Chapter Eight
It's a quarter to eleven on the night shift.
I've been at it since ten-thirty. My knees on the bathroom tile, my hands in a pair of latex gloves that don't quite fit.
Two days the unit's been empty because the last guest left it in a state.
The shower needs a second pass. The sheets I already bagged.
The smell of bleach is making my eyes water and I can't decide if I should keep going or step out for a minute. I keep going.
The phone buzzes again.
I already know who it is before I take it out, and I can already feel my body stiffening, bracing itself for what I'm about to read.
Mrs. Pettyfer, my client has been more than patient.
The longer you delay, the more this will cost you.
We have witnesses. We have evidence. We can drag this through court for a year and bury you in legal fees you cannot afford.
Your attorney, if you've found one, will tell you the same thing.
Sign the papers. Stop wasting everyone's time.
I hit Delete and force myself to get back to work.
That text is one of the many other texts his lawyer has been sending me. I still have no idea what to say. All I know is that I just can't sign my name on a lie.
How did we end up like this, Sandy?
This past week has been an eye-opener in so many ways. As I struggle to fall asleep every night, I can feel the pain of his betrayal fading less and less, and it's making me realize with sadness it's because the love we had for each other had also been fading over the years.
Sandy was just the first one to notice it.
But instead of talking to me about it, he simply decided to swap me for someone else.
I've approached every non-profit in the city that offers legal aid, and they've all virtually said the same thing.
Sorry, but we can't handle your case at the moment. We prioritize cases where an individual's safety is on the line.
Honestly, I'm not sure if that's how they are all year long, but that...that was an eye-opener, too. Not only did their priority system make sense, it also made me realize that no matter how hard my life is right now, some still have it harder.
Another half hour passes before I'm finally done cleaning the toilet and the shower. My body makes its usual protests as I get off my knees. I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror, and I immediately look away.
But not fast enough.
Hollow eyes. Hair pulled back in a way I've never worn it. The bones of a woman I don't know.
I think I've aged a decade in the past week, but I don't think it's just about suddenly having to work almost twenty hours every day.
I think it has more to do with finding out that all the friends you thought you had.
..weren't friends at all. That the man you loved, trusted, and served your whole life.
..could just throw you away like you're no different from used furniture that he no longer finds useful or appealing.
Of all the things he's done, leaving me without cash is the one I keep coming back to.
He emptied our joint account on the morning he filed.
He cancelled the cards before I made it to the airport.
The one thing he didn't get was the few hundred dollars I'd left in my drawer at home, from the music lessons I'd been giving for almost a year.
The drawer is in our bedroom.
The bedroom is in our house.
The house is behind the gate Tomas can't let me through.
As I wheel my cart out of 3C, my eyes accidentally collide with the guy from 3F. He's standing outside his unit, a bottle of beer in hand. I'm too scared to ask about him directly, but what I've heard from the night manager is more than enough to make me steer clear as much as I can.
"Hello, cupcakes."
But there are days like this when I can't, and all I can do is force myself to nod and return his greeting like I'm used to having small talk with a convicted sex offender.
"Hey, Jerry."
I can still feel him watching me as I roll my cart past his unit. I wish there was another route I could take to get to the stock room, but this is the only way.
This is what my life is now. No matter how I wish other things differently, like Sandy at least giving me back the few hundred dollars from my drawer, this is what I've got.
I was used to him insisting on handling everything when it came to money. I'd kept the music-lesson cash there because I trusted my own bedroom. Why wouldn't I.
My skin starts to prickle when I sense Jerry start to walk behind me.
It's eleven in the evening, and I'm the only one on duty, aside from the night manager, who is two floors away in the office watching whatever it is he watches when no one's checking on him.
I fight against the urge to look back, knowing instinctively that showing my fear will only make things worse.
Stay calm, Nics.
Think about something else.
Think about anything except the man who seems ready to...
I start racking my brain in a hurry when I realize how dangerously close I am to panicking.
Okay, let's see, the first thing I'm thinking of is...Sandy.
Although we only started dating in college, we actually knew of each other since we were kids. We came from the same small town, attended the same middle school, and graduated high school the same year.
But there were differences, too.
The Pettyfers were a big deal in our town. My family was, well, not.
His mom Risa and my mom Adele had grown up the same way. Same town. Same schools. But from opposite ends of all of it. Risa finished college, became a Pettyfer wife, had a son. Adele insisted on chasing her dreams in Hollywood and came back six months later with a rounded belly.
She knew all about the casting couch and accepted it as part of the system.
What she didn't know until it was too late was that some couches were just that.
Couches. She never got over that, and the whole town didn't make it any easier for her to forget.
I was just twenty when she died from a drug overdose, but deep in my heart, I've always thought it was the weight of all her shattered dreams that robbed her of life.
This is a cruel world.
I've known that since I was born.
But what I never really had to confront was how terrifying it could also be...
Like now.
Because one moment I'm rolling the housekeeping cart in the stock room, and then the next moment, Jerry is charging inside, and God, dear God—
I can't remember the last time I prayed like this.
While crying out for help, struggling with all my might, grabbing anything I can to hit him—
Please.
Please.
Please help me.
Jerry still manages to corner me, and I start to sob as he shoves me against the wall.
No, no, no, this can't be, this can't, this—
And then nothing.