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  “I didn’t mean to bother you while you were working.”

  “You’re never a bother, C.”

  Cassidy gave a sad smile that she hoped looked demure and flirty. Usually whenever she smiled, Manny couldn’t help smiling back. He had told her once that her smile melted him and she loved seeing the truth of the confession. Now, though, he looked at her with concern.

  Manny tapped a silver pen on a legal pad. Beside him on his desk sat a framed caricature drawing of himself and his two sons. In the portrait, Manny’s forehead was huge. His sons wore Marlins caps and held up gloved hands drawn to be the size of their heads. “Are you going home to see your grandma?”

  Cassidy blew air through her nose. “I hate going home.” Not everything about her camming persona was fake.

  “Why?”

  “I hate seeing all the people I grew up with. They’re all shitbags.”

  “They’re probably all in love with you.”

  Cassidy snorted. “The people I grew up with are most definitely not in love with me.”

  Manny tilted his head. “I find that really hard to believe. Anyway . . . if you want some help with a ticket, you know you can ask me for anything.”

  Dammit. Cassidy had hoped for sympathy tips—money she could spend on clothes and food and stuff for her apartment—not airplane money.

  “Thanks, Manny. You know I appreciate you.”

  “How much?” Manny grinned deviously and Cassidy smiled for real.

  “This much,” she said, and lifted her shirt, sticking her boobs out to make them look as perky as possible.

  “Good girl,” he said, inspiring the same thrill the words always brought to Cassidy’s chest. He looked up toward the office door. “I should go.”

  “Okay, Manny.”

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Cassidy said, and blew a kiss. Manny smiled and hung up. A moment later an email appeared, informing her that forty thousand American Airlines miles had been transferred to her account. Dammit.

  Jane

  Jane didn’t remember what she’d been thinking about when the aide had interrupted until later that evening. Resident bedtime was nine o’clock, which meant Jane lay on her side on the adjustable bed for hours before drifting off. She got most of her sleep during the day in the armchair. As she stared out at the dark room, it came back to her in an image—her mother lifting her hand to the back of her head as if she might faint when Jane had told her parents she and Ding were joining the war effort. Philip had set his book on the table.

  “Not anything dangerous,” Jane had said quickly. “The Civil Service Commission is looking for girls to do jobs while the boys are away. Typing and whatnot.”

  “And just where are these Civil Service jobs you and Ding are taking?” Arzella had asked, recovering. Her voice tilted slightly with Jane’s cousin’s name, making room for the that damn she’d left unsaid. Arzella never cursed, but you could always tell when she wanted to.

  Jane swallowed. “Washington.”

  Philip and Arzella looked at each other, speaking their secret language of subtle eye movements. Philip nodded. “Jane, Washington is a long ways away, darling.”

  “And we need your help here on the farm,” Arzella said. “Remember the homemakers pledge?”

  Jane remembered the ad in the Buckhannon Record: It’s up to you—and to every housewife in America—to “hold the line.” To hold it until our boys come back . . . That’s what you can do. That’s your war job!

  “Mom, you’ve been holding the line just fine. You and I both know I’m mostly in your way.”

  Arzella crossed her arms and tapped her foot. She should have been a schoolteacher with that look, though it had come in equally handy as a mother of seven.

  “Ding is going for sure,” Jane said.

  Of course she is. Arzella shot the words silently at her husband.

  “She’s talked to Violet and Vernon?” Philip asked, and he and Arzella exchanged another look.

  “Yes,” Jane lied. Surely Ding would use the same line on her aunt and uncle.

  “Well, you best be ready to buy your own things if you’re off earning your own money. And Washington is expensive,” Philip said. “It’s not like Buckhannon.”

  Jane put a hand to her mouth to stop a squeal from escaping. She had won and she knew it.

  Arzella shot Philip a lightning glare. Jane wondered, Had he misunderstood their silent code, or worse—ignored it?

  Heck, Jane could practically hear it herself. Six sons in the war and you’re sending our daughter to the capital on her own? God help me. We’ll be here working the farm on our own. Alone. Jane tried not to think about how quiet the house would be.

  “I’ll make my own clothes, pay for all my own things.”

  Arzella shook her head and looked up, as if asking God for patience.

  “I don’t like this, Jane,” she said to the ceiling. “I don’t know if you’re prepared for the dangers and temptations of a place like Washington. Especially with that cousin of yours in tow.”

  “Isn’t that a reason for me to go, Mama?” Jane asked. “I bet Uncle Vernon and Aunt Violet would be happy to have me there to keep an eye on Ding.”

  They ate their breakfast in silence, Arzella shaking her head and Jane stifling grins the whole time. Afterward, she helped her mother clear the table and then ran back to her room, where she pored over the Civil Service papers for the hundredth time before getting dressed. As she buttoned her top button, she heard the door slam in the kitchen. She looked out her window and saw Arzella walking toward the water pump without her, a bucket in each hand.

  A quiet knock on her door moments later made her jump.

  “It’s me, Jane,” Philip’s voice called from the other side.

  “Oh. Come on in, Daddy.”

  Philip opened the door.

  “What do you think about the FBI?” he asked, removing a pipe and tobacco from his overall pocket before sitting beside Jane on her bed.

  Jane watched him with astonishment. Arzella couldn’t stand when he smoked.

  “What about the FBI?” she asked.

  “Well, for working. I hear they need a lot of girls there now.” He packed the pipe.

  Jane gawked.

  “What an honor, eh? The FBI.” He produced a lighter and lit his tobacco, then took a long puff. “Fidelity, bravery, integrity. That’s what they say, you know.”

  Jane nodded. Outside, the rooster crowed.

  “I best get out to till,” Philip said, rising then shaking his head in disbelief. “My daughter, working for the FBI. Now that’s somethin’. You’ll have to take the exam and all—get a good score—but that’s never been a problem for you.” Philip patted Jane on the back with a hearty thump, then left, the smell of pipe smoke trailing behind him.

  She’d wanted to make him proud. She’d wanted adventure. She’d thought she would get both. Now, in the nursing home, Jane pulled her thin blanket up to her chin, apologized silently to her daddy as she had for seven decades, and tried to sleep.

  Cassidy

  Cassidy’s phone buzzed from between her boobs where it had nestled while she slept. She squeezed her eyes shut to clear her vision, then laughed. Though she usually fell asleep with her phone, most mornings she found it at the foot of her bed or on the floor. She was still tired from camming the night before, but the memory of how much money she’d made eased her grogginess. She’d brought in close to five hundred dollars, even after the site took its 45 percent cut. She tried not to think about how much they claimed—about how sex work, an industry consumed largely by men and produced largely by women, was stigmatized and financially punished.

  As she opened her still-blurry eyes, her bedroom appeared around her and she took in the pile of dirty lingerie at the foot of the bed, the white plastic tr
ash can full of Del Taco wrappers, and the assortment of empty cups arranged on the nightstand—a tumbler from Target whose lip had melted in the dishwasher, a mug with slut emblazoned on its side in pink script, and several short glasses made foggy by hard water. The mess distracted Cassidy from the strangeness of the early-morning call and she answered before she could think herself out of it.

  “What, Mom?” Cassidy answered. She swung her feet to the floor and stood, walking out to the living room, where her LCD side lights still stood on their tripods on either side of her desk chair, their legs like still cyborg giraffes.

  “Cassidy!” Her mom’s voice was high-pitched.

  “What?” Cassidy was almost amused. Was she laughing? Was she drunk?

  “Cassidy!” Paloma choked again, and Cassidy realized with a start that she was not laughing—she was sobbing.

  “What is it, Mom?”

  “Cassidy, he hit a deer. Honey, he swerved.” Paloma’s voice rose to a long, steady aaaaahhhhh that seemed to stretch on and on.

  Cassidy’s mind reeled as she tried to make sense of what Paloma was saying. She couldn’t piece it together. Her mom had said “he.” Not Grandma Jane. Grandma Jane was okay.

  “Who hit a deer, Mom?” she asked, trying to calm her mother down enough to explain.

  “Your father, Cassidy. He hit a deer. He’s gone.” She made the awful sound again—a combination of a cry and a yell.

  “No,” Cassidy said firmly, insistent on stopping the noise. Still standing, unmoving, legs apart in the middle of the living room, she shook her head again and said, “No.”

  It was impossible. He couldn’t have swerved. She remembered his voice as he sat in the passenger seat, teaching her to drive. Cassidy, sixteen, had clutched the steering wheel tightly, giving the car the smallest bit of gas and then immediately pressing the break. She’d released the pedal a little at a time to inch forward. “You’re going to have to be a bit bolder, sweet pea,” Ken had said. “Defensive driving is good, but you’ve still got to have balls.”

  “Dad, that’s such a sexist thing to say,” Cassidy had complained, though she was entertained.

  “Then have some ovaries. Don’t be afraid of the gas. The brake is there. It’s like with deer. You can’t swerve. It’s better to hit it head-on.” He’d paused. “Well.” He’d laughed. “It’s not better for the deer.”

  He wouldn’t have swerved.

  Her mother’s awful sounds pulled Cassidy back to the dark room. Paloma seemed to be trying to get herself under control. She was panting now, a sad moan escaping with each breath out.

  “I’m coming home, Mom,” Cassidy said. She had the miles from Manny. She could avoid everyone else and hunker down at home. At home she could prove he wouldn’t have swerved. She could stop him. She shook her head, understanding that these were not logical thoughts, but her logic would not overpower the sense that they were true.

  Cassidy hung up on Paloma, who was still moaning, then strode to the couch. There was so much to do. She needed a plane, a car. She’d have to tell her guys she’d be away for a while and ask Noeli to check in on her place and . . . She knew this was self-distraction—a way to keep the reality of what her mom had just told her from infiltrating her brain—but she carried on. There were things to be done.

  Cassidy looked around the room. The light was just appearing between the cheap vertical blinds, illuminating her desk and laptop and the crumbs on the carpet. Cassidy stared until it all blurred into hazy lines. What was she doing? She tried to remember. What did she need to do?

  Eventually, somehow, she managed to navigate to the American Airlines website. Somehow she found the customer service line and somehow her fingers called the number.

  The last phone call she’d received was her mother telling her that her father had died. She considered this with a scientific distance.

  Somehow, when a chirpy customer service representative answered her call, Cassidy managed to say evenly that her father had recently passed away and that she needed information about bereavement fares.

  Somehow, when the agent offered their sincerest apologies on the loss of her father, Cassidy managed to say “Thank you” in a low, serious voice that sounded like it came from someone who actually had just lost her father.

  And somehow, when the agent also apologized that the airline no longer offered bereavement fares because their online deals were already so deeply discounted, Cassidy managed to thank her sincerely and hang up without cursing.

  Cassidy stared at the mobile version of the website, its primary colors and blocky graphics blurring and twisting. “My father died. My father died recently.” She’d heard herself saying the words to the agent. Her voice had sounded so far away. “My father died. My . . . daddy died.” She sat, staring at the screen, hearing the sounds of her breath moving in and out of her mouth, unable to move, even to blink her eyes.

  Finally she managed to call Noeli.

  “Are you seriously calling me right now? Like an actual real-life voice phone call?”

  “My dad died,” Cassidy said, her voice distant and dreamy, something detached from herself.

  Noeli’s first response was a small chuckle, as if Cassidy had told a joke, but she quickly corrected, her voice twisting in horror. “Oh my God. What?”

  “He hit a deer. He swerved.”

  “Oh my God. Are you okay? Stay right there. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” The line went dead.

  Minutes later Cassidy heard the Accord screech into the parking lot. She looked out the window and saw Noeli exiting her car, her curls flat from sleep, her mouth strange and ghostly without her usual red lipstick. Around her, in the predawn quiet, men in suits got into luxury sedans. The haze obscuring the mountains was thicker than it appeared in the afternoon, and if Cassidy hadn’t known better, she could have mistaken the smog for low-lying clouds. Noeli sprinted up the stairs and Cassidy opened the door to let her in. A gray cat on the neighbor’s stoop mewed.

  “I’m so sorry, mija,” Noeli said, wrapping her arms around Cassidy. Cassidy could feel the hard angles of her friend’s collarbone through her soft skin, how small and fragile she really was. Cassidy curled against her.

  Noeli let go and took a step back, looking at Cassidy’s face. “Let’s get you home.”

  “I have miles for American.”

  “Enough for both of us?”

  “I don’t think so. You don’t have to come.”

  Noeli looked at Cassidy like she was stupid. “Of course I’m coming.”

  “It will be expensive.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Cassidy sank to the ground, unable to remain standing, and hugged her knees to her chest. Noeli squatted beside her and placed a small hand on her back. “You logged in?”

  Cassidy nodded and Noeli took the phone gently from her hands. “Pittsburgh, right?” Cassidy nodded again and Noeli frowned at the screen, typed, and clicked for several moments and then looked up. “Okay. LAX to Pittsburgh this afternoon.”

  Cassidy was awed by her competence, her ability to function in a universe like this. She didn’t feel like she could move.

  Noeli stood and kissed Cassidy affectionately on the top of her head. “I’ll pack you a bag.” She handed the phone back to Cassidy and disappeared into her bedroom.

  Cassidy couldn’t bring herself to look at the phone, to face a world where she would have to tell people about this or talk to people who knew. She breathed a tiny molecule of relief. She hadn’t thought about what she would post on social media. Instead her instinct was to delete it all, to hide. She took a breath, almost called instructions to Noeli about what to bring, then stopped herself. Logistics, words, preferences about shirts or underwear—they all felt so small beside the specter of life and death, she couldn’t move her mouth to make the sounds. She would have to bring her laptop. If she went
too long without doing a show, she wouldn’t be able to make rent. But how could she ever do a show now? Like this?

  Noeli returned ten minutes later with a nylon duffel bag and Cassidy listened to the sound of the material rubbing against her friend’s leg, thinking about high school gym class, about hiding with Simon in the giant rolls of wrestling mats to avoid running laps. Gym class was during some of the only years she’d had with her dad—that she would ever have with him.

  Her phone vibrated with messages from MannyBoy27.

  You ok?

  Hope you got your beauty sleep.

  Let me know if you need anything.

  I miss your beautiful smile.

  Cassidy watched them appear one after the other but did not unlock the phone, instead waiting, motionless, for Noeli to come back and tell her what to do to be a person in this world.

  Paloma

  He couldn’t be gone. It was a cliché, Paloma knew, but still, Ken’s absence felt impossible. His handiwork filled the entire house, his presence too tangible for mere memory. He had shaped her entire life—its every contour and setting, and now she was here, in the world he’d made, without him. She could not stop thinking about the day they’d met.

  She’d been standing at the edge of the Charles Bridge, wishing she had a drink. It was so beautiful that she’d wanted, as she often did when looking down the long stretch of cobblestones that spanned the Vltava River, to take it in fully, to experience it with the intensity with which one experiences the past. As she stood, she’d considered the sweet company of nostalgia, how she much preferred it to the hazy half-real way she bumbled through the present. Paloma loved the blue-green tint that nostalgia lent the experiences of her life—the swell in her heart that accompanied reminiscence, her life’s seasons pared down and imbued with heightened significance.

  She would walk the bridge and appreciate the walk as she lived it. You are here now, she told herself as she took a single step. However aware she was, though, she could not call up the same aching wistfulness that nostalgia brought. The present was simply the present, unimpressive until it had passed, no matter how appreciative Paloma tried to be.