Scarlett turns on the bathroom light of the studio apartment and peeks her head in as if she’s terrified a clown from a Stephen King novel might pop out. Obviously there’s no psycho clown as she slowly makes her way in. The place is small, comes furnished with a fridge made for a dollhouse and a kitchen counter big enough for a low-wattage microwave. The living space has room for a twin bed and little else.
The tiny window by the front door will let in morning light, but this place will be midnight in the afternoon. It’s not where I’d want to spend the rest of my life, but the rest of life isn’t the plan. This place is a glorified waiting room. If Scarlett is granted emancipation, the idea is to live here until she can figure out her next step in life, which is graduation, only six to eight months away. After that will be college. Her hope is that if she is granted the emancipation that she’ll be able to be awarded financial aid under her independent status.
Currently, Scarlett lives at home with her mom, but Scarlett is building her case for emancipation and that includes showing the judge that she has found a safe and affordable place to live away from her parents.
Scarlett walks out of the bathroom, the folder that contains leasing information pressed tight to her chest. The landlord is letting us tour the place on our own, and I appreciate that. Scarlett needs time to process.
“What do you think?” I ask. The apartment is within walking distance to the Save Mart, and it’s on a bus route to school. I’ve already offered to pick her up and drop her off anytime she needs to go to Glory’s for work. I’ll also take her to anywhere else she needs.
“It’s a definite improvement over the apartments in Lexington.” She squeaks out a pathetic smile.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head and strands of her long black hair fall out of her makeshift bun. I push off the wall, cross the room and weave my arms around her. She falls into me, and like always, a sense of peace surrounds me with having her in my arms.
“What’s wrong?” I ask again.
Scarlett draws back, and I let her go. Everything in her life is changing so quickly that I can’t imagine how she’s mentally keeping up. At the window, she undoes the lock, opens the window, closes it shut then relocks it. I smile—she’s learning.
“I’m scared,” she says as she looks out the window.
“Of what?”
She inhales deeply then slowly blows out air. “Of failing. Of being alone. Of failing. When I told Mom that I filed for emancipation, she said I’d fail. And some days I feel I already have. Camila won’t talk to me. Evangeline says Camila feels like I betrayed her by not telling her everything going on between you and me. They don’t even know what has fully happened between me and Dad yet, so I’m sure those friendships are beyond repair. And then I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford food and rent and a car and car insurance and—”
“Do you want to do this?” I interrupt her. “Do you want to be emancipated?”
“Do I want to be emancipated? No. I want Mom and Dad to take a very long break from each other while Dad works on his problems. But that’s not going to happen. They’ve made their choices and now I need to make mine. But what if I fail?”
I walk over to the corner of the room, slide down to the floor and gesture for her to follow. “Come here.”
Her face scrunches in confusion. “What are you doing?”
“You have to come here to find out.” I waggle my eyebrows.
Sighing loudly to show her annoyance, she crosses the room to me. I widen my knees and wave both of my hands welcoming her to sit. She settles between my legs, her back flush to my chest and her legs brush against mine. I tuck her hair over her shoulder, wind my arms around her waist, then level my head so I can whisper in her ear, “Close your eyes.”
“We’re touring an apartment, Jesse. The manager will be in here soon.”
“Just do it.”
With another annoyed sigh, she does, and after a few deep breaths, she relaxes into me.
“Now open.”
Her eyelashes flutter open.
“Do you see it?” I ask.
“What?”
“The tea bags on the counter. We should have known Glory was going to give you those and the teacups. She also gave you that large ugly rock on the folding table by the window. I know she says it brings good energy, but I think she’s full of crap.”
Scarlett giggles in my arms, and the friction feels good. I drag my mind away from kissing her and focus on helping. “Leo complains about the size of the TV on the wall, but you’ve figured out that the guy whines too much to begin with. Plus he’s jealous we received such a good deal. Nazareth found it at a flea market. I know it stunk like smoke when you first got it, but that candle you keep burning covers the smell.”
“Do I have a couch?” she asks.
“Not yet, but we’re looking for one. But you got the financial aid you needed so you move into the dorms soon. You’re debating whether it’s worth it to have one. Plus V prefers to sit on the floor. She’s recently developed a phobia to furniture, and after listening to her reasons as to why, you’re starting to wonder how many bugs are in your bed.”
Scarlett laughs, and I nibble on her ear in praise. She cuddles closer and I kiss her neck, wishing we were truly alone.
“And what are we sitting on now?” she whispers.
I turn my head and breathe into her ear, “Your bed. I gave you the one I had in storage.”
She shivers and leans her neck closer to my mouth. I’d love to take her up on her invitation, but we do want her to take the apartment and not get kicked out. I press my lips lightly to her skin and then tell her the truth I’ve learned from my past couple of months alone.
“Scarlett. . . . you’re going to fail. You’re going to melt plastic mac-and-cheese cups in the microwave because you forgot to fill them with water. You’re going to forget homework and get a zero on it because you were so busy working to make sure you can buy another mac-and-cheese cup. You’re going to eat nothing but mac-and-cheese and ramen because you’re more concerned about your grades at school than taking on more hours to afford more groceries.”
“You make it sound so promising,” she says.
“But,” I emphasize, “what makes the difference is how you choose to look at it. You melted the mac-and-cheese cup, but you learned not to do that again, and you learned you’re handy with a fire extinguisher. In fact, you feel like a warrior because your quick thinking stopped the entire complex from burning down.
“You get pissed off at yourself for forgetting your homework, but you figure out a system to remind yourself what’s due and check it every night before you go to bed, and then you realize that the world isn’t coming to an end because you messed up on one thing.
“And then when your friends are sick and tired of watching you eat ramen, they take you out for dollar tacos. Then when you get tired of watching your friends eat ramen, you take them for dollar tacos. While eating tacos, you laugh because Leo will only speak in Old English, complete with an accent, and then you’ll watch him crash and burn as he tries to pick up the girl at the table next to us while speaking like Kermit the Frog.”
She snorts because she’s already seen this act in real life, and it’s as horrifying as it sounds.
“The point I’m making is that you can choose to look at the tough moments as failures or you can choose to look at them as a bad few minutes in a good day. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself for a few seconds, but then you need to pick yourself up and brush yourself off. If you do that, you never fail.”
Scarlett leans her head back onto my shoulder. “Is it possible? Can I succeed?”
“Yes, Tink.” Calling her that makes me think of Gran and the hours she spent reading Peter and Wendy to me over and over again. “Do you want to know why Gran called you Tink?”
“I thought it was because I was loyal.”
“It is, but there’s more. It was said in the story that Tinker Bell was so small that she could only experience one emotion at a time. She was either all happy, all sad, all mad and so on. Gran said you were all or nothing. You were either all in or all out. All mad, sad or happy. Failure and success isn’t an all-or-nothing. It’s a little bit of both and everything in between.”
She’s silent for a while, taking in what I said, and I’m just as quiet, reminding myself that I have to play by the same rules.
Scarlett turns to look at me. “I want so badly to succeed and to do it on my own. I want to prove to myself, to my mom and to my sister, that this can be done. That I can support myself. That I don’t need someone to take care of me.”
I caress her face and spot the determination in her eyes. I wish my mom had been more like her, but she wasn’t and that cost both me and her. “You’re going to do it, Tink. I know you will.”
The smile she gives me is the most blinding and brilliant I’ve ever seen, and I lean forward and kiss her sweet lips.
“What do you think of the apartment?” I ask her between kisses.
“I’m taking it.”