The courthouse was like government buildings always were, stuffy and uncomfortable, with an air like you weren’t supposed to be there. The receptionist told me she couldn’t tell me who exactly had been through, but that if I was here about a housing issue, I needed to go ahead and through the door on the right, so my shoes rang sharp, punching footsteps on tile floors as I made my way through to a waiting room where my heart surged at the sight of her sitting in the corner, clasping a paper ticket in both hands with her head on the cold concrete wall, eyes half-closed like she might have fallen asleep there.
Julie. Neglecting herself as usual. Although if she was seeing the Housing Court, god knows what else was forcing her to neglect herself at this point. I marched across the room, and she only stirred when I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh—sorry,” she said, shaking back to awareness, and she startled at the sight of me, her pupils dilating. “Holy—what the—Helena?What are you doing here?”
“You know what I’m doing here,” I said. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Jesus, Helena, the mixer, we can’t both miss it.”
“It’s fine. I have time. Or at least, I will if you don’t drag this out for the entire rest of the day.” I lowered myself to her level, where she was sitting like a scolded schoolgirl in one of the sad cheap folding chairs. “Talk to me. I didn’t track you down like this for nothing.”
“Ma’am,” a uniformed attendant said behind me, and I looked back at where a tired middle-aged woman gave me a deadpan look. “I’m sorry, but if you’re not here to take a ticket and see—”
“I’m here as a representative for Julie Branch,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me.”
She bought it—or more likely, didn’t care enough to press it, turning and heading back behind the counters. By the time I looked back at Julie, she’d crumpled up into herself, her expression changed from shock to heartbreak.
“I didn’t want to do it like this,” she mumbled.
“Do what?” I said. “I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s happening.”
She put her hands over her face. “Let’s step out into the hallway. It’s going to take at least an hour for them to get to me anyway. Not that it’s going to change anything when they do.”
I swallowed my frustration for long enough to join her out in the hall, where the two of us stood close together under dim lights and cheap paint that flaked from the walls.
“So,” I started, arms folded. She shoved her hands into her pockets, looking down at the floor, and even though she’d always been small, I’d never seen her so… small. Even when she came up to my lips at the highest, she’d always had this posture like she could fill the room. But now she felt like she was a thin reed in the wind, ready to blow down.
“I’ve been lying about a bunch of things,” she said quietly.
I hated how much I liked her. I was supposed to be pissed off hearing the confessional, finding out the truth was exactly like I’d been afraid of, but it hurt so much to see her look this sad, this broken, that I just wanted to hug her. “Okay,” I said carefully.
“I’m not Cassandra. My name’s Julie. That’s it. Always was.”
I swallowed hard, a thick feeling tightening in my neck. “Why did—”
“I’m not a music agent, either. I made that up. I mean, I guess I kind of am now, because I’ve been faking it so hard thatI’ve literally started doing it, but when I met you, I was nobody and I was nothing.”
“Everything? The music—”
“The music, the name, the marriage.” She laughed bitterly. “The old magazine articles. I’d actually just happened to see your magazine cover on the wall earlier that day, and that’s how I recognized you. I’d never read any old magazine articles. Hell, I didn’t really even know anything about classical Greek myth. I was never married. And I was going to leave New York next month.”
My face burned, a sick taste in my mouth. “So… everything about you was just you lying to get close to me. For what? Some kind of bucket list in New York?”
“Shit, I guess so.” She had this haunted, distant look in her eyes as she spoke in a low monotone. “Whole thing was Kingmaker’s idea. I hit rock bottom, or what I thought then was rock bottom, anyway, and I was planning to leave New York, and I saw his ad for life coaching, and I thought, can’t hurt to try it. Turns out it sure can,” she said dryly. “Tricked me into taking on several thousand dollars’ worth of debt and crashing a party by lying about who I was, using the name of someone who was invited but wasn’t going to make it, all so I could get contacts.”
I think I would have expected to feel angry or hurt or confused or sad orsomething,but instead I just felt numb, distant, like I was feeling my emotions through glass so thick I could only see hazy outlines. I barely even heard myself speak. “You just made up a whole identity to talk to me?”
“Oh, god, no. To talk to anyone but you, really. I made up a whole identity to talk to someone who could lead me to a job, and I was told in very strict terms not to spend any time with you, because you knew me as Cassandra, and you were a dangerous distraction, and I… well, I tried not to. But then, I mean, things happened, one after another, and I’d somehowgotten in with Krysten by running all over the city until a studio signed up with her, and then… Estelle wanted me to help pull you out of your rut, and I thought I’d just help you and Krysten connect, because I knew how much you wanted to get out into the startup field, and I knew Krysten could use someone like you. Then she pulled a fast one on me by getting you and me on the work together because she knew my whole deal with Cassandra and she wanted to… to screw with me, I guess. I don’t know. Jesus, Helena, I just never thought I had any reason for you to take me seriously enough that you’d care about my actual name and life or anything, and by the time I realized how much I really liked you and how much I wanted to be close to you and everything, I was just terrified you’d find out what a nobody I was, what a stupid… fucking… loser I’ve always been.” She buried her face in her hands, choking on tears as she spoke. “But this was the worst possible way for it to happen. I’m really fucking sorry.”
It sounded like she was making up bullshit—making upmorebullshit apparently—but it made a little too much sense to ignore. How much she’d been awkward about her name, nervous and uncomfortable back at the party in Williamsburg, and had slowly stepped into herself. All the comments about her husband… how shehadn’t been attending events without him for long.I guess that was technically true. Not because she hadn’t been without him for long, but because she hadn’t been attending events at all.
All the times my heart had broken for her and bled for her, wanting to keep her safe from this relationship—the relationship that never actually existed—and all the times I ached for her, wanting her when it wasn’t evenher,I boiled over, clutching my hand to my forehead and turning away with an exasperated sigh, mostly to keep myself from holding her while she cried.
“So, guess you really aren’t too close with Mr. Evans-Pierre,” I said. “Guess I see why you weren’t too shaken up about not being with him.”
“I fucked up with youandwith Krysten. She’s actually friends with the real Cassandra. I don’t know why she gave me any grace.” She laughed through a sob. “No, actually, I think I do know. I think it’s because she thinks it’s funny. Well, it doesn’t really matter now. I’m really sorry for lying to you. I hope you know I was never lying when I told you you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever known, and that… that you’re going to do really well in your new career.”
I turned back to where she was frustratedly wiping tears from her face even as new ones were quick to replace them. “What, are you planning to just leave now? Is that why you’re telling me now, because now it’s your time to leave and you don’t have to face the consequences?”
