I’ve been studying the sketch Yvonne gave me. I scanned it into Roboteye, a reverse-image search engine that lets you find out where an image came from, how it’s being used, and if modified versions exist. The way it works is surreal. Facial recognition algorithms identify features by extracting landmarks from an image of the subject’s face. For example, an algorithm may analyze the relative position, size, and the shape of the eyes, nose, cheekbones, and jaw. Those landmarks are used to search for other images with ones that match. It’s freaking brilliant. And it’s free. But the subject of Donny’s sketches never made her way to the Internet, not even as a driver’s license photo.
This was just me proving my hypothesis. Now that my research is complete, I know the girl in the sketch never existed.
Though Donny’s girlfriend did.
It’s this funny inverse of a cliché. Usually when a person lies online about their appearance, they pretend to look better than they do in real life. Like the guy who posts pictures of himself on Match.com from twenty years and twenty pounds ago. But when someone you love—say, your own mother—insists other people will only love you if you’re that someone’s version of perfect, then you experiment a little. Prove them wrong. So when you describe yourself to a Donald Jessup / Lonely Hearts Club type, for example, you pick all the things you think would make you ugly. But he loves you anyway. Immortalizes the you he thinks you are in his sketches. Mails them to you, and you hang them in your own personal, fiberglass-insulated trophy room. Winning! you think. Eff you, Mother. He drives all around town trying to see you in person, but you provide exactly enough wrong clues that he always just misses you. The whole experiment works, until one day, simply flirting with danger isn’t enough. You decide it would be fun to let him see what you really look like; let him in on the experiment. Unfortunately, the subject you picked for your experiment turns out to be a murderous psychopath.
Whoops.
I’ve had lots of time to think of next steps. In fact, I titled this chapter “Next Steps” in my notebook, where I’ve had to start over from the beginning, along the margins. On the early pages, my handwriting is vigilant and tense. Now it flows. On the very first page, the page with the bisected cat’s eye, I wrote along the side “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” as a personal reminder of my new MO. (Everyone attributes that to the Chinese general Sun Tzu in The Art of War. But what he was really saying was, Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious. The original quote is actually from Machiavelli’s The Prince, the ultimate primer on how to be a sneaky liar. You use the word Machiavellian to describe someone who manipulates others in an opportunistic and deceptive way to get what they want.)
I will confront Liv for throwing me into the path of a psychopath for a sick thrill, for her own proof to herself that, contrary to Mommy’s lies, she could be loved no matter how she looked. Only I have to figure out how, and I don’t have much time. But I can’t think on that now, because Erik is here, and I have to make him not worry quite so much.
We sit in Adirondack chairs on my back deck, bundled in blankets. I insist on being outside these days, and Mom seems to like the idea. Which is totally in character, since fresh air was once a cure for female hysteria along with bloodletting, cold douches over the head, and lobotomies. For the nth time, I re-count the trees that line the end of our property, my mouth moving silently until Erik interrupts.
“Your mom says you’re planning to go to the Lapins’ house for a Monday-night holiday party. Think you’re ready for that?”
“Can we talk about something else?” I ask, picking at invisible lint on my blanket.
“Absolutely. How about this: Why would you ever go see the mother of Donald Jessup?”
“Dr. Ricker told Mom the impulse to reach out to the relative of my perpetrator was natural. I quote: ‘The urge to connect Donald Jessup with some evidence of his own humanity is a sign of healing.’”
“It was completely reckless,” he says.
I turn in my chair. “Seriously? You were the one supporting my ‘need for information’ before. Maybe my need for information is okay to a certain extent, but when it gets a little freaky—”
“A dumb, dangerous move. Period,” he says in a definitive way I sort of admire.
“Yvonne Jessup can barely see past her glasses and gets around on a walker on tennis balls. The only thing that could have hurt me in that house was an allergy attack from all the squirrel droppings.”
“You were exploited, Julia. On national news. Yvonne Jessup could have sued you for harassment. She still might sue—who knows? More importantly, we can’t predict the psychological effects of meeting with that woman alone.” He leans in and says in an undertone, “I would have gone with you. If you really wanted to talk to Yvonne Jessup, I would have considered going with you.”
I soften. “You would have?”
“Yes. Probably. I also could have saved you from what happened afterward. At the very least, being ambushed and coerced into Paula’s car should have been horrible enough to change your perspective on the reporters covering your story,” Erik says.
“If by ‘changed perspective’ you mean ‘distrust,’ sure,” I say.
“That’s huge. It lets you move on.”