“I used to live on the West Coast,” I say.
“Oh yeah?”
“Well, Oregon,” I say. “Some small town nobody’s ever heard of. It’s where I was born.”
“Never been,” Elodie admits. “I hear Portland is—weird.”
I laugh. “It was nowhere near Portland, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“So, is your family still out there?”
The inevitable question, and one that I was anticipating. Over the years, I’ve learned that lying outright is more trouble than it’s worth. The best approach—depending on what the situation calls for—is to only share the information that accomplishes your goals. Right now, I want Elodie to trust me. I want her to see me as something other than a catty PTA mom like the ones who are kissing her ass inthe drop-off line. I want to be just vulnerable enough that she doesn’t pity me, but begins to contemplate sharing her own secrets. If I do it right, I won’t have to ask her a thing. She’ll start to talk.
“My family’s dead,” I say. “My parents, at least. I have a brother, but we don’t keep in touch the way that we used to.”
Elodie blinks, startled. But before she can offer up any uncomfortable condolences, I go on. “It happened when I was little. I barely remember them.” I’m bordering on lying, so I deflect. “I was raised by grandparents. That’s how I ended up on the East Coast, but really, I stay for the frozen sidewalks and all those festive construction cones.”
I feel an odd satisfaction that I’ve rendered her speechless. Or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t want to be rude by saying the wrong thing. Either way, it’s a victory. I’m merciful, though, and I go on to explain how my upbringing brought me to this point. I paint the picture of a troubled youth turned teenage delinquent. The petty crimes, the drugs, the brief stints in jail, and Mr. X offering to bail me out if I agreed to do things on his terms.
It’s more than most people get to know about me. Even Collette has been spared the details, though I imagine I’ll tell her one day. Right now, she’s young enough not to realize that I was somebody before I was her mother.
“I had you all wrong,” Elodie says.
“Yeah?” I ask. “What did you think when you met me?”
“New money,” she says. “Rich husband. Your day job is interior decorating, which—let’s face it—is a hobby someone does when they don’t really need the money.”
“Interior decorating may just be a front, but you’d be surprised. Especially weddings and events. You can make a killing.”
“Oh, when I tell people about today, I’ll say we made a fortune,” Elodie says with a flourish. She is comfortable wearing masks and slips into them so easily. I can see why Mr. X likes her so much. Even I had underestimated her for a shallow suburbanite.
To pass the time as we drive through the richest area in the state, we make a game out of counting women in wool coats walking golden retrievers and poodle mixes. I win with three labradoodles on my side of the street.
When we arrive at the Atlantic Bay Towers, I don’t even need the GPS to confirm that we’re in the right place. The building is a garish new construction made of gleaming white brick. It’s meant to look antiquated so that it fits in with the rest of the city, but its newness is as apparent as a throbbing sore thumb.
Elodie shrugs out of her coat and tosses it into the back seat. Underneath, she’s hidden from the PTA moms a decidedly un-Elodie outfit: a houndstooth pencil skirt and white blouse with ruffles running down the seam of the buttons. She winds her hair into a bun and uses the visor mirror to apply a shade of deep red lipstick. “I’m your boss, right?” she says. “So I should look like I take myself too seriously.” She glances at me. “I draw the line at coffee breath, though.”
“Every bad supervisor I ever had seemed to bathe in Calvin Klein Eternity,” I say. My own costume is a bit more subtle. I’m wearing a green tweed dress from Tuckernuck, costume pearls around my neck. While Elodie winds herhair into a bun, I let mine down. It is the hair of a chimera, changing me into someone new with little effort. It is long, red, and filled with curls and waves of different sizes and shapes, as though a dozen different dollmakers couldn’t agree on how to weave it.
It’s important to be aware of your assets—to let every feature work for you, and to work with them, not against them. I can never be sexy or upper-crust like Elodie. But I can be—as she put it—new money. Doe-eyed, baby-faced, unaware of my own sexuality. I suspect it’s the kind of girl Bertram Casimir would find endearing—someone he can overpower and impress, promise to take care of and then hold captive. His own personal Rapunzel.
When I take off my wedding band, Elodie whistles. “Your character isn’t married?” she asks. “Who knew you could be so…bad.”
“No.” I hold up my naked hand, giving my best virginal expression. “I’m very, very good.”
Plenty of jobs would require one to remove a wedding band. A pastry chef. A surgeon. Someone who tests metal detectors. It can feel weird to remove something that’s meant to symbolize eternity. But the baffling part for me is always putting it back on, like I’m agreeing to my vows all over again each time.
“I did some more research,” I say. “I think I should talk to him while you rifle through his laptop.”
She shows me the thumb drive she’s been carrying in her pocket. “I was able to download a software that will allow me to copy the documents on his laptop even if it’s password protected. It’s some kind of fail-safe in case you get locked out of your computer.”
“That’s smart,” I say. “I was thinking we’d have to replace the laptop itself with a lookalike.”
“Nah, it’s a piece of cake,” Elodie says. “It’s how I was able to access all the records and take down that pyramid scheme I was working for in California. Bastards convinced me to invest five grand in their snake oil.”
I can’t help laughing. “That’sbeyondpetty. That’s—”
“Beating the one percent at their own game,” she says, rubbing her fingers together in a money-counting gesture.
