Omens

Chapter Ten

I watched the floor numbers flit past. Of the five people in the elevator with me, three were staring. All three were male and over forty, and any other time, I’d have chalked it up to the fact that I’m young and female. But today, my heart raced and I struggled to keep breathing.

Had my picture been in the paper? I’d grabbed only the classified section at the hotel. I hadn’t checked the rest. I was afraid to check.

Even if my photo was there, I didn’t look like it. Not anymore. Before leaving the hotel, I’d chopped my hair off at my shoulders, blow-dried it straight, and pulled the sides back in a severe style I’d never worn before. Also, I was wearing glasses. I’ve worn contacts since I was twelve, but always carried a pair of glasses in my purse, just in case. Between those, the impromptu haircut, and the Sears-special suit, I was no longer Olivia Taylor-Jones. I was—as my business-center-printed résumés proclaimed—Liv Jones.

So the men in the elevator shouldn’t recognize me. But I could feel them staring. It seemed to take forever to reach the twentieth floor.

——

“H-How long?” I asked the man behind the reception desk.

He was young, thin, and impeccably dressed, perched on the edge of his chair, narrow-eyed gaze flicking past me to the others in the waiting area, as if he expected to catch them stuffing the year-old magazines into their briefcases.

I repeated the question. From his look, he’d heard me the first time—he just wasn’t rushing to answer. At least not until he’d ensured that the waiting room was safe from larceny.

“At least a month before we have our short list,” he said. “Likely six to eight weeks before the position is filled.”

I must have looked stunned, because his thin lips pursed.

“The advertisement only went in the Sun-Times today,” he said. “It takes time to receive and process the résumés. I’m sure you’re not finding anything different elsewhere in your job search.”

“Um, no. Of course not. A month is fine. Thank you.”

I now needed a prepaid cell phone, so I could receive callbacks for interviews. That took 5 percent of my stash. I’d had to buy the outfit and shoes, too, though both were a tenth what I normally paid for clothes. I’d picked up a cheap briefcase, which doubled as a clothing bag, to hold my jeans and shirt from yesterday and a backup dress shirt. It didn’t seem like much, but I was down three hundred dollars, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.

“You look familiar,” said the receptionist.

Receptionist number six of the day. Five minutes later I couldn’t have told anyone what she looked like. They’d all blended into a homogeneous mush of dour gatekeepers.

I couldn’t have said anything about the reception area, either, except that I was sure it had at least one green plant in the early stages of slow death and a picture of a healthy, flower-bearing one. A desk calendar with a 50 percent chance of displaying the correct month. A bowl of candy. And sporadic voices, maybe even a laugh, from the depths of the offices beyond, teasing me with hints of actual people who could give me an actual job. People I’d never see.

Six receptionists. Six résumés. Six variations on “I’ll pass this along” with six expressions that suggested it wouldn’t get past the nearest shredder.

And yet, in those first five, not one with the reaction I’d feared. Until now.

“Do you live in Evanston? I grew up there,” I lied.

“No, I’ve seen your picture someplace. Recently. Weren’t you in the paper—?” Her mouth formed a perfect O, eyes widening to match. She snatched up my résumé. “Jones? As in Mills & Jones? You’re—”

“Sorry to have wasted your time.” I retreated as fast as I could.

Six stops. Six rejections. I was not getting a job today. Or this week. At least, not the kind of position I’d envisioned. Like the women I’d helped at the shelter, I didn’t have experience. Like them, if I wanted to work, I had to take what I could get.

I’d redo my résumé to highlight my transferable skills, and start a new search tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d find a place to stay.

I stared at the apartment. Two rooms—a bath and a combined kitchen/living/sleeping area. Carpet a half century old, patchy, as if something had been snacking on it. Sofa held up at one corner by a stack of newspapers. The overwhelming stink of cat piss. The smell made me rub my arms, goose bumps rising, anxiety bubbling in my gut.

“I think this is the wrong place,” I said to the woman. “I’m looking for the one advertised—”

“In today’s paper. This is it. Four hundred a month. Take it or leave it.”

I left it. How many times had I helped women find apartments for under five hundred a month? Had I ever seen one of them? Of course not. I just made the arrangements, then someone else took them out to look, and they found one that would do, and I’d ticked another task off my list.

Now, as I tromped through a parade of pest-infested holes, I wondered what kind of place Cathy had ended up in. She’d taken what she could get. It was all she expected from an apartment. All she expected from life.

Finally, I decided I could go as high as six hundred, and found a place that, while tiny and shabby, was in a decent neighborhood, and didn’t stink of anything except air freshener.

“I’ll take it,” I said. “That’s six hundred up front, right?”

“Twelve hundred,” the portly man said. “First and last’s month. Like always.”

I quickly calculated. I’d only have a few hundred left, and I had no idea when I’d get a job and—

I could do this. I’d have a place to sleep, and I’d already bought clothing and toiletries. I’d only need food and cab fare. No, bus fare. I could figure out how to use public transport.

“Twelve hundred then. Okay. So—”

“There’s the damage deposit, too. Another six hundred.”

Another six hundred that I didn’t have. Another apartment that I didn’t get.

The next one on my list was the same price, but also required first and last month’s, plus a thousand dollars damage deposit.

“You don’t seem like the kind of girl who’d cause a lot of trouble, though,” the landlord mused.

“I’m not. Could we do it another way? Take the second month’s rent as a damage deposit, then as soon as I can, I’ll give you an actual deposit.”

“I don’t think we need to make it that complicated. You look like a good girl. Pretty, too. I’m sure we could work something out,” he said, gaze sliding to my chest.

There was a surreal moment where I reflected that this, too, was something new. I’d always escaped roaming hands at crowded parties, alcohol-fueled invitations from college boys. I suppose something about me said I wasn’t the type. But that had changed.

I was vulnerable. And men like this could tell.

“Actually, no,” I said. “It’s not really right for me. I’m sorry. I’ll let myself out.”

I would like to say that I walked out, chin up, pace measured. I didn’t. I practically bolted from the apartment. I reached the front door and swung out, getting some distance before I stopped under a streetlamp, leaning back, breathing. Just breathing.

When I looked around, I realized how quiet everything was. It shouldn’t have been. I was on a busy street, two lanes of late rush-hour traffic making its way to a major thoroughfare. The sidewalk was just as busy, commuters cutting across to the nearest L station. But standing on that corner, it was as if someone had shoved plugs into my ears. Everything was unnaturally hushed, muffled. Dimmed, too, as if my glasses had darkened to shades.

The sounds, the sights, the smells were all so much easier for my brain to process—or not process, but skim past, dismissing as unimportant. And I realized it had been like that all day. Maybe I should have thought, Well, at least one good thing happened to me today. But, as I looked around, anxiety strummed through me, searching for something to latch onto. I don’t know what that meant. Just that I felt as if I was slipping and needed to grab something for traction.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Olivia?”

A man’s voice. Soft. Concerned.

My eyes flew open. I caught a glimpse of a dark overcoat behind a parked SUV. A man coming my way. Light hair flashed over the roof of the vehicle.

James.

I exhaled, the wave of relief so strong I shuddered.

The man hopped onto the sidewalk and grinned my way, and I just stood there, staring at him, blinking, as if my eyeglass prescription was wrong.

Not James.

A stranger. With a camera. Lifting it. Pointing at me.

My hands flew to my face.

The shutter whirred and every ounce of frustration in me hardened. This was why I was out here, alone and exhausted. It wasn’t because I’d discovered I was adopted. It wasn’t because I’d discovered my parents were Todd and Pamela Larsen. It was reporters like this son of a bitch, him and all the ghouls at home, slavering for tawdry tidbits.

“People want to hear your story, Olivia,” the man said as he continued toward me, camera raised. “They want to know what you’re going through.”

“What I’m going through?” I snarled, my hands falling away. “They have no goddamned idea what I’m going through. They don’t care. They just want a story. A good old-fashioned horror story.”

He stepped back and I thought, There. Just stand firm and they’ll back down. But then I remembered standing in my hallway, telling off Niles Gunderson, just in time to block my face as the reporter’s camera started snapping.

“Come on, Olivia,” he said. “Show them what you really think of them. This is your chance. Tell them all to go to hell.”

I spun and marched down the sidewalk.

“You’re news, honey,” he called after me. “Get used to it.”