Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

6

DAUGHTER

HE CAME DOWNSTAIRS WHEN HE COULD HEAR the sound of women kicking their high heels into the hallway downstairs.

Katelyn's friends were nothing to brag about. All rich and state-certified mall shoppers. Debutantes without politeness and the highest pitched voices that would crack the thickest water glass. Upon reaching the stairway alone he could feel the gossipy spit spray unto him from below, peeling the wall paint with their thick saliva. Ten of them with their matching Versace purses ran single file under the royal staircase and into the living room. Where the blast of reality television welcomed them.

His wife was chatty. He couldn't blame the LA contagion that plagued much of the feminine elite. The men were no better. Their husbands were slime balls and it wasn't their fault either because the economic social ladder was wet with the kissing of Asses. The political climate didn't help any of them to speak up against it either so it was hard to tell who was actually genuine underneath the conformity umbrella. Best to escape the bullshit, Jack thought, and say good morning to his lovely princess who was no doubt pure at age three but over whom he had no true power in the future to fend off the commercialism and consumerism of her peers and social media life. If conservatism were not almost solely exclusive to the religious elite, like say the Orthodox Jewish population of Hancock Park, he would surely have her pinned to the classic book of virtues. Seeing it as futile, he thought he'd let nature take its course and merely love his daughter with swarms of kisses before she turned 7 and her superficial environment got the best of her. Before her private school peers and television turned her into a monster. Put-offish and entitled, selfish and narcissistic she would no doubt become, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many bookshelves he filled her room with (three of her four walls were filled with them, no television, no computer). Unless he sent her to a school in West Africa now, she would never have the gratitude gained by seeing how the other half lives.

He knelt down like he did last night onto his beautiful girl to kiss her. Three years old today. A little light peeking in through her baby pink curtains. Her blonde hair shining with innocence. He felt a knot in his throat, feeling that he had already lost her. He petted her and said, "Good morning," beneath his breath. Choked, he stood and looked around the room. Clean. And very pink. His wife had decorated it. Just like his wife would decorate her future life. And it was then that he wished he truly had never married for money. And had stayed in Mexico City. Never to have left with Katelyn from the bar in the Club Med vacation resort in Ixtapa, Mexico and had never flown to get married at the flyaway wedding with her when she was 19 as her mother had so insistent. Damn his life. Damn him for not seeking virtue and integrity when he was younger. Breasts were all it took to lure him.

He left his daughter. And closed the door. Wishing for her that it would never open.