“And then what?”
“The day we had to go before the Honor Committee, Drue’s parents showed up with lawyers. My parents weren’t there. They couldn’t get off from work, and even if they could have, they couldn’t afford tickets to fly across the country.” Her voice was cracking. “I had no one. And they believed her. Croft kicked me out. All the schools that had accepted me rescinded their offers. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. Poof. Gone. My parents…” Her voice thickened. “They were so ashamed. They told me not to come home.” Her shoulders slumped. “And when I did, they wouldn’t even let me through the door. They said I’d disgraced them. Which I had.”
She paused, collecting herself, smoothing her hair, then her top, shaking out the skirt of her dress. “So I had nothing,” she said. “No home. No college. No family. No place to go. No friends, because Drue made sure that she was the only friend I had. I tried to kill myself, and I couldn’t even do that right.” She pushed up her left sleeve, lifted her wrist, and turned it, showing me the faint line of a scar. “I ended up in a psych ward. The September after senior year, Drue went to Harvard, and I went to the loony bin. For a long time, I wanted to die. What did I have to live for?” Her gaze was fixed on a point above my head; her eyes were far away. “And every single day, I got to go online and see her leading her perfect, shiny life.”
I wanted to tell her that it hadn’t been shiny or perfect at all, that Drue had been lonely, had been rejected by a parent; that Drue had walked away from a man who had loved her, that Drue had suffered, but the words froze and crumbled in my mouth. Besides, Leela wouldn’t have believed me. How could my words outweigh the evidence of Drue’s happiness, her perfection, her wealth and her power, all of it just a click away on Instagram, for Leela and the entire world to see?
Leela smoothed her hair. She smiled. “And then I realized that I did have something to live for. Revenge.” She raised her head. “I decided I was going to take everything away from her. And make a fortune while I did it. Easy-peasy one-two-three. Change my hair.” She touched her silvery-lavender locks. “Lose some weight, get a few new piercings, and contacts instead of glasses. I wondered if she’d recognize me, but by the end, I barely recognized myself. Then all I had to do was suck up to a few dipshit rich kids, which was something I’d gotten very good at when I was at Croft. Get a few of them to think that you’re their friend, and they introduce you to their friends, and the friends of their friends. By the time she announced her engagement, I was ready. All I had to do was buy a bunch of followers and pay someone to design some clothes that I could sell.” She looked at me, one businesswoman to another. “Woke rich people will buy any stupid thing, as long as you tell them it’s environmentally correct, or upcycled, or that it’s made by indigenous people. And then I found you.” Her smiled widened. “That was the cherry on top. Knowing that every time someone clicked on a story about her murder, they’d see your picture. They’d see my clothes.”
“You know, she’d changed,” I said. Even though Leela would never believe me, it seemed there was a part of me that was determined to try to convince her.
Leela made a rude sound and gave a very Drue-like eye roll.
“No, really. I think she was actually trying to do better. She knew how she’d hurt people. She was trying to make up for it. She volunteered to tutor kids. She left money to her father’s kids, even though she’d never even met them. She fell in love…”
“And then dumped that guy, and stole Stuart Lowe away from Corina.”
“But it wasn’t real.” As Leela had been talking, I’d been looking around, trying to calm my thundering heart. Name five things you can see. The floor. The walls. My trembling knees. And there was the X-Acto knife, peeking out from under the wallpaper sample books on my craft table. It would be bringing the proverbial knife to a gun fight, but it was all I could think of: the only weapon in sight. I kept talking. “She only hooked up with Stuart because she needed money. Her father’s business was going bankrupt. She needed to get married to get her hands on her trust fund. She was going to try to bail her dad out. And help Stuart with his business.”
Leela made a face: big deal.
“That was all she wanted. She was trying to get her dad to care about her. You and I, we both had parents who cared.” I’d hoped to appeal to Leela’s sympathies by pointing out what we’d shared. From the look on her face, reminding her about her parents and how she’d lost them had been a mistake. “And look at you!” I said, changing course. “You’re a success! A self-made woman. You didn’t need Drue, or Harvard, or any of it, after all. You built an empire, all on your own.”
I thought I saw her face soften, just enough for me to feel a tiny flicker of hope. Then Leela shook her head.
“It’s not real,” she said. Her voice was almost regretful. “The clothes aren’t mine. Most of the followers are bots. And just because it looks good doesn’t mean it feels that way.” She shook her head, sighing. “I should have been a doctor. That was what my parents wanted. That was what I wanted for myself. And now I’ll never get the life I should have had. Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. And honestly,” she said, looking at me slyly, “you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it a little when Miss Shiny Perfect actually experienced a consequence?” She giggled, her expression turning malicious. “I wonder if she knew she was dying! That was my only regret: that I couldn’t be there to watch it, or tell her that I was the one who’d done it. I thought about asking the guy to tell her, ‘Kamon says hello.’ But that would have given it away.”
I made myself look as appealing and as frightened as I could. The frightened part, at least, wasn’t hard. “Please, Leela. If you do this, you’re no better than she is,” I said. “You have so much to live for! If you’re not happy doing”—I gestured, briefly speechless—“what you’re doing, then try something else!” As a last, desperate Hail Mary pass, I said, “I’ll bet your parents are proud of you now!”
“They never forgave me.” Her voice was very soft. “Every year I send them letters, on their birthdays and mine. I send checks. And every year, the envelopes come back, with ‘Return to Sender’ written on the front.”
It occurred to me, in the faraway part of my brain that was still thinking, how both Drue and Leela had wanted the thing that I’d had and had taken for granted—my parents’ love and approval. But before I could try to convince Leela to spare me, to tell her that there might be better days ahead, she waved the gun, gesturing toward the hallway. “C’mon. Let’s get going. You’ll write your note, and we’ll get this over with. I bought you some really great bath oil.”
“Fantastic. Just what every suicide wants.” I took a halting step, suddenly aware of how much bigger than Leela I was. I probably weighed twice as much as she did; I was taller and, presumably, stronger.
“Let me get some paper.” I walked to my craft table, rummaging among the wallpaper samples, looking for the knife. “Think about it,” I said, pushing aside a pot of Mod Podge and a box of foam-tipped brushes. “We both had parents who loved us and encouraged us. Drue never had that. Think about how she must have envied us.”
“Yeah, yeah, poor little rich girl,” Leela sneered.
I was rifling through the scraps of magazine paper, fingers shaking, feeling Leela’s breath on my back. Distract her, I thought. Surprise her. I took a deep breath and then I screamed as loud as I could, sweeping everything off my desk, the wallpaper books and the scrapbooking paper, the bottles of glue and paint, the pens and paintbrushes and rulers and colored pencils and wooden boxes, sending all of it crashing to the floor. Bingo howled from the closet. Just for an instant, Leela turned.
And then there was no more time to look for the knife, no more time to think. I launched myself at her, flinging my body against her with all the force I could muster. I heard every cup and mug and plate in the kitchen rattle, and the furniture thump as we fell; I heard Leela’s pained screech and my own grunt. The gun flew out of her hand as we lan
ded, with Leela on her back and me on top of her.
“Help!” I screamed as Bingo started to howl. “Help me!” Leela was thrashing, bucking her hips, trying desperately to shake me loose, but there was too much of me and not enough of her, and I had gravity on my side. I grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling hard, and settled my knee against her midriff as I heard footsteps, pounding in the hall. Be a neighbor, I thought, be a stranger. Be Detective McMichaels, even. I don’t care.
But it was Nick.
“Get the gun!” I screamed. I watched from the floor as he grabbed it and pointed it at Leela.
“Don’t move,” he told her, but she’d stopped fighting, her body limp, her eyes closed. I stayed there, my hand in her hair as he called 911, telling the operator, in an impressively calm voice, that the police were needed at my address, that a woman with a gun had tried to kill me. Then he reached out his free hand, repeated, “Don’t move,” to the woman on the ground, and helped me to my feet. I let Bingo out of the closet and hurried to the bedroom, where I found two pairs of tights. I went back to the living room and handed them to Nick, who began deftly knotting them around Leela’s wrists.
“What are you… how did you…?”
His face was tight. “I got your message, and you weren’t answering your phone. I got worried. I thought I’d check here and walk with you.”
I was shaking all over, knees knocking, teeth chattering. When Leela was immobile, Nick wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tightly against him, and I buried my face in the sweet-smelling warmth of his shoulder, letting him hold me, letting him soothe me, rubbing my back and saying “You’re safe” and “Don’t worry, it’s over, I promise,” until the police arrived.
* * *
After I’d called my parents and told them what had happened; after the trip to the police station, where I’d given my account of the events, first to the New York City detectives and then again to Detective McMichaels once he’d shown up; after I’d accepted tearful thanks from Mrs. Cavanaugh and Drue’s brother, Trip, and exchanged cool nods with Mr. Cavanaugh, Darshi turned to me. “Want to go home?”
I shuddered, imagining walking up the stairs and seeing Leela and her gun in the hallway, or sitting in the corner with my eyes on the knife.
In the end, Nick and Darshi and Bingo and I went back to my parents’ place. My mother hugged me hard, and my father mixed up a pitcher of sidecars and served us his cioppino with chickpea salad and hearts of palm and toasted wedges of baguette.
My mother hovered and fretted and wrung her hands and cried when she thought I wasn’t looking. My father slipped Bingo a small summer sausage, which she propped between her paws and devoured with noisy relish. Darshi fielded calls from her parents, her brothers, both sets of grandparents, and her great-grandmother, and, finally, Carmen, with whom she had a murmured conversation in the kitchen that I thought ended with “I love you.” Nick called his aunt and uncle to tell them that he was fine. At around midnight, my parents excused themselves and retreated to their bedroom. A few minutes later, Darshi stood up and stretched ostentatiously.
“Well,” she said, “guess I’ll take the pullout couch.” I gave her a pair of my pajamas to wear. In the living room, we made the pullout couch together.
“I owe you an apology,” I said, smoothing the comforter over the skimpy mattress.
Darshi looked at me curiously. “For what?”
“You were right. I did chase after Drue, even though she was never a good friend to me. And you were. You always have been.”
Darshi waved away the praise, looking uncomfortable. “I owe you an apology, too,” she said. “No matter how bad Drue was, everyone deserves justice. And who knows? Maybe she really was trying to change.” She tried for a smile. “Maybe someday we could have all hung out together. You and me and Drue and Aditya. And Nick.”
“And Carmen?” I asked, eyebrows raised. Darshi’s smile faded. Then she sighed. “It won’t kill them,” she said, half to me, half to herself. I knew she meant her parents.
“No,” I said. “It won’t. They might be surprised, but in the end, I think they’ll be fine. Because they love you.”
Darshi sighed again and nodded. “Sleep tight, you two,” she called into the kitchen, and took the pajamas and the toothbrush into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
I took Nick by the hand and led him to my bedroom, where he took the desk chair, and I sat, cross-legged on my bed.
“So what should we do for our second date?” he asked. “I’m thinking dinner and a movie.”
I burst into shrieky laughter, which quickly turned into tears. Nick came over to the bed and sat down beside me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It seems I’m a little emotional right now.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “You’re allowed to be sad.” He let me lean against him, holding me until I stopped crying.
“What about you?” I asked when I could speak. What about us? I thought.
“I should go home,” he said.
Ah. I nodded. I’d expected it, even though hearing him say it left me hollow inside.
“I’ll miss you,” I said. “It’s been… well. It’s been something.”
He pulled me close for a squeeze. “I’ll go back to the Cape to officially quit. Assuming I haven’t been fired by now. Then I’ll go to Boston to resign and say goodbye. Then I’ll come here.”
“And do what?”
Shrugging, he said, “Get used to riding the subway, I guess.” I felt his body shift as he sighed. “On the bus ride down, I had a lot of time to think. My whole life, I’ve kind of taken the path of least resistance. I went to college in Vermont because I like to ski; I took the job in Boston because one of my buddies ran the program and it came with health benefits. I just did whatever was easy. And I could probably keep doing that—just the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing—until I’m old. Or dead.” He rubbed his thumb against my cheek. “I want to make a choice. This was my mother’s place. It’s where she worked. It’s where she met my father. I know that she loved it on the Cape, but that was where she went to hide. This is where her life was, her real life. I think I want to try living here, too.” He shrugged again. “Maybe get one of those Instagram accounts the kids are talking about. I guess it’s time.”
“It’s funny,” I told him. “I was thinking that I could maybe ditch all of this and move to Cape Cod. Maybe do less of the influencer thing. Work on my art for a while.”
I felt him smiling more than I saw it.
“We can talk it over,” he said. “Maybe we’ll try it here, then try it there. Or somewhere else completely. But, whatever we decide, I’d like to stick together. I mean, I might have to rescue you again.”
“Excuse me, I believe that I rescued myself just fine.”
“True.” He pulled me upright and brought me close, resting his forehead against mine.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” I said. His fingers were warm against my fingers, his lips gentle against mine, and I thought how lucky I was, how lucky we were, that, in spite of everything, we’d found each other.
When we broke apart, I said, “Listen. You don’t have to make me any promises.” I smoothed my hair and tried to catch my breath. “We’ve both had a traumatic experience. This is just biology. Our bodies are telling us to do something life-affirming.”
He was giving me a lazy smile. “So is it a bad thing if we listen?”
“My point is that this…” I gestured at him, then down at the bed. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
He put one finger under my chin, tilted my face toward his, and brushed his lips against mine. The kiss started off gentle but soon deepened, until his tongue was in my mouth, and both of my hands were in his hair, which felt smooth against my fingers. He smelled like pine and salt, clean and good; and he felt warm against me, solid and present. I could feel his heart beating when he held me.
“What if I want it to mean something?
” he asked. His forehead was against my forehead, his hands were on my arms.
“I think that maybe I could be okay with that.”
He whispered “Sweetheart” into my ear. When Bingo tried to climb onto the bed at an inopportune moment, he set her gently on the floor. And, after more kissing and less clothing, after I’d made sure he had a condom and that the door was locked, a moment arrived when I was nothing but sensation, nothing but lips and hips and the glorious feeling of Nick moving inside me, with the force of the tide’s pull against the ocean floor, when my brain finally shut off, and I stopped thinking about Leela, and Drue, and anything at all.
* * *
At four in the morning, Nick was asleep, lying on his side, making adorable whistling snores with every exhalation. Bingo was curled up underneath the crook of his legs, her chin resting on his calf, adding her own snores to the choir. I eased myself out of his embrace and tiptoed across the floor, climbed through the window and out onto the fire escape, the place where I’d sat and cried, plotting my revenge, thinking, I’m going to change my life, and when I do, everything will be different. I’ll be thin, and I’ll be pretty, and I’ll make Drue Cavanaugh pay.
I turned on my phone. Ignoring the dozens of messages and friend requests and reporters asking for interviews, I went first to Instagram, where I flicked through pictures of Drue Lathrop Cavanaugh. Drue at a Women’s Economic Summit, in a pink silk blouse with a bow at the collar, looking smart and exceedingly competent; Drue in a pair of tight jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, perched lightly on Stuart’s lap, looking sexy; Drue with her arm around me in the Snitzers’ kitchen, Drue next to me in the water on the Cape. Me and my best friend.
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