An Anonymous Girl (26 page)

I heard the same bright, energetic notes again later when I called Dr. Shields.

“It’s not what it seems,” he says. “Listen, you can’t just leave someone like Lydia. Not if she doesn’t want you to.”

His words send an electrical charge coursing through me.

“You said she preyed on young women like me,” I say. I swallow hard. My
next question is the hardest to ask, even though it’s the one that has been consuming me. “What do you mean, exactly?”

He abruptly stands up and looks around. I realize Ben kept doing the same thing in the coffee shop.

Both men had strong ties to Dr. Shields, but now both claim to be adrift from her. More than that, they seem wary of her.

The Conservatory is nearly silent; there isn’t
even the rattle of leaves blowing in the wind, or the chatter of squirrels.

“Let’s walk,” Thomas suggests.

I start to head in the direction that will lead us out of the park, but he reaches for my arm and pulls it. I feel the hard pinch through the fabric of my coat: “This way.”

I slip my arm out of his grasp before I follow him deeper into the gardens, toward a stone fountain with
frozen water in its base.

A few yards past it, he stops and looks at the ground.

I’m so cold now that the tip of my nose is numb. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to contain a shiver.

“There was another girl,” Thomas says. His voice is so low I have to strain to hear it. “She was young and lonely and Lydia took to her. They spent time together. Lydia gave her gifts and even had
her over to the town house. It was like she became a little sister or something . . .”

Like a younger sister,
I think. My heart begins to pound in my chest.

A sharp cracking noise sounds somewhere to my left. I whip my head around but I don’t see anyone.

Just a branch falling, I tell myself.

“The girl . . . she had some issues. Thomas slides off his glasses and rubs the bridge
of his nose. I can’t see the expression in his eyes.

I struggle against the sudden, almost overpowering urge to turn and run. I know I need to hear what Thomas is saying.

“One night she came by to see Lydia. They talked for a while. I don’t know what Lydia said to her; I wasn’t home.”

The sun has set and the temperature feels like it has plummeted ten degrees. I shiver again.

“What does this have to do with me?” I ask. My throat is so dry it’s difficult to force out the words. And somewhere, deep inside, I don’t even need an answer.

I already know how this story ends.

Thomas finally turns and looks me in the eye.

“This is where she killed herself,” he says. “She was Subject 5.”

Tuesday, December 18

How dare you deceive me, Jessica?

At 8:07
P
.
M
. tonight, you call to report that Thomas has just telephoned you.

“Did you make plans for a date?” you are asked.

“No, no, no,” you immediately say.

Those extraneous “no’s” are your undoing: Liars, like the chronically insecure, often overcompensate.

“He told me he couldn’t meet
this week after all, but that he’d be in touch,” you continue.

Your voice sounds assured, and also hurried. You are trying to send a signal implying that you are too busy for a sustained conversation.

How naive you are, Jessica, to think that you could ever dictate the terms of our conversation. Or anything else, for that matter.

A lengthy pause is needed to remind you of this, even
though this is not a lesson you should require.

“Did he imply that it was simply a function of his busy schedule?” you are asked. “Did you get the impression he would follow up again?”

Under this questioning, you make your second error.

“He really didn’t give a reason,” you reply. “That’s all his text said.”

It it possible you simply misspoke when you described the method of communication
first as a phone call and then as a text?

Or was this a deliberate deception?

If you were within the confines of the therapy office, perched on the love seat, your nonverbal clues might emerge: a twirl of your hair, the fiddling of your stacked silver rings, or the scraping of one fingernail along another.

Over the telephone, however, your subtle tells are not apparent.

Your inconsistencies
could be called out.

But if you are being duplicitous, such scrutiny might have the effect of causing you to more carefully cover your tracks.

And so you are allowed to exit the conversation.

What do you do when you hang up the phone?

Perhaps you continue your usual nightly routine, smug in the knowledge that you’ve evaded a potentially treacherous conversation. You walk your dog,
then take a long shower and comb conditioner through your unruly curls. While you restock your beauty case, you dutifully call your parents. After you hang up, you hear the familiar noises through the thin walls of your apartment: footsteps overhead, the muted sound of a television sitcom, the honking of taxis on the street outside.

Or has the tenor of your evening shifted?

Perhaps the
noises are not comforting tonight. The long, anemic wail of a police car. A heated argument in the apartment next door. The scrabble of mice in the baseboards. You may be thinking of the unreliable lock on your building’s front door. It’s so easy for a stranger, or even an acquaintance, to slip in.

You are intimately known to me, Jessica. You have consistently proved your devotion: You wore
the burgundy nail polish. You quashed your instinctual hesitations and followed instructions. You didn’t surreptitiously glimpse the sculpture before you delivered it. You surrendered your secrets.

But in the past forty-eight hours, you have begun to slip away: You did not prioritize our most recent meeting, instead leaving early to attend to a client. You evaded my calls and texts. You clearly
lied to me. You are acting as though this relationship is merely transactional, as though you regard it as a well-stocked ATM that dispenses cash without consequences.

What has changed, Jessica?

Have you felt the heat of Thomas’s flame?

That possibility causes a fierce rigidity in the body.

It takes several minutes of slow, sustained breathing to recover.

Focus is returned
to the issue at hand: What will it cost to buy your loyalty back?

Your file is brought from the study upstairs into the library and set down on the coffee table. Across from it, Thomas’s paper-white narcissi rest atop the piano, near the photograph of us on our wedding day. A subtle fragrance perfumes the air.

The file is opened. The first page contains the photocopied driver’s license
you provided on the day you joined the study, as well as other biographical data.

The second page consists of printed photographs Ben was asked to gather from Instagram.

You and your sister look like siblings, but whereas your features are finely drawn and your eyes sharp, Becky’s still hold on to the softness of childhood, as if a smear of Vaseline has coated the portion of the camera’s
lens that focused on her.

Caring for Becky can’t be easy.

Your mother wears a cheap-looking blouse and she squints into the sunlight; your father rests his hands in his pockets as though they can help support him to remain upright.

Your parents look tired, Jessica.

Perhaps a vacation is in order.

Wednesday, December 19

Thomas told me to behave normally; to proceed as I have been all along so Dr. Shields won’t suspect anything.

“We’ll figure out a way to get you out of this safely,” he said as we left the park. When we exited the gardens, he climbed onto a motorcycle, strapped on his helmet, and roared off.

But in the twenty-four hours since we parted,
the uneasy feeling that crept over me in the Conservatory has ebbed.

When I got home last night, I couldn’t stop wondering about Subject 5. I took a long, hot shower and shared some leftover spaghetti and meatballs with Leo. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Was I really supposed to believe an esteemed psychiatrist and NYU professor pushed someone to suicide, and that
she could do the same to me?

Probably that girl had issues all along, like Thomas said. Her death had nothing to do with Dr. Shields and the study.

Hearing from Noah also helped. He texted:
Free for dinner Friday night? A friend of mine has a great restaurant called Peachtree Grill if you like Southern food.
I replied immediately:
I’m in!

It doesn’t matter if Dr. Shields needs me that
night. I’ll tell her I’m busy.

By the time I put on my coziest pajamas, my conversation with Thomas has begun to grow faint and distant, almost like a dream. My anxiety is being replaced by something more solid and welcome: anger.

Before I crawl into bed, I restock my beauty kit in preparation for a busy day tomorrow. I hesitate when my hand closes around the half-empty bottle of burgundy
nail polish. Then I pitch it into my trash can.

As I draw my comforter up to my neck, feeling Leo nestle by my side, I listen to the jangle of my across-the-hall neighbor’s keys and think about how Dr. Shields suggested she might help find a job for my dad. But it seems as if she’s forgotten all about that. And while the money has been good, the turbulence Dr. Shields has injected into my
life isn’t worth a few thousand dollars.

I sleep hard for seven hours.

When I wake up, I realize how simple the solution is: I’m done.

Before I leave for work, I dial her number. For the first time, I’m the one who is reaching out to request a meeting.

“Could I stop by tonight?” I ask. “I was hoping to get my most recent check . . . I could use the money.”

I’m sitting on the
edge of my bed, but the instant I hear her modulated voice, I stand up.

“How nice to hear from you, Jessica,” Dr. Shields says. “I can see you at six.”

Can it possibly be this simple?
I think.

I feel a twinge of deja vu. I had the exact same thought when I successfully snuck into the study.

The clouds are thick and heavy in the sky when I leave my apartment a few minutes later
and head to the first of my half dozen clients. In nine hours, this will be finished, I tell myself.

I spend the day working on a businesswoman who needs a head shot for her company website, an author who is being interviewed on New York One, and a trio of friends going to a holiday party at Cipriani. I also duck home in the early afternoon to take Leo for a walk. I feel like I am easing back
into my old life, anchored by the comforting weight of predictability.

I arrive at Dr. Shields’s town house a few minutes early, but I wait until six on the dot to press the buzzer. I know exactly what I’m going to say. I’m not even going to take off my coat.

Dr. Shields comes to the door quickly, but instead of greeting me, she holds up an index finger. Her cell phone is pressed to her
ear.

“Mmm-hmm,” she says into it as she gestures for me to come inside.

She leads me into the library. What can I do but follow?

I look around the room while she continues listening to whoever is on the other end of the line. Atop a Steinway piano is a bouquet of white flowers. One petal has fallen onto the glossy black lid. Dr. Shields follows my gaze and walks over to pluck it off.

She smooths it between her fingertips, her other hand still holding the phone.

Then I see the bronze sculpture of a motorcycle. I jerk my eyes away before Dr. Shields notices me staring at it.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Dr. Shields says as she briefly exits the room. I glance around, looking for more clues, but there are only a few paintings, a built-in bookshelf lined with hardbacks,
and a glass bowl filled with bright oranges on the coffee table.

When she returns, Dr. Shields isn’t holding the petal or her phone.

“I have your check, Jessica,” she says. But she doesn’t give it to me. Instead, she stretches out her arms. For a frozen moment I think she’s trying to hug me. Then she says, “Let me take your coat.”

“Oh, I can’t stay long,” I say. I clear my throat.
“I know this is sort of abrupt and it wasn’t an easy decision, but with all that is going on with my family I think I need to go home. I’m heading there on Friday and I’m going to stay through the holidays.”

Dr. Shields doesn’t react.

I keep babbling: “You know, they’re not even going to Florida this year. Things are really hard for them. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I may even need
to move back for a bit. I wanted to thank you in person for everything.”

“I see.” Dr. Shields sits down on the sofa and gestures to the seat next to her. “That is a big decision. I know how hard you’re trying to build a life here.”

It’s a struggle to remain standing.

“I’m sorry, I’m meeting someone, so . . .”

“Oh,” Dr. Shields says. The silver in her voice hardens into steel: “A
date?”

“No, no.” I shake my head. “Just Lizzie.”

Why am I telling her this? It’s like I can’t break the pattern of revealing myself to her.

My phone rings, startling me.

I don’t reach into my pocket to answer; I’ll be out of here in two minutes and can call whoever it is back. Then the thought strikes me that it could be Thomas.

It rings again, the shrill peal cutting through
the silence.

“Answer it,” Dr. Shields says easily.

My stomach clenches. If I pull it out, will she be able to see the screen or hear the conversation?

It rings a third time.

“We don’t have any secrets, Jessica. Do we?”

It’s like I’m mesmerized by her; I’m unable to summon the will to disobey. My hand is shaking when I pull it out of my jacket pocket.

I see the little picture
of my mother on the screen and I can’t help it; I sink into the chair opposite Dr. Shields.

“Mom,” I say, my voice almost a croak.

It feels like I’m being pinned down by Dr. Shields’s stare. My limbs are leaden.