Obscured

by Tara Sue Me

  “Home,” he says, and he loosens his grip a bit.

  “I told you that’s a horrible, rotten idea.”

  “And my other choice is what? To leave you here?”

  Anyone else would. Anyone else would jump at the chance to leave me in the park. I don’t like the hope that sparks inside my chest. I tell myself he’s doing it because he’s a preacher and he has to. That he wouldn’t leave a dog alone in the park. But it does no good. The hope is there, and like I’d recently discovered, hope is a dangerous thing.

  Chapter Ten

  He doesn’t talk while we walk to his condo, which is fine with me. The silence allows me time to think. I wonder if Theo is awake and what he did when he saw I’d left. Does Mike know yet? Chills run up and down my arms at that thought, and I actually look over my shoulder, half expecting him to be there.

  If I manage to stay out of his grasp, how long will I live looking over my shoulder? It’s a sobering thought, and, truthfully, one I didn’t think of when I decided to run.

  But...

  Am I’m really worth Mike’s time and effort to track down? He has money coming in from everywhere; I’m just a speck of dirt in his sandbox. I probably bring in pennies compared to his other sources of income. No, I don’t think financially I’m that much of a loss for Mike.

  The cost to his pride is another issue altogether.

  He may be willing to overlook my disappearance if he looks only at the money, but I’m willing to bet he won’t. He’s been in control of my life for ten years. He isn’t about to give that up. He’ll track me down to save face, and he won’t stop until he finds me.

  Isaiah walks with confident steps away from the park, his hand still cupping my elbow. I’ve brought him into this mess with Mike, and now he isn't safe either.

  He turns down a street I don’t recognize. How sad is it I know so very little about the city I’ve lived in for ten years? So many places I’ve never been: places I’m not welcome at or that I never have time to visit. There really is life beyond the Strip. Mike keeps us on such a short leash, probably because he knows if we saw everything, we’d never be content with him again.

  Though I’m not sure content is the correct word.

  It’s not too much longer before we reach a set of nondescript condos. They’re older and look a bit sad and rundown. The roofs need repair and paint is peeling in several places along the wooden trim. It’s definitely a lower-middle-class neighborhood. Most of the cars parked in the spaces are older models, and many have dings and scratches. But for me, the entire scene represents freedom and a new start.

  “It’s not much, I know.” He fumbles in his pocket for keys.

  “It’s perfect.”

  An old lady walking a tiny dog turns the corner, and her eyes latch onto me at once. I groan. I’m wearing jeans and a tee, but I’m sure she knows exactly how I earn my living. After a few years, we all seem to take on a certain look or have a certain vibe. At least, that’s the way I feel. The dog barks and pulls at his leash as they get closer.

  “Your neighbors are going to think you’re paying me by the hour.” I fidget in an effort not to pull at my shirt. I’m just an average woman, standing here doing average things.

  “Sorry to burst your bubble, but you look like you’ve been to hell and back. Highly doubtful anyone is going to think you’re leading me down the road to ruin.” He waves to the lady. “Hello. Beautiful weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

  “It’s Nevada.” She pulls the dog to a stop, which only makes him bark more. “It’s hot.” Her hawk-like gaze travels up and down my outfit. Her nose wrinkles, and she turns to Isaiah. I guess the average vibe didn’t work. “I don't normally see you out when I walk.”

  “I’m usually out by six-thirty,” he says with a smile, but it’s not the smile I’m used to seeing. It’s fake and doesn’t light up his face.

  The three of us stand there. She’s not moving, and Isaiah isn’t opening his door, though he has found the keys.

  “Beatrice Brightman.” She breaks the silence and holds out her free hand.

  “Athena Hamilton.” I shake her her hand. “I’m an old friend.”

  Her expression says she doubts that very much, but is far too polite to mention as much.

  “Let’s get you situated,” Isaiah finally says and unlocks the door.

  Beatrice’s mouth drops open, and I take the opportunity to get a word in. “Nice meeting you.” I glance down at the still-yapping dog. “And your dog.”

  She huffs, but pulls the little monster along, continuing on her way.

  Isaiah watches her with an amused expression. “Lovely lady.”

  “You’re a pastor. You’re not supposed to lie.”

  He laughs and opens the door, stepping aside to let me pass by him. It’s smaller than my place, filled with secondhand furniture, and someone on the floor above us is bouncing a basketball.

  An old couch, probably slipcovered so often no one knows its original color, takes up most of the living room. I sit down; it’s comfortable, though. He settles beside me and the couch shifts slightly under his weight.

  My gaze falls on the one picture he has out. It’s of his mom.

  Isaiah's mother is descended from what we called Southern royalty. She can trace her family tree through several Confederate officers and her great-great-something fought the British in the Revolutionary War. I remember her as stark, stiff, and never without a strand of pearls.

  My family wasn't rich, but my father worked as a manager in her in-law's company, and that made us acceptable enough in her eyes. My mom spent a lot of time trying to measure up to Mrs. Martin's exacting standards of Southern Womanhood. She always wanted the frosting on the cupcakes to be just right and the cucumber sandwiches to be cut just so.

  “How is Mrs. Martin these days?” I ask.

  There’s a brief flash of surprise in his eyes, but it goes away when I nod to the picture.

  “I haven’t talked to her since I moved here. She’s upset I decided to live in Sin City.” He checks his phone and types something in. “Said if I had to be a preacher, couldn’t I go somewhere worthwhile like the Congo?”

  “She’d hate for you to go overseas.”

  “Of course. But it’s more impressive to the Ladies Garden Club members if your son’s a potential martyr in the wilds of Africa than if he’s living the good life in Vegas.”

  “Your mom’s sick.”

  “I like to say she’s misguided.”

  I shrug. “Same difference.”

  He glances at his phone again. “I can’t convince you to go to the police? You honestly think they’re going to turn a blind eye?”

  “No, I think they’d hold me, call Mike, and release me into his custody.”

  He shakes head. “If you’d just —”

  I slam my hand onto the couch arm. “How many times do I have to say it? He buys the police. I’m such an idiot. I worried the entire way over that I was putting you in danger by being here, but I get it. Mike could show up with his entire entourage and you’d think he was coming for dinner.”

  “I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again. No more Mike.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If you don’t mind a question, though, why did you stay so long?”

  “I had nowhere to go. Still don’t really. I can’t live here forever. What am I going to do?”

  He hesitates before reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t know, but we’ll think of something.”

  “There’s one thing I’m good at. One thing I know how to do.”

  “No.” His voice carries more force than I’ve heard before. “You’re not going back to that.”

  “I’d say I’m not your problem, but I think we’ve had that conversation before.”

  “You’re a fast learner.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  His lips look soft, and I wonder how they’d taste. I’ve never wondered that in all the year
s and with all the men I’ve been with. Most of the time when I kiss a man, I taste alcohol. I bet Isaiah would taste like nothing I’ve ever had. Nothing I can even imagine.

  He clears his throat.

  I sit back. “Sorry.”

  He sighs and runs his hands through his hair.

  “You need to get that mess cut,” I say.

  “I know. I need to find someone here to do it.” He shakes his head. “Haven’t had it cut since I moved here.”

  “I can do it.” The words come out before I have time to think about them.

  “Really?” His eyes widen in surprise.

  I wave absentmindedly. “Sure, I did some of the girls’ hair. Some of them said I did really good.” I squint my eyes and force my gaze on his hair. “I think I could trim yours without doing much damage.”

  His lips uplift into a smile and I can’t decide if he’s trying to figure out how to let me down easy or trying to convince himself it’s okay for a hooker — ex-hooker, I correct myself — to cut his hair.

  I study his hair. It’s so thick, I can only imagine how it would feel sliding between my fingers.

  “Just a trim above your eyebrows.” I tilt my head. “A bit off around your ears. The neck though.” I reach without thinking and lightly brush where curls touch the nape of his neck. He jumps at the feel of my fingers. “Sorry.” I scoot away.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s just. . .”

  “I know.” I feel bad. I didn’t meant to make him uncomfortable. “I forgot. I wasn’t thinking.” I want to keep the mood light so I add, “I think my own hair is in need of a cut.”

  You can’t run from your past. I know that. Can’t escape it, either. Have to face it. Very well, I can accept that. But that doesn’t mean when I look at it, I have to recognize it.

  “I see it as rearranging the future a bit.” I pull my fingers through my hair. “Besides, this way I’ll be less recognizable.”

  He doesn’t appear sold on the idea, and I can’t imagine why not. By changing my hair, I’ll be taking a step in a new direction. A new me starts with a new look, right?

  “Do you really think it’d be that easy?” he asks.

  “What? Coloring my hair? Of course it’s that easy. You can buy hair color anywhere. The hard part’s deciding what color.” I dig my fingers into my messy waves and fluff them. “I’m thinking red or brunette. How about you?”

  He gaze is fixed on the wall behind me.

  “Isaiah?”

  He slowly looks at me. “I wasn’t talking about the color.”

  “Okay, fine. What were you talking about?”

  “Do you honestly think anyone who knows you would be fooled by a change in hair color? Especially someone with a more intimate knowledge of you?”

  “I highly doubt I’m that memorable,” I reply. “To most of them I was just a warm and willing body.”

  His phone rings then, and he glances down at the display and frowns. “I have to take this. Make yourself at home.”

  He walks into what I guess is the bedroom and closes the door, leaving me alone in the living room. I try to wait for him to get back, but my eyelids are so heavy, like all at once my body realizes how long it’s been awake, and it’s protesting staying that way. Was it only last night I had dinner with Theo? It seems as if it were days and days ago, not mere hours.

  I yawn really wide. There’s no sound from the room Isaiah went into. I don't know if he's still on the phone, but I don’t want to bother him if he is. I’d like a blanket, but his condo is truly a bachelor pad, and there’s not one to be found. I draw the line at looking through his closets.

  My eyes struggle to stay open as I toe off my shoes and curl into a ball on the couch. I’m asleep within seconds.

  ***

  Isaiah wakes me gently sometime later.

  “Athena?” He rubs my shoulder. “I hate to wake you, but I’m afraid if I don’t, you won’t sleep tonight.”

  I groan, not ready to face whatever the rest of the day holds, but I sit up anyway. “What time is it?”

  “Almost noon.”

  Wow, I slept longer than I thought I would. He’s standing in front of me, and I smile at him. “I don’t know if I said it already, but thank you. I know you didn’t have to take me in.”

  “You’re welcome. Now you’ve said it, so you’re not allowed to thank me again.”

  I stretch. It feels so good to wake up and not dread the coming hours. My entire body feels light and the more I think about, the more it seeps into my brain that I’ve really left. I don’t have the money to fly to Indiana and I may never work in a bookstore, but Mike doesn’t own me anymore. He no longer gets to dictate what I do. The realization stuns me.

  For the first time in ten years, my life is mine.

  “That’s an awfully big smile,” Isaiah says.

  “I’m free.”

  “You are.”

  I sigh and lift my arms above my head in an even bigger stretch. “I’m free.” I like saying the word: free, free, free. My stomach growls.

  He actually laughs this time.

  “I’m also hungry,” I admit.

  “I can help with that, too. It just so happens I went to the grocery store yesterday. What are you in the mood for?”

  I think back to the last meal I ate. I only picked at my food during that fateful meal with Theo. Lunch before that maybe? “I don’t care,” I tell Isaiah. “Anything sounds good at this point.”

  He crooks a finger at me and I follow him to the small kitchen. He opens the refrigerator and pulls out ham and cheese. Nodding to a cabinet he asks, “Can you get the bread? It’s on the bottom shelf.”

  We pull out the necessary things to make sandwiches and it feels oddly domestic, but not in a weird way.

  This is what my life would have been like if I’d made different choices.

  Preparing a meal. Hanging out the kitchen. Making small talk about nothing at all.

  You may not know what you’re missing if you’ve never experienced it, and now that I’m having a taste of normal, I want it more than anything.

  I don’t talk much during lunch, my mind is still coming to terms with my new freedom. Trying to comprehend exactly what it means and I grow more and more excited with new realization.

  People live like this. Everyday.

  I wonder if they know how fortunate they are? Probably not, but I vow to never take it for granted. Not for an hour, a minute, or even a second. I promise to embrace every moment I have. To live.

  “You’re quiet,” Isaiah says at one point.

  “Just thinking.” But the old me wonders if there’s a hidden message in his statement. Does he want me to talk more? He’s been kind enough to take me into his house. I should probably try to carry on a conversation.

  “Do you have to go into work?” It strikes me that it’s noon on a weekday. I can’t claim to know a lot about what pastors do, but surely they have an office of some sort that they’re expected to be at?

  “I called them while you were sleeping to let them know I wouldn’t be in today.”

  “You don’t have to stay here on my account.” Those are my words, but inside I’m secretly glad he is.

  “I’ll be fine as long as go in tomorrow. I don’t want you to be alone today.”

  I don’t thank him; he told me not to. “I don’t feel like being alone.”

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize how they sounded. “I mean, I didn’t, I don’t —”

  “It’s okay,” he assures me. “I know what you meant.”

  “How uncomfortable is it to be a pastor with a hooker in your home?”

  “It would only be uncomfortable if I cared what other people thought. Since I don’t, I’m perfectly fine having an ex-hooker in my house.”

  I’m sure there are unwritten rules about a single preacher being alone anywhere with a woman of any age. But maybe not. Hell, what do I know? It’s not like any religious types I’d been around had been p
aragons.

  “I will have to go back to my office tomorrow,” he continues. “Will you be okay here by yourself? Should I leave you the car?”

  “I’ll be fine. And, no, don't leave the car. If Mike were to come by looking, it might look suspicious if your car’s here. Especially if it usually isn’t.”

  He holds his head back, thinking about that for a few minutes. “That’s very true. I wonder if he’s been by today?”

  My sandwich suddenly lodges in my throat at the thought of Mike being here, maybe looking into one of the windows.

  “Damn it, Athena.” He jumps up and puts his hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t say that to scare you. Are you okay? You look so pale.”

  I swallow the sandwich and take a long drink of water. “I’m fine.”

  But my heart is still pounding and I keep looking toward the windows. Isaiah notices and frowns. He gets up to close them and pull the curtains. “I wish now I had a condo on the second floor.”

  Now that there’s no light coming through the windows, the condo is dark.

  “So what are we going to do?” I ask. “Sit around here in the dark all day?”

  “I have some books if you’d like to read, or we can watch something on TV.”

  My ears perk up at the mention of books, and I happily lose myself for next few hours in Isaiah’s small assortment. I don’t regret for a minute the way I left my apartment and old life behind, but I do mourn the loss of my book collection. When I read, I can become anyone.

  When you live day after day in despair, you need a diversion, or else you either go insane or kill yourself. I’ve seen both happen, and swore I’d never do either one. Alcohol only makes it worse. I drank heavily my first two years, but one day, one of Mike’s girls went missing. All he said was that she was a drunk and no one wanted her anymore. He made sure he was looking at me when he said it. I stopped drinking that day, and books became my addiction of choice.

  It’s funny, in that sad sort of hopeless humor, it was because of books that I turned to drinking in the first place.

  After I’d been with Mike for about six months, he finally decides it’s time for me to be on my own. My new place is in a small complex not far from the hotel, and all of Mike’s girls live nearby. I’m the newest, so I get the worst apartment.