“Nobody knows Robin’s dead yet,” she said. “You could pretend to be her.”
I stared at her, a leftover smile on my face. American Graffiti went on playing in the background.
She released my arm. “It’s acting, right?” she said. “You want to be an actress. It’ll be like practice. You’d only have to do it for a few days. She just needs to be there, at the lawyer’s office. That’s all that’s in the will. And then you could have her half of the—”
“What?” I repeated, interrupting her.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Leslie breathed. “That’s Robin’s inheritance. She’s dead. She can’t use it. It’s yours. You can have it all. Cash. That could give you a good start in LA, right?” She tilted her head. “And your ex…He’d never find you again.”
I giggled, shrieky. “You’re so drunk,” I said. “You need to go lie down.”
Leslie followed me as I retreated toward the bathroom. Her skin reddened as she spoke. Strands of hair were stuck to her cheek. “You look like her, Mary. At least, you look enough like her, and nobody in Albuquerque has seen her since she left ten years ago. All you have to do is show up and sign the papers with me. I’ve got her old passport if anyone asks for ID.”
I didn’t want to antagonize her, so I said something like “Hmm” or maybe “Okay,” and I stroked her lank hair a little bit, the way you stroke a nervous dog.
Leslie grabbed my stroking hand. “Mary, Robin was using a fake name to avoid her creditors. Rachel Vreeland. She died under that name. The only person who has my contact information is the landlord, and he doesn’t have my real name.”
“He doesn’t have your real name?” I was getting drawn in.
“I told him it was Leslie Vreeland when I was looking for her.” Her gray eyes protruded slightly above puffy lower lids. “He let me in to see her. I was going to call him tomorrow, but if I don’t call him…if she just stays Rachel Vreeland to him and to everybody else…it’s like Robin Voigt is still alive. Legally.”
“Until they, like, investigate, and send you to jail.” I scrunched my toes against the carpet.
“No one’s going to investigate. It was an overdose. She was an addict. And anyway, if they did, you’d be long gone with the money by then. All they’d find in Albuquerque is me. And I don’t know your last name.”
I opened my mouth and she put her hand over it. “Don’t tell me your last name,” she said, as if I were the idiotic one.
“Ih dosen mar becah I’m nagana do ih,” I said into her fleshy palm.
“What?”
I pulled her hand off my face and wiped my mouth. “It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to pretend to be your sister.” An absurd smile crept over my face again at the idea.
“You need the money,” Leslie said, following me. “And—and I need the money. I can’t wait for them to contest the will. I lost my job. We’re going to lose the house. Dave can’t accept it, he won’t—he thinks he can fix it all himself, but…” She flexed her fingers, as if they’d lost feeling. “Fifty thousand dollars would fix everything for me,” she whispered. “Wouldn’t it fix everything for you?”
Sam’s song licked at my ear: Going to the chapel and we’re…gonna get married…His ruddy hands grasped at my waist.
“It’s just a few days,” Leslie said. “A week, maybe.”
I stared at her, the smile falling off my lips.
“Please, Mary,” she said. “Just think about it.”
She left this long quivering silence between us. It was uncomfortable on purpose; it was uncomfortable so I’d say something, so I’d say Yes! and fling myself into her arms.
Instead I just enunciated, “I have to pee,” went over to the bed, grabbed my duffel bag, pushed past her into the bathroom, and shut the door in her face.
8
Mary
I did have to pee, anyway, but then once I was done I didn’t want to go back out there. The door closing had given me instant relief. There was something funny about Leslie’s body language, a nearly infectious panic. I wished she would go back to normal. It had felt like we were friends, sort of, until the last few minutes.
It would have been nice if she’d just wanted to be my friend.
I turned on the shower so Leslie would think I was doing something in the bathroom, but instead of showering I squatted on the nasty tiled floor in front of the full-length mirror and took the veladora from my duffel. I counted the money, quickly at first, then again slowly to be sure I’d gotten it right. My life savings was in here—I never left it at home because my roommate was a kleptomaniac. Five hundred forty-five dollars. I sat there in front of the mirror, holding the money.
I’m gonna come visit you, Sam had said to me. You work most Saturdays?
The glass slowly fogged as I stared at myself. At first under the fluorescent lights I only saw my reflection in familiar bits and pieces, the hairpin lines beside my mouth that never went away anymore, the slightly asymmetrical eyebrows. Eventually my features blurred, and blurred again.
I could have been anyone in there, underneath the condensation. Just a smudge with hair.
I stayed in the bathroom until I was almost sober again, looking at myself.
When I came out finally, the room felt like it was freezing. Leslie was lying sideways on one of the beds, watching the credits roll over American Graffiti and jiggling her feet, first one, then the other, so the bed creaked in an annoying little rhythm. I came closer and startled her into a sitting position, her back against the pin-striped wallpaper. “Hi,” she said, too loudly. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.” I sat down on the other bed and pointed myself toward the television. The credits finished rolling. Next up on TNT: Transformers.
Leslie kept glancing at me and opening her mouth like she was going to say something, then shutting it again.
“What?” I said, after the fourth time.
“Nothing,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“I said I was fine.” I picked at my nails. There was peanut gunk under one of them.
“Mary—” she started.
I thumped my head back on the pillows. “Oh my God,” I told her, “I just want to watch Transformers. Okay?”
I flung an arm into the narrow canyon between the bed and the wall and groped for my backpack, which had my cigarettes in it.