The Lies I Tell(46)

“Don’t worry.”

But since Meg’s return, a different version of her has emerged. She isn’t the one-dimensional con artist who’d lived inside my imagination for so many years. She’s a woman who hates men like Ron as much as I do. Who always insists on paying for lunch and ends up tipping 30 percent. Who rolls her window down at red lights to give $5 to the homeless person standing there.

“Where are you going to pitch the story? And when?”

“I don’t know,” I hedge. I’d been thinking about Vanity Fair or Esquire. This is exactly the kind of big, splashy story they would love—a beautiful, mysterious female con artist—but all I have are some ten-year-old claims and a lot of empty space. “I need to know where she’s been and what she’d done to get an idea of what she’s doing now.”

“Where does she say she’s been?”

“Michigan. Selling real estate,” I say. “She’s got a website, with photos of houses she’s sold and client testimonials.”

“Fake?”

“Almost certainly. But it’s a dead end.” In the weeks since Meg’s return, I haven’t been able to find any company in Michigan operating under the name Ann Arbor Realty. An image search of the listings from her website were all traced back to Zillow or Redfin with other agents’ names attached. “I’m stuck,” I admit. “None of the databases I have access to are going to turn up what Meg wants to keep hidden.”

“Let me put one of my researchers on it, off the books. See what we can turn up.”

I’d been hoping she’d offer. “Really?” I say. “That would be amazing. All I need is a lead—a name, a location. I can do the rest.”

“Your mom must be loving this,” she says.

I sigh into the phone and stare out the window. “She’s constantly at me, texting suggestions, and offers to read pages. When I told her I was going undercover, she practically had kittens.”

Jenna laughs. “She means well.”

I know Jenna is right, but it runs deeper than that with my mother. The expectations I always seem to fall short of, the disappointment that my big break at the LA Times resulted in a career writing piecework while my grad school friends have gone on to write for major outlets. When Jenna got hired by the New York Times, instead of being happy for Jenna, the first thing my mother said was Why didn’t you go for that job yourself?

“Other than worrying about you, how’s Scott?” Jenna asks.

“He’s doing well,” I say.

“When are you guys going to set a date?” she asks. “I want to make sure I put in for time off.”

“I don’t know. We’re both so busy. Maybe after I sell this Meg story, we can sit down and get something calendared.”

“You make it sound like you’re booking a gynecologist appointment. Try to be a little excited.”

I laugh. “I’m excited. I just have a lot to do. I’m basically working two jobs.”

Jenna’s silent for a minute, as if she’s weighing my words. “Just make sure that’s all it is. I know I’ve said it before, but there’s no shame in changing your mind.”

“Scott’s been doing great,” I tell her. “Working the program. All is well, I promise.”

Jenna waits a beat before saying, “I gotta run. Call me this weekend?”

“Will do.”

After we hang up, I stare at the phone. I miss having a friend. Someone to meet for lunch or a quick coffee. Someone I don’t have to always be on guard around, looking for lies and manipulation slipped into conversations. All the pretending, all the role-playing takes an emotional toll. I think back again to Scott’s undercover friend, to what he’d always say. After a while, if you’re not careful, you can lose sight of the line. You no longer think in terms of me or them and only in terms of us.





Meg


July

Fifteen Weeks before the Election

Six weeks into the job and I will admit, I’m starting to worry. I’ve never had a deadline like the one I have with the election, and like any deadline that starts to loom…the closer you get to it, the more you begin to panic that the pieces might not come together in time.

And I can’t help but wonder if I’ve got a blind spot. Never before has a job been so personal. So raw. Never before have I had so much invested in the outcome. This is my magnum opus, and I am flat-out stalled.

I’ve got Kat, bless her heart, keeping us busy with properties Ron might like. If she thought this job was going to be mostly yoga and lunches with a few contracts here and there, she’s got another thing coming. I actually need her to work.

I’m out with Ron at least three times a week, carving out an hour here, an hour there from his busy campaign schedule, ostensibly looking for the perfect property to add to his portfolio. But my real job is to keep him talking. I can’t execute the first part of my plan—the one that centers around Canyon Drive—until I know for sure what decisions Ron will make in the second half.

Despite all the apartments and duplexes we’ve seen, I have no intention of selling him anything. But this entire job hinges on Ron’s belief that I will.

***

I’ve had Kat dig up properties in price points ranging from $3 million to $10 million. Ron has looked at all of them with an open mind. Every time I ask him how he feels about the price, he gives me a throwaway comment about his business manager, Steve, who keeps him in cash and out of jail.