Please See Us
Page 19
“It seems like such a long time to me. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even going to be worth it. Who will respect me for having a degree from a small local college? Working as a receptionist when other people are out interning with banks or learning about real estate or management psychology.”
“What, you’re not learning about management here? You practically run this place.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I think, as a woman, I have to anticipate the one thousand ways people will find to dismiss me and how I can make up for it, or prove them wrong, before I can let myself think about what kind of credit they’ll give me for anything I’ve done. As I get older, I keep waiting to step into a world that’s different, where I don’t have to think like that, and you know what? I’m still fucking waiting.”
I wanted to say something reassuring, but what Emily had said was true. I thought of the way men like Matthew went striding through the world, assured that they deserved pleasure, success, money, and happiness, and that they would get it. Even the most talented, intelligent women I knew—Emily included—didn’t think that way. We tiptoed, fingers crossed, making Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, always anticipating the way the world would push us aside.
Emily sighed, nodded at the display. “Does that look even to you?” She held out the instructions that had been sent by our corporate merchandising director. They were overfull of exclamation points and capitals. “PYRAMID SHAPES ARE EASY TO SHOP!!! AND REMEMBER, EVERY SALE IS A CHANCE TO UPSELL!!! AN ATTRACTIVE RETAIL SPACE EQUALS ATTRACTIVE PROFITS!!!”
I studied the display, the backdrop of which was a picture of a woman who was clearly white but wearing a lot of bronzer, dressed in a fringed suede halter top and skirt, sitting on a hillside, surrounded by flowers. “Looks even to me. Fucked up in other ways. But yes. Even.”
“Okay, then. I’m going on my break. Don’t forget …”
“Every sale is a chance to upsell?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
Clara must have been watching us through the glass, lurking just outside the door, until Emily retreated to the break room. As soon as Emily was gone, she shuffled in. I was struck by how terrible she looked: pale, dark circles under her eyes, lanky hair.
“Clara, what are you doing here? This wasn’t our plan. I’m not off till seven, remember?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. But this is important.”
“Are you okay? What happened there?” She had Band-Aids over each of her middle fingers.
She glanced at her hands and shook her head. “I think it’s bad, Lily. I’ve been thinking, and it seems like they must be … they’re hurt … or … or even …”
“Hold on. Clara. Who? Who do you mean? Actually, wait a second. We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Let’s go out into the hall.” I wasn’t supposed to leave the desk, but there was a spot just outside the glass windows where a potted palm could obscure a person, maybe two. If Emily saw me talking to Clara, how would I explain?
Clara reached for one of the plant leaves, started tearing it into strips. “I think each of these weird visions I’m having are visions of like … something they thought about before they died. I know. Okay, before you say anything. I know what that sounds like. It sounds insane. I feel insane. But the woman who left her bag—her name, by the way, is Victoria, and Julie Zale … I’m seeing things about them that I couldn’t possibly know. Intimate things. Things that would matter in the end. I don’t know what to do.” She had shredded the leaf into bits. Her voice kept breaking, as though she was going to cry.
“Okay. So tell me how I can help you. I don’t know what my role is supposed to be in all of this. I haven’t seen Peaches at all. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“I’m worried about her, too. That she’s in trouble, too. I just wish there was a way to test the visions, to know if I could trust them, if they’re even real.”
“How would you do that?”
She took a big breath, sucking it in between her teeth. “I have an idea. You’re not going to like it, but I think it might work. So Julie Zale had a bad childhood when she was really young, before she came to live with her uncle, he told me. Both of her parents were all messed up. I keep seeing a bedroom, a really pretty room with a checked bedspread, pink and white, and all these white pillows at the top. If I were Julie Zale, and I had grown up in a really shitty home”—she paused to issue a sardonic little laugh—“all I would think about, all I would dream about, was being somewhere that felt safe, like that bedroom. Where you felt cared for and where you could count on everything always being the same.”
“That makes sense.”
“So the vision I’m having … we just need to talk to someone who can confirm it.”
“Someone like who?”
“Her aunt and uncle’s phone number is on that poster.”
The thought clicked into place, and I felt the resistance everywhere, in my hands, my feet, my spine. “Clara, no. My god. Absolutely not.”
“Listen, I know it’s weird, but it’s the only sure way to know.”
“Weird? It’s downright insane. Cruel. What about … like … contacting one of her friends? Someone she knows on Facebook?”
“And saying what? I’m a stranger, but please tell me what Julie’s room looked like?”
“No, not exactly. We could explain that we were trying to help.”
“What? Oh, hey, I’m a psychic and I think I can see your missing friend’s room but I just want to double-check?”
She was right about that. “Okay, so you want to call her old house and say … what, exactly?”
“Well, you can pretend to be like, one of her friends or something.”
“I can pretend? Clara …”
“Please, Lily. I can’t do this all on my own. It was bad enough talking to him the first time around and seeing how upset he was. Plus, what if he’s the one who picks up the phone, and he recognizes my voice? Please help me with this. I’ve got a lot … a lot on my mind. I can’t sleep.”
I wondered if she was asking for help with other things, too, besides the call, and maybe she didn’t know how to say it. “Are you still seeing strange men?”
“It’s under control, okay?” Her eyes shined, and I realized how afraid she must be. How all of that defiance, when she first marched into the spa, must have been hiding so much. I believed that she wanted help finding out what happened to Julie, to Victoria, to Peaches, but I also thought that maybe she wanted help for herself, too. I had told myself I would help this time around, hadn’t I? This time, I wouldn’t sense trouble—watching Steffanie stumbling into the man’s shoulder—and tell myself that everything would be okay.
“Okay,” I relented. “So tonight we’ll call …”
“Tonight? Why not now?” Clara was all raw nerves, desperation; so different from when I had met her a few weeks ago. A girl who shook with fear, who could hardly raise her eyes to meet mine.
“Here?” I looked around. I knew we didn’t have any appointments coming in for two more hours, but still it made me apprehensive. If someone else, one of my coworkers, Emily, even Carrie, overheard, I would probably be fired on the spot.
“I can’t spend another minute wondering. And then, at least if my visions are right … well. I don’t know which to hope for. Whether I’m seeing something real, or whether I’m totally insane. And I don’t know what it means, seeing her room like that. I’m worried that it means she’s in trouble, or she’s scared, or hurt. Sometimes … when things are uncomfortable, I think of something that makes me feel safe. I think of my mother, of the way she talked about her house in California. I just wonder if Julie is doing the same thing, only I can see it, too.”
I looked up to the ceiling. “You have the number?”
She took a folded poster of Julie Zale out of her pocket.
“Tell me again what it looks like, everything you can see … or saw.”
“A pink-and-white checked bedsprea
d. White carpet. Green walls. Lots of white pillows on the bed. Oh, and a brown stuffed rabbit with a black nose.”
I took a deep breath. I’d never been a very good liar, and I didn’t know if I could do what Clara was asking me. But the pleading look in her eyes made me feel like I had to try.
I keyed in the number and hit send on the call, my hands shaking. I held my breath between each ring, hoping it would go to voicemail. Clara stared at me with such pleading intensity that I had to turn away.
On the fourth ring, a woman answered. “Zale residence.” My voice was caught in my throat. “Hello? Hello?”
“Oh, uh, hi. Mrs. Zale?” Clara reached out and put her hand on my arm.
“Yes? May I ask who is calling, please?” She was formal, but polite. Almost warm.
“Hi, uh, you might not remember me, but I’m a friend of Julie’s. I’m Lauren. I, uh, was in history with Julie freshman year.”
“Oh … hello, Lauren. How … how are you?” She paused, and I knew that whatever I said next would have to be a leap. Clara looked at me beseechingly. I wanted so badly to hang up.
“I’m sorry. I hope it’s okay that I called. I was just thinking about Julie today.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed. “Yes, well. I think of her all day, too. Not a minute goes by. Even if I’m not thinking of her, I feel it. I feel it in my bones.” I felt hot, sweat collecting under the neck of my blazer. I was no better than them, was I? Matthew and Ramona. All three of us were liars, fakes, even if the lies were supposed to be in service of something good. I took another deep breath.
“I was just thinking of the time I was over at your house that spring. I don’t know if you were home.”
“Yes, sweetie? Maybe I wasn’t. I volunteer at the library, or I could have been down at the store.”
She must have heard the shakiness in my voice. But I had gone this far. There was no backing out of it now without hurting Mrs. Zale, leaving her confused or forlorn. “I was thinking of how much I liked Julie’s room. How cozy it felt. How it felt like her, all of the decorations and colors.”
“Oh, yes. Well, she hated those pink walls. Ha.”
I looked at Clara. She had said that Julie’s walls were painted green. I started to shake my head. “Her uncle took one look at it when I was done and just said no way. Said it was all wrong for her. He painted that green right over himself. Tracked it on the white carpet we just had put in. Julie got home from camp and she was never the wiser, said she adored the green. Of course, I should have guessed. And she never wanted to replace that coverlet I made her a million years ago. I asked her so many times if she wanted a new one, that old plaid one was what I put together for her when she first got to the house, as a little thing. Sometimes … oh, sometimes I wonder if I smothered her. If she felt overwhelmed here.”
“She seemed happy to me, Mrs. Zale.”
“To me, too, dear.”
“Well, I should let you go, I think. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I just wanted … wanted to talk about her.”
“Call anytime, sweetheart. Okay? And you keep praying. We’ll get our girl back. I know we will.”
I knew if I said another word, I’d cry, so I simply ended the call. Clara gripped my arm. I had crumpled the poster in my hand.
“You’re right, Clara. That was terrible. I— I think I need to sit down.” I was so overwhelmed that for a few seconds I didn’t register Clara’s silence.
“Did you hear me, Clara? I said you were right. At first she said pink walls, but the uncle painted them green before Julie came back from camp, or something. He knew she wouldn’t like the pink. White carpet. She sewed the plaid blanket herself.”
She put her head in her hands. I looked up and started: there was a man leaning against the opposite wall, his baseball cap pulled low, a pair of sunglasses masking his eyes, a windbreaker with the Harrah’s logo emblazoned across the chest. The poker players always skulked around like that, like B-list celebrities in exile. He was already walking away. How much had he heard? It wasn’t so much that I thought he would do something about it: call the Zales, and what, report us? But it was deeply shameful, the idea that we’d been overheard.
“Clara, that guy … I think he heard us.”
She mumbled something, her fingers still over her eyes and mouth. It sounded like I don’t care. One of the Band-Aids had come unraveled. It had covered a perfect circle of a wound, one that wept with infection. The skin around it was bright red. A cigarette burn.
“Clara, let me see that.” I reached for her wrist, but she was quicker, pulled it away and hid her hand behind her back.
“What are you doing here?” Emily, returning from break early. I pushed Clara’s phone back into her hands.
“She’s just leaving. Aren’t you? I escorted her out here in the hall, so she wouldn’t bother guests.” I tried to stand straighter, hold Emily’s eye. Emily studied me, and I was sure she knew I was being untruthful, and I couldn’t explain why I’d had Clara’s phone. I simply had to hope that she wouldn’t ask.
“Sure, I am. Hypocrite.” Her eyes were narrowed on Emily. She glowered at me, too, which I assumed was just for show, and left us without another word.
“God, can’t keep the grifters out, huh? Lily, I’m assuming you’re ready to go back to doing your job?”
“Yeah. Why’d she call you a hypocrite?”
“Who knows? Maybe she thinks we’re all on the same page. Just some gals stuck here in Atlantic City, peddling our services for a buck until something better comes along. But with those two, everything is just a setup for one of their cons.” Now Emily’s hostility toward Clara made me wince, and for a second I considered telling her about the burns.
A few minutes later, my phone lit up with a new text. I figured it was Clara, asking me when we could meet up again. See a doctor first, I would tell her. But I almost dropped the phone when I saw who it was.
Hey, Lil. Are you over your slumming at the shore phase yet? We should talk.
Matthew.
I had wanted this for most of the summer, hadn’t I? Some kind of acknowledgment from him? But the text only made me furious. I didn’t have time to puzzle out what Matthew wanted, what he could possibly be up to. I was spent. Cold, where the sweat on my back was now drying in the chill of the air-conditioning. I couldn’t get Mrs. Zale’s voice out of my head. I kept picturing her walking upstairs, creaking open the door to Julie’s room, sitting on the bed. Taking the velvet of that stuffed rabbit’s ear between her fingers, waiting and waiting and waiting for her girl to come home.
JANE 5
PEACHES SPENT THE TWO DAYS after the tarot reading at the library, leaving only when the librarian rang a bell and announced that they needed to close. All of the homeless men, wearing their puffy parkas in the full heat of summer, the old ladies whose palsied hands made papers rattle in their grip, the mothers scrolling through their phones while their kids tugged on their sleeves and held up picture books. Once, she slipped into the business center at Caesars, using a john’s room key to access the tiny closet on the third floor where the casino kept two old Dells and a creaking, dusty printer. She added her name to lists, researched payment plans and Medicaid coverage. It had been one full day since she last used, and her head was already throbbing, her gut starting to churn.
It took nine calls and three waitlists before she got a bed at a detox center in Hammonton, and she used most of her cash on the cab ride there. She remembers these small farm towns from when she first came to Atlantic City, three years ago with Josh. They remind her of home—all those blueberry trees, the rows of stout bushes, their branches tipped with fruit. Welcome to the Blueberry Capital of the World! a sign announces cheerfully. The cabbie frowns at her in the rearview when she laughs.
The cab cuts through the town’s main street, and she watches other people moving through their tidy lives. A man raises the grate on the front of the hardware store, a paper cup of coffee in one hand. A woman lifts a pastr
y from a waxed paper bag, closing her eyes as she takes a bite, releasing a puff of confectioners’ sugar into the air. Already, Peaches is sweating so much that her hair is soaked, her stomach lurching. The cab stops at a squat building that looks too ugly to be a place where anyone might get better, might heal. She wants to ask him how much to go back, to turn around and head to AC again. She closes her eyes and thinks of that card, the Tower: the leaping bodies, the creeping flames.
At check-in, she clicks her license down on the counter. In the photo her hair is purple. She fought with her mother about that, her palms still stained with dye.
“Why’s your name Georgia if you’re from Pennsylvania?” the receptionist asks. She pictures the photograph on her mother’s mantel. The stern-lipped great-grandmother in the black velvet dress, a starched white collar tight around her neck. Georgia Maxine Standish, in little black leather shoes peeking out from under her hem, the ones that looked like they pinched her feet into hooves. The original Georgia’s disapproval filled the room, even when she was a little girl. By the time she met Josh, Georgia asked him to call her Peaches. The only way she knew how to free herself from her great-grandmother’s legacy was to make herself into a joke.
A nurse takes her to her room, starts to explain how things will work. Dizzy already, Peaches tries to think of a mantra, a phrase she can cling to when the sweats get worse and her muscles start to seize and her heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of her chest.
The first time she shot up was with Josh. She went first, as he helped her tighten the strap, find the vein. When she pushed the plunger she felt her nerves sing. Josh, though, for no reason she knew, decided not to get high that day. Looking back now, it’s like he led her to a cliff, wanting her to see the view, then shoved her off the edge. Last time she heard from him, he was living down in Tampa, working at some marina where rich people spilled champagne all over the decks of their boats. The nurse is still talking, but Peaches only catches every other word. Doctors, therapy, seizures. The blinds are half-open, making stripes of sunlight on her bed. In the photograph on the opposite wall, a sunrise’s beams of light reaches toward the earth like fingers. She knows it is supposed to be inspirational, but she finds it insulting. Even after she detoxed, after she wrung her guts of the drugs and talked her mouth dry in therapy, her future was not a fucking sunrise. Every day, she’d grit her teeth against the desire to use herself up. To fail just like her namesake great-grandmother had known she would.