And Now She's Gone(23)

“It could be him,” Jennifer said. “The boyfriend, trying to throw you off the scent. Okay, say he has her phone and he cut her thumbs off to unlock her phone. He boards the dog and now he’s pretending to be her. He hires you so that people will think that he cares. And there you go, into the wild blue yonder, talking to her friends and to her family.

“Meanwhile, she’s in his basement without any thumbs, and cuz he’s a doctor he knows how to cut the rest of her up, and then he’ll use his buddy’s yacht to throw pieces of her into the Pacific, cuz in Hermosa Beach right now there are some great whites swimming around, and so she’s eaten by the sharks but he’s still, ‘Where did she go and where’s my dog, blahblahblah.’”

Gray shook her head. “I didn’t think of that. Again, you’re a fount of wisdom, Jen.”

Ernesto, the waiter, dropped off their platters of food: tacos for everyone except Gray, who would enjoy a Mexican Caesar salad drowning in dressing.

“You know,” Clarissa said, “the missing lady, like, needs to get a nose job, a boob job, and then fly to Machu Picchu or wherever, cuz you’re literally gonna find her once I look at her phone number. Sorry I didn’t see your text. My personal trainer is being such a brat and—”

“What does your personal trainer have to do with you not doing your job?” Gray glanced over at Hank.

He beckoned her to come over.

The last time Hank had called Gray over, he’d offered her a sip of fifty-year-old Remy Martin. Afterward, they’d slipped into his office and onto his suede couch. For a cool ten minutes they made out like teenagers, with Gray’s hand shoved beneath his boxers and his hand shoved beneath her bra. Just as her other hand unbuttoned the fly of his 501s, Alex, the backup bartender, knocked on the office door and shouted that a bunch of college boys from Loyola Marymount had just arrived. Hank had kissed her nose and whispered, “Later?” Gray had nibbled his bottom lip. “Um-hmm.”

Yeah, Hank was a Republican, but he kissed like a Democrat, and “later” was “now,” and who was she to ignore his efforts to put country before party?

And now, Gray said, “Pardon me, ladies,” then eased out of the booth, with her margarita. Wrinkled linen pants and chocolate-stained shirt be damned.

Clarissa shouted, “Be back in time for my bachelorette party.”

Gray said, “Ha! Maybe,” even though she hadn’t planned to attend, because Clarissa’s party was in Las Vegas. She hated that place and had sworn never to return.

Over at the bar, she slid her dying cocktail toward Hank’s enormous hands. “I’d like a refund, please. I like ’em strong.”

“Oh, yeah?” His eyes twinkled with neon light.

“I need it to work me over. Get me shook, you know?”

His smile, those eyes—all of him made Gray dizzy and excited and a little disoriented. Like she had murdered the former Baptist-Catholic-atheist schoolgirl inside of her and now the slutty twin had taken her place, wearing Saturday panties on Tuesday.

“How about … something now, and then something later?” Hank asked.

“You’re so generous. So … dedicated to your craft.” She traced those Hebrew letters on his forearm, now tinted by the jeweled reds, yellows, and blues of Lucha Libre and Dos Equis.

L’Shana Tova, Hava Nagila, olé.

“Your friends are looking over here,” Hank said.

“Let them look.” Her finger traced gimel and resh, letters that did, in fact, start her name.

“No. Seriously.”

She glanced back over her shoulder.

A woman stood at the booth. Clarissa was now pointing at Gray.

“New friend?” Hank asked.

“Don’t know her.” Gray backed away from the former marine, not wanting to look away but knowing that, eventually, she had to. “Text me later?”

He flashed that smile, and those eyes danced as he slid over to take a customer’s order.

The visitor at Gray’s booth had skin the color of almonds. She smelled like bacon, which wasn’t the worst quality in a person. Except for poufy bangs, the visitor’s hair lived in long braids. A big girl, she stood about five nine, with shoulders slouching into her arms like a slug. She was melting in her turquoise sweater set.

Gray said, “Hi.”

The woman said, “Hello.”

They looked at each other for a moment. “Are you Gray?”

“Last time I checked, yeah.”

“Isabel told me to tell you … She said to tell you … Fuck off.”





13


Fuck off.

“Is that an exact quote?” Zadie asked.

Gray said, “And you’re … who again?”

“Tea Christopher.” The woman blinked at the quartet, through her thick-lensed, horn-rimmed glasses. “I don’t mean to curse, but I didn’t wanna water down what Isabel told me to say. She said it was very important that you knew it was her speaking and not me.”

But Gray didn’t know Isabel, and she sure as hell didn’t know this woman, who smelled like breakfast. “Just to confirm: You’re Tea Tea?” she asked. “Isabel’s friend Tea?” Isabel with the Vogue cheekbones and the long ponytail? The Mary Ann with the hotshot doctor boyfriend?