The Girls I've Been(23)

“Are you in witness protection? Is that what this is about?” Iris asks.

Wes lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, and I glare at him. I know why he’s laughing.

He asked me the same exact thing.

“You are not helping,” I tell him.

“Fine. You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s your story.”

The thing is, it is my story. But it’s partly his story now, too. Because I loved him. Because I still love him, just differently. Because Lee and I made him family in a way we were never supposed to. Because I didn’t just tell him the truth, I embroiled him in it.

I look at Iris, and there she is and there I am, and I wanted this to be easier. Wes found out when chaos reigned around us and the sun shone red in the sky from wildfire smoke like some kind of sick warning. He found out, and we yelled and we cried and we broke into so many pieces, it took months to put us back together into Franken-friends.

I had wanted to tell Iris in a way that was the opposite of Wes finding out. I had dreamed of peace and quiet and no blood-red sun screaming run at me. I wanted to have found the right words and practiced them. I didn’t want any more tears. I am so sick of crying over them . . . those girls and what happened to each of them. My mother and what she dragged me into . . . and how I clawed my way out.

But it was never going to be easy, and now it’s here and it’s in the middle of a bank robbery, because of course it is. So here we go. Buckle up, Nora.

“My mother is a con artist,” I say. Short, fact-based sentences. Stick to them. Maybe my voice won’t shake then. “She runs a sweetheart con. Her own spin on it. She targets men who won’t go to the police because their businesses are already shady . . . and so are they.”

“And you put her in jail?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so why were you talking about secret identities?” She directs this at Wes, but they both look at me. Her frown deepens. “If she’s a con artist, then you . . .” She licks her lips; her gloss tastes like berries, but never a specific kind, and I’m struck with the knowledge I might never taste that mix of berry-sweet and her again.

“You’re not who you say you are.” She almost sighs it, and the realization in her face is like someone’s taken a razor-sharp melon-baller to my stomach and started scooping.

I glance over her shoulder at Casey. I can’t tell the whole story. Not with the kid in the room. Telling Iris is bad enough.

“I—” But I have to stop, because we all can hear it: voices rising in the hall.

“They’re arguing,” Wes says under his breath.

“That’s good.” Iris darts forward and presses her ear against the door, listening intently. I can make out some swearing, and then it’s quiet again.

I wonder if it worked. The seeds I sowed. If it did, I need to get Casey ready. Fast.

She has to give Lee a message for me.





— 26 —


    Haley: Humble, Faithful, Modest (In Three Acts)



Act 1: Curl Your Fingers

“His name is Elijah,” she tells me as she brushes my hair in front of the mirror and then glances at the website she’s pulled up on her laptop. She’s on a blog called Happy Life, Happy Wife, and it’s full of pictures of beaming, long-haired girls close in age who all wear matching dresses and look like little versions of their beaming, dark-haired mother.

“And his son is Jamison,” she continues as she begins to weave my hair into the half-up, half-down style of the girls on the blog. The one who’s closest to my age, her smile doesn’t reach her eyes like her sisters’. I find myself focusing on her instead of my mother.

“Haley? Haley!” She tugs my hair sharply.

“Ow!”

“You need to pay attention,” she orders. “We’ll be at his church on Sunday.”

“Sorry,” I mutter, turning my attention to my reflection in the mirror.

“Tell me,” she prompts gently.

“Elijah Goddard,” I recite from the files she had me memorize. “Forty-two. Started out as a youth pastor in a small ministry in Colorado, built it up into a million-dollar business.”

“Prosperity gospel is the sweetest con.” She shakes her head. “If I was a man, I would’ve gone into the church. Think of the money we could’ve made.”

“You preach, in your own way,” I point out, and it makes her laugh, which sets off a warm glow inside me. She hardly ever laughs genuinely. I’m used to the fake laugh: light and husky and practiced, a sound of temptation, not joy.

“Continue.”

“Jamison Goddard, age eleven. His mother died in a car accident when he was five. Elijah never remarried.”

“Until now.” Mom smiles. “This is very straightforward—the simplest of long cons for your first real try. You’ll be very sweet and polite to Elijah, but not draw too much of his attention unless I signal. Your job is to keep Jamison occupied.”

“How do I do that?”

She bestows another smile on me; she likes it when I ask questions. She likes imparting her knowledge to me.

“Pay attention when you meet him. If he smiles at you, you’ll know to play it up until he has a crush on you. If he doesn’t, or if he starts acting like a little shit, then you can lean into that, too.”