My throat is closing. It feels like there’s a black hole where my heart should be sucking all the light out of me.
All I can think to do is run. I pull the door open, slamming it into the stall wall, putting my head down in a sprint for the exit. Adding insult to injury, I twist my ankle, falling into the wall on the ridiculous high heels just this morning I thought were so glamorous.
With a sharp pain in my ankle, I push through the door and out into the restaurant. The waiter sees me and steps my way, his arm outstretched, ready to usher me to the table, but I push past toward the nearest door, which turns out to be the kitchen.
Everything seems to be spinning as I stumble, nearly falling flat on my face as a heel breaks. I kick the shoe off, then the other, and dart for the back door, tumbling out into the restaurant parking lot struggling to breathe.
I dart my eyes around, trying to figure out what to do, then hear my phone ringing in my brand-new Gucci handbag—another “gift” from Vito. When I fish it out, I see my mom’s number, and despite the fact that I want to run away and never look back, I try to calm myself because I need a friendly voice right now.
“Hi, Mom.” My racing heart thunders in my ears as I press myself against the back wall of the restaurant and slide over toward the street.
Only my mom is crying.
“Esme, it’s all gone. There’s no money left, and I now have a final foreclosure notice on the house. I’m so sorry, baby, we tried.” Her voice cracks, and it’s hard to make out what’s she’s saying. “I have a week to come up with the house payments and late charges. If not, the sheriff will come and remove me and our belongings. Your father doesn’t know, it would kill him. He was thinking he was coming home soon.”
“Mom, calm down, we’ll figure it out.” For a moment, my problems seem less important. I knew things weren’t good; I knew they had debts, but not this. Not losing the house in a week. “You should have told me sooner,” I say, fighting back tears. “But it’s just money. We’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, Esme, I’m sorry, I saw you called, and I just got the final notice…I think I was just pretending it wouldn’t happen. There would be some miracle. You say it’s going to be all right, but it’s not. I don’t have this kind of money.”
“How much do you need to save the house?”
“Too much.” She chokes out a laugh, and I can hear that it’s mixed with a sob.
“How much?”
“To save the house, we need to buy it back from the county at this point. It’s gone into foreclosure sale. We had four months to buy it back, but time is up. It’s two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. That’s the minimum payment. With all the medical debt and other past-due bills, I don’t know. It’s probably around seven hundred thousand by now. With no insurance, it could be a million by the end of the year. We are in a hole we can’t crawl out of, and it just keeps getting deeper. Besides that, now that there’s no insurance money, they are going to move your father out to a Medicaid-run home. He won’t get any of the therapy, he’ll just sit there. He’ll never get better.”
“We’ll figure it out, Mom. Please, don’t cry.”
“It’s so much money, there’s no way. I’m going to claim bankruptcy, but it’s too late to save the house.”
“Just…don’t worry about that. Mom, I have to go. I’ll call you back. Just don’t give up.”
“I love you, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
I end the call, and my heart is in my throat. I’m an unpaid intern living on the savings from a waitressing job. How can I possibly find that kind of money?
I choke back the tears, trying to focus on what I need to do right now—which is to get as far away from Vito Vitaglia as possible.
As I start dialing the number for A2B Taxis, I look over and notice a guy sitting in an open-top sports car just at the corner of the restaurant parking lot where I’m standing, staring at me.
When he climbs out and starts to wander my way, I figure he’s going to ask me for a light or why I’m standing behind the restaurant with no shoes on, but instead, he meets my eyes and pulls his lips to one side looking concerned.
“You okay?” he starts as I swipe away the tears running down my cheeks. Before I can answer, he adds, “Hey, I know you.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”