Please See Us

by Caitlin Mullen

  I was staring into the surface of the water when the feeling came to me, the pulse behind my forehead. It flared through my body faster than ever before, and then I tumbled into a vision, like I had hit a trip wire. Images exploded behind my eyes: the smear of streetlights, a pair of hands with little cuts around the knuckles and on the back of the palms, a dust ruffle that skimmed a few inches above a carpeted floor, the dark space underneath it dense with dirt. A sense of needing to scream, that pressure building in my throat. Then, a newborn baby’s cry, high and shrill. The next thing I knew Tom’s face was close to mine, leering, huge. I was too terrified and surprised to hide my gasp.

  “Hey there, twitchy little thing, aren’t you? Don’t worry. I don’t bite. Let’s keep moving, shall we?” It took me a second to remember whose voice it was. His big teeth gleamed when he smiled. I forced myself to smile back. I was hot all over, and as we walked away, I reached down and dipped my fingers into the water, dabbed some of it on the back of my neck.

  I felt exhausted, battered as though I’d taken a fall. As we walked in the direction of the restaurant, I looked back over my shoulder, to see if there was a child nearby. It actually wasn’t unusual to see a baby in the casinos, a mother perched at the edge of the gaming floor, absentmindedly pushing the stroller back and forth with her foot while she played the slots. But I didn’t see any children, only tourists posing for photos, the women making kissy faces, jutting their hips, awkward and wobbly in their too-tall heels.

  Tom gave his name to the hostess, who narrowed her eyes at me, and I felt her measuring me as she studied my makeup, my hair, my dress, my heels, but she turned to Tom with a smile so wide it must have hurt. When we’d sat, Tom ordered a bottle of foreign-named red wine.

  “Very good,” the waiter said, like Tom had passed a test. I wondered if men everywhere congratulated one another on such stupid, trivial things. What did people enjoy about wine? I hated the bitter taste of it in my mouth, the way it made my limbs feel looser, my attention drifty and unpredictable. That was it? The feeling that people seemed to crave?

  I tried to think of things to say, but all I could think about was how I wanted to leave. Des had already received half of his payment up front—$250—and I would get the second half from him at the end of the night. If I ran, we’d still be okay. But Des would be furious with me for losing out on the other half of that cash. Her moods snapped these days, as fast as rubber bands. Forming sentences felt impossible, my head filled with air. I watched Tom take a sip from his wineglass, watched his mouth move, but all I could hear was that shrill, horrible wail. I forced myself to smile, like an idiot, and right away he looked confused. My head hurt from the wine and from the noise. I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than how I could make that sound stop. The wail rose into a shriek. It was so piercing that my hands jumped to my ears.

  Tom frowned. “I didn’t know I was so boring.” This time he didn’t look confused, only angry. I remembered what Des said, about men wanting to go out with women who make them feel important. I was failing, and we hadn’t even gotten our dinners yet.

  I jumped again when a busboy came to the table to fill our water glasses from a big silver pitcher. Des told me this restaurant would be fun, but everything felt alien and threatening. The way the waiter smiled at me, like he knew exactly who and what I was. The silverware that gleamed from every tabletop, bright slashes in the candlelight. The way a man came and briskly wiped the bread crumbs from the tablecloth, like I’d done something wrong. Tom’s mouth was moving again, and I understood that I was meant to be not just listening, but flirting, touching, talking, and yet all I heard was the baby screaming. I spoke over him, excused myself to the bathroom, and he narrowed his eyes at me as I stood.

  I locked myself in a stall and took deep breaths, as slowly as I could. I couldn’t afford to mess this up. I splashed some water on my face and counted to ten, to twenty, to thirty. When I got to fifty-five seconds, the crying stopped. I could hear the bathroom attendant singing to herself. She had a low, pretty voice. She smiled up at me as I washed my hands, but as I smiled back it occurred to me that we might be alike: doomed to smile even when we were trapped.

  Back at the table our food had arrived. Tom was sawing into his pork chop. The waiter came by to ask how we liked our dinner, and I hated the way he looked at me. I picked at my pasta—a dish that Tom had ordered for me—but I hadn’t been tasting anything at all. I took another bite and nodded, hoped that would answer his question. I knew I was close to failure, that so far I had been anything but the kind of girl Tom wanted me to be, the kind of girl Des had sold him on—flirty and giggling, dumb and sweet. I had to force myself to meet his eye. I wondered what would happen if he wasn’t happy with me, if he could ask for his money back. Or worse, if he could get Des and me in trouble. Everything was on my shoulders. I touched the pearls on my bracelet and reminded myself to breathe.

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  “What do I do?” he asked back. He smiled but his voice was snide.

  “Uh, yeah. What’s your job?”

  “Insurance,” he said.

  “That sounds interesting.”

  “You’re interested in insurance?” He raised his eyebrows and looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  “No. I mean, yes. Maybe.”

  “Let’s not talk about business, huh?”

  “Okay,” I said. He went back to his meat and I looked up, like instructions might be written on the ceiling. It was painted with a scene of angels sitting in fluffy clouds. Women in colorful tunics clutching harps, a temple with big beige columns at the entrance. Ugly cupids who seemed to smirk at me.

  I looked back at Tom, knowing his real name must be something else. I guessed we had that in common. Both of us were pretending. Both of us wanted to escape from who and what we were. That was when I saw it—just a glimpse. Flat blue water, like a bay. Or a lake. He was watching a thin, blonde waitress balance a tray of drinks on her arm.

  “What was it like, growing up by the water?” I asked. It was just a guess, really, but that’s how the visions worked, most of the time. They were like the tarot. Clues you needed to puzzle out, create stories around. He turned to me, and I could tell I was close by the way his attention snapped back. He tilted his head and leaned, just a little bit, closer to me.

  “Did I tell you I was from Michigan?”

  “No, I just guessed.” I tried to use the voice that I saved for clients in the shop, calm and serene, but with a little bit of sugar in it. “Something about you, I can just … tell.”

  Finally, he smiled. “My parents’ house backed up to Elk Lake. Most beautiful place there is. You never find water like that out here. Not that color, not smooth as glass on a calm day.” His face brightened, and I knew he was picturing it, the shade of the water, the expanse of it on the horizon, maybe the way it changed during a storm.

  “Did you like to swim?”

  “Sure do. Learned to swim right in my backyard, practically. And in the winter? You can go ice fishing. My brother and I used to skip school, hide our gear behind this old woodshed a few miles down the road from our house, and we’d spend all day out there. Of course, later, we brought some, uh, libations along.”

  As he went on, I realized he didn’t really want me to talk. He wanted me to listen. He wanted me to smile and nod, to laugh or look pained when he recounted a memory that was nostalgic or sad. I could have been anyone, any young woman willing to sit across the table while he talked about his brother, the past—someone new who hadn’t heard all his stories yet. I hardly had to do anything at all. His nostalgia reminded me of Des, how she was always going on about how great things were in Atlantic City when she and my mother first arrived. The parties, the glamorous clients, and there was always a new casino or new restaurant or new club to go to. The boardwalk crammed with tourists, buskers, street performers who filled the air with music. The money that came easily to the two of them. I was different, differe
nt from these people for whom the past was perfect, pristine. I knew I wouldn’t get older and dream my way back to my childhood, the long hours in the apartment when Des left me alone, the microwaved trays of macaroni and cheese I burned my mouth on. It was the future that glimmered for me. California. My mother. Jasmine in the air, like she had described in her letters. A warm breeze gentle on my arms.

  After dinner, Tom put his arm around me while we waited for our car, but this time instead of slinging it around my shoulders, he wrapped it around my waist, drew me close. I wouldn’t do it, but I let myself imagine pulling away, breaking out into a run. On the drive home he moved across the seat, toward me, wrapped his fingers around my thigh. I looked out the window while he spoke.

  “This was a lovely evening. I hope I can see you again the next time I’m in town.” Even with my head turned away I could smell the wine on his breath, sour and hot. He had drank most of the bottle, but I still tasted it on my lips, where it had settled into the sun-scorched cracks.

  “It was,” I said. “And I hope you’ll come back and visit soon.” I stared straight ahead while his fingers tightened on me, pressed into my skin. I willed myself to think of our shop. The leak under the apartment sink that we couldn’t afford to fix and that was slowly spreading a brown stain across the ceiling.

  He turned my hand over, pressed a few bills into my palm.

  “Thank you,” I said. I remembered what Des had told me, about these men wanting to feel like saviors. How everything I did should be girlish, helpless, small. “This will help us keep ahead on the rent this month.” He slid another bill from his wallet.

  “Well, don’t forget to treat yourself to something nice, too.” I looked down this time—a hundred, with a small piece of paper tucked into it. For the first time that night, I felt hope bloom in my chest. If Des was going to sell me, maybe I could make it work for myself, too. “And if you ever want to extend the date, come relax in my suite at the hotel, you let me know. That’s my number. Get in touch.”

  Before I got out of the car Tom put his hand on my jaw, turned my head toward his, and kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth. The kiss was forceful, wet, and salty. Nothing like the few spin-the-bottle pecks I had known. I closed my eyes and thought of the ocean. I saw it every single day, and I could hear the rumble of the waves from my bed at night. But it still always looked huge and beautiful and violent, full of unknowable things.

  I walked the dark half block home, refusing to think. The boardwalk was quiet, but I inventoried everything around me, a way to keep my mind still. Out on Steel Pier, the circle of the Ferris wheel was bright against the sky, lit up red and yellow, spinning in its slow, lazy circles. A cat zipped out from the direction of the candy shop, its tail high in the air. A man stood underneath the awning, studying the poster of Julie Zale in the window. When I stopped in front of our door, I could feel him watch me draw my keys from my bag. In the dark I could only make out the coal of his cigarette and shape of smoke drifting toward the sky. He tossed his cigarette down, crushed the butt under the toe of his boot. I felt the creep of another fly, this one across the upper ridge of my lip. I couldn’t help it, even if I knew it was just in my head—I raised my hand to shoo it away.

  I was relieved that Des wasn’t home when I got back. I didn’t want to tell her what had happened, how I had almost messed everything up, how I was hearing things that weren’t there. I didn’t want to tell her it had gone well, either—what would being good at this mean? I put the rest of the money Tom owed us on her nightstand but saved the $100 for myself—each dollar another step toward my mother, toward my new life. I couldn’t decide if I was proud or ashamed of that extra money, whether it meant I had done something wrong or something right. I smoothed the bill into the back pages of The Wisdom of Tarot and refused to think about it—it wasn’t bad or good, only what needed to be done. From my bed, I watched the ceiling fan spin in lazy circles above my head and tried to sleep.

  I must have drifted off, though I know I tossed and turned. I woke up at dawn. I’d dreamed of the woman who had run away from me: those big brown eyes, the soft voice. I thought of the reading I’d done after she’d gone. The Four of Wands. Family. Harmony. The King of Cups, the lack of clarity. The Seven of Wands. Betrayal just around the bend. And then I understood: the visions from the night before didn’t have anything to do with Julie Zale—they had to do with her, the woman with the locket. I curled myself into a ball, another phantom fly working its way along my thigh.

  LILY

  I WOKE TO THE SCREECH of my alarm, and as soon as I sat up I felt the lurch in my stomach. Oh, I thought dully, as the bar, the bourbon came back to me. I looked at my phone. I had dialed Matthew’s number five times. I even called Ramona twice. Based on the call log, it didn’t seem like I had spoken to either of them: each call was between eight and ten seconds long. I wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or another humiliation.

  It was 6:15. I’d need to be at the spa in an hour to learn opening procedures. I ran through all the things that needed to happen by then. Four types of makeup. Hair washed and styled. Press the wrinkles out of my jacket. Pepto-Bismol, water, gag down dry toast.

  I showered, smeared a little eye shadow on. The swing of the vanity mirror in the bathroom made me dizzy as I opened it and rooted around for brushes, Q-tips, hair spray. Even with makeup I looked clammy, pale. I heard Brett’s voice. You wanted to start your own gallery, right? I slunk out without ironing my blazer. When I started the car and backed out of the driveway, I wondered if I wasn’t still too drunk to drive.

  * * *

  IN THE parking lot I took another swig of Pepto-Bismol before stepping out of the car, and the taste of chalk and fruit made my guts twist. I hurried down the stairs and through the crosswalk to the circular drive that led to the main lobby of the casino. The elaborate topiaries that flanked either side of the entrance had overgrown, become fuzzy and indistinct at their edges. A lone gardener watered a patch of red impatiens, holding out the hose in one hand and scrolling through his phone with another. As I passed him, I could smell the sweet, metallic scent of the water trickling from the hose, and it reminded me of my childhood: My father mowing the lawn while my mother planted in the garden, pulled weeds, mulched. The softness and idyll of the memory was like a pastel drawing preserved under glass.

  At the top of the drive, near the valet stand, a woman in Lucite stilettos was hailing a cab. She wore a Lycra dress with cutouts that showed the notches of her ribs. A long, thin scar ran down the back of her calf, and there was a tattoo of a peach above her left breast. She must have felt my stare, because before she turned to get into the taxi she stopped and blew me a kiss, then gave me the finger. The man at the valet stand saw it all and laughed heartily. I’m not a prude! I wanted to shout. I’ve seen things! I’ve done things! I lived in goddamned New York City! But I stayed quiet, and as I passed, the valet tipped his cap, gave me a smug little smile. I thought again of Clara and Des, the things Emily had suggested about them. About Clara’s rounded cheeks.

  I hurried down the long hall that led to the new wing, past housekeepers vacuuming neat stripes in the carpet and janitors emptying ashtrays into garbage bags, but when I got to the spa the front door was locked. Through the glass, I watched as a man ran a rag over the top of the steel desk. I tapped on the glass, but he didn’t turn. I tapped harder. The man had turned and was walking toward the coffee table with all of the magazines when he saw me. I waved like an idiot. He unlocked the door and opened it a crack.

  “Hi, I’m Lily.” I pointed to my name tag, panting from my jog down the hall. “I work here.” He frowned. “Can I please come inside? It’s the beginning of my shift. I’m new and don’t want to be late.”

  He stared at me warily for another moment before stepping aside so I could pass. I walked as quickly as I could toward the back of the spa, where we were meant to clock in with our swipe cards. I rooted through my purse as I walked—it was 7:29, and I couldn�
��t be marked as late on my second day. I was still looking down when I pushed through the double doors that led to the back hall and smacked into something—someone—and we both went sprawling onto the floor. Something cold and wet landed on my hand.

  “What the fuck?” a woman’s voice said. “Are you insane?”

  “I’m sorry, I was late. Are you okay? Please, let me help you. I’m Lily, by the way.”

  “I’m Brittany and I don’t really give a shit. I’ll have to mix this mask all over again. Do you know how much that stuff costs? If Deidre finds out, she’ll eat me for lunch.”

  “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “I don’t have time for new girls running around like morons and then apologizing.” I realized that the mask—a lumpy gray mixture—had gotten on my skirt and on the front of my blazer. I tried to wipe it away but ended up smearing it into the fabric. Was I just this person now? The one who screwed up all the time? Brittany dropped a pile of paper towels over the spilled mud.

  “I’ll get Luis to clean this up.” She vanished through the double doors and came back with the man who had let me in. Brittany pointed to the spill, and he frowned at her. She pointed back at me. He gave me a mean look before getting on his knees to assess the mess.

  “You must be my new girl,” a voice said, from down the hall. I turned and saw a woman in a black dress. She disappeared into a doorway and yelled to me to come into her office. I looked back at the man, Luis, on the floor, mopping up the mud with paper towels.

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help?” I asked. He didn’t look up.

  I assumed that the woman in the black dress was the manager Deidre had mentioned: Carrie. I hadn’t gotten a good look at her before, but I was surprised to see how different she was from Deidre: petite, with long dark hair streaked with caramel-colored highlights, and blue eyeliner smudged underneath her eyes. When I walked through the doorway, she was eating a glazed donut and guzzling a blended coffee drink, mid-melt into sludge.