Her Perfect Life Read online

  “It’s always a special day when I see you, honey,” Lily said, returning Rowe’s hug. The girl stayed next to her, arms wrapped around Lily’s waist as Maryrose Glover watched.

  “Everything all right?” the headmistress asked. Her black-rimmed glasses made a headband on her signature platinum bob; the popped collar of a white cotton shirt set off her high cheekbones and discreet pale lipstick. “Rowen saw you, insisted it was you, and I was a bit confused. Have I made a mistake on my calendar?” She eyed Lily and Caralynn up and down, still wary, assessing. “I hope it’s not a problem that I brought her with me—she did insist.”

  “Not a problem at all.” Lily bent quickly and kissed the top of her daughter’s head. She glanced at Caralynn, improvising. “Just hoping for a quick chat with you, in fact, Headmistress.”

  “Ready to get back to class, Rowen?” Caralynn seemed to understand the impromptu script. “Your mum’s here on school business. Aren’t you clever to have spotted her? But now, spit-spot, back to class.”

  “That’s what Mary Poppins says! You’re not Mary Poppins.” Rowen pointed at her teacher. “Is she, Mumma?”

  “Who knows, kiddo,” Lily said, teasing. “And we don’t point.” She pretended not to be reluctant as she unwrapped herself from her daughter’s hug. She wished they could just go home. Go home, and stay there.

  The specter of Smith’s call still hung in the air, and pretending it was an ordinary day was by definition a lie. On an ordinary day, she wouldn’t be here. She couldn’t help but steal a few darting glances. Bushes, hedges, driveway, parking lot, trees.

  The boy who cried wolf, Lily thought again. But again, there was no wolf. Not here, at least.

  But the wolf had called her on the phone. “Warned” her. Was he hiding now, to see what she would do? Bushes, hedges, driveway, parking lot, trees. Nothing. She felt like a bug on a pin. Under an invisible microscope. “You two could talk about Mary Poppins on the way to class, Rowe, and then when I come to pick you up, you tell me what you discovered.”

  “Like an interview. Like you do.” Rowen, enthusiastic, took the bait.

  “Exactly,” Lily said. “See you at four, kiddo. I’ll pick you up. Petra’s got an errand to run.” She didn’t, actually, but Lily herself needed to pick up Rowe today. Make sure she got home safely.

  Like Mumma hadn’t done for Cassie, her unrelenting memory whispered. But she was the mumma now, and she would not fail her daughter.

  The two women stayed quiet as teacher and student walked back to the school building, deep in conversation, Rowen gesturing, braids bouncing as she trotted to keep up with her teacher’s longer steps.

  “What can I do for you, Lily?” the headmistress finally said, returning to first names as she did when it was only the two of them. “You keep looking around—may I ask, are you looking for something in particular?”

  Yes, Lily thought.

  The headmistress stayed silent. Another one of her skills, Lily knew.

  Lily watched her daughter finally disappear behind Graydon’s imposing front doors. She’s safe now, Lily reassured herself. And she’d have to make sure Rowe didn’t grow up to be as skittish as she herself was. The world was not dangerous, not every minute of every day. It just felt that way.

  “I got a phone call at Channel 6,” Lily began. She’d tell the truth, as much as she could, from the most benignly unthreatening point of view. She moved a tiny pebble with one toe of her shoe. “The caller said something was happening at Graydon.”

  Glover frowned. “Happening? That concerns me, Lily, on behalf of every child at the school. If there’s the slightest possibility of a problem, I need to call the police. Report it. It’s my responsibility. What is ‘happening’?”

  “The caller didn’t say.” Which was true. “I tried to call here first, but it went straight to voice mail. Which made me all the more suspicious. But the caller had mentioned Graydon, and since Rowen—”

  “Of course.” Glover crossed her arms over her chest, red fingernails against white shirt, then turned to look back over the grass to the wide front doors of Graydon’s main building and the Meadow lawn. The students were still outside, some with heads close together in clumps and groups, making long shadows in the manicured grass.

  The headmistress turned back to her. “Is there something I need to know?”

  Glover had softened her voice, maybe because her subordinate and her student were no longer in earshot, or to make Lily feel as if she were chatting to a friend. Glover’s manner, her ability to read a room, her relentless and incessant fundraising, all that was legendary at Graydon. How much would you spend to protect your child’s future? Lily remembered Glover, black suited and bespoke, asking a select group of parents that unanswerable question. How much would she pay to protect Rowen? There was no financial answer. The moon, the stars, the universe.

  “I’m a reporter,” she felt she had to explain. “I get endless phone calls, warning of this or that, or predicting calamity or disaster, and I’d say—a vast majority of them are nothing. But it’s the rest of them, the few tips that are true, that’s why I have the job I do. So—”

  “Exactly what did the caller say?”

  Lily imagined this was the patient tone the headmistress took with dawdling students. Or parents late with tuition.

  “He just said—”

  “He.”

  Lily nodded. “He said there was a situation at Graydon.” She tilted her head, remembering. “Did anyone else know you were having the drill today? And let me ask you—was it originally planned for yesterday?”

  CHAPTER 12

  GREER

  I put down the phone and leaned back in my desk chair, staring at the graying drop-tiled ceiling, wondering what Lily would do without me. I’d spent the rest of the day doing my job as assigned, responsibly doing what they pay me for, researching and organizing and digging up new stories, while Lily swanned around who knows where doing who knows what. It had been hours since Lily had hung up on me at the school. Where, of course, everything was fine.

  If you ask me, her parenting verges on suffocation, and she must be wearing herself out, escalating every single damn thing into a Lily-centered crisis. She’d called back, finally, all breathless, saying she had “appointments,” where she “had to be” and would pick up Rowe at four and bring her here to the station so we could catch up before day’s end.

  I clanked myself back upright, the chair wheels squeaking in complaint. This whole division of duties—ha—is a joke. You’d think Lily would be embarrassed. Yet I’m convinced she actually thinks she’s pulling equal weight. Maybe, in the skewed physics of television, fame weighs more than actual work.

  The wooden top of her desk is so polished I can smell the lemon-scented cleaner the cleaning people use on hers but somehow not on mine. A stack of bright red file folders is centered in the middle, but the tabs are unlabeled, and it’s easy to tell they’re empty. There’s actually a sleek porcelain container holding a curving white orchid plant in the upper-right-hand corner. It’s almost—Instagram ready. Like, #BeautifulPerson. It should be more like #WhoWatersThatThing?

  If I kept a flower on my desk it would be knocked over by coffee cups and file folders that actually are full. Of work. But what was I supposed to do? Criticize her for being too perfect? Not that she is all that perfect, but she looks it. Which, again, is all that matters in TV.

  Still, even Lily can’t totally avoid coming to work for a whole day. I’ve covered for her, which is better for the both of us. I’m predicting she’ll come in and take a stroll through the newsroom, acting all purposeful and focused as if she’d been around all day. Like setting up an absence alibi—to convince people she’d been here, diligently on the job the whole time, but people just hadn’t seen her.

  I had to admit, out on an actual interview she was all business, a quick study and an expert questioner. So maybe she was only super-neurotic about her personal life.

  Aunt Cassie. Rowe
had definitely let something slip there. I’d never worked with anyone so protective of her personal history. People have to chat, right? Make small talk in the car, or having coffee? It’s called sharing. Conversation. It’s how the world works. Not Lily’s world, apparently.

  Still. Even with Lily’s storied privacy, seemed like I’d hit a nerve with this Cassie person.

  I winced at myself, once again half-regretting my curiosity. Like Lily’s instant charisma, curiosity is what made me what I am. I wish she liked me more, though. Noticed me. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t, but it would be nice.

  I’m honestly not being creepy sinister about this. She’s famous, she’s a big deal, so therefore, she’s interesting. That’s just how the world is. She’s a celebrity, so everyone wants to know everything about her. Her clothes, her ideas. Her perfect life and how she got it.

  With the inalterably present subtext of I want that, too.

  Did I want that? I shook my head, answering myself. Hell, no. Not at all.

  Aunt Cassie. I looked again at the photograph on the wall, the scalloped, yellowing edges, the fading image of a little girl and a dog. Was this a picture of the elusive Cassie?

  If Lily kept this photo, it must have meaning, I thought, staring at it. It must have power. There were no other truly personal things on Lily’s bulletin board. Press passes, a few fan letters, the cover of Boston magazine showing her in glamorous makeup and wearing a black tulle ball gown and white sneakers. SO LILY, the headline read. Boston’s glam go-getter. She believed her own publicity, which drove me crazy. We all made her who she is. The photographers, the lighting people. The producers. We did the work. She had the fun. She got the rewards.

  “Shut up,” I muttered to myself. My brain just went places, made up its own stories. Even I got tired of them sometimes. Wished my brain would turn off. If Lily were here, where she was supposed to be, my mind would be otherwise occupied. So this was really her fault. I wouldn’t be able to track down Aunt Cassie if Lily were sitting here at her lemony desk, so yeah. Her fault. What would I know if I found Cassie?

  I carefully removed the photo, checking the back of it. No date, no inscription, no fading imprint of blue numbers. Nothing. I pinned it back, ever so carefully, exactly where it had been before.

  No other clues in the photo. No street signs, or numbers on a mailbox, or something that would make it easy, like a big sign saying “Welcome to Lincolnwood” or “Cohasset.” No license plates. Impossible to tell whether this was Lily’s older sister, or her younger sister. If it was her sister at all. Maybe a family friend, one of those people you call aunt for want of an easy specific?

  Without a conscious thought, I stood and yanked open the top file drawer in the metal cabinet next to Lily’s desk. I glanced at the clock. Just enough time. I hoped.

  Parallel metal bars held green hanging file pockets, each one with a few tabbed file folders. None was marked Personal. I took a deep breath, gave myself producer absolution, and removed the one marked Paystubs. I found what I needed. Memorized the first three numbers and put everything back. I couldn’t unknow it now. Not to mention also knowing Lily’s plump salary. But again, she was talent.

  Lily’s Social Security number started with 159. Since Social Security numbers—for people Lily’s age, at least—indicated the state where the card was issued, 159 might mean … I clicked into Google. Searched. Got the answer. Pennsylvania.

  Which meant exactly zero. There were so many variables. Maybe her sister—I’d decided it was her sister, just to make thinking about it easier—had been born someplace else. Maybe—there was a whole list of maybes. Where are you, Aunt Cassie? And why is Lily trying to hide you?

  “Greer?” Lily’s voice from down the hall. I flinched, startled, and stepped away from her file cabinet. How could she arrive just in time—almost—to catch me snooping? A flitter of a guilt-worry caught in my throat, and I dropped into my own desk chair, eyeing Lily’s file cabinet, then pushing it with my toe to make sure the drawer I’d opened was completely closed. At least I was a good burglar.

  “Hey, Lil.” I reopened my emails, pretended to be diligently reading them like a good, hardworking producer. I swiveled to face the voice. “What’s up? Oh, hey, Rowen.”

  “Hey, Auntie Greer, I’m here to visit Mumma’s newsroom again.” Rowen’s hand linked with her mother’s, their matching eyes ridiculously genetic. Even their cheekbones matched. “And maybe be on TV.”

  “Silly girl,” Lily said. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  I knew enough not to get into that one.

  “Anything … new?” I tried to add subtext to my question, hoping Lily would know I was referring to Smith’s call, and interested in what happened at Graydon.

  “Tell Greer what happened at school today, Rowe.” Lily stashed her tote bag under her desk. “You can sit in my seat, right here, while I go check on something in the newsroom. You two chat, and maybe later, I’ll bring you downstairs. But the four o’clock news is on now, honey. That means only reporters can be in the newsroom. Okay, Gree? Two minutes.”

  I hoped Lily thought I was smiling at being relegated to hang out with a seven-year-old and not smiling at her transparent—and expected—alibi ruse. Or at the manipulative nickname. Gree. Kidding me?

  “So what happened at school?” I began as instructed. “Your mom tells me you write poems. Did you bring any with you?”

  Fire drill, lots of bells, they got to go outside, no new poems. I listened, with an enthusiastic expression on my face, as Rowen chattered about the events of the day. “Then Mumma came, and it was a surprise, and then I went in, and then Mumma talked to Headmaster Glover, and there was a butterfly that almost came into the school with me!”

  “Whoa.” I nodded as if imagining such a thing.

  I had to make sure this conversation, if related to Lily, was spotlessly innocent. I pointed to the sepia photo. “Isn’t that a cute photo?”

  Rowen nodded. “It’s Pooch.”

  “Pooch?”

  “Pooch,” Rowen said. “Mumma’s dog when she was little. My age. We have Val, and Val is bigger and funnier. Pooch is in dog heaven, Mumma told me.”

  I nodded, sympathetic. “That must have been a long time ago.”

  “Before I was born,” Rowe said.

  She began to roll pencils across the desk, watching them plop onto the floor. Time was running out. Mumma, why did Greer ask about Aunt Cassie? All I need.

  “So, um, and that’s your mumma in the photo with Pooch, right?” Old journalism trick. People love to correct you, no matter how old they are. And when they correct you, you get the answer you wanted in the first place.

  “No, silly.” Rowen did an expert eye roll.

  “No?” I frowned, the perplexed adult. “I thought it was.”

  “It’s not Mumma.” Rowe’s voice carried a twinge of Lily-like disdain. “It’s Aunt Cassie.”

  “Rowen?” Lily was framed in the doorway, her eyes darting back and forth between us.

  Her hair had that effortless aura of salon visit, and I could still see tiny red dots along her forehead. Appointments, huh? Blow-dry and Botox, no question. But then, she had to be perfect.

  I stood, making a big show of gathering the yellow pencils from the floor.

  “Rowen’s been racing pencils,” I explained. “She’s an expert.” I felt bad trying to weasel information from a child, but curious me wanted to know more. And it wasn’t going to come from Lily, that was for sure. To distract her, I planted a worry. “What’s the scoop from the newsroom? Anyone notice you were gone today?”

  “Huh?” Lily seemed truly baffled. She’s convinced even herself she doesn’t have to play by the real rules. “You think they noticed I wasn’t here?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “Your phone is ringing,” Lily said, pointing. “Rowey? Say goodbye to Aunt Greer.”

  CHAPTER 13

  GREER

  I cou
ldn’t decide how to answer Smith’s opening question—“Do you know who this is?”—because if I said yes or if I said no, it meant the same thing. I did know the name we used, but I didn’t know who he or she really was. I clamped the phone to my ear as if somehow that could get me closer to the truth. I’d recognized my caller’s voice as I watched Lily and Rowen stroll down the hall away from our office. Hand in hand, little and big, perfect and more perfect.

  The girl in the sepia photograph, the mysterious Cassie, seemed to stare at me from Lily’s bulletin board.

  “Yes,” I quickly said, “I know who this is—not your name of course, but yes.”

  “I knew you would.”

  Smith’s voice seemed like a man’s today, I decided, but maybe there was something on the phone that distorts or alters the EQ, like we did in editing to disguise an interviewee’s voice. Why was he suddenly calling me? He—or she—had only contacted Lily in the past. I wondered if this was some sort of end run around her. Or fishing for information.

  “Did Lily tell you I called earlier today?”

  “This morning, yes, of course she did.” I pretended Lily always told me everything. “That’s why she went to Graydon.”

  Silence on the other end. “Yes, this morning,” Smith finally said.

  Another pause, and I sat back in my chair, phone to my ear, staring at the floor. Drying crumbs from my afternoon snack of potato chips had not quite buried themselves in the carpet’s thin gray pile, and one of Rowe’s pencils had rolled under Lily’s desk.

  “So, Ms. Whitfield,” he said. “Can we keep this off the record?”

  “Sure,” I said, lying yet again. I plucked a potato chip crumb from the carpet, tossed it toward my metal wastebasket, and almost made it. I hate off the record; it’s journalistic quicksand. So I always say yes and then renegotiate when the time comes if need be.

  “I mean just between us.” Smith’s voice had lowered, insistent. “I mean off the record even to Lily. Agreed?”