But I know better.
She’s a hurricane making waves in the ocean.
“Eight?” Eight lashings for messing up my appointment with Dr. Goodmen? Eight minutes to pack my things and leave? Eight days before my life in Grand Haven was nothing but a dream?
“Camilla, meet me at the office at eight o’clock. We’ll talk over dinner.”
“You’re not staying with Talent tonight?” I ask, checking my clock for the time. I have a few hours to wash the Goodmens’ bad vibes away and head downtown.
“No, he has a meeting.” Unlike her vague text messages, Lydia’s voice makes her intentions crystal clear. The period at the end of her sentence is loaded, and the conversation is over.
“I understand. See you at eight.”
On the murky side of society, ameetingis never as simple as a sit-down between associates. And it’s never safe to discuss over the phone.
Nothing like Lydia’s bedroom across the hall, my room doesn’t have a connecting bathroom. Talent Ridge, Grand Haven’s former most eligible bachelor turned Lydia’s boyfriend, is our only visitor. He shares a space with Lydia when he stays the night, making the guest bathroom all mine. The house I grew up in had one bathroom, and since I was the youngest, I showered last. My childhood baths smelled like artificial strawberry shampoo, and the shower curtain had mold. The bathroom rugs were always wet, and the water was never warm.
The candles continue from my room to the shelves in my bathroom, and the plush rugs under my feet are dry and soft, forming to the shape of my feet. My shower curtain is pink, and the cleansers inside smell like orange blossoms and mandarins, luxuries I dreamed of using as a young girl. I even have bubble bath.
An artist who writes songs about her ex-lovers dominates my playlist, singing a wistful tune that’ll be stuck in my head for the rest of the night. Using my shampoo bottle as a microphone, I sing along and swear we are never, ever getting back together until the water cools.
“In our business, looks are everything,”Lydia’s voice nags me as I consider my dirty Vans, critical of my jeans and T-shirt style.“You’re a fucking queen. Act like it.”
She doesn’t leave the house without winged eyeliner, bloodred lips, and heels sharp enough to cut glass. Nothing, not even Lydia’s annoyance, will put me back into a pair of heels tonight. I meet her halfway and wear mascara, blush, and tinted lip gloss. The scent of cooling wax chases me out the front door in a pair of flats.
“Going somewhere?”
Clutching my keys like a weapon, I spin around after locking the door to find our neighbor Dawn walking her dogs. They’re dressed in matching raincoats, with the same wide-eyed expression.
“Did I scare you?” Dog Mom asks. She eyeballs the way I’m holding my house key like a prison shank and freezes. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Didn’t see you there.” I chuckle nervously. Here I am encouraging Lydia to use emojis; meanwhile, she’s managed to make me wary enough to kill our neighbors with a set of keys. Dropping them into my purse, I ask, “Care to join me on my walk?”
The rain’s stopped, and the puddles have mostly dried up, but a bitter coolness creeps in the air while the clouds act as a wall between the moon and stars. Dog Mom’s incessant chatter replaces their light during our short trip to the street, where a driver waits to take me downtown.
“I don’t blame you for being vigilant, Camilla, but things have been relatively safe since we started the neighborhood watch program. The only exception being the night when the gentleman in Building C fell asleep during his patrol and those punks graffitied the pool house. What a disaster that was.”
My memory of that night’s fiasco is less dramatic, as is my definition of graffiti. Someone drew amateurish dicks on the side of the pool house with red chalk paint. After a short investigation, it turns out the gentleman from Building C has twelve-year-old twin boys who knew their dad was on watch and took advantage of his slumber, stirring up trouble.
After a stern talking to, the twins cleaned the dicks off the wall while Dog Mom stood by with her arms crossed over her chest. She’ll never admit it, but her disappointment was spiked with a bit of satisfaction. It was the moment she’d been waiting for.
“You’ve done a great job keeping everyone safe, Dawn.” I intertwine my arm with hers. The dogs’ paws tap on the walkway ahead of us. “The bad guys don’t stand a chance with you in charge.”
What if she discovered Lydia and I are the bad guys?
Lydia lived in our apartment alone for years without uttering a single word to anyone. Much to her annoyance, I’ve made a place for myself amongst our small community. She thinks I’m drawing attention our way, but I think she caused more speculation with the neighbors being a pariah. Dawn is under the impression that we’re friends and roommates, but the truth is, we’re the criminals she swore to fight.
“Which reminds me, Camilla,” Dawn says. She tightens the dogs’ leashes the closer we get to the street. My driver exits the car and opens the back door. “I haven’t seen your name on the volunteer list in a while. We can really use the help. Maybe you can talk Lydia into teaming up with you?”
Lydia wouldn’t be caught dead patrolling our apartment complex at night. I’ve volunteered once to save face, but staying up to scare off nothing more than stray cats isn’t my idea of a good time. Especially when I have to be up early the next day to meet a client.
“Umm … sure, Dawn. Come by the apartment sometime this weekend with the sign-up sheet.” I wave her goodbye and jump into the back of the car.
“Where to?” my chauffeur asks.
“The office,” I reply.
The Ridge & Sons building is the tallest in the city, massive and towering over its companions as the monarchs inside do. The skyscraper’s mirror finish reflects everything from the gutters on the street to the blackest part of the night’s sky like a panoramic portrait. Every window is dark except the offices on the top floor, where David Ridge and his sons, Wilder and Talent Ridge, take over the world.
