“He won’t last against you,” I say.
She gives me a sideways look. “Art of Yegina,” she says appreciatively.
Our shoes clack, thud, and slap the bricks: me in Mary Janes, Yegina in platforms, Dee in construction boots, and Evie in pumps. We toss our long hair, tuck our short hair, blink in full makeup or lipstick only. We’re so different, I sometimes don’t know what holds us together—is it just this moment of extended youth? Is it that we don’t know how to grow older? Or why we should? None of us are married or mothers, none high enough in our career ladder, none younger than almost thirty. At this age, our own mothers were already raising their children, and their friends who never wed mostly chose from a short list of occupations: teacher, nurse, secretary, or nun. Our generation knows—we’ve known since childhood—that we could be anyone. We are pioneers in the brave new land that feminism and birth control have opened: sexually free, unencumbered by kids, able to pay our own way. We don’t exactly need men, and they get this and maybe bank on it, in a way that their fathers couldn’t. We support each other through their departures, and watch our age tick higher. Some of us marry our jobs. Some of us date women instead. Some say we’ll just wait until thirty-eight, find a sperm donor, and raise a kid ourselves. We read about extraordinary women, women our age leading companies and curing malaria, and remind ourselves we should work harder, be smarter, don’t waste time. We plan for a second master’s degree, in something practical. We try capoeira and knitting. We take care of our slim bodies. We can be fascinating in conversation, and fearless in bed. We can do anything. So why do I feel like we are frozen, too, set on display until someone rearranges us? Still lives.
I ask Yegina if she knows about her ex-husband’s sitar school. To my surprise, she doesn’t seem especially interested.
“Good for him,” she says. “Los Angeles was really lacking in businesses started by washed-up musicians.”
“Speaking of exes, heard anything new about Shaw?” Dee says to me.
I shake my head, willing Evie to stay silent. She looks blankly at a man in a dirt-smeared plaid shirt picking in a trash can, and says nothing.
“Kim’s parents were on the news earlier,” says Dee. “Seemed like a normal Canadian couple, if you ask me. Distraught, of course, but they didn’t place any blame on Shaw.” She rubs her tattooed right arm, a sleeve of roses. “I’m just shocked that no one mentioned her sister.”
“Whose sister?” Yegina and I say in unison.
As we cluster closer, bumping elbows, Dee tells us that Kim Lord spent a whole afternoon at the crew office a couple of weeks ago because she was concerned about the lighting in one of the galleries. And then she got to talking to Dee about light sources—because, apparently, this is what artists talk about—and Kim said she’d grown up with long, dark winters in Toronto and so was acutely sensitive to L.A.’s brightness. Also, that she associated white light with fear, because her older sister used to wake her up every night by shining a flashlight in her eyes.
“She literally said to me, ‘Voices were telling her I was dead,’” Dee says. Kim also told Dee that her sister had vanished from her rehab facility in Toronto a month ago.
“Do the police know?” says Evie.
“They must,” says Dee.
Kim Lord has a troubled sister. Was she the older woman in the flash drive photo? Is she dangerous? Dee’s news is like a minor chord, altering the tone of the scene around us: the flow of the marble fountains deepens to a harsh rush; the stark sun and shadows of midday seem locked in battle. It’s odd information to come from Dee now. She could have mentioned it during Craft Club, but instead she brought up Greg then, too. She’s always so interested in Greg. Or so eager to cast blame on him? We’re almost to the gym now. We halt together at a busy intersection near the crest of Bunker Hill and the steps down to the public library, and wait for the light.
“How come you never told us this before?” demands Yegina. “Here Maggie’s been on a quest to prove her stalker theory.”
“I love stalker theories,” Dee says. “But come on.” She spins on me. “Don’t you suspect Shaw just a teeny-weeny bit?”
“No,” I say flatly. “He was out walking on the night she disappeared.”
“Walking,” Dee repeats. “In Los Angeles. All night long?”
I hate the conclusions in Dee’s pale eyes, in this whole sensationalizing city.
“Why didn’t you mention her sister before?” I say.
Dee watches a flurry of pigeons ascending from some scattered bread. “Kim didn’t sound afraid of her sister,” she says slowly. “But I did hear her complain about Shaw.”
“When did she complain?”
“Down in the crew office. Her phone kept dinging. She said he wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“But when?” I ask again.
“I don’t know. Tuesday?” Now she gives me a pitying gaze. “I’m sorry, mate. This must be wretched to hear.”
“Look. Greg told me he was innocent. He … he only talks about her in the present tense,” I say. “I know him. He’s heartbroken.” My voice catches on the last word.
My friends’ heads all swivel.
“Oh, sweetie,” Yegina says. She’s wearing black today. It heightens the contrast in her complexion, her darkness and her paleness, and turns her into a woodcut of disapproval. She doesn’t believe me either.
None of them do.
I really need to get off this subject.
I nudge Dee. “Hey, I heard you’re taking Evie on a tour of Janis Rocque’s famous sculpture garden. Can we all go?”
Thankfully Yegina practically explodes into rainbows at the idea, and this topic takes us all the way into the gym, through the locker room, and up the stairs to the spin studio.
Our spin instructor is a Frenchman with a lavishly hunky sense of himself; he stares at his own gyrating body with infectious longing as he rides up nonexistent hills. Denis has a huge following and people mob every class. My friends and I each have to hurry inside for a bike and slam down onto it. The lights dim. Denis’s techno track layers beats over our buzzing wheels. We sit on our hard seats, trying to keep pace. A wall of mirrors reflects us, pumping and frowning, but Denis is faster. His legs blur at measureless speeds. His sweat pours like a libation to the floor.
“Find a friend and catch up! Make a team!” shouts Denis as we log our thirtieth minute. This is one of his tricks: first we compete, then we compete again and pretend it’s collaboration.
I look back toward Evie, who always spins so fast her wheels are humming clouds. Her face is a slick of sweat. Her thighs and upper arms bulge with flexed muscle. No one works harder in this class, or at any other workout. I never catch her, but that’s why she’s good for me.
“Someone very scahhhh-ry is chasing you both! He’s gaining. He’s gaining. Go faster!”
I look for Yegina’s glowing face in the reflection. We don’t like when Denis does his boogeyman tactic in class, but we put up with it because the workout is so tough. And because Denis is so delighted with his dumb idea and his sexy accent that it comes across as a joke.
“He’s gaining! Go faster!”
Today the threat feels different to me, and I wish Yegina would meet my eyes in the mirror and silently agree. We don’t need this. We need fake mountains to climb, and fake wind in our faces, and fake victories over fake finish lines, but we don’t need fake perpetrators. Look here, I will Yegina, staring her down in her reflection. Let’s stop pedaling. Let’s stop together. But she’s staring off into space, her lips parted, unreachable.