Bury This by Andrea Portes Read Free Book Online

anything. More like she sat and waited, waited for what . . . them to like her? Them to accept her. Them to tell her she was there.
    How could they turn off the camera when . . . when behind her there is a sink full of dishes, sideways on a slant, and at her feetis a cat toy and she has the kitty litter right under the table. No, it was too good. Keep the camera running. Let’s get this.
    And the tears. The blubbering. Slobby, sniveling tears into the Kleenex and the snot, too. A lesson in Americanism. Now. Hysterics. Drama in a stucco complex. Sadness the depth of a cereal box.
    So, there she is, for all to see, forever, sobbing into the camera, saying, “I just . . . I just can’t understand who would do such a thing. . . . And how . . . even now . . . after all these years . . . they could live with themselves.” Snivel. Blow nose. Blot face.
    â€œI know I couldn’t.”

EIGHT
    T he motel clerk who’d hired Beth all those centuries ago had a taut stretched face from smoking and stretching and smoking and stretching her skin. Pull pull pulling it tight tight and over her ears, sewing it, bolting it down. It seems she’d hit it big, this banana-haired lady, married an auto exec, moved to Bloomfield Hills. Those coupon days back in Muskegon, a thing of never-talking, a thing of leave-behind.
    Here, at the Radisson Lobby Bar in Bloomfield Hills, you would not believe she had been the one to actually hire Beth. But Danek and Katy had driven out here, three hours, to get it right.
    It wasn’t drinking time but black roots was having a drink. The white wine spritzer set down before her at the lobby bar, guilty, on the tiny circle table, had prompted her.
    â€œIt’s five o’clock somewhere.”
    Danek and Katy had smiled politely, not wanting to seem snooty, wanting to take off this college kid armor, leave it at coat-check, don it later. Now we are investigators. Now we are friends.
    Danek had typed up the list of questions. Katy would ask them, of course, she’d be better. Put the lady at ease. Girl talk.
    â€œDo you remember the afternoon you hired Beth Krause? At the Green Mill Inn?”
    â€œBarely. Honestly, look. It’s been awhile.”
    Staring nervously into the camera. How do I look? Fluffing up her hair. Danek behind the camera . . . fine . . . you look fine. Great even. Don’t change a thing. Just try to focus on the questions. Try to remember.
    â€œEven just a small thing?”
    â€œWell, I . . . I remember she seemed kind of out of place, you know? She seemed kind of like . . . well, I was thinking, What do you want this shit-ass job for? A pretty girl like you.”
    Katy laughed with her, a casual we’re-in-it-together laugh. Keep her happy. Keep her comfortable.
    â€œI guess I worked there, so why not, right? I wasn’t that bad to look at. Not then anyway.”
    â€œOh, c’mon, you look great, are you kidding?”
    Keep her cozy. All is well.
    She shrugs now, “A shitty job’s a shitty job, you know. No matter how you slice it.”
    â€œThat is for sure. I’ve had my fair share.”
    A lie, of course. Katy had never had a job, other than babysitting her cousin over summers in Saginaw. A family job. A job to say you’ve had a job. Teach the value of a dollar. But not really. Not a crapsicle french fry job, not a frazzle-brain, answer-twelve-phone-lines front desk job. A kid job, no danger of an accidental brush with humanity. That cement block future of toil.
    â€œYou have?” Blondie looks relieved. We’re peers. “Oh good. Well, that’s what this was.”
    â€œAnd what did it entail?”
    Danek behind the camera, Danek thinking about ordering a drink. Maybe a gin and tonic. Maybe a Pimm’s. No, too summery. Maybe a whiskey and Coke. Maybe one for Katy, too. That might work.
    â€œYou know, we had to check people in, check ’em out. Simple stuff.”
    The tiny circle