​Chapter Thirty-Six
Natalie

Denise smells good. Better than me. She’s wearing real perfume, not some clearance special from the Piggly Wiggly. She naturally braces her chest with crossed arms and puckers her lips at me. Look what the cat dragged in. One of Hootie’s used up girls from the restaurant.

“Can I help you?” I know she knows who I am. She came to one of our Christmas parties and looked like she didn’t want to touch anything. I didn’t blame her. She was wearing a wine colored knit sweater and black cigarette plants. Emmy was wearing a Santa bikini with mistletoe in her hair. She thinks we’re cut from a very different cloth, but I desperately want to tell her I’m not like the rest of them. That this is just some game I got thrown into, and I’m just doing my best to learn how to win it.

She keeps me outside the door, on the edge of her reality. It reminds me of the time I approached Greg Zinberg about his drug-addled wife. Funny, how he’s Wren’s principal now. Fortunately, she seems to hate him as much as I do.

And fortunately, she has no idea how he’s connected to my past.

“I was looking for Hootie.” Where could that man be? He’ll typically take off for lunch to spend “family time” with his homeschooling wife and two kids. But knowing him, that’s probably some sort of front.

“He’s not here. He’s working.” She looks at me quizzically like she’s already caught on that he must be somewhere else then. Her face resurfaces, and she’s made peace with the truth she already knows in her heart. Hootie’s no good.

“Right. But look, I think I can talk with you instead.” She stays firm against the threshold, bracing herself even tighter with her two arms. I think I can almost sense relief in her strained pose, like, Give me what you’ve got. I’ve trained for this.

“I’m pregnant. And I don’t want to hurt you guys. But knowing Hootie, he’d work some way around this and never let you know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might need help, and I can’t do it alone...financially. Just know I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry. I mean that.” I hear a small voice inside, a child calling from the back of the condo.

“One sec, Robbie,” Denise says and turns back to me. She smiles like a snake that’s just eaten a bird.

“You think I was born yesterday?” She unlocks her arms and takes a tiny step towards me. I try to find the edge of her front stoop behind me with my boot. “Hootie has all kinds of girls just like you. You’re no different. You’re not special. You’re trash, straight from the trailer. But you know what? It works for us. He gives me a good home, the money I need to raise my kids, to get my hair done. And he gets to spend time on his sad little hobby.” Her eyes seem to have a tough time swallowing down the “sad” part. “You don’t scare me. And you’re certainly not exploiting me. So you’ll just have to decide to have that kid of yours and get a paternity test because until then, nobody’s doing jack squat for you.”

I finally find it, the edge behind me. I teeter for a second, bracing myself for when her hands are placed on my shoulders and she pushes me off. But she doesn’t. She just smirks and shuts the door firmly in my face. And I realize I’m the one that has taken me to the edge. I’m the one waiting to fall.