“You think those rumors in your town are actually the work of that woman, Leanne?”
Jessie looks struck by the thought.
“It was probably Jessica Two, don’t you think?” I press.
“I guess.”
“And nothing’s changed since you agreed to come with me. She still has our money; she still has to be stopped. No one but us is going to do anything about it.”
Jessie looks grim. “You’re not going to start quoting Shakespeare again, are you?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Please don’t,” JJ says. “All this rah-rah-rah is making me feel like I’m back in the army.”
“Okay, I won’t. But will you help me?”
I reach my hand out to the middle of the table, palm down. JJ gives me a wry smile, then reaches out with her good hand. I meet her eyes across our stacked limbs and smile.
“Jessie?”
“Yeah, okay, fine.”
She adds her hand. I feel the extra weight and let it sit there for a minute. Then I dip my hand and raise it, bumping theirs up into the air.
“And, break!”
Chapter 20
New York State of Mind
I’m back in the city and it feels weird. Like when I first got here with Liam, after the Catskills, when he thought it was safe. At first all I could notice was the smell. The smells. Garbage and urine and whatever it is that makes the air that comes out of the subway vents smell that way. There were so many people. I’d grown up almost without touch, and now, walking down the street meant being pressed up against any number of strangers. I didn’t know what the street signs meant. I didn’t know how to hail a cab or read a subway map. I’d never heard the word bodega.
I was like one of the characters in a movie who travels through time or gets defrosted after two hundred years. Only, I’d been living in this time all my life, so nobody gave me any quarter.
TV is what saved me. I sat in Liam’s loft when I wasn’t shadowing him, and I studied sitcoms and reality shows and news programs like they were my high school. I watched movies and music videos, and sometimes I’d have music going at the same time as a show because I was a sponge and I needed to soak up as much as I could in the shortest amount of time possible. I’d repeat the lines I’d heard till the expressions rolled off my tongue easily. I even changed the way I pronounced words from the slightly elongated vowels of the Land of Todd to the shorter ones of the newscaster. I picked up the pace of my speech, too, because New York was always in a hurry: Hurry up, move it, move it!
After a year of doing that, I sat down with real books and I got my GED and I wrote a kick-ass essay and scored well on the SAT, and some other doors opened for me. Todd took the power of the pen seriously, so we’d all learned how to write well, even if it was mostly in praise of him. If I was ready to leave the nest and move into a dorm, I could break free of Todd once and for all, make friends, reinvent myself. I could tell the new people I met that I was anyone I wanted to be.
I could’ve been anything I wanted to be.
I think about that now as I leave the train station and decide to walk back to my apartment. I need to reacclimate myself to the city, even though I’ve only been gone for less than a week. The first things I notice, like all those years ago, are the smells and the dust and the noise. It’s so loud here. There’s never a moment of peace.
I walk through the Sunday pedestrian traffic swiftly. It’s a humid, bright day, and there are women in bright sundresses and men in shorts. I wish I had sunglasses and that I was wearing a summer dress, but I press on. The blocks fall away. My backpack is cutting into my shoulders and my feet are starting to hurt. I need new running shoes, but I should keep the unnecessary expenses to a minimum. Who knows how much this next phase is going to cost?
A few blocks from the Village, my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Covington.
You back in town?
Yep.
Drink?
You bet.
Before I can put my phone away, it rings. Liam.
“Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
An ambulance barrels down the street, its siren deafening. I wait for it to pass.
“I’m a few blocks from my place.”
“You just get back?”
“Yeah. I’m going to drop my stuff, then go meet Covington.”
“Covington?” His voice rises in surprise.
“He texted for a drink.”
“Ah.”
“What?”
He clears his throat. “Nothing. Call me tomorrow.”
“Wait, why did you call?”
But he’s already hung up. I stop walking and some sweaty guy in a suit slams into my shoulder.
“Hey!” he says. “I’m walking here.”
I flip him the bird. Maybe when all this is over, I’ll move somewhere else. Somewhere less aggressive.
I look at my phone as if it might hold the answers to why Liam called me. And why he suddenly seems to have a problem with Covington. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounded jealous.
“Ha!” I say out loud.
“What’s your problem, lady?” says another red-faced man in a suit.
It’s definitely time to leave this city.
The plan is to meet Covington at Fiddlesticks, which gives me enough time to change clothes and take a cooling shower. The train smell clings to my clothes, and I toss them into the dirty-clothes hamper with a grimace. My roommates have reverted back to their natural state in my absence: there are dirty dishes in the sink and fruit flies hovering over some half-finished toast and jam sitting on the counter.
I start to pick it up, then stop. I’ll deal with it later.
When I get to the bar, Covington’s sitting on the same stool I was on when Liam found me there—was that only a week ago? It seems like forever and a day. His clothing is loose and comfortable and a weird collection of things that don’t match. Cargo shorts in a dark-purple color, an orange plaid short-sleeve shirt that could keep someone from getting shot out in the woods in hunting season, and a knit cap slung low on the back of his head.
He pulls me in for a big hug.
“You smell like a pine forest,” he says.
“Jeez, thanks. I showered and everything.”
I sit on the stool next to him and signal to the bartender for a beer. He gives me a thumbs-up; I guess I’ve been coming in here more often than I thought.
“You need more than a shower to get the stench of the Land of Todd off you.”
My head spins toward him. “How did you . . . Liam told you he took me there, didn’t he?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Stuff it.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Did he tell you why?”
He shrugs. “Some shit about healing or letting go. You know how Liam is.”
“Yeah.”
“He wanted me to go up there too. Thought it might do me some good.”
“That right? Liam’s being a bit weird lately.”
“How so?”
I meet Covington’s eyes in the mirror. My face is flushed. Cov’s a good-looking guy, but I’ve never thought about him romantically.
“He maybe thinks there’s something going on between you and me.”
Covington starts to laugh.
“What?” I say. “Hey. It’s not that funny.”
He shakes his head and composes himself. “No, no, it’s not that.”
“What, then?”
“Liam doesn’t think there’s something going on between us.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he knows I’m with Daisy.”
“Well, maybe he thinks I have a crush on you—he keeps acting funny when you come up.”
The bartender comes over with my beer. I’m thinking about downing it in one long gulp like I used to do at frat parties as a party trick.
“Put that on my tab,” Cov sa
ys.
“No, what? I got it.”
“My tab. I insist.”
“Fine. Whatever. In that case, I’ll take a menu too.”
The bartender nods and goes to fetch it for me. I flash back to the other night in the bar with Jessie. That stunt we pulled. Liam would be livid.
“Don’t take advantage,” Covington says.
I feel a shiver of guilt. “I wasn’t planning on it. Like I said, I can pay my own way.”
I hold up the menu and point to the calamari plate. It’s a thousand million calories, but I feel like I need some fat in my system to cushion the blow. The bartender nods again and punches in the order.
Covington drums his fingers on the bar. “That woman, that other Jessica, she took all your money, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“And you haven’t gotten another job?”
“True.”
“Probably pretty hard to do that with this new plagiarism thing, I bet.”
I pick up the beer and start to drink. It slides down easily, but I stop after a few swallows. I couldn’t eat that terrible train food, and my stomach is beyond empty.
“I’m guessing.”
“Any idea how that happened?”
“I have a few.”
“You are kind of channeling Liam right now, you know that?”
“Sorry.”
“And if Liam’s acting weird when you bring me up, it’s because he’s jealous.”
“What? No.”
“Oh, come on. Everyone knows he’s had a thing for you for years.”
“Years?”
I look at myself in the glass behind the bar. It’s been a while since I gave myself a good look. I don’t see anything special. I never have.
Is what Covington’s saying true? How do I even process this?
“Don’t worry, it’s not like we talk about it on a regular basis or anything.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I mean, Miller thinks it’s a bit weird because of the age difference, but Daisy told him to shut it.”
Great, they’ve all been talking about me. “He’s not that much older than me.”
Twelve years. An impossible gap at eighteen, but now?
“We don’t have to discuss it if you don’t want,” Covington says.
I lean against his arm. “Thanks, Cov.” The bartender brings my order and I put some cash on the bar. “See, I can pay for myself.”
“I didn’t doubt it. You must have some of the settlement money left.”
The settlement. We learned after Todd died that he’d amassed massive wealth. All those “dues” he was charging people like my parents to come live in the LOT. The “buy-in” that was required if you wanted to stay permanently. Any money you had, any money you inherited or could scam off concerned family members with promises of coming home if they’d wire the money, went to him. In the end, he was sitting on a gold mine.
I can’t remember who first posted the idea in that Facebook group we had, but it caught hold quickly. Somebody knew a lawyer. Somebody wrote a nasty letter to Todd’s heirs, family members he hadn’t talked to in decades because they weren’t “in the Family,” and threatened to expose their connection to him. They fought briefly, then caved pretty spectacularly. The money was divided among the children because we were the innocent victims. We each got an equal share.
“I used most of that on my student loans.”
“Ah.”
“You?”
“That was my seed money for the day-trading.”
“And now?”
“I’ve done all right.”
“I’m happy for you.”
Covington looks down at his hands. He flips his arm over to show me his brand. “I’ve looked into getting this removed, you know?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not a tattoo, though, so there isn’t anything they can do about it.”
“That sucks.”
“It does.”
I push my plate toward him. “You want some of these?”
“Sure.”
We eat silently for a few minutes. The calamari are crisp and fatty, exactly as they should be, a perfect accompaniment to the beer. We each order another round as the music thrums, encasing us. I listen to the snatches of conversation that reach me from the other patrons. Someone wants to form a union. Someone’s asking if they can live with no money for a while.
“What was it like?” Covington asks eventually as he licks some aioli sauce from his fingers.
“What was what like?”
“Come on, Jess.”
I finish the second beer. I want another, but I need to keep my wits about me.
“About how you’d expect, probably. It smelled the same, you know? But all the buildings looked smaller.”
“I can’t believe our parents raised us there.”
“I know.”
“You ever forgive them?”
“Nope. You?”
“Not a fucking chance.”
Chapter 21
Replacements
After the funeral and the conversation on the dock with Kiki, I was feeling down. Not because Todd was dead, but because of everything that Todd had done. Kiki was right. I was as stuck as the rest of them. I might’ve left, but I hadn’t moved on. Besides Liam and The Twists, I didn’t have any close friends. My life didn’t feel permanent, and despite all my studying, I didn’t fit in at college like everyone else did. I had a fake backstory ready for when people asked: I’d grown up in a small town that no one had ever heard of, been homeschooled, moved to the big city, and that was it. Nothing to see here, folks! I never mentioned Todd. I never used the word cult. The scar on my wrist was hidden most of the time and was from an accident, if someone happened to see it. My parents were dead.
Only they weren’t. My mother, Therese, was standing right there in front of me as I walked back to the Gathering Place. She was dressed in white—Todd hated black, and I’d worn a black dress to the funeral out of spite rather than mourning—and her hair had gone completely gray. She’d cut it short, and with her thinness and the hard planes of her face, she might’ve been a man. She still had that light in her eyes, though, this clear certainty that dissuaded me from asking too many questions.
I’d avoided eye contact with her and my father during the funeral, but I couldn’t help but notice that there was a child standing with them. She looked to be about four, though it was hard to tell, as children in the Land of Todd were often small for their age. She was dressed in one of the Scout uniforms I used to wear, and her blonde hair was in two braids. She looked enough like me at that age that it was disconcerting. Who was she? Had my parents had a replacement child after I’d left? No, that was impossible—they were too old. Did they kidnap her from somewhere? I wouldn’t put it past them. Why was my mother holding her hand? Why was this little girl leaning against my mother as if she was someone who could provide comfort?
What the hell was happening?
“Hello, Jessica,” my mother said when I’d gotten to within ten feet of her.
“Therese.”
She flinched. “I wish you’d call me Mom.”
“You must be joking. ‘There are no mothers or fathers. Only citizens. We all belong to one another—’”
“Stop.”
“What? You don’t want to hear the words of your precious Todd anymore?”
My father came out of the lodge with my aunt Tanya. He went by the name Trevor, a T name like the rest of them. I was supposed to change my name to one when I turned eighteen, but that had never happened. I wondered what Kiki’s name was now, but I also didn’t want to know.
My father wasn’t wearing white. Just a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that had a faded college logo on it. His hair was gray, too, and I wondered how old my parents were. One more thing Todd had stolen from me—the basic details of the members of my family were lost to me.
“Jessica, don’t talk to your mother like that.”
>
“My mother. Ha. Right, sure, Trevor. Whatever.”
My mother’s lips were trembling, and she was doing what I did when I was nervous: rubbing the scar on her wrist over and over like it was a magic talisman.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean to what? Ruin my life? Ruin the lives of the rest of our family?”
Kiki was standing next to me now. She rested a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off.
“Honestly, Therese, how could you? I mean, if you wanted to come here and live with that monster, so be it. But then you had a child. You had me. And you stayed anyway. Even when Todd made us move up the hill and told us to sit this way and talk that way. You had to know that was wrong. You had to.”
“I didn’t . . . I couldn’t . . .”
“Right. Sure. And what was supposed to happen on my eighteenth birthday? What was supposed to happen in that cabin right over there?”
I pointed to the cabin that I’d built all by myself the year I was seventeen. Maybe someone else lived there now. One of Todd’s other playthings.
My mother was as white as her clothing. Tanya and Trevor stood on the porch, looking down at us. Then that girl came out. The one who’d been standing near my mother at the funeral.
“You couldn’t protect me from whatever was supposed to happen. So, I had to leave. And the only thing I feel bad about is that I didn’t drag Kiki with me and burn this motherfucking place to the ground as we left.”
“Jessica! Don’t speak that way.”
“Why? Because you can’t take it? Because that little girl is standing there? Who the hell is she, anyway?”
My mother looked at the ground, and I knew. Wherever she came from, she was my replacement.
I felt manic and unhinged. I couldn’t control my shaking body or the words flying out of my mouth.
“Where are her parents? Why the fuck is she treating you like you’re her mother? I want some fucking answers.”
“Jessica.” It was Kiki, speaking low, her voice shaking. “Leave it.”
“Leave it?”
I looked at her. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Please?”
I felt as if I were going to shatter. “Yeah, fine, fuck it. But there’s one thing I’m not going to do.”
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