by Lis Wiehl
Scattered moans rippled through the group as Elizabeth called out, “Nineteen and twenty!”
There was something about the instructor that turned Nic off. She didn’t like jealousy, especially in herself, but that’s clearly what it was. Five years ago, when Allison, Cassidy, and Nic had gotten reacquainted after their tenth reunion, Cassidy had been enthralled with the idea that Nic was an actual FBI agent, plied her with all kinds of questions. Now Cassidy was in the throes of a new enthusiasm. It wasn’t pretty, but Nic had to admit that she must be feeling a little green-eyed.
These days everything went through the filter of knowing that she might be dying. And not a lot made it through. Most things simply turned into white noise. With just a portion of her brain, Nic interviewed witnesses and prepared the reams of documents for the Foley case. At home, she signed permission slips and homework logs for Makayla, pressed the phone to her ear as her mother worried about her older brother’s impending divorce, put tasteless food in her mouth and automatically chewed. But her thoughts were elsewhere.
Where, she wasn’t sure.
So the secret of the lump and all it might mean stayed inside. It didn’t press up against her lips, begging to be released. Instead it was a small black hole in the pit of her stomach, sucking up her energy and time and emotions.
“Okay, let’s stretch out for the last five minutes,” Elizabeth said, and Nic followed her instructions automatically.
She was most afraid that she would be reduced to begging. Nic prided herself on never letting anything touch her. Never asking for anything. But she might turn into one of those people who desperately searched for new treatments, pleading to be enrolled in trials for some new drug that would prove to be no breakthrough. Until finally she ended up in a dirty clinic in Mexico paying the last of her retirement savings for some treatment that would turn out to be watered-down drain cleaner. Begging fate or the God she had decided long ago she didn’t believe in to spare her.
Nic wasn’t going to change her beliefs simply because her life was on the line. There were no atheists in foxholes, according to conventional wisdom. But even though she was ready to go to war, she wasn’t going to turn her back on her hard-won wisdom that the only one looking out for you was you. And when you died, you stayed dead.
Nic’s dark, raging fear was colored with bottomless grief when she thought of telling her parents. Mama was already beside herself at Darren’s divorce. But if she knew her daughter’s life—and soul—were on the line, Mama was sure to become even more frantic. And Daddy— Daddy’s huge sad eyes would fill up with pain. Telling her parents would only hurt them, and she wanted to spare them that as long as she could.
The class ended, and people began to put away their mats and exercise balls. Nic followed Cassidy and Allison as they carried their large plastic balls into an adjoining storage room.
And her daughter? Makayla was only nine. She hadn’t even gotten her period yet. It had been only a few weeks since she’d learned the terrible truth about her father. Nic couldn’t stand to think of how lonely her daughter would be, how the very foundation of her world would be just ripped out from under her. Couldn’t stand to imagine how her daughter’s green eyes would fill with tears as she realized her mother was leaving her.
And that was the thing that Nic feared most. Her life snuffed out. Gone forever. And the world would move on without her, inexorable and uncaring. Makayla would grow up without her guidance. Leif would find another woman.
Even her friends would eventually replace her.
CHAPTER 14
Portland Fitness Center
And I say to all who complete a successful boot camp class—” Pressing her palms together, fingers pointing up, Elizabeth murmured, “Namaste” over and over as she bowed slightly and made eye contact with each woman in turn.
Now she stood in the corner, making sure, simply through her presence, that they all put away their equipment. As she looked at their reddened, sweating faces, she felt a surge of satisfaction. She had pushed most of them past their abilities. But finally Elizabeth had bested the one participant who had mattered to her at that moment. A wince had crossed the face of that black girl, one of the two friends Cassidy had brought.
The other one, with her milky skin and dark hair, had been doomed from the start. Her muscles had trembled as she struggled to do even the simplest things. Sure, there had been the pleasure of correcting her already poor form and hearing her fail to suppress a moan. But it had been nothing in comparison with proving that the fierce-looking black girl, with her slanted eyes and her powerfully muscled legs, was no match for Elizabeth.
As people put away mats and exercise balls and gathered their things, Cassidy brought the two women over. Elizabeth put on the right smile. Open, curious, friendly. She had practiced it many times in the mirror.
“Elizabeth, these are my friends, Allison Pierce”—Allison was the white girl, who at least was no longer breathing audibly—“and Nicole Hedges. This is Elizabeth Avery.”
The black girl gave Elizabeth a cool nod.
Cassidy continued, “The three of us all went to the same high school—can you believe it?”
Elizabeth shook hands with them, nodding like she cared. If Cassidy thought who she had gone to high school with was impressive, what would she have thought of the kids from the Spurling Institute? Rapists, drug addicts, kids who heard voices but wouldn’t take their meds. About half of Elizabeth’s classmates had had their fees—$6,000 dollars a month—paid for by their wealthy families, families who would pay anything in the hope that the school could make their child normal.
Elizabeth had been in the other group, the ones whose stays were paid for by the state. At Spurling, Elizabeth had figured out that she liked rich people better than poor people. Through careful mimicry, she had learned how to talk and act like them. And how to keep them in line.
Cassidy’s smile was too big, and her eyes darted from one face to the next. Elizabeth could tell she wanted them all to be friends with each other. Just one big happy family.
Right.
Like some gushing grandma, Cassidy said, “Allison edited the paper and got the highest SAT score at our high school.”
“Second highest, actually,” Allison said, acting embarrassed.
Elizabeth knew the type. The kind who bragged about themselves, but pretended not to. The kind who pointed out that they thought they were better than you by pretending they weren’t doing any such thing.
She consoled herself with thinking about how Allison had struggled in boot camp. When her face went pale and she started biting her lip during a ninety-second plank, it had lightened Elizabeth’s heart. So she had tacked on fifteen more seconds without telling anyone.
“And this is Nicole Hedges,” Cassidy persisted. “She’s an FBI special agent.”
“It’s good to meet you.”
Nicole’s smooth dark face didn’t give anything away. She reminded Elizabeth of Grandma’s cat, too good to come when you called it.
Twenty-five years earlier
Elizabeth didn’t like to think about Grandma. Grandma belonged to another person, a girl with a different name. A girl with bad things in her past. But she had left the girl behind.
The girl who had been called Sissy Hewsom.
When she was seven, the first of the bad things happened to Sissy. Her parents were arguing, the way they always did. But then her dad stormed out of the house and came back with a small black gun. And her mother’s eyes went wide and there was a boom and then there was a bloody hole where her right eye used to be. And then her dad slipped the gun into his own mouth, not even seeing Sissy. Not even seeing her! Just leaving her alone with two bloody things that used to be her parents.
At their funeral, everyone dressed in black and cried and cried. Sissy had cried. She had to go live with Grandma, who smelled like an ashtray and who made her drink milk out of yellow melamine cups stained brown inside from years of coffee.
&
nbsp; As she got older, more bad things happened. They weren’t Sissy’s fault, no matter what anyone else said. But still, when Sissy was thirteen, she found herself in the Donald E. Long juvenile detention center awaiting trial.
Grandma visited just once.
Sissy ran to her, threw her arms around her. She knew she only had one chance to get this right. One chance to sway Grandma to do anything she could to get her only grandchild out of this awful place. Because Sissy couldn’t stay there one minute longer. Where you ate your food with a plastic spork and the lights never went off, not even at night.
But instead of hugging her, Grandma pushed her away. She didn’t even sit down at one of the tables. Around them, other kids met their family members, who hugged and kissed and cried and bought ice-cream sandwiches from the vending machine.
“I’m only going to say this once, Sissy.” Grandma’s mean little eyes narrowed. She looked like a snake. “They say it’s possible you might get out before you’re eighteen. If so, don’t come crying to me. I never want to see you again.”
She was forced to make her pitch in a hurried low voice. “But, Grandma, what happened was like a mistake. It’s not like they said. They’re making up lies about me. They think just because Daddy was bad that I am too. But I’m not.”
Grandma didn’t blink. “You can lie to whoever you want. But don’t bother trying it with me.” Her jaw clenched like a bulldog’s. “I found Snowball.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Stop. Just stop. I saw what you did to him.”
Sissy made her eyes wide. “What are you talking about?”
“The twine around his legs. You did it to him. Whatever you did. Did you make him suffer?” She lunged for Sissy, her fingers hooked in front of her like claws. Like she was determined to do what the cat had not been able to.
“No!” Sissy got up and started backing into the corner.
One of the guards grabbed Grandma and took her away.
And that was the last Sissy ever saw of her grandmother.
Her second day in the detention center—which was a jail, no matter what they called it—they gave Sissy an attorney pro bono, which meant free. But when they brought her in to meet him in one of the private conference rooms, Mr. Dowell wasn’t anything like the lawyers she had seen on TV, with their beautiful dark clothes and their expensive sleek cars. His suit jacket didn’t even match his pants. There was a patch of silvery stubble under his left ear. And Sissy didn’t need to be able to see into the parking lot to know that his car was an old junker.
He looked at her like he was weighing her too. His lips firmed, pressing together for an instant. In that one movement, Sissy could see that he wished he were anywhere but with her.
Mr. Dowell started to speak, stopped, coughed, cleared his throat wetly. She was more disgusted by him than ever.
“Elizabeth—”
“It’s Sissy,” she interrupted him. “Everyone calls me Sissy. That’s what Mikey called me. He couldn’t pronounce Elizabeth.”
He tilted his head as if he were surprised to hear her use her cousin’s name. “Okay. Sissy. You need to know that the state of Oregon is considering charging you as an adult.”
Her attention snapped back to her plight. “But I’m not an adult.” She couldn’t go to prison. Live in a place like this forever? “I’m only thirteen.”
“And I’m fighting it. The one thing you have in your favor is your age. If you were sixteen or even fifteen, it would be much harder. With adults, there is often an emphasis on deterrence or punishment, but the laws for juveniles are focused on rehabilitation. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Of course Sissy understood. The question was, should she let him know that she understood? Would he do a better job of defending her if he thought she was some half-wit mouth breather who was too stupid to understand what she had done? Or would it be better to reveal to him how smart she was, how clever? Or was sympathy the real angle that would get him to work his tail off for her, a poor girl who had never had a chance?
When they learned about chameleons in third grade, Sissy had felt a spark of recognition. Chameleons were lizards that could change their skin color. They were like magic.
Mr. Dowell spoke before Sissy could decide what he needed her to be.
“I think we will succeed in keeping you in the juvenile system. But there are still many decisions we need to make. Later today, you’re going to have to plead guilty or innocent. It might be possible for me to get the court to agree to you pleading guilty to a lesser charge.”
Sissy did not plan to admit anything. “And what would happen if I did that? Would I still go to jail?”
“Well, not jail, not if I succeed in keeping you in the juvenile system. You might have to go to a reform school. It’s not a bad solution.”
Sissy had to get out of there. Out of any place like this. Where you were never alone, and eyes watched everything you did.
“No. I’m innocent. I was lying when I said those things to that FBI agent. I just wanted to get away from my grandmother. She’s really the one who did it.” This was one approach she had been considering, but she spit it out too soon, without a chance to add the details that might sell it.
“Sissy.” He held up one hand wearily. “Please.”
She couldn’t give up, not that easily. “But I’m not guilty. I’m not going to plead guilty. I won’t.”
“Okay.” Mr. Dowell sighed. “The next step is deciding whether we go before a judge or a jury. With a jury, we might be able to persuade people that you had a reason to do what you did. With a judge, it all depends on the luck of the draw.”
Sissy imagined twelve pairs of cold eyes on her. She was good at making herself be what one person wanted. But it was impossible to be what twelve people wanted, not all at the same time. “A judge.”
He made a note. “Okay. We’ll tell them you want to waive your right to a jury trial and go before a judge.” He looked up. “Now are you sure that’s what you want to do? Not plead to a lesser charge? Not request a jury? These are big decisions, Sissy, and I’m happy to discuss their ramifications with you.”
Sissy assessed her odds. This old man was being paid to defend her. She needed him to care. She needed him to be willing to do anything, anything in the world, to make sure she didn’t go to jail. While there was a window in the door, the guard outside hadn’t looked in. Not once.
She leaned forward and put her hand on the inside of Mr. Dowell’s thigh, above his knee.
His eyes went wide.
She slid her hand higher.
He gulped.
CHAPTER 15
Portland Fitness Center
The boot camp class had gone well. Cassidy imagined this becoming their new routine a few times a week. She thought she could talk Allison into joining, but Nicole was trickier. But then she gave Cassidy an unexpected opening.
“Do you know if they have swimming lessons here?” Nicole asked Elizabeth. The four of them were the last people in the exercise room. “When my daughter was three, we were at a family reunion, and she slipped into the lake when no one was watching. Luckily she was only there for a minute or two, but it left her terrified. She won’t even go to the pool with her friends. I’ve tried to teach her, but she’s picked up that I’m a little nervous around the water myself, and it just makes her more afraid. ”
Cassidy hadn’t heard before about Makayla’s accident. Nicole was always so vigilant about her daughter. It must have been horrible for her.
“Actually, I offer one-on-one instruction for reluctant learners.” Elizabeth took a card from the top of the wooden console that held the stereo system and scribbled a phone number on the back. “Give her to me, and I’ll guarantee that by this summer she’ll be splashing and having fun.”
Nicole took the card. “Hey, thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
Looking from her old friends to her new one, Cassidy said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we all go have coff
ee?”
Allison and Nicole nodded, but Elizabeth shook her head. “Oh, I wish I could, but I have a personal training session scheduled.”
The news splashed cold water on Cassidy’s vision of the four of them laughing around a table. Elizabeth would have told them about one of her amazing adventures—rock climbing in Nepal, working as an assistant to a famous novelist, a May–December affair with one of her father’s rock star friends—and Allison and Nicole would have hung on every word. And Cassidy would have basked in Elizabeth’s reflected glory.
Now she would be free to parse Elizabeth with her two old friends, but all they would have to go on was how Elizabeth had taught the class. And while Cassidy could try to repeat one of her stories, she didn’t think she could do any of them justice.
So what did you think?” Cassidy asked as they settled around a table at the gym’s café.
She had gotten a mocha, Allison a nonfat latte, and Nicole had only asked for ice water. Nic could normally be counted on to order the largest size coffee available, but Cassidy was too focused on Elizabeth to inquire about the switch.
“Wasn’t her class amazing?” As a nod to their habit of always splitting the richest dessert on the menu, Cassidy had gotten the closest thing, a chocolate chip scone, and was now trying to break it into crumbly thirds. “There’s one woman in there who has gone from a size sixteen to a six. I didn’t even know where my triceps were until Elizabeth showed me.”
“It’s a tough class,” Nicole said. Grudgingly, if Cassidy was any judge.
“It’s more than tough,” Allison said. “It certainly showed me how out of shape I’m getting.” She pinched her midsection.
“So will you think about joining?” Cassidy wheedled. “If you do, the first month’s dues are free.”
“Maybe I should.” Allison took a sip of coffee. “Although I think I’d rather work out at my own pace on one of the ellipticals or an Exercycle, instead of trying to keep up with everyone else. I’m not coordinated enough to be in a class like that.”
