Page 111 of So Thirsty

“You could have knocked. I am modest, you know,” Ilie says, winking.

“Um…” I say, trying to avert my eyes, but the space is too small.

He pulls on a pair of slacks. “This is my new look. Regular guy. Very professional.”

“It’s a good look,” Naomi says, sitting opposite Tatiana. I squeeze in beside her.

“Everyone ready?” Elisa asks rhetorically, turning on the radio before anyone can answer. It’s an oldies station playing “La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens.

“Oh, hell yes,” Naomi says, shimmying.

“This is a bad sign,” I whisper.

“How?” she asks.

“First we hear a Buddy Holly song in the hotel shuttle. Now Ritchie Valens.”

“It’s not like we’re on our way to the airport,” she says, which shuts me up.

Tatiana yawns, stretches to sit. She wears jeans and a sweater, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her in anything other than lingerie or pajamas. She pulls her cherry red hair into a bun while she looks from me to Naomi and back to me.

“Do not involve yourselves,” she says, “if things go wrong.”

“What do you mean, if things go wrong?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes.

“We will handle,” Ilie says, zipping up a navy fleece. “That is all she means.”

“Got it,” Naomi says.

Ilie ties his hair back, pulls on a beanie, clears his throat, and in a startlingly good American accent asks, “How do I look?”

“So handsome,” Naomi says, swooning. “Like an Ivy League dropout who ended up modeling for J.Crew.”

I doubt he understands the reference, but he laughs anyway. He grabs her by the waist, tilts his head so he can go for her neck, kiss her there. She gives a playful squeal. I wonder if she misses Lee or if he seems like a distant memory, the way Joel does. It’s been five days, I think, since I last saw him, but it might as well be fifty years.

He’ll move on fast in my absence. Maybe he’ll cheat on the next one, or maybe he’ll be happier with her. Maybe he’ll be faithful. Maybe he’ll put all my things in a box in the basement, and eventually his new wife will donate them or throw them away. All the things I was attached to, that made it seem too difficult to leave. My things. The house. The peach tree.

My whole world, everything I cared so much about, abandoned, and it bothers me not at all. I wish I could do the same with my emotional baggage. Just let it go.

Elisa makes a sharp turn, and Ilie rolls onto me.

“Sorry, my love,” he says, slipping back into his own accent. “Don’t tell Henry. He will get jealous.”

He’s chipper as ever, and that should put me at ease about the imminent robbery. But there’s this persistent nag, anxiety pinching me from the inside. I’m thirsty, but this is something else. A different sensation. There’s an urgency about this excursion that seems ill-advised.

“Tatiana,” I say. “Should we not do this?”

“There’s no talking Henry out of something once he makes up his mind,” she says, which is and isn’t an answer.

“Do not worry,” Ilie says. “We do this many times. Do we usually stake out the place for a few nights? Yes. But it is no problem. Everybody thinks about money, not blood. Most places, the security is not so much.”

“Most places,” I say.

“Here,” Henry calls from up front.

Elisa parks the van and I peer out from behind the curtain. We’re in the mostly empty parking lot of a strip mall. There’s a deli, a post office, an eye doctor, a nail salon, an AutoZone. And at the corner, an American Red Cross donation center.