An Anonymous Girl

by Greer Hendricks

  “Just be yourself, Jessica.”

  That threw me.

  I know how to play the various roles in my life: the hardworking professional makeup artist; the girl at the bar laughing with her friends; the dutiful daughter and big sister.

  But the person Dr. Shields sees isn’t any of them. She knows the woman on the couch who reveals secrets and vulnerabilities. But surely that isn’t who I am supposed to be today.

  I try to remember the compliments Dr. Shields has given me, the things that might have led her to say she felt as though I was more than just a subject to her. Maybe that’s the part of me I’m to reveal today. But I can’t recall a lot of specific praise, just that she likes my fashion sense and my forthrightness.

  As I get dressed, I am aware my outfit is more for her than it is for the assignment. At the last minute I retrieve Dr. Shields’s taupe wrap. I tell myself it’s to ward off the December cold, but the truth is I’m nervous, and the scarf feels comforting. I inhale and imagine I can detect the faint smell of her spicy perfume, even though it surely must have worn off the fabric by now.

  Before I make my way to the museum, I head to a diner to meet Lizzie for breakfast. I’d told her I had an important makeup appointment and needed to leave at ten o’clock sharp. I wanted to give myself an extra cushion, because even though midday in the city isn’t usually a busy travel time, you can never predict a subway delay or traffic jam or broken heel.

  At breakfast, Lizzie talks about her adored youngest brother, Timmy, who is a sophomore in high school. I met him when I went home with her for a weekend last summer; he’s a sweet, good-looking kid. Apparently, he decided against trying out for the basketball team, something he has always loved. Now the whole family is in a tizzy; he is the first of the four brothers to not letter in the sport.

  “So what does he want to do?” I ask.

  “The robotics club,” Lizzie said.

  “There’s probably more of a future for him in that than in basketball,” I say.

  “Especially since he’s five five,” she agrees.

  I tell her a little bit about Noah. I don’t get into the details of how we met, but I reveal we had a second date on Saturday night.

  “A guy who offers to cook for you?” Lizzie asks. “Sounds sweet.”

  “Yeah. I think he is.” I look down at my burgundy nails. It feels strange to be keeping so much from her. “I need to run. Talk soon?”

  I reach the museum ten minutes early.

  I’m walking toward the entrance when I hear tires screech and someone shouting, “Holy crap!”

  I spin around. Just a dozen yards away, a white-haired woman is sprawled on the street in front of a taxi cab. The driver is getting out, and a few people are rushing toward the accident scene.

  I hurry over in time to hear the driver say, “She walked right in front of me.”

  By now there are five or six of us clustered around the woman, who is conscious but looks dazed.

  A thirty-something couple standing next to me immediately takes charge; they have an air of calm competence around them.

  “What’s your name?” the man asks, taking off his blue overcoat and laying it on top of the white-haired woman. She’s small and frail-looking underneath his large jacket.

  “Marilyn.” Even that single word seems to rob her of her strength. She closes her eyes and grimaces.

  “Someone call an ambulance,” the woman says, arranging the coat more securely around Marilyn.

  “I’ve got it,” I say as I dial 911.

  I give the dispatcher the address, then I sneak a quick glance at my watch. It’s 10:56.

  A thought strikes me: Maybe this accident was staged. At the hotel bar, Dr. Shields used me to assess a stranger.

  Today I could be the one being evaluated.

  Perhaps this is the test.

  The couple bent over Marilyn are both attractive and wear business clothes and glasses. Could they be a part of this?

  I glance around, half expecting to glimpse Dr. Shields’s red hair and piercing blue eyes, as if she’s going to be standing just offstage in the wings, directing this scene.

  I shake off the suspicion; it’s crazy to think she could have set this all up.

  I bend down and say to Marilyn, “Is there anyone we can call for you?”

  “My daughter,” she whispers.

  She recites the phone number; it seems encouraging that she can remember it.

  The man who gave her his coat quickly speaks into his cell.

  “Your daughter is on her way,” he says as he hangs up. He looks at me. From behind his glasses, his eyes are concerned. “Good idea.”

  I check my watch: 11:02 A.M.

  If I head into the museum right now, I’ll only be a minute or two late for my assignment.

  But what kind of person could walk away?

  In the distance, I hear the wail of an ambulance. Help is coming.

  Is it ethical for me to leave now?

  If I wait any longer, I’ll have violated Dr. Shields’s explicit instructions. I feel perspiration prickle my back.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say to the man who is shivering slightly now without his coat. “I have an assignment for work. I really need to go.”

  “It’s okay, I’ve got this,” he says kindly, and the knot in my chest loosens a bit.

  “You sure?”

  He nods.

  I look down at Marilyn. She’s wearing pink frosted lipstick that looks like the same CoverGirl brand my mom has worn for years, even though I used to give her expensive Bobbi Brown shades when I worked at that counter.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I ask the man. I take out one of my BeautyBuzz business cards and scribble my cell number on it. I hand it to him. “Will you just let me know when you hear how she is?”

  “Sure,” he says.

  I really do want to make sure Marilyn is okay. Plus, now when I tell Dr. Shields about the accident, she won’t judge me for callously leaving the scene of the accident.

  It’s six minutes after eleven by the time I rush through the doorway of the museum.

  I take a final look back and see that the guy still holding my card isn’t looking toward the approaching ambulance. He’s watching me.

  I give the woman at the ticket counter ten dollars, and she points me in the direction of the Dylan Alexander exhibit: up the narrow staircase to the second level, then left down the hallway.

  As I hurry up the steps, I look at my phone to see if Dr. Shields has texted, like she did at the bar. A message has come in, but not from her:

  Just checking in again. Coffee? Katrina, my old friend from the theater, wrote.

  I shove my phone back into my pocket.

  The Dylan Alexander exhibit is at the end of the hall, and I’m nearly gasping by the time I reach it.

  I googled the artist right after Dr. Shields gave me the assignment, so the subject of his work doesn’t come as a surprise.

  It’s a series of black-and-white photographs of motorcycles, unframed, on giant pieces of stretched canvas.

  I look around for any clues to orient me.

  Several people are lingering before the images—a docent leading a trio of tourists, a French-speaking couple holding hands, and a guy in a black bomber jacket. None of them seems to notice me.

  By now the ambulance should be here, I think. Marilyn is probably being lifted up on a stretcher. She must be scared. I hope her daughter gets there fast.

  I peer at the pictures, remembering again how I’d given an uninspired response when Dr. Shields had shown me the glass falcon. I now wonder if my assignment has to do with these images. I need something more profound to say about this exhibit in case she asks.

  I know a little about motorcycles, but I know even less about art.

  I stare at a photo of a Harley-Davidson, tilted so far to the side that the rider is almost parallel to the ground. It’s a powerful shot, life-size like the others, and practically bursting out of its f
rame. I am struggling to find the hidden meaning that artwork is supposed to contain, which, in turn, could give me a hint about Dr. Shields’s hidden meaning in sending me here. All I see is a big, hulking machine and a rider who seemed like he was risking his life unnecessarily.

  If the real-life morality test isn’t in these photos, where could it be?

  I can hardly concentrate on the photographs as I begin to wonder if the test already happened. The Met has a suggested fee of twenty-five dollars, but you don’t have to give anything. When I’d first arrived at the museum, there was a ticket counter with a sign that read THE AMOUNT YOU PAY IS UP TO YOU. PLEASE BE AS GENEROUS AS YOU CAN.

  I was in a rush, and I was only going to be there for thirty minutes, I’d thought as I’d opened my wallet. I had a twenty and a ten. So I’d pulled out the ten, folding it in half before sliding it under the glass to the ticket agent.

  Dr. Shields was probably planning on reimbursing me for the entrance fee. Maybe she’d assume I’d paid the full amount. I’d have to tell her the truth. I hope she didn’t think I was cheap.

  I decide that when I go back down I’ll get change and donate another fifteen dollars.

  I try to refocus on the art. Next to me, the couple is having an animated discussion in French as they point to one of the images.

  Farther down, toward the beginning of the exhibit, the tall man in the black bomber jacket stares at a photograph.

  I wait until he moves on to the next picture, then I approach him.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “This is a dumb question, but I can’t figure out what it is about these photos that makes them so special.”

  He turns and smiles. He is younger than I’d thought at first. Better looking, too, with his juxtaposition of classically handsome features and edgy clothes.

  He pauses. “It seems to me the artist chose to use black-and-white because he wants the viewer to focus on the beautiful form. The lack of color really enables you to notice every detail. And see how he has carefully chosen the light here to enhance the handlebars and speedometer.”

  I turn to look at the image from his perspective.

  The motorcycles all appeared alike to me at first, a blur of metal and chrome, but now I realize they are quite distinct.

  “I get what you mean,” I say. I still can’t figure out what this exhibit has to do with morality and ethics, though.

  I move to the next photograph. This motorcycle isn’t in motion. It is shining and new and stands atop a mountain. Then, the man in the bomber jacket walks over to it, too.

  “See the person reflected in the side mirror?” he asks. I hadn’t, but I nod anyway as I peer closer at the image.

  The buzzer on my phone sounds, startling me. I give the man an apologetic smile in case the noise has broken his concentration, then I reach into my pocket to silence it.

  I’d set the alarm on my way to the museum, wanting to make sure I followed Dr. Shields’s directions to leave at eleven-thirty sharp. I need to go.

  “Thanks,” I tell the man, then I take the stairs down to the main level. Rather than waste more time getting change, I tuck the twenty into the donation box and hurry out the door.

  As I exit the door, I see that Marilyn, the cabdriver, and the guy with the tortoiseshell glasses are all gone.

  Cars are driving over the spot where she had lain; people are milling around the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones and eating hot dogs from a nearby vendor.

  It’s like the accident never happened.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  Thursday, December 13

  To you, this is simply a thirty-minute assignment.

  You have no idea that it may spark the unraveling of my entire life.

  Since this plan was set into motion, measures were required to counterbalance my resulting physical reactions: sleeplessness, lack of appetite, a plummeting core temperature. It is essential that these base distractions be offset to avoid wreaking havoc with the clarity of the thought process.

  A warm bath infused with lavender oil coaxes sleep. In the morning, two hard-boiled eggs are consumed. An increase in the thermostat from seventy-two degrees to seventy-four degrees compensates for my physiological alteration.

  It begins with a call to Thomas’s cell phone right before we are supposed to meet.

  “Lydia,” he says, pleasure lacing his voice. What would it be like to live the rest of my life without hearing it in all of its incarnations, slightly scratchy when he wakes up in the morning, soft and tender during intimate moments, and masculine and passionate when he cheers for the Giants?

  Thomas confirms that he is at the Met Breuer, waiting for my arrival.

  However, the pleasure in his tone disappears when he learns a work emergency will require cancelation of our plans to view one of his favorite photographer’s exhibits.

  But he can hardly complain. He called off a date just over a week ago.

  The exhibit will only be there through the weekend; Thomas won’t want to miss it.

  “You can tell me about it at dinner on Saturday,” Thomas is told.

  Now you are both in place, set on a collision course.

  All that remains is the waiting.

  The condition of waiting is universal: We wait for traffic lights to change from red to green, for the grocery store line to advance, for the results of a medical test.

  But the wait for you to arrive and relay what happened at the museum, Jessica, isn’t measurable by any standard unit of time.

  Often the most effective psychological studies are rooted in deception. For example, a subject can be led to believe he or she is being evaluated for one behavior when, in fact, the psychologist has engineered this decoy to measure something else entirely.

  Take the Asch Conformity Study: College students thought they were participating in a simple perceptual task with other students when, in actuality, they were placed one at a time in a group along with actors. The students were shown a card with a vertical line on it, then another card with three more lines. When asked to say out loud which lines matched in length, the students consistently provided the same answer as the actors, even when the actors picked one of the clearly incorrect lines. The student subjects believed they were being tested on perception, but what was actually being assessed was adherence to conformity.

  You assume you are visiting the Met Breuer to look at photographs. But your opinion of the exhibit is of no concern.

  It is 11:17 A.M.

  That particular exhibit will be uncrowded at this time of day; only a few people should be viewing the artwork.

  You will have seen Thomas by now. And he, you.

  Sitting down is an impossibility.

  A hand is run along the row of books filling the white wood built-in shelf, even though the spines are already perfectly aligned.

  The single legal-size folder on the desk is moved slightly to the right, centering it more precisely.

  The tissues on the table beside the couch are replenished.

  The clock is checked again and again.

  Finally, 11:30. It is over.

  The length of the office is sixteen steps, back and forth.

  11:39.

  The far window affords a view over the entranceway; it is checked with every pass by that corner.

  11:43.

  You should be here by now.

  A check in the mirror, a reapplication of lipstick. The edges of the sink are cold and hard. The reflection in the mirror confirms the facade is in place. You will suspect nothing.

  11:47.

  The buzzer sounds.

  You are finally here.

  A slow, measured breath. Then another.

  You smile as the inner door to the office is opened. Your cheeks are flushed from the cold, and your hair is windblown. You radiate the full bloom of youth. Your presence serves as a reminder of time’s inexorable cruelty. Someday you, too, will be pulled toward its cusp.

  What did he think when he en
countered you instead of me?

  “It’s like we’re twins,” you say.

  You touch your cashmere wrap by way of explanation.

  My laugh is forced. “I see . . . it’s perfect for such a blustery day.”

  You settle into the love seat, now your preferred spot.

  “Jessica, tell me about your experience at the museum.”

  The prompt is delivered matter-of-factly. There can be no research bias. Your report needs to be unpolluted.

  You begin: “Well, I have to tell you I was a few minutes late.”

  You glance down, avoiding my eyes. “There was a woman who was hit by a cab and I stopped to help her. But I called an ambulance and these other people took over and I rushed to the exhibit. For a second I wondered if she was part of the test.” You give an awkward little laugh, then blunder on: “It was hard to tell where I was supposed to start, so I just went to the first picture that caught my eye.”

  You are speaking too quickly; you are summarizing.

  “Take it more slowly, Jessica.”

  Your posture slumps.

  “I’m sorry, it just threw me. I didn’t see the accident, but I saw her lying on the street right after . . .”

  Your anxiety must be indulged. “How upsetting,” you are told. “It was good of you to help.”

  You nod; some of the tension eases from your rigid posture.

  “Why don’t you just take a deep breath, then we can proceed.”

  You unwind the wrap and place it on the seat next to you.

  “I’m okay,” you say. Your tone is tempered now.

  “Describe what happened in chronological order after you entered the exhibit. Don’t leave out any detail, no matter how inconsequential it may seem,” you are told.

  You speak of the French couple, the docent and her tourists, and your impression of Alexander’s decision to photograph in black-and-white to emphasize the form of the vehicles.

  You pause.

  “To be honest, I really didn’t understand what made the photographs special. So I asked this guy who seemed really into them why he liked them.”

  A hitch in the pulse. An almost uncontrollable surge of queries.

  “I see. And what did he say?”