The Herd(84)

Katie nodded. “Alone on Christmas Eve—it’s just too much. I know we’re not about to salvage the holiday, but I’d be down to order takeout and zone out to some bad TV.”

“We could still try for Italian,” I suggested. “Our original plan from last week. Mikki, can we come over?” She shrugged and said sure.

The local Italian joints were closed (fair) so we settled on Chinese, piling onto the order potstickers and crab rangoon, hoping to drown our feelings in oil and salt. Mikki queued up This Is Spinal Tap without running it by us, which seemed odd, but soon I was distracted by its rat-a-tat rhythm, lazy off-the-cuff conversations in thick British accents, and then the concert scenes, so loud and triumphantly silly.

A particularly deafening shrawww of electric guitar roused Katie, who’d fallen asleep.

“Whew, guys, I gotta go home,” she announced, giving her head a little shake. “We should do something tomorrow, even if it’s just another dumb movie marathon. We shouldn’t be alone.” She waved from the door, and Mikki stood to lock the dead bolt behind her.

I twirled cold Lo Mein noodles around a fork as Mikki settled back and hit Play. The last few days had been awful, but there was something gentle thrumming underneath the horror: answers, a cessation, the promise that, in time, we could grieve and heal and move on. My eyes jumped to a screen on the coffee table, suddenly lit.

“Is that yours?” I nodded toward it, then saw that Mikki was on her own cell. “Dummy left her phone. Wonder when she’ll notice.”

“Good old Katie,” Mikki replied, then yawned.

I slid my own phone from my purse and checked my email. Among the holiday promotions, one from Daniel:


Hana: Hopefully you’re not checking emails on xmas eve. Karen said you guys headed back today and that she and Gary are waiting for Cameron to be found. I’m doing okay. I’m taking it an hour at a time. It hasn’t sunk in yet that we know the bastard who did this. The detective said they found a lot of activity from him in Eleanor hate groups. I guess he never got over the rejection and blamed her for his wasted life. Makes me sick to think that he was at our wedding.



I shook my head involuntarily. Spinal Tap was wandering through a basement in search of the stage door; Mikki was tapping out a text.


Anyway, when you’re back on the grid, I want your take on this: I found it in a box of old books in one of the closets in the foyer. (I’ve been tearing the apartment apart looking for clues.) I don’t know what to make of it…are we concerned about her mental health? Pathological lying, etc.? I don’t want to embarrass her but have been trying to think why E would’ve kept it, and since you were around back then, I thought you might have some idea. LMK when you get a chance. -D



I opened the attachment: a photograph of a sheet of paper, slightly off-kilter, the type a tiny bit blurred. A printed-out letter with December 18, 2016, at the top, Eleanor’s address below it, “sent via certified mail.” I zoomed in:

    To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that your newly announced company, The Herd, is substantially similar to my own business plan for The In, an all-female coworking space. Specifically, the aesthetics, company branding, and corporate model of The Herd are nearly identical to the corresponding details outlined in my business plan for The In.

I am the proprietor of all copyright within my business plan for The In, an all-female coworking space (the “Work”). I had reserved all rights in the Work, which was first published on May 21, 2010. You neither requested nor received permission to use my Work, therefore your unauthorized copying and use of my Work constitutes copyright infringement in violation of the United States copyright laws.

I hereby demand that you, within 30 days of this letter, immediately and permanently cease and desist the use of my Work. If you do not cease and desist within the above stated time period, I will be forced to take appropriate legal action against you and will seek all available damages and remedies.

Sincerely,

Mikki Danziger



A snowplow rumbled in the distance. I looked up at Mikki slowly, my heart beating louder than the drums and bass now shooting out of her TV. She scrolled at her screen, scratched her nose, oblivious to the baffling news I held in my hands.

Eleanor with her cute camp origin story. The one she’d casually filched from her friend. I could remember the moment Eleanor described to me her groundbreaking idea for an all-female coworking space: her eyes sparkling, voice bouncing with excitement, Oh you have to move here to help me start it, her words tumbling out faster and faster and faster—

“Mikki, what is this?” I handed her my phone and watched her eyes slide across the screen. A flash of fear in her eyes, and then a watercolor wash of pink seeped into her nose, her chin, her neck.

“Well, that’s humiliating,” she said, handing it back. Her chuckle was laced with pain. “You know what’s funny? I was so worried about the cops finding that. I practically tore apart her office looking for it. And I even sent Cameron—I had no idea what he’d done, obviously, but once he told me he was in town—I had him go look for it at Eleanor’s apartment. I thought it would look so bad for me, make me look guilty when I’m not. But now that I see it…” She puffed her lips, looked away. “It’s stupid. A kid with an account on Legal-Documents-R-Us.”