“You said you had a need for a new identity,” Noah said. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“I was being held back by my old identity,” Ava said. “When I moved with my dentist boss to Lubbock and got a taste of what an education could do for you, I needed a new beginning. Becoming Ava London was that new beginning. She had had a different outlook on life and a different scholastic record. She would have gone to college and become something more than a dental assistant. She would have at least been the dentist.”
“In the articles I read in The Brownfield Gazette, you, as Gail Shafter, as well as two other classmates were named as having harassed Ava London after her father’s suicide on AOL Instant Messaging to encourage her to follow her father’s lead,” Noah said. “Was that true?”
“It might have been, on some level,” Ava admitted. “But there were a lot of girls who were jealous of Ava London, and she was an entitled snob. What irked me and a sizable number of other female classmates at the time was that she began using her father’s suicide to her advantage, looking for more acclaim and status because she was supposedly suffering, the poor dear. It made a lot of us sick, and I wasn’t afraid to tell her. But I never encouraged her to kill herself.
“She and I had been friends, or at least as friendly as was possible with the most popular girl in the class who was never satisfied with her status. But when I was honest with her about using her father’s suicide as she was, she ostracized me and got me harassed big time about being a slut. And one other thing. When I was in the ninth grade I got harassed so much online I couldn’t go to school for a week, and Ava London and two of her then closest friends were the culprits.” Ava shook her head. “Growing up is getting progressively more difficult with social media providing instant, nonstop communication. And I think it is harder for girls than boys with the mixed messages we must deal with about sex. If you don’t indulge, you’re a prude. If you do, you’re a slut. I wasn’t a slut. I only had one boyfriend in high school and that was short lived.”
“And you didn’t harass Ava to follow in her father’s footsteps?”
“Never,” Ava said, “but I was clear about how it was for her to try to benefit from the tragedy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this identity change earlier in our relationship, as intimate as we’d become?” Noah asked.
“I don’t know,” Ava said. “What might surprise you is that I don’t think about it that often. I’ve adjusted to my new reality, and I much prefer it to the old one. I might have told you eventually, but then I might not have. I don’t see it as important. And thinking about what is important leads me to another more serious issue I want to bring up with you.”
Ava moved even closer to Noah by pulling the ottoman she was sitting on against his chair so she could lower her voice even more. “Before I say what I plan to say, I want you to know that I like you, Noah Rothauser. I really like you and respect you, which is why we have gotten along as well as we have, and I hope our relationship can continue and hopefully even blossom. I think we were made for each other, but whether or not it happens is going to depend on your cooperation.”
“Cooperation on what?” Noah asked hesitantly.
“That you join the team,” Ava said “My team! Above and beyond my personal interest, I think you could be a big help to the NSC. You and I together. Understand that I have lobbied for you strenuously, which is ironic, me lobbying a lobbying organization! My success at this particularly lobbying effort is why you are sitting here at this moment rather than having disappeared to God knows where, which would have been easy as no one knew you had gone to Lubbock or why.”
A chill descended Noah’s spine, making him tense.
“I’ve had to make a huge pitch to have you brought back to Boston to have this talk,” Ava said. “I even essentially ransomed several planned trips to Washington to make it happen, threatening not to go. Now, I want to remind you of the metaphor you used the first evening you visited my home to plan for the initial M&M Conference, and that was when you described us as ‘two peas in a pod.’ Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Noah said. “It was when I learned how similar we were in our total commitments to medicine and our specialties.”
“Unfortunately, it seems that the metaphor is not as apropos as I was counting on,” Ava said.
“What does that mean?” Noah said. He knew intuitively that something was coming that he was not going to like.
“Believing that you felt as committed to surgery as I feel toward anesthesia, I was sure that if you were suspended from your super chief resident position that you would be so totally consumed by getting yourself reinstated that you wouldn’t have time or energy to cause trouble for anyone else—namely, me.”
A sudden feeling of anger and betrayal surged through Noah’s brain. He regarded Ava with disbelief. “Are you telling me that you were responsible for my suspension?”
“Only indirectly,” Ava said. “All I did was tell my babysitters, Keyon and George, that you had somehow fudged or fabricated data on your Ph.D. thesis. I also told them that Dr. Mason was eager to have you fired. With that little bit of information and their considerable resources, they were able to accomplish getting you temporarily furloughed.”
Noah could feel his face redden. It was almost too much to believe that he had been jilted by someone he’d felt so very close to and trusted.
“I can see you are upset,” Ava continued in the same even tone she’d been maintaining. “But before you allow yourself a paroxysm of righteous indignation, I want to tell you that I wasn’t completely confident you would stop causing me potential trouble with your supposed misgivings about my competence even after your suspension. Accordingly, for backup, I encouraged Keyon and George to use the full investigative power of ABC Security to delve into your background. It is fascinating what they have come up with. It seems that you, Dr. Noah Rothauser, like most people, have a few secrets that seem at odds with the persona you present, which might be more like a Facebook sockpuppet than you would have us believe. Who is the real Noah Rothauser?”
The color of Noah’s face that had so recently appeared now drained away. It took him a minute to organize his thoughts. “Let me ask you a question,” he said in a halting voice.
“Please do,” Ava said.
“Why are you and the NSC so against my checking into your training? Initially, I was just interested to know how many and what kind of cases you did as a resident, which is all I was trying to do when I used your computer.”
“The NSC doesn’t want my training questioned because I told them emphatically I did not want it questioned,” Ava said. “It is as simple as that.”