Chapter 6 Larissa
LARISSA
“Hey,” I said, getting in her car.
She was putting her makeup on in the mirror. She had her black hair in two French braids—we got better tips when we wore it that way, but lately I didn’t have the energy for anything more than a messy bun or a quick ponytail.
I usually didn’t have the energy.
“Hey.” She smacked her lips and tossed her red lipstick into the cupholder. “Stop for cappuccinos or nah?”
“I can’t afford cappuccinos,” I said, buckling myself. “So nah.”
“I’m so sick of being broke,” she said. “You know what we need? Sugar daddies.”
I pulled down the visor. “I have a boyfriend, remember?”
“Totally different thing.” She put the car in gear.
“Seriously, we should do it. Just go to lunch with some rich old guy and they give you like, three hundred bucks. Once, a sugar daddy took me to Edina and bought me a Coach bag and like, four hundred dollars’ worth of Clinique,” she said, pulling away from the curb.
“I don’t even like Clinique, but I felt like I had to take it before he came to his senses. ”
I turned to stare at her. “This is a thing you’ve actually done?”
“I mean, yeah. Sugar daddies are awesome.”
“But… what if they want sex?”
“You don’t give it to them? Most of them are just lonely. They want to talk, have someone to have dinner with. They’re usually pretty sweet.”
I shook my head. “You kill me.”
“I’m just sayin’. We’re never gonna get rich working at Donna’s.”
“No, we’re not,” I mumbled, putting my purse on my lap to dig for my eyelash curler. “I’ve got like seven jobs and I’m still not getting rich.”
“Seven? I thought you were just doing the soup thing.”
“No. I’ve been picking up side jobs for the last few weeks. Trying to pay off Mom’s medical bills and the credit cards. I’m donating plasma.”
“Ewww,” she said, making a face.
“It’s a hundred and twenty dollars twice a week—too much money not to do it. I need to find something else though. I’m getting tired of the pricks.”
“I’m telling you, sugar daddies. Their pricks don’t work.”
I laughed while I put on my mascara at a red light.
“Maybe you should sell your dirty socks,” she said.
“Ha ha.”
“I am being totally serious. There’s a huge market. Some guy paid me two hundred dollars to wear the same socks for a week. I did it, vacuum sealed them, and sent them to Ohio. Guy’s a regular now, we do six, seven transactions a year.”
“For dirty socks…” I deadpanned.
She shrugged. “The penis wants what the penis wants. I don’t kink shame,” she said. “I do kink question sometimes, but I never shame.”
I added it up in my head. “You make twelve hundred dollars a year like this?!”
“I make that just with that one guy.”
I gawked at her. “Oh my God. Is it safe?”
“Totally anonymous.”
I sat back into the seat. “Wow.”
The light turned green and she pulled forward.
I wore socks. And I could definitely use an extra twelve hundred a year.
“What else do you do?” I asked.
She shrugged. “For twenty bucks I’ll comment ‘Yikes’ on your ex’s last selfie.”
“Ha.”
“I love humbling terrible men. Most of the time I’ll do it for free. So, how’s it going with Mike?” she asked.
I was still shaking my head at the sock thing. “Good. He got his wisdom teeth out a few days ago, so I stayed over for the first time to help. Chris was there too for a bit. We hung out.”
“Huh. Can I be honest with you?”
“Sure?”
“I’m not digging the Mike thing,” she said.
I stopped mid mascara swipe. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not into it. I think you should dump him.”
“What?”
“Dump him. He’s not the one.”
I laughed. “How do you know?”
“I’m an empath—I can just tell. You’re not in love with him.”
“We just started dating. Nobody is in love with anybody yet.”
“He’s in love with you.”
“No, he isn’t,” I said, doing a final swipe of mascara and twisting the cap back on the tube.
“That boy’s got you burning low,” she said. “I’m very sensitive to energy. Your flame is itty bitty with him. Tea-candle sized.”
“Really.”
“I’m serious. It’s sort of sad to watch.”
I gave her a look. “Why? Because we’re not declaring our love after thirteen weeks?”
“At thirteen weeks you two should be feral for each other,” she said. “Can’t keep your hands off him. It’s way too early to be this fucking bored.”
“I’m not bored,” I said defensively.
“He’s not bored. You’re practically sleepwalking. This is the fun time, when his penis is all shiny and new. You should have a raging UTI right now. Your PH should be a shitshow.”
“My mom picked men who made her feral and look how that turned out. I’m fine with being rationally in like with someone. It’s safer. Also, I’m happy with my balanced PH. And Mike. He’s a wonderful human. He’s polite to his servers, he tips well, he respects his mom, he has great friends—”
“I don’t know. I just don’t see it.”
“Well, I do,” I said, digging in my purse again. “So I guess that’s what matters, right?”
She stuck a piece of gum in her mouth. “Hey, speaking of friends, what’s up with Chris?” she asked. “Who’s he seeing?”
“Nobody,” I said, pulling out my lip balm. “Not as far as I know anyway.”
“Maybe I should hit him up. I love that nerdy, brainiac thing he’s got going on.”
“I think he’s too nice for you,” I said, twisting the cap off and dabbing some balm on my lips.
She narrowed her eyes over the steering wheel. “I do like a guy with a criminal record…” She smacked her gum. “What do you think about him?” she asked. “Smash or Pass.”
“You want me to play Smash or Pass with Mike’s best friend…”
“Yeah, why not.”
“Because it’s disrespectful.”
She looked over at me with her mouth open. “Oh my God. It’s smash.”
I pulled my face back. “What? No, it isn’t.”
“Yeah, it is. Because if it wasn’t, you’d just be all gross, pass. You wouldn’t argue about the morality of the game.”
“Fine,” I said, tossing the tube back in my purse. “It’s pass.”
“Nope. Too late now. It’s smash. And look, I don’t even blame you. I’d let that guy rub me to pieces like toilet paper in a public restroom—if he had a criminal record.”
I was laughing now.
Chris was cute. He was a little more than cute, actually. But still.
I’d liked the way his hoodie smelled—back when I thought it was Mike’s. Only because I thought it was Mike’s, I told myself.
Like he heard me thinking about him, Chris texted me.
Chris: Woofarine killed a frog today and brought it to me in bed. Come get your child.
I cracked up over my phone.
Me: Pictures or it didn’t happen.
Chris: There. Picture sent. I promise you that frog wasn’t there before.
I choked at the dead frog on his white sheet.
Me: grounded.
I was grinning at my screen. Lexi glanced at me. “Who’s that?”
“Chris. The dog left a dead frog in his bed,” I said, showing her the picture.
She wrinkled her nose at it. “Huh. Nice bedroom furniture.”
“Mike also has nice bedroom furniture,” I said, putting my phone away.
“Yeah, but do you think his mom picked it out? I mean, he lives in the guesthouse, right?”
I thought about it. Maybe his mom did pick it out. It did match the vibe of the main house. I shrugged. “I don’t care if she did. He keeps it clean,” I said.
“Yeah, I can see that about him. He seems meticulous. Isn’t it funny how you can just tell when a guy has a dirty refrigerator door? Like, you don’t even need to go over there, he’s just giving dirty refrigerator door energy?”
I was laughing again.
Chris had a clean refrigerator door. I’d been going over there while he was at work for the last few days to walk the dog.
His whole house was nice actually—except for his bookshelf, which was a chaotic mess of hardcovers and paperbacks that looked like he read them too fast to put them away properly.
They were stacked in teetering piles, some of them on the floor.
I wanted to organize it for him but I felt like it was rude.
I didn’t know him that well yet to offer to fix his shelves.
I didn’t know him well enough yet to have a key to his house either, but here we were.
Lexi parked behind the restaurant.
We got out of the car and she pulled her apron out of her bag. “Maybe I should bone that guy who comes in with the hard hat,” she said, tying it on.
“The one who has the motorcycle?” I asked, closing the car door.
“Yeah. Or is that shitting where I eat? It is, huh.”
“You could always go back to your ex,” I said.
“I’d rather literally shit where I eat.”
Another text came through. This time a picture of Woofarine sleeping with his tongue out, looking like a little angel.
Chris took a lot of pictures of our dog. I think he took more than I did. I wondered if he posted them online.
We didn’t follow each other on our socials yet. I opened the app and searched for him. He had a private account, so I sent him a request. He approved it immediately.
I smiled and DM’d him.
Me: You’re up early.
Chris: The frog woke me up. I touched it with my foot, it was under the covers.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, laughing before going back to look at his grid.
As expected, it was completely full of pictures of Woofarine. That dog was his whole life right now. He was like a new parent with his first child, photos of everything. I was really glad he agreed to let me help him. I think he and Wooferine needed each other.
I scrolled down, double-tapping until the Woofarine pictures stopped.
Then it was mostly pictures of him with the guys.
One of him and Mike at the gym, a few at the concert the night we met, and then a little further back was a close-up of him holding a frail, wrinkled hand.
The photo was in black and white and the caption was him letting everyone know his mom had passed and she was with his dad now.
Both his parents were gone.
I swiped left to a picture of him as a little boy with his parents at a wedding, probably twenty years ago.
He was in a little brown suit and she was holding his hand there too.
His dad was on the other side, a smiling, much older version of Chris.
I didn’t even know them and I felt the twinge of sadness just looking at it.
Yes, my dad was a piece of work, but at least I had my mom. I couldn’t imagine being alone in the world. I knew he had the guys, but it wasn’t the same thing.
I didn’t want to like the post. I didn’t think he wanted to see a notification on something he was trying to work through. I went back up and looked at his highlights. He had one for book quotes. I smiled and tapped it, swiping through to see which ones I knew. I paused at a passage I recognized.
Maybe this isn’t the kind of love that deserves to exist.
Maybe it’s the kind that wars start over.
The kind that topples empires and never leaves the world better than it found it.
Cross Stitch, by J. C. Vale. I’d loved that part too.
I took a screenshot.
“Hey, are we going in or what?” Lexi was standing impatiently by the back door.
“Yeah, sorry.” I put my phone away.
We came into the café and put our stuff in the locker. Mike’s sister Janessa was there opening the register. She didn’t even look up.
Lexi leaned in while I started the coffee. “Now, that is someone who needs to get laid,” she whispered.
“Oh my God, stop,” I whispered back.
“The last guy she dated had balls hanging off the back of his truck.”
I choked quietly.
“Uh, there’s a lot to do?” Janessa said, shooting us an annoyed look.
We gave each other an amused glance and separated.
I made the cute picture of Woofarine my screensaver, and I saved the quote in a folder in my phone.
“Thank God for this job,” Lexi said, turning on the syrup warmer. “I don’t think I’d eat more than once a day if I wasn’t getting a meal for free.”
Honestly, it was one of the only perks of restaurant work.
I usually saved half my lunch to eat for dinner.
If we really got lucky, the chefs would mess up an order and I’d get to take that home, too, though Donna and Janessa usually made them throw it away so they wouldn’t “mess up on purpose” to get extra meals.
At this point I wasn’t above digging a perfectly good sandwich out of the trash.
“One day I want to have brand-name cereal money,” I said, tying on my apron.
“With real milk,” Lexi said, filling up the creamer bowls. “Not the evaporated stuff Mom always got when the electricity was shut off and we didn’t have a fridge.”
“God, why was it so bad?” I grimaced.
“We used to buy the cherry Kool-Aid packets because they were so cheap. One time I put that on cereal just so I didn’t have to use the shitty milk.”
“I used to get excited when the food shelf had the brand-name SpaghettiOs. The ones with the meatballs in them,” I said, still remembering the elation when they had a can.
“Bonus if it wasn’t expired.”
“I don’t know how we would have survived if it wasn’t for WIC and the free pantries,” I said, filling up a sanitizer bucket. “One day I want to make enough to donate all the stuff I wish they’d had.”
She wiped coffee grounds off the counter. “No Great Value brand. No cereal in a bag.”
“And no Vienna sausages,” I said.
“If I never eat another fucking Vienna sausage… I think we’re closer to needing the food shelf than donating to it though,” she muttered.
She was right. But I could still dream.