Kiss Kill Vanish by Martinez Jessica

Author:Martinez,Jessica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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TWENTY-TWO

“So do you want to come with us?” Nanette asks.

“Hmm?” I’m not listening. Whatever she’s been saying has not been as interesting as watching my mug of soup twirl around through the microwave door. The can said heirloom tomato bisque, but it looks like your standard tomato soup to me.

“To the Jello Bar?”

I pull myself away from the microwave. Nanette’s eyebrows are raised hopefully (her version of a smile), and she’s wearing a sequined tank and tight jeans. I barely recognize her out of her scrubs. She should be annoyed with me for pretending to listen to her for the last minute or two, but Nanette’s emotions don’t seem to exist in extremes.

“There’s live music tonight,” she adds.

“Oh. Thanks. I have some stuff I have to do.”

“Okay.”

“Have fun, though,” I add as an afterthought.

She nods and leaves.

I’m a jerk. And I really need to buy her a bag of pretzels to replace that one I borrowed.

The microwave groans on. I stare out the tiny window over the kitchen table, where more snow is muffling the world beyond. Montreal’s silence is denser now that Emilio has come and gone, piling up like that windowsill snow, filling minutes and hours that have become weeks, until there’s nothing but white silence. Every day I don’t hear from Emilio my view shrinks, my prison wall thickens.

It was better before. I’d left a murderer in Miami, and the heartbreak was deep, necessary, and final. But then he showed up and told me things, and made me . . . what, forgive? More like hope, and hope sucks. Hope has made the heartbreak deeper, unnecessary, and unending.

The microwave beeps. I take my mug to my closet, sit cross-legged on the cot, and take a sip. It’s tepid. That microwave sucks. Not going back to heat it on the stove may be the best evidence of the depth of my pathetic state, but realizing this doesn’t make me any more likely to fix it. So it’s not hot. So what.

The mandolin is beneath me. Sometimes I can ignore it, but today I feel it pulsing under the bed like the telltale heart, and I’m half tempted to chuck it out into the hall so I can drink my lukewarm heirloom tomato bisque and stare at the wall in peace. I don’t bring it to Soupe au Chocolate anymore. I just clean. The job isn’t fun, but it’s a job, and it’s better now that Nanette has clued me in on the correct ratio of bleach to water. Turns out it’s more like one to fifty—another valuable life lesson I managed to dodge. I didn’t tell Nanette that I mixed it half and half that first time, since she already must think I’m the biggest idiot. The upside: I’ve made enough money to buy a skirt.

I wonder if Lola and Ana know about diluting bleach. I’d be surprised.

It’s been over a week since I saw Marcel, over a week since Emilio tried to call, but it seems more like a month.

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