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As soon as the dress was on, she was brushing my hair. I winced when she hit a mess of tangles. I tried to brush my own hair when Mama was gone, but it was hard.
“Now I need you to be on your best behavior tonight. Do you understand? Everything has to be perfect.”
“Where are we going, Mama?”
“To a nice dinner with one of my friends. He wants to meet you.”
A fancy car was waiting for us outside, and I spent the car ride tracing my hand over the smooth seats, never having felt something so soft before.
The car dropped us off at an expensive-looking place with the best smells coming out of it. There was a handsome man waiting by the door, and he crouched down and shook my hand when Mama introduced me to him. He told me his name was Carlos, and he was so happy to meet me.
Carlos took us inside the restaurant and we were taken to a back room where more food than I had ever seen was laid out on the entire table. He laughed at my wide eyes and then made me a plate before he made his own. Mama was glowing, her laugh filling the whole room every time he said something.
It was as if I was in a dream. I never wanted the night to end.
A server had brought us chocolate cake, and I was munching away while Mama and Carlos talked to each other.
Suddenly, a woman burst through the door, her cheeks a splotched red color. She wasn’t pretty like Mama, but I could tell her clothes were a lot more expensive.
“So this is the tramp you’ve been out with. My God, Tom, you would think you’d have some class.”
I looked around, confused, because there wasn’t a Tom in the room, but Carlos was standing up,his hands in front of him and his eyes squinted around the edges…like he was worried.
“Darling, this isn’t what it looks like. This is nothing,” he told the woman soothingly.
I glanced at Mama, and there were tears gathered in her eyes.
“Nothing? Her child is here,” she said, gesturing to me with wild eyes.
“Nancy. It’s just a little fun. It’s—”
“‘A little fun?’ It’s going to be ‘a little fun’ when I take you for all you’reworth!” She stormed out of the room and Carlos darted after her.
“Carlos!” my mother cried, reaching out and grabbing his arm.
He shook her off, so hard that she fell to the ground. “Get lost,” he seethed before running after the woman.
Carlos, aka Tom, had been a small time news anchor who had solicited my mother for her services. He’d fallen for her, and had made her all sorts of promises…but of course all those promises hadn’t meant anything, not when his wife, and the mother of his three children, had threatened to leave him…and take all of his money.
Shortly after that was the first time Mama had overdosed.
I was broken out of my dark thoughts by banging on my door. My heart clenched in fear, followed by confusion when I heard Lincoln calling my name.
I tentatively opened it, staring at him in shock as he stood there. He looked all wrong in this place. A bright, shiny light amid the ruin of the complex.
“We need to talk,” he said firmly, pushing his way inside. His bowtie was undone, falling haphazardly around his neck, and his hair was wild, like he’d been dragging his fingers through it over and over. There was a pinched, worried strain around his eyes…that hadn’t been there at the gala.
“We don’t have anything to talk about except why you’re here,” I told him, doing my best not to stare at him. I needed my wits about me for this conversation. I couldn’t be pulled back into his glittering orbit.
My cheeks flushed as I stared at my worn carpet. What he must be thinking right now. I’m sure he’d never seen such a shit hole in his whole, perfect life.
“I had to see you. I couldn’t let you just disappear after…”
“After I embarrassed myself,” I whispered, wondering if the images of me pressed against him were going to be on the front page news tomorrow.
“I paid them all off; no one will see those pictures,” he said fiercely. “And even if they did, we wouldn’t have anything to be ashamed of.” He ate up the distance between us and tipped up my chin, pressing a breath of a kiss across my lips that threatened to break me because of how sweet it was.
It took me a second to remember myself, to remember the decision I’d come to.
