Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  Clara asked, “Can I help you with something?”

  “The computer?”

  “That’s easy. They’re not as scary as you think.” Clara sat on the floor. She opened the MacBook. The password prompt came up. Andy expected her to struggle with the code, but Clara pressed her finger to the Touch ID and the desktop was unlocked.

  She told Andy, “You’ll have to sit here, otherwise the light from the window blacks out the screen.”

  She meant the giant window behind the couch. Andy could see Mike’s truck parked in front of the red barn. She could still leave. Edwin would be home in less than an hour. Now would be the time to go.

  Clara said, “Come, Jane. I can show you how to use it. It’s not terribly complicated.”

  Andy sat down on the floor beside Clara.

  Clara put the open laptop on the seat of the couch so they could both see it. She said, “I’ve been looking at videos of myself. Does that make me terribly vain?”

  Andy looked at this stranger sitting so close beside her, who kept talking to her like they had been friends for a long time, and said, “I watched your videos, too. Almost all of them. You were—are—such a beautiful dancer, Clara. I never thought I liked ballet before, but watching you made me understand that it’s lovely.”

  Clara touched her fingers to Andy’s leg. “Oh, darling, you’re so sweet. You know I feel the same about you.”

  Andy did not know what to say. She reached up to the laptop. She found the browser. Her fingers fumbled on the keyboard. She was sweaty and shaky for no reason. She squeezed her hands into fists in an attempt to get them back under control. She rested her fingers on the keyboard. She slowly typed.

  PAULA LOUISE EVANS.

  Andy’s pinky finger rested on the ENTER key but did not press it. This was the moment. She would find out something—at least one thing—about the horrible woman who had known her mother thirty-one years ago.

  Andy tapped ENTER.

  Motherfucker.

  Paula Louise Evans had her own Wikipedia page.

  Andy clicked on the link.

  The warning at the top of the page indicated the information was not without controversy. Which made sense, because Paula struck Andy as a woman who loved controversy.

  She felt a nervous energy take hold as she skimmed the contents, scrolling through an extensive bio that listed everything from the hospital where Paula had been born to her inmate number at Danberry Federal Penitentiary for Women.

  Raised in Corte Madera, California . . . Berkeley . . . Stanford . . . murder.

  Andy’s stomach dropped.

  Paula Evans had murdered a woman.

  Andy looked up at the ceiling for a moment. She thought about Paula pointing the shotgun at her chest.

  Clara said, “There’s so much information about her. Is it horrible that I’m a bit jealous?”

  Andy scrolled down to the next section:

  INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ARMY OF THE CHANGING WORLD.

  There was a blurry photo of Paula. The date underneath read “July 1986.”

  Thirty-two years ago.

  Andy could remember doing the math back in Carrollton at the library computer. She had been looking for events that had taken place around the time she would’ve been conceived.

  Bombings and plane hijackings and shoot-outs at banks.

  Andy studied the photo of Paula Evans.

  She was wearing a weird dress that looked like a cotton slip. Thick, black lines of make-up were smeared beneath her eyes. Fingerless gloves were on her hands. Combat boots were on her feet. She was wearing a beret. A cigarette dangled from her mouth. She had a revolver in one hand and a hunting knife in the other. It would’ve been funny except for the fact that Paula had murdered someone.

  And been involved in a conspiracy to bring down the world, apparently.

  “Jane?” Clara had pulled a blue afghan around her shoulders. “Should we have some tea?”

  “In a moment,” Andy said, doing a search for the word JANE on Paula’s Wikipedia page.

  Nothing.

  ANDREW.

  Nothing.

  She clicked on the link that took her to the wiki page for THE ARMY OF THE CHANGING WORLD.

  Starting with the assassination of Martin Queller in Oslo . . .

  “QuellCorp,” Andy said.

  Clara made a hissing sound. “Aren’t they awful?”

  Andy skipped down the page. She saw a photo of their leader, a guy who looked like Zac Efron with Charles Manson’s eyes. The Army’s crimes were bullet-pointed past the Martin Queller assassination. They had kidnapped and murdered a Berkeley professor. Been involved in a shoot-out, a nationwide manhunt. Their crazy-ass leader had written a manifesto, a ransom note that had appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.

  Andy clicked on the note.

  She read the first part about the fascist regime and then her eyes started to glaze over.

  It was like something Calvin and Hobbes would concoct during a meeting of G.R.O.S.S. to get back at Susie Derkins.

  Andy returned to the Army page and found a section called MEMBERS. Most of the names were in blue hyperlinks amid the sea of black text. Dozens of people. How had Andy never seen a Dateline or Lifetime movie about this insane cult?

  William Johnson. Dead.

  Franklin Powell. Dead.

  Metta Larsen. Dead.

  Andrew Queller—

  Andy’s heart flipped, but Andrew’s name was in black, which meant he didn’t have a page. Then again, you didn’t have to be Scooby-Doo to link him back to QuellCorp and its assassinated namesake.

  She scrolled back up to Martin Queller and clicked his name. Apparently, there were a lot more famous Quellers out there that Andy didn’t know about. His wife, Annette Queller, née Logan, had a family line that would take hours to explore. Their eldest son, Jasper Queller, was hyperlinked, but Andy already knew the asshole billionaire who kept trying and failing to run for president.

  The cursor drifted over the next name: Daughter, Jane “Jinx” Queller.

  “Jane?” Clara asked, because she had Alzheimer’s and her mind was trapped in a time over thirty years ago when she knew a woman named Jane who looked just like Andy.

  Just as Andy looked like the Daniela B. Cooper photo in the fake Canada driver’s license.

  Her mother.

  Andy started to cry. Not just cry, but sob. A wail came out of her mouth. Tears and snot rolled down her face. She leaned over, her forehead on the seat of the couch.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Clara was on her knees, her arms wrapped around Andy’s shoulders.

  Andy shook with grief. Was Laura’s real name Jane Queller? Why did this one lie matter so much more than the others?

  “Here, let me.” Clara slid the laptop over and started to type. “It’s okay, my darling. I cry when I watch mine sometimes, too, but look at this one. It’s perfect.”

  Clara slid the laptop back to the center.

  Andy tried to wipe her eyes. Clara put a tissue in her hand. Andy blew her nose, tried to stanch her tears. She looked at the laptop.

  Clara had pulled up a YouTube video.

  !!!RARE!!! JINX QUELLER 1983 CARNEGIE HALL!!!

  What?

  “That green dress!” Clara’s eyes glowed with excitement. She clicked the icon for full screen. “A fait accompli.”

  Andy did not know what to do but watch the video as it autoplayed. The recording was fuzzy and weirdly colored, like everything else from the eighties. An orchestra was already on stage. A massive, black grand piano was front and center.

  “Oh!” Clara unmuted the sound.

  Andy heard soft murmurs from the crowd.

  Clara said, “This was my favorite part. I always peeked out to feel their mood.”

  For some reason, Andy held her breath.

  The audience had gone silent.

  A very thin woman in a dark green evening gown walked out of the wings.

  “So elegant,” C
lara murmured, but Andy barely registered the comment.

  The woman crossing the stage was young-looking, maybe eighteen, and obviously uncomfortable walking in such dressy shoes. Her hair was bleached almost white, permed within an inch of its life. The camera swept to the audience. They were giving her a standing ovation before she even turned to look at them.

  The camera zoomed in on the woman’s face.

  Andy felt her stomach clench.

  Laura.

  In the video, her mother performed a slight bow. She looked so cool as she stared into the faces of thousands of people. Andy had seen that look before on other performers’ faces. Absolute certainty. She had always loved watching an actor’s transformation from the wings, had been in awe that they could walk out in front of all of those judgmental strangers and so believably pretend to be someone else.

  Like her mother had pretended for all of Andy’s life.

  The worst type of bullshit.

  The cheering started to die down as Jinx Queller sat down in front of the piano.

  She nodded to the conductor.

  The conductor raised his hands.

  The audience abruptly silenced.

  Clara turned up the volume as loud as it would go.

  Violins strummed. The low vibration tickled her eardrums. Then the tempo bounced, then calmed, then bounced again.

  Andy didn’t know music, especially classical. Laura never listened to it at home. The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Heart. Nirvana. Those were the groups that Laura played on the radio when she was driving around town or doing chores or working on patient reports. She knew the words to “Mr. Brightside” before anyone else did. She had downloaded “Lemonade” the night it dropped. Her eclectic taste made her the cool mom, the mom that everyone could talk to because she wouldn’t judge you.

  Because she had played Carnegie Hall and she knew what the fuck she was talking about.

  In the video, Jinx Queller was still waiting at the piano, hands resting in her lap, eyes straight ahead. Other instruments had joined the violins. Andy didn’t know which ones because her mother had never taught her about music. She had discouraged Andy from joining the band, winced every time Andy picked up the cymbals.

  Flutes. Andy could see the guys in front pursing their lips.

  Bows moved. Oboe. Cello. Horns.

  Jinx Queller still patiently awaited her turn at the grand piano.

  Andy pressed her palm to her stomach as if to calm it. She was sick with tension for the woman in the video.

  Her mother.

  This stranger.

  What was Jinx Queller thinking while she waited? Was she wondering how her life would turn out? Did she know that she would one day have a daughter? Did she know that she had only four years left before Andy came along and somehow took her away from this amazing life?

  At 2:22, her mother finally raised her hands.

  There was an appreciable tension before her fingers lightly touched the keys.

  Soft at first, just a few notes, a slow, lazy progression.

  The violins came back in, then her hands moved faster, floating up and down the keyboard, bringing out the most beautiful sound that Andy had ever heard.

  Flowing. Lush. Rich. Exuberant.

  There weren’t enough adjectives in the world to describe what Jinx Queller coaxed from the piano.

  Swelling—that’s what Andy felt. A swelling in her heart.

  Pride. Joy. Confusion. Euphoria.

  Andy’s emotions matched the look on her mother’s face as the music went from solemn to dramatic to thrilling, then back again. Every note seemed to be reflected in Jane’s expression, her eyebrows lifting, her eyes closing, her lips curled up in pleasure. She was absolutely enraptured. Confidence radiated off the grainy video like rays from the sun. There was a smile on her mother’s lips, but it was a secret smile that Andy had never seen before. Jinx Queller, still so impossibly young, had the look of a woman who was exactly where she was meant to be.

  Not in Belle Isle. Not at a parent–teacher conference or on the couch in her office working with a patient, but on stage, holding the world in the palm of her hand.

  Andy wiped her eyes. She could not stop crying. She did not understand how her mother had not cried every day for the rest of her life.

  How could anyone walk away from something so magical?

  Andy sat completely transfixed for the entire length of the video. She could not take her eyes off the screen. Sometimes her mother’s hands flicked up and down the length of the piano, other times they seemed to be on top of each other, the fingers moving independently across the white and black keys in a way that reminded Andy of Laura kneading dough in the kitchen.

  The smile never left her face right up until the ebullient last notes.

  Then it was over.

  Her hands floated to her lap.

  The audience went crazy. They were on their feet. The clapping turned into a solid wall of sound, more like the constant shush of a summer rain.

  Jinx Queller stayed seated, hands in her lap, looking down at the keys. Her breath was heavy from physical exertion. Her shoulders had rolled in. She started nodding. She seemed to be taking a moment with the piano, with herself, to absorb the sensation of absolute perfection.

  She nodded once more. She stood up. She shook the conductor’s hand. She waved to the orchestra. They were already standing, saluting her with their bows, furiously clapping their hands.

  She turned to the audience and the cheering swelled. She bowed stage left, then right, then center. She smiled—a different smile, not so confident, not so joyful—and walked off the stage.

  That was it.

  Andy closed the laptop before the next video could play.

  She looked up at the window behind the couch. The sun was bright against the blue sky. Tears dripped down into the collar of her shirt. She tried to think of a word to describe how she was feeling—

  Astonished? Bewildered? Overcome? Dumbfounded?

  Laura had been the one thing that Andy had wanted to be close to all of her life.

  A star.

  She studied her own hands. She had normal fingers—not too long or thin. When Laura was sick and unable to take care of herself, Andy had washed her mother’s hands, put lotion on them, rubbed them, held them. But what did they really look like? They had to be graceful, enchanted, imbued with an otherworldly sort of grace. Andy should have felt sparks when she massaged them, or spellbound, or—something.

  Yet they were the same normal hands that had waved for Andy to hurry up or she’d be late for school. Dug soil in the garden when it was time to plant spring flowers. Wrapped around the back of Gordon’s neck when they danced. Pointed at Andy in fury when she did something wrong.

  Why?

  Andy blinked, trying to clear the tears from her eyes. Clara had disappeared. Maybe she hadn’t been able to handle Andy’s grief, or the perceived pain that Jane Queller experienced when she watched her younger self playing. The two women had clearly discussed the performance before.

  That green dress!

  Andy reached into her back pocket for the burner phone.

  She dialed her mother’s number.

  She listened to the phone ring.

  She closed her eyes against the sunlight, imagining Laura in the kitchen. Walking over to her phone where it was charging on the counter. Seeing the unfamiliar number on the screen. Trying to decide whether or not to answer it. Was it a robocall? A new client?

  “Hello?” Laura said.

  The sound of her voice cracked Andy open. She had longed for nearly a week to have her mother call, to hear the words that it was safe to come back home, but now that she was on the phone, Andy was incapable of doing anything but crying.

  “Hello?” Laura repeated. Then, because she had gotten similar calls before, “Andrea?”

  Andy lost what little shit she had managed to keep together. She leaned over her knees, head in her hand, trying not to wail again.


  “Andrea, why are you calling me?” Laura’s tone was clipped. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Andy opened her mouth, but only to breathe.

  “Andrea, please,” Laura said. “I need you to acknowledge that you can hear me.” She waited. “Andy—”

  “Who are you?”

  Laura did not make a sound. Seconds passed, then what felt like a full minute.

  Andy looked at the screen, wondering if they had been disconnected. She pressed the phone back to her ear. She finally heard the gentle slap of waves from the beach. Laura had walked outside. She was on the back porch.

  “You lied to me,” Andy said.

  Nothing.

  “My birthday. Where I was born. Where we lived. That fake picture of my fake grandparents. Do you even know who my father is?”

  Laura still said nothing.

  “You used to be somebody, Mom. I saw it online. You were on stage at-at-at Carnegie Hall. People were worshipping you. It must’ve taken years to get that good. All of your life. You were somebody, and you walked away from it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Laura finally said. There was no emotion in her tone, just a cold flatness. “I’m nobody, and that’s exactly who I want to be.”

  Andy pressed her fingers into her eyes. She couldn’t take any more of these fucking riddles. Her head was going to explode.

  Laura asked, “Where are you?”

  “I’m nowhere.”

  Andy wanted to close the phone, to give Laura the biggest silent fuck you she could, but the moment was too desperate for hollow gestures.

  She asked Laura, “Are you even my real mother?”

  “Of course I am. I was in labor for sixteen hours. The doctors thought they were going to lose both of us. But they didn’t. We didn’t. We survived.”

  Andy heard a car pulling into the driveway.

  Fuck.

  “An-Andrea,” Laura struggled to get out her name. “Where are you? I need to know you’re safe.”

  Andy knelt on the couch and looked out the window. Edwin Van Wees with his stupid handlebar mustache. He saw Mike’s truck and practically fell out of his car as he scrambled toward the front door.

  “Clara!” he yelled. “Clara, where—”

  Clara answered, but Andy couldn’t make out the words.

  Laura must have heard something. She asked, “Where are you?”