Pretending to Be Erica (11 page)

“Your mother hasn’t said anything.”

“She didn’t hire you to shadow me. That means you’ve been doing it on your own. Why? What did I ever do to you?”

His brown eyes narrow. I can read him so easy, even if he is ex-military. He was trained to be stoic under fire, but that stoniness gives him away. None of the other Ericas ever approached him. They probably noticed him at some point, but they were afraid of him and of what he could uncover. I’m pretending like I have nothing to hide—it’s either the worst bluff ever, or the best. Depends on how deeply he thinks on it.

“You think I’m not the real Erica.”

“I never said that.” He grunts.

“You’re obviously good at what you do.” I pat the inside of the car, a Saab. “Pretty fancy wheels.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“And you’re obviously in love with Mom.” It’s a risky thing to say, but the rapid succession of questions lets me gauge his reactions—the previous two statements had been false. His lack of emotion proved that. But the final statement made his mouth twist and his leg jump. My gut was right—he has a deeply personal motive. He’s known Mrs. Silverman for years, seen her at her worst. He protected her from betrayal that would’ve grown if left to fester in falsity. He’s in love with her.

“You need to get out of my car.” His voice strains to stay level. He’s a man of few words, but not few emotions.

“I understand that you want to protect her again.” I soften my voice, making it soft. “But I want to protect her too. She’s in love with Dad. You know that, right? He’s coming back slowly but surely.”

Mr. White adjusts the collar of his trench coat.

“You don’t have to believe I’m the real Erica. You can keep following me if you want. But give up on Mom. Please. I’m going to put my family together again. I can’t do that if you get in the middle.”

“What were you doing at Club Riddler?”

“Not you, too.” I exhale. “What the hell are you doing stalking an underage girl?”

“It’s my job,” he deadpans. “I’m sure you didn’t tell your mother you were going to the club. Shall I break the news to her, or will you?”

“She doesn’t care,” I spit. “It’s what teens do—rebel.”

“I have pictures. Of you and that Taylor girl.”

“I was helping a friend.”

“You were getting drunk with a friend in a club well known for the paramount quality of its drugs.”

“I wasn’t drinking, and I didn’t take drugs! And you’re stalking without someone paying you to. Isn’t that technically a crime?”

“Not as much as fraud. As pretending to be someone you’re not.”

I don’t dignify him with a confirmation or denial. That club was a mistake, a huge oversight. Erica would’ve never gone. I never should’ve gone. I have to clean up my mess—now. I make my voice low, hoarse, wounded.

“You’re right. I’m not the Erica I should be. I should be more proper. More refined. I should be less selfish, more open. People don’t say it, but it feels like they want to. They want to say I’m not what I should be. But you can’t forget the life you’ve lived. I can’t just forget everything that made me who I am today. So you’re right. I’m not Erica. Not yet. But I’m learning.”

Even though he’s a hardened ex-military man, suspicious of me and clearly having been through a lot in his life, the insecurity in my words seems to reach him. His eyes soften.

“Give her those pictures if you want. I don’t care. I wanted to get out, get away from her, from everything crushing me. Smothering me. I can’t tell her that. She’d hate me for saying it.”

I swallow hard. There’s nothing left to say. I get out and close the door, and he pulls out of the lot.

Merril drives me home, and I hug her before I get out.

“Thank you. I mean it. For being my friend.” For being the first friend Violet’s ever made.

“Hey, you’re welcome.” She pats my back and pulls away. “Is something wrong? You’re not usually super-touchy.”

“I’m fine. See you on Monday.”

“Don’t hang out with Taylor anymore, okay? You’re all bummed-looking. She gets to people like that.”

I wait until her car leaves the curb. I don’t press the button on the gate’s admittance panel. I don’t wait for it to swing open. I don’t walk up the path lined with freshly budding apple trees and the barest of spring grasses. I leave the huge white house and the manicured lawn behind.

I pull the black hoodie I bought at the mall over my head. The sleeves hang over my fingertips, warming them. The zipper clinks, and the ties around the neck flicker across my face in the wind. Old friends. Violet welcomes them. The hoodie is too clean-smelling, too new, but it has a soothing effect on her heart, like a child’s blanket.

I run.

Down the street, the sidewalk, past houses just as big and prestigious as Erica’s. Past expensive cars and hired help unloading groceries and trimming hedges. Always hired help. The really important people stay inside their castles and sit on their thrones. Violet laughs. Laughs and runs until her legs burn. Until she reaches the highway and the overpass that connects the gated community to the rest of the world. She laces her fingers through the chain-link fence that keeps people from jumping into traffic, and she looks at her nails—pink with faint glitter. She makes a face. Erica wants to come out, bleeds out from between her eyes, but Violet craves air before she goes dormant for another month.

Violet shakes the fence. The freeway pulses with cars and speed and wind. The Strip can be seen from here—a faint line of neon signs that grows brighter as the daylight dies. Sucking light. Hotels and casinos, too, but mostly signs. The Strip is a world of signs: low-price, half-price, sale, two-for-one, Violet and Erica for one. Violet shakes the fence and lets out a scream, but the rush of traffic drowns it out. Erica winces and covers her ears. Violet breathes in exhaust and exhales carbon monoxide, and she lives for another second, another day. She lives to pretend to be someone else for another day.

Today Millicent is even wider. Today her pen has a teddy bear on the end.

Today she asks me what I dream about.

“Lights,” I murmur. The leather divan is cool against the bits of my skin that stick out of my uniform. “Red and blue lights. Police, I guess.”

“And what do you think those lights represent?”

Fear. Worst-case scenarios. What will happen if I mess this con up. Mess my life up. One wrong slip of the hand, one wrong pair of eyes, one wrong thing said to Mrs. Silverman by Taylor, Mr. White, Kerwin, and I’m gone, taken by the flickering ruby-and-sapphire lights.

“The tightrope is too small and my feet are too big,” I mutter, “but the show must go on. Be happy, smile, wave. Pretend to get better. Pretend you know how to be the person who’ll make them happy.”

Millicent scribbles, sips her tea. It smells like charcoal and weeds.

“The lights in my dream,” I lie, “represent the day I found out they weren’t my parents. The day I became Erica.”

It’s not the first time the police chase them.

Sal holds his hands out obediently, a soft smile in place. Makes small talk with the officers—knows them all by name. Asks after their families. Introduces himself to the young cop who’s new.

Violet goes back to foster care.

Sal’s lawyer—mob lawyer—pulls strings. There is no cloth of justice green bills cannot dye. Violet waits like a good girl in a strange house with strange food, strange people.

Sal hires a woman. She comes to the door one day, pretending to sell makeup. Pushes her way in. Sal slips into the kitchen’s back door and takes the stairs like a panther. Rushes into Violet’s room (she was coloring a picture of a ballerina), and she wordlessly grabs the Mickey Mouse backpack they gave her (stuffed with electronics the couple wouldn’t miss). The woman yells at the husband for spilling concealer, covering their exit with noise.

The two of them don’t get caught by the police often. But when they do, it usually hurts Violet.

Red-and-blue rotating lights in the rearview mirror mean being alone.

Mr. Silverman doesn’t ask anything of me.

He doesn’t need a false face. He doesn’t ask me to pretend so hard. I still pretend (force of habit), but it’s at a minimum with him. Erica only barely needs to be here. With just her smile and tone of voice, I can coast through a blissful hour or two, or however long the checkers match lasts. He just wants me to play. I play very well and with all my heart, because games are second nature to me. Games are my blood. I am a player for a living.

Mrs. Silverman dropped me off and left, saying she had to get something from the cleaners. I can relax even more. He moves a checker forward and throws his hands up.

“Two!”

“Two.” I smile, and his fingers snatch my board pieces. He’s on the verge of winning.

“My real dad, Sal . . .” I start. “He used to let me win at poker. Sometimes. But I never managed to beat him in an actual game. He liked challenging me, but he always somehow won. Still does. I’ll play him until he dies, and I bet you, he’ll win every game. Until I figure out his strategy. Then he’s toast.”

He moves his next piece, victory forefront on his mind. He practically dances in his seat. Crusted soup stains the front of his shirt. When he wins, he explodes, running to my seat and clutching me around the neck in his version of a hug. The nurse looks nervous, but I motion to her that it’s fine. I hug him back. He smells like anesthetic and the muted musk of sleep. As abruptly as the hug starts, he ends it and sits back down. He sweeps the board clean and rearranges the pieces for another game. I settle in and sip my bottled coffee as he works. He pours all his concentration into it.

“You were having problems controlling it before Erica vanished, weren’t you?”

He doesn’t acknowledge my question, but his hands twitch a little as he moves his first red piece.

“You must’ve been incredibly smart for it to corrupt you. You must’ve loved her a lot for her disappearance to change you so drastically. You went crazy imagining what was happening to her, and being unable to do anything about it. You thought of a hundred smarter ways the police could be doing things. But you were just a civilian. What could you do? What would they
let
you do?”

I play the game with him for a few minutes. He’s not so happy anymore. I’m winning. He finally glances up and spins a piece of mine in his fingers.

“Zoo. In
Robinson Crusoe
, there was a zoo. Pandas and a zoo.”

More than three words. He spoke more than three.

I keep my breathing even. “Zoo?” I lead.

He spins the piece faster and fumbles with it. He puts it back down, as if fearing it’ll slip from his grasp.

“What are you talking about, Dad?”

“I’ll get better when you come back.” He shakes his head, like a fly is buzzing around it. “When you really come home, I’ll get better.”

He means Erica. He’s been listening—he knows I’m not her.

“Dad—”

He cuts me off. “It’s your move.”

I move. I try to get him to talk more, but he presses his lips shut and only smiles when he wins for the second time. He carefully puts the game away. “I am the rat in the maze; you are the chameleon in the trees.”

I’m afraid. For that one second, I see the twinkle of consciousness in his eyes. I underestimated him—dismissed him as near comatose like everyone else. Mr. Silverman’s heard everything anyone’s ever said to him. He pats my shoulder like a regular person would and follows the nurse back to his room.

Finally, after sixteen years, I’ve met someone better than I am at pretending.

“Dad, wait!” I start after him. The nurse closes his door, but I see a slice of the room for a second. Unlike the white walls outside, Mr. Silverman’s room is covered in ink, pencil, Magic Marker. Numbers crowd his walls like swarming ants. The nurse shoots me a look.

“Can I help you?”

“Let me in Dad’s room. What’s all that writing on the walls?”

“He likes to scribble random numbers, I’m afraid. But if you want to go in, that’s up to him.”

“Dad!” I pound on the door. “Can I come in for a minute?”

“I’m busy.” He grunts.

My brain races. How can I play this and get in there? Those numbers looked too interesting to pass up.

“Dad, you didn’t even hug me good-bye,” I whimper.

There’s a silence. The door creaks open, and I push in. Mr. Silverman throws his arms around my neck and squeezes. I stand on my tiptoes to see over his shoulder. The room looks like a mathy Picasso gone wrong. Numbers stretch over the walls and nearly onto the ceiling. Every white space is used up. I take the numbers in as fast as I can—these aren’t random numbers. There’s
structure
in this mess. Eight or nine equations are repeated, interrupting each other, clashing, their answers melding. It’s advanced stuff far beyond my capability, but I can deduce, from his scribbled margin work, that he’s trying to find a common integer. No, more than one common integer. Exactly
eight
integers. But the long division is wrong.

It hits me as he pulls away and pats my head.

He already knows the integers. He’s working backward—making equations that equal separate numbers. There’s binary to hexadecimal conversion, and vice versa. The integers aren’t just numbers, but letters, too.

Somewhere in these equations is an eight-digit letter/number code.

The safe code.

It’s a long stretch. It could just be the ramblings of a former engineer’s addled mind. But it’s too coincidental. The nurse ushers me out of the hospital as Mrs. Silverman pulls up to the curb. I have to come back. I need to write these equations down without drawing suspicion to myself . . . somehow.

When I get to the car, I see a dress bag in the backseat. I quirk an eyebrow.

“Is that yours?”

She smiles. “No. Yours.”

“What?” I watch her unzip it—blue silk glows up at me.

“Try it on when we get home, okay? I had it tailored, but your measurements might’ve changed.”

“Oh my God. Is that what I think it is? A prom dress?”

She ushers me into the passenger side and laughs. “Home first.”

I can barely contain myself. That was the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen, and I’d only seen four inches of it. I dart up the stairs with the dress bag over my arm, my Converses pounding on the stairs.

“Ah, Erica! There’s a friend of yours waiting in the living room.”

I only faintly hear Marie’s words. I peel my shirt off and wiggle out of my jeans. The dress’s skirt is short in the front and long in the back. There are no ruffles, but it’s strapless and tight around my chest. Perfect fit. It feels heavenly against my skin. The zipper’s in the back.

“Marie!” I call, and start down the stairs. It’s easy to move in with bare feet, but high heels will be another matter. I dash into the kitchen, and Marie sweeps over.

“Oh, what is that gorgeous thing?”

“Prom dress.” I smile, breathless. “Zipper’s in the back. Ah!” My hand slips holding up the right side, cold air hitting my exposed skin, and I blush and grasp for it. Marie clucks her tongue.

“Patience, patience! I’ll zip it in a moment.”

The front door opens, and Mrs. Silverman trails in bearing more tailored suits of hers. She sees us and laughs.

“You look lovely, dear.” From across the kitchen, her head tilts to look into the living room. “Oh, hello there. Marie, who’s the visitor?”

I look into the living room for the first time. Wild, longish blond hair grows tall as the person stands and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Uh, hi, Mrs. Silverman. I’m James.”

I freeze and look over my shoulder at Marie, panic running claws down my throat. “You didn’t tell me he was here!”

“I did. You weren’t listening.” She sighs.

“Erica, greet your guest,” Mrs. Silverman leads. “It’s rude to leave someone waiting.”

I nod and regret stripping so quickly—my hair is wild. I walk slowly into the living room, leaving Mrs. Silverman and Marie in the kitchen.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” His face is carefully kept blank. I pray to whatever God watches over liars and thieves like me that he didn’t see anything.

“Sorry. I was really excited.” I motion to the dress. “It’s the first time I’ve ever worn something like this. It’s incredible. Like Cinderella.”

“Belle,” he corrects. “You look more like her.”

“Except I’m not French.”

“To be fair, everyone in the Disney version spoke Midwestern American English. Except the candlestick.”

He smirks. I smile. He shuffles. I shuffle, but in the dress I can disguise it easier.

“So . . .” I start.

“I—” he blurts.

I wave my hand. “You first.”

“No, you go ahead. Nothing I have to say is very important.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. About roughly ten percent of the things you say are interesting.”

“Just ten? I’m wounded.” He clutches his chest.

“I’ll settle for twelve if you tell me why you decided to pay a house visit.”

“Right. House visit. You can say no if you want; it’s up to you. I won’t get offended or anything. I’ll probably crawl in a corner and question everything I’ve done in my life up until now, but it’ll be fine.”

I laugh, and he seems to get braver at the sound.

“Friday night they have these deals at this pizza place downtown. I’m a cheap-ass, so I usually go alone and get some, but I was . . . wonderingifyou’dcomewithme?” He winces and says the last part so fast, I have to concentrate to understand it.

“This Friday?”

He nods.

I smile. “I think I can do that.”

“You will?” His mouth opens a little, but he shuts it. “You will. All right, I’ll come pick you up—”

“I’ll meet you there. Give me the address.”

I’m busy typing the address into my phone when I hear the faint sound of a piano. I glance up—James is standing at the grand piano by the fireplace, hesitantly playing with one of the keys. His fingers are long and graceful.

“You can play it if you like,” I offer.

He starts. “I was just looking—”

“All this talk of you being Beethoven from Taylor, but I have yet to hear a single song from you.”

“Your mom’s okay with me playing it?”

“Are you kidding? No one touches this dusty thing. She’d love for it to get some exercise.”

James slides into the seat, and I lean on the piano’s back, watching him over the music stand. He falls into the music so quickly and easily—hands dancing over the keys. I don’t know what he’s playing, but it’s beautiful. The notes whisper at first, then begin to sing louder. Sometimes he makes them shout; sometimes it sounds like they’re mewling in pain. The piano is talking. Telling a story. I’m no critic, but I can tell James does something special with the music. To him, it’s not just music. I see that in his face—set and serious, but at the same time, completely free of self-deprecation and doubt.

Mrs. Silverman leans in the doorway, watching us. James finishes, the last chord reverberating mournfully. She and I clap, and he stands suddenly.

“Mrs. Silverman, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” She flashes her best people-smile, a golden thing. “You play beautifully.”

“Thank you.”

“Your father is that composer fellow, right? I remember hearing the Anders name thrown around at an opera I went to this winter.”

His nod this time is curt. Mrs. Silverman picks up on it too, because she changes the subject.

“Regardless, your talent stands on its own. You have a pleasant style. Very emotional and crisp.”

“Thank you.”

“And Erica looked like a lounge singer, standing at the end of the piano in that dress.” Mrs. Silverman smiles.

I flip my hair and make a sultry face. “Marilyn Monroe?”

“Or that woman from
Chicago
.” She laughs. “I’ll leave you to it then. It was nice meeting you, James.”

“You too.” He smiles.

I wait until she’s upstairs to pat his shoulder. “Seriously. You’re not half bad.”

His smile turns wry. “You’re so stingy with the compliments.”

“You’re a pretty big deal. I read about you. On the Internet.”

I don’t say I know he failed his debut. I don’t say I know he’s more or less a disgraced prodigy. The clock in the hall ticks through our silence. He finally blinks and puts his hand over his face.

“That’s it, I guess. My secret’s out. All my cool points out the window.”

“You’re still cool in my eyes. Even cooler than before,” I assure him. “Cool doesn’t even matter. You’re just you. And you’re a good person. Going through that sort of thing, with the media and your parents, who I’m sure are hard-asses—”

“That’s putting it lightly,” he scoffs.

“It’s nice to know I’m not the only one going through hell,” I finish. “I shouldn’t be so dramatic. It’s not hell, not really. But sometimes it feels like it.”

“I know” is all he says. Two words. He doesn’t have to say anything more. It hangs there, a comforting string tying us together. He inhales. “I always thought the real Erica would be different.”

“Oh really?” I fold my arms over my chest.

He backpedals. “Not in a bad way. You’re fine. You’re great. Better than great—fantastic.” A beat. “Forget I said that.”

“Already filed away under ‘endearing mistakes.’” I smirk.

“The fake ones were always too happy. Everyone could sort of tell they were fakes, but no one wanted to believe that, you know? They wanted you to be back, the big mystery of the town solved and wrapped up in a neat package.”

My phone buzzes with a text message at the worst time.

I roll my eyes. “Taylor.”

“She likes you.”

“Taylor doesn’t like anyone,” I say with a snort.

“She’s mean, but she’s not a bad person.” He traces the piano’s keys. “She’s the most purehearted person I know. Burns with only one thing—her desires. No lies, no scheming. She tells it like it is, even if you hate her for it.”

“That’s the perfect way to describe her.” I laugh. “You’re a lot better at this ‘people’ thing than I am.”

“Don’t be modest. Every girl in the school wants to be your friend, and every boy wants your number.”

“That number I gave you is worth a lot on eBay, I bet.”