I didn’t really know the answer. I had never asked myself at the gallery if it was good, or fair. I was getting what I wanted. “Just something I’ve been thinking about, I guess.”
“One good thing about this company is that it’s almost entirely run by women. It could be a good place to start a career, in that sense. Even if they are as crazy as the guests most of the time.”
“How are your classes going?” I felt self-conscious asking—as though I were creeping back toward the discussion we didn’t have about me seeing her loan balance, but I was curious, and besides talking shit on everyone else at the spa, school was the only other thing she’d open up about.
She sat up, and I picked a Styrofoam packing peanut from her hair. “Okay—I’m taking exams next week, and then I start a new session. At this rate, I’ll be done in, oh, two, two and a half years.”
“That’s great.”
“It seems like such a long time to me. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even going to be worth it. Who will respect me for having a degree from a small local college? Working as a receptionist when other people are out interning with banks or learning about real estate or management psychology.”
“What, you’re not learning about management here? You practically run this place.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I think, as a woman, I have to anticipate the one thousand ways people will find to dismiss me and how I can make up for it, or prove them wrong, before I can let myself think about what kind of credit they’ll give me for anything I’ve done. As I get older, I keep waiting to step into a world that’s different, where I don’t have to think like that, and you know what? I’m still fucking waiting.”
I wanted to say something reassuring, but what Emily had said was true. I thought of the way men like Matthew went striding through the world, assured that they deserved pleasure, success, money, and happiness, and that they would get it. Even the most talented, intelligent women I knew—Emily included—didn’t think that way. We tiptoed, fingers crossed, making Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, always anticipating the way the world would push us aside.
Emily sighed, nodded at the display. “Does that look even to you?” She held out the instructions that had been sent by our corporate merchandising director. They were overfull of exclamation points and capitals. “PYRAMID SHAPES ARE EASY TO SHOP!!! AND REMEMBER, EVERY SALE IS A CHANCE TO UPSELL!!! AN ATTRACTIVE RETAIL SPACE EQUALS ATTRACTIVE PROFITS!!!”
I studied the display, the backdrop of which was a picture of a woman who was clearly white but wearing a lot of bronzer, dressed in a fringed suede halter top and skirt, sitting on a hillside, surrounded by flowers. “Looks even to me. Fucked up in other ways. But yes. Even.”
“Okay, then. I’m going on my break. Don’t forget …”
“Every sale is a chance to upsell?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
Clara must have been watching us through the glass, lurking just outside the door, until Emily retreated to the break room. As soon as Emily was gone, she shuffled in. I was struck by how terrible she looked: pale, dark circles under her eyes, lanky hair.
“Clara, what are you doing here? This wasn’t our plan. I’m not off till seven, remember?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. But this is important.”
“Are you okay? What happened there?” She had Band-Aids over each of her middle fingers.
She glanced at her hands and shook her head. “I think it’s bad, Lily. I’ve been thinking, and it seems like they must be … they’re hurt … or … or even …”
“Hold on. Clara. Who? Who do you mean? Actually, wait a second. We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Let’s go out into the hall.” I wasn’t supposed to leave the desk, but there was a spot just outside the glass windows where a potted palm could obscure a person, maybe two. If Emily saw me talking to Clara, how would I explain?
Clara reached for one of the plant leaves, started tearing it into strips. “I think each of these weird visions I’m having are visions of like … something they thought about before they died. I know. Okay, before you say anything. I know what that sounds like. It sounds insane. I feel insane. But the woman who left her bag—her name, by the way, is Victoria, and Julie Zale … I’m seeing things about them that I couldn’t possibly know. Intimatethings. Things that would matter in the end. I don’t know what to do.” She had shredded the leaf into bits. Her voice kept breaking, as though she was going to cry.
“Okay. So tell me how I can help you. I don’t know what my role is supposed to be in all of this. I haven’t seen Peaches at all. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“I’m worried about her, too. That she’s in trouble, too. I just wish there was a way to test the visions, to know if I could trust them, if they’re even real.”
“How would you do that?”
She took a big breath, sucking it in between her teeth. “I have an idea. You’re not going to like it, but I think it might work. So Julie Zale had a bad childhood when she was really young, before she came to live with her uncle, he told me. Both of her parents were all messed up. I keep seeing a bedroom, a really pretty room with a checked bedspread, pink and white, and all these white pillows at the top. If I were Julie Zale, and I had grown up in a really shitty home”—she paused to issue a sardonic little laugh—“all I would think about, all I would dream about, was being somewhere that felt safe, like that bedroom. Where you felt cared for and where you could count on everything always being the same.”
“That makes sense.”
“So the vision I’m having … we just need to talk to someone who can confirm it.”
“Someone like who?”
“Her aunt and uncle’s phone number is on that poster.”
The thought clicked into place, and I felt the resistance everywhere, in my hands, my feet, my spine. “Clara, no. My god. Absolutely not.”
