I rinsed my mouth and dabbed my face with Elancio’s rose-scented towel. He handed me sparkling water as I sat back down in the chair.
I sipped and pointed to the garment bags. “Are those clothes for me?”
“Yes.” He ran a finger over my brow.
“So I get to choose the ones I like?”
He held a color chart up to my skin. “No, I choose. Each outfit is in a separate bag, matched with the correct accessories.”
“What if I don’t like them?”
Ho snickered behind me, and Elancio turned to him. “She is your problem, not mine,” he said.
A floodlight went on in my brain: I’d made a huge mistake, revealing how I felt. “I won’t be a problem,” I said. “I’ll wear what you tell me to.”
But I won’t like it. You can dress me up, but I’ll never be Letitia.
Elancio picked up my hand, then dropped it in my lap. “You bite your nails.”
I shrugged. “Can’t you do acrylic?”
“Mr. Hawkins prefers them natural.” Elancio was tapping his foot like I’d just ruined everything. I stifled a smile. “When is her first public appearance?” he asked Ho.
Ho frowned and consulted his tablet. You could tell the question irked him. He had better things to do than babysit a stylist. “November twenty-eighth. Morning rally at Pasadena City Hall. Then golf in San Clemente. Major donor dinner in Del Mar.”
“Your office did not mention golf. I have styled day, cocktail, and formal wear.”
Now I was paying attention. This wasn’t just an hour in the morning. This was all day and a couple hundred miles. “Wait, you only need me at the rally, right?”
Ho’s eyes turned to slits as he smiled. I expected a forked tongue to dart out of his mouth. “Miss Reveare, as Mr. Hawkins’ fiancée you are expected to attend every campaign event.”
Roik knocked on the door. “Ho, we could use your input.” Ho gave a little huff and went outside as Elancio handed me a smock. “I must prepare the wax,” he said, and disappeared into the back.
I tied on the smock and crept over to Ho’s tablet. Hawkins’ campaign schedule was up on-screen, every event until the election next year. There had to be two, maybe three hundred of them from San Diego to Eureka.
And in the margin was a list of who’d be there. My name was next to every one.
Hawkins’ perfect little wifey and helpmate, silently and adoringly standing at his side.
I stepped away from Ho’s tablet as Elancio came back. He sat me down and started in on my brows.
Time was running out. I only had two weeks, because if I didn’t get away before Hawkins’ announcement, it would be too late. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t Signed yet, I’d be constantly surrounded by Hawkins and his men.
I wasn’t ready. This was all happening too fast.
Gerard returned while Elancio conditioned and cut my hair. I half listened as he and Elancio reviewed the outfits in each garment bag.
Each outfit had been photographed on a model so I’d know exactly how to wear it. Every detail was dictated, even how I buttoned my cardi. There were three acceptable alternatives, and I was to choose one.
My anger was on simmer, but it boiled over when Elancio told Gerard, “Mr. Hawkins selected her intimate wear. It’s on hold at Sweet Fantasies on Melrose and we’ve booked her an appointment next week.”
Hawkins thinks I’m his plaything. That he bought me and he can do whatever he wants with me. But he’s wrong. I haven’t Signed the Contract.
Ho banged through the door, barking into his phone, “The neighbor’s name is Geller. Make sure he understands that if I see even one image of the fiancée anywhere, he can kiss his house good-bye. His house, his car, his labradoodle. I will own him!”
Because that’s what you and Hawkins do.
Elancio put down his blow-dryer, and I leaped out of the chair. “Thanks for the color and the fashion advice,” I said, whipping off the smock.
“You are not done here.”
“No?”
“No.” He handed me the outfit for Thursday. “I must check the fit.”
When I came out of the dressing room, Elancio smiled for the first time.
I saw in the mirror how he’d packaged me: Jes Hawkins Ideal Mate. He’d chosen Letitia’s favorite colors, but updated them. Sky-blue dress with a yellow belt. A cream-colored cardi draped asymmetrically over my shoulder. And the pièce de résistance: a black and cream patterned headband with an unexpected dash of red. I was Letitia, but reborn fresh and new.
“This is genius,” Ho murmured. “Female voters will love her no matter what political party they belong to. This girl’s going to get us the fifty-plus demographic we need to take the race.”
Ho and Elancio traded congratulations while I peeled off the dress. It wasn’t enough that I fed some sick fantasy of Jes Hawkins, I would make his political dreams come true.
I had a hand on the door, when Elancio stopped me. He held out a crystal bottle of pale green perfume, the color of poison. “Mrs. Hawkins wore Chanel No. 19, and you will also.”
“You’re telling me what perfume to wear?”
Gerard flashed me a look. Don’t go there.
“I assume you wish to please your husband,” Elancio said.
I swallowed back the anger boiling inside me. “Yes. Thank you for being so—thorough.”
The sky was dark when I stepped outside, and I realized I’d lost my chance to go to the cemetery. Along with my identity and my freedom to choose what I wore and how I smelled, Ho had stolen my time with Mom.
This was playing out exactly the way Yates said it would.
24
“How are you?” Yates said later when he got me on the phone.
I was sitting in my closet with the door cracked open so I’d hear Roik if he knocked. “Angry,” I said. “I spent all afternoon being made over for Jes Hawkins and the voters of California.”
“It’s good you’re angry,” Yates said. “You should be. You ready to change your life?”
I could feel my heart going tick-tick-tick. Time was running out.
“What do I have to do?” I said.
“Tell Father Gabe you’re ready.”
“I can’t just tell you?”
“No, he needs to hear you say it. You tell him you’re ready and we pick a date and a place to extract you.”
Extract. Like I was a miner trapped two miles down. “It has to be soon. The campaign starts November twenty-eighth and after that, they’re making me travel with Hawkins all over the state.”
“Sixteen days. Doesn’t give us much time.” He raked his hand through his hair, combing it off his face. “We need to choose a place where you’re out in the open, and it’s hard for Roik to watch you.”
Out in the open? I lived behind gates. Gates at home, at school, even when I went shopping, I was checked in and out at the Beverly Center like a dog at a kennel.
“There isn’t any.”
“Sure there is. We got one girl out of a dentist’s office. Took another out of a fancy spa. Hawkins has got you doing a lot of pre-Signing stuff, right? Any appointments coming up?”
“One next week—on Thursday at Sweet Fantasies on Melrose.”
“Doesn’t sound like Roik’s kind of place. Maybe he’d wait in the car?”
I felt a rush. “Absolutely.” Roik would rather die than shadow me in a lingerie store.
“Okay, I’ll have someone check it out.”
This was real. This was happening. All I had to do was tell Father Gabe on Sunday and a few days later I’d be history. Hawkins would never touch me.
“I’m glad we’re doing this, Avie.”
We. I had a momentary flash of us riding off into the sunset on his bike, before I set myself straight. We were planning my escape. That’s all. “Yeah, me, too.”
Yates studied my face. “Everybody gets a little freaked at this point. What can I do to make you feel better?”
Tell me
you’re coming with me.
I froze, my hand across my lips, hoping I hadn’t said it out loud.
“You worried about what happens when you get to Canada?” he said.
I nodded, relieved.
“You ask for asylum at the border. Refugee Assistance will meet you and find you a family to stay with. They’ll get you set up in school, and even give you money for clothes, and bus fare.”
“You make it sound so easy.” It wouldn’t be. With fifty million dollars on the line, Hawkins wasn’t going to let me disappear. “But what if—”
“They’ll give you a new identity. You’ll be free, Avie.”
My heart pounded. Free. It was what I wanted, but—
“You’ll be a thousand, two thousand miles away, completely out of Hawkins’ reach.”
“It’s terrifying. Wonderful, but terrifying.”
Yates gave me his sideways smile. “I’m sending you a song. This band, Survival Instincts, pops up and plays fast sets in abandoned buildings and then disappears. It’ll give you strength.”
“I need all the strength I can get.”
I didn’t know a silent pause could hold so much, until Yates said, “Listen—” I knew something was coming.
“So, you might not be able to reach me for a couple days.”
My heart plummeted, and I realized I’d been counting on calling Yates when I got back from meeting Hawkins. “Why not?”
“I’m going up to Sacramento with the Liberty Project. Students from all over the state are going to protest the new amendment. You heard about it, right?”
“No. Ms. A hasn’t said anything.”
“Congress has proposed amending the U.S. Constitution to raise the voting age to twenty-five, but if that happens, the Paternalists will have total control and we won’t be able to stop them.”
“That’s hideous.”
“The states vote on it, so if we can keep California from voting yes, we could kill it. Otherwise we’re screwed. We can’t let a bunch of old men decide our lives!”
I heard the fire in his voice. “You sound excited.”
“I have to do this. I can’t sit on the sidelines while other people fight for our rights.”
“I know. You’ve got to be the counterfriction.”
“Yeah.” He grinned.
I wished there was a way I could protect him. “Stay safe, okay?”
“I’ll be fine. A nonviolent protest by unarmed students? Tons of media will be there so the police won’t dare use force.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t let Hawkins intimidate you. Stay angry, Fearless. Don’t let him own you.”
His eyes reached for mine and my insides swirled like thick golden honey ribboning off a spoon. “I promise,” I vowed.
But when we hung up, I felt scared, not angry. Lately, I’d started to see the ugly truth of what people would do and who they’d hurt to get what they wanted. I hoped Yates was right about the police—that they wouldn’t dare attack the protestors with the media around. I didn’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have him to turn to.
25
It was Wednesday night and tomorrow I was meeting Hawkins. I yanked on ripped black jeans and my RAGE tee and layered on mascara until I looked like an addict. Dad had scheduled dinner with me for the first time in days. I practiced my death stare in the mirror.
See what you’ve done to me.
But I couldn’t silence Ms. A’s voice in my head. “Try and look as young as you can. Remind your father you’re still a child, one he’s supposed to protect.”
I drenched a cotton ball in makeup remover. When I finally came downstairs, I was Daddy’s little girl in a yellow cardi, and a touch of Pink Innocence gloss.
The table was set in the dining room—spinach salad with out-of-season strawberries and grilled salmon. For some reason, Dad had told Gerard to cook my favorite foods.
I sat down, and when Dad looked up, I gave him a trying-to-be-brave smile.
“I’m glad we could have dinner together,” he said. “I haven’t seen much of you lately.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. I get it. A lot’s been going on.”
Dad hated spinach salad, but he speared it onto his fork like it was his absolute favorite. “Big day tomorrow.”
I picked at my salad. “Yeah, big day.”
Dad ignored my pitiful voice. “We had a breakthrough this week. Our research results suggest we’ve finally found a cure for opiate addiction.”
I put down my fork. Beating cocaine and heroin was Dad’s quest. The reason he’d started Biocure. “Dad, that’s incredible.”
“You don’t remember your uncle Mike—” Dad shook his head. “Your mom was so close to getting him off Skid Row before he disappeared.”
“Uncle Mike made it to the minor leagues, didn’t he?” I said, quietly.
“Yes, before the drugs messed him up.” Dad squeezed my hand. “I don’t know how to say this. You’re a big part of this success, honey. Without Jes Hawkins’ investment, we’d have had to shut the research down.”
My mouth fell open, and I drew my hand away. I’m the sacrificial lamb. My life taken so others may live.
Dad launched into a soliloquy about dopamine and serotonin and the blood-brain barrier. As if I cared one milligram about the biochemistry I paid for!
“Thousands of patients and their families won’t suffer the agony of addiction, and they have you to thank. Not to mention the hundreds of Biocure employees whose jobs you saved. You’re a hero.”
Thousands of lives saved. Mine ruined. “I’m not a hero. I didn’t choose to save all those people.”
“Doesn’t matter, you’re still a hero to me.”
“I’m not a hero!” I tore off my yellow cardi and ran for the stairs.
“Avie!” Dad called after me.
I slammed my door and wiped the gloss off my lips. To hell with him. I was stupid to think he cared.
I put in my earphones and played the song Yates sent me. The words drummed in my head and took my feet with them. I stomped to the beat, because “Better Learn My Name” gave my anger a soundtrack. Those six black girls were my voice in a world that didn’t care what I said.
“Better Learn My Name”
By Survival Instincts
Wifey. Mistress. Angel. Babymaker
Honey. Vixen. Helper. Housekeeper
I’ve got a hundred names,
But it all comes out the same
I’m someone’s prize possession
Not a person. An obsession
I’m not. Yours to own
Think again ’bout what you call me
I’m not yours to chain and ball me
Not your mommy. Not your whore
Not your freaking doormat
Not your sweetcakes
Cherry pie
Twinkle in a daddy’s eye
I’m me!
So call me
Ninja. Warrior. Templar. Gladiator
G.I. Ranger. Samurai. Terminator
I resist your classification
Gonna build a brand-new nation
And I won’t be second-class
Gonna kick you in the ass
Cause I’m a
Ninja. Warrior. Templar. Gladiator
G.I. Ranger. Samurai
And get this:
I’m your terminator
Hawkins
26
Roik waited with me by the French doors in the library for Hawkins’ helicopter. The plan was Dad and I would fly out, and Roik would follow later in Big Black after showing the photographers at the community gates that I wasn’t inside.
“You smell nice,” Roik told me.
“Fifty million dollars nice?”
The way his eyes narrowed, I thought he’d smack me. “Don’t mess this up,” he said slowly. “Let me tell you, you want the deal with Hawkins to go through.”
A chill shimmied down my ba
ck. “Why?”
“That guy in his fifties who bid on you. He’s still interested. Keeps calling the broker and offering more money.”
Blow this deal and the next one was right there, waiting. “Good to know,” I said.
Hawkins’ helicopter came up the canyon toward our house, then it dived for the paparazzo neighbor’s roof, and hovered until the satellite dish rattled so hard it almost tore off. Ho’s instructions, obviously.
The copter landed on our lawn just as Dad appeared. “Let’s go.”
The helicopter took off and L.A. shrank beneath us. We flew over downtown and the westside and out Pacific Coast Highway. Any other day, I would have enjoyed the perfect blue sky, and the white ribbons of waves unfurling on the water.
Beach houses lined the highway. We passed the Colony where the stars used to live and Pepperdine University. The town of Malibu disappeared, and the houses got bigger and farther apart until they perched like castles on the cliffs.
Dad pointed. “Look, you can see Hawkins’ compound.”
Of course Hawkins had a compound. Domestics. Security personnel. Everything and everyone right where he wanted them 24/7. From here, I could see the high gate and quarter mile of iron fencing that sealed his compound off from the road.
There wasn’t a single tree or flower or blade of grass, just grey scrubby brush that clung to the rocky slope.
The main house was long and low, built into the cliff, made of glass and stone, and spread out so every window faced the water. A terrace cut into the hill like a knife blade and a sleek pool overhung the edge. The drop to the rocky beach was a hundred feet at least.
If I wanted to get out of there, I’d need a SWAT team to extract me.
The pilot touched down on a helicopter pad in the parking circle behind the house. Ho met us and led us down some stone steps past a subterranean garage big enough for twenty cars, and over to a set of double doors.
Ho threw open the doors and the ocean filled our view, a blue wall of wind-chopped waves.
“Wonder what this set him back,” Dad muttered. We stood on a landing above a big room walled in floor-to-ceiling glass.
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