“She’s paid to like you, Matthew.” But he wasn’t listening anymore. He had reached into the hibiscus plant next to him and picked a hot pink bloom, and was twirling it in his fingers. As soon as I left I knew he would walk over and slide it behind some woman’s ear and tell her, in a voice saccharine with liquor, how beautiful she was.
CLARA
I SAW THOSE WOMEN EVERYtime I closed my eyes. Anytime I left the apartment, I felt overwhelmed by my senses. The blare of a car horn from a block away. The bang of a garbage collector emptying a metal trash can into the yawning mouth of his truck. Every man whose stare lingered a little too long. Every person who stepped a little too close.
I walked through the bus terminal, though in the past I tried to avoid it. At night it could be dangerous, and even during the day it gave me the creeps. Everyone there seemed damaged or deranged. People who heard voices in the silence. Men with palsied hands. Women with shopping carts full of trash and rags and muddy plastic bags. The air-conditioning was cranked all the way and it made the hairs on my arms stand up. I approached the window and asked how much a ticket to California would cost.
The woman chewed a wad of bright green gum and stared past me for so long I wondered if she forgot I was there. “Well that depends,” she said finally. “Where are you trying to go?”
“Los Angeles,” I said.
She clicked her mouse a few times and shook her head. “It’ll take three days, with a four-hour stop in Topeka, Kansas.”
“That’s okay. How much?”
“Two hundred and seventy-eight dollars. Plus tax.”
“I only have two hundred on me right now.”
“Well, you’ve got two hours before the bus leaves.”
Two hours—that was enough time to run home, pack some clothes, get the rest of my money. Lily insisted I stay, but I didn’t think I could. I knew that she was worried, that she’d thought I was in over my head ever since she saw the burn marks. But if what she wanted was to protect me, then she needed to let me go. I knew what she meant about going to the police. Maybe I could write down what I’d seen or maybe she could talk to them for me. There had to be a solution that didn’t involve me spending another minute here. I did feel guilty, though, and I wondered if everyone would simply forget about Julie and about the other women if I were to leave. Maybe I could stay just long enough for Lily and me to come up with a plan.
“Is there another one later?”
“Not today. Tomorrow. Same time.”
“Okay, I’ll come back soon, then.”
She shrugged. I wondered what she would think if she knew about the women. If she would still sit here in her little ticket window, snapping her gum, or if she would also want to get as far away as she could.
As I walked home I came up with a list of what I wanted to bring. There was a part of me that wondered if I could do this. I didn’t even have a suitcase. I had never tried to make a straight living. Never had a bank account, never finished high school. But I had told myself that in my new life I wouldn’t steal, and I sure as hell wouldn’t sleep with any men for money. But there was so much I didn’t know about where I would live or how. But still, it seemed better to run. To start clean. Maybe that’s what the Four of Pentacles meant—I could give up all of the bad things I did here, give up the money, once I was free.
When I got home there was a man leaning against the doorof the shop, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Something about him felt familiar, but I couldn’t say what. My memories of anything before this summer felt impossible, like something I had seen in a movie or TV show. One of my teachers? Someone Des partied with? A client for a reading? I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that his calm gave me a bad feeling—the sense that there was something slippery and secretive underneath it.
“Can I help you?” I said, hoping my voice sounded mean. I was through with talking to everyone like they were the most exciting thing that had happened to me that day.
He reached into his pocket, fished out a piece of paper. I was surprised to see it was one of our business cards, creased in the middle and bent at the corners. “Do you have time for a reading?” he asked.
“Can’t, sorry,” I said. “All booked up today.” He might be a cop, lurking around, waiting for his chance to bust us. He had that squirrely, suspicious energy about him. But I was so close to escaping, to leaving all of that trouble behind for Des to deal with for once.Let her get caught, I thought.I don’t even care.
He smiled, looked at the darkened shop. I disliked him even more then. “Well, that’s good news for you, then. Maybe you’ll be able to fit me in next time.” I hated the way he was measuring me. Probably there for a private reading, another pig Des had found at the club. I was surprised to feel the familiar tingling start up again—and then I saw a vision of a woman. Her head was turned away from him but she had a lovely curtain of shiny blonde hair. In the vision I could smell her, something floral, heavy. Roses, maybe. Or another flower I couldn’t name. It was such a quick glimpse that I wondered if he even noticed a change in me. He was still staring when I came out of the vision, like he was waiting for me to speak. But I was feeling selfish—I didn’t want or need to attract his attention, didn’t need to flash around what I saw, this little bit of his life that he didn’t even know he had given up to me.
“Yeah, well, be sure to ask for Des when you come back. She’s got the real talent. I’m just an apprentice, after all.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, and pulled on the brim of his hat, tipping it. I waited until he was half a block away to go inside, feeling a combination of relief and unease as I watched his back recede down the boardwalk.It doesn’t matter anymore, I told myself.You’re almost out of here.
I knew that upstairs Des would be in her last frenzy of primping before her shift—curling her eyelashes with one hand and smearing lotion along her calf with another. So I was surprised when I stepped into the apartment and it was quiet. No sound of her swearing under her breath, no clacking of compacts. If she was gone, it would be easier to slip into her room and look for my birth certificate, my Social Security card, which she had squirreled away somewhere years before. Maybe anticipating a moment like this, when I was ready to break free.
“Des? Des?” I called. I opened the fridge, studied the half-full bottles of Pepsi, the package of string cheese, closed the door again.When I find my mother, I thought,I will fill our fridge with cut fruit and pink lemonade in pretty glass pitchers. When I find her she will teach me to cook, and we’ll bake cakes and frost them, cakes without occasions. Cakes just because we could.
From the kitchen, I noticed that the door to my bedroom was open a half inch. I knew right away that something was wrong, and I waited a moment before pushing it in. Des sat on top of my comforter, her legs splayed,The Wisdom of Tarotbetween her thighs. An open bottle of wine rested on my nightstand.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Don’t you have work?”
“I called out today,” she said. “Figured I could use a day off.”
Des had never, in my entire life, taken a day off. She didn’t get sick pay, didn’t get vacation.I shake these tits rain or shine, hell orhigh water, she always said. She liked me to think she was put out by this, but I knew it was a point of pride that she dragged herself into the club no matter how hungover she was.
