“I don’t mind,” I say.
She nods to the guitar case I’ve just hoisted into the back seat. “You in a band?”
“Something like that,” I say. “See you later.”
Shit.I turn the key in the ignition. I back out of my assigned spot slowly, checking all the mirrors.Shit. Shit.
I glance in my mirror one last time before I turn out onto the street. She isn’t looking at me anymore. She sits in one of two white plastic chairs in the tiny space, one leg crossed lazily over the other. I saw a wedding band on her finger, wedged against a modest engagement ring. Although all the units here come with two parking spaces,there is only one car parked diagonally across both her spaces. Young and broke. They’d have to be if they’re living here.
Forget about her.I can’t have anyone else in my head. Right now, I need to concentrate.
It’s Sunday and I’ve got lost time to make up for. We came to Rainwood just before the weekend because it’s a church town. Three-quarters of this state is religious and the foremost faith is Protestant. Thank foster care for my prowess when it comes to Jesus. I can say I went to Sunday school and I don’t even have to lie. I always got the religious ones. Moody and Iris were taken in largely by a revolving door of heathens. They can tell you everything about changing diapers or hiding weapons, waking up before your lecherous foster brother peels back the covers and elbowing him in the nose. We pool our skills where we can.
My mark is a churchgoing man.On the Cross Bible Chapelwas printed in chipped letters on a steel cross dangling from his keychain. I saw it when he left his keys on the counter and went to use the restroom. He’s trusting enough to leave his possessions; that’s good. He isn’t the suspicious, wary type. After confirming his burial place with Moody, I should have spent yesterday tailing him, learning his habits. I could have run into him at the Safeway, apologizing profusely when my cart rammed into his. I had a perfect vision of how I wanted it to go, with my hair in a messy bun, a pink lace bra sticking out from around my tank top as though I’d tried to hide it but the straps had a mind of their own. I wanted to chew Bubble Yum. When women smell like candy, it drives men insane. I wanted to look up at him and bite my lip and let something flash in my eyes.
But instead, I was up on the hiking trail chiseling the teeth out of the man who wanted to help me with my tire.
Always have a backup plan. If there’s one reliable thing aboutevery Protestant church, it’s that they love music. Not those weepy elegies the Catholics howl out like ancient monks, but worship rock, with amplifiers and drums. I’ll just have to hope my mark is devout enough to attend every Sunday.
I arrive early and park in the commuter lot across the street. Just in case there’s a camera, I get out and check my tires with the pressure gauge I keep in the glove box. I act frazzled, like I barely know what I’m doing.
I’m wearing a floral dress that comes down past my knees. It’s strapless and fitted, and in the right setting it might even be sexy. But when I pair it with this white cardigan I look like my foster mother. She’d kneel before me in the church parking lot, lick her thumbs and brush them across my cheeks, fuss with my uncooperative little-girl hair, and beg me to act like an angel through the service. No chewing the gum I find under the pews and blowing bubbles, no provoking my foster brothers by daring them to burp for a dollar.
I would have done as she asked, if only she didn’t keep promising to adopt me. I couldn’t bear the guilt of letting her take me and not my sisters. As it was, I hated myself for wishing I could stay there forever.
Service starts at eight o’clock and it’s only seven thirty. I climb back into the driver’s side and watch as cars of the faithful file in. Families come out of most of them, and this makes me worry. My mark didn’t have a wedding ring, and when I watched him in the diner, he ordered a short stack and home fries and nobody came to join him. But that doesn’t mean he’s alone in life.
Iris and Moody had to start over when their marks weren’t right before. Iris was unbothered, but Moody skulked around our hotel room for days and I knew she was devastated.
I have an irrational thought. If my mark isn’t the one, I’ll makehim the one. I’ll drive his girlfriend away. I’ll get him to hate his mother, turn him against his protective sister. I’ll make him love me. However I have to do it, I will.
My heart gallops when I see his green Buick file in between two minivans. Even from here, I recognize his profile.
Mine. The word surrounds me, coiling around my form like my neighbor’s cigarette smoke. He’s mine. I press on the gas, so flustered that I forget to pull the car into gear first. It rumbles and roars at me. I take a breath. My stomach is fluttering.
Some distant part of me understands that I need to keep cool. Grip the wheel. Deep breath. By the time I find a parking spot, he’s well out of his car. He’s wearing black dress pants and a gray button-up that comes to his elbows. No tie. He doesn’t overthink it. He’s comfortable in his body, easy. He works out just enough to get those muscles, but not so much that he lives at the gym. He’s lean, not veiny. Elegant but solid and with big hands. He juggles his keys in one fist and stuffs them into his pocket as he walks.
The metal double doors are wide open. People convene there and talk and hug and shake hands. He’s no different. A woman opens her arms wide, standing on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.
I feel sick. She’s petite like a sparrow, with a delicate face and angelic blond curls. She puts her hand on his chest and laughs at something he says.
I imagine her lying on the hiking trail with the same terror in her eyes as the man from last night. Her mouth, with its bright pink lipstick, open in an astonished O as I systematically relieve her of her teeth.
But if I wanted to kill her, I’d have to take her on as a lover. That’s the rule, and I only have room in my heart for one kill at a time.
My mark keeps moving, and the little sparrow greets the nextvisitors with the same hug and welcoming kiss. She’s gone by the time I work up the nerve to get out of the car. I’m wearing black suede flats and they make hard sounds against the sidewalk. I decided not to wear heels. I’m already tall, and men like to be taller.
I’m greeted by a woman who reminds me, for the second time today, of my foster mother Elaine. Every church has one or five Elaines. Salt-and-pepper hair, cheery smile, chomping at the bit to save the shit out of your soul. They’re just so excited that you’re here, and can’t you feel the spirit? Isn’t this a beautiful day?
Truth be told, I don’t hate the affection. Elaine tried so desperately to love me. I was deposited onto her doorstep at five years old, still feeling like a jagged broken piece of a greater whole without my identical sisters. One of her sons was a year younger than me, the other a year older.
I stood sobbing in the middle of a stranger’s driveway. “It’ll be okay,” Elaine had said. “My boys will teach you how to shoot hoops. We have a real river in the yard, and if you catch a frog, I’ll even let you keep it for a day or two. How’s that?”
My foster family gave me a taste of what a normal life would have been like. They tried; they really did. They even let my sisters come over and visit. But when I saw Moody and Iris six months into my foster placement, their sadness became my own. I didn’t want to be happy if they weren’t.
As we played in the yard, we came upon a dead field mouse, mutilated by the blades of the lawn mower. “Put it in that lady’s bed,” Moody had told me, and because I loved my sister, I did it to make her happy. I pretended to hate my foster family as much as she did. I never told my sisters how much it pained me to carry that mangled carcass by the tail and set it on Elaine’s floral bedspread. I never told them the shame I felt later when I heard Elaine scream in disgust.
This Elaine is named Jeannie. She holds a paper coffee cup with the stirrer sticking out, and she asks me who I’m here with. I give her my rehearsed story: I drove down because my great-aunt recently passed away and left me with a small bit of money. I’m just here for a few months to get her affairs in order, but I’m lost if I don’t go to church on Sundays. So, here I am, if you’ll have me.
