rent. I let you get away with that, Piper, but you have to live up to your responsibility for the rent.”
“Well, I don’t have the money. You going to throw me out?” she snapped.
“If I pay everything, I won’t have that much left. I make most of the money I have now on tips. I don’t make much by the hour. You know that. But I’ve missed a lot of time at work going to open auditions.”
“So that’s your problem, not mine.”
“How can you say that? It is your problem if you don’t pay your fair share. I can pay my fair share.”
She stared a moment and then lost her attitude and smiled with a shrug. “So don’t pay the whole rent tomorrow. Just give him your half, and blame it on me. I’ll get it in a week or so.”
“That’s not right, and ‘or so’ is describing it too vaguely.”
“Vaguely? I speak vague?”
“Mock it and call it what you want. You knew what our obligations were, and you accepted them. A responsible adult lives up to her obligations.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “Give me a break. You sound like you’re fifty, not eighteen. Don’t rattle off some lecture or another. I’ve had enough of that in my life.”
“I bet you have, and deservedly so.”
She stared at me, all calmness and restraint leaving her face. “You know what, your royal high ass, I think I’ll just pick up my things and move in with Jerome. How’s that sound?”
“Right now, it sounds terrific,” I said dryly. Her eyes widened at my defiance.
“You won’t last here, Princess Emma Corey,” she said. “You should have listened to your father and stayed home.”
I felt my face redden. I was sorry I had confided anything personal to her. Satisfied with herself, she turned and walked out, closing my door sharply behind her. There was no question Piper could come up with nasty things to say, but nothing would reach as deeply and sting as much as that.
I took a deep breath and turned over, but I didn’t go to sleep. I lay there staring at the windows and the lights flickering outside. It was at times like this when I needed to hear a friendly voice, a loving voice, but it was too early in the morning in England to call. Actually, I was glad it was. I was afraid of calling in the mood I was in right now. My mother would surely hear it in my voice and cry, begging me to come home. I might just give in if she did that.
But that would mean I was turning over my life to my father, who would carve me neatly into the woman he wanted me to be. Years from now, I would wake up every morning and just break out in tears. Whoever I was with would not understand, and I would feel like someone who had gotten married under false pretenses, mouthing “I do,” like some puppet whose strings were curled tightly in my father’s fingers.
I would be so hollow inside that my thoughts would echo.
I swore to myself that I would never go back like this and let him revel in my failure. Never. I’d be like a cowering puppy whimpering. My mother would cry, my sister would look smug and correct, and my father would demand even more obedience. My neck would ache because of how low I constantly kept my head.
Just before I started to doze off, I heard the door of the apartment slam. All became very quiet. I rose slowly and looked out and then checked her bedroom. She and most of her things were gone. If I was truthful with myself, I’d admit that I never had doubts that this moment would come. I was simply, perhaps foolishly, hoping that I would be better prepared for it mentally and financially. Whether I liked it or not, tomorrow I now had to ask Mr. Abbot to give me a little more time to pay the rent. The utility bills had to be paid, too, and now entirely by me. I’d be left with a little under fifty dollars.
There was no question that Leo Abbot didn’t like Piper from the start and probably would be happy to hear she was gone. He might be understanding, but I didn’t like falling into debt. In my father’s eyes and burned deeply into my mind was the idea that owing people money you didn’t have and wouldn’t immediately have was practically