Her Perfect Life

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “Yeah, but, Cass.” Marianne looked skeptical, pursing her lips. “Gotta tell you, that really smells li—”

  Cassie interrupted, looking even sadder, staring over Marianne’s shoulder as if deep in memory. “I remember from my dad. My mother and I were there all the time. When he died. That smell of alcohol, and death, always makes me incredibly depressed.”

  “Oh, stupid me.” Marianne was frowning now. Cassie hoped in embarrassment, in regret of her wrong conclusion and inappropriate teasing. “Hospitals. Are so grim.”

  Cassie wadded her clothing into a ball, kept on her camisole tank and her underwear. “I’m gonna take a shower.” She’d take the winey clothes into the shower with her, rinse them out at least, not make a big deal out of going all the way down to the washing machines in the basement. She could do that when Marianne was gone and wouldn’t notice. “Hospitals. I hate them.”

  Marianne nodded. Felt guilty, Cassie hoped. She and Marianne had been matched—however that worked—by the college and were only just beginning to understand each other’s quirks and living habits. Now she wished her roommate would stop asking questions, for once in her life. Cassie needed to think.

  What had Jem said to his friend on the phone? Her name? Had he even said she was there? She willed the memory back, thinking about the timing. Hi, it’s Jem, he might have said. I’m … Then he would have given some explanation of what happened, and he would have described his situation, not her.

  Cassie clutched her damp clothing closer to her chest, felt her shoulders drop in defeat. She could make up rationalizing stories all she wanted, but bottom line, she had no idea. And if Jem had said her name, distinctly enough so that whoever it was would remember it, she’d know soon enough. If they—whoever they was, police or detectives or doctors or family or Jem’s friend on the phone—started looking for her, it wouldn’t take long to find her. Like, two seconds.

  She took a scrunchie from her dresser top, wrapped her hair into a ponytail. Saw her own face in the dresser mirror, pale and drawn around the edges. Her lip gloss was all worn off, her lips pale and ghostly, and her eyelashes glommed together from mascara and tears. After the shower, she’d pull herself together. Marianne was not the brightest bulb. Maybe Cassie could escape to the library or something.

  The thought of it made her so weary, though. Seeing people, other kids, wondering if they were looking at her. Gossip was the engine of this school, she’d learned that, the buzz and whispers and sidelong glances, who was pledged to sororities, and who was blackballed, and who had a stash of diet pills or Ecstasy in their backpack. And they probably got that stuff from Jem, too. What else might have been in that horrible apartment?

  What if the police came or something? Here? And questioned her? All she wanted was to go to sleep. For, like, ever.

  She startled herself with that dark thought. Tried to brighten her face as she turned back to Marianne. She had to find a normal, and be normal, and pretend everything was normal. There were no secrets. She had no secrets. She was just Cassie, who went to the hospital, and then came home.

  “So I’ll just—”

  “Wait. A. Minute.” Marianne drew out the words as if she were figuring out a complicated problem. “The hospital? Why? Were you checking on Professor Shaw? You were, weren’t you?” Marianne had tucked her highlighter into the textbook to mark her place. Focused on Cassie.

  Cassie’s head was starting to hurt again, bursting with fear and possibilities. She felt trapped, like, on the inside, and on the outside. What gnawed at her, what thickened her brain as if someone was filling her head with sand, was that she should have done something about Jem, but she hadn’t, and now it was too late because she already didn’t do the right thing, and now there was no way out of it. If she killed a drug dealer, or even if she left him to die … how in the name of everything could that have happened to her?

  She wished Marianne would just shut up. If everyone would mind their own business, everything would be fine. But everyone wouldn’t.

  “I—” Now Cassie had to say something. Give some reason why she was at the hospital. It’s not like people just hung around there. “I—”

  “Oh, Cassie, you are so thoughtful,” Marianne interrupted. “I mean, that is so great of you. We’re all so worried about him, but only you actually went to check on him. Did they tell you anything? I mean, do we know why he stayed in the building so long? Oh. Wait. No. I just thought of something.”

  Marianne grabbed the pillow with the pink peonies, held it to her chest.

  Cassie waited, almost seeing her roommate’s mind at work.

  “You know what?” Marianne leaned forward, eyes wide, engaging her. “I bet? He stayed to make sure everyone was out. Don’t you agree?”

  One thing about Marianne, if you didn’t answer her, she’d just keep talking. For better or worse.

  As Marianne elaborated on her theory, Cassie had to admit it wasn’t actually a bad explanation. Maybe? It wasn’t her fault Professor Shaw had been inside so long. It was his. She played out the scenario, the one where he’d hung back to protect whoever might still in the building. To leave no child behind. He was brave, and selfless, and devoted, and—wait. No.

  It was a terrible thought. That would mean her. That he’d waited for her. Her face felt cold, suddenly, icicles up her neck. She pretended to listen to her prattling roommate, and standing there, in the stupid dorm in the stupid school holding her stupid clothes, which she should just burn, she started to hate Professor Shaw. With that smarmy turtleneck, and that hair, too long for a person his age. He’d been eyeing her, she knew it. And that was wrong. And actually, now that she remembered it again, he’d delayed her from leaving the building.

  Shifting the wadded clothing in her arms from one side to the other, she chewed the inside of her cheek.

  She could feel her body moving into the position of telling that version, hear the tone of her voice saying it, felt her chin go up, and her face arrange in an earnest and half-unwilling disclosure. Who would they believe, the poor college freshman or the predatory professor?

  She adjusted the dankly incriminating clothing in her arms again, felt her expression change to sorrow and regret.

  I wouldn’t want to hurt his reputation, she could hear herself whispering to whoever it was, but—

  “Cass? Hey, sister. What’re you doing? Are you listening to me?” Marianne was waving at her. “I was asking you, did you hear anything about that other guy, Jim? No, Jem. Jem. Who tried to go in to save him.” Marianne pursed her lips as if trying to retrieve a memory. “You were there, I remember. But did you see him going in? Was he at the hospital, too?”

  “I don’t know.” Cassie tried to answer everything with that phrase. There was no reason that she, Cassie, an innocent bystander, a freshman, should know anything about anything. Only problem was, people would have seen her at the hospital. She needed to bring that up herself and create the perfect story to go with it.

  “Yeah, I wanted to drop off some flowers for Professor Shaw.” She concocted the explanation on the fly. “He was—is—my prof, of course. But dumb me, he’s in ICU…” She hesitated. Was she offering too many details? “But they wouldn’t let me, so I left them at the front desk. Lilies, they were.” She shrugged, naming the first flower that came to her mind. “I didn’t put a card, because he’s a teacher, so I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. I’d just meant to cheer him up, like a surprise.” She was talking too fast, but she was into it now. “They’ll probably give them to someone else. It’s fine. And then I just walked up Mountville Street a little. You know. To clear my head,” she added, laying the groundwork in case anyone had seen her there. “Then I came home.”

  “Cassie, you are the best. The nicest.” Marianne was shaking her head in what seemed like profound approval. “It’s all so amazingly awful.”

  “Yeah, it is awful.” Cassie ignored the undeserved praise, hoping it would be taken as modesty. She was anything but the
best, and it made her stomach hurt to hear this stuff. Marianne’s innocent questions, though, were proof that she was going to have to prepare to juggle. To not look guilty, or even feel guilty when she answered people. That was the way to create a perfect lie. To really believe you were telling the truth. Not to tell too much, and then change the subject. “But more important. Have you heard anything new about how the fire started?”

  Cassie heard footsteps in the hallway, then a murmur of conversation. Doors opening, and the undercurrent getting louder. The footsteps came closer to their room. She took the few short steps to the bathroom, tossed her winey clothes into the bathtub, and grabbed her fleece robe from a hook on the door, tying the thick white belt around her waist.

  Marianne cocked her head toward the hallway. “What’s all that about, you think?” she said. “Maybe a party or something?”

  “Friday,” Cassie told herself as much as Marianne. “They’re probably already buzzed. We should close the door.”

  “You guys?” Someone rapped on their doorjamb. More than one person in the hall, Cassie heard. Voices. Low and intense. Not partiers. “You in there?”

  “Hang on. What’s up?” Marianne trotted toward the door, then turned to Cassie. “You decent?” she whispered. “It’s, like, Rajit. One of the voices at least.”

  “Pretend I’m not here,” Cassie said. Rajit. The head resident assistant. That could not be good.

  “But you are here,” Marianne whispered.

  “Marianne? Cassie?” The voice came through the cracked door, which seemed to be opening, slowly, by the sheer force of whoever wanted them to answer.

  “I’m in the shower, then.” Cassie pointed to the bathroom. “Just tell her—”

  “You guys!” The door opened, halfway, and Rajit had curled her head and shoulders into the opening. “I know you’re in there, the door’s open. Come on, you two. You know you’re supposed to answer me.”

  “Oh, hey, Raj.” Marianne, stretched, then yawned. She pulled the door all the way open. “Must have fallen asleep. What’s up?”

  Cassie tried to ease back toward the bathroom. And the safety of the shower. One step closer. Two.

  Rajit, in her uniform of black jeans, Berwick tee, and aggressive red lipstick, stepped into their room and seemed to be checking in each of the four corners as if she suspected the roommates had been trying to hide something.

  NOW

  CHAPTER 34

  LILY

  Lily jabbed a finger at the lighted neon sign displaying a giant crimson horse just off the turnpike exit. She and Banning had stopped at the red light that swayed above Exit 217, a tangled skein of streets Lily’d always thought had been designed by a particularly sadistic civil engineer.

  “Banning,” she said. “Pull into that gas station. Now.”

  “Why?”

  The light stayed red.

  “Banning. If you don’t, I’m opening this damn car door and getting out. And I am calling the real police. And listen.” She recited three letters and three numbers. “I know your license plate, and I know there’s surveillance video of you coming into Channel 6, and in one phone call, the cops will be on you faster than you can say impersonating an officer.”

  The light stayed red. She swore she saw Banning smile, his eyes still obscured by those sunglasses.

  “So Greer met with you?” she asked. “Last night? At Lido?” Not half an hour before, while Banning was inside Lido, Smith had told her Greer had met with him. Had all three been together?

  “Like I said.”

  Their light changed to green. Behind them, the honking of horns had instantly begun, a raucous symphony of impatience and anger.

  Lily knew how they felt. Anger and impatience were not the half of it. Someone was toying with her, holding not only Greer over her head, but Cassie. The only reason she’d put up with this potentially risky charade was the possibility of getting some answers. Banning clearly knew something about Cassie. He also knew Greer had been on her trail. Might have even put her there.

  And that was unnerving. She’d believed—for years—that she was the only one in the world looking for Cassie. Everyone else assumed Cassie was dead. But though Lily knew back then that Cassie left on purpose, she had no idea about what happened to her sister.

  Now this detective’s interest could only mean Cassie was still alive. Who had hired him to find her?

  And his earlier question had hit a nerve. Had she wondered why Cassie hadn’t looked for her? Daily. Lily had always pushed that awkward thought aside, but it was true, Cassie wouldn’t have any difficulty finding her. Lily’s face was on television and billboards and in magazine ads. Google Lily Atwood, and you’d get new entries every day. Not like Cassie, where the stories about her never changed or advanced. Online, Cassie Atwood was forever eighteen. If she were alive, she’d be around forty.

  Lily’d believed, mostly believed, that Cassie must be dead.

  Now Banning was looking for her. So was Greer. Smith had said he’d met with Greer at Lido. And now, Banning, too? Smith and Banning?

  Smith and Banning?

  “Was it just the two of you at Lido?”

  “Just the two? Not sure what you—”

  “Go,” she said, pointing at the gas station. Smith and Banning. “Now. I am not staying in this car one more second unless you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Lily braced one hand on the dashboard as Banning veered the car into the gas station’s entryway, one wheel jouncing over the curb, and brought it to a hard-braked stop, putting her beside a snake of red rubber hose looped around a hook on a rusty post topped by a battered metal sign reading AIR 25 CENTS. Banning had pivoted the car, backing into the marked spot, so they faced the street. He left the engine running. Buzzed down his window, letting in the hum of traffic on the street in front of them, the ping of the gas pumps, and the wafting fumes of oil and dust. The pounding bass of some heavy metal anthem came from inside the gas station’s boxy glass-windowed office, its open front door revealing a rainbow of shelved snacks and wall-mounted reels of lottery tickets.

  He turned to her. Peeled off his sunglasses.

  But she spoke first.

  “You’re Smith.” Lily heard herself saying the words, asking the question, almost before her mind had accepted the possibility. She tried to read his face, watching for bafflement, or denial, or amusement, or defeat. Or, maybe, victory. “You. Are. Smith.”

  Banning slid one hand into the inside of his jacket.

  Lily flinched at his motion, her heart twisting. She’d gone too far. She should not have confronted him, not like that, not so directly, not trapped here in his car. She saw her door was unlocked. She unclicked her seat belt. Grabbed the door handle. Pulled it, opened it, felt the puff of warm air from outside.

  Then heard the panel of her door bump up against the rusty post with the air sign. Her door would not open all the way. She eyed the available open space, gauging. Inches. Three maybe. Not enough room for her to get out. Even with the open door, she was still trapped.

  “Lily? Going somewhere?” Banning, looking down, was scrolling through something on his cell. “I’ll need to pull up, if you do.”

  He held up the phone, briefly, too quickly for Lily to see the screen. “So I guess you don’t want to see the files and pictures I have?”

  Lily drew in a breath, quieting her heart, assessing her choices. Pictures of what? Her? Greer? Rowen? Cassie? They were right out in public, a pony- tailed woman in front of them gassing up a sleek black convertible, and two gangly teenagers ambling toward the gas station’s office wearing frayed cutoffs and Tevas. Any of those customers might recognize her, after all, she was Lily Atwood. All she’d have to do was yell and they’d come running, probably with cell phones recording everything.

  “So the thing about conversations,” Lily said. She kept her voice calmly reasonable, even friendly. It felt as if the car were getting smaller, this two-ton contraption of glass and steel that she�
��d entered with hesitation, and which now enclosed her without choice. She left her car door open and seat belt off, and wondered how it would feel to scream. What pictures did he have? But first things first. “The thing about conversations is that one person asks a question, and the other one answers. You’re not keeping up your end of that, Banning. I asked if you were Smith.”

  She tilted her head, trying to look determined but pleasant at the same time.

  Banning had put his phone into a cup holder on the car’s center console, the screen facing him.

  “From what I gather, there is no ‘Smith,’” he said. “Isn’t that a nickname?”

  “You know what I mean.” The car was too small for verbal jousting. And Greer had not checked in. “You called me from inside Lido, and from the sidewalk. And pretended to be Smith telling me to trust you? That’s complicated. You know I protect sources. Why not just—”

  “Because you wouldn’t have believed me, would you?” Banning’s face seemed to change, losing its veneer of wary sarcasm, as if some pretense had lifted. “If I had come into your office this morning and told you who I really was, you’d have been skeptical. Suspicious.”

  “Told me who you really were? You mean, told me you were Smith?” Weird though, “Smith” had called her this morning in her office, while Banning was there. Were there maybe two Smiths? “Or imagine, told me your real name? Why would I be skeptical? All you’d have to do was talk.”