The Herd(13)

But it was a notebook from Michigan, interview notes and jotted-down details, and my mind swung to the subtleties I’d been cataloging in secret: Chris’s thick, unruly eyebrows, the spatter of freckles, fingertips skimming over my neck, my waist, the back of my knee. Then a scene change: the bright cymbal crash of humiliation when the EMTs had burst into the room. I felt a wail rise up through me and fought it, my knuckles pressed against my lips. No. I had to get to work.

I Googled Eleanor and began printing out profiles that’d been written about her—a big one in The New Yorker, breathtakingly sexist, and frothier ones on Goop, Time, Cosmopolitan, The Cut. Mikki and Hana occasionally appeared in the photos with her, which was a little odd, since neither was a full-time employee. To their benefit: Hana had no interest in dropping her other clients, and free-spirited Mikki couldn’t be tied down—she was an artist, dammit, not a forty-hour-a-week packaging designer. Yet Eleanor always made it clear they were her work wives and closest confidantes, three corners of a power triangle. The living embodiment of what she’d said in our interview this morning: “Wonderful things happen when passionate women and marginalized genders come together.”

With any luck, those wonderful things would extend to the nosy journalist, the oral historian eager to get it right. I gathered my printouts in a manila folder, and hope billowed in me for the first time in months.





CHAPTER 4





Hana


MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 9:41 P.M.

Just get here. Eleanor’s voice, tinny over the phone, echoed in my ears as I headed to her apartment. She was commanding, bombastic, larger-than-life—but never a drama queen. She was calm and controlled, knowing the power in composure. So whatever had her summoning me to her place well after business hours must have her thoroughly rattled.

I hadn’t been over to her apartment in a few weeks, and as I climbed the steps of the orange-brick West Village townhouse, I was struck anew with how beautiful it was. Steep-roofed and skinny with a tasteful wreath on the door, eucalyptus branches and bright bursts of berries. She slid open the door and ushered me in. She looked cross.

The inside was even more perfect than usual, thanks to a fat pine bough in the vestibule, the slash of green bouncing back and forth between the mirrored closet doors and floor mirror there. Eleanor was good at everything—a casually excellent interior designer, personal stylist, makeup artist, businesswoman…

She collapsed onto a sofa; on the coffee table, her laptop gleamed.

“So what’s going on?” I pulled my coat off.

Eleanor sighed. “Someone stole my phone.”

“I’m sorry.” I waited for more, then frowned. “Did—did you call the police?”

“It disappeared—I don’t even know exactly when. Sometime during the day. I took the subway to the Fort Greene site this afternoon, so it could have been then.”

So that’s why she’d FaceTimed me, presumably from her MacBook. But…why had I just taken an $11 Lyft here?

I nodded patiently. “That sucks, I’m sorry. I assume you tried Find My iPhone?”

“Of course. It was turned off right away.”

“So that’s why you think it was stolen?”

“No. This is why I think it was stolen.” She pushed her laptop in my direction and I squinted at the screen: There it was again, UGLY CUNTS. I scrolled through four photos of the defacement she’d found this morning, then—

“What is this?” The same two words sprayed in similar bubble letters, this time orange, across a sheet of nailed-down drywall. Then another picture of the words scrawled across graphic wallpaper, a pattern of illustrated hand mirrors and combs.

“It’s the other two locations,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “The first few photos, I took them this morning to show the police. But I hadn’t sent them to anyone yet—they were just on my phone. And the other two are in Fort Greene and San Francisco. Someone hit our other sites last night. Coordinated attacks.”

Goosebumps rippled up my arms and neck. This felt personal—for as long as I’d known Eleanor, her hatred for that particular profanity had bordered on maniacal. A few months back, one of her favorite contributors to the Gleam On blog had pitched an essay on “reclaiming the C-word,” and Eleanor had dismissed it with unprecedented vehemence.

“You should’ve told me,” I said. “Did everyone at the San Francisco Herd see it?”

She shook her head. “We were lucky—the head member relations coordinator went in early and spotted it before they opened. She sent photos and called me right away. It was on fabric wallpaper, so I had her rip it down before they even opened. The police weren’t happy about that, but…I mean, I am.” Eleanor tugged at the sleeve of her sweater.

“And in Fort Greene?”

“The lead contractor found it this morning. He sent me photos and then just painted over it.”

“Okay.” I looked back at the screen. “So what does this have to do with your phone?”

She pointed at her laptop. “That’s an email from Joanna. My friend at The Gaze.”

“This is making less and less sense, the more you tell me. What’s going on?”

“Okay. Whoever stole my phone found these photos on it and sent them all to The Gaze. Anonymously, of course—they have all those secure drop boxes set up. Anyway, The Gaze is planning to run them, and my friend Joanna gave me a heads-up as, like, a courtesy.” She slipped a gray pillow in front of her stomach. “She was trying to call me all day because she didn’t want a paper trail of her snitching on her employer. Really wish I had my phone.”