She googled “Witness Protection Program” and picked up several salient facts, although overall the machinations of the program seemed to be largely undocumented. She learned that witnesses were usually given a lump sum with which to start their new lives and that after that they were on their own, and that it wasn’t very much—around sixty thousand dollars. Sheesh. She learned that Sherri and Katie had to take their new identities to their grave. Even if Sherri met someone and fell in love and decided to get married, she had to do it under her new name. She learned that some witnesses requested an improvement in grades for their children along with doctored school records (usually denied). She learned that it was common for witnesses to be allowed to keep or alter only slightly their first names and the first letter of their last names so that they had time to catch themselves when signing paperwork or a check. She learned that there had been over 18,000 witnesses protected in the program, and that 95 percent of them were criminals themselves, making Sherri and Katie a tiny subset of an already small group.
She tiptoed up the stairs again to check on Katie. Still sleeping. She stood in the doorway of Katie’s room and took a deep, deep breath, feeling the weight of this new secret, which she had wanted to possess so badly and now wanted only to jettison.
She returned to the notebook and flipped past the page where Katie’s writing ended. There was a blank page, and another blank page. Alexa continued flipping. There was a little more writing on the next page. It was smaller and more scrunched up than the other writing, as though the person who was writing it wanted to both hide it and put it out there.
There’s one more thing I haven’t told anyone.
Whatever you do, diary, you can’t tell.
The writing ended there. Alexa flipped again.
Here it is. Secret #4. This is what I want to say when Mom asks me why I wake up screaming. I don’t want her to get that sad and worried look on her face so I don’t say what I’m thinking.
Which is that I’m scared that the bad men are still out there. I’m scared the bad men are coming for me.
Alexa slipped the notebook back under Katie’s pillow.
Sherri came home around ten. They did the how’d-everything-go-oh-totally-fine routine, and then Sherri reached into her shoulder bag (front rack at Marshalls, Alexa guessed) and pulled out her wallet. Alexa thought of the large Silk Stockings sum she’d recently deposited into her secret account, and she shook her head.
“This one’s on me,” she said.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Sherri. “I’m not expecting you to work for free!”
“No, really,” said Alexa. Granted, she had only a nebulous idea of how much it cost to be a real person, but she was pretty sure sixty thousand dollars didn’t go very far in Newburyport, and Sherri was working just part-time, which couldn’t pay very much. How could Alexa possibly take money from this woman, this government witness, and sleep comfortably at night? “It was fun for me,” she told Sherri. “I promise. Honestly, we watched TV and hung out. It doesn’t feel like work at all. I insist.”
“Really?” Sherri stopped rummaging in the bag and looked at Alexa, relieved. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Alexa squinted at Sherri and tried to see the woman from the newspaper articles. Sure, hair color could do a lot. So could makeup. And clothes. Alexa squinted harder. It was difficult to see, but the other woman, the former Sharon Giordano, was in there somewhere.
“Is everything okay?” asked Sherri. “Anything wrong with your eye? I swear the people who lived here before kept cats even though the landlord swore up and down that nobody has had pets in here. Are you allergic?”
Alexa recovered, blinking. Yes, she could definitely see the woman from the newspaper. “Everything’s great,” she said. I’m scared the bad men are coming for me, Katie had written. Her heart thumped. “Couldn’t be better.”
She was gathering her keys and her phone when Sherri said, “Alexa? Can I ask you something?”
Alexa immediately started to sweat in panic. She knows, she thought. Somehow she knows I know.
“Sure.” She couldn’t believe how normal her voice sounded.
“What’s a Boda Borg party?”
“A what?” Alexa was momentarily disoriented, wondering if Boda Borg was some kind of mob term. Then she remembered that it was a real-world gaming environment that had been all the rage for a while in middle school. Not for Alexa—she wasn’t a gamer, real world or fake. But some people got into it.
“A Boda Borg party. Katie mentioned that someone named Riley is having one? She was distraught over not being invited. And naturally when you’re new to town you can’t expect to get invited to everything right away, I told her that. I told her it was nothing to get so upset about. But try explaining that to an eleven-year-old.” Sherri sighed. “It’s hard starting over, no matter what age you are.”
It won’t be for me, thought Alexa. Not in L.A. But she felt hurt and angry on Sherri and Katie’s behalf.
“Boda Borg parties are the worst,” she said. “They’re chaotic and stressful and the traffic getting there is always terrible and nine out of ten times a kid throws up on the car ride home. Believe me, Katie is lucky to miss it.”
37.
Rebecca
“You sure you want to take on Canobie Lake?” Rebecca asked Alexa two days after Alexa had brought home the coupon and the idea.
Alexa shrugged. “Why not? I’m free all day.”
“Sister bonding time!” Rebecca couldn’t hide her delight. She went to hug Alexa but Alexa grimaced and ducked and said, “Calm down, Mom, it’s just Canobie Lake.” When she was clear of the hug she said, “Hey, is Morgan going to some Boda Borg party?”
“No,” said Rebecca. “Not that I’ve heard about. Why?”
“No reason.”
Rebecca called Sherri to make sure it was okay for Alexa to take them to Canobie. She told Sherri that Alexa’s driving record was clean, which mostly it was. She didn’t mention the speeding ticket Alexa had gotten the year before on Hale Street. Everybody went too fast on Hale Street—it was impossible not to.
One of the benefits of dating a childless teacher was that on a summer day he was likely to be free. While the girls were getting ready to go, she snuck upstairs and called Daniel, suggesting an impromptu date.
“I’m in!” he said. “Where do you want to go? The beach? Plum Island? Salisbury? Jenness?”
“I was thinking a faraway beach, like Wingaersheek or Crane’s—” Most people from Newburyport who went to those beaches did so by boat and stuck to the boaters’ only sections; they wouldn’t see anyone if they went by car.
“If we don’t want to go that far, we could do a hike!” he said. “Old Town Hill? We could bring Bernice.”
Rebecca hesitated. Old Town Hill was close, just over the line in Newbury. Lots of people walked their dogs there. Once, a couple of years ago, she and Gina had run into each other on Old Town Hill, Rebecca with Bernice and Gina with her rescue dog, Sadie. Sadie and Bernice had dipped into the river together (Bernice reluctantly, not being much of a swimmer) and Gina and Rebecca had a long walk together. This was B.P. (before Peter) and B.S.B. (before sleeping bag), but there was nothing to say Gina and Sadie wouldn’t be there again today.
“I’m not sure . . . ,” she said. “Maybe somewhere farther away! For fun. Mount Major?” The chances they’d know anyone hiking Mount Major on a random weekday were slim.
Now it was Daniel’s turn to hesitate. “That’s a drive, though,” he said. “And since we’re getting a later start, the parking might be full. If we stay closer to home, we can get a bite to eat after. We can go to Michael’s and sit on the deck and have a cocktail. Or we can go to the Deck. And sit on the deck.”
“I’m sure they have cocktails in Alton,” said Rebecca.
Something changed in Daniel’s voice at that point—a sort of peevishness set in. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were ashamed of me, Rebecca.�
� He was attempting a jocular tone but the words stung.
“Of course I’m not ashamed of you,” she said. “Perish the thought.”
How to explain what was really going on? How to tell Daniel that her heart was a road map, crisscrossed with complications, strung through with fault lines? Alexa’s fraught relationship with Morgan. Rebecca’s anger toward Gina, Gina’s connection to Daniel, Rebecca’s ongoing struggles with grief. How to say, I need you to be a refuge, nothing more, nothing less?
She closed her eyes and waited and Daniel said, as she knew he would, “Let’s go to Alton. Mount Major sounds great. We can park on the road.”
Rebecca was on her way upstairs to change her clothes when her eyes snagged on a photo on a shelf in the living room: the four of them, Peter, Rebecca, Morgan, and Alexa, on the Spanish Steps in Rome a little over two years ago—the April vacation before Peter died. Rebecca paused and picked up the photo. She probably passed by it a hundred times a day, but it now seemed important to study it. Peter had his arm around Rebecca and Alexa was positioned between them and a little bit to the front, with Morgan just to Alexa’s left. Morgan and Alexa looked so young! They all looked young. Rebecca studied Peter’s head. Was the aneurysm already in there, waiting to rupture? She tried to read his expression. He couldn’t have known what was coming. Could he? What if he had? What if he’d known, and he hadn’t told her?
“I’m sorry, baby,” she said. Sorry that what? Sorry that he was dead and she was alive? Sorry that she was thinking of ways to while away a summer day with another man? Sorry that some days she couldn’t stop crying but other days she forgot to cry at all?
She looked more closely at Peter’s face. No, he couldn’t have known what was coming. He just looked healthy and happy and full of gelato.
38.
Alexa
The morning of the Canobie Lake trip Alexa shot her Silk Stockings video early so they could get to the park when it opened, before the summer crowds swarmed. Once she had looked over and posted the video—hard assets, it wasn’t her best, but it would do, considering the time crunch—she changed into cutoff shorts, a strappy tank top, and a pair of Vans and knocked on Morgan’s bedroom door. No answer. Was she still sleeping?
The knowledge of Sherri and Katie’s secret past was acting like a caffeine hit to Alexa—she was buzzing with the knowledge of it.
“Morgan!” she called through the door, irritated. “Come on, we’re going to be late!”
Why can’t you be nicer, Alexa? Like you used to be.
But. “Down here!” came Morgan’s voice. Alexa found Morgan in the kitchen, already having eaten breakfast and applied sunscreen to her face, ears, and arms, even rubbing most of it in. Morgan was practically quivering with anticipation, and Alexa’s heart softened.
“Sorry,” said Alexa. “I thought you wouldn’t be ready.” Alexa ate her own breakfast—a Chobani yogurt sprinkled liberally with cinnamon—and repaired to her room to brush her teeth.
It was only then that Alexa realized something, and that something caused her to stop short and stand still in the middle of her bedroom. She realized that a current of fear was running alongside the caffeinelike buzz of excitement. What if Katie was right? What if there were bad men out there? What if they’d been following Katie and Sherri, and by association they were now following Alexa? Weren’t there, like, people who could spy on your Web searches if they knew your IP address or something? Did phones have IP addresses? What even was an IP address? What if she’d left a digital trail, and someone had found it? What if somebody knew that she knew what she knew?
What if those people followed her all the way to Canobie Lake, where she would be responsible for two young girls amid throngs of people? She needed backup.
She held her phone for a moment, studying her contact list. There was literally nobody to call. Caitlin and Destiny were out of the question. Tyler was still in Silver Lake, probably with @silvergurl.
There was one person, actually. But he probably didn’t want to hear from her: she’d burned that bridge before construction had even begun.
The bad men, the bad men, the bad men.
He answered on the first ring.
“Hey,” she said, all cautious. “Sorry about how I acted at the casino. I—I had some things on my mind. I wasn’t myself.” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Anyway. I’m taking my sister and her friend to Canobie Lake and I was thinking it might be more fun to have somebody who’s not, like, eleven, there to keep me company, so is there any chance you’re free today and want to come?”
She said all of that without taking a breath; she exhaled and waited in an agony of regret, chastising herself. She shouldn’t have called. He’d never want to go.
“No apologies necessary, Alexa,” said Cam. “I would love to accompany you to Canobie Lake.” She could practically hear him smiling. “The Boston Tea Party? The Yankee Cannonball? I love that place.”
She and Morgan collected Katie on Olive Street, then headed back out to Turkey Hill for Cam, then hit the highway.
Morgan, for all of her general timidity toward the outside world, was positively fearless when it came to amusement park rides—when she was younger she used to stand on tiptoe to meet the requisite height minimum for the roller coasters—and she and Katie spent most of the drive to the park on their phones, looking through Canobie’s Web site so Morgan could tell Katie what was what. Wipeout was overrated. The pirate ship was only worthwhile if you were at either end. The Corkscrew Coaster was more jarring than scary, but Starblaster was pretty good. Yankee Cannonball was old-fashioned but fun, and the newest roller coaster, Untamed, was the best.
Here Cam turned from the front seat to deliver a history lesson on how the Yankee Cannonball was the oldest continuously running wooden roller coaster in the country and how it was moved in 1936 from Waterbury, Connecticut, and how they had to shorten each section by six inches to get it into the space where it now resided. Alexa glanced in the rearview mirror, expecting to see the girls’ eyes glazing over with boredom, but instead they both seemed riveted. They were staring at Cam like he was solving for them the riddle of the Sphinx, and Alexa remembered that these girls were young and neither one had an older brother or a father. The attention of a fairly charming and, it should be noted, pretty good-looking example of the male species was probably exotic enough to be entrancing.
Once inside the park, a wave of nostalgia washed over Alexa. She still had a photo of herself with Destiny and Caitlin standing in front of the Boston Tea Party at about the age Morgan and Katie were now, when life was easier to navigate. Their T-shirts were soaked—you got positively doused on the Boston Tea Party—and they were smiling hard, with the July sunlight glinting off their braces.
Of course the girls wanted to go off on their own. Alexa hesitated, thinking about the bad men. She glanced around. The park was getting crowded.
“They’ll be okay,” Cam said. “I mean, if you’re worried, we can stay with them. But I think they’ll be fine.” He was wearing a St. Michael’s baseball cap, but other than that he was surprisingly, refreshingly free of spirit wear.
Morgan said, “Pleeeeeasssse,” and practically went down on her knees on the asphalt to beg, and Katie gave Alexa puppy dog eyes.
“Okay,” said Alexa finally. “But if anybody bothers you, you scream as loud as you can, got it?” Morgan opened her mouth as if to demonstrate and Alexa said, “Not now! Only if somebody bothers you.”
She took a photo of the girls together just inside the entrance, so she’d know what they were wearing in case anything untoward happened, and she gave them each ten dollars for when they needed snacks. She made them promise to check in with her by phone every twenty minutes. When she and Cam spotted them by the giant swings, they trailed them for a few minutes to make sure no creep-os were bothering them. Then they got in line for the Caterpillar.
If she was being honest, Alexa didn’t mind it when, just as the canopy cover to the Caterpillar was
going up, obscuring them from each other’s view, the centrifugal force threw Cam practically on top of her. But in general she was keeping it platonic, and Cam was too. He was good company, and the girls were reliable about checking in, and the time flew by, and every now and then Alexa even managed to forget about the bad men.
They met up for a late lunch with the girls in the early afternoon. When Morgan’s vanilla twist toppled from the cone and onto the ground, Cam was back in the line, buying her a replacement, before a single tear had time to form. Morgan looked at Cam not only like he hung the moon but like he was also responsible for both the Big and Little Dippers, and, when they’d finished their ice cream, they parted ways again.
As Katie and Morgan headed back to the Yankee Cannonball, Alexa pointed to the teacups. “Want to try these?” she asked Cam.
Cam grimaced. “I’m not great with the rides that go around and around,” he said.
“Aw, come on,” she begged. “You did the Caterpillar.”
“That’s different,” he countered. “There’s something about the things that go individually around that get to me.”
Alexa remembered going on the teacup ride with Peter when she was really young, maybe eight or nine, and Morgan was small enough to be pushed around in a rent-a-stroller. “Please? They don’t go very fast at all. And we can control them individually. Look! There are, like, four-year-olds on there.” It was true.
Two Truths and a Lie Page 15
