“Twenty bucks’ worth. I just went to the store that morning.”
As always, Claudia had the distinct impression that the girl was trying to shake her down for money. A few months after Deb’s funeral, Nicolette had called Claudia to complain that the lights wouldn’t work. When asked if she’d paid the electric bill, Nicolette seemed taken aback, as though she were owed free utilities in addition to free rent.
Nicolette sat heavily at the kitchen table. The other chair was piled with magazines and junk mail, so Claudia remained standing.
“How’ve you been?” she asked.
“All right, I guess.”
What was going on in her life, Claudia had no idea. On Facebook she posted jokes and prayer chains, images of sunsets with inspirational slogans: A smile can change the world. Hope is the heartbeat of the soul. Mostly, though, she posted photos of her daughter—a plump, serious-looking child with a bowl haircut—dressed in elaborate outfits: mermaid, Disney princess, a miniature Scarlett O’Hara with ruffled petticoats and an actual parasol. The costumes were weirdly revealing, in ways unflattering to a chubby child, her plump thighs squeezed like bratwurst into lacy stockings. The little girl seemed to know this. She wore an expression of profound dismay.
From the next room Claudia heard a child coughing, a deep, guttural hacking. “Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Has she seen a doctor?”
“It’s just a cold,” Nicolette said, lighting a Virginia Slim.
You shouldn’t smoke indoors, Claudia thought. But she wasn’t Nicolette’s mother or sister or even, technically, her landlord. How Nicolette raised her child was none of her business.
“You changed the locks,” she said.
Nicolette’s eyes flickered. “There was a break-in up at Roy Bishop’s. I was just being careful.”
Claudia said, “You should have talked to me first.”
Nicolette said, “I ran out of minutes.”
You should’ve kept the landline, Claudia thought. A few weeks after Deb’s funeral, the phone service was terminated, Nicolette-style: she neglected to pay the bill. Claudia would never forget calling the trailer—her childhood phone number, the first one she’d ever known by heart—and hearing an automated voice. This number is no longer in service. Her mother’s lifeline, her portal to the world. The princess phone with its endless spiraling cord.
No longer in service.
Nicolette said, “The fucker charged me a hundred sixty bucks.”
It took Claudia a moment to understand that she was talking about the locksmith. First Nicolette had changed the locks without permission. Now she expected Claudia to pay for it.
She wasn’t going to pay for it.
“I need a copy of the key,” she said.
“I just have the one.”
“No problem. I’ll go to Walmart and make one.” Claudia held out her hand.
“Fine.” Nicolette took her key chain from its hook by the door and removed a shiny new key.
Claudia tried it in the lock to make sure it worked. She wasn’t taking any chances. She thought, I don’t trust you at all.
18
Victor waited and waited. Several times an hour he checked his inbox.
The video obsessed him. He had watched it so many times that it played constantly in his head. Even his sleep was affected. He lay awake thinking of Columbia.
I think she works there.
It was galling to know that she was at the clinic every day, unphotographed. Victor zoomed in to read the street sign in the video—MERCY—and located the address. He studied the building on Google Earth. He knew exactly where she was, and yet he couldn’t get to her. It was a feeling he remembered vividly from his years inside, Barb Vance running loose in the world, forever beyond his reach.