I’m flagging down a taxi now.
Good. Send me a picture when you get home.
What kind of picture?
The kind where you have your clothes on.
Heat crawled up her throat. As she began her response, she must have been making a face, because the taxi driver was watching her in the rearview mirror when she looked up again.
“Who are you messaging?” he asked casually. “Your boyfriend?”
It felt like fishing to find out if she was alone. Some of the men at the strip club had done that to her mother—How does your husband feel about you doing this? He’s a lucky man, having someone like you at home.Jay gripped her phone tighter, tilting the screen towards herself. “My husband,” she lied. The words felt a little too comfortable rolling off her tongue and she wouldn’t let herself think about why. “My flight was late.He wants to know where I am.”
The driver made a sound of amusement and she saw his eyes flash briefly towards the mirror again, filling her with the urge to check her hoodie and make sure it was still zipped. “Lucky man,” he remarked. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have you back.”
(someone like you)
“Um,” said Jay, keeping her eyes on her phone.Are you still there?
Yes.
My driver is making me uncomfortable. He just asked if I was texting my boyfriend and I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. Will you talk to me until I get home?
Send me a photograph of his license. I can get him fired.
I don’t want you to do that. I just want you to talk to me so I don’t have to talk to him.
The text bubbles hovered and then disappeared.
Fine. Text me whatever you want and let me know when you’re home.
It sounded like a brush-off and after the way they had parted, it probably was. She swallowed back the raw feeling swelling in her throat, wondering why she felt like crying.
She stayed glued to her phone, playing her favorite cat game as the driver, who was apparently feeling chatty, continued to make conversation. She answered his questions about what she was doing in the city and how long she’d been married with clipped, monosyllabic answers, though that didn’t seem to slow him down at all and she was too afraid not to respond.
She wished she hadn’t given him her address. At least the complex was large, and on a fairly busy street. You couldn’t even access it from the outside without a key unless someone else letyou in. For a girl on the run, that had been a major appeal.
The driver put her suitcase out on the curb with an unnecessarily loud grunt. Jay tipped him 20% even though she knew Nicholas wouldn’t have wanted her to. But it was worth the please-don’t-axe-murder-me money just for the peace of mind.
Which reminded her.
I’m home, she texted Nicholas, shifting her suitcase to one hand so she could juggle her phone and the key with the other. The smell—oh god, it was exactly the same, wasn’t it? Cheap lemon carpet cleaner and the musty backwater smell every building in this area got during rainy season when all the pipes backed up.
She climbed the steps to her apartment, grumbling a little as she tried to juggle all her things. She dropped her phone twice, swearing before looking around guiltily. The walk had never seemed this length before. And the stairway was so . . . small and narrow. Nearly claustrophobic.
When she finally got to her door, she threw herself into it with relief—and then she stopped, and stared, feeling the open space at her back like a great, sucking void.
Her room looked smaller than she remembered.
She did up the latch, chain, and deadbolt, leaving her suitcase by the door to take in her old space. The answering machine was blinking angrily (“I can’t believe you have one of those,” Lily had said, the first time she had seen it. “Who uses a landline in this day and age?”).
Over by the window was her favorite blue chair, positioned in front of a statement wall she had carefully assembled by thrifting at the nicer shops in the Haight. Her rock collection was on the window sill, so the crystals would glitter in the pale sunlight, and over in the corner, folded up, was the little cardtable that doubled as a dining table because she ate all of her meals alone.
Jay fell back into the chair, letting herself be absorbed by the plush suede. She was vaguely aware that her hands were shaking, that a cold spot had formed on the very tip of her nose. She unzipped her hoodie and balled the yellow fabric up as she kicked off her old Converse, before bringing her knees up to her chest. As if that could fill the emptiness.
She had tried running away but glaring reminders of the past were everywhere she looked, standing out like colorful bricks in an otherwise white wall. Whether it was the gypsum rose that Nicholas had bought for her or the CD he had fucked her to during that very first time, he had cast his net wide and thoroughly trapped her in it.
What did it say about him that he chose to remain in the house where both of them had suffered so much? How could he stand it? Even after purging his father’s belongings in a gratuitous display of violence, he still slept in what had once been his father’s bed.
