The Girls I've Been(60)

“You’ve got quick hands,” he continues. “And you’re smart with your targets: Man like that, he won’t notice a missing card for a few billing cycles. Did your mother teach you?” His gaze rises over my head, scanning the room before settling back on me.

I can’t freeze or flush. I can’t. But I’ve never been made before. I’ve never had to spin out of being caught at all, let alone so fast. I skate over the possibilities like I’m on thin, dark ice. Play dumb. Lie. Chatter. Tell the truth.

I pop another fry into my mouth, scrunching my nose up. “Huh?” My eyes skitter to my screen, like his weirdness isn’t as important as my phone.

He smiles. I catch it out of the corner of my eye. “Talent, skill, and you look just like your mother. She must be very proud. You are quite the asset.”

He looks me up and down like I’m a car he’s about to buy, and that clinches it for me, because it pisses me off enough to break through any numbness and fear. I don’t know then that this man will make me redefine enemy and father, two things that are already purposefully entwined in my head. All I know is that I’m outnumbered. I need to get away from him.

I need my mother.

So I give him a puzzled half smile, tearing my focus from my phone completely. I let the smile hold: one count, two. And then, I let it snap off my face, quick as you please, and suddenly, we’re truly eye to eye for the first time.

“Yes,” I agree. “I am quite the asset. So maybe you should back off.”

“You two came into my house.” His head lifts again, scanning the room. He’s looking for her, wondering where she is. Where is she? Hasn’t she noticed how he’s looking at me? Hasn’t she realized he knows?

“Do you own the country club on top of all the gyms?” I ask innocently, even though I know what he means. This is his turf. We’ve trespassed. “That’s very impressive.”

“You’re quite the Addie Loggins, aren’t you?”

“I see Mom has competition with the dated references,” I say before I think it through, and when his eyes flare with delight and he laughs, I realize I’ve made a mistake.

I’ve made him even more interested.

He gets up from the table. “Tell your mother that I hope she likes my gift.”

Before I can do anything, he’s gone, and I’m just sitting there, blood thundering in my ears and my entire body screaming Run. So I do. I jolt out of the chair and I spin, intent on just going, anywhere but here, and I get one step before I’m colliding with her.

“What’s wrong?” She pushes me gently, guiding me back into the chair, and I don’t try to fight her.

“Mom, he knows,” I whisper. “He—” I stop. He made us because of me. This is my fault. Again. She’ll be so mad. “I don’t know how,” I continue, half breathless from the lie, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “But he knows.”

Her shoulders tense, and just like he did, she starts scanning the room. But just like her, he’s out of sight, if he’s watching.

“What did he say?” she asks. “Christ, drink some water. You’re white as a sheet. Remember what I taught you about controlling your face?”

“He knows. We have to go.” My hands shake around the water glass. Her eyes widen, and then her hands cover mine.

“Control yourself,” she orders under her breath.

But I can’t, and she ends up taking me back to the car and finally gets the story out of me in halting bursts as we drive back to the hotel.

I’m too shaken to notice the glint in her eye, or maybe I think it’s anger. But when we get to the front desk and there’s a bouquet waiting for her, I see what he meant by his gift.

He knows where we’re staying. It’s a threat. Run. Run. There are no knitting needles this time, you need to run.

She strokes one of the flowers. “When did these arrive?” she asks the concierge.

“Around eleven thirty,” she says.

“Hmm.” Mom plucks the envelope off the marble counter and flicks it open, pulling out the little card. I peer around her shoulder to read it.

One word: Dinner?

“Would you like me to have someone bring the flowers up to your suite?”

Mom shakes her head. “My daughter will take them. Thank you.”

I don’t want to touch them, but I do as I’m told. She’s still holding the card as we get to the elevator, rubbing it between her fingers like it’s something soft and secret. I press the button, waiting until the doors swish closed to turn to her.

“Why are you smiling?” I demand.

She looks over to the flowers in my hands and presses the fingers with the card still clutched in it to her lips. “They’re foxgloves,” she says.

Heat crawls in my face because I feel like she’s laughing at a joke I don’t know. A joke they know.

“They mean deception.” She plucks one of the flowers out of the vase. Then she laughs. And it’s not a fake laugh. It’s her real laugh, surprised and little wry. Like she can’t believe it.

The elevator doors slide open. She sweeps forward. I stay stuck in place.

She doesn’t notice she’s left me behind.





— 45 —