The Better Liar(48)

how to find out what building used to be, I searched.

The National Archives, Find a Historic Building, Cyndi’s List, How to Find Out If a Building Is Being Demolished Near You! Zoopla, Zillow, Reddit threads, Google Maps. I tried Zillow and a couple of records-of-sale sites. None of them listed the sale to Curves—maybe it was too recent to have been entered into the archives online. I clicked on a Quora question that more or less matched mine. The respondent listed several of the links I’d already seen on Google and finished up with, But if you’re looking for a privately owned residence that’s not a historic building, and there are no records of sale available online, there’s not much you can do unless you’re buddies with a P.I.!

I blinked. I wasn’t buddies with a P.I., but I did know a police officer.





33


    Mary


The phone rang six times before Nancy picked up. “Hello?” I tried. “Nancy? It’s me.”

A long few seconds of silence. Then Nancy said, “Okay, hang on,” far away, as if to somebody else. The line went dead.

I blinked and jabbed at the phone to redial. It went straight to voicemail this time.

I paced out of the study and into the living room, opening my texts app. For some reason I had expected her to pick up right away. I could’ve sworn that was exactly what she would do. The way we had tilted toward each other—how easily it had happened, as if the muscle memory was still there.

As I was staring at the texts app, my phone buzzed in my palm. I swiped to answer.

“Hi, sorry,” Nancy said. “I was inside, I don’t have good reception in the building.”

My mouth hung open for a moment. “It’s Robin,” I said experimentally.

“I know.” I heard her make a little glottal noise; she’d almost said something else.

“I wanted to talk to you again,” I said, hoping to draw it out of her.

    She cleared her throat. “I was thinking about calling you,” she said quietly. “But then I thought…I didn’t know when you were leaving again.”

A funny feeling stole through me. Nancy is in love with me, I thought. That’s what this is about. I pictured her wrapped around her wife, staring at the phone on the bedside table. My face in her mind now. For ten years, she’d wanted to see Robin one last time.

And then I’d arrived.

It was sort of beautiful. Romantic, almost. And if Nancy could help me with Leslie, that was a win-win, wasn’t it?

I let the silence spool out before I said, “I was supposed to leave today. But I didn’t.”

Nancy exhaled, sounding like she was trying not to let me hear her relief. “Okay,” she said.

“I’m scared.” My throat felt tight. “I’ve never…You’re just…I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to get in the way of you and—I don’t want to get in the way of anything,” I said. “I don’t even know what I want.”

“I don’t know what I want either.” She sounded like she was echoing me just to soothe me.

“Things are so crazy right now,” I said. “With my family. I found out—I mean, I can’t tell it to a cop. But I wasn’t even thinking about it with you. It felt like ten years hadn’t even passed.” I put the phone close to my mouth and drew in a quick breath so she could hear it. “Did it feel like that to you?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Are you in trouble? What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing. I just—This is crazy, but I canceled my flight home.”

“You canceled?”

“I want to see you again,” I said, letting the words spill out like I couldn’t help myself.

“I don’t know.”

She was so ready to give in. I could hear it in her voice. “Please, Nancy,” I said.

“I’m on a shift.”

I squeezed the phone. “I could meet you somewhere?”

    She didn’t reply for a minute. Then she said, “Do you remember where we used to meet at the lookout off La Cueva?”

“Yeah, of course,” I said quickly.

“We could talk there. I have to go,” she said. “Wait there for me.”

“I will,” I breathed into the phone. “I’ll wait for you.” I picked my words carefully. Nancy had waited for a decade. She’d like it, me waiting for her this time. I envisioned myself leaning against Nancy’s cop car with the hazy, dusty city spread out below me. Where was my lipstick? I rummaged in my purse.

“Bye,” Nancy said, unable to prevent a hint of shy conspiracy from edging into her tone. Like we were the last two girls awake at the sleepover.

“Bye,” I said softly, and let her hang up first. Then I went back into the study to unplug Leslie’s phone and clear the history. As I set the phone back in the desk, the papers underneath it shifted slightly, and a wrinkled envelope peeked out from behind the rest. I drew it out. It was lumpy, that’s why it was wrinkled. The flap hadn’t been sealed, only tucked into the rest of the envelope like a Chinese take-out carton. I opened it curiously.

Inside was a pair of earrings.