Her face goes still. She does that when I say something interesting she can delve into. She scribbles and leans back in her chair.
“All right. Feel free to ask me questions, if you wish.”
“No, I don’t want to ask you questions. I just want to talk about something other than being kidnapped for four seconds. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely.”
“And don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Agree with me all the time.”
She writes something down again. She doesn’t say a third of the things she wants to.
“It must be boring, listening to people blabber for a living,” I try.
“It’s not as boring as you might think.” She twirls the panda pen. “Eventually, it becomes more than just listening. It becomes a way for you to step into someone else’s shoes—imagine what their life must be like, and to understand their feelings truly. To say you understand is one thing. To feel understanding is another thing entirely.”
The words hit close to home. I know exactly what she means.
“You don’t ‘feel’ understanding,” I correct. “It’s something that transforms you. When you honestly understand something, you become it.”
“In that vein of logic, when you become something, you understand it?” she counters lightly, and sips her tea.
“No.” I lace my fingers and unlace them. “You can become something without understanding it.”
“I don’t think so.” Millicent smiles over the cup.
“I think so,” I assert. I know so. I’ve become something right now without really understanding it. Her. Erica. “I can become this happy girl. This pretty, popular girl, if I try really hard. If I smile a lot and try to laugh, I’m someone different, and no one knows otherwise.”
The panda pen scratches across the clipboard.
“Do you feel like you can’t be yourself around the people in your life?” she asks.
I smile. “I can be both of my selves. But just one at a time.”
I don’t know what she’ll make of that. It gives her something to think about, because she doesn’t ask any more questions as she scribbles madly on the clipboard. In these pregnant pauses I’m supposed to keep talking, but I have nothing to say today.
Finally Millicent breaks the silence with gentle words.
“Who hit you, Erica?”
My head snaps up from the carpet. Her eyes are still sharp, but cautious.
“Who hit you when you were little? Your old mother? Old father?”
My fingers twitch. I force them to relax. “No one hit me.”
She watches me, unblinkingly, for a good thirty seconds. That stare says it all. Violet’s stomach gives a twinge.
“I’m sorry. Let’s stop for today.” Millicent smiles and stores her clipboard. “Are you sure you don’t want any tea?”
I grab my stuff and push through the door, heart thrumming in my ears. Two stairs at a time, and then freedom, fresh air free of the smells of cloying tea. The bench is cold and hard. Across the street is a restaurant, bustling with the dinner crowd. Cars pull up. Families get out. The golden squares of the windows are bright and welcoming.
On Violet’s eighth birthday, Sal takes her out to a nice restaurant.
She’s wearing a Dorothy-style dress with red plaid. The waitress asks Sal if she’s his daughter, and he nods, his proud smile perfectly insincere as she compliments Violet on her beauty and says their orders will be coming right up.
“I am pretty, right, Sal?” Violet creases her brows and stuffs bread into her mouth. She doesn’t know when they’ll be able to stop for another meal like this. Puts an extra roll in her pocket, just in case.
Sal chuckles. “Prettiest girl I know.”
She’s satisfied with that answer. He leans forward and filches packets of sugar.
“But you know, Vi, your face isn’t gonna last for long.”
“Right.” The girl tucks her napkin in her collar. “Because I’m gonna get changed. More pretty.”
“That’s right. Even prettier.”
“Even more like Erica,” she presses.
Sal’s hands freeze, putting his napkin on his lap. Blue eyes glance up, flinty. “What did we say about her name, Vi?”
Violet shrinks. “Don’t say it at all.”
Her soda comes then. She sips, looks dejectedly at the tablecloth. After polishing off half of his Arnold Palmer, Sal sighs.
“I’m not mad. But you can’t forget these kinds of things. Remember, every—”
“Every word is a tool. Use it too many times and it gets dull.”
“There you go.” Sal nods. “That name is something we can’t make dull. It has to be sharp. New, fresh, so that in a few years, you’ll be able to use it well.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it, kiddo. Rather have you slip up now than later, you know? Drink up. Are you gonna use your fingernails or hair?”
“Hair.”
“Smart choice.”
The waitress comes back with two plates of steak dinners. Sal digs into his. Violet waits forty-seven seconds before she starts wailing.
“Ew! Ew, get it off!”
“Violet, honey, what’s wrong?” Sal feigns worry.
“It’s sticking to my fork!” She squirms. On the tines dangle a few greasy hairs.
The waitress rushes over. “Is everything all right?”
“My daughter found a hair on her steak.” Sal glowers. “This is unacceptable.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” The waitress scrambles. “I’ll take it off your bill and get you a new dish right away.”
To Violet, the free steak tastes infinitely more satisfying, and Sal’s proud thumbs-up fills her with that same satisfaction.
Every morning at school, we pray. They pray. I bend my head and mouth the words but don’t feel anything. I feel Erica’s need to pray, to be seen as a good girl. If she’d grown up, she would’ve been a Goody Two-shoes, striving to please her parents and keep them off her back simultaneously. A sweet girl. A rich, pampered, pretty girl with an equally popular boyfriend, both of them crazy in love and destined for some Ivy League college. When I complete this con, I’ll have more than enough to go to college too, if I want. I can travel around the world instead. Invest it in something. Anything is possible. That painting is my freedom.
Today, I am not going to pray.
The reporters wait for Mrs. Silverman to pull into the school parking lot, and then they rush me. Screamed questions, loud lightning flashes of cameras. Mrs. Silverman nearly gets out of the car, Coach handbag clutched as if she’s ready to use it to beat them, but a police officer persuades her to get back in the car. The officers escort me through the stifling ring of lenses, microphones, and shouts. I cover my face with my hair until we leave them behind at the school fence. Merril laces her arm through mine.
“When will they learn to give up?”
“They’ll do anything for a story.” I shrug. “It’s a hard life—scraping up rumors and stalking tragedies.” Vultures, James had said. “They’re like vultures.”
Merril shudders. “Vultures are gross.”
I’m in an even shadier business, Merril. I’m an even more grotesque vulture.
“Oh my God.” Merril giggles and buries her face in my arm. “Kerwin’s coming over.”
The dark-haired boy she’d pointed out yesterday is walking toward us. The small visual cues tell me who he is before he can tell me himself—too many buttons undone from the top of his shirt, showing off the beginnings of his pecs. One button is confident. More than three is stupidly overconfident. He wears silver jewelry—a cross around his neck and silver rings. Vain, and comes from a religious family. He’s from Wales. Probably Roman Catholic. He keeps his hands unclenched, arms relaxed
at his sides. He’s open and eager. Doesn’t expect anyone to hurt him.
“Hey, Merril.” He smiles. His accent is crisp and lilting, and he rolls his r’s. Merril practically squirms.
“Kerwin! What’s up?”
“Came to say hi. Who’s the friend?”
“Erica.” I smile at him. “But you already knew that.”
“Not really.” He keeps his smile on too.
“Huh. I’ve only been all over the news.”
“My host family doesn’t watch much telly.” He blinks and looks to the left. He’s lying.
“Telly!” Merril squeaks the word and covers her mouth. “Sorry, it’s a funny word. Good funny, not bad funny.”
She laughs and I nervously laugh with her. Her crush is about as subtle as the reporters screaming my name a few yards away. Something’s off about this guy. I’ll play nice and try to get him to let his guard down so I can see what’s behind his façade.
I extend my hand to him. “Nice to meet you, Kerwin.”
He and Merril look at my hand like it’s an alien’s. Do teenagers shake hands? My heart lurches. I’d messed up—greeted him like one of Sal’s contacts instead of a teenage boy. I put it down with a sheepish smile. Quick, come up with something. Small excuse. He’s from overseas. Make something up.
“Sorry. I figured you Welsh are more proper than us Americans.”
“Proper’s too stuffy.” He chuckles. “Just call me Ker. Everyone does.”
“Ker!” Merril jumps in. “You can call me Mer if you want. Our names sort of rhyme.”
“So I guess I’ll call Erica, Er, then?” He shoots a smirk at me. “What’s up with the reporters following you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He’s not very good at acting. He already knows why—his easy posture and the tone of his voice are too relaxed. He’s playing dumb for some reason.
“Back when Erica was little—” Merril looks to me. “I mean, it’s your story to tell.”
“I was kidnapped.” I tilt my chin up. “I’m back now. The news is going a little batshit over it.”
“Kidnapped?” He looks me over. “You look fine to me.”
“I am fine,” I insist.
“Right. Of course you are.” He chuckles. Merril laughs with him.
“Is something funny?” I quirk an eyebrow.
Kerwin’s smile fades. “No. Sorry. I’m being a right asshole, aren’t I? Look, it was nice meeting you. Just wanted to introduce myself properly. I’ll see you around, yeah?”
“Yeah!” Merril chimes. When he’s gone, she clutches at my arm. “Did I have cereal in my teeth or something? He wouldn’t look at me.”
She bares her teeth for me to check, and I shake my head. “Your teeth are fine.”
“Weird.” She runs her tongue around in her mouth.
Taylor flashes me a devilish smirk as I walk into first period. A reminder that she’s on to me. I ignore her and sit in my seat. James’s wavy-haired head is on his desk, his breathing shallow but steady. Sleeping this early? He sits up groggily for morning prayers and then goes back to sleep. Mr. Roth doesn’t seem to notice, too deep in his integer lecture to look around the room. I extend my pencil across the gap between our desks, poking James in the arm.
“Psst.”
He doesn’t move. I poke him more insistently, and his eyes crack open.
“If you’re going to poke me, use the soft eraser end, would you?”
“Is that your special talent or something? Falling asleep at inopportune times?”
He yawns, eyes tearing. “Girls who look like you shouldn’t use big words.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I hiss.
“People get jealous of beautiful and intelligent people. You can be one, but not the other. You can be a little of one, and a lot of the other. But both extremes at once is trouble. Too much hate and envy. But hey—your life. You wanna make it hard on yourself, feel free.” He puts his head back down.
Did he just call me pretty? I can’t tell if that was a compliment or an insult.
“Mr. Anders, would you repeat back to me what I just said?” Mr. Roth’s voice cuts between us.
James raises his head and sighs. “You were saying something about reverse engineering the problem?”
“No. I’d like you to stay after class.” Mr. Roth’s words are short.
James sinks, defeated, on the desk. The class murmurs amongst themselves until Mr. Roth raps the board to get attention.
The paper under James’s head—our worksheet—is mostly blank. He’s done a few problems. I blink. They don’t have any work scribbled next to them, yet the answers are clearly there. Seventy-two. I do the problem myself, scribbling my work in the margins of my own sheet. Seventy-two exactly. The next problem, he’s put thirteen. I do that problem, my work scrawling down the page. Lots of written work, but it comes out to thirteen. My eyebrows raise. Is he really that good?
I look for him at lunch, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Cassie comes over, chest heaving. It’s a show the boys appreciate, elbowing each other and laughing as she passes. She seems oblivious, or maybe she’s gotten used to it by now.
“What are you two doing on Saturday?” She slides into our table.
Merril shrugs. “I have to go pick up Dad’s car from the shop in the morning, but after that I’m free.”
“What about you, Erica?” Cassie smiles.
“I’m free.”
“Awesome. Bowling. Lucky Nine Lanes—third exit off the interstate. Totally trashy, totally cheesy, absolutely perfect. I’ll bring Alex—boyfriend.” She winks at me. “And you guys can meet him. If you wanna bring other boys, that’s cool too.”
Merril grabs my arm. I have a bruise in the shape of her hand by now. “You have to invite Kerwin!”
“What? Why me?”
“He’s into you.” Cass flashes me a smile. “Would not stop asking about you in first period.”
Merril pouts, but I pat her shoulder. “If you want, I’ll invite him for you.”
Her face brightens, doe eyes unable to hide much.
Tracking Kerwin down is easy. He has a small crowd of people around him at all times. Popular? Without a doubt. He slouches against his locker, his soccer buddies shoving each other and laughing.
“Um, hi, Kerwin.”
His dark-haired head turns to me, and his smile is contagious. Would be, if I were the kind of girl to fall for it. It’s a very, very fake smile, but just honest enough that it fools most people.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Cass is having this thing, a sort of get-together at Lucky Nine Lanes. I just wanted to know if you wanted to come.”
One of his buddies snorts, and Kerwin smacks him on the back of the head.
“Are you gonna be there?” he asks, suddenly all smiles again. I nod. “Then definitely. What time?”
“We’re meeting at noon.”
“All right.” His accent drags out the word. “Look, I know the area, but not well. I might get lost. Give me your number just in case.”
“I don’t know the area either.” I smile. “I’m new too.”
He laughs. “Right. I’m transfer-new and you’re kidnap-new.”
“Something like that. Here, this is”—I take a marker out and motion for him to give me his hand. I scribble Merril’s number on the back of it—“Merril’s number. She’ll be with me, and she knows the town like the back of her hand.”
I look up. In our new position, his eyes are riveted into the top of my blouse. I pull away and clear my throat.
“So, I’ll see you then?”
“Yeah. Brilliant.” He struggles to form words. “Thanks for this.”
His friends whistle as I leave. Violet wants to snap at them to cut it out. Erica wants to ignore them. I mumble threats under
my breath—a happy middle ground.
When I tell Mrs. Silverman I’m going bowling, she beams. There are tears there, just barely hidden beneath a veneer of wine and eye-dabs with a napkin.
“I’m so happy for you, Erica. You’re making friends so fast.”
“I had friends before.” That’s a lie. Violet’s never had friends—what kind of con artist has friends? “So it’s not like I never had them.”
“I know.” She smiles. “I’m glad you’re making them here. That I get to see you make them.”
I pick at my broccoli.
Her voice is small. “Do you miss them? Your old friends?”
The friends I’ve never had, you mean? “Yeah. I miss everything. But everything back there was a lie. So I shouldn’t miss it.”
Mrs. Silverman doesn’t say anything. Marie comes in with tea and a plate of fruit for dessert. I pick at a peach slice when she starts talking again.
“There will always be two parts of you, Erica. There will be the one who had the life with your kidnappers—however good or bad a life it was. And there will be your life with me, and I intend to make it the best life I can for you. Those two sides don’t have to be at war. Both of them are important. Both of them make up the whole that is you.”
Violet sneers. Erica chews peach silently. The precipice between the two grows larger with Mrs. Silverman’s words.
A flower dangles, roots clinging to both sides as the fissure widens.
Sal covertly writes a Dear Abby–ish love advice column in a queer magazine under the pseudonym of Ms. Maple, and it’s how we communicate. The magazine is nothing graphic—mostly articles on the gay community, notices about events and art showings. Sal’s third column response is usually encoded with a message for me. Before I left, he gave me a phrase I use as a substitution cipher—SEEING RED AND BLUE—that strips away the unneeded letters and leaves his words for me. I submit seemingly innocent romantic questions to Ms. Maple via the Internet, and they contain my coded message using the same cipher. It’s a Cold War system that, while convoluted, keeps anyone off our trail.
I buy the magazine from a bookstore. Mrs. Silverman handed me two hundred dollars and dropped me off at the mall to buy something nice to wear to Cassie’s bowling party on Saturday. I barely kept my eyes from bugging out at the sight of two hundreds just for me. Not for food or rent or to pay someone off to keep them quiet. For frilly, frivolous clothes.
Pretending to Be Erica Page 5