Page 37 of Dark Ugly Places

“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?”

“Where would I go if I wanted to sell this?” I pluck off Nicola’s engagement ring and plunk it on the counter.