Confidential(47)

“I’m sorry if you feel I’ve betrayed you. In a sense, this isn’t about you; it’s about me. It’s making sure I’m aware of all my blind spots, so I can give you what you need.”

“What do you think I need?”

“You need people in your life other than me. You’re a beautiful young woman. You should have friends. You should have dates.”

“You think I’m beautiful?”

He’d said it before, but this time, he reddened. He’d said it couldn’t happen, but maybe he wished it could.

“Are you still involved with that woman, the one you were arguing with?”

“Let’s stay focused on you and what you need.”

“Was that woman Dr. Devers?”

“No, that was personal. Whatever you overheard, it has nothing to do with our work here.” But the high color in his cheeks belied him.

What did he think I’d overheard? And how could I use it to get what I wanted? No, what I needed.





CHAPTER 38





FLORA


“So how are things with you and Michael?” Kate’s tone was unusually delicate. She was trying to avoid the trip wire. But she’d already set it off, and I was dealing with the fallout every day with Michael. Kate and I could step around the debris and act like it wasn’t there, but all the pretending made me sad. And tired. I was just so tired these days.

I wouldn’t say that, of course. Kate would blame Michael, because I was normally a very energetic person, and she’d think he’d sapped me. She would be right. She just couldn’t know it, since I intended to get Michael back.

It was late, and I’d called her while I was walking home from the BART station, thinking it would be good to have some company on the darkened streets. For an expensive neighborhood, there were very few streetlights. I wasn’t used to my high heels making this particular thudding sound; I wasn’t used to feeling so heavy.

Not that I’d put on weight. It was the opposite. As I’d gotten dressed this morning, I noticed my hipbones were sharp and jutting, and my thigh gap was actually too pronounced, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. I switched from pants to a dress. My face stayed drawn and gaunt despite a forty-minute makeup application. The situation with Michael was eating away at me.

Since our sex-a-thon the other night, his texts had been perfunctory. He initiated no exchanges; it was all me. I’d text, “I love you,” and two, maybe three hours later, he texted it back. But there was no feeling in it. No extra words, no emojis, no inflection—the minimum to keep me from blowing up his life.

“Michael and I are great,” I told Kate.

This block felt interminable. Normally, I loved it. It was one of my favorites, with leafy trees and beautiful brown-shingled Craftsman and Victorian houses. But every step drained me further.

“Are you sure?” Kate said. “You sound—”

“It’s been a long day at work, that’s all.”

“You’re not yourself. Is that because things are so great with Michael or because they’re so bad?”

“I am myself. I’m perfectly and completely myself.”

“See, the way you said that—you never would have said that before.”

I didn’t need an argument right then. Tears of frustration filled my eyes. I missed Kate and the friendship—the love—we used to have. She was right about that, too: this wasn’t me, and it wasn’t us. I’d prefer to never talk to her than to engage in this exercise in falseness, but if I pulled away, if I stopped returning calls or if I said outright that our relationship was over, then Kate would lose all incentive to keep Michael’s secret. She could think that she was protecting future clients from Michael. Kate could get sanctimonious like that. If she ruined him, he would blame me. I was, after all, the one who’d set it all in motion by breaking my promise and confiding in her.

I needed to suffer through these talks, which only reinforced my sense of loss. She wasn’t just my cousin; she’d been my best friend.

But she’d done me dirty. She had no business trying to break up my relationship regardless of the reason. Her conscious mind might have thought it was because she was looking after me, but her subconscious was another matter. Michael had told me all about what a person’s subconscious could be capable of. Deep down, Kate was just jealous. She didn’t even know whether she wanted men or women; she’d spent so much time being with whoever would have her just for drugs, and since she’d stopped using, she had been alone. Really, I was her lifeline. Or I had been.

I still could be. We were family; we could weather this. All we needed was to stop talking about Michael. How hard could that be?

I was about to tell her that the best thing for our relationship was to make Michael off-limits when I was shoved from behind. I went down hard onto the pavement, and the phone went flying. I heard Kate saying, “Flora? Flora, you there? What’s happening?”

I tried to get up on my skinned knees, to look behind me and see who had done this, but then I was kicked, hard. “Stay down,” a male voice growled. I pressed my face to the pavement. If I listened to him, maybe I’d get out of this alive.

He’d gone inside my purse, and the contents were raining down beside me. He didn’t take my wallet, just cleaned out the cash. My ID was mocking me, with its smiling picture. Was that the last thing I’d ever see?