In Her Skin(44)

We are hustled into Hair and Makeup, capital H and capital M, and they apply makeup like mad to everybody, including Harvey and Mr. Lovecraft. I sneak a glance at Mrs. Lovecraft in the chair beside me and mirror her stillness, the way she raises her eyes when they sweep and spackle. When Momma wore makeup, it looked like her only better, but the stuff they are putting on Mrs. Lovecraft makes her look like a clown, and I assume clown colors look good on TV. Most people change their clothes, but no one gave us that memo, and the woman in charge of my hair frowns at my wrinkled skirt, and she should cut me some slack since we just drove four hours. Suddenly I am in my underwear and shoes behind a curtain in the corner of Hair and Makeup and a hungover intern is steaming my skirt. When I step into it, it burns my bare thighs.

While I was standing in my underwear, the others disappeared. The intern rushes me to the studio where a big digital clock reads 8:12. We are to be interviewed by the prettiest woman I have ever seen. Natalie is tiny, with sucked-in pockets underneath her cheekbones and a dress the color of bubble gum. Her arms are impossibly tight in cap sleeves, and I can’t stop staring at them. She sits in the chair opposite us and introduces herself, shaking our hands. She oozes health and energy and Mr. Lovecraft is oozing admiration, and I am vaguely irritated. When she takes my hand I stare at hers, a perfect little shell, with perfect fingernails edged with little white moons. She pulls away with a pretty frown.

And it is 8:35 and we are on. They are on; I am silent. I don’t need to speak, because they are playing a montage of my life—Vivi’s life—along with pictures of her chum parents, and Mrs. Lovecraft is tearing up. Apparently they wanted to do a “walking and talking shot” of me and Natalie, but there wasn’t enough time to tape it, and this is good because I don’t love the idea of America having a nice long chance to compare images of Jolene Chastain with images of Vivienne Weir. Natalie and Harvey are doing most of the talking, and I can see us on the monitors behind the cameras, and when Natalie asks each of us a question, the camera focuses on that person. Now Natalie is asking Mrs. Lovecraft what our “reunion” was like, and reunions make me think of big happy families and long picnic tables and matching shirts. The camera zooms in on Mrs. Lovecraft, and she is fiddling with her hands in her lap. Above the waist and on camera, she is perfectly still and composed, and I am weirdly proud.

“Seeing Vivi again, healthy and strong, was the second happiest moment of my life. The first was giving birth to my own daughter,” Mrs. Lovecraft says.

This is Natalie’s segue into that night. She recounts the hours while Vivi went missing, and the Lovecrafts reach for each other’s hands, when shouldn’t they be reaching for mine? Then Natalie mentions the unspoken: the flak the Lovecrafts got afterward, as careless parents. And then she’s on to the Weirs’ plane crash, and the fact of my orphaning, and don’t you feel bad for me, people? Natalie is brilliant. Natalie is a star. Natalie deserves her fat paycheck. Because without having to defend or deny, we are back to sympathy and admiration for the Lovecrafts, and it is my turn to say something.

I know this because she says, “I want to give Vivienne a chance to say something.”

I swallow at America.

“First, please accept our condolences on the loss of your parents. After all this time, do you feel like you are finally home?” asks Natalie.

I look directly into the camera trained on my face. Vivi’s crinkle-nosed smile is not an option: I will look deranged. I go for something straddling the line between shy and sad. “Um. I miss my parents, of course. In a way, I’m lucky, I think, not to remember anything about the last seven years. Being found—it’s kind of like a rebirth. A second chance at my life.”

This was the right thing to say. You can feel hearts softening around the studio, murmurs of agreement: yes, it is her second chance, yes, it is a rebirth, let’s forget she probably got abducted and doesn’t remember anything about the last seven years, that’s a downer, all is well, what a wonderful world!

Natalie wishes us every good thing, and me especially, and it is done, over, and it was so fast and now the world knows me as Vivi. Mr. Lovecraft lingers, getting the most out of his time with Natalie, who is used to men and wants to get away from him.

By 8:55 we are back in the limo, which apparently kept circling around the block to avoid cops and tickets. I have whiplash from the speed at which this thing happened. By two thirty, we’re pulling up in front of 999 Commonwealth Avenue.

Mrs. Lovecraft leans over to me. “Just like I said. We nipped it in the bud with this one interview. We don’t—you don’t—owe them anything else.”

Mr. Lovecraft smiles at me, but it’s more like a grimace. “One and done.”

I nod. They can’t imagine how much I would like this to be over with. Every time my face shows up on the screen, it’s a chance for someone to pop out of the woodwork and claim I’m not Vivi.

A pack of reporters stands at the curb. There is a festering quality about them, like maggots, tight-packed, jostling for the same space.

The limo driver leans over the seat. “Good luck getting into your own house.”

His breath smells of stale coffee and I shoot him a dirty look.

“We’re never getting out of the car!” Mrs. Lovecraft cries, her voice stippled with fear.

Mr. Lovecraft pats his pocket for his phone, finds it and calls Slade, cursing softly when he doesn’t answer.