Chapter 13 - She Waited By My Car in Daylight
I got off the lunch shift at the diner with grease under my nails and my uniform shirt sticking to my back, and she was standing by my car like she belonged in a different photograph. No sequins. No heels. Just jeans and a plain white T-shirt and sunglasses pushed up into her blonde hair, and for a second I didn't recognize her without the patio lights on her.
The parking lot was bright and empty except for a delivery truck idling by the dumpsters. Heat came up off the blacktop. My apron was still tied around my waist and my hands were damp from wiping tables. I stopped with my keys in my fist.
"You work here now?" she said.
I nodded. "Double shifts while the agency figures out what to do with me."
She glanced at the diner windows, then back at me. She didn't have anyone with her. No husband, no friends, no driver leaning on a black SUV. That scared me more than if she'd brought a lawyer.
"Can we talk?" she said. "Five minutes. Please."
I didn't say yes. I unlocked my car and set my bag on the passenger seat so I'd have somewhere to go if I needed it. Then I leaned against the door and waited.
She stayed a few feet back. Up close in daylight she looked younger and more tired. No makeup except a little mascara. A small scar on her chin I hadn't seen that night on the roof.
"I've been wanting to come by," she said. "I asked one of the girls from the catering crew where you were. I hope that's okay."
"It depends what you want," I said.
She breathed out and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them like she didn't know what to do with her hands. "I want to say I was drunk. That night. On the roof. I'd had too much champagne before we even got up there, and I hate how that sounds, but it's true."
I didn't answer. A car pulled through the lot and parked near the entrance. The bell over the diner door rang when someone went inside.
"I made a joke," she went on. "About you standing there with that tray by the pool. About needing a swim. It was stupid. It was mean. Everybody laughed and I laughed louder because I liked being the one they laughed with."
My throat tightened. I could hear the water again, the way it had closed over my head, the lights under the surface turning everything blue.
"You remember saying that?" I asked.
She looked down at the asphalt. "I remember laughing. I remember you were suddenly in the pool. I don't remember — I swear I don't remember touching you. I don't think I pushed you. My husband says I bumped the tray and you slipped, and maybe that's what happened, I just don't know."
"But you laughed," I said.
"Yes." Her voice dropped. "I laughed. God, I can still see myself doing it. Standing there in that dress while you were trying to get out. I didn't help you. I just stood there."
I tightened my grip on my keys until the teeth dug into my palm. This was the part I'd replayed for two weeks, her face lit up and amused, then the way she'd gone still when I lifted my phone.
"Why didn't you help me?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Because I was embarrassed. Because everyone was looking at me and I didn't want to look like I'd done something wrong. So I acted like it was funny. That was worse. I know that was worse."
The delivery truck pulled out, leaving diesel in the air. Sweat ran down the back of my neck. I thought about the foundation office, the investigator's careful questions, the way the older man in the navy suit had looked at me like I was a problem to manage.
"I'm sorry for laughing at you," she said. "I mean that. I'm really sorry."
I studied her face. Her eyes were wet but she wasn't performing it. No tears for an audience. Just a woman in a parking lot at two in the afternoon with her sunglasses in her hair.
"I appreciate you saying that," I said. "But I can't sign anything that says that's the whole story."
"I wasn't going to ask you to," she said quickly. "I'm not here for them. The foundation, I mean. They told my husband I shouldn't contact you. They said let the process handle it."
"Then why did you come?"
"Because I couldn't sleep," she said. "Because every time I close my eyes I see you holding your phone with water dripping off your badge, and you looked so calm, and I keep wondering what you were thinking right then."
I looked past her toward the highway, the heat shimmer over the cars. "I was thinking I needed a true record," I said. "Not revenge. I wasn't trying to ruin your gala. I just didn't want it to turn into a story where I slipped and everyone laughed and that was the end of it."
She nodded slowly. "The video. You sent it to yourself."
"Yes."
"Do you still have it?"
"Yes," I said. "And I'm not posting it. That's not what it's for."
She wiped under one eye with the side of her finger. "They keep asking me what exactly happened at the edge. Like if I reached out or if you stepped back. I told them I don't remember the contact. That's the truth. I'm not trying to lie about that part. I just know what I did after, and that was wrong."
I pushed off the car and stood straight. My legs were tired from the shift and my shoes squeaked on the hot pavement.
"I believe you were drinking," I said. "I believe you don't remember. But I remember being in that pool in my work clothes with everyone watching, and I remember you laughing louder than anyone. I'm not ready to call that nothing."
She flinched, but she didn't argue. "I'm not asking you to."
For a moment neither of us spoke. Inside the diner someone laughed, a normal daytime sound. A truck brake hissed out on the highway.
"I should go," she said. "I just wanted you to hear it from me, not through their lawyers. In normal clothes. Without champagne in my hand."
She started to turn, then stopped. "Will you tell me your name? Your real name? They only ever called you the temp in the reports."
I hesitated. It felt like giving something away and getting something back at the same time.
"Maya," I said. "Maya Ellis."
"Maya," she repeated. "I'm Caroline."
I nodded. I knew her last name from the program, but hearing her say her first name like that made her human in a way I hadn't wanted.
She walked to an older Honda parked two spaces down, no driver, no entourage. She drove herself. She paused with her hand on the door.
May you like
"I'm sorry," she said again.
I didn't say it's okay. I just stood there with my keys in my hand and watched her get in and pull out of the lot into the bright afternoon, leaving me alone with the heat and the sound of my own breathing.
