An Anonymous Girl(90)

Your big eyes filled with tears. Your lower lip quivered. As though you deserved sympathy for this transgression.

You were seeking absolution, but it was not granted. How could it be? There is a barricade that separates moral individuals from immoral ones. These rules are very clear. You were told you crossed that barrier, and that you would never be welcomed into the town house again.

You had revealed your true, flawed self. You weren’t the guileless young woman you initially presented yourself to be.

The conversation continued. At the conclusion of it, you were given a farewell hug.

Twenty minutes later, all traces of you were gone. Your wineglass was washed and dried and replaced in a cabinet. The remnants of the Brie and grapes were tipped into the trash can. Your stool was realigned into its proper position.

It was as if you’d never been here at all. As if you no longer existed.

I hadn’t even skimmed Dr. Shields’s written words the first time I’d seen them. I was too worried about getting out of her town house before she arrived home. But later, in the safety of my apartment, I’d read them again and again.

Dr. Shields’s notes don’t indicate that she knows the married man April confessed to sleeping with was Thomas. She seems to believe that April entered her study with no ulterior motives, when it’s obvious to me now that April was obsessed with Thomas, obsessed enough to find a way into Dr. Shields’s research project. Then she seemed to grow attached to Dr. Shields. April was a lost girl; she seemed to be searching for someone or something to hold on to.

It seems strange that April revealed she had an affair with an unnamed married man to Dr. Shields, that she tiptoed up to the brink of an explosive disclosure. But I kind of get it, given the magnetic pull Dr. Shields exudes.

Maybe April was seeking absolution, the same way I sought it from Dr. Shields when I told her my secrets. Perhaps April also thought that if the woman who spent her career studying moral choices offered her a pardon, then April wasn’t so flawed after all.

“I’ll text you the missing pages,” I say to Thomas. “Can you answer one more question, though?”

He nods.

I think about the night I watched them under the restaurant awning. “I saw you with Dr. Shields one evening. You seemed so in love. Why did you act like that?”

“Her file on April,” he says. “I wanted to get in the house so I could see it. If there was something April said that could link her to me, I was worried Lydia might realize it later and it could send her over the edge. But I could never find it, not until I saw it on her desk.”

“There’s nothing in there that ties you to April,” I say.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

But that may not be true, I realize. There’s one tiny detail, floating just beyond the edge of my consciousness. It’s like a helium-filled balloon dancing on a high ceiling. I can’t grasp it no matter how hard I try. It has something to do with April; it’s an image or memory or detail.

I glance at the window again as I pull my phone out of my pocket. I’ll go back and study her file afresh once I leave here, I think. Now I just need to get out.

I look down at my phone to pull up the final five photographs of April’s file. That’s when I see the missed calls are from BeautyBuzz. There are four, including two voice mail messages.

Did I forget about a job? I wonder. But I’m certain I’m not scheduled to work until five P.M.

Why would the company be so frantic to get ahold of me?

I quickly tap on the missing photos and text them to Thomas. “Now you have everything,” I say as I stand up. He’s already bent over his phone, intently studying them.

I play the message from BeautyBuzz. My eye is drawn back to the window. I think I can see the shadows of people passing by again, but I’m not sure.

The voice mail isn’t from the program coordinator, like I thought. It’s from the owner of the company, a woman I’ve never spoken to before.

“Jessica, please call me at once.”

Her voice is clipped. Angry.

I press Play to listen to the second one.

“Jessica, you are being terminated, effective immediately. You need to return this message as soon as possible. We’ve learned you have violated the noncompete clause you signed when you joined our company. We have the names of two women you recently solicited as freelance clients while using the BeautyBuzz name. Our lawyers will file a cease and desist if you continue.”

I look up at Thomas.

“She got me fired,” I whisper.

Dr. Shields must have called BeautyBuzz and told them about Reyna and Tiffani.

I think about my rent that’s due in a week, Antonia’s bills, my father’s job loss. I imagine Becky’s sweet, trusting face as she learns the only home she has ever had is about to disappear.

The walls are closing in on me again.

Is Dr. Shields going to get me sued if I don’t do what she wants?

I think about what she wrote in her notes on me: You belong to me.

My throat is tight, and my eyes are burning. A scream is trapped in my throat.

“What happened?” Thomas asks as he rises from behind his desk.

But I can’t answer him. I burst through the office door and then into the empty waiting room, and I tear down the hallway. I need to call the owner of BeautyBuzz and try to explain. I need to talk to my parents and make sure they’re still safe. Could Dr. Shields do something to them? Maybe she isn’t planning to pay for their trip after all; she could have found out my credit-card number and used it for the deposit.