Pretend I'm Dead

A Novel

Jen Beagin

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781501183942
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

NAMED A BEST BOOK of the YEAR by O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, REFINERY 29, and KIRKUS REVIEWS
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

The “wondrous” (O, The Oprah Magazine), “scathingly funny” (Entertainment Weekly) debut from Whiting Award winner and author of Big Swiss Jen Beagin about a cleaning lady named Mona and her quest for self-acceptance.

Jen Beagin’s funny, moving, fearless debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona—almost twenty-four, emotionally adrift, and cleaning houses to get by. She falls for a man she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways.

In search of healing, she decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of cast-offs, all of whom have something to teach her—the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she’s trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past.

The story of Mona’s quest for belonging in this world is at once hilarious and wonderfully strange, true to life and boldly human, and introduces a stunning, one-of-a-kind new voice in American fiction.

BETTY

FROM A DISTANCE SHE COULD pass for Spanish but up close she was just ridiculously tan with dyed black hair. This may explain why the woman trailing behind her across the store parking lot kept yelling hola in her direction. She pretended not to hear and continued wheeling the cart toward her truck.

“Por favor, please,” the woman called out in a tired voice.

Por favor, please, Mona repeated to herself, and smiled. She stopped walking and turned around. It was the petite redhead she’d noticed earlier, squeezing peaches in the produce section. She’d liked the expression on the woman’s face because it had seemed to say “Wow, these peaches are superripe” and “Sadly, I don’t especially like peaches” simultaneously.

Somehow she’d failed to notice the woman’s outfit before: low-cut green angora sweater, leopard-print velour leggings, white leather high-tops. The woman’s cleavage was sun damaged and livid red. Her hair was a similar red, but brighter, obviously enhanced with a rinse. Like most redheads, she probably thought she looked best in green.

“Gracias,” the woman said as she caught up. She was older than Mona initially thought: late forties, early fifties.

“I speak English.” First words of the day.

The woman removed her enormous sunglasses and looked Mona in the eye. “Oh, right,” she said.

There was something unnatural about the woman’s eyes that Mona couldn’t put her finger on.

“You do cleaning, right?” the woman asked. “I noticed your, uh, apron.”

She nodded, offered her hand. “Mona,” she said.

“Betty McKenzie,” the woman said, grasping Mona’s fingers rather than her whole hand. She suspected Betty was one of those people who always introduced themselves with their full name, even when meeting three-year-olds.

She realized what was strange about the woman’s eyes: she was wearing blue contacts on what were already very blue eyes, which made them inescapably, unyieldingly blue, a color that made Mona think of fate or acts of God.

“Wait a minute. I’ve heard of you,” Betty said. “I mean, you were recommended to me once.”

“By whom?” Mona asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Adrienne Payne,” Betty said.

Ah, Adrienne, the pain-in-the-ass vegan and a referral from Henry. She’d made an unusual request: she asked Mona to refrain from bringing animal products of any kind onto her property, as it “disturbed the energy” in her house. This included the obvious—meat and dairy—but also the leather shoes Mona preferred to work in, along with her leather belt. Adrienne was otherwise fairly low maintenance, so this didn’t seem like such a big deal. Mona figured she would just eat carrots if she got hungry. But there was something about Adrienne’s house—the “energy,” perhaps—that made Mona ravenous, and she often found herself craving fried chicken, Frito pie, hamburgers, and milk shakes. Still, she managed to respect Adrienne’s wishes and ate neither meat nor dairy in the house or even in the yard.

Things ended badly, however. Mona had been scheduled to clean while Adrienne was out of town, mushroom hunting in some forest in the Pacific Northwest, which was Adrienne’s idea of a good time. Lunchtime had rolled around and Mona grabbed a burrito at a nearby taco stand and brought it back to the house. What the hell, she thought. It was a thousand degrees outside and the AC was busted in her truck.

Adrienne came home early, of course, and let herself in unannounced. She caught Mona sitting at her kitchen table, thoughtfully chewing a piece of roasted pork that she’d picked out of her mostly devoured pork burrito, all of which Mona later suspected she may have been forgiven if she hadn’t also been feeding small pieces to Adrienne’s miserable cat, Pookie-Ooh, also a vegan, though not by choice, obviously. Pookie-Ooh was clearly very happy, probably for the first time in his life, because he didn’t even acknowledge Adrienne when she walked in, even though she’d been gone for more than a week. Mona could still see the outraged expression on Adrienne’s face—it was as if she’d caught Mona having loud sex with a real live pig right there on her kitchen floor, or as if Mona had been doing something truly despicable to Pookie-Ooh, such as holding him down and sticking a pencil up his ass. It was by far the dirtiest look Mona had ever gotten and she’d felt perfectly justified in gathering her things, leaving the house without a word, and never returning. Adrienne left numerous messages, but Mona never returned her calls—a ballsy move, really, considering that her business relied almost exclusively on word of mouth.

Evidently Adrienne had recommended Mona’s services before the Pork Burrito Disaster.

“How do you know Adrienne?” Mona asked casually.

“She used to be a client of mine,” Betty said.

“What do you do?”

“Oh, lots of things.” A common answer on the part of the middle class in Taos, an endangered species rapidly nearing extinction. “Hang on a sec and I’ll give you one of my cards.” She trotted over to the only classic American car Mona could identify by sight—a 1960 convertible Cadillac. The car was sandwiched between two mud-splattered pickup trucks and painted the most beautiful shade of midnight blue Mona had ever seen.

Mona imagined Betty was in the Witness Protection Program. Her real name was Denise and she’d been married to the Mob for twenty years. To avoid doing time, she’d turned state’s witness and the feds relocated her to New Mexico from Queens or Jersey. This would explain her accent and taste in cars. And clothes, too, now that she thought about it. Then she noticed the license plate:

PSYCHIC, in all caps.

Betty handed her not one but a handful of business cards. Mona glanced at one out of politeness. Betty’s name was printed in a font two sizes too big, with a list of services underneath: psychic readings, channeling, astrology charts, energy work, aura cleansing—blah, blah. She smiled and slipped the cards into her back pocket.

“Nice wheels, by the way,” Mona said.

“Oh, thanks,” Betty said. “It’s called divorce.”

“Wow.” A few seconds ticked by in silence. “Well, I should go,” she said. “My ice cream’s melting.”

“Could I get one of your cards?” Betty asked.

“Sure,” Mona said. “Of course.” She rummaged through her bag, pretending to search for one. She’d run out of cards months ago. “Guess I’m out,” she said sheepishly. “Could I just give you my number?”

* * *

BETTY CALLED TWO HOURS LATER and Mona gave her the usual spiel: twenty dollars an hour, cash only, with a four-hour minimum the first day, and a two-hour minimum moving forward.

“That’s it?” asked Betty. “You should charge more. You’ll never make it in this town on that.”

“Are you flirting with me?” Mona joked.

Betty laughed. “I’m serious.”

“Well, this is a first,” Mona said. “Make it twenty-five an hour, then.”

“Done,” Betty said.

“But if you’re trying to get me to up my rate, your place is either really clean or really scary. I bet you’re ankle deep in cat hair.”

“No, but I do have several cats,” Betty said, sounding worried. Mona wondered if “several cats” was code for “dozens of strays.”

“I love cats,” Mona lied. She was fond of cats, but love had never entered into it. Still, Betty could live in a litter box, for all Mona cared.

She asked for Betty’s address, but Betty said she didn’t have one. “I live way out on the mesa. There aren’t any street names out here. You take 73 south over the Gorge Bridge. After 8.7 miles, you’ll see a dirt road on the right. Follow that road for exactly 1.4 miles. My place is on the left.”

Mona had trouble understanding why anyone would willingly live on the mesa, but then she’d never been a fan of wide-open spaces. Betty’s double-wide trailer looked like it rolled off the back of a truck and down a ravine, but it was painted casino pink and stuffed with oversized antiques, as if it were a palace, and had an attached makeshift carport on one side, where Betty kept her Caddy. She didn’t have any close neighbors, but a cluster of newly built, wheat-colored houses stood up the road a ways, huddled together with their backs turned, as if conspiring against her.

The inside of the trailer reminded Mona of a flea market after a dust storm. Betty collected walnut furniture, jewelry boxes, antique keys, vintage perfume bottles, printed matchboxes, old photographs of strangers, and snow globes, all of which were coated with brittle red dust. The dust likely blew in through the window screens and the cracks in the walls. It had even made its way into Betty’s kitchen cupboards, leaving a grainy residue on all her dishware. As Mona emptied the cupboards—she planned to wash all the dishes—she wondered if Betty had a healthy collecting impulse or an overactive hoarding instinct. She decided on the latter, especially after finding hidden boxes of menus, stamps, calendars, key chains, bottle caps, dice, playing cards, marbles, and postcards. In the freezer she found not food but a stockpile of angora sweaters neatly stacked in separate ziplock bags. Betty also appeared to collect deaf Persian cats. The cats bellowed every thirty seconds as if being tortured.

While Mona cleaned, Betty stayed in the living room, giving readings to clients over the phone. From what Mona could gather, she required a handwriting sample including their name, date and time of birth, and a couple of questions they wanted answered. Mona didn’t bother trying to eavesdrop; Betty was clearly performing—Mona could hear it in her voice—and live performance made Mona’s skin crawl. She had always preferred a screen between herself and actors.

When Mona was done, Betty followed her outside and thanked her for a job well done. To Mona’s surprise, she asked if Mona could come not once but twice a week. Mona wavered, said she’d have to see what her schedule looked like. Since Betty “worked from home,” she was inclined to say no. She didn’t want to be trapped in a trailer, especially with a so-called psychic (and possible lunatic), twice a week every week. But then she did the math: twice a week equaled $150, which equaled $600 a month, which covered most of her rent. And, if she cleaned the place twice a week, chances were she’d be in and out in no time, possibly in under an hour.

“Actually, I think I can swing it,” Mona said. “I mean, now that I think about it. Monday and Thursday afternoons would work.”

“Are you in a cult, by any chance?” Betty asked then.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Mona said. “Why?”

“You’re giving off cult energy.”

“Really? That’s weird,” Mona said, and shrugged.

“Your aura has lost its pulse.”

“Well, I’m very tired,” Mona said.

Betty shook her head. “It’s beyond that.” She leaned toward Mona, took a dainty sniff, and then wrinkled her nose. “Smells like leather and burned coffee.”

“Auras have an odor?”

Betty nodded. “Sometimes, yes.”

“Well, I drink half a pot of coffee a day,” Mona said. “It’s probably coming out of my pores.”

Betty looked genuinely dubious, and Mona felt a wave of affection for her.

“Another thing I noticed is that you don’t talk much,” Betty said. “I think your throat chakra is blocked. Are you a passive person?”

“Probably,” she said.

“I have some exercises you can do,” Betty said. “Some of them involve screaming. Have you ever just screamed your head off?”

“No,” Mona declared.

“Do you have trouble saying no to people?”

“No,” Mona said. “I mean yes.”

“Then these exercises will be perfect for you.”

“Super,” she said, trying to sou...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Hole
• Yoko and Yoko
• Henry and Zoe
• Betty
• Acknowledgments
• ‘Vacuum in the Dark’ Teaser
• Reading Group Guide
• About the Author
• Copyright