Poppy

 

 

 

“Are you sure you’re not moving too fast?”

I look on miserably as Miki rifles through her closet, picking up blouses that I bought for her and carefully folding them into a suitcase that I’d gotten her last Christmas. In my lap lays the fuzzy heart pillow that Dad had gotten her for Valentine’s day a few years back. I cradle it to my chest, wishing that it still smelled faintly of his cologne.

“David and I have been dating officially for over a year now, Poppy.” She responds with a huff, “It’s not like he’s some stranger.”

My sister turns quickly, her golden ponytail flicking over her shoulder. With her happy grin and her suitcase packed and her fantasies piling up by the second, she’s so sure she’s more mature than I know she is. It makes my heart hurt.

When you’re eighteen, a year must feel like such a long time.

“But you’re still in high school.” I say slowly, trying to sound as casual as possible and not like I’m subtly begging and pleading for her to stay with me, “Why don’t you wait until after graduation at least?”

If we could put this off for a little while, maybe I could change her mind.

“I graduate in two months. What difference would it make? Besides, we need some space. Don’t you think?”

She smiles at me again and my heart twists violently in my chest. Somehow, I manage to arrange some semblance of a smile on my own lips but I know it’s more of a grimace. She pretends not to notice.

Miki is good at seeing and hearing only what she wants.

The pretty girl zips her suitcase shut and behind her the closet is barren and lonely. She doesn’t pack any of the photos on the wall or the painting of us she made in middle school. Instead, she sinks down on the bed next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulder, letting her cheek rest against my own in some weird half hug while I try not to let my shoulders tremble.

First I’d lost my parents, and now I was losing my sister too.

I may not be as smart as Mikayla but I know the moving out and the ignored texts were only the beginning of Miki’s vanishing act.

“I know it’s been hard on you since Mom and Dad died.” She murmurs lowly, as though it hadn’t affected her at all. Maybe it hadn’t. She never spoke about it, “But I was going to grow up and move out at some point, right?”

“I just didn’t think it’d happen so soon.” I shrug, her cheek cold against my own, “I thought you’d live at home at least through your first year of college. Get settled in with school and your major and everything…”

She chuckles and slides off the bed, running her fingers across the woven fabric of the suitcase that I’d saved for months to buy her.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about college, David says a degree is basically meaningless now. It’s, like, over saturated and stuff.”

“…Miki…” My breath feels like it’s been sucked from my lungs. No way. No way. “You can’t be serious?”

“It’s expensive and we don’t have the money to begin with.”

“I took this job so that I could save up money for your tuition! You already got accepted, Miki, you were so excited when you got that letter! What about the scholarships?”

We’d jumped and screamed and danced around the kitchen for hours. We’d gone to the diner and had so much pie that Jane practically had to roll us out of there.

“I never asked you to do that.” She responds quietly, her honey colored eyes narrowing on me like daggers that pierce my heart.

My lips open then close like a goldfish. Numbness crawls up through me like I was wading through cold water. I couldn’t breathe. No, she’d never asked me to do anything I could to make her dreams happen, but she’d been so excited for college. She’d been so excited to learn and study and find her spot in the world.

Then David happened.

“What are you going to do?” I manage to sputter through dry lips.

She just shrugs, eyes wistful, “Without school we’ll have time to travel and see the world and be together. Doesn’t that sound amazing?”

My genius little sister was talking about pipe dreams. Maybe she wasn’t as smart as I thought, or maybe I’d forgotten how young she was under her intelligence.

“How in the world are you going to afford that?”

“David says he can get me a job at the car wash. Cashier. They make ten bucks an hour, Poppy.” Her eyes gleam like she’s talking millions.

“What if money isn’t the problem? What if I have plenty of money to send you to school?”

In all the craziness, I’d somehow managed to completely forget about the arrangement I had with my boss. I could definitely afford to send her to school now, no problem!

This was all fixable, we could manage this. We could keep Miki on the right track.

She frowns suddenly, her head cocking to the side and her hands rising slowly to her hips.

“What are you talking about, Poppy?”

I can’t tell her that I’ve agreed to marry Grant. There’d be too many questions that I don’t have the answer to yet. Instead, I shrug coolly.

“Just what if that was the case?”

“This isn’t only about money.” She finally responds, her eyes analyzing me, searching for a clue to my sudden apparent fortune, “This is about me and David. We’re in love.”

“And your future, Miki! Don’t you realize that? I want you to have a career and some independence. I want you to have it better than I do!”

At my words my sister’s face contorts bitterly, her fingers clenching down on the suitcase, “I’m sorry that you were stuck with me, Poppy. I really am! I’m sorry that your parents died and you had to ruin your life to take me in!”

I spring to my feet, reaching out for her but she’s storming towards the door.

“Miki, I didn’t mean it like that!” Tears spilled hot over my cheeks as I ran after her, but she wasn’t having anything to do with me now, “I love having you with me!”

 “David wants to take care of me, he wants to be there for me!” She shrieks, tears streaming down her own face, “You’d understand if you knew anything about love, Poppy! But you’re just some virgin who can’t understand anything about relationships!”

She shoves at me when I try and grab for her, throwing her suitcase down the stairs in front of the apartment and running after it while I just stare after her.

“Miki…” I croak, clinging to the door frame.

She doesn’t look back, dragging her suitcase down the sidewalk and around the corner until she vanishes around the corner.

My legs give out from under me as I collapse on the floor, face burying into my hands. My shoulders shake violently and I can feel people watching from the sidewalk but I don’t even care.

I’d messed everything up. Everything.

Why did the words that came from my mouth not match the feelings inside of me? Why couldn’t I seem to reach my sister anymore?

 

~~

 

The carton of ice cream leaves a coffee colored ring on the table as I cuddle it up onto my lap and lean against the heart pillow that Miki left behind. She’d barely taken anything with her besides her clothes. It was like nothing from her old life was needed anymore. Not now that she had David.

It’d been hours since Mikayla ran down the stairs and I hadn’t moved from this one spot on the lumpy couch.

A soap opera actress sobs in front of me on the TV screen as similar tears roll down my face. While Lucitania’s husband had mysteriously vanished on a voyage across the ocean, I could still feel her pain. We’d both lost someone dear to us tonight. Her husband had been a drunk, my sister was just stubborn.

Outside, the moon had risen a tiny sliver of gold and a light spray of rain drizzled against the windows, matching my despondent mood. 

How’s the place? I text Miki, watching the letters fly across the screen. It was only the sixth text I’d sent her tonight. She was lucky I hadn’t broken out a bottle of wine because then it would have been at least triple that.

Each of the texts remained unopened.

What was she doing now? Was she getting a good meal? Would David like the coffee she makes before school?

Sighing, I angrily fling the phone across the room before abruptly chasing after it, apologizing to the inanimate object for my rage. I wanted it close. Just in case.

As I lean down to grab it, the cell suddenly springs to life and I excitedly flip it over, hoping to see the silly picture Miki had taken once when she’d stolen the phone from me. She’d taken it shortly before the accident, beaming up close to the camera with her eyes crossed and her tongue sticking out. It’d been one the last time she’d laughed with me. 

Instead of my sister’s name on the screen, however, number I don’t recognize pops up.

“Hello…?” I answer hastily, unable to shield the frantic edge of my voice.

Unknown numbers would always make me nervous now. Ever since I got the call from the hospital about my parents.

“Hey, Poppy!” Reagan’s voice spills through the receiver as I trudge back to the couch and plop down, kicking up my legs in front of me and admiring the polka dots on my comfiest pair of pajama pants. Miki also had a pair, but she hadn’t taken them with her.

“What’s up?” I sigh, just grateful it wasn’t an emergency call about my sister.

“I need a big favor.” She groans, ignoring someone who’s chatting monotonously in the background, “Grant just called me. He needs to be picked up.”

“Oh?”

“I’m still working through everything at the office for your… arrangement.” Reagan sighs through the phone, her voice going suddenly muted, “One…one second, Jared!” She snaps to the lawyer as his muffled voice echoes in the background, “I can’t go get him. Is there any way that you could pick his drunk ass up, Poppy?”
“I guess so.” I mumble, taking another huge bite of chocolate ice cream and rubbing at my swollen eyes, “Where is he?”

“Ah. Well, about that…”

“Reagan. I’m so not in the mood tonight. Just tell me where he is.”

“Bare Booty off Mainstreet.” She whispers with a cough of concealment from Jared, “He may or may not be completely wasted.”

“Bare… Booty?” I repeat, dropping the carton onto the table, “Are you serious?”

“It’s all Eli. Grant gets like this when he comes around.” The woman responds grimly, “So, can you get him?”

“I’m on my way.”

“Poppy, I owe you.”

“Hey… Reagan, you’re not done with that contract are you?”

“No?” She responds, curiosity tipping in her voice.

“I want to add another clause. No strip clubs and no booze.”

Reagan goes quiet and for a second I’m sure she’s going to argue with me.

“Sure!” She replies cheerily, “Jared, hold on a minute! Bye, Poppy! Thanks again!”

I don’t reply, clicking off the phone and begrudgingly grabbing my purse.

I don’t even care that I’m dressed in red polka dot pajamas and my hair is a mess and my eyes are so red it looks like I’ve been smoking weed for hours. I just want to go get that troublesome billionaire and go to bed.

As I shove my phone into my purse, I check another time to see if Miki has responded to my texts. So far, there’s nothing.

 

~~

 

The neon sign of the woman shaking her ass wiggles in front of me, making the raindrops on the windshield flicker hazy blues and reds.

I peer through the window at the black tinted glass surrounding the place, completely unwilling to walk through the drizzling rain and walk into a strip club in my PJs. I was glad that at least this would go into our marriages contract, I sure as hell wasn’t ever going to do this again.

I didn’t know who Eli was, but he was definitely on my shit list from now on.

The clock ticks by and as the minutes pass so does my hope that Grant will stumble outside.

As the rain lulls slightly, the metallic tings of drops on my car’s roof slowing, I hurl open the door and dart towards the entrance. It’s only by the grace of God himself that my fuzzy slippers don’t slide right out from under me and send me skidding across the drenched sidewalk.

The most enormous man I’ve ever seen blocks the doorway ahead of me as I approach quickly, his tight black shirt clinging to the chiseled lines of the huge muscles etched into his abs and arms. I have to remind myself not to stare.

“Private party.” He mutters before I can say a single word, not even looking at me as the rain turns from a soft sprinkle to a torrential downpour on top of my head. I throw my hands up over my face as though my fingers can protect me from the heavy sheets of rain, glaring up at him. The bouncer is so tall I have to tilt my head back into the rain to look him in the eye - not that he pays me any attention at all.

“I need to get in there!” I yell over a loud boom of rumbling thunder. A crack of lightning crosses the sky, illuminating the man’s stoic face.

“Private Party.” He repeats, glancing up at the tiny roof he stands under to keep protected from the onslaught of rain.

“I’m here to pick up Grant Price.” I cry, frustration making more tears pool in my eyes though the bouncer can’t see them through the rain.

Before he can sternly repeat ‘private party’ however, the door swings open behind him and a man with a glittering white smile and a flask in his hand exits the place with Grant’s arm around his neck. Grant wobbles next to him, an all too cheery grin on his sleepy face.

My boss’s glassy eyes land on me, going wide in shock as he points a finger towards me.

“That’s her!” He whisper-yells at his friend, “That’s the one I was telling you about.”

“Alright, mate. Let’s get you to the car.” The man chuckles, reaching out a hand towards me, “Eli Nolan, at your service.”

I don’t reply or shake Eli’s hand, thrusting an angry finger towards my car waiting at the curb and shooting a scathing glare up at the bouncer who doesn’t meet my eye.

Eli, who is taller and broader than my future husband but not by much, helps Grant to the car and slides him into the backseat.

The blond man doesn’t seem to mind the rain, giving a dramatic bow as his tailored suit is soaked through in the downpour.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, but I have a bachelor party to return to.” He smirks, his voice tinged with an Australian accent.

Before I can ask about the party, he dashes off back into the strip club and I’m left to slide into the front seat. Though my car is nearly ten years old and hardly new, the fact that it’s soaked through with rain makes the anger already blooming inside of me amplify.

“What the hell, Grant?” I spew, glaring at him from the rear-view mirror.

He lays splayed across the backseat, grinning at me, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m not.” I growl, trying to rev the engine though it only sputters.

Damn! Not now.

He chuckles, grabbing the headrest of my chair to pull himself up straight, “What’s gotten you so grumpy?”

“I just had to pick up my damn fiancé at a strip club where he managed to get more wasted than a sea captain!”

“I don’t think sea captains get as drunk as you think they do-”

“Grant, I swear to God.”

I rev the engine again but it only makes a horrific squealing so loud that the bouncer leans forward and stares at us from his spot at the door.

 “That’s it. We’re staying in the car tonight. We live here now.” I bury my face in my hands, waves of frustration coiling up inside of me like a heavy metal spring uncontainable and dangerous.

Everything seems to hit me at once. The marriage, my sister, my parents, David.

All of it is too overwhelming.

As tears gush between my fingers and I struggle to control the snot pouring from my nose, Grant slides his hands against my shoulders, giving me a squeeze so gentle that I almost jerk away from him. My chin tilts back in surprise, meeting his eyes once more in the rear-view mirror.

 “Hey.” He says lightly, his boyish grin so handsome in the neon blue light that the flutters inside of me cut through my brewing melancholy, “At least we’re not spending the night with Jared.”

I burst into rabid giggles, the tears still running hot and quick down my cheeks as the laughter turns into a deep, roaring belly laugh.

Grant, though pleased that his joke was such a homerun, gazes at me in slight bewilderment.

But this is more than just a chuckle over a lame joke.

Between the obnoxious glare of the strip club lights, the cold wetness of my soaked polka dot pajamas, my broken car, and Grant’s warm hands on my shoulders… all I could do was laugh until the tears no longer ran.