Page 1 of Latte Girl
The DailyGrind
Hailey
Iwakeup staring into the soulless blue eyes of a Barbie doll, floating two inches frommyface.
“Wake up, Hailey!” a high-pitched child’s voice croons, as the doll is thrust even closer to the bridge ofmynose.
A weight plops onto my blanket and a Ken doll appears next to theBarbie.
“Wake up, Hailey!” says the same child’s voice, this time dipping into a falsebaritone.
Ah, the joys of family life. Who needs an alarm clock when you live in the same house as a sevenyear-old?
I prop myself up on my elbows to stare down my sister, Amanda, who’s crouched next tothebed.
“And why,” I ask, my voice groggy with sleep, “are Leticia and Alonso waking me up soearly?”
You have to hand it to my sister; she has an original taste innames.
“Because we’re hungry,” she says, using her Barbie voice again, “hungry forBLOOD!”
The dolls then start flinging themselves at various parts of my body while making chewing noises in what I assume is an attempt to devour myflesh.
My sister also has an original taste in the general behaviour ofhertoys.
The noise of the carnage doesn’t go unnoticed; a mass of grey fur catapults itself onto my stomach, crushing Leticia and Alonso and dragging a slimy tongue all over my face and neck in a much more convincing attempt at ripping the flesh frommybody.
“NEMO!GET.OFF.”
I wrap my hands around our manic Shih Tzu and hold him up, Simba-style, in the air. He squirms for a moment and then goes limp, wagging his feathery tail and panting happily. I keep him suspended for a few more seconds and then place him down on the bed. He jumps off and bolts out of the room. Amanda follows him, whispering to her dolls, and I glance at the clock on my bedsidetable.
5:38a.m.
I groan and fall back on my pillow, but considering that I often have to get up at 4:15, this actually counts assleepingin.
I stare up at the ceiling and can’t help but indulge in my usual morning fantasy: I wake up to the sound and smell of bacon frying in the kitchen. I don’t even have a clock in sight. Smiling into my pillow, I stretch out on the king-size mattress and open my eyes to sunlight streaming in through gauzy white curtains. Footsteps approach the bedroom door, and before I know it, I’m circled in the arms of a man whose face resembles a mash-up of Liam Hemsworth and AndrewGarfield.
I may or may not have combined their photos in a creepy online face morphing thing. The results may or may not have been beautiful enough to haunt my dreams eversince.
This as yet unnamed man— who is conveniently shirtless already— pulls me onto his chest as his mouth crashes against mine, one hand clenched around the nape of my neck, the other digging into the small of my back. He presses my hips into his so I can feel the need coursing through both our bodies as we start to rock against eachother.
Then Nemo goes into a spastic barking fest and I’m reminded that there is no bacon cooking, no king-size bed, and certainly no warm arms wrapped around me as I lie here in my tiny childhood bedroom, barista uniform already laid out on a chair, and an alarm clock blinking beside me, waiting togooff.
I grab a sweater out of my closet and pull it over my pyjamas before heading into the kitchen. Amanda is already sitting at the round dining table we have tucked into a corner of the living room. I lean through the cut-out in the kitchen wall to speaktoher.
“What will it be, AmandaPanda?”
She’s still holding onto her Barbie and raises it up towards me whispering, “Blooooood.”
I swear if I didn’t know my sister had a heart of gold to go along with her macabre imagination, I’d suspect her of beingpossessed.
“Scrambled eggsitis.”
I get started making enough eggs for both of us. Popping some bread in the toaster just before they’re ready, I finish up and bring our breakfast over to thetable.
“Ready for school?” I ask Amanda, before biting into a piece oftoast.
“Yes. I did all my math last night. I did all tomorrow’s math lastnighttoo.”
