Free The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson

ignored the moral ambiguity of that statement and answered Cher. “I did it on my breaks,” I told her. “You know what they say about all work and no play…”
    “Makes for a saggy ass,” Cher said, nodding, and turned to her mother. “Livvy needs the disks she stored in our vault. She’s havin’ trouble with her computer.”
    “My friend Ian is a computer programmer,” Suzanne put in. “Maybe you can ask him for help.”
    “Momma!” Cher snapped. “Stop pushing your loser running pals on Olivia.”
    “I’m not pushin’,” Suzanne tossed her head, piqued. “I’m just sayin’ if there’s a computer anywhere in sight Ian’s the best man for the job.”
    “And Olivia’s the best woman,” Cher said, in a show of sisterly pride. Bless her heart . “Now here, Momma. You try.”
    Suzanne daintily plucked the proffered pencil from her stepdaughter’s hands and turned her perfect, and thankfully covered, backside to the mirror. She tucked it between a nonexistent crease between cheek and thigh, and took a well-deserved bow when the pencil fell to the floor. Even I clapped. Suzanne’s masochistic love for running had certainly paidoff. And the unforeseen core of discipline and inner strength in a woman I’d took to be nothing more than an older version of Cher—all silicone and pinks and whites—had surprised me. Enough so that I’d asked her about it once. Her explanation was simple. “Cellulite waits for no ass.”
    Cher said it was her motto, or something.
    My thoughts were interrupted by dual gasps of horror. Cher, buttocks clenched fiercely, was whirling from one side to the other, straining to see into the mirror behind her. The pencil, firmly planted beneath one butt cheek, tilted this way and that, like a chopstick that had missed its mark. Uh-oh, I thought, swallowing hard. Cher gasped again.
    “I’ve failed!” she yelled, and bolted from the mirror. There wasn’t far to run as I was still blocking the door, and Suzanne was standing—hand covering her mouth—at the entrance to the bathroom. Cher ended up running circles around herself. “Oh my God! I’ve failed the pencil test!”
    Halfway into her flight around the room, the pencil fell.
    “No, look!” I said. “It dropped.”
    Cher screeched.
    “Keep doing that, though,” Suzanne said, as Cher completed another lap around the room. “It’ll help.”
    “But I don’t think the yelling does anything,” I said.
    Cher shrieked louder.
    It was touch and go for the next ten minutes, but we finally calmed her down enough to get her dressed, and were hiding the horrors gravity had wrought on her body beneath a size two Diane Von Fursten-someone wrap dress when the doorbell rang.
    “Oh, honey,” Suzanne turned to me, eyes wide and pleading. “Would you mind getting that while I tidy myself? Cher’s in no state to be entertaining.”
    We both glanced over at Cher. She was seated at the vanity, applying lip gloss, small mewling noises coming from her throat.
    “Sure. Who is it, that guy from the sexual sign language seminar?”
    Suzanne actually had to think a moment. “Oh no. This one’s from Austin. Spent time as a guitarist on Sixth Street, and hitchhiked here to become a lounge star. His name’s Troy Stone. Can you remember that?”
    “Troy,” I repeated, like I was participating in a spelling bee. “Like Brad Pitt’s city. Got it.”
    Troy was actually more like Brad Pitt’s twin. Same hair, same eyes, same lips…and I was hoping—for Brad’s sake—the resemblance stopped there, because he was leaning against the entry wall like he’d been posed there by a fashion photographer. Slick in blue jeans made to look worn before they’d left the manufacturer, he had a face lined in the way ad agencies had decided made men look mature and worldly, and made women just look old. His profile was rugged and proud, sloping down to a pointed chin that just begged to be punched. With a lift of that chin, he turned a startling