“We can’t. He’s… I can’t go after him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s…he’s powerful, Ms. Lloyd.”
“He ain’t powerful enough to get away with something like that.”
“Oh, he is.” Uma briefly shut her eyes, swallowed.
“Ridiculous.” Ms. Lloyd’s mouth worked for a while, searching for an argument, a way to push Uma into doing something. “I’m gonna—”
“Listen to me, please,” Uma broke in quietly, looking the woman dead in the eye. “You can’t call the cops. You can’t tell anyone about this. He’s a prosecutor. In Northern Virginia. Big time.” Ms. Lloyd opened her mouth to argue again, and Uma stopped her. “You want to stay in this house forever, hidden away from the real world? That’s your prerogative. I’ll do your shopping, I’ll cook your meals and clean up after you, as long as I’m in town, but I won’t ever try to make you go outside. Never.” Her voice came out in a harsh whisper, surprising in its strength. “You can lord it over me and treat me like crap, but remember that it’s because Isayyou can. Don’t you think forone secondthat you get to decide anything for me. I make my own choices now. Nobody else gets to decide for me. Not you or anybody else. Got it?”
In the moment that followed, Ms. Lloyd stared at Uma with her big, unblinking owl eyes. The ticking of the rooster clock in the other room counted down the seconds. Finally, instead of the irritation Uma had expected, understanding dawned—perhaps even a jot of respect.
“Got it?” she repeated.
Ms. Lloyd reached out and grabbed Uma’s hand, hard and quick, before letting it go and turning around to thump her way into the kitchen.
“Don’t snipe at me, Irma,” regular, mean-ass Old Lady Lloyd spat over her shoulder. “You gonna cover yourself up, or do I have to look at those nasty things all night?”
“I need to buy a couple of shirts, but…” Uma’s voice trailed off. She’d apparently used up her store of courage for the day.
“What? Spit it out.”
“I’ve been here a week. It’s payday.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Ms. Lloyd muttered, veering off toward the musty, rarely used dining room. “Always wanting somethin’, aren’t they?”
She waited in the entryway while her boss rustled around in the other room and returned to press a wad into Uma’s hand.
“Thank you.”
“Tomorrow, you go buy yourself something decent to wear. It’ll be a relief to see you looking nice, for once.”
After the other woman walked off, Uma looked at the money in her hand. It wasn’t nearly enough to live off in the real world, but it felt like a fortune.
Amazing how fast perspective could change. A few months ago, she’d pulled in a cool four thousand on a wedding—just one day of shooting and another half day processing before getting it to the client. All that money sitting in the bank, but she couldn’t touch it. Not with Joey looking for her. One wrong move, and it’d be all over.
But today, she was rich off a couple hundred bucks, a boss whose contempt had only slightly diminished, and an inappropriate attraction to a man she should be avoiding like the plague. What could possibly go wrong?
14
With her newfound riches, Uma bought jeans, a pair of ankle boots, and a few cotton tops, plus a bright-green, summery tunic from the sale rack and a navy cardigan dripping with sequins. Fully aware that her choices were completely impractical—ostentatious even, considering her finances—she bought them anyway. Maybe she could feel like a woman again. Slight progress, but nonetheless worth celebrating, right?
Joey would have hated her purchases. The thought made her smile. Weird to think that the things he claimed to like about her in the beginning—her easy laugh, dark humor, quiet vivacity—were the first to go.
She’d never been the show-offy type, but there was nothing wrong with a little attention every now and then. Uma thought that she might even have been fun, once. By the time she left him, Joey had leeched every ounce of color from her life, cloaking her in a sad spectrum of grays. Ironic in contrast to the ties and shirts he favored: pinks and purples and bright, bright blue, like his eyes. He was such a peacock when it came to his wardrobe; he must not have been interested in competition from his girlfriend.
Driving back to the house with her new purchases, Uma wondered which one she’d wear to go see Ivan later.
The idle thought brought her up short.I’m an idiot.Acting like he was expecting her when she hadn’t seen or heard from him in two days.
After dinner, Ms. Lloyd watched Uma come downstairs in the green shirt and said, “You look nice.” They both stopped moving at those three words, blinked, and waited for the other shoe to drop. Uma half expected her to finish the sentence with something like “for a sideshow freak.” Surprisingly, Ms. Lloyd didn’t temper the compliment with an insult. Of course, she couldn’t hold back her curiosity. “Where you headed looking like that?”
Uma held up a six-pack of beer she’d picked up with her precious few dollars. “Thought I’d go see Ivan and take him this.”
“Is that what young ladies do nowadays? Visit men with bottles of booze?”
