Page 13 of Dirty Damage

The answer is the same as it’s always been: The Palmer Women Curse.

A memory starts rolling. I’m four, maybe five. Our apartment smells like cheap hairspray and drugstore perfume.

Mom stands in front of our cracked bathroom mirror, painting her lips the color of cherry popsicles while Sydney and I perch on the edge of the bathtub, watching the transformation.

“Third date this month,” Sydney whispers, her voice carrying that edge of grown-up knowing that makes me jealous. “He works at the Bellagio.”

Mom catches Sydney’s eye in the mirror. “Don’t get your hopes up, baby. You know how these things go.” She blots her lipstick on a square of toilet paper, leaving a perfect kiss mark. “Palmer women and good men mix like oil and water.”

“What does that mean, Mommy?” I ask, swinging my legs against the chipped porcelain.

“It means we’re cursed, sweet pea.” Mom sighs, fluffing her blonde curls. “Pretty enough to catch ‘em, dumb enough to want ‘em, and just unlucky enough to pick the wrong ones every time.”

She winks, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

The doorbell rings. Mom kneels down, cups my cheeks in her warm hands.

“Syd’s in charge ‘til I get back. No answering the door, no touching the stove.”

Then she’s gone, swishing and clomping out the door.

“He looks nice,” I observe as we peek through the curtains, watching her click-clack across the parking lot in her too-high heels.

“They all look nice at first,” Sydney says, sounding just like Mom. “But they never, ever are.”

In the present, I drag myself back to bed and stare at my phone’s screen. The messages are still coming in. One from Mara:

CALL ME NOW. I don’t care what time it is.

I can’t face her. Can’t face anyone.

But I have to. I have thirty minutes before I need to leave for work, where every person I pass will have seen what I look like in lingerie. Where my boss—who already saw me half-naked yesterday—will now think I’m some kind of…

What? Cam girl? Attention seeker? Gold-digger.

I curl into a fetal position, my breaths coming in short, panicked bursts.

This can’t be happening.

But it is.

4

OLEG

The boardroom air tastes stale, recycled through vents that haven’t been cleaned since the Bush administration. My collar digs into my neck.

No matter how many thousands I spend on bespoke tailoring, suits always feel like armor welded to my skin—necessary, but fucking confining.

I keep my voice steady as I gesture toward the final slide of my presentation.

“The cloaking system renders vessels virtually undetectable to standard sonar and radar technologies.”

Five of the six board members lean forward.

Leonie Xiao’s eyes gleam with the precise calculation of potential profit margins.

Rodney Weiss and Mae Malevich scribble furious notes.

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