Feeling as though she had failed completely to be understood, Micky said, “But he’s going to kill her.”
Gazing wistfully at the cat, as if she wished she could crawl into the poster with it, trading the California meltdown for a white Christmas, F said, “Assuming the girl’s story isn’t a fantasy, you said he’ll kill her on her birthday, which isn’t until February.”
“By her birthday,” Micky corrected. “Maybe next February— maybe next week. Tomorrow’s Friday. I mean, you don’t work on weekends, and if you don’t get out there today or tomorrow, they might be gone.”
F’s stare was so fixed, her eyes so glazed, that she appeared to be meditating on the image of the cat.
The caseworker was a psychic black hole. In her vicinity, you could feel your emotional energy being sucked away.
“Their motor home is being overhauled,” Micky persisted, though she felt drained, enervated. “The mechanic might finish at any time.”
With a sigh, F snatched two Kleenex from the box and blotted her forehead carefully, trying to spare her makeup. When she threw the tissues in the waste can, she seemed surprised to see that Micky hadn’t left. “What time did you say you had a job interview?”
Short of sitting here until security was called to remove her, which wouldn’t accomplish anything, Micky had no choice but to get up and move toward the door. “Three o’clock. I can make it easily.”
“Was it in prison you learned all about software applications?”
Although the caseworker looked harmless behind a heretofore unseen smile, Micky expected that the question had been prelude to another insult. “Yeah. They have a good program up there.”
“How’re you finding the job market these days?”
This appeared to be the first genuine woman-to-woman contact since Micky entered the office. “They all say the economy’s sliding.”
“People suck in the best of times,” said K
Micky had no idea how she ought to respond to that.
“In this market,” F said with something that sounded vaguely like sisterly concern, “you have to go into a job interview perfect — all pluses, no minuses. If I were you, I’d take another look at the way you’re dressing for it. The clothes don’t do what you want.”
This coral-pink suit with the pleated white shell was the nicest outfit in Micky’s closet.
As though she’d read that thought, F said, “It’s not because the suit’s from Kmart, or wherever it’s from. That doesn’t matter. But the skirt’s too short, too tight, and with all the cleavage you’ve got, don’t wear a scoop-necked blouse. Honey, this country’s full of greedy trial lawyers, which makes you look like you’re trying to sucker some executive into making a pass so you can slam his company with a sexual-harassment suit. When personnel directors see you, it doesn’t matter if they’re men or women, what they see is trouble, and they’re full up on trouble these days. If you have time to change before that interview, I’d recommend it. Don’t look so … obvious.”
F’s black-hole gravity drew Micky toward oblivion.
Maybe the advice about clothes was well meant. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she thanked F for her counsel. Maybe she didn’t. One moment she was in the office, and an instant later she stood outside; the door was closed, yet she had no memory of having crossed the threshold.
Whatever she’d said or not said as she’d left the room, she was sure she’d done nothing to alienate F further or to harm Leilani’s chances of getting help. Nothing else mattered. Not her own dreams, not her pride, at least not here, not now.
As before, just four chairs in the reception lounge. Seven people waiting instead of the previous five.
The corridor seemed hotter than the office.
Hotter than hot, the elevator broiled. Pressure built during the descent, as though Micky were aboard a bathysphere, dropping into an oceanic trench. She placed one hand against the wall, half expecting to feel the metal panel buckling beneath her palm.
She almost wished that her quenched anger would flare up again, raw and hot, balancing the summer heat with that inner fire, because what took its place was a quiet desperation too much like despair.
On the ground floor, she located the public restrooms. Warm, oily nausea crawled the walls of her stomach, and she feared that she might throw up.
The stall doors stood open. The room was deserted. Privacy.
Harsh fluorescent light bounced off white surfaces, ricocheted from the mirrors. The icy impression couldn’t chill the hot reality.
She turned on the cold water at one of the sinks and held her upturned wrists under the flow. Closed her eyes. Took slow, deep breath. The water wasn’t cold enough, but it helped.
When at last she’d dried her hands, she turned to a full-length mirror on the wall next to the paper-towel dispenser. Leaving home, she’d thought that she was dressed to make the right impression, that she appeared businesslike, efficient. She’d thought she looked nice.
Now her reflection mocked her. The skirt was too short. And too tight. Though not shockingly low-cut, the blouse nevertheless looked inappropriate for a job interview. Maybe the heels on her white shoes were too high, as well.
She did look obvious. Cheap. She looked like the woman she had been, not like the woman she wanted to be. She wasn’t dressing for herself or for work, but for men, and for the type of men who never treated her with respect, for the type of men who ruined her life. Somehow the mirror at home hadn’t shown her what she needed to see.
This pill was bitter, but more bitter still was the way that it had been administered. By F. Bronson.
Though difficult, taking such advice from someone who respected you and cared for you would be like swallowing medicine with honey. This dosage came with vinegar. And if F. Bronson had thought of it as medicine, instead of poison, she might not have given it.
For years, in mirrors Micky had seen the good looks and the sexual magnetism that could get anything she desired. But now that she no longer wanted those things, now that parties and thrills and the attention of bad men held no appeal, now that she harbored higher aspirations, the mirror revealed cheap flash, awkwardness, naivete— and a desperate yearning, the sight of which made her cringe.
She’d thought that she had merely grown beyond the need to use her beauty as either a tool or a weapon, but something more profound had happened. Her concept of beauty had changed entirely; and when she looked in the mirror, she saw frighteningly little that matched her new definition. This might be maturity, but it scared her; always before, her confidence in her physical beauty was something to fall back on, an ultimate consolation in bad times. Now that confidence was gone.
An urge to shatter the mirror overcame her. But the past could not be broken as easily as glass. It was the past that stood before her, the stubborn past, relentless.
Chapter 38
Boy and dog — the former better able to tolerate the August sun than is the latter, the latter somewhat better smelling than is the former, the former thinking again about Gabby’s strangely hysterical exit from the Mountaineer, the latter thinking about frankfurters, the former marveling at the beauty of an azure-blue bird perched on a section of badly weathered and half-broken rail fence, the latter smelling the bird’s droppings and thereby deducing its recent history in significant detail — are grateful for each other’s company as they seek their future, first across open land and then along a lonely country road that, around a bend, is suddenly lonely no more.
Thirty or forty motor homes, about half that many pickup trucks with camper shells, and a lot of SUVs are gathered along the side of the two-lane blacktop and in the adjacent meadow. Attached to some of the motor homes, canvas awnings create shaded areas for socializing. At least a dozen colorful tents have been pitched, as well.