“Well, what do you want to do? I can tell him you’re busy.”
“No, I’ll talk to him.”
Emily gave me another look then, like I had disappointed her, but I wanted to deal with this head-on. I stepped around her and made my way toward the desk.
I knew what his expression would be before I saw him: The look of mocking appraisal as he studied the lobby. Taking an orchid petal between his finger and thumb to see if it was real, the condescension in his surprise.
“Hey, Lil,” he said. He always shortened my name. My father hated when people did that. He said he hadn’t raised a daughter who was going to be small.
“What are you doing here, Matthew?” I forced myself to look him in the eye.
“You didn’t answer my messages.”
“I did, though. I told you to fuck off.”
“That’s not an answer. I want us to have a conversation. A real one.”
“Oh, where are the cameras? The microphones? Who’s documenting this now?”
“Don’t worry about that. I told you. It’s over.”
Behind me, Emily cleared her throat. “Lily, can I remind you about our policy when it comes to dealing with personal matters at work?” Matthew eyed Emily, and I knew he was suppressing a smile. That arrogance, smugness so thick you could feel it, like humidity.
“You need to leave, Matthew.”
“Not until you talk to me.”
“Fine. But I’m working now.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Emily, again. “Lily, you need to finish restocking the boutique before the end of your shift. We need to completely remerchandise Face today, Body by the end of the day tomorrow.”
“Stricter than Philip Louis.” Matthew smiled, a smile that contracted a little when I didn’t respond in kind. I knew it was an illusion or a concession. Matthew letting me feel as though I had a little bit of power.
“Meet me over there.” I pointed to the Swim Club. “Eight o’clock.” He looked behind us.
“Oh God, I don’t have to wear a Hawaiian shirt, do I? Or drink anything out of a coconut? I’ve been trying to stifle all of my ‘last resort’ jokes since I’ve been here, but that kind of thing makes it really tough.”
“I’ll see you then,” I said. I thought the Swim Club was cheesy, too, but Matthew mocking it made me angry, suddenly protective. I turned my back and walked away. I couldn’t stand to smell him, to see his teeth, his arms, his neck, his hair. Already I felt my body betraying me, the way I ached for him. I wanted to touch his skin, to kiss all of his fingers. I wanted to slap him as hard as I could.
I went back to the boutique, picked up a palette of eye shadows. Autumn Auburn. Gold Leaf. Hot Cocoa. I started to stack them on a stand, to put away the summer shades that would soon go on clearance: Sandy Beach, Horizon, Caribbean Blue. I wondered if the people who named these colors ever actually experienced seasons, the feelings that they evoked. The melancholy of fall, the stifling claustrophobia of a humid summer, the despair of a long, dark winter.
“So. What’s the deal there?” Emily stood over me. “Here,” she said, handing me one of the metal shopping baskets to put the old products in. “This might help.”
“You heard everything. We’re having a drink. I didn’t know he’d show up.”
“So why see him at all? The guy who screwed some other woman while you were together?”
“I don’t know.”
Skeptical quirk of the eyebrow. She didn’t believe me. “Well, don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, come on, Lily. Did we not, like five minutes ago, have a conversation about being obliterated, in part, by men? About what happens when women let themselves fade into the background? Lie down for him and you’ll get stepped over for the rest of your life.”
“I’m not getting back together with him! It’s just a drink.”
“Well sometimes for you a drink means six. And who knows what you’ll do after that.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m just saying, he doesn’t deserve you. And yeah, that’s a cliché thing women say to one another, but it’s true most of the time. I know he’s this hotshot artist, but he’s a shitty person. And don’t say I don’t know him. I know enough about him from three minutes in his company to know what’s up. And you’re my friend. You deserve better.”
I wasn’t sure what made me so annoyed. Probably that I knew she was right. Despite myself, I also felt a thrill at Emily calling me her friend. “Let’s not talk about what I deserve, please. We all deserve better than what we get, okay? You, me, everyone. It’s really just a drink, and nothing more. I’m not reading anything into it. It’s not like I agreed to marry the guy and cook his dinner every night of my life.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. I hated the chill in her voice.
I banged the wire basket onto the ground and turned my back, focused again on the display. Emily huffed around the corner. We went through the next few hours that way, separated by the glass partition: her at the desk, me in the boutique.
“Looks good,” she said.
“Thanks.” I hated that we weren’t speaking, but I didn’t know how to explain. We were silent until my lunch break, the only sounds the clacking of the new compacts and Emily’s occasional sigh.
I was on my way to the caf when Clara intercepted me in the hall.
“Hey, what’s up? Did you get my text?”
She looked terrible—violet circles under her eyes. “This can’t wait until the end of your stupid shift, Lily. I told you that this is important. I shouldn’t even be here. You shouldn’t even be here. It’s dangerous. I need your help. I mean it. I don’t want him to see me.” I hadn’t forgotten about her text, exactly, but since Matthew came in I’d been distracted, my mind running on a single track. What would I say to him? How could I possibly try to save face? Plus, the library trip, and then all this buzz about the spa visit, Emily’s voice breaking when she talked about ending up like her mom.
“Well, I’m here now. What’s dangerous? Who don’t you want to see you? Have you found Peaches?”
“She’s … I think she’s with the others. They’re all together, Lily. Five of them.”
“Together where?”
“I don’t know, but they’re … they’re dead.”
My breath caught. “Hold on, step back a second. How do you know that?”
“It’s Luis. That guy you work with. He did it. He hurt them, Lily. I knew there was something wrong with him, but I didn’t do anything about it, and now look.”
“That’s insane,” I said automatically. But a thought jolted me—did this have something to do with why Luis was MIA? “Clara. Jesus. Okay, tell me from the beginning.”
“I saw him, in front of my shop. I think he followed me there. And then I have this vision, and it’s of women, five of them. All … all bruised up. They’re like, arranged.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re in the marsh somewhere. There’s all this mud and grass and flies.” She flinched. “And they’re all in a row, lined up.”
I didn’t know if I couldn’t picture it or if I just didn’t want to. “Who are they? Peaches? Julie Zale?”
“I couldn’t make out their faces, but it has to be them, Lily. Who else could it be? And I’m scared. Why did he come to me? He knows where the shop is, he knows where I live. I’m leaving. This weekend. I need to get the hell out of here, for real this time.”
“Clara, I think you need to go to the cops. I mean, if what you’re saying is true …”
“Call the cops and tell them what, exactly? Hey, I’m a psychic and I happen to know there are dead women in the marsh? You think they’ll listen?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how this works. You have to be able to leave an anonymous tip or something, right?”
She rubbed her eyes. “I’ll think about it, but mostly I’m here to say goodbye. There’s
a bus heading west tomorrow, and I want to be on it.”
“Just wait another day or two, okay? We can figure this out. I’m sure we can find a way to get the police involved. I just need time to think. Promise me you won’t go yet?” Maybe it was selfish, but if Clara stayed, I thought I could protect her. After all, I knew where Luis was most of his days. I knew his schedule. And I wasn’t sure that Clara should leave without a plan—she was still just sixteen. She’d end up somewhere else without anyone to turn to, being exploited in the same ways.
“I’ll wait until Sunday. But after that, I’m gone, Lily. I’m done. I’m going to go home and pack now. I’m serious. He knows that I know. I can tell. That means he’ll be looking for me. I’m going to lose my mind if I stay here.” She twitched and swatted at something on her arm that I couldn’t see.
“Okay. Let me think about this. About what to do. You really think Luis did this?”
She nodded gravely. “Be careful, okay?”
“Yeah, you too.”
After she left, I looked up Luis’s address in the employee directory spreadsheet. Technically, Emily and Carrie were the only ones who were supposed to access it, but it wasn’t password protected, and I scrolled until I found his name: Luis Silver. I googled the address listed—he lived right in AC. Sea Breezes Boardinghouse. If he was the one responsible for the missing women, I at least wanted to know where he was when he wasn’t at work. I thought of the way Luis sometimes came to work with bruises, cuts. Were they from these women, women trying to fight him off, women trying to protect themselves? It felt unfair to jump to that conclusion, but then I thought about the things Clara had described. The women arranged in the marsh, the buzzing flies. I felt like I was going to be sick.
I walked to the caf, distracted, confused. Everything around me seemed to have dimmed. Even the jangling slots sounded chastened. I had never seen any hint of violence from Luis, any anger. But maybe that didn’t mean anything. Only that he knew just as well as anyone to keep his secrets stashed away. I wished I hadn’t made things weird with Emily. Or that Matthew hadn’t shown up and made things weird between Emily and me. I could still ask her what she thought about Luis, if she had ever seen him do anything concerning. But then I’d need to tell her about Clara, about her visions, which I knew Emily didn’t believe in. It seemed like I was failing everyone around me—Emily, who didn’t trust me. Clara, who I couldn’t protect. I felt overwhelmed by everything I didn’t know, by how impossible it was to do the right thing when there was so much lurking in the shadows that I couldn’t understand, couldn’t see.
* * *
MEETING MATTHEW at the Swim Club reminded me of the night we had our first date at a Cuban restaurant in Williamsburg. Tonight he was already, at my best guess, three drinks in at the bar, murmuring to a waitress in an aqua bikini, fingering the knot on her sarong.
He sat up when he saw me, a boyish smile on his face, and offered me a shrug. He smelled like tequila. When the bartender asked what I wanted, I ordered a club soda with lime.
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’re no fun anymore.”
“Let’s get to the point, Matthew.” I felt exhausted, impatient, after the day I’d had. The things Clara told me about from her vision hummed in the back of my mind. I looked back toward the spa, where Emily was bent forward in concentration, counting out the till. The straight line of her part, her pale hair looking almost white against her black jacket.
“I told you, I just wanted to see you.” He grinned in the ingratiating way I remembered from the night we met, at the opening for a photographer Philip Louis represented. He had worn a gray blazer and jeans, his hair, as always, hanging into his eyes. He approached me to talk about buying one of the photographs: a portrait of the artist’s grandmother working a strand of blue clay beads through her magnificently wrinkled hands. He didn’t end up buying the picture, but he did ask me out.
“No,” I said slowly. “I think it’s something else. I think you can’t stand that I haven’t come crawling back. Is she here with you? Is this the Atlantic City episode of your little project?”
“No, she’s back in New York.”
“Good,” I said, though I felt a pang of disappointment. I knew what I wanted from Matthew—an apology—but I still wasn’t sure what I wanted from Ramona.
“So what are you doing, Lil? I mean, working as a receptionist? Hanging around in Atlantic City? Come on, this place is over. It’s never coming back. You want to spend the rest of your twenties in a dying town, wasting your talent?”
“What talent? What exactly was I good at, Matthew?”
“You had an eye, Lily! And I think Philip Louis wishes every day that he could have you back. That new girl isn’t nearly as organized.”
“So my talent was spotting other people’s talents? Keeping someone’s schedule? Filing papers? Fetching dry cleaning? Making phone calls that a grown man should have been perfectly capable of making himself?” The job at the spa made me realize just how un-special I was. I was doing the same things here as in New York. Simpering and grinning and giving customers bad news in my softest, quietest voice.
“You were part of something. Working toward something. What are you a part of here? I mean, my hotel room has red carpet, for chrissakes. There’s an entire wall of mirrors. I can’t escape myself.”
“Oh, I’d think you’d love that.”
He let me have the jab, turned his glass on the bar top, rattled the ice. “Let me cut to the chase. I have a job offer for you.”
I took a swig of club soda too fast and the bubbles rushed up my nose, but I was relieved, in a way, by the coughing fit that followed. It kept me from having to wonder what the hell Matthew was talking about, what he was up to. He thumped me once on the back, laughing.
“Please don’t touch me,” I said, though I could still feel the heat of his hand through my clothes. Could still remember the fever of being with him, of stumbling into the apartment, champagne drunk, grabbing at each other, Matthew’s hands up my skirt, reaching for my bra clasp, in my hair.
“All right, just trying to help …” He watched me, my eyes watering from coughing.
“What’s the job? Clean the apartment? Wash your sheets? I have some new skills you should know about. I’ve learned a lot about skincare. In fact, you are looking a little dry. You should exfoliate, then use a moisturizer with argan oil in it. A mask once a week.”
“I’d like you to represent me.”
I hadn’t expected that. “Why?” Philip Louis was the top, a superstar. It would be career suicide to leave.
“You were always so hungry, Lil. Philip Louis is getting a little complacent. He’s met a new boyfriend, this young Spanish photographer; all he wants to do is go back to the Mediterranean and drink rosé on someone’s boat.”
“He sure seemed to pull out all the stops for your last show.”
The bartender picked up my empty glass, brought it to the soda hose for a refill. Fuck it, I thought. “Make that a vodka soda, please?” I looked back to the spa. Empty, the lights turned out: Emily must have left to take the deposit up. I felt less watched already and soothed, knowing that a drink was on the way.
“You’re the woman for the job. It would be a great opportunity for you. Think about it: your own gallery. You would already have two clients—two clients who, if I may be as bold as to say it, have already stirred up quite a lot of attention.”
Did he mean Ramona? “You want me to represent her, too?”
“Well, I figured you’d want to. You were the one who discovered her. But we can talk about that later. The point is, you’d be in charge. You’d run things, and you could hire some Lily 2.0, some smart young thing to help you with the day-to-day stuff. Someone to do the accounting, social media, so on and so forth.”
“Matthew, is this some kind of joke?”
“Why would it be a joke?”
“Well I don’t know if you realized, but that’s what you took from me. You and Ramona.
You took away my ability to look at anything and feel like it is real. Not only that, but I’ve been having anxiety attacks again. Nightmares. I don’t think you understand the degree to which you’ve royally fucked me up.”
“Lil,” he said, his hand moving toward my arm, but I moved it away.
“And where am I getting the money to start this gallery, anyway?”
“I would give it to you.”
“You’d be an investor.”
“No, it would be yours. A single check, and then I’d step away. It wouldn’t be Philip Louis kind of money. You’d probably have to set up shop in Gowanus or Bushwick, at least to start. But it would be your place. Your artists.”
“Oh, come on. What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just an offer I hope you’ll accept.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Lily! Be reasonable! Why the hell wouldn’t you?”
I thrust my hand into my purse, pulled out my wallet, smoothed the paint-splattered two-dollar bill on the bar. “Because of this. Because you made my real life small. Into material. Something for you to shape. Like I’m not even real to you.”
Matthew studied the bill, swallowed another sip of his drink. “I’m trying to make that up to you, Lily. I don’t want to see you waste away down here. You deserve better than that.”
What he was offering had been the dream I’d organized my life around. Even Brett had remembered that from high school. The Lily Louten Gallery. The space that would be sleek and clean, but also warm. Inviting. I would have the power to pluck artists from obscurity, to make careers, to bring beautiful pieces to the attention of the world. But not like this.
“Let’s talk about what I deserve, Matthew. If I deserve better than this, then why did you do what you did in New York? How could you let her convince you that it would be good for me, that I would come to appreciate the aesthetics of it, or whatever the fuck you said? I mean, did you ever even love me? Or was I always going to be a pawn to you?”
“Did you love me?” Matthew said.
“So typical. Twist this around and make it about you.”
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