Girl in the Rearview Mirror Read online

  With a sputter, a recording of the national anthem began to play. The crowd staggered to its feet. The music was crackling and out of tune, but a brave voice began to sing along. The Senator’s baritone joined, then Bryant’s. Amabel contentedly sang nonsense to the melody. Marina’s smile shone at us. Our ragged song fell behind tempo and finished a few beats late. Still, a collective cheer rose from the field. The Senator waved triumphantly. Behind him, a Roman candle ignited, a white flash that lingered when I closed my eyes. Then the show began in earnest. Fireworks bloomed and burst, throwing robes of smoke that drifted away. The smell of powder and fire remained.

  “That went well,” Marina said softly to Philip as we drove home. Amabel was absorbed in the movie on the headrest TV, each of us listening through one earbud.

  “Sure did,” Philip said. “They spent enough on it.”

  “Jim did well, I thought. He shines in natural situations.”

  “He hasn’t been in a natural situation in twenty-five years,” Philip joked.

  Marina shook her head, gently chiding, “I’ve never seen him so worried.”

  Philip shrugged. “People are frustrated. They like to get fired up, hear someone say it’s not their fault.”

  “Exactly,” Marina said. “That’s exactly it.”

  “The media loves controversy. Jim’s losing is more of a story than him winning. In the end he’ll be fine. The majority of voters like the way things are going.”

  “How can you be so—”

  “Honey. Worrying about a Democrat beating Jim is like worrying about a snowstorm in August.”

  The Martins only used terms of endearment when they were annoyed. Marina’s hand jerked up to toy with her necklace. Then she must have remembered I was there because she shook her shoulders and said lightly, “I wish I had your confidence.”

  It was an open secret that Philip would run for his father’s seat the next term. He’d been an Arizona boy forever, a football star at ASU—everyone knew his name. He was handsome and young, for a politician, with a fertile network: his own business and real estate ties, art connections through Marina, political through his father. His restaurants staffed mostly Latinos. He was perfectly positioned. But first, Senator Jim had to hold the course.

  “I’m just saying,” Marina said a few minutes later, into the silence. “We shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

  Philip let her have the last word.

  After Ammy went to bed, I found Philip in the kitchen gazing out the glass doors to the balcony. The Martins lived in Ocotillo Heights, a neighborhood built up the side of a mountain, with sweeping views of the city in the valley. Its lights glowed like fireflies.

  “Amabel settled in all right? Long day for her.” Philip held out a pack of Oreos to me. He had a tumbler of whiskey in his other hand.

  “She’s asleep.” I waved away the cookies.

  “You see our coyote yet?” His arm grazed mine. He’d unbuttoned the top third of his shirt. His skin gave off a minty soap smell.

  I held still so we stayed close, but not touching. My reflection in the dark glass was ghostly.

  “A couple times. He was pretty far out.”

  “I saw him run last week. Maybe a rabbit. That’s when I got the binoculars out.” The binoculars sat, heavy as lead, on the counter by the espresso machine.

  “I try not to draw attention to him. Coyotes are dangerous. Amabel might think it’s a dog.”

  He studied my reflection, tilting his head.

  “You think I’m being paranoid,” I said.

  “Are you off to see that boyfriend of yours?”

  The kitchen light came on.

  “Finn. I didn’t realize you were still here.” Marina blinked at us. She’d changed into yoga pants and drawn her hair into a ponytail. Frowning, she opened the wine fridge and bent to rummage through it. From the back, she might have been twenty. Her shirt was cut to show off her lean, muscled shoulder blades, the result of hours of Pilates.

  She selected a white in a fluted bottle and opened it with a practiced twist of her wrist. Her glass sang as it hit the marble counter. “I’d offer you a drink, but I know you have to drive home.”

  “We were just talking about the coyote,” I said. “He’s dangerous.”

  “The dog? Why? He’s beautiful. He’s a desert animal, he won’t come up to us.”

  I decided not to mention the time their garbage cans had been tipped into the street, bags ripped, trash everywhere.

  “Finn worries Amabel might think of him as a pet.” Philip set the cookies on the counter and topped off his glass with water at the tap.

  Marina sealed the cookies with a clip. “You and your junk food habit. Those are for Amabel and Finn.” But her voice was teasing.

  I said good night and left them as allies.

  As I drove down the tight curves of the mountain road, Marina’s words lingered in my mind. The coyote was beautiful. His fur held all the tones of the dusty hills, so he was impossible to spot unless he was moving. His gait was sporadic. Now trotting, now sniffing, now still, ears up and body tense. Then he’d relax, lift his leg to a shrub. Through the binoculars, I’d admired his trim snout, comically large ears, the patina of gray and red and brown on his coat.

  Once, when he came closer to the house, I saw him in more detail. He was gaunt. In the heat, his mouth was open, tongue lolling. A yellow undertone to his fur made him appear jaundiced. He stared right at me, or so it seemed through the binoculars. His eyes were perfectly round and black, inexpressive. Not a tame thing after all.

  2

  Red, white, and blue spotlights lit the façade of the club. The party was on the rooftop. Bryant was already there, at the invitation of Rick Leach, the entrepreneur who owned this club and half the others on the street. At twenty-four, Rick had intuited a demand for a Vegas-like strip in Scottsdale, where tourists could go at night after spending the day golfing, watching spring training, or tanning by the pool. Now Rick was thirty-two, rich, and developing an interest in politics.

  Tonight, the club’s long line gave the impression of exclusivity, as did the row of refrigerator-wide bouncers checking IDs. Mirrored elevator doors swung open, and the already-buzzed crowd pressed in. Women tilted on high heels, grabbing at each other for balance. Cologne choked the air.

  A guy behind me bent over to mess with something at the level of my ankles. I shifted my knees together.

  He stood, holding out a lipstick. “You drop this?” He was frattish, blond, and smirking. Chunky plastic glasses gave him the look of a superhero’s alter ego.

  “Don’t think so.” My purse was zippered.

  “Sure?” He pressed it into my hand. It was mine, “Wild Child” red in a lacquered tube, a $30 splurge.

  “Thanks.” Returning it to my purse, I ran my fingers across phone, keys, cards. Everything seemed accounted for.

  The elevator doors opened, releasing us into the hot night. An insistent beat pulsed, bass notes registering as a buzzing pressure in the air. Searchlights panned the sky. In the crowd milling on the rooftop, the dominant theme was skin: bare shoulders and plunging necklines, dresses that barely skimmed thighs. Teeth and tans. Drunk girls swayed to the music, but most people stood still, shouting over it, hearing nothing.

  I was tired, and not in the mood for a party, but Bryant had insisted. He was close to securing Rick’s support; he needed me.

  We made a successful team at his gatherings. My first events, over a year ago, had felt foreign, awkward, daunting. I’d studied the popular women in the group and built a wardrobe like theirs, learned to talk and laugh like them. I felt sure Bryant had done the same, years earlier. Between us, I had the easy job. Nobody expected me to persuade them of anything. In fact, it was the other way around: men liked me best when they were coaxing me—to sit beside them, to laugh at their jokes or try a bite from their plates, to have another drink, to dance.

  I wasn’t ready to face them just yet. I ordered a vodka tonic fr
om a bartender in a star-spangled bikini. The drink came in a thin plastic cup and tasted like sugared hand sanitizer.

  I leaned against the bar and took the lay of the land. At the perimeter of the rooftop were rows of cabanas: gauzy white tents concealing private couches and those rich enough to reserve them. Bryant was in one, I knew, his suit and smile impossibly fresh.

  The centerpiece of the party was a shallow pool, lit up yellow-blue. The water was crowded with slim women and men ranging from buff lifeguard types to older, fatter guys with gold rings and money. Belly-deep, they mingled as nonchalantly as if on dry land, holding their drinks clear.

  In between pool and cabana was the no-man’s-land of the patio, where people milled restlessly, longing to be obscured by the tents or ogled in the pool.

  Someone tapped my shoulder. “You here alone?” The frat boy from the elevator. He must have wandered after me. Up close, I saw that his glasses had no lenses.

  “I’m meeting someone.”

  His smile cut dimples into his cheeks. “Not yet, huh? Come on, keep me company.” He rapped his knuckles on the bar and ordered a beer.

  He was a typical Scottsdale clubber. Beach blond hair carefully gelled to appear tousled. Rolled sleeves showing off hours of quality time with dumbbells.

  When his beer arrived, he sucked the inch of foam off the top. “So, where you from?”

  In Phoenix, this was the default small-talk opener.

  “Chicago,” I said reluctantly.

  “No shit? Me, too. Well, suburbs.” He threw out a name—Lincoln Woods.

  “I’ve never been.” I tipped back my cup. The plastic cracked and split under my thumb.

  “What brought you to A-Z?”

  “Summer.” I signaled for my bill.

  “Right?” He laughed. “God, those winters were brutal.”

  I hummed in reply, digging for cash.

  “Finn!” Bryant put his hand on my back. “Here you are.” He sounded happy.

  “Here you are.” I kissed him a bit longer than usual. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You must have been thirsty.” He tossed a ten onto my bill. Then he noticed my company. He put his arm around me and held out a hand. “Bryant Dewitt.”

  “Guy,” said the guy, shaking. He winked at me. “Thanks for hanging out.”

  On our way to the cabana, Bryant asked why I was laughing.

  “A guy named Guy,” I said. “I can’t explain.”

  He gave me a forgiving smile. “You’ve had a long day. We won’t stay long.”

  We ducked behind a curtain. The cabana reeked of booze and was packed with people I didn’t recognize. Rick jumped off a couch, scrambled over several pairs of knees, and kissed me wetly on both cheeks. He was short, fattish and soft, with curly blond hair shorn like lamb’s wool and a rosebud mouth. He looked like a seedy toddler.

  “You wore this dress last time I saw you.” He ran a finger down the strap.

  I said something silly back, embarrassed, and reached past him to shake hands with his latest girl, Meg. She said hi and stuck her Ring Pop back in her mouth. Her eyes were dark holes in her doll face.

  I settled between her and Rick, Bryant opposite us. Rick launched into a spiel about his new “concept” for Tempe, a country-themed club where girls would dance on the bar. He spoke incessantly, and the others in the tent treated it like background noise, getting up for drinks and tripping over each other and laughing hysterically when things spilled. Only Bryant and I listened. Rick would be a big feather in Bryant’s cap. Bryant found Republicans where they weren’t supposed to be: backstage at the theater, the university administration, Rick’s purple-lighted clubs.

  At last a firework shrieked and popped, and then another, and another. Bryant cranked back the cabana’s fabric ceiling. A couple slipped in, and through the opening in the tent, I thought I saw Amabel’s redhead again, a slim silhouette in cowboy boots strolling languidly across the patio while everyone else craned up at the sky.

  I stood, but Rick grabbed my wrist.

  “You can’t miss the show.” His breath was sweet with booze.

  I sat back down. I didn’t see the redhead again, if she’d been there at all.

  “Where do you think Rick meets his girls?” I called to Bryant. We were at his condo. He’d changed into basketball shorts and sat on the terrace outside his bedroom, smoking a cigar. I still wore my dress, which Rick’s comment made clear I’d have to retire for a while. Already, I was mentally budgeting for a new one. If I put my electric bill on my credit card, I could probably swing it.

  I sifted through Bryant’s records until I found a cover I liked, poppy orange and yellow. I managed to get the complicated subwoofer turned on, and the sound of a saxophone poured into the room like a plume of smoke.

  I joined Bryant outside. “Did you see that lollipop?”

  “She was high.” He tugged me down to sit on the arm of his chair. “Thanks for your help tonight. You were perfect.”

  I bit his ear, trying not to grin. “Did he contribute?”

  “Only a matter of time.”

  I unclasped his watch and held it in my palm, cool and heavy as a roll of quarters.

  “Amabel told me a funny story today. She said a girl was following her.”

  He cocked his head.

  “She pointed her out at the fair. A redhead. Young, like sixteen or seventeen, maybe. I didn’t think anything of it, but later, at the party, I thought I saw her again.”

  “Maybe she’s following you.” He ran his fingers up my leg.

  “You don’t think it’s strange?”

  “That Amabel made up a story to get your attention? Isn’t she always pulling stuff like that?” He stubbed out the half-smoked cigar and stretched. “Speaking of, I found out Rick’s a bit of a liar. I had this idea that he was self-made. A young success story. Turns out his dad’s in oil. They’re rolling in it.”

  He obviously expected me to be as surprised, and disapproving, as he was.

  “Maybe he wanted to start fresh.”

  “But to lie?”

  My pulse jumped in my neck, tense as a plucked string. “Maybe he thinks he’s being private. Not lying, like malicious lying, that affects other people.”

  “That’s semantics.”

  “Isn’t that your job?” I said, trying to sound teasing. “Anyway, once he donates we won’t have to see him so much, right?”

  He shook his head. “I just can’t understand misrepresenting yourself like that. It’s so hollow.”

  I pretended to lose interest, standing and wandering inside to undress. I was glad when he followed.

  3

  It was a fluke that I found the Martins at all.

  I grew up in a far-flung Chicago suburb and spent the last year of high school exiled with my dad in rural Indiana. When I turned eighteen, I escaped, moving to Arizona to attend the university in Tempe. Driving down Route 66, familiar farmland gave way to windswept Oklahoma prairies, empty Texas desert, pine-topped New Mexico mountains. As the speedometer ticked, I shed history. By the time I arrived at school, I realized I could start over. I introduced myself as Finn, my middle name, and it stuck. Within months, my first name sounded foreign. Natalie was the girl in the rearview mirror.

  People, like Bryant, read into lies, as if they’re somehow more revealing than the truth. But I was hardly alone in wanting to be different, new. On campus, the thrill of anonymity was airborne. Everyone tried on personalities for size. The California girls in fur Uggs, the guys falling off skateboards doing tricks on the library steps, the grad student TAs behind tortoiseshell glasses. It was rumored that even the dreadlocked bums panhandling outside the Mill Avenue bars were actually rich kids from San Diego, augmenting their allowances for pot money.

  The spangled palm trees and sparkling pools intoxicated me. I spent a few delirious months playing with possibilities: cutting off my hair and hanging with the art kids, studying Chinese and inking a tattoo onto my shoulder blade. Finally
, I settled on interior design. A woman I’d admired back home was a designer who’d worked on penthouses in Chicago. In her own house, every object had a story, from the antique French chaise to the blown-glass lamps. The beauty had been a revelation to me, like eating fruit after a diet of bread and water.

  In design, I saw a key to transforming the basic shell of whatever you were given. Demolishing walls, rerouting plumbing, ripping out the bad decisions of the past and revealing something fresh.

  I forged a new self: mature, reserved, artistic.

  I didn’t go home. Over winter break, I savored the deserted campus with its funny lit-up palms. Summers, I adapted to days so hot you sweated through your clothes, while the indoors were so air-conditioned you needed a jacket. I liked the perpetual blue sky, the shiny newness of it all. People weren’t as friendly as they were back home; they were cooler, and vainer, which appealed to me.

  After graduation, my friends left, many moving right back into their childhood bedrooms. The market was still recovering from the crash, and demand for new grads was low. I submitted my résumé to dozens of job postings. Not one of the companies so much as sent me a rejection letter, let alone called for an interview.

  I finally got work as a waitress, hoisting platters of ribs in a dining room decorated with wagon wheels and fake license plates, the smell of greasy smoke on me all the time—the sort of job Natalie would have taken. I was lonely and felt like a failure.

  My shifts ended after midnight. I’d lie in bed sleepless, keyed up from the physical work, the lifting and chatting and especially the smiling. Eventually I’d get up and switch on my desk lamp. I built a series of model rooms. I told myself I was filling out my portfolio, but the rooms were too personal. I re-created my old bedroom, under the eaves, with its canopy bed and toile wallpaper patterned with foxes. I made the glassed-in sunroom with the cane lounge set; the living room with the stone fireplace; the kitchen and separate butler’s pantry complete with tiny marble sink.