the icy wind whip over my fake hair. A violent shiver rolls through me, like a ghost passing from one world to the next. I close my eyes and wait for courage I know won’t come. For most of my life, I had the world at my fingertips, everything I could have wanted and everything everyone else wanted. Now I have this. Up or down. If my dad’s conviction is overturned, we’ll take a plane to parts unknown and start fresh. If it’s not, I’ll take that final step and give the world one last, dramatic display.
Until then, life, unfortunately, goes on.
I head back inside and take the elevator down to fourteen. I rarely see my neighbors, but tonight Mr. Pedersen, the frisky septuagenarian across the hall, is coming home from a date of his own, a perky redhead in a sparkly dress laughing at something he said. Mr. Pedersen winks at me and I grimace. He’s not paying me to pretend to like him for a night.
I unlock the door to my unit. Home sweet home. “Home” used to be penthouses and beach houses and Paris pied-à-terres. Now it’s a modest two-bedroom in a one-of-a-kind boutique building that resembles all the one-of-a-kind buildings around it.
Over the course of his career, my father amassed an enormous collection of real estate, sometimes full developments, sometimes a swath of units in a popular building he would rent out for “spare change.” As a result, we had master keys to approximately eighty percent of the buildings in Holden, giving me and my brother quite literal keys to the city. After my father’s arrest, the units were repossessed along with pretty much everything else we owned, including all of our homes.
When it came time for me to start apartment hunting, I knew I couldn’t show my face. Despite my father’s arrest, the angry mob continued to demand justice, tar and feathers in hand, and I needed to remain anonymous. Even without the death threats making it difficult, I knew no one would sell to the infamous Reese Carlisle, and if they did, it would be humiliating to ask to buy a place we had once owned. So I took matters into my own hands: I checked the real estate listings online, used my master keys to investigate properties until I found one I liked, then emailed the realtor and completed the entire transaction online. I had to use my real name, but a privacy clause and extra commission point bought his silence.
Now I enter the dark apartment, a wall of windows providing enough ambient light to see my uninspired, decidedly minimal decor. I drop my purse and press my back to the door, sliding down to the floor. My black skirt rides up my thighs and my legs flop apart, knees rubbery, ankles weak.
I’d like to think I had too much wine, but that’s not true.
Not even after a night of halfway decent sex am I this shaky.
I know what the issue is.
My gaze flickers to my purse the way it would to a ticking time bomb. I fumble with the clasp before retrieving the shiny black room key and turning it over and over in my hand like a magician with no trick.
My phone beeps, the sound muted by the contents of the bag, and for a fleeting, foolish second I think it’s him. The stranger. It’s not, of course. It’s Doug, being normal. Wondering where I am. What went wrong.
I close my eyes, guilty. Then I type. Sorry. Family emergency.
He asks if we can reschedule.
I turn off the phone. I was going to throw it away tomorrow, anyway. Just like I’ll throw away Denise.
I yank off the cheap wig. I have a closet full of them, thanks to my brother’s short-lived career in theater management. They’re one of the few items that were returned to us after the raid. At least they came in handy. They help me become Harriet and Isabel and Jess. People nothing like the person I was. And most definitely nothing like the woman I am.
The stranger wouldn’t want this woman. He likes redheads with brown eyes who laugh when they’re not supposed to. My once-bleached hair is back to its natural black, my fingernails haven’t been painted in three years, and I only bother to shave my legs when I have a date. I don’t think the stranger would know what to do with this girl. He could read a million newspaper stories exposing my father’s crimes