What is wrong with you?
She trembled. The ease of strangers, commenting on her life, saying things they’d not say to her face. She could only imagine what would happen if Matteo Vasquez wrote a story about this now, and now he had even more reason to write it. To strike while the iron was hot. He’d get more views, more clicks. Wasn’t that the name of the game now? Truth and nuance be damned.
Who sent that e-mail?
34
JANE. HELLO.”
“Hello, Mom.” Jane’s gaze didn’t waver from Kamala. What are you doing here? Why are you talking to my mom? All those questions wanted to burst forth from her. Instead she just stared, helpless and at a loss for words. She hated the way she always seemed to freeze around Kamala, stumble for her footing.
“Jane. How are you today? Better?” Again with the Kamala-smile that seemed to fool the world. Why couldn’t the world see what she saw?
Because you sound crazy when you talk about her this way. You do her work for her.
“I’m fine, Kamala, how are you?” Jane said. “Sorry, Mom, I guess I should have called first. I didn’t realize you were busy.”
“Kamala just wanted to talk to me about charity involvement with her sorority at UT. Doing a fund-raiser.”
“I know your mom is doing such good work and I just thought maybe we could be of help to her,” Kamala said.
“That’s generous. Mom, maybe call me later? I’ll be back at home,” she lied. She forced a civil smile on her face. She will not make me crack. “Nice to see you, Kamala. So kind of you to help my mom.”
“Well,” Kamala said, modestly, “someone has to.”
Jane nodded, her face burning, and she closed the door. She took a deep breath. Then she saw her mother’s purse behind Grant’s desk—she’d probably told him to dig the money out to pay for her and Kamala’s lattes—and she, without thought, knelt, grabbed the keys to her mother’s Volvo, and went out the door.
“Jane…” her mother called. Jane slid the keys into her pocket. Kamala followed Laurel out of the office.
“What?”
“Kamala and I will finish our meeting later. I can tell you’re upset.”
“Does everyone have to talk to me like I’m a toddler?”
“I’m not.”
Jane pulled the keys out and gave them to her mother. “I was going to borrow your car, but you’ll need it.” She glanced at Kamala. “Are you going back to campus?”
“Um, yes, I am.”
“Jane, let’s talk,” Laurel said.
“No, not right now.” She turned her own wavering smile onto Kamala and decided to dose her with her own medicine. “Would you be an absolute gem and give me a ride to UT? There’s someone there I need to see.”
For the barest moment Kamala stared as if Jane had spat on her. For just a millisecond Jane thought she saw behind the smiling armor. Then Kamala nodded and said, “It would be my pleasure.”
“Who are you going to see at UT?” Laurel said.
“I’ve had more memories returning,” Jane said. “Dr. Ngota suggested I talk to a researcher there.” The lie was easier than breathing.
“Isn’t that wonderful,” Kamala said. “Fingers crossed that soon you’ll be normal!” And she crossed her fingers and held them up and Jane thought, They look easier to break that way.
“Great. I’ll talk to you later, Mom. Thanks, Kamala.”
*
Kamala’s ride was an Audi, new, elegant, midnight black as her heart, Jane thought. Kamala drove along the winding length of Old Travis back toward Austin.
“Why are you really going to UT? Did you get chased off campus at Saint Mike’s?” Her voice thrummed like a wire, ready to break. The mask didn’t have to stay on so securely when it was just the two of them.
She’d heard. Jane thought maybe people in Lakehaven would have found new topics for gossip.
“I didn’t, but thanks for asking.”
“No, really, why are you going to UT?”
“Why were you meeting with my mother?”
“We told you.”
“Bull. There are any number of charities around town for you to impress. My mom’s too small for your network.”
“I just want to help people, Jane.”
“You’re an inspiration.” Jane looked heavenward. “If only I could be as good as you.”
“Jane, look. She sent out an e-mail to people you knew in high school”—Jane noted the word friends wasn’t used—“because she is worried about you. She is trying to help you, believe it or not.” And now, stopped at a red light, Kamala looked at her without pretense. The way she had when they had been friends, laughing, watching TV together, sharing books, doing math and writing papers and battling through Spanish. “Why don’t you let your poor, scared mom do something to actually help you?”
“Like you wanted to help me.”
“I’m not your mother. She’ll never see you for what you are. She’ll never believe you tried to kill yourself and you messed it up, so David died. She doesn’t know what you really are—the piece of trash I know you to be. She has nothing left but you, and that sucks for her, but maybe you should just let her help you. Instead of wandering around Lakehaven looking ridiculous, looking like a laughingstock.”
“What did I do to you?”
The world’s least-patient eye roll. “You killed David.”
“No. No. This is something between you and me. Has nothing to do with anyone else.”
“I didn’t realize amnesia sharpened intuition. It seems to dull everything else.” She steered onto MoPac, the main ribbon of highway that ran along Austin’s west side, and headed north, zooming over the bridge that spanned Lady Bird Lake.
“I don’t remember what I did,” Jane said, “and you seem to take a sadistic delight in that.”
Kamala was silent.
“It’s just the two of us. No one else. You can take off the mask.”
Kamala glanced at her. “I don’t have a mask.”
It was, Jane thought, a sad confession. “You must be a little afraid of me, then.”
“I’m not. I’m the one driving and the cliffs are to our west.” She took the exit for Windsor, which would turn into Twenty-Fourth Street and take them straight to the Texas campus. “Fine. You were a real bitch after your father died.”