When her eyes settle on me, I immediately know who she is. The resemblance to her daughter is strong, from the pinched anger of her face to the clenched muscles of her body.
“Em’s not here. She’s never bloody here, nowadays.”
“S’got a gift for her.”
“You don’t know when she’ll be back?” There’s no way in hell I’m leaving anything with these people, even if the woman is clearly her mother. I doubt it would last ten minutes in this place before someone had the idea to cash it in.
“I’m not her keeper. Try calling her if you’re friends.”
“Her phone’s broken.”
“You know Dee?” When I nod, she sniffs. “Try her. She spends all her time round there lately.”
“At Dee’s?”
“Yeah. She’s in a state house ‘bout five minutes’ drive from here.”
Dee might very well live there but the chances that Em has spent any time with her lately are nil. Even I was surprised at how easy the lie about Nate was to pull off. The girl still turns and heads in the other direction when she sees Em in the corridors. Sits as far away from her in their shared classes as she’s able.
There’s no way in hell that Em’s spending time at her home.
“What’s the matter?” Cheryl’s eyes narrow. “If you don’t want to go over there, you’ll have to wait.”
When I take a step towards her, two-front-teeth growls, “Outside.”
“Can I leave her a note?”
For a long moment, I expect the answer to be no. I can read Cheryl’s expressions as easily as I can Em’s. Know the moment she convinces herself it’s okay.
“Sure. Give it here.”
I stay put. “I’ll need a pen and paper.”
“Fucks sake.” She turns and heads inside and I follow her, even though she definitely wasn’t offering.
Inside, it’s even worse than I thought. There’s just the one room—it’s a garage, after all—and there are a few sheets hanging off string to form makeshift walls. A sofa with torn leather seats is the centrepiece. Bare mattresses sit on the stained concrete floor. One with a pile of blankets at the end, another bare of any covers.
“Here,” Cheryl says, shoving a notepad at me. It has a real estate agent’s logo along the top.
I keep my expression parked in neutral as I think of what to write. The words aren’t important. All I wanted was to see inside. To see if it was as bad as I thought.
It’s worse.
There’s barely any light coming into the space. No ventilation apart from the open door.
It’s the middle of winter and in here it feels like it. The breezeblocks that must keep it nicely cool in summer aren’t doing a damn thing to keep any heat in. Both Cheryl and her companion are dressed in thick layers of clothing. When she passes the pad across and her hand briefly touches against mine, it’s freezing.
‘I have something for you,’I quickly scrawl on the pad, signing my name underneath before tearing it off and returning the stationery. “Which bed is hers?”
“Corner.”
I edge past the sheets, worried that touching them for too long might bring them down. The tiny space they cordon off is neater than the rest of the flat. Tidy piles of belongings are stacked against the edge of the mattress, this one covered with a bright paisley pattern.
The cardboard boxes that must serve as her drawers and wardrobe contain neatly folded clothes. A smaller pile at the foot of the mattress is for laundry.
My chest is tight. The inside of my brain heats a few degrees as I stare at the forlorn attempts to make this icebox a home. I drop the note on her pillow, shame heating my cheeks.
This isn’t the Em I thought I was teasing. The Em I was steadily applying pressure to lived in a large house with a never-ending supply of the latest fashions. She applied her perfect makeup in a gigantic bathroom with screeds of mirrors, not hunched over the plastic hand mirror resting on a pile of schoolbooks next to the bed.
