Page 41 of Power Play

“Thank you,” I told the driver. “If you want to wait five minutes, I can tip you cash.”

He gave me a skeptical look and I held out one of Liam’s twenty dollar bills.

“If you’re over five minutes I’m out of here,” he said, pocketing the cash.

I ran to the front door. It was a three-lock process to get inside and I turned and locked them all behind me. Ms. Rene didn’t have a lot of rules but the locks were serious business.

“Hey, Honey!” She cried from her spot at the kitchen table where she lived out her Candy Crush addiction. Ms. Rene wore tight sweaters and big gold earrings. Her now gray hair was piled on her head like a crown. She told me once, a little drunk on Schnapps, that she was sure her grandmother had been a witch.

I had no idea if that was true, but I liked believing it. Ms. Rene had some real witchlike tendencies herself.

Her green eyes were wide behind her ruby red cat-eye glasses. “You’re home early.”

“No birthday parties today,” I said.

“Well, that’s too bad,” she said, looking down at her game which beeped and blinged at full volume. “You hungry? I’ve got-“

“I’m actually going back out.”

“You pick up a shift at the bar?” she asked. “I’ll keep a plate warm for you.”

I could just say yes. It would be simpler. But I had a strict no lying policy when it came to Ms. Rene. She took me in when I had nothing but debt to pay off.

“I’m actually going to a pool party.”

“For grown-ups?”

I nodded like I wasn’t quite sure how this had happened either.

“Well, now,” she said, putting down her phone like this pool party business needed her full attention. “That sounds like fun. “

“I’m going with Liam Locke,” I said. She didn’t know about Liam. About what I’d done to him. It was too much to explainand I didn’t want to see that affection in her eyes change to anything else.

I didn’t lie to Ms. Rene. That didn’t mean I had to tell her the whole truth.

Ms. Rene looked at me over the edge of her cat-eye glasses. “I’m sorry, what now? You’re going to a pool party with that pretty hockey player everyone is always talking about?”

“I didn’t think you paid attention to hockey,” I said to Ms. Rene.

“Well, you can’t avoid him on the TikTok, can you?” Ms. Rene said, like it wasn’t her fault all she got served were professional athlete and Ryan Gosling thirst edits. I tried to explain the algorithm to her but she wasn’t having it.

“This is probably a mistake,” I said out loud. I mean, it was a mistake. What Liam and I had was a transactional relationship. This felt like we were crossing a new line.

I imagined him telling his friends how he knew me. Why I was there.

“Catherine,” Ms. Rene said, the only person who used my real name. When I’d come to see about the apartment, I’d introduced myself as Kit and she’d asked me what my real name was. I was so surprised it came out of me like a cat through an open door.

I hadn’t heard that name out loud since the night before my father went to prison.

“You know,” she said. “Since you got here I haven’t seen you do anything but work and look after me.”

“Well,” I joked. “You need a lot of looking after.”

She shot me hergive me a breaklook and I smiled. “You’re young,” she said. “You’re beautiful. Even though you seem to try real hard not to be.”

“What?” I cried.

She winked at me, payback for the looking after her joke. Even so. The size of my hair and it’s lack of blond highlights was a constant concern for her.

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