The Sleeping Doll

Foods was a good meeting place.
    She was wearing close-fitting jeans, a light pink blouse and, underneath, a red Victoria’s Secret bra and panties. Like the coffee, the lingerie was a luxury she couldn’t afford. But some things you had to splurge on. (Besides, Jennie reflected, the garments were really a gift in a way: for her boyfriend.)
    Which made her think of other indulgences. Rubbing her nose, flick, flick , on the bump.
    Stop it, she told herself.
    But she didn’t. Another two flicks.
    Angel songs  . . .
    Why couldn’t she have met him a year later? She’d’ve had the cosmeticwork done by then and be beautiful. At least she could do something about the nose and boobs. She only wished she could fix the toothpick shoulders and boyish hips but fixing those was beyond the talents of talented Dr. Ginsberg.
    Skinny, skinny, skinny . . . And the way you eat! Twice what I do and look at me. God gave me a daughter like you to test me .
    Watching the unsmiling women wheeling their grocery carts to their mommy vans, Jennie wondered, Do they love their husbands? They couldn’t possibly be as much in love as she was with her boyfriend. She felt sorry for them.
    Jennie finished her coffee and returned to the store, looking at massive pineapples and bins of grain and heads of funny-shaped lettuce and perfectly lined up steaks and chops. Mostly she studied the pastries—the way one painter examines another’s canvas. Good. . . . Not so good. She didn’t want to buy anything—it was way expensive. She was just too squirrelly to stay in one place.
    That’s what I should’ve named you. Stay Still Jennie. For fuck’s sake, girl. Sit down .
    Looking at the produce, looking at the rows of meat.
    Looking at the women with boring husbands.
    She wondered if the intensity she felt for her boyfriend was simply because it was all so new. Would it fade after a while? But one thing in their favor was that they were older; this wasn’t that stupid passion of your teenage years. They were mature people. And most important was their souls’ connection, which comes along so rarely. Each knew exactly how the other felt.
    “Your favorite color’s green,” he’d shared with her the first time they’d spoken. “I’ll bet you sleep under a green comforter. It soothes you at night.”
    Oh my God, he was so right. It was a blanket, not a comforter. But it was green as grass. What kind of man had that intuition?
    Suddenly she paused, aware of a conversation nearby. Two of the bored housewives weren’t so bored at the moment.
    “Somebody’s dead. In Salinas. It just happened.”
    Salinas? Jennie thought.
    “Oh, the escape from that prison or whatever? Yeah, I just heard about it.”
    “David Pell, no, Daniel. That’s it.”
    “Isn’t he, like, Charles Manson’s kid or something?”
    “I don’t know. But I heard some people got killed.”
    “He’s not Manson’s kid. No, he just called himself that.”
    “Who’s Charles Manson?”
    “Are you kidding me? Remember Sharon Tate?”
    “Who?”
    “Like, when were you born?”
    Jennie approached the women. “Excuse me, what’s that you’re talking about? An escape or something?”
    “Yeah, from this jail in Salinas. Didn’t you hear?” one of the short-haired housewives asked, glancing at Jennie’s nose.
    She didn’t care. “Somebody was killed, you said?”
    “Some guards and then somebody was kidnapped and killed, I think.”
    They didn’t seem to know anything more.
    Her palms damp, heart uneasy, Jennie turned and walked away. She checked her phone. Her boyfriend had called a while ago but nothing since then. No messages. She tried the number. He didn’t answer.
    Jennie returned to the turquoise Thunderbird. She put the radio on the news, then twisted the rearview mirror toward her. She pulled her makeup and brush from her purse.
    Some people got killed . . . .
    Don’t worry about it, she told herself. Working on her face, concentrating the way her mother had taught her. It was one of the nice things the woman had done for her. “Put the light here, the dark here—we’ve got to do something with that nose of yours. Smooth it in . . . blend it. Good.”
    Though her mother often took away the nice as fast as shattering a glass.
    Well, it looked fine until you messed it up. Honestly, what’s wrong with you? Do it again. You look like a whore .
    •    •    •
    Daniel Pell was strolling down the sidewalk from the small covered