The Last Flight(33)

“I hate door-to-door salesmen,” Liz said. If she thought it odd he didn’t come to her door next, she didn’t mention it.

Eva stood and said, “I think I’ll go get those drinks for us.” A drink was the very least she deserved.





Claire


Wednesday, February 23

I leave Eva’s office strewn with paper and move across the hall, determined to know for certain what I’m beginning to suspect—that nothing Eva told me about herself, or what she was running from, was true. I throw open the door to her closet, pawing through the hangers, looking for evidence of the husband she adored. At the very least, there should be big, empty spaces where his clothes used to be. But all I find are a few nice tops, a couple dresses, boots, and flats. All of it Eva’s. I yank open dresser drawers, finding shirts, jeans, underwear, and socks, flashes of my unfamiliar new profile startling me in the mirror, so similar to Eva’s I can almost believe for a moment she’s returned. That she’s here and I’m the one who died. Freaky fucking Friday.

I sink down on Eva’s bed. Everything I believed—about Eva, about her life, about why she didn’t want to be here, lay in pieces at my feet. If there was no husband, there will be no investigation of his death. And if there’s no investigation, there has to be another reason why Eva was so willing to trade places and disappear.

I begin to laugh—the hysterical spiral of an exhausted woman teetering on the edge of sanity—and think of all the lies she told, straight-faced and sincere. And then I hear her voice in my head, and imagine her telling me to calm down and get the fuck out of her house, and I smirk at how sharp it is, how perfectly I can still recall it.

Neither of us could have guessed this was what would happen. We were only trading tickets. I wasn’t supposed to drive to her house, unlock her door, and step into her life. Whatever I’ve walked into, I’m here because I chose to be.

*

Back in Eva’s office, with the Doc open on the screen in front of me, I take a closer look at one of Eva’s bank statements, scanning her monthly expenses. Food, gas, coffee shops. Automatic payments every month for everything, including cable and trash service, with a balance of two thousand dollars. There are two direct deposits from a place called DuPree’s Steakhouse, each for nine hundred dollars. Not nearly enough income to warrant an all-cash purchase of her home.

And as I expected, no medical bills, no copays. No pharmacies. I feel a sliver of admiration at the outrageous fabrication rendered with the finesse of a con artist. The smooth way she set her boarding pass on the bar between us, a quiet temptation I was too preoccupied to notice at the time, the way she described how easy it was to blend in to Berkeley. The subtle way she reflected my own desires and fears back at me, allowing me to fall into step alongside her.

According to her car registration, she drives an old Honda, which is most likely hidden in the attached garage. A woman smart enough to orchestrate something like this isn’t going to leave her car parked at an airport or train station, identifying that as her starting point. I don’t want anything to do with it, though. If someone’s looking for her, they’ll surely begin with her car. But it’s nice to know it’s there, if I need it.

I make quick work of the rest of Eva’s desk. More dried-out pens and paper clips in a tangle, empty envelopes, a few charging bricks with no cords. But none of the other things you’d expect to find. No saved birthday cards or appointment reminders. No photographs, notes, or sentimental keepsakes. Not only was her husband a fabrication, I’m beginning to wonder if Eva was too.

I look to the left of the desk, where an empty trash can sits, and my gaze catches on a small piece of paper, partially concealed behind the desk, as if someone meant to throw it away and missed. I pick it up and smooth it. It’s a small card, the handwriting a neat cursive, the slanted, loopy kind you don’t see beyond elementary school. Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear.

I try to imagine the circumstances upon which Eva wrote this and then later discarded it. If perhaps she didn’t need it anymore, or whether it stopped being something she believed to be true.

I carry it across the hall to Eva’s bedroom, tuck the card into the edge of the mirror over her dresser, and begin to tidy the mess I’d made. As I refold her shirts, the smell of her—flowers with that chemical undernote—stirs in the air around me. I come across a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt, and I hold it against my chest. Oversized and well worn, it’s from their Californication tour. The Chili Peppers were one of Violet’s favorite bands, and I had promised her that when she turned sixteen, I’d take her to a concert. One of the many things she never got to do. I drape the shirt over my shoulder and close the drawer. This, I want.

I finish tidying the dresser, confirming no hidden money or jewelry. No diary or love letters stashed away from prying eyes. Fictional husband aside, no one—except perhaps me, living in Rory’s house—lives a life this empty.

Across the room, I sit on the edge of her bed and open the top drawer of her nightstand. Another tube of expensive hand lotion that smells like roses when I rub it into my arm. A bottle of Tylenol. But tucked along the inside edge of the drawer is a photo, the only one I’ve seen in the house so far. It’s a novelty shot of Eva posing with an older woman outside a stadium in San Francisco. Enormous Giants Baseball banners hang behind life-sized cutouts of players, and the women pose, their heads tilted together, Eva laughing, her arm draped over the woman’s shoulders. She looks light and happy, as if whatever shadows were chasing her hadn’t shown up yet. I wonder if this was a friend, or someone else Eva had tricked. Whether everything Eva did had been calculated for her own benefit.