Slices of lemony sunlight slipped through the edge of the heavy plaid curtains that decorated the cheap hotel they had rented with money from their new jobs. With eyes still partially closed, Rachel rolled away from the window and fingered the fresh indentation left by Sara’s absence. She shot up in bed, her heart beating inside her like a stampede of wild horses. Oh my God, where’s Sara? With clenched teeth, she bit off a rising scream. Thrashing out of the tangled sheets, she reached for the lamp on the nightstand. The force of her jerky hand rattled a glass of water, causing it to hit the lamp, shattering it to pieces.
“What h-happened?” a male voice hurled his accusation at her. A man is in their room!
The fleshy part of her palm picked up shards of glass like Velcro. Making contact with the switch, she pushed a shaky thumb into it. The room burst into view. It’s just Irvin. He was kneeling on his sleeping bag on the floor. His face was troubled.
“Sara’s gone!”
“She’s in the sh-shower.”
She exhaled with a shudder. “Oh.” It was all she could think of to say.
She shrugged off her jumbled fear, trying not to dwell on its source too much. The fuzzy hands on the wall clock across the room sharpened under her squint. It was 7:00 A.M., and Sara was already taking a shower, getting ready for her first day at the library: her dream job. It was also the first day that Rachel would be doing their paper route alone.
Irvin watched her closely. She barely remembered the fear and revulsion she’d felt when she first met him. He was like a brother now. The best possible brother. He no longer repeated sentences. She hardly noticed his stuttering. She had no doubt that he would go back to school and accomplish amazing things with his life. Just like Sara. The two of them were so capable, their gifts so astounding.
He turned his attention to the broken glass. “L-let me get this cleaned up. Why don’t you r-rest for a few minutes? You look very p-pale.”
“Thank you,” she said, swallowing rising nausea. She really didn’t feel well. Laying her head back on the pillow, she listened to the hum of the hair dryer coming through the door of the bathroom. She closed her eyes. If she could just drift off to sleep for a little longer, maybe the noisy thoughts murmuring in her brain would also rest.
They had been in L.A. over a month now. She had learned more about life than she ever cared to. The ugly, dark part of life. Where children went to bed cold and hungry. Where teenagers were forced to sell their bodies for food or even the drugs that their bodies needed as much as the food. The world was a dangerous place, filled with people who were not to be trusted. Especially men. She could never be too careful.
And not a second went by without Rachel mourning over Luke. She often asked Sara when they would get back there to look for him and was always told it wasn’t the right time. Sara was undeniably happy with her life just the way it was. Now that her sister had her dream job, they weren’t going anywhere. Rachel was sure of that.
Rachel didn’t know how she could live without him. The last day they were together he said he would die without her. Would he? Had he already? The thought rocked her stomach. Her heart started fluttering again. Stop. He’s not dead. Several times over the past few weeks, she felt like it would be much easier to die than to go about creating a new life for herself here. It was only that sliver of hope that she would see him again that kept her heart beating reliably every day. Sara really didn’t need her anymore, and if Luke was gone, what was the point of her existence?
Irvin had just left for work when Sara asked her, again, if she would be all right doing the paper route alone. Guilt lined her face as if she were abandoning her firstborn child.
“Sara, I want you to do this. It’s where you belong.”
“I just feel so bad leaving you.”
“I’m fine. I really am.”
“But—”
“Get going. You’ll be late on your first day if you don’t hurry.”
Sara gnawed on her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”
“I’m the one who’s going to feel bad if you don’t go today.”
Sara gave her an unsteady smile. “Okay. You know the number, if you need to get ahold of me.”
Rachel nodded. “Go.”
It wasn’t until the door had clicked closed behind Sara that Rachel let the tears flow. She curled up, soaking the bedspread with her unhappiness. Eventually she stopped crying, her body too tired to manufacture any more tears.
She forced herself off the bed. She had to deliver those papers today. The monthly room rate expired tomorrow. Lately, it seemed that Rachel was more of a hindrance to her sister than anything else. And an expense. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was scared of the people at the homeless shelter, they could be saving hundreds of dollars a month in rent. If she didn’t do both routes today, they would be short on cash and be forced to rent by the week at a much higher rate. It would take her twice as long to deliver the papers without Sara, but she still would be done with her day three or four hours before Sara was finished at the library. Irvin had been working double shifts all week at the restaurant, so she would be spending a lot of time alone.
Pulling her ponytail through the opening of the back of her L.A. Dodgers baseball cap, she made sure to shove far up into the hat any disobedient waves trying to cascade around her face. She chose a black T-shirt, extra large, from Irvin’s drawer. It hung limply, too much material to catch the curve of her breasts, and just the right amount of material to cover the swell of her hips. She looked safely angular.
AN icy gray sky had stolen the brassy morning light, restless and twisting. Trees shivered from the strengthening wind, and she tried to gauge how long she would have before the storm. She still hadn’t started Sara’s side of the street. Because Rachel was unnerved by change, she insisted that she do the west side of the street each time. Sara didn’t care. Today she was forced to do the east side too, city blocks filled with strangers. New threats lurked behind every storefront and inside every apartment lobby where she would have to deliver the fliers. She sucked in handfuls of air, expelling them in short, open-mouthed breaths.
She stepped into an alley, trying to calm herself down. Stroking the band of her ring, she leaned against the wall of a brick building. The stench from the garbage Dumpsters assailed her nostrils. She swallowed the rushing current of saliva again and again until it ebbed. Needing reassurance, she pulled her envelope out of the backpack. There was Luke. He’s dead. The voice was back. She ate the air again, gulping and then swallowing, her hands trembling violently as she dropped his picture in a muddy puddle. “Oh no!” Snatching it up, she blotted it on the front of her shirt. One of his eyes had a smudge of purple over it. The rest of the picture was covered with water stains that drained his face of color. Corpselike. You killed him when you left him there.
The rustle of tumbling paper pricked her ear. Luke’s letter! She lunged toward it. As she stumbled over an empty beer can, the load in her canvas bag pulled her toward the ground. She landed hands first on the alley’s grease-clogged street, and her palms were scraped and embedded with pebbles and debris. She didn’t care. She just wanted that letter. It was dancing in the wind, soaring up and then spiraling down in the breeze, a corner of it picking up a smudge of mud, weighting it down like quicksand, drawing half of it into a puddle.
She pinched the dry tip of the letter between her index finger and thumb, while coaxing the submerged end out of the water. The ink had collapsed on itself, the water erasing words and chopping sentences in half. Just get it back home. You can resuscitate it then.
A doe-eyed baby girl, with wispy butterscotch hair, waved a chubby fist at her. “Alice!” Rachel cried out. The woman who had braced Alice on one hip looked at her strangely, then covered the baby’s head with a cow-print blanket and crossed the street hurriedly. You’re so stupid. Alice wouldn’t be here. Just think for once in your life. She just looked like Alice, that’s all.
She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. Not today. She would be much better tomorrow. It was just that it was her first day without Sara. Of course she was nervous. She would take back Sara’s papers and tell them she was too sick to deliver them today. The buzzing in her head was getting too loud, and it was causing her to be so careless that she may have ruined two of her three most valuable possessions in a matter of minutes. Don’t think about that right now. At least she would get paid for her route. That would leave her ten dollars short, minus another ten or so after she went to the pharmacy.
Her limbs were shaky and unreliable as she made her way back to the office where she had started her route. She returned the undelivered fliers, feeling terrible about it, but her new supervisor just shrugged it off.
“Don’t worry about it,” Todd said, his acne-pitted face flushing as she explained the situation. He wasn’t much older than she was. “Just get better.”
His kindness made the tears threaten again. She hurried off. Todd may have excused her for today, but she had no excuse to give Sara and Irvin for not doing her part. The money situation left her no choice. She knew what she had to do.
The man had slaty eyes and a leering mouth with spidery purple veins mapped across the bridge of his nose and the apples of his cheeks. Little black hairs sprouted out of his cauliflower ears. She could now recognize the metallic smell of alcohol coming from his parted mouth. “You are just a pretty little thing aren’t you?” His voice was tinny and sounded very far away, but he was mouthing the words just inches from her face. Pretty, pretty, pretty.
“How much for this?” she asked, sliding the ring across the counter.
He looked at it and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“How much?”
“Well, let me get my microscope out and take a look at this beaut.” His meaty laugh returned and intensified. He slapped the counter in amusement. Rachel jumped.
“Five bucks.”
“What!”
“Maybe we can work out a little something on the side. Make it worth my while.”
You do something to men. She grabbed the ring and turned to leave.
“Wait, little lady.” He exhaled tiredly. “How much do you need?”
“Twenty. I need twenty dollars.”
“And you’re coming back for this?”
“Of course! Next week. The first chance I get.”
He slid a twenty across the counter. She plucked it off before he could change his mind. “I’ll be waiting,” he said as she swung open the door, not looking back.
She walked onto the street feeling naked without her ring. Pretty, pretty, pretty . . .
The bold red lettering of the drugstore swam to the shore of her vision.
Remember to hold your head up.
Walking into the store, she casually perused the aisles. Finding her intended location, she backed away from it to take a quick detour through the magazine aisle, feigning intense interest in an article on makeup tips. She glanced up to see a stern gray-haired man observing her reflection in the mirror that ran along the back wall of the store. She put the magazine back on the shelf. She inched her way over to the correct aisle, and in spite of herself, she looked up at the mirror again. He was still staring, this time with his arms crossed, while saying something to the girl behind the checkout counter.
She was alone in the aisle, except for his wandering eyes that had followed her across the store. Do it! She took the box off the shelf, cradling it in the crook of her arm, where he could see that she wasn’t trying to steal it, but he couldn’t see what she was carrying to the counter.
“Benson, line two . . . Mr. Benson, pick up line two,” the intercom announced. Rachel wanted to cry in relief as the wandering eyes disappeared behind a side door next to the photo lab.
She placed her shameful purchase on top of the counter. The girl smacked her gum, and her bored expression remained as she rang up the scandalous item. She popped a bubble and said, “That’ll be nine forty-five.”
While Rachel pushed her hand into the front pocket of her jeans for the twenty, the girl mercifully dropped the box into the plastic bag behind the counter. Rachel grabbed the bag from the girl’s outstretched hands a little too quickly, mumbled a faded “thank you” and backed away from the counter, turning to flee.
“Young lady . . .” His voice was formal and scolding, hinting of a British accent. She forced herself to turn back around. Wandering Eyes had returned, now standing behind the bubble-popping girl. “You forgot your change,” he announced.
She was so stupid and careless. She couldn’t afford to leave ten dollars behind. Not after all the trouble she’d gone to for that money in the first place. “Oh . . .” She glanced at the clerk. A net of wrinkles covered his face. Deep-set, iron-rimmed eyes took in her every gesture. He had a slash for a mouth with a slender moustache quivering above it.
“Thank you,” she said to the harmless, kind old man.
“Why do you hide your beautiful face under that cap?”
“What?” she said, taking the ten-dollar bill and loose change from his hand.
“And your hair . . . it’s lovely. You should wear it down.”
You do something to men. To good, kind old men.
She dove into a cresting wave of panic. “What do you want from me?” she snapped back.
His eyes widened. “My dear, it was just an observation, a compliment, if you will. I’m sorry if you took offense.”
She backed out of the store, pushing the door open with her backside and clutching the plastic bag to her stomach. She ran for the next two blocks until her lungs seared, her heart pumping too fast for her breathing to catch up. The hair. It was her hair that inspired lust in the hearts of good men. It must be. The hair must go.
Nearing the hotel, she sniffed sewage in the air mingled with marijuana. She passed the neighborhood bars with their neon beer signs, eyeing the dancing colors in the windows. She threw her loose change into the Styrofoam cup held out to her by a withered woman with gnarled fingers growing out of a liver-spotted hand. “God bless you,” the woman said.
God doesn’t bless me. Not anymore.
Climbing the stairs, she stopped at the top of the musty hallway, stale with the smell of cigarettes and greasy food. She dug her room key out of the backpack, went in and threw her bags in a heap in the corner. First things first. If she organized her time, she could get everything done today. She pulled the letter out of her pack, and spread each page on the bed. She would see how it looked when it dried completely. The sight of her naked ring finger on her left hand startled her. For a quarter second, she panicked, wondering if it had slipped off her finger. Then she remembered, with troubled relief, that the ring was on loan. Just for a week.
She laid Luke’s picture on top of the pillow she had used the night before. It was already dry and curling around the edges. Next step. She opened the night table drawer. Sara kept the pocketknife in there. Just in case. Irvin had told them an intruder could unlock their room with the swipe of a credit card. But they were ready, especially during those times when Irvin didn’t arrive at the hotel until late into the night.
The blade felt cold under her fingers. She stood in front of the mirror. Her eyes were bulging and glassy and gray. Fish eyes. Dead eyes. Whose eyes were they? Was someone hiding inside her? Stop it. She raised the knife to a crinkly handful of hair and sawed it off, watching it fall as softly as a gentle snow. She felt euphoric. That’s better. She grabbed the next clump, sawed, and the next. Faster and faster until a caramel rug covered the entire bathroom floor. She would clean it up later. She placed the knife next to the sink.
Next, she retrieved her bag, and opened the box. Reading the instructions with one hand, she held the plastic stick between her legs with the other hand. Shivering on the toilet seat, she tried not to think about the significance of this moment. She willed herself to purge her mind of any thought other than getting herself to pee onto the stick. Finally, she squeezed a few drops out, and just as she relaxed from her success, a rain shower of warm urine released, pouring over the stick and soaking the sleeve of her shirt. Plenty.
After washing her hands, she popped her head around the corner to check the time. Irvin would be gone until late tonight, and Sara was safely occupied at the library for several more hours. All she needed, according to the instructions, was five minutes. She went to lie on the bed. 3:05 P.M.
Folding her hands on top of her chest as if in prayer, she had a brief vision of herself in a coffin. Strangely reassuring. She could finally rest. They would rearrange her hands exactly that way: prim and saintly. Please, God, please help me. She would do anything. Go back to the Church, maybe not go back home, but maybe join another community. She would even become a plural wife. 3:06 P.M. Don’t look at the clock. It takes longer. She may have to give up Luke. Maybe not. If she worked at being more devout, maybe she could keep Luke. He doesn’t want you, you dirty girl. No man will ever want you after I’m through with you. 3:07 P.M. She picked up Luke’s letter. The line where he had written, “I’ll always love you,” had been violated by the water. It now said simply, “I’ll always . . .” It was left for her to fill in the blanks. “I’ll always hate you for leaving me.”
Had it said that? Maybe she just imagined the old words, read just what she wanted to read. The letter scared her now. 3:08 P.M. She picked up the picture of his blurry face. She was destroying him, the picture was proof: his life was being blurred out until he faded into nothing. She can’t be with Luke. You were mine first. She’s destroying him. Slut, whore. When he discovers her dirty secret, he will cease to exist. 3:09 P.M. Please God, have mercy. Lord have mercy. Merciful God. It was the same useless prayer she had said right before her father had violated her. 3:10 P.M. Judgment day.
She reached the bathroom on shuddering legs. The plus sign was there, bloodred, announcing how far she had fallen.
She retched over and over into the toilet, the vomit, mixed with her pregnant urine, splashing up into her face. Daddy’s baby.