5

5

“Girl, your Instagram feed is about to give me nightmares,” Kendra said as she scraped her spoon along the inside of her coffee cup.

“You know I do that just for you,” Sidney replied, shuffling into the kitchen beside her.

“I know you do.”

“Yep. I pick a picture, and I think, this is going to get inside Kendra’s head. Then I sit up on the couch, listening for you to scream in your sleep.”

“I’m not even surprised.” Kendra smirked as she sipped from the steaming cup. “Let me pour you a cup. You look like you need it.”

“I woke up like this.”

“Did you even sleep like this?”

“Not really.” Sidney ground her knuckles into her eyes. “I had to get the rest of my reviews from Nightmare Film Fest drafted.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You’re not getting paid for this.”

“I’m getting paid a little. Just not enough to live on.”

“Either way, it’s a side hustle.”

“Yeah, and if I hustle hard enough, it can be the main hustle. So, I had to finish the reviews.”

“And post creepy ass pictures to put your bloody face in my nightmares.”

“Had to do that too.”

Sidney reached out and took the mug from Kendra, smiling with a tiny nod.

“Is it strange that I don’t hear any children?” Kendra asked.

“Strange, no. But it does mean that neither of them are getting ready,” Sidney replied.

“Savannah!” Kendra shouted toward the hall. “You better be dressed up there.”

An inarticulate mumble answered her.

“My bet is that Savannah is on her phone and Cameron is still in his pajamas playing a video game,” Sidney said.

“That’s not even a guess, girl. It’s a certainty.”

Kendra tugged her pants up and adjusted her well-tailored collared shirt, her necklace jingling as it jostled against her chest. Then she leaned her hip against the counter and lifted an oversized mug slowly and deliberately to her lips. Steam curled from the coffee and disappeared around Kendra’s nose. Kendra drank slowly, inhaling deeply as she did, fully experiencing her coffee.

“You’re doing it again,” Sidney laughed.

“What?” Kendra lowered the mug to the counter.

“Making love to your coffee.”

“Girl, I do not get the time to taste the other five cups I pour down my throat during the day. This one, this morning cup, is special.” She laughed as she pulled the cup back to her face and closed her eyes, drinking deeply.

Sidney giggled then glared past Kendra to the microwave clock.

“I’ll go yell at him in five minutes,” Sidney promised.

Kendra adjusted her large watch and gave Sidney a playful look.

“So, I think I have a new internet stalker,” Sidney said, redirecting.

“Oh really? In addition to the two online boyfriends you already keep?” Kendra cocked her head.

“Yep.”

“Facebook?”

“Insta.”

“Now, is he a trick who only talks about sex or a wifey who cares about your day? I know you already have one of each.”

“To be determined.” Sidney grinned.

“Sure, keep racking them up while I’m over here with just my ex. Just be careful. You never know what’s really on the other side of that keyboard.”

“I think about that all the time,” Sidney said. “OK, that’s definitely five minutes.”

Sidney set her mug in the sink and sprinted up the stairs to harass Cameron into the bathroom, into his clothes, and into the car. As she reached the top of the stairs, her phone chirped from her back pocket.

Max: Is it wrong that I am completely aroused by how creepy your last picture was?

Adam: Good morning. Remember, you’re still amazing.

Oliver: Please tell me you’re still in bed so I can come join you.

Sidney smiled to herself and stowed the messages for a later response. Then she hustled her child to school.

***

As she leaned on the counter behind the store register, Sidney pulled her phone back into her palm. No customers milled the flattened gray carpet. Seth leaned over a tablet beside one of the large demo television screens.

Sidney: I think this job is killing my soul.

Adam: It is. But it’s temporary. A means to an end.

Sidney: I did not go to college to manage a cellphone store.

Adam: No one does what they went to college for.

Sidney: Still. A high school student could do this job.

Adam: Not as well as you do.

Temporary.

You won’t be there forever. Website, blog . . .

Sidney: Here’s hoping.

The hours bled away into a blur of chat threads, upgrading customers to newer phones, and explaining why data package rates had to be so exorbitant. Each customer interaction suffocated her. Each issue she resolved for Seth irritated her. All the seconds and minutes and hours of her shift heaped on her consciousness—wasted. She could not help but count and weigh them.

When she was finally able to strip off her shift with the hideous polo and dress pants she was forced to wear, she exchanged it for yoga pants and a tank top. Brady waited for her outside the studio in the blazing afternoon light, chic sunglasses over his eyes and a rolled mat balancing on his exposed shoulder.

“There’s my bathing beauty,” Brady said as Sidney approached him. “What’s up, Sid?”

“Just another day,” Sidney laughed.

They hugged briefly, Sidney’s chin nestling into Brady’s chest. Then he opened the studio door for her. The aroma of incense saturated the yoga studio, making the air sharp and thick as Sidney breathed. They both slipped off their sandals beside the sign-in desk and moved into the studio to unroll their mats on the hardwood floor.

“So, this blood bath shoot seems to be our most popular yet,” Brady said, lowering himself down to his mat. He drew his legs in and leaned forward to warm up.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Sidney replied, crouching down on her own mat.

“There’s even been a minimum of menstrual comments. Everyone is just fixated on how hot and creepy you look.”

“All thanks to you, sweetheart.”

“Your mom call yet?” Brady twisted his spine and raised an eyebrow.

“You know she did. All disapproval. It’s not art. It’s gross.”

Brady raised his hand and gasped. “She did not say it’s not art.”

“She did. Don’t take it personally. She still loves you.”

“Still, honey.” Brady reclined back on his arms and pursed his lips.

“Then, it was how I’m fucking up Cameron by exposing him to horror and how I’m never going to find a new man posting naked pictures on the internet.”

“Um, that is exactly how you find a new man!” Brady laughed.

“Either way.”

“So, what did you tell her? Did you defend yourself?”

“It’s like talking to a wall with her. We ‘agreed to disagree.’” Sidney raised her fingers in air quotes.

“Well, are you just doing it for the attention? The comments? Your online stalkers and boyfriends?” Brady asked.

The question tangled at the edge of Sidney’s mind, but she answered quickly, compulsively. “No, I don’t think so. I tell myself I am doing it for the exposure and the clickbait, getting people to my website enough for it to be more. I do enjoy the attention, most of the time, but that’s more of a happy side effect.”

She regurgitated her usual explanation, to the question she seemed to be getting more often than internet comments lately. Like reciting a line from a play she had performed too many times.

“Look, girl, we have fun doing these shoots, right?” Brady said, sitting up again.

Sidney nodded.

“And we produce some badass images, right?”

Sidney nodded again.

“And we’re both happy doing it, right?”

Sidney nodded once more.

“Then who actually cares about the rest? Your uptight mom and the baseball moms and the internet stalkers. So, let’s just do what we do while it makes us happy.”

“Hell yes.” Sidney’s smile was fierce on her face, but it wavered behind her lips.

The yoga teacher moved through the mats, calf muscles rippling as he unrolled each footstep silently along the floor. He steepled his fingers as he perched on the small podium at the front of the studio. Entrancing, gentle music floated through the air. The studio fell silent except for the growing swell of synchronized breathing. Sidney closed her eyes, surrendering to her practice.

“Now, curl your toes under and press up into Downward-facing Dog,” the instructor said, his voice soothing.

Sidney pushed her palms flat into the spongy surface of her mat and sent her hips toward the ceiling and back toward her feet. The sharp edge of the stretch drew a line down the back of her leg, tracing her hamstrings from her hip bones into her ankles. The nerves lit up in a pleasant burn. She inhaled deeply, and as she exhaled, she forced the muscles along her legs to release into the burn.

As she trapped her body in the pose, her mind wandered away from the incoming messages and protests of her flesh. Her deep, yogic breathing fell into a practiced, automatic rhythm, and her thoughts unfurled her insecurities along the front of her brain.

Why did she take these pictures? Was she so insecure that she needed comments from strangers to make her feel attractive?

“Now, send your leg back into Donkey Kick,” the instructor commanded.

Sidney raised her leg high behind her, moving the stretch from her hamstring to the front of her hip flexor.

Why did she need these online flirtations? Was it because she had destroyed her marriage to the point where Aiden couldn’t bear to look at her? Was it because she didn’t trust herself to not do it again?

“Send your leg through and come down into Pigeon,” the instructor continued, his voice moving around the studio as he paced among the practitioners.

Sidney drew her raised leg into her chest and folded it under her body. She lowered her chest onto her calf and allowed her body weight to migrate the stretch into the root of her hip joint. She breathed deeply until her forehead met the ground. Her own breath recycled back against her from the mat.

A pigeon, a rat with wings, chasing any crumb. Just as she was online, begging for the clicks, the comments, the reactions, the reads. Posing for the horror trolls in hopes they toss her a few browser cookie crumbs. Why did she love horror at all?

“Press back up into Down Dog, and come to the other side.”

Sidney let the questions roll over her mind like a wave. They slipped from her focus, as if dripping from her skull as she lifted it from the mat. She did not find answers between her breaths, but somehow, asking the questions at all unwound some of the tension curling around her chest. As the thoughts surged and receded, her mind fell quiet. Her focus collapsed to only hear the instructor and feel the shape of the poses.

Once outside the studio, Brady hugged Sidney tight and pressed his lips to her cheek. Her muscles radiated in the calm echo of the class. She smiled lazily as she bid him goodbye and headed to pick up Cameron. She grabbed her phone as she walked toward her car.

Tony: Heyyy beautiful, what are you doing tonight?

Sidney rolled her eyes at the banal and immature message yet replied just the same. She knew she would invite Tony over as soon as Cameron was back with Aiden—because sometimes she needed more than messages on the internet. Sometimes, she needed something real.

She slipped her phone into her pocket. First, she needed to hurry home to pick up her son from Kendra and get him to his father.