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Meg
October
Two Weeks before the Election
It’s time to go.
Kat sits across from me, plates littering the table between us as the restaurant empties. She doesn’t know it, but this is our last lunch. Tomorrow, I’ll be gone, and Kat will be left to piece together what I’ve done.
“Any new clients on the horizon?” Kat asks. Still digging. Still hoping to figure it out. She’s so much closer than she thinks.
I play with my napkin before telling her a partial truth. “I’m thinking of taking a break from real estate,” I say, looking through the window toward the street, where shoppers pass by with bags from expensive boutiques. “Maybe take a vacation. I’ve been doing this for so long, and it’s the same picky clients, the same escrow snafus, the same sellers, trying not to disclose a leak in the basement or noise from the airport. It’s exhausting and it’s nonstop. I thought moving home would be the change of scenery I was looking for, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I need something different.”
Kat studies me, and I wonder if she’s finally going to break, asking questions I know she’s dying to ask. How do you do it? Who do you target? What’s your plan with Ron?
But the moment passes.
“You’re one of those people who can’t ever settle,” Kat says instead. “The ones who move around, always looking for home and never finding it.”
What a gift it’s been, to know that Kat sees me as I really am. “Home disappeared for me the day my mother died. And ever since, I’ve been chasing the ghost of a feeling. Looking for a reset that would put my life back in order. But at some point, a person has to stop chasing something that doesn’t exist and just move on.”
I wonder if she can hear what lives between my words. I’m done with the lies, ready to find a place—a community where I can build something for myself—and I wish for just one moment of honesty between the two of us. That I could start from the beginning and tell her all of it. Go back to that rainy afternoon in the internet café when I saw a familiar face and an opportunity.
Before I say something I’ll regret, I turn the conversation back to her. “Any updates? Have you heard from Scott?”
Her gaze cuts sideways. “No, and I’m relieved, to be honest.”
I take a sip of my lemon water and watch her fiddle with her cutlery, looking everywhere but at me. She’s lying. But it doesn’t matter. After tomorrow, this will all be over.
I have just a few things left to do—pack, book my flight, make sure everything is set so that tomorrow, I’ll be ready to act.
In the morning, Ron’s business manager, Steve, will get directions to wire the rest of the money, never suspecting that the smooth sale of Canyon Drive set this one up so perfectly. It isn’t a phishing scam if the person on the other end is expecting the link.
Earlier this week, I posed as Ron’s assistant and made several phone calls. Confirming details. Setting the timeline. Drafting a press release, Ron’s words from that long ago outing with Kat coming back to haunt him. Once the media gets ahold of something, it’s impossible to walk it back.
I feel as if I’m a dancer onstage, giving her final performance. My body aches, and I yearn for days where I won’t have to twist myself into knots. I’ve tried on enough identities to know exactly who I want to be. Who I want to remain.
But I’m proud of the work I’ve done. The creative thinking that has allowed me to get to this moment. It takes a village to raise a first-rate grifter, and the world has no shortage of teachers willing to help me build my skills. To learn how to lie convincingly. To manipulate and obfuscate. To use the power of reflecting their best selves back to them, using their egos as vehicles to take back what they’ve stolen from others.
Kat throws her napkin on top of her plate and stands. “I’d better get going. I need to run a few errands this afternoon. Buy a new toaster oven, since Scott took ours with him.”
I look up, my mind crowded with all the things I cannot say, making it difficult for me to think. My eyes fill with tears, and I quickly drop my sunglasses from the top of my head to hide them.
Kat rummages in her purse for her keys, and when she finds them, she gives me a quick look and says, “Talk tomorrow?”
“Sure thing,”I say. I keep my eyes on her as she weaves through the empty tables, and then she’s gone.“Goodbye,” I say, to no one. The way it always goes. The way it always has to be.
