above her, a blond woman who must be her mother. The mother had been in the process of walking away, then had half-turned to look when the photographer had called to her. She seemed no more than thirty, but her eyes were squinted into the sun to reveal the beginning of a collection of crow’s-feet beside the blue eyes. At first Jane thought there was a smudge on the picture, but then she saw it was part of a tattoo of a rose. The petals began just above the waistband of the bikini and extended downward, so the process of getting it must have been less an embellishment than a relationship.
Jane slowly retreated without waking Rita and closed the door. As she walked toward the stairway, she told herself that this was just because of Rita’s recent troubles, but she could tell that was not true. She knew that the girl must have slept like this always, placing her few, pitiful treasures around her body so they could not be taken from her in the night.
11
Jane brought the clothes into Rita’s room and began laying each hanger on the bed without speaking. She held Rita’s face in the corner of her eye. At first Rita appeared unaware, then indifferent, then intrigued. Jane laid the fourth outfit across the bed and went into the hallway to get the fifth, then returned to find Rita slowly running her hand along the crease of a new pair of pants.
Rita quickly withdrew her hand, then conceded, “I always wished that I was the kind of person who had clothes like this.”
“It doesn’t take anything important,” said Jane. “Courage, intelligence, even taste. If you don’t know what to buy, go to the best store in town, then pick out a clerk who looks terrific. She’ll tell you. All you need is enough money to feed the cash register.”
“Am I supposed to be rich?”
Jane said, “Not rich. Just a single working woman who’s too young to care about saving, and has nothing to spend it on but herself, like the rest of the girls in this complex.”
Rita’s eyes stayed on the clothes, but they had a soft focus. “At the hotel, I would sometimes look.”
“Look at what?”
“I would be cleaning a room, and it would be late enough so the people weren’t just downstairs having breakfast, so I figured they’d be gone at least until lunch. I would open a suitcase and look at everything inside. Not to take anything, just to look.”
“Did you see anything interesting?”
“Rich people are old-fashioned. They don’t want to own anything that’s plastic, unless it’s the kind that looks like ivory. Or maybe it was ivory. I probably wouldn’t know. Everything is leather, wool, silk, silver, wood. I would look at it, especially the clothes, and wonder about the women who owned it. When people travel, they always have a lot of new clothes. I would find something, and half the time the tags would still be on it.” She looked up at Jane in wonder. “I remember one time it was just a pair of jeans, and I saw the price and swallowed my gum. They cost more than I took home in a week. Just jeans.” She frowned, and her shoulders crept up as though she were preparing to endure a blow. “I got caught once.”
“Somebody came back while you were in her suitcase?”
“Not that. It was my boss, the housekeeping supervisor. She was real cold and nasty at first. But I asked her to search my pockets, my cart, everything so she would know I didn’t take anything. So she did. Then she kind of took my arm and gave me a little smile. She said she used to do the same thing. But she made me promise never to do it again. She said that after you looked in a hundred, they were all pretty much the same stuff as the first one, and if you got caught you’d get fired and go to jail.”
“Did that cure you of it?”
“Not completely, but I forced myself just to look at the clothes while the women were wearing them. I still liked clothes, but I never thought I would ever have anything like these.” She petted a sweater as though it were alive.
Jane said, “I did buy clothes that were more expensive than average. That was because I’m trying to make a change. Anyone looking for an eighteen-year-old runaway maid will expect her to have less money—to sleep in bus stations and carry her things in a backpack. So we take a step in the other direction. We give you an apartment that costs more than you used to make, and dress you better. Nothing here will draw attention to you, it just puts you into a cubbyhole where they’re not looking.” She walked toward the door. “I know it’s kind of a pain, but try them on for me, will you? Let me know if I need to exchange anything.”
Jane went downstairs to the kitchen and made a simple dinner of salad and capellini marinara while she waited.
When she was sure that the smells had risen and penetrated the second floor, she heard Rita coming down the stairs. Rita stopped in the doorway and watched Jane for a few seconds, then set the table. She said, “I don’t know how to thank you for the clothes. They’re the best clothes anybody I know has.”
“Do they fit?”
Rita shrugged. “Close enough. They’re all a little on the loose side, but I can take them in a little.”
Jane stopped stirring and poured the pasta into a strainer in the sink, then put down the pot. “Do the waistbands fit, and the pant legs fall to the right place?”
“Yeah,” said Rita.
“Then they’re probably the way they’re designed to be.”
“It’s not exactly my style.”
“I hope not, or I’ve wasted a lot of time and effort,” said Jane. “I’m trying to make changes. Examine anything that’s a habit, anything you could say that about—that it’s your style—and lose it if you can.”
“That’s how you hide? Do everything the opposite of what you like?”
Jane assembled the plates of food and carried them to the table. “Identity is a slippery concept. We think that any time anyone sees our faces, they know us. They’ll be able to pick us out of a crowd forever. Sometimes that’s true, but other times it’s not. The person who sees you forms a picture of you in his memory. In a way, it’s more than a picture. It’s like a movie. It includes our bodies, our posture, the way we walk, our faces showing the whole sequence of expressions we had when they saw us, our voices, and whatever else came to their attention. What we have to do is manipulate it, and a lot can be accomplished without doing much.”
“Doing much?” Rita was suspicious.
“Here’s a simple example. Private detectives spend a lot of time following people. They don’t want to be noticed. One of the tricks they use is to carry a few hats in their cars on the passenger seat. After they’ve followed somebody for a time, they put a hat on. A little later, they’ll take it off, and maybe put another one on.”
“That works? You’re telling me people are that stupid?”
“Not if they’re paying attention. But most of the time, they’re not. They might happen to look behind them and see the man. No big deal. He’s just one of many elements—people, objects, cars, birds, buildings. There’s no reason to consciously single him out for attention or thought unless he’s too close. The next time they happen to look is the one that counts. If they see him a second time, then he’s the only element that hasn’t been replaced. He’s following them. But if they happen to look and see that this time there’s a man with a hat on, he’s not the same man. What the detective is trying to do is keep them from bringing the whole issue up to the level of conscious thought. That’s all I’m trying to do for you. If we change some of the things about you that stand out, then any person who doesn’t have an extremely clear idea of who he’s looking for might not notice you. Probably what each searcher will have is a photograph. He’ll look at lots of girls, trying to find the one who matches it. It’s likely he won’t even notice that you do, because you don’t match it
“It doesn’t sound like it can work,” said Rita.
“It’s not a sure thing,” said Jane. “But there are easy ways to make yourself safer, and there are hard ways. This is one of the easy ways.” Jane prepared herself, then said, “I bought some hair dye.”
Rita’s hand went involuntarily to her shoulder, and began fiddling with one of the long strands. Her eyes lowered to see it. “My hair?” she asked doubtfully.
“It’s the easiest part of you to notice from a distance. It’s something people can see even better when you’re looking away from them. They’re looking for blond hair, so we’d make it brown. I’ve picked out a chestnut color that would go well with your light skin. It would take some getting used to, but in the end I think you’d like it.” She paused. “We could do it tonight, before people around here get a look at you.”
