The Elizas: A Novel
Sara Shepard
To Charles Vent
“We are only falsehood, duplicity, and contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.”
—BLAISE PASCAL
ELIZA
I’M SCREAMING AS I wake up. The sound is sucked away as soon as I open my eyes, but it leaves a mark on my brain, a quickly fading handprint in wet sand. My throat is raw. My head is pounding. I struggle to look around, but all I see are blurred shapes. There’s an acrid taste of booze in my mouth.
Way to go, Eliza. You dodge a bullet, and you do this?
I picture the upgraded suite I’m missing out on because I’m too wasted. When I arrived at my suite in the Tranquility resort in Palm Springs late Saturday afternoon, I opened all the blinds in all the rooms. I stripped off my clothes and lay atop the bedsheets in only my underwear. I sat in the enormous empty tub and later warmed my ass on the heated toilet seat. And then, against my better judgment, I unlocked the minibar and belted down several bottles of vanilla-flavored Stolichnaya in quick succession. It tasted so good. Like an old friend.
As I drank, I stood on the balcony and stared into the courtyard seven flights below. It’s a perfect square, that courtyard, made up of flagstone paths and flower beds. The space is divided into secluded quadrants that invite privacy . . . and scandal. The lore about this place is that in the early sixties, a wannabe starlet named Gigi Reese was murdered in that courtyard. Bludgeoned in the head, apparently, probably by some local goons she got mixed up with. When they first found the body, officials ID’d her as another blonde actress named Diana Dane—the two women looked very similar. The public mourned for Diana Dane, who’d danced alongside Danny Kaye in a few pictures. What a tragedy! A life cut short! We must find her killer, pronto! Then Diana Dane returned from a USO trip to Japan and told the world she was just fine, thank her lucky stars. When the coroner got the dead woman’s true identity sorted out, the Hollywood headlines barely mentioned it. They were still talking about what a relief it was that Diana Dane was okay. No one cared who’d offed Gigi Reese. The mystery is still unsolved.
After I finished my third mini bottle of vodka, I was feeling loose and reckless, so I figured I might as well go all out. I ordered room service, telling the guy taking my order, “Oh, just send up one of everything, especially the desserts.” While I waited, I looked at the hand towels in the bathroom. They were soft, yet substantial. Unforgiving. I tried to imagine Gigi Reese’s killer using such a towel to muffle her screams. Or maybe he knocked her out quickly, and she hadn’t had time to make a sound. I ran my fingers over the spaceship-shaped alarm clock next to my bed, noting the sharpness of the tip and the heaviness of its base. It would make a good bludgeoning tool.
But now, when I turn my head to check out the space-age alarm clock again, it’s not on the bedside stand. In fact, I don’t even see the bedside stand. Light streams through a window, too—but isn’t it nighttime?
A face emerges above me. “I think she’s awake.”
It’s my mother’s crinkled forehead, her wire-frame glasses, the sunburned nose from Saturdays spent kite surfing. She is so incongruous in this setting I assume, at first, that I’m still dreaming.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. It is an effort to speak. It feels as though there is someone sitting on my face.
My mother licks her lips. “Eliza.” Her voice cracks. Trembles. And then she sighs. It’s a big sigh, sad and long, gloomy and defeated. “Honey.”
Honey. It sets my heart thumping. My mother only calls me honey when I’ve done something to really shake her up. We’ve been through things, me and my mom. I’ve scared her one too many times.
“W-what’s going on?” I croak.
My stepfather, Bill, shimmers into view. There are mussed tufts of grayish hair above his ears. “Don’t worry, chicken. You’re going to be okay.”
I remember the scream I’d made upon waking. “Did something happen?”
Gazes slide to the left. I spy my stepsister, Gabby, slouched in a doorway. This isn’t my hotel suite at all. And what I’d thought was the typical crushing, sticky-mouthed descent into a hangover doesn’t feel that way anymore, not completely. I notice a machine standing to my left. Green LED numbers march across a screen. The beeping sound is rhythmic, organic, matching the cadence of a body—my body. There’s an IV pole with bags and tubes next to me, too. The goopy liquid in the IV bag is tinged an inorganic, vampire red, but when I look again, the liquid is thin and clear.
“Why am I in a hospital?” I whisper.
Again, no one speaks. A slick, cold feeling creeps down my back. A voice prods from somewhere deep. You’ve got to get ahold of yourself. I hear clinking glasses and a strain of “Low Rider” on the stereo—but what stereo? My vision swirls. Stop staring, someone says. And: I’ve been looking for you.
I try to grab the memory, but it’s a petal blowing off a patio. Someone’s screaming. Then . . . nothing. When was this from? Is it even real?
I try another question. “What day is it?”
“Sunday,” my mother answers. “Sunday morning. You’ve been asleep for a while.”
“Why am I in a hospital?” I ask again. “Please. Somebody tell me.”