by Tanen Jones
He wouldn’t have done that. She didn’t deserve them. I was the one who’d made his doctors’ appointments, helped him swallow, taken him to the movies every Sunday. Robin had done nothing but call occasionally, after she turned sixteen and disappeared.
He hadn’t given them to her. Probably she’d stolen them the night she left. She’d taken forty dollars out of my purse that night too.
I rubbed my thumb along the surface of the pearls, feeling several faint scratches on the curvature of one of the seeds, invisible to the eye but evident to the touch. Pearls were easily scratched. My grandmother had taught us to polish her pearl jewelry with olive oil and a chamois cloth, pushing our cloth-covered fingernails into the crevices where each pearl was secured. But Robin was careless.
I closed my fingers around the earrings. The backings dug into my palm like children’s teeth. If I didn’t call the police, Robin Voigt could stay Rachel Vreeland. Rachel Vreeland could have a crappy City of Las Vegas burial, a heroin addict with no family, the person she had chosen to be when she was sixteen. It gave me a thick, sick pleasure to think about. I wanted her to be alone in the ground.
But it wouldn’t matter. Either way, I couldn’t get what I needed from her.
She would have loved that.
I had been in the room with her body for almost five minutes now. The pacing on the porch had stopped; Iker was considering whether to come back upstairs for me.
There was a series of faint rusty creaks as someone else came up the second set of stairs, which clung to the siding on the rear of the house, allowing access to the upper floor from the backyard. Whoever had come in went into the second bedroom and slammed the door.
Her roommate. Yes. Iker had said there was another tenant.
I heard the muffled noises of quick movement from the second bedroom. The roommate could come into the hall at any moment and see me—see Robin’s body—wonder where the police were, who I was, why Iker hadn’t called—
The front door opened into the house, and Iker’s voice came floating up the inner stairs. “Miss, um…Leslie? Did you…Leslie…?”
I didn’t reach for my phone. I slipped the earrings into my purse and walked quickly toward the back door. I was out before anyone saw me, making as little sound as I could manage on the metal stairs.
At the noise of the ignition, Iker ran back out onto the front porch, waving his arm at me to stop. He shouted something after me, something I couldn’t hear as I drove away.
2
Leslie
I glanced in the rearview mirror again. The same blue sedan kept pace with me until I got on the freeway, then disappeared into the crush of cars heading into the city for Saturday night. That wasn’t Iker, I told myself. He drove a different car. A black one.
Gradually my ears picked up a dull buzzing noise. Coins rattling in the cup holder. No—my phone ringing. I fished it out of my purse. Two missed calls. Iker was trying again. The screen lit up as he left a message.
Why had I left? I’d run out of there as if I’d killed her myself. Stupid—stupid—
It was the earrings. I drew in a breath and felt blindly around the car for them, trying to keep my eyes on the road. They weren’t in my purse. Had I dropped them? At last I thought to pat myself down and found that I was wearing them. I didn’t remember putting them in my ears.
She’d just stuffed them in her shoe. I couldn’t understand why it upset me so much. I hadn’t even thought about these earrings in at least fifteen years. But the idea that Robin had helped herself to my mother’s jewelry box on her way out—and hadn’t even taken care of them—
I touched the scratch again, compulsively, like an itch. How could she have let it happen?
I was forced to stop at a light. The image of my sister’s body floated up before me, more bone than flesh.
How could she have let it happen?
The exultation of my escape began to leach out of me. All the way into the city that morning I’d felt myself pushed forward as if on a wave. I’d never driven so far alone before. The highways between New Mexico and Nevada were dwarfed periodically by mesas, and the traffic was so infrequent that the cars resembled a thin rushing stream between the lowering rocks. The whole way here I’d been thinking to myself: I’ll talk to her—I’ll explain—and then everything will be all right—
I pulled off the freeway at the next exit and turned in to the first open parking lot I saw. Three cars took up the only spots shaded by the single tree. The sun hung just past the visor, turning the dust on the windshield opaque, so that I could barely see beyond the confines of the car. The illusion of privacy gave me a little comfort, and I picked up the phone to call Iker back.
My hands shook. I tried to press the home button, but my fingers were stiff from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I fumbled and dropped the phone into my lap.
I clenched my teeth and let the air escape in a hiss. Maybe it was hunger. The last time I’d eaten was breakfast. It was just past five now.
I had to strain to make out the sign on the building I’d parked in front of. GEORGE’S. Some kind of steakhouse. The building wore a badly constructed stone façade, like a Macaroni Grill, and all the blinds were drawn, but the outer doors stood open.
The bottoms of my shoes warmed as I crossed the parking lot into the stuffy little vestibule and pushed through the inner set of doors. It was cooler inside, with a large exposed air vent near the ceiling whuffing away; despite that industrial fixture, the rest of the restaurant was outfitted like a midcentury men’s club, with dark wood paneling and heavy curtains flanking each window. At the edges of the room were large plush booths with gold hooks for coats and hats; the rest of the dining room was taken up by freestanding tables set with white tablecloths and upended water glasses. No one was in the restaurant, not even any workers; except for the air vent, I was the only thing breathing.
I went up to the host stand, feeling underdressed in my slacks and blouse. “Hello?” I said. “Are you open?”
There was a clanking noise from the kitchen, and a rat-mustached teenager leaned out from between the swinging doors, his head suspended briefly midair. “One second.”
I edged behind the host stand and took a menu. It was expensive to eat here. Vegas prices. Ordinarily I wouldn’t. The red meat. But my hands wouldn’t stop shaking; the menu fluttered as I held it. Didn’t they say you should eat protein if you felt faint?
The teenager returned and crept around me to reach the wrapped silverware. “Just one?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to fit the menu back into its stack and knocking several others to the floor. The kid scrambled to pick them up for me. “A steak. A porterhouse. And a glass of wine. No—I have to drive. Water.”
“Do you want it to go?” His forehead wrinkled.
“No.” I gripped the edge of the host stand. “I want to sit down.”
“Okay—uh…” He led me to a booth and leaned across one of the seats to open the blinds for me. I blinked as the late-afternoon light hit the varnished table. “We’re still firing up the grill, so it’ll be a half a minute.”
I nodded. He went away, his too-large oxford shirt hanging off his shoulders. I sat down and put my head in my hands.
If I had shown up even a day earlier, she would have been alive.
A different oxford shirt appeared in my peripheral vision. “One glass of water. I’m Sherrod, I’ll be your server today. Can I get you anything else to drink?”
My gaze drifted to the window. Outside, a man in the parking lot got out of his SUV and went around to its rear door, where he lifted out a little white boxer puppy, which he set on the asphalt next to a water bowl. He filled the bowl from a small water bottle and squatted down next to the dog as it drank, stroking its ears.
“Ma’am?”
I jerked to face him, spilling water. “I’
m sorry.”
“No, I’ll get it.” He lifted my glass and mopped the dripping table with the rag he carried at his side. “Can I get you anything else? Your order should be out shortly.”
“No. Thank you.”
When I looked up again, the waiter was gone.
It had taken me two months to track Robin down. The last number I’d had for her had been picked up by someone named Andre, who said he thought Robin had moved to Las Vegas but he wasn’t sure, and if I found her to tell her to go fuck herself. I’d searched Robin Voigt as well as the fake name she’d been using to avoid her creditors, but found nothing. At last someone had left a message on my father’s answering machine regarding a new credit card registered to my father’s address. The name on the card was Rachel Vreeland. I searched this new name and found an address. The property was part of the SweetHomes rental company. Iker picked up when I called. I need to find my sister, I’d told him. Rachel Vreeland. Our father left her a lot of money in his will. Iker had said, Yes, yes, Ms. Vreeland. Yes, in Henderson.
If I told her I was coming she would only leave town. I said, Can you come with me to her house to wait for her tomorrow? I can’t get her on the phone. I think something might be wrong.
My brain skipped ahead to the body on the bed, the smell of the hot little room.
“All right, here we go.” Sherrod had returned. He set the plate in front of me.
“Thank you,” I said to his back.
The steak lay in front of me, bleeding juice onto the ceramic. Someone had arranged it so that it lay artfully over the bed of potatoes and asparagus. A bloody runnel cut its way through the mashed potatoes, pooling on the rim of the plate.
I picked up my knife and fork. It took me several tries to cut a sliver from the edge of the steak, but at the first bite my hands stopped shaking. I’d been too nervous to eat lunch. Thinking I was going to see Robin for the first time in a decade. I’d practiced talking to her: Daddy died a few months ago. He left us both some money, but you have to come home to do the paperwork.
Why didn’t you tell me? I had imagined her saying, or maybe How much?
I tried to find you. It took me forever.
She was good at reading faces, especially mine. Eerie, with an animal quickness. You weren’t going to tell me at all. You’re only here because you need something from me. What do you need, Leslie?
I’d spun through conversation after conversation in my mind, trying to keep her at bay.
My purse shuddered as my phone buzzed in the outer pocket. I felt my shoulders tighten, but it was my real phone, not the prepaid I’d used to call Iker. I pulled the phone out and hesitated, my finger hovering over the caller ID. Dave.
If I rejected the call he would know I’d sent him to voicemail.
I didn’t do anything. I just sat there, holding the phone, until the ringing stopped. Then I put it back in my purse.
The man with the dog was gone, giving me an unobstructed view of the Target across the street. Farther away, billboards advertising tooth-whitening gels and children’s hospitals flanked the road toward the city. Las Vegas had no firm vanishing point; the heat created a kind of mirage that forced my eyes to focus and refocus. A visual vacuum. I imagined myself driving past the city, toward the Amargosas, reduced to a shimmer in the late-afternoon light.
I imagined myself not going home at all.
“No rush,” Sherrod said, dropping the bill beside my plate. The steak was gone; I’d been holding the knife loosely in one hand for several minutes now, looking out the window.
I put the knife down and paid the bill.
I should go back to Henderson, I thought as I pushed open the doors and went out into the blinding day. I should get Robin’s body.
But the skyline sucked me toward it.
I could have gone anywhere.
I didn’t, because there was someone sitting on my car.
3
Leslie
She was sitting with her ankles crossed, digging for something in the pocket of her oversize utility jacket. As I got closer to my car I saw she was only a kid, maybe twenty-two, with the twice-burned skin that true redheads get in the desert. There were patches of freckles scattered unevenly across her chest and on top of one visible shoulder, where her jacket had fallen to her elbow. She found a lighter in her pocket and lit a cigarette, closing her eyes and leaning back on one hand to inhale. From a distance her features had seemed too large for her face; closer, as her eyelids lifted, I saw that it was an effect of her makeup, which weighted her lower lashes, giving her a gentle, drooping quality. “He-ey,” she said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth as I approached. “What’s up?”
I stopped ten feet away. “That’s my car.”
She frowned and lifted one of her hands from the hood, checking underneath it as if she might have left a print. “Your car, huh?”
“Yes,” I said. “I need to go, please. Can you…” I hesitated, in case she got angry.
She tilted her head; her bun was loose enough to tilt with her. Then her face cleared and she laughed. “Oh my gosh,” she said, scrambling down the hood and brushing herself off. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was your car. I’m Mary,” she added, extending a dusty hand. “I thought it was my boyfriend’s car. You guys have the same one, I guess.”
“Leslie,” I said, shaking it quickly. She was as tall as I was, but fine-boned, with narrow shoulders and small hands, so that she seemed to take up less space than I did. “I’m just—I need to—” I headed for the driver’s side, then stopped. “Can I have one of those?”
She’d stuck the cigarette back in her mouth. “One of these?” she asked through compressed lips, pointing at it.
I nodded. “I’ll pay you for it.” I groped inside my purse. There had been a quarter at the bottom earlier.
“Oh, you’re fine,” she said. She sounded like she was from Texas. “Don’t worry about it. You need a light?”
“Yes. Please.”
She dug in the box and handed me one, then held out her lighter.
I took it from her. It was one of the ones with the buttons. I pressed the button with my thumb, but the flame wouldn’t catch. I tried another three times; on the third time I let out a noise of frustration, one that I hadn’t been expecting to make, and so it came out with absolutely no modulation.
Mary flinched, and I rushed to say, “I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I can’t—”
She took the lighter from me. “It’s okay. I’ll do it. You all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. She lit the cigarette easily and handed it back to me with two delicate fingers. “Thank you.” I sucked in smoke and tried not to cough. I had never smoked a cigarette before, but it seemed to calm other people.
She eyed me. “You really needed that, huh? Trying to quit?”
“I needed a drink more,” I said, “but I have to drive.”
“Aw, you could have one,” she said. “My boyfriend comes here all the time—that’s why I was sitting on his car—well, I thought it was his car. I passed by and saw it and I thought I’d surprise him.” She ducked her head. “They make a real good martini here, if you’re a gin drinker.”
I shook my head. “I don’t really drink much.”
“Cheap date.”
There was a pause. She didn’t look like she was about to leave, and I wasn’t finished with the cigarette. “Do you work around here?” I said, for lack of anything better.
“No, it’s just on the way. I work over there.” She tilted her cigarette in the direction of the city. The sun had dropped below the roofs of the buildings, sharpening their outlines from behind so that now the skyline seemed only feet away, like the backdrop of a stage.
“Oh,” I said. Mary squatted to stub her cigarette out on the pavement. “At a casino?”
“Sort of,�
�� she said, getting to her feet. “The restaurant attached to it. I serve a lot of lobster.” She made a face. “I hate waiting tables, but I don’t hate it the way the other girls hate it, so I feel like I should keep doing it, you know?” She glanced at me and I nodded.
“What would you rather be doing?” I asked after a moment.
“I want to move to LA,” she said, dragging out the last syllable for comic effect. “I want to act. I’ve been saving up to move out there for forever. I want to have enough money that at least if I end up working in the service industry again, I’ll be able to pick and choose a little, you know? Not worth it to move and make less than at the Strip. I’d feel like it was for nothing.”
“I think you’ll make it,” I said, trying to be nice. “You look like an actress.”
“Stop it,” Mary said, grinning. She had rippling lines bracketing her mouth, which were invisible otherwise. “What do you do? Are you in the city to gamble?”
My laugh surprised me; it sounded hoarse. “I’m actually,” I said, trying to compose myself, “I’m actually in the city to see my sister.”
“Oh yeah?” Mary asked. “How’s that going?”
“She’s dead,” I said, forcing back an idiotic, nervous smile. “She just died a few hours ago.”
“Oh my gosh,” Mary said. “I’m sorry. Wow.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just a couple hours too late. Isn’t that crazy? And I really—I really needed to see her.” I tried to take a drag, but it went up my nose and I teared up. “She owes me money.”
Mary took this in. At last she said again, less kindly, “Oh, well, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to explain all that. Thank you for giving me this,” I added, holding up what was left of the cigarette. “That was really nice of you.”
“Yeah, sure. Listen, I’m going to go text Paul and see where he’s actually hanging out, but if you come by Letourneau’s in the city tonight, flag me down and I’ll sneak you a couple of shots.”