11. ONE LAST DANCE

As I stared at myself in the mirror in the girls’ dressing room, it was obvious that I wasn’t as focused as I needed to be for my last show in a few months. I was doing my makeup by myself and I was fucking it up.

“Damn it,” I yelled before tossing the eyeliner to the other side of the room.

At that point, I didn’t even know what I was truly upset about. There were a handful of things that were making me cranky; the fact that I was leaving Sweet Cookies Swinging, the fact that Malcolm would soon be my boss, and the fact that my mother was back into my life and there was nothing I could do to get her to leave. It was all a little overwhelming and it was killing my mood.

“Hey there, Red. Someone’s looking a little down,” Cookie said from behind me, “...and your makeup looks goddamn awful. Did you get a blind chicken to draw on those brows?”

Red - Cookie only ever called me Red when she knew that something was bothering me. She pulled up a chair and sat in front of me. She took the makeup