Free The Mentor by Sebastian Stuart

her friends. But no more scars. She’s learned that. Don’t press too hard and you won’t leave a scar. So she opens the box, lifts the velvet, takes the razor and presses gently against her skin—just hard enough for the sweet obliterating pain to bring up a perfect line of blood.

13
    Enthralled, Anne drags he sumptuous virtual sofa down from the corner of the computer screen and moves it around the tiny virtual room until she finds just the spot for it. She resumes browsing through
Home On-line
, dragging down one item after another until the room is, well, perfect. Then she orders the items she wants by moving around the room and clicking on them. That’s all it takes. The warehouse outside Poughkeepsie ships the products; credit card billing is instantaneous.
    “Absolutely fabulous,” Anne says, turning to a beaming Nikki Spinoza, the genius behind InterMagic, a woman in her early forties who wears her extra poundage sans apology, dresses in thrift-store rejects, lets her flyaway hair fly away, makes no secret of her lesbianism, and runs a very loose ship. InterMagic is housed in a converted stable in Tribeca. The staff, none of whom looks over twenty-five, are encouraged to bring in their latest toys, and the yeasty chaos—strewn with everything from a beach ball to a four-foot robot—resembles a kindergarten classroom.
    “I’m glad you like it,” Nikki says.
    “Nobody else in the industry has anything approaching this. It’s more like playing a game than shopping. How soon can we have the site up and running?” Anne asks.
    “A week.”
    Anne feels that exquisite surge of elation called success.
    “You’ve done an amazing job.” Anne turns to the entire room and applauds. “You’ve all done a fantastic job. I can’t thank you enough. Call Dean and Deluca. Lunch is on me.”
    Now it’s the turn of the dozen motley designers and computer nerds to applaud. Just at that moment the front door opens and a three-year-old boy wearing denim overalls rushes up to Nikki.
    “Mommy! Mommy!”
    Nikki sweeps him up and tosses him in the air. “Hey there, Tiger Balm. Justin, this is Anne.”
    Justin says “Hi” and sticks out his arm. Anne shakes his tiny hand.
    “We went on the Staten Island Ferry,” Justin says.
    “No kidding, sailor.” Nikki looks about to burst with maternal pride.
    “It was rough out there,” Justin announces.
    “Well, it’s a windy day.”
    “Choppy,” Justin corrects.
    A woman in her mid-thirties, athletic, wearing black jeans and a T-shirt, walks into the office and gives Nikki a spousal kiss.
    “Lisa, this is Anne Turner. Lisa Lewis.”
    Lisa and Anne share a firm handshake.
    “If
Home
gave frequent buyer miles, we could trek to Timbuktu. And that was
before
you hired Nikki. What a pleasure,” Lisa says.
    “Well, Nikki has done a fantastic job with the website,” Anne says, feeling an immediate rapport with this loving and enthusiastic family. With it comes a twinge of longing.
    “Let’s go to lunch. I want focaccia!” Justin says.
    “Only a downtown kid, huh?” Nikki says.
    “Hey Justin, get a load of this!” a voice calls from the other end of the office. Anne turns to see a giant plastic firefly sailing through the air.
    “Wow!” Justin screams, charging off.
    “I didn’t know,” Anne says, nodding in Justin’s direction.
    “The crazy part is we didn’t want a kid, a couple of hip downtown career dykes like us. But Lisa had this cousin in Oregon she’d never met,” Nikki explains.
    “Heroin addict, prostitute. Who’da thunk it? Oregon. She was Justin’s mom,” Lisa says.
    “She died of an overdose. Justin was in the bed with her.”
    Anne tries to imagine the horrific scene. “How old was he?”
    “Eight months. We got him three months later.”
    “Nobody knows who his father is,” Lisa adds.
    “Has he asked?”
    Lisa nods. “And we told him the truth.”
    Anne turns and looks at the boy, who is gleefully launching another firefly.