As I pass Sandro’s Healthy Lifestyle Boutique, the overwhelming smell of spicy herbs and essential oils wafting from within makes me turn my head. There’s a sign showing hands photoshopped over a lavender om symbol attached to the side of the building: Soon to be the new home of Divine Singularity Yoga Studios. Well, I’ll be damned. I peer inside. Colorful glass bottles of assorted tinctures and vitamin supplements line the shelves. So this is the place Sarah was working on? I make a mental note and keep walking, eager to get to the house before she does.
Our apartment is a fraction of a building that used to be a single home, with one and a half bedrooms and a “balcony” not large enough for a step stool, let alone the both of us. As an amateur interior designer, I try to make the place feel homey by using light colors and as many collapsible, compact fixtures as we can find to open up the space. Sarah’s work is a bit more practical, building DIY websites and writing “personal” blogs for people who can’t be bothered to do it themselves. She blogs for several businesses on Piedmont Avenue, including Sandro’s, which was always a hoot because we have never followed any hip, healthy lifestyle plan. In fact, we used to joke about the regression of health fads like the Paleo diet. I mean, didn’t cavemen have a life expectancy of something like thirty-five years?
Sarah snuck in “health facts” borrowed from ancient cultures, because that’s what nouveau-hippies are into these days — as if somehow appropriating the cultural traditions of others will bring them longevity and happiness. Sarah once wrote a blog for a boutique chocolate company whose pitch was that “the ancient Mayans ate cocoa for centuries.” I’m sure they did, but they also cut the still-beating hearts from virgin sacrifices and wore animal heads as hats. Sure, chocolate is fabulous, but that really seems beside the point. As nonwhite, nonhippie nonconformists ourselves, we found it both flattering and confusing to see advertisements selling different ethnicities to others — as if we have our shit figured out any more than anyone else. However, Sarah and I were perfectly willing to sell white folks permission to use our cultural identities, since it helped us start a little nest egg that might one day get us a “real” home to call our own.
These rambling thoughts end abruptly as I approach our apartment. Sarah’s Jeep is not in the driveway. Walking in, I realize no one has been here since I left a few hours earlier. My dirty glass and empty bottle of celebration cognac sit where I left them, and Sarah’s collection of boots and shoes, always an unsightly tripping hazard, still clutters the hallway.
I shake my head to clear the sugary alcohol clouds and reach for my phone. Shit. I check my purse and coat, but it isn’t there. I suddenly feel agitated and annoyed that I came back. Do I really want to be here waiting when she gets home, like I have nothing better to do than sit around feeling sorry for myself? It’s true, of course, but I don’t want her to see it. I put my coat back on and return to the bar to retrieve my phone and some dignity.
Aloha Shirt Big Mike greets me as I walk back in. “Hey, Maggie, some lady came by looking for you a few minutes ago.”
“Who? What did she say?” I’m a little dumbfounded, a little angry.
“She asked if Maggie was here, and I said you just left.”
Sarah came here? Does that mean she came to explain? Have I been overreacting? Thoughts flood my already cluttered mind.
“Did I leave my phone here?”
Big Mike thinks for a moment. “Oh, yeah. I did find a phone.” He opens a drawer by the register. “Here you go.”
“Thank you. Can I have one more Chi-Chi, please?”
“Extra umbrellas?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m cutting down.”
He laughs and starts mixing and shaking. I open my phone to three unread messages.
Sarah: I thought you were at Kona Club? [Sent 10:16 p.m.]
Sarah: Where are you now? [Sent 10:32 p.m.]
Sarah: You fucking cunt. I’m coming to get you. [Sent 10:47 p.m.]
“The fuck?” I say aloud. Even at our worst, Sarah has never spoken to me like that. It would have been a deal breaker for either of us.
“Everything okay?” Big Mike asks, sliding over a bulbous glass of fluorescent liquid.
“I don’t know.” My phone’s screen saver pops up, a picture of Sarah and me arm in arm at Stinson Beach, smiling.
“She’s cute,” he says.
“I know,” I sigh. “So is that all she said when she came in? Did she seem... okay?”
“Who? Her?”
We share a puzzled look. “This isn’t who was asking for me? Are you sure?” I hold the phone closer and point at the picture of us: the wind had been blowing Sarah’s red ringlets into my face and we were both laughing as I tried to spit out the strands.
“Nope.” He wipes down a glass. “I’d remember her. This one was... you know.” He shrugs.
“You know, what?”
“She was...” He stands straight and puffs out his arms and chest. “A big ol’ gal.”
I stare at him blankly. The woman from last night. The one I’d seen with Sarah. She had come to see me? Where was Sarah?
I quickly google Oakland news. A few shootings here and there, a vegan bake sale to end gentrification, a youth center displaced by a tech start-up. I scroll on, numbly. Then I see it: Unidentified woman found dead in Piedmont Friday morning. Foul play suspected.
My mouth suddenly tastes like bile and a coldness trickles down my spine.
The phone buzzes in my hands. I drop it on the counter and clasp my hands to my mouth, trying to find my bearings. Another text. My hands shake as I lift the phone and unlock the screen.
Sarah: There’s no use in running. [Sent 10:59 p.m.]
My head is hot and my mouth is dry. I feel dizzy.
Sarah: I’ll kill you like I did your cunt girlfriend. [Sent 11:01 p.m.]
“Are you all right?” Big Mike looms over me, his husky figure silhouetted in the overhead lights. Flashes of the previous night come rushing back. Sarah. Was she... Were they... arguing in the shadows? When she pushed Sarah against the wall, was she — holy shit, Maggie, are you so fucked up you mistook violence for sex?
I have to get the fuck out of here.
A cool wind rushes through me as I hurry out the door. The streets are empty. I start walking, trying to gather my thoughts. Do I call the cops? What do I say? Fuck, I wish I hadn’t been drinking. The air is cold on my face, but not refreshing. I open my phone to dial 911 and see there’s a new text.
Sarah: You look good from behind. [Sent 11:13 p.m.]
I whip around, but there’s no one in sight anywhere. I walk faster and frantically start dialing. My phone beeps as it drops the call. I try again, and again. Shit! Returning to the bar would be backtracking too far — and if this psychopath really is following me, I might run right into her. I realize I have to run. The gates of the Mountain View Cemetery are at the top of the road. I need to hide. I need to hide and call for help.
I reach the entrance and glance back quickly. There’s almost no light, but I can make out a figure trailing me down the road. I squeeze through the tall iron gates and dash up the paved road, past mausoleums and oversized ornate tombstones.