint on my bed, about to be fired from her fifth consecutive job.
Lila exhaled and coughed a little. "Don't be so dramatic," she said. "I mean it, Ave, take a hit."
I crossed my arms against my chest. "I'm about to hit you."
My sister giggled. "Don't be mean," she said, her voice turning into a whine, "I hate it when you're mean."
"Then don't force me into it." I sighed. "Seriously…can you please get dressed and go to work?"
Guilt flashed in her eyes. "The thing is? I don't actually have a shift today. Something happened with the manager, and I had to tell her to go to hell…"
I sighed, listening to Lila's latest tale of getting fired and how it wasn't her fault. But in the back of my mind, all I was thinking about was calling Elena.
I was going out on another assignment. Whether I liked it or not.
Chapter Two
