"All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
...
Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty...
The crisp bills fell flat against the table. Each one a landing it a semi-crooked heap.
Forty-five. Fifty-five. Sixty-Five...
It wasn't gonna be enough. Even though, there was still a considerable wad of ones and loose change that had yet to be counted.
Eighty-eight. Eighty-nine...
Lilly sat across from me, her slim fingers tapping on the table. She was too young to be worrying about money. She was only eleven; but hunched over like she was, with her chin in her palm and her thin brows scrunched together, made her look more like a grad student worrying over student loan debt. She brushed a stubborn strand of frizzy hair behind her ear and sighed.
She knew it too. As I was counting all the money, she was mouthing the numbers going through my head. "How much are we short?" She asked.
"About fifteen-hundred and some change."
She hissed,"Shit!"
I frowned. She shouldn't be swearing. But given the circumstances, I couldn't find the heart to scold her. "Even with the money from Charlie..." I trailed off, fingering the stack of folded papers by my elbow. The words "Eviction Notice" was printed across the top.
"What are we gonna do? Do you think Larry could...?"
"No," I said shooting that idea down before it could even start, "We barely have enough to cover this month's rent. Let alone the past two." Larry, our landlord, had gotten tired of our excuses. And, I didn't see him working with us any further than he already had.
What a shitstorm, I sighed and buried my face in my palms, rubbing at the bags under my eyes. The fluorescent light overhead was starting to give me a headache. I felt so tired—I'm sure I looked it too with my unwashed hair pulled up into a tangled bun at the base of my neck and my eyes feeling as sore as they were bloodshot from staying up two nights in a row to finish an essay for school. "I guess I could borrow some money."
Lilly had stopped tapping on the table and instead began to chew idly at her thumbnail as she watched me. "From who?" She asked.
That was a good question. The number of people who'd be willing to lend money, let alone lend money when there was zero chance of getting it back, was pretty much non-existent. "I don't know...Mandy, maybe?" Mandy was someone I worked with at a little coffee shop in downtown Phoenix. She was probably my closest friend, although we didn't really see each other outside of work. Surely, she wouldn't mind lending me a hundred bucks or so.
Lilly looked surprised. "Would she lend us that much?"
We both knew that Mandy wasn't much better off than we were. She was a nursing student living with a roommate and her roommate's boyfriend in a 1400 square-foot apartment on North 99th Avenue, and yet compared to us living on West Van Buren Street in a run-down-roach-infested apartment she might as well have been a millionaire. "I doubt it. But it's better than nothing."
Suddenly, there was a thud at the front door. Both our heads snapped up and Lilly leaned back in her chair, twisting to look behind her. Then there was a woman's laugh followed by another thud on the door and deeper man's voice too low to understand. "Shit—Grab the money," I said already reaching for the bills and shoving them into a ziplock bag. Lilly was quick to follow, dumping all the coins in before I sealed it and wrapped it in a plastic grocery bag.
"It's only midnight. What is she doing home so early?" Lilly hissed.
I didn't answer, instead, I threw the money across the table. "Hide this." She didn't need to be told twice, already taking off down the hallway to our room. I sat down and picked up the eviction notice, pretending to read it, as the door busted open and in tumbled Renee.
Renee was our mother. Not that she did anything to earn that title. She was frankly, terrible. Honestly, I would say there weren't any good qualities; but that wouldn't be true. Renee was beautiful—or she used to be. Before the drinking started and the weed and the prescription drugs. Back when she used to be my mother, she was beautiful with her long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a button nose that Lilly and I both inherited.
Lilly took after her a lot in her face and her coloring. She had the same blue eyes, blonde hair —curly instead straight— and sun-kissed skin with a dozen freckles across the bridge of her nose. Contrariwise, I looked too much like my dad to be considered beautiful. Dark hair, small dark eyes, fair skin that was easily sunburnt and a figure with no speakable curves or muscle.
I wasn't surprised to see her wasted as she stumbled through the front door in ridiculously tall platform heels. She was wearing a purple sequined cocktail dress that clung to her like a second skin and her hair, normally pin-straight and soft, was teased into a high poof on top of her head. She tripped and almost fell flat on her face had Lip not reached out and grabbed her.
"E-e-easybaby..." He slurred his words suggesting that he was just as drunk if not drunker than Renee. Philip, or Lip as he preferred to be called, was Renee's boyfriend. Although, I only ever called him a sucker.
Renee would get them from time to time; some poor easily-manipulated boy-toy with little experience in the dating department and a lot of cash. If the guy was smart, the relationship would last a week or two; however, Lip had been dating Renee for about three months. And, in that time he paid for everything from manicures to hair appointments, to booze, weed, and clothes or any other odds and ends that she managed to wrangle out of him.
I wasn't sure exactly what he did to make all this money. Looking at him, you wouldn't think he was loaded. He was barely in his mid-twenties with cropped brown hair and tattoos running up his left arm. If I had to guess, he looked more like a wanna-be thug than let's say an accountant.
And clearly, he wasn't an accountant or he would've wised up to my mother's tricks by now.
Renee smiled up at him, swaying on her feet. Then she laughed again throwing her arms over Lip's shoulders and pulling him down for a sloppy kiss.
Gross, I coughed.
"Oh, Bella!" Renee jumped falling against Lip's chest as she smiled at me. Her lipstick was smudged and her eyes were clouded, pupils the size of dimes. She was high again...of course, she was.
I didn't say anything as they closed the front door and walked, or more stumbled, into the tiny kitchen. Lip went over to the sink, retrieving a cigarette from the opened pack Renee had left out and leaned against the fridge and Renee noisily fell into the chair that Lilly had been occupying. "I didn't know ya'd be home," she said.
"Where else would I be?" I asked. "It's not like it's a school night or anything..."
She snorted examining her hands. "Ooo-kay, Miss Sarcasm. It's noddat late I'll have ya know when I were yours age I'd stayed out much-much later."
I put down the paper and looked at her. "Well, I'm not you," I said; then when she gave me a look I added, "Where did you guys go?"
"Dalsa sancing!" She threw her hair over her shoulder and shimmied her shoulders in kinda weird dance. "You woulda loved it. The music...and the food— best fajitas eva!"
