Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
“You paid how much for this?” Joanna picked up the red dress with two fingers.
“Sixty dollars,” I groaned, throwing my face into my pillow.
“I’m trying it on.”
I turned around to watch Joanna strip down to her undies and try to squeeze into the dress.
“Fucksake!” She flung herself onto the edge of my bed for better leverage to wiggle the dress over her curvy hips.
I laughed.
“Fuck you, shitass. You said it was stretchy.”
“It is!”
She lifted her pelvis up, and the dress popped over her hips and slid home. She launched herself to her feet. “Success!”
“Ugh, no. It looks hot on you.”
“Bitch, you mean hell yeah it looks hot on me. Someone has to benefit from your dumb purchase. I look amazing.” Joanna smoothed her hands down her stomach, admiring her curves, which the dress hugged.
“Keep it.” My head hit the pillow again. There was a dip in the mattress, and then Joanna’s head joined mine on the pillow. The two of us lay there on my full-sized bed, looking up at the cottage cheese ceiling.
“I’ll buy it off you.”
“Pfft, no. But you can buy groceries for the week.”
“Deal. I’m so gonna get laid wearing this thing,” she hissed and wiggled next to me.
“You could be wearing a trash bag and not have a problem in that department.”
“Oh, I have.”
“Shut up!” I pushed her off the bed, laughing.
“I swear!”
“No, I don’t want to hear about your sex games.”
“Prude.” Joanna stuck her tongue out. “You’re just depressed and in a bad mood because you haven’t been laid. Just hook up with Danuwoa already. Put the rest of us out of our misery.”
I threw my pillow at her face. “I can’t and you know that.”
“I know you’re twenty-five. When you look back on your life, you’re gonna regret not snagging that fine ass when you had the chance.”
“All right, let’s not objectify the man.”
“But it’s so fun.”
“I just need to keep my head down and focus on my goals. I want to start school again, and I want both Danuwoa and me to keep our jobs. So, he’s off-limits.”
“You’re still going back to school?”
“Of course.”
“But you already have a job better than you wanted with the degree. Why waste the money and time?”
“School isn’t a waste to me.”
“You’re so weird! You won’t fuck the guy, and you want to go back to school when you have everything you want.” Joanna got up from the floor and started pushing the dress down.
“I only have this job because of the lies I told. Any moment I can be found out and fired. Or if I kiss Danuwoa like I want to, I can lose my job. My life couldn’t be more complicated.”
Joanna pulled her shirt over her head and stepped back into her jeans.
“I love my not complicated life. I miss working at Bobby Dean’s with you,” she said.
“Who does he have snaking the toilet now?”
“Uh, people.” She waved her hand vaguely, not meeting my eyes.
“Who?”
“Everyone has to do it. I should get going.”
“Why are you being cagey?”
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“Spill.”
“Bobby Dean hired Tito when you left.”
“I can’t control that, why did you think I would be mad?”
She hissed a breath and said, “Well, Sage has been coming around too.”
Just like Sage to be messing around with Tito and not looking for work or anything. Some shady people hung out at the bowling alley late at night.
“What kind of trouble is Sage getting into?”
“Not much, but just being a shitass and drinking and smoking with Tito at the end of the night in the parking lot.”
“Is he driving? You know what? No. I can’t worry about Sage. I can’t control him. He has to figure it out.”
“So, you aren’t mad I didn’t tell you sooner?”
“No, but if he gets into real trouble, you’ll tell me?”
“E, besides drinking with Tito, he isn’t a bad kid. He’s looking for work.”
“Underage drinking, you mean.”
“We all did it.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Relax, you get to go to California. You get to be there with Danuwoa.” She sang his name, and it made my stomach flip.
“It’s a work trip. Strictly business.”
“Mm-hmm. He looks like he could get right down to business if you let him.”
I threw my pillow at her face.
“That’s the spirit. Live a little! What are you doing on this business trip anyway? Sitting in boring meetings?”
Er. That. I had looked at the itinerary, and it was going to be a corny appropriating mess.
“It’s bad.”
“What do you mean bad?”
“It’s a spiritual awakening trip.”
“Don’t say it.”
“The special guest who Natalie booked is someone named Sasha Storm Cloud.”
Joanna’s eyebrows scrunched. “An Indian?”
“More like pretendian. Her website is a bunch of nonsense about being adopted by a rotating list of tribes.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, shit. At least the trip is free.”
We laughed. Pretendians were a thing we encountered a lot outside of Indian Country. We weren’t here to question people and bring up blood quantum bullshit, but if you claim to be Native, you should know who your people are and help the community you’ve claimed, not make a profit from a fake identity.
“Have you told Danuwoa?”
I smiled my most mischievous smile. “No. I want to see his face.”
“You’re cruel to that man, and all he ever did was like you.”
“He teases me just as much, if not worse. He still won’t change his name on my company computer. It still says ‘Native Daddy.’ I have to hide my laptop whenever he messages me.”
“Marry the man, Ember. Men of that quality do not grow on trees.”
“Don’t you have a shift you should be getting ready for?” I rolled my eyes.
“Fine, but don’t think I won’t sneak condoms into your duffel bag,” she warned and then was gone.