Breakfast

Daisy

"What you want?" Granny asked in the tiny spare bedroom she used as an office. I found it odd how I wasn't offered this room and instead got to pick between the musty couch in the "formal" living room or the one in the den. I chose den so I could watch the open-mouthed bass watching me as I fell uncommittedly into sleep. I woke several times, strangely not questioning where I was, which was probably due to the musty couch. It was a pretty anchoring force.

Carson was gifted his old room and was still sleeping. I imagine something like that to be rather disquieting, a glimpse into the past you were always trying to drink away. And not only a glimpse really, but a lived-in experience complete with dusty model trains and an old school project – a wooden plaque comparing all the similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy. But that's all I got to spy before he went to bed early and shut the door.

"Oh, I just...breakfast?" I didn't want breakfast. I wasn't hungry and didn't eat a lot anyways. Madame Marie wasn't a big fan of sustenance, poking us in our bellies during practice or snorting through her pig impressions if one of us even mentioned having eaten some time during the day.

"You got two hands."

"And you got a kitchen I've never been in before." I instinctively braced myself, waiting for the slap. It was odd, that feeling. For all of Carson's nastiness, he had never hit me, ever. But I think in a weird way that I never really wanted to question, I craved it.

Instead, she started to laugh.

"Well, look at the cajónes on you girl." I relaxed a little and took note of what she was doing. She was balancing her checkbook with a gold pen, heavy and chunky-looking and something I imagine she had savored since the '20’s.

"Juicy?" she asked, offering me a piece of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The bright yellow was eye-stinging in her office with its muted colors and dusty air. I thanked her and got to chewing, watching the dust dance through the light leaking through the covered windows. Her office felt like living in a piece of time that no longer existed, and I liked that she had a room just for herself. It was like the physical form of living in my head.

"He hates you, you know." I'm not sure where that came from. Or maybe I did. Maybe it was that itch that needed to be scratched – to be hit and know how much I deserved it.

"Right back at him," she said, not missing a beat.

I stood next to her, the gum losing its flavor as she carried on, balancing the sum of what she was worth. And then I left without her even looking up, back to the musty couch.

She never did get me that breakfast.