The Elizas: A Novel(84)

It was me. Me exactly. My same face. My same body. My same smile. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said. And then: “Please. Stop staring.”

My heart isn’t pounding anymore. I’m not even sure that it’s beating. I’ve stopped next to a parked Range Rover. When I glance at my face in the window, I see her. Her eyes. Her mouth. Her cheekbones. Her skin, even her expression. I whip around, swallowing a scream, and then her name. Except it’s my name. And she isn’t behind me. She isn’t anywhere.

But she was. At that bar. I just don’t know who she is.





From The Dots


Dot tried to pay attention as her aunt told her about her partying days with famous writers in New York, but it wasn’t easy. Dorothy kept sipping at that stinger, more and more of it disappearing down her throat. Nothing seemed to be happening. So that was a good thing. A very good thing.

But then, at one point, Dorothy leaned on her elbow and gave Dot a soapy smile. “I’m so happy you came out tonight, dear. Have I told you how much I missed you?”

And then Dot saw it. A slump of her aunt’s head, her chin slipping off her palm. “Oops,” Dorothy said, giggling. Dot took stock of the way her own body felt—she’d drunk half her stinger, but she was still lucid. Her hands weren’t shaking. Her vision wasn’t doubled.

Her heart cracked inside her chest. So there it was.

Like an old roof that could no longer withstand hurricane-force winds, Dorothy suddenly lost her composure. Her cheeks went from pale to flushed in seconds. Her eyes began to water. Her movements became florid and haphazard. When she smiled, she couldn’t quite control her lips. Dorothy stared at her palms as if she’d never seen them before.

Dot glanced around the restaurant, terrified that someone was on to what had happened, but all of the businessmen and doctors and first dates were caught up in their own worlds. She was grateful for Dorothy’s paranoid need for concealment. But Dot’s expression must have given something away, because when she looked across the table, Dorothy was staring at her in sober understanding.

“What did you do?” her aunt growled.

Dot licked her lips. The stinger had formed a thick coating at the back of her throat.

Dorothy stared at the drink in front of her. It was possible she saw two drinks instead of one, or maybe the drinks were spinning. Then she looked at Dot again. “What. Did. You. Do?”

“What did you do?” Dot asked quietly. “That drink was meant for me, not you.”

Dorothy’s eyes widened. “How dare you do this to me?”

“How dare you do it to me?”

“Did you know I have cancer?” Dorothy exploded. “Ovarian. I was going to tell you tonight. And now you’ve done it. You’ve probably ruined my chances of surviving.” She jumped up from the table. For a moment, she just stood there, peering around the restaurant, her eyes narrowed on a back hallway that led to the kitchen. Then, clutching her chest, she took off for the back door, the one they always came through.

Dot leapt up, too. She had no idea whether to believe the cancer story or not. But before she followed her aunt, she glanced at the remainder of Dorothy’s drink. She plucked it from the table, carried it to the bathroom, and poured the rest of it down the sink. She could feel the bathroom attendant’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look over. She didn’t look at anyone.

Then she went outside.

Dorothy was half in the shadows in the alleyway behind the restaurant, bent over at the waist and making retching noises. She wiped her eyes, stood, and glared at Dot. “What do you want?”

“Do you need me to get you a doctor? Do you need your stomach pumped? Before we call the police, that is. Because I am going to call the police.”

Dorothy blotted her mouth with her sleeve. Her nostrils flared. “You win. You win, Dot.”

“It isn’t about winning.”

“This wasn’t what you think. I was trying to help you.”

“How?”

Dorothy stuck her nose in the air. “Your drink wasn’t going to kill you—it was just going to knock you out long enough that I could get you out of this town without you protesting. I was going to get you a doctor. You were going to be fine.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“You should.”

“And where were we going to go?”

“Bolivia.”

Dot scoffed. “Why there?”

“Have you ever been? I spent some time there a few years ago. It’s so beautiful. And private.”

“I thought you were in Africa.”

Dorothy’s eyes were glassy. “We were going to have a wonderful life.”

“Why do you think I would want to have a wonderful life with you after what you’ve done?” The alley led to a busy avenue. Cars rushed past, their headlights bright, but she and Dorothy were in a pool of shadows. Dot doubted that a single driver saw them. “And who’s to say you wouldn’t keep doing this to me? Keep drugging me. Keep poisoning me. All to keep me in your control.”

Dorothy looked disappointed. “I’m sorry you see it that way, dear.”

“How else can I see it? You slap me so that I’ll cry and then you can hug me. You poison me so I can get sick and you can take care of me. It’s . . . it’s insane.”