“I didn’t haul it out here for my health.”
V watched, sipping her tea, as Nic opened the folded cardboard flaps. A musty smell escaped in a quick burst, then dissipated. This box hadn’t been opened in many years.
V was right—there was some clothing, which Nic carefully removed and placed on the chair where she’d been sitting. A concert T-shirt, a pair of sequined jean shorts. Beat-up wedge sandals, one with a broken strap.
“See what I mean?” V asked. “Look at that stuff—crap, right?”
Nic pulled out more things from the box, costume jewelry, a makeup bag, a stuffed bear. And then something more promising.
“What’s this?” Nic asked.
V looked at the small book Nic was holding. On the cover was a photo of about fifty girls, posing in rows by a lake.
“That’s from the fancy camp she went to one summer. The chief helped her get a scholarship for it. She was happy as a pig in shit, that girl. And don’t think for one second she didn’t rub all our faces in it.” V shook her head from side to side. “She thought she was something else, getting out of Hastings, hobnobbing with rich girls from fancy schools.”
Nic read the small print at the bottom of the photo.Woodstock Summer for the Gifted.The date was from twelve years ago.
The girls were crowded together, all of them smiling ear to ear. Long hair. Straight teeth. Shorts, tank tops, flip-flops. Nic could have been one of those girls at that age. It was only a few years back for her. The memory of it grabbed hold of her for a fleeting, but brutal, moment.
“You all right?” V asked.
“Yeah.” Nic looked up, smiled sadly.
“They’re young, aren’t they? But don’t let them fool you. Those girls would eat you for breakfast.”
No kidding, Nic thought. Her school had been full of girls like that. Not one of these “friends” had stuck around after she’d fallen off the social ladder. And it had not been gradual. The day she was expelled was the day her phone stopped ringing or buzzing or pinging. It was as though she’d caught a deadly virus. A social virus that no one wanted to catch. And the strange thing was, she had welcomed it. Still, it made her wonder how Daisy had survived them. Maybe she was good at pretending to be like them—maybeshe’d just taken it, knowing she was going to get out of Hastings and be just like them one day. Maybe it ignited a fire.
Nic scanned the faces in the picture but she couldn’t pick out anyone who looked particularly like her. She moved closer to V and placed the book in front of her, next to the tea.
“Which one is Daisy?”
V opened the book past the first page. “They each have a page, I think. Like a yearbook. I remember when she came back late that summer and made us all look at it.”
She turned a page to a dark-haired girl from Boston. “Look at this one—Cindy Coughlin.She attends The Milton Academy and rides horses.” V said the last part in a mocking tone. She turned more pages, stopping at others, reading their profiles with that same tone, only with increasing anger.
Finally, she stopped—at the page for Daisy Alice Hollander.
“There she is!” V said. “Look what she wrote—attends Hastings High School and studies ballet.What a joke! She never took a ballet class her whole life.”
Nic leaned in closer, taking in the face of the girl who’d disappeared ten years ago. Long blond hair. Big white smile. Skinny arms sticking out of her shirt.
“Well? What do you think? Are you looking in a mirror or not?” V asked.
“I don’t know,” Nic said. “Am I?”
“It’s all in the eye of the beholder,” V answered. Then she handed the book to Nic and got up from her chair. “Here—sit down, look through the rest of it. There’s other pictures in there—small groups of them out on the lake, by the fire. Camp shit. I think Daisy is in some of them.”
V took her teacup to the sink and started washing dishes. Nic turned the pages, one after the other, scanning faces of girls. Daisywas in several of them, front and center, posing, smiling. She was beautiful and that was the last word Nic would use to describe herself. Though there was a time when she might have felt that way. When she might have felt the way Daisy seemed to in these pictures—talented and beautiful, with the world at her feet.
At the very front of the book were headshots of the teachers and counselors. At the very back, pictures of staff. Nic started to skim them quickly, but then found herself slowing down. The photos were small and faded. The features of the people were hard to distinguish. In the kitchen. By the boathouse. In the rec room. They caught her attention at first because they had faces of men and women. The campers were all girls. But the staff—especially in the kitchen—included men, and of all ages.
She was about to turn a page when she stopped. Cold.
She leaned in closer, not believing her eyes. But then she could not deny them. The cheekbones. The chin. The hairline. Even the smile on his face.
She looked up at V, still at the sink, keeping busy with her dishes.
“Veronica?” she said. The woman turned. Nic started to ask the question that was dying to come out. But then she pulled it back, acutely aware now of where she was. Alone with this stranger in the middle of a forest. One way in and one way out. And no one knew she was here.
