Page 58

SERENA:

Then yes.

[off-mic laughter]

BARYN:

You also knew Casey Whitmore.

SERENA:

Yes.

BARYN:

So today, when I ask you something as a forensic anthropologist, answer what you’re legally and professionally permitted to answer. If I ask you something as Casey’s friend⁠—

SERENA:

I reserve the right not to answer that either.

BARYN:

Fair.

[pause]

BARYN:

Who was Casey Whitmore?

SERENA:

That’s an extremely broad question.

BARYN:

It’s supposed to be.

SERENA:

I dislike broad questions.

BARYN:

I know.

[pause]

SERENA:

Casey Whitmore was my best friend. Which is an inadequate description, but I don’t know that English has developed a word for the person who knows you before you become particularly good at hiding yourself.

We met when we were eleven, although Casey would later insist she adopted me. I was sitting alone at lunch with a library book open beside my tray, operating under the mistaken assumption that this constituted a sufficient deterrent to conversation. Casey sat down across from me anyway. No introduction. No request for permission. She stole three of my fries, informed me that the cafeteria pizza tasted like a wet napkin with cheese on it, and asked what I was reading. By the end of lunch, she had decided we were friends. I don’t remember being consulted.

[pause]

In retrospect, that was more or less the governing structure of our relationship. Casey decided life would be better if I participated in it, and then spent the next five years making that decision extremely difficult to appeal.