You Can't Catch Me(45)

“What about your senior adviser?”

“I doubt she’d remember—it wasn’t that good. And imagine how many she’s had to read since then. Now I’m a serial cheater. It’s a pattern going way back. I am totally fucked.”

“So,” Jessie says, “what’s finding Jessica Two going to do about it?”

“If we catch her, I can write about what happened to all of us. I can redeem myself. Plus, get my money back. Get your money back. That could help you, too, JJ. And you, Jessie.”

“How?” JJ takes her coffee black, and the steam’s curling over the cup like a witch’s cauldron.

“You think those rumors in your town are actually the work of that woman, Leanne?”

Jessie looks struck by the thought.

“It was probably Jessica Two, don’t you think?” I press.

“I guess.”

“And nothing’s changed since you agreed to come with me. She still has our money; she still has to be stopped. No one but us is going to do anything about it.”

Jessie looks grim. “You’re not going to start quoting Shakespeare again, are you?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Please don’t,” JJ says. “All this rah-rah-rah is making me feel like I’m back in the army.”

“Okay, I won’t. But will you help me?”

I reach my hand out to the middle of the table, palm down. JJ gives me a wry smile, then reaches out with her good hand. I meet her eyes across our stacked limbs and smile.

“Jessie?”

“Yeah, okay, fine.”

She adds her hand. I feel the extra weight and let it sit there for a minute. Then I dip my hand and raise it, bumping theirs up into the air.

“And, break!”





Chapter 20

New York State of Mind

I’m back in the city and it feels weird. Like when I first got here with Liam, after the Catskills, when he thought it was safe. At first all I could notice was the smell. The smells. Garbage and urine and whatever it is that makes the air that comes out of the subway vents smell that way. There were so many people. I’d grown up almost without touch, and now, walking down the street meant being pressed up against any number of strangers. I didn’t know what the street signs meant. I didn’t know how to hail a cab or read a subway map. I’d never heard the word bodega.

I was like one of the characters in a movie who travels through time or gets defrosted after two hundred years. Only, I’d been living in this time all my life, so nobody gave me any quarter.

TV is what saved me. I sat in Liam’s loft when I wasn’t shadowing him, and I studied sitcoms and reality shows and news programs like they were my high school. I watched movies and music videos, and sometimes I’d have music going at the same time as a show because I was a sponge and I needed to soak up as much as I could in the shortest amount of time possible. I’d repeat the lines I’d heard till the expressions rolled off my tongue easily. I even changed the way I pronounced words from the slightly elongated vowels of the Land of Todd to the shorter ones of the newscaster. I picked up the pace of my speech, too, because New York was always in a hurry: Hurry up, move it, move it!

After a year of doing that, I sat down with real books and I got my GED and I wrote a kick-ass essay and scored well on the SAT, and some other doors opened for me. Todd took the power of the pen seriously, so we’d all learned how to write well, even if it was mostly in praise of him. If I was ready to leave the nest and move into a dorm, I could break free of Todd once and for all, make friends, reinvent myself. I could tell the new people I met that I was anyone I wanted to be.

I could’ve been anything I wanted to be.

I think about that now as I leave the train station and decide to walk back to my apartment. I need to reacclimate myself to the city, even though I’ve only been gone for less than a week. The first things I notice, like all those years ago, are the smells and the dust and the noise. It’s so loud here. There’s never a moment of peace.

I walk through the Sunday pedestrian traffic swiftly. It’s a humid, bright day, and there are women in bright sundresses and men in shorts. I wish I had sunglasses and that I was wearing a summer dress, but I press on. The blocks fall away. My backpack is cutting into my shoulders and my feet are starting to hurt. I need new running shoes, but I should keep the unnecessary expenses to a minimum. Who knows how much this next phase is going to cost?

A few blocks from the Village, my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Covington.

You back in town?

Yep.

Drink?

You bet.

Before I can put my phone away, it rings. Liam.

“Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

An ambulance barrels down the street, its siren deafening. I wait for it to pass.

“I’m a few blocks from my place.”

“You just get back?”

“Yeah. I’m going to drop my stuff, then go meet Covington.”

“Covington?” His voice rises in surprise.

“He texted for a drink.”

“Ah.”

“What?”

He clears his throat. “Nothing. Call me tomorrow.”

“Wait, why did you call?”