Page 6 of Say It Isn't So

I couldn’t argue with that, it was just that you got used to the smell after a while. “I don’t want to talk about this place anymore.”

“Good,” she said, “because I don’t, either.” Then she called to her mom, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, looking down at her phone as she waited. “Mom, did you pop the trunk?”

“Yep, and we’ve got to go now if you don’t want to be late,” she called back.

“‘Kay, ‘kay,” Rina responded.

As we packed everything in the trunk, I nudged her shoulder. “So how long is that list you’ve got?”

She scrunched her nose.

God, I’d loved it when she did that. I didn’t wait for her to answer, instead bent down and kissed where the wrinkles were.

Smiling not for the first time today, she asked, “What list?”

I snickered. “Please, we both know you have a list of places to hit when we get there.” Where Rina was concerned, there was always a list.

She swayed her hips as she walked away. “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” she said over her shoulder casually.

We both knew there was a list.

I closed the trunk, walked to the backseat, opened the door and got in. “Thanks, Mrs. Blum, for driving us.”

“No problem,” she assured me as she started the car.

I looked out the window as we drove away, watching my house get smaller and smaller until it was out of sight.

“You know, I remember when I was your age,” Mrs. Blum spoke fondly of those days. “You two excited to start your new lives?”

“We’re so ready!” Rina answered for us without hesitation.

No truer words had ever been spoken.

Chapter Two

Rina

a few weeks later

I slipped onmy ballet flats and grabbed my purse and keys before turning around to tell Knox I was running out.

I met him in the bathroom of our tiny one bedroom that was barely big enough for the two of us most days, wiping at the fog on the mirror. “Uh, hun, it’s a little hot in here.”

He peeked around the astronaut-themed shower curtain he’d bought just to get a rise out of me, and gave me one of those smiles that I’d never get sick of. “Join me?”

I shook my head and jingled my keys in the air. “Can’t, I’m running out. I got a lead on a job and I’m going in person this time.” I’d been at it for weeks, pounding the pavement with nothing to show for it, so I wasn’t about to leave any stone unturned.

See, I was going to be a fashion designer. Not just any fashion designer, either. I was going to make it big—like international label big—traveling all around the world and showing my designs during fashion week. It had been my destiny since I could hold a pencil, I felt it down to my very core.

Luckily for me, between my parents covering our rent on this little Brooklyn apartment and Knox (did I mention he was an angel, because he was) taking a job at the butcher shop down the block, I was able to put all my energy into making connections that could get me somewhere in this great, big city.

“Fine,” Knox said closing the curtain again, going back to his shower, looking crestfallen.

He’d gotten off work and insisted on showering to wash off the smell of meat. To be honest, I couldn’t blame him. Sometimes I’d wished I had nose plugs to not be exposed to the stench. Although, since he was working there for me, the smell was basically my fault, ergo I should have to smell it.

“See ya!” I called out before leaving, actually making it to the door and out into our hallway where I was greeted with a big handwritten sign taped to the elevator doors.

Yep, it was broken. Again. So I’d be hoofing it down the stairs today. That coupled with the idea of walking the streets almost made me and my already achy feet want to cry, but this was what I’d signed up for.

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