I fanned myself in front of my mirror, wishing I could stop perspiring. Flop sweats wouldn't help my foundation to stay in place. Hand shaking, I tried applying mascara. When it comes to beauty, I take after my late father. I have wide-set eyes like a doll's, pale skin, thin blonde hair and dark blue eyes. In fact, I really look nothing like my mother. In a way, that's a blessing. I can easily fade into the background in moments where she's the center of attention.
"Sunny, are you almost ready?"
Speak of the devil. I blotted my face dry again. "I'll be right out, Mom." I closed my eyes a took a deep breath, preparing my cheeriest demeanor for what was to come.
"Hurry up, we can't be late for the meeting."
"I know," I groaned. Once again, her job was on the line.
"I'll be waiting in the car.
On the way out the door, I kissed my finger and touched a photo of my father for luck. "I hope you're watching over us, you were always the one to get her out of trouble."
My father gave me my nickname. Mom wanted to call me Sam, but I was born in June under the light of a sunrise. Daddy used to tell me stories about the way the light glittered off of my eyes when he first held me in his arms. I had been crying, as all babies do. When the doctor handed me to my mother I cried so hard they thought I was going into cardiac arrest. But then my daddy took me into his strong arms. And I opened my big blue eyes.
My biological father James Foster had been a high school principal who'd risen through the ranks of the school board before his mysterious disappearance. Most friends and family assumed he found out about mom's affairs and finally found the courage to leave her. Others such as my grandparents knew in their hearts my mother murdered their son, but there was no way to prove it. They went to their graves cursing the name Elena Desilva.
I took a seat in the gray minivan. The sliding door closed automatically. "Are we picking up Austin?"
My mother was checking her lipstick. "Sweetie, that's a silly question. Can you imagine what that would look like to the panel? His father's driving him. "
I buckled up and tried not to get ratty about her focus on her make-up, where most women would've—should've—been crapping themselves with fear over the tribunal outcome. But mom didn't do fear.
For most of my life, I thought my mother was simply a healer: a white witch living her life as a high school biology teacher. By the time I started high school she was in her thirties, but could easily pass for younger. Five-foot-nine, stunningly beautiful with piercing green eyes, porcelain skin, Elena had the body of a lingerie model even though she never worked out and survived completely on fast food and left-over Chinese take-out. She was a horrible cook but ironically a master at developing spells and potions for healing, health and vitality. When, of course, she wasn't having affairs with her most attractive students, the latest being Austin Lopez.
In our small truck-stop town of Beloit, everything is reasonably close. Getting to the school took only around ten minutes. My mother pulled into a parking space under the shade of a cherry tree. I suddenly heard the car unlock. The driver's side door swung open and Austin appeared.
"Hey Mamacita." He climbed on to my mother's lap, straddling her. She wore a knee length skirt, but that didn't stop him. His hands moved up her thighs. "No panties," he whispered as he licked her earlobe. He moved his hands to his zipper.
I got out of the minivan and slammed the sliding door shut, knowing how much that annoyed my mother. I started to make my way to the entrance of the school. God, I hated Austin.
At just eighteen, his cat-like, seductive grin made him look way older, and irresistible, too, combined with dark brown eyes, sexy high cheekbones, and jet black hair that fell just past his ears. His long legs and lean muscular body made him a star on the track team. This of course led to him becoming the joke of the school: "Why does Mexico never medal in Olympic Track and Field? All of their greatest athletes made it past the border." But no one could deny Austin's talent. He'd transferred to Beloit over the summer of 2017, during the start of President Trump's reign of terror on immigrants, kicking out all the bad hombres in his campaign to make America great again. Austin wasn't an immigrant, but that didn't make his life any easier especially in the Midwest.
I still have no idea how the relationship started, only that Austin was not like the others. He wasn't in a trance, following my mother around like a puppy, desperate to hump her leg. In those relationships, my mother held all the power. She used those sex-obsessed teenage boys as her playthings. Dozens of jocks would kiss her, touch her, and then receive an invitation to go all the way. They would of course share the news with their friends, which was why the entire school (faculty and all) knew about her special hobby. The principal was just waiting for a chance to catch my mother in the act. But none of her victims lived to tell the tale- one by one they all just disappeared. The police were called a few times but my mom was very good at getting rid of any evidence such as clothing and other personal belongings.
With Austin, she was drawn to him as much as he was drawn to her. And I know for a fact that they had sex several times on campus without Austin vanishing. I can remember the first time she brought him to our house.
I had been waiting by the minivan as they left the school together, unable to keep their hands off each other. Austin looked sexy in a leather jacket and denim jeans, with designer sunglasses hiding his eyes. Judging by how he'd dressed when he'd first transferred, my mom had to be buying him clothes.
Mom opened the door, for Austin and only Austin. I figured she was so eager to get him into bed she would have easily left without me. So, I felt the need to make my presence known and clambered quickly into the seats behind. "Hi, you're Austin, right? I'm Sunny."
"Hey." As mom got in the driver's seat, he moved forward and kissed her neck.
I shook my head. "Mom, at least get out of the parking lot first. This is how you got in trouble last time."
"My apologies," Austin said in his smooth California accent. He leaned back in his seat with his arms stretched out, as if the minivan was the most luxurious vehicle he'd ever been in.
When we got home, they immediately started making out. She put the car into park and moments later Austin threw open the front door, grabbing her in his arms. I should have gone around to the side door of our two-bed home, but stupidly thought, with my slender frame, that I could squeeze past them before any clothes came off. I wasn't fast enough; as they tumbled into the living room, I could already see him unzipping his jeans. He wore no underwear, so I unfortunately caught sight of just how ready he was for her.
For long seconds I just couldn't look away as mom lowered his jeans, reveling in his chiseled hips and thighs. She used her mouth and hands, reaching between his legs to pleasure him in ways I didn't want to think about.
"You're so good to me," Austin moaned, stripping off his jacket and white t-shirt, revealing even more of his body. He caught my eye then, inviting me to watch or even join in.
"No thanks," I muttered. "Gold-digging cougar-chasers are just not my type!"
He still wasn't my type. Hostilities had ceased a little, but as far as I was concerned, he was just trouble. Just ten minutes now until the tribunal started. I headed for the Principal's office where the meeting would be held and gazed up at the high ceiling of the atrium as I made my way there. The roof was a series of glass panels bathing the interior in natural light. "Are you there, Daddy? If you are, could you maybe give me a sign?"
I passed into the shadows of the corridors and made my own way to the office. Mom and Austin could follow at their own pace, for all I cared. I was a little too mad to speak to her, which my dad would've gently told me off for.
He was a good man who'd stayed in a loveless marriage. He knew Elena was a sex addict, but didn't care; she was an uncanny beauty, a wild, free-spirited science major who also loved art and poetry. The story, as he'd always told it, was that he'd gotten my mother pregnant the first time they made love. But to him that was a blessing. He wanted her, he loved her.
He told me that ever since the day I was born, he knew he was put on this earth to love me. He was kind and encouraging and took comfort in the fact he would always have my love. My father slept on the sofa while he rose in rank to the school board, all to protect his wife. He bought her a house with a yard twice the size of all the others on the block. His dream was to build her a garden. He wanted her to find a way to be happy.
Slouched over in a metal chair I started to cry. "I miss you Daddy." The tears fell hard, focusing the air from my lungs. But the harder I cried the better I felt. I was crying out the anger and pain of the past eighteen years.
"Are you ok?" asked a deep masculine voice. With his thick Spanish accent I assumed he was a janitor.
