The evening is ending, the number of guests leaving tipsy and laughing is a sign of success, I think. I have spoken with 90 percent of the people there and I am worn. Tired. I lean against Henry’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, we’ve been watching you all night and I have to ask,” says a voice from behind me. I turn and stare. The woman continues as though my face has not drained of all color. “But you’re Hilary Lawlor, aren’t you? You are! We’d know you anywhere.” The woman is round and soft and friendly and her husband is almost a mirror image of her—two Weebles standing side by side. I concentrate on breathing, but I’d know them anywhere, their happy laughter, their identical snub noses—hers freckled, his not. Her round bright blue eyes, framed with black spidery lashes. She’s gained about twenty pounds in the past five years and, not surprisingly, so has her husband. I am hot and cold at once; my head is buzzing.
I’m overly aware of Henry’s arm brushing mine, and I sense him straighten up, take interest.
“I’m sorry, you must have the wrong person. My name is Zoe Whittaker.” I turn and grasp Henry’s arm, too hard. Henry says nothing but wrinkles his brow, my back turned to the couple.
In five years, this has happened only one other time. One other incident of being discovered, of being found out, and it amounted to nothing. I saw an old college professor in a restaurant and tried to duck out before she could recognize me. I saw the dawning comprehension in her eyes, a slight turn of her head, her mouth opening to speak. I paid the bill and left.
It amounted to nothing, as I am sure this will, too. Yet I find that I can’t catch my breath.
“Hilary, I can’t believe this. Do you know everyone thinks you’re dead!” Her voice is shrill and she’s excited, inching around to face me again. I realize she’s not going to let it go. Who would? I stare at a large, pink cubic zirconia pendant wobbling in her ample cleavage, a bead of sweat glistens there. She’s about to hug me, I can tell. I want to tell her, Hilary is dead, you see? But I can’t. I open and close my mouth and then, because I don’t know what else to do, I cover my lips with my hand and murmur to Henry, “I’ve had too much champagne, I think. I feel sick.”
Quickly, he grabs my elbow and leads me outside. The air is crisp, the way an April night should be, and the wind slaps my cheeks, bringing some of the blood back. I don’t know when Henry called the car, but it idles out front and we rush into it, a tumble of silk swooshing against the leather seats. After we pile in, he pinches my chin, turns my head to him. Studies me. I involuntarily jerk my head away. He asks, “Are you okay? Are you going to faint?” I shake my head no.
We are quiet while I put the pieces together and I realize it’s a bit amazing it’s only happened twice. I mean, I went to college in California but it’s not the other side of the world. This is New York, the city of millions of transplants a year. I take deep calming breaths and hope that tonight she will not call her girlfriends, her old sorority sisters: You will not believe who I saw tonight! No one will believe her. It’s too crazy.
“That was the oddest thing,” Henry says, looking out the window, his fingers absently tracing circles on the back of my hand. “They thought you were someone else, Hannah something?”
“I know. I have no idea who she was.” I laugh but it sounds forced. “I must have drunk a ton of champagne.”
“But did you know them?” Henry watches me now, his eyes narrowed. It’s not like Henry to press an issue. He’s generally too dismissive for that. His sharp, eagle eyes are fastened now on the idea, a field mouse in his sights.
I pause, weighing my options. I stare out the window at the receding steps of the library and I can see them at the top, watching us, their mouths agape and the man shaking his head, pointing with a thick index finger at the car as it pulls away. They must have followed us out. I have no options, I still protect my secret as though my life depends on it. “No, I didn’t.”
But I’m lying. Molly McKay was my roommate in college. Five years ago, in the throes of finals week, I left our small one-bedroom apartment on Williard Street in the middle of the night and never came back.
CHAPTER 2
I wake on Saturday, sweating and panicked with the vague notions of a terrifying dream tugging at my mind. Before it seeps away, I can only grasp large shadows and men with guns, chasing me down Forty-Second Street. I sit up, untangling my legs from damp sheets. The room has the eerie cast of early morning rain, bluish and depressing.