I’d insisted that the police needed to be informed about the assault, because that’s what it was: an assault. The officer who eventually came had been sympathetic, but ultimately useless. There was nothing she could do without evidence, and no way to identify the assailants. She recommended installing a camera that would act as a deterrent and potentially ID the culprits.
“But it’s probably just bored kids,” she said, as if that made it okay, as if that meant we should just ignore it. It was not okay. Our home was our sanctuary. Having it attacked by faceless hooligans was frightening and distressing. These kids needed to be caught. They needed to be taught a valuable lesson about kindness and respect. Their parents needed to realize that their job wasn’t over as soon as their kids were out of diapers.
My daughter’s strident words flitted through my mind. How do you know kids are doing this? But it had to be children. Even if Thomas or I had enemies, no adult would stoop to throwing eggs or smearing poop on our door handle. No grown-up would wake us in the middle of the night with a smoke bomb. This was clearly the work of adolescents, maybe immature teens. Grown-ups dealt with their problems head-on. As I was about to do with Alicia.
The thought struck me then… Alicia’s son, Magnus. And the other one, the son who was going to MIT. Could they be behind the recent attacks? Had Alicia showed her boys the footage of me taking her lipstick, and now they were punishing me with eggs and fruit? Dog shit and smoke bombs? Would a Columbia student resort to vandalism to avenge his mother? The other son was younger, still in high school. Maybe he was the one assaulting us?
But the timing didn’t fit. The eggs had been thrown the night before I met with Alicia and took the lipstick. The odds that we had two different attackers were slim to none. We’d never been targeted like this before. No… this had nothing to do with me.
It had to be about Tarryn. She was a pretty girl in her own unique way, but she wasn’t exactly approachable. The culprits were probably younger boys with a crush, or possibly a spurned flirtation. Tarryn told me less than nothing about her personal life, so she could have broken some kid’s heart and now he was lashing out. Or this could be about Eli. But he was older and, frankly, more amiable than his sibling. My money was still on my daughter.
I parked in front of the ice cream shop and paid the meter. As I turned, my reflection met me in the plate glass window. The woman who stared back at me looked so normal, so professional and pulled-together. This was not a woman who stole small objects for the thrill of it or took personal items out of spite. How could she live with such a shameful secret?
When I approached the glass door, I could see Alicia inside. She wore jeans and a T-shirt that were more expensive than my entire outfit including my shoes and bag, and she was staring at her laptop set up on the counter. I rapped on the glass to get her attention. She looked over and I saw the distaste on her pretty features: The thief returns to the scene of the crime. My cheeks burned as she walked over to unlock the door.
“Hi, Viv.” Alicia sounded confused, slightly disturbed by my presence. But she stepped back and ushered me inside. I could hear hammering in the back; a builder was installing bathroom cupboards or a counter. It drowned out the sound of my thudding heart.
I stopped a few feet in, lingering in the entryway. “How are things coming along?” My voice sounded high-pitched and strained.
“Getting there.”
“Great. Great.” I looked around the space. “I don’t want to intrude, I know you’re busy, but—”
“Look, I’m sorry about the e-mail,” Alicia interrupted. “I’m sure it was a shock. And I hope I didn’t sound rude. It’s just… I’ve completely blown my budget and Dennis has laid down the law.”
Dennis was her wealthy husband, the man who was funding this project. It quickly became clear. Dennis had made her fire me.
“He told me I didn’t need a professional decorator, that it wasn’t worth the money. No offense.”
“It’s fine.”
“I told him that you’re really good. And that you have a lot of experience. But he refuses to pay for decorating services.” Her attractive face darkened. “This is supposed to be my business, but he still holds the purse strings.”
Relief flooded through me like warm oil. “Don’t worry. I understand.”
There was emotion in Alicia’s dark eyes as she continued. “Maybe I should have been content going for lunches and working out and walking the dog. But with the kids off to college, I felt like I needed something more.” She looked around at the unfinished space. “The shop’s not even open yet and I already feel like I’ve failed.”
“You haven’t,” I said quickly, reaching out to pat her arm. “This place is going to be great.”
“I don’t know.” Her chin crinkled. “I’m just so tired.”
I wanted to hug her, but that would have been too intimate, too familiar. We were only acquaintances, after all. And I knew that embracing her would open the emotional floodgates. So I gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze. “It’s normal to feel overwhelmed. But you can do this.”
Alicia pulled herself together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart.” She gave me a small smile. “What can I do for you?”
My carefully rehearsed speech flitted through my mind: I think I took your lipstick by mistake. I have the same one and when I saw you put it in your bag, I thought you’d taken mine by accident. When I finally opened it, I knew I could never pull off that color.
But she didn’t know I had her lipstick. There was no camera, no footage of me taking it. There was no point in confessing, and no point in returning it.
“I wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings. And you don’t need to pay me for the mood boards.”
“I insist.”
“Honestly, it was only a few hours. Don’t worry about it.”
Alicia looked misty again. “That’s so sweet of you. And I’ll be sure to recommend your services to my friends. I saw your work at Dolly Barber’s house.”
“Yes,” I said, “I decorated the children’s bedrooms.”
“You did an amazing job. Dolly was so happy.”
As I strolled back to my car, I felt weak with relief. I’d gotten away with it… again. But this had been too close for comfort. The stealing had to stop, should have stopped ages ago. I’d never understood the uncontrollable impulse. It was like an itch that had to be scratched, a thirst that had to be slaked. I knew it was wrong, but in the moment, I always told myself that I wasn’t hurting anyone.
And yet, Alicia Fernhurst had let me glimpse her vulnerable side. She might have tons of money and two exceptional children, but she suffered the same self-doubt and insecurities that I did. Of course, a missing lipstick was nothing more than an annoyance to her. She could easily afford to buy another one. Still, I felt bad for hurting her, for lying to her, for taking what was hers.
Just not bad enough to return her lipstick, apparently.
Tarryn
HISTORY USED TO be my favorite class, but I couldn’t focus that day. It was clear that someone online knew that the redheaded sex kitten Natalia was really frumpy high school student Tarryn Adler. And that someone knew that our house was being attacked in the night. Was the same person sending me the creepy messages behind the assaults on our home? Even though I was virtually invisible at school, had opted out of the pathetic teen social scene, my parents were right: this had to be about me. Because only kids would smear shit on a door handle. Only kids would throw food at the house, toss a smoke bomb on the lawn. Did someone hate me enough to harass me online and come after my family? There was only one possibility… and he was seated two rows to my right.
Bryce Ralston was cute, effortlessly popular, and he played basketball, so I’d never given him a second thought until Madame Lanois paired us up to write a skit for French class. I saw the envious look from Lanie McGregor when the names were read. Lanie had had a crush on Bryce for years. So had Milly Bevan. But not me. I
was completely unaffected by his looks and athletic prowess. I wanted someone dark and edgy, a pensive outlier. Bryce was a normie.
We were given some class time to work on the project, but Madame Lanois suggested three extra rehearsals. At first, Bryce and I were all business, writing up a simple skit about grocery shopping. (We only knew a handful of French verbs, plus the names of fruit and vegetables.) It was pretty boring, so Bryce and I started cracking jokes. He was funnier than I had expected, but I still wasn’t attracted to him. He kind of reminded me of Eli.
That’s going to make what happened between us sound pretty gross, but I soon stopped looking at Bryce in a sisterly way. To my surprise, he was into me. It was obvious. When we met at a local coffeehouse to work on our project, he laughed—hard—at all my jokes. When we rehearsed our skit in his basement, he found excuses to touch me in a playful way. And then he started to text me. At first, it was always about “Pierre à L’Épicerie”, and then we started to talk about other things. Some nights, we texted for hours, talking about everything and nothing.
You’re different than other girls, he’d texted.
I know
And then things got messy. Really fucking messy.
The bell rang, and everyone stood up on cue. I tried to catch Bryce’s eye as he strolled out of class, tried to see if he looked guilty or angry, but as usual, he ignored me. He hated me, he had for months. But did he hate me enough to vandalize my house? To find me on a camming site and send me a creepy message? I didn’t think so. Because if he got caught, then everyone would know that this cool, popular guy had been brought to his knees by weird, chubby Tarryn Adler.
And that would kill Bryce Ralston.
Thomas
CAMERA NUMBER ONE was screwed into the top right corner of the doorframe. I’d affixed camera number two to one of the porch posts. I adjusted the motion zones to ensure maximum coverage of the property. When I opened the app on my phone, I had a full view of the steps and the entire front yard. If anyone approached our house—from the street or from either side of the lawn—bright lights would turn on and the cameras would start to record. It was a simple project, but I felt distinctly masculine. I’d installed the small cameras with my bare hands. I was working with the cops, taking measures to protect my family. And once I got the little shits who were harassing us on video… well, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
The policewoman had suggested that a camera might be a deterrent. And if we could positively ID the culprits, the cops would take action. I understood they were busy, that serious crimes were happening all over the city, but I’d been hoping for a stakeout. I wanted these kids caught, charged with trespassing and mischief. They’d get no more than a slap on the wrist, but at least they’d think twice before targeting another innocent family.
We’d had two more attacks since the smoke bomb had exploded on our lawn. On Tuesday night, we’d been pelted with tomatoes. I’d run onto the porch, hoping to catch the little buggers, but they had scurried away like vermin. There were six to eight kids—a pack—and they paused at the end of our block.
“Too late, faggot!” one of them yelled.
It was not my finest moment, but I had yelled back: “I’ll rip your fucking heads off if I catch you!”
On Thursday, lacking in originality or produce, the kids had gone back to eggs. I’d gone outside with the hose (Eli was at work), and when I came in, I found my wife near tears. The knowledge that there was a gang of hooligans watching our house in the night, waiting for their moment to strike, rattled Viv’s nerves. And mine. Every time a foreign object hit our window, we jumped out of our skins.
“I just don’t understand,” Viv said. “Why us?”
“I’ll take care of it,” I promised her. And now, with these cameras, I was.
If the boys dared to return, we would have them on film. Maybe Tarryn would be willing to finger the perps, but I was doubtful. She wouldn’t want to turn in her schoolmates. I got that. What I really wanted was to grab one of them, take him out back, and tune him up. I’d alluded to as much with the police officer.
“You don’t want to do that,” she’d said. “Assaulting a minor is a serious crime. And it might just escalate the abuse from the other kids.”
“I was just kidding,” I said, even though I was only half-kidding.
The officer was right, though. And I wasn’t about to beat up a fourteen-year-old. But I could scare the shit out of him without physical violence. I could make sure he and his wannabe hoodlums never walked down our street again. I stepped back and surveyed my handiwork. I hoped the bright lights and the two cameras trained on my lawn would do the trick.
I glanced at my watch. I was meeting potential buyers at the house on Hancock. Thanks to Emma’s cheerful staging, a couple with three young kids was interested. It was the most enthusiasm I’d had on the place since it went on the market six months ago. If I could close the deal, my share of the commission would be roughly twenty-five grand. With that, and a little room to play in the line of credit, I could make my blackmailer a reasonable offer. The deadline was just a week away now. I needed Chanel to lower her price and I needed to buy some time. But I could manipulate her into doing both. I was ready.
And then, I’d make the whole mess go away. No one, including my wife, would ever know what had happened that night.
Eli
THINGS HAD BEEN going pretty well at the Thirsty Raven. I was trained by an eighteen-year-old named Lucius who treated his busboy job like neurosurgery. There was a system to collecting the dirty dishes, to placing them in the plastic tubs, but obviously it wasn’t rocket science. We had other duties, too, like filling salt and pepper shakers, unloading the dishwashers, and setting the tables between seatings.
“The sauces are key,” Lucius told me, wiping a bottle of ketchup with a damp cloth. “If someone orders a meal and their favorite sauce is empty, the whole experience could be ruined.”
“Totally,” I said, and it almost sounded sincere.
By the second week, I was out from under Lucius’s protective wing and working on my own. My manager, Peter, was impressed with me. I was polite, quick, and efficient. Lucius still tried to boss me around, but I pretty much ignored him. I was two years older than he was, and totally capable of performing my duties. As soon as I turned twenty-one, I’d move upstairs, and he’d be left behind.
That night, a section of the restaurant had been commandeered by a fiftieth birthday party for a woman named Kelly. They’d ordered a set menu, so I was running food in addition to clearing dishes, filling water glasses, and replenishing soft drinks. I was so busy that I didn’t notice them at first, seated in a large booth in the back corner: my high school friends Sam, Tyrone, and Derek.
They had definitely noticed me. Three pairs of eyes followed me from kitchen to table, their lips moving as they analyzed my presence. I hadn’t seen Sam since that day he’d ridden by on his bike, hadn’t seen Derek and Tyrone since Christmas break. Sam had invited me to Sarah Ephremova’s party, but I hadn’t gone. He’d sent me a couple of texts after, but I ignored them. I hadn’t known what to say.
But I couldn’t ignore them now. I headed over to their table. “Hey, guys.”
They replied in unison, a muttered, “Hey.”
“How’s it going?”
“Great,” Derek said coolly, taking a chicken wing from the pile in front of them.
“How about you?” Tyrone asked, an edge to his voice. “What’s new?”
“Umm… not much. Working a lot. Hanging with the family.”
Sam played with a fry on his plate. “When I saw you washing your window, you said you’d just got home the week before.”
“Uh… yeah.”
Derek tossed a bare chicken bone onto his plate. “But Curt saw you getting coffee two weeks before that.”
“Really?” I scratched my head. “Is he sure it was me?”
“He’s sure.”
I could
feel my cheeks getting hot. They’d caught me in a lie, and I wasn’t sure how to wriggle out of it. “Finals were intense,” I tried. “I was pretty out of it when I got home. I guess I messed up my dates.”
Sam snorted to himself, but Tyrone looked me in the eye. “Don’t worry about it, Eli. You’re too good for us now. We get it.”
“That’s not it,” I said.
“Then what is it?”
How could I explain that I was a different person now, but not in the way they thought? That I had witnessed something, participated in something that had affected me on a cellular level. It had changed my academic and professional future, my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I wasn’t ready to go out for wings and talk about YouTube videos and girls and gaming. I just couldn’t.
Before I could stammer a lame response, I heard a girl’s voice behind me: “Hey, guys.” I turned to see Gabby Sullivan, a girl from our high school. She was all tight jeans and dewy makeup and stick-straight hair. I’d only had a couple of classes with her, but I’d known her a bit through my ex, Arianna. And that’s when I noticed the girl trailing her.
My heart started to pound in my chest. I’d only seen Arianna a handful of times since we broke up. It had been awkward, a little painful, but I was strong then, not like now. I was the one who had ended it, so I should have been over her. I should have moved on. But the sight of the girl I had loved, had confided in, had felt closer to than anyone else in my life made my stomach twist and churn.
We’d dated through half of junior and all of senior year of high school. Maybe it was childish, but I really thought we’d be together forever. My parents had never liked her, though. They hadn’t articulated it, but it was clear in the condescending way they spoke to her, in the way my mom looked her over and my dad looked through her. Arianna wasn’t like us. She lived in an apartment with her single mom. They didn’t have a lot of money, but her mom worked hard as a caregiver at an old folks’ home. Arianna was pretty and sexy, with long dark hair and eyelash extensions, and she wore tight, revealing clothing. But all the girls at school dressed that way—except my sister, who preferred sweatpants and a snarl. Arianna wasn’t academic, but she was wise. And she was sweet. She understood me.
The Perfect Family Page 7