Page 10 of Seven Days in June

Genevieve took a hesitant step into the kitchen, the linoleum floor crackling a bit. Bending down to his level, she snapped her fingers in front of his face. Nothing.

Good, she thought. Passed out, he was harmless.

Holding her breath, she tiptoed past him to the cabinet over the sink. As she reached in for the Lipton, she knocked over a box of Bisquick. It hit the counter with a dull thud, emitting a cloud of pancake powder.

“Genevieve,” he slurred. His voice was higher pitched than it should’ve been. And two-packs-a-day raspy. “Wassup, Genevieve? ’S your name, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning around to face him. “We met yesterday.”

He smiled at her with discolored teeth. “I remember.”

“I bet you do,” she muttered. She leaned back against the counter, defensively folding her arms across her chest. Chuckling, he shimmied out of his suit jacket and then thrust it in Genevieve’s direction.

“Hang this up somewhere, baby.” It sounded likeHaydisumwheah bebeh.

She eyed the jacket with extreme disgust. “We don’t have hangers.”

With a barking laugh, he shrugged and tossed the jacket on the floor. And then he leaned back in his chair and adjusted each pant leg with painstakingly slow precision. He leered at her while he did it, checking her out from the top of her poufy high ponytail to her socks.

Genevieve was wearing an oversized men’s Hanes tee and sweats; he definitely wasn’t catching any of her actual body. It didn’t matter, though. His type just wanted to intimidate. Assert dominance.

She wanted to call out for her mom, who she knew was already asleep. But Lizette wouldn’t have helped, anyway. The last time she’d told her mom about a run-in with one of her boyfriends, a shadow of…something…had passed behind Lizette’s eyes, and then she’d dismissed it.

“Oh, girl, he’s past the point of God’s forgiveness,” she’d said, all breezy with her movie-star smile. “You like to be clothed and fed?”

Genevieve had nodded, teary-eyed but almost numb.

“Well then. Be nice. Be good,” she warned, still smiling. “Besides, you’re too clever to be prey.”

Unlike mewas Lizette’s implication. When it came to men, her mom was, indeed, not clever. Every time one of her terribly dysfunctional relationships imploded, she was confused and stunned. And then with fresh hope, she’d fling herself at another jackass. Hope was Lizette’s greatest downfall. She was like a kid at one of those toy claw machines at Chuck E. Cheese. The claw never actually picks up a toy, no matter how strategically you aim—the game is obviously rigged. But you try every time, because the hope of it finally working, just this once, is such a thrill.

“You’re pretty,” the guy said, the whites of his eyes gone splotchy red. “Just like your mom. Lucky you.”

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “It’s worked out so well for me.”

Genevieve eyed this fool—his insane hairpiece, his wedding ring—and, not for the first time, wished she were a boy. If she were a boy, she’d knock him into his next life for the tone alone. And again for being married. And then again for letting her mom drink on the job because he knew that was the only way she’d agree to offer off-menu, high-priced services to VIP customers.

Be nice. Be good.

“But are you?” he asked.

“Am I what?”

He stroked the shiny fabric on his meaty thigh. “Are you just like your mom?”

“In…what way exactly?” Genevieve was buying time, trying to figure out how she’d defend herself if it came to it. “You mean, like, in terms of hobbies and interests? Astrological signs? Favorite Ying Yang Twin?”

He bark-laughed again and shook his finger at her. “You’re a smart-ass.”

He hoisted himself out of the foldout chair, ambled toward Genevieve, and stopped about a foot from where she was standing. Despite her thrumming sense of unease, she tried to look tough.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Seventeen.”

“You look younger,” he said, moving a bit closer to her.

Jesus, he’s one of those, thought Genevieve, her mind racing. He had one hundred pounds on her, but he was also drunk and sluggish—and she was fast. Desperately, her eyes darted around the tiny kitchen. There was nothing hard she could hit him with, like a pan or a teakettle. There was nothing but Honey Bunches of Oats, plastic forks, and Capri Suns.

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