A Girl Called Shameless

“You’re so cute with your siblings,” I say, breath steaming up the air.

“It’s weird, y’know? We don’t have the same dad or anything, but we’re still so tight.”

“You ever talk to your dad?” I watch Dumbledore’s eyelids droop. “You don’t mention him much.”

His body stiffens slightly, but he bends down to disguise it. Picks up more snow, this time a smaller handful. Rolls it into a longer shape. “Nah, never. Ain’t seen him since I was in diapers. Doubt I’m missin’ much, from what my mom says.”

The slightly ethereal snowscape makes me want to talk. Like, properly talk.

“Still,” I murmur, “I know what it’s like to have that weird hole in your life.” The words feel horribly stark and honest against the quiet snow. But they feel right. Cathartic, somehow. I’ve always wanted to talk to Carson about this – this huge thing we share. I feel like it’ll bring us even closer together, having that connection. Truth be told, he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted to talk about it with. Ajita and Meg are amazing, but they can’t ever truly understand what it is to lose a parent.

But Carson just shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

He’s obviously not in the mood for Properly Talking, which I get. I’ve spent 99.9 percent of my life in the exact same frame of mind. And yet disappointment surges in my chest. I guess that’s something nobody tells you when they urge you to open up to the people around you. Sometimes the people around you just won’t be in the right place to listen.

So I keep my sentimental thoughts about parents and absence to myself, tucked away somewhere below my ribs.

“Whaddaya think?” Carson asks.

He steps back to reveal his finished sculpture, and I frown trying to make out what it is. Definitely an animal, of some sort, but it’s misshapen and lumpy.

“It’s an alpaca, dude!” he says, looking offended.

“Sorry. I just find its facial expression a little . . . a-llama-ing.”

“Oh my God.”

9.18 p.m.

For some reason my evening shift absolutely drags, despite the fact Betty is also working, which is all kinds of weird. We’re making a point of being overly formal with each other so our serpentine manager cannot accuse us of being unprofessional. I bow every time I see her, and she calls me Madam Hostess O’Neill, Probably One-Millionth of Her Name. I fail to see how we could possibly be any more professional than this.

But still. It. Is. Dragging. I think when you work the long ten-hour shifts they go quicker, because you’re not constantly looking at the clock. You just accept that you’re there for an eternity. But when it’s shorter the temptation to clock-watch is so much stronger, because you’re, like, surely I’m nearly done now? [This is obviously in my expert opinion, having worked a grand total of three shifts in my entire life.]

Also, while I’m peeling yet more potatoes, I cannot stop thinking about Hazel Parker. How is she feeling right now? Is she poring over the lewd comments, examining every inch of her naked body and sexual technique through the lens of public perception? Is she shutting herself away from the judgment of her parents, closing down when her friends try to talk to her about it? Has she stopped applying to colleges? Does she feel like I did – powerless and lost, like her whole future has been burned to the ground? I know how impossible it is to see past something like that. How nothing else seems to matter but the fact the world has seen you naked.

This meeting with Vaughan’s office cannot come soon enough.

Anyway, it’s still snowing outside, and Betty is doing a hilarious Canadian accent for little to no reason, and it’s only forty-two minutes until I can go home and have my knees cleansed by my pubescent dachshund. So all is not lost.

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