Pretending to Be Erica

by Michelle Painchaud

  “Now.” He coughs. “Why would a girl like you buy something like this regularly? Unless you’re a lesbian. Bisexual. You’re not transgender—the medical records say that much.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a little curiosity,” I fire back. First the club pictures, now this? The guy is good, I’ll give him that much.

  “Of course not,” he agrees. “But if you were really curious about lesbianism or bisexuality, you’d probably buy something more brazen—something with pictures in it, if you get my drift. This is strictly esoteric: articles by professors and civilian contributors. Art pieces with gay themes, theater productions. Reviews about gay movies.”

  Good call on my bluff, Baldy.

  He’ll never find the column. There are hundreds of articles, and no reason for him to suspect any of them are coded messages. The chance he knows I write Sal is slim—lots of people submit, but only one is chosen, and never my submission. Sal reads and decodes my message independently. I send the submission via computer at the library during study hall. I always log out and clear the computer’s browser history and cache. I’m thorough and nothing less than perfect. I am Violet. There’s no way he knows.

  Which means he’s guessing—going on a hunch. Poking the body to see if it’ll twitch. And my reactions to what he says now will either prove my guilt or my innocence. High school relationships are dizzying, convoluted, bloodthirsty. Lying to save my skin is so much easier. I’ve done this countless times before. Adrenaline keeps my face perfectly calm and makes my tongue limber. It’s time to shine.

  “I haven’t told Mom you like her,” I start. “Not yet, anyway. Let’s make a deal. You don’t tell people I’m gay, and I don’t tell her you’ve been stalking me out of some misguided sense of protection.”

  “I’m not a high schooler. You can’t threaten me or use me by manipulating my love. And you’re not gay.”

  “Says you.”

  “I’ve been watching you for more than a month now. I’ve seen you look at that boy. James Anders.”

  “What do you want from me?” My voice tips up, shrill. Violet cringes. I broke my composure at the simple mention of his name. I’m losing my touch.

  “You can’t hide forever. It might be a nice change now—the money, the big house, the friends. But it won’t last forever.”

  I know that. Goddamn it, I know that! You don’t have to remind me, you bald fart. He’s desperate. He’s got nothing on me, and it’s driving him insane. His gut tells him I’m not her, and he’s right, but he can’t prove a lick of it. I win this delicate game. For now. I smile like a nice girl. To the experienced con artist, that smile would give it all away—that he was right. Maybe he can see that. It doesn’t matter. I’m winning.

  I make small talk with Mrs. Silverman when she picks me up, but my mind is on that painting. The code. The zoo. Robinson Crusoe. I’m putting it together in my head as I trace patterns on the windows of the BMW. Mr. Silverman gave me a hint, a hint about the zoo. Sal said the code pertained to a fond memory only Mrs. Silverman and Erica shared. The memory—I’m willing to bet it took place at the zoo.

  I have to get inside Mr. Silverman’s room and write those equations down.

  I watch Mrs. Silverman’s face as she talks over dinner—pork sirloin with onion relish that melts in my mouth. She makes jokes, touches my hair. It felt so natural before, but now there’s something between us, a tiny flame of resentment. Violet. Violet is there, eclipsed before by my professionalism. Violet is getting tired of pretending. No con has ever been this long. Violet can bow her head and take a few hits, but not so many. Not so many, so fast. Not so many hits directly to her heart.

  She hates Erica. Everything Erica has, she covets. Violet wants to stop pretending and still have the things Erica does. But that’s impossible.

  Not impossible—she can have it if she gets La Surprise. With enough money, she can have it all. That’s why she’s stealing it in the first place, why she agreed to the con. She agreed because Sal is her father, and the gypsy life of crime is her milk, her blood, her song. Before this con, she didn’t know what high school was or what friends were or how it felt for a boy to hold her hand. Normal was a fantastic desert illusion—spices and water and figs and honey she tasted on the tip of her tongue.

  And, because Erica is sweet and kind and perfect, she does not hate Violet in return. She envies her. Violet is alive in ways she will never be, in ways that’ll cease after the curtain on this con lifts and the crowd applauds themselves deaf—after Violet takes her bow and exits stage right to a bouquet of roses and a good chunk of sixty million dollars and a life emptied of the people Erica never really got to love.

  13: Turn It

  I let Mr. Silverman win today. But he knows it. Instead of cheering in his fidgety timid way, he frowns. I smile and clear the board.

  “You did great, Dad.”

  “My name is Brandon,” he corrects softly. I arrange the pieces for another game.

  “I really want to call you Dad. Is that okay?”

  He doesn’t say anything. Heavy silence makes our hands work harder to move pieces. Every black checker feels like lifting a ship anchor.

  “I saw those numbers on your wall,” I try. “They’re very pretty, all jumbled together like that. What do they mean?”

  He fiddles with his shirt cuff. “Nothing.”

  “They looked really important.”

  “Nobody should know.” Mr. Silverman shakes his head. “Nobody will ever know; it’s not good to know.”

  “Okay.” I nod. “I don’t have to know. I just thought they looked pretty, is all.”

  I let him capture a few of my pieces. His face grows angry, dark.

  “Play seriously,” he demands. I look around for any nurses. None. Mrs. Silverman’s listlessly looking out the window.

  I lean in and lower my voice. “I’ll play seriously with you if you’ll be serious with me, Dad. What are those numbers on your wall?”

  Mr. Silverman hisses something under his breath.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Don’t trust myself,” he finally murmurs.

  Doesn’t trust himself with what? Numbers, obviously. Did he make those equations to hide something—to keep himself from giving them away? When the nurse walks him back to his room, I stop at the front desk.

  “Hi, I’m Erica, Brandon Silverman’s daughter.”

  “Oh yes.” The receptionist smiles. “I’ve seen you in the—That’s insensitive of me. I’m sorry. Did you need something?”

  “I’m just curious: how long has Dad been writing those numbers on his wall?”

  “I’d say since about”—she taps her chin with her pen—“a year after he came here? We’re under orders to let him scribble randomly—the doctors say it’s therapeutic for him.”

  I bite my tongue to keep from saying his scribbles aren’t random. At least, not all of them are. There are eight or nine equations in that jumble that are suspiciously well focused.

  “Is it okay if I go in his room and take a few pictures?” I put on my prettiest smile. “I’ve got a school report, and I decided to focus on mental illnesses. My shrink said it’d be good if I used Dad as the focus.”

  Her face collapses in a sympathetic grin. “I’m sorry. Family can only enter a patient’s room with permission from either the patient himself or the patient’s supervising nurse.”

  “And who would that be?”

  She points to the nurse leading Dad away. “Nurse Rodriguez.”

  I thank her and start after them. Nurse Rodriguez rounds the corner without Dad by the time I catch up to her.

  “Hi.” I smile. “I’m Erica, Mr. Silverman’s daughter—”

  “I know,” the nurse deadpans. “What did you need?”

  I already know the answer before I ask—this lady is hard-core. Late forties, no-
nonsense tight bun, and the nurse who I’ve noticed spends the most time checking lists, papers, and all other legalities. Plays by the rules. I’ve caught snippets of other nurses talking about her snitching on them for taking shortcuts on duty. It’s better not to ask, period. I know her type—suspicious to the core. If I ask, she’ll be watching me, cued to my interest in those numbers. Her personality could be lethal to my con.

  “I just wanted to thank you.” I smile wider. “For taking such good care of Dad for so many years.”

  Her eyes remain dull, compliment taken in stride. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I have other patients I need to check on.”

  Sal’s voice sounds like he’s right next to me: If flattery doesn’t move them, work around them.

  Sal watches his daughter carefully from the playground bench. She’s young and bone-thin, even after being with him for four years, but she’s perfect.

  Sal knows she’s something special. Not many kids have the guts to pick his pockets within ten minutes of meeting him. Even fewer kids admit to it once confronted. But she did. Sal’s been in the business of scoping people out for decades, and he knows a talented kid when he sees one. He convinced a friend—another con artist—to pose as his wife and help him adopt Violet right away.

  Maybe it’s the face—the placid face free of most emotions. She doesn’t smile as much as she should. A blank slate. A catatonic slate. Her emotional reactions are left wanting, but that’s nothing food and some encouraging words can’t fix. She’s not broken, just banged up a bit.

  He watches her on the playground. Her eyes follow the other children as they course around her. She stands perfectly still, looking for an opening in the boisterous crowd, a moment in which she can squeeze in on the game unnoticed. But she misses it over and over, misses the moment, and they pass in a shrieking mass of laughter. She wipes her hands on her overalls. She’s not good at the interacting thing.

  Sal couldn’t care less. She listens well. Learns well. That’s all he needs.

  Finally Violet gives up on integrating into the children’s game. She wanders deep into the park to a rusted maintenance shack. She fiddles with the lock. Slides her glittery hairpins out of her bangs and edges them around in the hole. Scrunches her face. It’s the most emotion he’s seen out of her yet. The moms—on the lookout for every child—correct her; no, not the rusty lock, the monkey bars! The seesaw! She nods and plays on them but ends up standing near the padlock again. When the moms aren’t looking, she picks it a little more. After a half hour, Sal glances up from his book and checks her progress. The lock gapes open on the door. Violet sits, hugging her knees and watching it sway. He picks the girl up and twirls her.

  “You’re real talented, sweets.” He laughs.

  Violet doesn’t get giddy like most children do with praise. She lays her head in the crook of his neck and gives a little sigh instead—the sigh of a much older person. A heavy, guilty, dreaded thing. Sal’s heart—hardened by the neon nonchalance of Vegas and the deaths of everyone he’s ever loved—gives a flutter. A sad, touched spasm that he clamps off.

  It is not always crime. It is not always training. He knows to balance the two with fun. She is his protégé, but she’s still a child. To craft the perfect Erica, the perfect con artist, there must be balance.

  He takes her to the Strip. A woman he used to know is performing in the Red Lounge as a magician’s assistant. He buys Violet a Shirley Temple as they wait for the curtain to rise. Her eyes widen at the red fizzy drink, and the first sip has her smiling.

  “You like it?”

  She nods fervently. Nods until it seems like her head will fall off.

  “Watch your neck.” Sal laughs and looks at the menu. “All right, onion rings or chicken fingers? Your choice.”

  She makes a choice.

  14: Fear It

  I go grocery shopping with Marie. The store is the upscale, natural foods kind. Violet emerges; I’m not composed Erica as I steer the cart around, standing on the rung and using it like a scooter. Total casualties: one cartoon cutout display for oranges, the entire canned bean shelf, and a five-year-old’s dropped Transformer action figure. My wheels chopped its head cleanly off.

  I wince at the price tags—people can really afford to eat like this? The closest Sal and I got to organic was celery sticks, or frozen broccoli. But here everything is fresh, dark, leafy, vivid. I peek around the aisles. I get the feeling I’ll see someone from school at any second. I slip in different snacks, ones neither Erica nor Violet have tried. When I drop a box of Popsicles in, Marie snaps.

  “Don’t slip any more in here. One dessert is enough!”

  “Aw, Marie—”

  “Ah.” She zips her mouth. “One snack, chiquita.”

  I sigh and choose the cookies. In the checkout line, Marie glances at me over the checkbook.

  “I know your mother doesn’t want me bringing them up, but did your old parents feed you well? You look awfully skinny, even now.”

  I won’t say I dieted for two years in preparation for being Erica. Lost fifteen pounds, every one of them painful. Sal fed me well enough when I was young—whatever was easy to chew or carry while running, in the car, on the train, the subway.

  “We ate like normal people. Not much of this fancy organic free-range stuff.”

  Marie seems satisfied with that answer. The cashiers and baggers look harried. I spot a bagger at another checkout down the line, her dark hair in a ponytail. With the store apron on, she looks different. Taylor. She doesn’t see me. She works here, too? I want to say hi, but she looks busy. I finger a few next-to-the-gum tabloids instead. My fingers hover over Brad Pitt’s face before dropping down to a local magazine. My new face in all its blonde glory blares on the front page. My skin’s too pale. I can see the stress zits starting on my hairline. They slapped on a picture of me and didn’t even bother to airbrush it? In a Vegas magazine? For shame.

  And then I realize it’s the one of me in front of Club Riddler.

  “Ohhh no,” I groan-chant. “Oh no, no, no, no.”

  “What’s wrong?” Marie asks. I briefly wonder if vomiting on the conveyor belt is an option (wouldn’t it squish under the seam as it moves?) and then decide to spare the cashier from the cleanup. I quickly grab one magazine and add it to the pile of groceries. I take the other magazines and use them to cover the ones with my face. Thanks, Brad. You too, Angelina.

  “This is you!” Marie exclaims, eyeing the magazine. “Why are you on the front page?”

  Split second: pretend it’s a hoax or admit to being there? Honesty gets points.

  “Marie, you can’t tell Mom. Please.”

  She quirks a brow. “Erica, you’ve been out clubbing? Why? Those places are dangerous—drugs, gangsters.”

  “I didn’t do drugs, or drink. It was one night. Please, Marie. I just needed to breathe. I felt so trapped in that house.”

  “I will let you tell your mother on your own,” she says coolly, hinting at a threat: she’ll tell her if I don’t. I roll the cart to the car. The air is warm again, little patches of blue peeking out from behind solid gray clouds. With the groceries in the trunk, I lean on the dashboard and read the magazine article.

  MINOR VEGAS CELEBRITY Erica Silverman, seventeen, prodigal daughter of the Silverman fortune, returned to her family after living with a false one for thirteen years. A little pretty, a little privileged, and a lot of partying, Erica seems to be turning to the club scene to blow off traumatized steam.

  At the age of four, Silverman was kidnapped by George and Kathleen Hastings of Dallas, Texas, but no ransom demand was put through. Psychologists think the couple was just cuckoo for a kid, and it raises the question: after a childhood spent with them, how will she cope with a life in the upper echelons? On top of it all, there have been two previous “Ericas,” who’ve kept her name and case in the limelight. Police haven’t co
mmented on whether they believe this Erica to be the real one, but her mother certainly thinks so. Representatives of Mrs. Silverman say she and her daughter are rehabilitating together, trying to make “tragedy into normal everyday life.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I throw the magazine under my feet.

  Marie sighs. “The sooner you tell your mother, the better. Let us hope she has not seen it first.”

  I puff. “The damage is already done.”

  “She’ll forgive you. If you tell the truth, I’m sure she will forgive you.”

  Marie’s answers are confident, assured. Violet couldn’t give a rat’s ass either way—she’s so close to La Surprise that a little hiccup in the mother-daughter trust can be smoothed over. If Mr. White had shown them earlier, it would’ve been worse, but the foundation is strong. Erica flounders, fumbles, laments the stain on her social life. She doesn’t want to be seen as a party girl, a bad girl. She wants to right all the wrongs. Violet laughs at her, at how much she cares. You’re dead. Why should you care?

  Erica snaps. She reaches down for the magazine and in a frenzy starts ripping pages, cracking the car window and throwing them out. Marie does a double take.

  “Erica! What are you—”

  “Stupid!” Erica’s swears are comical, kid-like. “It’s all so stupid!”

  She rips up the page with her face on it into a dozen tiny pieces and throws them out the window like confetti. Marie gently works the magazine from her hand, a laugh in her words.

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Much.”

  I look at my shaking hands. That’d been Erica all on her own. Leaping out of my eyes like an untamable dog, my control a useless leash of dental floss. If it isn’t Erica coming out, it’s Violet. Where was my happy medium? My middle ground that was me, the ground I could stand on and not feel like an insane freak living a double life? The ground is eroding under my feet. It’s falling away like sand, like earthquake-cracked cement.