by Andrea Bartz
A confused beat, and then she told me about her calls first with Cameron, then with Eleanor’s sweet parents. I never thought of Hana as much of a digger, but I was impressed she followed her instincts. She was good at the psychology bit.
“Cameron talking about the forger was obviously a huge red flag,” she went on. “Like, did she find another way to procure a fake passport?”
“Makes sense to me.” I was intermittently taking notes and doodling in a notebook.
“When we were all in their little home office last night, I noticed her Frida Kahlo book on the shelf, and tonight it just snapped into place. I looked again at the numbers I’d spotted sitting, er, out on the desk as Daniel was showing us that weird contract—one looked like a phone number but didn’t connect, and the other was two digits longer. So I Googled the first two digits of the longer number with the words ‘country code.’ Mexico. The two numbers were for burner phones.”
“Smart.” I’d looked hard at that desk too. When had Hana snatched up some random phone numbers? And why would they be sitting out where Daniel could see them?
“What about you? What’d you—hang on, Mikki’s calling.”
A few beeps, the usual swirl of you-theres and hellos.
“So where is she? Is she okay?” Mikki sounded frantic.
“We think she’s okay,” Hana said. “She left voluntarily. Moved to Mexico.”
“Oh, thank God.” A crazed laugh. Then: “What the fuck?”
“She’s been planning it for a while,” Hana noted. “I’m…so relieved, and yet so furious?” She said it curiously, like she was neither of those things.
“I’m so glad she’s okay, oh my God,” Mikki said. “But why would she—especially when the Herd—” Her voice cracked, like it was stuck at the top of her lungs.
“I guess maybe things weren’t as good as they seemed?” Hana said.
“That cunt!” Mikki sounded amazed. “That fucking brilliant, horrible cunt. Do we know for sure she’s down there?”
“I hope so, because it would mean she’s alive and fine,” I broke in. A surprised silence, like they’d forgotten I was there.
“Katie, you were about to tell me what made you think she was in Mexico,” Hana prompted.
I quickly assessed: There was no reason to mention Fatima, or the bank records, or my meeting with Ted, or anything other than the smoking gun, really. “She was figuring out how to ditch her identity and move to a town called Guayabitos. Described her plans to a stranger online.”
A stunned silence.
“Well, you probably should have led with that,” Hana said.
“I just found this out. She—”
“Who was she talking to?” Mikki interrupted.
“A stranger on Click,” I said. “She had a profile, and it wasn’t too hard to reset the password and access it.” I gave them the CliffsNotes version, implying I’d worked alone.
“I really, really want you to be right,” Mikki said carefully, “but also…goddammit, Eleanor. That bitch didn’t even say goodbye. And she left behind her two companies without warning or any plan to keep them going? That…that doesn’t sound like her.”
“I guess this is a PR nightmare,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound flippant, but.
“Not to mention…hurtful? That she just thought it was fine to abandon us one night?” Mikki’s voice rose to a scratch. “I can’t believe it. Those smug-ass cops were right.”
“What do we do now?” Hana asked, always the mom, always the planner.
“I guess tell the detectives?” I said after a moment. “Will they still look for her if she left voluntarily?”
“I don’t think so,” Hana said slowly. “If she has debts here, her creditors can come after her. And if she’s in the country illegally, that’s Mexico’s issue.”
I let out something between a laugh and a groan. “I just can’t believe this. It’s Eleanor we’re talking about. Would she…could she really do this?”
No one spoke. The static on the phone line seemed to swell.
“I know it’s shocking, but I think it’s true,” Hana said. “She’s so intelligent and strong-willed and…can’t you kind of see it?”
Give it a few days, maybe weeks, and Eleanor would reappear at the Herd, her swishy hair glistening, a smile molding her cheekbones, the wildest story on her berry-colored lips—
“I don’t really know what else to say.” The voice was rickety and it took me a moment to decide it was Mikki, not Hana. “Actually, I gotta go. I think I’m gonna throw up.”
Hana and I tried to jump in with something sympathetic, but when the kindness cleared we realized she was already gone.
“Well, I guess I’ll call Ratliff,” Hana finally said.
“Has anyone told Daniel?” I asked. “Or her parents?”
“I think we should leave that to the police. I’ll call Ratliff now and just say this is what we think happened. Her parents might have contacts down there. People who can look for her. They were always taking her there growing up.”
We ran out of things to say, like it was the awkward end of a Q&A session, and I hung up, jealous of Hana with her assigned tasks. I still had things I could do—chasing down the White Plains airport, rereading the messages from Eleanor’s new British friend in search of overlooked clues—but suddenly I was tired, my bones turning to lead. I felt the tears brewing and let the weird combo of relief, anger, exhaustion, and self-pity swirl: Eleanor’s alive and safe. Eleanor left you, a week after you came back into her life. I let myself cry, felt the cold tears collect in my ears. At one point Samantha, my roommate, knocked softly on the door, but I ignored her and she went away.
* * *
—
Thursday was cold, as cold as all the days before and all the days yet to come. I thought about staying home, keeping the curtains drawn, but instead pulled on my puffy coat and took the subway into the city. At first I thought the others hadn’t come, but finally Aurelia, all-seeing eye of the front desk (basically Sauron), pointed at the wall behind her. “They’re in Eleanor’s office.”
They’d closed the door, which meant I wasn’t welcome. But: Fuck it. I knocked once, twice, three times.
The hushed tones ceased.
“Who is it?” Hana called.
“It’s me.”
Dark figures moved behind the frosted glass, and then Hana pulled the door open. Hana was crying; Mikki’s face was contorted into…confusion? Concern?
“What is it?” I said.
Mikki tapped at her phone and handed it to me. As she did, I realized the look in her eyes was outrage, exasperation, wrath.
I had to blink a few times to put all the pieces together.
An email. To Mikki and Hana, their personal emails. From Eleanor, her Herd account. From the nineteenth—today—at 9:56 a.m. local time—less than fifteen minutes ago. It was short, like most of her emails. The brevity of a powerful woman who doesn’t need to impress anyone.
I’m so sorry, my lovelies, for all the worry and pain I’m sure I’ve put you through. I’m fine and safe and no longer in the country. I can’t explain why, but I need you to trust me: I’m happy, and I won’t be coming back. I trust you to tell all the right people and to continue all the amazing things we’ve begun together. xoxoxo
My ears buzzed, a staticky crackle, like when you rest your head at bubble level in a bath. My vision softened around the edges, but I breathed hard and thoughts began streaming back in, a trickle at first and then all at once.
“So she only sent this to you two. No one else.”
Hana swallowed. “As far as we know.”
“Not Daniel? Not her parents?” Not me?
Hana shook her head. “I texted Daniel and Gary, just said, ‘How are you?’ They both said they were okay. I can’t imagine they’ve gotte
n this.”
I handed the phone back to Mikki. “Did we trace the email back? The IP address? We can figure out where—”
“She doesn’t want to be found.” Hana stopped staring at the ground and looked at me, her eyes shiny with tears. “She’s done with us. Even if we found her. She’s gone.”
“No.” I darted my eyes between them. “No, we have to try. This doesn’t make sense. She can’t—she wouldn’t—” A swooping sensation climbed up my lungs and out of my mouth as a curdled sob. Hana crossed the three feet between us and wrapped me in her arms.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, shaking my head. “She always signs off with XX, right? And it’s cute, because it’s kisses but also the female chromosomes? And this is—”
“Katie, stop,” Mikki said. I felt Hana’s chin turn toward her. “This is it. She’s a fucking lunatic and this is how she’s ending it.” She began to cry, too, but they were fury tears, annoyance brought to a boil.
We stayed there for a while, Mikki pacing and cursing, Hana crying wetly, me shaking in Hana’s arms. Finally Hana swiped at her cheeks and somehow pulled herself into organizing mode, and she and Mikki made a plan. Their questions floated over my head like speech bubbles in a cartoon, and for once I was grateful that I was a hanger-on, a little kid in this adult situation. I heard snatches about press statements, a story that would resonate, legal counsel, grief groups.
“Okay.” Hana mashed her hands together. “Let’s go then.”
I stayed behind for a minute, collecting myself, then paused at the threshold between the sunroom and the library. I let my gaze soften until the women around me were just a beautiful blur. A phone rang; two Herders giggled loudly, their laughs like pretty sparklers.
My eyes focused again on a figure in the corner, near the coatroom—wide shoulders hunched, her neck drooping. Hana. I blinked and hurried over to her, tapped her arm. We stared at each other.
“I’m gonna go home,” she announced, with the same zoned-out drone you use at the end of the night, when you realize you’re too drunk and no longer having a good time.
“Okay.”
“I just…can’t be here right now.” She rifled through the coat rack, thrusting sleeves aside. “Do you want to come with me?”
She stared at the coats, not meeting my eyes, which I took to mean she didn’t want me to.
“I’m gonna stay. Make sure Mikki’s okay.”
She nodded and then pulled me into another hug. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said. But I knew I wouldn’t.
I wandered home shortly after, past the Cultivation Thursday crew convening near the front desk. I glared at the women there: nodding, laughter, notes in pretty notebooks and forks scraping on creamy green plates. Things were falling apart, but to them, it was business as usual.
* * *
—
I slept late on Friday, then woke to a string of texts from Erin. My little chipmunk of a literary agent was eager for an update on my book proposal, eager for anything new on Eleanor. She didn’t know yet—nobody knew. Ninety-nine percent of the world thought Eleanor was waylaid by a family emergency, Erin and a handful of others thought she was genuinely missing, and just a few of us—one-third of one-billionth of the population—knew the bizarre truth. Thoughts of Chris came clanging back to the surface. My heart had just begun to scab over, now that I’d put seven hundred miles between myself and Michigan, the awful night when it all went wrong. Now the wound opened back up and mingled with how much I missed Eleanor: a shimmering ache radiating outward from my chest.
The Herd had a hushed, curious energy. By now—with Eleanor three days gone—everyone was keenly aware of her absence, and the Herd’s fresh Instagrams (still posted regularly by one of the member relations coordinators) had hundreds of comments clinging to the bottom, all vague and cheerful vows of support for Eleanor and her “family emergency.” Each made me feel something between faint and sick.
Hana’s eyes had that focused glint, her body stiffened with determination. She was putting the final touches on a press release before sending it to the Herd’s lawyer for approval. Yesterday’s paralysis, it turned out, hadn’t lasted long. Hana always behaved this way under pressure: She became maniacally efficient, a robot plowing through its tasks until she’d suddenly break down into tears that seemed like a surprise even to her. It freaked me out—the automaton eyes, her manic typing, as if Eleanor hadn’t just thrown a grenade into our lives.
I swung Hana’s screen my way and scanned: The press release was a soft, twirling spin on the truth, a carefully worded claim that due to “continuing family circumstances,” Eleanor was permanently stepping down from her posts at Gleam and the Herd, and asking everyone to respect her privacy during this difficult time.
“Family circumstances?” I repeated, pointing.
She shrugged. “It sounds better than ‘personal reasons’ but means the same thing. Isn’t everyone a member of their own family?”
I looked at her, astonished.
Mikki appeared and slid onto a seat at the communal table we’d commandeered. “I can’t believe you got so many people to agree to not talk about it.” She looked at me and clarified: “Daniel, Cameron, Ted, Eleanor’s parents—they’re all staying mum.”
“To be fair, I don’t think her folks are able to form coherent sentences right now.” Hana sighed. “But it’s true, they’re all signing NDAs. I think everyone saw the logic of keeping this quiet so they have an actual shot at grieving in peace. Can you imagine if it was on the news?” She held an imaginary mic under her chin, her voice bubbling up with a newscaster’s shocked emphasis: “Bizarre news is rocking the small but powerful world of commercial feminism today. Following an announcement that the Herd will be acquired by internet giant Titan, its founder has cleared out her bank account and run off…to Mexico!”
A stunned silence. “You do a really good newscaster,” I said finally.
“Have you been practicing that?” Mikki looked uncomfortable.
Hana rolled her eyes. “It’s my job to think about the worst-case scenario, okay? The Herd is still my client, and believe it or not, I still care about this place.”
“Aw.” I patted her hand. “This place cares about you too.”
“Glad somebody does.” She lifted her screen again. “Not to mention I have other clients. Whom I’ve been basically ignoring for a week.”
“I know what you mean. I missed a meeting with a super-important gallery owner.”
“Aw. For the collages?” Mikki nodded. I was screwed, too, but I couldn’t share why. I hadn’t replied to Erin. My hunch was that she’d try to convince me to keep pursuing Eleanor, to perhaps even travel to Mexico in defiance of Eleanor’s blow-off, a thought that made my stomach knot almost as badly as the idea of dusting off my notes from Michigan and writing Infopocalypse.
“I just really miss her,” I said finally.
* * *
—
Aurelia bustled out at one point, giving me a sharp nod hello and then announcing she would be canceling Monday Mocktails. The hired bartender was from a buzzy Japanese bar, and the Herders seemed disappointed as she spread the word. But I was relieved, knowing I wouldn’t have to look up in the darkened afternoon to see throngs of cheerful women sipping virgin lychee mojitos.
Mikki invited Hana and me to dinner at her apartment in Greenpoint: “All carbs, probably Italian, and we’re watching Project Runway in lieu of talking, obviously.” Hana and I both liked the sound of that, and as the sun plunged lower and lower I tied up loose ends: confirming Fatima wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d seen on Click (Bitch I break laws for a living lol you have nothing to worry about); drafting an email for Erin explaining this new book idea wouldn’t work out either. But discomfort buzzed in me whenever my mouse hovered over the Send button. Maybe I wasn’t re
ady to call it quits? Maybe I needed someone to tell me this was worth pursuing, now more than ever?
Mikki and I grew antsy as the crowd thinned, murmuring on their way out about the canceled Mocktails and the denial of their God-given right to tangerine-ginger fizzes. Hana pretended not to notice our fidgeting as she typed madly at her computer.
“Sorry, guys, I’m just racing to get this news alert out before the end of the day,” she eventually said, her eyes swinging up. “God, I never thought this was an announcement I’d be planning.”
The Herd’s official closing time neared and then rolled past. Aurelia popped over, blinking in the light.
“You guys heading out soon?” she said with as much friendliness as she could muster.
“We can lock up,” Hana said, her face bluish from her laptop’s glow.
“And we’ll be out of here soon,” I added on behalf of all of us, because I felt tired and ungenerous and eager to get the fuck out of there. Aurelia said good night and I herded us into the coatroom and plucked my puffer from a hanger. We were looping scarves and tugging on hats when a sudden round of gunfire made us freeze.
It started again. Not gunfire—drums, a drum line. Snares and bass, now a cymbal crash. Hana, Mikki, and I grabbed our things and hustled out of the coatroom and into the sunroom, pressing up against the windows. On the street below, we could just make out a troupe of drummers, their marching-band uniforms decorated to look like nutcrackers. One of them blew a whistle and then they broke into their most elaborate cadence yet, their arms a blur, the plumes on their cylindrical hats bobbing, and the half-circle of spectators shook their shoulders to the beat and lifted their phones high, recording. In the windows of the buildings around us, silhouettes appeared. I pulled my phone from my purse and held it to the glass, but all I could see was our reflections.
“Can we somehow turn the lights off in here?” Hana asked, tapping at her screen.
“The switches are all the way at the front desk,” I said.