Followers Page 23

  And maybe, Marlow thought now, she could use that to her advantage. Because usually, she knew, the simplest plot was the right one. Twists only put off the inevitable. This was easy: Marlow had destroyed Honey’s face. Even if Honey wouldn’t say it, she had to be after revenge. And as long as Marlow knew that, she could stay one step ahead of the story. Honey would be a character in hers, she told herself, firmly. Not the other way around.

  “All right,” she said to Honey. “Let’s go.” She added, reluctantly: “Thank you.” When they walked behind Mateo to the elevators, Marlow made sure to keep Honey where she could see her. That was the key to getting through this, she decided: following from behind. Never letting Honey out of her sight.

  * * *

  Honey’s building was a mirrored rose-gold spike, her apartment its very top shelf. The walls were all glass, an effect that wrapped sky around the whole place. Everything inside it was white. There were white bleached wood floors covered in white shag rugs with white suede sofas sitting on top. The dining, coffee and end tables were cubes of blinding concrete topped with swirled marble. There were gigantic, freestanding fireplaces made of white steel on both sides of the room. The appliances in the kitchen were luminescent pearl. Marlow could see a man bent in front of the fridge, buffing at it with an air of great crisis. When he saw them, he straightened and hid the rag behind his back, as if it was something unsightly.

  “Hello, David,” Honey called to him brightly. “This is Marlow. She took a chunk out of my face, back in the day.”

  Marlow turned to stare at Honey.

  But David only nodded politely. “Hello, Miss Marlow,” he said. He gestured at the fridge. “Water? Club soda?”

  She asked for water, and when David brought it, Marlow stared at the red lines in his eyes, at the uneven coast of his hairline. What must it have cost Honey, keeping human help? You almost never saw that now. Marlow knew Honey was a pundit—Jacqueline, who voraciously cataloged the ups and downs of every person they’d ever met, had informed Marlow years ago that Honey was “some sort of white-trash Jesus—she preaches to people, you know, tells them they should live a certain way.” Marlow had asked what way Jacqueline meant—what did Honey stand for? Jacqueline couldn’t remember. Whatever it was, Marlow thought, taking a sip of her water, it evidently paid well.

  Honey pulled out a chair for Marlow at the kitchen table. As they sat, she called to David: “Would you start us up some cheeseburgers? Marlow’s never had one.”

  “Of course I have,” Marlow said.

  Honey ignored her. A mousy makeup artist, dark-skinned, all bird legs and face-hiding curls, approached and seized Honey’s arm. “Hi, Elsa, darling,” Honey said to the girl. “Have you met Marlow? She bit me in the face.”

  Elsa took a quick, sharp breath, Marlow noticed, but she didn’t look up from her work—she was carefully removing Honey’s device with rubbing alcohol. That was the way to do it painlessly, Marlow remembered, if you weren’t in a rush. “Lovely to meet you,” Elsa said flatly.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” Marlow said. “I was provoked.”

  “Of course!” Honey laughed. “Oh, I was very provocative back then.”

  Elsa didn’t respond. She handed Honey’s device to David, who took it into the kitchen and put it in a drawer. Then she began to rub the white square of skin where Honey’s device had been with a sponge soaked in tan liquid.

  “Anyway,” Honey said to Marlow. “You think you’ve had a cheeseburger? You’ve had smashed-up crickets with fortified cashews on a quinoa bun. Who here,” she said, twisting around in her chair, “would kill themselves if you lived in a place where people called that a cheeseburger?” Elsa and David raised their hands, rote, like this was all part of their job.

  Marlow felt the onslaught of pettiness creeping in like a headache. “I don’t see what’s so great about meat,” she snapped, “unless you only want to live to eighty.” She heard how humorless she sounded, how much heavier she seemed than all the other people buzzing lightly in the room. But meat—really, it was disgusting. This was something she had always known.

  So why was she desperately inhaling the smell—burning, metallic, carnal somehow—that rose out of the sizzling pan on the stove?

  David put the burgers in front of them. The patty wept a clear, fast ooze—pinkish-clear, like blood and water—that pooled around its bun on the plate. Marlow’s stomach spasmed, begging her to take it in. She lifted the burger and sank her teeth into the bread and then the beef, all salty give. The cheese stretched luxuriously as she pulled away. She took another bite and then another, tipping her chin this way and that to get good angles on the sandwich. When she saw that the burger had dwindled to a third of its size in her hands, she felt a plummeting sorrow. She looked up and saw Honey watching her, amused but somewhat on guard, as if Marlow was an animal that, against her better judgment, she had brought inside. “My goodness,” she murmured, her eyes twinkling.

  “You’re right,” Marlow admitted, through the meat. “It’s—I’ve never.” When she was finished, she wiped her mouth and said, trying to sound casual, “I’m assuming that, like with our burgers, people usually just eat one?”

  Honey laughed and signaled to David to bring Marlow another. “Not a bad idea,” she said. “You’ll need your energy for the party tonight.”

  Marlow watched David slide another portion onto her plate—glossy bun, bright toppings. It was hard to look away from it. “Party?” she said to Honey. “I’m not going to any party. I’m here to hide.”

  Honey shrugged. “Oh, don’t worry. We wear masks.” She waved her wrist, which Elsa had finished working on. The paleness where her device had been was completely blended away. “And no devices. So no one’ll know it’s you, and even if they do, they can’t call you in anyway.”

  “I’d rather stay in my room,” Marlow said firmly. Then, feeling rude, the nudge of her duffel bag still at her toes, she added, “I mean, if I have one.”

  Honey laughed. “You have a room. But my parties tend to—spread. There isn’t really anywhere to hide. You’re better off masked, among the masses.” She stood up and went into the kitchen. She and David began discussing party details; he showed her a set of cocktail glasses, she told him why they were all wrong.

  Marlow bit into her second burger. Masked—she clung to that word. She saw herself killing time, anonymously, at the party—maybe even killing enough time that people outside lost interest in the hunt. She saw herself, if opportunity or necessity called for it, slipping out of Honey’s apartment with some other partygoers, her next move protected by the crowd and her mask and the middle of the night. She saw herself in a taxi, making up addresses in neighboring states—figure out what states are around here, she noted to herself—until it drove her far away, out of sight.

  The party was a start, she decided, even if she didn’t know of what. And the idea of being unseen, disguised as everyone else—it appealed. What would it feel like? she wondered. Perhaps a bit like being behind the scenes.

  Elsa was still at the table with her, unpacking pots and brushes from vinyl cases, waiting for Honey to sit back down so she could resume her work.

  “Are you going?” Marlow asked her. “To the party.”

  Elsa blinked at her, then looked quickly over her shoulder. Honey and David were lost in a linens debate. When Elsa met Marlow’s eye again, her meekness had evaporated. She had almost a wicked look in her eye as she ran two fingers gently down the side of her own face, tracing her flawless black skin. “Me?” she said to Marlow, smirking. “I don’t think so. I would clash.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Orla

  New York, New York

  2016

  “I’m sorry,” Marie Jacinto said through a mouthful of cheese filling. She was eating a Danish as Orla sat across from her. “I had a morning. Didn’t get to breakfast yet.”

  �
�That’s all right,” Orla said. She smoothed the kink the cap had left around the crown of her head. She stared at the gaps in Marie’s thinning red hair as the agent bent over her manuscript, which Orla had emailed to her assistant the day before. She hoped Marie took all day. When Orla headed toward the building’s revolving door, Mrs. Salgado had walked into the Lady Foot Locker next door. Orla was pretty sure no one had ever gone into Lady Foot Locker to do anything other than wait.

  Marie took a zealous bite of her Danish. Flakes sprayed across Orla’s pages. “So,” Marie said. “This is...”

  “It’s, um, a novella.” Orla leaned forward, willing the pitch she had prepared out of her mouth. “Originally, I conceived it as a full-length novel, but I think the brevity actually suits the subject matter, because it’s about a girl who believes she’ll have an extraordinary life, but she hasn’t done much at all.”

  Marie scrunched up her face like she was waiting for a sharp pain to pass.

  “I used to have a character in there who was raised Orthodox Jewish,” Orla added. “I could definitely put that back, if you think...”

  Marie sat back and flattened her hand on the paper. “This is my fault,” she said. “I thought, when you agreed to take this meeting, that you might be pitching a different project. I mean, I know who you are, Orla. I know you haven’t given any interviews.”

  Orla sat there, her stomach sinking and hot. “You mean,” she said, “you thought I’d want to write a book about Floss? And Aston? And...” She dropped her voice to a whisper, in case a vent in Marie’s office led straight to one in the Lady Foot Locker. “Anna?”

  Marie leaned forward and folded her hands. “Well,” she said, “why would you write about a fictional girl that nothing’s ever happened to, when you could write about you—a real girl, with an extremely dynamic real life?”

  Orla shook her head. “That stuff isn’t my life,” she said. “It’s just some weird things that happened. A weird year.” She pointed at her book. “Maybe if I tell you about some of the themes behind—”

  “Oh, but I’m just not interested,” Marie said, in the same tone she might have used to say that her Danish wasn’t blueberry. “Though I’d love to talk about this other idea.”

  Orla looked down at her lap. Her pants were stretched so tight across her thighs, the fabric shone. “It’s just this book,” she said. “That’s all there is.”

  Marie took her time chewing and swallowing. “If you change your mind,” she said, “you have my card.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Salgado followed her all the way home. Orla watched her settle back in her chair and went inside without saying anything. She found Melissa in the apartment, cleaning it vigorously.

  “This place is a fucking dump,” she told Orla, showing her the rust-brown paper towel she had been rubbing along the counter. “And your fridge is full of rotting food.” She held up a blue-and-white container—months-old chicken from Gayle, Orla realized, feeling suddenly like she could cry. She turned away, trying to find air from elsewhere. It was like Melissa had angered every festering thing in the apartment by poking around in her yellow gloves, and suddenly Orla could smell it all: the shower curtain growing moldy down the hall, the overstuffed trash warming under the sink, the putrid chicken desiccating in Melissa’s hand.

  “Anna’s mother is following me,” she said.

  Melissa put the chicken down. “What?”

  “She’s down there sitting on a chair.” Orla pointed toward the window. “And when I left, she went with me. All the way there. All the way back.”

  Instead of going to look, Melissa took off her gloves and placed them gently in the sink. After a moment, she turned back to Orla. “My advice?” she said softly. “Just let it go.”

  “Let it go?” Tears rose in Orla’s eyes. She had been counting on an answer from the Melissa who calmly deconstructed problems.

  “People grieve in different ways.” Melissa went to the coffee maker, which she had cleaned and set to brew. She pulled two mugs down from the cupboard above it and filled them carefully. “She’s not going to hurt you, or she would have done it already. She’s clearly trying to make a point, and we don’t know what it is, but after what we put her—after what she’s been through?” She took a sip from one of the mugs and pushed the other toward Orla. “Trust me—just be respectful.”

  Orla picked up the coffee, sniffed it, and threw up into the sink.

  “What?” Melissa said, as if Orla had spoken, not vomited. “Are you sick?”

  Orla shook her head. “It’s the coffee,” she said shakily. “The smell of it.”

  She watched horror rise upward, like steam, in Melissa’s face. First her jaw set; then she frowned; then her eyes went wide and sober.

  “No, it’s not that. I can’t be.” Orla’s heart was thrumming in her ears. “It wouldn’t make any sense.” Every time with Danny—night, day, drunk, drunker, blissful, angry, bored—whirled through her head. No single instance stood out like the start of something new.

  Melissa picked up Orla’s coffee and poured it down the sink. “And yet,” she sighed, “you obviously are.”

  * * *

  Melissa stayed with her that day. Orla let her lead her around, let her make arrangements. Melissa picked through the kitchen, throwing out things Orla couldn’t have: deli turkey, Brie, weird teas Aston left behind. She held her hand out for Orla’s insurance card and helped her find a doctor. When Orla grew tired again—the exhaustion made stinging sense now—she told her to sleep on her side, not her back.

  “How do you know all this stuff?” Orla asked, pausing in the doorway of her room.

  Melissa hesitated. “I was pregnant once,” she said. Orla remembered her in the bar, shouting about not having a baby. She let the moment pass.

  When she woke up from her nap, Melissa was sitting at the counter, working. A bag from Duane Reade sat beside her. “Prenatals,” she said, nodding at it. “And saltines. They help with the nausea.”

  Orla slid onto a stool beside her. “Did you see her?” she said. “Anna’s mother.”

  Melissa nodded. She looked at Orla over the rim of her laptop.

  “Did she say anything to you?” Orla asked miserably.

  “No.” Melissa shook her head once, a hard jerk of her chin to the left. “She was painting her nails,” she said, with a sound that was almost a laugh.

  Orla’s phone buzzed under her hand. She turned it over. It was Gayle.

  Melissa saw it, too. “You should talk to your parents,” she said. “Your appointment’s not until Wednesday. Why don’t you go see them? I think it would make you feel better.”

  Orla had a sudden vision of herself sitting at her parents’ table, looking out the bay window. She imagined Mrs. Salgado picking her way through the trees by the bank. “You don’t think—” she said.

  Melissa shook her head. “No, Orla,” she said. “I don’t think she’ll follow you to Pennsylvania.”

  * * *

  Just to be on the safe side, Orla left the building through the freight entrance. Linus, the super’s son, directed her to it with city-kid sureness.

  Downstairs at Port Authority, she got in line at gate nineteen. She stood behind a couple who gazed at an old backlit ad for the Greyhound bus, striped in blue and gray and parked proudly at a grassy curb. “What a lovely photo,” the man said. His voice had a trace of a Polish accent, and not a note of sarcasm.

  Orla pulled out her phone and texted her mother. Hi Mom, she typed. I’m coming home. She watched the gray bubble that meant Gayle was responding ripple back and forth. Finally, her answer came through: OK. Your father will pick you up.

  * * *

  Orla’s parents seldom drank, so that wasn’t a problem. But in some bizarre upending of a life’s worth of expectation, Gayle had purchased sushi for dinner. She had gone to a new restaurant on Miffl
in’s main drag to get it. “It doesn’t have any windows,” she reported. “I don’t trust a restaurant I can’t see out of.” But she had bought the sushi all the same, and now she put down her fork and stared at Orla, who was moving a yellowtail roll around her plate.

  “I thought this is what you liked,” Gayle said.

  “Your mother’s nervous,” Jerry mumbled.

  “That’s ridiculous.” Gayle peeled a California roll open and sniffed its contents. “I am not.”

  “I do like sushi,” Orla said. “I’m just not feeling well.”

  Gayle and Jerry looked at each other. Then Gayle reached across the table and rubbed Orla’s forearm.

  “I know, honey,” she said, and then she drew herself up in a way that told Orla she was about to say something she had rehearsed. “I may never understand why you hitched your wagon to that girl,” Gayle said. “But I know you, and I know you must have seen a way to your dream.” She glanced at Jerry, who nodded encouragingly. “And you will find your dream another way, Orla,” she said. “This will pass and you will start fresh. Here, in New York, wherever you want. You will be special wherever you are.” She said the last part emphatically, doting on each syllable, and Orla knew her mother was thinking of that day in the restaurant. She had probably been planning this speech ever since. This was how it worked, Orla saw now: being a parent meant that, sometimes, you got to apologize without apologizing, and being a child meant that, sometimes, you got to not apologize at all.