Page 6 of Blood Secret

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Janna

I tooka step back from the sketch pad, tilting my head one way, then another. I couldn’t quite get it right. Something was missing. I needed a live subject instead of relying so much on my memory, but I wasn’t friends with any of the people I chose to put down for posterity. And they weren’t the sort of people I wanted to invite to my apartment, either.

I was nuts, but I wasn’t stupid.

It was a warm morning, about to turn into a hot day. I ran the back of my arm over my forehead before remembering the charcoal already smudged all over it. Well, now it would be on my face, too. Not like anybody was there with me. Not like I’d care if they were.

The box fan in the window was only making things worse—the air it circulated was hot and sticky. Trying to get any work done was pointless.

I did my best work at night, anyway, even if natural light was better to sketch in. It was cooler, there were fewer distractions from my neighbors, and the memories were sharper.

I peeled off my tank top and wondered why I had even bothered putting it on when it only ended up soaked in sweat and covered in black smudges. Hair stuck to the back of my neck, and I considered for the hundredth time this summer chopping the whole damn thing off. And maybe dying the stubble bright pink. Or electric blue.

But I wouldn’t keep up with it, just like my bitch of a mother always reminded me. I never kept up with anything. The dark brown would come back and grow out, and it would stretch halfway down my back again in no time. I never remembered to go for a trim, either.

A cold shower helped cool me off. One of the few things I had plenty of was cold water. Even in winter, but that was another story. I looked down at the water swirling around the drain. Black. Charcoal. I sometimes ended up with more on me than on the paper.

Instead of using a towel, I padded across the wide-planked wooden floor and stood in front of the box fan to dry off. One of the benefits of having a brick wall as a view: nobody could look in at me.

Warm breeze hit cold water and evaporated it. I turned around and shook out my hair, making droplets of water fly in all directions. Better than a blowout in the heat—and I wasn’t the girl who spent hours a week blowing my hair out, anyway. I never could understand girls who did. My arms would fall off by the time I finished getting my whole thick, long mop dry. Once it was partway there, I brushed it out and pulled it into a topknot. As fancy as things got for me.

It was after eleven, and I hadn’t slept yet, working all morning after getting home around four. I could try to get some rest, but one look at my bed made me rethink the idea. I was never any good at sleeping when it was hot. What I wouldn’t have given for air conditioning, even a cheap window unit. Anything.

But until my next series went up for sale at the gallery, I was living on cereal and instant coffee. And even that was running low. I had roughly ten dollars in my checking account, and my savings account only laughed at me when I checked the balance.

Only one thing to do. And I hated like hell to do it.

“Mom.” I paced the length of the single room which served as my home, my studio, my everything.

“What’s wrong now?”

I closed my eyes for a second. “Right to the point, huh?”

“Why would I waste time?” she asked with that heavy, isn’t-my-life-pitiful-but-I-struggle-on sigh of hers. “You know how busy I am.”

Busy? With fucking what?

I bit my lip until it stung. “All right, then. Have it your way. I need money.”

“Of course, you do.”

“Mom, please. There was a delay at the gallery, and my latest series isn’t going up for another two weeks. You can call them yourself and ask if you don’t believe me.”

“Like I have the time to do that.”

“Well, then. That’s the situation.” I could see her sitting there on one of her silk couches, with one of her snow-white, ankle-biting Shih Tzu dogs in her lap, probably already having a cocktail though it wasn’t even noon yet. “I’ve stretched my money as far as it will go, but all I have in the pantry is half a box of generic corn flakes and a quarter jar of instant coffee. I don’t even have milk for the cereal.”

“And yet, if you had just stuck with the job your brother pulled all those strings for you to get…”

Another bite on my lip. Another sharp sting. This time, I was fairly sure I tasted blood. “I told you. The bastard put his hand up my skirt.”

“Language, Janna.” Her voice was like a whip. “And maybe if you hadn’t been wearing such a short skirt…”

“You don’t even know what I was wearing!” I howled. “And even if half my ass was exposed, he had no right to touch. So I’m sorry if Jimmy worked so hard to get me a job with his scumbag boss, but it’s no wonder the scumbag goes through assistants the way he does. I’m sure I wasn’t the first. Some girl’s probably getting felt up as we speak.”

“Jimmy tells me Mr. Hackett cracked down harder than ever on him after you drove your knee into his crotch.”

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