Quiet money, loud husband

The husband line is the thing I cannot shake. I read it twice like an idiot, like maybe my eyes would fix it into something professional the second time around. They didn't. "He has been asking about your summer." Six words and my whole spine rearranged. I stood at the counter with Maya's old prepaid face-down next to the stove and felt exactly the way I felt the first time a client stood too close at a fitting — smile still on, body already leaving. I typed "confirmed" because I need the eight hundred cash more than I need to be treated like a person at work. That is a sentence I will never say out loud to anyone who pays me.

I crossed paths with Jolene outside the Pereira lobby at eight. Same blocks, same kit, same hour. She nodded once, the way women hunted in the same forest nod. I nodded back. My hand on the rolling rack went tight enough that the tendon stood up and I hoped she didn't see it, because if she saw it then she knows I am keeping score, and I do not want her to know I am keeping score. Jolene is third on the list behind the list. Above her is no one. Below her is everyone. She is the newer girl and she is warm in a way I refuse to be, and warm wins in this city, and I am tired of pretending cold is a strategy when cold is just my face.