Where the hell was she? I thought as I glanced at my watch for the third time in the last ten minutes. It was three thirty, and Sheila had said she would be here by three fifteen at the latest. I stood up from the stool I was sitting on and began to pace the back and forth behind the counter. I had been at Sears since ten and was supposed to be working until seven, but if I did that I would miss my brother again. In the last month, between calling out, and showing up late I was on thin ice, and was told I couldn’t leave early unless I could get Sheila, the other girl trained to run cosmetics to come in and cover for me.
I had called Sheila at one and she initially told me no, that it was her day off. I had then begged her to the point I was in tears over the phone telling her that I really needed to get home early. After a couple of minutes Sheila sighed and said she’d come in, but couldn’t get there until a little after three. I stopped pacing and started lining up the tubes of lipstick on top of the counter. I had done this twice already but was wired for sound and had to do something. As I rearranged the tubes I glanced up and caught my reflection in the mirror.
I looked like hell. Despite my best efforts to conceal them there were large dark circles under my eyes, and my eyes themselves were so red that Dad had accused me of being stoned two days in a row when I came home. Mom stuck up for me saying she knew I was just having a hard time sleeping but Dad believed the worst these days, and I guess I didn’t blame him. For once he was wrong however, I had managed to stay away from pot for the last three weeks but drinking, well that was another story. I shook my head trying not to dwell on that, and taking a minute to look through my purse removed a tube of Visine and put some in my eyes.
It didn’t help that the mall was dead on a Tuesday afternoon. At least if there were customers I would be able to stop dwelling on the fact that I was losing everything, including my brother. Finishing with the lipsticks I sat back on the stool, and putting my elbow on the counter rested my chin in my hand and started tapping my foot nervously as I considered the last couple of weeks. After my trip with Mom I had done better for a few days, only drinking if I went to Mitch’s when Mark was working. My reasoning there was that Mark never let me get in trouble. Even if I had too much my little brother always got me home and took good care of me.
The problem was now that Mark had started working more and more, and most of his nights were now spent working the door at Baby Head rather than at Mitch’s. I still hung out at Mitch’s because I knew a lot of the crowd and Mitch himself liked me, but without Mark there the sky was the limit; I drank until I was broke, and then spent the rest of the night flirting with the bikers to get them to buy me drinks. Once they realized all I was after was a free drink they stopped buying, and I had started coming up with ways to get them to buy anyways.
I would now dance with some of them, grinding my ass against them, and letting them get a couple of cheap feels. That worked out okay until a couple of nights ago when I had gotten so shitfaced that in order to get another shot I flashed one of the guys my tits. At that point Cynthia had called my brother at the club, and told him what was going on. Mark had showed up in a half hour, and just in time too, as the guy and his friends were nice enough to let me sit with them, and had kept buying. The guy I had flashed had asked me to sit on his lap, which I was more than happy to do. Then, as his hand started sliding up my thigh he told me that he felt it was time I gave a little more than a show for all the money he had spent.
Mark had come over and told me to get my ass moving, we were going home. The guy made the mistake of telling my brother that I was his “bitch” for the night. Mark gave him a backhand slap that had knocked him off the chair and told him if he ever saw him within ten feet of me he would snap his neck. Without waiting for an answer Mark grabbed me by the arm and dragged me outside where he asked me what the hell was wrong with me? I tried to tell him I was only playing but apparently Cynthia had told him I had flashed the guy and been out of control. Finally, as I was prone to do these days, I broke down in tears and told Mark I was sorry, I was just trying to have fun.
Mark went back into the bar and told Cynthia and Mitch, who had just come in from running an errand, that I wasn’t allowed in there anymore unless he was there. Of course I was totally humiliated; even more so when the next time I went in there, when Mark was working, the same guys were there, and every time I looked over they were looking at me and laughing. My brother was going to start up with them but Mitch told him if that was going to be the case then I couldn’t come in at all so Mark let it go.
Now that I couldn’t go to Mitch’s all the time I started going to different bars with Betty and was getting to the point that there were mornings that I couldn’t get up for work, which was pretty bad when you weren’t due in until eleven. A little over a month ago I got arrested again, well actually Betty did for driving drunk, but I was in the car with her, and was also drunk so got taken in and told that if I could get someone to come get me I could go home. I was so far gone that I forgot it was Saturday and Mark was working and called home.
Dad answered, and I ended up telling him where I was. Dad told me to spend the night and hung up. A half hour later Mom showed up and got me. This time Mom wasn’t playing, since she didn’t work she told me she was going to drive me to and from work and I was not allowed out of the house otherwise unless I was with her, Dad or Mark. So the good news was for the last two weeks was that I had only had a couple of drinks when I went out with Mark and bullied him into to giving them to me. The bad news however was that I had barely slept during that time and was a nervous wreck.
I also discovered I couldn’t paint anymore. I would have plenty of ideas but stare at the canvas and be able to do nothing, or paint something so shitty I would throw it out. Mom had told me that she was only going to do this to me for a month, so as of last week at least I could drive and go out again. Of course Mom was thinking a month sober would give me the ability to stay that way. In reality all I had been doing was counting the days and in the meantime getting it from Mark.
Don’t get me wrong, Mark tried to hold out as well but when he refused to buy me a drink the last time we went out I shut him off. Three nights in a row I threw him out of my bedroom and on the fourth I teased the shit out of him, then told him I would leave him tied up and horny if he didn’t promise to go get me something that night. Mark left and came back twenty minutes later with a small bottle of brandy. I did a couple of shots then showed my appreciation by getting on my knees and sucking Mark off, then after letting him lick my pussy fucked the shit out of him and let him sleep with me.
I sighed and glancing at my watch again shook my head. If Shelia wasn’t here by four I would just leave, fuck the job. I needed to sleep, at least for a couple of hours, and the only way I could do that would be to lie down with Mark before he went to work. These days Mark got home from school around three, slept until about seven then left for work and …
At that thought I closed my eyes and felt those seemingly ever present tears start up again. I was losing my brother. I didn’t know to who or what, but he was never around anymore and I needed him more than ever. Starting about three weeks ago Mark had begun working every night. Or at least he said he was, as there was obviously something else going on. Mark used to come home from Mitch’s by one, and Baby Head by two, but lately there were nights he wasn’t showing up until three or four and occasionally not coming home at all.
Mark claimed he was working on “something”, some sort of surprise that he didn’t want to tell me about. As far as I knew my brother had never lied to me, but of course I found myself thinking there was someone else and he didn’t want to tell me. Last week I had told him that and he had rolled his eyes and told me there was no one. I then demanded to know what he was doing, and he shook his head and said he wouldn’t tell, that I should trust him.
I even went so far as to go to Mitch’s and ask Cynthia if the two of them were hooking up. Cynthia laughed and said no but she was still trying. If Mark was fucking someone no one knew who it was, but what the hell else would he be doing after two in the morning? I mean I don’t know why he would want anyone else, after all I gave him anything he wanted whenever he wanted it. Maybe he was finally sick of me and my issues, maybe he had found someone hotter who wasn’t a basket case. All I knew was that for the last couple of months we had been spending every night together, now some nights I didn’t even see him.
Because of my behavior Mom had sometimes been coming upstairs in the middle of the night and checking on me. If my door was locked she would knock until I answered or go through Mark’s side and come through the bathroom, because of this I couldn’t wait for Mark in his bed so I would just lie there and listen for him.
Sometimes I would hear him and go into his bed. Whatever the hell he was doing he was exhausted, and a couple of nights he would just hold me as he fell asleep. Although I always wanted him that was okay, as at least I slept for awhile. Some nights however he would simply flop on the couch downstairs or I would just happen to fall asleep when he came in and he would stay in his own bed. Other nights he just didn’t come home. One night I heard Dad ask him who the new girl was and Mark had told him it was someone from school. I had instantly confronted him, in tears of course, and told him he had lied to me, and why wouldn’t he admit there was another girl? I had told him I wouldn’t care as long as he still had time for me.
Mark had told me he had lied to Dad. It was easier for him to think he was getting laid then doing something else. Mark also pointed out that if Dad thought he had a girl then it wouldn’t look as funny as him not having one since Krissy. I told him I believed him but I just couldn’t figure out what he was doing. I did notice he had a lot of cuts on his hands and hoped he wasn’t getting into some type of crazy fight club that some of the other bouncers supposedly knew about.
All I knew right now however was that I desperately needed some time with my brother and was willing to lose my job over it. Two nights in a row I had missed him. One, he had come in and had left me alone, simply going into his own bed and last night he hadn’t come home at all. In the last three nights I don’t think I had gotten five hours sleep combined and between that and two weeks without a drink I was a nervous wreck.
“Hey beautiful ready for a coffee?”
I looked up to see Tommy standing there with a Dunkin Donuts coffee. I gave him a tired smile and shook my head. I have to give him credit, he was persistent. Since that night I met him at Mitch’s he had come by to see me there a couple of times, asking me out each time. I turned him down both times saying I wasn’t really interested in anything right now. A couple of weeks later he had been in Sears with his mother and saw me working, since then he had brought me either a coffee or lunch at least twice a week.