Nine Perfect Strangers

by Liane Moriarty

  Frances tapped her thumbnail against her front teeth like an imaginary pen. ‘Are you in a relationship?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lars. ‘We’ve been together for fifteen years. His name is Ray and he would probably prefer I wasn’t “sentenced to death”.’

  He felt a sudden burst of longing for Ray and for home, for music and the sizzle of garlic, for Sunday mornings. He was done with health resorts. When he got out of here he was going to book a holiday for him and Ray, a gastronomic tour of Europe. The man had got too skinny. His eyes looked huge in his face. All that obsessive bike riding. Legs spinning in a blur, up and down the hills of Sydney, faster and faster, trying to get those endorphins flooding his body, trying to forget that he was in a relationship where he gave more than he got.

  ‘He’s a good person,’ said Lars, and he was surprised to find himself close to tears, because it occurred to him that if he were to die, Ray would be snatched up like a too-good-to-be-true deal at the supermarket, and someone else could very easily love him the way he deserved to be loved.

  ‘Poor Ray,’ murmured Frances, as if she knew what he was thinking.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ said Lars.

  ‘Oh, it’s just you’re so good-looking. I was briefly in love with a handsome man in my youth and it was awful, and you’re just . . .’ she gestured at him ‘. . . ridiculous.’

  ‘That’s kind of offensive,’ said Lars. There was a lot of prejudice against people who looked like him. People had no idea.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, get over it,’ said Frances. ‘So . . . no kids?’

  ‘No kids,’ said Lars. ‘Ray wants children. I don’t.’

  ‘I never wanted children either,’ said Frances.

  Lars thought of Ray’s mother at Ray’s thirty-fifth birthday last month. As usual she’d had ‘one too many glasses of champagne’, which meant she’d had two glasses. ‘Can’t you let him have one baby, Lars? Just one itsy-bitsy baby? You wouldn’t have to lift a finger, I promise.’

  ‘Did your psychedelic therapy give you any special insights into your life?’ asked Frances. ‘Masha would probably like it if I mentioned that.’

  Lars thought about last night. Some parts had been spectacular. At one point, he realised he could see the music coming through his headphones in waves of iridescent colour. He and Masha had talked, but he didn’t think there had been any particular insights. He’d told her at length about the colour of the music and he felt like she might have got bored, which he’d found insulting because he’d been speaking very eloquently and poetically.

  He didn’t think he’d told Masha about the little boy who kept appearing in his hallucinations last night. She would have liked that.

  He knew that the dark-haired, dirty-faced kid who kept grabbing Lars’s hand was there to remind Lars of something significant and traumatic from his childhood, one of those formative memories that therapists were always so excited about dredging up.

  He had refused to go with the young Lars. ‘I’m busy,’ he kept telling him, as he lay back down on a beach to enjoy the colours of the music. ‘Ask someone else.’

  I don’t care what my subconscious is trying to tell me, thanks anyway.

  At one point in the night he got into a conversation with Delilah that didn’t feel therapeutic, more like shooting the breeze; in fact, he was pretty sure he could feel a sea breeze while they chatted.

  Delilah said, ‘You’re just like me, Lars. You don’t give a shit, do you? You just don’t care.’

  Did she have a cigarette in her hand at that point? Surely not.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lars had said lazily.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Delilah said. She’d sounded so sure of herself, as if she knew Lars better than he knew himself.

  Frances banged her knuckles in rapid motion against her cheekbones.

  ‘Stop hitting yourself,’ said Lars.

  Frances dropped her hand. ‘I’ve never represented anyone in court before,’ she said.

  ‘This isn’t court,’ he said. ‘This is just a silly game.’

  He looked over at Jessica, supposedly pregnant.

  ‘Tell Masha that my partner and I are planning to have a baby,’ he said flippantly.

  ‘We can’t lie,’ said Frances. She was clearly exasperated with him, poor woman.

  The expression on her face made him think of Ray when Lars had done something to annoy or frustrate him. The compressed lips. The resigned slump of his shoulders. Those disappointed eyes.

  He remembered the impish face of that little boy from last night and realised with a start that it wasn’t his younger self at all. The kid had hazel eyes. Ray’s eyes. Ray and his sister and mother all had the same eyes. Eyes that made Lars want to close his own because of all that terrifying love and trust and loyalty.

  ‘Tell Masha if I don’t live I’ll take out a wrongful death lawsuit against her,’ Lars told Frances. ‘I’ll win. I guarantee you I’ll win.’

  ‘What?’ Frances frowned. ‘That doesn’t even make sense!’

  ‘None of this makes sense,’ said Lars. ‘None of it.’

  He saw again the dark-haired little boy with the hazel eyes, felt the tug of his hand and heard his insistent voice: I’ve got something to show you.

  chapter sixty-four

  Jessica

  Jessica and Zoe sat opposite each other, cross-legged, on a yoga mat, as if they were about to do a joint Pilates exercise.

  Jessica would have given anything to be in a Pilates class right now. Even the cheap one she did before they won the money, in that draughty community hall, with all the local mums.

  ‘Do you think this is, I don’t know, serious?’ Zoe’s eyes darted over to her parents and back. Jessica couldn’t help but notice Zoe had great natural eyebrows.

  ‘Ah, yeah, I kind of do,’ Jessica answered. ‘I feel like Masha is, like, totally capable of anything. She seems very unstable.’ She tried to control her breathing. The fear kept rising and then receding in her stomach, like bouts of nausea on an amusement park ride.

  ‘She wouldn’t really, like, execute anyone, of course,’ said Zoe, smiling fiercely, as if determined to show she was making a joke.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Jessica, but how did she know what this woman could do? She’d given them drugs without their consent, and who knew what she’d done to Yao and Delilah. ‘It’s an exercise, that’s all, to make us think. It’s just a really stupid exercise.’

  ‘I’m worried my mother might antagonise Masha. She’s not taking it seriously enough.’ Zoe shot a look at Heather.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do a really good job defending her,’ said Jessica. ‘Your mother is a midwife. She helps bring new life into the world. Also, I was on the debating team. First speaker.’ Jessica is a conscientious student.That was the comment she used to see most often on her report cards.

  ‘And I’ll do a good job defending you!’ Zoe sat up straighter, with the air of a fellow conscientious student. ‘So, okay, I thought, first of all, I should obviously mention your pregnancy, right? You can’t execute a pregnant woman. That would be against some convention or something, right?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Jessica doubtfully, although she wasn’t sure why she felt doubtful. Was it because the pregnancy wasn’t confirmed? Because it seemed like that was exploiting a loophole? She only deserved to live because her innocent child deserved to live?

  And if she wasn’t pregnant, why should she live? Just because she really wanted to live? Because her parents loved her? Because she knew her sister loved her too, even if they were currently estranged? Because her Instagram followers often said she ‘made their day’? Because last financial year her charitable donations were higher than what had once been her annual income?

  ‘When we won the money, we really tried to, you know, not be selfish,’ she told Zoe. ‘To
share it, to give to charity.’ She ran her fingers through her hair like a comb and lowered her voice. ‘But we didn’t give it all away.’

  ‘No-one would expect that,’ said Zoe. ‘It was your prize.’

  ‘That’s one thing I miss about our old life,’ admitted Jessica. ‘Before we got rich we didn’t ever have to think about whether we were “good” people, because we didn’t have time to be good. We were just paying the bills, getting by, living our lives. It was kind of easier.’ She winced. ‘That makes it sound like I’m complaining and I promise you I’m not.’

  ‘I’ve read about lottery winners who go on crazy spending sprees and their relationships end and they lose the lot and end up on the dole,’ said Zoe.

  ‘I know!’ said Jessica. ‘When we won, I did a lot of research about lottery winners. So I, like, knew the pitfalls.’

  ‘I reckon you’ve done a good job of it,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jessica gratefully, because sometimes she had longed for someone to give her a good mark for how well she’d handled the prize money.

  She’d tried so hard to be a well-behaved lottery winner. To invest properly, to share appropriately, to get tax advice, to go to posh fundraiser balls where terrifyingly elegant people sipped French champagne while they bid obscene amounts of money on obscure items at charity auctions: ‘All for a good cause, ladies and gentlemen!’ She thought of Ben tugging at his bow tie, muttering, ‘Who the fuck are these people?’

  Should she have spent more at those charity balls? Less? Not gone at all? Sent a cheque? What would have made her a better person, more deserving of life right now?

  If this had happened before the win, what would Zoe have said? Jessica deserves to live because she works really hard at her boring-as-batshit job and she’s never even flown business class in her life, let alone first class, so what sort of life is that?

  The money defined her now. She didn’t even know who she was before the money.

  ‘Ben didn’t want to make any decisions except for which car to buy,’ she told Jessica. ‘He didn’t want anything to change . . . and that’s just not possible.’

  She touched her lips and looked down at her boobs, which were objectively awesome.

  Would her defence case be better if she didn’t look like this? If she hadn’t spent so much money on her body?

  ‘Why would you want to look like one of those dreadful Kardashians?’ her mother had once asked her.

  Because Jessica thought those dreadful Kardashians were stunning. It was her prerogative to think so. Before the money Ben had drooled over images of luxury cars and Jessica had drooled over pictures of models and reality stars that were maybe photoshopped, but she didn’t care. He got his car, she got her body. Why was her new body more superficial than his new car?

  ‘Sorry.’ She looked back up at Zoe, and remembered that this girl’s brother had committed suicide. Zoe had probably never met anyone as superficial as Jessica in her life. ‘None of that helps you build my case, does it? Why should this girl live? Oh, because she tried really hard when she won the lottery.’

  Zoe didn’t smile but gave Jessica a very serious, focused look. ‘Don’t worry, I can put a good spin on this.’

  She looked up at the television screen where Masha’s face had loomed. ‘What do you think will happen next? After we’ve played her stupid game?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jessica honestly. ‘It feels like anything could happen.’

  chapter sixty-five

  Masha

  Masha collected a cushion from the Lavender Room. Yao made no sound as she lifted his head from her desk and slid the cushion beneath his cheek. His fluttering eyelids were not fully closed, revealing the shimmery slivers of his eyes.

  She remembered adjusting a blanket around a small sleeping form. It felt like a memory that belonged to someone else, although she knew it was hers. The memory had no texture to it, no smell or colour; it was like the scenes from the security cameras around the building.

  That was not correct. She could give the memory colour and texture if she so chose.

  The blanket was yellow. The smell was No More Tears baby shampoo. The sound was the tinkling tune of the Brahms lullaby as a mobile with dangling toys turned in slow circles. The touch was of soft warm skin beneath her fingertips.

  But she did not choose to remember that right at this moment.

  She switched off the monitor so she could no longer see or hear her guests. She needed a break from them. The pitch of their voices was like fingernails on a blackboard.

  The sedative she’d given Yao was one they’d prepared in case a guest had a bad reaction to yesterday’s smoothies and became so violent or agitated as to be a danger to themselves or others. Masha understood that Yao would sleep for a few restful hours and then he’d be fine. It was Yao himself who had taught both Masha and Delilah how to administer the injection in the event of an emergency.

  This had not been planned, but it had become clear to her that Yao’s loss of confidence in the protocol was a serious liability. He needed to be temporarily removed from the strategic decision-making process. She’d needed to act fast and she had, in the same way that she had once culled non-performing staff or even entire divisions. Her ability to make swift decisions and execute those decisions in the face of change had been one of her strengths throughout her working life. Agility. That’s what it was. She was both metaphorically and literally agile.

  But once Yao slept, she felt oddly alone. She missed him. She missed Delilah too. Without Yao or Delilah here there was no-one to mentor, no-one observing her actions, no-one to whom she needed to explain herself. It was strange. She had lived alone for large chunks of her life. When she was renovating Tranquillum House and creating and refining the personal development plan that resulted in her incredible physical and spiritual transformation, she had spent months at a time without seeing a soul, and she had not felt the loss of company at all. But her life was different now. She was rarely alone. There were always people in the house: her staff, her guests. This reliance on people was a weakness. She needed to work on that. She was a work in progress.

  Nothing stays the same.

  It was a hypothetical exercise she had set for the guests, but their fear needed to be real. She had not seen enough fear. She had seen cynicism and doubt. These people were disrespectful. Ungrateful. Quite unintelligent, to be frank.

  Those drugs weren’t cheap. They had cut into her profit margins. She had been prepared to take less profit for their benefit. Dear Yao had worked so hard to ensure the correct dosages for each guest. There had been many late nights getting this right!

  The new protocol was meant to be Masha’s career pivot. She was ready to be part of a bigger world again. She missed the public recognition she had enjoyed in her corporate life: the profiles in business magazines, the invitations to deliver keynote addresses. She wanted to publish articles and deliver speeches at conferences and events. She had already put the word out about a potential book deal. The response had been positive. Personal transformation is a topic of perennial interest, wrote one publisher. Keep us posted.

  Masha had enjoyed the thought of her previous colleagues seeing her reincarnation. They would probably not recognise her at first, and then they would respond with awe and envy. She had escaped the rat race and look what she had achieved. There would be magazine profiles and television interviews. She planned to employ a publicist. She certainly intended to mention Yao in the acknowledgements of her book and would even consider promoting him to a more senior position at Tranquillum House while she was busy on the speaking circuit.

  Masha’s glittering, glorious future lay ahead and these ungrateful dolts stood in the way of it. Masha had anticipated year-long waiting lists after the news of their success got out. Prices would have to rise to reflect the demand. These people had been offered this incre
dible program for a bargain-basement price and they did nothing but moan.

  They thought they were hungry! Had they ever known true hunger? Had they ever lined up for more than five minutes to buy basic food supplies?

  Masha considered the blank computer monitor and thought about turning it back on, but she didn’t want to see them right now. She was too angry with them. That Heather Marconi was so disrespectful. Masha did not like her.

  If any one of them had a brain, they could be out of that room right now and on their way to the police to make their complaints about how poorly they had been treated, when the truth was they had been lovingly nurtured.

  Masha took a key from her top drawer and unlocked the cupboard beneath her desk.

  For a moment she sat and studied the contents. Her mouth filled with saliva. She lunged forward and grabbed a bag of Doritos and a jar of salsa. The bag was fat and smooth and crackled in her hand.

  She remembered the woman who would come home late at night from the office after working a sixteen-hour day and sit in a dark room in front of the television to mindlessly eat Doritos and salsa. That had been Masha’s evening meal. She had not cared about her body. Her body meant nothing. She just bought bigger and bigger-sized clothes when she noticed. All she cared about was work. She smoked and did no exercise. As that doctor had said, she was a heart attack or a stroke waiting to happen.

  She opened the pack and breathed in the scents of fake cheese and salt. Her mouth watered. Her stomach churned with self-disgust. It had been over a year since she had last indulged in this depraved, disgusting act. This was all because of her ungrateful guests.

  Last time she ate Doritos it had also been a guest’s fault. He had put a one-star review on TripAdvisor about Tranquillum House and written a litany of lies. He said they had bed bugs. He posted a photo of the bites. There were no bed bugs. He made it all up because Masha told him on the last day that he was a candidate for a heart attack or a stroke unless he continued to change his lifestyle when he got back home. She knew this because she recognised him as the person she had once been. Yet she offended him by using the word ‘fat’. He was fat. Why the surprise? Wasn’t that why he came here?