He takes in a long, steady breath and says, “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
I repeat more softly, “Place your hands on the small of my back.”
He does nothing, remains motionless. I am about to open my eyes and give up when I suddenly feel his hands slide down the lower portion of my back and land on the small of it. His hands are warm and he puts his thumbs together at my spine and spreads his fingers over my skin and he is able to cover my entire lower back. The skin on his hands is rough and it tugs my skin slightly as he moves his fingers.
Directions are no longer needed as he digs his hands into my body and he squeezes my flesh and I wince and I keep taking air in my lungs but can’t seem to let any out and my body rises off the table as he tightens his grip on me and I can feel the towel has shifted lower and the cleavage where back meets bottom is exposed. Jonathan glides his hands to the base of my neck and pulls them back down, dragging them across all my muscles, and I can feel myself loosening up, twenty years of fear and tension being squeezed from every muscle, every bone, and I do not want him to stop, and before I can catch myself the air finally leaves my lungs in the form of a request.
“Oh, Jonathan, that feels so good. Please don’t stop.”
He responds by digging in harder, tugging at my muscles, and I can feel all the experience he’s had with violence as he twists my body around. He keeps moving me and pulling me and the roughness of his palms is scraping me and my towel is shifting farther down and I can tell his face is getting nearer to my skin as he excavates. He moves closer and closer and I can feel his breath on me and I arch my back because I want to feel his lips on me and he rubs harder and his hands are sweating and just as he is about to kiss my back and I am about to flip myself over on the table and pull him down, the door opens.
“Uh,” the masseur says, “that’s not what we mean by hourly rate.”
Jonathan and I look at each other, then at the masseur as we say in unison, “We’re done.”
“Are you sure? That looked more like the middle.”
I sit up and hold the towel to my chest. “Uh, you know… I think I’m finished with the massage portion of my day. I’m sort of spent.”
Jonathan just stands frozen with his hands at his sides, like he’s never been caught doing something illicit—which, again, I find impossible.
“I’ll just… wait… outside,” he says.
After I get dressed, I walk back to the room with the food and Jonathan is waiting there. I smile and hug him and whisper, “I loved having your hands on my body.”
He trembles a little and says, “There is really no other place they’d rather be.”
We hold each other for a moment and he is the first to pull back. “Listen, I’m gonna make myself scarce.”
“No, I want you here.”
“Well, so far my presence seems to have clouded what I wanted to be a day of relaxation for you. And I need to make some phone calls. I need to set some folks straight. Or unstraight.”
I give him a quizzical look.
He clarifies, “I need to buy us more time.”
I nod a little, even though I don’t understand. “Why do we need more time?”
He gets a faraway look on his face, then runs his fingers through his hair and says, “We just do.”
He gives me a quick peck on the cheek and if I’d known he was coming in like that I would’ve intercepted with my lips.
“I’ll see you at five o’clock, okay?” He steps backwards. “Meet you in the hotel bar?”
“I’ll be there.” I say this like it’s a certainty but it seems there’s really no way to know.
I like the fact that Jonathan trusts me to spend the day here, that he’s self-assured enough to know I’ll be waiting, especially after I was pulled away last time.
I’ve heard people mention the term day spa before, but usually only on television or in the movies. People who are stuck in—or put in—jobs that pay in the entry-level range typically do not get to experience such luxuries. But the entire process is addictive: the unfettered care and attention, the high-end hair and body products, the knowledge. The experience is enough to make me want to find a high-paying job just so I can maintain a regular fix.
The hours flew; when I wasn’t having my skin treated or my nails done, I was being pampered and fed and treated like a movie star. With each person who helped me, I could see myself changing—changing back—to the person I was supposed to be.
The ultimate transformation came during my time with the hairstylist. She spent twenty minutes just discussing what I wanted my hair to look like. I didn’t know, of course, other than to say natural.
Which was a problem.
The stylist asked me what my natural hair color was, but all I could offer was “some shade of blond.”
I truly have no idea what I should look like.
But the stylist did. She matched a color to my skin and cut my hair into a shape that accented my face, feminine and, perhaps most important, intentional. It took two women to get my hair beautifully colored and conditioned to where it was a pleasure to run my fingers through it.
It’s just after one o’clock and I’m a new woman. A different woman. I stare at myself in the mirror of the spa lounge for a good five minutes before someone comes over and asks if there is something wrong.
“No,” I say, “everything is finally right.”
I can’t take my eyes from the mirror. “Welcome, Melody Grace,” I whisper. “I’ve missed you.”
I truly think no one would recognize me right now. Perhaps it’s the greatest disguise of all—simply to be myself. If I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror, how would the Bovaros?
The food on the bar has changed for lunchtime and I eat a few finger sandwiches. As I am about to leave the room for my one-fifteen appointment for something called a body polish, a clerk walks over and tells me a gentleman is waiting for me out front. Since I know only onegentleman, I double-time it to the entryway, ready to show Jonathan the new me and throw my arms around him. But when I reach the entrance to the spa, there is no one there.
I step into the hall of the hotel and look around and just as I am about to ask the clerk where this gentleman is, I hear a familiar voice from behind me.
“Hello, Michelle.”
Turns out the new me looks a great deal like the old me.
SO HERE IS HOW PATHETIC I AM: I ACTUALLY TURN AROUND AND look at this man and say, “I’m sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else.” I walk back toward the spa and as I get within striking distance of Sean, I add, “And you’re no gentleman.”
“Michelle,” he says. I keep walking.
“Michelle,” he repeats. I enter the spa.
“Melody.”
I stop. Then I turn and glower at him and he throws his hands in the air and quickly drops them to his sides.
“Look, I’m not tossing you in the back of a government vehicle, am I? You’re not being hijacked by two or three feds, right?”
The people in the spa have stopped talking and I can feel them watching over my shoulder. Without turning to acknowledge their attention, I slowly walk toward Sean.
“All I want,” he says, “is to talk.”
We stare at each other for a moment and I can feel all of the tension returning, the muscles tightening, the bones aching.
“How did you find me?”
“What?” He gives me a condescending laugh. “You’re kidding, right? The job of a U.S. Marshal is to hunt down fugitives. How hard do you think it was to find you?”
“Take any heat for losing me twice in one week?”
Thus endeth the laugh.
“Look,” he says, stepping close enough to whisper, “we know who you’re with. And based on how you’re spending your day, I’m assuming you went with him willingly.”
I can’t look him in the eye any longer. I meagerly answer, “I did.” I stare at my freshly painted toes. “I hope I didn’t get you
in trouble.”
“Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m here because I’m concerned about you.”
My eyes return to his face. “It’s okay, Sean. Jonathan is okay. Everything is okay.”
He gives me a restrained smirk. “Nothing is okay. Do you know who you’ve put your trust in?”
“I know about his family and… I’m all right with it.”
Sean leans in and whispers louder. “Am I to understand that you’re all right with the people who had your parents murdered? The people who ruined your life?”
Over the recent days, I have subconsciously converted my units of rage for the Bovaros to units of affection for Jonathan. In any case, he’s got a point and it angers me, so I hit back with the only ammo I’ve got. “No, Sean, you are the people who ruined my life. All the morons from the Justice Department are the people who ruined my life.”
He sighs. “How long have you known Johnny?”
“He goes by Jonathan.” I sound like a little kid.
“Not to his friends and family back home, he doesn’t. Do you have any idea who this man is, the kinds of things he’s done?”
My instincts tell me that I’m right to be with Jonathan and right to distrust Sean, but no matter how many times I try to convince myself, at the end of the day, Sean is wearing the white hat and Jonathan is wearing the black.
“What is it you want?”
“I want you to come with me, Melody. I want you to talk to some people.” He moves back a little. “Look, I’m not the right guy to explain things or cook the deals or even pamper you. I’m a marshal, and that means I have a specific job: to hunt and to transport and to protect; I leave everything else to the other folks.”
I glance over my shoulder and the spa employees are still staring at us. When my eyes meet theirs, they all turn away quickly. I had friends for half a day.
I turn back around. “I made a promise to stay here. I’m not going to break it.”
Sean looks at his watch. “When are you meeting him again?”
“Five o’clock.”
He nods. “All I’m asking is that you come with me now for a few hours. And, if after these folks have talked with you, you still want to return to this hotel, well… I’ll get you back here by five.”
I stare at Sean and his gaze is oppressive and I can see how he manages to intimidate.
“Not one minute past five, you understand?”
He nods and his shoulders slump a little, like this is the first deal he’s ever closed.
I reluctantly walk back into the spa, clear my throat, and quietly say to one of the clerks, “Um… something sort of came up and I won’t be able to meet the rest of my appointments.” I glance at myself in the mirror behind her and I look and feel cleaner and more natural than I have in my entire life. I do not want to go.
“Well, I, uh,” the clerk stutters, as though her service was really for Jonathan and not me, “I hope you enjoyed your time with us… and that you’ll visit us again.” She says this like it’s half statement/half question.
“Yeah, well, here’s the weird thing: I’m coming back in a few hours and I’m going to pretend I was here all day. Is that okay?”
Her smile sours, warps into a friendly frown. “Sure.”
“Thanks.” I turn to walk away. “You were paid for all my, uh… ?”
The smile returns. “Handsomely.”
I’m not sure if she’s referring to cash or the guy who gave it to her, but I don’t have time for a discussion; the sooner I leave the sooner I can return. And I am determined to keep my promise to Jonathan.
Something is not right. Sean drives us out of Baltimore and does not say a single word. Not only that, but I’m seated next to him in the front seat, like they understand I’ve given up on them and they have no intention of genuinely protecting me.
We drive half the distance to Washington and just as I am about to break the silence and ask him what is going on, he takes one of the exits for Columbia, Maryland. We drive by my old neighborhood and I see where I worked and where I lived and where I eavesdropped on little Jessica and where I purchased pizza every Tuesday night. It’s like returning to the scene of a crime. My body involuntarily shakes and though it seems like I’ve been gone forever, it’s only been a few days.
“Why did you bring me back here?”
Sean says nothing and before I know it we’re on some parkway that leads us to the countryside, where the estates get larger and larger and the road gets narrower and narrower and the land on each side eventually turns to miles of corn and soybeans and before the road nearly ends, Sean pulls into a parking lot for an abandoned Baptist church and waits.
“What’s going on?” I ask nervously. “Will you answer me? Why are we here?”
In the distance, I see a rolling dust cloud, and at the head is yet another Ford product, this one bigger than the Explorer Sean and I are waiting in. It zooms up the road and pulls right next to us and two men get out and open the doors and I am pulled from one and pushed into the backseat of the other. And just before they close the door, I see Sean staring at me and he smiles a little. Then, as the door shuts, everything goes black.
Literally.
It is a black Ford Excursion with black leather seats, a black interior roof, and black controls. And the windows are black—not tinted, black—and there is a window in front of me, like in a limousine, and it’s black too. I can’t see a thing.
“Light?” I ask.
A few seconds later, the man next to me flips a switch and says, “I’m Deputy Marshal Williamson and we’re taking you to the WITSEC Safesite and Orientation Center. We’ll be there in approximately eighteen minutes.”
I stare at the heavyset, middle-aged man with a fresh high and tight. “Come again?”
“You’ve never been there, according to your file.”
I continue my staring but I’m not really looking at him at all; I’m confused. “The Safesite and Orientation Center?”
He keeps speaking but looks straight ahead, as if he’s watching the road instead of the dark void. “It’s where people are … reborn, I suppose.”
“Well, why the black windows? I’m not that much of a threat, am I?”
“The black windows aren’t to keep people from seeing in.” He finally turns to me. “They’re to keep you from seeing out.”
I look down, pretty much because there is nothing else to look at, and I’m amazed at the quality manicure and pedicure I received hours earlier. I can’t help but think they’ll be destroyed before Jonathan ever gets to see them. I have a brief fantasy of digging my freshly painted fingernails into the side of Sean’s neck.
After a solid fifteen minutes, the car shimmies and I can tell we’re going down, fast, and we hit concrete and suddenly the car’s wheels are crying as we make repeated sharp turns. Then we stop and the engine goes off and the doors unlock and everyone exits the vehicle, except me; I’ve learned to wait for instructions.
And, sure enough, the marshals converse for a moment—they’re all business—then ask me to step out of the car. I do.
They escort me down a long carpeted hallway and into a receiving area that looks almost as classy as the entrance to the Renaissance. There are one-way mirrors spaced sporadically in the walls and cameras whirring inside black globes. I slow my pace. I’m sure my mouth is ajar; I just hope there isn’t any saliva running down my chin.
“What is this place?” I finally mumble.
“It’s where we bring everyone entering the program. It’s a one-stop shop, a state-of-the-art center designed to protect and re-invent.”
Williamson points at various items in the facility as we walk, commenting on all of the hidden benefits, selling me on it like I’m a child reluctantly dumping a parent off at a nursing home. He explains how the doors here are bolted and can only be opened by WITSEC inspectors, how the hallways are monitored with video cameras and motion detectors, how one witness will never know that another is here, and how t
hey’ve housed up to five families at a time. He tells me how the center has a solid exterior and another completely separate interior so that nothing can get through, explosives or otherwise, and how they have gates and fences that keep out intruders and uncleared vehicles.
He tells me how they’ve got document specialists and trained personnel to help people get all their new IDs and records in the fastest manner; psychologists and psychiatrists in residence to help folks being relocated better understand the changes ahead—and to help with any outstanding fears and issues they may have; lawyers who build a contract into what they call a Memorandum of Understanding—that is, the details of the specific agreement for a relocated witness and his or her family so they can be certain what they’re getting in return for their help; inspectors available to discuss and develop a plan for where the witnesses would like to be relocated, where they can watch videos of the targeted areas and get a better understanding of terrains and expenses and lifestyle options.
If this was why Sean wanted me to come here, that he hoped this spectacle might turn my tide, he was way off. I am certainly impressed by the facility—by the government’s forethought, comprehensiveness, and commitment. But right now I am nothing more than a paroled prisoner strolling through the halls of the penitentiary that once housed me. And all the chimerical, fancy detail work cannot change the predestined outcome of another cycle through the system. This place is nothing more than a Porsche with the engine of a Buick.
Deputy Williamson continues his comprehensive coverage until I ask the burning question. “Where was this when my parents came into the program?”
He pauses and looks at the marshals beside me. “It wasn’t completed until 1988, after your family was already in the program.”
I consciously have to remove the bewildered look from my face. “No one ever gave us psychiatrists or relocation options or a Memorandum of Understanding.”
Williamson touches me on the shoulder and tilts his head as if to say Yeah, yeah, I know, but I’m just a marshal and you need to complain to someone else. Now more than ever I wish I hadn’t come. Even as I have dismissed the lot of them, they seem to find a way to get under my skin. And rankle.
The Girl She Used to Be Page 14