The Elizas: A Novel(86)
Conjuring strength, she pushed hard against her aunt. Dorothy staggered backward with a grunt. Dot managed to tilt herself upright before Dorothy came raging back for her. She slid off the guardrail and ducked to the side, avoiding Dorothy’s charging form. What made her grab her aunt’s thin, shapely calves, she wasn’t sure. What made her hoist those calves up, tipping the top half of her aunt’s body at the guardrail, she couldn’t say. She didn’t intend to tilt her aunt so forcefully, and when she let go, she had no idea Dorothy was angled so far over the guardrail that most of her body dangled over the edge. As soon as her fingers freed themselves from those ankles, though, Dorothy’s whole body slipped away effortlessly. Dot whirled around and gasped, instantly understanding what she’d done. She lunged for her aunt’s tumbling feet, but it was too late. Her fingers grappled darkness and air.
Dot peered over the guardrail and screamed. It was so dark, and there was no sound of her aunt’s fall, but maybe that’s because the highway was too far down for her to hear. The cars kept rushing, their headlights betraying nothing. But Dorothy was definitely down there. Soon enough, someone was going to hit her. And soon enough, they would be looking upward, trying to figure out what had happened.
She turned and ran.
ELIZA
OH GOD, THERE it is, there it is: I’m dizzy, my vision is cloudy, I’m wavering in my seat at that bar, but I can make out a body sliding into the stool next to mine. I smell the bergamot oranges and the sickening creamy mintiness of the stinger. Everything inside me goes still, and when I look over, there she is. Me, and not me.
It can’t be possible. It can’t. It was part of a dream. The worst part is I don’t even know who I’m afraid of. Myself? A clone of myself? An evil twin?
Stop staring, she said. I knew the voice. I need to talk to you. I need you to listen.
“Miss Fontaine?”
Roz is touching my arm. I realize I am standing in the parking lot with my phone in my hand. She looks at me cautiously, her clipboard under her arm. “We need to get you back in hair and makeup.” Her mouth makes an O when she peers into my face. “Are you okay?”
I am desperate to muster a smile, but it’s probably more of a snaggle-toothed cringe.
Roz pats my shoulder. “Hey, it’s going to be great. Just relax. If it’s any consolation, Katie’s out there right now getting the audience drunk. They’re going to think everything you say to Roxanne is positively scintillating.”
She extends her arm and leads me back to the trailer. My stomach heaves, and for a moment my vision tilts, but I manage to remain upright. Somehow I get up the stairs. The makeup artist says nothing about my greasy face. She hums as she puts on my lipstick. “Now go like this,” she says, popping her lips together. I pop, too. I’m amazed I can pop.
“Roxanne’s about to go on for her introductions,” Roz says. “You’re first, Eliza. Get ready!”
I’m a zombie as she walks me down the trailer steps and across the lawn. When we get to a blue curtain, she tells me to stop. “Wait here, and she’ll call your name, and then you’ll walk through there.” Roz parts the curtain just slightly to reveal a makeshift set inside a gazebo festooned with flowers. Six cameras are trained on Roxanne, who has ash-blonde hair cut to her chin and wears a white doctor’s coat. I wish, suddenly, she was a real doctor, and that I could be lying on a bed, hospitalized.
I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants. A sound tech rushes over and rechecks the microphone he’s threaded up my blouse and into my ear. But when I turn my head just so, I see her.
It’s just a flash of light and skin. A wink from a full-length mirror a few feet away from the curtain. When I look closer, I see my face staring back. Only, the me in the mirror flashes an eerie smile I don’t think I know how to make. I yelp and turn around so quickly that the cord of the microphone goes taut in the sound tech’s fingers. The microphone clip leaps off my blouse.
“Oops,” the sound tech murmurs. “Can you stay still for me, honey?”
I stare into the mirror again. The reflection is gone. I glance at Roz, who’s looking at me questioningly. “Are guests allowed backstage?”
“Nope, they’re all in the bleachers. And you got off easy—it’s a small group compared to when we shoot on our normal set.” She studies me, then tucks in her chin and speaks into her microphone. “Amanda, can you get out here? Eliza needs a touch-up.”
“Already?” I can hear the makeup artist complain through the headset. Yes, Amanda. Already.
I study the mirror again. Still nothing. But it doesn’t matter. I saw it. I know she’s here. Now that I believe in her, I suddenly believe in everything—all those shadows I wrote off as nothing, all those feelings I was being watched, all those eerie, uncanny prickles on the back of my neck. The mysterious video on my phone in the hospital room. The reason I felt so afraid when I ran toward the pool at the Tranquility; the reason I fled from the bar at the Tranquility when I was with Desmond. It’s her. This strange second Eliza is everywhere, as magical and omnipotent as Santa Claus.
Someone on the other side of the curtain calls for quiet. There’s saxophone music and applause, and the host begins to talk. Roz hears something through her headset and scuttles away a few paces. I look around freely. There are more cabanas behind us, chaises and thick palms. She’s crouching somewhere. I can feel her readying a laugh. I want to comb through the plants until I find her.