1-800-Comepickmeupmom

$4.50 for an afternoon Wednesday matinee. Your mom drops you off with a few sweaty bills, crumpled wet from your dad’s pockets. She swiped them for you, said we needed milk. You don’t thank her. You make her drop you off in the Stater Bros parking lot around back so no one sees you. You roll your shorts back up at the waist as she drives away, harsh tan lines on display. Walk across the asphalt, speckled with tumbleweeds as small as your fingernails, blowing in tiny circles. It’s hot. It’s always fucking hot. You consider standing in front of an open freezer door at the grocery store for a few minutes. Maybe pocket a candy bar. Kick some dirt around with your mismatched converse hi-tops you traveled two towns over for, end up making a name for yourself as the girl with pink shoes. Decide the movie theater’s air conditioning will do. Wonder if your dad will ever shell out the grand or so to fix the air conditioning in your house (spoiler alert: he won’t. Spoiler alert: the house will burn down first. Spoiler alert: he’ll leave before that even happens. Spoiler alert: so will you). You flick your wrist out of your back pocket to check your watch for the time. You’ve sewn an old watch face into a sequined sweatband you stole from the choir director’s desk drawer and wear it openly, daring her to ask you about it. She never does. It reminds you how your mom didn’t buy you a waterproof watch for swim class like everyone else had, it reminds you that you hate your mom. Not for the stupid watch, though. At the box office, you buy your ticket. Someone not that much older than you, but ions and generations ahead of you, speaks warbled through the intercom system as if from the future, sliding the ticket underneath the curved window with a delicate push that creates the satisfying sound of forward movement: clean and smooth. You pocket the quarters he rolls to you. Push the heavy doors open two at a time to make an entrance. Eye the lobby for the friends you’re supposed to meet here. Grab an extra-large cup from the bathroom trash. Wash it out in the sink. Fill up a free refill of root beer. Sneak into a Rated-R movie—it really doesn't matter which one. You don’t remember the plot. Count how many times the lead actress says fuck and notice how the word slithers from between her teeth, circles the tip of her tongue before she releases it. Intentional and cruel. You finally spot your friends a few rows ahead of you, throwing popcorn into each other’s mouths. The credits roll, you stay to check the soundtrack list at the end. You spend your fifty cents in change to play Area 51 afterward. Hold the light plastic gun in your hands like you’re Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider. Girls with guns are sexy; even the bright orange game controllers hooked to the arcade game with the heavy umbilical cord, your stance something film-epic, legs spread, eyes squinted into a well-practiced smirk that you’ll find works on most men. Kill some aliens. Get a top score, toppling last week’s score by two hundred. Shoot your initials into the game: ricocheted bang bang bang. A boy is impressed with your aim. You’re now penniless, so you dial 1-800-Collect from the payphone, pressing each button hard and slow, the 0’s getting stuck slightly, smudged with other people’s skin, the metal driven down in the very center of the buttons, fading the numbers you need. Right down the center you hear an actor’s voice narrate your actions. You wonder who’d play you in your movie, consider the options based on hair color and potential body type, if you do the Cosmopolitan workouts you’ve been cutting out of the back pages and piling beside your bed. You flip your hair behind your shoulder to cradle the telephone under your ear, covering the mouthpiece with your hand, and turn your back to the crowd mingling in the lobby. 

Leave your name after the beep

*The beep*

himomcomepickmeupnow

You hang up quickly. Turn back to wave goodbye to your friends, the boy staring at your pink shoes.

Erica Hoffmeister is originally from Southern California, but now lives in Denver where she teaches college writing and media literacy. She is the author of two poetry collections: Lived in Bars (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), and the prize-winning chapbook, Roots Grew Wild (Kingdoms in the Wild Press, 2019), but considers herself a cross-genre writer. She has had a variety of short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and articles published in various journals and magazines such as Drunk Monkeys, Motherly, Suspect Press, Crab Fat Magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room, and Flash Fiction Magazine. She is obsessed with pop culture, cross country road trips, and her two daughters, Scout and Lux. You can learn more about her at: http://www.ericahoffmeister.com/