The Beautiful Daughters

by Nicole Baart

  Adri searched for something to say. “Moved away, I guess. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in years.”

  Five years, two months, and a handful of days, to be exact. After they parted ways that July, the summer after they graduated from college, the summer David died, they didn’t look back. In fact, they had more or less promised each other not to. They hadn’t said much in those final days, there wasn’t much to say, but when it was over and they both knew that life could never be the same, Harper had taken her best friend by the shoulders. “I’m never coming back,” she said, giving Adri one last, soul-searching look. “I need you to know that.”

  “Neither am I,” Adri said.

  Harper hadn’t seem pleased by this, but she nodded as if she knew. But then her brave facade crumbled and she crushed Adri in a hug, her tears warm and salty on Adri’s cheeks. “I love you,” she whispered.

  Adri couldn’t say it back. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, she just couldn’t unravel the snarl of thoughts and emotions that had anesthetized her to the point of numbness. She could hardly breathe, much less engage in the sort of gut-wrenching goodbye that their friendship deserved.

  Harper swallowed a deep, steadying breath, and backed away. The crooked half-smile was back. Her eyes were hard and inscrutable. The only evidence of her broken heart were the tears that were already beginning to dry. “Later,” she said. And she turned and walked away.

  Adri had never spoken to Harper again. Not even a phone call or an email.

  But Katherine didn’t seem to find that terribly strange. “Sometimes the hand you hold is the hand that pulls you down,” she said, shaking her head as if that explained everything.

  The statement seemed cryptic to Adri, and she couldn’t understand if Katherine meant that Harper had pulled her down or the other way around. Maybe both. Instead of responding, she thanked Katherine for her time and excused herself down the front walk. The gardens appeared even sadder than they had when she first approached the house, and she ducked her head and jogged back to the car as if protecting herself from the rain. But it hadn’t started yet.

  Adri drove Betty down a series of twisting gravel roads that wound near Maple Acres, but she couldn’t bring herself to drive home. The sky that had looked so blue only hours before had bled out slowly into a dark and threatening slate gray as she wandered the countryside, and when the first drops of rain began to fall, Adri pulled into a field driveway and turned the car off.

  It felt good to roll down the windows and listen to the thunder rumbling in the distance. The horizon was already patched with light, the storm would pass in mere minutes, but Adri lost herself beneath the torrential rain all the same. She felt alone in the world, the only person awake to the drumbeat of drops and the way that the water turned the empty fields before her black. It was a quick and startling transformation.

  Adri slipped her phone from her pocket after the storm had softened to a mist. Amazingly, she had good reception and she thumbed her way to an old email account before she could talk herself out of such nonsense. It had been a very long time since she had used this account, but the address book was still intact and Harper’s information was still there.

  Her username had always made Adri smile. Themistoclea@gmail.com was more than a mouthful, it was an impossible handle to remember. Adri had laughed when Harper tried to give out her email address and inevitably lost patience as people struggled with the spelling and the reference. “The mist o’ Clea,” Harper would eventually grumble, parsing the name of a priestess in ancient Delphi into a nonsensical phrase. “She was Pythagoras’s teacher. She taught him all his moral doctrines.” And when she was met with blank stares: “Behind every great man . . .” Harper would circle her hand impatiently, inviting Adri to finish.

  Adri laughed. “Is an even greater woman.”

  “Don’t you know it.”

  Adri had no idea if the account was even live, but it was the only link she had to her friend. And though she had considered sending Harper an email at least a million times, for the first time ever she felt brave enough to try.

  She wrote only two short lines.

  I came back. Wish you were here.

  PART II

  ANGER AND COURAGE

  12

  HARPER

  The apartment was quiet. Harper woke to the soft weight of stillness, and felt a smile crease her face before she even opened her eyes.

  He was gone.

  That was always the best sort of surprise, the mornings she loved the most. He wouldn’t be gone for long, but sometimes he got caught up in conversation at the coffee shop down the street, and she had a few luxurious minutes to herself. Minutes to pretend that his second-story apartment in the quaint, trendy Minneapolis neighborhood where they lived together was a safe place to be.

  It felt safe enough on mornings like this. The elegant rooms of his two-bedroom apartment overlooking the city were downright pristine. The stainless steel gas range would shine in the morning light like something almost otherworldly. The hand-scraped hardwood floors would gleam rich and smooth as honey, and the leather couch would look as if it had been delivered only minutes ago. She could picture it all in her mind’s eye, every throw pillow and tea towel perfectly placed and squared at the corners, and she understood that she slept in the very heart of a dream. The apartment, the order, the new flatscreen TV that she didn’t even know how to turn on, they were all stepping-stones on the path to the holy grail of the American ethos: prosperity, success, upward social ­mobility.

  Harper slipped out of bed and padded to the living room on bare feet. The floor was cold, but the sun was streaming through the tall windows and she could already feel the gentle warmth on her cheeks. She crawled onto the window seat beside the tile fireplace and turned her face toward the sun. There was a profusion of fat pillows and she loved to sink into them, to lay her cheek against the cool silk and watch the city from behind the gauzy curtains. She never opened them. It wasn’t forbidden—she could have tied them back if she wanted to—but she liked the view better this way. Minneapolis was little more than a carved skyline in the distance, cut off by the river and the long, green stretch of Nicollet Island. It looked like a dream from here, a fantasy that would disappear into the mist if she ever dared to try and reach it. But, of course, she accompanied him into the city almost every day. It was a short walk across the picturesque Third Avenue Bridge. She loved that bridge and the way that it curved coyly and unveiled arches in the piers like a small gift around every bend. She loved that it took her away from the apartment, and every time she crossed it she entertained the hope, if only briefly, that she would never come back.

  East Bank was undeniably beautiful, the sort of place that most people would love to call home. In the summer the cobbled streets were sprinkled with runners and bikers like colorful confetti, their track shorts and expensive workout tanks bright and perfectly matched. And in the autumn the trees that lined the narrow boulevard between the river and Southeast Main created a watercolor screen that flecked the city with gold. It seemed there was always something happening on or near the island, farmers’ markets and art shows, outdoor film nights or a fund-raiser 5K. He liked to take Harper to the Stone Arch Bridge Festival in mid-June, parading her around in a sundress he had carefully chosen, her hand held tight in his.

  They really did make a stunning couple. She, blond and curvy, a woman who turned heads and solicited the sort of attention that made her long for the security of a bottle of pepper spray, or, better yet, a gun. She didn’t mean to exude that sort of allure; she just did, even though she often wished she could turn off her sex appeal like a faucet. And he was just as attractive. Tall and broad-shouldered, his sense of style faultless. When he removed his jacket—European and cut narrow—his arms pressed against the expensive fabric of his shirts, tugging at the seams just enough to ensure that anyone who saw him would know
he spent hours at the gym. He was a gorgeous man. But what had drawn Harper to him that first night all those years ago were his eyes. They were dark and bottomless, intense and complex even from across a room. She had physically felt his eyes on her, a breath at the base of her neck, at the place where her hair curled against her skin in golden ringlets that she couldn’t control. When she looked up, he was there, staring, inviting her with a casual flick of his finger and a smile that plainly said, I want you.

  She went. God, how she regretted it.

  And yet, in some ways, Harper had to admit that her life had turned out exactly the way she’d wanted it to. What do you do when you can’t forgive yourself? Some people try to earn salvation, but Harper had no illusions about who she was and what she deserved. She had decided long ago that she would spend the rest of her life punishing herself for what she had done. Pills. A cold razor against her skin. Alcohol that numbed her senses and blurred together the days. Him. But she didn’t have to like it.

  A man stepped out from beneath the trees below her, and for a moment Harper’s breath caught in her throat. But then he turned toward her building, toward the bank of soaring windows where she sat hidden behind sheer curtains, and revealed a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. It wasn’t him. In fact, when Harper tipped forward and looked as far as she could down the street in both directions, he was nowhere to be seen. She shot a quick glance at the clock on the mantel. Seven thirty-two. He usually let her sleep in. He probably wouldn’t expect her to be up for another half hour or so.

  The thought raced through Harper’s veins like a drug. She had time. Not much, but if she was quick she could at least catch a glimpse of the world beyond the walls of her prison.

  Of course, he had taken his phone with him. Not that she would dare to hack it anyway. And the expensive, tricked-out laptop was tucked away in his attaché. Harper swore that he sometimes put a hair on the concealed zipper of the leather bag just to be sure that she hadn’t tampered with his prized possession. But he liked to read on an iPad, and he kept that in the top drawer of his bedside stand.

  Harper hurried to the bedroom and lifted the iPad from the drawer with the corner of her pink nightshirt, taking note of exactly where he had placed it the night before. Normally she would handle the sleek pad with a fresh towel, but she didn’t have time this morning. She’d just have to clean up well after herself.

  Tiptoeing back to the window seat as if he could hear her betrayal from blocks away, Harper clicked on the device and fingered her way to the Settings icon. Though he loved the elaborate photo-editing software on his laptop, he was no computer geek, and the privacy settings on his iPad were embarrassingly simple to overcome. The only thing that had held Harper up was the Wi-Fi password. He changed it every couple of days, but she had learned long ago that he used an algorithm to generate a one-way hash. All she had to do was access it on the server and then use the algorithm to generate her own hash until she got a match. The first time she hacked his password, it had taken her stolen moments over the course of a couple of weeks, but now that she had the algorithm, it was a matter of seconds before she was online. Harper was more resourceful than computer-savvy. The truth was, she had flirted her way into some basic information years ago—a dangerous endeavor that almost ended very badly—and now it was just enough to get her by.

  Snatching one last furtive glance at the street below, Harper perched on the end of the window seat and opened Safari. Facebook seemed like an almost frivolous way to keep tabs on people, but it was all she had. She had set up a fake account with no profile picture and no information, but it was enough to allow her to check in on the few people she cared about. Her parents were divorced, and while her dad didn’t keep a Facebook account, her mom did. And one with wide-open privacy settings. Anything Julianna Penny posted was available for public consumption. Harper was grateful.

  Photos of Julianna and her new boyfriend in Brussels. A status update that included the phrase to die for. A couple of new friends with unfamiliar last names and references to the garden party that Julianna had thrown several weeks ago. Harper didn’t know whether to smile or cry. Her mother was apparently going through some sort of midlife, post-messy-divorce crisis. Not that Harper could blame her. The years of her youth had been peppered with arguments that started out perfectly civil and then escalated into the sort of frenzy that involved smashed wineglasses and vicious name-calling usually reserved for reality TV. Her philosopher parents were not so philosophical when it came to marital disagreements.

  It took Harper just a couple of minutes to catch up on Julianna’s life, and even less time to feel the familiar stab of sorrow that pierced her every time she reached out a tentative finger to touch her mother. If Facebook status updates and Instagram photos could be believed, Harper was so far from Julianna’s thoughts as to be nothing more than a hazy memory. Did her parents ever think about her? Did they miss her? It seemed obvious that they didn’t.

  Once, Harper had told herself that if her mother ever indicated she felt her daughter’s absence, she would get out. She’d do whatever she had to do. But, as far as Harper could tell, Julianna acted as if she didn’t have a daughter at all.

  In some strange, twisted way, Harper was grateful. She couldn’t just leave him. Nothing was that easy.

  Harper had never intended things to end up the way that they did. No one would choose this life, this sterilized imprisonment, where instead of inhabiting a godforsaken cell she slept on Egyptian cotton sheets and wore designer labels. But it had happened when she wasn’t looking, one bad decision leading to another until she had anesthetized herself with so many things and so many people. And he had swept in to save her. Poor baby, poor sweet Harper. He was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, but by the time she realized her mistake it was too late. Harper had been with him almost three years. Three years of lies and lust and greed that masqueraded as a relationship of sorts. But Harper wasn’t fooled anymore.

  Last year, on a summer night so hot and still that Harper felt like she had been trapped inside the vacuum of a pressure cooker, she had been approached by a young man wearing a ­T-shirt that had read simply, The Bridge. Harper noticed because it seemed out of place in a crowd of theatergoers in more formal wear.

  “Hey,” the stranger said, smiling at her.

  The street was packed with people, it was the final day of Fringe Festival, and he had dressed Harper up and taken her out for a night on the town. He liked to pretend he was cultured, and the eclectic performing arts festival was exactly the right venue for his brand of self-satisfied posturing. They had watched a one-act on a makeshift stage in a piano bar and he hadn’t understood a second of it. Harper could tell by the way he started to tip back the bourbon like it was water. Afterward the crowd leaked slowly onto the street and puddled there, hot and sticky and pressing sweaty bottles of beer to their temples as if the cold glass alone could drop their core body temperature. There were people everywhere, disheveled and weary in the stifling heat of the night, and Harper had used the crowd to her advantage. She slipped away from him and stood, not too far away, but far enough that she felt, for just a moment, alone.

  And within seconds, the stranger. “Hey,” he said again, stepping closer. She could see now that he was wearing a small black backpack, and his eyes were unusually clear. “Great night, huh?”

  “I guess,” Harper said, glancing over her shoulder. He wasn’t looking at her, but he would be. Soon.

  The man with the T-shirt came closer still. “We can walk away,” he said so quietly she had to strain to hear him. “Turn around and go straight to the corner of the block. Take a left. About three blocks down we have an office. We can help you. We can get you out.”

  Harper felt as if the ground was giving way beneath her, and when she tilted, the stranger put out a hand to steady her.

  “Harper!” There were several people between them, but he pinned Harper in place
with a glance. Parting the crowd with one hand and holding his bourbon high with the other, he made his way to her. A calculating half-moon smile sliced his handsome face, but Harper knew that smile. She knew what it meant.

  In the second before he was upon them, the stranger in the T-shirt pressed a slip of paper into her palm and disappeared in the crowd. When she looked, he was gone. It was as if he had never been there at all.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, sliding his arm protectively around her waist. “You know I don’t like it when you wander off.”

  “I didn’t wander off.” She put her hand on his chest and stood on tiptoe to drop a kiss in the hollow beneath his chin. His skin was impossibly smooth. Like a child’s. It unnerved her. “There are hundreds of people here,” she protested. “We got separated.”

  If he had seen the man in the T-shirt, he didn’t say anything. In fact, he appeared to be in a remarkably good mood, and when he took her by the hand and started to lead her out of the crowd toward home, his grip was light. “Let’s go,” he said, as if she had a choice in the matter.

  “Home?” Harper let him pull her along, but she put a bit of tease in her voice. “Already?”

  He stopped at the edge of the crowd, beneath a squat tree that had been planted on the sidewalk between buildings. “You don’t want to go back?” Pulling her close, he lifted her so that she had no choice but to lean against him. If he backed away, she would fall.

  “No,” she whispered. “I want to go dancing.” Of course, she didn’t want to go dancing at all, but it was the only thing she could think to say that might convince him the apartment could wait. And then, because she knew exactly how to get what she wanted—sometimes—she laced her fingers together behind his neck and kissed him so deeply that she could feel his immediate, visceral response.