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I look down at my wrist. I see my birthmark, ugly, naked, blaring. I yank down my sweater sleeve to cover it. “He has it.”
She clucks her tongue. “They’ll do that, sometimes. Take things as a sort of trophy. Like serial killers.” She takes a final slurp of her tea. “Now, shall we take you to Melanie?”
I hand Ms. Foley the scrap of paper with Veronica’s address, and she pulls out a London A–Z book to chart our way. I fall asleep on the Tube, my tears wrung out, the blankness of exhaustion the only comfort I have now. Ms. Foley shakes me awake at Veronica’s stop and leads me to the redbricked Victorian house where her flat is.
Melanie comes bounding to the door, already dressed up for tonight’s trip to the theater. Her face is lit up with anticipation, waiting to hear a really good story. But then she sees Ms. Foley, and her expression skids. Without knowing anything, she knows everything: She bid Lulu farewell at the train station yesterday, and it’s Allyson being returned to her like damaged goods. She gives the slightest of nods, as if none of this surprises her. Then she kicks off her heels and opens her arms to me, and when I step into them, the humiliation and heartbreak bring me to my knees. Melanie sinks to the ground alongside me, her arms hugging me tight. Behind me, I hear Ms. Foley’s retreating footsteps. I let her leave without saying a word. I don’t thank her. And I already know that I never will, and that is wrong considering the great kindness she’s done me. But if I am to survive, I can never, ever visit this day again.
PART TWO
One Year
Fourteen
SEPTEMBER
College
Allyson. Allyson. Are you there?”
I pull the pillow over my head and scrunch my eyes shut, faking sleep.
The key turns in the lock as my roommate Kali pushes open the door. “I wish you wouldn’t lock the door when you are here. And I know you’re not asleep. You’re just playing dead. Like Buster.”
Buster is Kali’s dog. A Lhasa apso. She has pictures of him among the dozens tacked up on the wall. She told me all about Buster last July when we had our initial howdy-roommate phone call. Back then, I thought Buster sounded cute, and I found it quirky that Kali was named for her home state, and the way she talked—as if she were punching her words somehow—seemed sweet.
“Okaay, Allyson. Fine. Don’t answer, but look, can you call your parents back? Your mother called my cell looking for you.”
From under the pillows, I open my eyes. I’d wondered how long I could leave my phone uncharged before something would happen. Already there’s been a mysterious UPS delivery. I was half expecting a carrier pigeon to arrive. But calling my roommates?
I hide under the pillow as Kali changes into going-out clothes, applying makeup and spritzing herself with that vanilla-scented perfume that gets into everything. After she leaves, I take the pillow off my head and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I push aside my chemistry textbook, the highlighter sitting in the crease, uncapped, ever hopeful it’ll get used before it dries up from neglect. I locate my dead phone in my sock drawer and kick through the dirty laundry piled in my closet for the charger. When it charges back to life, the voice mail box tells me I have twenty-two new messages. I scroll through the missed calls. Eighteen are from my parents. Two from my grandmother. One from Melanie, and one from the registrar.
“Hi, Allyson, it’s your mother. Just calling to check in to see how everything is going. Give me a call.”
“Hi, Allyson. It’s Mom. I got the new Boden catalog, and there are some cute skirts. And some warm corduroy jeans. I’ll just order some and bring them up for Parents’ Weekend. Call me back!”
Then there’s one from my dad. “Your mother wants to know where we should make reservations for Parents’ Weekend: Italian or French or maybe Japanese. I told her you’d be grateful for anything. I can’t imagine dorm food has improved that much in twenty-five years.”
Then we’re back to Mom: “Allyson, is your phone broken? Please tell me you did not lose that too. Can you please touch base? I’m trying to schedule Parents’ Weekend. I thought I might to come to classes with you. . . .”
“Hi, Ally, it’s Grandma. I’m on Facebook now. I’m not sure how it works, so make me your friend. Or you could call me. But I want to do it how you kids do it.”
“Allyson, it’s Dad. Call your mother. Also, we are trying to get reservations at Prezzo. . . .”
“Allyson, are you ill? Because I can really think of no other explanation for the radio silence. . . .”
The messages go downhill from there, Mom acting like three months, not three days, have gone by since our last phone call. I wind up deleting the last batch without even listening, stopping only for Melanie’s rambling account about school and hot New York City guys and the superiority of the pizza there.
I look at the time on my phone. It’s six o’clock. If I call home, maybe Mom will be out and I’ll get the machine. I’m not quite sure what she does with her days now. When I was seven, she wound up leaving her job, even though she didn’t take that maternity leave after all. The plan had been to go back to work once I went to college, but it hasn’t quite got off the ground yet.
She picks up on the second ring. “Allyson, where have you been?” Mom’s voice is officious, a little impatient.
“I ran off to join a cult.” There’s a brief pause, as if she’s actually considering the possibility of this. “I’m at college, Mom. I’m busy. Trying to adjust to the workload.”
“If you think this is bad, wait until medical school. Wait until your residency! I hardly saw your father.”
“Then you should be used to it.”
