Pretending to Be Erica (18 page)

“There we have it.” Taylor smiles and claps me on the back.

“This is childish, Tay.”

“We’re legally children, dork. For one more year, anyway.” She slings an arm around my neck. “Look at it this way—you go out with Beethoven, or I’ll spill your secret to the whole school. How does that sound?”

“You wouldn’t.” I glare at her.

“Oh, I would. If it meant getting you two together.” She smiles and glances behind me. “Speak of the devil.”

Applause ricochets around the room as James walks up to the piano. He’s in a black shirt; he gives little bows to the crowd. The announcer says something about his dad and piano teacher, and they stand and wave too. There are other nervous kids waiting their turns to perform after him. James’s mouth crimps, his hands clench and unclench. He hates this pomp and ceremony. He hates this. Why? Why does he keep going up there to perform for these people?

We lock eyes. Taylor snickers, but I barely hear it. It’s just me and him now. My eyes and his. That kind face I thought was so forgettable at first has now become unforgettable. I can’t tell if he’s angry at me for how I acted at the pizza place, how I’ve ignored him, how I’ve put off making my own decision about him. I can’t read his face. And I’m Violet. I can read every face.

He breaks the moment and sits at the piano. A hush falls over the dining room. He cracks his knuckles, nods to himself, and starts playing. With barely the first minute of haunting music out, Taylor gets up and leaves. Retreats. She looks back once, giving me a tiny smile. Leans on the doorway and watches James from there. Michael’s face has changed from smug satisfaction to abject terror, only getting fiercer the longer James plays. His friends at our table whisper to him.

“What is he playing, Mike?”

“This certainly doesn’t sound like Beethoven.”

The music started off calm enough, but now it’s a complicated, seemingly off-key-sounding medley. Despair. All I can hear in it is two needs clashing—order and chaos. Neat clean expectations and rampant fetid desires. Michael’s face is white.

“Prokofiev’s eighth sonata. B-flat. We’ve never practiced this. He’s not ready for this.”

“Sounds ready to me,” I murmur.

The music is so strange, stranger than any piano music I’ve heard before. I can tell from Michael’s face that it’s not an easy piece to play. The notes are lilting and quiet, like the voice of a tiny girl, and in another second, they boom, a full-grown man yelling into a canyon. And then the notes break my heart—two chords that sound so timid, tiny, unsure of themselves. James runs his fingers up the keys, two flesh spiders dancing.

James’s piano teacher leans over to Michael. “I had no idea he decided on Prokofiev. Isn’t that the same piece you played for your Julliard application?”

“He’s not ready for this,” Michael hisses.

The teacher pats his back. “What’s wrong, Mike? You should be proud. He’s doing a damn good job.”

James’s playing acidic, intense chords, but his face remains calm. I watch Michael’s. I see it then—fear. Michael’s afraid. He’s controlled James all his life through piano. He’s related to James through piano. It’s a means for them to communicate, for Michael to teach and guide. He did it because he’s a piano genius who maybe doesn’t know how to relate to people, let alone his child, otherwise. It’s all he knows. James playing an obviously complicated piece like this shows he doesn’t need guidance anymore. That maybe the time for student and mentor has left, and the time for father and son has arrived. Michael has to let go of James, and that thought terrifies him.

I’d tried to let go of James. Taylor made sure it didn’t work.

The music trills out; James gently rolls his fingers across the keys and lets the sound drip into silence. The crowd’s applause is a storm, getting louder as James stands, grabs the sheet music, and takes a bow. He’s smiling now. He stands taller now. A weight is gone. James waits for the applause to die before looking at his father.

“I’m quitting piano, Dad.”

It’s four words. Four tiny words that make Michael go still. They hang in the huge silence of the dining room. No one moves. One voice dares to ring—Taylor.

“Man, you people are so melodramatic.”

I look back just in time to see her pull the fire alarm on the wall. The high siren whines. The sprinklers flood the air with cones of water, drenching tablecloths, weighing down bouquets of flowers, and making shirts translucent and screams erupt from startled mouths. People rush out of the dining room in panic. The waiting pianists throw a tablecloth over the piano, shriek, and duck backstage. I cover my head with my jacket—futile. The water soaks it in seconds. Michael continues to stand still for a moment, the water waking him from his shell shock. James watches him leave, the sodden sheet of music in his hand dripping on the floor. He shakes his hair—stringy around his face—and laughs.

“Oy, Beethoven!”

Taylor. Her dark hair plasters to her forehead as she grabs a cupcake from someone’s plate and lobs it at James. He ducks, but the frosting grazes his cheek. A laugh bursts from me just as I feel something wet hit the top of my head—another cupcake.

“Taylor! You asshole!”

Taylor snickers and ducks a half-eaten sandwich. James stands by my side and eases his arm down from its throw as he looks at me.

“What’s a smart girl like you doing here?”

I pull the cupcake from my hair and smack it against his cheek. “Being really, really dumb.”

He grins, frosting indenting his smile lines. “Oh, you’re so dead for that. Or frosted. Whichever you prefer.”

“Dead is permanent. Frosting is sweet. Not much of a choice.”

James grabs my hand. I feel so hot and cold all at the same time. I pull away.

“You’re not mad,” I say.

“No.” His smile just gets bigger.

“I’m sorry. About everything. You’re really not mad?”

“I was. Then I got over it.”

My heart spasms. “You can’t like me.”

“Too late.”

Before, exposure to the friends and family weakened Erica and made Violet strong. Now, my two sides are in agreement. The scale is in a perfect still balance. We both want to kiss him. He’s close, chest almost touching mine. The sprinklers stop, the sirens die. Water drips off the end of his nose and eyelashes. I stand on my toes and he wraps an arm around me, heat radiating from under his wet shirt. Pulls me close. We can’t get any closer. His lips are intimidating. Violet has no idea what to do with them. Erica is equally inexperienced, and she’s on the edge of losing it. So much stimulation, so much skin and longing in his gaze. Violet smirks and licks frosting off his cheek instead.

“It’s sweet.” She tries to pull away and make a joke, but the arm tightens around her back, crushing her into him. It’s soft and insistent, hesitant and burning at the same time.

Every thought in my head is obliterated by a nuclear fire spreading from my heart. My lips tingle where his touch. He pulls away, gasping to breathe.

“Wanted to do that for a long time. That’s all I wanted. You can go back to ignoring me, now.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No running away anymore.”

“Who were you running from?” He tilts his head. “Me? I
am
pretty scary—”

I say one word. “Erica.”

He goes quiet. I slip my hand in his and squeeze. Taylor wolf whistles when we come out of the dining room. Security has her against a wall, questioning her.

“She didn’t do anything, officers,” James insists. They open their mouths to answer when Taylor waves us off.

“My dad will be here soon. Don’t worry. Taylor Mansfield doesn’t get criminal charges. I’ll see you two on Monday. Sorry, Fakey. Sleepover postponed. We’ll reschedule.”

“Thank you—”

“Don’t thank me. It was the coin. Lady Luck, or whatever.” She laughs. I turn it over in my hand as James and I walk away, the metal smooth.

“What was she talking about?” he asks.

I flip the coin over. Both sides are identical. Both sides are heads. She used a double-sided coin guaranteed to give me heads. She knew full well it would land on the go-out side. She’s a conniving bitch. But then again, so am I.

“I have no idea.” Erica leans in to James’s shoulder and kisses him on his frosting-covered cheek.

This is her first boyfriend. Her last boyfriend, the boyfriend who never was and never will be. She memorizes the taste, the feel of his skin under her lips, and hopes they will follow her into death.

Sal slides a bowl of Cheerios over to seven-year-old Violet. The girl puts her pigtails over her shoulders so she won’t drip them into the milk. Sal settles at the table, lights a cigarette, and watches his daughter eat.

“Vi?”

The little girl doesn’t look up. Sal knows she’s listening by the way her eyes flicker.

“When I adopted you, you said you wanted to be like me. Why do you want to be like me, Vi? I’m not a nice person.”

“I want to be with you,” Violet murmurs.

“Why do you want to be with me?”

“Because I don’t wanna be alone.”

Sometimes Sal leaves on “business trips.” He leaves Violet with a man and woman who live in a nice condo with nice dogs and nice art. Sal says they’re “fences,” but Violet is confused because they are people, not wood planks painted white and surrounding a yard.

She likes them fine. They feed her, but they don’t look at her.

Violet puts on lipstick in the mirror. She adjusts the cropped black T-shirt and tiny skirt she’s wearing. Pulls it up higher. She’s done this scam with Sal a hundred times before. He just needs to pick an honest John. Everything goes smoothly with an honest John. She pulls her black hoodie around her. It’s November. Too cold to stand on a curb and pretend to be a hooker without a jacket.

Sal walks in from the bathroom; he’s wearing a tracksuit. “You ready, Vi?”

“Always.”

He watches her and pats her head. “We’re closer. You know that, right? Every year, we get closer to the big one. Two years, three years from now, I’ll be on some beach and you’ll be traveling the world with your big brains and your big beauty. You’ll conquer hearts and minds, sweets. Hearts and minds.”

“Yeah.” Her lips are blood-red crescents.

“It’s just us. Just a little more. Just us against the world.”

It’s always them against the world.

He pulls the door open and leaves. Violet sits on the bed and waits for his phone call to start the sting. She listens to the ambulances wail outside, watches the wallpaper grow ever more brown and molded, and scratches absently at her skin—a mosquito bite, a sore, something pressing through that her nails try to free.

The desert of Nevada is hot, dry, and empty. Violet watches the sky the most. Reading in the car makes her sick. She spends the hours watching time paint the sky. It’s blue in the day—blue skies, blue reflections off the hot sand, blue cars and signs. At sunset it is a burning fire-red scarlet.

There is a moment when the two times meet—dusk. Blue and red meld together into a last soft lavender that deepens as night encroaches. The lavender turns to periwinkle, periwinkle to a sable purple with an opal moon pendant. And finally, just before darkness consumes the world, there is violet.

Sal took me to the salon once or twice, when I needed a fancy hairdo as a disguise for a con, but those had been penny places—cheap perfume clouding the air and tacky neon signs in the windows. Mrs. Silverman’s salon is on the fortieth floor of a building downtown, with glass windows the size of walls, and leather couches and air smelling like exotic flowers. They give you aprons and free coffee and tea and pastries. I stuff a cherry Danish into my mouth. Mrs. Silverman sighs.

“Erica, please. Small bites.”

I swallow. “Sorry. They just look like something out of a magazine. This whole place does.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Mrs. Silverman settles onto the couch, coffee in hand. “I’ll be getting a trim. I signed you up for the complete package. I want you glowing when you go off to prom.”

“Complete package?” My voice pitches up nervously. “Like, the whole hot-wax-razor-blades-general-instruments-of-torture package?”

“Beauty is pain. But mostly it’s beautiful,” she singsongs, and flips through a magazine. They call my name, and Mrs. Silverman flashes a smile. “Good luck.”

I follow the impossibly chic-looking lady. She washes my hair and trims the dead ends. The next lady gives me a manicure and pedicure that goes terribly wrong with my ticklish feet—I laugh and nearly kick her in the face. The next woman leads me to a private room with a table.

“Uh, what’s this for?” I ask.

“Bikini wax, as ordered.” She smiles.

“Are you kidding me?” I leap off the table.

“Ms. Silverman, please. Lie down.”

“Aren’t you going to give me painkillers at least? Morphine?”

“Please, lie down.”

“Booze?”

She wordlessly starts the hot wax pot.

“Do I have to take my underwear off?”

I see her do a tiny eye roll, but her smile covers it. “That would be nice. Please relax. It will go by faster that way.”

I flinch as the hot wax slathers on. “I’m not even going to have sex there, you know. It’s just prom. I’m just going to dance.”

“You never know. Best to be prepared for everything.” Her smile gets sweeter just as she rips the cloth away.

“Jesus fucking—!” I scream.

“Is that your phone ringing?” the woman asks lightly as she applies more wax. I ignore the throbbing. I motion to my bag, and she hands me my cell.

“H-hello?”

“Sup?”

Taylor.

“What’s wrong? You sound like you’re crying.”

“I’m at the—fuck!—salon.”

“Are they torturing you?”

“Wax,” I murmur. “Holy shit! Can you go a little slower?” I ask the woman.

She nods. “If you’d like. But it’ll only prolong the pain.”

I groan and lean my head back.

Taylor laughs. “You’re really going all out for this prom crap, aren’t you?”

“You’re coming, right?”

“Why? So I can make fun of your bimbo friends and stuff my face? Sorry, but that’s pretty much every day for me. Prom isn’t anything special.”

“What were you going to do instead?”

“Go to Riddler again. Get trashed.”

I bite my lip. I don’t want her to go there without me. She might get into serious trouble.

“Come with us to prom,” I say. “Cass doesn’t really mind you. Merril will be okay if I talk her through it.”

“And what do I for a date? Boys generally stay away from bitches like me.”

“You don’t need a date. Just come with James and me. It’ll be fun with the three of us.”

There’s a beat on her end.

“Damn it, I have to buy a dress now, don’t I?”

“Something black.” I smirk.

“I’m fucking tired of black.”

Marie’s face looks anxious when we come home. “Erica, there’s someone in the kitchen for you. A friend.”

My heart leaps, but then I realize she doesn’t name James. It’s not him. Who, then? Mrs. Silverman shoots me a questioning look but tactfully stays out of the kitchen to give me privacy. There, sitting at the island, is a broad-shouldered, dark-haired boy. Kerwin.

“What are you doing here?” I sniff.

He turns on the stool and smirks. “Erica. You look fresh and primped.”

“Just got back from the salon. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I heard you and James started going out. What do you see in him, by the way? Just a friendly inquiry.”

“Nothing about you is friendly, Kerwin. Why are you here?”

“That’s a complicated question. It mostly has to do with what you’re hiding.”

My hands tighten into fists. “What am I hiding? Please, tell me.”

“You’re not Erica.” His eyes are voracious, his smile never faltering.

“I’ve had three people say that to me since I’ve been back. And dozens more imply it. So if you think that’s going to scare me—”

“I brought some flowers for you.”

He produces a bouquet he’s been holding behind his back, a spray of deep purple blossoms with thin petals. Violets. I stare at them, trying to interpret the possibilities. No such thing as a coincidence. He knows my real name is Violet.

Kerwin stands and stretches leisurely. He goes into the hall and leaves through the front door without a word.

Marie peeks in from the living room. “Flowers? Do you have another admirer besides James?”

Mrs. Silverman laughs as she enters the kitchen. “Another boy? Goodness. I knew she’d be a heartbreaker, but not so many so quickly.” A pause. “Erica? Is something wrong?”

I look up and smile. “No. I just don’t think he’s my type.”

I talk through dinner about the weather or Marie’s grandson or Mrs. Silverman’s new haircut, but between the clanging of forks, my mind is doing laps around itself. He knows my name. I know he’s up to no good. How did he find it out? Does he have contacts? No one is supposed to know my real name. Sal made sure of that. No friends. No acquaintances. If I met anyone, it was always under a pseudonym. If we went anywhere, Sal called me by something else. My real name was used by Sal only, and in private.

Sal.

He’s the only one who knows my name is Violet.

They say what’s most obvious is the truth. The most obvious explanation is that Kerwin knows Sal. Kerwin hasn’t tried to lob evidence against me like Mr. White has. He came to my house and told me he knows my name for some reason. There is no such thing as coincidence. If he’s Sal’s friend, in any form, then he’s stationed at the school because of me.

To watch me.

But why? Sal wouldn’t do that to me. He trusts me, right? He’s sent watchdogs after other con men; I’ve seen him do it. But not me. Never me. He said he trusted me, that it was us against the world. He never once sent someone to tail me when I was pulling off cons. Why now?

Because this con means everything, that’s why. I quash the little voice in my head. I’d been raised to do this, and Sal still didn’t trust me enough to let me pull it off. Kerwin’s been following me, has tried to date me to get closer to me, and went out with Merril when he couldn’t go out with me. Merril is close to me. He’s close to her. He used her as an excuse.

Someone told Kerwin to get as close to me as possible. To watch me as closely as possible.

Sal
.

If Kerwin is working for Sal, giving me these flowers is undoubtedly an order from Sal. Kerwin wouldn’t give me them on his own. Why would he? Revealing that he knew my name holds no advantage for him. The flower is a message from Sal. An I’m-behind-you-all-the-way message. A you’re-doing-great-you’re-almost-there message.

Why is Kerwin working for Sal? If Sal hired a young kid to enroll in this school too, planted him here before I came, then that kid must be desperate for money. But Kerwin’s been subtle and sharp. He’s no off-the-streets informant. I hadn’t noticed him following me until he told me himself, and I notice everyone, especially if they’re following me. Kerwin hides himself better than Mr. White does. He knows what he’s doing. This kind of subtlety is a pro’s work. I’d only seen it among guys of Sal’s caliber, and after years of training. Lifetimes.

Sal . . . ? No. That’s impossible. Sal was with me my whole childhood. The little niggling worm-whisper in my mind can’t be right. Kerwin is not like me. Sal did not raise Kerwin; he had no time. Sal was with me practically every day. But that’s not all true—he would take “business trips,” leave me to be watched by his friends for weeks on end, but I never thought much about it.

He was with Kerwin
.

No, that’s impossible.

Highly trained con artists raised from a young age to be perfect criminals. It’s not true, but if it were, how many more kids are there like us? More puppets for Sal to pull the strings of? How many more have come before us and are being groomed to come after us?

Sal is greedy. Always has been. Settling for just one—just Violet—isn’t his style. He’s had his fingers in every pie at all times, even if the pie’s innards scorch his skin. Just the faint possibility that I’m not the only “Sal kid” makes me want to puke my broccoli all over the table. I clutch at the tablecloth and smile when Mrs. Silverman asks if I want dessert.

“Sure.”

I can barely keep the flan down. I make an excuse about homework and go upstairs. Turn my stereo on, the music blaring loudly. Vomit everything into the toilet until my stomach is a shriveled ember. Even with the music all the way up, Mrs. Silverman knows something’s wrong. She knocks. I wipe my mouth and open the door.

“Are you all right? Or is this one of those times I should leave you alone?”

Her face is so sincere. More sincere than I could ever fake. I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous. About prom. James. Everything.”

We’re quiet. The loud music grates on me. I reach for the remote and turn it off.

“Come with me.” Mrs. Silverman takes my hand. “I want to show you something.”

She leads me into the library, and over to the shelf.
The
shelf. She turns to the wall by it and pushes down on a section. It pops open, the wallpaper lifting to reveal a button. She pushes it, and the bookshelf shifts slowly to the side, leaving a safe built into the wall.

“I know what you must be thinking: James Bond much?” She smiles. “But your father wanted it. He wanted it to open by pulling out certain books, but even I wouldn’t agree to something that ridiculous.”

“What’s in the safe?” I ask. I know exactly what’s in the safe. The fact she’s showing it to me has my heart beating and my mouth dry. Does she trust me now? Is she showing it to test me?

“It’s just some old painting. It’s not worth much, but someday it might be, so your father and I decided to keep it in a secure place. We wanted it to be yours. When we’re gone and you’re grown with children of your own, it’ll be a good investment.”

I watch her fingers dance on the keypad of the safe:
2p6pm3ch
. I was right. I guessed right, but the surge of pride I feel is sour and heavy. The safe door swings open, and she slides out the painting, framed in old wood and shrouded by a glass case.

I’d seen the image on the Internet. I’d stared at it sometimes, wondering how such a simple painting could be worth so much. But now I get it. Staring at it in real life, seeing every brushstroke, I finally feel the emotion behind it. Or maybe I’m a different person now, one who can appreciate it. Under a twilight-blush sky sit three people on a bench—a court musician with a ruffled collar and a lute, and a couple. The musician is staring at the couple, hand still poised over the lute as if he’s paused to look at them. I can almost hear the final chords of his music petering out into the garden air. The couple kisses, the man drawing the woman into his arms, and the woman presses against him, all balance lost, his arms the only thing holding her up. They’re ignoring the musician—ignoring everything around them save for each other and the sudden passion between their lips. A little dog studies the musician in turn, looking lost, or maybe he’s pitying the musician and his lack of love.

“Funny, isn’t it? Looking at it always makes me indescribably happy.” Mrs. Silverman sighs.

“It’s sad.”

“But they’re kissing! And look at the funny dog!” she protests.

“Yeah.” I nod. “But there’s a whole world around them, and they’re forgetting it.”

“It’s romantic.”

“It feels sad to me. Is their love the only good thing in their lives? Is that why they’re throwing themselves at each other so desperately? Maybe they know they don’t have long to be together. And the musician—you can see it in his face. He’s wondering why he’s never had that kind of love. But it’s more than that. It’s like he knows he’ll never have it. Like he’s resigned himself to playing romantic music for every other couple in the world, and never for himself.”

Mrs. Silverman watches my face, then the painting. She finally smiles.

“I’m glad it moves you so.” She returns the painting to the safe and closes the door. She presses the wall button again, and the bookshelf slides back into place.