‘Another dead girl?’ she asks, incredulous. ‘How many girls I know gotta get killed?’ A chorus of uh-huhs answers. ‘Hearing that? It made me want to use.’ She pauses. Collects herself. ‘But not today. Not today. I’d just end up another body like her.’
I feel the hands holding mine tighten. The circle draws in, gathering strength.
‘I hope they find him,’ Gina says. ‘Just once, I want someone who deserves to go down to get what’s his.’
A guttural ‘Hell, yeah’ is said by all. Like they’re saying amen. I’m the only one who doesn’t raise her voice. See, I’m not a victim. Never have been. I’m one of the ones who deserve to go down.
We start work. Rachel’s everywhere today. She’s in my vegetables, and my pots and pans. I scrub and rinse and scrub some more. My fingers whiten, pucker, and split. I sweat buckets into the steamy air, and it sweats back on me. Still, Rachel’s there, drifting in the mist.
At the end of my shift, there are two girls who expect me to eat ice cream and talk about clothes and parties and boys. I take off my rubber apron and put on my smile.
‘Don’t stretch your lips like that or they’ll crack,’ Maria tells me. She hands me some udder cream. ‘For your hands,’ she tells me.
‘Thanks,’ I reply, scooping out some of the balm and rubbing it on my ruined cuticles. I have so many splits, it looks like my hands have been shoved through razor wire. How did I get this hacked up? I’m bruised, too. It has to be the blood-thinning meds.
Mila is calling my name from out front, begging me to hurry. I hand the jar back to Maria.
‘This was so much easier when I was on drugs,’ I say wryly.
‘Drugs make everything easier,’ she replies with a grin. ‘Until they make everything impossible.’
I nod and go to join Mila, who hugs me, and squeals, and insists she has so much to tell me.
‘Where’s Aura-Blue?’ I ask. Mila purses her lips and flips her hair over her shoulder.
‘Her grandfather made her quit.’
‘Quit?’ I parrot back.
‘Come on,’ Mila says, taking my hand and dragging me outside. ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’
‘My bike,’ I say.
‘I’ll drop you back here after we eat. Now come on! I’m starving.’
I am, too. Working in food service is like being a becalmed sailor, dying of thirst surrounded by an ocean. Cooks don’t eat.
I close the passenger-side door of Mila’s Mini and say, ‘So I’m guessing Aura-Blue quit because of Sandy’s death.’
‘Murder,’ Mila corrects. ‘She didn’t just die.’
‘You heard?’
Mila nods and cranks the engine. She swings out of her parking space with her usual disregard for the fragility of the human skeleton.
‘Her grandfather doesn’t want her hanging out in a “high-risk” area,’ she says.
I can’t tell how she feels about that. She’s watching the road intently like she should, which is odd for her.
‘But you’re still coming?’ I half ask, half state. ‘Don’t you think it’s too risky?’
Mila shrugs a shoulder and licks her lips. ‘I’m not like Sandy,’ she says. Again, I can’t quite tell what she’s thinking.
‘OK. Back up,’ I say. ‘Why is it high risk to work at the shelter?’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Do they think someone at the shelter did it?’
Mila looks at me out of the corner of her eyes. ‘Everyone who stays at the shelter is a drug addict. Drug addicts tend to do illegal things, like kill people.’
‘No. That’s not it.’ I look out the window shaking my head. ‘Chelsea Oliver wasn’t at the shelter.’