Payment Before Insults
1236 Words
EMILY
I woke up with a start.
My memories flooded in and I pressed my palm to my forehead like I could push them back out. What have I done?
I turned slowly. He was there. On top of the covers, lying perfectly still beside me, his face relaxed in sleep. His chest was bare. I looked away immediately.
Creeping out of bed, I found my clothes folded on the bathroom counter. I didn't remember putting them there. Pulled them on without looking at my reflection.
His jacket hung on the back of the door. The one he'd given me on the rooftop. My hand found the pocket, found the card inside.
Leo Ashford. Name. Number. No title.
I took it.
Then I was out the door, in the elevator and on the street. My phone buzzed the second I hit the sidewalk and I almost ignored it, focused on getting away from Leo as quickly as possible.
"Emily! Thank God," Chloe said, her voice crackling. "I got a gig. Pays three hundred for two hours."
Doing what?"
"Low-budget horror movie in Queens. They lost extras to food poisoning. They are quite desperate."
"What kind of role?"
Pause. "You're a dead girl. Minimal wardrobe. They said a little skin, but it's not like that. Just trashy victim number four. You in?"
I should say no. But rent was due, and I really didn't want to go home yet.
"Text me the address."
The warehouse smelled like mould and old grease. Cables ran across the dirty floor. This wasn't a movie set. It was a mess with a director's chair.
"Fresh meat!"
A guy unfolded himself from behind a monitor. His stained shirt barely covered his belly. When he got close, I smelled his sour breath.
"Chloe sent you?" He looked me up and down. "Damn, she undersold you."
He whistled and my skin crawled.
"Just tell me where to change," I said.
The "costume" was a tiny piece of cloth they called a nightgown. In the dirty bathroom, I looked in the mirror. Bare thighs. Deep neckline.
A little skin huh? Liars.
The director found me by the snack table.
"Sweetheart, about that look." He smiled. I saw food in his teeth. "We're thinking more... real. The killer finds you in the shower. So just a towel. Maybe it slips. Artistic, you get it?"
"I thought we agreed on the nightgown."
"Two hundred more for the towel." He stepped closer. I held my breath. "This could be your big break, kid. I know people. I can make you famous."
"I just need the three hundred."
"Three fifty." He touched my arm and I flinched but his smile got sharper. "I'm trying to help you. You think chances like this come around every day?"
"You agreed to the nightgown." My voice was flat. "I'll do the nightgown. Or I'm leaving."
Something mean flashed in his eyes. Then he laughed, too loudly. "Fine, fine. Nightgown it is."
They filmed in a bathroom that smelled terrible. When they yelled "action," I stopped being me. I became a woman hearing footsteps in her own house.
"Cut!" The director's voice broke. "Holy s**t. Where'd you learn that?"
I didn't answer.
"One take," someone whispered.
The director came over, too close again. "That was real fear. You ever think about acting for real? I could make calls. Get you real auditions."
"I need my check."
He followed me to the payment table. "There's a bar nearby. Let me buy you a drink. Talk about your future."
I put the check in my pocket, next to Leo's hotel keycard. "Goodbye, Mr Vance."
"You're making a mistake!" he yelled after me. "Girls like you don't get chances like this twice!"
I kept walking.
My apartment building looked like a threat. I stood outside it for a while, watching my windows, before I went up. The locks held. I checked them twice. Then again, my hands were shaking.
I sat on the edge of my bed and waited to be fired.
I waited for two hours. Nothing. My work schedule was still there.
Maybe he hadn't woken up yet or he'd woken up and decided I wasn't worth the paperwork.
My phone buzzed with an unknown number calling. I stared at it for three rings. Then I answered.
Someone was on the other end. Breathing.
"Hello?" I said but no one answered. All I heard was rhythmic breaths.
Someone was playing tricks on me. This wasn't the first time. Four calls in the past two weeks, always the same.
Fear clouded my mind again. The chaos of last night had made me forget for a moment that I was being watched.
I stood up. Checked the locks again and the windows. Pulled the blinds closed even though it was morning.
Then I sat on the floor in the corner of my living room with my back to the wall and my knees pulled up and my phone in my hand.
The door rattled like someone was trying to enter and I froze, the scene I had acted out earlier, replaying in my head.
I didn't go to the peephole. The last time I'd done that, there'd been no one there. Just an empty hallway and the sound of my own heartbeat.
I pulled up 911 on my phone. My thumb hovered over the call button.
The rattling stopped.
I waited for a minute to pass then closed the dialer. I needed a solution. I couldn't continue to live like this.
My phone buzzed again but this time it was my sister and I answered, grateful for the intrusion. "Hey."
"When are you going to stop being an embarrassment to this family?"
I closed my eyes with a sigh. Leaned my head back against the wall.
I cannot catch a break.
"Hi to you too, Sarah."
"I'm serious, Em. Mom called me. Again. She's beside herself."
"I know."
"Do you? Because it doesn't seem like you know. It seems like you're just letting your life fall apart while the rest of us watch."
"Come home," she said. "Just come home. We'll figure it out."
Home. The place I'd left at nineteen, where my mother's disappointment lived in every room.
The place where Sarah was the golden child and I was the extra, the afterthought, the one who never quite got it right.
"I can't," I said.
She sighed. "You know better than this, Em."
I did know better. I knew better than to expect support and to think anyone in my family would see me instead of their idea of me. I knew better than to hope.
The card in my pocket was digging into my skin. I pulled it out and turned it over in my fingers.
"I gotta go," I said. "Say hi to my niece."
I ended the call before she could do more damage.
Sat there with the card in my hand and the silence pressing in. Sarah wasn't wicked. She was just herself. The one who'd had an easier path, who couldn't understand why I kept stumbling on mine.
But this was my life. My mess. My choices.
I was done being toyed with.
I stood up, slipped Leo Ashford's card back into my pocket and got ready for my shift at the restaurant.
If my life was going to fall apart, I might as well walk straight into the fire.
- Writer
