'It Fit Me Good'

My mother had been a Reba McEntire fan. Maybe it was because she had roots in the south, or maybe it was because she wished her roots were as red as Reba's. I'll never know. It's bizarre which memories stay with you when you lose a parent young and which ones vanish like socks in a dryer. I don't remember her middle name or hometown, and I'm not entirely sure of the colour of her eyes. Still, every time I hear the song Fancy I remember her sitting in front of the mirror, getting ready for work, dressed in red lingerie, brushing her dyed red hair and singing along in her perfectly pitched voice with her perfectly red-lipsticked lips.

In case you don't know, Fancy is a song about a young woman whose dying mother dresses her up using the last of the family's money and proclaims that the only way for her daughter to escape their poverty is through prostitution. When it got to the part where Reba sings, "...she handed me a heart-shaped locket that said, 'to thine own self be true'," my mother had paused, turned to me and said,

"That's rubbish advice, my darling; integrity is highly overrated."

My nine-year-old brain hadn't a clue what her words meant, but they clouded my mind with an ominous feeling that someday I might, so I tucked them away, along with the visuals and the music. Later that night, she went out to work, as usual.

She never came home.

No one cared she was gone but me. That's the thing about living: you're only as alive as the number and quality of the people who care whether you exist. Besides me, my mother had mattered to no one but her clients, and I had mattered to no one but her. My past doesn't make me unique, however. It's impossible to be unique when your story is the same as thousands. Being orphaned young where I come from is as common as the stars in the night sky.

I cast my gaze to where the window used to be, momentarily forgetting it had long since been bricked over. Living in the ever-bright city of Las Vegas, I wouldn't have been able to see the stars anyway, but I liked knowing they were still up there, the only constants left in an unpredictable world. With a long yawn, I turned away and picked at a hangnail on my thumb. Although one day, they too would burn out. Unfortunately or fortunately— depending on the amount of food in your belly—humanity was unlikely to be around when they did.

A hard, rapping knock sounded on my apartment door. Assuming it was my annoyed-at-life-itself-neighbour, coming to complain again about my barely turned on music, I cranked up the volume and let Reba fill up the room.

The knock sounded again. Louder. Desperate. Followed by a familiar voice that shouted my name over the eight-decades-old country music and the steady patter of late June rain. Yeah, that's right, it rains in Vegas now. It snows, too—just don't try catching a snowflake on your tongue. I promise you'll regret it.

"Lila, you idiot! It's me, Gina! I forgot my key! Open up!"

Only half-reluctantly, I turned down the speakers, got up and let her in, firmly bolting the thick iron door behind her with a clang so definitive that, back when my mother was still alive, it would have made the most seasoned death-row inmate flinch. But apartments that looked and sounded like prisons were the norm now—even my cat just stretched and rolled over.

Gina peeled off her wet coat, hat, and boots, shook out her long black hair and thrust a paper bag of groceries into my arms.

"Happy 20th!" she chimed.

Birthdays weren't my thing. Gina knew it but insisted on celebrating with me anyway. An eternal optimist, she always tried her hardest to make things brighter, all the way back to the days when we had lived together as kids in our foster home. Especially in those days.

I peered into the bag.

"You didn't need to bring me groceries. I'm doing just fine."

Gina rolled her eyes.

"I got ingredients for a cake!"

I stopped perusing and glanced up, examining her eager expression warily.

"Cake mix? How the hell did you manage to afford that?!"

She lowered her gaze and kissed my cheek.

"Oh, don't worry about it."

Macky, my tabby, had shuffled over while we were talking and was now winding his way around Gina's ankles. She bent down to pet him, and her shirt shifted. The gaping neckline exposed the fresh bandage on her breasts near her heart, the undried blood peaking through the gauze like a gruesome checkerboard. I recoiled in horror. For a moment, I was so disgusted I almost tossed the groceries aside. Then I considered what she'd gone through to get them and thought better of it.

Humans have always sold their bodies when times got tough. The old and wealthy never stopped lusting after the young and poor, only now we sold tissue or bone marrow or body parts to make rent instead of sex. Thanks to science for profit, the previously unattainable mechanism for eternal youth had materialized into a grim reality: health had become an affordable luxury for the few and a dire necessity for the many. The only thing that's changed is how they harvest us.

My shoulders slumped, and I frowned; some things never changed.

Gina smiled sincerely up at me, still petting Macky, unaware that I'd seen the bandage, her jet-black eyes staring lovingly into mine. They resembled two of the most perfect pieces of obsidian ever formed, and I felt the air catch in my throat.

"Don't frown on your birthday, Lila; that's dark—even for you."

Her words snapped my mind back to the present as briskly as if I'd been thrown into ice water. I faked a smile as best I could manage, but it didn't reach my eyes, and I hoped she wouldn't notice. For Gina, I'd pretend the sky was still blue if it made her look at me like that. With a sigh, I turned off the music; the song was done anyway. Then I took the ingredients into the kitchen and turned on the oven

"It was red velvet trim—and it FIT ME GOOD" — Reba from the song Fancy.

~~~