Read Online The Girl in Times Square by Paullina Simons - Free Book Online
Authors: Paullina Simons
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Lily didn’t think an electromagnetic recording was necessary. She signed the missing person’s report, threw away her bloodied cotton wool, took his business card and stepped to the door. O’Malley remained sitting behind the table, his feet up on a chair,
“Still, though, doesn’t it niggle you a little bit, Miss Quinn,” said Detective O’Malley, placing his hands behind his head, “just a tiny bit, that your good friend wouldn’t tell you about her love life? I mean, why would she keep that a secret from you?”
Lily didn’t know what he was getting at, and so she didn’t reply. Did he think Amy wasn’t into boys? Did he think Amy was into her boyfriend Joshua? She didn’t want to think.
O’Malley didn’t get up, telling her to call the station or the beeper number on the card any time if she learned anything, or thought of anything. She left the room without glancing at Harkman. She would have preferred him interviewing her. She would have preferred Robespierre interviewing her.
Home wasn’t nearly far enough to walk off the gnawing sense of malaise around Lily’s nerve endings.
4
Wallets on Dressers
The Noho Star on Bleeker and Lafayette was short people, so Lily came in the following day and worked the graveyard shift, thirteen hours, from eleven in the morning until midnight. Her hours, as per her request, had been increased to fifty. She hoped she could handle it.
When she got home from the precinct the night before, Lily had found Rachel, Paul, and to her greatest surprise, Joshua ! camped out on her front stoop. They followed her up the stairs to her fifth floor crawl-up. By the third floor, Lily was so out of breath, she had to stop and rest. How did old Colleen do it? When she finally got inside, she collapsed on the futon.
Joshua had been calling the last two weeks, he said, because he needed to pick up his guitar case. “What happened to your hand?” he asked Lily. Unhappily she didn’t want to talk to him in the presence of all those other people.
Paul, small, slender, perfectly groomed, perfectly dressed, perfectly Italian-looking and calm as a small pond said, “Are you all right, Lil?” Then, “What happened? Where’s Ames?”
Lily opened one eye from the futon. “Is that a trick question?”
Rachel, once a kinky-black-haired Puerto Rican fourth runner up in a San Domingo teenage beauty pageant, now a Puerto Rican bleached blonde with hair thinner and straighterthan Lily’s, was making retching noises in the kitchen sink after drinking three-week-old apple juice from the too-warm fridge. Lily couldn’t keep her eyes open. Suddenly there was a tree in front of her eyes, and an animal hiding behind it, and there was a whirl of red color, and patches, and small bits of dialogue, and here came that cold damp and Amy again, and Hawaii, the red flowers, and her mother saying, everything I go through I go through completely alone , and here were the sounds of Rachel swirling her mouth out with water, irritating Lily. She wanted them all to leave, especially Joshua. So she kept her eyes closed and pretended they did, and fell asleep, just in that position, on the futon, still sitting up, slightly hunched over to one side, and Amy away, her mother away, her father away, perhaps Amy was with her own father? Perhaps she went down to Florida to visit him? She must mention it to the detective—what was his name? Joshua away, Joshua, who was supposed to be the real deal, now coming for his guitar case, and when Lily woke up fourteen hours later, her body was stiff, the phone was ringing, and her knuckle was seeping blood through the bandage.
Today at work, the jetlag was getting to her. During her break, instead of eating Jell-O with whipped cream like always, she put her head down on the waitresses’ table in the booth in the back and was instantly asleep. She didn’t fall asleep, she went to sleep. When she awoke, Spencer O’Malley sat looking at her from across the
“Still, though, doesn’t it niggle you a little bit, Miss Quinn,” said Detective O’Malley, placing his hands behind his head, “just a tiny bit, that your good friend wouldn’t tell you about her love life? I mean, why would she keep that a secret from you?”
Lily didn’t know what he was getting at, and so she didn’t reply. Did he think Amy wasn’t into boys? Did he think Amy was into her boyfriend Joshua? She didn’t want to think.
O’Malley didn’t get up, telling her to call the station or the beeper number on the card any time if she learned anything, or thought of anything. She left the room without glancing at Harkman. She would have preferred him interviewing her. She would have preferred Robespierre interviewing her.
Home wasn’t nearly far enough to walk off the gnawing sense of malaise around Lily’s nerve endings.
4
Wallets on Dressers
The Noho Star on Bleeker and Lafayette was short people, so Lily came in the following day and worked the graveyard shift, thirteen hours, from eleven in the morning until midnight. Her hours, as per her request, had been increased to fifty. She hoped she could handle it.
When she got home from the precinct the night before, Lily had found Rachel, Paul, and to her greatest surprise, Joshua ! camped out on her front stoop. They followed her up the stairs to her fifth floor crawl-up. By the third floor, Lily was so out of breath, she had to stop and rest. How did old Colleen do it? When she finally got inside, she collapsed on the futon.
Joshua had been calling the last two weeks, he said, because he needed to pick up his guitar case. “What happened to your hand?” he asked Lily. Unhappily she didn’t want to talk to him in the presence of all those other people.
Paul, small, slender, perfectly groomed, perfectly dressed, perfectly Italian-looking and calm as a small pond said, “Are you all right, Lil?” Then, “What happened? Where’s Ames?”
Lily opened one eye from the futon. “Is that a trick question?”
Rachel, once a kinky-black-haired Puerto Rican fourth runner up in a San Domingo teenage beauty pageant, now a Puerto Rican bleached blonde with hair thinner and straighterthan Lily’s, was making retching noises in the kitchen sink after drinking three-week-old apple juice from the too-warm fridge. Lily couldn’t keep her eyes open. Suddenly there was a tree in front of her eyes, and an animal hiding behind it, and there was a whirl of red color, and patches, and small bits of dialogue, and here came that cold damp and Amy again, and Hawaii, the red flowers, and her mother saying, everything I go through I go through completely alone , and here were the sounds of Rachel swirling her mouth out with water, irritating Lily. She wanted them all to leave, especially Joshua. So she kept her eyes closed and pretended they did, and fell asleep, just in that position, on the futon, still sitting up, slightly hunched over to one side, and Amy away, her mother away, her father away, perhaps Amy was with her own father? Perhaps she went down to Florida to visit him? She must mention it to the detective—what was his name? Joshua away, Joshua, who was supposed to be the real deal, now coming for his guitar case, and when Lily woke up fourteen hours later, her body was stiff, the phone was ringing, and her knuckle was seeping blood through the bandage.
Today at work, the jetlag was getting to her. During her break, instead of eating Jell-O with whipped cream like always, she put her head down on the waitresses’ table in the booth in the back and was instantly asleep. She didn’t fall asleep, she went to sleep. When she awoke, Spencer O’Malley sat looking at her from across the
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