Someone Is Watching

by Joy Fielding

  — SEVENTEEN —

  The salon is clean and modern, with white walls, black sinks, and burgundy leather swivel chairs, mirrors everywhere. And even though it is first thing on a Monday morning, when many hairdressing salons remain closed, this place is bustling. There are already a handful of clients present, one woman chattering away while getting her hair washed, her head thrown back to expose her jugular, another whose eyes are closed and whose head is completely covered with strips of aluminum foil, and another talking into her cell phone and thumbing through a celebrity tabloid while her stylist, a slim-hipped young man with pink-highlighted, platinum hair and tight, leopard-print pants, flits around her head with a pair of scissors, like a giant gnat.

  “Sorry we don’t have enough time for a pedicure, too. I have this client coming in half an hour,” Mrs. Paul says.

  “Loreta De Sousa.”

  “What?” She stops, spins around, brown eyes widening with alarm. “You know her?”

  “I heard you mention her name when I walked in.”

  Mrs. Paul sighs with relief, then shakes her head in obvious dismay. “Sorry about that. Never good business for one client to hear the staff bad-mouthing another. Tabatha would be horrified.”

  “Tabatha? Is she the owner?”

  “Oh, God, no. You’ve never watched Tabatha Takes Over?”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s this show on Bravo. It’s great,” she says, directing me to a chair in front of a small manicure table. “Tabatha’s this really cool blonde who takes over small businesses, like hair salons, that are struggling, and plants hidden cameras so she can spy on everyone, and then she tells them what they’re doing wrong and what they should be doing to make it right. She changes people’s lives. She really does.”

  “Amazing,” I say. What I find truly amazing is that my niece is far from alone in her obsession with reality TV. Tabatha and her various clones are indeed changing people’s lives because reality TV is changing the face of reality itself. This thought makes me almost dizzy, and I look around the room, trying to ground myself.

  On the wall beside me are several rows of Plexiglas shelves filled with small bottles of colorful nail polishes, from the palest white to the darkest black. Behind me are shelves filled with a variety of beauty products—facial cleansers, body lotions, anti-aging creams—and two big burgundy leather chairs used for pedicures. “They’re massage chairs,” Mrs. Paul tells me, following the direction of my gaze. “Absolutely fabulous. Too bad we don’t have time for a pedicure. Maybe next time. Do you know what color you want for your nails?”

  I shrug. “What do you suggest?”

  She gives me a quick once-over. “Well, you don’t strike me as much of a pastel person. Am I right?”

  I nod.

  “How about red? This is a great new shade.” She holds up a tiny round bottle of thick red liquid. It looks pretty much the same as all the other bottles of red liquid on the shelf, but then, she’s the expert.

  “Great.”

  She deposits the bottle of polish on the table and then busies herself at the sink. I estimate her age as early thirties and note that she is about five feet, six inches tall and approximately one hundred and forty pounds. Her hair is chin-length and light brown. She is pretty in an ordinary, everyday sort of way. Her eyes are brown, her nose narrow, her lips—probably her best feature—pleasantly bow-shaped. If there is nothing unappealing about her, neither is there anything spectacular. Other than liberally applied mascara, she wears very little makeup. It’s hard to picture her as the wife of Paul Giller, alias Narcissus, a man whose tastes veer toward the noticeably younger and more wantonly seductive.

  Mrs. Paul turns toward me. “I’m sorry. I just realized I don’t know your name.”

  “It’s Avery,” I say, the first name that pops into my head. “And yours?”

  “Elena.” She extends her right hand toward me, and I notice her fingers are free of rings. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The woman is a manicurist after all.

  She deposits a plastic container full of soapy warm liquid on the table and directs my right hand into it while examining my left. “You ever had a manicure before?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Not in some time, I’ll bet. Your hands are a mess. How long have you been picking at your cuticles?”

  I feel instantly self-conscious. I used to pick at my cuticles whenever I got nervous, although I had that nasty habit pretty much under control at the time I was raped. Truthfully, I have no recollection of starting it again, but there is no denying the evidence. I try to pull my hand away but she holds tight.

  “You see these ridges?” She points to the thin lines cutting into the surface of my nails. “I’ll try to buff these out a bit, but if you don’t stop picking, you’ll make them permanent. And it would be a shame because, otherwise, you have very pretty hands.” She picks up an emery board and brushes it across the nails of my left hand as I ponder the best way to proceed. “So, you’re here bright and early on a Monday morning,” she says before I can decide. “What is it you do, Avery?”

  “What do I do?” I repeat.

  “Hard question?” She looks up from what she is doing, her brow furrowing.

  “I’m between jobs,” I say. Not quite a lie.

  “You get laid off?”

  I nod. Talk about getting laid, I think, wondering where I have suddenly acquired this macabre sense of humor.

  “From what?”

  Another pause. Another half-truth. “Legal assistant.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Damned if I know.” I’m grateful when she laughs.

  “Probably why you got laid off,” she says.

  My turn to laugh. I like Elena, I decide. She deserves better than Paul Giller.

  “Seriously,” she says. “Just what does a legal assistant actually do? And please don’t say ‘assists lawyers.’ ”

  “Glorified secretary,” I offer instead.

  This seems to satisfy her. “Must be hard. All those egos.”

  I picture the lawyers of Holden, Cunningham, and Kravitz, as if assembled for a group photograph. Sean Holden pushes himself front and center, relegating everyone else to background, supporting roles. Even in my imagination, even knowing what I know now, the sight of him induces a palpable pull, and I feel my body sway toward him.

  Without warning, a pregnant woman emerges from behind his back. At her side are two young girls, their faces blurred although their eyes are clear. They stare at me, accusingly. “Leave our father alone,” they warn silently. I will them to disappear.

  “So what happened?” Elena is asking. “Was your firm downsizing?”

  “Actually, I got sick,” I say, retrieving my footing and remembering why I’m here. “Pneumonia.” I lift my eyes to hers, hoping she’ll take the bait, tell me about Paul Giller’s recent hospital stay.

  “No kidding. And they fired you for that?”

  “I missed a lot of work.”

  “I don’t think they’re allowed to fire you for getting sick. I realize you know a lot of lawyers, but I have a cousin who’s an attorney and he’s really good. Maybe you should speak to him.”

  I flinch, pull my hand away.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Did I nick you?”

  “No. It’s okay.”

  “His name is Peter Sullivan. My cousin, that is. He’s with Ron Baker and Associates. You know them?”

  Luckily, I’ve never heard of Ron Baker and Associates. Miami has hundreds of law firms, maybe even thousands.

  “So, what firm were you with?”

  I hesitate, coughing into the side of my arm in order to buy time. “Bennett, Robinson,” I offer, combining the first names of two well-known firms.

  “Don’t know them. I think you should call my cousin,” she says, more emphatically than she did the first time, guiding my left hand to the soapy water and starting work on my right. “Sounds like you have a good case for wr
ongful dismissal. Avery …”

  I look around to see who else has entered the room.

  “Avery?” she says again, which is when I realize she is talking to me.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Forget your name?”

  “You were saying?”

  “That pneumonia is one nasty piece of work,” she says. “My mother had it a few years back. And then this guy I know was in the hospital with it a little while ago.”

  This guy I know?

  A little while ago?

  “He was really sick with it. They had him on IVs, the whole works.”

  “That’s awful. Did he lose his job?”

  “Nah. He’s an actor. He doesn’t work half the time anyway. He’s with this temp agency. They get him part-time work. Odd jobs. Nothing to do with acting. Hey, maybe that’s what you should do, sign up for something like that.”

  “Maybe.” So we are talking about Paul Giller.

  She begins chopping at my nails with an oversized clipper. “Your nails are really strong.”

  I’m not sure if her remark is an observation or a compliment. I want to ask her more about this guy she knows but have to move slowly. “So, have you been working here long?” I venture, deciding to go off in another direction, then circle back.

  “A couple of years.”

  I take another cursory glance around. “Seems like a pretty nice place.”

  “I like it.”

  “You live around here?”

  “Pretty close.”

  “There’s so much construction,” I remark.

  “Yeah,” she agrees, offering nothing further.

  “Are you married?” What the hell, I think.

  “No. You?”

  “No.”

  She finishes clipping my nails, begins filing them with the emery board. “Square or round?”

  “What?”

  “Your nails. Do you prefer them square-cut or round? Like diamonds,” she adds with a laugh.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think round’s better, personally. They’re a little easier to take care of that way, and you obviously don’t spend a lot of time on your nails.”

  I feel her rebuke like a slap on the wrist, and again, pull my hand away.

  “Sorry. Did that hurt?”

  “No. I just … Let’s go with round.”

  “Round it is.” She resumes her filing.

  “So, no special someone?” I prod, half-expecting her to tell me to mind my own business.

  Elena stops filing, relaxing her grip on my fingers. She gets the kind of wistful look in her eyes I probably get when I think of Sean. “Sort of. There’s this one guy. But it’s more an on-and-off kind of thing.”

  I feel my heartbeat quicken. “The guy who had pneumonia?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess. You said he was in the hospital.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was he there long?”

  “Couple of days.” She shakes her head at the memory. “But he was flat on his back for weeks after that. Literally couldn’t get out of bed. I moved in. Took care of him. Nursed him back to health. You know what men are like when they get sick. It was pathetic.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “I think it was August. Maybe late July. One month kind of blends into the next around here. You know how it is.”

  I know exactly how it is. I also know it means Paul Giller was out of the hospital when I was attacked and doesn’t eliminate him as a suspect. I watch as she begins work on my cuticles.

  “These really are an awful mess,” she says.

  “I guess you can blame my ex for that.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Caught him cheating on me.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had to go out of town for a few days. Came back earlier than I expected. Earlier than he expected,” I clarify, watching Elena’s face. “Found him in bed with my best friend.”

  “Shit. Why is it always the best friend? What’d you do?”

  “Kicked him out.”

  “And your friend?”

  “What friend?”

  She nods. The nod says, I’ve been there, although she says nothing more. If she suspects Paul Giller of cheating on her, she’s not about to confide in me. I’ve likely learned everything of significance from Elena that I’m going to.

  I try a few more questions, asking if she likes to travel, and she says, “No, not especially.” I tell her I’m thinking of using my enforced free time to take a trip and ask if she can recommend anywhere. She says San Francisco is always nice. I ask if she’s been there recently and she says no. I’m wondering about the trip she just returned from, but I can’t think of a way to ask about it without tipping her to the fact that I’ve been spying on her boyfriend’s apartment and that I saw her unpacking her suitcase. Besides, what difference does it make where she’s been? The only thing that matters is that Paul Giller was not in the hospital at the time I was attacked, that I can’t eliminate him as a suspect.

  “Can you relax your hand a little?” Elena asks as she starts applying color to my nails. “Actually, a lot,” she qualifies. “You’re stiff as a board.”

  “Sorry.” I do my best to comply. “Better?”

  “It’ll have to do.”

  We sit in silence for the remainder of my manicure. When we are done, I glance down at my hands. It looks as if someone has chopped off the tips of my fingers and all that remains are ten bloody stumps.

  “What do you think?” she asks.

  “Very nice.”

  “They need to dry.” She puts a small heating device on the table and directs my hands inside it. “I hope you don’t have to rush off anywhere.”

  I suddenly remember that Claire is waiting for me at Carlito’s Auto Repair. What’s the matter with me? How could I have forgotten this? I look down at my wrist, but I’m not wearing a watch. “What time is it?” I ask, much louder than I intended, so that Elena recoils, clearly alarmed.

  “Almost ten o’clock.”

  “Shit!” I pull my hands from the small heater, jumping to my feet with such speed that the chair in which I’ve been sitting topples over on its side.

  “Careful with your nails,” Elena warns.

  “I have to go.” I grab my purse.

  “You can pay at the front desk,” she calls after me.

  I have no idea how much I owe, nor the time to ask, so I reach into my purse and pull two twenty-dollar bills out of my wallet, throwing them toward the reception counter as I race out the door. “Why do I always get the crazy ones?” I hear Elena saying to the woman with the gold-hoop earrings as the door slams shut behind me.

  —

  “Where the hell have you been?” Claire demands as I burst through the front doors of Carlito’s On Third.

  “I’m sorry. I got a little side-tracked.”

  “Oh, my God,” she says, the color draining from her face as she stares down at my hands. “What have you done?”

  My eyes follow hers to my fingers, where I see what is left of my manicure, polish streaking across the backs of both my hands like rivulets of dried blood. “I’m fine. It’s just nail polish.”

  “Polish?” Claire grabs my fingers and checks for herself.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “It better be a good one.”

  “Miss Carpenter?” a man asks, approaching.

  My sister falls silent, and for the first time I take note of my surroundings. We are standing in what appears to be a giant glass bubble. The walls on all sides are curved and transparent, so that it feels as if we are not inside at all, but standing right in the middle of the busy outside corner. The floor is limestone and has the look and feel of a sidewalk, albeit one with strategically placed, colorfully woven area rugs. A variety of fake trees provide accents of luscious green. The buttery yellow leather furniture in the reception area is ultramodern, all sloping lines and gentle curve
s. A gorgeous, dark-skinned young woman sits at a Lucite reception desk, the computer in front of her seeming to float in mid-air. She is wearing a deep purple T-shirt with a plunging neckline, the not-so-subtle projection of her implants on display, as if she is saying, “I paid for them. I’m going to show them off.” I wonder at such confidence. I worry about it. About how it might be misinterpreted.

  I was completely covered up the night I was attacked, I remind myself. There was nothing at all provocative about what I was wearing. I should be ashamed of such thoughts. I know better. I know that rape is not about sex, that it is about power, fury, and hate.

  “Miss Carpenter?”

  I find myself staring at a nice-looking man in his late thirties, with straight brown hair falling into hazel eyes that crowd the bridge of his aquiline nose. Although it is only mid-morning, his cheeks already look as if he could use a shave. Despite his easy smile, this premature five o’clock shadow casts a somewhat sinister aura. He is wearing jeans and a blue-and-white checked shirt, a nameplate—Hi, I’m Johnny K.—pinned to its breast pocket. Could Johnny K. be the man who raped me? I take a step back, inadvertently stomping all over Claire’s toes.

  “Nice to see you finally got here. Your sister was getting worried.”

  “Sorry.”

  He laughs, as if I’ve just said something terribly clever. “Come on. Let me show you what we did to your car.”

  Claire and I follow him out the back of the glass dome into a large concrete garage filled with luxury cars in various stages of repair. I note a chocolate-brown Mercedes hoisted high in the air, two men working on its undercarriage; I see a pale blue Jaguar being painstakingly repainted; I see a brand new, bright red Ferrari with a big dent in its side.

  “Are you all right?” Claire asks. “You’re kind of pale. Do you want to sit down?”

  I shake my head, counting at least six mechanics at work. With one exception, all are dark-haired, between twenty and forty, and of average height and weight. The lone exception is a man probably closer to fifty and balding, although he, too, is of average height and weight. Any one of these men could be the man who raped me.

  “What are you thinking?” Claire asks, eyes narrowing.