The Herd (ARC)

by Andrea Bartz

  “I don’t know.” Hana shook her head sadly. “We don’t know what she said, what went down. I don’t think it was planned, I really don’t.”

  “But what about the graffiti?” Mikki added. “And this stolen phone? The original one, from back before—before any of this.”

  I took this one. “I don’t think it was related. Some people really did just hate her. And the Herd. All of it.” I sighed. “Some people are just shitty.”

  Hana dropped a fistful of silverware into the dishwasher. “Another thing I don’t understand: He knew she was trying to get a fake passport. He suspected she was getting ready to make a run for it.” She repositioned a spatula. “If he thought she was about to disappear, wouldn’t that be a pretty good outcome for him? She would leave town, she couldn’t pin Jinny’s death on him, he could even turn us all in and start that … memorial fund, if that’s what he wanted.”

  I set a stack of serving dishes on the counter. “Could be. Or maybe he was lying about wanting to help Jinny’s family. For all we know, maybe he was helping Eleanor disappear. Driving down to personally deliver her starter kit for a new life.”

  “Well, let’s hope they find him and he can tell us himself,” Hana said.

  I leaned against the counter. Mikki was going to town with the pull-out faucet, fire-hosing dishes with total concentration.

  “You know, if he does, you might have to face charges in relation to Jinny,” I said. “There’s no statute of limitations on this stuff.”

  “We know.” Mikki nodded at the backsplash. Her face looked miserable, but her shoulders softened, like frozen meat defrosting.

  “I miss Eleanor,” I said. Even if she was ruthless; even if she’d threatened Cameron, and Mikki and Hana before him, in order to keep Jinny’s death a secret. She’d inspired us, made us feel sparkling and special and proud. That was a gift, even if it came with a lifetime of impersonating goodness, of being an impostor. Eleanor, unlike the rest of us mortals, didn’t give a shit what others thought, and for that we were all more than willing to adore her.

  “I miss her too,” Mikki murmured, and Hana echoed her. I looked around and saw that they meant it, that their sorrow matched mine, and somehow this helped. Cleaning up her parents’ kitchen on Christmas Eve Eve, we all took on a third of the grief.

  Mikki looped the dishtowel on its hook and walked upstairs. Staring at the sparkling kitchen, I registered that cottony end-of-day fatigue, more drained than sleepy, as if my body were eager to let today end.

  “I’m going to go too,” I announced, then headed down the hall. But once I’d gotten ready for bed, I crept upstairs and knocked on Hana’s door. I found her and Mikki sitting on the floor, old books—children’s classics and Gloria Steinem and yearbooks—scattered around them.

  I sat cross-legged and picked up a yearbook. Eleanor’s senior year, her photo bright-eyed and lovely. Below it, her chosen quote was from (who else?) Frida Kahlo: “I often have more sympathy for carpenters, cobblers, etc., than for that whole stupid, supposedly civilized herd of windbags known as cultivated people.”

  “I wonder if she felt like she created a monster,” I mused. “Like, she wanted to build this feminist utopia, and then she accidentally made this—this thing that was even more bougie and see-and-be-seen than the boys’ club bullshit she was trying to get away from. ‘Windbags.’ ” I swiveled the book toward Hana and Mikki and pointed at the quote. “I was a tech reporter—Titan is run by Silicon Valley bros. So for them, acquiring a feminist company like the Herd would be a great PR move. But for Eleanor, for her original vision …”

  Mikki looked up. “I bet an acquisition like that opens you up to scrutiny. Maybe she felt like someone was close to figuring out what happened in college, and that’s why she had to get away.”

  It struck me: I’d been investigating Eleanor myself, and I’d had no clue. This sparked in my chest a flicker of something bright: absurdity? Humiliation? Laughter, even?

  Hana leaned back. “We’re going to talk to Stephanie when she gets back from India. At the very least, they’re delaying the acquisition, she said. Maybe she can talk to Titan about increasing diversity and expanding their scholarship program and stuff.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “I know Titan uses diversity consultants.”

  She grinned. “You know more about this stuff than we do. You should talk to Stephanie with us.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Mikki pulled the yearbook off my lap and smiled at Eleanor’s headshot. “This is what she looked like when we met. The day we moved into the dorms.” She tapped the page. “I thought she was so grown-up. So beautiful and articulate and smart—you, too, Hana. I couldn’t believe you two wanted to hang out with me.”

  I gave her arm a gentle punch. “That’s funny, ’cause when I first got to know you and Eleanor, I had the same thought. Only about you. I was this dorky teenager and for some reason you let me hang around.”

  “That’s honestly how I felt—here I was this weird kid from North Carolina who grew up splitting Hamburger Helper with my four siblings. But then”—her lips cracked into the tiniest smile—“Eleanor liked me. Took me under her wing. You, too, Hana. I was like—I dunno. Your arty friend. Some hipster flair.”

  “Hey, you weren’t just … a token.” Hana frowned and I wondered if she and I were thinking the same thing: a bit odd for Hana to have to reassure blond-haired, blue-eyed Mikki here.

  “No, I loved it.” The yearbook’s slick pages hissed softly as she flipped through them. “It didn’t even bother me when Eleanor would occasionally, like, ask me to put her name on an attendance sheet for her or look over her stats homework. Which meant … finishing it.”

  I reared my chin back. “Really?”

  She shrugged. “I was the outsider, and she was so casual about it. I kind of figured … I guess this is how it works in the real world? If I want to run in these circles? Which I really, really did.”

  Hana and I exchanged a look over Mikki’s hunched shoulders. She felt like an outsider?

  “I’m sorry you felt that way,” Hana finally said. “You know we love you.”

  “If anything, I’ve always been jealous of how you can march to the beat of your own drum,” I added.

  Hana nodded. “You don’t need anyone’s approval, and meanwhile I’m constantly trying to talk people into loving me.”

  “Same here,” I said. “Only I’m trying to … impress them into loving me.” I rubbed my palm against Mikki’s back and she jumped, then looked up and gave us both a small smile.

  “Thanks. Sometimes I convince myself I’m the only one who feels like she’s faking it.”

  “Sweetie. Not at all.” Hana crawled forward and hugged her, and I wrapped my arms around both of them.

  “Thanks, Bradleys,” Mikki said, giggling and sniffling as we let her go. “You two are all right.”

  “More than all right,” I replied. “We’re all fucking badasses.”

  “It’s true.” She wiped both eyes and exhaled, whew. “Okay, I’m going to sleep.”

  We bid her good night and then I pulled out another book: A Wrinkle in Time, plus all its sequels behind it.

  “Katie?” Hana looked at me intently.

  “Why were you trying to write a book about Eleanor?”

  I leaned on my palm and looked out the window, where everything was as round and gray and marshmallow-soft as everything else. “I didn’t even want to write it,” I said softly. “But I couldn’t write Infopocalypse. I was backed into a corner and scrambling for a way to not ruin my career.”

  I looked down at the yellowed paperback in my hands. There was a broad-winged Pegasus on it, and below it the face of a glowering red-eyed man.

  “What happened in Michigan?”

  “I’m so ashamed, Hana,” I said, my voice breaking. “I wish I could take it all back.” And then I told her, in fits and starts as gray-white swirls rolled past the window, as if the Walshes’ estate were actually
on the moon or in a cloud or at the bottom of the ocean, wherever we’d found ourselves.

  “I’m sorry,” I finished. “I fucked up over and over. I don’t even know what to say for myself.”

  “Aw, Katie. I’m sorry too,” she said. “I’m sorry I was mean on the train. And for all the times I made you feel less-than. I want to do better.” She gave me a hug. It felt like an ending, a coda, and so I left her with Eleanor’s books spread out around her like ripples in a pond.

  In the morning, I woke to Hana banging on the door.

  “They spotted Cameron,” she called. “We need to move.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Hana

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 8:48 A.M.

  I packed my things in a haze, concentrating hard on the fabric under my fingers, folding clothes into small, neat rectangles and smoothing them into my suitcase. I popped into Katie’s room and helped her strip the bed and heave the mattress back inside the sofa’s belly. We dropped her sheets in the laundry room, and suddenly it was like we’d never been here, like this was all a dream.

  Ratliff’s voicemail had run through me like ice: A search of the automatically catalogued license plates stacked up at the US Customs and Border Protection in Derby, Vermont, showed Cameron had driven into Canada around 9 p.m. last night. He’d used a fake passport and had a huge lead on us. Finally, she believed us. If Eleanor showed us anything, it’s that innocent people don’t try to run. Ratliff was coordinating a search with local precincts, and she was eager to have us back in New York.

  Not eager enough to send a police escort, however. The Amtrak was sold-out, of course—all twelve trains left in the day were full, even the one that got in at 2:30 a.m. So instead we killed time at a diner, then clambered onto a low-cost “express bus,” which was neither express nor, it turned out, low-cost when you bought the last three available tickets a few hours before its departure. We stood waiting in the cold parking lot, stomping our feet to stay warm while Mikki cried on and off, and I stupidly remarked that at least we’d be able to sit together, since we were first in line.

  “There’s something else I didn’t tell you,” Mikki said at one point, her voice rickety, her hands tucked into her armpits. “Cameron told me that Eleanor broke up with him right before that weekend in Beverly. The one with Jinny. He said she basically hung up the phone from setting up her investor pitches and called him to break things off. But she told him she wanted to be the one to tell her parents, since they were gonna be heartbroken, so he shouldn’t tell anyone just yet. I guess he was super, super hurt.”

  “Yikes.” My nose scrunched in sympathy. “I remember us asking where he was that night, why he couldn’t come party with us, and she just said he was busy. I thought they broke up a week or two later.” I could imagine how Cameron must’ve heard it: I need a fancy New York boyfriend to go with my fancy new life. You’re not good enough for me.

  “I know,” Mikki said. “He’s been carrying that around for nine years. When he told me, he just seemed hurt, but maybe he was … angry too.”

  A beat. “So we really think Cameron did this?” Katie looked back and forth at us, her eyes wide, like Cosmo when he wants to be fed.

  Mikki erupted into tears and I rubbed her back. “Yeah. We do.”

  The bus croaked to a stop in front of us. Mikki slumped in a window seat and I took the one next to her. I dozed off, then awoke in Jersey, and across the Hudson, the Manhattan skyline was glittering and two-dimensional, like a vast cardboard set piece studded with bluish lights. The Empire State Building was green and red, which made me sad. Christmas comes but once a year, and future ones would forever be a reminder of today, painful echoes.

  The bus dumped us on Seventh Avenue and we blinked under the bright streetlamps, as we milled around in the cold.

  “So do we just go home?” Katie asked.

  “I’m not ready to be alone,” I said.

  Katie nodded. “Alone on Christmas Eve—it’s just too much. I know we’re not about to salvage the holiday, but I’d be down to order takeout and zone out to some bad TV.”

  “We could still try for Italian,” I suggested. “Our original plan from last week. Mikki, can we come over?” She shrugged and said sure.

  The local Italian joints were closed (fair) so we settled on Chinese, piling onto the order potstickers and crab rangoon, hoping to drown our feelings in oil and salt. Mikki queued up This Is Spinal Tap without running it by us, which seemed odd, but soon I was distracted by its rat-a-tat rhythm, lazy off-the-cuff conversations in thick British accents, and then the concert scenes, so loud and triumphantly silly.

  A particularly deafening shrawww of electric guitar roused Katie, who’d fallen asleep.

  “Whew, guys, I gotta go home,” she announced, giving her head a little shake. “We should do something tomorrow, even if it’s just another dumb movie marathon. We shouldn’t be alone.” She waved from the door, and Mikki stood to lock the dead bolt behind her.

  I twirled cold Lo Mein noodles around a fork as Mikki settled back and hit Play. The last few days had been awful, but there was something gentle thrumming underneath the horror: answers, a cessation, the promise that, in time, we could grieve and heal and move on. My eyes jumped to a screen on the coffee table, suddenly lit.

  “Is that yours?” I nodded toward it, then saw that Mikki was on her own cell. “Dummy left her phone. Wonder when she’ll notice.”

  “Good old Katie,” Mikki replied, then yawned.

  I slid my own phone from my purse and checked my email. Among the holiday promotions, one from Daniel:

  Hana: Hopefully you’re not checking emails on xmas eve. Karen said you guys headed back today and that she and Gary are waiting for Cameron to be found. I’m doing okay. I’m taking it an hour at a time. It hasn’t sunk in yet that we know the bastard who did this. The detective said they found a lot of activity from him in Eleanor hate groups. I guess he never got over the rejection and blamed her for his wasted life. Makes me sick to think that he was at our wedding.

  I shook my head involuntarily. Spinal Tap was wandering through a basement in search of the stage door; Mikki was tapping out a text.

  Anyway, when you’re back on the grid, I want your take on this: I found it in a box of old books in one of the closets in the foyer. (I’ve been tearing the apartment apart looking for clues.) I don’t know what to make of it … are we concerned about her mental health? Pathological lying, etc.? I don’t want to embarrass her but have been trying to think why E would’ve kept it, and since you were around back then, I thought you might have some idea. LMK when you get a chance. -D

  I opened the attachment: a photograph of a sheet of paper, slightly off-kilter, the type a tiny bit blurred. A printed-out letter with December 18, 2016, at the top, Eleanor’s address below it, “sent via certified mail.” I zoomed in:

  To Whom It May Concern:

  It has come to my attention that your newly announced company, The Herd, is substantially similar to my own business plan for The In, an all-female coworking space. Specifically, the aesthetics, company branding, and corporate model of The Herd are nearly identical to the corresponding details outlined in my business plan for The In.

  I am the proprietor of all copyright within my business plan for The In, an all-female coworking space (the “Work”). I had reserved all rights in the Work, which was first published on May 21, 2010. You neither requested nor received permission to use my Work, therefore your unauthorized copying and use of my Work constitutes copyright infringement in violation of the United States copyright laws.

  I hereby demand that you, within 30 days of this letter, immediately and permanently cease and desist the use of my Work. If you do not cease and desist within the above stated time period, I will be forced to take appropriate legal action against you and will seek all available damages and remedies.

  Sincerely,

  Mikki Danziger

  A snowplow rumbled in the distance. I looked up at Mikki sl
owly, my heart beating louder than the drums and bass now shooting out of her TV. She scrolled at her screen, scratched her nose, oblivious to the baffling news I held in my hands.

  Eleanor with her cute camp origin story. The one she’d casually filched from her friend. I could remember the moment Eleanor described to me her groundbreaking idea for an all-female coworking space: her eyes sparkling, voice bouncing with excitement, “Oh you have to move here to help me start it,” her words tumbling out faster and faster and faster—

  “Mikki, what is this?” I handed her my phone and watched her eyes slide across the screen. A flash of fear in her eyes, and then a watercolor wash of pink seeped into her nose, her chin, her neck.

  “Well, that’s humiliating,” she said, handing it back. Her chuckle was laced with pain. “You know what’s funny? I was so worried about the cops finding that. I practically tore apart her office looking for it. And I even sent Cameron—I had no idea what he’d done, obviously, but once he told me he was in town—I had him go look for it at Eleanor’s apartment. I thought it would look so bad for me, make me look guilty when I’m not. But now that I see it …” She puffed her lips, looked away. “It’s stupid. A kid with an account on Legal-Documents-R-Us.”

  I paused the movie, then touched her forearm. “But what is it? What’s the In?”

  A surge of wind against the windows; she whipped her head toward the hallway.

  “Let’s table it,” she said, her voice wafer-thin.

  “I want to know. I’m here for you.”

  She sniffed. “It’s stupid. In school, I took this Start-Up R&D class Eleanor had taken the semester before—it’s where she came up with the bones of Gleam. The capstone project was to make an entire business plan for a start-up, and …” She looked up, blinked. “I came up with the Herd.”

  “What?”

  “I hadn’t actually copyrighted it or anything—it was a class assignment. But I was really proud of it. Coworking spaces were just becoming a thing, and I had the idea of making it a social club, too, for all the weird, smart, misfit women like me.” A dark smile. “I think I wanted to manufacture the experience of falling in with someone like Eleanor. Like I had, freshman year. That’s why I called it the In—like, the in-crowd.”