I arrive at the school twenty minutes late. As I turn into the driveway, I hand Collette the note that was tucked in the sun visor. “Give that to your teacher.”
She reads it—the only child on earth to question a permission note that allows her to be late to class. “But we weren’t at the dentist,” she says. “Isn’t that lying?”
“No, it isn’t,” I say, glancing at her in the mirror. “No plaque buildup. The technician said you did a perfect job.”
She hesitates, tucks the note into her pocket.
She hates lying, which as a parent is a trait I appreciate. But I’m working on teaching her the subtle art of playing her cards close to the vest and knowing when to keep a secret.
“Collette, all of that ‘honesty is the best policy’ stuff you learn about in kindergarten isn’t always applicable.”
She unbuckles her seat belt. “What’s ‘applicable’?”
“It means sometimes the rules are bullshit.” She doesn’t flinch at my language, even though I don’t talk this way often. She knows that this morning is special, one of those rare times when we’re on the same level. And she knows that I’m going to answer the questions she normally wouldn’t ask me.
“Why does Daddy get so mad when I watch trials with you?” she asks.
“You can’t be too hard on him,” I say. “He still thinks you’ll be little forever.That’swhy he keeps buying you unicorn Squishmallows on your birthday.”
“I still like them,” she says. “I mean, a little bit.” It is true that Waylen wants to preserve her innocence, but that isn’t all of it. Really, it’s that he doesn’t want her to be like me. He doesn’t want her to grow up and fall in love with someone like who he used to be when we met.
Collette opens the door, but before she can set foot on the pavement, a woman comes bursting through the double doors of the school’s entrance. She paces toward us like a mad bull in pink heels and perfectly dyed platinum hair.
“Who’s that?” I ask. Cynthia Nyugen does morning drop-offs, but seeing as we’re late, I was expecting the drop-off to be empty.
“Mrs. Blevins,” Collette groans. “Finnegan’s mom.”
“Who’s Finnegan? I don’t recognize that name,” I say.
“The Blevinses just moved here,” Collette says. “She’s theworst.”
“Which one is the worst?” I ask. “Mrs. Blevins or her daughter?”
Before my daughter can answer, Mrs. Blevins is knocking on my passenger-side window and motioning for me to roll it down, as though she’s a cop pulling me over for a bank heist.
As the glass comes down, I give her my brightest smile. The one that Waylen says makes me look like a Miss America contestant whose onstage talent is dismembering a corpse. “Good morning,” I say, in my best Stepford wife tone.
“This is the drop-off for students who arrive on time,” she says by way of greeting. Her perfume floods the car, flowery and potent, like Natalie Portman’s fever dream. I suppress a cough. “For tardy students, you’re supposed topull into the commuter lot and walk her into the main office so that she’s not marked absent for the day.”
“Is that really necessary?” I ask. “She’s got a note.”
“It’s for everyone’s safety,” she says. Up close, it’s infuriating how beautiful she is. Her makeup perfectly blended and contoured, not a single clump in her mascara, perfectly manicured nails. She exudes newness. Someone who understands the power of a first impression.
I can feel Collette’s eyes on me, pleading for me to make this easy on her.
I extend a hand to Mrs. Blevins, my smile relaxing into something less robotic. “Margaux,” I tell her. “My daughter has spoken so highly of your Finnegan. I’m just sorry that you’ve caught me on an off day.”
She blinks, looking at me the way that new people often do, as though she’s not sure whether I’m mocking her. But she takes my hand. “Elodie Blevins,” she says. Then she nods to the parking lot in the distance, so full of BMWs, Lexuses, and Jeeps that I’ll have to park in the nosebleed section. “Let’s get your daughter signed in properly.”
Collette closes the door. And for her, I wait until we’ve driven away before I mutter, “What a bitch.”
It matters how I’m perceived by the parents at this school. Not just for Collette, but for my own reputation. It’s a fragile dance with these people. “Just be yourself,” Waylen will say. “People like you.”
But “people” don’t know me. Not even Waylen knows everything. He doesn’t know about the fire that happened when I was a child, or how it impacted me. Although being a spy for hire rarely pays much, there was a time when it paid for my entire cost of living in a studio apartment,eating cheap takeout and cozying up to a space heater. It was a simple, minimalist life, and it was enough for me. I liked knowing that I wouldn’t lose any valuables or loved ones in a fire—because I didn’t have any left to lose. I only had enough money to pay for food and utilities, and that was enough. I didn’t touch the inheritance I’d been left. Saving it for a rainy day, I suppose. I didn’t need more than what I had.
It’s a huge contrast to how I live now, in a stupidly large house filled with things none of us really needs. But this lifestyle makes Waylen and Collette happy, and that’s why I don’t mind it so much, even though I know I’d be happy to abandon the house and all the things in it tomorrow.
I believe that as adults, we become the person that we needed most as a child. Well, when I was twelve, I fantasized about an all-knowing and benevolent entity who had been spying on me for all the important events of my life. I imagined her to be a kind ghost in a mirror, holding a pen and a notepad. Whenever I was accused of something I hadn’t done, or whenever I couldn’t trust my own memory, she could lick her fingertip, flip through her records, and say, “Here it is. This is what really happened.”
