They wouldn’t eat at the little metal tables in front of the shop. That would be way too down-market for Claire. She’d probably invited her new guy over specifically on her lunch break from the pharmacy so she could give me the meaningful eyeball. Now that she’d done so, she’d go back to her perfect, plastic life with her perfect, plastic boyfriend, crisply pressed in khakis and a light blue button-down the color of his eyes. Probably sold insurance and owned a Prius he couldn’t afford. They’d be insanely happy together. I didn’t care.
The shuffle and thrum of customers continued, soothing and easy. After the lunch rush was done, the mid-shift cleaning began, and I lost myself in the bright aluminum and sparkling plexiglass and lumbering rumble of the six refrigerated units.
Then something moved close to me—too close. But it was a quiet, gentle intrusion, apologetic and uncertain. Skye, with herwhite-white, freckle-covered skin, her natural red hair, and her large, sea-glass green eyes. Those eyes were as big as saucers now, and she held something in her hand.
Claire Bickwell’s card. “Do you do yoga?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
I barked out a laugh. Out of all the things that could have come out of the mouth of Skye Drury—the mostly ignored single daughter of a single mother, the below-average student, above-average worker who chewed on the inside of her mouth whenever she had to work the infernal cash machine, so nervous about getting it right that she had a mat of scar tissue no one would ever see—thatwas not what I expected. “Do I what?”
“Do yoga. You, like, bent to avoid that woman’s card. All the way around. It was so fast that I probably wouldn’t normally have seen it, but I did, and…well, it was awesome. You should take the card. She’s apharmacist.”
I blinked at her, confused by her words but more upset about the card. Everything inside me recoiled at the stupid fucking card, but that pissed me off too. It was paper! Paper and ink and the faint stench of hand sanitizer and Chapstick. Nothing else.
I took the card, and Skye’s lips parted in a smile, her sigh a gusty exhale of relief and pickles. She turned away.
The other benefit of working in a place where there was no grill was that while you still stunk when you got off work, you didn’t stink-stink. And you left your apron behind, so you pretty much could shed the reek of the place by the time you walked all the way home. Assuming, of course, that you walked, which I generally did, no matter how late it got. Public transportation grated on me, especially at night. Too many people packed in too tight a space.
Mordechai might have gotten me a pay-as-you-go scholarship and this deli job to boot, but he wouldn’t co-sign on a car loan for me until I finished college. Zealot.
Worse, I was beginning to wonder if he was blowing me off permanently, my mood sliding between hurt and outrage and back to hurt again. He’d told me he’d call me after we’d had our little pow-wow at his office on Friday, which had ended after another half-hour of him warning me about the dangers of the dark side. Like I didn’t know that already.
He didn’t know half the shit I was dealing with.
I thought about what waited for me at home and forced myself to keep walking even as my stomach churned. Streetlight to streetlight, shadow to shadow. And with every shadow, I half-expected to see those eyes again—either the half-visible ones I’d caught in Mrs. Klein’s mirror, or the college boy’s from the photograph. Both seemed to watch me now, as if waiting for me to choose which darkness I wanted most.
But it was the mirror eyes—and what had happened after I’d seen them—that lingered in my mind. Thank God Mrs. Klein hadn’t told Mordechai about me freaking out right in front of her, or I’d probably still be in the man’s ice-box office, getting lectured.
He didn’t need to know.
For once, I agreed with the stupid voice in my head. I’d stopped telling Mordechai my every waking thought after I’d graduated high school, when things had started to turn a little weird. Mom had finally succeeded in drowning herself in her bottle. I’d stayed in the house we’d always rented, with the help of a guy who sublet Mom’s bedroom, and pretended to grieve. It hadn’t been all that hard, and I’d been motivated. I didn’t want to do anything that would make Mordechai stop asking me to help him.
But now, despite all that effort, he was the one acting weird, shutting me out. He’d told me he would call me, and he hadn’t. Granted, it was only Monday night, but still. He should have called.
I wiped my hands on my jeans, hating the feel of them slick with sweat despite the night’s damp coolness. He couldn’t shut me out now. Not when there were people I could help. He’d see—they’d all see. I was managing everything just fine.
I turned up the walkway to the shared duplex I now rented with my housemate—Deadbeat Steve—who should be back in residence by now.
The name I’d given him made me smile, because it wasn’t really deserved. Steve wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t pay his rent on time, but he eventually did pay it—or left enough cash lying around that I could find the money when I needed it. He went to the same school I did, though full-time, and his parents sent him money, probably hoping if they did, he would stay away. But most importantly, he was a drunk, and I knew drunks.
My mom had been a labor and delivery nurse who could handle crash C-sections and screaming heroin-addicted mommies bitching about having to have their labia piercings removed prior to going into surgery. She had also been a drunk, right up until she’d wrapped the family car around a telephone pole the summer of my senior year. Her vehicle had been totaled. So had she. No more car, no more Mom.
I hadn’t been surprised. Despite the show I put on, I hadn’t been especially sad, either, which bothered me more. I’d mostly been happy that she’d had the decency to wait until I’d turned eighteen to check out, so I didn’t have to deal with Child Welfare.
I hadn’t talked to Mordechai about it until after her memory had curled up and withered a little, because I knew what he wanted to see. Tears. Loneliness. Fear.
I hadn’t felt any of that. I’d mainly wanted to get the place repainted, top to bottom—instead of just constantly repainting my room.
Fresh paint meant control.
The Soos, the family on the other side of my duplex, had lasted in the dumpy little house for almost ten years, despite my ongoing thievery of their craft paint. Probably because they couldn’t speak English, so they’d never had to have a conversation with Mom, or now Steve, sober or otherwise. They also hadn’t spoken much to me, come to think of it.
I let myself into our side of the house. “Steve?” I called out, my voice unnervingly loud.
There was no response.
Chapter
Seven
