I slipped from the truck as Mitch and Levi bickered back and forth over who was the better Transformer. After glancing around the neighborhood, I knew that Levi and I would only be staying here as short as possible. This was not where I wanted to raise my son.
The front door of the complex opened, and two teenagers stumbled out of the door, and I could tell they were either high or drunk. They held onto each other laughing uncontrollably and walked behind the back of the apartment.
One month then Levi and I would be out of here. I just had to get a couple of paychecks under my belt, and we would be able to move on from here.
I had talked to the landlord on the phone, and he had told me he lived in apartment 101, and I could grab the key from him. I hoped and prayed as I opened the front door that the inside would be nicer than the outside. I had to be optimistic, or I would break down crying right then and there.
The smell of mothballs and sweaty socks hit me as the door shut behind me and I put my hand over my nose. “Sweet Jesus,” I mumbled under my breath.
Apartment 101 was thankfully to the right of the door, and I raised my hand to knock, but the door was wrenched open before my fist made contact with the door.
“You the new girl? You’re late. I hope you’re not going to be late with the rent. First of the month. Don’t care if you’re sick, your kid’s sick or the damn pope is in town. Rent the first of the month.” She thrust her dirty hand at me, a key dangling from her fingertips. “You got a problem with anyone here, I don’t recommend calling the police. One, because it’ll take them an hour to get here, and two, by the time they do get here, you’re going to have a whole other problem on your hands when they do. Don’t snitch, mind your business and you’ll do fine.” She dropped the key on the floor, stepped back into her apartment and slammed the door in my face. “Rent. First of the month!” She hollered through the door.
I looked up and down the hallway wondering what the hell just happened. I hadn’t even gotten a word out before she slammed the door in my face. I crouched down snagging, the key off the floor and wiped it on my pants. Thankfully, she had told me which apartment was mine on the phone otherwise I wouldn’t have a clue where to go.
The apartment two doors down opened the door, and an old man stuck his head out and stared me down. “Uh, hi.”
He scowled at me and stepped back in his apartment slamming the door shut. It appeared that slamming doors were a common occurrence around here.
“One month,” I swore to myself under my breath as I slipped back outside. Mitch and Levi were still idling at the curb, and I sprinted over to the truck thankful to be out of the smelly hallway.
“Mama,” Levi exclaimed as I swung open his door.
“You ready to see our new place, big man?” This place was going to suck, but I didn’t want Levi to see it that way. It was going to be an adventure, and we were going to do it together.
“Yeah! Can Mitch come in and see it? I told him I might be able to get my own room. Can he see, please?” Levi bounced in his seat as I unbuckled him and he shot up as soon as the last buckle was loosened.
“Mitch has to get back to work, Levi.”
“I can help carry your stuff in. Kurt is covering for me right now.”
Dammit. I glared at Mitch over Levi’s head letting him know I didn’t appreciate his willingness to help. Levi was getting attached to Mitch fast, and I didn’t want to have to deal with Levi asking where Mitch was for the next month. Mitch didn’t fit into the kind of life Levi and I were destined to have. “Five minutes and then we have to eat breakfast.”
“Yes!” Levi grabbed my hands, and I helped him jump down from the truck as Mitch got out of the truck and started grabbing the bags. I unbuckled the seat thinking I couldn’t wait till Levi was big enough that I wouldn’t have to use this damn thing. “What number are we, mama?”
“207. We have to go up the stairs. Can you carry your bag?” I grabbed his open bag and shoved all the toys that he had managed to toss all over Mitch’s truck back into the bag and zipped it up. “Turn around, big man.” Levi turned his back, slipped the bag over his arms and onto his back.
“You coming, Mitch?” Levi called. Mitch had managed to grab two bags in each hand and had one slung over each shoulder. He looked like an overloaded pack mule.
“Did you leave anything for me to grab?”
“There're two bags and the tote left, but I can come back down and grab that.”
I rolled my eyes, hitching my purse onto my shoulder and grabbed the bags and tote. “You don’t really need to do this,” I mumbled to him as I walked past.
“You know my answer to that,” he growled.
I sighed knowing I wasn’t going to be able to make him budge. He was going to help. So, I might as well be his charity case for the day and let him help. The sooner he helped me get all of the bags into the apartment, the sooner he would leave.
We headed into the building, me leading the way with Mitch and Levi following behind. The horrible smell in the hallway hit me and then a wave of shame hit me knowing that Mitch was going to realize that this was all I could afford to live in. I shook the feeling off, knowing that I was making the best decision for Levi and I. Anything was better than living with Manny never knowing what or who he was going to hit next. He had never laid a hand on Levi, but I knew that wouldn’t always stay that way. We had to leave, and this was the best we could do right now.
“How many stairs are there, mama?” Levi called as he started up the steps.
“Just enough, bud,” Mitch laughed.
“Too many,” I mumbled. I was struggling carrying what I had up the stairs and could only imagine what Mitch felt like. By the time I made it to the top of the stairs, I was wheezing and just a bit light headed. I reminded myself the next apartment we got it needed to be on the first floor or at least have an elevator.
The hallway up here seemed to smell a bit better, but it was sticky and hot. I guess I would rather be hot than smell like sweaty mothball socks. Levi streaked past me excited to see our new place. I was less than excited to see where we were going to call home for the next month.
“I think someone is ready to see their new room,” Mitch chuckled behind me. I didn’t know how he was still standing there acting like where we were wasn’t horrible and could laugh. Right now all I wanted to do was sink down on my ass and cry.
“Mama! I don’t know these numbers!”
“Look for a seven, big man.” I made my feet move knowing I didn’t have a choice. I just had to keep reminding myself that this was better than being Manny’s punching bag.
“Got it!” Levi jumped up and down in front of a door that I hoped was ours. He mixed up his numbers sometimes, and I hoped he wasn’t yelling in front of someone else’s door.
“Good job,” I sighed seeing the number 207 on the door. I set the tote down on the floor and dug the key out of my pocket. I stuck it into the door and twisted the handle praying that there wouldn’t be the stench of mothballs.
“I’m gonna go find my room!” Levi busted through the door pushing it open and took off like a shot into the apartment. There wasn’t a putrid smell coming from the apartment, and I silently thanked God for that as I cautiously stepped through.
“You want me to put these anywhere special?” Mitch asked.
I turned around and saw him standing in the doorway looking in. I didn’t really look at him before, and it was like I was seeing him for the first time. He had a shaved head and chisel jaw that made him look hard and tough, but his eyes told a different story. They were bright and friendly and the lightest shade of blue I had ever seen on a man. They were strikingly stunning. The fact that he had just walked up a flight of stairs carrying six bags told me that underneath the ripped jeans and shirt he was in shape and more than likely worked out. I was standing here thinking sitting down sounded pretty damn good right now.
“Um, just put them in the corner there.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,
where are you going to sleep?” He dropped the bags in the corner and turned back around to look at me.
He was judging me, and he had every right to, but it still made me uncomfortable. I was doing something I should have done before Levi was born, but I was still doing it. We didn’t have any furniture and from the looks of the apartment, barely a pot to pee in, but we were going to be OK. I dropped the tote at my feet and set the duffle bag next to it. “Air mattress,” I muttered. That was what was inside the tote. I had picked it up at a Wal-Mart two states ago. It was the best we could do.
Mitch stared at the tote, a vein in his neck throbbing but he again didn’t say anything. “I need your phone number,” he growled, his fists clenched at his side.
“Um, why?”
“So I can let you know how your car is doing.”
“Oh, duh.” I rattled off the number, and Mitch punched it into his phone. My phone started buzzing in my pocket, and I pulled it out seeing a number I had never seen before.
“Now you have mine. Call me if you need anything. I’ll try to call you tonight or the morning by latest.” He moved back to the door, ready to leave.
“Mitch,” I called before he twisted the handle open. “Um, thank you. For everything.”
He just shook his head, a frown on his face. “You don’t need to thank me for being a decent human being. I’ll talk to you soon, Scarlett.” Mitch pulled open the door, slipping out into the hallway and quietly shut the door behind him.
I was left with the quiet humming of the fridge in the corner and the muffled sounds of Levi somewhere in the apartment. Even with Levi here, I had never felt more alone in my life.
I was alone, and there was no one coming to save me.
I was on my own, finally.
______________
Chapter 4
Mitch
I sat in my truck, the keys in the ignition with the truck running but I couldn’t drive. Not yet. My hands were shaking so badly there was no way I would be able to drive without crashing.
Everything I had just seen in Scarlett’s apartment was exactly what I had grown up in. The horrible smell in the hallway that made you wrinkle your nose in disgust and hurry to your door. Spongy carpet that you knew hadn’t seen a vacuum in twenty years and dingy walls that had once been white but were now turning yellow with water spots all over them from the roof that always leaked when it rained.
All that Scarlett and Levi had right now was exactly what I had struggled to leave behind. I rested my hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield.
It was taking all my willpower not to storm back up those stairs and demand that Scarlett and Levi not live there. Between Levi and Scarlett, there was a pull that I could barely resist. Every fiber of my being screamed that I needed to help them.
Except I knew, Scarlett wasn’t going to want any help. At least the kind of help where I gave Scarlett money and gave her a job. She had been through some horrible shit in her life, and this was her chance to make a better life for her and Levi. Or at least that is what I assumed.
I shifted the truck into drive and headed back to the garage. I didn’t know what I could do to help but knew I needed to do something.
_____________
Scarlett
“Mama.” I turned away from the window, prying my eyes off the fading truck and looked at Levi, who was standing in the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”
I mentally shook myself, trying to pull it together. As I watched Mitch in his truck, I was having a pity party for myself. I hated everything about my life right now. I hated that Levi and I had to live here and had to start over. I wished that I was the type of girl that would interest Mitch. There was no way living here and having my face bruised and swollen that Mitch would think I was anything more than a charity case. No matter how much I wished for things to be different, they weren’t going to change. I lived on this side of the tracks and Mitch lived on the other side. I was living my very own version of Pretty in Pink.
“Mama,” Levi insisted.
“I’m coming, big man.” We hadn’t eaten since last night, so I knew that Levi was starving. Thankfully, the last time we had stopped I had stocked up on all of his favorites.
“I want peanut butter and jelly with milk.”
“We can do the first, but not the second.” I had planned on running to the store after we had unpacked but the damn car breaking down had ruined those plans. “I’ve got juice boxes. Will that do?”
“Sure,” Levi said as he ran back down the hallway. “I’m going to unpack my transformers, and then I’ll eat.”
I shook my head as I searched through the bags trying to find the Pb & j. As I searched, I worried how I was going to be able to get milk if I didn’t have a car. There had to be a store nearby, I just didn’t know if I wanted to walk there. Everything had changed because of the damn car breaking down.
Mitch had said that he would call me later today, and I could always ask him to take me to the store, although I really didn’t want to do that. Not only was I afraid of Levi getting attached to him, I knew I would too.
I finally found the bread and all of the fixings I would need for breakfast and laid everything out on the counter. As I finished slathering two pieces of bread with jelly Levi came walking out of his room rubbing his eyes. “Can we snuggle and watch Transformers, Mama?” I knew what that meant. Levi was ready for his nap, and I had to say that I was ready for one too.
“You wanna eat first?”
“Can we eat while we snuggle?” He yawned big and leaned into me, resting his head on my leg. I reached down ruffling his hair and felt my heart clench by how much I loved this little boy. He had my whole heart, and he didn’t even know it.
“We can totally do that.”
“I’ll grab the DVD player.” He ran to his room, grabbing the portable DVD player I had picked up at a garage sale last year and opened the tote that had the air mattress in it.
I grabbed the sandwich I had made for him putting it on a napkin I had saved and held it out to him. “Eat while I blow this beast up, OK?”
Levi grabbed the sandwich and mowed it down as I wrestled the mattress out of the tote and laid it out in the living room. “When are we going to get real beds, mama?”
I pressed out the wrinkles and hooked the air pump up to the mattress trying to think of a good answer. I didn’t know when we would be able to have real beds with frames and comfortable mattresses, and the fact that was a concern for Levi ripped my heart out. I was supposed to be giving him the best life I could, and here we were living in a hell hole, sleeping on an air mattress. I wouldn’t be winning mom of the year anytime soon.
“As soon as Mama gets a job, OK, big man.” First, I had to find a job. Well, first I had to get my car back.
“Yay! I want Transformer sheets for my new bed. Can we get those please?” Levi pleaded, his hands clenched together in front of him.
“We’ll see,” I laughed. I plugged the cord to the air pump into the wall and the mattress slowly inflated. Levi finished the rest of his sandwich as he watched in amazement as the bed filled and I put the peanut butter and jelly away.
“You got the movie ready to go?” I asked unhooking the air pump and putting the cork into the bed. I had splurged and gotten the queen size mattress, and I was more than happy I had. With Levi and I sleeping together for the foreseeable future it would be perfect seeing as Levi was a bit of a kicker in his sleep.
“All ready.”
I grabbed the two blankets that were in the bottom of the tote and laid one down on the mattress and then Levi, and I crawled on, and I covered us up. He opened the screen on the DVD player, hit play and snuggled into my arms as the movie started playing.
I couldn’t even count how many times Levi and I had done this, and I knew I needed to treasure these times because there was going to come a time soon where he wouldn’t want to snuggle anymore.
“I love you, Mama,” he mumbled. His voice was tired and
soft, and his eyes were already droopy with sleep.
“Love you forever, big man,” I whispered back.
These were the times that nothing else mattered. Where as long as I had Levi and he was happy, everything else would work itself out.
With Levi in my life, I would move mountains to make him happy. Nothing was going to stop me.
_____________
Chapter 5
Mitch
“It’s a piece of shit.”
It was after three o’clock, and the garage had been closed for over an hour, and we were still looking over Scarlett’s car. “It’s fixable.”
Kurt threw his rag at the bench and crossed his arms over his chest. “Anything is fixable, Mitch. It comes down to the fact the repairs that we would have to do to make it fixable are more than what the car is worth. It doesn’t make sense to fix it. Tell her it’s time for a new car.”
That was exactly what Scarlett didn’t want to hear. I knew she was worried about the cost of fixing the car, and now I had to call and tell her that it was a lost cause, and she needed a whole new car. “Fuck.”
“I’m calling it a day. There’s a pack of Oreo’s and the prelims of the drag race on that has my name written all over it. Stop stressing over this car. She’s just a customer. Call her up, tell her to look at the sweet Corvettes rolling off the line and then haul your ass up the stairs to watch the drags with me.” Kurt clapped me on the shoulder and walked out of the shop, the door banging shut behind him.
Son of a bitch. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Scarlett’s number. This was one phone call I didn’t want to make. I was about to make a shitty day even worse for her.
The phone rang six times before she groggily answered the phone. “Hello?” she croaked.
I glanced at the clock again making sure it wasn’t later than I thought it was and saw that it was only three fifteen. “Scarlett? Are you awake?”
“Uh… I think so.”
Skid Row Kings Complete Series Page 23
