Liar's Lullaby

CHARLOTTE

NEW YORK CITY-JUST AFTER SUNSET

The walk home from work always sucks.

I'm leaving the cobbled pavements of upper-class cityscapes for the scarred sidewalks on the bad side of town.

Glistening skyscrapers turn into crumbling crack houses.

Men in expensive suits turn into men in... not that.

For fuck's sake, the sidewalk even literally slopes downhill.

Basically, it's the perfect metaphor for my life.

My thoughts are going to crazy places tonight. Probably because I'm exhausted and starving. It's the kind of hunger that makes your stomach roil, your legs tremble, your head throb.

Back-to-back-to-back shifts at the restaurant with no rest in between will do that to a girl.

I've been on my feet since before dawn, which is why they're killing me.

Well, that-and the fact that the soles of my ballet flats are so worn-through that I can practically feel the pavement on my bare skin.

I need new shoes-badly.

But I also need to make rent.

And triple shift or not, I don't have the money for both.

As a matter of fact, right now, I don't have the money for either.

"Hey there, Charlie girl!" comes a shrill, unwelcome voice.

I sigh and plaster a fake smile on my face before I look up at Mrs. Hammond. Her balcony overlooks the street and gives her a bird's-eye view of everyone else's business.

Incidentally, "viewing everyone else's business" happens to be her favorite hobby.

"It's Charlotte," I mutter under my breath.

I've corrected her on my name a couple of times before-not that it did an ounce of good. But the urge is still there.

Only my mother calls me Charlie. And I don't like it when she does that, either.

Not that I talk to Mama much these days.

To the nosy woman on the porch, I say, "Hey, Mrs. Hammond."

She juts out a saucy hip and looks at me over the edge of her rhinestone-studded glasses.

"How many times have I asked you to call me Lisa?" she demands.

"About as many times as I've asked you to call me Charlotte," I grumble.

"What was that, dear?" she asks. Her penciled-on eyebrows rise as she leans over her balcony railing.

She's got pretty hazel eyes and a graceful, straight-line nose. But her most prominent feature is still the peach fuzz on her chin.

"Nothing," I reply hastily. "Just heading home."

"Awful late, ain't it, sugar?"

"I took an extra shift today."

Mrs. Hammond shakes her bleached blonde hair in dismay. The sprayed-in-place curls bounce unnaturally around her face, calling attention to the massive statement earrings she's wearing.

"You work too hard," she lectures. "Honestly, a pretty girl like you-you just need to find yourself a handsome fella and get him to take care of you."

I bristle at the suggestion. I'm no kept woman.

That was my mother's goal in life.

It sure as hell isn't mine.

"I don't need a fella," I say, mimicking her Alabama accent. Decades in the city have tried and failed to iron her drawl out. "I get by fine by myself."

If Vanessa was here right now, she'd be laughing in my face at my word choice. I can hear her voice in my head:

"'You get by fine by yourself?' Like hell you do! You live in an apartment building that's been the scene of at least two murders, you risk setting the place on fire every time you turn on the stove, and you wash your hair in the sink. There's nothing fine about any of that."

She may be right about all of those things. But it doesn't change the fact that my best friend is very, very annoying.

"I'm sure you do," Mrs. Hammond continues.

I'm barely paying attention to the old nag, but she doesn't care too much about that. I'm a captive audience-that's all that matters to her.

"...And I know you young girls are all passionate about your feminism or whatnot. But every woman needs a man, darling. Trust me on that!"

I sigh again and clench my jaw. When will I ever learn the number one rule of city life?

Keep your head down and don't engage.

"Well, I don't need one, Mrs. Hamm-uh... Lisa," I correct myself quickly.

"You know, I know a real fine young man who works at the deli down the way," she tells me, completely oblivious to my less-than-enthusiastic tone. "He's real handsome."

"I'm not interested in meeting anyone."

She sighs dramatically. "Why in heaven's not?" she asks, as though I'm the one being difficult.

The easy answer rises to my lips.

Because I don't want to end up like my mother. A twice-divorced forty-one-year old, still working two menial jobs to try and support the latest deadbeat that's landed on her trailer couch.

That's what I should say to her.

But I don't.

Because as much as I disagree with my mother's life choices, it feels like a betrayal to out her like that to a complete stranger.

I mean, she's still my mother-even if she only calls twice a year.

December twenty-fifth, because it's Jesus's birthday.

And June seventeenth, because she thinks it's my birthday.

(It's not.)

"I'd love to stay and chat," I say unconvincingly, because really, I'm too hungry for this conversation. "But I really have to get back home. I have to... uh, feed the cat."

I start walking before she answers, throwing her a polite smile and waggle of my fingers as I go.

When she's disappeared from sight, I can breathe a little easier.

Hitting the intersection at Broadway and 181st lands me squarely back into the shitty part of town. I take a right at the crossroads and keep walking ten more minutes until I hit my apartment complex.

Home, sweet home.

It's a trash-strewn cul-de-sac lined with a motley crew of apartment buildings. The one thing they all have in common is that they're cheap, rundown, and poor.

I pass the first two and turn into the third building, the one with slightly darker soot stains on its dirt brown walls.

That's one nice thing about coming home late-at least the darkness masks most of the unadulterated shittiness of the place.

Meanwhile, I'm still racking my brain thinking about food.

I think there's a half-eaten burrito in the fridge from Wednesday. I can have that.

Wait-did I eat it yesterday for dinner?

Yup. Sure did.

Fuck.

I walk down the narrow corridor. It feels as if the mildewed walls are leaning in towards me, trying to touch my face or my hair like a creep on the subway.

The whole building gives off "murdery vibes," as Vanessa would say.

I repeat the Golden Rule to myself: Keep your head down and don't engage.

Which means, of course, that a cockroach chooses that exact moment to scuttle over my foot.

As if the universe is giving me the middle finger and saying, Keep your head down all you want. There's plenty of shit no matter where you look.

I stifle a scream and kick as hard as I can. The little brown bugger goes flying down the-wait, nope, he's literally flying. Wings flapping and adding their buzz to the cheap fluorescent lights lining the ceiling.

Cockroaches have wings now? Fucking hell.

I wrench my attention back to the important question at hand: food. No burrito in my future, but I'm at least sixty percent certain that there's a half-eaten loaf of bread on the top shelf.

It might be moldy by now, but I can cut away the bad bits and eat the rest.

Honestly, as long as it's edible, I'm not gonna complain.

My stomach roils again just as I reach my door. I push my keys into the keyhole and twist hard.

Nothing moves.

What the hell?