Her rapid-fire change of subjects is dizzying to my sleep-deprived brain, and I sink onto a chair at the table. I consider which part of her monologue to latch on to—the meditation, the proffer of friendship, the gender imbalance in this place—but she’s already moved on.
“I take it you’re new to town,” she says.
“Just got here, actually. How long have you lived here?”
“Atlanta or Morgan House?”
I shrug. “Both, I guess.”
“I’m a Grady baby, born and raised.” She leans a hip against the counter, taking in my frown. “Oh, sorry. Grady’s the hospital downtown, where they take all the gunshot patients and moms too strung out to know they’re pushing out a baby. I spent six weeks in one of those heated bubbles, sweating the crack and Lord knows what else out of my system. By the time I was clean, my mom was long gone. They handed me over to foster care.”
Her story has a few holes. Her accent, for one. Even if her foster parents were Latino, even if she grew up speaking Spanish at home, would her accent really be that strong? And why would someone born and raised in this city end up here, in a boardinghouse that caters to transients? Still, no way I’m planning to ask. The less she tells me about her life, the less she’ll expect me to tell her about mine.
“I’m sorry,” I say instead. “The foster system is tough.”
She shrugs, a what-can-you-do gesture. “The worst part is not being wanted by anyone. That really messes with your head, you know? It can make you feel worthless if you let it.” She pulls a bear-shaped bottle from the cabinet by the fridge and waves it next to her face. “Honey?”
I nod, even though I don’t usually take my tea sweet. My stomach is sharp with hunger, and honey will help.
She squirts a generous blob in each mug, reaches in a drawer for two spoons. “I’m Martina, by the way.”
A first name, nothing else. I follow her lead. “I’m Beth.”
“Nice to meet you, Beth.” She grins at me over her shoulder. “How you liking it here at Morgan House?”
“I haven’t really been here long enough to know, and you’re the only other person I’ve met besides Miss Sally.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “She scares me a little.”
Martina turns, swiping a hand through the air, her bracelets jangling. “Oh, don’t you worry about Miss Sally. As long as you’re cool, she’s cool. Ditto for most of the people staying here. They might need more than a three-minute shower, but they keep to themselves, mostly, and they won’t grab your ass or try to steal your shit, because they know Miss Sally would eat them for supper. Keep your head down and don’t ruffle any feathers, and you’ll do fine. How long will you be staying?”
“I don’t know. It depends on how quickly I can get a job.”
The kettle clicks off, the water gurgling in a rolling boil, and she pours it into the mugs. “The place I work for is always looking for some new help. Nothing fancy, just mopping floors and scrubbing sinks, but still. The work is steady and it pays enough to afford the rent here.”
Your voice bubbles up in my head, as clearly as if you were sitting at the table across from me. No such thing as a free lunch. Somebody offers you something, you best be thinking about what they want in return, because they always want something. I study Martina’s back as she dunks the tea bags up and down, up and down, and I wonder what she wants from me. The money strapped to my belly, most likely.
She glances over a shoulder. “Don’t like cleaning toilets, huh?”
I push your words aside and flip the script. Tell myself this isn’t about what this girl wants from me but what I want from her. The thing is, I already know that becoming Beth Murphy, really becoming her, is a pain in the ass, and maybe an impossible one. I need a Georgia driver’s license, and for that I need documents that seem as elusive to me as sprouting fairy wings or finding a flying unicorn. A birth certificate, a social security card and not one but two documents proving residency, something like a utility or credit card bill. Miss Sally doesn’t seem like the type who could be persuaded into slapping my name onto a rental agreement for a couple of crisp bills; I’m pretty sure she’d toss me onto the street if I even asked. And what about the other documents? The utility bills, the birth certificate and social security card? My Photoshop skills are nowhere near good enough, and I’m pretty sure forging a government-issued document is a felony.
“It’s not that I mind cleaning toilets,” I say. “It’s just that I lost my ID.”
Martina gives me a look. “You lost it, huh? That happens a lot around here.” She carries the mugs to the table and holds one out to me. “You don’t have anything? Not even an old, expired one?”
Especially not that. My Arkansas license is a charred lump at the bottom of a hotel trash can four states away. I take the tea and shake my head.
But according to the internet, this city has more than three hundred thousand undocumented workers. The question isn’t if there are jobs here, but where to find them.
“I can still get a job without one, right?”
She sinks onto the table, swinging her legs onto the wooden surface and crossing them underneath her, resuming her old position. “Sure, if you don’t mind working construction or cleaning rich ladies’ houses. Know any Buckhead Betties?”
I open my mouth to answer, but she waves me off.
“Never mind. You do not want to work for one of those bitches, I can promise you that. What I meant was, you’ll need a roster of regular customers, people with big houses who don’t mind paying you cash under the table.”
My stomach sinks. “The only people I know in this city are you and Miss Sally.”
“Miss Sally can maybe help you, but I can’t. I try to stay out of the northern suburbs.” She blows over the surface of her tea, regarding me with a thoughtful expression. “How much money you got in that bag strapped to your waist?”
The hand I press to the bag is automatic, as is the expression on my face, a mixture of distrust and defiance. Don’t even fucking try it.
Martina laughs. “Come on, chica. I already told you people here don’t try to steal your shit, and that includes me, though it’s probably not a bad idea to keep your cash on your person at all times. What I’m asking is if you would be willing to part with some of it. Because if you are, I might know where you could find an ID.”
I lean back on my chair, eyeing her with suspicion. My hand is still on my money belt, my legs still ready to pounce. I’m bigger than Martina, and thanks to you, I know the most effective places to land a punch. Kneecap, face, solar plexus, throat, temple. I’ll be back upstairs, barricaded behind the door of my room before she stops writhing on the floor.
But an ID would solve a lot of problems.
“How much?” I say warily.
“Last I heard, Jorge charges somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars. You can probably talk him down some if you find him in a good mood. The hard part is finding him in a good mood.”
“Is he any good?”
“The best. The Rolls-Royce of fake IDs. That’s why he’s so expensive.”
I sip my tea and do the math. Three hundred dollars is a lot of cash, almost two weeks’ worth of rent and 15 percent of my rapidly dwindling stash. But if Jorge is as good as Martina says he is, it might be worth the money. Finding a job will be so much faster and easier if Beth is legit.
“And you?”
Martina looks up from her mug, her brows sliding into a frown. “And me, what?”
“How much do you charge for telling me where to find this Jorge person?”
Martina looks at me for a moment, letting the silence linger. Her expression is that of someone making a hard decision, and I know what she’s thinking. How much is the information worth to me? How much is too much? Your words run through my head—no such thing as a free lunch—and I hate you even more for being right.
“Las Tortas Locas on Jimmy Carter Boulevard,” she says finally, unfolding her legs and pushing
to a stand, walking with her mug to the door. “Consider it your housewarming gift.”
JEFFREY
A pounding on the front door lurches me out of a dead sleep. I sit up on the couch and rub my face, blinking into the room. The only light comes from a thin slice of morning sunshine where the curtains don’t quite meet, blanching a strip of carpet. I check my watch—11:00 a.m. I’ve been asleep for all of two hours.
The past two days have been a shit show. Coming home to find Sabine missing, discovering she’s been screwing around, my surprise rendezvous with her lover, Trevor accidentally spilling the beans about the pregnancy. By the time I drove across town to Sabine’s client, then did the same with her boss, every muscle in my body was knotted up, my skin vibrating with fury. Corey and Lisa told me exactly what they told the detective: that Sabine never showed up for the showing.
There’s another pounding at the door, followed by three rapid-fire rings of the doorbell. I push off the couch and stumble to the door.
Ingrid doesn’t look like she’s slept much, either, but she’s cleaned up since the last time I saw her. She’s fresh from the shower; her hair is still damp, the ends gathered in wet clumps, dripping onto her dress, some awful blue-and-white thing. She barrels into my foyer, and I catch a whiff of her perfume, cloying and sweet.
She takes in my T-shirt and rumpled sweats, the same ones I was wearing the last time she was here, and frowns. “Why aren’t you dressed? Didn’t you get my messages?”
I wince, pressing down on my throbbing temples with a thumb and middle finger. Ingrid’s volume, louder than usual, isn’t helping what’s pounding in my head like a hangover. And then there’s that constant edge to her voice. I can’t take much of her on a good day; now, after two bad days in a row, she’s chipping away at my last threads of civility.
“Clearly not.”
“Well, go upstairs and change. We’re due at the police department in thirty minutes. The detective has an update.”
My heart bangs a slow, heavy beat. An update could be anything. Her car, found wrapped around a tree. Her body, found rotting in a field of soybeans. Her killer, on the loose or locked behind bars.
“What kind of update?”
“I don’t know, Jeffrey. He wouldn’t tell me anything other than he had some news.” She chews on a corner of her lips, which are already red and cracked. Her eyes are fat pink pillows. “What if he—”
She stops herself before she can finish, and I don’t touch it. A detective calling with news he wouldn’t share over the phone can’t be good. I turn and head upstairs for a quick shower.
Nine and a half minutes later I’m crammed into the passenger’s seat of Ingrid’s Acura, barreling south toward the police station. Traffic is light, but on the other side of her windshield, it’s gearing up to be another blistering day. I turn the air-conditioning to high and aim the vents at my face. Trevor’s news last night lit me on fire, and I’ve been burning up ever since.
“I suppose you knew about the baby.”
Ingrid stares straight ahead, hands at ten and two, but she nods. “Sabine and I—”
“Tell each other everything. I know.” I glare out the side window at the storefronts flashing by and wish I’d thought to bring sunglasses. “What else have the two of you been keeping from me?”
“She’s been talking to a lawyer. She was going to ask you for a divorce this weekend.”
The news hits me like an anvil; not that Sabine was planning to leave me—Trevor already told me as much—but at the implication she saw a lawyer. Something that’s easy to verify. I don’t need to be a detective to know how it makes me look—like I have a motive.
I snort. “That’s convenient, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“The timing. Sabine disappears, pregnant with another man’s child, right as she’s about to file for divorce from a husband who once—and only once, so help me God—lost his temper. If I were the detective, I’d be calling me in for questioning, too.” I twist on my seat, turning to face Ingrid. “Is that what this is? Is that why you came by the house, to haul me in for questioning? Did he send you to lure me to the station?”
“I’m pretty sure the detective can haul you in himself if he wants to.” She gives me the same guilty side-eye Sabine does, right before she admits to having ruined my favorite sweater in the laundry. “But to be perfectly honest, I came to get you because I can’t do this alone. Sit in some sterile room at the police station while the detective tells me something awful has happened to my sister. I’m terrified. And I couldn’t bring Mom. She wouldn’t understand, and even if she did, I can’t deal with her and bad news at the same time. As much as I hate to admit it, I need you there.”
“Why didn’t you call Trevor?”
She presses her lips together.
“You did call him. He wouldn’t come.”
“He’s a mess.” She punches the gas to make it through a light, then merges into the far-left lane. “And he was right. Having him there would only make everything worse. At least I won’t have to take care of you.”
I’m not quite sure how to take that. Her mother would be too clueless, Trevor would be too emotional and I would be my usual asshole self. I choose to focus on the words she doesn’t say: that I’m strong, solid, sensible. No matter what the detective has to tell us, at least I won’t go apeshit.
But is she right? I think about what I’d do if the detective tells me Sabine is dead, or asks to swab the inside of my cheek. What will my reaction be then? I look over at Ingrid, at her pointy features and shiny profile, and think I really don’t want to do this alone, either.
“It’s ironic,” I say, turning back to the traffic.
“What is?”
“That it took Sabine disappearing to make us actually want to be in a room together.”
BETH
For a boulevard named after a former peanut-farmer-turned-president, it’s nothing like I expected. A magnolia-lined avenue, maybe, or a winding country road slicing through rolling green fields would be fitting, not this six-lane thoroughfare that packs the Buick Regal on all sides with bumper-to-bumper traffic. I cling to the far-right lane, keep a safe distance between my car and the guy riding the brakes in front of me and search the storefronts for Las Tortas Locas.
I spot it up ahead, a giant margarita glass jutting above the rooftops like a crown jewel. I swerve into the turn lane and head toward the building, a riot of flashing neon lights squeezed between a strip mall and a drive-through bank. I pull into the lot, and mariachi music rattles the Buick’s tinted windows.
The inside is even worse. Music blares from the ceiling speakers, mixing with the din of a full house of diners and the hard chinks of porcelain and glass. The hostess has to cup a palm around her ear when I yell at her who I’m here to see, and then she points me to a table at the far end of the restaurant.
“Are you sure?” I shout, squinting at the man across the room. Even from here, from clear across the room, the man doesn’t match the name. “I’m here for Jorge. Jorge.”
She leans on the hostess stand with an elbow, and I catch a slight roll of her eyes. “That’s him. And I heard you the first time.”
I wind my way through the tables to “Jorge,” four hundred pounds of a milky-white man eating a burrito the size of his forearm. I hover at the edge of his table, waiting for him to stop shoveling food long enough to notice me. This Jorge guy may not be Latino, but he’s no stranger to churros.
He looks up, and his eyes are thin slits, part genetics, part his cheeks squeezing them shut. It looks like he’s glaring at me—and maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing. Martina said he was in a perpetually bad mood. He picks up a hard-shelled taco loaded with meat and cheese, and dunks it in salsa.
“Martina gave me your name,” I say finally. I lean closer, across what looks to be a bucket of refried beans smothered with cheese. “She said you could help me get an ID.”
“What kind?” His accent sou
nds Asian.
“A driver’s license. For Georgia preferably. And maybe a social security card if you’re able.”
He gives me a look, and I don’t know if it’s to say he does or doesn’t have one. “Four hundred dollar.” He shoves the taco—the whole entire thing—into his mouth.
“For both?”
“Yup,” he says around a mouthful of meat.
“But Martina told me three.”
The slits all but disappear. I give him time to swallow some of the food bulging in his already-swollen cheeks. “Three hundred for license only. Four hundred for both.”
Barter, you say in my head. For you haggling is a sport, a competition. You will hold up the grocery store line to bicker about the price for dented cans and boxes torn at the edges. Say it like you mean it, you tell me now. There’s always wiggle room in a price. Always.
“Three hundred and fifty,” I say.
“Three hundred seventy-five.” A shard of ground beef flies from Jorge’s mouth and ricochets off my leg. I make a face, edge backward until I am out of range. I will never eat Mexican again.
I nod. “Deal.”
Jorge tells me to meet him in an hour, at a strip mall a few miles from here. He slides the beans closer, reaching for his spoon, and rattles off an address I commit to memory. That’s it. Meeting over. I beat a semistraight path to the door before he changes his mind.
For the next forty-five minutes, I sit in my car in the restaurant’s parking lot, listening to the radio and killing time. People come and go in a constant stream, construction workers and folks in business attire, moms with hair like mine emerging from a minivan full of kids. It’s the weirdest combination of diners I’ve ever seen, and I think of Jorge, the way he shoveled in those tacos faster than he could chew. The food here must really be something.
Dear Wife Page 9