by Cat Clarke
A girl wearing black rushes onstage—a makeup ninja. She powders my face and runs off just in time for the countdown to the end of the commercials. No one else’s face needs powdering, because no one else is sweating as much as I am.
Cynthia talks to Mom and Dad next. She talks to them as if they’re still together, making no reference to the fact that Dad doesn’t live with us. There’s no mention of Michel, or Dad’s “lifestyle,” as some of the papers insist on calling it. She asks what it’s like having Laurel back home, and they say it’s wonderful. At one point, Mom cries and Dad gives her a handkerchief.
An image pops up on the screen behind Cynthia, and she turns to look at it. It’s the last age-progressed image of Laurel; the one that was supposed to show what she might look like at age fifteen. I watch as the people in the audience stare up at the picture, then stare at Laurel, then back at the picture again. Then I do the same. It’s not as bad as I thought, actually. But the girl in the picture has a bland, regular sort of face. It’s the kind of face that’s easy to forget. Laurel does not have a forgettable face. There’s something about her face that makes you keep looking. It’s the eyes, I think. Of course, it doesn’t help that the picture on the screen is in black and white, while the real Laurel is full color, not to mention 3-D.
Cynthia comments on the image, saying it didn’t do Laurel justice, but that the police had done the best they could. She asks Dad how he feels about the police, knowing that they weren’t able to find Laurel and don’t seem to be able to find her captor despite receiving “literally hundreds of calls from the public.”
Dad is at his diplomatic best, saying, “Olivia and I are grateful for all the hard work they’ve put in—and continue to put in—every single day.” Cynthia tries to get him to say something juicy, tries to put words in his mouth (those words being “police incompetence”), but he’s a pro at this.
Finally, Cynthia turns to me. I wonder what would happen if I vomited right now. Would it be best to just puke on the floor in front of me, or should I try puking over the back of the sofa? Would they cut to a commercial break?
I’m concentrating so hard on not vomiting that I only start listening toward the end of Cynthia’s question, which doesn’t appear to be an actual question. “…such an appropriate name. That’s what we all clung to, wasn’t it? Faith.”
I don’t roll my eyes even though I really, really want to. She’s not the first person to talk about my name like that. People think it’s so poetic; I think they’re fools.
“So tell me, Faith, what’s it been like for you?” She smiles encouragingly.
All eyes are on me; I preferred it when all eyes were on Laurel. “Good…it’s been good.” Oh god. Could I possibly sound more stupid?
Cynthia laughs, but not in a mean way. She turns to the audience. “Well, I suppose that just about sums it up! Now, Faith, I have a big sister of my own—hello, Diane, if you’re watching!—and if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I couldn’t cope without her. What does it feel like, having your big sister back after all this time?”
I look over at Laurel. She’s sitting back in her armchair, looking perfectly at home. She winks, but no one else can see because her face is angled away from the cameras and the audience. It puts me at ease, that wink. It says, This is all bullshit, but let’s play along. I start to relax.
“It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
While Cynthia’s saying, “Bless!” and the audience is going, “Awwww,” and Dad’s patting my leg, I examine that statement from all possible angles, picking it up with tweezers and looking at it under a microscope. I come to the conclusion that it’s actually the truth. Having Laurel back is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. This surprises me more than it should.
Laurel’s grinning at me, and I grin right back at her. Cynthia asks me what it was like growing up “in the shadow of this terrible crime.” She says it can’t have been easy for me. A couple of months ago, I’d have jumped at the chance to tell my side of the story for a change, to moan about how awful it’s been, how no one could ever understand what it was like.
Today I shrug. “It was nothing compared to what my sister went through. Mom and Dad did their best to protect me from it all, to try to make sure that I had a happy childhood.”
Cynthia pounces. “And did you?”
I glance at Mom, then Dad. “I did.”
I half expect Mom to call me a liar, which would certainly make for interesting viewing. Instead I hear her catch her breath. She’s crying again. Cynthia’s not going to miss an opportunity like that.
“Olivia, are you okay? Can you tell us why that makes you so emotional?”
Mom breathes deeply, trying to pull herself together. “It…means a lot, to hear that. We tried so hard to make sure Faith had a normal childhood, but it was hard. And sometimes I think…I think we failed her.”
I turn to look at her and reach past Dad to take her hand in mine. “You didn’t.” And suddenly Mom and I are standing and hugging, and it’s the oddest thing to be hugging your mother in front of a studio audience, knowing that millions of people are watching all over the country. It’s even odder not to feel embarrassed about it.
Cynthia appears to wipe away a tear; she’s loving this. She asks me a few more questions, and it’s really not that bad if you just focus on what she’s asking and forget about the rest. I end up almost enjoying myself. It’s quite nice having someone absolutely focused on you, asking about your feelings and opinions. It makes you feel like you matter.
Cynthia turns to Laurel. “And what’s it like for you, getting to know your baby sister again? Is she different from how you expected her to be?”
Laurel takes a moment to think. I probably should have done more of that—weighing up what I was going to say instead of just blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “In some ways, Faith’s exactly how I expected her to be. I used to lie awake at night and think about what she would be doing and how she would look. It got harder, as the years passed. But she was always here.” Laurel taps her temple. “I never let go of her.” There’s a perfect pause and Cynthia nods her approval. “But Faith’s also different from how I expected her to be. I could never have hoped for her to be so supportive and kind and loving toward someone she can barely even remember. Having a sister like that is…Well, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.” Cheers and clapping from the audience. “She’s teaching me so much—it feels like she’s the older sister and I’m the younger one!”
Laurel looks at me when she says, “I just wish everyone was lucky enough to have a sister like Faith.”
My English teacher, Mrs. Truss, asks me to stay behind after class. I’m sure she’s going to complain about the essay I handed in last week—the one I’d rushed so I could teach Laurel how to make spaghetti carbonara. Instead, she asks me what Cynthia Day is really like. She empathizes with her because she’s been married three times, too. Mrs. Truss thinks that it might be third time lucky—for her and for Cynthia.
Laney Finch finds me at lunchtime; she always finds me. She’s alone this time. She tells me how beautiful my sister is (like, really beautiful), and how brave she was to go on The Cynthia Day Show. “If I’d been through something like that, I think I’d want to hide away forever.” I nod instead of telling her how offensive she’s being. As an afterthought, Laney says, “You were really good….It was nice to see you looking so happy. And I loved your top. Where’s it from?”
Martha was less kind. She called me when we were driving back from the TV studio. “What’s with the personality transplant? Did they give you some happy pills or something? Is that one of Cynthia’s little tricks?” Martha took my silence as a sign to continue bitching. “And that top? Jesus Christ, I’m not sure my eyes will ever recover.”
I didn’t really mind Martha mocking me—not much, anyway. After the madness of the previous few hours, it was refreshingly normal. I couldn’t say too much in
the car, though. Mom and Dad were thrilled with how it had all gone. “Better than I expected,” Dad had said when they took off his microphone. Laurel had barely said a word since we’d got into the car. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to notice, but I nudged her and mouthed, “Are you okay?” while Mom was busy talking about Cynthia. Laurel nodded and whispered that she was just tired. She spent the rest of the trip staring out the window.
We picked up some Thai food on the way home, calling in the order from the car when we were twenty minutes away. I asked Laurel if she wanted to make the call, but she shook her head. I wasn’t worried—not exactly. It had been a lot to process—all that attention, all those crazy women in the audience with their damp eyes and scrunched-up tissues.
As soon as Dad left, I went up to my room to call Michel. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to watch the person you love on national TV, acting like you don’t exist. He sounded exhausted. I can always tell when Michel is tired because he sounds more French. It’s the only time he ever struggles to find the English word he’s after, and it frustrates the hell out of him. He prides himself on his perfect English.
I asked him what he thought of the show; he’d taken the afternoon off work to watch it. But it turned out there had been an emergency at the hospital—a Rhodesian ridgeback had eaten a shoe (brown leather brogue), and Michel had been called in for the surgery. So Michel had missed the show; I was glad. He asked how it went, and he said he was proud of me. “For what?” I asked.
“For going on that awful show in the first place. You didn’t have to do that. No one would have blamed you.” He was wrong about that; Mom would have blamed me.
We talked for a little while, about the Rhodesian ridgeback (doing well, expected to make a full recovery) and the cooking show we both watch (not doing so well after a format change for the new series). It was nice to talk about something that didn’t involve Laurel. I heard Michel say hi to Dad when he arrived home, but he didn’t hang up until he was quite sure that there was nothing more I wanted to say. He asked whether he should watch The Cynthia Day Show online, and I told him not to bother. I hoped curiosity wouldn’t get the better of him.
—
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I watch the whole show again a couple of days later. It’s strange, how different it is from the way I remember. It’s all a bit soft-focus, for one thing. Cynthia probably insists on that so her wrinkles don’t show up on camera. It’s excruciatingly embarrassing, watching myself—and, even worse, hearing myself speak. I almost don’t recognize that girl wearing the orange top and sitting up too straight. At least you can’t tell I was sweating profusely, thanks to the makeup ninja. Laurel comes across really well, although she looks at the camera a lot instead of looking at Cynthia. It feels like she’s talking directly to the viewer sometimes. I can just imagine people up and down the country, snacking on chips or chocolate chip cookies, watching my sister. It’s no wonder people feel like they know her.
Since Laurel came home, people have been sending emails and cards and presents. Mom set up a PO box years ago, so luckily most stuff goes straight there. But some people always manage to find out our address. It’s not exactly hard to figure out after watching all the outside broadcasts filmed on our doorstep. Google Maps Street View is the stalker’s friend. Not that these are stalkers; they’re just people who sometimes come across that way. Laurel’s had seven marriage proposals since she came back. What kind of weirdo sends a letter or email asking to marry some girl they’ve never met before? Three of them sent photos. One of the guys was buck naked.
Mom doesn’t tell Laurel about the crazies. She goes through every bit of correspondence before it gets anywhere near Laurel. Lots of people are still sending teddy bears, forgetting that Laurel is a grown woman now. At least Barnaby has plenty of new friends.
Many of the letters say the exact same words: I feel like I know you. I would never dream of writing to a stranger and saying something like that. Laurel doesn’t seem to find it as odd as I do. She says it’s nice that people are so thoughtful. Mom says that the people who write these letters usually have some reason to write them—some tragedy or misfortune in their own lives that leads them to project their feelings onto Laurel. I’m not convinced.
Laurel has replied to some of the letters—just a short note to thank them. Mom bought her a hundred thank-you cards, and she’s already written thirty or so. It will take her forever at this rate, so last night we went on the laptop. I helped Laurel set up a template of a basic thank-you letter that she can amend as she sees fit; then she can print them off in the study and sign them. She wasn’t convinced at first.
“Wouldn’t people prefer to have a handwritten card? It seems more…personal.” She came around to my way of thinking when I pointed out exactly how many letters she had to reply to, and the fact that she could copy and paste the template into emails, too. We set up two email accounts—one for her to reply to all the emails that were pouring in every day, and a personal one. Mom’s going to start forwarding her the messages that aren’t weird or offensive or upsetting or perverted, and she’ll keep intercepting the mail from the PO box. Hopefully the deluge will die down soon. Interest will wane; it always does.
I like helping her with this sort of thing; it’s nice to feel useful. Laurel needs me; no one has ever needed me before. Thomas never says that he needs me. He never says I can’t live without you, or I would die if you left me, or any of those devastatingly romantic/downright weird things people in love are supposed to say. But then I suppose I never say that sort of thing to him, either.
Laurel doesn’t know what to do with her personal email account. She has no one to email. “You will,” I told her. She smiled, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.
I was brushing my teeth last night when I realized she was standing in the doorway, watching me. “How do you get friends?”
I spat out the toothpaste foam and watched it as it trickled down the drain. “What do you mean?”
Laurel was wearing her pajamas—an old T-shirt of mine that she’d taken a liking to and a pair of red-checked pajama bottoms. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup, and her hair was twisted into a messy ponytail. She looks better without makeup; I think it makes her look too old. She’s a better color already—she was pale as a ghost when she came back. I bet she tans really well in the summer. She straightened the towels hanging on the rail. Mom’s always doing that, too. Like mother, like daughter. “How do you become friends with someone? How do you even find people to be friends with in the first place?”
I splashed cold water on my face, giving myself time to think. Laurel has a lot of questions about a lot of things, and I try to answer each one as best I can. I only lost my patience with her once, when I really needed the bathroom and she was asking me to explain something about the Internet and search engines. I snapped at her—nothing too bad; I just asked if she could give the constant questions a rest for one minute. She took a step back, bumping into the banister, and for an awful second I imagined her plummeting over the side and breaking her neck on the stairs. I apologized straightaway, but the stricken look was slow to leave her face. The trouble was, I was still bursting, so I told her to wait outside the bathroom. When I came out, she was gone. I found her sitting on the floor behind the door in her bedroom. I apologized again, but she said nothing. She only started talking to me when I said that Thomas would be a better person to ask about computer stuff. I think he must have been a real computer geek before he decided that being into poetry and philosophy was probably cooler. (If not cooler, certainly more likely to attract girls—not that he would ever admit that was one of the deciding factors.) She asked me if I would ask him to help her. Then she apologized for asking questions all the time. That made me feel lower than low, so I apologized to her and she apologized to me again, and we eventually laughed and agreed to stop apologizing. Now I try to answer every single one of her questions, whether my bladder is about to explode or not.
>
How do you become friends with someone? It’s not something I’ve ever been particularly good at. It was okay when I was little, before I realized that kids usually only wanted to talk to me because of Laurel. I had plenty of friends up until the age of eight or nine. That was when things changed. That was when girls started whispering about me and boys started teasing me. That was when some of the girls in my class started playing a game at recess. One of them would pretend to be Laurel, playing innocently in the front garden (a patch of grass in the courtyard, well away from any patrolling teachers). One of them would be “The Shadow,” who had to try to get to her by dodging past the other girls (who were supposed to be “The Detectives”). They asked me to play once; I said no.
Martha was the first real friend I ever had. She wasn’t interested in Laurel, which was enough to make me interested in her. She made me laugh. I didn’t realize how important laughter was until I was friends with Martha. My childhood hadn’t exactly been brimming with the stuff.
Thinking about Martha made me feel bad. I suppose I have been neglecting her a little. Thomas too. But weirdly, I don’t feel as bad about him, even though I probably should. Things will get back to normal soon, though. I’m sure of it. I’m just still trying to get used to this new life of mine.
Laurel was waiting for an answer.
“I suppose you usually make friends at school. You find someone who likes the same things you do and you talk to them.” Laurel had only had one year of school before she was snatched from us. “And I suppose it works the same way when you leave school. I don’t know….Maybe you have a hobby and you meet up with other people with the same hobby. Or you can meet people on the Internet. There’s a girl at school who met her best friend and her boyfriend on an online forum for her favorite band.” Then I had to explain about Internet forums. I didn’t tell Laurel that there are a lot of forums about her. They used to be all about the abduction and solving “the crime that shocked the nation,” but they’ve diversified since she came home. I found one the other day that was all about the clothes she wears. People post photos of her and then comment on “the style choices of the lovely Laurel Logan.” It no longer surprises me that people have nothing better to do with their lives.