“Then in school, all the kids made fun of me.” (True. But in elementary school, everybody makes fun of everybody. Lie of exaggeration.)
“And did your parents treat you like a baby with stupid rules and stuff?” Hailey asks.
“Oh, yes. I cried myself to sleep almost every night.” (Sort of true. I was worried about monsters under my bed.)
Then I say, “I told you once before, being your age sucks. Everybody’s trying so hard to be cool, be noticed. Middle school was definitely the worst time of my life.” (Lie of denial. Being canned from the FBI was worse.)
“Were you ever teased?”
“Me? The fattest kid in the class? You mean like ‘She’s so fat, she’s got her own zip code’?” Hailey laughs sourly. Then she’s gloomy again.
“All my friends think Lily is soooooo cute. And the boys think Amber is sooooooo hot. And almost everyone is mean and says stupid things. When does it stop?” she asks.
She’s in such pain. I’d like to tell hersoon. But that would be distorting the truth. (The truth is, it only stops with death.)
“Well, it gets better. But it never goes away completely,” I tell her. “Think of it as rings on a tree. The feelings and memories will always be there, but as you grow up, you grow around them. You forget how nasty kids can be.” (Then you discover how nasty, vicious, and untrustworthy grownmencan be. Another lie of omission.)
“I bet your mother has told you things like that,” I add.
“Yeah. Sort of.”
And that’s how I learn that Hailey’s mother, Sherry Quinn, lives in Milford, Utah. She’s a painter who has been signing her work with that name her whole life, and she never bothered to become a Harrison.
CHAPTER 37
TRANSCRIPT: phone call [with personal notes added by agent]
AGENT: “CAROLINE BABULEWICZ” [pseudonym for this call: MEGAN GREER] to Sherry Quinn, Milford, Utah
October 15, 8:22 p.m., Mountain Time
(One ring. Two rings. Then a woman’s voice.)
QUINN: Hello.
(I picture her at her easel wearing a stained smock. But the voice is classy, elegant. The minute she picks up, I press start on my tape recorder.)
AGENT: Sherry, my name is Megan Greer. I’m calling about your ex-husband, Ben Harrison.
QUINN: Is he dead?
AGENT: Uh, no.
QUINN: Oh.
AGENT: You sound sad.
QUINN: Well… disappointed.
AGENT: Sorry. I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
QUINN: (Laughs.) Don’t tell me he gave my name as a reference foranything. (More laughter.)
AGENT: No. I’m talking to people who know him for an article I’m writing for theLower Hudson News.
QUINN: What’s it about? Great assholes of the world?
AGENT: The paper wants to encourage people to shop locally. Ben’s gallery is one of the shops we’re covering.
