17. Martha
Martha
Nicola calls them panic attacks, but I prefer to think of them as gateways. Tiny openings where, if I’m clever, I can find my way through.
I can’t quite remember how long it has been since the flesh was truly mine like this.
The blip on the street corner and in the hotel were not enough to really count.
Nicola is not in great shape. She’s lost weight.
Her bones feel fragile. Inside my temple is the low hum of her migraine fading into the background.
She’s been through a lot. I guess meeting Redfern in person was the final straw. It’s not her fault she’s ineffective. Nicola doesn’t always follow through.
Now we have work to do.
I push up from her floor and go straight to her closet, and it’s obvious: Nicola has neglected herself.
Neglected us. The once tidy, pristine, organized woman has been replaced by a haphazard, careless hoarder of sorts.
Clothes strewn everywhere, dust on boxes and old purse bags.
The scent of mothballs and fabric softener.
My insides twist at the sight of her jumbled clothes, her unmade bed, the pile of trash, and old prescription bottles on her dresser.
The anger that has become so rife within her fades, a drop in a bucket.
My leg prickles, cold and dead. I slap the flesh and feel pins and needles down the back of my leg, into the foot, which is cold and slightly off color. This is fixable. We need a yoga class, a latte, and a motherfucking round at a department store with a credit card.
There isn’t an item in her bedroom that I would wear, but I make the best of some workout clothes and pull my hair back into a tight bun. The makeup in her bathroom is old—dry and caked—so I fling it into the trash can and wander down the hall into Emmy’s room.
Top drawer of the bathroom: bingo. Mascara, eye shadow, foundation, blush.
It’s untouched, new, like unopened Christmas presents.
I start applying things the way I like them.
Nicola keeps her face bare these days, but that’s just not me.
I pat my skin down with a sponge—foundation and concealer in place.
In the corners of my eyes, I begin dragging a cool blue pencil liner.
Then the sweep of mascara and the glint of blush on each cheek.
When I finally glance up and see my reflection, it’s like coming home to myself.
“At last,” I say aloud, just to hear my voice again.
My ears ring with it as I open the door and have a look around Nicola’s apartment.
It’s the same out here as it feels in the dark place—dingy, tired, and filled with sadness.
Everywhere I look, there’s something that could be cleaned up, thrown out, or dusted.
I poke inside Emmy’s room, the walls painted a soft, pink color from the previous tenants, the popcorn ceiling speckled with stick-on glow-in-the-dark plastic stars.
On the dresser, I spot a framed photo of the three of them, Emmy about eight years old, with Nicola and Ben looking like younger, fresher versions of themselves.
Their smiles are large and plastic, hiding a shit ton of pain and money troubles, I’m sure.
Downstairs, I jolt when I see Emmy at the fridge. She’s much bigger than I remember. A full human. Her head has the scar Nicola has been going on and on about. A long, shiny pink rat’s tail, etched into the left side of her head. She turns, noticing me, and makes a face.
“What are you wearing?
“It’s makeup. I’m going out.”
I spot a sun patch near the back door to the communal garden, where the little white dog is lying. He seems harmless enough, and maybe he’ll keep Emmy busy.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business. I need the address of that doctor and the attorney.”
Emmy gives me a look. “Um, I don’t know. It’s in your phone, probably. Did you forget?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. On the kitchen counter is a stack of past-due bills shoved into a corner. “What about these?”
She looks at me, confused. “The bills?”
“Yeah? Am I paying them or what?”
She shrugs, looking concerned. “How should I know? You always tell me not to worry about the money.”
“Right.” My voice comes out low and sarcastic.
Emmy plunks down on the sofa, watching me curiously as I flip through the bills. Water. Electric. Cell phones and internet. A vet bill. A couple of letters from the attorney. I note the address: 8990 Wilshire.
“Mom?”
“Mom’s not available right now. Can I take a message?”
“Very funny.”
“Seriously. She’s off duty.”
Emmy gives me a look. “What’s with the attitude? And the whorish makeup?”
I knew I didn’t like this kid. She was always a challenge, Nicola said. Now, as a tall, ratty-haired teenager, she’s just a nuisance. “I don’t know? What’s with the dirty tee shirt and crusty sweatpants? Ever hear of a thing called laundry? You’re a mess. Clean up!”
“You’re impossible.”
“Impossible is my middle name, toots!”
I grab Nicola’s keys and purse and let the front door slam on my way out. I make a mental note to go grocery shopping later when I get back to get the stuff I like.
Los Angeles is more built up than I remember.
I drive up to Sunset Boulevard and roll the windows down—the heat palpable on the side of my arm, the scent of fried foods in the air from a restaurant nearby.
There are shops and cafes with serene, modern interiors and billboards for shows and movies I haven’t seen with actors whose names and faces I do not recognize.
Outside, I watch tourists flock together and take a picture as locals pass, their street fashion new to me, and above, the sky bluer and clearer than I remember.
Everything is a little noisier, a little louder, the scene more colorful and vibrant somehow.
And at the same time, there are homeless people where there weren’t before, trash and graffiti on almost every corner, and the odd scent of marijuana appearing here and there in passing clouds.
It’s all faster, slicker, stranger. It’s been a long, long time.
I count them. There are exactly ten skinny bitches crowding outside what looks to be a salon.
Probably actresses or models. They are on their large, rectangular devices, tapping and snapping pictures of themselves.
Last time I was here, this wasn’t what people did.
It was flip phones and AOL Instant Messenger.
Facebook had just come out. This seems like something else, something strange.
Pictures upon pictures upon pictures, moving fast with a flick of their thumbs.
I should know what these are, but she gives me so little, Nicola.
When Ben died, I was there as she cried herself to sleep, consoling her from an inner yet distant place as she grieved.
I felt snapshots of her grief, her rage.
Blips of emotions and snapshots of life that felt like looking at an old film, the picture grainy, choppy, sputtering into white noise and snow.
Life had to go on. She had her job and the kid, after all.
She told me I need not stick around. She was handling it, so I stayed away, in the far recesses of her memory, where she couldn’t tell whether or not I was lurking.
I know some things well, like the deep musty scent of Ben’s shirts, because she wore them to work until someone noticed, and she was forced to take a leave of absence.
A leave of absence that soon turned into a redundancy and a less-than-desirable severance that kept them going for all these months. But it wasn’t enough.
On moving day, the big house became a brief flash in my mind: the echo of empty rooms, the smell of warm cardboard in the sun as the boxes were piled high on the front lawn, and the final glance as she and Emmy drove away.
Nicola’s last glance is the thing I see—sun-blanched patio, black shutters, a lawn so green that it hurts.
But despite this, there are vast stretches of time that are totally absent for me.
I bided my time. A bystander, a bird-watcher, waiting patiently for a particular moment.
I’ve been holding time and space inside her for years. This does something to a person. The time makes you impatient, restless, itchy for action.
I park the car alongside the salon and approach the throng of bitches standing in front of the salon and shove my way past them. “Move,” I say, my voice stern. They turn to look at me, a couple scoffing, the others stumbling backwards as I push through them, nudging a few on heels to the side.
“Excuse you!” one of them retorts.
“Yeah, we were waiting here!” another shouts. I shrug it off, but the girl has the audacity to mutter at me under her breath. “Stupid old bitch.”
I spin on my heels and stare at them, removing my sunglasses to glare deep into their eyes.
I lock eyes with the one who said it, the smirk on her face evident.
Inches from her, I get right up into her personal space, my breath hot on her skin.
“Say it again,” I breathe, egging her on.
My fists clench as my eyes burn into her, helping her realize who she’s talking to.
“Jesus!” The girl cowers and starts crying. Her friends pull her away from me, and rightly so. Who knows what I might do? I can feel Nicola scratching around, urging me from inside. “Relax,” I tell her. “I was only trying to scare her.”
Inside the salon, the receptionist is sitting behind the counter, also holding one of the oversized, rectangular devices.
She looks down and begins tapping on the wide, flat screen in her hands.
Colorful, bright. Rounded edges. A camera lens in the corner.
No buttons. I stare at it for a moment before the device rings, and I realize it’s a phone.
I feel around in Nicola’s purse and realize she has one too, but not quite as large.
I take it out and look at it for a moment before I feel her eyes on me.
“Can I help you?”