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“Do you know where I am right now? I can tell you it’s nowhere near Los Angeles.”
“I do know where you are,” he said. “I don’t actually have a job for you.”
“Oh,” she said. “So you’re calling just to see if I’d answer?”
“I couldn’t possibly say,” he replied cheerfully. “But you have answered, despite your location, and I’ll pass that along to my superiors. Happy holidays, Anabelle Weaver.”
“And to you, sir.”
She hung up and headed home.
* * *
After so many months abroad, finding ways to disappear without a trace—covering her tracks, burning scraps of paper and maps and instructions, finding notes taped under park benches, fishing brown paper bags out of public garbage cans, and shaking out her hair as she pulled off a wig—the pager feltstrange. It was a permanent fixture, and carrying it around felt counterintuitive, even after so many months. She knew she’d passed their test and that they probably wouldn’t call her again until she was back in Los Angeles, but she still felt like she had to check it every hour.
Every time she told herself she was feeling paranoid, she remembered the two cars that had followed her across the country. No doubt Frank Clifton wanted to know how long before it took her to realize she was being followed and how she would react. Now that she had the pager, he didn’t need to tail her; she suspected it had a tracking device.
On Christmas morning, Annie woke up with cramps and blood. She found an old box of menstrual pads in her parents’ bathroom and took it to her room. After she cleaned herself up, she crawled back into bed. She had barely settled back in before there was a sharp knock on the door.
“Anabelle,” her mother said. “It’s Christmas, and your grandmas are here.”
The living room was packed with relatives by the time she showered and made it downstairs. She tolerated the hugs as much she could, then picked up her cousin Stephanie to use as a shield against any more contact. She was nearly too old to be lifted, but she wrapped her long legs around Annie just the same, clinging to her for protection against the crush of people so early in the morning. Stephanie hung on to her until she saw her own mother again, then struggled to get down.
Patty and Billie, her maternal grandmother, were preparing breakfast. Feeling guilty that she hadn’t gotten up earlier to peel potatoes and crack eggs, she fell in line, picking up a knife and helping Billie slice a pile of oranges into wedges. Billie kissed her cheek and said, “You look flushed, Anabelle.”
“I’m just warm.”
“You look puffy too.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
Her mother shot her a warning look.
“You been eating too much sugar?” Billie asked.
“No, Grandma,” Annie said. “It’s just my personal time of the month. That’s all.”
Her mother chimed in. “And she eats too much sugar.”
“You two stop picking on her!”
The voice came from her other grandmother, Belinda, who was in her father’s reading nook just off the kitchen, partially obscured by a tabletop Christmas tree. Belinda was never much for crowds.
“How’s Maggie?” Annie asked. She had always been closer to her paternal grandmother.
“She’s staying with the neighbors, who feed her table scraps, so she’s probably happy that I’m away,” Belinda said.
Annie pulled another orange toward her.
“Take the little stickers off first,” her mother said.
“I know, Mom,” she replied, struggling to control her agitation. Maybe small talk with her cousins and bear hugs from her uncles would have been better than this after all.
By the time she made it through the pile of oranges, the ragged skin on her nail beds, the dry areas around her knuckles, and the papercut she had on the inside of her finger stung from the acid. She stuck the finger with the papercut into her mouth to soothe it.
“Carry that out to the table, Anabelle,” Billie said, waving a spatula at the bowl of orange wedges. “It’s almost time to eat.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
