16. Evelyn
“You can’t work the room anymore. You’ll be learning to mix drinks.” Mr. Cabot, my boss, returned to his ledger, dismissing me.
“I’m nineteen, I can’t—”
“Since that’s above my paygrade, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Come on, Belle. After last night, you think anyone’s gonna touch you with a ten-foot pole? You think that fancy punk who nearly stabbed his brothers would allow that? This is the best I can do for you.”
“Where’s Roxy?”
“Out sick.”
My heart sank into my stomach. I was counting on her being here. She’d tell me…
What?
My mother had never been maternal. Even my grandmother had a hard time consoling my moods. I had no familiarity with the things people said to reassure one another in the secular world.
Back in Mount Aer, I’d have been told that the devil was at work in me. Penitence in the form of obedience was the only cure for a sinner.
Submit to the man who claimed you.
Live a life of misery, just like my mother.
Rurik had left, and told me he’d pick me up at the end of my shift. I couldn’t get ahold of him to tell him I changed my mind and wanted to go back to Laszlo’s place.
Sullen, I accepted my fate, sleepwalking through the description of different champagnes and sparkling wines and top tier liquor. It was a distraction, but not a welcome one. I’d returned to work for the sense of familiarity, so that I wouldn’t feel trapped, but the walls were closing in on me.
Even though I couldn’t see the VIP lounge, I knew it was there. I wanted to be brave, to confront the source of my fear and see it as nothing more than a room, but I was wrong.
My abdomen was cramping, and I felt strange. Lonely. Vulnerable.
I wished Laszlo would come in. Every time the door opened, my heart leapt, and my gaze snapped to the entrance, but it was always someone else.
The pink gown was the most beautiful thing I’d ever worn, the thick fabric concealing my body. It was almost the same cut as the ones we wore in the Family, but more luxurious. There was some comfort in being dressed so modestly, but it did nothing to dissuade Gorky’s lecherous stares.
“Man, it is my lucky day.” Gorky slicked his hand through his oily hair. His pinstripe suit was too small, bulging around his round, firm stomach.
“I haven’t made a single tip all night, so that makes one of us,” I muttered.
He had been there the night before, witness to my shame. Contrary to my boss’s assessment, he didn’t seem concerned with Laszlo’s potential for violence.
“Hah! Lighten up, sweet cheeks! You do a good job, and I’ll take real good care of you. Make sure you get the best shifts, point you to the good customers. All I ask is that you take care of me in return.”
I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and stomach acid threatened to spill from my lips again. I swallowed it back, along with the venomous words I wanted to say.
“Take care of you?”
“Yea! Is that too much to ask for your new Uncle Gorky?”
My jaw tensed. My eyes narrowed. I did not look as menacing as I hoped, and he smacked me on my ass. His hand wrapped around my wrist, and I tried to yank it away, but he held tight.
“Your prissy little boyfriend might scare the others, but I’m not a pussy,” Gorky sneered.
I couldn’t handle it any more. I hadn’t run away from everyone I ever knew and loved just to be spat on by the world. If I was going to survive among the apostates, I would have to become one of them.
All the rage that had been brewing in me since last night boiled over, and instead of fighting it, I let it consume me.
Using my free hand, I pulled up the hem of my skirt, and brought my knee up hard between Gorky’s legs. He wasn’t expecting it, and his soft parts were unguarded. He cried out and buckled over, releasing my wrist as he went to cup himself.
I rushed out from behind the bar, yanking open the exit door.
“Where you going you stupid cunt? Get back here!”
The cold fog choked me as I escaped. I sucked it into my lungs and started walking.
Rurik wasn’t waiting for me, since my shift wasn’t supposed to be over for another few hours.
The streets were quiet, aside from the buzz of the electrical lines as rain fell upon them.
The drizzle and late hour kept people off the roads, despite it being a Saturday.
I didn’t know the way to Laszlo’s penthouse. It was past multiple neighbourhoods, and navigating a city was a challenge after living in a closed community for most of my life. The public transit didn’t operate this late.
Instead of wandering the streets alone, at night, hoping to find Laszlo’s upscale condo, I walked the familiar path to my tiny studio, to swaddle myself in the memories of my hopes and dreams.
Maybe the Family was right. About this world. About the heathens and apostates and gentiles.
Worse, what if they were right about me? It had been a month since I ran away from home, and already I’d lost my innocence.
In more ways than one.
My mother met my father in a church.
I met Laszlo in a bar.
The outcome was the same, wasn’t it?
Little Jezebel. The only path to serenity is through submission. Stop fighting your duty as a woman.
“Leave me alone, mama,” I muttered.
Great, walking alone at night, at midnight, in a floor-length gown, talking to myself.
I was a veritable paragon of sanity.
The city was much drearier than the mountains and forests I grew up in, and the weather did nothing to improve my mood. Drizzle weighed down my hair, my dress. I wish I’d worn the sneakers, the hoodie I’d slept in. In my rush to pretend I was fine, I exposed how frayed I really was.
I turned down my street, and shielded my eyes from a truck’s brights, refracted in the fog. The driver was going slow. Couldn’t be over ten miles per hour. The speed limit was thirty, but no one went down this street slower than forty.
I turned off the road, picking up speed.
The streetlight ahead was out.
My shadow grew long on the sidewalk as the truck turned to follow me.