An Anonymous Girl

by Greer Hendricks

  Dr. Shields’s notes don’t indicate that she knows the married man April confessed to sleeping with was Thomas. She seems to believe that April entered her study with no ulterior motives, when it’s obvious to me now that April was obsessed with Thomas, obsessed enough to find a way into Dr. Shields’s research project. Then she seemed to grow attached to Dr. Shields. April was a lost girl; she seemed to be searching for someone or something to hold on to.

  It seems strange that April revealed she had an affair with an unnamed married man to Dr. Shields, that she tiptoed up to the brink of an explosive disclosure. But I kind of get it, given the magnetic pull Dr. Shields exudes.

  Maybe April was seeking absolution, the same way I sought it from Dr. Shields when I told her my secrets. Perhaps April also thought that if the woman who spent her career studying moral choices offered her a pardon, then April wasn’t so flawed after all.

  “I’ll text you the missing pages,” I say to Thomas. “Can you answer one more question, though?”

  He nods.

  I think about the night I watched them under the restaurant awning. “I saw you with Dr. Shields one evening. You seemed so in love. Why did you act like that?”

  “Her file on April,” he says. “I wanted to get in the house so I could see it. If there was something April said that could link her to me, I was worried Lydia might realize it later and it could send her over the edge. But I could never find it, not until I saw it on her desk.”

  “There’s nothing in there that ties you to April,” I say.

  “Thank you,” he whispers.

  But that may not be true, I realize. There’s one tiny detail, floating just beyond the edge of my consciousness. It’s like a helium-filled balloon dancing on a high ceiling. I can’t grasp it no matter how hard I try. It has something to do with April; it’s an image or memory or detail.

  I glance at the window again as I pull my phone out of my pocket. I’ll go back and study her file afresh once I leave here, I think. Now I just need to get out.

  I look down at my phone to pull up the final five photographs of April’s file. That’s when I see the missed calls are from BeautyBuzz. There are four, including two voice mail messages.

  Did I forget about a job? I wonder. But I’m certain I’m not scheduled to work until five P.M.

  Why would the company be so frantic to get ahold of me?

  I quickly tap on the missing photos and text them to Thomas. “Now you have everything,” I say as I stand up. He’s already bent over his phone, intently studying them.

  I play the message from BeautyBuzz. My eye is drawn back to the window. I think I can see the shadows of people passing by again, but I’m not sure.

  The voice mail isn’t from the program coordinator, like I thought. It’s from the owner of the company, a woman I’ve never spoken to before.

  “Jessica, please call me at once.”

  Her voice is clipped. Angry.

  I press Play to listen to the second one.

  “Jessica, you are being terminated, effective immediately. You need to return this message as soon as possible. We’ve learned you have violated the noncompete clause you signed when you joined our company. We have the names of two women you recently solicited as freelance clients while using the BeautyBuzz name. Our lawyers will file a cease and desist if you continue.”

  I look up at Thomas.

  “She got me fired,” I whisper.

  Dr. Shields must have called BeautyBuzz and told them about Reyna and Tiffani.

  I think about my rent that’s due in a week, Antonia’s bills, my father’s job loss. I imagine Becky’s sweet, trusting face as she learns the only home she has ever had is about to disappear.

  The walls are closing in on me again.

  Is Dr. Shields going to get me sued if I don’t do what she wants?

  I think about what she wrote in her notes on me: You belong to me.

  My throat is tight, and my eyes are burning. A scream is trapped in my throat.

  “What happened?” Thomas asks as he rises from behind his desk.

  But I can’t answer him. I burst through the office door and then into the empty waiting room, and I tear down the hallway. I need to call the owner of BeautyBuzz and try to explain. I need to talk to my parents and make sure they’re still safe. Could Dr. Shields do something to them? Maybe she isn’t planning to pay for their trip after all; she could have found out my credit-card number and used it for the deposit.

  If she so much as touches Becky, I’ll kill her, I think frantically.

  I’m gasping and crying by the time I throw open the main door of the building and run outside. The icy winter air feels like a slap against my face.

  I spin around on the sidewalk, frantically looking around for Noah. Inside my pocket, my phone starts to vibrate again. I want to rip it out and throw it against the sidewalk.

  I don’t see Noah anywhere. My tears stream down harder. I was beginning to think I could depend on him.

  But now I realize I can’t.

  I’m about to turn around when I glimpse a puffy blue coat a block away. My heart soars. It’s him. I recognize the back of his head; I already know his walk.

  I start to run, weaving past people.

  “Noah!” I call out.

  He doesn’t turn around, so I keep running. I’m panting and it’s hard to pull enough oxygen into my lungs, but I force my legs to go faster.

  “Noah!” I cry again when I’m closer. I want to collapse into his strong arms and tell him everything. He’ll help me; I know he will.

  He whips around.

  The expression on his face stops me as abruptly as if I’ve slammed into a brick wall.

  “I was starting to fall for you,” he says, biting off every word. “But now I know who you really are.”

  I take a step toward him, but he holds up a hand. His mouth is a grim line. His soft brown eyes are hard.

  “Don’t,” he says. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “What?” I gasp.

  But he just turns around and keeps walking, moving farther and farther away from me.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTY-ONE

  Sunday, December 23

  My premature retreat to bed allowed for a particularly early rising time this morning.

  It will be a busy day.

  When my phone is turned on, it reveals a new text from Thomas. At 11:06 P.M. last night, he reported that his patient was stable at Bellevue and he apologized again for the truncated evening.

  A reply was sent at 8:02 A.M.: I understand. What are your plans for today?

  He wrote that he was en route to his squash game and breakfast at Ted’s Diner. I’ll catch up on paperwork this afternoon, he wrote. Movie tonight?

  The response he received: Perfect.

  His morning activities are just as he described: He exits the gym, dines at Ted’s, and heads directly to his office.

  Everything changes at precisely 1:34 P.M.

  That is when you are spotted striding down the sidewalk, a shopping bag in hand.

  You also disappear into Thomas’s office building.

  Oh, Jessica. You have made a grave mistake.

  Do victims have the right to take retribution into their own hands?

  In your second computer session, you sat in the NYU classroom and answered this query in the affirmative, Jessica. You barely hesitated. You didn’t fiddle with your rings or look up at the ceiling while you thought; you quickly brought your fingertips to the keyboard and formulated your response.

  How do you feel about this question now?

  Finally, there is concrete evidence of your staggering betrayal.

  What are you doing in there with my husband, Jessica?

  Whether you are enmeshed in a physical affair is almost immaterial at this point. You two are colluding behind my back. The treachery you have consistently exhibited should have been a warning sign.

  By now you have created so many degr
ees of deception, such layered deceit, that you are enmeshed in a salacious subterfuge from which there can be no return.

  “Lady, are you okay?”

  A passerby holds out a paper napkin. It is regarded with confusion.

  “Looks like you cut your lip,” he says.

  After a moment, the napkin is pulled away. The metallic taste of blood lingers in my mouth. Later, ice will be applied to reduce the swelling. But for now, lip balm is located in my makeup bag.

  It is an exact replica of the lip balm you left in my town house last week, the one that infuses your lips with a rosy, beguiling shade.

  The tube bears the logo BeautyBuzz. It is manufactured by your employer, Jessica.

  The phone number of the company is quite easy to obtain.

  While you are conspiring with my husband, a phone call is placed.

  When one speaks with authority, people listen. The receptionist who answers transfers my call to a manager, who in turn promises to reach the company owner to convey the information immediately.

  Apparently, BeautyBuzz takes its noncompete clause quite seriously.

  You keep mentioning the desire to escape town for the holidays.

  You are not going anywhere, Jessica.

  But it seems that you will be able to enjoy some unexpected time off from work after all.

  Should a punishment always fit the crime?

  The loss of your job is not a severe enough punishment.

  But a more fitting one presents itself shortly, while you are still ensconced in my husband’s office.

  A young man in a puffy blue coat accented with red zippers approaches and pauses on the corner next to Thomas’s building. He looks around, as if he is waiting for someone.

  He is instantly familiar; he is the one you embraced so warmly the other night. The one you kept hidden from me.

  While you conduct your assignation with my husband, a spontaneous, parallel tête-à-tête occurs on the sidewalk just outside Thomas’s office.

  Wouldn’t you agree that it seems just?

  “I’m Dr. Lydia Shields,” he is greeted.

  It is vital that my tone and facial expression appear somber. Professional. A tinge regretful that it has come to this. “Are you here for the intervention for Jessica Farris?”

  Jessica, your paramour seems quite startled at first. “What?” he says.

  Once he confirms that he has come to this destination to meet you, credentials are established. A business card is offered. Still, he requires convincing.

  It is explained to him that the other participants have already departed, and that Dr. Thomas Cooper, your longtime therapist, is still in his office trying to reason with you.

  “Her paranoia and anxiety typically respond to treatment,” he is told. “Unfortunately, her destructive behavior is so pervasive and persistent that the typical patient confidentiality must be compromised in order to protect those who might be harmed.”

  It is evidence of how smitten Noah is with you that it takes three detailed examples of your deceitful nature to even get him to begin to consider that the woman being described is, in fact, you.

  Your behavior of late is detailed: Your recent job termination due to your ethical violations. Your dangerous visit to a drug dealer’s apartment. Your habitual one-night stands, often with married men and using a different persona.

  Noah winces at your last misdeed, so that dictates the necessary direction for the remainder of the conversation.

  Noah is wounded.

  It is time to home in for the kill.

  Concrete evidence is more persuasive than anecdotal testimony, which could be dismissed as heresy.

  The text you sent earlier this month is retrieved on my phone and shown to Noah.

  Dr. Shields, I flirted but he said he was happily married. He went up to his room and I’m in the hotel lobby.

  “Why would she send you that?” Noah asks.

  He appears stunned. He is cycling through denial. His next stage will be anger.

  “I specialize in compulsions, including those of a sexual nature,” he is told. “I have been consulting with Dr. Cooper on this aspect of Jessica’s personality.”

  Noah is still teetering on the edge of disbelief. So another text is pulled up and displayed. You sent it merely two nights ago, just before you left to see Thomas at Deco Bar. The same evening you met Noah at Peachtree Grill.

  I’m leaving in a few minutes to meet T. Should I offer to buy him a drink, since I’m the one who asked him out?

  The day of the text transmission is clearly visible: Friday. A thumb covers the rest of the text exchange as the phone is held out for Noah’s perusal.

  Noah grows pale. “But I saw her that night,” he says. “We had a date.”

  Now surprise is feigned. “Oh, are you the one she met at Peachtree Grill? She told me about that, too. She actually felt a little guilty that she had seen another man right before she went out with you.”

  His anger comes on swiftly, Jessica.

  “She is a very self-destructive young woman,” Noah is told as his face transforms. “And unfortunately, her narcissistic personality—while enchanting at first—renders her sadly unredeemable.”

  Noah walks away, shaking his head.

  Not two minutes later, you burst out of Thomas’s building and chase after Noah.

  After he rebuffs you, you stand on the sidewalk, staring forlornly after him.

  The shopping bag is still in your hand.

  Now the logo of the closed eyelids is visible. It is strikingly familiar.

  Ah, Jessica, how industrious of you. So you have visited Blink, too.

  You must think you are so cunning. Perhaps you have even learned the truth about Lauren, not the story Thomas concocted.

  Were you surprised to learn that my husband never had an affair with Lauren?

  You can’t possibly believe the person who knows Thomas best, his loving wife of seven years, accepted that pathetic fabrication, can you?

  His affair with the boutique store owner was determined to be an invention barely a week after his “accidental” text arrived on my phone: When Lauren was sought out and asked for assistance in selecting my outfits for a weekend getaway, she recommended several items, including the unstructured dresses she’d picked up on her recent buying trip to Indonesia.

  A brief conversation ensued concerning her travels.

  She revealed that she had just spent a week in Bali and another in Jakarta, arriving back in the States only three days prior to my visit to her boutique.

  It is impossible that my husband could have had plans to meet her, both on the date when he texted See you tonight, gorgeous, and on the night he claimed their affair had begun, when he said she’d slid into a seat across from him at a hotel bar.

  His lie was never challenged, however. It needed to remain standing.

  Thomas had an excellent reason for trying to camouflage his one-night stand with April by layering the story of another, made-up dalliance over it.

  And of course, his wife had an even better reason for hiding her own knowledge of both the counterfeit affair and the real one with April.

  Would it come as a surprise to you that I’ve known the truth about my husband and subject 5 all along?

  Jessica, you may think you have figured everything out. But if you have learned only one thing since becoming Subject 52, it is that you must suspend your assumptions.

  It is a pity that you are so distraught. But you brought this on yourself.

  Right now you feel all alone.

  Not to worry, though. You will be in my company soon enough.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTY-TWO

  Sunday, December 23

  Have you spoken with your family recently, Jessica? Are they enjoying their vacation in Florida?

  I stare at the text, feeling the questions sear me.

  Dr. Shields took away my job. She took away my boyfriend. What has she done to my parents and Becky?
>
  I’m in bed, my knees pulled up to my chest, Leo beside me. After Noah left me on the corner, I tried calling and texting him, but he didn’t respond. Then I did the only thing I could think of: I came home and cried gut-wrenching tears. They’ve slowed to quieter sobs by the time the message from Dr. Shields comes in.

  I never responded to my mother’s call last night when I was creeping through Dr. Shields’s town house, I think as I sit bolt upright. And she didn’t leave a message.

  I dial my mom’s cell immediately, fighting back panic. The automated voice mail message comes on.

  “Mom, please call me right away,” I blurt.

  I try my dad’s cell next. Same thing.

  I start to hyperventilate.

  Dr. Shields never even told me the name of the resort. My mom phoned right after they arrived, telling me all about their waterfront room and saltwater swimming pool, but she didn’t specify where they were staying and I was so thrown by everything going on in my life that I never asked.

  How could I have been so careless?

  I call my parents again, each in turn.

  Then I grab my coat and push my feet into my boots and tear through the door. I run down the stairs, pushing past a neighbor who is carrying a bag of groceries. She gives me a startled glance. I know my mascara is probably smeared and my hair is wild, but I no longer care how I look for Dr. Shields.

  I sprint down the street, frantically waving for a cab. One pulls over and I jump into the back. “Hurry, please,” I say, giving the driver Dr. Shields’s home address.

  I still don’t have a plan fifteen minutes later when I arrive. I just pound on the door until my hand throbs.

  Dr. Shields opens it and looks at me with no surprise, as if she has been expecting me.

  “What did you do to them?” I shriek.

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Shields responds.

  She is flawless, as usual, in her dove-gray top and tailored black slacks. I want to grab her shoulders and shake her.

  “I know you did something! I can’t reach my parents!”

  She steps back. “Jessica, take a deep breath and calm down. We cannot have a conversation like this.”

  Her tone is a rebuke; it’s as if she’s dealing with an irrational child.