Pretend I'm Dead_A Novel by Jen Beagin

Author:Jen Beagin [Beagin, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Humour
ISBN: 9781501183942
Amazon: B078M5C765
Goodreads: 38745729
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2015-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

BETTY

FROM A DISTANCE SHE COULD pass for Spanish but up close she was just ridiculously tan with dyed black hair. This may explain why the woman trailing behind her across the store parking lot kept yelling hola in her direction. She pretended not to hear and continued wheeling the cart toward her truck.

“Por favor, please,” the woman called out in a tired voice.

Por favor, please, Mona repeated to herself, and smiled. She stopped walking and turned around. It was the petite redhead she’d noticed earlier, squeezing peaches in the produce section. She’d liked the expression on the woman’s face because it had seemed to say “Wow, these peaches are superripe” and “Sadly, I don’t especially like peaches” simultaneously.

Somehow she’d failed to notice the woman’s outfit before: low-cut green angora sweater, leopard-print velour leggings, white leather high-tops. The woman’s cleavage was sun damaged and livid red. Her hair was a similar red, but brighter, obviously enhanced with a rinse. Like most redheads, she probably thought she looked best in green.

“Gracias,” the woman said as she caught up. She was older than Mona initially thought: late forties, early fifties.

“I speak English.” First words of the day.

The woman removed her enormous sunglasses and looked Mona in the eye. “Oh, right,” she said.

There was something unnatural about the woman’s eyes that Mona couldn’t put her finger on.

“You do cleaning, right?” the woman asked. “I noticed your, uh, apron.”

She nodded, offered her hand. “Mona,” she said.

“Betty McKenzie,” the woman said, grasping Mona’s fingers rather than her whole hand. She suspected Betty was one of those people who always introduced themselves with their full name, even when meeting three-year-olds.

She realized what was strange about the woman’s eyes: she was wearing blue contacts on what were already very blue eyes, which made them inescapably, unyieldingly blue, a color that made Mona think of fate or acts of God.

“Wait a minute. I’ve heard of you,” Betty said. “I mean, you were recommended to me once.”

“By whom?” Mona asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Adrienne Payne,” Betty said.

Ah, Adrienne, the pain-in-the-ass vegan and a referral from Henry. She’d made an unusual request: she asked Mona to refrain from bringing animal products of any kind onto her property, as it “disturbed the energy” in her house. This included the obvious—meat and dairy—but also the leather shoes Mona preferred to work in, along with her leather belt. Adrienne was otherwise fairly low maintenance, so this didn’t seem like such a big deal. Mona figured she would just eat carrots if she got hungry. But there was something about Adrienne’s house—the “energy,” perhaps—that made Mona ravenous, and she often found herself craving fried chicken, Frito pie, hamburgers, and milk shakes. Still, she managed to respect Adrienne’s wishes and ate neither meat nor dairy in the house or even in the yard.

Things ended badly, however. Mona had been scheduled to clean while Adrienne was out of town, mushroom hunting in some forest in the Pacific Northwest, which was Adrienne’s idea of a good time.

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