“June, right now, you have one aim, and that is to stay out of jail. And keep me out of it, too. Everything else is subject to that.”
“Right.” It came out as a whisper.
As soon as we hung up, I moved frantically around my little apartment. First, I took out the framed picture I had put away after the wave of panic had been over following our previous interview. I put it back on the bedside table then opened the drawer and stared at the wedding ring. I grabbed my vibrator and hid it deep in my walk-in wardrobe where I stopped, inhaled, and tried to control the panic. Instead, tears I never shed stung my eyes.
What have I done?
10
Angelo
The front of the shop and the sign above it looked exactly as they did on Instagram. The words, “June’s Rain: Pure Health,” were written in sedate colors that fit the owner. Sage and mauve, colors whose names I learned from guitar paint color palettes.
I had seen that same sign over the branch in Wayford on my way here. Wayford was half an hour closer to San Francisco than Riviera View, so I made a brief stop there to be thorough in getting to know June and everything about her. I wanted to ensure we’d pass the fraud unit interview.
Just the name—fraud unit—made me lose my appetite, a rare thing.
Now, parking my blue car in a clear spot not far from the shop, I climbed out of it and looked up Ocean Avenue, the town’s main street. Breathing in the fresh ocean smell and seeing the people passing by brought to life the images I had seen online and on Google Earth when preparing for our previous interview.
A man stepped out of the shop, greeting two women who walked in.
Leaving my duffel bag in the back seat and the guitar cases and boxes of equipment in the trunk, I approached the shop.
As I entered, the scented space reminded me of how June smelled when I hugged her a month ago—a combination of cinnamon, citrus, lilacs, exotic herbs, and overt cleanliness. First, my eyes took in the immaculate, pharmacy-like order and the contrasting rustic, warm decor. A woman with an apron was talking with the two women who had entered before me. She was letting them smell something from a small jar she had opened.
June was behind the counter. Judging by the way her expression suddenly froze, she had noticed me.
I walked by the few aisles of meticulously organized shelves on my way to her. June looked like she was bracing herself. Her face was pale, her dark blue eyes looked bigger, and her neck was flushed as if a flame was rising from her body upward.
“Hey.”
“Not here,” she whispered. Quickly making her way from behind the counter, she came to stand next to me. A cotton apron in the colors of her logo hugged her lean body.Follow me, her head gestured as she began walking left along the counter and toward what looked like the back of the shop.
I followed, throwing a gaze at the other aproned woman, who was still busy with the customers, her eyes under her brown bangs partly following June and me.
June opened a door tucked between two cabinets, and we entered a meticulously stocked room. A door on the other side of it was open, exposing another room, which was empty except for a few boxes stacked against the wall.
She turned around and nearly bumped into me.
“Hi,” I said again.
She looked like the breath had been knocked out of her. “Hi.” She visibly swallowed then added, almost unfazed, as if she had managed to gain control again, “Sorry, it’s just that—”
“It’s okay.” My voice came out a bit hoarse.
With her stone-carved cheeks now flushed, she looked beautiful all of a sudden. Instead of looking remote and overly composed, she looked almost vulnerable. I’d seen that short-lived expression on her in my apartment right before she had left, in the USCIS offices when she had slipped her fingers into my palm, and then outside the café in San Francisco. Like that pulsing vein in her neck during our interview, this expression revealed the red-blooded woman hiding inside. Not the carefree, sprightly prettiness of Amber, who was still clawing for a place in my mind, but beautiful in a whole different way.
“It’s just that I didn’t tell Rio yet. Rio, that’s my employee out there.” June gestured with her head toward the interior of the shop. “I will, though. Now I have to.”
She quickly pivoted and pointed at the open door. “From there, there’s another way to my apartment. Come on.” She began walking again, and I followed her.
The empty space led to a flight of stairs, which we climbed.
“Didn’t you bring a bag?” she asked, turning toward me from the step above.
I wondered if she had caught me studying her backside and slender back, the way the apron strings clinched her waist, as if I were examining a guitar that needed balancing.
“I left it in the car. Didn’t want to come into the shop with it. Plus, I have equipment, too.”
