“No,” I quickly answer. “Just resting.”
“We don’t let homeless sleep back here,” he says.
“I’m not homeless,” I try to explain, thinking how I must look. “I’m leaving anyway.”
I’ve scooted past him when he stops me. “Hey, don’t I know you?”
My heart throbs once, twice, then goes alarmingly still. “I don’t think so.”
He walks around to face me, cheeks lifting, suddenly friendly. “Yeah, you’re that woman. You saved the guy from choking last year, the cop. They put you on the news.”
Fear skates down my throat and hits my stomach with a thud. I’d acted on pure instinct that night. Adrenaline driving me out of my chair before I knew what was happening. When it was over, I’d even felt proud, believing that maybe balance had been restored. That by saving this one, I’d undone that terrible day when I was five. That there was something salvageable in me, something worth loving. But Henry was so enraged by the attention it brought, he beat me senseless later. I close my eyes. This cannot be happening. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Course you do,” he says undeterred, his smile sure as the sun. “I remember your eyes. Greenest I’ve ever seen before or since.”
3Don
My eyes are not always green. They’re more gold really, a strange sort of hazel, like tarnished jewelry, the patina of brass or copper. The green comes and goes, following a cycle I can’t trace, showing up like iridescent June beetles at the right season, the glint of pond water when the light is just so. They were green when I bit the man. I remember him saying so, the way he bent over to look into my face, a sticky gleam in his eye like hard candy before he stood, his hand clamping on my shoulder, his thumb running down my trachea. And they were green when I met Henry, staying that way for months until after we were married, dulling eventually with the despondency of our life together, only to flare up at odd intervals, often when things were at their worst. Apparently, they are green now, precisely when I need to be at my least noticeable, like a beacon that gives me away. What, I wonder, are they signaling this time? It can’t be good.
I hobble several blocks in the sunlight, crossing to make my way into the lobby of the smart hotel, looking entirely out of place. The desk girl wears a neat suit and is surrounded by ivory columns, though she has limp brown hair and lipstick that is too orange for her skin tone. Her face is stony when she sees me. I try to slip past, duck toward the hallway with the elegant bathrooms, but she barks out, “Miss, can I help you? Are you a guest here?”
“I’m meeting someone,” I tell her. “At the bar.” I point a finger in its direction as if this is irrefutable proof.
Her eyes narrow with suspicion. It’s still morning. “Do you have a reservation?”
“For the bar?” I return.
I see her jaw grind. “Can I see your ID?”
I hesitate, then reach into my pack and approach the counter like it’s a judge’s bench, arm stretched out.
She plucks the card from my hand, studying it with hungry eyes. When she can find nothing wrong, she passes it back, a flicker of defeat across her lips. “We have a policy against loitering, Ms. Lee,” she says, voice tight.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I tell her.
“See that you do.”
Smiling politely, I turn and head outside to the pool, passing the bathroom on the way, lugging my booted foot up a barstool. I order a glass of the house white because it’s the cheapest thing on the menu and still costs half of what I have left. It’s half past eight, but I figure I’ve earned this drink after narrowly escaping death. Beside me, a woman is tucking into her crab omelet like it’s the last meal she will get on this earth. The smell of Swiss cheese and fresh chives hits me and my stomach rumbles, but I can’t afford the food. When she gets up to leave, I slide an avocado slice from her plate and shove it in my mouth while the bartender’s back is turned. I’d steal another, but he quickly notices and whisks the plate away.
I drink slowly, letting my eyes crawl around the pool. A man in a fedora comes down and seats himself near me about ten minutes after I arrive. I try to make eye contact, but he’s uninterested, scrolling on his phone. Just as I rise to move a seat closer, he’s joined by a woman in a strappy bikini and short cover-up. Awkwardly, I double back, returning to my seat with my face burning. To make matters worse, the receptionist from the lobby keeps checking up on me. I raise my glass to her, and she slinks away. I’ll have to leave soon. She’s not likely to forget I’m here.
It’s not like this in the movies. In the movies, a pretty woman can sit down at a bar and be swarmed by interested, available menwho will buy her breakfast and offer to drive her anywhere. Movies are full of shit. I count between sips to make sure I don’t drink too fast. Two women in caftans make themselves comfortable on the lounge chairs—they don’t look like they’re going anywhere—and a third woman in a sharp black suit asks for a seltzer water with lime. I smile at her, but she responds by slipping her AirPods in and taking a call.
My glass slowly empties, every drop like the sands in an hourglass. The bartender gives me a couple of sidelong looks, but I pretend not to notice. Before the wine is completely gone, I rise and move back through the doors, darting into the ladies’ room and locking it behind me. I slump against the porcelain sink with relief. But there’s no time to relax. That vulture of a receptionist will find me missing and question where I’ve gotten off to.
I pull the box of hair color from my pack and quickly mix tube one into bottleb,clamping a finger over the spout as I shake it furiously. I don’t part my hair in the neat little rows I remember my mother doing that time she decided to go red. Instead, I concentrate on the hair around my face, squirting the rest of the dye like a tangle of Silly String across the crown, rubbing it in with gloved hands. The instructions say to wait half an hour, but I doubt I’ll get that long. Sure enough, fourteen minutes in there’s a knock at the door.
“Just a minute!” I call, falling silent for the next five.
Another, more aggressive knock sounds.
“Hold on!” I bluster, hoping to buy a few more minutes.
But a third knock is followed by the sharp strike of the receptionist’s voice. “Come out, Ms. Lee! It’s time for you to leave.”
I turn the water on high and duck my head as far under it as I can, using my hands to splash it across my neck. The sink runs the color of Mississippi mud, deep and red and unforgiving. I hear the clerk calling, “I have security!” as I use the hand towel to dry my ends, wipe up the rim of the basin, the splatters across the wall.
When I finally look in the mirror, it takes a moment to adjust.I haven’t seen myself like this in nine years, having kept even my roots at bay with regular salon visits since coming to Charleston. My hair hangs like dark drapes parted over my face, glinting with copper threads, the color of my childhood. I am transported in time, old insecurities seeping in like gas under the door, that feeling of being unwanted, worse than being alone. Inside, something stirs, unpredictable and fierce, a part of myself I do not know but recognize. Beside my hair, the sunny color of my skin suddenly looks pale, and my eyes are greener than I’ve ever seen them.
