The waitress brings the coffees and a jug of half-and-half. Beverley puts too much in hers and the liquid spills over. She dips her mouth to the rim of the mug to sip at it like a cat.
“You look just like you did on TV.”
Beverley’s eyes dart up.
“I’m Sharon.”
The woman standing over her has a face full of makeup. Her aqua eye shadow and candy-pink cheeks give her the appearance of a doll, an effect heightened by her head of blond corkscrew curls. She has a pair of white roller skates slung over her shoulders and wears a fifties-style pink skirt and matching sweater.
“I’m sorry,” the woman says breathily. Beverley notices she has a thick East Coast accent. “I had to come straight from work. This is the only break I get.” She takes a seat opposite Beverley in the booth. “These things make it a bit easier to get around, but I swear, one of these days I’m gonna break my neck.” Sharon grabs a napkin and starts mopping up the spilled coffee.
Beverley can’t take her eyes off the skates. She’s never seen a grown woman with a pair of roller skates before. Sharon catches her staring.
“I work at the drive-in on the corner of Mace and William.” She blushes slightly. “I’m a carhop. We have to wear these dumb outfits and wigs.” She tugs at the blond curls and pulls them cleanly from her head. Her hair underneath is squashed and mousy at the roots, the ends fried to a crisp by peroxide. She teases it out with her fingers, tries to make herself presentable. “But a job’s a job, right? Mind if I smoke?”
The woman’s words unfurl too quickly. She seems nervous. Beverley has that same habit, her words tripping from her tongue when she doesn’t know what else to do.
“That was an incredible thing you did, going on television like that.” Sharon lights her cigarette and takes a drag, scratching at her scalp with artificial nails. She is clearly older than Beverley, but something about her seems girlish, her eyes darting around the room as she talks, her skin lined, her pale pink lipstick faded to a chalky outline.
“Can I get a fresh coffee?” Sharon calls out to the waitress, then turns back to Beverley. “I’m sorry—I’m talking too much. I do that when I get nervous.”
“Thank you for your letter,” Beverley replies calmly. If what Sharon wrote is true, then she is likely scared, and desperate for answers. It must have taken courage for her to come here.
Sharon tilts her head. “What you said on the show just really made sense, y’know?” The waitress places a pot of coffee on the table. “I was watching you, and something just hit me.” Sharon slaps her forehead. “It clicked. I knew I had to speak to you.”
“So, your husband…”
“Hank.”
“He’s been acting strange for a while? Tell me more about that.”
Sharon glances around them, checks that no one is listening in. “Everything you said.” She blows on her coffee. “The staying late at work, the secrecy, the defensiveness. Then there’s these suddenexplosions. He makes out likeI’mcrazy when I ask where he’s been or why he’s coming home at two o’clock in the morning.”
“Mm-hmm.” Beverley forces a nod, but none of that makes him a killer. Perhaps he’s having an affair. Perhaps he really is staying at work late. “And that’s all out of character for him?”
“Not really,” says Sharon glumly, flicking ash into the tray. “He’s a mechanic, so he does work strange hours sometimes. He drinks. He’salways been…aggressive.” Her voice quiets. “He’s not a nice guy, really. Took me a while to realize it, but it’s true.”
“Can you elaborate?”
“He says things about women—how they should be good wives; they should be quiet, stay at home, out of the way; how they should look after the kids, make sure the house is in order.”
Beverley nods again, but this is nothing new. Plenty of men have outdated views.
“He doesn’t like that I work. He hates this.” She gestures to her pink outfit, the makeup, the roller skates. “Lately, he’s been making me scrub my face when I get home—like,reallyscrub.”
Beverley leans in a little.
“He stands there and watches me in the mirror.” Sharon’s voice falters slightly. “He’ll tell me to use more soap, to scrub until every bit of mascara is off and my face is just this red, hot mess.”
I’m sorry.A memory flicks into Beverley’s head. She was shaving Henry in front of the mirror. She’d carefully used the brush to apply cream all over his neck. They’d laughed as he stuck out his chin and pouted. She’d taken a clean blade and put it to his cheek with care, pulling it upward in short motions, wiping it off on the towel next to the sink. Then she’d moved to his neck, but he twitched, then winced, sucked a sharp breath in, and she pulled the blade away. They both watched in the mirror as a blurt of red spread like an opening flower.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She didn’t even see it coming, didn’t see him raise his arm, and before she had a chance to turn, he dealt an almighty blow to the side of her head. The room rang with a hundred chimes, and then everything went silent.
“Do you think he’s dangerous? Your husband,” she asks Sharon. She wants to help her, but violent men hurt their wives and theirgirlfriends all the time. It’s wrong, and they should never get away with it, but it does not make them killers. That does not help her here.
“He’s been like that with me for a long time,” Sharon eventually answers, staring into her coffee cup, “but this is the first time I’ve thought he might be a danger to other people. What you said on the television—it made me see him in a different light.”
