She Regrets Nothing

by Andrea Dunlop

  “I’m going to go get coffee,” Reece said to Laila, putting her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. It was the middle of the third—or was it the fourth? The hundredth?—afternoon as they sat with Liberty. “Can I get you some?”

  “That’s sweet; you don’t have to.” Laila looked up at Reece with a sad, beleaguered expression.

  “You look exhausted,” she ventured. Laila’s red-rimmed eyes had deep purple circles beneath them, and her skin looked sallow, as though she’d not seen the sun in months. “Why don’t I bring you a cappuccino?”

  “Actually, that sounds amazing,” Laila said.

  Reece’s coffee mission took longer than expected. A helpful nurse warned her away from the drip coffee they served in the cafeteria and told her of an espresso stand in the main lobby that was much better. It felt shockingly good to have, if only for a few moments, a simple and accomplishable task. It was a brief respite from the waiting, the interminable hoping that Liberty would recover. Even if she recovered, there was also the horror of how different she might be following such a serious brain injury: the question of how much of her had already slipped away from the world, never to return.

  Horrifyingly, the prime suspect who’d emerged was Sean Calloway, aka Bartender Sean, whom Laila had seen leaving the building right before finding Liberty. There was apparently damning enough evidence that he’d been placed under arrest, and having been deemed a flight risk, he was being held in police custody with bail set at $5 million dollars. Security cameras had him entering an hour earlier. He claimed he’d been there to see a friend, but the woman he named claimed to have no knowledge of him other than from Trapdoor, where she and her husband occasionally went to have a drink. The thought that she herself had flirted with this man horrified Reece. How easily we’ll look past a person’s fatal flaws if their beauty is striking enough. Why he would hurt Liberty was unfathomable; but Reece had been on the earth as a woman long enough to understand that sometimes, this was reason enough. As Reece made her way back down the dreary, antiseptic corridor that led to Liberty’s room, she tried to shake Sean’s face from her mind but found it stayed stubbornly in place. Of course, now that she thought about it, it was eerie the way he looked at her. Obsessive, even. But how was one ever to suspect what dark thoughts strange men might harbor?

  As she rounded the door frame, she heard the familiar sound of her brother’s voice, speaking now in a hushed whisper.

  “I mean it, Laila,” she heard him hiss.

  “Cameron,” Reece said loudly, announcing her arrival in the room where her brother and Laila stood side by side a mere foot from Liberty’s bedside. His face turned toward her, and she caught the tiniest flash of shock before it disappeared, and he came to hug her.

  He offered no explanation for what she’d overheard, and the moment disappeared so quickly that Reece wondered if she’d imagined it. She’d barely slept in days; hallucinating did not seem entirely out of the question. Back in the room, the three were once more consumed by their grief over Liberty, who was there in body but already beginning to slip from them.

  She did not last the night.

  26

  * * *

  YOU’RE GOING to be great; you look phenomenal.”

  Laila glowed from the praise of ebullient morning-show host Megan Capshaw, whom she’d only met moments before in the greenroom. Her signature blond bob was inconceivably shiny, and her skin appeared practically poreless, her legendary legs smooth and tan. Laila had chosen her first interview with care. America’s Sweetheart and trusted voice of empathy, a doll but a real reporter nonetheless—one people trusted to ask questions that hit just hard enough.

  “I’m nervous,” Laila said, smiling back at the host from the makeup chair where she was being powdered into near oblivion in preparation to appear underneath the broiling lights of the morning show’s set.

  “It’s okay, everyone is before they go on. But you’ll be fine. You’re so poised!”

  Laila knew that there was no going back from this moment, but she was running out of options. With Liberty’s death had gone what seemed like Laila’s last shot at being truly taken into the family fold. And for all of her careful planning, and her generally responsible nature, Liberty had not yet made a will—meaning all she owned, including Frederick’s vast inheritance, would go to her parents.

  Laila had pleaded with Blake to give her another chance, but, though admirably supportive and kind about the family’s tragedy, he had made it clear he was done with her. Laila had $500 to her name. It felt as though the rest of the family had practically forgotten that she existed since her cousin’s death, so deep were they in their grief. Well, they would remember her now. The highest offer had come from the Post, but Laila had chosen the far classier Morning in America to give her exclusive interview to. Sean Calloway still sat in prison awaiting trial. After the bail hearing, the press started to dig, and it turned out Calloway had a rather long and damning rap sheet: domestic violence, unpaid child support, assault. The tabloids had a heyday. The headlines were dominated by Liberty for the rest of the summer and into the early fall, but the frenzy wouldn’t last: everyone would move on to something else, and Laila’s take would decrease in value accordingly. She had only these few cards left, and she didn’t mean to waste them.

  “And the dress is good?” Laila said now, smoothing out the skirt of her blue cap-sleeved Michel Kors dress. She’d wanted to wear black to emphasize her grief, but black didn’t work on television, the producer told her.

  “It’s perfect! Okay, are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’m going to be,” Laila said.

  Megan winked at her, and with that, she went out onstage to greet the audience, leaving Laila alone in the wings. A producer steered her to a chair where she could watch the monitor as Megan opened the segment. The date at the bottom caught her eye: September 18. Almost a year to the day since she’d arrived in New York. It felt like a century. It felt like a moment.

  “By all appearances, Liberty Lawrence led a charmed life. The daughter of real estate scion Ben Lawrence and supermodel Petra Lawrence, she had a thriving career as a literary agent and was engaged to Cameron Michaels, handsome heir to the Michaels’ steel fortune and the brother of her best friend, PR maven Reece Michaels.”

  The screen showed photos behind her as she spoke, flashing to a paparazzi photo of Liberty and Cameron walking down the street. Naturally, the family had refused to contribute any material.

  “But then tragedy struck. On the night of August fourth, Liberty’s cousin Laila found her unconscious in her apartment, the apparent victim of a brutal attack. Three days later, she was gone. Here with us today for an exclusive interview, please welcome Liberty’s cousin and dear friend, Laila Lawrence.”

  With this cue, a producer gave Laila the go-ahead to join Megan onstage. They’d chosen an intimate setup for the interview: two armchairs facing each other. Laila could feel sweat collecting at her lower back, where the mic pack was placed. The crowd clapped to welcome her, and she shot them a demure, sad smile as she made her way to her seat.

  “Laila, thank you for being here. Let me just say, first of all, how sorry I am for your loss. I know this must be a very hard time for you.”

  “It is, Megan, but thank you for having me.”

  “So, tell us, Laila, you’d only recently reconnected with your cousin Liberty, is that right?”

  “That’s right. Well, a few years ago now.”

  “Tell us about how the two of you found each other.”

  “Well, growing up I didn’t even know I had cousins. But Liberty sought me out after my mother died. Our fathers had a . . . falling-out with each other, but she wanted to reconnect, especially since both of my parents were gone.”

  Laila felt a wave of sympathy roll off the crowd.

  “Tragic. And was that typical of Liberty? That sort of kindness?”

  “Oh yes,” Laila said. “She really took me under her wing. She was just
incredibly generous.”

  “You even worked with her, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  It went on like this for some time, Megan filling in the details of Liberty’s life—the charity work, the avoidance of the spotlight, the romance with Cameron—in order to give the audience a sense of what had truly been lost in her death. Laila could feel them responding to her, even though she couldn’t see them beyond the bright stage lights. She imagined them turning to one another with sad eyes, shaking their heads at the cruelty of it all. They broke for commercial.

  “You’re doing great!” Megan encouraged as a small army of quick-moving stylists surrounded both women to powder their noses and readjust any tiny hairs that might have come out of place.

  “So,” Megan said, leaning forward and placing her chin on her fist after they were live once more, “tell us about the night you found Liberty.”

  Laila took a deep breath.

  “So . . . I’d just had this terrible fight with my boyfriend. Liberty wasn’t answering her phone, so I went over.”

  “And was it unusual for Liberty not to answer her phone?”

  “No, she was always putting it on mute while she was working. I didn’t think anything of it. I just really wanted to see her.”

  “So you went to her apartment.”

  “Right.”

  “You were close with Liberty.”

  “Oh, extremely. I wasn’t worried about dropping in on her. She was always there for me.”

  “Now, I know this will be hard, but can you take us through what happened next?”

  Laila took a deep breath. If this part didn’t sound right, it could turn the whole interview, make it lurid.

  “I came in, called her name. At first I thought she wasn’t home, but then I went into the kitchen, and she was on the floor. There was a lot of blood.”

  “And you called the police?”

  “Yes. I called nine-one-one.”

  “Now, you had seen Sean Calloway on your way into the building. And you knew him from the bar, is that correct?”

  “Well I wouldn’t say I knew him; he was a bartender at this place downstairs.”

  “The Trapdoor,” Megan filled in.

  “Right.”

  “Can you tell me what you remember about meeting him before?”

  Laila shrugged. “He’d always been polite, but he was always really focused on Liberty when we were in there. Always staring at her. But you know,” Laila gave a sad smile, “that wasn’t that unusual; she was so beautiful, everyone stared at her.”

  “But in this case there was something much darker going on.”

  “Yes, I never dreamed he was stalking her. The police know from the security camera that someone buzzed him into the building, but no one knows who. Maybe he just buzzed a random apartment and said he’d lost his key or something.”

  “Have the police publicly confirmed that?”

  “No, I’m guessing. I just . . .” Laila squirmed. Helpfully, she began to get teary. “I’m just trying to make some sense of the whole thing, you know? It’s just so unfair. She was such a beautiful person. I just keep thinking if anything had gone differently that night . . .”

  Megan reached over and squeezed her hand, allowing for a sympathetic pause before the next question.

  “Now, Laila, there’s something that’s come up in a couple of news reports. I want to ask you about it and give you a chance to just put it to rest. I know that some of the papers have been just awful.”

  A tiny jackrabbit of panic kicked at Laila’s rib cage. She’d chosen Megan Capshaw for a reason. She wasn’t about the “gotcha.” She was every politician’s first stop on their redemption tour, every starlet’s go-to post-rehab. She smiled at her as if to say, Go on.

  “The court records show that you didn’t call the police until about fifteen minutes after the security footage shows you entering the building. Yet you say you called nine-one-one right away. So I’d love to just hear a little bit about what happened in those fifteen minutes.”

  Laila’s mind raced, and then it came to her—a memory clear as a bell. “The thing is, and I haven’t shared this with anyone until now, I fainted when I found Liberty. . . .”

  And now Laila saw it: Megan wasn’t necessarily on her side, she was on Liberty’s. No one can argue with a dead girl’s cause.

  “I didn’t want to tell anyone because I was embarrassed. I know that sounds silly.”

  “So you passed out, then came to after fifteen minutes?” What people forgot about Megan Capshaw was that she’d once been an investigative reporter. She’d given it up for the better money and considerably cushier gig of being a morning-show host, but the instincts remained.

  “I suppose.” Laila shrugged. “What you have to understand, Megan, about going through a trauma like this, is that your memory . . . it’s unreliable.”

  “Well,” Megan said, “you’re not on trial. And I know you’ve been enormously helpful to the investigation.”

  Laila breathed a sigh of relief. Of course Megan couldn’t be seen interrogating the grieving cousin.

  “So, Laila, the Lawrence family has been extremely private about the incident so far. Tell us why it was so important to you to come here today. What is your message for viewers?”

  “I just want girls to know,” Laila’s mind raced, still off-kilter from the previous question, “that domestic violence can happen to anyone. It doesn’t matter your income level or how beautiful or special you are. Which Liberty was—all of those things—but it’s such a problem in this country.”

  Megan looked at her strangely.

  “I don’t mean domestic violence like she and Sean were in a relationship. They were friends. He was someone she knew and trusted. Which is the case with most assaults, you know? Most women are attacked by someone known to them. It’s not the violent stranger lurking in the shadows that we all imagine.”

  “Indeed. Well, thank you so much for being here.”

  “Thank you for having me.”

  “Off the record,” Megan Capshaw said to Laila, leading her away from the PAs as they left the stage, “was she having an affair with him?”

  Laila looked at her startled. Gone was America’s Sweetheart.

  “With?”

  “Sean, the hot bartender? You said domestic violence.”

  “No! Of course not. I mean, if she was, I didn’t know about it. That would be so unlike her.”

  “Well,” Megan said, looking pleased with herself, “it’s so hard to know a person, though, isn’t it?”

  That Laila hadn’t handled herself perfectly in the interview mattered to no one. She was a beautiful girl in the middle of a criminal case that the whole country was obsessing over. Some people were critical of Megan Capshaw for putting her on the spot and called her exploitative. Soon, the offers were rolling in. People wanted to interview her and so did Vanity Fair. A talent manager called her, as did numerous literary agents. She was hot, and she was the only Lawrence willing to talk.

  “How could she do this to us?” Nora wailed. “After everything we’ve done for her?”

  Reece had watched the interview with the twins at their penthouse. The press coverage had been relentless, and now this. Normally, September was Reece’s favorite time in the city: the cheerful return from the beaches and mountains; the good parties again in full swing; fashion week. In previous years, Reece had done New York, Paris, Milan, and London: she’d taken Cece with her, and they’d had a ball. This year, other than attending the shows of a few personal friends, she could barely bring herself to leave home other than to go to work.

  Now, worst of all, Laila was throwing herself into the media fray with this interview. Knowing they couldn’t avoid it, she and the twins had opted to watch it together. Reece thought the interview was perhaps Laila’s ham-fisted way of telling them that she needed more attention. Nora and Leo couldn’t be bothered with her, and Petra and Ben spent most of their time upstate, avoiding th
e press. Tuxedo Park was well equipped as a refuge from scandal.

  “Now people are going to think she was sleeping with that monster! That it was her fault that this happened!” Nora wailed.

  “No one will think that,” Reece said. “That’s insane!” She put an arm around Nora’s shaking shoulders.

  “The tabloids will grab hold of anything, you know that,” Nora said.

  “Laila just wants attention,” Leo said. “Next comes the tell-all book, the Lifetime movie, who knows? Maybe Lib’s death is Laila’s big break.” Leo was affecting a cynical tone, but underneath it, Reece could hear a steady current of heartbroken rage. He wasn’t wrong. They’d all seen it go down before. People were obsessed with bad things happening to the very wealthy, especially if they were beautiful. Was Liberty destined to that same fate as Patty Hearst and Edie Sedgwick? A footnote in history as a tragic heiress?

  In some ways, Reece had not accepted that Liberty was dead. Intellectually she knew, but the heart would hear nothing from the head. Something inside her whispered, We know the truth; she’s not really gone. Being surrounded by the Lawrences—whom she’d sought out during this time—the feeling was especially palpable that Liberty would wander into the room in her unassuming way, book in hand, and ask them what they were all so upset about. She found herself watching the door in anticipation. Surely, surely. But, of course, not really.

  “Have you reached out to Laila?”

  The twins looked at each other, seemingly annoyed at this rather practical suggestion. They had not.

  “Well, don’t you think she needs her family right now too?”

  “She should have thought about that before she screwed us all over!” Nora said.

  Leo shrugged. “She and I were never that close.” He gingerly picked up the glass pipe from the coffee table and paused to take a couple of delicate inhales. “I only want to be around people I love right now.”