“Inez, what’s going on? You’re being weird.”
“Actually, Cara,” she says. That’s twice now, and now I know for certain we have an issue. “There’s something I want to talk to you about, but we can’t do it over the phone.”
“I can meet you at Hush tomorrow,” I say, sitting at my vanity. Water trickles from the ends of my hair.
“Hush isn’t safe.”
Inhaling a sharp breath, I grip the edge of my chair and say, “What the fuck do you mean, Hush isn’t safe. Inez, is everything okay? Where are you?”
“Everything will be fine.” Her voice slides back to its normal confidence, but my mind races. “The anniversary of your mother’s death is tomorrow, am I right?”
Raking my fingers through my wet hair, I find it impossible to focus on the wheel of issues spinning through my mind. The anniversary of Cricket’s death is tomorrow. Inez is being evasive, and I’m running out of time to get to Talent’s place.
“Yes,” I say.
“Listen to me, sweet girl. Come to my house and I’ll make dinner. We can share stories of the dead over a bottle of wine.”
“And you’ll tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Yes, we’ll have a conversation.”
Surrendering, I drop my shoulders and exhale. “I’ll be by tomorrow then.”
“Don’t worry about your appointment today,” Inez says almost as an afterthought. “That’s off your schedule indefinitely. No need to rebook.”
Our entire conversation has been a riddle, and I can’t crack the code. Why is Clay off my rotation? Does it have to do with the information Inez is clearly keeping from me? Corruption never ends well.
“Did you call me on one of those silly phones you like to use?” Inez asks.
“Of course,” I whisper.
“Good,” she says in an even tone. “When we hang up, destroy it.”
I run to the kitchen holding my towel together in one hand and clutching the phone in the other. I shuffle through the kitchen drawers until I find a sheet of paper and a pen that works. After scribbling Talent’s address down, I snap the burner phone closed and drop it to the counter like it’s red-hot.
“What’s going on?” Camilla asks. She’s curled on the couch with Dog.
Throwing the phone away or breaking it in half doesn’t feel sufficient enough. I open the cabinet under the sink for the small tool kit I keep for emergencies. The hammer’s heavy in my hand, but I realize too late that I’m not holding the grip correctly when I bring it down to smash the phone and hit the countertop instead.
“Lydia, what the heck.” Camilla sits up, holding Dog close to her chest. He growls.
“Dammit,” I seethe.
I tighten the towel around my body and grasp the hammer with both hands. Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I squeeze my eyes closed and drive the face of the hammer into the target over and over and over. I don’t stop until the phone is reduced to a pile of broken plastic pieces, and then I hit it twice more.
The silence in the apartment afterward is earsplitting.
Camilla waits until I set the hammer down to ask, “Should we talk about this or no?”
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I shake my head and say, “Never.”
Shouldering my answer without another word, Camilla puts Dog down and grabs the broom to clean up the mess I’ve made. She sweeps around me, shooing me out of the kitchen. “Watch your feet. The glass will cut you.”
I feel like I’m on the outside looking in on someone else’s life. I don’t recognize the brunette draped in a towel as myself. There’s light in her eyes like an eclipse, glowing around dark edges. She has the decency to be embarrassed as she watches the blonde sweep up her fit of desperation. The hammer was an overkill, but she has much to lose now.
The placeholder mom. The stray dog. The girl who loves Moroccan tapestry and candles.
The prince.
Her prince, maybe.
Could be?
Perhaps.
My mind links with my body and I can see through my eyes, feel embarrassment burn my cheeks, and taste anxiety on the back of my tongue.
“I have to go,” I say.
Camilla lifts the dustpan full of broken burner phone pieces and says, “You sure? Usually you’re more put together for your appointments. Not that you don’t look … clean, but maybe you can use a day off.”
She doesn’t know that whores don’t get mental health days.
“I’m going to Talent Ridge’s house,” I say. The words burst from my mouth like a confetti cannon. Each individual letter from my confession climbs up, up, up before sprinkling down upon me like tiny pieces of paper that we’ll find on the floor for a week.
Burrowing her eyebrows in confusion, Camilla says, “Oh, I didn’t think he was a client.”
The cannon reloads, spitting out a second fountain of words. “He’s not. He’s something else.”
Her brows shoot up and a grin spreads across her face. She dumps the heap of rubble into the trash can and in a totally different tone, she purrs, “Oh.”
And because this moment can’t get any more mortifying anyway, I ask, “Do you know what I’m supposed to wear? I’ve never done this before. I’ve never—”
Camilla purses her lips and then shakes her head. “Honestly, Lydia. Neither have I. Maybe jeans?”
She and I share a look and contemplate how ridiculous our ignorance is before we erupt in laughter. The melody is so brand new and consoling, I gladly let it float around with confetti letters until I realize I have twenty-four minutes to get dressed and across town.
Camilla and Dog follow me to my bedroom. I rush to my closet where I drop my towel and step into a cotton pair of underwear I never wear around clients and a black lace bra that I do. Camilla tugs an olive-green shirt over my head, while I shimmy into black leggings usually reserved for grocery shopping days. While I sit at my vanity and tie my shoes, Camilla runs a brush through my gone-frizzy hair.
“Wear the dark red lipstick. He won’t look at your hair if he can’t pull his eyes away from your lips.” She taps her temple like she’s Albert-fucking-Einstein, full of brilliant ideas.
I wear the dark red lipstick.
Yael is waiting outside for me when I emerge from the apartment in my Sunday leggings and air-dried frizzy hair on my head. My left shoe comes untied as I speed walk toward the black SUV, and I forgot to grab a new phone. I won’t have a way to get ahold of Inez if something comes up, and I won’t have the option to call Talent and give him two thousand reasons why this is a bad idea.
I’m a fallen woman.
He means something to people.
I only shaved one leg.
And so on.
“Change of plans,” I say to my chauffeur. I hand him the sheet of paper with Talent’s address written across it in red ballpoint pen. “Please, take me here.”
Yael’s dark brown eyes bore down on me like he doesn’t know the answer to the test and is afraid to guess the wrong answer.
“I always appreciate your discretion,” I say, climbing into the back of the Suburban. I don’t close the partition between us, even when his dark irises reflect back at me from the rearview mirror.