5. Mandy
5
MANDY
S omeone is in my apartment.
And, no, I’m not hallucinating from lack of food and sleep plus too much office coffee, which—I don’t care what Salinger says—is no match for a Starbucks Frappuccino.
The door to my tiny studio apartment is only open a crack, but that’s enough to indicate someone is there, someone is waiting for me. The very air is disturbed.
I pray he didn’t notice me opening the door. The panic rises. I’m frozen rooted there in front of the door.
Though I was absolutely exhausted, I hadn’t wanted to leave work until Salinger did, sure that Jaxon was out in the parking deck waiting for me.
But it didn’t matter, because Jaxon is here. In my apartment.
Is he going to hurt me? Kidnap me ?
Run. Run!
But my feet won’t move. I’m just so tired…
Footsteps sound across the cracked linoleum floor.
The door handle flies out of my grasp.
The lights blaze on. “Oh my gawd, where have you been?”
I stifle a shriek as my younger sister grabs me by the arm, dragging me inside.
“I’ve been waiting forever for you to get back.” As she takes in my disheveled appearance, Lauren’s perfect nose wrinkles. And I do mean “perfect”—it cost ten thousand dollars, so it better be.
“You wore those shoes to work?” she asks. “Gross. Why are you working so late? Did you bring any food? I drank all your La Croix and I’m starving. Hello, Pepperoni! Did I not say hi to you yet?” She scoops up Pepper and gives the corgi a big kiss.
“Lauren?” The twin bed in the corner sags as I sit down heavily. “I thought… I thought…”
“Ugh. Why do you have to make everything about you? I’m in a crisis here.” My sister flings herself down on the bed next to me and begins to sob.
“How did you even get in here?”
My sister raises her head from the comforter where she’s left a beige, blue, and red smear from her full face of makeup. “I called a locksmith and pretended that I lived here. I don’t think he believed me, but I let him feel me up when I threw myself at him. Don’t worry—I didn’t give him your credit card information or anything. I paid him with the money you had hidden in your nice dress shoes.” She looked pointedly at my feet. “I don’t see why you don’t wear them to the office. ”
“You sound like Mom.”
“No, I don’t. Mom has terrible taste.”
“Why are you here and not with your boyfriend?” I focus on my sister’s drama to try calming my pounding heart.
“He left me.” The sobbing recommenced. “He left me for another girl.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, but she’s younger than I am.”
“I mean, we all told you…”
“You were just jealous because I found a man who would support me and pay my credit cards.”
“He was almost Dad’s age.” I raise my voice over her loud sobs. “You started dating him in high school, and he was the class secretary’s father. What did you expect was going to happen? He clearly only wants barely legal young women.”
“You’re so mean to me.” Lauren’s voice is muffled in the pillow.
Fishing out the last of the donuts, a strawberry with a tart pink glaze that Salinger had squashed earlier that day—well, technically yesterday now—I hand it to her. Then I pour her some water while she nibbles at the pastry.
“See? I clearly do love you, because otherwise, I would not have given you my emergency donut. You’re not the only one who’s starving.”
Rushing to the freezer, I open it then breathe a sigh of relief when I see the pastitsio there. A second later, my spirits fall. I can’t eat it. I have to bring Salinger extra portions tomorrow then cook some more until he grows tired of it.
I close the freezer.
After sloshing wine into two COFFEE SEX mugs, I sit down next to my sister on the bed and pet her hair .
“I’m old!” Lauren wails. “I’m almost as old as you. No man is going to want me. We’re going to be old spinsters together.”
“Let’s take three steps back. You’re twenty-six.”
“And soon I’ll be thirty-eight like you.”
“I’m not that old. I’m only thirty-four.”
“Really?” Lauren sniffs. “Because you look like you’re in your forties. You have wrinkles.”
“It’s stress and lack of sleep.”
“You should try having sex.”
“No, thanks. Too much work. Besides, I haven’t shaved my legs in six months.”
“You really let yourself go.” My sister reaches for her wine.
“Maybe this is a blessing.” I pat my sister on the back. “Now you can find a job, make your own money, be an independent woman—”
“I don’t want to be an independent woman. I want a man with a bank account and low self-esteem. I don’t know if I can survive this.”
“I think you’ll be okay.”
“No.” My sister sniffles and eats the last of my donut. “Your studio is smaller than my craft room. It’s like a crack den.”
She pulls the comforter over her head and starts crying again. “My life is over.”
Her limbs sprawl out, taking up all of my bed like she used to when we were kids.
Pepper whines, and I lift her up on the bed. She flops down next to Lauren with a world-weary sigh. My sister’s arm snakes out from under the comforter, pulling the dog into the soft warmth with her .
Gulping my wine, I huddle on the floor, researching lawyers.
After sending a few of them a message, I feel the wine start to take effect, and the tension eases out of my body. Stretching out my legs, I grab a pillow from the bed, resting it against the white bookcase that had followed me from my childhood bedroom to college and through a series of menial and underpaid jobs.
“It’s going to be fine,” I whisper in the dark. “I have everything under control.”
The blaring siren of my phone ringtone breaks the calm.
On the other end, Salinger’s voice is cold. “I need you to come in early today. I trust that’s not a problem.”
Motherfucker.