Throwing the phone away or breaking it in half doesn’t feel sufficient enough. I open the cabinet under the sink for the small tool kit I keep for emergencies. The hammer’s heavy in my hand, but I realize too late that I’m not holding the grip correctly when I bring it down to smash the phone and hit the countertop instead.
“Lydia, what the heck.” Camilla sits up, holding Dog close to her chest. He growls.
“Dammit,” I seethe.
I tighten the towel around my body and grasp the hammer with both hands. Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I squeeze my eyes closed and drive the face of the hammer into the target over and over and over. I don’t stop until the phone is reduced to a pile of broken plastic pieces, and then I hit it twice more.
The silence in the apartment afterward is earsplitting.
Camilla waits until I set the hammer down to ask, “Should we talk about this or no?”
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I shake my head and say, “Never.”
Shouldering my answer without another word, Camilla puts Dog down and grabs the broom to clean up the mess I’ve made. She sweeps around me, shooing me out of the kitchen. “Watch your feet. The glass will cut you.”
I feel like I’m on the outside looking in on someone else’s life. I don’t recognize the brunette draped in a towel as myself. There’s light in her eyes like an eclipse, glowing around dark edges. She has the decency to be embarrassed as she watches the blonde sweep up her fit of desperation. The hammer was an overkill, but she has much to lose now.
The placeholder mom. The stray dog. The girl who loves Moroccan tapestry and candles.
The prince.
Her prince, maybe.
Could be?
Perhaps.
My mind links with my body and I can see through my eyes, feel embarrassment burn my cheeks, and taste anxiety on the back of my tongue.
“I have to go,” I say.
Camilla lifts the dustpan full of broken burner phone pieces and says, “You sure? Usually you’re more put together for your appointments. Not that you don’t look … clean, but maybe you can use a day off.”
She doesn’t know that whores don’t get mental health days.
“I’m going to Talent Ridge’s house,” I say. The words burst from my mouth like a confetti cannon. Each individual letter from my confession climbs up, up, up before sprinkling down upon me like tiny pieces of paper that we’ll find on the floor for a week.
Burrowing her eyebrows in confusion, Camilla says, “Oh, I didn’t think he was a client.”
The cannon reloads, spitting out a second fountain of words. “He’s not. He’s something else.”
Her brows shoot up and a grin spreads across her face. She dumps the heap of rubble into the trash can and in a totally different tone, she purrs, “Oh.”
And because this moment can’t get any more mortifying anyway, I ask, “Do you know what I’m supposed to wear? I’ve never done this before. I’ve never—”
Camilla purses her lips and then shakes her head. “Honestly, Lydia. Neither have I. Maybe jeans?”
She and I share a look and contemplate how ridiculous our ignorance is before we erupt in laughter. The melody is so brand new and consoling, I gladly let it float around with confetti letters until I realize I have twenty-four minutes to get dressed and across town.
Camilla and Dog follow me to my bedroom. I rush to my closet where I drop my towel and step into a cotton pair of underwear I never wear around clients and a black lace bra that I do. Camilla tugs an olive-green shirt over my head, while I shimmy into black leggings usually reserved for grocery shopping days. While I sit at my vanity and tie my shoes, Camilla runs a brush through my gone-frizzy hair.
“Wear the dark red lipstick. He won’t look at your hair if he can’t pull his eyes away from your lips.” She taps her temple like she’s Albert-fucking-Einstein, full of brilliant ideas.
I wear the dark red lipstick.
Yael is waiting outside for me when I emerge from the apartment in my Sunday leggings and air-dried frizzy hair on my head. My left shoe comes untied as I speed walk toward the black SUV, and I forgot to grab a new phone. I won’t have a way to get ahold of Inez if something comes up, and I won’t have the option to call Talent and give him two thousand reasons why this is a bad