“Hell, no. I knew Jon-Jon. If anyone had a comeuppance due, it was his ass. Violet. Grace. If I have to say your name one more goddamn time.”
Vern tapped her foot impatiently. “So can you help me?”
“With your super-top-secret disguise or whatever? Yeah. Nothing’s open, but I can bring you some shit,” said Michelle. “What’s your room number?”
“Three twenty-one,” Vern said, going to the door to check.
“All right. Cool. Me and Violet-Grace are at the McDonald’s drive-through. Once we’re done here I’ll swing by my friend Nikki’s to pick up the stuff. She cams, so she’s got a lot of good disguise shit. You want anything else? Any food?”
The whole damn menu. “I wouldn’t say no to a burger and fries. Large.”
“You got it. Later, chica.”
Vern flipped through more channels as she waited for Michelle. She’d get the goods, eat another meal, then go to sleep. All would be fine. Gogo would be here when she awoke.
* * *
LIGHT STREAMED INTO THE ROOM early. Vern rubbed her eyes and stretched, unfolding her exoskeleton from its resting place as she stood in front of the mirror on top of the dinged dresser. Though Vern’s antler-looking “wings” weren’t as large as Queen’s, the bone apparatus stretched out magnificently to either side of her, sections branching intricately like veins, like tributaries and rivers.
Vern tried on the various wigs Michelle had dropped off last night. Most were colorful and bright, attracting attention, but one was a short, mousy brown bob with long bangs. Slipping it on, Vern pressed herself close to the mirror to get a good look. She took a photo of herself with Linda’s phone and zoomed in. Not too bad. She could almost pass for white with it on, the context of her coarse hair removed.
Last night, Michelle had suggested she wear makeup if she really wanted to make herself look different. She’d left some with Vern, but Vern didn’t know how to use it.
Can you do my makeup?
Thought this was my mom at first and I was like wtf til I remembered. Out getting coffee now. You want breakfast?
Yeah.
Coffee, too?
They got smoothies?
Something like. I’ll hook you up. Be there soon.
It didn’t take long for Michelle to arrive with food and Violet-Grace. “I hope you like donuts,” Michelle said. Vern took one of the boxes and started in. “Eat all you want. Porter is sweet on me. Gives me these by the dozen whenever I come into the shop.”
She looked tired, shaky. “You okay?” Vern asked, though she had little time for another person’s troubles, full-up with her own.
“I’m good,” she said, smiling. Her knees were bouncing up and down, though, where she sat in the motel room’s desk chair. “It’s just…”
“Yeah?”
“Linda might’ve done something stupid.”
Vern swallowed a too-large mouthful of food and dabbed away the glaze stuck to the side of her mouth with a napkin. “Stupid like what?” she asked, already standing up and sliding her feet into her boots.
She straightened her wig and zipped up the letterman jacket to her neck, slipped Linda’s phone and wallet into her pocket.
“Like call the local police and ask if there was any kind of reward for turning in information about you. She didn’t say where you were, as far as I can tell. She didn’t even give a name or anything, but—”
“When’d she make the call?”
“Couple minutes ago? I don’t know. She was on the phone when I came in, and I hung it up for her when I realized what she was doing. I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about.”
If she was sure about it, she wouldn’t be shaking and putting on fake smiles. If she was sure about it, she’d not have told Vern at all. People were always doing this, convincing themselves their bad feelings were nothing. They talked themselves into danger, into Cainland, into Sherman’s fold. Was it really so much easier to pretend everything was good than to face the possibility that it wasn’t? Folks fell as madly in love with the illusion of truth as they did with truth proper.
Vern went for the door at a run.
“But I still have to do your makeup!”
Vern was down the hall and in the staircase, then in the lobby, stopping only when forced to by the violence of the scene before her. Linda was dead, shot in the head, her body limp over the front desk.
Vern tried to feel sorry for her, but the only thought that really crossed her mind was, Foolish bitch, and she hated herself for it. Instead of blood flowing through Vern’s veins, there was ceaseless venom, and it turned every thought mean and unforgiving. Vern wasn’t the arbiter of these things, but she thought according to most people’s standards Linda probably didn’t deserve to die.