Heartbreaker - Julie Kriss Page 0,8
about looking at a fourteen-year-old girl that made me remember so clearly what it had been like to be that age. “What’s your name?”
“Tess,” the girl said.
“That’s pretty.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mina.”
“Like in Dracula.”
I smiled. Mina Harker was a character in Bram Stoker’s original novel, a woman who Dracula is obsessed with and the heroes have to defend. Not many people knew that. “Like Dracula, yes, though that wasn’t what I was named after. That would have been pretty goth of my parents.”
Tess’s eyebrows went up. “Your parents aren’t goth, huh?”
“They’re a couple of accountants in Wisconsin, so no. My mom just thought it was a pretty name.”
My door was open now, and my feet hurt, and I wanted to get out of my stupid office clothes. I felt bad leaving Tess alone out in the hallway, sitting on the floor. “When does your sister come back?” I asked her.
Tess shrugged. “She’s working late. So is her husband.”
“Do you want to come in and sit down?”
The girl rolled her eyes in the way only fourteen-year-olds can do it. “God, do you know what year it is? I can’t do that. I don’t even know you. You’ll chop me up and stuff me down the garbage chute, and that will be the end of me. Or you’ll sell me into sex slavery.”
I blew out a breath. I was done with this day. “Well, I’m not going to do either of those things. My plan is to make popcorn, not chop up children or sell them. Join me or don’t. There’s popcorn either way.”
Tess looked unsure. It was after six o’clock, and I thought she was probably hungry. “I’m not a child,” she answered.
“Whatever,” I said. “The door’s open. Come in if you want a snack.”
I walked into my apartment, leaving her behind, and kicked off my shoes. Groaning as my feet hit the cool, bare floor, I walked to the bedroom, unbuttoning my hated blouse. When I came back out of the bedroom wearing yoga pants and a tee, Tess was standing in my doorway, looking around.
“Just for a few minutes,” she said.
“Fine.” I flopped onto the sofa, groaning as my calf muscles slowly unknotted.
I heard the door close behind Tess, so I guessed she was taking her chances that I wasn’t a murderer. “Why are you having popcorn for dinner?” she asked.
“Do you see how tired I am?” I replied. “It’s the only thing I have the energy to make. Plus it’s cheap. And I have to cut my calories.”
She rolled her eyes and walked toward the kitchen, dropping her backpack on the floor. “Okay, boomer.”
“Okay what?” I sat upright. “I’m twenty-eight!”
“Suuuure,” Tess said, drawing it out in a way that would be funny if it wasn’t annoying. “I’m just saying, body shaming is so eighties.” She opened the fridge and looked in, not knowing—or not caring—that she had her generations mixed up. “We could at least have grilled cheese. You have the stuff in here.”
Cheese was supposed to be off-limits according to every diet I’d been on since I was eleven, but it never stopped me from buying it and putting it in my fridge. “Don’t let anyone body shame you,” I said, remembering that I was the older one and I should probably be teaching her a lesson. “It sticks with you forever and it’s impossible to get rid of.”
“Have you ever seen Adele?” Tess countered, pulling food from my fridge. “Or Meghan Trainor? Kelly Clarkson? Lizzo? You’re bootylicious, which you’d know if you’d listened to any music since Bing Crosby or whatever.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. She was so snotty, and it was funny. “Are you really making grilled cheese?”
“Someone has to,” Tess said, digging my pan out from my stove drawer. “I’m starving.”
“We’ll have grilled cheese and popcorn, both.”
And that was how I made friends with the fourteen-year-old down the hall. I didn’t know how it happened, really. It just did.
Tess made really great grilled cheese, as it turned out. “How long are you visiting your sister for?” I asked as I took a gooey half and inhaled it.
She shrugged, checking her phone. She’d texted her sister to tell her where she was so she wouldn’t worry, but she hadn’t heard back. “Until my parents say I can come home, I guess.”
I paused. “They kicked you out?”
“Not exactly. I keep fighting with my mom and it’s driving everyone crazy, so I’m staying with my sister until we all cool down.”
“What are you fighting with your mom about?”
Tess