Pretending to Be Erica (4 page)

Smile a lot; be pleasant. This friend thing doesn’t seem so hard. It’s like conning, but without the lure of scoring money. The bell rings. Merril offers me her hand. I take it and stand.

“Your first period is Roth, right? Let’s go.”

Merril leads me through the crowd, all of us in the same uniforms of plaid and blazers. Paintings line the main hall, and polished wood floors gleam. Everyone in the world says hi to Merril, and she slings some intimate inside joke back to each of them. She’s obviously popular. I fight the urge to smile at people. The real me—Violet—burns to talk to someone. Being in a huge crowd of people my age lights up every nerve. But I’m Sal’s protégé down to the subconscious bone. I keep my eyes from meeting anyone’s gaze—the more evasive and mysterious I am, the more damaged I’ll seem. Erica is damaged.

Merril pulls me into Mr. Roth’s class. He nods. “Good morning, Erica. Hello, Merril.”

“Mr. Roth, can’t Erica sit by me?” Merril pouts. “Taylor can switch into her seat, right?”

“Maybe if you get on your knees and beg my permission, popular, I’ll think about it.” The voice comes from the black-haired glaring girl slumped in her seat. Her eyeliner is even thicker today. She puts her feet up on the empty chair in front of her. So her name’s Taylor. Merril smiles sweetly.

“It’s not like I’m asking you to jump off a cliff, Taylor. But if you’d do that, too, I’m sure everyone would appreciate it.”

“There’ll be no need for that kind of animosity.” Mr. Roth clears his throat. “Taylor will remain where she is. Erica, please sit in the seat I assigned you.”

Merril shoots me an apologetic look. Mr. Roth goes over matrices, and boredom numbs my brain. I finish the sheet he assigns for homework in five minutes, but stow it away to turn in tomorrow with everyone else. James Anders, the blond boy next to me, sleeps through the whole class, but the worksheet under his head is half-finished with right answers. He obviously got bored like I did, and gave up.

Second rule of conning: set up contacts. Merril is the first of my information pipelines. She’s one of the most popular juniors in the school, with friends in all grades. If I maintain my friendship with her, I’ll know about everyone and everything.

“Taylor is the daughter of a lawyer, so she acts superior all the time.” Merril sips her soda. “The kid you sit next to—James Anders. His dad’s a concert pianist or something. Totally a lazy slacker. He sleeps in every class and lies to get out of PE.”

“He seemed nice.” I pick at my salad. Erica is skinny. Violet, on the other hand, wants beef. I try to imagine the salad as a massive cheeseburger. Merril sniffs.

“Not worth your attention, trust me. Now, Kerwin over there.” She nods to a group at a table, where a dark-haired boy sits surrounded by friends. Instantly, I can tell he’s the one she’s talking about—too handsome to look at without getting blinded. “British transfer student. Well, technically Wales, but whatever. Captain of the varsity soccer team, takes all AP classes, and did I mention he’s hot as hell?”

“You didn’t have to say it; it’s obviously one of those facts of life.” My eyes flicker away, looking for James. Does he eat in the cafeteria? His skinny frame makes me think he doesn’t eat at all.

A girl with a very noticeable chest walks up to our table, smiling. “Erica, is it really you?”

Brown hair, round face, about 5'5". My mind flicks back to the dossier Sal gave me. This must be Cassie. My eyes light up. “Cass?”

“Oh my God! You really remember me!” She hugs me with all the contained excitement of a hamster on crack, talking at relatively the same speed. “I told Merril you’d remember us. Oh my God, it’s been
so
long. When you went missing, we held tons of vigils for you and stuff. By middle school we definitely thought you were—” She stops herself. “Uh, well. Gone. For good. Is that insensitive? And then those other girls—Oh, who cares, you’re here now, and that’s all that freaking matters!” She hugs me again. “Let’s go places, do things. We
have
to catch up.”

“Definitely.” I smile. “What did you have in mind?”

“Maybe a dip in that huge pool of yours? Your mom kept the pool, right?” She giggles and looks to Merril. “Text her my number.”

Merril gives her a thumbs-up and gets on it.

“So . . .” I start. “A boyfriend in college?”

Cass’s eyes widen at Merril. “You slut, I told you not to say anything.”

“Sorry! It just came out,” Merril defends, typing on her phone rapidly without looking at it. She doesn’t seem to take offense at the
slut
. It must be some sort of endearment, but I can’t see how calling someone a slut would be endearing, ever. To be safe, I won’t use the term at all, even to blend in.

Cass gets over her momentary anger. “But seriously, who wants to talk about boyfriends when you went through all that? Were they nice to you and everything? How did you find out?”

I go quiet. Merril looks like she wants to say something.

Cass bites her lip. “Sorry, didn’t mean to bring up anything you don’t want to talk about.”

“It’s fine,” I assure her. “It’s just hard, you know?”

She hugs me again. It feels strange. I’ve never been hugged this much in my life. “I bet your mom’s all over you. Did you visit your dad yet? I heard he’s in a hospital or something.”

“Yeah, mental health place. We’ve been visiting him since I got back.”

“That’s good.” She nods. “Well, listen, I gotta get back to lunch, but Merril’s giving you my number, so you two call me when you wanna do something.”

“Sure.” I smile, and she brushes a lock of hair behind my ear.

“You’re so pretty, Erica. I knew you’d be pretty, but honestly I didn’t think you’d be this gorgeous.”

I laugh shyly, and she trots back to her table. Merril exhales.

“She’s way too hyper.”

“Hasn’t she always been?” I murmur.

Merril shakes her head “In middle school she was super quiet. It’s when she got that huge rack that everybody started paying attention to her and she got all chatty.”

I cover for my mistake by taunting her. “Jealous, are we?”

“Of course. I’ll never have her chest unless I plastic it.” She motions to her rather flat blazer.

“You’re cute anyway,” I compliment, and she flushes and punches my shoulder.

“Oh, be quiet.”

After school I swing my legs on the front lawn’s bench. Mrs. Silverman will be right on time, like always. She’s hyper-aware of time; she always gets here exactly three minutes after the bell. Thirty seconds of those minutes were all it took. Thirty seconds stole her kid from her. I know why she’s so bent on punctuality, but it’s pointless—there are too many reporters watching for me to ever get snatched again. They cling to the fence, around the fence, snap my picture and shout questions.

Two people are behind the main building, wearing plastic gloves and carrying tongs. They pick up litter, throwing it in the trash bags they carry. The girl has long dark hair, the boy wavy blond. I move to a closer bench so I can hear them.

“You never talk to anyone else, Beethoven. So why the sudden yammering with the new girl?” Taylor’s voice. My eyes widen.

James sighs and rubs his brow on his arm. “None of your business, Gotherella.”

“Don’t you watch the news? Goths died out years ago,” she snaps back.

“So did Beethoven.” He grunts.

Taylor’s eyes shift over to me, and her smile grows. “Fake Erica! Sup?”

James straightens.

I slink around the corner and don’t bother to correct her. “Believe what you want, Taylor.”

“I will, thanks. Should’ve said something deep, Beethoven. Impressed her.” Taylor cackles. She fishes a pack of smokes from her pocket and lights one, squatting behind a bush. Her skirt rides up, panties clearly visible, and James nearly drops his tongs. He covers his eyes with them.

“Show some decency, woman!” His face is bright red.

Taylor cackles again and wiggles her fingers at him. “Don’t get too close, virgin. You might actually see something you like.”

“You guys obviously know each other . . .” I start.

James sighs. “She’s the only person who gets as much detention as I do.”

“What can I say?” Taylor blows smoke. “Teachers are jealous of my good looks and endless talent. And youth. They love that youth shit. It’s why they teach in the first place.” Her voice gets a Dracula accent to it. “They vant to suck my youth.”

“Or immaturity, in your case.” James grunts again and puts a soda can in the trash bin.

Taylor takes a heavy drag. “You’re especially prissy today, Beethoven. Is it that time of month?”

I nearly laugh, but the flash of a camera stops me. The school fence is close to my right, and the reporters have flanked it, their eager faces behind the chain links.

“Erica! Erica, just a few questions—”

“Any comments on what you remember from the kidnapping?”

“Why aren’t you and your mother pressing your lawyers and the police harder to find your kidnappers?”

There are just a few of them, but they come with cameramen and sound people. Violet, the real me, is very comfortable with these sorts of people. These sorts of shouts and lights. Erica isn’t. I flinch at another bright camera flash and fake a stutter.

“I really d-don’t—”

Before I get a full sentence out, a pair of tongs violently collides with the fence, narrowly missing the fingers of a reporter. They jump away. Taylor’s on her feet, arm extended in the end of a throw.

“Buzz off, fuckers.”

“Who are you? Are you a friend?” A reporter starts forward again.

“Erica, are you adjusting well to your school?”

“Your kidnappers have all but gotten away. How do you feel about that?”

Taylor lunges at the fence, bringing her leg up and kicking with trained expertise—karate, maybe.

“I said leave us the fuck alone!” A reporter whistles at her lifted skirt. She flips him off and glances at James. “Back me up here, sissy boy, will ya?”

James lets out a sigh bordering on a growl. He stretches to his full height—an intimidating six feet, at least, and runs the tongs along the fence in a languid pattern.

“Don’t you guys have anything better to do than bug high schoolers? This is a private school. You know what that means, right? The parents of the kids are usually well off. Let’s not forget that Erica here”—he puts a hand on my shoulder; it’s warm—“has a mother who’s
very
high up there. Her lawyers are pretty fancy too. What would they do to your penny presses if she, oh, I don’t know, suffered
mental distress
because of your pestering?”

Some of the reporters back off. Others look unsure. They still hang at the fence, but their questions are quieter. At the gate I see Mrs. Silverman’s BMW pull up to the curb. I breathe a sigh of relief. Taylor spits one last time at the reporters and stubs out her cig, waving me away.

“See you later, Fake Girl.”

James nods. “Later.”

I start to walk away when something compels me to stop. I look back.

“Thanks. Both of you.” I’m not sure why Taylor defended me. My con artist’s instincts hone in on a reason—she’s the sort of person who believes in the right thing to do. Even if she suspects me, she feels like no one should have to go through badgering like this. She’s probably gone through it herself. Same with James.

“Thank me for what? Being myself? If you like it so much, pay me.” Taylor snorts.

“She’s got a point. I could use some pocket change,” James ponders aloud.

“I’d make you buy better motivation.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I saw your paper in math. You’re good.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys.” His voice takes on a bitter tone. Taylor gives the same hyena chuckle.

I feel like they’re making fun of me, but I’m not mad. It’s the opposite—I’m glad they’re making fun of me. They’re not being fake. They’re not pretending to be someone they aren’t. It’s the only true thing—that they are cruel and I am equally cruel, and we sling cruelties back and forth in all honesty.

Honesty
.

I slide in the BMW, and Mrs. Silverman peers out the window. “And here I’d hoped the morning show would make them go away. Did those reporters give you any trouble?”

“No.” I look in the side mirror at the two figures picking up trash. “Someone told them off.”

Three people know I’m going to a shrink—Mrs. Silverman, Marie, and the man who cleans the shrink’s office.

Mrs. Silverman makes sure I get there on time, but like school, she’s reluctant to let me go.

“You’ll call me as soon as it’s over?” She furrows her thin brows.

“Definitely.” I get out and give her a reassuring smile through the window. She takes me in, the school-rumpled uniform, the slightly frizzy hair. The way she smiles, you’d think I was dressed up in a college graduation gown, or a CEO suit. Something speaking of accomplishment that makes her proud.

She’s just proud I’m
alive
.

I pull open the glass door and head inside. Business offices line the halls. I take the stairs two at a time and stop in front of the shrink’s office, the plaque glinting in the sun:
MILLICENT
HARRIS
,
MD
—
COUNSELI
NG
PSYCHOLOGIST
.
The door is plain, scratches marring the wood finish.

On my first visit here, I took twenty minutes to compose myself outside this door. I’m sure that meant something to Millicent. Reluctance. I’d recalled how Sal told me to deal with psychologists—don’t pretend. You let your act down, push it into the dirt, let it die—otherwise it’s too easy to spot. In front of any halfway decent psychologist, a con face falls apart. They spot your every sign, and the really good ones can do it in minutes. Sal’s been perceived only two times, and by internationally famous criminal profilers.

I’m not as good as Sal. It’ll be a miracle if I ever
become
as good as Sal. I can’t think that far ahead—or maybe I’ve never thought of being a con artist for that long. Sal’s poise comes from fifty years of conning. I’ve had twelve. Millicent, while stationed in a shoddy building, is one of the best shrinks in the state. She just prefers to keep that quiet.

The door’s unlocked, which means she’s not in with a client. The curtains are drawn back, pale light washing over the leather furniture and stocked bookshelves. The woman herself is making tea. The steam from the water boiler puffs around her suit—gray, with brass buttons. Her hair is auburn, like burnt scrapings of caramel. She’s a little pudgy and pear-shaped, but it only serves to deceive—she is not jolly. She might look homey and slow, but her brain is sharper and faster than any starving crocodile.

“Erica, do come in.”

She says it without turning around. She likes to do that—say things without looking at you, like the unease it creates gives her the upper hand. I sit on the leather recliner and put my backpack on the floor. She turns, two cups in hand.

“I thought we’d have some tea. Do you like peppermint?”

“I hate tea,” Violet sneers.

Millicent’s face remains smiley, cheeks trying to swallow her eyes. “Very well.”

There’s no point being Erica. She’s put on the back burner, Violet given the reins. Violet’s bluntness is a perfect disguise—to Millicent, it’s Erica expressing her true self: the angry, tortured self that was betrayed and shipped off to a whole new world. She has no reason to suspect Violet is my true self beneath Erica. To her, they’re just two aspects of one person.

She’s more right than she knows.

Millicent settles in the chair across from me with her tea and a notebook. Her pen has a stupid plastic panda on the end of it.

The first question is always the same.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Fine.” I shrug and lie back on the leather. “Tired. But that’s nothing new.”

“What’s made you so tired?”

“People. Reporters. They’re never going to give up, are they?”

“You said last session, the reporters didn’t bother you. What’s changed that?”

“I don’t know,” Violet snarls. “Maybe it’s the fact they’ve hung around for a whole month screaming at me and taking pictures of my every zit.”

“So you feel as though your privacy is being invaded.” She scribbles something.

“I never had privacy to begin with. First Mom, wanting to be with me all the time. And it’s not like I don’t like it—I like it—she’s way nicer than my last mom—” I stop. “God, listen to me. ‘Last’ mom. People aren’t supposed to have two sets of parents like this.”

She’s much harder to read than the average person. But the quirk in her eyelids tells me she’s thinking about what I said. Two sets of parents. Of course people have two sets of parents—divorce. She’s a family counselor, mostly.

“I know what you’re going to say.” I sniff.

“We’re here to talk about you, Erica. Let’s stay focused.”

“What if I hate focus? What if, for a half hour, I want to be totally unfocused?”

Her face goes still. She does that when I say something interesting she can delve into. She scribbles and leans back in her chair.

“All right. Feel free to ask me questions, if you wish.”

“No, I don’t want to ask you questions. I just want to talk about something other than being kidnapped for four seconds. Is that okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“And don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Agree with me all the time.”

She writes something down again. She doesn’t say a third of the things she wants to.

“It must be boring, listening to people blabber for a living,” I try.

“It’s not as boring as you might think.” She twirls the panda pen. “Eventually, it becomes more than just listening. It becomes a way for you to step into someone else’s shoes—imagine what their life must be like, and to understand their feelings truly. To say you understand is one thing. To feel understanding is another thing entirely.”

The words hit close to home. I know exactly what she means.

“You don’t ‘feel’ understanding,” I correct. “It’s something that transforms you. When you honestly understand something, you become it.”

“In that vein of logic, when you become something, you understand it?” she counters lightly, and sips her tea.

“No.” I lace my fingers and unlace them. “You can become something without understanding it.”

“I don’t think so.” Millicent smiles over the cup.

“I think so,” I assert. I know so. I’ve become something right now without really understanding it.
Her.
Erica. “I can become this happy girl. This pretty, popular girl, if I try really hard. If I smile a lot and try to laugh, I’m someone different, and no one knows otherwise.”

The panda pen scratches across the clipboard.

“Do you feel like you can’t be yourself around the people in your life?” she asks.

I smile. “I can be both of my selves. But just one at a time.”

I don’t know what she’ll make of that. It gives her something to think about, because she doesn’t ask any more questions as she scribbles madly on the clipboard. In these pregnant pauses I’m supposed to keep talking, but I have nothing to say today.

Finally Millicent breaks the silence with gentle words.

“Who hit you, Erica?”

My head snaps up from the carpet. Her eyes are still sharp, but cautious.

“Who hit you when you were little? Your old mother? Old father?”

My fingers twitch. I force them to relax. “No one hit me.”

She watches me, unblinkingly, for a good thirty seconds. That stare says it all. Violet’s stomach gives a twinge.

“I’m sorry. Let’s stop for today.” Millicent smiles and stores her clipboard. “Are you sure you don’t want any tea?”

I grab my stuff and push through the door, heart thrumming in my ears. Two stairs at a time, and then freedom, fresh air free of the smells of cloying tea. The bench is cold and hard. Across the street is a restaurant, bustling with the dinner crowd. Cars pull up. Families get out. The golden squares of the windows are bright and welcoming.

On Violet’s eighth birthday, Sal takes her out to a nice restaurant.

She’s wearing a Dorothy-style dress with red plaid. The waitress asks Sal if she’s his daughter, and he nods, his proud smile perfectly insincere as she compliments Violet on her beauty and says their orders will be coming right up.

“I
am
pretty, right, Sal?” Violet creases her brows and stuffs bread into her mouth. She doesn’t know when they’ll be able to stop for another meal like this. Puts an extra roll in her pocket, just in case.

Sal chuckles. “Prettiest girl I know.”

She’s satisfied with that answer. He leans forward and filches packets of sugar.

“But you know, Vi, your face isn’t gonna last for long.”

“Right.” The girl tucks her napkin in her collar. “Because I’m gonna get changed. More pretty.”

“That’s right. Even prettier.”

“Even more like Erica,” she presses.

Sal’s hands freeze, putting his napkin on his lap. Blue eyes glance up, flinty. “What did we say about her name, Vi?”

Violet shrinks. “Don’t say it at all.”

Her soda comes then. She sips, looks dejectedly at the tablecloth. After polishing off half of his Arnold Palmer, Sal sighs.

“I’m not mad. But you can’t forget these kinds of things. Remember, every—”

“Every word is a tool. Use it too many times and it gets dull.”

“There you go.” Sal nods. “That name is something we can’t make dull. It has to be sharp. New, fresh, so that in a few years, you’ll be able to use it well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, kiddo. Rather have you slip up now than later, you know? Drink up. Are you gonna use your fingernails or hair?”

“Hair.”

“Smart choice.”

The waitress comes back with two plates of steak dinners. Sal digs into his. Violet waits forty-seven seconds before she starts wailing.

“Ew! Ew, get it off!”

“Violet, honey, what’s wrong?” Sal feigns worry.

“It’s sticking to my fork!” She squirms. On the tines dangle a few greasy hairs.

The waitress rushes over. “Is everything all right?”

“My daughter found a hair on her steak.” Sal glowers. “This is unacceptable.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” The waitress scrambles. “I’ll take it off your bill and get you a new dish right away.”

To Violet, the free steak tastes infinitely more satisfying, and Sal’s proud thumbs-up fills her with that same satisfaction.

Every morning at school, we pray. They pray. I bend my head and mouth the words but don’t feel anything. I feel Erica’s need to pray, to be seen as a good girl. If she’d grown up, she would’ve been a Goody Two-shoes, striving to please her parents and keep them off her back simultaneously. A sweet girl. A rich, pampered, pretty girl with an equally popular boyfriend, both of them crazy in love and destined for some Ivy League college. When I complete this con, I’ll have more than enough to go to college too, if I want. I can travel around the world instead. Invest it in something. Anything is possible. That painting is my freedom.

Today, I am not going to pray.

The reporters wait for Mrs. Silverman to pull into the school parking lot, and then they rush me. Screamed questions, loud lightning flashes of cameras. Mrs. Silverman nearly gets out of the car, Coach handbag clutched as if she’s ready to use it to beat them, but a police officer persuades her to get back in the car. The officers escort me through the stifling ring of lenses, microphones, and shouts. I cover my face with my hair until we leave them behind at the school fence. Merril laces her arm through mine.

“When will they learn to give up?”

“They’ll do anything for a story.” I shrug. “It’s a hard life—scraping up rumors and stalking tragedies.”
Vultures,
James had said. “They’re like vultures.”

Merril shudders. “Vultures are gross.”

I’m in an even shadier business, Merril. I’m an even more grotesque vulture.

“Oh my God.” Merril giggles and buries her face in my arm. “Kerwin’s coming over.”

The dark-haired boy she’d pointed out yesterday is walking toward us. The small visual cues tell me who he is before he can tell me himself—too many buttons undone from the top of his shirt, showing off the beginnings of his pecs. One button is confident. More than three is stupidly overconfident. He wears silver jewelry—a cross around his neck and silver rings. Vain, and comes from a religious family. He’s from Wales. Probably Roman Catholic. He keeps his hands unclenched, arms relaxed at his sides. He’s open and eager. Doesn’t expect anyone to hurt him.