Waitressing is far too physical. She can barely climb a flight of stairs without getting winded.
She asks me a few more questions about Kaitlin and Julia as the pasta cooks, but I keep the details light, not wanting her to get too excited about it. I have no idea how long this position will last. If the previous escort is anything to go by, I’ll be lucky to make it to the end of the week.
“I looked up your new boss online,” Annabelle says mischievously as I drain the pasta into the sink. “He isgorgeous.”I twist around to look at her, and her eyes are bright with amusement.
“Yeah. He’s kind of weird, though. He wasn’t wearing any shoes when I went in to see him today.”
“No shoes? Or socks?”
“Nope, I don’t know why. He does have nice carpet in his office though. Maybe he just likes the way it feels.”
She snickers to herself as I plate up the food and hand it to her. “I’m just gonna take this in to mom.”
When I go into my parents’ bedroom, my mom is sitting on the bed scrolling through her phone with a towel around her.
“Oh, you’re an angel,” she says, as I hand her the plate.
The room is disgusting, with an unmade bed and dirty plates everywhere, but I know better than to clean it up. The last time I did that, I threw out a cable my dad needed for his car, and he totally lost his mind over it. Ever since then, I just shut the door and let them be.
“So, how’d it go today?” my mom asks.
I pause in the doorway, in shock at her taking an interest. She never usually cares what I do as long as I look after Annabelle.
Sometimes, if my mom wins big at bingo, she’ll take us out for dinner and actually engage in conversation for more than five seconds at a time. But that hasn’t happened in months.
“Fine,” I say cautiously. “It’s a job, and it pays well.”
“Huh. Well, that’s good. Annabelle said it was a recommendation from someone?”
“A friend of Hope’s. You remember a few weeks back, I went to her bachelorette party?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it was a friend of hers… Bethany…” My voice trails off as I see my mom’s eyes glaze over. This is more familiar. She has the attention span of a three-year-old.
“Baby, would you be able to bring mommy a beer?” she asks in a weepy voice I can’t stand.
I nod, backing out of the room and abandoning the conversation. I’m not bringing her a beer; she can get it herself if she wants one so badly.
I come out to find Annabelle has made a good dent in her plate of pasta, and I sit beside her, eating my portion.
After ten minutes or so, she gives a huge sigh, and I glance up at her nervously. She’s using her cane a lot these days, more than she used to. I bought it for her thinking it might be helpful when she was struggling with joint pain a few weeks back, but now it seems to be permanently attached to her side.
Getting up, she takes our plates to the sink. I stop myself from offering to help, watching her movements, trying to gauge if there’s a noticeable change in her gait.
She’s stiff, visibly uncomfortable, but I’m too afraid to ask if she’s feeling worse. There’s nothing I can do if she is.
Until I’ve worked this job for a few months, I won’t be able to afford the first round of treatment, and even then, it’s likely to be too expensive, but I have to try.
I head to the couch, slumping down and putting on the TV.
Flipping through the channels, I eventually find a show I know Annabelle likes. I put my feet up, pulling out my cell to check my messages. Idly, I open my banking app and check my balance, just waiting for the day when this will all be worth it and I’ll actually have some cash.
I sit up, my feet falling to the floor with a thud as I stare at the total in my account.
What the fuck?
“You okay?”
