In Her Skin(55)

*

You wouldn’t think someone would be able to hang around the window of a police station and hear things. And you’d be right. I stalk the entire station, and though I know where Detective Curley’s office window is, it is barred and painted shut. This was a wrong move, and as soon as you and Gerry discover I’m gone, and call Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft’s phones over and over and don’t reach them, I will be screwed without benefit. I am about to mount my stolen bicycle and meet my fate when I see the Lovecrafts, Gene, and Harvey Silver emerge from the station. They decide to debrief at an outdoor café next door, where it is incredibly easy to slump against a wall with my face in my knees, pretending to be homeless.

They sit at a lovely table within hearing distance. Convenient.

“There’s nothing Curley can do with a diagnosis. A bolter bolts. That’s what they do by definition. We can’t conclude that’s what happened to Vivienne at nine. But the statement of the social worker is helpful,” says Harvey Silver.

“But if the school accepts it, and the social worker accepts it, the police have to accept it, right?” asks Mr. Lovecraft.

“What doesn’t help us is the girl’s claims when she first came in. Curley can’t get those out of his head,” says Lawyer Gene.

Harvey Silver rubs his chin. “It would help if the girl would admit to running away. Are you sure we can’t get her to?”

“We’ve tried,” lies Mr. Lovecraft.

“Her attraction to cars and traffic is still apparent. We have to be constantly alert, living on Commonwealth Avenue. You can imagine!” exclaims Mrs. Lovecraft. “We’ve added bars to our windows. Our private security person is kept busy, I’ll tell you that. We let go of our original man because he couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t understand the endless vigilance required by Vivienne’s affliction.”

I am sickened.

“Clarissa bears the brunt of it for sure. You just have to hope that Curley can wrap his brain around the fact that Vivienne bolted once before: that foul play wasn’t a factor,” says Mr. Lovecraft.

A man drops a dollar on the ground in front of me. I stare up at him, my eyes angry slits.

“You know what I’m going to say, Clarissa,” says Harvey Silver.

“I know,” Mrs. Lovecraft replies. “She’s likely to bolt again.”

“It would be best if you document her attempts,” adds Lawyer Gene.

My heart starts thumping in my chest. Document my attempts?

“You mean in case she succeeds?” asks Mr. Lovecraft.

“Yes, God forbid, in case she succeeds,” says Harvey Silver.

Documented attempts. A school aware of my “disorder.” A police detective aware of my “disorder.”

A new hole in the wall.

The Lovecrafts have gotten what they needed from me: redemption. Now that their daughter has told me everything, Vivienne Weir has become a liability. Where I thought I had the best of them, they had the best of me. A con is another con’s easiest mark.

I snatch the dollar from the ground. The Lovecrafts may have made Vivienne Weir disappear, but they won’t make Jolene Chastain.

It’s time to go back to being nobody.

*

The party in celebration of the two-month anniversary of my adoption is to be held at the Christian Science ballroom, home of the Glass Globe. This is your idea, and not a coincidence. I used to think you followed me places—once I was even convinced you had cameras in my room—but I’ve come to believe you learn things the old-fashioned way. A ticket stub from the Mapparium in my jacket pocket. A phone left on “record” on a shelf ledge during my tutoring sessions. Your techniques are not fancy or sophisticated, but they get the job done, and that is where the con goes wrong, when they try to get too fancy. You’re one to watch, Temple Lovecraft.

Anyway.

As best I can tell, this party serves as a big splashy public display of the Lovecrafts’ love for me, the love they have crafted. It will make clear to all the pretty people who matter that the only reason I would ever run away (again? Do you think she did that first time?) could be due to a diagnosed illness, a compulsion to bolt

wander

elope

which of course the school knew about, and the police knew about, and Harvey Silver can explain, and what a tragedy. A missing-person case will open, but the Lovecrafts will not worry. They know that the police never look in the walls.

You are in good spirits, because school will start soon, and you do love school, I was wrong that day in the library, about so many things. School is a structured routine and you thrive on routine, where you can prove that you are the best at everything. You are also in high spirits because you love a good party, especially when it is a prelude to a kill.

You shake out your hair in my doorway. “Ready for your ‘coming out,’ Vivienne Weir?” you ask. You are wearing a black dress that is one-shouldered and sophisticated and you look hot and that makes me cold.

My dress is the color of membranes; a color as raw as I feel. “I’ll be there in a second,” I reply. When you leave, I smell the white flowers of your perfume, an expensive smell that comes from a black lacquered bottle. I reach into my drawer and pull out the lime-green sweater and ease open my window, my always too-loud window, and lean out, tying the sweater’s arms to the railing of the fire escape. The wind makes it hard, weird alley-wind that kicks up and makes no sense, and the sweater gets caught, streaming, less like a flag screaming help than like a skinny girl holding on for dear life.