Hired

by Zoey Castile

  Dated for the middle of next month.

  MAYHEM CITY LIVE

  And my face is still on it.

  “When were you going to tell me the boys were coming here?” I yell over the phone.

  Fallon mutters obscenities. He’s probably asleep and waking up Robyn.

  “I tried.”

  My body feels hot from top to bottom. I’ve only ever gotten this feeling every time I’m in trouble. Is this a hot flash? “You tried? When? During the dozen conversations we’ve had since I got here?”

  I hear a door open on his end. “Look, you didn’t want to listen. I know better than to try to make you listen before you’re ready. But Aiden, this is why Ricky wants to talk to you.”

  “Uhm, also, my fucking face is still on that poster. I mean, I look good as fuck after doing nothing but live at the gym and work.”

  Fallon chuckles. There’s a beeping noise, and I can’t tell if it’s coming from me or him. I let myself out onto the balcony.

  Below on the pool floor, there are a handful of people still at the bar.

  “You know what, hold on. I need to get out of this room.”

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “The pool. I’ve been here for a fucking week and the only water I’ve seen here has been a swamp.”

  “Okay,” Fallon says. The fact that he’s so calm about this makes me want to rage even more.

  “Why are you so calm?”

  “The poster was a mistake.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I talked to Ricky, that’s why.”

  I get off two floors down and use my key card to enter the pool area. I make a beeline for the terrace wall, where you can overlook the entire city. Out in the distance is a patch of black. It’s the longest day I’ve ever had lately. Well, except for the day my business partner left me high and dry after I quit on my friends.

  “Aiden?” Fallon asks. His voice cuts out for a moment, but then he’s as clear as a bell. “Are you thinking ‘what if people Faith knows see it’?”

  “Or her dad.” I lean forward on the cement of the terrace wall. “I should’ve told Faith everything. I had every chance. We’re going out tomorrow. I should just let her, right?”

  Fallon clears his throat. “I already told you what I think.”

  “Please, Fal. Please. What should I do?”

  “You know what you have to do. I’m here for you.”

  That’s a weird thing for him to say. Someone taps my shoulder. “Hang on.”

  But when I turn around, there he is. Zachary Fallon in his fucking Red Sox pajama pants and a black gym tank.

  “I mean, I’m really here for you,” he says, all stupid smirks.

  I take the hand he offers and pull him into a tight hug. “I’ve missed you, man.”

  He pats me on the back and for a moment some of that loneliness I’ve felt over the last couple of weeks is gone.

  “Now,” he says, “what are we going to do about your problem?”

  10

  Wild Love

  FAITH

  My mother slams the newspaper on my desk. Though calling the N’awlins Gazette a “newspaper” is a courtesy. The headline reads: MAYORAL CANDIDATE’S DAUGHTER BLAMES CURRENT MAYOR FOR FRENCHMEN STREET BLACKOUT.

  I inhale deeply and try to do the backward-from-ten countdown. I get to about six before my mom slams her hands again.

  “Explain yourself, Abigail Charles.”

  You know she’s really mad when she doesn’t even say my first name.

  In the foyer of my house, Maribelle hangs back, staring at the art on my walls. I only buy things from my friends, but she’s staring at them like I’ve bought an original Klimt. Though if I were her, I’d hide from my mom’s warpath, too.

  “You know that’s not what I said,” I tell my mom. “I told her that instead of interrogating me, she should go talk to the mayor. That’s all.”

  My mom is in a black power suit with a tiny American flag pinned on her lapel, a gold fleur-de-lis just below it.

  “I was on Frenchmen Street last night,” I say. “I had to help. I couldn’t leave just because someone might recognize me as your daughter.”

  She tries to breathe. Moves past me to the pot of coffee nearly done percolating. “Thank you for doing that. Those things can get ugly.”

  It’s not over. I wonder if she’s trying the same countdown thing my shrink suggested. Though, my mother? At a psychologist? I bet I’d see mermaids come out of the bayou before that day.

  I grab two mugs from the cupboard. She massages her hands, does that thing where she’s trying to cover up the burn marks across her right knuckles from a grease fire accident when she was a waitress. The scars on her left hand from working at a canning factory before it shut down and left a whole town without work.

  She takes her coffee black. She says she likes the flavor, but I don’t think that’s possible. I think she’s too busy to stop for sugar and milk and all the other crap I put in mine.

  “Who’s he?” she asks after she takes her seat.

  Even though I was bracing for that question, it still sends an alarm through my body.

  Who is he? In the blurry picture that made the front page, I’m wearing a police-issue windbreaker. I don’t look terrible, all things considered. I look like I’m giving out orders . . . kind of like my mom. To the right is Aiden. He doesn’t really look like he’s beside me because he’s giving a statement with two others. His shirt is drenched and thankfully his pants are buttoned all the way up.

  What was I thinking? How could I have acted like that? What if that reporter had been in the salsa club and seen me? That’s a headline my mother wouldn’t have forgiven me for. I can already hear her words: reckless, stupid, selfish.

  “Faith . . .”

  “His name is Aiden Peñaflor. Maribelle met him. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”

  Mom arches her eyebrow. “Maribelle is not my spy. If you introduced him, she’d have no reason to think he was anything other than your friend.”

  I set my coffee down on the newspaper and cover my face. But Aiden is still there. How can my mom even tell that he’s with me? Unless she didn’t know. Unless she was bluffing and was going off a hunch.

  “He’s just your friend, isn’t he?”

  “Ma.”

  “What? Even in that photo I can see the appeal. But who is he? Where is he from?”

  “If you want to interrogate him, you can do so at the masquerade ball.”

  “You can’t bring a date to the ball.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, that’s not part of the plan. Faith, you’re part of this family. We can’t present ourselves to the people of New Orleans with some guy you just started dating.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Since when did you start caring about what other people think of us?”

  “Don’t be naive, Faith. You know that for us it matters more. Reginald Moreaux could have an affair in broad daylight and it wouldn’t get back to him the way it would to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I nod. “I’m sorry. I know. Look, he’s just a friend.”

  “But bringing him to the ball . . .”

  “I’ll give him a press pass. He’s a performer. The arts need fund-raising, too.”

  She makes a face, and even I can’t believe I said that. “Faith . . .”

  “Don’t start. Please. Let’s just get your speech ready.”

  She drops the subject for now, but I know we’re not finished talking.

  Maribelle runs in, her round cheeks pink. “We have a problem.”

  She holds up her phone. My mom looks at it for a second, and I see the way her face becomes steel, armor. I’ve seen that look so many times in my life. When she faced every teacher who told me I had an attitude problem, when she’d get hate mail from constituents that talked about her body, her skin.

  “Slum it with Charles,” Maribelle reads it out loud. The red posters a
re plastered all over downtown. Her face has gone from pink to a vicious red. “We’ve made it all this way without playing dirty. We can show them. Don’t worry, Mrs. Charles.”

  “Those fucking bastards. I’m going to march over there right now and tear every sign down. I’ll—”

  My mom holds her hand up, like a queen silencing her subjects. “We will do no such thing.”

  “But—” Maribelle and I say at the same time.

  “Oh, we will respond. I don’t think the people of New Orleans are going to like these signs very much. Reginald will give his speech after mine.”

  “But, Mom. It doesn’t always work like that. Having a better speech is part of the plan but we need something else.”

  Mom refills her coffee, and I think I was wrong. It’s not that she’s too busy to put things in her coffee. It’s that straight black coffee is no nonsense. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Remember the last election cycle? They’re just more and more of the same.”

  “More like Moreaux of the same,” Maribelle snorts, then covers her mouth. “I’m sorry, that just came out.”

  But my mom’s eyes are alight with something wonderful.

  “Maribelle, you’re brilliant,” I say.

  “Call the printer,” my mom says.

  AIDEN

  “Look at you going on a proper date. On a weekday no less,” Fallon tells me.

  He’s perched on my bed, flipping through the premium channels. “How come you get all of these?”

  “Penthouse suite, baby. And not that I don’t want you eating the food and beer from my minifridge, but shouldn’t you be with your girl?”

  “Woman, Aiden,” Fallon says. “Woman. Robyn’s getting her nails done and she signed up for some voodoo thing.”

  I pick out one of Fallon’s ties from when he was on the road with the show. I go for a subtle blue one. Faith seemed to like the blue I had on before. My first attempt to tie it fails.

  “You know, where I come from, con los santos no se juegan.”

  Fallon thinks on it for a moment. “You don’t play with eggs?”

  “You don’t mess with the saints.” I pull the tie off and throw it at him. “Seriously? Almost a year with Robyn and that’s what you learn?”

  “Spanish is hard. I’m old, I’m set in my ways.” He gets up and tugs the tie between his hands. “Here, let me.”

  “Sorry, it’s one of those stupid things that I never learned.”

  He nods, but doesn’t bring up the obvious. My dad never taught me. When I was in high school, for some school dance my tía Ceci bought me a clip-on from the dollar store.

  Fallon turns the tie this way and that. “My mom taught me, actually. When my dad would be too hungover to do his own tie she’d dress him. Then she taught me and made me promise to never be like him.”

  “You’re not.”

  Fallon smirks, but I can tell he still doubts it because I still doubt it when it comes to me and my old man.

  The tie is in place. He slaps my shoulder. “You ready, brother?”

  I look at myself in the mirror. Charcoal-gray suit and blue tie. I run my hands over my brows, my freshly shaved face. A lock of hair keeps flopping over my forehead. On the outside I look fine as hell.

  If my insides matched my reflection, then I’d be a wreck. My legs keep wanting to run away from me, running in whatever direction Faith is. But also far away from her because I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to watch the reaction on her face when I tell her that I’m not who I’ve said I am. Not completely.

  “When are the guys getting here?” I ask Fallon, who’s back to channel surfing and lands on the new Thor movie.

  He doesn’t even look up at me. “Tonight, I think.”

  “Wish me luck,” I say and pocket my wallet and key card.

  “Good luck,” he says as I open the door, or I think he does. I can’t hear him over the sound of my heartbeat bursting through my eardrums when Ginny walks out of the elevator.

  FAITH

  I find the dress that Angie didn’t want to wear. The blue one that cinches at my waist and falls around my hips. It’s a little formal for New Orleans, but there’s something about today that makes me want to feel pretty.

  I dodged a bullet with my mother, but tomorrow might be another story. She’s not the kind of person who can take a lot of feedback.

  I find matching underwear—a pale pink lace bra that pushes up my girls, and matching panties. I tell myself that this isn’t a sex date. It’s a friends date. I told my mother we were friends.

  But friends don’t dance the way Aiden danced with me.

  Friends don’t lick the way I did him.

  Friends don’t make your skin feel like fire every time they touch you.

  Even thinking of Aiden makes my heart feel like it’s disintegrating into bubbles. I can’t catch feelings for a guy who’s leaving at the end of the week. Part of me knows that my mother is right. I shouldn’t bring him to the ball, because that’s what you do for people who are serious. People who have a plan.

  If that were so, I shouldn’t go to the ball either because I don’t have a plan. My future is as cloudy as the Mississippi, and yeah, maybe that’s why I feel like Aiden and I connect so well.

  I slip into a pair of black leather pumps and give myself a tiny spritz of perfume, then I’m out the door.

  When I get in the car, I breeze down the streets and sing along to whatever pop star is new these days. I know the lyrics even though I don’t know who’s singing, but I need something to take my mind off the things I’m avoiding.

  Aiden’s mouth.

  Aiden’s body.

  Aiden’s d—

  My phone buzzes for the third time in a row, so I check it at a stoplight.

  Aiden: Running

  Aiden: Late

  Aiden: Sorry.

  I throw my phone into my purse. Then I notice the neon purple lights of a shop on the corner. I pull into the parking lot. I realize I’ve forgotten something in my rush to leave the house.

  I walk into The Big Easy Adult Sex Shop.

  AIDEN

  Ginny’s eyes widen when she sees me. Her bright green eyes take stock of me. My hair, my tie, my shoes. “Don’t you look dapper.”

  “Dapper is my middle name,” I say and flash her a smile more sure than I feel right now.

  She sticks her head out of the doors. “We have to talk.”

  “Pool?” I say calmly, but inside I’m a wreck. Ginny is here and Fallon is in my room and Faith is going to be here any minute.

  I hop into the elevator with her, and when the doors close, she says, “Hold me.”

  There’s something soft and sad about her. Even in her designer dress and large sunglasses, her hair coiffed into perfect blond waves, she looks sad. I wrap my arms around her and feel her tremble.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t mean to dump this on you.”

  There are so many things wrong with this. She’s paid me for a week of my time, but part of me, a sick, twisted part, cares that she’s upset. It hits too close to home the way she cries. In my mind I flash to waking up in the middle of the night to my father shouting. He was always shouting about something. A leak in the bathroom, a doorknob that broke clean off, the way my mother arranged the meat on his plate. Whatever it was, it left her a wreck like this. And I’d hug her even though I was small, but I knew that it was the only thing I could do because I wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to take on my father.

  “What’s wrong?” I’d say, and here, in this elevator, I repeat the same thing.

  Ginny breaks apart from me and drags a finger under her black sunglasses. “My husband’s work is draining. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  The doors open and Ginny walks out first. She’s a stunning woman when she’s in public. It’s dark now, but she wears those sunglasses anyway. Some of the younger girls around the pool watch her wa
lk to the couched area in the corner.

  I lag. It gives me time to text Faith that I’m running late, but my fingers have a mind of their own, so I end up sending three messages.

  I don’t look around the pool but stop at the glass doors. The air is cool, and the sound of emergency sirens and music horns and street crowd yelling melds into something that isn’t quite music, but what I’ve come to understand is completely New Orleans.

  I walk up to Ginny and point to the seat, as if we’ve just met. “Is this seat taken?”

  A waitress rolls around and Ginny says, “A Hendrick’s martini, dry with extra olives—and whatever he’s having.”

  “Bourbon, neat.”

  Ginny takes off her sunglasses. I want to rage at the sight of the bags under her eyes, swollen from crying. “Since when do you drink something that isn’t full of sugar?”

  I smile, and her features soften. “This might be surprising, but while you were gone I drank so many hurricanes I made myself sick.”

  She throws her head back and laughs. “Oh sweetheart, that’s a rookie mistake.”

  “Tell me,” I say. “What’s really wrong?”

  “Without breaking the rules,” she says. “My husband is involved in something that will come back on us.”

  “Legally?”

  She shakes her head. “No, but it’s ugly. I always thought I knew the kind of person he was. But I don’t. I don’t know if I ever did.”

  “Is he hurting you?”

  “Oh no,” she says hurriedly. “Don’t think that.”

  “I don’t mean physically,” I say softly.

  Ginny places her hand on my face. “You’re too good to be true, you know that?”

  “I’m really not.” I sigh.

  “Reg has always been who he wants to be. We got married right out of college. Thought it would look good for his—Anyway, I didn’t think I had many options, so I did it.”

  “What would make you happy?”

  She looks at me for a long time, then her eyes flit past me to the city. “I don’t know. I don’t think about my own happiness a lot. Well, unless I’m outsourcing the company.”