Dear Wife - Kimberly Belle Page 0,25

I’ve ever seen, though... My gaze lands on her throat. Not even a shadow of Adam’s apple.

She steps onto the porch in four-inch heels, and I have to tip my head all the way back to look at her.

“Can I help you?” Her voice is round and resonant, like she’s talking into an empty jug.

I clear my throat and smile. “Yes. I’m looking for whoever’s in charge of this place.”

“Well, then, you’re in luck, ’cause you found her.” She sticks out a hand the size of a skillet. Her nails are pointy and sharp, painted a shiny hot pink. “My name’s Miss Sally. And you are?”

Her makeup is immaculate, if a little heavy. Fuchsia lips, lined and shaded lids, a pinkish bronze lining her cheekbones. I search her chin for tiny pinpricks of whiskers—it’s too early to have a shadow, but still—and find nothing. Her foundation looks spray painted on, dense but flawless.

“Beth Murphy,” I say, shaking her hand. “A friend gave me this address because I’m looking for—”

“You don’t look like a Beth.” She leans back and studies me, her gaze exploring my face, my hair, my suspiciously dark eyebrows, which I didn’t think to color until it was too late. “You look more like a Haley, or maybe a Madeline.”

I go ice cold and overheated all at once. I don’t look like a Beth. I don’t feel like one, either. My baggy clothes, my dollar-store hair are all wrong. I’ve only been Beth for a day, and already I can feel her slipping away.

Miss Sally laughs, slapping me playfully on an arm. “I’m just playing around with you, sugar. In my house you can be whoever you want to be. Now come on in and I’ll show you around.”

I step inside the tiny foyer, and she shuts the door behind me. A TV blares from the room to my left, a square space crammed with mismatched couches and chairs, a table, some bookshelves. The only occupant is a man, in dusty jeans and a yellow hard hat. He looks over from his perch on the couch and lifts his chin in a greeting.

“Living room, TV room and study, all in one,” Miss Sally says. “Those books there are loaners, meaning don’t go leaving them all over town or selling them off to Goodwill. There’s cards, darts and board games in the cupboard. The Wi-Fi is free, but the vending machines aren’t. Parking is out back.”

“Looks great,” I say, but I’m talking to air. Miss Sally is already halfway down a long, narrow hallway. I hustle to catch up, peeking into the bedrooms as we pass. Tiny but neat—a single bed, a dresser and not much else.

“So, Beth,” she says, stopping, turning on the hallway runner to face me. “Did you just get to town?”

“Yes. Today, in fact.”

“How are you liking Atlanta so far?”

“It’s okay. There’s a lot of traffic.”

She laughs, though it’s not even remotely funny. “It’s also jungle-hot, sprawled halfway to Tennessee and has entirely too many Republicans. But it’s not all that bad, you’ll see. You on your own?”

“Very.”

“Where from?”

“Out west.”

She twitches a brow that says she wants more.

You’re a great liar. For years I’ve watched you tell the truth whenever possible, and not embellish with too much detail you’ll only forget later. Lies multiply, contradict, proliferate. Sticking to something close to the truth is the only way for you to keep track of all your lies, to keep them from piling up and you from stumbling over the simplest answers.

I follow your example now. “I’m not really from anywhere. Not anymore, anyway. I move around a lot.”

It’s enough for Miss Sally. She turns on her heels, raps on a door with a knuckle. “We’ve got three bathrooms,” she says, shoving the door open, “one for every four bedrooms, and they pretty much all look like this one.”

She steps aside so I can see. Two pedestal sinks, a toilet and at the far end, a glass-enclosed shower, utilitarian and blinding white. The room smells clean, like Old Spice and bleach.

“Shower time is three minutes. Seems short, I know, but you can get everything you need to get done in that time if you’re efficient, and if you’re not...well, we know what you’re doing in there. And you do not want to be going over. People start pounding on the door at two minutes, fifty-nine seconds, and they won’t be polite about it, either. Bitches who hog the hot water aren’t so popular around here, I can