No One Knows Us Here(13)

I brushed imaginary dust from my dress. I collected my purse, removed the envelope full of cash, and set it on the counter. I cleared my throat. “Sorry I wasted your time.”

I couldn’t look Sebastian St. James in the eye, but I could tell that he was miffed. He didn’t stand up. He didn’t even tuck his penis back into his boxer shorts. It was still poking its sightless little head out, forlorn.

I picked my shoes up off the floor and darted out the door. I didn’t want to wait for the elevator to pick me up in case Sebastian St. James decided to put himself back in his pants and run after me, so I took the emergency exit stairs instead. I ran down flight after flight and then, at the bottom, I burst out of the building and onto the street. The hotel was downtown, right by the MAX tracks, by the rats and the homeless camps, but the air felt fresh. I gulped it down like water, like I wanted to drink it. A weight I didn’t know had been pressing down on me—the weight of pretending, of smiling and nodding and demurring and laughing at jokes I didn’t think were the least bit funny—lifted off me then, and I felt so light I felt like I was flying.





CHAPTER 5


Time was running out. Twenty-eight days, Janet had told me. If I didn’t have a place for Wendy when she got out . . . well, I had to find a place.

Nine days to go. I paced the floors of La Cuisine in a daze. A customer asked me where the trivets were, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what a trivet was. No image formed in my brain. “Trivet,” I repeated. What on earth was a trivet? The entire concept escaped me. Steele popped up behind me, wielding three disks—a felt pad, a heat-resistant tile, and a square of composite bamboo. Trivets. Oh yeah.

I carried Mira’s little black phone around with me wherever I went and checked it every day. I couldn’t stomach contacting any of her johns, not after the disaster with Sebastian St. James, but if someone contacted me, I knew what I had to do. Do it for your sister, I tried telling myself. You promised her.

What would happen to Wendy? They’d send her to an orphanage. That was what she was, an orphan. A bona fide orphan. She’d have to sleep on a narrow iron bed alongside all the other wayward girls. Nights would be so cold she’d have to crack a sheet of ice in the washbasin every morning.

On my lunch break I checked Mira’s phone. I had a new text message from an unknown sender. All of Mira’s clients were programmed in. No one else had the number. That was what she’d told me. The message said he wanted to take me out to lunch, today.

Who is this? I texted back. Probably a pervert. A serial killer. I wondered if it mattered at this point. I just needed the money.

A moment later, a photograph appeared on my screen.

He wasn’t old. Early thirties, maybe, thirty-five at the very oldest. Gray T-shirt, navy-blue hoodie with white strings. Cute in an awkward, offbeat kind of way. His fingers were raised in a wave. Something about the photograph gave me the impression that he’d taken the picture right then and sent it off. It didn’t look calculated, as if he had taken a hundred photos and chosen the very best one.

I studied the picture carefully for a minute. Where did you get this number?

Doug.

Who’s Doug?

I waited, staring at my screen. A few minutes ticked by, and then the phone vibrated. An image appeared. It looked like a professional photo, like a LinkedIn profile pic. Small eyes. A mouth crowded with teeth. It was Sebastian St. James.

I sat staring at that photo for a good minute. Doug. Of course his name was Doug.

Meet me for lunch, the guy in the hoodie texted.

I said sure. I also said it would cost him $200.



I made Margorie come with me. “Sit across the restaurant from us. Act like you don’t know me.”

“Obviously. I’ll crouch behind a potted palm, maybe.”

When we got to the restaurant, it was just past one o’clock. We stopped right outside the door. My stomach clenched. I let out a high, wobbly laugh. “Nerves,” I said.

“Haven’t you gone on a blind date before?” Margorie looked me over. She smoothed my hair with her hand and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. “There. Gorgeous.”

I went in first. I saw him right away, sitting at a two-top by the window. I recognized him by his navy hoodie with the white strings, by the mop of curly brown hair. Plus, he was the only person in the whole restaurant. He was leaning way back in his chair, his feet stretched out underneath the table, the way a teenager would sprawl out in front of the TV.

As soon as I sat down, he looked up at me. A slow grin spread over his face as he took me in. His eyes panned up and down my body. He nodded once. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”

“I wasn’t sure I would, either.” I noticed, then, a plain white envelope resting on top of the paper place mat. The envelope was puffed up slightly, a thin pillow. The money. I tapped my fingers on the table. Nervous habit. He wasn’t one of Mira’s contacts—so who was he? And he had offered to take me to lunch. Lunch? Why? Well, I had reasoned to myself earlier, what was the worst that could happen? He would offer me some humiliating job involving depraved acts I couldn’t even imagine, and I would politely refuse. Anyway, it was just lunch. And $200.

The bells on the door jingled, and in walked Margorie. Quickly, I took the envelope and stuffed it in my bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the hostess leading Margorie to a table at the back of the restaurant, about four tables away. I willed myself not to look over at her.