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Meg is dressed in a pink silk top and black dress pants, spiky heels peeking out beneath the hems, her hair pulled into a loose chignon at the base of her neck. She looks nothing like the high school photo I saw of her so long ago, and I feel the thrill of being close to her. She slides into a chrome and leather chair across from me and says, “All of these properties have been on the market for at least six months, so don’t let the prices scare you off. I think they’re pretty soft.”
I flip through each page, pretending to read the details of each home—the square footage, whether there’s inside laundry or attached parking—but I’m not processing anything. I’m watching her watch me. Does she even remember making that call to the LA Times ten years ago? Would it bother her to know where it sent me? When I get to the last page in the file, I close it and say, “Shall we ride together?”
Meg beams. “I’ll drive.”
***
Her black Range Rover is a far cry from the used Honda that Cory Dempsey bought for her. “So, tell me about yourself,” she says as we pull into traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. “What do you do?”
I thought long and hard about a backstory I could give, something that would allow me to be flexible with my time, but nothing that she could Google to verify. “I’m actually not working right now,” I say, casting a sideways glance at her to see how that lands. After all, she’s about to show me several properties listed for over a million dollars. “I used to work for Bank of America as an account specialist, which really meant I tried to get people to upgrade their checking accounts. I hated it. But then my great aunt Calista died, and she left me a sizable amount of money. Enough for me to tell them to get lost.”
Scott had argued against this. “You have no idea how these people operate,” he’d said when I told him my plan. “They shake your hand with the right and reach into your pocket with the left.”
“The only way I’m going to get this story is to get close to her. To see firsthand how she works. You know this.”
“There are so many different cover stories you can use,” he’d argued. “Pose as another real estate agent, or someone with a lot less money, looking for a rental instead of a million-dollar home. You don’t have to set yourself up as her next mark.”
“I have to be someone worth her while.”
I could tell he still wanted to argue, but he sighed and said, “Fine, but don’t let your guard down. If she thinks you have money, she’ll have you turned inside out and backward by dinnertime.”
“She can’t con me if I’m expecting it,” I told him. “I think I can befriend her. Get her to trust me. Maybe even tell me where she’s been all these years.”
“I think you’re confusing real-life Meg with a character you’ve invented. In the real world, con artists don’t have friends. Every word they say is a lie, and their only goal is to scam as many people as possible.”
Meg’s voice pulls me back. “If only everyone was lucky enough to have an Aunt Calista,” she says.
I smile. Calista is actually my favorite aunt on my father’s side. Not rich, but thankfully, also not dead. “She was pretty special,” I tell Meg. “Calista never married. She worked as a paralegal, putting herself through law school, and was the first female partner at her law firm back in the seventies.” I shift in my seat so I’m facing Meg. “Investing in property would have been something she’d want me to do.”
The thrill of dropping below the surface of my life and pretending to be someone I’m not rushes through me, and for a moment, I can understand why Meg does it. The allure of a new life, a new backstory, is seductive. How easy it might be just to stay here.
She turns left off the main boulevard and into a pocket neighborhood of small houses and large trees, and pulls up in front of a white house with large windows and a dying lawn out front. “This one needs a little rehabbing, but it’s got good bones.”
She trails me as I walk through the house, pointing out original features. When we’re back outside, she says, “What’d you think?”
I wrinkle my nose and say, “It’s a little too much of a fixer for me.”
The next property is in Venice. “My mother and I lived in and around this neighborhood when I was growing up,” she says as we navigate through downtown Santa Monica, the buildings growing shabbier the further south we travel.
The admission catches my attention. “Really? Where?”
“Never anywhere long enough to memorize an address.”
“Have you always lived in Los Angeles?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I was in Michigan for the past ten years. I just moved back.”
“Must be nice to be home.”
She gives a rueful laugh. “Yes and no,” she says. “You have this vision of how your life back home used to be, and you think that’s what it’ll be like when you return.” We’ve hit a red light, and she looks at me, her expression sad. “But it’s not. No one is in the same place. Nothing is as you left it. It’s disconcerting. The people I knew before are gone. I’ve not only had to start my business from scratch, I’ve had to find a new community. A new group of friends.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I miss my mom,” she admits. “Even though I lived here for a number of years after she died, the hole she left feels bigger somehow. More obvious.”
I know how loneliness can seep into your life, the realization that there isn’t anyone who understands you, or the things that keep you up at night. “How old were you when she died?” I ask, though I already know the answer, having tracked down her mother’s death certificate several years ago.
The light turns green, and we accelerate. “It was December of my senior year in high school. Close enough to eighteen that I could fake it for a few months. My biggest regret is that she died thinking she’d failed me.”
What a heartbreaking thing to have to live with, if it’s true. “In what way?” I ask.
“We lost our house,” she says. I notice how her hands grip the steering wheel, white knuckles visible beneath the skin. “We ended up with nothing.” She gives me a quick glance. “We lived in our car for a while.”
