Page 82 of Dark Ugly Places

How do you know you’re at a gas station in Beverly Hills?

It’s the only place where someone can get a full tank of gas without literally moving a single muscle.

From across the street at the dry cleaners, I watch as a woman in a Bentley pulls up to the pump, sits in her car on her phone, while three guys in uniform run around her car, filling the tank, checking the oil and the tires, cleaning all the windows, and fussing around the hubcaps like bees near a hive. When they’re done, they stand back with their rags while the boss—the eldest man in his gas station uniform—goes to the driver’s window and waits for her to roll it down. Button pressed, the window opens two inches. She flings him a twenty, careful to avoid touching his hand with hers.

“Entitled bitch,” I mutter under my breath.

“Here we are!” I turn as the small woman with a short red bob and an unidentifiable foreign accent returns from the back of the shop and hangs up the bundle of dry cleaning for me to examine. She looks tired, and her purple eye shadow isn’t helping matters. I feel like saying something about it but bite my tongue like a good Martha.

“A big order today. These have been here for a while.”

“Yes,” I say distractedly.

She begins ringing up the ticket on the cash register. “I gave Mrs. Redfern a 10 percent discount. She’s a frequent customer. You work for her?” She glances at me, but I ignore her.

There are mostly suits, a few dresses, and a stack of bathroom linens. I go through each item, checking that it’s all here.

She pauses after ringing up everything. “Oh, I forgot. There’s one more item.”

She disappears behind the counter for a bit. I stand impatient, ready to get back to this afternoon’s tasks. She returns with a bundle of linens marked with a pink ticket in her arm. “Mrs. Redfern told me to just throw them away since we couldn’t get out the stains this time. But it’s such nice fabric, I wanted to make sure.”

“What stains?”

She goes to the linens covered in plastic. “From the linens. Here.” She unwraps something cream-colored and shows me. “These stains.” She points a finger at the dark, brown-colored stain. “See?”

I look closely at the deep red-brown stain, a large circle in the fabric.

“There are more on the others. We did our best, but the stains had already set. It’s a shame. Very nice fabric. Very expensive. Tell Mrs. Redfern we did our best this time and we’re very sorry.”

“You get these stains a lot?” I ask her.

She looks at me, a hint of knowing in her eyes. “All the time.” She shakes her head and leans across the counter. “I don’t ask questions. I just clean.”

I finish paying and pick up the bundle. “Thanks.”

When I get home, I give Lucita the dry cleaning and hold back the bundle of linens. She takes the cleaning from me and starts toward the upstairs.

“Lucita?”

She turns. “Sí?”

“Do you know what happened to the linens? What these stains are?”

Lucita shakes her head, her expression concerned. “No. I have no idea.”

She heads upstairs, her gray-and-white uniform rustling against the plastic of the dry-cleaning bags.

After I finish a few phone calls, I check Bambi’s appointment book and diary—hardly any upcoming jobs, except for the Cancun shoot, still weeks away. It’s almost 8:30, time to start getting ready to leave, when I hear Bambi’s car and straighten up in my chair, knowing she will come into my small office at the back of the house.

I hear her high heels along the hallway as she walks toward me, stopping to see what’s in the kitchen, then moving, moving through the house, toward the office.

I glance up from the computer, forming a light smile. “How was your day, Mrs. Redfern?” I’ve grown used to the salutation and address. It’s fitting for good Martha.

“It was fine. Long. I wanted to thank you for stepping in at such short notice and helping out around the house.”

I smile a wide, flat smile. It’s not an unfriendly smile, but a slightly dampened, unenthusiastic smile, which I’ve practiced. “It’s my job, Mrs. Redfern.”

“Yes. Well, we appreciate your efficiency.”