Dear Wife(7)

The bed, empty.



BETH

I stand at the bathroom sink of room seventeen in a grubby motor lodge on the outskirts of Tulsa and take inventory in the mirror. Chalky skin. Eyes shaded with purple circles. Hair too long, too thick to style.

You’re always telling me never to cut my hair. You say you like it long—dark, thick strands streaked with shiny ribbons of bronze, with just the right amount of curl. It’s the kind of hair you see on commercials, the kind women pay hundreds of dollars a month for. But it’s more than just hair to you. It’s a plaything, a turn-on, something to plow your fingers through or moan your orgasms in whenever we have sex.

But this hair you claim to love so much? You also love to use it as a weapon. To drag me by it from room to room. To pin me down. Hair is so much stronger than you think it’d be, the roots like barbed hooks in your skin. The scalp will rip open sooner than a hank of hair will break. I know this from experience.

I pick up a handful and a pair of shears and slice it in an uneven, stubby line.

It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. A hell of a lot less painful than when you grab me by the ponytail and lift me clear off the bed. The strands tumble down my chest, sticking to the white cotton of my shirt. I feel lighter. Unencumbered. Free.

I keep chopping, brushing the strands into the sink to toss later, not because I think you’ll track me here, but because I believe in karma. One day very soon I’ll need a job, and it’s not unthinkable I’ll end up in a hotel room like this one, scrubbing someone else’s hairs from the drain. Not exactly what my parents were hoping for when they paid for my college, but a better paying job, a job I’m actually qualified for, would send up a smoke signal you might spot.

I’ve never cut my own hair before, and I don’t do a particularly good job of it. I was going for a pixie cut, but it’s more of a walk-in salon hack job, or maybe a sloppy bowl cut from the seventies. I pick up random chunks, pull them between my fingers like a hairstylist would, and slice in asymmetrical layers. When I’m done, I fluff it with my fingers and study myself in the mirror. With a bit of hair gel, it might not be half-bad.

You are not who you used to be. You are Beth Murphy now.

“I’m Beth,” I say, trying on the name like a questionable shade of lipstick. It’s the name I gave Nick, the one I signed on the hotel register, but only after forking over two twenties so the man behind the counter didn’t ask for my ID again. “My name’s Beth Murphy.”

Beth with the crappy haircut.

I dig the box of hair dye from the CVS bag and mix up the color. In my previous life, I was one of those brunettes who never longed to be a blonde. Blondes are louder, bolder, more conspicuous. Flashy and competitive, like sorority girls and cheerleaders. Not good traits when your goal is to disappear.

The picture on the box advertises an ashy blond, the least in-your-face blond of the blonder shades. Blond for beginners. I paint it in lines across my scalp with the plastic bottle, then slip off the gloves and check my watch. Ten minutes until we find out if what they say is really true, that blondes have more fun.

While I wait for the color to set, I flip on the television. It’s past midnight, and I’m three hundred miles away from Pine Bluff—too late for a local broadcast, and too soon for news of my disappearance to have spread across state lines and made it to cable. Still, I sit on the edge of the bed and flip between CNN and Fox, watching for the tiniest sliver of my story. An empty house. A missing woman. My face hidden behind dark sunglasses, spotted heading west. But there’s nothing, and I’m torn between relief and dread. You’ll be looking for me by now.

I shower and dress in the clothes I bought earlier at Walmart, a dowdy denim skirt and a shirt two sizes too big. The duffel on the bed is stuffed with clothes just like them, synthetic fabrics in Easter egg colors, cheap and outdated items I’d normally turn up my nose at. In my former life, I would have turned up my nose at Beth, too. With her baggy clothes and dollar-store hair, Beth is a frump.

I leave the key on the nightstand, gather up my things and step outside.

Sometime in the past few hours, clouds have rolled in, a dark and threatening blanket hanging over muggy, electrically charged air. The wind is still, but it won’t be for long. I’ve lived in these parts long enough to know what a wall cloud looks like, and that they often swirl into tornadoes. A bolt of lightning rips the sky in two, clean as a knife slash. Time to either hunker down or get the hell out of Dodge. I choose door number two.

My car is exactly where I left it, at the far edge of the lot next to the dumpster, though “my” is a relative term since the car doesn’t officially belong to me. It belongs to a Marsha Anne Norwood of Little Rock, Arkansas, a woman who seemed as eager for a discreet, all-cash transaction as I was. I bought it two weeks ago, then moved it from lot to lot in a neighboring town, but I never transferred the title to my name.

I peek inside and things are exactly as I left them. The keys, dropped in the cup holder. The title, folded on the front seat. The doors, unlocked. I cast a quick glance up the asphalt, taking in the other cars, jalopies like this one. My car is no prize, but it’s an easy target. A jackpot for any wannabe thief. No, Marsha Anne’s car won’t be here for long.

I turn, head to Dill’s Auto Repairs & Sales across the road.

“You can’t buy a car,” you told me once, when it was time for me to trade up. “Just keep your mouth shut and let me handle it.”