“I don’t get it,” says Natasha. (Hannah. Not Lois.) “I mean I don’t get the story, exactly. I don’t see why we like the kidnapper guy. Why don’t we think he’s a pervert? Why don’t we run away? And why does he want us, anyway? Since he doesn’t seem to want to—you know—molest us or anything. Honestly. I just don’t get it.” She looks genuinely glum.
How to answer? I sit down on the porch beside her. “People are complicated,” I say slowly. “You like him because he likes you. Because he’s handsome and intelligent and mysterious. Because you’re bored. Because he thinks you’re special, he thinks you’re incredibly smart and pretty, and you’re vain and shallow enough to be a total sucker for that. Which isn’t your fault, because you’re twelve, and you can’t help it.” I ignore the look of protest on her face. “Because it’s an adventure, and he’s in charge. Because you’re so lonely at home you could die. Because being kidnapped is like being in a book, and you’ve always wanted to be in a book, because you’re the kind of nerdy shy little girl that reads all the time.” She looks thoughtful, though also skeptical. I can see that she’s a skeptical girl. Good for her, I guess.
“Besides,” I say, standing up again. “He’s Billy, remember. If Billy kidnapped you, would you run away?”
Natasha giggles in spite of herself.
“I didn’t think so,” I say, and pointedly turn to unlock my door.
Lois
I find the film location easily enough, following the map some lowly production assistant sent me. I drive past the dirt road turnoff and park by the side of the road a few yards down. Shooting hasn’t begun yet, but there are people around, and I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I stroll along the road like a local woods-dweller taking a constitutional, glancing innocently around, and then I turn down the narrow road as if by chance, as if nothing but idle curiosity guides me.
Just for a second, my heart stops.
They have done a good job, I think, straining for objectivity, for distance. The cabin is nearly a perfect replica of the one I described in my novel, and it’s eerily similar to the original, at least as I remember it. I focus on the differences—the angle of the second-story roof, the cars in the driveway, the carefully weathered Adirondack chairs—in order to ground myself in the present.
I can hear hammering from within the cabin and reassure myself that the people belonging to the cars are most likely inside, putting the finishing touches on the sets. I venture a little farther down the driveway, the trees stretching endlessly above me, blocking the sun. I hear birds and the breeze that politely disturbs the treetops without bothering to descend to the ground. I could be in my little bedroom, mine and Carly’s, and those could be our trees, our birds, the ones outside our window, the ones that reminded us where we were, told us we were all right. Without warning, three figures emerge from behind the house, running: a man in a plaid flannel shirt and two young girls—one dark-haired, one fair. They are chasing him, grabbing at the tail of his shirt, his belt loops. Why is it light? It was always dark when we were outside. The ground was cool and damp at night when we stretched our sequestered limbs. Mosquitoes feasted on us, and we tried not to mind. Only at night were the mountains our own.
The girls are shrieking with glee, which Carly and I would not have dared. They are more forward than we were, more confident, a little in love with themselves. And he is permitting them to catch him, to drag him down, which Zed would never have done; he would have made us catch him for real. Everything was for real with him.
They’ve seen me. They stop playing and turn curious gazes my way. I feel like a ghost; I’m irrationally surprised that I am visible to them. I feel as if we exist on separate planes, and only I am privileged (or cursed) to see across the misty distance that separates us. You’re doing it wrong, I want to cry. Let me explain.
Instead I wave casually and turn back, retracing my steps. I feel as if I’m fleeing.
Chloe
Two nights before the shoot begins, Billy doesn’t show up for happy hour in the pub, so I’m back to drinking alone. Everyone’s here now, from the director on down, but I haven’t connected with anyone except maybe the wardrobe woman, and she seems to be staying somewhere else. I’m sitting at my usual corner table, reading a book—another detective novel, with a lurid blood-smeared knife on the cover; it reminds me of the books Lois and I used to read, and feels like a connection. A shadow moves briskly across my table and I look up, bracing myself to be pleasant, which is not really what I feel. My mood has been getting darker.
The thrower of the shadow is a tall, striking, strong-featured woman with outrageous red hair, long and wild and curly. She sticks out one handsome, man-sized hand. “Hi!” she says, her green eyes springing at me like stalking cats while her mouth smiles broadly. “Chloe Savage? Fiona Pearson. I hear you’ve been keeping my husband out of trouble. So sweet of you. Someone has to do it. You’ll be glad to know I’m here to relieve you of your duties.” Under her gaze I feel almost guilty. I remind myself that my dealings with Billy have been shockingly sexless. This crazed warrior queen has no business staring at me that way.
I force myself to return the pressure of her hand, lowering my book partway to the table to make it clear that she offers only the mildest of distractions from my reading. “You’re welcome,” I say. “But the girls have pretty much taken him off my hands since they arrived.” I nod my head toward the doorway, where Natasha and Justine (the Carly-actress, the me-actress) are making their entrance. “They adore him already,” I add. “They’ve been doing a lot of bonding. So important for their performances, don’t you think?” The girls are actually thirteen, not twelve, and they’re both looking particularly lovely tonight, in the awkward, kittenish, fetching way of thirteen-year-olds, just on the verge of everything. Fiona’s eyes follow mine. “Pretty, aren’t they? God, I wouldn’t be that age again for anything in the world.” I feel strangely torn between the impulse to intensify her jealousy by transferring it to Natasha and Justine, and actually trying to be pleasant to her; there’s something sort of compelling about her.
But the Fionas of the world have never liked me much. She suggests with glaring insincerity that I should stop by their table for a drink later, and sails across the room toward the young actresses just as Billy enters, a small boy trundling along with him, his cherubic mini-Billy face framed by Fiona’s wild red curls.
Poor Billy doesn’t even glance my way.
I have a salad and another glass of wine; more and more people have stopped by my table. The whole scene seems to be getting much more social suddenly. But I’m not in the mood; I feel vaguely pissed off at everyone. I slip out when I think no one’s looking, an extra bottle of wine under my arm recklessly charged to my room. Before I get to my guesthouse, I hear multiple feet pattering behind me and a breathless chorus of “wait up!” I’m surprised to see Natasha and Justine running after me, dragging the little Pearson child between them.
“We’re babysitting,” Natasha explains when I let them catch up to me.
“Fiona asked us to,” Justine adds darkly.
“She didn’t ask, really. She ordered.” I can’t help smiling at their undisguised bitterness. “She said, ‘Why don’t the children run and play.’” Natasha scowls at the boy.
“What’s the kid’s name?” I ask. I’m sure Billy mentioned it a thousand times, but it’s not the kind of thing I tend to remember.
“Liam,” Justine says, grudgingly. I find myself fascinated by the intense expressions that flit quickly across her face. Love, vengefulness, despair. Was I like that once? There’s something familiar about her, a kind of echo. It’s there with Natasha, too, but not as strong.
The truth is I can’t stand girls their age, as a rule. Maybe it’s because of the echo; I couldn’t really stand myself at thirteen, either.
“Liam!” says Liam, enthusiastically. I look at him critically. “Is he about two, do you think?”
“Probably,” says Justine. �
�Terrible two.”
“Two!” says Liam.
We all contemplate him in silence. Condensation from my bottle of sauvignon blanc soaks through my thin dress. “He really is a cute little fucker, isn’t he?” I don’t mean to say this. It just comes out. But it’s true.
The girls giggle and agree, suddenly my conspirators. They grab his fat little hands and swing him back and forth between them a couple of times, a little more cheerfully, while he sputters inanely, “Liam whee!”
“So why did you follow me?” I ask finally. “Fiona didn’t make me an honorary child, did she?”
They laugh again, as I knew they would. They’re so vulnerable! So manipulable! I have a weird impulse to hug them. Protect them? I shrug it off. I think of my bottle of wine, warming.
They shrug in sync. “We’re bored,” says Natasha.
“You seem kind of cool,” Justine adds. “By comparison.” I admire the way she undermines her compliment. I’m almost flattered. “The other adults are acting kind of like assholes.”
“Language,” says Natasha, as if she can’t really help it, and I think of Lois, trying so hard not to be prim.
“Screw that,” says Justine.
“You guys want to come back to my cottage for a bit? You can talk shit about everybody, if you want. I don’t care.”
“Sure,” they say, carefully nonchalant.
“Juice?” says Liam hopefully.
“Juice,” I agree, hoping there’s some in the minibar. Diet Coke for the girls. Sauvignon Blanc for me. We’ll sit on the porch and watch for lightning bugs. I’ve been told it’s rare to see them out here, but we can hope.
* * *
Later, after Fiona has fetched the kids (with a very unconvincing show of gratitude, I might add), my phone rings. Not my iPhone, which wouldn’t be all that surprising, but the landline in my room. Billy, calling to apologize for his wife? But he has my cell number. Lucy Ledger’s agent, confirming our meeting? Not likely; everything’s arranged. The front desk? I pick it up out of pure curiosity and am unsurprised when there’s nobody there at first. “Hello,” I say. “Hello, hello! Who is it?” I hear breathing. Someone is there. “Hey, asshole,” I say, pretty cheerfully; it’s the wine, I guess. “You’re boring me,” I say. “I’m going to hang up now.” And I’m about to when the breather finally says something. It’s hard to understand because he’s obviously trying to make his voice sound weird.
“I know who you are,” the voice croaks.
“Well, congratulations! I guess you’ve got the right number then.”
“No, I mean I know who you really are,” says the fake voice. “I know everything.”
He sounds youngish. He must want something. What could it possibly be? For a few seconds I have no idea what to say to him. I run through various possibilities. Jaden sold me out? Could it be someone from back home? Some enterprising tabloid reporter? Surely not. Who else knows?
Lois? Someone Lois knows? But who would she tell, and why, Lois who loved secrets more than life?
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I drawl pleasantly while my mind continues to race.
“I can tell everyone,” he says, the hoarseness wavering. “Everyone will know. There’s only one way to stop me.”
“Oh, spare me,” I say, with an indifference I don’t feel. “I’m sure it’ll be great publicity for the film. It’s a wonder I didn’t think of it myself.” And I hang up. I look blankly out the back window into the black woods. Strange. Very strange.
But honestly: who cares? It’s an interesting question, I decide, upending the last of the bottle into my almost-empty glass.
I care. I’ve built up my world too carefully, for whatever it’s worth. My fake history is well established; no one has ever questioned it—my Connecticut upbringing and all the rest. I can’t stand the thought that it could all come crashing down.
And how on earth could he have gotten my room number, whoever he is? I check the door to my cottage, reassuring myself that it’s locked. I find myself staring out the back window. Instead of the dark woods, I see my own face looking back at me. Some trick of the light makes me look old and anxious. Fuck it, I say to myself, and toss back the rest of my wine. A pathetic show of bravado, I have to admit.
Lois
At the diner I learn that the actress tends to arrive around ten, on the days she comes at all. The employees now know who she is, but their interest in her is mild and polite. I decide to stake out the diner. The first day she doesn’t show, and I worry; there’s only one more day before we are actually scheduled to meet. I want to catch her off guard. I want the upper hand, at least to begin with. I fear her professional artifice; I want to startle her into being real, if she is not in the habit of it. Which I don’t know, of course; I have constructed an imaginary Chloe in my mind, draped a rather terrifying personality around the long delicate bones of her half-famous physical self.
But when I see her on the second day, framed in the doorway of the diner, dark glasses concealing half of her face as she scopes the place out, fear is not what I feel. I feel—what? Lost, helpless, lonely, worried. Safe, strong, loved. I feel twelve. I smell warm pine, pipe smoke. I feel jagged mountains all around us.
She is walking in my direction, as if she has a regular table and is making her way directly to it. She passes me, in jeans and ballet flats and a silky, floating white blouse, wavy blond hair loosely pulled back. She slides into the booth directly behind me, her back facing mine. I can sense the practiced gesture with which she removes her sunglasses. I imagine her glancing at the menu—but not needing to study it, knowing already what she wants, because she orders the same thing every time, as I do. It is one of the things I know about her. One of the things that cannot have changed.
“Carly,” I say quietly, not turning my head, not knowing that I am going to say it until I hear myself, hear the quiet word jolt heavily against the bright, unsuspecting air of the diner.
Behind me all is still. The booth does not so much as tremble. I know that the slightest of movements, even vibrations, would be communicated to me through the taut vinyl. But there is nothing: suspension, the refusal of somethingness, the eye of some storm.
“Lois,” she says, her tone of voice echoing mine precisely, carving through the air, which has become thick with strangeness. “Or Lucy, should I say.”
“Chloe.”
“You’re here early.” A stranger’s voice, almost.
“I wanted to see … everything.” I feel as if my words are far away; I am spearing them one by one through dark, rushing water, clumsily, not quite finding the ones I need.
“See your little puppet show, you mean? Your fucked-up reenactment?”
Anger was always a possibility. We are still back to back. I wish I could see her, trace the bits of Carly May still visible in her face.
The waitress appears. “Coffee,” Chloe barks. (Carly? Chloe? Even in my mind, I hardly know what to call her.) The woman looks taken aback; clearly she’s accustomed to the actress being more pleasant. Her eyes drift my way, checking on me, and I shake my head and wave her away.
“Our meeting is tomorrow,” Chloe points out coldly when the waitress is out of earshot. “No one even fucking knows I’m here. What are you doing, stalking me?”
I feel myself turn red. I suppose this is a form of stalking, this staking out of the diner. I think of my Carly/Chloe file, the Web sites I bookmarked. Stalking.
“It’s just a diner,” I say, keeping my voice level. “It happens to be near my motel.” Guilty! If I weren’t guilty I wouldn’t be defending myself.
“It’s my diner,” Chloe says, and I now hear more than a glimmer of Carly May, petulant and possessive.
I feel myself rising, leaving my breakfast half eaten. I’ll pay at the counter. I don’t know what will happen if I stay. I think I might cry. This has been a mistake.
“Your book is full of lies,” Chloe/Carly says calmly. “We’ll talk about it tomorro
w. I’m looking forward to it.”
The waitress returns with Chloe’s coffee and I slip away, not trusting myself to speak, letting Carly have the last word, as always.
I don’t think she looked at me. Not once.
Chloe
When Lois is gone I pick up my coffee and promptly spill it all over the fucking table. I’m shaking. I sop up the spilled coffee with tiny paper napkins from the dispenser next to the ketchup and try to figure out why I’m so upset. I consider a range of emotions, and what I settle on is something between scared shitless and pissed as hell.
Which makes no sense. What am I afraid of? What am I pissed off about? I feel a stirring of guilt, deep, deep down in some emotional abyss I tend to steer clear of. Poor Lois; that’s hardly the welcome she deserved, stalker or no. And for a minute I feel wounded, almost sick, and even though it’s been almost two decades since it last happened, I remember this feeling all too well. I’m slipping into Lois mode. And it’s like I just stuck a fork in my own heart.
Maybe some people always know exactly what they’re thinking or feeling. Maybe most people, even. I wouldn’t know. If I really want to know the truth about myself—my emotions, motives, whatever—I need to take a very cold, hard look within. Because in general, I lie—to myself, I’m pretty sure, along with everyone else. Call it acting if you want. It’s falsification. The opposite of truth. I’m very, very good at it.
Turning my attention inward, I’m half afraid of what I might find. It’s like scanning for a tumor, something malignant and spreading and undeniable, a threat that must be faced. Wrenched out, maybe. Thrust into the light. Put under a fucking microscope.
And what comes up is a memory—not repressed, quite, but filed away, locked up, dusty but not faded:
It was near the end. We had maybe a week left, though of course we didn’t know it. God, I can smell the room, see the shadows on the walls … It was late, the middle of the night, and Lois thought I was sleeping. I was awake, though, because my period had started, and I had miserable cramps and no idea what to do about them. I was curled up clutching my abdomen, counting the waves of pain. (Lois had said I should ask Zed for Advil or something, but I would not.) I heard Lois get out of bed and move to the dresser. I opened my eyes just a slit, and as they adjusted to the darkness I could see that she was brushing her hair. When she looked toward me, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I’m not sure why, looking back. I could have said something. Anything. I should have stopped her. Not that I knew exactly what she was up to—how could I?—but then again I did, somehow. If I’m totally honest, I have to admit that I had a sense of what she was up to.
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