The Beautiful Daughters

by Nicole Baart

  Kicking and screaming, she decided, turning aside the fear with fury. She was no fool. She knew all about Stockholm syndrome and how some hostages defended their captors. But she felt no love for Sawyer, no bond that lashed her to him in a mangled parody of affection. At least, not anymore. Their relationship had been based on practicality. And exploitation. But she had exploited him, too. Harper had wanted to be punished, and Sawyer was more than willing to take advantage of that.

  Adri was giving her a quizzical look, and Harper forced herself to don a casual smile. “I don’t know,” she said. “How long are you staying here?”

  Sighing, Adri pushed the door open a little farther and leaned against the frame. “I don’t know. The annual board trip is coming up, and Caleb is scheduled to fly home while the team is in-country. We have the week off.”

  “Caleb?” Harper asked, feigning ignorance.

  “The guy I work with. He told me to stay put. Said he’s coming to see me.”

  “Here?” Harper didn’t have to fake the surprise in her voice.

  “It’s stupid”—Adri shook her head—“I told him not to come. He won’t come. But I don’t know when I’m going back.” There was something guarded in her eyes, and Harper realized that she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. “We have a lot to talk about,” Adri finally said.

  Harper bit her lip. “Yeah. I suppose we do.”

  “But that’s not why I’m asking.” Adri seemed to get a grip on herself. She angled the cordless phone at Harper and said, “If you’re going to stick around, we should get you some clothes. There’s not much open in Blackhawk on Sunday, but there’s a Goodwill in Fairfield. I mean, it’s Goodwill, but . . .”

  “As if I could forget our Goodwill.” Harper pushed herself off the bed, feigning enthusiasm. “Come on, Adri. You know me.”

  It was the only place they shopped in college, and Harper had been known for her fabulous finds on the used racks. Dresses that somehow seemed tailored to fit her, relics from the seventies, the perfect mix of hipster and sexy, and once, a pleather jacket that was the very definition of cool. But that was so long ago. Harper watched as Adri’s eyes flicked to the dress that she had abandoned in a pile at the foot of her bed. Adri’s gaze wasn’t accusatory, but it was almost painfully obvious that the cocktail dress hadn’t come from a secondhand store. Far from it.

  “We have the most amazing thrift store north of the city,” Harper said. It wasn’t a lie, though she hadn’t been there in years. “You wouldn’t believe the things that rich people are happy to part with.”

  Adri shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Then she turned from the room and started down the stairs. Harper hurried to follow.

  In the kitchen, Adri dropped the cordless phone into its cradle on the counter. Sitting directly beside it was the mustard-yellow rotary that Harper remembered from their college days. It had been unhooked from the wall, and the phone cable from the cordless had been plugged in its place. Harper almost asked about it, but decided for once to hold her tongue.

  The only shoes they found to fit Harper were a pair of old flip-flops that had mysteriously appeared in the deacon’s bench in the mudroom. Harper’s feet were almost embarrassingly large next to Adri’s tiny ones, and she had been about to slip on a pair of Sam’s work boots when she spied the edge of a neon-green sandal that looked like it might work. They had to dig through a couple dozen mismatched pairs to find the flip-flop’s mate, but when Harper emerged from the box triumphant, she was glad she had persisted. The sandals looked silly with her skirt and sweater, but they fit. They were better than the alternative.

  “Where in the world did these come from?” Harper asked, admiring her new shoes.

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  Harper spent the next half hour feeling like she was watching her life in slow motion. Whether she wanted to or not, she was forced to confront every detail as it crept past at a pace so slow and unhurried that it was almost painful. There was Betty, and their fingernail-polish signatures on the door. Then the long road that wound from Maple Acres to town—a route she had taken more often than not with her head hanging out the window and the wind whipping her hair into unmanageable knots. Adri had combed them out with detangling spray that smelled of watermelons. Even Blackhawk itself was a trip down memory lane, though Adri avoided campus. There was the gas station where they used to stop for Slurpees. Or, rather, the cheap knock-off of Slurpees that the family-owned gas station sold. Harper always got blue. As if blue was a flavor.

  And here was the church where Harper had attended services with the Vogt family every once in a while. At first she thought it wasn’t really her thing, religion. Her parents had never been religious, and had even dismissed people who clung to belief like a child clutching a well-worn blanket. But Harper was soothed by the feeling in the room. She stilled when the pastor spoke, mellow and warm when she had expected hellfire and brimstone. God himself seemed to live in the spaces between people, in the moments when someone held a door open for her or shared a smile that was too real to be forced.

  Harper would never have admitted it to Julianna or Arthur, but she was glad for the opportunity to hedge her bets. What harm could it possibly do if she prayed now and then? At best, the God of the universe heard. At worst, she was whispering sweet nothings to the air, something she often did anyway. Harper unabashedly talked to herself.

  By the time Adri pulled into the parking lot at the Goodwill in Fairfield, Harper was buried beneath an avalanche of memories that had taken her completely by surprise. A small part of her understood that she should be chattering away, making conversation a mile a minute like the girl that Adri knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Thankfully, Adri didn’t seem to be much in the mood for small talk, either, and she waited for Harper to get out of the car before opening her own door.

  They followed each other around the crowded store, wandering from aisle to aisle and amassing a cockeyed collection of garments that Adri slung over her arm. Harper was astonished to realize that she didn’t really know her own size anymore. Six? Eight? Four? She grabbed things she liked, or thought she liked, and when she finally began to try on clothes in the dressing room, she hardly knew how to judge what she had picked.

  “Are you finding anything?” Adri asked.

  Harper put her hand on the door of the dressing room. Almost opened it. But what was she supposed to do? Parade around in front of Adri like the runway model she used to pretend to be? They had tried on formal gowns and stomped to the front of the store as if it was their stage. They had laughed and let spaghetti straps slip off their shoulders and fantasized that they were breathtaking, the most beautiful women alive.

  “I am,” Harper called through the door instead. “I’m finding a few things.”

  She picked out two pairs of nondescript jeans and some camouflage cargo pants that would have sent Sawyer into convulsions. A handful of long-sleeved T-shirts, a thick sweatshirt, and a couple of sweaters rounded out her purchases. Harper knew they weren’t fashionable, not even close, but she couldn’t bear the thought of trying to put together some sort of trendy outfit. The truth was, she wanted to wrap herself in a thick blanket and wear nothing but flannel for weeks. The small collection that she had picked out was the best she could do.

  “Shoes,” Adri reminded her as she was about to pile her purchases on the counter.

  Harper lucked into a pair of faded red Chucks and added them to the stack. Socks and underwear would have to come from Walmart.

  Feeling pretty confident about her purchases, Harper smiled when the clerk told her she owed thirty-two dollars and forty-seven cents. Such a trivial amount. She had just bought the beginnings of a wardrobe for less than the price of the manicure that Sawyer insisted she have every week.

  But the clerk was looking at her expectantly, and Harper blanched as she understood why.

  Sh
e didn’t have a purse. No cash, no credit or debit card. The Bridge had given her a crisp twenty-dollar bill, but Harper couldn’t even think of where that was right now. It had probably fluttered to the floor of Carol’s car when she fell asleep.

  Harper didn’t know where to turn, or what to say. But Adri was already pulling her wallet out of her purse.

  “I’ve got this,” she said. There wasn’t an ounce of condemnation in her voice, and while the clerk counted out change from the till, Adri smiled and made conversation as if she had planned to pay all along.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Harper said when they were in the car. Her shame was using up the air between them. “I misplaced my purse. I could have called my credit card company.”

  She didn’t have a credit card company. Sawyer had long ago combined their earnings, or rather, pocketed hers so that he could better “support her,” as he liked to say. Harper hadn’t collected a paycheck in years. It chilled her to realize that she didn’t have a penny to her name.

  Adri wasn’t buying it. She sat still for a few moments in the driver’s seat, her right hand on the keys and her left hand on the steering wheel. Then she took a deep breath and turned to face Harper.

  “I know it’s been a while,” she said, “and I know that there is a lifetime between us. But you don’t have to lie to me like that. I won’t presume to know where you came from, or what you’ve been doing for the last five years, but this has to stop.”

  “What has to stop?” Harper whispered.

  “This lying. The way we dance around one another but never really touch.” Adri’s voice broke over a sob, but she pressed her hand to her mouth and held it in. “Harper,” she said, and it was a plea, “look at us. What are we doing? Who are we?”

  Harper tasted the words on her tongue. She tried. For the span of a few ragged heartbeats, she tried.

  She wanted to tell Adri about the long string of dead-end jobs. The way she once attempted to return home, only to find that there was no home for her to return to. Julianna and Arthur were in the midst of their sticky divorce, and Julianna’s lover made her new apartment an impossible place to be. Harper survived for a couple of years living from paycheck to paycheck and renting apartments that could only be described as the nastiest of tenements. But when Sawyer selected her from across a crowded bar, joked that he was making her an indecent proposal, a respite with a man like him sounded like a break. A place to rest her head for a while.

  Yet how could she possibly begin to accurately describe her life to Adrienne? To the girl who had become the next Mother Teresa?

  I’ve done unimaginable things. Harper tried to envision herself saying the words. If you google Stacey Hawk, you’ll find me. She shuddered at the very thought of her pseudonym, the name that Sawyer called her when he photographed her in ways that made her want to curl up in a corner and die.

  Harper knew that leaving him was just the beginning. Not the end.

  Adri’s cheeks were damp. She looked so sweet and trusting and innocent, Harper couldn’t bring herself to say the words. What would Adri do if she knew the truth? Not just the truth about Sawyer and the life that Harper had led in the past few nightmarish years, but everything that came before?

  What would Adri do if she knew about David?

  “I’m Harper Marie Penny,” Harper said. It was the only thing she could say. She took Adri’s hand in her own, pressed it between her palms as if she could love the hurt out of her very skin. “You’re Adrienne Claire Vogt. We were best friends once.”

  “More than that.”

  “Yeah,” Harper nodded. “More than that.”

  “And it got all messed up.”

  “Life is messy,” Harper agreed.

  “And now . . . ?”

  “Now what?” Harper urged, because she was sick just wondering what came next. Where were they supposed to go from here?

  Adri took a shaky breath. “I’m going to tell you the truth. I want you to do the same.”

  “Okay,” Harper lied.

  “Me first.” Adri pulled her hand away from Harper and brushed the tears from her face. She turned the car on and threw it into reverse.

  “Where are we going?”

  Adri’s mouth was a slim, wavering line. “I have to show you something.”

  19

  Adri took harper to piperhall and stepped out of the car with her jaw set. Harper didn’t ask, she just followed.

  They mounted the stairs to the loggia, but instead of taking Harper into the mansion, Adri turned to lean against the railing that overlooked the circular drive. They were almost an entire story off the ground, and from this vantage point they could see much of the estate. The stable cut a red slash against a bank of trees to their right, and the pasture unfolded beyond that. If she turned, Harper could just make out the edge of the so-called carriage house, its white paint starting to peel after too many years of sun and wind and snow. The rest of the grounds had been recently manicured, and though the lawns were washed-out green and the leaves were starting to brown at the edges, the view was impressive. Harper had always loved it here.

  The estate felt safe. Permanent somehow. And David himself, though unruly and spoiled and proud, had been the embodiment of everything that was dependable and sure. One day, he would have become the Galloway of the Galloway fortune, and he would never have left. Harper had longed for that sort of security. In many ways, she still did.

  David was a gift from Harper to Adri. At least, he was supposed to be.

  Harper had fallen into friendship headlong, and she was dizzy with the possibility that someone—three someones, in fact—could like her for who she was instead of who she had for so long pretended to be. It was a drug of sorts, the sweetest kind of intoxication, and she wanted desperately to thank Adri for the simple act of being a friend. It was pathetic, Harper knew that, and she would never go so far as to admit such nonsense to anyone. But she had seen light in Adri’s eyes at the mention of David Galloway, and she decided that if she could do anything to make that sparkle stay, she would.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out who David Galloway was. He was exactly the person Harper would have sought out if she hadn’t bumped into Adri first. And though Harper intended him for Adri, she reveled in the serendipity of the chance to have it both ways: a true friend and a trophy.

  Harper suspected that a man like David Galloway wouldn’t have many, if any, real friends of his own, and when she sought him out after class in the middle of a routine Monday morning, she was putting that theory to the test.

  David was in Harper’s Western Civilization class. And though there were more than a hundred students in their block, she’d singled David out on almost the very first day. She hadn’t yet managed to snag a seat near him, but that morning, she slipped out early and positioned herself next to the drinking fountain. David always stopped for a drink. It looked innocent enough, but Harper had pulled that sort of move too many times herself to see it for anything other than what it was: an out. David left Western Civ with a small flock of people around him. But when he paused to drink, they all stood around awkwardly for a second or two before realizing how desperate they looked and drifting away.

  Harper had spent most of the class practicing and discarding various introductions. She flirted with cute and sexy, available and coy, but when David finally straightened up from the fountain, she decided to just stick out her hand. “I’m Harper,” she said. And because she oozed nonchalance, or because she was wearing a pair of cutoffs with one-inch inseams, David smiled and took her hand.

  He was attractive from a distance, but he was even better close up. Broad-shouldered and handsome in a classic, well-bred way, David Galloway looked like he had just stepped off the set of a Ralph Lauren photo shoot. His hair was longish but expertly cut, and he held an expensive pair of aviators loosely in his hand. The cuffs of his shirt wer
e rolled to reveal tan forearms, and the hem was wrinkled, half untucked. He even smelled amazing. Best of all, he had a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled at her. The most perfect imperfection Harper had ever seen. David was a stranger, but Harper couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him. Surely they had met before and this was a reunion of sorts. Surely she could throw her arms around him and laugh like he was a sight for sore eyes.

  “Do I know you?” David asked after Harper had stared for just a moment too long. He was smirking a bit, enjoying the fact that she was tongue-tied.

  But Harper was no simpering idiot. “You should,” she said, shifting her weight, and the full glare of her attention, away from him. She swept long, blond hair off her shoulder, revealing what she considered one of her very best features: the long swath of honey-colored skin from her neck to the stylishly frayed top of her low-cut shirt.

  It was David’s turn to stare. “Excuse me?”

  “I can stop them from harassing you.”

  “Who?” He glanced around as if Harper saw something he didn’t. Students were filtering through the hall, moving from one class to the next, or heading out the wide, glass doors toward the campus center or their dorm rooms. Most passed Harper and David without notice, but there were a pair of girls near a bulletin board who watched them with hasty, furtive glances. When David caught sight of them he sighed.

  Harper smiled sympathetically but didn’t say anything.

  “How can you stop them?” David folded his arms across his chest and gave her a skeptical look. “You offering to be my bodyguard?”

  Harper laughed, a low, rich sound in the back of her throat, and took a step toward David. “You don’t need a bodyguard,” she murmured when there was only a thin layer of air between them. She could feel the warmth of his body. The scent of cologne mingled with something that was distinctly David made her momentarily dizzy.