#FashionVictim

by Amina Akhtar

  “I came to get Jack. You were just . . . extra. I wish you’d stop being so desperate. You work for me; we’re not friends. Jack and I laugh about it, you know. How pathetic you are. God, look at you. Leather leggings? That’s so two years ago.” She snorted.

  “I thought—”

  “You thought what? That we were friends?” She threw her head back and laughed. “Please. I could never be your friend. You’re my employee. I was being nice so you’d do things for me. You’re so not one of us. All those lies you told. How long did you think we’d let you be here?” She gestured to her desk. She meant La Vie. They were letting me work here. “God, Lisa was so right about you. What, did you think we’d let that go?” She cackled. “That private eye is still working for us. I thought you knew?” She grinned triumphantly. “And if you don’t do everything I want, I’m going to tell the world.”

  Her face had that maniacal glee that comes from jumping headfirst into your anger pool. I’d seen it before, done it myself. She had become one with her fury, and no one would survive. Too bad I was her target. And she’d hit the mark. Bull’s-fucking-eye.

  I picked up a stray, unopened box from Sarah’s desk (yet another package for her) and brought it down onto her head as hard as I could. Her glorious mane muffled the noise, but you could hear it. The thud. She jerked forward. I dropped the box and grabbed her hair. God it was pretty. And then I shoved her face first into her computer monitor. Over and over again, until Sarah shut up.

  I blinked. She was sitting there grinning at me still. Her mouth looked grotesque for once. There was no blood, no smashed computer. None of it was real.

  “Lol, what a waste of time and money,” I said finally. How did my voice sound so normal? I calmly went to my desk.

  I’d learned a lot in my years away at school. But the most important lesson was to never, ever let anyone see how much they hurt you. They’re not allowed to win. Only you are.

  Do I call Dr. M? I know what he’d say. That sometimes, you hurt the ones you love. That you lash out and make them miserable because you feel sad. I nodded. It made sense. Dr. M was a genius that way. Numbness set in. Maybe this was a heart attack after all. Aren’t you supposed to go numb? Reject.

  You’re a reject. No one loves you. Sarah and Jack are together forever, and you’re all alone. You’re not one of them. They know who you are, Mariana.

  I wouldn’t cry. Not at work. Not with Sarah there. I’d do it after I finished running more errands for her. I had to do whatever she wanted. She held true to her word (for once) and ordered me to do every menial task she could think up. She even made me get her lunch.

  “I said sashimi, not sushi. Go back.” She threw her miso soup at me. It landed all over my sweater. Now I’d have to dry-clean it. Goddammit. Mulberry shook her head, pity in her eyes. I needed Dr. M before I had a full meltdown.

  I called him as I got lunch number two for Sarah. He was going to be so displeased with me.

  “Anya,” he said, “you need to stop putting so much effort into people who aren’t worth it. Sarah’s a taker. You need someone who will give you love. You can’t make anyone love you, you know.”

  “I know, Dr. M. But I thought this time, just this once, it would work out. We were supposed to be destined. What do I do now?”

  “Is it possible she feels betrayed by you?”

  By me? I scoffed. I got her dry cleaning. I wrote her stories. I cut my hair the way she wanted me to. If anyone was betrayed, it was me.

  “By bringing Zhazha to work with you,” he added. He knew I needed his clarity.

  “But I didn’t know she’d steal Greg. Because, ew. It’s not my fault!”

  “Be that as it may, she’s hurt and acting out. You need to grieve for the friend you thought you had. A true friend wouldn’t care if you fudged your background. She wouldn’t threaten you with it. She’d understand your reasons for it. The way I see it, you have two options: Move on . . .” He laughed at this. He knew me. I would never move on. “Or show Sarah what she’s done. Make her see how much she hurt you. Make her feel it.”

  I smiled. He was right. Dr. M was always right.

  “And no more giving in to her threats. She’ll stop, you’ll see.”

  “You’re so good to me. What would I do without you?”

  “Well, my dear, you’ll never have to find out.”

  * * *

  Friendship breakups are so much harder than romantic ones. Friends are supposed to be there for you forever. That’s what all the books and movies said. In reality, they betray you. They hurt you. They blackmail you. Everyone is out for herself. Your friends will all knife you in the back eventually.

  Sarah was not my friend. I saw this now. Clarity was a painful gift. Sarah had been pretending to be my friend. She only liked me when I had an expiration date. She wanted me to do things for her, run errands. It was a fake office friendship, the worst kind. Inane chatter and coffee breaks and nothing else. How could I have been so stupid? How could I think she cared about me at all? She was just using me. (I could hear Dr. M going on about how we used each other. I chose to ignore him.) I felt like my world was splintering apart. Sarah and I had been together since we were fifteen. That was over a decade of me wishing upon her photos, crossing my fingers, and sending a nightly prayer to bring us together. And it was gone. All of it. She didn’t love me. My manifesting didn’t work. I had failed.

  Meredith tried this same shit, you know. She told all my secrets to another group of girls at school. And then when I told her we were through, poof! Up in flames. She was such a fucking drama queen.

  Dr. M was convinced I picked the same girl over and over to live out some karmic lesson. Whatever. I just liked pretty girls who liked me. There was nothing wrong with that. Not one thing. Pretty girls—and by extension, their friends—had easier, better lives. It was a scientific fact. We’re born like this, born wanting to be near attractive people. There are studies with babies that prove it.

  I had to focus. I had to be better than her if I wanted to win. (It was always about winning.) I had to make Sarah feel it, feel what she had done to me. She’d be crawling on her knees by the time I was done with her. I let out a harsh laugh. It was me or nothing, and Sarah had made her choice. She was going to become nothing. Dr. M called this a major breakthrough.

  I dropped Sarah’s sashimi on her desk (I didn’t even get a thank you). And then I set my Sarah setting to ignore.

  “Anya, I need a green juice!”

  Crickets. I can’t hear you, Sarah.

  “Anya! Go get me some.”

  My body pulsed. Part of me wanted to give in, to make her happy. But I couldn’t. I had to bury this friendship.

  “If you don’t do what I want, I’ll—”

  “What, Sarah? Tell people you think I’m a phony? Do it. I dare you. See if anyone cares. You couldn’t even keep Greg interested in you. No one likes you,” I hissed it at her. It was a lie. A bluff. Of course people cared about Sarah. About her every decree. But the biggest fear the powerful have is that they’ll end up just like you and me.

  She stared at me. And then silence. She stopped speaking to me after that. We had broken up.

  Once she left for a showroom appointment, I hid a present in her drawer: Cassie’s ten fingernails, painted in Sarah’s favorite colors. Like Dr. M said, I had to make her feel this.

  * * *

  Flowers sent and a memorial scholarship fund set up, Cassie’s family was crossed off my list. God, I loved that feeling. See, Cassie? To-do lists are wonderful tools. You should have used yours.

  Up next, I called Detective Hopper. I wondered when, if ever, I’d call him by his first name. “Stephen. Stephen. Ste-phen.” Nope. It sounded weird. It was Detective Hopper, Detective, or Hopper. Or nothing. No one called Elliot Stabler by his first name. Except for Benson, but hello? She’d earned that right.

  “Hi, Detective? It’s Anya St. Clair.”

  “Hi, Anya. How are you?”

 
“Good, good. The magazine asked me to reach out about Cassie Sachs and see if there’s anything we can do to help. Any details I can help go over or if there are interviews you may need set up.”

  “I see. How thoughtful of them.”

  “Well, we just want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to catch whoever did this to her.”

  “Actually, I do have some questions. Do you have time to stop by?” At the precinct?

  Chills.

  “Of course. What time?”

  “Now is good.” And with that, he hung up.

  No need to panic. He was just an in-person kind of guy. I quickly checked my hair and makeup, eliciting a slew of questions from Sarah. We had gone two blissful hours in silence.

  “What’s with all the primping?”

  “Nothing, Sarah.” Like you care. Ignore her. Ignore her. Ignore her.

  “You have a date, don’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well then what’s with the gloss? Fine, be a baby. But you need more concealer. Like, a lot more.” Her tone was taunting.

  That was as nice as she was going to be today. I’d take it, even if I was over her. (I wasn’t.)

  * * *

  Half an hour later, I found myself in an interrogation room. Detective Hopper sat in front of me. Two coffees were on the table. The walls were gray and boring. I smiled. Guilty people didn’t smile.

  “So what can I help with?” I asked. Being proactive was good. I’d offered to do this. Guilty people didn’t volunteer.

  “Well we now know when Cassie was murdered.”

  “Oh, gosh. That’s so CSI that you can tell!”

  “Where were you the night of October twenty-fourth?”

  “Um, let me check.” I opened my phone and flipped through it. “I had a couple parties I popped into, nothing major.”

  “And people can verify?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure they can check the guest list. Am I a suspect?”

  “We need to rule people out right now. Can you send me the contact info of who threw the parties?”

  “Of course.” I had made an appearance at two events that night while Cassie was passed out and tied up in the van. Drive-bys, in and out. Enough that they saw me.

  He shifted slightly in his seat. “We need to talk about your history, Anya. It’s the big red flag here. Are you ready to tell me why you don’t seem to exist?” He was doing the good cop thing, being nice. Asking gently. They’d tried this before. The police were not my friends.

  “I do exist. I’m right here, aren’t I?” Now who’s the crazy one? But he kept that intense gaze on me. I cleared my throat. “Fine. But I’d really like what I tell you to stay between us. It’s not something I need everyone to know. My old name was Mariana Evans.” I paused, waiting for him to get what that meant. Hello? Mariana Evans, who killed her best friend as a child? And who caused the crash her parents died from? But nothing. He didn’t know who I was. My voice trembled as I continued.

  “When I was younger . . .” I paused for dramatic effect. “I was friends with this girl. Meredith Burgess. She was troubled. Like, a level of crazy you can’t imagine. Like, killed her cat and made me watch kind of crazy. And then she told everyone I had done it, that I had strangled Mr. Meow.”

  I had.

  “Looking back at it all, I think she was abused. But I didn’t know back then. One day she did something horrendous, and unfortunately, I was there.”

  “Go on.” He leaned forward. Five more inches and we’d be touching. My heart skipped a beat.

  “Meredith would get so mad when she didn’t get her way. You know, acting totally spoiled. But she was an only child—like me. So we bonded. But if she got upset, you had to hide. Or she’d kick and hit you. And this one time she threw a huge fit.” I wiped my eye. “I’d never seen anything like it. My mother wouldn’t let us be friends anymore. She thought Meredith was a bad influence.” I picked up the coffee in front of me and took a sip, grimacing. “And when I told Meredith . . .” Pause for effect. “She set herself on fire. I don’t think she meant to, but the flames went all over her, and I couldn’t do anything. It traumatized me so much, my parents sent me to special schools to deal.”

  He nodded as if he knew those schools, the kinds of kids who went there. How they came out.

  “Anyways, my shrink thought a new start would be best. You know, with Google and all. New name, new history, nothing to follow me into adulthood.”

  “And your parents can verify all this?”

  I shook my head. “They died in a car accident. Not too long after Meredith. We were all in the car. I broke a few bones, got a concussion. Got this scar.” I showed him the weird spotted scar a few inches above my elbow. “Glass cut through that part of my arm, but I survived. I’m still not sure how. My mom was in a coma for a few days, but she passed eventually. Dad died instantly.”

  I pulled a tissue out of my purse and blew my nose. Gross, I know. But it’s the little details that really help.

  “Sorry, it all still gets to me. I just don’t know how Mer could have done that. And then my parents . . .”

  He patted my hand. “Thank you for telling me that. That must have all been very traumatic.”

  I nodded. It was. I took a gulp of air.

  “Can your doctor verify this info? Just the history, nothing about your health.” He wanted to talk to Dr. M? Was that even allowed? The idea sent me into mild panic.

  “Um, I guess so. But I’m not waiving my patient confidentiality.” I watched Law & Order, bub. I knew my rights. “But he can tell you the basics. Don’t you have, like, case files too? That you can reference, I mean?”

  “We have some info, but we’ll be looking at everything.” That meant what really happened with Meredith too. God, that spoiled little brat was always ruining things for me.

  I nodded. “You have to know, after what I went through, I’d never hurt anyone. I can see the damage it causes. To make anyone else go through what I did . . .” I shuddered.

  “I appreciate your honesty. Do you know where Sarah Taft was the night Cassie died?”

  “Hang on.” I pulled up her calendar on my phone. “Um, doesn’t look like she had anything that evening. Which is weird because she usually does. But maybe she didn’t put anything on her calendar? Did you check her social media?” He shot me a look that translated to Duh.

  “Hmm, okay. And can you think of anyone else who would have it in for Cassie? Anyone at all? Any leads we may not have pursued yet?”

  “No, I can’t.” After a pause, I made a face.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, there were the cameras. Did you find them?” He shook his head. He hadn’t taken it seriously. “Sarah hid cameras in Greg’s office. She’d have to have seen Cassie and Greg . . .”

  He looked at his notes. “Right, Jack Archer told you. Someone was supposed to check it out. I’ll find out what happened.”

  “I figured Jack was just talking shit, but better to be safe, right?” I held up my hands in an emoji shrug. “But also, I saw something in her desk the other day. I was looking for a stapler, and instead, I found these nails. Like, fingernails? I thought they were fake, but they were kind of gross and bloody.”

  “There are fingernails in Sarah Taft’s desk?” He looked excited. I nodded. His eyes became round and huge, and his cheeks flushed. He licked his lips a few times. It was kind of sweet-hot.

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” He started flipping through Cassie’s file, her whole life reduced to one manila folder. That was the best any of us could hope for. “Here.” He pulled out a photo of Cassie’s body. Her hands. The nails were missing. I gasped. And turned my face away.

  “I can’t—” I strangled out.

  “Cassie’s nails were pulled out. Luckily, after she died.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t even know if they’re real. But I figured you’d want to know.”

  “Where are the nails now?”

 
; “I have no idea. Her desk, most likely?”

  He looked grim. Detective Hopper was disappointed in me for not telling him all this sooner. Dammit. This was supposed to help me look good.

  “Let’s go.”

  He escorted me back to La Vie. It was like a minidate, except a few officers followed us in their cruisers. Not exactly romantic.

  Sarah wasn’t at her desk when we got there, so I started poking around while he stood by. I opened her bottom drawer and found the nails, wrapped in tissue.

  “Good thing she’s a pack rat. Here you go.” I handed it to him. It now had my fingerprints on it—but that was fine. He’d seen me touch it. He opened the tissue (with gloves on) and made a face.

  “This smells bad. Definitely something off about it.”

  “Like . . . dead-thing bad?”

  “Yeah. Listen, I’m going to take this to the crime lab, but I’m going to need your statement that you gave this to me.”

  “Of course. Whatever you need.” He handed the bundle to one of the officers chaperoning our outing. He was saying something about chain of custody, statements, yada yada, when Sarah finally skipped on over.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, blissfully cheerful. She did the hair flip she reserved for hot men.

  “Um, Sarah, the detective is here about those fingernails.”

  She glanced from him to me and back. Confusion colored her face. “What fingernails?”

  I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream in her face that she could have been my friend. My BFF. Then I’d have protected her. Kept her safe forever. But she had to threaten me. Use me. This was what she deserved. No, she deserved worse than this.

  An officer left to see Greg. He came back holding two cameras.

  “Ms. Taft, are these yours?” Hopper asked.

  “What? No. Of course not.” Her voice trembled.

  “So we won’t find a history of you buying these or any of the footage on your computer?”

  Sarah’s face went ashen. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Anya, thank you for your help,” he said. “We’ll take Sarah to the station to continue our questioning.” Detective Hopper motioned to the officers, who guided Sarah to the door.