Under Her Skin Read online

  She shoved the ID under the door and waited, crouched down, eyes flicking from the road to the house and back. Looking for Joey. Always looking for Joey.

  Abruptly, the door swung open, and Uma found herself on the floor, sprawled gracelessly at the slippered feet of her new employer.

  “Jane Smith, hmm?”

  “Actually, I go by Crane. It’s, uh, Uma Crane.”

  “No kidding. Well, don’t just lie there. Come inside before you let all the heat out.” The heat? It must’ve been eighty degrees outside.

  Uma took her first good look at her new employer. Even from her vantage point on the floor, it was obvious that the woman was short, almost perfectly round, as wide as she was tall, and Uma was willing to bet she couldn’t fit through a doorway straight on. Coke-bottle lenses gave her dark eyes an owlish quality, which, when fixed on Uma, was rather disconcerting. An extreme case of helmet hair—round, glossy, and black—and a dark wooden cane completed the look. Uma had the distinct impression that she’d fallen straight into a spider’s web.

  Old hag in need of live-in helper to abuse. Nothing kinky.

  I won’t let her hurt me, she decided in that moment. No way will she walk all over me.

  “It looks like I’m your new live-in helper.” She forced a goofy smile. “I guess that makes you the old hag.”

  The woman’s eyes opened even wider, then narrowed to slits. “If you want your purse, you’d best take it now, else it’ll stay outside.” Uma rose and barely managed to snag her bag before the woman slammed the door and locked it with a definitive series of thunk-clicks. Four times she locked it, followed by a belated fifth.

  Uma was inside. It should have been comforting, the knowledge that she was locked away, safely hidden. So why did she feel as though she’d jumped from the fire right back into the frying pan?

  * * *

  Ms. Lloyd’s house was like the Land Where Time Had Stopped. It owed its decor almost entirely to Laura Ashley, circa 1986. It was okay, if a little…still. As though nothing could move within its confines. Stale, close air where not even the dust dared to fly.

  Someone had clearly cared about decorating once upon a time but lacked either the desire or the resources to keep it up-to-date. The result was like one of those time capsules. The furniture looked cared for but worn and had no doubt been the height of middle-class fashion in its day. The tables were dark wood, and the carpeting must once have been white or cream. Today it was the color of a tan Band-Aid. The only new thing in the place was the television. A ridiculously wide flat-screen dominated the living room, managing, through its sleek simplicity, to look almost like a piece of modern art.

  As she took it all in, breathing the musty smell of a house long kept closed, the woman’s big, black eyes followed her. “You look older than twenty-six.” Charming. Her voice was high, girlish. It didn’t match her dark looks. “And you’re late, Irma.”

  “It’s Uma.”

  “You’re late.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.” Uma took a breath, determined not to let her new boss cow her. “You must not have heard me knock the first time. I went around to see if you were in back.”

  “Is that what they call it nowadays?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Flirtin’. I saw you over there with my neighbor,” she said, her gaze swiping up and down Uma’s body one time. “I know your type.”

  Her type? On this unseasonably sticky October day, Uma must have been the only person for miles whose body was covered from head to toe. She wore jeans and a dark, long-sleeved, cotton shirt, a scarf tied around her neck. In fact, the only person she’d seen showing less skin was standing in front of her.

  Their outfits were embarrassingly similar.

  “What can I do to get started?” Uma asked, choosing to ignore the woman’s vitriol. I’m stronger than you, she thought, hoping it was true.

  “You can start by making me dinner. I’ve been half-starved here waitin’ for you. As I told you on the phone: you cook, you clean, you shop, you run my errands. I pay you every week the first month, then every other week after that. If I decide to keep you on.” Ms. Lloyd pursed her lips and squinted at Uma as if she found the notion highly unlikely. “No phone calls, no men. No back talk.”

  Silently, Uma followed the woman’s slow limp into the kitchen, where dishes overflowed the double sink and big, brown stains spread across the white linoleum floor.

  “You talk, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you understand the rules, or do I need to write them down for you?” She enunciated carefully, as if speaking to a slow child.

  “I understand.”

  “I take my dinner at five, sharp. Early-bird hour.” More like geriatric hour, Uma thought, the little bit of meanness giving her a semblance of power. “I won’t stand for missing any of my stories, so you’d best hurry. Might want to clean first, though.” Ms. Lloyd sank into a chair at the kitchen table and turned the full intensity of her dark eyes onto Uma.

  This is it, Uma thought, taking in the stinking mess. My life. This is my fucking life.

  She picked up the sponge, dark and shriveled, hard as rock, and ran it under water that took ages to heat. Breath coming fast, her heart fluttered with panic. All she wanted was to run.

  I can do this. This is nothing. She’s an old woman. She can’t hurt me. This was about her future, about getting back some kind of life—a prospect that had seemed utterly impossible until she’d heard the interview that brought her here: a doctor offering free tattoo removal.

  If anything, she needed to look at this job as a mental exercise. Physical activity to take her mind off everything else. Besides, fighting makes you stronger, right?

  “You’re getting your sleeves wet,” Ms. Lloyd’s voice cut in, pointing out the obvious—and the one thing Uma had hoped she wouldn’t notice.

  “I’m fine like this,” Uma responded, sounding silly and small, despite all efforts at strength. “I don’t mind getting wet.”

  Uma attacked the dishes with energy, if not gusto. Crusted bits came off slowly under liberal applications of soap and elbow grease, and all the while, she endured the woman’s stare. Eventually, the dishes in the rack outnumbered the ones in the sink, and finally, the sink was empty.

  “The menu du jour is soup and grilled cheese. Easy peasy. If you cook as good as you clean, we just might get along.”

  Easy peasy was right. It took only a few minutes before she plopped two plates and bowls down on the tiny kitchen table and moved to sit across from her new employer, stomach growling in anticipation.

  From somewhere close by, a bell rang. It was an old-fashioned rotary-phone sound that the woman ignored.

  “Need me to get that?” Uma asked.

  “Nope. Got a bathroom upstairs needs cleaning.” The woman’s words stopped her before Uma could pick up her spoon.

  “You want me to clean before I eat?” Uma asked, poised above the seat, the smell of food teasing her taste buds with a rush of saliva.

  A raised eyebrow was the woman’s only response, and Uma shut her eyes against the hunger. Work first, eat later. She could do this.

  “Fine,” she said, straightening. Strong. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Upstairs hall. Second door on the left. Supplies are down here. Your room’s the last one on the right. Don’t dawdle, and don’t open the other doors. It’s private.” As if Uma cared what the woman kept in her house.

  She squatted in front of the cupboard and rummaged around, the smells of bleach and melted Velveeta mingling in her empty stomach to make her gag. If the state of the kitchen was any indication, conditions upstairs were likely dire.

  She stood, arms filled with containers of products so viscous they’d need to be chipped out.

  Ms. Lloyd sniffed, her voice following Uma out. “It�
��s not the worst grilled cheese I ever ate.”

  Limbs heavy, Uma stomped slowly up the stairs, fairly certain that the comment was her new boss’s idea of a compliment.

  * * *

  An hour later, Uma stopped in the hallway on her way downstairs. There was nothing personal in this house, nothing human. The walls were decorated with crying-clown prints and bird lithographs. All signs pointed to Ms. Lloyd being a lonely, lonely woman.

  She looked at each frame she passed until… Oh. Uma set down the bucket of cleaning supplies and leaned in to peer at the picture. A wedding photograph, man and woman both smiling happily. It looked informal, like a town hall affair, maybe taken sometime in the seventies. The woman was a thinner, happier, pretty Ms. Lloyd. There was something about the photo—the hope, the excitement, the infinite possibilities alive in their eyes. Uma swallowed the lump in her throat and picked up the bucket, walking away.

  What kind of life was this? Meals, TV, bed…the same rituals day in and day out.

  God, what if she became this woman further down the road? She might not even take that long to sink to such lonely ruination. Uma and Ms. Lloyd—bonded in loneliness. The thought repulsed her but also brought with it the strangest desire to better understand her boss.

  Downstairs, the woman snored on her chintz sofa in front of Wheel of Fortune. Uma’s eyes skimmed over the ugliest doily arm protectors she’d ever seen to where gnarled hands lay clasped in her lap. Out of nowhere came the weirdest urge to take one of those hands in hers. Would her fingers be cold, dry talons, or would they be warm and soft from sleep?

  No. Not Uma’s problem. Empathy was a luxury she could ill afford. Maybe someday, but her stock was currently depleted.

  She tiptoed into the kitchen and wolfed down her meal. Cold.

  Once she’d eaten and finished the dishes, she looked around. The rooster clock on the wall told her it was just after 7:00 p.m. The sun had set, and the air was finally cool. The prospect of the long, dark, lonely night stretching ahead had Uma searching the house for something else to occupy her time.

  Her eyes fell on the cupboard beneath the sink. Yuck. Might as well start there.

  Three hours later, she’d finished the kitchen, to the sounds of game shows, the news, and the strains of big voices singing pop songs she didn’t recognize. Funny that Ms. Lloyd was probably more up on whatever the kids were watching today than she was. Uma couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down and watched TV. Other than the first week in the shelter, she hadn’t had the luxury of a television in six months, and before that…before that, she’d been cajoled into watching shows. But that was different. Usually football or cop shows. Joey, “the expert,” always talked through everything, criticizing the inconsistencies.

  Only ten o’clock. Uma took another look around. Was it worth continuing on to the next room? The clean gleam was so satisfying, she would almost have liked to go on all night. Little grunts emerged from the sleeping form on the sofa, making her decision for her. She put the cleaning things away and turned off the television, then took a deep breath and gently shook the woman.

  “Ms. Lloyd?” she said quietly. “Ma’am?”

  “Huh? Wha—?” Her boss looked almost like a baby, blinking the sleep out of her huge eyes. A fat baby owl.

  “It’s ten o’clock, and you fell asleep.” Uma’s hand remained on the woman’s arm, oddly protective.

  “Of course I didn’t.” Ms. Lloyd pushed the hand away, an irritable, old-lady shove, and stood up on her own. “You been cleaning the bathroom this whole time?”

  “No. I cleaned the kitchen too. Would you like some help getting upstairs?”

  “Of cour… What’s that stench?”

  “Stench?”

  “It smells like… Did you use bleach?” She ended on a shrill note, nearly a screech.

  “Just in there.”

  “How in God’s name am I supposed to get to sleep with that smell? What were you thinking, girl?”

  Uma refrained from mentioning that the stench hadn’t stopped her from snoring through hours of scintillating programming. “I could open some windows.”

  Ms. Lloyd gasped as if Uma had suggested killing her firstborn. “Are you insane? Anyone could get in! You make sure you check the windows and doors every night before bed. Go on. Do it!” Ms. Lloyd shuffled to the back door, unlocked and relocked it, throwing the dead bolt four times, with a belated fifth. Her eyes followed Uma as she moved to the windows and tested locks. “You missed one. Look again.”

  No. Uma hadn’t missed any windows, but she did as requested. “Do it twice if you have to.” Every window, every door was locked, relocked, bolted, and double-checked.

  Again, Uma caught herself feeling sorry for Ms. Lloyd, finally understanding the extent to which she’d made herself a prisoner in her own home. She wondered what had happened to make the woman need this level of protection, this shell. At first, she’d doubted there was truly a need for live-in help, when a cook or a cleaner would do just as well. It had seemed like a bit of vanity: a minion to do the crappy jobs, someone to push around. But Uma saw how badly Ms. Lloyd needed someone. In exchange for food, a roof over her head, and a few hundred dollars a month, Uma very well might be providing Ms. Lloyd’s sole connection to the outside world.

  How very, very tragic to be stuck all alone in this frozen, desiccated place.

  In the upstairs hall, Ms. Lloyd stopped in front of the first door and said, “I need you awake tomorrow mornin’ at five o’clock sharp. Any lateness will be docked from your pay. Now help me to bed.”

  * * *

  Uma had always been very sensitive to place. Anything remotely off, and she’d lie stewing for hours. The house, with its crammed decorations, dust, and gaping holes where memories should be, was an overwhelming presence, like an overdecorated wedding cake left stale and hulking in a corner long after the big event was canceled. Nothing but a badge of shame to be hidden away.

  Uma closed her eyes, trying to force her mind to still. She always envied people who found sleep easily. Joey had been like that. He’d lie down, clamp one arm tightly around Uma’s waist, and immediately fall into a deep, perfectly civilized sleep. No tossing or turning for him. Nothing to stain his pristine conscience. For Uma, the quiet, still night was like a vacuum, waiting to be filled with every doubt and worry her brain could offer up.

  Insomnia greeted her in that minuscule room, the same as it did anywhere else: racing around her own brain, replaying events, wondering how it all could have come out differently. The dark ate at her, stole her breath, poisoned her thoughts. She wondered if she might die there.

  Uma practiced her breathing exercises, teeth clamped tightly onto the meaty part of her thumb, and forced her brain to seek out something good, something positive.

  After what must have been hours, she arose from the single bed and pulled a straight-backed chair up to the window.

  Although they weren’t visible, the foothills of the Blue Ridge were just past the woods and the grassy field out back. This and the place next door were the last homes before the lush, green ground moved gently but inexorably up and up. Beyond the hills were the violet-crested mountains. Country songs and anthems of yore ran through her head as she stared out at the dark. Songs her parents had sung when they were still together. Loving John Denver was one of the few things they’d agreed on.

  Her window looked out on the next-door neighbor’s house. Ive. Ivan. Ivan the Terrible. Ivan Denisovich? What was that? Maybe something she’d read in high school. Or Ivanhoe. Thoughts of Russia and England ran circles through her brain: a bearded man grimacing and an old film her dad had let her watch, illicitly, while her mom was away on one of her retreats. There were vague images of jousting, aggression, and blood, which fit in nicely with the face she couldn’t stop picturing.

  It was good, thinking of him. So much better than th
e alternative.

  She imagined the sound of his name in his oddly rough voice. It had crackled when he spoke, like spitting logs in a fire. Ive. Burl Ives and Christmas, children skating, and Norman Rockwell. She pictured the red tricycle in his driveway—something else she would probably never have. She huffed out an annoyed breath at herself.

  What do I want anyway? A tricycle in front of a picture-perfect house? A big, scarred lumberjack man with intense eyes and a sweet dog to welcome me home at night?

  Who the hell was she kidding? That wasn’t even Uma’s fantasy, anyway.

  Her fantasy was… What was it?

  It had been the big city once upon a time. Artists and galleries with her work on the walls. Now…she had no idea. Besides, people like her didn’t have sweet babies and lovely houses with flowers and landscaped gardens, husbands who mowed lawns. No, people like Uma made bad decisions, loved the wrong men, and eventually had to run far away from them, only to end up working for sad, old hags.

  They had quite a lot in common, Ms. Lloyd and Uma. The woman didn’t go outside; that seemed pretty clear. And though Uma may not have been quite there yet, the way her boss had shut herself in, the frantic rituals of her life, were eerily familiar.

  Her isolation may have been self-imposed, but that didn’t seem to make it any easier to break free. And Uma… Well, she’d been in a prison of her own making. She’d chosen to stay with Joey, despite all signs that she should go.

  If she could rip off her skin and start all over again, she would. Before she could become like Ms. Lloyd. Before she could be trapped.

  A dull sound cut through the spiral of thoughts dragging Uma down. It was loud enough to distract her from feeling sorry for herself—always a good thing—and repetitive enough to pique her curiosity. The lock on the window turned easily when she twisted it, but sliding the sash up was another story. She pushed and pulled, wanting—no, needing—to breathe the fresh country air. The sound continued, a bright punctuation in the still night, but she didn’t dare bang on the window to try to get it unstuck. She sat there instead, face pressed to the cool glass, and wondered.