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I n high school I had known girls like Erin. They hadn’t been my friends, but I’d seen them in the hallways—usually tucked under the arm of a hot football player. In class those girls sat at the back of the room, painting their nails and passing notes—usually to the hot football player sitting next to them.
Though these back-of-the-room girls seemed steeped in self-confidence and sophistication, I—with my high grades, tidy bedroom and a best friend I’d had since kindergarten—had somehow felt superior to them.
At sixteen, I’d thought I had life all figured out. Life rewarded those who made smart choices. Smart choices included obtaining a post-secondary education, marrying a hardworking, responsible man, making a beautiful home, and raising children.
Follow the rules and you’ll be happy.
For more than forty years that philosophy had worked for me. Or so I’d thought.
Maybe the girls at the back of the class had had the right idea all along.
I gulped my first glass of tea and vodka like it was water. The warmth of the afternoon sun seeped through my clothing and skin, right into my bones, and it felt good. I sank lower in my chair, deliberately not thinking about the boxes waiting to be unpacked, the beds to be made, the cupboards to be washed out and restocked with staples from flour to vanilla extract. Artificial extract, now.
Erin mixed me another drink.
“So, Lauren, what’s your deal? You don’t wear a wedding ring. You divorced?”
It was an obvious question, one I should have expected, yet I could feel my defenses rising. I hated telling people I was divorced. It made me feel like such a loser.
After Gary had left me, I’d found myself observing women my age, married women with wedding bands on their fingers. I’d seen them in the shops, on the street, at the girls’ school.
What had these women done right that I’d done wrong? Why did their husbands still love them? Wasn’t I good enough, smart enough, pretty enough?
The fact that my mother kept asking me these questions, too, hadn’t helped.
“My husband left me about a year ago. He’s in India now.”
“India? Why the hell did he go to India?”
People didn’t usually ask me that question. At this point they were usually searching for a new topic of conversation.
But Erin had open curiosity in her eyes. And the next thing I knew, I was saying something completely outrageous.
The truth.
“It all started with the meditation courses. Gary seemed so stressed, I signed him up for a program at our local community center.”
“The sitting cross-legged on the floor and humming sort of meditation?”
“Yes. I thought he needed to learn how to relax.”
“I take it he learned?”
“Oh, yeah. Next thing I knew he was signed up for Karma yoga. He’d go straight from work to the yoga studio.”
“A real convert.”
“Yes. He became another person, with a whole different set of values. Gary started talking about approaching every task with the right motive and doing your best and giving up on the results.”
“Sounds cool.”
“Well, his bosses didn’t think it was so cool. They were actually pretty fixated on results, and when Gary stopped producing them, he was fired.”
“Wow. And I thought yoga was just something you did for exercise.”
“No, no, no.” I waved my free hand in the air, the one that wasn’t holding my drink. My head felt a little spinny and my tongue a little thicker, but these weren’t bad feelings.
In a way, spilling this stuff out to a virtual stranger felt good. I hadn’t been able to confide in any of my old friends or neighbors about this madness. I’d been too mortified.
But Erin was different. There was no judgment in her eyes, no condemnation—and most importantly of all—no pity.
“For Gary the yoga became a life-altering experience. He changed his diet, his wardrobe, even his manner of speaking. Really, he became a totally different person.”
“Sounds like a born-again Christian.”
“That’s what it was like, exactly. Whenever I’d complain, Gary would tell me that yoga is all about reaching a state of consciousness that allows you to achieve union with the divine.”
Erin nodded knowingly. “Or at least union with the hot little yoga instructor.”
I stared at her mutely. How had she guessed?
Answering my unspoken question, Erin said simply, “Men.”
“Gary didn’t want to admit that he was leaving me for another woman. He preferred to pretend that he was seeking spiritual revitalization.”
“What a bunch of crap.”
“Exactly. How can lying to your kids and cheating on your wife make you a better person?”
“Only a man could make that logic work,” Erin agreed. “So what finally happened? Did you tell him you’d had enough and kick him out the door?”
If only. At least then I might have retained some shred of pride and dignity. But I’d figured yoga would turn out to be another phase, like Gary’s mountain-climbing stage. When the girls were little, he’d decided he wanted to climb the seven highest peaks in the world. He’d started with a non-technical climb to see how he would react to high altitudes. After he returned home from Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, he’d never mentioned mountain climbing again.
I had expected the yoga to follow the same pattern.
“I didn’t have to ask. Gary left me. He said he needed space. To travel and be free.”
“Let me guess…his freedom included the yoga babe?”
There was no need to answer what we both knew was a rhetorical question. I lifted my hair off the back of my neck. The heat was getting to me. Or maybe it was the alcohol. How many drinks had I had now?
“So, like, what’s the situation?” Erin asked. “Your husband’s gone. But he left you with money, right? You and the girls are taken care of?”
If I had money, would I have moved into this neighborhood?
The proceeds from selling our house were financing Gary’s travels and this new house on Carbon Road. Our retirement funds and small investment account were earmarked for the girls’ education, not everyday living expenses.
My shoulders slumped. What was the point in pretending anymore? “The situation is kind of depressing, to tell you the truth. I need to get a job. And quick.”
“Have you got qualifications?”
“A history major.”
Erin shook her head. “I meant something that would help you get a job.”
I covered my face with my hands. “No. None of those kind of qualifications.” God help me, I was a throwback to the fifties. A stay-at-home mom with no relevance to the real world.
I set my glass on the table and Erin refilled it, only this time she didn’t add any vodka.
“You’re screwed, girl.”
“I know it.” I was going to have to get a job working in a grocery store. Or maybe in a factory. I could just see myself, a week from now, toiling for minimum wage in a sweatshop in a basement on Queen Street where I’d be harassed by the middle-aged, overweight male boss for sexual favors….
I tried to stand and that was when I realized just how much I’d had to drink. Great. Now I was going to cap off one of the worst days of my life by passing out on my new neighbor’s porch.
And to think I’d been the one judging Erin Karmeli when I’d first met her.
“I don’t usually drink in the afternoon,” I tried to say, not sure how the words actually came out sounding.
“Yeah, you wait until the kids are in bed, right?”
“No!”
Erin laughed. “Relax. I know you’re a straight arrow. Believe me, I can always spot the other kind. Why don’t you sit until the dizziness passes?”
“You probably have things to do….” I demurred. But still, I sat. I didn’t really have any other option.
“Nothing pressing. Besides, I think I have just the solution for you.”
“Oh?” I pretended interest. Everyone close to me had given their own well-meaning advice. My mother wanted the girls and me to move back home. My friends thought I should have a wild affair, then sue Gary for child support and force him to come home and get a job. My kids wished I could wave a magic wand and somehow get their father back, along with the house and everything else.
“You need a job, right? As it happens, I have so much business right now, I’ve been turning away clients. How would you like to work as a private investigator?”
A private investigator. Some long-buried sense of adventure burned inside of me at those words.
A private investigator.
I thought of the Sue Grafton mystery series I liked so much. I wouldn’t be Lauren Anderson Holloway, dull mother and divorcée, anymore. I would be like Kinsey Millhone…an edgy, exciting, interesting private investigator.
Wait a minute. Who was I kidding? Kinsey Millhone didn’t cook and do laundry and organize appointments for her family. She ran on the beach, talked tough and knew how to use a gun.
I couldn’t be a private eye. I wasn’t brave enough for starters. I had no investigative skills.
“I can’t, Erin.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Neither did I, until I started. I learned on the job…just like you’re going to.”
“But—” It had to be more complicated than that. “Wouldn’t I need to be licensed?”
“Sure. You have a record?”
It took me a moment to realize she was referring to a criminal record. “No.”
“Then it’s a snap. We fill in the forms and write the check. We can do it tomorrow!” Erin narrowed her eyes. “That’s if you want the job. I don’t want to pressure you.”
Maybe Erin didn’t want to pressure me, but my bank manager soon would. What were my options? What did I really have to lose?
“I’ll take the job.”
I could at least give it a try.
A week later, I was on Dupont Street, searching for the diner where I was supposed to meet Erin for lunch. Erin was planning to brief me on our first surveillance job. It was happening tonight, after dark. Though I would be with Erin, my stomach tightened and gurgled at the very thought of spying on another person.
As Erin had promised, it hadn’t been difficult for me to get my license to operate as a private investigator. And yesterday Erin had helped me sign up for an online course that would teach me the basics of the job. It was all happening quickly and I had the sense that I couldn’t stop it if I tried.
Not that I wanted to. I’d signed an agreement with Erin and the money was way better than I could have hoped for.
On the other side of the road, I spotted the place Erin had told me about. Murphy’s Grill was wedged between a hardware store and a tattoo parlor on the sunny side of Dupont Street. The signage was old and missing one l. The building itself was red brick with a line of rectangular windows facing out to the street. Everything…the sign, the bricks, the glass…looked tired and just a little grimy.
Why did Erin want to meet here?
I crossed on a green light and passed the owner-operated hardware store where I’d gone to purchase cleaning supplies a few days ago. Denny Stavinsky had been keen to offer advice on everything from furnace filters to bathroom caulking. In so doing, he’d managed to slip in the fact that his wife had died seven years ago and that his son, his ungrateful son, only visited once a year around Christmas.
This neighborhood is my life, Denny had told me. The people here are the best. I’m sure you and your daughters will be very happy here.
I stopped at the diner door and glanced farther down the street. Past the tattoo parlor was a pawnshop, then a consignment clothing store. Garbage for tomorrow’s pickup was already lined along the curb. Rosedale, this was not.
Welcome to my neighborhood.
I sighed, then leaned my shoulder into the door. The first thing I noticed was the smell. A fast-food combination of coffee and French fries and grilled meat. Facing me was a long counter lined with stools. Behind the counter stood a broad-shouldered guy in a plaid shirt. He looked more like a lumberjack than someone working in the food services industry.
Was this Murphy? He met my gaze for a moment and I had the odd sense that he somehow disapproved of me.
I surveyed the long, narrow room, disappointed to see there were no booths or tables, just another counter along the window with more stools.
Perhaps Murphy didn’t want to encourage the sort of customers who lingered over their meals.
Or perhaps his weren’t the sort of meals one ever wished to linger over.
I settled on one of the stools facing the kitchen and surreptitiously studied the lumberjack. He had strong features, dark coloring, a grim set to his mouth. In high school he would have been one of the kids in the last row, handing notes back and forth to the girls like Erin.
I had always wondered what happened to bad boys after high school. I should have guessed they opened greasy spoons in suspect neighborhoods.
Something in this diner had to be good, though, because most of the stools were occupied, primarily by men. They were of all ages, most dressed in workmen’s clothing, heavy boots, grimy T-shirts.
