Embittered Ruby (10 page)

What did she have to be nervous about? She could rival any of the contestants on those reality runway shows. Her presence captivated Carmen at first glance.

“I’ve been in modeling since I was a little girl. Maybe it all sounds glamorous to you, but it’s not.”

Right. Poor girl. Carmen didn’t want to hear the horrors of long photo shoots and other catastrophes of the lucky elite.

Tricia chuckled. “I see some of you are skeptical. I understand. I really I do. The thing is, being a model doesn’t change a girl into something better; it just highlights something meaningless and makes it the most important thing about her. In other words, my looks should be the least important thing about who I am. Yet, through the industry I was in, my looks defined me. Worth, potential, income, and ability rest solely on appearance. The pressure to be what’s expected and to conform in both looks and actions is so high.”

She twisted a ring on her finger. “But at Diamond Estates I was able to leave it all behind me. You see, if I had stayed in my hometown, surrounded by my old friends, I’d have never been able to pull myself away from their expectations and from my own reputation. It was like by entering Diamond Estates, I got a do-over. I tried really hard to change my thinking right away. I knew who I wanted to be, and I did everything I could to force myself into that mold. But old habits die hard. Eventually the same old physical issues snuck in, and I found myself back in a life of binging and purging in futile efforts to be rail thin. I spent all my time worried about my weight and fighting so hard to be skinny it almost killed me. It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom that I could identify my misplaced dependency. I needed to stop focusing on myself and turn my focus on God.”

Cue the God stuff.

“Once I did, everything became clear. I finally saw myself the way He sees me. I finally knew what it meant to be secure. I no longer needed the attention or approval of a boy or employment with a modeling agency. I was me, and that was enough. No matter what.”

Carmen’s head swam with confusion. What did it all mean? Focus on God? Dependency on Him? It didn’t make any sense. How could she have faith in someone who had proven to be completely uninterested in her life? In what hurt her. In what she lost. In what she wanted. It made no sense to think she should put blind trust in a being who hadn’t intervened a single time in the mess her parents had created. The last straw was tennis. How hard would it have been for God, supposedly the Creator of the universe, to work it out so she could keep playing? It was almost as though He wanted to watch her suffer. Like using the rays of the sun to burn a bug with a magnifying glass.

Nate, on the other hand, made her feel alive. He reached her soul and soothed the wrinkles away. He made everything good. Beside him, Carmen felt safe. Like she had worth and mattered to someone. If she had to choose between God or Nate, it was no contest. Mom would be horrified if she heard Carmen say all that. But it was true.

Mr. Bradley gripped the front of the wooden podium and pulled himself forward. His eyes gleamed like he wanted to bore his truth into the souls of the congregation.

Oops, Carmen had missed most of what he’d said. Probably for the best anyway.

“If you’re here today and you don’t have Jesus, you have a life-controlling problem. It’s out of hand. Some of you might deal with alcoholism, some with drugs, some with sexual sins or any number of things. For some of you, it may be simple unbelief controlling your life.”

Unbelief? Well, that described Carmen. But she was fine with it. Her unbelief made more sense to her than the blind devotion she witnessed all around her.

“He can take your pain, your sin, even your unbelief and heal it right here.…”

Yeah. No thanks. That’s where Carmen checked out. That’s where she clicked her ruby slippers and went to the place in her head with the Briarcliff Manor zip code. The place that had been taken from her. Where it was warm and solid like Nate’s arms. The place she felt whole.

There’s no place like home.

P
ink hand towels to match the pink soaps and new wastebasket. Looked like Mom had been taking a few too many sips of the Mary Kay Kool-Aid. At least she seemed happy. And she looked like a million bucks.

Carmen gripped the doorknob leading from the bathroom, a room she’d become more familiar with than her own these recent weeks. She took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped through. Walking down the hallway, she avoided the pink area rugs that had been strewn along the floor in the short time since she’d closed the door. How long had she been in the bathroom? Pink roses now towered on the hallway table.

The scent of cherry blossoms wafted through the air. Carmen clutched her churning abdomen. Where was that smell coming from? Oh. The new pink air freshener plugged into the outlet. She swallowed hard. “Mom, don’t you think this pink stuff is going a little too f—”

What on earth?

Mom stood in the center of the family room in front of an easel, wearing a pink business suit, lecturing an empty love seat about its responsibility to treat its Mary Kay career like a business.

“Uh, Mom. Did you convert the couch?”

“Ahh!” Mom tossed her pen in the air and waved her hands in front of her face like she was swatting away a swarm of bees. Carmen watched the pen flip end over end until it landed on the top of Mom’s pink pump.

If she weren’t about to throw up again, Carmen would have cracked up. Mom had been a fun one to startle ever since Carmen could remember. Recently Carmen and Daddy had started sneaking up on Mom from different angles and recording her reactions with the voice recorder app on their iPhones. Mom hated it when they posted her screams on Facebook. They couldn’t help themselves though. How had things gotten so far from those not-so-very-long-ago days when they could all have fun together—often at Mom’s expense?

“You okay?” Carmen squelched a giggle at Mom’s blanched expression.

“You guys have got to stop doing that. I’m going to have a heart attack one of these days.” She fanned herself with the cable guide. “You feeling okay?” Mom hurried to Carmen’s side and pressed a hand to her forehead.

Carmen stepped back from the hand. “I’m fine. Just ate something that didn’t agree with me.” How long would Carmen be able to sell that story? “What’s going on around here? It looks like this place is a stop on the Candy Land game board.”

“I’m having my girls over tonight for team training. It’s my first, so I’m a little nervous.” She flipped a page over to the back of the easel, revealing a glossy pie chart with numbers and percentages about women and makeup.

“What are you training? And who are your girls?” Great. People in the apartment. Would Mom expect Carmen to stick around and entertain them?

“You know. The consultants I’ve signed under me. They’re my team. So I have to train them if I ever hope to quit my day job.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal—should be fun.”

No big deal, huh? Then why the high-pitched squeal and clipped words? Totally nervous. “Your ankles are trembling, Mom. Better have some more pink Kool-Aid before they get here.”

“So what’s your story?” Theresa Martinez, the girl who sat behind her in Home Ec, waited at Carmen’s locker.

“My story?” Sigh. Carmen simply wanted to get through the school day—no more, no less. She didn’t want to make small talk. Even more, she didn’t want to make friends. She lived on borrowed time in Hackensack…on her way out.

Kayla Ortega stepped up. “Yeah, your story. You know: Why are you here? Where did you come from? How do you know Diego? Trust me, you want to tell us because they’re already making up stories about you.”

“Who is? What kind of stories?”

“Oh, everyone. And Marco. Some of them have you pegged as a Narc. Others think you’re just crazy.”

A Narc? Like an informer to the cops? Hilarious. Maybe she should play that angle up a bit. “And you? What do you think?”

“I think you’re sad.” Kayla shrugged. “Theresa, not so much. She figures you’re probably on the run.”

“Yep. You found me out. I’m a mob princess from Chicago in the witness protection program.” Carmen slammed her locker door. “Tell them that story. Let ‘em chew on it for a while.”

“You probably want to get your truth out. Trust us.” Kayla leaned in. “The more you try to keep yourself above us, the harder it’s going to be for you.”

“I’m not trying to be better than you. I don’t think I am.” Carmen didn’t think it—she knew it. She wasn’t supposed to live here.

Kayla rolled her eyes. “It shows in everything you do. Even the way you move through the halls. But whatever, you tell yourself whatever you want to believe.” She shrugged. “It really makes no difference to me—I don’t care what you do. You should know, though, some of us heard you have a fancy college boyfriend, but you’re with Diego. So that doesn’t make sense. If you’re two-timing Diego, he won’t be happy. You don’t want Diego unhappy with you, trust me.”

Carmen looked at Theresa, who’d remained silent through the exchange and tipped her chin up. “What do you think?”

Theresa held her stare for a few heartbeats. “I think you’re in over your head.”

Someone finally talked some sense. In more ways than one.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Carmen! Happy birthday to you!”

“Now make a wish.” Nate grinned.

Carmen leaned over the dining table to reach the German chocolate cake with homemade pecan-coconut frosting she’d made herself earlier that day. Mom would have made it, but Carmen couldn’t stand the thought of cake mix from a box.

She glanced at Nate and smiled as she inhaled.
I wish for a new life with Nate
. She blew out the seventeen candles in two tries. Not that she expected the wish to come true. She could hope though.