Part 20 (1/2)

”Check it out,” Val said, and led me through the French doors. There was a living room with a tiled floor and a ceiling fan paddling at the humid air. Two bedrooms down a short hall, a bathroom in between them. A bowl of mangoes and papayas and limes sat next to the kitchen sink. In the back was a small brick patio that was thick with the scents of jasmine and jacaranda and filled with spiky-leaved palms and orchids.

Val led me to the screened-in porch and reached for a gla.s.s pitcher full of pale-green liquid. ”Key limeade. The landlady leaves it for new tenants,” Val said, and poured us each a gla.s.s. I sipped mine, tentatively at first, then more deeply: I was thirsty, and this was delicious, the perfect balance between tart and sweet.

”Isn't that good?” Val looked pleased.

”Have you been here before?”

”Twice.” She slipped off her shoes and settled into a chaise longue, stretching and sighing with pleasure. ”With a friend.” She fanned her hair out against the cus.h.i.+ons and looked at me sideways. I recognized my cue.

”Anyone I know?”

”Charlie Carstairs.” The name was p.r.o.nounced reverently. Clearly, I was supposed to know who he was. Sadly, I didn't.

”Isn't he...”

”My station manager.”

”Ah.” I rummaged around in my brain for Val-iana. ”Wait a minute. He's the one who's married to-”

”It's a marriage in name only,” she said quickly.

”Ah.” Charles Carstairs's wife, Bonnie, was herself a former newscaster turned full-time fund-raiser for breast cancer research. You'd see her picture in the paper a few times a year, her head swathed in a hot-pink bandanna, beaming at the finish line of some bike event or swim or marathon. After my mother's sickness, I'd started contributing to breast cancer research and advocacy groups, and I'd ended up on her mailing list, which meant I got her hot-pink bandanna'ed face smiling up from my mailbox at least once a month, exhorting me to race for the cure, or dance for the cure, or shop or garden or dine out for the cure.

”You know her hair grew back,” Val said. ”She's been in remission since 1993. She just wears that bandanna for show.”

”Well, in that case, you go on and take her husband. If she's got hair, she can get a new one.”

Val frowned faintly. I took a sip of my limeade. ”You know,” I offered, ”they don't actually leave their wives. Even if they say they want to...”

She shook her head, ice tinkling in her gla.s.s. ”Oh, G.o.d, like I'd ever want him to leave his wife,” she said. ”Please. Six a.m. tee times and stinky cigars after dinner! Once a week's about all I'd want of Charlie.” She stretched back in her chair, reaching her arms up over her head. Her eyes were hidden under the dark gla.s.ses she'd bought in St. Louis, her arms and shoulders bared in the red halter top she'd picked up in Atlanta. I wondered if Val missed her old clothes-the boys' jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts, the laceless sneakers she'd wear until the soles peeled away from the uppers. Maybe she pined for the days when she would cut her bangs with the craft scissors she'd swiped from school and ride a too-big boy's bike, helmetless, through town. Now there wasn't an inch of her that hadn't been worked on, improved somehow, from the tips of her polished toes to her tanned legs, lasered hairless and painted brown in the privacy of a spraytan booth. Her belly was prairie-flat. There were acrylic finger-nails glued to her fingertips, and hair extensions (for volume, not length, she'd taken pains to tell me) cleverly braided and knotted onto her scalp. She had, she confessed, done some ”fine-tuning” on her nose and chin out in California, where she'd gotten her first job on-air. Still, I could catch glimpses of my old friend underneath the polished facade; like a coin or a sh.e.l.l glimmering underneath shallow water. She still bit her nails when she was nervous, still tucked her hair behind her ears as a conversational placeholder, still preferred snack foods to actual meals, and was, as ever, still full of plans, adventures I would never dream of, up to and including running from the law for a tropical vacation.

I went inside to use the bathroom. ”Don't take a bath!” she called. ”There's an outdoor shower!” Val led me to the backyard, where, sure enough, a showerhead sprouted from the wall. It curved over a square of wooden planks with a drain set in the middle. A white fence surrounded it and there was a built-in shelf with an oversized bar of creamy pink soap, bottles of shampoo and conditioner and body wash made of raspberry and avocado oil. ”It's really just so you can rinse off after the beach,” Val said. ”But I use it all the time.” She gave me a slanting smile. ”A couple of times, Charlie and I used it together.”

”Just tell me you cleaned it after.”

”Addie. It's a shower. Showers are clean by definition.” She tossed me a towel. ”We can go shopping later, pick up some more clothes.”

”And then what?”

”Shower first. Then we'll talk.”

It felt strange, taking my clothes off outside, in the middle of the day, exposing my poor imperfect body to the suns.h.i.+ne. But after a few minutes under the warm spray, I started enjoying myself. I could feel the breeze, scented with salt and jasmine, moving across my skin. When I tilted my head back to rinse my hair, I opened my eyes and saw the blue sky above me.

Finally, the water turned cold. Inside the bedroom closet, I found a white robe, plush and thick as a comforter. I tied the sash around my waist and walked barefoot back to the porch and sat on the chaise longue opposite Val's. I thought she was sleeping-her eyes were closed-but as soon as I sat down, she started to talk.

”Have you ever been in love?”

”I...” I stared at the b.u.mps of my knees and pressed the heel of my palm gently against the b.u.mp in my belly. Tell her more about Vijay? Keep the details my secret? Before I could decide, Val plunged ahead.

”Listen, all I'm saying is that we're going to have to go home eventually, and while we're here, you should take advantage. Do everything you always wanted! Get drunk! Get high! Have s.e.x with the pool boy!”

I looked around. ”There's a pool?”

”Out back,” said Val, pointing. ”Behind the hedges. We share with the other cottages.” She leaned back, eyes narrowed at the horizon. ”I bet I could get you a guy.”

”I appreciate the thought, but I'm okay. How about this,” I said. ”We rent bikes and pack a picnic and go to the beach?”

She frowned. ”That's not very exciting.” Reaching underneath her chair, she pulled out a blue-and-white plastic bag. ”Pork rind?” She waved one at me. ”Low carb!” I shook my head. She shrugged and popped one in her mouth. I listened to the crunch, frowning. Something was teasing at the edge of my mind, and when I finally figured out what it was, I gasped.

Val looked up at me, mouth full, blue eyes wide, freckles dotting her cheeks. ”What?”

”Val,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. ”Where'd you get those?”

She popped another pork rind in her mouth. ”Nashville? Wherever we stopped for gas yesterday morning.” I remembered. I'd gone to use the bathroom, and when I'd come back to the car, she'd had a plastic bag of snack food at her feet and a jumbo-sized fountain drink in her hand, and was complaining about the car's lack of cup holders, and I hadn't thought anything about it at the time, but now...

”How'd you pay?” The gas station where we'd stopped had ab.u.t.ted a six-stall car wash. s.h.i.+rtless guys in droopy jeans had been standing there, waiting with rags in their hands. As the wet cars had come through, they'd toweled them off. A radio had been blasting reggaeton. I remembered the guys smiling at Val as she'd twitched her shoulders to the beat before I'd gone to the restroom, leaving my purse in the car beside her. I'd reclaimed custody of our cash, and that had been tucked into the front pocket of my jeans, but my purse held my wallet... and all of my credit cards. Now I held my breath, hoping that I was wrong. Maybe Val had tucked a twenty into her bra-a Naomi-style trick.

”I used a...” Her face got pale, and her voice, when she spoke, was tiny. ”Oh. Oh, s.h.i.+t.”

”You used your credit card?”

”Um.” She folded up the bag of pork rinds and tucked it back under her chair. ”No. Yours.”

”Valerie!”

”Well, I'm sorry!” she said, jumping to her feet. ”I left mine at home, and I figured you wouldn't mind, and I forgot we weren't supposed to be using them.”

”How could you forget?”

”I've got a lot on my mind right now! You know, this whole mess with Dan, and remember how I told you that the station went high-def? I'm already getting laser resurfacing once a month, and even that...”

”Pork rinds,” I said, grabbing the bag and waving it at her. ”Pork rinds! I can't believe this. We're going to go to jail because you had to have your freakin' pork rinds!”

”It's not that I had to have them,” she said sullenly. ”They're just a relatively healthy snack option.” She swung her legs off her lounge chair and started pacing. ”Okay,” she said. ”Let's not panic. Maybe they'll think we're in Nashville.”

I started talking, thinking out loud. ”We got the money in St. Louis. We spent the night in Atlanta...”

”But they won't know about that,” she said patiently. ”We paid cash at the hotels, and we used fake names.”

I made myself take a deep breath and let it out slowly. ”Val. This isn't going to work. Not for very much longer.”

”It's not my fault,” she said. Her face set in a pout.

I waited until she picked up the bag and shoved another pork rind into her mouth. Then I said, ”We need to talk about what comes next.” I paused, watching her face, reading the weather in her eyes. ”If they find Dan.”

She crunched her snack thoughtfully. ”We'll tell them it was an accident,” she said. ”Tomorrow. I'll call the police tomorrow and tell them what happened.”