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  Cindy Brown [5:00 p.m.]: I’m not who you think I am. I’m not the kind of girl who can give you what you want.

  Tommy Prince [5:35 p.m.]: What is it that you think I want?

  Cindy Brown [5:40 p.m.]: Somebody who is somebody.

  Tommy Prince [5:45 p.m.]: That’s very cryptic. How about we go to dinner and you can explain what you mean.

  Cindy Brown [5:50 p.m.]: I wish I could. I really do.

  Tommy Prince [6:00 p.m.]: Why would you say that?

  Cindy Brown [6:05 p.m.]: I hope you win your Oscar. It was great meeting you.

  14

  Cindy

  “Where have you been?” Greenlee asked me when I got back, sticking her head into my room. “Mom’s mad at you.”

  I flopped down onto the bed and wished for doors. My room was the dining room of our tiny apartment. Quincy, Greenlee, and Marigold all had their own rooms, of course. So, I was stuck with the dining room, which had three entrances—kitchen, living room, and a hallway. None of the entrances had doors. There was never any privacy. I could see pretty much the entire apartment from my bed.

  I needed to think. What the heck had just happened with Tommy? That kiss had realigned my world.

  He’d texted me that he wanted to go out with me again, but I… How could I be with someone like him? I still hadn’t come clean to him about who I was. I knew I couldn’t keep up the act very long. I almost wondered if it wasn’t better to just run away. He was better off without me.

  “Mom’s mad at you,” Greenlee repeated. I’m sure she was surprised that I wasn’t jumping to attention as usual. I was generally so eager to please. But I couldn’t find the fucks to give now. I was fresh out.

  “What else is new?” I asked Greenlee. My voice was tired. She was standing in the kitchen staring at me in disbelief. “What’s she mad about?”

  Greenlee smiled a vacant smile. She was younger than me and still somewhat of a brat, although not as unbearable as she’d been at sixteen. She was also making popcorn. I hated when she made popcorn because it made my room stink for hours, but she didn’t care. “Mom said a customer came by looking for a hardcore specialty cleaning on some suede upholstery.”

  I took a deep breath. “Why is that a problem? I can work on it tomorrow.”

  “The customer wanted it today. By five.”

  I sighed. “Well, other people than me can clean things. Obviously, she’s not getting it today if none of you were willing to clean it.”

  “You’re the one who cleans poop out of curtains,” Greenlee stated like it was a fact.

  “Hold up,” I said. “Poop. There’s poop involved?”

  “Yeah,” Quincy added, appearing at the living room entrance to my bedroom. “So much poop. It’s nasty. And you’re the poop specialist.”

  I hadn’t even realized she was home. Greenlee and Quincy laughed.

  Oh gross. I didn’t want that job. I’d never cleaned poop out of curtains before, although it wasn’t that unlike some of my other, less desirable cleaning jobs. But suede curtains? That might not even be possible. Marigold and I had been over the fact that I couldn’t continue to be the one who got every bad cleaning job.

  I was pretty much the only one who worked period (Connie excepted). I was singlehandedly running the whole business most days. All Marigold did was talk, rudely, to the customers. Greenlee and Quincy sometimes helped by ironing or putting tickets on things, but they were so bad at it that I almost wished they wouldn’t bother. Thankfully, they never taxed themselves too much by helping. It made cleaning up after them easier.

  “I don’t want to clean poop out of curtains, Greenlee.” Amazingly, I kept my voice even. “This time it can be someone else’s turn.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Not my problem.”

  “Or mine,” Quincy said. “You’re definitely the one who does the poop stuff.”

  “Not anymore,” I told my sisters.

  They looked at me like I’d just grown two heads. Where was the meek and beaten down little stepsister they knew? I wasn’t sure either. I hoped she was dead though. I hated being her.

  “Well, it is,” Greenlee continued, “because mom told them you’d clean it tonight and have it ready for them tomorrow morning.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “No way. I’m not doing that. If Marigold made the promise, she can clean the poop.”

  I’d jumped out of a plane and made out with a movie star. The last thing I was doing this evening was cleaning poop out of curtains. The fact that the source of the poop was an unknown made it more threatening. People poop? Dog poop? Multiple species of poop? I was so not interested in finding out.

  “Excuse me?” Marigold snapped. She appeared at one of my other three doorways.

  I was on my last nerve with Marigold. I got up from my bed and grabbed my coat. It was LA winter, which meant it was about sixty-five degrees.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Marigold asked me. “Where have you been?”

  I frowned. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Maybe she had a date!” Greenlee offered.

  Quincy and Marigold laughed like it was ridiculous.

  “I did have a date,” I told them. That made them laugh harder. My heart twisted.

  “Who on earth would want you?” Marigold asked.

  “A blind man?” Quincy asked.

  “You might be surprised,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. They would be surprised. But I didn’t want them to know Tommy Prince had ever been interested in me. They’d want to use that relationship, tenuous as it was. They’d want to milk it for all it was worth, and I just wanted to put it all behind me.

  “Oh sweetheart,” Marigold said condescendingly. “Don’t be naïve. A girl like you is only good for one thing. Once he gets it, he’ll be done, whoever he is.”

  I swallowed. She was probably right, but it didn’t feel good to hear it.

  “I’m leaving,” I said. My voice was barely above a whisper.

  “You better be headed to the cleaners. They want the curtains by tomorrow at seven a.m. There are nine panels, eight foot by four foot.”

  Sweet Jesus. That was probably a lot of poop on suede. Ha. Nope. Not tonight. And then after that, probably never again, either.

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t stand another second in this apartment. Feeling like I was on the verge of a violent outburst, I just brushed past a stunned looking Quincy and left before I could do something I’d regret.

  15

  Cindy

  Where do you go when your life is at a turning point? A church? A library where you could look up some answers? The seaside, where you can contemplate the enormity of the universe? A cliff to throw yourself off? I went to a karaoke bar.

  Sebastian’s was a few blocks from the cleaners, which was only a few blocks from our apartment. It wasn’t a fancy place, just a little dive, but I’d been here for a drink after work with Connie a few times. It was one place I didn’t think Marigold would know to look for me, which was really all I needed.

  I plopped myself down at the bar and ordered the cheapest, strongest drink I could think of. It burned my throat at first but after a few sips it started to go down more easily. After the first one, it started to taste alright. The second one was pretty good. It took the edge off the day.

  If I let it, this would become my life. I’d get pushed around by Marigold, demeaned by my stepsisters, and bullied into a future that held nothing for me but disappointment and chemical escape. I didn’t know much, but I knew that I didn’t want to end up here in ten years.

  Tommy had given me a gift today. It wasn’t the one I wanted, that would have been happily ever after with him, but it was a gift anyway. He’d made me realize that even though I couldn’t have him (I was crazy to think that I could), I could probably have something. I didn’t have to be a punching bag forever. I’d fooled Tommy Prince twice. I’d made him think I was a socialite, twice. I’d even made him think I was worth kissing twic
e.

  If I could convince Tommy that I was worth kissing, maybe I could convince the world I was worth something too. It would be an act, obviously, but hey, it was better than the alternative. Because I couldn’t continue to go through my life pretending like I was okay with the way things were. I was sleepwalking. And I was headed right off a cliff.

  I’d jumped out of a plane today. What could be scarier than that?

  “Hey,” someone said, making me nearly spill my drink. Apparently, the answer was unexpected strangers in bars.

  I looked up to see a middle-aged man in a colorful western shirt looking at me curiously. He was wearing cowboy boots and a lopsided grin. “Have I seen you here before?”

  I frowned. I was in an existential crisis here. I didn’t need to get hit on by weird old dudes in bars.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled, turning my shoulder against him and hoping he’d get the message. I’d never been great at diplomatic turndowns. Usually I ran away.

  “I think I’ve seen you before,” he insisted. “With a little Asian woman.”

  Connie? Ugh. Great. He’d marked me.

  “Okay,” I replied, still staring straight ahead. He was going to get the idea sooner or later, right? I wasn’t making eye contact for a reason.

  “Do you want to do a song with me?” he asked. The karaoke bar wasn’t exactly hopping tonight. In fact, it was so quiet they’d turned on the radio.

  “I don’t sing,” I told him. My voice was firm.

  “But you’re in a karaoke bar.” He seemed utterly confused that I was turning him down. His mustache twitched.

  “I don’t sing.” Had I been unclear?

  His expression said I had been. “Aww, come on sweetheart, it’ll be fun!” he had a thick southern accent.

  One of the waitresses swooped to my rescue. She appeared at my elbow. “She said she doesn’t sing. Listen to the lady, will you?”

  I looked over at her gratefully. She was about my age, pretty, with long, wild red hair and blue eyes. She winked at me and I felt myself smiling involuntarily.

  “We’ve talked about this, Dan,” Ariel explained to the cowboy. “If somebody doesn’t want to duet with you, then you have to listen to them.”

  The man, Dan, sighed. He hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he told me. “I just really wanted somebody to sing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ with me.”

  He shuffled off dejectedly.

  I smirked at Ariel, thankful for my rescue. “I appreciate your help.”

  She grinned. “No problem. He honestly wasn’t hitting on you or anything weird like that. If he was, we wouldn’t let him stay. The man just loves to sing. He used to be a professional Elvis impersonator, or at least that’s what he says.”

  I blinked, looking at Dan in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar. He was leaving. That made me the only patron in the bar. “I can see it. Although he could use more hair.”

  “That’s probably what shortened his career,” Ariel said, lifting herself up on the barstool next to me. “But you should hear him do ‘Love Me Tender. It’s pretty good.” She laughed at my expression. “Rough day?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “You wanna’ sing a duet with me?” Ariel asked. She grabbed herself a beer from behind the bar.

  I giggled. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. You don’t want to hear me sing. Honestly, it’s bad.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and flipped her red mane. “Who here is gonna’ judge you?”

  I looked around. The bar was totally empty.

  “You,” I accused.

  She laughed at my expression. “No. Not a chance.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I asked. I was halfway tempted but didn’t want to get her in trouble. I didn’t have any friends my own age. It would be nice to have one.

  “I am working,” Ariel told me, taking a drink of her beer. “Sebastian is my uncle, so I know I won’t get in trouble. If anybody else comes in, I’ll serve them. Come on,” she begged. “I’m so bored.”

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  “Why? Do you have something better to do?” Ariel’s blue eyes were teasing.

  I looked at the clock. It was seven p.m.

  “One song.”

  16

  Cindy

  I stumbled home around two a.m. and Marigold was waiting for me. Busted. I was an adult, and she wasn’t my mother, but I still felt guilty. She regarded me seriously over her gossip magazine. Her expression was calm, which I didn’t trust at all. She arched an eyebrow at me and sat back in her chair.

  “Well, look who came home after all. I was wondering when I should call the police,” she said to me. “We need to talk. You can’t behave like this.”

  Ariel and I had officially made a night of it. She’d sung through the entire Hall and Oats catalogue in the system. I’d stuck mostly to the Spice Girls, with a couple of Taylor Swift songs thrown in. That girl could sing. I can’t, but my alcohol fueled enthusiasm had to be worth something. I hadn’t laughed as much in years. I hadn’t drunk so much in my life.

  But the time for laughing was over. Marigold was waiting for my response, and patience had never been her strong suit. Her blue eyes were cold.

  “I’m tired. I’m going to bed,” I told her. Maybe we could fight in the morning. I swallowed any guilt. She didn’t deserve to make me feel guilty. I hoped she’d let this one go.

  “The fuck you will,” she replied, proving to me that my optimism was misplaced. Again. “Get down to the cleaners and work on that ticket.” She bit out each word angrily. Her hair was in curlers and the little pink cylinders quivered.

  I shook my head and it made me feel a bit woozy. “It’s two a.m. I’m not cleaning anything tonight.” Especially not poop out of suede.

  “You have to.” She stared at me, waiting for me to wilt.

  But I was done wilting. So very, very done. This time, for the first time, I was going to stand tall.

  I laughed in her face. “No, I don’t.”

  Her eyes narrowed. I’d never stood up to her, not really. She didn’t seem to know how to deal with it before, but she was catching on. And she was furious. Her knuckles were white as they clutched at the magazine. She was close to ripping it in half.

  “Is this because of that date you went on?” Marigold asked. “One man wants to sleep with you, and you lose your damn mind?” Her disgust was evident. “Cindy, sweetheart, you need to understand that men want one thing and one thing only. I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “This isn’t about him.” It was. Partly. “I won’t even be seeing him again.” That much was true. I’d blocked his number while drunk with Ariel in the bar. Better to have a clean break.

  “Oh please. You’re a terrible liar. You’re in love.” She said it like it was a crime.

  “This is about me. Not him. Not love. Me. I’m not nothing. Maybe he was the one who made me realize it was true. But I need more than this. I’m leaving.”

  “You’re turning your back on your family?” She gaped at me, wide-eyed.

  “You’re not my family.” It had taken me too long to figure it out, but it was true.

  “Of course, I’m your family, Cindy,” Marigold told me, sitting back and looking down her nose at me. “I’m the only family you have. I’m all you have.”

  “You don’t treat me like family. You treat me completely differently from Greenlee and Quincy. Did you think I hadn’t noticed?”

  “Cindy, you are the most ungrateful creature I’ve ever seen,” she spit at me. “I’ve taken care of you all these years, but you have zero awareness or appreciation of anything.”

  “You’ve taken care of me?” I stuttered. She didn’t even appear in my life until I was a pre-teen.

  “Yes!” Marigold snapped, keeping her voice low. My sisters were asleep, or at least out of sight. “And you don’t appreciate anything.”

  “You treat me like a servant,” I sputtered. “
You haven’t taken care of me. You use me.”

  Even while my dad was alive, I was the one who did the chores around the house. Marigold said it was because I was the oldest, but even at ten I’d known better. Especially when I was eighteen and my sisters were still ‘too young’ to do the dishes.

  “After your dad died, I could have gotten rid of you, but I didn’t.” Her voice was cruel. “I’m the one who cared for you.”

  Gotten rid of me? I’d been sixteen when my dad died. That would have been child abandonment. Besides she needed the money. She needed the settlement from his death to realize her dream. That money was supposed to be mine, to provide for my education. As soon as Greenlee graduated from high school, she’d sold everything and moved here to LA.

  “Have I ever been anything but a burden to you?” It was the alcohol that made me ask it. Not the fact that I longed for love, and a mother. It wasn’t that I missed the chance to have a real family. It wasn’t that I’d walked away from Tommy and would never know where that would lead, either. No. It was the alcohol.

  “What else would you be?”

  Marigold laughed. My heart broke. I swallowed hard against the wave of pain.

  “You aren’t even mine,” she whispered. “I never wanted another child. But did I turn you out when your dad died? How about when you turned eighteen? No. I’m the only one that wanted you. And all I asked for in return was a little appreciation. A little respect.”

  A little slavery. A little unquestioning obedience. A little sacrifice of everything I cared about. A little loss of the man I wanted.

  I sucked in my breath. I’d never been impulsive before, but there was a time and a place for everything. “Well, guess what?” I told her. I put a great big smile on my face and tried to look confident. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m gone.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even breathe. But I could move.