In Her Skin(35)

“I’m never cold. Or I feel nothing. I think that’s changing, though.” You dissolve into laughter. “That sounded like a seriously crappy song lyric.”

I smile. “I get it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We stroll through the lines of crumbling graves, taking our time, safe to say what we want among the dead forgotten.

“I lied before,” you say. “We’re not here just because I like to freak my parents out. I like cemeteries because they remind me that I’m mortal. That I have to die like every other person. Memento mori.”

“So slow down and enjoy,” I say.

“Something like that,” you say.

“Memento mori. It’s our new motto,” I say, liking the way us having a motto sounds.

You stop at the gate and face me. Behind you, people rush to catch the train, on a different track than us, in a different world, operating at a different speed.

“But it doesn’t work for you. I would think you’d want to rush forward with your life now that things are better.”

I know exactly what to say. Thank you, gods, for giving me this chance to be the one to do the touching. I move your hair over your shoulder. “Actually, it’s totally the opposite. I’m appreciating everything I have now so much more.” For this moment, I let myself get lost in the things I wish to see, the clear eyes and the pillowy lips and the doll cheeks, and forget the false desk drawer that holds what I do not.

*

A moment is an exact point in time and by definition it does not last.

I tell myself this as I stand, paralyzed, at the door to Mr. Lovecraft’s office, hours after Mr. Lovecraft has left for work, Temple has gone to school, and Mrs. Lovecraft drifted away on vague errands. The secret drawer calls to me, and I dread what it might contain. Memento mori. Slow down and enjoy, Jo. Don’t be in a rush to see things that could change everything.

I have an actual excuse that has nothing to do with my fear of what’s in that envelope. There is Slade, inexplicably awake and parked outside the window of Mr. Lovecraft’s office. His SUV sits at the curb, running. Because the dummy can’t find one of the Lovecrafts’ chargers, he’s destroying the ozone layer so he can argue with his girlfriend. He pops a vein as he yells and this will not end well, and it will not end soon, and is seemingly worth losing his sleep over. Across the Common, a meter maid tickets cars. It will take her a while to reach Slade, but she will reach him, and this fight is a doozy, one that means plenty of hatesex later.

The good con isn’t afraid of information. Also: the good con manages the unexpected.

I drop to my knees and crawl to the office window, catching the cord to the blinds and easing them closed an inch. It is a lightless afternoon made darker by all this wood. Don’t notice the shades have closed partway, Slade, don’t look. Focus on saying cruel things to your girlfriend. My fingers press the false bottom of the drawer and its floor pops. I place the false bottom aside.

Inside is a yellow envelope tied with red string.

A honk, a terrible, endless blast. I lift a slat and peek through. Slade has dropped his head over the steering wheel and smacked the horn. This is the end of his fight or added drama. Either way, my time is short. A stamp in the corner reads Forlizzi & Associates Private Detective Agency.

Leave it. Replace the false floor, close the drawer, and don’t look back.

Except I am alone now, and I don’t have to be Vivi. I can be Jo, whose sticky fingers would be in that envelope already. Open the envelope, Jo.

Mr. Lovecraft’s trinkets glare at me. A brass mastiff, a helicopter paperweight, and a Tom Brady bobblehead, things fondled by him and dusted by the cleaners. Ungrateful girl, they say. Untrusting.

The envelope, Jo.

I unwind the string from the envelope and dump the contents on the desk.

Papers slip and fall from my fingers, clumsy from shock. I am looking at my life.

*

On the desk, I feather a packet of research on Jolene Chastain. More accurately, on Patrice Chastain. Here we have arrest records. Here we have citations for vagrancy. For loitering. For panhandling. Mug shots. Momma, her hair oily, eyes glassed. Not a trail of Jolene, not a footprint, because I am a minor, but that doesn’t make a difference. The Lovecrafts know who I am.

My knees shake, and from the sound of it, a meter maid is knocking on Slade’s window. I gather the papers in my arms and drop to the floor, crawling to lean against the wall, the world beyond my eyes gone white and staticky. At the edges of the fuzz I hear Slade, muffled arguing that echoes from miles away. The fuzz recedes, but the electricity remains. Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft suspected I wasn’t Vivienne Weir and paid someone to confirm it. For weeks, they’ve only been pretending that I’m her.

My cheeks drop, cold with horror.

If they know I’m not Vivienne Weir, do you know, too?

A car door slams. I gather the papers and jam everything back into the drawer, messy, but there’s no time to escape, because Slade probably runs up stairs as part of his regular training, though he will be dejected and maybe slower. Sitting in Mr. Lovecraft’s chair would not be cool, so I stand, staring out the half-closed blinds as though it is natural and the view is fascinating. I feel Slade stop in the door frame. He wants to say something, but he senses I am having a moment and is afraid to interrupt.

“Miss Weir?” he says.