Justine rolled her eyes at my customary ponytail. “I gotta go. I’m starving. I’ll get back on as soon as I get home,” Justine decided.
“I could cook for us,” I offered.
Justine snorted. “Sure you could. What are you going to cook, frozen pizza? I’m good. I have a turkey breast calling my name.”
“I can cook,” I demanded. I could. No. Not really.
“You can’t cook. You can’t cook and you can’t clean. If your grandmother saw this house, god rest her soul, she’d haunt your ass.”
“What’s wrong with my house?”
“It’s a mess. I’ll see you later.”
I gave Justine a dirty look. She smiled, took her laptop, and disappeared. My house wasn’t that bad, other than the laundry I should probably go start, and maybe the dishes could have been washed. I hated that my grandma’s house didn’t have a dishwasher. I guess I shouldn’t complain, at least I was on my own and out of my dad’s house. That was the important thing. I could do things to make it a lot less cluttered.
I lived in a dated neighborhood on Mindy Street, two blocks from the elementary school Justine attended. Moving my eyes to the newspaper boy, I stood to collect mine—the one I never read. I only subscribed to it because I couldn’t tell the kid no. He was trying to save money for a bike. Noticing he had a new bike, I thought about canceling, but knew I probably wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.
I gathered my own things and walked inside. Snowball habitually met me at the door. He always met me at the door, did a crazy eight between my legs, and ran to the kitchen. I followed him, preheating the oven for my frozen pizza while catering to my spoiled cat. Snowball couldn’t have been one of those cats that ate cheap dry cat food. I guess it was sort of my fault. He was so skinny when I took him in, I figured I’d pamper him, help him get his strength back.
What I think really happened, was Snowball played me like a fiddle. He wouldn’t eat for a couple days and I would feel sorry for him, go buy him a can of Gold Crown cat food, and he’d eat it just fine. I swear he wore a smirk every time he won.
Snowball ate his food while I opened my cardboard box. Adjusting the temperature on my oven, I slid in my frozen pizza. Typical for me. What was the point in cooking for one person? Not that I really even knew how. After my mother left us, my father pretty much fed me takeout—breakfast, lunch and supper. He didn’t know how to cook for himself, let alone a six-year-old. Eating out worked best for us.
Forgetting to set the timer on the stove while I showered only meant one thing—I was eating the middle out of a burnt pizza. Letting the hot water run off me, the steam entered my lungs, causing me to cough a little. That one little cough was the reason I’d be eating burnt pizza as my mind returned to when I was six and three-quarters.
That was when my father loved me unconditionally without the disappointed looks. He was happy, always joking with my mother and being silly with me. I almost felt like he wasn’t the same dad. I guess he wasn’t in a sense. Once my mother was gone, so was my daddy. He was no longer a daddy to a six-year-old little girl. He was my bulletproof vest, my protector, guarding me like a billion dollar diamond.
It’s amazing how many memories a six-year-old has. You’d be surprised. I couldn’t really remember much about being five or seven, but I remember six. I remember my sixth birthday because it was the last one I shared with my mother, and my last birthday party. I remember my mom’s birthday when I was six, too. Six and three-quarters. Her birthday was in September. Mine was January. My mother had just had her birthday before that day happened. I was six and three-quarters. My dad took us to Alibi’s Seafood restaurant for her birthday that year.
“Dad doesn’t like seafood,” I reminded my mother, smiling from ear to ear.
Squatting, she fixed the top of my white lace socks and straightened my white lace dress. We matched. We had gone shopping the day before her birthday for new clothes to wear. We both wore white dresses. Hers was sexy. I remember telling her I could see a lot of her boobies. She giggled and blew me off. I know now she changed the subject because I was too young to know why she wanted my dad to see her cleavage.
“Your daddy would take me to the moon if I asked him to.”
Gasping, I got excited. “Can I go?”
“Of course you can go. We’re a team, right? We pinky swore, remember?”
I nodded my head and then smiled when I saw my dad in the door.
“I would take you both to the moon. Wow. How’d I get so lucky?” my dad asked, seeing how pretty we looked.