The Herd (ARC)

by Andrea Bartz

  This was too strange—it was swooping around the room too fast for me to catch it. I leaned forward. “And Eleanor saw it?”

  “The whole thing. She had a copy. Saw me working on it and volunteered to give me feedback.” She shrugged. “And then everything happened with Gleam. I fogot all about the In; I was working nonstop to get everything for Gleam designed and launched. In fact, I barely touched my art supplies for two years. And—sidebar—she could have, at any point, made me a full-time employee and given me insurance and PTO days and stuff. You, too, Hana. But no, I was a contractor, slaving away for her. Doing so much for Eleanor for pitiful project fees that I couldn’t even take on lucrative work. And unlike you, I have student loans. And now, credit card debt. It never crossed your and Eleanor’s minds to ask if I could swing the expensive dinners and cocktails and trips with you. You have no idea what that’s like.”

  Something shot up through me, bile or a burp or years and years of suppressed guilt.

  “God, can you imagine?” she went on. “ ‘Sorry, I can’t afford the thirty-eight dollar brunch, I’ll stop at a falafel truck and meet you afterward’—humiliating. Being friends with you two is nothing if not keeping up appearances.”

  “Mikki, we didn’t know. We should have known. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I know.” A long, choking breath. “I should have just … figured it out on my own. But I was happy you two were so successful. I was overjoyed when Gleam blew up.” She streaked her sleeve against her nose again. “I’ll never forget the day she called me in to see her—she was running Gleam out of the Cave, ironically—and cheerfully announced she was going to launch a second company, and I’d be in charge of all the visuals. It was wild: She sat there, smiling, and told me all about the Herd. Basically repeated my whole pitch deck back to me all these years later. I kept waiting for her to acknowledge that, like it was a weird joke, but she never did.”

  This couldn’t be. This couldn’t be. I played it in my mind again: Eleanor excitedly telling me about the Herd, making me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone, even whipping out her phone to record me stating my name and giving a verbal NDA.

  But no—Mikki wasn’t rewriting history. Deep down I knew it, knew her words were true. Guilt grabbed at me, clawing at my chest.

  “So I gathered up all my courage and sent the cease-and-desist letter. Certified mail. I was on pins and needles, waiting for her to acknowledge it, and she just … never did.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask her? Call her out in person?”

  “I did, finally. Weeks later. And she said … she said if I tried to tell people that, she’d tell people about Jinny.”

  She broke down in sobs and I shook my head.

  “I pushed her.” The silence bloomed, echoed around her living room.

  “You what?”

  “I pushed Jinny. Playfully, when we were out by the pool. Eleanor saw what happened and … and pointed out that no one could prove it was an accident, that it was best that no one know. But then it finally came out, years later: If you say I stole the Herd, I’ll tell people you pushed Jinny. A stalemate.”

  Shock burst out of me like laughter, like a cough. My hands, in the prayer position, pressed against my mouth.

  “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

  “I tried,” she said. “But every time I mentioned Eleanor’s name, your face lit up like a Christmas tree. You were so enamored of her—you didn’t want to see.”

  “Oof,” I said. All this time, I’d been envious of Mikki for seeming so carefree and unencumbered. I’d thought her and Eleanor’s relationship was uncomplicated, pure. Regret widened in me like a yawn.

  And then it occurred to me, the unthinkable, the other half of the horrific Eleanor-Mikki equation. She couldn’t … ?

  As if she’d heard my thoughts: “Anyway, I obviously had my feelings hurt, but I would never hurt Eleanor. I miss her. Despite everything, I loved her so much.”

  I felt the wheels turning. “So did Cameron … I assumed he just hated her because she rejected him all those years ago. But did he also know about this? About what she was doing to you?”

  She chewed on her lip, then nodded. “He was the only person I told. He was, like, the one person who didn’t see Eleanor with this huge halo around her—he believed me.” She nodded again. “He encouraged me to stand up for myself. But I didn’t. It kills me to think that I … that he …”

  “Oh, Mikki.” I pulled her into a hug and felt her shake against my collarbone. I smoothed a hand over her hair. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”

  “I feel awful,” she croaked.

  I swallowed. “Did Cameron tell you anything? Did you know?”

  “I didn’t know anything.” She pulled away to wipe her nose. Eyes, nose, cheeks—all poinsettia red. “I had no idea he was in town. Or, Jesus, that he stabbed her and left her on the roof. I didn’t hear from him until Wednesday—the day after we realized she was missing—and he told me he’d come down to try to help.” A rickety sigh. “Like I said, I asked him to look for the cease-and-desist letter. I wasn’t thinking straight; I was worried they’d suspect me. Until last night, I had no idea the killer was actually him. And now he’s …”

  She groaned and rubbed her palms over her blotchy face, then stood. “I really want to go to bed, if that’s okay,” she said.

  “Of course. We’ll do something tomorrow, if you’re up for it.” I slid my arms into my coat and followed her to the door.

  She unlocked the dead bolt and I turned to look her in the eye. “Mikki, I’m really sorry. I want you to be able to talk to me about anything and I’m just really sorry you felt like you couldn’t.”

  She sniffled. “Thanks.” I hugged her and it was an odd, uneven hug, me in my hat and unzipped parka, her bony and birdlike under my arms. Then I trudged downstairs and spotted a yellow taxi cruising past. I lifted my arm—what luck, spotting one on Christmas Eve—and in it I rolled north into Queens, Manhattan’s skyline glittering to my left.

  Gary was calling, his face popping up in a goofy photo I’d taken at a Harvard football game all those years ago. The cabbie peered at me in the rearview mirror as I fumbled to answer.

  “They found him, Hana,” he said as soon as I picked up, his voice pulsing with hysterics. “In a motel a few hours outside Montreal. He used the fake passport to get a room at a seedy motel and they found him almost dead with a needle sticking out of his arm, they say he’d—he was—”

  “Gary. It’s okay. Just breathe.” A sob welled up in my throat and I swallowed hard. “Let’s slow down. Where are you?”

  “We’re at home. That Ratcliff woman called us. They’re rushing Cameron to a hospital right now.”

  A sheet of snow slid off a tree, pounced on the taxi’s roof. “But he’s okay?”

  “She said he’s stable. That’s all they know.” He stuttered for a second. “She said it was a huge amount of heroin. A suicide attempt.”

  “But he’s stable. She said he’s stable.”

  “But they don’t know if he’ll be able to talk. To tell us what—what really happened to Eleanor.”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of any of this, and I imagined Gary didn’t either. He sounded terrified for Cameron—his surrogate kid, the son he never had—but did he still believe Cameron was innocent?

  “He had—” He paused and moaned, a sound so sad tears poured down my own cheeks. It took him a few tries to get it out. “He had Eleanor’s laptop with him. And her phone.”

  “Oh, Gary. I’m so sorry.” I let him cry for a moment. I was touched that he called me, but also surprised. “What can I do? Do you want me to come back up to Beverly?”

  “No. I just … I thought all of you should know. Mikki too.”

  Oh God—not after the night Mikki had. I’d let the poor thing sleep. “She’s in bed but I’ll let her know tomorrow. Can you keep me updated on any news?”

  “I will. I
will.”

  “Okay. Take care of yourself. Karen too.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up and the driver turned the music back up.

  “It will be a white Christmas, ma’am,” he said.

  I didn’t reply.

  CHAPTER 24

  Katie

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 9:48 P.M.

  I rounded the corner just in time to see a cab drifting away from Mikki’s building and sighed. Now that I’d likely missed the last bus—I couldn’t confirm without the use of my damn phone, presumably still on Mikki’s coffee table—all I wanted was a direct ride home. Soon I’d be standing in Mikki’s Wi-Fi and summoning a car. Hopefully she hadn’t fallen asleep. Did her buzzer even work? My last resort would involve flinging snowballs at her window.

  I went to town on the buzzer, pushing it to the beat of Jingle Bells, imagining I could hear it in the cold, still night. Finally Mikki’s voice crackled through: “Hello?”

  “It’s Katie! Thank God you’re up.”

  “Your phone, right? I can bring it down.”

  I hopped from one foot to the other. “Actually, can I come up and use the bathroom?” And wait for my car from the warmth of your living room?

  Another beat, then the shriek as she buzzed me in. I hurried up the cracked marble steps, past red and green garland, paper candy canes, and snowman cutouts. Mikki looked harried as she answered the door, still clad in sweats, her hair pulled back in a scrunchie.

  “My precious,” I murmured as I scooped up my phone. There was a small glass pipe next to it, the weed inside still smoking.

  “You want?” she said.

  I shook my head. Pot made me paranoid—she knew that. “No, thanks. When did Hana leave?”

  “Just a few minutes ago.” She rubbed her eyes. “I was just gonna finish the movie and crash.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back.” I headed toward the bathroom. The hallway was covered with framed paintings she’d brought back from a three-week stint in Vietnam: nudes on uneven sheets of bamboo paper, a few black strokes intimating the female form. I mistook her bedroom door for the bathroom before continuing down the hall.

  On the walk back, I peered back into her room. I was drawn to the massive workspace hulking in the corner, covered in haphazard piles and a bulky ceramic lamp. An orange trapezoid of light from the fire escape fell on it squarely, like a spotlight. Without turning on the light, I tiptoed through the space between her closet and bed and leaned down to look.

  The collages. I’ve been doing these large-scale works and then taking photos of them and working those into my collages, she’d said in the bathroom of the Herd, topless and powerful, all those weeks ago. There were no final products here, but I spotted a few usable chunks of photos: a mouse spray-painted on the sidewalk, the photo of it cut into the shape of a cat, and a female reproductive system, ovaries and Fallopian tubes and everything, stenciled on what looked like aluminum siding, carved into the shape of California. The word HERE written in fat white bubble letters, so familiar I could swear I’d seen them before, with the final E crossed out in a careful red X, the photo then cut into a bird’s silhouette.

  Fringing the gray-white desktop were little scraps of photos in odd, puzzle-piece shapes, the literal cutting-room floor. The leftovers, the negative space from whatever she carved out. I picked up a chunk, smooth along one side and carefully sliced along the others, curvy and sawtooth in spots. I tilted it into the light, wriggled it to lose the glare. Mauve with delicate white pinstripes. The Gleam Room.

  Large-scale works. I remembered the first time I’d entered that room, almost too entranced by the array of pretty Gleam products to notice it. UGLY CUNTS. But there was no way Mikki … why would she …

  The overhead light switched on like a migraine, like a seizure, and I whirled around. Mikki stood in the doorframe.

  “Baby girl,” she said, her lips curled into something between a smirk and a grimace. “Are you creeping on my desk?” She took a few steps forward and paused by her open closet door. She leaned against it, and the hanging organizer stuffed with cocktail jewelry and feathers and beads slid along the wood.

  My brain was doing something frantic—the graffiti, the tagging, what does it mean that she did that—while my torso took over with something much more primal: fear. “I just wanted to see the collages you’ve been talking about!” I stretched my mouth into a smile, groped around for a joke: “Figured I’d give it the ol’ collage try!”

  She smiled. “Why were you in the dark?”

  “I—I didn’t want you to think I was snooping. Which I totally am.” I realized I was still clutching the pinstripe photo and casually dropped it on the desk behind me.

  “Well, what do you think?” She crossed her arms. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the collection for a while.”

  “I’d love to see a finished one. Where are those?”

  “What were you looking at?” She crossed the few feet between us and I flinched; she reached past my hip and picked up the picture scrap of the Herd’s Gleam Room wall. Without looking up: “You recognize this, don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure. Hey, I should get going.” I shifted my weight and she looked at me, her thin frame somehow formidable.

  “You recognize this, I can tell.” She dropped the scrap on the bed and its soft landing made me think of a snowflake.

  I shrugged, channeling all my energy into seeming casual. “I know I know it, but I can’t place it. Is it the Herd?”

  “Ding-ding-ding!” She aimed a finger-gun my way. “That’s exactly where it’s from.”

  “I love that you worked it into your art!” I gave my shoulders a cheery shake. “Your beautiful aesthetic is all over the Herd, on every square inch—and your package design, obviously, on the products in the Gleam Room.” Why was my heart pounding, jittering my entire torso? Mikki still hadn’t said or done anything nefarious. But there was something I was so close to seeing, a revelation hovering on the tip of my tongue. “And now you’ve worked it into your own art. It’s like a hall of mirrors!” I thought crazily of the foyer in Eleanor and Daniel’s townhouse, the big mirror-fronted closet doors. A million Mikkis, Hanas, and me’s fading out into the distance.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Were you just getting the striped wall here?” I asked, my fingers sweeping toward the image. “Or were you actually capturing the graffiti? That would be very … avant-garde.” Because there’s no way you could’ve done it, I tried to beam from my brain to hers. You would never antagonize Eleanor like that.

  “Don’t tell anyone, but I was actually pretty proud of how I pulled it all off.” She leaned against the wall. “I knew Eleanor wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t think it would really throw her off her game. She hates the word so much. Cunt. Why give it all that power? It’s just a word. Don’t be cunty.”

  I grinned conspiratorially, as if all of this were logical—nay, brilliant. “I love that. Reclaiming the word. Did you spray-paint it yourself?”

  “In the West Village, yeah. It was easy; there were security cameras in the elevator, but not the stairs. Obviously I wasn’t in San Francisco or Fort Greene—I had friends do it there. I was hoping to have a whole collection of collages done by the end of the year. And I figured out the name for it: It’ll be WOMEN, but with the W in white and ‘OMEN’ in red.” She flourished her palm, as if seeing it on a wall.

  “Great title. Very ominous.”

  She nodded. “It was gonna be a representation of just how fucked women are in society. It’s like, women unfairly can’t own up to their shit because they’re punished so harshly for not being perfect. Men can fuck up and move on, but not women. If you’re a woman, you’re always one mistake away from being worthless again. You go through life waiting for everything to be taken away, bending over backward trying to prove your worth, driving yourself crazy trying to get everyone to like and respect you. We do it in jobs, we even do it in our extracurri
cular lives—fuck, look at the Herd, women begging for the opportunity to spend three hundred dollars a month on a membership to a female-only space where you’re still expected to dress up and put on makeup and smile and mingle, and you have to slit your wrists if you smear your lipstick or say the wrong thing or fart in the bathroom.” Her voice was rising, growing, hurtling out like a mushroom cloud. “And the one way to win, the one fucking way to be a woman and do well in this world is to stomp on other women’s backs. Like Eleanor did to me.”

  My voice was a small and shaky Chihuahua: “What did Eleanor do?”

  She ignored me, stared thoughtfully at the photo scrap on the bed. “I thought she’d eventually see WOMEN, but she never got the chance. And now I’m not sure I can ever show it. It was just art, but I don’t want to be accused of murder. I mean, the whole thing was fucked once some rando stole her phone and tried to spread photos of our work—that was never my intention.”

  “The police thought it was all linked,” I said. “The graffiti, the stolen phone, and then the murder.” On journalist autopilot, I was keeping the conversation flowing, but my brain kept replaying Mikki’s mysterious rant: How had Eleanor stomped on Mikki’s back?

  “I had nothing to do with that. Her phone probably fell out of her bag in a cab, and then some asshole accessed the photos and tried to make a buck.” She shrugged. “I was glad that didn’t happen. I wanted my collages to be the first time people saw it.”

  “So the police were wrong. None of it was connected.”

  “Guess not. The graffiti was me. The phone was a petty thief. And the murder …” She looked away, blinking back tears. “Just Cameron confronting Eleanor about what she did to Jinny.” She shook her head. “He must have known she was about ready to leave. It’s all so … wrong. She almost got away with running off to Mexico. He almost got away with killing her. What the fuck was his plan with the body? Just leave it on the roof forever and hope no one ever noticed him driving in and out of Manhattan? It’s all so … messy. So deluded.”