Cheyenne sat at the kitchen table staring at the words in the blue bubble on her computer screen:
Can’t come to California for my birthday. Mom found out I’ve been talking to you and freaked out. Sorry. Really bummed.
Molly was still pissed. When she came home from work last night, she’d barely said two words to Cheyenne and she was even quieter this morning. Breakfast was tenser than final exams in her honors classes. Molly could be majorly stubborn sometimes, but she never stayed mad. And definitely not for this long.
It wasn’t fair. Cheyenne pulled her braid over her shoulder and played with the end of it. She had a right to see her father if she wanted to. Trevor said Molly couldn’t legally keep them apart.
Cheyenne hit ENTER on the keyboard. The second she did, a sick feeling crept into her stomach. Maybe she shouldn’t have sent another private message to her father.
She didn’t want Trevor to take her mother to court. That would just make this whole situation ten times worse. And she didn’t want to hurt Molly any more than she had already, but it was too late to delete the PM.
Cheyenne slumped back in the chair and massaged her throbbing temples.
She didn’t mean to complain to Trevor about Molly, but she could be so frustrating sometimes and Cheyenne didn’t have anyone else to talk to. She couldn’t talk to April because she'd lost her mom when she was twelve. It would be insensitive to complain when April didn’t have a mother at all. She’d never understand when the one thing she wanted most in the world was to see her mother again. That left Cheyenne’s father who’d turned out to be a great listener. He was smart, sympathetic, and kind, and he treated Cheyenne with respect.
Trevor wasn’t all anti-Molly either. He tried to help Cheyenne see where her mother was coming from, but he also considered Cheyenne's feelings too. He’d invited her to visit him in California for her birthday, and Cheyenne was excited about the idea, but she was also torn. She and April had been planning their big shared birthday party for months and it was finally just over a week away. She didn’t want to bail on her friend, but if staying home meant fighting with Molly, she didn’t want that either. Her mother’s anger was off the charts and completely unreasonable.
Cheyenne probably wasn't even going to get to make the decision anyhow and she hated that a tiny part of herself was actually relieved.
Resting her chin on the heel of her hand, Cheyenne leaned toward her computer screen. She moved the cursor over the page, intending to close Facebook when a message popped up at the bottom of the computer screen: You received a new notification from Amanda Grace. Cheyenne sat up straight. Her stomach turned into a block of ice as she stared at the name. What now?
Her heart beat slow and heavy like booted feet trudging through knee-deep mud as she forced herself to click on the notifications tab.
Amanda Grace tagged you in a photograph.
Cheyenne already knew what it was going to be. Amanda Grace had a knack for being at the right place and the worst possible time. She hung out with April and her group of friends, but she never liked Cheyenne. She sneered at her clothes and poked fun at her accent when no one was around. Now that April was graduating and Amanda Grace was going to be a senior in the fall, she'd cornered Cheyenne twice to warn her that when she was queen bee, Cheyenne’s days at Key West High School would be numbered. This was distressing because there were no educational alternatives on the island except for homeschooling, and no offense to Molly, but that wasn’t going to happen.
There were only a few days left in the school year. The seniors were done. Getting the week off as a reward and to prep for graduation the coming Monday. So April wasn't around to stand in Amanda Grace’s way. This morning, Cheyenne had found a dead lab frog in her backpack. When she didn’t react and simply took the frog out, walked to the trashcan at the front of the classroom, and tossed it into the trash, Amanda Grace had come up behind her and bumped into her so hard Cheyenne tripped and fell. She’d managed to get her hands out just in time, but she’d landed with her butt pointed in the air.
The photo Amanda Grace tagged her in was a picture of Cheyenne in that humiliating position with the caption: Downward Don’t.
Tears burned the back of Cheyenne’s eyes as she crisply typed a reply in the comments of the post, banging out the words on her keyboard wishing she was typing on Amanda Grace’s hateful face. While I find the caption clever, the picture itself is the work of a childish, immature person whom I pity because the only way she can feel good about herself is by embarrassing other people.
The cursor hovered over the send button. Cheyenne’s chest burned as she reread what she’d written.
The door to their second-floor apartment flew open and Molly dashed inside carrying her oversized, overstuffed purse and a large T.J. Maxx bag. “You’re not ready yet?” She dropped her purse by the wall just inside the door and kicked off her sandals. “We have to be at the bar by 5 p.m. for the rehearsal.” She headed toward her bedroom. “That leaves us only thirty minutes to get dressed and get over there.” She disappeared into her room.
The burning sensation inside Cheyenne’s chest flared. She really didn’t feel like going to the party. She selected the text and hit the delete button. Molly always said the best way to deal with a bully was to ignore them. Her mom might not be good at calculus and honors biology, but she knew people.
A glimmer of doubt flittered through Cheyenne’s mind. What if she was right about Trevor too?
Cheyenne shoved the thought away and closed her computer. Following Molly into her room, Cheyenne found her on her knees half inside the small closet, digging for something. She didn’t have a lot of clothes, but shoes were a different story. She was a total shoe hoarder.
“What are you looking for?” Cheyenne folded her arms across her chest as she stood behind her mother.
“The heels Sophie gave me. Have you seen them?”
“No.”
The closet door, which had a tendency to swing shut, was propped open with a heavy bean bag door stopper shaped like a fat calico cat. They’d had a cat like that when Cheyenne was little. Her name was Smudge. Cheyenne missed that old cat. She missed her life in Tennessee too, even though they’d moved around a lot and she changed schools eleven times in nine years. The upside was that she was never in one place long enough to annoy anyone.
Above Smudge, a large poster of Anders Ostergaard was taped to the inside of the door. Cheyenne tilted her head to study the poster. Anders was leaning back against the door of a beat-up red pickup truck in a pair of equally worn out jeans. His legs were crossed at the ankles. His blue plaid flannel button down shirt hung open, revealing his naked chest. The expression on his stubbly face was squinty and brooding. The picture must’ve been taken seven or eight years ago. His shaggy, dirty blonde hair was longer than it was now, but he still looked pretty much the same. Molly practically drooled over the poster the first time she saw it. She said he looked like “sex on a stick,” whatever that meant.
Molly hid the poster in the closet because she didn’t want the maintenance guy to see it if he had to come into the apartment. She thought she was too old to fangirl over a celebrity, but she was a total fangirl. Cheyenne still couldn't believe Anders was here in Key West. Her mother was handling it surprisingly well.
“Are you going to get changed?” Molly tossed a pair of fuzzy slippers over her shoulder.
“I just have to put on my dress.”
“Dagnabit!” Molly took a stack of shoe boxes out of the closet and set them aside. “Where did I put those shoes?”
Sophie had given Molly the very expensive pair of designer snakeskin stilettos last October as a thank-you gift for letting her spend the night at their apartment even though Cheyenne accidentally destroyed her designer dress. Okay, maybe it hadn’t been an accident, but she didn’t like Sophie when she first met her. She’d wrongly assumed Sophie was one of the rich, snobby types, like Amanda Grace, who thought they were better than everybody else. Turned out, Sophie wasn’t like that at all. She was kind and caring and ended up becoming Molly’s best friend. She was nice to Cheyenne too even though she didn’t have to be.
Cheyenne frowned as a thought struck her. “Sophie didn’t tell you she was going to be Anders Ostergaard’s sister-in-law. Why aren’t you mad at her?”
Molly stopped digging for a moment and sat up. “She apologized to me over the phone last night and swore she didn’t keep the secret from me on purpose. She said she never meant to hurt me and she’s relieved I know the truth. I forgave her.”
Sure. She forgave her BFF for keeping a secret, but she couldn’t forgive her own daughter. Disgusted, Cheyenne spun away from the closet and her gaze landed on a pair of jade green designer heels perched on top of the highboy dresser in the corner. She should just keep her mouth shut and go to her room. Maybe Molly would change her mind about going to the party or take so long they missed it all together. But Sophie would be really disappointed if they didn't come. Cheyenne sighed and grumbled, “Ma, I found your shoes.”
Molly shimmied out of the closet and turned around. “Oh, thank goodness. I just bought a new dress to match them.”
Still in no hurry to get changed, Cheyenne sat on the bed watching her mother wrestle with a price tag that refused to tear off. Molly was apparently speaking to her again, but Cheyenne was only half-listening. “I would’ve been home sooner, but Anders’ publicist stopped into the bookstore and held me up. She was a little intense.”
“Why do you say that?” Cheyenne laid back on the bed, her feet dangling over the side.
“Just the way she questioned me about what happened at the bar yesterday when that paparazzo snapped a picture of me falling into Anders’ arms.”
“Wait. What?” Cheyenne sat up.
Molly was struggling into a pair of Spanx now. “Ugh! I feel like a stuffed sausage in this thing.” She tugged on the waistband and snapped it back into place.
Cheyenne growled with frustration. “When did you fall into Anders’ arms?”
“You know how celebrities turn me into a spaz?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, as you can imagine, I was a wreck when I met Anders. I accidentally doused him in hot coffee and his shirt came off. And then I tripped and he caught me.”
“Tripped?” Cheyenne arched an eyebrow, unsure if she was surprised or suspicious.
“Yes! It was all one big fat accident. You sound like that publicist. She accused me of setting Anders up in a compromising position to further my career as a wannabe country singer.”
“You are a country singer. One of the best. Who cares if you aren’t famous? What does that woman know about anything?” It really ticked Cheyenne off when people criticized her mother’s talent. She had a true gift from God. Molly always said success was part talent, part timing, and part luck, and she just wasn’t one of the lucky ones. Cheyenne believed that was the only reason she wasn’t famous. Dumb luck.
“Don’t worry about it, Chey. I’m not.” Molly slid the new dress over her head. The lacy jade green sheath and matching stilettos made her pretty, red-headed mama look like the country music superstar she was meant to be.
Moving to stand in front of the dresser mirror, Molly reached up to twist her hair into a bun. She caught Cheyenne’s eye in the reflection. “Your dress. Go put it on. We’ve got to go.”
Cheyenne had already re-braided her hair and brushed her teeth when she got home from school, so it didn’t take her more than a minute to slide into the white and pink floral sundress. She sat on the edge of the bed to put on her pink cowgirl boots and hesitated. Amanda Grace’s boyfriend Troy bussed tables at the Key West Beach Club. What if Cheyenne bumped into him and he saw the boots? Feeling suddenly nauseous, she put the boots back into her closet and pulled out a pair boring black sandals instead.
When Cheyenne came out of her room, Molly was at the table, stuffing lipstick, cash, and an ID into a small white dress purse. She slid the silver chain strap over her head so it crossed her body and grabbed her keys from the hook beside the door. “All set?”
“Yeah.”
“Hit the lights. And make sure you pull the door closed tight and double check the lock,” Molly said over her shoulder as she went out the door and started down the stairs.
Cheyenne balked. As if I don't know how to lock up the house. When was Molly going to start trusting her? She wasn't a baby anymore. Cheyenne gave the door a hard pull, feeling it catch in place before twisting the knob to make sure it was locked.
Molly let out a shout as she slipped on a stair and pitched forward halfway to the bottom.
It all happened so fast. Cheyenne froze on the landing, stupidly watching her mother grab for the railing and land hard on her side against the metal steps. Her shoes flew off and the lacy fabric of her dress caught on a protruding bolt, which kept her from sliding farther.
“Ma!” Cheyenne dashed down the stairs after her. When she reached the step her mother had fallen from, she slipped too, but the scuffed soles of her sandals had better traction than her mother’s heels. She merely fell backward and landed on her butt on a higher step. She sprang up, skipped the treacherous step, and carefully hurried down the rest of the way to reach her mother who had sat up in a daze.
“Oh my goodness. Are you okay?” Cheyenne was afraid to touch her, so she hovered close, waiting for her mother to say she was fine. Her hair had come out of its neat bun. Red-gold curls stuck out everywhere and spiraled down her back. She didn’t appear to be bleeding, but her eyes were glazed and she seemed disoriented.
Molly squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and shook her head before she reached for the railing to pull herself up.
“No, don’t try to stand yet.”
Molly groaned and sat back down. “What happened?”
Cheyenne swallowed hard. “You fell.”
“It’s all right. I’m all right.” She patted Cheyenne’s knee and finally turned to look at her. The slight movement made her wince. “Just a little sore. I banged my hip.”
There was a gaping tear in her clingy, form-fitting dress. Cheyenne’s heart sank. “Oh no. Your dress is ruined.”
Molly stared at the tear blankly for a moment and then her face crinkled up as she struggled not to cry. “Did I trip on something? What the heck happened?”
Cheyenne's throat thickened with emotion. She put an arm around her mother's shoulders and gave her a sideways hug. She hated seeing her mother hurt and upset. “No, the step is slippery. I don’t remember it being like that before.” That’s because the stair wasn’t slippery before. Not two hours ago when Cheyenne got home from school and not twenty minutes ago when Molly got home from work.
Amanda Grace. Was she to blame for this? Cheyenne stiffened as a surge of white-hot rage threatened to pop the top of her head off. Childish pranks were right up that witch’s alley, but this one had almost killed someone. Molly could have broken her neck! When Amanda Grace talked about Cheyenne’s “days being numbered” was she talking about something more sinister than just making her move to another school? Shaky and sick to her stomach, Cheyenne hugged Molly tighter. This was Cheyenne’s fault for hiding behind April and not standing up to the bully months ago.
But did she have the nerve even now?
“I’m so sorry, Ma.”
Molly touched her arm. “I’m all right baby girl. Where are my shoes?”
“I don’t know.” Cheyenne scanned the area and spotted one of the jade green stilettos several steps up. It lay on its side, the heel completely snapped off. The other shoe was missing. She spotted it below the metal steps bathing in a puddle of mud. “Oh, no, Ma. They’re ruined!”
“It’s all right. They can be fixed.”
No, they couldn't. She was lying. She could see the disappointment hiding behind her mother’s false smile. Cheyenne’s bottom lip quivered as anger, guilt, and frustration bubbled over inside her and she started to cry.
Molly hugged her while she bawled her eyes out, but it only lasted about a minute because the image of Amanda Grace broadcasting her meltdown on Facebook Live crept into her mind. She pulled herself together and calmed the heck down.
“I’m sorry I scared you. All better now?” Molly gave her a tender smile that made her feel all warm and mushy inside, and the tears threatened to return.
Cheyenne blinked them back and wiped her nose. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
“I need to change and text Sophie. We’re going to be so late.” Molly started to rise to her feet. When she hissed in pain, Cheyenne stood up and caught her under the arm.
“Here, lean on me.”
They made their way up the stairs slowly, being extra careful when they came to the slippery step.
Once her mother was inside the apartment, Cheyenne turned around and scanned the parking lot. She couldn't shake the creepy sensation she was being watched, but the lot was empty except for a few parked cars. The rays from the shifting sun glinted off the surface of the slippery step. Cheyenne went to it and touched the shiny surface. Her finger came away coated with a thick, waxy substance. She put it to her nose and got a whiff of citrus and chemicals.
No, this definitely wasn't here before.
Someone had waxed the step on purpose.
A fresh surge of outrage heated her blood, but she tamped it down by focusing on something productive. She would scrub the step clean while her mother was changing. She didn’t want Molly to have the chance to look at it too closely or she might start asking questions.