by Ellie Monago
I want to go outside and tell Gina it’s casual. I mean, she knows this. Everything with Tennyson is casual. She’s not much for intimate conversation. It’ll be short-lived, too. Tennyson and Vic are the best advertisement for why (and how) openness works. If they’re out in the street fighting tomorrow, it really will be Armageddon.
Then there’s Andie and Nolan. If she’s not actually having an affair with Doug, she’s doing a pretty good job of faking one. I feel like I should do something, help Nolan somehow, but it’s not like he’s any good at talking about feelings. He doesn’t like to admit he has any. But I know how he reveres Andie, and I always thought she felt the same way. If Doug and Andie are together, it will truly be cataclysmic.
Then there’s Wyatt, who seems so distraught every time I see him on the street. I know Yolanda is putting him through the wringer. I set him up, with no conscience. I was just so single-mindedly focused on getting rid of Kat that I never thought twice about sending Yolanda that picture from Kat’s phone. I didn’t care what happened to him. I was that obsessed.
I’m afraid this whole neighborhood is falling apart, that it’s been some gigantic house of cards, and that Kat and Doug were the wind to blow it all down. Or maybe I’m the one who flicked my finger and set it all in motion. My vendetta against Kat, my need to drive her out, is destroying what I love.
All that, and I’ve failed. She’s coming back here anyway. It’s the only home she has, and that’s the only family she knows, and unless I can get Doug to boot her out, I’m stuck with her as my neighbor.
I can’t talk to anyone, can’t get a fresh perspective. My secrets have segregated me from these women whom I’ve come to love. But do they really know me? They don’t even know I’m from Haines. They have no idea who my father is.
Katrina knows me best, if she’d just open her eyes. It’s like she’s blocked me out, pushed me down into the most subterranean part of her subconscious. I feel like even if she changed every feature in her face, I’d still recognize her. I couldn’t help it.
We were best friends for eleven years, from ages six to seventeen. Then there was the accusation about my father, and I went to her, crying my eyes out, not knowing that she would turn around and go to the police and claim he’d done it to her, too.
There weren’t that many victims, and most of them dropped out, until only two remained. One of those was Katrina. She testified against my father, who had treated her like his own daughter for years. She had no dad, she had nothing, and my family took her in. She ate dinner at our house practically every night. All those Saturday night sleepovers. All that compassion we had for her, and she turned around and lied. She destroyed us.
That’s what it was all about: I had the best of everything, and she had so little. I tried to share with her, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to make sure that I was left with nothing.
My father insisted upon his innocence, but the town was happy to bring him low. He told me that Haines was full of envious people, and I could see it in their bloodthirst. They practically came out with pitchforks. The jury was rigged. That was the only way they could have convicted him.
Having the last name Layton had always been a badge of honor and a source of pride. I’d been from the best family, and now I was a pariah. People looked at me with pity, or with contempt, or disgust, treating me like I was contaminated. The whispers. The ostracism. The loneliness of trying to defend someone who everyone said was indefensible. But he wasn’t! He was my dad. He was a good man, and I couldn’t say that out loud anymore. No one wanted to hear it.
Katrina had gotten her wish. She’d turned me into an undesirable. Just like she was.
I was so angry. All the therapy in the world couldn’t stop the anger.
Really, the therapy made it worse. Being told I was in denial, having to hear the lies from the newspaper about how he groomed all those kids, and sometimes, I have to admit, she even got me to doubt him. There were times I thought that eight was a lot of victims, and that they were all telling versions of the same story, and that one of those victims was a girl I had loved. There were times in therapy when I started to wonder if it could have happened, and times since. I know my father. My heart knows him.
But I can’t see him anymore. He’s still in prison. I can’t visit because the last time I did, I sat across from him and—I would never admit this out loud—I had the feeling that maybe he really was capable of what they’d said. I’ve gone back over that again and again, and I honestly don’t know what changed. It wasn’t like he confessed. But after he was out of my sight, I revisited all my childhood memories, the way he was with me and the way he was with Katrina, and I knew the truth again: that Katrina and the others had set him up, for their own bizarre reasons.
I got so furious. It was like I really could have gone on a murderous rampage. I wanted to track her down and kill her with my bare hands.
What stopped me was believing in karma, that she’d get hers, that she’d live a terrible and miserable and lonely life. I told myself that I’d live out that old saying about how the best revenge is living well. I found a husband and I had my baby and I was accepted into a community, which felt so good after the ostracism my family suffered. But then Katrina showed up in the AV with this husband everyone liked and the most beautiful baby. All the fury came back. I would do whatever it took to get her out of my neighborhood. An eye for an eye. A family for a family.
I don’t care what some therapist thought. Katrina is the villain, and that’s not a narrative. That’s the truth.
I log in to my e-mail, and there’s the usual digest from GoodNeighbors. Twelve new messages from my neighbors! I scan, my eyes widening as I read the third post:
I got your e-mail, and I’ve had enough of your notes. And I know you’re behind the rest of it, too. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I was afraid, but I’m not anymore. I don’t even care who else reads this. I can’t worry about what anyone thinks of me. Not now. It’s gone too far. I just care that you’re reading. You’re somewhere on this site, and you’re on my block, and I’m going to find you. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you. ANYTHING.
So instead of Kat leaving the AV, she’s putting us all on notice. She’s so unhinged that she’s going vigilante, and she wants us to know it.
I can’t tell if she’s bluffing.
What I do know is, I never wrote any e-mail, and he wouldn’t have, either. Which means that either Kat’s truly batshit and is conjuring phantom e-mails, or this has officially gotten out of control.
CHAPTER 33
KAT
Doug and Sadie are both asleep, and I wish I could join them. But I can’t stop thinking about who might be behind the notes and now the e-mail, who roofied me, who poisoned my child. All that, and I’m still in this house. Because it occurred to me that running might not end it. If someone hates me that much, they could follow me anywhere. So I’ll stay, embedded in this neighborhood, where I can find the clues and the proof. Then they’ll pay for what they’ve done. They’ll be locked up like Layton, and I’ll be truly free. Sadie and I will be safe.
Though if I’m honest with myself, having Layton behind bars hasn’t released me from my own prison of shame. Dr. Morrison talked about how brave it was of me to testify against Layton, how I protected all the other little girls he might have gone on to victimize. But when I testified, I was only seventeen, and I wasn’t thinking of the little girls in the future; I was thinking of the little girls in Layton’s past.
Learning that I wasn’t actually special, that there had been others, devastated me. Ellen came to my house to tell me that her father had been falsely accused, and my first thought was, It’s all true. And I wasn’t the only one. I was such a fool.
Layton and I had been together from when I was ten until when I was thirteen—until I started to look more like a woman and less like a girl. But what he told me at the time was that he needed to end our relationship because it was wrong. As much as he
loved me, I was his daughter’s best friend, and even though his marriage was nothing but an empty facade, he needed to rededicate himself to it for his children. He made it sound like a terrible sacrifice, like losing me was practically killing him.
But it was bullshit. He was moving on to other prepubescents. He’d lied to me.
I’d been so hurt and so angry, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I thought that Ellen deserved to know who her father really was, and before I went to the district attorney, I told her. She didn’t believe me, but I was sure she’d come around.
Then there were all these other victims coming forward, and I found out just how not special I was. We were all just so horribly similar, all duped in the same exact ways. One by one, they dropped out—their parents changed their minds or they had emotional breakdowns—until it was just the original accuser and me.
Ellen stood by her father. She even manipulated for him, begging me not to testify. She didn’t stop me, but she made me feel guilty. It was terrible, being on the stand, having to look at Layton, the only man I’d ever loved (I didn’t have a father, after all), and looking out at Layton’s wife, who’d treated me so kindly and who resembled Ellen. I was tearing apart their family and for what? For vengeance. I was punishing him for the fact that I wasn’t special at all. I was just stupid.
But I’d loved him. I didn’t love all the sexual things, not on their own, but I loved making him happy. He tried to end our relationship a bunch of times, and I seduced him back. I was ten and eleven and twelve and thirteen, feeling powerful. Feeling irresistible. Then I hit puberty, and he could resist me, all right. Intellectually, I know that makes him a pedophile. But sometimes I still don’t know what it makes me.
Here I am, with a husband who’s supposed to love me, who’s supposed to have chosen me above all others, forsaken all others, and I’m still so stupid. I don’t know where he was when he was supposed to be at work, not for sure, but I have a pretty good idea.
What I do know is that I was terrified when I brought Sadie home by myself, letting myself back into Crayola, i.e. the scene of the crime. I know that I disinfected every surface twice over. I know that I was afraid to put Sadie down anywhere, that I just kept her clutched to me. I know that this is not what home should feel like.
I know that Doug continued to ignore me for hours, until he walked inside at six p.m., pretending it had been a long day at the office. He was obviously genuinely thrilled that Sadie was back with us, and he asked questions about how she was. As an afterthought, he asked about me.
What I didn’t tell him was that I’d called the police. That two officers came out and took my statement. They also took all the cardboard notes, except for “Does your husband know?” I hid that one, wanting to retain some evidence of my own and not wanting them to wonder what it was that my husband doesn’t know. I can’t afford to lose any credibility, with such an incredible story.
I’ve already forgotten the officers’ names, though I wrote them down. I thought of them as Big and Little, for obvious reasons. They seemed sympathetic about Sadie’s recent hospitalization, but Big raised an eyebrow about Dr. Vreeland’s intimation of poisoning, like he thought maybe the doctor was some kind of quack. “Do you know Dr. Vreeland?” I asked, and they shook their heads. “He’s very professional,” I told them. “He has no reason to make anything up.” Another slight eyebrow lift from Big.
Little assured me that they’d speak with Dr. Vreeland, and Big said that they’d start talking to my neighbors, see if anyone suspicious had been hanging around. Big wanted to know whether anyone had directly made a threat against Sadie or me, if I’d had any negative run-ins, and I said no, everyone had seemed lovely—to my face. “It’s a great neighborhood,” Little said, with the most feeling either of them had shown, and I had a sinking sensation. Even though I stressed again that the bacteria was rare, that the virus showed up most often in people working with livestock, Big asked, “Do any of your neighbors have dogs?” and I knew I was fighting a losing battle.
They clearly didn’t believe anyone in the AV would do something like this. I had the sense that their investigation would be cursory at best. Though they were unfailingly polite, I was pretty sure they’d laugh at me later. Maybe they’d even call Wyatt to let him in on the joke.
I decided not to even fill Doug in when he got home. He’d just find a way to dismiss me, too, to downplay everything. I’m on my own.
I can’t sleep in the bed with him, not after everything, so I’m lying on the love seat, staring up at the ceiling; my mind is spinning like Sadie’s mobile. I go back to Big’s final question: “Is there anyone you’ve wronged? Anyone who could be holding a grudge against you?”
I hear a noise outside, and there’s Yolanda, pushing her double stroller. It’s definitely odd, since it’s ten at night. Shouldn’t her kids be in their beds sleeping? Though the ground is flat, she seems to be huffing. I think she’s put on more weight since I last saw her, or it could just be the unflattering shorts she’s wearing.
Without thinking, I dash outside. I plant myself directly in her path. Her hair is pulled back severely in a bun, and she’s not wearing any makeup. She looks aged.
“Oh,” she says without a smile. “You’re back.”
“Sadie was discharged.”
“Congratulations.” She starts to push the stroller around me.
Her kids are asleep. I might not get a more perfect moment. If Yolanda’s behind all this, then I need to call a cease-fire. Even though she hates me now, the notes started way before whatever it was that happened with Wyatt, the day of the block party. I have to start somewhere.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” I say. I take a deep breath.
“I wanted to say I’m truly sorry. For what happened at girls’ night, with Wyatt.” Her face goes from stony to stormy. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even remember it. I only found out when I saw a picture on my phone.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was blacked out that night. Someone slipped me a roofie. I’m positive. Someone in this neighborhood has had it out for me since I moved here. They leave me hateful notes.”
She shakes her head angrily. “This is the story you’re going with?”
“It was a kiss,” I say. “Nothing else.”
“How do I know that?”
“Well, what did Wyatt tell you?”
She looks away. “He doesn’t remember what happened that night, either. But he’s pretty sure it was just a kiss.”
“Wyatt doesn’t want me, and I don’t want him. Doug and I aren’t going to be open.”
She snorts. “You could have fooled me.”
Is that a reference to Doug and Andie? “I’m not going to be a regular. I’m not going to put myself in that position ever again. You have nothing to worry about.”
She looks directly at me, trying to figure out if she should keep hating me. I can tell she’s vilified me in her own mind in order to be able to live with Wyatt. I get that. All the compromises, all the rationalizations, all the little mental tricks we do just to get through the day and have what we thought we’d always wanted.
“I am so sorry,” I say again. “There was never anything between Wyatt and me, I swear to you. We never even flirted. Someone put ketamine in my drink. That makes people overly sexual.”
She’s dubious, but then I see her dawning realization that this could work in her favor. “Do you think someone could have drugged Wyatt, too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Unbelievable,” she says. But I can tell she’s a little relieved. Like maybe there’s another way to let Wyatt off the hook.
“Thanks for hearing me out.”
She starts to push the stroller away and then says, “You’re better off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Opting out.”
What she doesn’t know is that I’m the one opting out; I’m just not sure if my husband
is.
CHAPTER 34
I creep outside at four a.m., while Doug sleeps on peacefully, down the hall from Sadie.
He should be tossing and turning, his slumber fitful and disturbed. Even if he’s not an adulterer, he must know that he’s appearing to be an adulterer, with his disappearances and his emotional distance.
I will deal with my marriage at some point; I have to. We’re Sadie’s parents, and what we do will inevitably affect her.
But right now, I have to stay focused. There was an attempt on Sadie’s life, and the perpetrator is still out there, needing to be stopped.
Many of the couples on this block are wealthy. Wealth buys access. It can also buy secrecy. Vic and Tennyson, Oliver and Gina, Nolan and Andie, Brandon and Stone—they could all afford to do it and to cover their tracks afterward. Yolanda and Wyatt don’t seem nearly as rich, but Wyatt might have contacts through the police force. Obtaining leptospirosis is not out of the realm of possibility for my neighbors, if they wanted it badly enough.
But the motives . . . that’s where it’s murky. I’ve barely seen Vic, and I imagine he has his hands full with the spreadsheet. The idea of my being a threat to Tennyson is fairly laughable. Oliver and Gina—that they hate to lose, and that Doug and I got Crayola? Brandon and Stone—no way. Just, no way. Nolan and Andie.
Andie. She wants my husband.
I’m standing in the street, and now it’s 4:12 a.m., and I’m quaking. I’m dealing with an attempted murderer here. If I get caught, what will he (or she) do next? Whoever it is must be on alert. I basically announced on GoodNeighbors that I was planning to strike back.
How I wish I hadn’t written that, and I still had the element of surprise. But I am where I am.
The police won’t do much without hard evidence, and they’re not going to look very hard for evidence. That much was clear. So as frightened as I am, I need to be just as determined as my enemy.
This is for Sadie.
I start with the cans across the street. I’m wearing a pair of bright-yellow kitchen gloves, the kind you’d normally use to wash dishes, and I quickly develop a method for searching. Raquel and Bart, Oliver and Gina, Brandon and Stone, Wyatt and Yolanda, Vic and Tennyson, one after the other. Just for good measure, I check inside the can of the old crone Gladys. There’s not even one trash bag in there. Huh?