Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

“You’re an actress?”

“Sometimes. Not enough that I can afford to quit working here.”

The cell phone he’d left sitting beside his plate buzzed. He looked down at the phone, then back up at her. “Okay, Letty, I gotta take this. I look forward to hearing from you.”

“Maybe.”

He picked up the phone. “Not that you asked, but I’m Evan.”

6

FRIDAY MORNING, JOE LEANED AGAINST the front counter, sipping his coffee and watching the motel’s newest guest making her way across the courtyard, a plastic laundry basket under one arm, with the little girl in tow.

Letty was dressed in shorts and a tank top, and the little girl was dressed in the same pink-and-white bathing suit she’d been wearing all week.

“There’s something off about that woman,” he told his mother.

Ava looked up from the computer screen, lowered her reading glasses, and followed his gaze. “Why do you say that? I think she’s perfectly nice. Look how hard she worked, getting that unit cleaned out so she’d have a place to stay. She’s quiet, minds her own business. And that Maya is adorable. I wish we had half a dozen guests like Letty.”

“Tell that to the Feldmans.”

“Those two! They’re not happy unless they have something to complain about,” Ava said. “They came in here Wednesday, in a snit, wanting me to post a sign at the pool saying that it was reserved for lap swimmers from eight to nine P.M. I told ’em to blow it out their bungholes!”

Joe laughed softly. “I bet that went over great with Ruth.”

“They think they own the place just because they’ve been coming here all these years.”

He finished his coffee and tossed the paper cup in the trash. “I gotta get to work.”

“You still haven’t told me why you think there’s something off about Letty.”

“Didn’t you tell me she paid you cash?”

“Yeah. So what? Several of our guests do that. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect arrangement. That money goes right in my pocket, and what Uncle Sam don’t know, won’t hurt.”

“Don’t tell me that!” he said sharply. “I’m a cop, remember? And income-tax evasion is a federal crime. Besides, it’s not just the cash. It’s the whole situation. She’s not some retired schoolteacher from Buffalo. She’s half the age of our guests. She admits the kid isn’t hers. No job. She just shows up, out of the blue. What’s she doing? And why here?”

“Why does anybody come to Florida?” Ava gestured toward the plate-glass picture window. Outside, the fuchsia blossoms of a bougainvillea vine clambered across the office’s concrete-block façade, and palm fronds rustled gently in the breeze. “The cost of living isn’t too bad. No state income tax. The weather’s great, the water’s warm. I read online that they had snow squalls in Chicago yesterday. It’s why your father and I came down here, all those years ago. And why we stayed.”

“But why this motel? Why the Murmuring Surf? Remember how upset she got when I suggested she find another motel? It was like she was desperate to stay here. I don’t like it.”

“Go on to work,” Ava said, making a shooing gesture. “Lock up some tax evaders or something. I’ve got a business to run.”

He pulled his phone from the breast pocket of his jacket. “I’m gonna run the tag on that car of hers. Just to make sure she’s legit.”

“The trouble with you is that that you don’t trust anybody. Just because you’re a cop, you think everybody’s a criminal. Look at you, Joseph! You’re thirty-eight and still single.”

“Take a look at yourself, old lady. The trouble with you is that you trust everybody. You’re fifty-seven and you’ve had two husbands. And don’t get me started about that loser Chuck. And yet you’re still trolling Match.com, looking for love in all the wrong places.”

“It’s Silver Singles, smart-ass. And yes, I’m still hopeful that I’ll meet somebody. I know he’s out there, somewhere.”

“Yeah, probably at a halfway house on work release,” Joe said. “See you later.”

Letty loaded the sheets and towels into the washing machine, dumped in a detergent pod and a cup of bleach, inserted two dollars’ worth of quarters, and punched the start button.

The laundry room was tiny, with two commercial washing machines and two dryers, and sweltering.

“Let’s sit out here,” she told Maya, guiding her to a row of metal chairs stationed right outside the laundry room door. She would have liked to go back to their room, but the day before, when she’d left the laundry unattended, someone had dumped her wet clothes on the floor instead of placing them in the dryer, or even in the plastic basket she’d left on top of the machine, and now she had to wash them all over again.

She suspected that the “someone” was one of the Feldman ladies, but she had no proof, and she had no idea why they’d taken such an instant dislike to her. She’d even asked Ava about the pair, the morning after the swimming-pool debacle.

“Don’t mind those two,” Ava said. “They’ve been coming here for twenty years, so they think they run the joint.”

“Are they sisters?” Letty asked. “They sure don’t look anything alike.”

“Sisters?” Ava hooted. “No, honey, bless your heart.” She lowered her voice. “They’re lesbians! Got married right here on the beach, as soon as it was legal. Of course, Ruth insisted that Billie had to take her name.”

“Juice box,” Maya said, tugging at Letty’s arm.

“Juice box, please,” her aunt corrected.

“Pees?” Maya batted her eyes. She was Tanya’s daughter, all right. Only four, and she’d already figured out that the best way to get her way was to look cute and turn on the charm.

Letty’s chest contracted in a sudden spasm of grief. She couldn’t get the image of her sister out of her head, her blond hair splayed out on that black and white floor. The puddle of blood. The single shoe, the glass of vodka.

Today was Friday.

Less than a week ago, Tanya was alive, making plans to move to LA and reinvent herself. She’d found a bungalow to rent in Holmby Hills—“Ellen DeGeneres has a house there!” she’d said, showing Letty the photos from the online real estate listing. “It’s way small, actually, I think it’s the guesthouse behind some gigantic mansion, but you’d have your own bedroom and bathroom. And there’s a pool for Maya. She could go swimming every day.”

Tanya refused to accept that Letty didn’t want to move to Los Angeles. “Think of all the career opportunities,” she’d said. “Show business is the business there.”

“I’m not in the business anymore,” Letty reminded her. “And that’s fine with me.” She didn’t remind her sister that Evan intended to fight tooth and nail to keep Tanya from taking Maya across the country with her. And she didn’t point out that she was pretty sure Tanya mainly wanted Letty to accompany her to California as in-house childcare.

While Maya sucked contentedly on her juice box, Letty tapped her phone and forced herself to read the headlines of the tabloids back in New York.

BLOND BEAUTY SLAIN, TOT ABDUCTED, COPS SEEK SISTER was the headline in the Post. A huge color photo of Tanya and Maya, dressed in matching outfits for a children’s charity fundraiser, was plastered across the front page, and below it was a smaller photo of Letty, handcuffed and dressed in orange jail scrubs. It was a screenshot from the other walk-on she’d done three years earlier for a Law & Order episode, but it made Letty look like a hardened criminal.

The Daily News was even worse. WHERE IS MAYA? the headline screamed. Beneath it was a blown-up shot of Maya, hands clasped beneath her chin, her cupid’s-bow lips curved into a dreamy smile. Letty recognized it as the school photo from the exclusive preschool Maya attended. The subhead and accompanying story made her want to gag.