Pretending to Be Erica (13 page)

I’m the one who’s been shutting him down the whole time. Carry it through, Violet. Be the bitch. Shut him down once and for all. Push the kill switch. Make this easy on yourself, painless for him.

My inhale shudders as I nod. He smiles and pays the old woman before tossing our trash and leading me outside by the hand.

“Your fingers are cold.” He frowns as we wait at the crosswalk for the light to change. He puts my hands in his and rubs them together, working friction into them. All my thoughts on the painting and the code and being mean to get him to dump me fly out the window. “There. Better.”

“Th-Thanks,” I stutter, the sudden contact jarring. I’m used to faring for myself—mittens or pockets.

“C’mon. It’s just a little farther.”

He leads me through the dusk, past the couture shops and to the park. It takes me three blocks to realize we’re acting like a couple—hand in hand. People walk the paths and sit on benches amidst sparse trees. The fountain burbles. James walks over to a man sitting on the grass, a keyboard on his lap. He’s older than us by a few years—college student. His beanie flops as he turns to look at us—dark eyes and dark hair.

“Sup, James? Is this her?”

“Yeah.” James grins. “Erica, this is Marley. He’s the other member of our band I told you about.”

“Hi.” I put on my best smile. Marley shakes my hand. He doesn’t say anything about my being kidnapped, which I’m grateful for.

“So this is where you guys practice?” I ask.

Marley laughs. “Nah. We practice over the Internet, mostly. It’s a powerful thing.”

“So I’ve heard.” I smirk.

“We get together once a month and collaborate in the park. And beg for change.” James bends, pulling the guitar case closer and opening it. He cradles the instrument and pushes the empty case toward the sidewalk, just in front of them.

“I’m your first fan,” I declare. Marley chuckles and runs his hands up the keyboard.

“You can dance. Probably get us a bigger audience.”

“No shedding clothes.” James tunes the guitar carefully. “We’re a legitimate business here.”

I snicker and pull my sweater around me tighter. A chill is setting in, but it gives the park atmosphere. James and Marley count in and start playing, the tune stutter-y but melodic. James’s voice is warm, but not confident or loud. It’s a tempting, hoarse speaking voice. Mellow and sweet, but with hidden energy, like a subtle mix of icing and espresso.

“And I never wanna see the sun,” he sings, “if it means our time is done.”

A few people stop to watch. A family with a little boy. A couple. A lone man taking a rest from his jogging, earbuds hanging around his shoulders to hear James’s song. A rushing businessman taking a shortcut through the park hears a single bar, walks past, and comes back to throw a dollar in the case.

I know the chorus after listening to it a few times, and when it comes next, I join in hesitantly, my voice mixing with James’s.

“Something’s gonna change. I heard it said by the man who sings. You and I will change, and in the end it’s just dew in rain.”

The world gets darker, the family leaves. People start going home. Marley takes out a trumpet and plays it, the sable wailing a bridge. When it ends, James strums the guitar one last time. Our eyes meet.

“And I never wanna see the sun if it means our time is done.”

Marley thumps him on the back and says it’s the best rendition ever. We say good-bye to Marley, and James drives me home in almost complete silence, my every mistake replaying through my head.

This is a mistake.

“Thanks.” He smiles, stopping at my driveway. “For giving me a chance today.”

“I’m sorry . . .” I start. “I’m sorry I ruined everything. You have to understand—No, you can’t understand, I just—”

“I know you need more time. Everybody needs time,” he interrupts softly. “But not everybody gets it.”

I sense I should kiss him, but I don’t. Because I’m a coward. Because I’m a fake. I want to kiss him—to thank him for being everything I’m not: polite and enduring and honest with me when I’m not with him.

Honesty
.

I silently watch him go, his taillights two bloodspots in the night.

On Monday it’s like nothing happened.

Taylor asks me how it went. I shrug, and she pulls a frown but doesn’t press me. Merril and Cass are none the wiser—I never told them, for fear they’d berate me. James smiles politely when I talk to him, but it feels too forced. We both know we can get along spectacularly, but it’s a matter of me wanting to. James made his feelings clear. It’s just a matter of
me
allowing
us
to happen. Telling him how I feel too. Evening out the scales that were imbalanced from the start.

To make matters worse, Mr. White’s watching me. He sits in his car parked opposite the school. Wears a hat today, like it’ll make him harder to recognize. He’s just begging for me to talk to him.

I tap on the driver’s window. He rolls it down and eyes me over his sunglasses.

“Mr. White”—I clear my throat—“what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

He opens the glove box and pulls out a magazine with a familiar title. The cover is of two women standing on either side of an apple tree and smiling.

“
Brackish
.” Mr. White flips through a few pages. “A magazine for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.”

The one Sal’s column is in. The one I’ve been buying to read his words.

“Now.” He coughs. “Why would a girl like you buy something like this regularly? Unless you’re a lesbian. Bisexual. You’re not transgender—the medical records say that much.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a little curiosity,” I fire back. First the club pictures, now this? The guy is good, I’ll give him that much.

“Of course not,” he agrees. “But if you were really curious about lesbianism or bisexuality, you’d probably buy something more brazen—something with pictures in it, if you get my drift. This is strictly esoteric: articles by professors and civilian contributors. Art pieces with gay themes, theater productions. Reviews about gay movies.”

Good call on my bluff, Baldy.

He’ll never find the column. There are hundreds of articles, and no reason for him to suspect any of them are coded messages. The chance he knows I write Sal is slim—lots of people submit, but only one is chosen, and never my submission. Sal reads and decodes my message independently. I send the submission via computer at the library during study hall. I always log out and clear the computer’s browser history and cache. I’m thorough and nothing less than perfect. I am Violet. There’s no way he knows.

Which means he’s guessing—going on a hunch. Poking the body to see if it’ll twitch. And my reactions to what he says now will either prove my guilt or my innocence. High school relationships are dizzying, convoluted, bloodthirsty. Lying to save my skin is so much easier. I’ve done this countless times before. Adrenaline keeps my face perfectly calm and makes my tongue limber. It’s time to shine.

“I haven’t told Mom you like her,” I start. “Not yet, anyway. Let’s make a deal. You don’t tell people I’m gay, and I don’t tell her you’ve been stalking me out of some misguided sense of protection.”

“I’m not a high schooler. You can’t threaten me or use me by manipulating my love. And you’re not gay.”

“Says you.”

“I’ve been watching you for more than a month now. I’ve seen you look at that boy. James Anders.”

“What do you want from me?” My voice tips up, shrill. Violet cringes. I broke my composure at the simple mention of his name. I’m losing my touch.

“You can’t hide forever. It might be a nice change now—the money, the big house, the friends. But it won’t last forever.”

I know that. Goddamn it, I know that! You don’t have to remind me, you bald fart. He’s desperate. He’s got nothing on me, and it’s driving him insane. His gut tells him I’m not her, and he’s right, but he can’t prove a lick of it. I win this delicate game. For now. I smile like a nice girl. To the experienced con artist, that smile would give it all away—that he was right. Maybe he can see that. It doesn’t matter. I’m winning.

I make small talk with Mrs. Silverman when she picks me up, but my mind is on that painting. The code. The zoo.
Robinson Crusoe
. I’m putting it together in my head as I trace patterns on the windows of the BMW. Mr. Silverman gave me a hint, a hint about the zoo. Sal said the code pertained to a fond memory only Mrs. Silverman and Erica shared. The memory—I’m willing to bet it took place at the zoo.

I have to get inside Mr. Silverman’s room and write those equations down.

I watch Mrs. Silverman’s face as she talks over dinner—pork sirloin with onion relish that melts in my mouth. She makes jokes, touches my hair. It felt so natural before, but now there’s something between us, a tiny flame of resentment. Violet. Violet is there, eclipsed before by my professionalism. Violet is getting tired of pretending. No con has ever been this long. Violet can bow her head and take a few hits, but not so many. Not so many, so fast. Not so many hits directly to her heart.

She hates Erica. Everything Erica has, she covets. Violet wants to stop pretending and still have the things Erica does. But that’s impossible.

Not impossible—she can have it if she gets
La Surprise
. With enough money, she can have it all. That’s why she’s stealing it in the first place, why she agreed to the con. She agreed because Sal is her father, and the gypsy life of crime is her milk, her blood, her song. Before this con, she didn’t know what high school was or what friends were or how it felt for a boy to hold her hand. Normal was a fantastic desert illusion—spices and water and figs and honey she tasted on the tip of her tongue.

And, because Erica is sweet and kind and perfect, she does not hate Violet in return. She envies her. Violet is alive in ways she will never be, in ways that’ll cease after the curtain on this con lifts and the crowd applauds themselves deaf—after Violet takes her bow and exits stage right to a bouquet of roses and a good chunk of sixty million dollars and a life emptied of the people Erica never really got to love.

I let Mr. Silverman win today. But he knows it. Instead of cheering in his fidgety timid way, he frowns. I smile and clear the board.

“You did great, Dad.”

“My name is Brandon,” he corrects softly. I arrange the pieces for another game.

“I really want to call you Dad. Is that okay?”

He doesn’t say anything. Heavy silence makes our hands work harder to move pieces. Every black checker feels like lifting a ship anchor.

“I saw those numbers on your wall,” I try. “They’re very pretty, all jumbled together like that. What do they mean?”

He fiddles with his shirt cuff. “Nothing.”

“They looked really important.”

“Nobody should know.” Mr. Silverman shakes his head. “Nobody will ever know; it’s not good to know.”

“Okay.” I nod. “I don’t have to know. I just thought they looked pretty, is all.”

I let him capture a few of my pieces. His face grows angry, dark.

“Play seriously,” he demands. I look around for any nurses. None. Mrs. Silverman’s listlessly looking out the window.

I lean in and lower my voice. “I’ll play seriously with you if you’ll be serious with me, Dad. What are those numbers on your wall?”

Mr. Silverman hisses something under his breath.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Don’t trust myself,” he finally murmurs.

Doesn’t trust himself with what? Numbers, obviously. Did he make those equations to hide something—to keep himself from giving them away? When the nurse walks him back to his room, I stop at the front desk.

“Hi, I’m Erica, Brandon Silverman’s daughter.”

“Oh yes.” The receptionist smiles. “I’ve seen you in the—That’s insensitive of me. I’m sorry. Did you need something?”

“I’m just curious: how long has Dad been writing those numbers on his wall?”

“I’d say since about”—she taps her chin with her pen—“a year after he came here? We’re under orders to let him scribble randomly—the doctors say it’s therapeutic for him.”

I bite my tongue to keep from saying his scribbles aren’t random. At least, not all of them are. There are eight or nine equations in that jumble that are suspiciously well focused.

“Is it okay if I go in his room and take a few pictures?” I put on my prettiest smile. “I’ve got a school report, and I decided to focus on mental illnesses. My shrink said it’d be good if I used Dad as the focus.”

Her face collapses in a sympathetic grin. “I’m sorry. Family can only enter a patient’s room with permission from either the patient himself or the patient’s supervising nurse.”

“And who would that be?”

She points to the nurse leading Dad away. “Nurse Rodriguez.”

I thank her and start after them. Nurse Rodriguez rounds the corner without Dad by the time I catch up to her.

“Hi.” I smile. “I’m Erica, Mr. Silverman’s daughter—”

“I know,” the nurse deadpans. “What did you need?”

I already know the answer before I ask—this lady is hard-core. Late forties, no-nonsense tight bun, and the nurse who I’ve noticed spends the most time checking lists, papers, and all other legalities. Plays by the rules. I’ve caught snippets of other nurses talking about her snitching on them for taking shortcuts on duty. It’s better not to ask, period. I know her type—suspicious to the core. If I ask, she’ll be watching me, cued to my interest in those numbers. Her personality could be lethal to my con.

“I just wanted to thank you.” I smile wider. “For taking such good care of Dad for so many years.”

Her eyes remain dull, compliment taken in stride. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I have other patients I need to check on.”

Sal’s voice sounds like he’s right next to me:
If flattery doesn’t move them, work around them
.

Sal watches his daughter carefully from the playground bench. She’s young and bone-thin, even after being with him for four years, but she’s perfect.

Sal knows she’s something special. Not many kids have the guts to pick his pockets within ten minutes of meeting him. Even fewer kids admit to it once confronted. But she did. Sal’s been in the business of scoping people out for decades, and he knows a talented kid when he sees one. He convinced a friend—another con artist—to pose as his wife and help him adopt Violet right away.

Maybe it’s the face—the placid face free of most emotions. She doesn’t smile as much as she should. A blank slate. A catatonic slate. Her emotional reactions are left wanting, but that’s nothing food and some encouraging words can’t fix. She’s not broken, just banged up a bit.

He watches her on the playground. Her eyes follow the other children as they course around her. She stands perfectly still, looking for an opening in the boisterous crowd, a moment in which she can squeeze in on the game unnoticed. But she misses it over and over, misses the moment, and they pass in a shrieking mass of laughter. She wipes her hands on her overalls. She’s not good at the interacting thing.

Sal couldn’t care less. She listens well. Learns well. That’s all he needs.

Finally Violet gives up on integrating into the children’s game. She wanders deep into the park to a rusted maintenance shack. She fiddles with the lock. Slides her glittery hairpins out of her bangs and edges them around in the hole. Scrunches her face. It’s the most emotion he’s seen out of her yet. The moms—on the lookout for every child—correct her; no, not the rusty lock, the monkey bars! The seesaw! She nods and plays on them but ends up standing near the padlock again. When the moms aren’t looking, she picks it a little more. After a half hour, Sal glances up from his book and checks her progress. The lock gapes open on the door. Violet sits, hugging her knees and watching it sway. He picks the girl up and twirls her.

“You’re real talented, sweets.” He laughs.

Violet doesn’t get giddy like most children do with praise. She lays her head in the crook of his neck and gives a little sigh instead—the sigh of a much older person. A heavy, guilty, dreaded thing. Sal’s heart—hardened by the neon nonchalance of Vegas and the deaths of everyone he’s ever loved—gives a flutter. A sad, touched spasm that he clamps off.

It is not always crime. It is not always training. He knows to balance the two with fun. She is his protégé, but she’s still a child. To craft the perfect Erica, the perfect con artist, there must be balance.

He takes her to the Strip. A woman he used to know is performing in the Red Lounge as a magician’s assistant. He buys Violet a Shirley Temple as they wait for the curtain to rise. Her eyes widen at the red fizzy drink, and the first sip has her smiling.

“You like it?”

She nods fervently. Nods until it seems like her head will fall off.

“Watch your neck.” Sal laughs and looks at the menu. “All right, onion rings or chicken fingers? Your choice.”

She makes a choice.