“He’s actually a police detective, and he’d tell you he works here full-time, cop or no cop,” Ava said, rolling her eyes. “Both my kids work in the business. Joe does maintenance for me, and security, when we got problems, and Isabelle, she’s still in high school, when she’s not at school, she answers the phone and helps out some. I raised ’em like I was raised, to take responsibility early in life. What about you, Letty? What line of work are you in?”
Letty remembered the advice she’d gotten from Siobhan, the acting coach she’d briefly studied under during her first few months in New York. “Dig deep. Find your truth in every story, even the ones that are total bullshit. If you’re good enough, the audience will buy your truth, even when it’s a lie.”
She offered her audience of one a rueful smile. “I thought I was going to be a famous actress. And I did some of that, but mostly I’ve done whatever needed doing so that I could pay the rent. Sometimes it was waitressing. I did some office temp work, worked at a bagel shop and in a rental agency. Like that.”
“I thought I was going to be a badass rock ’n’ roll singer like Linda Ronstadt,” Ava confessed. “There was a time I could really belt out ‘You’re No Good.’” She shrugged. “Now that I think about it, that could have been the story of both my marriages. Anyway, the only singing I’ve done since high school has been for my supper.”
Letty glanced at the kitchen clock. “This has been such a nice treat for us, Ava, but I guess I’d better get moving again if I’m gonna get our room cleaned out enough to sleep in tonight.” She pushed away from the table and lifted Maya down from the chair.
“Okay, sweetie. Lunch break is over. Time to get back to work. Can you thank Miss Ava?”
“She said we could have cookies.” Maya’s face began to crumple and redden. Letty sensed a meltdown on the horizon.
Ava jumped up and went to a kitchen cupboard. She brought out a box of vanilla wafers. “Bless her heart. I did promise cookies. Put out your hand, sweetheart.”
Maya held out two grubby hands and Ava shook the box until her hands were full.
“They might be stale,” she whispered to Letty, as the child shoved a cookie into her mouth. “Isabelle fusses at me if I bring sweets home.”
Letty smiled and began herding Maya toward the door. “She’s not really supposed to have too much sugar either, but I guess I’m just getting the hang of this parenting thing.”
Ava followed her through the living room and down the stairs. “Let me know if you ever do figure it out.”
3
TANYA CAME TO HER IN her dream. After hauling junk back and forth to the dumpster for three straight hours, so tired and dirty she couldn’t take another step, Letty finally dumped a mattress onto the floor of the hotel room, spread a blanket atop it, and pulled Maya down beside her.
“Nap time,” Letty said firmly, and for once, Maya didn’t resist, spooning up beside Letty with the stuffed elephant tucked in the crook of her arm. In a moment, she heard her niece’s breaths slow, felt her warm body relax against her own. She touched her niece’s plump, pink cheek and closed her own eyes, falling into an almost trancelike sleep.
Tanya appeared almost immediately. Her lovely face was pale and agitated, her pupils dilated. “Promise me,” she said, poking Letty in the chest. “If something happens to me, promise me you’ll take Maya and run.”
They’d had this conversation numerous times in real life and now Letty was hearing it again in her dream. Tanya swore she’d gotten sober, was going to her meetings, had thrown away the pills. Letty wanted desperately to believe her.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Letty would always reply. Tanya was overreacting, nearly hysterical. Forever the drama queen.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know Evan. I mean the real Evan. He’ll do anything to get Maya away from me. He won’t stop until he gets his way.”
“Okay, whatever,” Letty had said, not wanting to get her sister more agitated.
“I mean it, Letty. If something bad happens to me, it will be because of him. He’s got detectives following me. I think he’s got my phone tapped. I’m being super careful, but he’s rich as shit, you know? And he knows important people. He always gets his way. Always.”
“But not this time,” Letty had said, trying to calm Tanya. “You’re doing all the right things. You’ve been in counseling, going to your meetings. That arbitrator lady told you herself. You’re a good mom. Evan can’t prove otherwise.”
That was when Tanya did it. She leaned in and whispered, “I know you think I’m being paranoid, but I’m not. If something bad happens to me, you’ve got to take Maya and get the hell away from here. Don’t tell anybody where you’re going or why. Just go. Promise me you’ll keep my baby away from him.”
“All right,” Letty said, spooked by her sister’s intensity. “I promise, Tanya. It won’t happen, but if it does, I’ll keep Maya safe.”
That day, what? Six, seven weeks ago?
“I want to show you something,” Tanya had said, taking Letty by the hand and leading her into her master bedroom.
Letty had never liked this room. Evan’s interior designer—a former girlfriend, Tanya claimed—had pulled out all the stops, covering the walls in an antiqued silver mirrored wallpaper that Tanya claimed cost four thousand dollars a roll. The ceiling was mirrored, too, and the floor was covered in a thick, furry white carpet that reminded Letty of a shaggy dog, but not in a good way. There was a crystal chandelier over the heavily draped canopy bed, and the bedspread and piles of pillows were all shades of gray and silver and white. Letty thought it was too new, too shiny, too everything, but of course Tanya proclaimed it chic and elegant.
“In here.” She followed Tanya into the walk-in closet, which was as big as Letty’s studio apartment. The closet had its own chandelier, and an antique silver-gilded trifold mirror, and a little silk-covered sofa that the designer called a canapé. A cabinet in the middle of the room held a treasure trove of Tanya’s jewelry. Three walls held racks and racks of designer clothes and accessories. Tanya had organized them by size, from what she called her “pre-Maya” days as a size two, to her “disgusting-pig post-baby body” size, which was, after all, still only a size eight.
One whole wall of the closet held shelves and shelves of handbags and shoes. Her boots, dozens of pairs of them, were lined up in rows on the floor of the shoe rack. Tanya reached around and pulled out a tall black suede boot with a wicked three-inch-high spike heel.
“These boots are made for walking,” she said, her tone conspiratorial. She shoved her hand down in the boot and pulled out a canvas tote, the kind fancy grocery stores gave to customers who thought they could save the planet by buying thirty-dollar-a-pound wild-caught salmon.
“What’s that?”
“My go-bag,” Tanya whispered. “Like Mama always had.”
Terri had drummed into her daughters’ heads that they should always be ready to leave any situation when, in her words, “the house burns down.”