Now You See Her (11 page)

VII
‌

I

’
M NOT A
complete fool.

I know sometimes women don’t see the signs, and some women don’t even want to. But he was my first love and my only love. I will never love anyone like that again. So it wouldn’t even have occurred to me to not trust him. To me, that’s what love means. Total and com- plete trust. I’ll never trust anyone again like I trusted Logan. Never. I’ll never allow it. I never trusted my par- ents that much. And I never had a real friend until him.

He was my soulmate.

Until The Idea took over.

When we were together, really together, if you know what I mean, he would be saying, “It would be so easy, Hope. We could get one of those voice-disguising things and use a disposable cell phone. And after the drop, I’ll just be the one who finds you. You wouldn’t be hurt. You

know I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head. But if we had, like, twenty thousand dollars stashed away, it would be so much easier. Maybe we could go off together, plus go to Hawaii, too, or something. Wouldn’t you like that? You and me on a beach in Maui?” I would put my hand over his lips, but he’d just keep on. “They’ve got the money, honey. They’re not going to miss it. And you can say it was that guy in the truck you made up the first night we were together. Remember that night? Remember when we decided that we were the ones for each other, and no one else?”

I did remember, and I went as soft as a down pillow beneath him. I couldn’t resist him any more than a poor little bird can resist a beautiful cobra. I was about as able to resist as Jell-O when it came to Logan. So I agreed, yeah, we could talk more about it.

And then all he did was talk about it! I could put duct tape around my hands and then step through my arms so that it would look like someone had tied me up from behind. He would put a gag on me carefully so I could breathe easily. It was freaky, but it was exciting, too. I started to get into it a little, especially after he said how much publicity there would be after I was found safe!

Why was I such a fool?

I mean, yeah, it was logical to worry about money;

but it was a whole year before we were going to run away. There might be a summer stock theater job for me, and I would get my birthday and Christmas money, and he still got a check from his parents and from his agent every month. Now, although it disgusts me to think about it, I would bet that Alyssa Lyn talked him into it, because she was from a poor background, really white trash—I don’t mean that in a bad way—she was always envious of the girls who had designer shoes. I’ll bet she conned him into it by doing some disgusting sex thing. She knew my parents were pretty well off, so she tricked Logan into taking advantage of them and me. I was will- ing to take advantage of them too; but that’s different. You don’t rook your parents out of a bunch of money so another girl can have it!

It was for our dream.
Our
dream! I was desperate enough to believe in anything that would make our dream come true.

And at first I thought The Idea would just be a pass- ing thought—kind of like one of those crazy ideas peo- ple have and then they move on. Like, wouldn’t it be great if we found a lottery ticket someone dropped? Or if you found someone’s Rolex watch and you could turn it in for the reward. But it wasn’t, not for Logan.

You know, I shouldn’t have been so blind. I had seen all the movies. From the old movies my mother insisted

I watch “for technique,” like
A Place in the Sun
to
Closer
and stuff. A guy gets a woman to totally and completely trust him. She gives him her body and her heart. And then he just trashes her because he wants to move on to the next stop on the bus, as my mother used to say. Guys will do it with anyone. I’d even seen the Ben Stiller movie
Miss Fortune
that Logan was in, which is where he probably got the details for The Idea. I just totally didn’t put him in a class with other males. Logan was different. I’m not even sure that he wasn’t a virgin, too, the first time. God! How could he? How could he break something that was so totally perfect and smash it and step on it and walk right over it like he didn’t see it? I know the answer. Alyssa Lyn. What a total whore! The intruder was right there under my nose, next to me. Look back at

my journal heading. Me, Logan and HER!

I know why I missed the signs. Really, how could any- one who had
me
want another girl? Maybe he just wanted some time to fool around because we
were
prac- tically engaged. Maybe if he had told me, I might have forgiven him. Didn’t he know that? Didn’t he know he could count on my love?

It makes me insane to think about it now, how he led me on. It makes me feel like a pearl coated in slime from a swamp and rolled in dirt. Now, when I’m not crying over him, I want to scream at Logan, scream and punch

him until his perfect nose breaks into mush under my hand and blood shoots out. “‘Wert thou as young as I . . . Doting like me . . . then mightest thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now. . . .’”

I know every line of that play. Even his. And that one describes how I felt.

At first, when I knew he was hanging out with her, not dating but hanging out with her and her friends, more and more, I did little things to tell him I still cared and I understood. I sent him notes and sealed them with a lipstick kiss. Then, after Alyssa Lyn thought she had him, it was so awful. But I
still
didn’t break trust with Logan and come out and demand that he let us be seen together. Not even when she started wearing black and white, my colors, in a totally obvious imitation. And she had the nerve to drop little hints that she thought I was doing up my hair in a messy ponytail and letting little wisps hang down because
she
did it. I heard her tell Monica that I “looked up to her.” What BS! Girls are just utterly ruthless. Guys may be stupid, but girls will do anything to get what they want.

I had to do something. More than the notes. Maybe he thought I didn’t care as much, because I went along with pretending we weren’t together. I was just too good an actor.

I started getting a little desperate. Logan had to know

that he was still my guy! I started making little lists in my room. If he wasn’t mine, why did we create The Plan and The Idea? Why did he still kiss my neck and run his hands down my shoulders in rehearsals? He didn’t have to do that. Frankly, in most productions of
Romeo and Juliet
, they’re panting and talking but you don’t see much real physical stuff. Why did he still sit at the table behind me at lunch, at least twice a week, so my back was almost touching his? Why did he do all these things in public? Not to mention that we were making love practically every day in secret? The list that said Logan still adored me was far longer than the list that said he didn’t.

I thought of mittens. Mittens are cozy and loving and they come from someone’s hands and they’re a sign of caring.

I had my grandma knit them. She said she couldn’t do it in a week because of her arthritis, but I said it was
so
important, so she did. I dropped them off in his locker backstage in a bag I decorated with star stickers. I didn’t leave a note. He didn’t say anything directly, but I saw him wearing them after he came back from sledding with a bunch of people. That was just more proof. He knew exactly who those mittens were from. He even waved at me when I passed by him, going to get, like, my fourth cup of coffee of the night, and made like one of

the mittens was a little puppet talking.
Hi, Hope
. I can- not tell you what that meant to me. I started practically dancing in front of the coffee vending machine. And I was totally sure he would come for me before curfew. But at dinner Alyssa Lyn was all over him like a python. How could he get away?

It was, like, two weeks before opening night. We hadn’t been together in, like . . . three days. Maybe it was more.

I was losing track of time.

Exams were coming up, and I hadn’t studied for any- thing.

Then there was this one Friday when I almost snapped.

A bunch of seniors were in the cafeteria having cof- fee. I made an excuse to pass through there on the way to my math prep (I had to have tutoring because this anxi- ety over Logan and the show and The Idea had messed me up so much). And Logan stood up and waved and said, “‘For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand. . . .’” Alyssa Lyn was with him, sitting in the cafeteria, with her special big mug that said “Diva” on it. She sort of snarled at me and pulled him back down.

“For the real Juliet’s sake, don’t be a jerk,” she growled at him. He held her hand. But he rolled his eyes at me.

I decided right then he could screw his big Idea.

I was going to tell him to stuff it. I was going to tell him, yes, I’d still marry him, but I wasn’t going to fake being kidnapped so he could screw my parents out of money. Let him screw his own parents out of money. I was going to say that they could give him some of his earnings from his trust fund—money he’d earned from his TV guest spots and his little part in the movie—and we could use that.

But what if he broke up with me? What if he said, Fine, I’m not going through with The Plan then?

I thought about that for about five minutes and then I threw up my whole dinner.

So, I left a totally different message on his cell phone.

Reverse psychology.

I said I was so excited about The Idea and could he please call me so we could figure out the details because he said it had to happen before the show—so I could come back like a little hero after having been abducted by this mysterious stranger no one would ever find. He didn’t call me back. But I knew that there would be a week of school shows—shows we did for the high schools and middle schools in the area—and Brook had told him to rehearse with me before the school shows
and
after. The first school show was coming up on Wednesday. So I knew I would see him Monday. Tuesday

at the latest. And alone. I would insist that we rehearse alone!

Plus, I didn’t always leave the phone on, because I wasn’t technically supposed to have one.

There was one missed call and, of course, it was prob- ably him. Although now, I’m not sure. When I tell Em about that one missed call, she just shakes her head and looks sadly out of the window. I know she doesn’t believe Logan ever really loved me. I don’t know if I want her to believe it or if I want her to hate him as much as I hate him. Except when I love him.

He didn’t call on Monday.

On Tuesday morning I stopped by his table at break- fast and said, “I’m nervous. I have to run lines. Brook said.” Alyssa Lyn let out this big, fat sigh and mumbled something about high-maintenance little girls. “Logan,” I repeated. “Brook said.”

Logan didn’t look up, but he said in a really sweet, secret way, “Fine. Can I finish eating first?”

Alyssa Lyn said, “I can help you guys.”

I said, really sweetly, “No, Alyssa Lyn, you’re so good. You make me tense.” She just shook her hair back. The same way I do, by the way!

I forgot to tell about the ring! I brought the ring with me. Duh! That’s one more proof! Would he have taken the ring if he didn’t love me as much as I loved him?

It was my brother’s, the ring my grandfather Shay had given Carter before he died, and it had a real ruby in it. It was old and pure gold and cut with all these curlicues and junk that made up his initials, C.S.S.— Carter Sebastian Shay—which were partly Carter’s ini- tials, too, because he was named Carter Sebastian Romano. The initials looked like a design of a dragon, because my grandfather had been an importer from Hong Kong. He imported cloth and junk. I called Carter on Monday about six in the morning and said that it looked old and I needed it for a prop. There was nowhere else I could get a man’s ring that fast, even from eBay, not that my parents wouldn’t kill me for buying an expensive ring on eBay. There wasn’t a jewelry store for fifty miles that sold anything but rings that expanded and contracted, the kind tourists buy.

But Carter was a total chuff. He just calmly said, “Look, Detta. I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.” He just spoke right up like he was talking to anyone!

I said, “It’s Hope, you fruit. Don’t call me Detta. And you have to. You don’t have any choice, you little crap. I said I need it.”

“Hope, then,” Carter had said. “Can’t you wait until we come up to see your show? This was Grandpa’s. It’s all I have of his. If somebody loses it, Mom is going to freak and so am I.”

“Nobody will lose it,” I said. “And if you tell Mom, I’ll kill you.” He knew I meant it. I would make him suffer. “Carter, if you don’t do this one thing for me, I’ll never speak to you again. Never in my life. I mean it. All I ask you is one little thing. What have I ever asked you to do?”

“Nothing,” he said. “You never even said this much to me in your whole life.”

“So do you think maybe it’s important to me if I’m calling you up and begging you?” I practically sneered at him. What was the big deal? He never wore it. He was only thirteen years old. I told him the combination of the safe my father had under his desk—it was the zip code of our street—and he got it out and FedExed it to me in a padded envelope. When he called me whining about it, I told him that if anybody lost it, I would sell my ear- rings, which were made from stones from Grandpa Shay’s wedding band, and replace it. He kept on about how it wouldn’t be the same, it wouldn’t have any feel- ings attached to it, so I hung up on him. Jesus, it was like everything in the world was conspiring to drive me totally crazy! And you never act crazy or desperate around a guy! You always keep them a little at a distance. You have to pretend you don’t care as much as you do, even after you confess your love. You have to pretend you could turn it on and off.