Every Step She Takes

by Armstrong, Kelley

  Thompson tut-tuts her threat away. I withdraw and do what I should have done already. I search on Thompson’s name.

  The first thing that appears is an ad for his services, showing a man in his late thirties, blond with bright green eyes and perfect teeth. Then another ad. And another. Below that are articles on cases he’s represented. He is a legitimate lawyer, one who seems to do well, but he’s also the sort who advertises his services on the side of buses, his handsome face plastered larger-than-life.

  Mom said her friend recommended him as one of the biggest lawyers in town. Probably because her friend saw his billboard advertisements or heard his radio jingle. He’ll happily take my case and my money and probably do a decent job of representing me, but he’ll wring every ounce of publicity from the job, and I’ll be the one who pays that price.

  I send Thompson a quick text.

  Me: It’s L. Callahan. I’m stuck in a taxi on Broadway. The driver says I’m twenty minutes from you, but it might be faster to get out and walk. So sorry! Be there soon!

  I actually hear his phone chime with the incoming text. A moment later, he replies.

  Thompson: No problem. Take care, and text when you’re close. I’ll come down to meet you.

  The officer had grumbled about the bar association, but I’m not sure this is actually a violation. I suspect Thompson treads that wire with care.

  Hey, no, I didn’t breach confidentiality. She wasn’t my client when I notified the police.

  I don’t care how legal or ethical it is. All that matters is that I got a heads-up before I walked through the front door. Score one for paranoia.

  Speaking of paranoia, I take off my boots so I don’t clip-clop down the steps. On the fifth floor, a man walks through the stairwell door. His gaze goes to the boots in my hand, only to nod and smile as he trusts in the logic of unknowable female fashion choices.

  He climbs to another floor, and I don’t encounter anyone else. At the bottom, I yank on my boots and fly through the stairwell door.

  I can’t ask Mom to find me another lawyer. She’s a school teacher in Albany. Her contact list is filled with church-lady friends and book-club friends and golf-game friends, plus a few discreet male friends that I’m not supposed to know about because God forbid I find out my mother is dating a mere quarter century after my dad died. Unless one of Mom’s hook-ups is an NYC defense attorney, she’s not the person to find me a lawyer.

  I need to handle this myself. Yes, part of me wants to hide until my mommy sorts it out, but I’m not that girl anymore.

  Take control of the narrative.

  Go to the police. Not the ones upstairs. That would seem as if I tripped over them and went “Whoops, uh, so . . . I’m turning myself in.” This must be a clear act of initiative. Find a police station. Walk in and announce who I am. Say that I wanted to find a lawyer first, but the one I contacted seemed shady—there’s your TV-ready soundbite, Daniel Thompson—so I decided to do this on my own.

  I’m heading for the side exit while searching my phone for a police precinct. The bathroom door opens. A young woman steps out. I see her pretty face, her perfectly coiffed hair, her equally perfect makeup . . . and the little microphone clipped to her lapel.

  A reporter.

  Chapter Twenty

  Albany 2005

  Our house was under siege. It had been three days, and yet, every morning, I looked out my window expecting to see a vacant street. Surely, they wouldn’t keep this up for long. Surely, there were bigger stories than mine.

  Not right now.

  I stood in my childhood bedroom, clutching Chopin, the ragged stuffed lamb my father bought for me. I squeezed him as I cracked open the side of the blind and inched just enough to see—

  “There!” someone shouted, and a camera flashed, and I dropped the blind, scuttling backward so fast I stumbled over my open suitcase.

  “Lucy?” Mom called.

  Footsteps tapped down the hall, and I righted myself before she appeared in the semidark doorway. She was up and dressed, looking every inch the capable school teacher, hair done, light makeup already in place. The cordless phone was in place, too, at her ear, where it’d been for three days as she made endless calls, trying to fix this problem for me.

  “Tripped,” I said, nodding at the suitcase. “I really need to empty that.”

  “I’ll do it. You just . . .” She struggled before blurting, “Practice. Why don’t you get in some music time?”

  My brows shot up as I forced a smile. “Did you just tell me to practice? The world really is coming to an end.”

  Mom always prided herself on not being one of those parents, endlessly pestering their musically gifted child to practice. Of course, as she’d also point out, she’d never had to nag me. I practiced on my own. Or I did until last Saturday night, when my world shattered, and music was suddenly the last thing on my mind.

  “I’ll practice,” I said.

  Her face lit up. “And I’ll make breakfast. Right after I get off this dratted phone.” She headed back into the hall. “They have to do something about those people. It must be illegal. I don’t understand the problem.”

  The problem was that the media were on public property, careful not to set foot on our lawn or drive. The police couldn’t do anything . . . and I got the feeling they didn’t want to.

  I didn’t tell Mom that. She needed to do something, and if the endless calls kept her from feeling helpless, I would not interfere.

  We will fix this, Lucy.

  I will fix it.

  It’s silly, ridiculous. You’re a child, and that man— That man—

  It was a kiss. A kiss. People are dying of cancer. People are dying of starvation. People are dying in wars. And this is the story they’re reporting? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

  The worst part was that Mom didn’t know the half of it. All she saw was what was in the papers, on the radio and TV news. I’d only gotten her hooked up on e-mail this year. The world of the Internet was a mystery to her. I could tell her that the story “broke” online, but she didn’t really understand. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her what else I found online. The bulletin boards. The community forums. The comments.

  I’d understood the concept of online bulletin boards and forums before now. We used them at school, but they were still relatively new. The ability to chat with total strangers online. The ability to comment about news online. The ability to talk about total strangers online. To call them a whore. To tell them they deserved what they got. To tell them they deserved . . . things that made me gasp and shake, that inner voice sounding exactly like my mother’s, saying this must be wrong, must be illegal, there must be laws.

  That hot-tub photograph wasn’t just on CNR’s website. People copied it and reposted it and . . . did things to it, things I didn’t know were possible to do with photographs. They removed Colt’s hands and pasted breasts on me. They took pornographic pictures from other sites and put my head on them, pretending they were real photographs they’d found. Fake photos of me in every pornographic pose possible, including some that scorched my eighteen-year-old virgin eyes.

  I walked to my desk and picked up a CD. It was an advance copy of an album by a new band Justice Kane and I talked about on Saturday night. It arrived two days ago with a note. Seven perfect words.

  This is bullshit. Keep your head up.

  I’d cried. When I told Mom, though, she said if Justice supported me, he should come forward and say so. I disagreed. Justice knew nothing of what happened after Colt took me away at the party, so he couldn’t clear my name, and I didn’t want public support without proof. The media would have claimed I had sex with Justice first, and he was defending me because he didn’t want to think he’d been the opening act for Colt Gordon.

  I put the CD into my player. Before I could start it, my bedroom phone buzzed, I jumped for it. Nylah called three times a day to check in. A couple of other friends called daily. Then there were those I kep
t waiting to hear from, those who had not reached out, those I’d nudged with a quick text, only to hear silence in response.

  I longed to hear from those friends. Not even so much to talk to them as to know they were still friends.

  OMG, Lucy! I’ve been at my parent’s cottage all week. I just saw the news. And OMG! Are you okay?

  There were, however, people I wanted to hear from even more than those silent friends. Karla for one. She’d given me good advice—don’t answer calls from numbers you don’t recognize; don’t talk to reporters; go home and let your mother help.

  Since Saturday night, though, she’d been silent. She’d warned that she would be, and I understood why. She’d be putting in all-nighters trying to save her clients’ careers. Still, I hoped for a call.

  The person I most hoped to hear from, though, was Isabella. She would be furious, and I expected that. I wanted her to call to shout at me, and that would be the opportunity I needed to tell her the truth and beg forgiveness.

  When I grabbed my bedroom phone, I glanced at the caller ID. If it was a stranger, on Karla’s advice, I’d let it ring. The name came up as Maureen, and I knew a Maureen from Juilliard. It was only as I was hitting the button to accept the call that I realized the surname was wrong.

  Karla would say to hang up, but that would be rude, and no matter what had happened, I still could not manage that.

  “Hello?”

  “Lucy? This is Maureen Wilcox from the New York Gazette.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not giving inter—”

  “Are you familiar with the Gazette? I know you were living in New York.”

  The Gazette was a relatively new paper. Not a tabloid, but not “establishment” either, like the Times. The Gazette had a younger, fresher vibe that I’d always enjoyed.

  When I didn’t answer, Maureen hurried on to say that she wanted to tell my story. Not Colt’s. Mine.

  “That’s what’s missing here,” she said. “Everyone wants his side because he’s the movie star. He’s the man. His angle is the only one that counts.”

  Sarcasm leaked through every word, and I felt myself relaxing.

  “But our opinions count, too, right?” she continued. “Women’s stories. Girl’s stories. This asshole screwed around on his gorgeous, talented wife with the nanny. Can you get any more cliché than that?”

  “I wasn’t actually the nanny,” I said. “I know that’s what the media has been calling me. But I was hired as a music tutor.”

  “Because you’re a talented musician. A Juilliard student. Reduced to ‘the nanny,’ because that’s the better soundbite. Or because they just presume you don’t have a role beyond looking after the kids. And I just fell in that trap myself. We all need to do better, right?”

  I wavered here. I was one hundred percent on board with feminism. Equal rights for women was a no-brainer. But something about her tone made me nervous.

  Maureen Wilcox had a mission, and my story would help her prove a point. That made me uncomfortable and yet . . . Well, her “point” was telling my story. Giving me a voice.

  All I had to do was be careful not to blame Colt. Don’t give any quotes she could use to make me look as if I were embracing victimhood. Take responsibility and simply set the record straight. I didn’t seduce Colt Gordon. I wasn’t having an affair with him. I did nothing more than kiss him in a hot tub after a couple glasses of champagne, and I will never forgive myself for that, but my story wasn’t one people heard in the news, and I wasn’t the girl they saw there.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll talk.”

  “Can you do it in person?”

  I hesitated, but it would be better that way. If I was unsure after meeting her, I could change my mind.

  “I know the vultures are circling,” she said. “But if you can slip out the back after nightfall, I’ll meet you close by.”

  I agreed.

  Maureen said to expect the article in two days. That didn’t keep me from sneaking out the next evening to grab a copy. I almost got caught by an enterprising young reporter who shone a flashlight my way, but I was already over the neighbor’s fence.

  Most of the media left at sundown, which was also when Mom’s church friends came by to drop off casseroles and cookies. She insisted they were all on my side, but I knew that wouldn’t be completely true. While Mom attended a progressive church, there would still be whispering, and I hated that she had to go through it. I hated that she had to go through any of it. With any luck, the Gazette article would make a difference.

  I snuck out to get the paper on the proper day, and I caught a glimpse of my name on the front page. Resisting the urge to read it, I raced home and slipped through the back door, tiptoeing past where Mom was talking to Father Collins in the kitchen.

  Normally, I’d pop in to say hello. I liked Father Collins. When Mom drove me home from New York after the scandal, I’d asked to stop for confession first. He’d taken mine, and I had felt seen and not judged, and that was what I needed. Right now, though, what I needed was to read this newspaper.

  When a floorboard creaked, Mom called, “Lucy?”

  I hid the paper behind my back and leaned around the doorway. “Hey, Father. Good to see you.”

  “And good to see you,” he said, his lined face softening in a genuine smile. “How are you holding up, Lucy?”

  “I’m managing.”

  “I’m sure you are. You’re like your mother. Made of sterner stuff.”

  Oh, I wish that were true, Father. I really do.

  “If you ever need to talk, you know where to find me,” he continued. “But I’m sure this will all be over soon, and you’ll be back to Juilliard.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You will,” he said with Mom echoing his nod.

  People talk about faith as a religious concept, but it was more than that. Sometimes, that sort of faith bubbled over into a general faith that the world would behave in ways that were good and fair and just. Mom had that faith, and she held fast to it, no matter how hard it was tested, first through Dad’s death and now this. She believed, like Father Collins, that everything would be fine in the end. She needed it to be.

  I retreated to my room and closed the door. Then I picked up Chopin, hugging him as I unfolded the paper. The first thing I saw was Maureen’s photo, which made me smile. She looked open and earnest, and when we’d met for the interview, I’d instinctively known I’d made the right choice.

  Her byline read “special to the Gazette.” That gave me pause. I thought that was used when the writer wasn’t staff, which Maureen said she was. It must just mean that the article was an exclusive.

  The headline was a simple “Lucy Callahan Tells Her Story,” so I zoomed past that, and started to read.

  Lucy Callahan is not what I expect. I’m standing on this dimly lit corner in Albany, feeling like a john waiting for his underage “date.” That’s what I expect. Callahan will be gorgeous and sexy, a teenage Lolita. Instead, my first thought seeing her is “She’s barely even pretty.” Red hair. Unremarkable pale face. Skinny. I should say “slender” or “lithe,” but she’s just skinny.

  This was the girl Colt Gordon endangered his career for? I’m thinking the movie star is in need of glasses. Then she starts to talk, and that’s when I understand. For all her homeliness, there is a feral quality to Lucy Callahan. This is a girl accustomed to getting what she wants, a girl who got into Juilliard despite, as one fellow student said, her mediocre talents. This is also the girl who seduced Colt Gordon and now blames him for it. Blames Colt. Blames “too much champagne.” Blames everyone but herself.

  I slid to my knees, hands pressed to my mouth, still seeing the words before me, as if dancing in the air.

  What have I done?

  Oh, God, what have I done?

  Karla warned me, and somehow, I thought I understood journalists better than a celebrity manager.

  I forced myself back onto the bed, and I read it t
o the bitter end, and bitter it was, the portrait of a girl who was ugly inside and out, a stupid, thoughtless slut who seduced Colt Gordon and blamed everyone else.

  Again, I heard my mother’s voice, saying this wasn’t right, and there had to be a law against the lies this woman spewed about me, the way she’d twisted my words, every quote taken out of context.

  Unlike my mother’s voice, mine took on a whine, the perfect tone for the girl in the article.

  It’s not fair.

  Why is this happening to me?

  I heard Karla’s words again, warning me not to speak to the media, not to believe anyone who said they were on my side.

  I’d been played. Maureen Wilcox knew exactly the face to show me, exactly the angle to take, exactly the words to say. She got an exclusive interview by promising to tell my side of the story.

  The only story she told was her own. Whatever fiction would sell her article and get her own name in the news.

  I stared down at the paper. Then I folded it and tucked it into a drawer.

  Let this be a lesson to you, Lucy. Every time you open that drawer, remember and learn. Be smarter. Be stronger.

  I took a deep breath. Then I went to the kitchen to warn my mother.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  New York 2019

  I stare at the TV reporter coming out of the bathroom. She looks like Maureen Wilcox. Could be her if time had stood still, and I’m thrown back into that memory, the horror and humiliation and hurt.

  Before the woman can look up, I stride past, and her heels click in the other direction. I zip out the back door, duck into an alley and jog behind a dumpster. An elderly woman peers down the lane, as if she saw me, but she doesn’t slow for a better look.

  I keep seeing that article, feeling as if I’m back there again, reading it for the first time, and I start shaking so badly I need to lean against the wall.