But a Pollyanna calls attention to herself, whereas a Pauline doesn’t. The point of becoming Pauline Smith four years ago was to disappear and start over.
So why was she in that bar, Wagner’s, the night she met Gregg? It was within walking distance of the motel, no more than a mile or two, although that strip of Joppa Road wasn’t very friendly to pedestrians. Dark, with cracked sidewalks leading past stores with dusty windows, places that sell things like blinds and suitcases and tile. She wasn’t officially Pauline Smith yet, but she was on her way, trying the name out in anticipation of the day the paperwork came through. Still, it was dangerous to go to that bar. She could have been spotted by someone who knew her well enough not to be fooled by the red hair, long as it was by then. She couldn’t have long hair when she was married to Ditmars. Too much like a leash, too easy to grab.
Gregg was very ordinary trouble at least. Fun, at first. She didn’t expect to see him again after that first night—and maybe she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t gone back to Wagner’s two nights later. Of course, she could never take him to the motel, she saw that right away. And she didn’t have a phone. She told him that when he asked and he laughed, thinking she was making a joke. “I don’t,” she said. “Give me your number and I promise I’ll call you.” She made good on her promise seventy-two hours later, calling from a pay phone outside the Bel-Loc Diner. When he asked her out for a real date, she told him that she worked at the mall and he could pick her up in the food court. They went to a movie, had pizza. Then came the question she dreaded: “Can I take you home?”
“Take me for a drive,” she said. “Out into the country.”
Fifteen minutes later, she asked him to pull into the deserted parking lot outside a greenhouse, led him into a copse of trees. He actually believed that this was her thing, that she didn’t want to make love in a bed, hardly ever. All summer long, they did it outdoors and when fall came and her new identity was under way and she could get a for-real job—waitressing, at a decent place, a Crab Imperial kind of place with fat tips, although the cab fare ate up too much of her earnings for the job to be practical—she started taking him into bathrooms and, once, the dressing room at Nordstrom. Sometimes they used his bed, at his crummy apartment over on Loch Raven, but the pilled sheets, even when clean, felt itchy.
She put a deposit down on a sweet little place over the city line, near Belvedere Square. It was an old Victorian cut up into apartments, so the appliances were half-assed and the closets tiny, but she didn’t mind. It was hers, the first place that had ever been hers. Still, she wouldn’t have sex with Gregg there. Force of habit, she guessed, although maybe there was something deeper going on, some part of her mind trying to tell her that her new life was here and it was time to leave Gregg behind, the last station on her journey to becoming Pauline Smith.
Then she peed on a stick and her life was over. Again.
She had misread him, badly. She believed him when he said he wanted their child. She told herself she had to stop thinking that every man was Ditmars, acted like Ditmars, thought like Ditmars. But maybe they were. She remembers when Gregg spanked her the first time. She went numb, limp, terrified that she was going to do something crazy. But then it turned out that was all he wanted, just a few light slaps, nothing more. She still wants to laugh when she remembers his face when she asked if he wanted a few whacks. That was something to behold. This gander wanted no sauce, but he had to take it or be exposed for the bully he was.
“She’s eating ice cream for breakfast!” The older boy is pointing a finger in her face, almost touching the tip of her nose. It takes enormous control not to swat that finger away.
“She’s a grown-up.”
The boy continues to glare. Polly levels her eyes on him. He holds her stare for an impressive amount of time, but he finally folds.
The woman struggles to get him into the two-seater stroller with his brother, to roll out the door into the already burning hot day. She and Polly have the same number of hours ahead of them. But for Polly, who is on her day off, the hours feel like a long, slow bath in which she can luxuriate, whereas this young woman is confined, caught. Down in South Carolina, a woman is being tried for drowning her own kids, letting a car roll forward into a lake with them still strapped in the back. She claimed she was carjacked, but it turned out she just wanted to start over without the kids. A new man had entered the picture. A horrible thing to do—and yet what would you have her do? Men leave their kids all the time and no one thinks them unnatural for it. Not great guys, but not deviants. Women seldom have that option.
Everyone likes to tell that story about the mom who was able to lift a car off her toddler, how maternal love can give you superstrength. Polly’s pretty sure it’s bullshit. Besides, what if you’re under the car with your kid? What do you do then? You can’t save a kid if you can’t save yourself.
She grabs a PennySaver, heads out into the long July day.
9
Adam is enjoying life more than he should. At least, that’s the opinion of his boss—his real boss, not Mr. C—who is skeptical at the lack of results Adam has posted. But what can he do? It was never his intention to wind up here in Belleville. And he’s keeping expenses to a minimum. His client actually has the nerve to suggest that Adam’s earnings at the High-Ho should be counted against his per diem.
“Yeah, it doesn’t work that way,” he tells him. He cannot believe this guy wants to nickel and dime him all of a sudden.
“I don’t know,” the client says with a sigh. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s no money. Remember, 20 percent of nothing is nothing.”
Yeah, that’s why I’m charging you expenses plus forty hours a week, Adam thinks. And I could be charging you for my time 24/7, but I’m a good guy. You’re only paying me for the time I’m actively with her.
They are talking on his room phone. Adam has a mobile, but he tries not to use it and keeps it in his room at all times. A guy who takes a job working as a short-order cook wouldn’t have a phone like his. He did opt to use his real name, Adam Bosk, to keep things simple. If she got suspicious, she could go to the DMV over the line in Maryland and do a search—but why would she be suspicious? And how would she get there? Besides, all she would find is his address and his spotless driving record. Tell as few lies as possible, that’s his rule.
He knows he’s lucky now that he wasn’t able to strike up a friendship with Gregg at the beach, per the original plan. Because if he had started hanging out with her husband before she split, there’s no way he could have shown up here, too, in Belleville.
Why is she here? Does her husband know where she is? Does the husband know anything? Why did she leave him? And her little girl, how does that work? Feral, his client says of her. No capacity for genuine emotion. She’s out for herself, always.
“Whatever you do,” his client says, “don’t turn your back on her.” Then he chuckles in an odd way. “Even face-to-face, you might not be safe with that one.”