The Perfect Neighbor (25 page)

“I wish. Okay, let’s go shopping.”

It made her dizzy, not just the way Julie piloted her into a store, snatched up clothes with only the most cursory study. But the
idea
of it all. A shopping buddy. Not someone who preselected what was deemed appropriate and expected her to assent. Someone who grabbed at random and talked about looking hot, or cool, even sexy.

No one had ever suggested to Elizabeth she might look sexy.

She closed herself in the dressing room with the forest of color, the sparkle of spangles, the glint of metallic, and had to put her head between her knees.

It was all happening so fast. It was like being caught in a tsunami. The surge just swept her away.

Her fingers trembled as she undressed, as she carefully folded her clothes, then stared at all the pieces hanging in the tiny room.

What did she put on? What went with what? How did she know?

“I found the most awesome dress!” Without even a knock, Julie barged right in. Instinctively, Elizabeth crossed an arm over her breasts.

“Haven’t you tried anything on yet?”

“I wasn’t sure where to start.”

“Start with awesome.” Julie shoved the dress at her.

But really, at its length it was more of a tunic, Elizabeth thought, and in a screaming red, ruched along the sides. Its razor-thin straps sparkled with silver.

“What do you wear with it?”

“Killer shoes. No, lose the bra first. You can’t wear a bra with that dress. You’ve got a really good body,” Julie observed.

“I’m genetically predisposed, and maintain fitness and health through regular daily exercise.”

“Get you.”

And the naked—or nearly—human body was natural, Elizabeth reminded herself. Just skin, muscle, bone, nerve.

She laid her bra on her folded clothes, then shimmied into the dress.

“It’s very short,” she began.

“You’re going to want to ditch those Mom panties and buy a thong.
That
is definitely club worthy.”

Elizabeth took a breath, turned to the triple mirror. “Oh.”

Who was that? Who was that girl in the short red dress?

“I look …”

“Awesome,” Julie declared, and Elizabeth watched a smile bloom on her own face.

“Awesome.”

She bought the dress, and two others. And skirts. She bought tops that rode above her waist, pants that rode below it. She bought thongs. And she rode that tsunami to shoes with silver heels that she’d have to practice walking in.

And she laughed, like any ordinary girl shopping with a friend at the mall.

She bought a digital camera, then watched Julie make up her face in the bathroom. She took Julie’s picture, and several backups, against the pale gray of the stall door.

“That’s going to work?”

“Yes, I can make it work. How old should you be? I think it’s best if we stay as close as possible to the legal age. I can use everything from your valid driver’s license and just change the year.”

“Have you done this before?”

“I’ve experimented. I’ve read and studied identity fraud, cyber crimes. It’s interesting. I’d like to …”

“Like to what?”

“I’d like to study computer crimes and prevention, investigation more seriously. I’d like to join the FBI.”

“No bull? Like Dana Scully.”

“I don’t know her.”

“
X-Files
, Liz. Don’t you watch TV?”

“My viewing of popular and commercial television is limited to an hour a week.”

Julie rolled her big, chocolate brown eyes. “What are you, six? Jesus Christ.”

“My mother has very definite opinions.”

“You’re in college, for God’s sake. Watch what you want. Anyway, I’ll come to your place tomorrow night. Say nine? We’ll take a cab from there. But I want you to call me when you finish the ID, okay?”

“Yes.”

“I tell you what, breaking up with Darryl was the best thing I ever did. Otherwise, I’d’ve missed all this. We’re going to party, Liz.” Laughing, Julie did a quick hip-swiveling dance right there in the ladies’ room. “Big time. I’ve gotta go. Nine o’clock. Don’t let me down.”

“No, I won’t.”

Flushed from the day, Elizabeth hauled all the bags to her car. She knew what girls in the mall talked about now.

Boys. Doing it. Julie and Darryl had done it. Clothes. Music. She had a mental list of artists she needed to research. Television and movie actors. Other girls. What other girls wore. Who other girls had done it with. And back to boys.

She understood the discussions and topics were a societal and generational trope. But it was one she’d been shut out of until today.

And she thought Julie liked her, at least a little. Maybe they’d start to hang out. Maybe she’d hang out with Julie’s friend Tiffany, too—who’d done it with Mike Dauber when he’d come home on spring break.

Elizabeth knew Mike Dauber, or she’d had a class with him. And he’d passed her a note once. Or he’d passed her a note to pass to someone else, but that was something. It was contact.

At home, she laid all the bags on her bed.

She’d put everything away in plain sight this time. And she’d remove everything she didn’t like—which was nearly all she owned—box it up for charity. And she’d watch
The
X-Files
if she wanted to, and listen to Christina Aguilera and *NSYNC and Destiny’s Child.

And she’d change her major.

The thought of it had her heart spearing up to her throat. She’d study what she wanted to study. And when she had her degrees in criminology, in computer science, she’d apply to the FBI.

Everything changed. Today.

Determined, she dug out the hair dye. In the bathroom she arranged everything, performed the recommended spot test. While she waited, she cleaned up the shorn hair, then purged her closet, her dresser, neatly hung or folded her new clothes.

Hungry, she went down to the kitchen, heated one of the pre-labeled meals and ate while studying an article on her laptop about falsifying ID.

After she’d done the dishes, she went back up. With a mix of trepidation and excitement she followed the directions for the hair color, set the timer. While it set, she arranged everything she needed for the identification. She opened the Britney Spears CD Julie had recommended, slid it into her laptop’s CD player.

She turned up the volume so she could hear as she got in the shower to wash the color out of her hair.

It ran so black!

She rinsed and rinsed and rinsed, finally bracing her hands on the shower wall as her stomach began to churn in anticipation and not a little dread. When the water ran clear, she toweled off, wrapped a second towel around her hair.

Women had altered their hair color for centuries, Elizabeth reminded herself. Using berries, herbs, roots. It was a … rite of passage, she decided.

It was a personal choice.

In her robe, she faced the mirror.

“My choice,” she said, and pulled the towel off her hair.

She stared at the girl with pale skin and wide green eyes, the girl with short, spiky raven black hair that framed her narrow, sharp-boned face. Lifting a hand, she scratched her fingers through it, feeling the texture, watching it move.

Then she stood, and she smiled.

“Hi. I’m Liz.”

Nora Roberts

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Nora Roberts is the #1
New York Times
bestselling author of more than 190 novels. She is also the author of the bestselling futuristic suspense series written under the pen name J. D. Robb. There are more than 400 million copies of her books in print. Visit her online at
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