A tiny gap separates her front incisors and sometimes at night, I wake from a dream where I finally run my tongue over the groove, the sensation so intense I lick my lips to dispel the lingering imprint.
Evie has flicked the switch that turns my body from robotic animation into a living breathing human and itterrifiesme. Most of all because as much as she set me alight, nothing else has changed.
To kiss her would be to lead her astray because after the kissing would come the fondling and the undressing and the… and thestuffI can’t think about because my brain short-circuits and my heart spasms and the hairs on the back of my neck throw a party, dancing and jiving and twisting until I rub my hand across it to get them to stop.
“Did you find the references for our history project?” I ask as we drive to school. We’re doing a deep dive into the Urewera raids. I still need to buy Evie a computer and the surplus stock at the school has long been allocated, but she promised to research on her phone.
“Yeah, I have, but I need to print some of it out. I’ll pop into the public library and get it done before Friday.” Two days away.
“We can go this afternoon if you want. I’m free.”
“Not today, sorry. I need to go to the club.” She lets out an irritated sigh. “Robyn keeps insisting she doesn’t have any hours for me, which is bullshit, but I’ve already apologised over the phone a dozen times. If I don’t work this out in person, I won’t have enough for my half of the rent.”
“I’ll pay it,” I immediately offer. “Just tell me who to pay and how much.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind, but I need to get this sorted. If I can’t get her to put me back into the schedule, then I’ll have tofind another job. I can’t keep living off your generosity forever. I’ve already accepted far too much.”
There’s a stern tilt to her nose, an expression of determination that makes me think she’ll run rings around Robyn, probably getting herself reinstated despite my bribe.
“I don’t mind—”
“No. Thank you, but no.” Her voice is steel. “I need to have a job.”
“Your job could be school. I’ll pay you to attend every day.” But the set of her jaw already tells me that won’t fly. My voice softens. “I don’t want you working at the club. Not when my father goes there so regularly, you recognised me from the backseat of a car on a dark night.”
“Then I’ll ask Robyn to schedule me for different hours. I already want to avoid my landlord, so it’ll be two birds with one stone.”
“But you don’t need to work there at all. That’s the best way to avoid both.”
“Except then I won’t have a job and if you wake up tomorrow and stop… whatever it is you’re doing, then I’ll be shit out of luck trying to get a foothold back in the door. The woman’s got a vindictive streak a mile wide, and it took me ages to get two nights. If I’m set back…”
Her words tangle to a halt. Her eyes are far too bright, a sheen of tears coating them. Patches of colour mottle her cheeks.
A reaction that fills me with sympathetic distress. I ache to lift her burden, but it’s my messing around that caused at least some of her turmoil.
She stares straight at the dashboard, holding her breath, then slowly releasing it. As she draws in another, her diaphragm expands to strain at the seams of her blouse, then she repeats the hold and exhalation.
My breathing falls into the same pattern with no conscious thought.
“You won’t get set back. I promise you, if the day ever comes where you don’t want to attend school or hang out with me and my friends, I’ll inform my father and he’ll pull whatever strings he needs to, to get you back on that stage.”
It’s something to say, something to cover my tracks. I’m also uncomfortably aware, he probably would.
The idea sends a wave of revulsion rippling through me. “You didn’t ever…” It’s hard to even complete the thought, let alone the question. “You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”
“It’s a strip club not a brothel.” The offence in her voice comes as a relief.
“And can you stop working there? I can’t demand you stop, obviously, but could you, as a favour to me?”
Her gaze rests on me for a moment, troubled, and I struggle to find the traces of Addie I saw so clearly on that first night. Her hair and eye colour, sure, but even there all I see are the differences.
She turns to stare out the passenger window and I resist the urge to shake her and demand to know why she’s so keen to go back to work.
I know why. Because she’s poor and everyone in her life has been transient, except for her brother, a junkie, not the most reliable faux father figure to have at home.
And it irritates me because I can’t be the only one to see there’s a glow to her that was absent the first day. Not the hair or the makeup but a light shining from within.
Attending school is good for her. This is what she needs. There’ll be a way to have her accept my money instead of going to the club to beg for her job back. I just need to think of it.
