She had to call him. It was her only hope. Stelios had to know she hadn't been behind any of this. She struggled to unlock the thing, only succeeding on the fourth attempt because she forced herself to slow down. When her phone was unlocked, she gave Stelios a call, but it went straight to voicemail. She hung up and tried again.
After three more attempts, her heart sank like a stone. She was already too late. Stelios must have seen the billboards, accused her of treachery in his mind, and cut her off. Only that morning, Zoey had had someone who made her happy enough to sing to random children on the subway. And now, thanks entirely to her mother, he was gone. Probably forever.
"You can't keep doing things like this and expect me to put up with it, Mother. I don't care if I end up in the street, it would be better than working for you!"
"Calm down now, Zoey dear. I really think you're overreacting-"
"I quit!" Zoey spat, storming out of her office with a bull's ferocity.
Melinda called after her daughter, but neither she nor the receptionist did anything to stop her from leaving.
On the sidewalk, Zoey was surprised to discover she'd only been at work for thirteen minutes that morning. She wondered how anyone could ruin a life in so short a period of time.
EIGHT
Zoey didn't sing a note as she sat on the subway, focused as she was on trying her damndest not to scream or cry. Her world had been as near to perfect as it had ever gotten, and then it had all been snatched away in less time than it had taken her to make her breakfast.
Her heart felt like a millstone. It seemed to grind against her insides and press against her lungs so that it was hard to breathe. A woman sat down beside her and asked for the time. Zoey delivered it with a vicious snarl.
After that, no one came anywhere near Zoey until the subway car carried her to the station nearest her apartment. When she reached the sidewalk, every person that saw her took pains to get out of her path. She didn't look stable, and the gleam in her eyes did not look safe to anyone passing by her. When she reached her apartment, she slammed the door shut so violently she was surprised that it didn't come off of its hinges.
She went to her bedroom, slammed that door shut, too, and let the tears flow freely while she assaulted her pillow. Zoey was unemployed and barely prepared for it. Her savings would only hold out for a few weeks max. After that, she was going to have to face some brutal choices. On top of that, her mother had suddenly become her worst enemy. Melinda had cut Zoey off from the only man she had any sort of connection with. All of her happiness, all of her plans for the future, had been dashed because of her mother's greed.
"How could she do that?" Zoey wept angrily. "How could she do something like that without asking one damn question first?"
There was no reply, only the sound of her own sobs, and the sensation of the sheets getting hotter and wetter against her face.
Some time later, once Zoey had run out of tears and profanity, she picked herself up and tried to call Stelios again. When her call went to voicemail, she sighed and threw her phone down, shaking her head sullenly and trying not to think.
She went to the bathroom, washed her face, and tried to straighten out the tangle her hair had become, but it was just something to do. It didn't feel like she was accomplishing anything. When seemingly every snag had been taken care of, she returned to her bed.
For the next few hours, Zoey distracted herself from the gasping pain in her heart as best she could. She started listening to music on her phone, but she gave up on that within minutes. Love was the most popular subject in music, and it was the last thing, absolutely the last thing, she wanted to hear right then. She tried YouTube videos next and was slightly more successful. After that, she turned to documentaries on the Civil War and the Old West. By nightfall, Zoey had become a glassy-eyed zombie, barely noticing what was on the screen before her.
Around eight o'clock, Zoey's phone rang, and she rushed for it, her heart leaping. She was sure it was Stelios finally calling her back, and that now she would have a chance to explain everything. She answered the phone without looking at the ID and was utterly crushed to hear her mother's voice on the other end.
"What do you want?" Zoey sniped, squeezing her phone tightly in an effort to corral her emotions.
"I want to know if you're okay, Zoey. The way you left and all, I've been worried about you."
"Now you're worried? Not last weekend when it would have helped, but now you're worried about me? Well, I'm fine, Mom," she said in tones dripping with sarcasm. "I'm fine now, and I'll be fine tomorrow and the day after that, too, so you don't need to call anymore!"
"Look, Zoey, I keep telling you that we have to live. When your father left, he took everything that wasn't nailed down. I was devoted to him heart and soul, you know that, and he took complete advantage. Nearly every penny I had went to that woman he was sleeping with. You'll remember her from the court proceedings. The one with the airbags on her chest. I had to sell everything I had left to get Melinda Forde started. My car, my awards, every single thing I owned, Zoey! The agency is all we have. Why can't you understand that? When I see a chance to make it profitable, I have to take it. Because we have to live."
"No. It's because you have to be a greedy mother that destroys her daughter's happiness without a second thought. There's more to living than making money, Mom. You used to know that, once upon a time."
"It was one date, Zoey, for heaven's sake, and he was using you the same way all men use women. They have their fun and then they find something new. I was just trying to make us a profit before that happened."
"Goodbye, Mom," Zoey said firmly, hanging up the phone.
Melinda called again, a few minutes later, but she ignored it.
Stelios wasn't using me she thought to herself. If my mother had been there, she'd know that. But she was too busy pimping me out to try and turn a profit. Her phone rang three more times that night, but this time, Zoey simply silenced it. She was unemployed now; she could no longer afford to get angry enough to throw her smartphone against the wall.
NINE
The next day didn't prove to be much better. Zoey woke up feeling the ache of loss in the pit of her stomach, and spent the morning moping on the sofa, trying, as ever, not to think, and avoiding daytime talk shows like the plague. Around noon, however, it occurred to Zoey that her rent simply wasn't going to pay itself. If she wanted to continue living in her apartment for any length of time, she was going to need to find a new line of work.
Zoey went to her room and fetched her laptop and a blanket. When she returned to the living room, she got as comfortable as she could under the circumstances. Tossing the blanket over herself, she went online and headed for the first job site that sprang to mind.
In college, Zoey had studied communications so she began applying for positions with titles like Social Media Specialist, Marketing Assistant, and Event Promoter. She retooled her resume and drafted several cover letters, typing nonstop until her fingers began to cramp. When night fell, she still felt as crappy as she had when she'd woken up, but at least she could tell herself the day had been productive.
For the next two days, things followed the same pattern: Zoey spent half the day dreaming of what could have been and agonizing over what was. The other half was spent furiously typing, doggedly fighting to secure a new income source. She was fairly positive one of the scores of positions she'd applied for would call her in for an interview sometime before her supplies ran low.
Things might have gone on that way for the next week or two, but around four o'clock in the afternoon, Zoey received a call. She made sure to check the ID this time, and when she did, her heart gave a little leap. It was Stelios.
"Hello, Zoey," he said in a neutral tone that Zoey didn't like. She could hear what sounded like ocean waves in the background. "I just wanted to ask you a quick question: why do I find myself standing under a billboard for your mother's company with both of our faces on it?"
Zoey was shocked to be hearing from Stelios at all, and none of her thoughts would take their proper form.
"Well, the thing about my mom is she's cynical," she began at a frantic pace. "You know, the dinner was excellent, and we were really getting on well, or at least I thought so, but my mother doesn't believe in that sort of thing because of the divorce. And so she had the billboard made up, but she didn't have any right to do that, so I had to quit. But I had nothing to do with it, I swear to God. I know you might not believe that, but … "