Free Monstress by Lysley Tenorio

her blazer without counting it.
    She reviewed the terms of our agreement, the obligations met so far. I’d made the first two payments (“Nonrefundable,” she said, in both English and Tagalog) and would bring the remaining twenty thousand dollars two days from now, plus an extra thousand to cover unexpected costs. This would guarantee a California ID, a Social Security card, various documents like school diplomas, recent utility bills, a birth certificate. “What you need to start a life. And you’re ready for it? If not, you’re wasting my time.” She was speaking Tagalog now, her voice louder than before. “Like the old people who come to me,” she said. “They want to stay, to be with their children, collect Social Security. Then what: they’re suddenly scared to spend their last years away from home. They say, ‘We are old, we cannot die away from home, blah blah blah.’ What’s wrong with dying here? The cemeteries aren’t good enough?” She reached into a pile of random flowers, grabbed a handful and jammed them into the vase. “In the end, your land is just the dirt you’re buried in.”
    I looked at Flora Ramirez. “I don’t care where I’m buried,” I said.
    She stared at me for a moment, and I knew she believed me.
    â€œYou need a picture,” she said. She got up from her stool and stepped into a tiny office, pointed at a bare, blue wall, and had me stand against it. Then she reached into her desk for a digital camera and told me to be still.
    She took my picture. “Why did you come?”
    She had never asked the question before. Our months of correspondence were all business; she’d needed to know only my age and gender.
    â€œFor a happy life.” That was my answer.
    She took a second picture, then the last. “Then it’s good you came to me.”
    We stepped out of the office. We arranged to meet two days later, this time at her home. On the back of a business card she wrote La Playa @ Lincoln, but not her actual address. “Count seventeen houses down,” she said. “I live there.” Then she took some flowers, wrapped them in cellophane, tied them with black ribbon.
    I thanked her, exited the shop. People on the street seemed to watch me again; I told myself it was the flowers. But sweat was dripping down my neck, soaking my collar, and my heart was beating so fast I swore I could hear it—if Felix Starro powers were real, I would have reached inside myself and pulled it out.
    O n the ride back to the hotel, I couldn’t get hold of Charma. My signal faded in and out, even stuck in traffic. A text message that said ALL PERFECT was the best I could do.
    The driver let me off two blocks from the hotel. I walked the rest of the way, and when I crossed the street I spotted the Filipino maid sitting at a crowded bus stop. I didn’t intend eye contact, but it was the first time in America that I knew a face among the hundreds of strangers I passed every day.
    She smiled meekly. “Beautiful flowers,” she said.
    I’d almost forgotten the bouquet in my hand—I’d meant to leave them on a trash can again—so I offered them to her, but she was shy to accept. “They’ll die in that room,” I said.
    She took the bouquet, sniffed the single rose.
    Then she grabbed my hand. “Your grandfather,” she said, “he helps people?” She’d noticed all our come-and-go visitors, how despondent they looked when they arrived, how peaceful when they left. “I have money. I can pay.” I told her she was mistaking us for other people, but she said there was no need for me to lie. “I know he can help me,” she whispered in Tagalog. “I know who Felix Starro is.” Her grip tightened, her thumb pressing on my inner wrist like she was desperate to find a pulse.
    â€œStay away from him,” I said. I stepped back, slipped