As the Wicked Watch(72)

Why has this case gripped me so?

Is this really what I want to be doing?

As I tally the sum of my career, my review extends to my personal life. What am I doing with Thomas? Am I wasting his time or is he wasting mine? If one more person asks me about motherhood and settling down, I’m going to scream.

The flood of fear is broken only when it occurs to me that I can’t remember the last time I ate something, but instead of stopping for takeout, half recovered from the nervous system overload, I decide that the bag of potato chips and the bottle of cabernet sauvignon I can visualize sitting on the kitchen counter will do for the night.

Then the unmistakable ring assigned to the one and only who grounds me brought me back to earth.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hey, my lovebug. What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you in a couple days.”

“I’ve been busy working on that case. I have good news!”

“What?”

“Nussbaum pulled me off everything else so I could just focus on it,” I said, stopping before saying too much about how I intended to exercise that privilege with the Worrier.

“Are you working the same hours?” she asked.

“Basically, that means I’m working whenever I need to—which is practically all day. But it’s okay,” I said. “This was my first day. It was interesting.”

Again, not the most accurate description that comes to mind, but it will do.

“I’m sure you haven’t eaten,” she said.

I laughed. “You’re right, I haven’t. I’m actually going to cook when I get home, and I’m almost there now, Mom.”

Lie number two. I’m not cooking, and the “interesting” part of my day would have her on the first flight here to hug me if I shared the details.

I pulled up to the automatic garage gate and waved my key fob over the reader. The mechanical arm bounced slightly in the high wind, despite the structure protecting the entrance on all sides except for the driveway.

“Can I call you when I get inside? I’m pulling into the garage. And nobody better be in my parking space like last night.”

“That’s still happening? I know you were not pleased. I hate that roof,” she said.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

You’re really in that big of a rush?

As I pulled forward, a car was right on my bumper and practically hit me, the driver too lazy to pull out their own key fob, I guess.

“These people in my building! Either they’re forgetting their key fob and slipping in behind you or the guests of folks in this building are in too big of a hurry to wait and get buzzed in. It’s so annoying!”

“You’re annoyed every time I speak with you.” Mom laughed. “When are you going to get a vacation?”

“Remember I’m coming home for a week for Christmas, Mom. And I haven’t completely ruled out a girls’ weekend getaway before that. Lisette might be here in the next couple of weeks,” I said.

“If Lisette comes to town, you’re just going to end up entertaining her. That’s not giving you a break,” Mom went on. “I know you, how you are . . .”

If every other conversation with my mother wasn’t about my taking time off or taking better care of myself, I might have been too distracted to notice the car that slipped in behind me was now following me up the spiraling drive to level 8. I know most, though not all, of the people who park on my floor. But I don’t recognize this driver, though I can see even through the tinted glass that he is Black.

I felt a little uneasy and thought about passing by my space to see if the driver would continue to follow me. But why risk the guy pulling into my spot? Then I would have to confront him, and I don’t want to deal with that. So I turned into my $150-a-month parking space, number 048, and the driver kept going.

See, silly? That man wasn’t thinking about you. Jordan, did you really just have one of “those moments”? The brainwashing that we chide White people for all the time? You see a person of color and suddenly they are suspicious. Did I just play the role of the purse-clutching White woman on the elevator? The poor man did nothing.

Mom continued her tirade, regaining my attention. “All you do is work, work, work,” she said. “I thought you belonged to a union.”

I laughed. “I do, but, Mom, listen, I’m about to get to the hallway and lose my connection. I’ll call you when I get inside, okay?”

The cell service interrupted her far better than I could. “You’d better,” she said. “Okay, I will call you back if it’s not too late.”

I’ll miss seeing the Bass Man tonight but was relieved to be able to walk from my car directly onto my floor and down the hallway to my apartment, unencumbered by my habit of allowing other people’s grief to enshroud me, then trying to drown it in a bottle, or by tired feet or a lover’s need for attention and approval. Tonight maybe I will cook after all. I’ll get some sleep and rise early to plot and put into play a strategy that will best utilize my instincts and allow me to swerve around the lies that threaten to throw me off the trail of a killer. This time the scent is too strong not to follow it, and so is my determination to arrive at the naked truth.

*

I decided to give Pamela another chance to respond before showing up at Yvonne’s house without her, and to my surprise, finally she picked up the phone.