Reputation

by Sara Shepard

Also, with Willa being here . . . it makes it all real. Greg is dead. Someone murdered him. I don’t know why the murder happened, or what motivated it, or if the person plans to strike again. I don’t know how narrowly I escaped being murdered myself. I’ve become aware that until the cops find who actually did it, they’re going to suspect me—at least a little bit, anyway. With Willa here, the past few days suddenly aren’t a dream. It’s as real as it gets.

  I’m not ready to deal with that.

  Willa bustles around the kitchen, knowing where everything is kept by heart because my father hasn’t changed a thing. As usual, my sister’s small, angular face is makeup-free. Her reddish-brown hair, cut to the shoulders, has streaks of blond through it—from the sun, most likely, as Willa isn’t into the whole salon scene. Her body radiates with health and athleticism, and not just because she’s wearing leggings and a hoodie that shows off her taut waist. It astonishes me that she’s still single. I get that a lot of women in LA are size zeros and look like supermodels, but Willa is truly a catch.

  After the coffee is made, she carries two mugs and walks down the hall. Without discussing it first, she heads to the back room of the house, our favorite place. It’s where my mother let her interior decorating freak flag fly: All of the furniture upholstery is busily patterned, and nothing matches. The shelves are crowded with bird’s nests, pine cones, wood carvings, old egg-crate artwork Willa and I did in preschool, an old Bakelite rotary telephone in sixties orange, and a framed diorama featuring two tiny train-model people trapped in two separate test tubes reaching out to touch one another but never quite connecting. Mom’s old sketchbooks are piled in a corner. A few unfinished paintings, both of them still lifes of junk on our kitchen table at the time, rest on easels along the wall. Time hasn’t touched this room. It is one hundred percent 1997, the year of her fatal car crash.

  I sit down on the leopard-print couch. Willa perches on the slipper chair stamped with hallucinogenic poppies. Our usual spots. My gaze moves down the hall, where I notice Willa’s suitcase resting on the front mat. “Wanna take that upstairs?” I ask, gesturing to it.

  “Oh.” Willa shifts awkwardly. “Actually, I got a room at the Marriott. I’ll take my stuff there later.”

  I run my tongue over my cracked lips. What is it with her and that freaking Marriott? Every time Willa visits—at least since she’s had enough money to do so—she’s stayed there. She says it’s because she doesn’t want to get in our way . . . but it feels so impersonal, especially now.

  I sit dumbly on the couch. My mind crawls. Finally, I pick up the Coffee mate creamer I grabbed from the kitchen and pour a hefty amount into my mug. Willa gives me a horrified look. “What?” I ask.

  “Do you know how many chemicals are in that?”

  I shrug, then dump the rest into my coffee. The liquid is vanilla-colored by now. I take a long sip, but now, of course, the creamer tastes like piss. Buzzkill.

  “So are you still surfing?” I finally say, remembering that the last time I visited Willa in LA, I’d seen two surfboards leaning against her back deck. One of them, she said, belonged to a guy friend. I never did get to meet the guy.

  My sister blinks. “Not in a while. I’ve been busy with work.”

  “Oh.” I wrap my sweater tighter around me.

  “I can’t wait to get back into it. It’s why I moved to Venice. Surfing . . . grounds me.”

  I never know what people mean when they say something grounds them, but then, Willa and I have always been on different planets. We were closer when we were young, but that was only because we lived in the same house with the same rules and routines. Our personalities were nothing alike. Despite our shared last name, some teachers were surprised to learn that we were sisters. I was the friendly one who had so many friends there was hardly autograph space left in my yearbook by the end. A girly girl, I hated to get dirty in chemistry lab; I walked the track in gym instead of participating in sports. I had a head for math and history, but English bored me—much to my father’s chagrin, as he’d been in the English department before becoming an administrator.

  Willa, on the other hand, was an English teacher’s dream. She also played every sport there was, including on boys’ teams when girls’ weren’t offered. She was one of those strong-looking, slightly scary girls who walked into a room and just dominated . . . but you didn’t exactly want to be friends with her.

  After our mom’s death—I’d been a freshman at Aldrich University, and Willa a junior in high school—Willa got . . . weird. She dropped out of sports. She bought a pet tarantula, Stewie, and let him walk up and down her arm, hoping to freak people out. She started hanging out at the punk club downtown. She wrote angry poetry on her bedroom walls, and she regularly told people to fuck off. Though she didn’t toe the line, my dad never punished her—I guess he figured this was her version of grief. Besides, her grades were always great, which was what mattered most to our dad. He so wasn’t equipped for the emotional parts of having teenagers. It’s probably why I got married so quickly—I needed someone to rely on. And maybe it’s why Willa left.

  The year after my mom’s death, I threw myself into my friends, activities, and my boyfriend, Martin. Martin was my everything: handsome, sweet, loyal, funny, empathetic. He was my nursemaid as I grieved, helping me get through the days. I was practically living in his dorm room when Willa made the announcement that she was reneging on her acceptance to Aldrich and going to California instead. Maybe I should have tried to connect with her about this sudden change of heart—Willa had always said that she was going to apply to Aldrich and nowhere else. Maybe I did try, but I don’t recall us having any meaningful conversations about it. Willa was resolute. She was leaving.

  After Willa moved, we talked even less. The tragedy with our mom became sealed off, rock hard. We went on our separate trajectories, doing our own things. I became the Kit Manning who married Martin and got pregnant at twenty, who scrambled to find child care so I could finish my last year of college. Willa became the Willa Manning who, well, I don’t really know. Works as a reporter? Avoids nondairy creamer? Is celibate? Even though she comes home for holidays and weddings and such, she never shares much.

  Out the window, three news vans shimmer through the lifting fog. The reporters sit on the curb with cups of coffee and a box of Dunkin’ Donuts, having a little party. “Have you seen Facebook?” I ask. “It’s the weirdest mishmash of posts about Greg ever. There are all these judgmental comments about his e-mails . . . and then once the murder story went up, some of those same people also posted stuff like OMG, RIP, he was always such a good man.” I shake my head. “Such hypocrites.”

  “Wasn’t that what the hacker said, too? Called everyone hypocrites?”

  My head snaps up. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I read it in the news.”

  God, all the stories: the hack, Greg’s affair, his murder. It’s almost too much to keep track of.

  “Have they let you see him yet?” Willa asks.

  “Who?”

  Willa cocks her head and gets an uncomfortable look, as if to say, Who else? I feel a tug of dread. “Not since the hospital. They’re performing an autopsy. I don’t understand why. I mean, he obviously died of blood loss from the stab wound. What else do they think they’re going to find?”

  “Maybe they can find out what he was stabbed with. They didn’t find the murder weapon, right? Or maybe to see if he’d taken any medications. If he was drunk.”

  “And what, stabbed himself?” I sigh. “The thing that’s the hardest? I’m still so angry with him. Those e-mails.”

  Willa averts her eyes. I feel embarrassed, though I know I shouldn’t. Everyone’s read them, probably even my ninety-two-year-old grandmother in the nursing home. “What did Greg say about it?” she asks.

  “That he’d never seen them before. His theory is that someone hacked into his account
—a spammer or something—and planted them in his deleted messages.”

  Willa looks skeptical. “May Greg rest in peace, but I bet every guy who’s been caught in an affair says that exact same thing.”

  “I know. But I’m not sure I blame him for cheating. Our marriage had hit a rough patch.”

  Willa blinks. “Really?”

  “Lately, all we did was roll our eyes at one another. All the things I found adorable about him at first became annoying. He was just so cynical. Nothing was ever right. It was with everyone, everything. The attitude began to wear on me.”

  “Huh,” Willa says.

  “But I sat with my irritation for months. It’s not like I said to him, ‘Hey, Greg, you’re really negative, and that needs to change.’ I just . . . quietly seethed. It wasn’t until Philly that I had a moment of clarity. I knew I had to snap out of it.” I sigh. “But I guess it was too late.”

  “Philly? What happened in Philly?”

  I feel drunk. Jesus, I can’t tell Willa about Philly. “Just a wake-up call in the form of too much to drink,” I hedge. “I came home even more committed to fixing things. Or at least broaching the subject with him again—I brought up therapy a few months ago, but . . .” My eyes lower. “And then I saw those e-mails. So . . .” I shrug.

  “God, I can’t imagine what this is like for you.” Willa’s spine is bent. “I mean, to be mad when everyone expects you to be sad . . . it’s a roller coaster.”

  “Exactly.”

  A motor starts on the street. Mr. Leeds, one of our dad’s neighbors, is off to work. The reporters jog alongside his car. I wonder what Mr. Leeds is saying about me.

  Willa takes a breath. “So what happened that night? I mean, you went to the benefit. I had some missed calls from you. Greg didn’t go, I guess? And then I got a message where you sounded kind of . . . drunk.”

  I forgot about calling Willa until this very moment, but now it rushes at me like a freight train. It had been after I’d seen Patrick at the gala. I had thought, fleetingly, that maybe I’d book a plane ticket to LA and head straight to the airport. Disappear for a little while. So I’d called Willa in the ladies’ room, but when her voice mail came on, so did the pressing need to vomit. So I dropped my phone, and . . . I can’t remember the rest.

  “I actually didn’t have that much to drink,” I say. “But it was like I was suddenly bombed. Nerves, I guess.” I sigh. “The next thing I remember is waking up on my powder room floor, and it was hours later. I was back home.”

  “How’d you get home?” Willa looks horrified. “Did you drive?”

  I stiffen. “I’m not proud of it. But yes, they have me on a surveillance camera driving my own car out of the museum parking lot.” I don’t like to think about that. The idea of operating my car while wasted is terrifying.

  “But you don’t remember anything else from the benefit?”

  “Not really.” I stare at my fingernails. “Talking to donors, stumbling, feeling paranoid. Everyone knew about Greg’s affair, and I was so embarrassed. I hated that my daughters were going to read those e-mails, too—everything just felt hopeless. I remember wanting to leave, and looking around for Dad to see if he’d give me a ride. But I couldn’t find him. And I think I remember sitting in my car before I left . . .”

  I definitely remember sitting in my car, actually. I was sobbing. About what, I wasn’t even sure. The messed-up state of my relationship. The building fury in my chest for what Greg had done. The humiliation of seeing Patrick with Lynn Godfrey.

  “What happened after you woke up on the floor of your powder room?” Willa asks.

  I lick my lips, explaining how the house seemed eerily silent. “I walked into the kitchen . . . and found Greg.”

  “I’m sorry to ask, but . . . did Greg . . . say anything to you?”

  I shake my head. I walk her through calling 911 and the EMTs coming, and running upstairs to see that Aurora was still okay—I hadn’t yet known she’d gone to a friend’s. I don’t tell her the weird relief I’d felt after the ambulance took Greg away. Or the nagging feeling that I’d brought on Greg’s death.

  “Did the police find forced entry into your house?” Willa asks.

  “I don’t think so. But I’m not sure. They’re checking.”

  “Was anything stolen?”

  “The cops had me look around when I went back to get some clothes. My jewelry was still there. Everything was in the safe. They didn’t take any TVs or computers.”

  Willa jiggles her leg nervously. “Maybe the Lolita person killed him?”

  I shrug. “She was embarrassed by being outed in the hack?”

  “In the e-mails, Greg comes on strong at first—there’s a lot of dirty talk on his end, but she’s more . . . demure. But she never tells him to stop, either. Later, it shifts. She’s begging him by the last e-mails. Maybe he broke up with her and wouldn’t see her.”

  I shut my eyes. I hate that Willa has read the e-mails so carefully that she has a detailed analysis of them. Then, a strange feeling comes over me. I give her a steely look. “Are you doing a story on this?”

  Willa’s eyes widen. “No! How could you say that?”

  When struck by sunlight, the gold thread in the couch cushions gleams. Our 24-karat settee, our mother used to joke. “A lot of people have been calling me. They’re dying to know what happened, and I’m not sure it’s always with good intentions.”

  Willa crosses her arms over her chest. “So you lump me in with everyone else?”

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t know why I’m picking on Willa. I want to talk to her about this. I need to talk to someone. “Forget it.” I look down. “I’m sorry. And okay, sure. Maybe Lolita did it, I don’t know. But I have no idea who she is. I’ve thought about women Greg is around at the hospital, at the gym, at this charity he volunteers for . . . but nobody fits. No one is his type.”

  “Who is his type?” Willa asks, a little begrudgingly. I can tell she’s still hurt.

  Me, I almost say, but I am no longer sure.

  I flash on the moment Greg and I met, three years before. Martin was dealing with the congenital heart issue he’d battled since birth—something he was cavalier about when we’d gotten together but which quickly revealed itself as a very big deal. He was hospitalized three times in a row that winter. Most people who had his condition dropped dead with no warning; doctors only figured out what they had in autopsy. Martin was already living on borrowed time, and he’d become so weak and frail. He’d cut back on teaching hours, which slashed our income. Many doctors suggested a transplant, but we didn’t want to take those risks. According to online reports and Best Doctors awards, Dr. Greg Strasser was the best. We felt lucky to get an appointment with him.

  When the nurse called out Martin’s name to be seen, I had to help him up from the waiting room chair. He hobbled toward the exam room, his back stooped, his breathing labored. In the office, we slumped in the chairs and stared at one another wearily. I figured we were in for a long wait—the more important the doctor was, it seemed, the more behind schedule.

  Martin frowned. “Did you see what this costs? One hundred seventy, just for a consultation.”

  “Actually, that’s a bargain,” I argued. “My dad talked them down to half their usual fee.” Dr. Greg Strasser didn’t take our insurance, but because he was affiliated with Aldrich University, my father was able to pull some strings.

  Martin ran his hand through his thinning hair. In college, it had been so thick, almost unruly, but the surgeries and medications had ravaged it. “So everything’s going to cost that much? Even at half, we can’t afford this.”

  “It’s your health,” I hissed. “We can find the money.”

  Martin set his jaw like he knew what I might suggest next: We could always borrow from my father. It had always been a bone of contention, whether in arguing to buy
a bigger, better house, or get a newer car whose brakes didn’t squeal, or take the kids to Disney World. I knew my father would bail us out, but Martin wouldn’t hear of it: He wanted to support us on his own. Though both of us had grown up comfortably, we gave little thought to money or choosing careers that would put us in a high tax bracket. I admired that Martin wanted to teach elementary school; I didn’t care—then—that it paid barely enough to support a family of four in our expensive suburb. I also loved the idea of being a young parent, having the energy to actually have fun with little kids.

  But once I had Sienna, and then Aurora so quickly after, I started to notice that everyone else around me had more for themselves and their children. The mothers who could afford a cleaning lady so they could spend weekends taking their kids to museums and playgrounds. The parents who didn’t sneeze at sending their kids to arts camps and fancy dance classes, or taking the whole family to Europe for two weeks of cultural enrichment. The moms who didn’t freak out when they saw the costs of sports uniforms or overnight field trips or even a babysitter for a night out. I was around easy excess constantly. It wasn’t hard to want those things, too.

  Yet Martin remained content with where we were. He questioned why I’d changed; I questioned why he hadn’t. It was a rift between us—the wanting and not wanting. It was like Martin didn’t seem to understand what I was craving. Sure, it was just stuff . . . but that stuff sometimes made the difference between a miserable day-to-day experience and a pleasant one. Or at least I thought so, then.

  Suddenly, the door to the exam room swung open. Dr. Strasser walked in, startling us both—especially me. He was taller than his picture in Pittsburgh magazine made him out to be. He was imposing in his white coat and disarming with his big, straight smile. He shook Martin’s hand first—“Call me Greg”—and then mine. And I hate to admit this, but when our hands met, when he looked me straight in the eye, I felt a stirring in my chest.

  “So you have quite an extensive medical history for someone so young.” Dr. Strasser settled into a stool in front of the computer.