She presses her lips together. The dog barks viciously from above.
“They don’t have you working this late, do they?” That’s when I see it: the open door of the van. The van in the street. She’s living in the van.
“You need to leave here,” she says. Her lips are blue in the half-light.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” I put my hands up. “I’ll just go back down.”
“Leave.” She knows. She knows and she is giving me a chance to run.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” I keep my hands up, which probably doesn’t help my case. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving soon. I just need a little more time.”
“Bean!” a voice shouts down from above, magnified, so close. “Bean! Come here! Stop that barking! What are you barking at?”
Astrid comes toward me. My first instinct is to block her. She grabs my hand. “They said my sister killed herself. She was their tenant, too.” It’s not Demi she’s talking about. It’s someone else. I’m safe. “Be careful!” She doesn’t know who I am.
“Bean, damn it!”
I run.
My heart is still racing when I get downstairs. I can’t go back for the bag, not with Astrid living across the street. It’s too late. I will have to hope whatever God there is will help me. Or else, I’ll have to help myself.
DEMI
The next morning, I put on a pair of Demi’s headphones and open up her laptop. I need to check in. I need to make sure no one is getting suspicious. But there are no new messages, no new e-mails. Who was this woman? Why was her life so easy to take? I click through her in-box, looking over old messages again. I realize they are almost all work related. A few friends slip in here and there, but their messages are shallow. They’re effusive, but they lack definition:
I miss you, babe! We need to have drinks soon!
Sorry it’s been so long.
We’ll have to catch up next time! Love you!
Not one person is worried. Her life is mine for the taking. I put the laptop on the table, then get down on my hands and knees. I reach underneath the sofa until I find her wallet. I don’t look enough like her to use her ID, but her cards are all there: black, silver, gold. Begging to be used.
All my life I have apologized for who I am, ashamed, exhausted, overwrought. All my life I have wished for just a glimpse of what it was like on the other side. And now I’m surrounded by it.
I look at the flowers in Michael’s corner and I rankle. I walked in that same garden and didn’t even touch a single petal. I was careful not to squish the grass. I made sure to wipe my feet. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I set fire to a dead woman’s body but I won’t use her credit cards? A billionaire wants to save me and I don’t think I’m worth it?
I need to stop apologizing.
I need to think rich.
* * *
I GO TO Rodeo Drive, because it’s the poor person’s conception of where the rich person shops. I go to Chanel first. I’ve always wanted one of their bags. Demi doesn’t have one. I walk into the store and I think, But she has other bags, dozens and dozens of bags! It’s wrong—it’s immoral—to have more than one bag.
I walk through the center of the store, like I’m afraid of what will happen if I get too close to anything. Alarms will go off, shutters will come down, the world will end. I see Demi’s cold face turned up from the floor. I cover it with a blanket.
I approach the cashier. “I wanted to get a bag.”
She analyzes me, assessing my value. I think she will see through me, like designer shopgirls are half Divine, but all she sees are Demi’s clothes. “Which one?”
“Um.” I am scared to look around me. Scared to touch. It’s like I’ve walked into a police station and confessed to a crime: I want a Chanel bag. Lock me up.
“I always wanted a black one. Just classic. And a necklace, you know, with all the little charms? Like in the movie . . .” I drift off, can’t remember the title, can’t remember my own name. Buying designer clothes is like dying a little. La petite mort, the little death.
She looks at my clothes again, double-checking I can afford it. Then she shows me bags. She opens and shuts them. She shows me their size, makes comments about the life she imagines I have. I pick the one I want, not the one I can afford. I don’t even look at the price. Then she shows me necklaces so heavy, I can feel my own importance. They drape between my breasts, hang heavy over the sweat collected there.