These Girls Read online

  She drank a glass of wine for courage, then called her parents and told them she’d messed up: She’d somehow overlooked the fact that she needed those extra credits to graduate. Her father was apoplectic and wanted to call the dean’s office, but she convinced him she needed to take responsibility for it. “It’s my own fault,” she said.

  Where had Timothy gone? She rang his doorbell over and over again at odd times—one o’clock in the afternoon, 6:00 A.M., midnight—wondering, if now that she’d dropped out of school, they could resume their relationship. But no one answered. She kept an eye out for his VW Bug all over campus, but she never once saw it.

  Then one day another woman answered his door.

  Cate stared at her blankly.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked.

  She was as young as Cate—younger!

  “Rhonda, is someone there?” An older woman rounded the corner and looked out at Cate. “Yes?”

  Cate stared past her, at the stacks of brown moving boxes lining the partially unpacked living room, and shook her head.

  “I . . . I have the wrong apartment,” she said.

  Two classes left—easy, summer school classes that would wrap up by the end of July. They should’ve been a snap. But Cate never attended them. She spent the morning of graduation watching The Price Is Right, and when her roommate Chandra, who dreamed of starring on Broadway, packed up her car to drive to New York City a few days later, Cate tagged along. She never told her parents what she’d done. When they called her cell phone or e-mailed her, they had no idea they were reaching her in New York instead of Ohio. One lie spawned dozens of others, like a mirror shattering and creating replicas of itself.

  It was easy to let her parents think she’d graduated, especially since there wasn’t a ceremony to attend in the summer. Her mother offered to come to Ohio to help her pack up her things, but Cate told her she was shipping them directly to Manhattan, where she’d located a sublet studio apartment (that part, at least, was true. Cate had found one on the Lower West Side after combing through the classified ads, and she was working as a waitress in a diner to cover the rent). The day after summer school supposedly ended, Cate traded a few shifts at the diner and went home to Philly, where she talked about the big life she planned to lead in New York, camouflaging the fact that she’d already embarked upon it.

  At the time she’d been surprised her parents hadn’t questioned her more closely, especially after she slipped up and mentioned how much she loved to jog in Central Park. “I mean, I think I’ll love it.” She’d laughed awkwardly. It wasn’t until much later that she realized her parents were in the beginning stages of splitting up and their main focus wasn’t on her for once.

  Cate had adored New York from the moment she arrived, had known this was where she was meant to be. This was a city for fresh starts, the perfect place to reinvent yourself. New beginnings could be discovered around every corner.

  Although Cate didn’t love waitressing, she had a knack for it. Most of her co-workers were struggling actors or models who sometimes stumbled into work hungover or tried to ham it up with busy customers, but Cate treated her job respectfully. She kept her uniform neat, never took away a plate until she was sure a diner was finished eating, and—she credited the generous tips she always received to this habit—she kept a close eye on coffee cups, offering refills the moment they dipped below half full. She’d learned early on never to get between New Yorkers and their morning coffee.

  She’d been in the city for several months when one of her regular customers gave her a tip that was far more valuable than money. When Cate had hurried over with a clean fork to replace the one he’d dropped under the booth, he’d mentioned an opening for a temporary receptionist at the Hudson Corporation, which owned a half dozen magazines. “Interested?” he’d asked. “I work in the ad department there, and I can put in a good word if you want to give me your résumé.”

  “Yes,” Cate had said instantly. A week later, she got a call to come in for an interview.

  “I see you went to college at Ohio State University?” the human resources director had said, turning the statement into a question as she peered through gold-tipped reading glasses at Cate’s résumé.

  “Yes, I did,” Cate had answered, feeling as if the temperature in the room had suddenly plummeted. She’d carefully ironed her best white blouse, she’d gone to the library to read past issues of all of the magazines the Hudson company published, and she’d arrived an hour early for the interview and paced the block to pass time. She’d agonized over her résumé, detailing her four years of attendance at college and her admirable GPA, hoping a cursory skimming of the page would leave the impression that she’d graduated. But the human resources director had allowed a pause to stretch out, and Cate had finally filled it.

  “I had to leave before the end of my senior year because of a family crisis.” More shards splintering off the mirror. “I’m currently six credits shy of my degree, and I’m, uh, working out an agreement with the college to fulfill those requirements by the end of the year.”

  The human resources director had nodded, but Cate couldn’t tell whether she accepted the lies. Would she check?

  “I’m a hard worker,” Cate had said, her mind scrambling as she tried to think of employable assets. “And I’ll never be late.”

  The human resources director had laughed. “Never? Really? You can promise that?”

  “Actually I can,” Cate had said. Please believe me, she’d thought. I’m not lying now. She’d blinked hard as she felt tears burn her eyes. “I’m an early riser. I go running every morning around six.”

  The woman had put down her pen and leaned back in her chair. “You’re a runner?”

  That was the detail that had spun around the interview; they’d chatted for ten minutes about the upcoming 10K they were both planning to race in, and when Cate had left, she’d felt buoyed by hope. This was just a temporary, low-level position, but it could be a toehold in the magazine world. If she was lucky, the human resource director might have already forgotten the gap in her résumé.

  Cate never knew if it was the recommendation from the ad guy or her love of jogging that got her the job, but within a few weeks, she was answering phones and signing for messenger deliveries for Gloss. Then, when the receptionist who was out on maternity leave decided not to come back, the temp position flowed into a permanent one. Two years after that—long, lean years in which Cate made herself indispensable to the magazine’s editors by seeking out work that fell far beyond her job description—she was rewarded with an editorial assistant job. Although she dated occasionally, she never felt anything close to what she’d experienced with Timothy. It was easy to pour all her energy into work.

  No one asked to see her résumé when an associate editor job opened up or, a few years later, when the features editor position became available. Cate was offered the promotions on the strength of her track record. Although that ambiguous piece of paper was still buried somewhere deep in the human resources office, the woman who’d interviewed her had left long ago.

  And now here she was, in her first month as features editor, carrying around a lie that felt like it had been steadily gaining strength during all these years, like a tumor. She wasn’t good enough. She hadn’t even graduated from college, yet she had editorial assistants with grad degrees from top schools. And in the back of her mind, she realized she’d been waiting for someone to come along and point a finger at her and shout out her inadequacies to the world.

  She chanced another look down the sidewalk at Brian Anthony and realized she’d lost sight of him.

  He couldn’t have gone into the Hudson building; it wasn’t possible. Oh, God, what if he’d been hired? Could she endure having to see him every day, wondering if he knew the truth?

  Their school was a big one, but he’d lived on her floor. Everyone knew she was withdrawing, and the reason why . . . And anyone who’d been in touch with Chandra would know
Cate had blown off summer school to move to New York.

  She had to stop torturing herself, Cate thought as she walked across the lobby and flashed her ID to pass through the electronic gate. Especially because, right now, she needed to go into a meeting and stare Sam down as they discussed the polygamy story. She was going to demand that he make it more personal. It didn’t matter if Cate was wrong or right; if she didn’t show strength now, no one would ever respect her.

  Then, somehow, she had to get to Trey. She needed him to write the celebrity cover feature on Reece Moss, the piece that would prove Cate was good enough to lead the issue. Should she just call him and ask? But if he said no, she didn’t have a backup plan. How could she possibly convince him?

  Just then Cate’s cell phone rang. She looked down and saw Renee’s name flashing.

  “Hey, where are you? I think we’ve got ourselves a new roommate, as long as you’re okay with it.”

  As she listened, tension drained from Cate’s body and she began to smile.

  Five

  ABBY LAY IN BED, scenes from her life running through her mind. The most important scenes, the ones people were always said to come back to on their deathbeds.

  She saw herself falling in love with Annabelle first, that sweet little bald baby with big blue eyes. Annabelle was small and thin, with legs that seemed as fragile as chicken wings. She smelled like lavender from her scented baby lotion, and she didn’t like pacifiers, which made her look more intelligent to Abby than other babies, with those plastic rings hanging out of their mouths.

  “Here’s your room—I mean, if everything works out,” Anna-belle’s father, Bob, had said, showing Abby around the basement. There was a bedroom with a full-size bed and chest of drawers in matching white wicker, a bathroom with a shower and pretty blue tiles on the floor, and an adjoining rec room that had been transformed into a playroom for Annabelle. With its deep green sectional sofa and wall-mounted television, it could double as a living area for Abby. “We’re getting a mini-fridge and a microwave, and of course you could use the kitchen upstairs anytime you wanted,” he said.

  “I love it,” Abby said, looking right at Annabelle. And miraculously, Annabelle smiled at her. It wasn’t gas; Abby believed babies really could smile at that age. They had all sorts of emotions, and they expressed them clearly. It was the adults’ job to learn how to decipher their signals.

  “Can I hold her?” Abby asked.

  “Sure. Of course.” Bob handed her over. She was impossibly light, but her hand wrapped tightly around Abby’s index finger. “My wife, Joanna—she’s not officially back at work yet, but she had to run in for a bit today, which is why she’s not here—anyway, she thought we should sign Annabelle up for a few classes.”

  The wife was working instead of interviewing nannies?

  “We thought maybe Mozart for babies music class,” Bob was saying. “And a sign language course.”

  Abby couldn’t help smiling. “Or I could just play Mozart over the stereo. I mean, if you want I could take her to classes. But she’s eight weeks old. I was thinking lots of long walks, time in the fresh air and sunshine so she can see the world. Do you have a Björn? Babies like to be held close instead of sitting in a stroller. I can show her picture books and give her massages, too.”

  Bob was nodding enthusiastically. He was a solid-looking, all-American kind of guy. Blond hair that was just beginning to thin, broad shoulders, well-shaped eyebrows, and an easy smile. Handsome in an effortless way. Probably a high school football player and homecoming king, Abby decided. The sort of guy who floated through life on charm and goodwill.

  “And we’re getting a gadget to puree her food,” he said. “We’re going to make everything homemade and organic.” This time Abby hid a grin. Sign language, homemade baby food, and Mozart? He was so sweetly eager. She’d seen it before: parents overly anxious to do everything perfectly with the first child. The third kid would get an Eggo to gnaw on for breakfast while watching SpongeBob SquarePants.

  “She seems happy with you,” Bob said. Abby looked down and realized she was unconsciously swaying back and forth, back and forth, transforming herself into a human swing for Annabelle.

  “She’s a little angel,” Abby said. She wiggled the finger Anna-belle was clutching. “She’s absolutely perfect.”

  “Can you come back tonight?” Bob blurted. “I’d really like you to meet my wife.”

  That was the moment Abby knew the job was hers.

  Joanna Armstrong was the top aide for a Democratic senator on Capitol Hill. She was trim and fit—all evidence of her pregnancy had already been neatly erased—with a short cap of dark hair, creamy white skin, and a slightly jutting chin. She fired questions at Abby like they were tennis balls, and she’d decided that Abby needed to work on her returns.

  “Are you from the area?”

  “Yes,” Abby said. “I grew up in Silver Spring, and I went to college at the University of Maryland at College Park.”

  “What made you want to become a nanny?”

  “I adore kids,” Abby said, an involuntary smile spreading across her face as she looked at Annabelle sleeping in Bob’s lap. The baby’s tiny pink lips were making sucking motions, as if she was reminiscing about a particularly fabulous meal.

  They were sitting in the living room, Abby in a chair across from Bob and Joanna on the couch. The walls were painted a rich burgundy that complemented the distressed brown leather furniture. It was an elegant room, sleek and symmetrical, with red tulips overflowing from a crystal vase and a big bay window overlooking the grassy front yard, but Abby couldn’t stop looking at the sharp corners on the glass-topped coffee table and imagining Annabelle’s head making contact when she started to walk.

  Bob kept adjusting a pink knit blanket to make sure it covered Annabelle. Abby would have to show Bob how to swaddle; there wasn’t anything sweeter than a baby wrapped up like a burrito.

  “I think you know I’m working at a day-care center now?” Abby asked. “But I’m in school at U Maryland, too, getting my master’s degree in education. I’d like to become a teacher eventually.”

  Joanna nodded approvingly. “Any siblings?”

  This was always a trick question for Abby. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—say “One brother” because it wasn’t the full truth. Her family never talked about little Stevie, her brother who’d died of a sudden illness just before turning two, but Abby always felt his absence. Some of the older people at the nursing home where she’d volunteered had sworn their old bones could sense rain coming. She understood exactly what they meant; her heart ached when she sensed imminent questions about her family.

  Sometimes she thought her little brother’s death explained why she always wanted to be around kids. She was barely four when he died, and had no memories of him. But it was too awkward to explain the full story to strangers. They always looked uncomfortable and apologized, and she had to reassure them it was all right, even though it wasn’t.

  So she fudged it: “My older brother, Trey, lives in New York. He’s a journalist.”

  That diversion worked: Joanna zeroed in on Trey’s glamorous-sounding job, as Abby knew she would.

  “Where does he work?”

  “The Great Beyond magazine. He just did a big piece about the young couple who got caught in a massive storm that overturned their sailboat. They floated for three days, clinging to a piece of wood, until they were found.”

  Joanna snapped her fingers. “I’ve heard of him.” She turned to Bob. “He’s the one who was on TV, remember? They interviewed him about the movie based on his book.”

  Bob nodded and steered the conversation back on track. “Right. . . . So, Abby, it would be a full-time job, but we could be a bit flexible. If you wanted to take a morning class one day a week or something, I could adjust my hours.”

  “That would be great,” Abby said. “I was planning on taking classes at night, but thank you. What sort of work do you do?”

  “Te
ch support. I fix rogue computers. Boring stuff,” he said. Joanna didn’t contradict him, even though he’d proudly told Abby about his wife’s job, joking that she’d be a senator herself someday.

  “I wish I had that skill,” Abby said. “I can barely manage spell-check.”

  “Free computer support is a fringe benefit of this job,” Bob said, and they all laughed a bit more loudly than the joke warranted.

  Abby reached for a cracker from the platter with Brie and green grapes that Joanna had set out, then put it on a little cocktail plate. She was hungry but felt self-conscious being the only one eating. But a moment later, Bob reached out, cut off a hunk of Brie, and spread it on a cracker.

  “Try the cheese, it’s good,” he said, swallowing it in one bite.

  Abby smiled as she reached for the knife. “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to be traveling a bit for my job,” Joanna was saying. “So we may need flexible hours from you, too. Of course, we wouldn’t interfere with school, but could you work the occasional weekend?”

  Abby shrugged. “I’m sure we could work it out. Other than school, I won’t have very many commitments.”

  “You’re not dating anyone?” Joanna asked. The question felt oddly out of place; it hung between them for a swollen moment. Even though they’d talked about personal things, this seemed different. Joanna’s dark eyes stayed fixed on Abby. What was her motivation for asking?

  Abby finished chewing her cracker before she replied. “Actually, I do have a boyfriend. But I would never have him stay over here or anything—”

  Bob cut her off. “We’re not worried about it. That’s your business.”

  “Well, actually, she raises a good point. I wouldn’t want a strange guy in our basement,” Joanna said. “I think no overnight guests is a good rule.”