These Girls (7 page)

Liam will call you between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. today to give you a five-minute interview about his new movie.

A few years ago, that e-mail would’ve made Renee squeal. But she’d conducted dozens of celebrity phone interviews by now,
and they all followed the same pattern: A public relations person would be on the phone first and lay out the ground rules, including whether Renee was allowed to ask about romances or rehab stints. Then the bored-sounding celebrity would join the call—the PR person always stayed on the line, hovering like an overcaffeinated helicopter mom—and the star would give Renee a few well-rehearsed sound bites. Renee sometimes wondered why they couldn’t inject a little enthusiasm into their voices—they were actors, after all—even if the call was just one of dozens the celebrities were wedging in that day to promote a new film or album. If she was lucky, Renee would get to squeeze in a question or two before her time was up, and then she’d have to transform the interview into a one-or-two-paragraph “bright” for the front of the magazine. All that waiting and work for two column inches, and she wouldn’t even get a byline.

Renee glanced at her watch and decided she had just enough time to run to the bathroom, then fill up her coffee mug in the kitchen. She wouldn’t be able to leave her desk for even a moment once the clock struck eleven. At least she’d brought in lunch today so she could eat at her desk, although a tuna salad with low-fat mayo and a Baggie of baby carrots hardly seemed like a consolation prize.

As she hurried down the hallway, a tantalizing smell filled the air, and she inhaled deeply. The food editor must be cooking again. They were planning the February issue, which meant Valentine’s Day, which meant her kryptonite: chocolate. It seemed designed specifically to erode Renee’s willpower, and now she’d be chained to her desk for hours while the aroma assaulted her. Why, oh why was it all so complicated? She knew what she needed to do to lose weight: eat less and exercise more. And yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t seem to do it.

It wasn’t possible.

Brian Anthony, one of the guys from her college dorm, was walking down the street directly toward her. Cate’s breath caught in her throat. Was it actually him? She recognized the big, beaked nose, the shock of brown hair that fell over his forehead and into his eyes. He came closer, and she ducked her head. If only she’d worn sunglasses today, or a hat . . . She wanted to spin around, but she knew the movement could attract his attention. She was powerless to do anything but walk directly toward one of the last people in the world she wanted to encounter.
Don’t let him see me,
she prayed.

She knew the odds existed that she’d bump into someone from college. It was surprising it hadn’t happened before now. So many people moved to New York, and even in a city this huge, she seemed to run into people from her past with surprising regularity. Just last month, as she stepped off the subway, she’d realized an old high school classmate had been standing a few feet behind her during the entire ride. Cate had just managed to get in a shouted hello before the doors shut.

But she didn’t have anything to hide from her high school days. She’d played the flute, gotten mostly As sprinkled with a few Bs, written articles for the school paper on the new salad bar in the cafeteria and the bake sale to benefit the local animal shelter.

Breathe,
she reminded herself now. Keep walking. No sudden movements. Avert your eyes.

Where were the crowds that Manhattan prided itself on? She needed someone to duck behind for camouflage, but this stretch of sidewalk was nearly empty.

Cate had always known her most deeply held secret could ensnare her at any time—had
expected
it to trap her. One of the staff writers at
Gloss
was an Ohio State alum—fortunately, she’d graduated a decade before Cate had attended—and every
time the colleague said something like “Go, Buckeyes! Did you see the game yesterday?” Cate cringed, wondering if her face revealed her turbulent emotions.

Would today be the day? Cate wondered. Would everyone finally learn that she’d never finished college—that she’d slunk away, weighted down by gossip and disgrace?

It had started with a book about murder. Cate was visiting her psychology professor during his office hours. The door was shut, and they were alone in the little space he shared with another teacher. There had never been a hint of anything improper between her and Professor Jones. He was a thin, gangly guy, in his early thirties, with a little cowlick near his part and hazel eyes that darkened whenever he spoke enthusiastically, which he did quite a bit. He loved teaching, and he was good at it.

As they talked about the research paper she needed to turn in—she was having trouble pinpointing a topic—her eyes wandered over his bookshelf, and there, tucked in among the thick, imposing psychology journals, like a daisy in a field of dried-out grass, was a title she recognized:
In Cold Blood.
Professor Jones turned to see what she was looking at.

“You like Truman Capote?” he asked.

“I haven’t read all of his books, but this one . . .” Cate shook her head. “It’s magical. I mean, the true story behind it is awful, but the way Capote reconstructed the murder of that family and everything that happened afterward . . . It read like a novel; I couldn’t put it down. I’ve always wondered how he did it.”

Professor Jones leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head, and she noticed he had a little-boy quality about him. His elbows and knees were bony, and in his old jeans and Ohio sweatshirt, he looked a decade younger than his actual age. He could’ve been a grad student, except, of course, that he wasn’t.

“One of the murderers had an incredible memory. He could recite whole conversations. He remembered details that anyone else would have overlooked. The guy’s IQ must’ve been through the roof.”

Cate nodded. “If he was such a smart guy, he must have had choices . . . So why did he do it?”

Professor Jones smiled then—a wide, open smile—and leaned forward. “You could write about it,” he said. “There’s the subject of your paper.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? The whole point of learning is to make it enjoyable. Take on a subject you feel passionate about. Make it come alive for me in your paper. Tell the story of how and why this man became one of the most famous murderers of all time.”

“I’d love that,” Cate said.

“Then my work here is done,” Professor Jones said, grinning at her again.

He had perfectly straight teeth and a smattering of freckles across his nose. Her eyes flitted, almost against her will, to his ring finger. It was bare.

Cate hadn’t dated much in college. She’d always felt older than her years, and beer bongs and smoky parties and crowded football games held no appeal. She longed for a glass of good wine and a real conversation, not a guy who’d take her to the movies and try to cop a feel before the opening credits finished rolling. Still, she’d felt like she was missing out on some level. She watched her roommates head off to fraternity formals and come home with smudged lipstick and tequila on their breath and she’d wonder what was wrong with her, and why she couldn’t find a guy she truly liked. Once she’d even assessed her roommate Chandra, a woman with golden brown skin and the lithe body of a dancer, wondering if she could be gay. Chandra was sliding off her Levi’s, and Cate’s eyes skimmed down her
perfect legs. Nope, she’d decided quickly, feeling embarrassed as Chandra turned to meet her gaze with a questioning look. Not gay. Just . . . not interested.

“I think you’ll learn he had some childhood traits that are linked to murderers,” Professor Jones was saying. “He was a bed wetter. And his family—Well, I don’t want to tell you too much. I want you to learn about him for yourself.”

“I can’t wait,” Cate blurted out the words.

“Here, borrow this,” Professor Jones said, reaching up for his well-worn copy of the book.

She looked down at it in her hands, suddenly feeling shy, as if he had given her something far more intimate than a book. “Thanks.”

She got up to leave, and, as she opened the door, he called her name. She turned back to look at him, and he was smiling again.

“It’s one of my favorite books, too.”

Nothing happened between them for weeks. It was her senior year, and nostalgia combined with eagerness seemed to suffuse the campus. Cate’s friends were simultaneously trying to hold on to the last, golden days of college and peering into the future with equal parts fear and anticipation of what it might hold. They were making plans to move to new cities, typing up résumés, partying louder and harder, and letting study habits slip, squeezing every last bit out of college . . .

Yet for Cate, time seemed to stand languidly, shimmeringly still. She had class with Professor Jones—
Timothy
—on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at ten, and those were the only times she felt truly alive. She existed in a dreamy state, where days slipped by like beads on a string, and she often sat on her bed, staring at the sky as it turned from blue to gray to black. But in the auditorium-style lecture hall, she was electrified as she watched Timothy, wondering what it would feel like
to kiss him. She got to his classes early and sat in the center of the third row, hoping his eyes would naturally land upon her while he talked. She bought a new lip gloss in a shade of cinnamon and blew-dry her hair every morning. Her body felt hot, even though the winter hadn’t fully released its grasp on Ohio and the days were chilly, and she couldn’t bear to put on a coat.

Timothy had been the one to teach her that people could feel a stare, sometimes even when someone was looking at the backs of their heads. “It’s a gift from our ancestors from long ago,” he’d told the class. “Back when we were prey. Sensing a creature watching you could mean the difference between life and death.”

Could he feel her watching him? She literally couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

When Professor Jones finally kissed her, it took her by surprise for only a second, and then she realized she’d known where this had been heading from the moment he put his beloved book into her hands.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he’d groaned as he pressed her up against the wall of his office. He’d locked the door, but his office mate could come back with her key at any moment. Cate unbuttoned his shirt, desperate to finally feel his skin against hers. “You’re a student—” he’d started to say, but Cate had cut him off by slipping her tongue into his mouth. Her own eagerness had surprised her; before, boys had pursued her while she walked coolly away, but now she was the aggressor, the one who slipped off her skirt and sat back on his desk and spread apart her legs.

“Come here,” she’d said in a voice huskier than usual, and Timothy had shut his eyes tight and moved his lips—she didn’t hear the word he muttered and it was forever lost in the space between them—before obeying.

What none of the college boys had delivered, what she’d
looked for in her roommate and at crowded frat parties, she found on that wooden desk littered with term papers and pencils. She lost her virginity to Professor Jones in the same space where he graded her exams, and when he realized it, there’d been tears in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” she’d said, cradling his cheeks in her hands. Tenderness had swept through her as
she
comforted him.

“Cate,” he’d murmured, making her name sound like a prayer. She’d never felt such pure happiness.

She couldn’t get enough of him. It was as though she’d hoarded all the lust and yearning she’d seen other girls freely exhibit, and now, with Timothy’s kiss, it had exploded. She snuck over to his apartment late at night, wearing nothing underneath a raincoat, like the call girl in a movie she’d once watched. She paced the hallway outside his office, waiting for other students to leave so she could slip inside and lean against his desk again. She was drunk on—on what? Some heady combination of lust and obsession that felt dangerously like love.

They snuck out to dinners together, driving in Timothy’s old red VW Bug far away from campus, where no one would catch them. She spent the night in his apartment and wore one of his soft oxford shirts with the sleeves rolled up the next morning as they cooked omelets and drank the hot, strong coffee he made in a French press. They talked about books and watched the old black-and-white movies Timothy loved, and she introduced him to the music of Charlie Byrd.

“I can’t believe you don’t know his music,” she teased. “Aren’t you supposed to be the old man in this relationship?”

It was what she’d always imagined a relationship would be like—trading sections of the paper on Sunday mornings, going grocery shopping together, waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for each other. She wanted it all: the sex and the routines, the excitement and the mundane details. She
began to broach the subject, as slowly and carefully as if she was circling a lost, terrified dog, of what would happen after graduation. She’d just turned twenty-one, he was thirty-three. In a few years, their age difference wouldn’t seem so stark. It could work.

Six weeks after it started, they were caught.

She’d gone into his office at the end of the day, around six, when the hallway was mostly deserted and the other professors had all packed up. She leaned against him, arching her back and wrapping her arms around his neck. He groaned and kissed her deeply.

“Let me just lock the door,” he said.

He stretched out an arm to hit the latch on the door with Cate still wrapped around him. In another two seconds, they would have been safe.

The door swung open before his fingers could reach it. Cate felt him freeze before she forced herself to look back.

It was another student; Cate didn’t know his name, but she recognized him from their 10:00
A.M.
psychology class. His wide eyes took in Cate’s arms tangled around Timothy’s neck, her skirt riding up on her legs, and the student backed away without a word.