The Girl with the Wrong Name (12 page)

His eyes drifted to the window, and I saw a glimmer of something.

“Maybe.” He locked onto a thought. “A long hallway. It looks kind of like a dorm, a lot of doors on both sides. That fresh paint smell. Fresh white paint.”

“We’re going,” I said. “After I deal with my mom, we’re—”

I heard a faint beep from the floor.

My eyes landed on the trash bag by the door where Mom had stuffed the puke-stained clothes. The sound had almost gotten lost in the music. I crawled over to the trash bag, held my breath, and braved the stench to pull the phone from my jacket pocket. Andy’s shirt was not in the bag; he’d been smart enough to remove the evidence. The phone was still connected to the button cam, but I tugged it free so he couldn’t see.

Uh-oh.

LULUCELL: You said you’d be here at nine. You promised. I’ll give you twenty more minutes, but I don’t know why.

LULUCELL: I’d ask where you are, but I already know. He’s not answering his phone, either. And please don’t bother lying about it this time.

LULUCELL: So much for “ANDY,” your fictional documentary subject and the Missing Persons Case of the Century. Did you and Max cook that one up just to throw me off?

LULUCELL: You know, if you had feelings for him, too, you should have just TOLD me when we were writing the letter. I guess “all bets are off,” right? Anything can happen now. It’s the big breaking story: Theo Lane Screws Over Best Friend For Other Best Friend.

LULUCELL: You’re not the same person you were two months ago, you’re not. You’re not even the person you were last WEEK. I’m not trying to belittle what happened to you. I worry about you all the time. I think about all the terrible things that might have happened to you that night. But the Theo I knew would NEVER have used that to get Max’s attention.

Those last texts hurt. Was I really doing that? Playing on Max’s sympathies to get more attention? No. No way. Lou had so many things wrong, I didn’t know where to begin. But how could I focus on her when the truth about Sarah was getting so close? Lou and I had the rest of our lives to straighten this out. The time to find Sarah was running out.

Unfortunately, Sarah would have to wait for as long as it took to placate my mother.

I could not, in
good conscience, ask Andy to spend another minute imprisoned in my closet, so I did what had to be done. I convinced my mother that we clearly needed a “Family Day” to help “bridge the divide” between us.

To my complete and utter shock, she went for it.

Todd was, of course, delighted.

I dragged them anywhere I could think of to keep them out of the house: a walk through Tompkins Square Park, a Billy Budd Browsing Bonanza at the NYU library, a late lunch at Todd’s favorite macrobiotic dumpling house.

Again and again, I told my mother whatever she wanted to hear. That there were no secret boys in my life. That I wasn’t sneaking out to parties. That I would keep her abreast of all my comings and goings and check in constantly by phone or text.

The plan worked to perfection. It not only gave Andy a chance to stretch out on my bed and catch up on sleep, but it left my mother exhausted by the time we got home.

The tears, my puke, her robe pockets filled with used tissues, her binge on syrupy folk music, the confusion, the interrogation, the dumplings—by five o’clock, it had all stacked up, and her body finally quit on her. She fell into a deep sleep on the living room couch, her mouth open and distorted like some cowering figure at the bottom of a Renaissance painting. And, as happened on most weekends, Todd fell into a snoring nap reading his weekend
Times
.

That’s when we made our move.

Chapter Twelve

I must have walked by the Keeping Our Promise shelter at least nine times in my life; I just never noticed. Nothing about the building stood out. Plus, a scaffold had been built over the whole façade (from the looks of it, pretty recently); everything was drenched in shadow. Maybe the anniversary had inspired Emma and Lester to spring for a facelift.

I’m sure I’d seen a few girls smoking on the curb and thought it was a run-down public school. Underneath, it had that kind of look: bland and institutional. Tarnished metal letters—
keeping our promise
—were nailed against a stone wall next to the door.

I pulled the iron handle. Then Andy tried. It wouldn’t budge. There was a dusty, crooked intercom. I hesitated, trying to plan exactly how I’d announce myself, but when I reached for the buzzer, the door burst open, knocking me aside. I stumbled back, grabbing onto the scaffold.

“Don’t even
think
about touching me!” a boy shouted.

He sounded frightened, and I saw why: a burly, hard-looking old guy with slicked-back black hair was shoving him down the steps. His dark windbreaker was tight around his gut, and three pounds of keys jangled from his belt loop. The boy was probably my age; he had that telltale fuzzy, failed mustache on his upper lip. His hair was short and spiky, buzzed on the back and the sides so you couldn’t miss the three tattoos around his neck, the name
Victor
in red-and-white graffiti sandwiched between two sideways crucifixes.

Victor (I assumed he was Victor) puffed out his chest. His face was in Burly Man’s face, but his feet told the real story: they were back-stepping, retreating toward the curb. “I swear to
God,
bro, I will
end
you!”

I shrank further into the shadow of the scaffold. My hand felt clammy on the cold metal. Andy stepped in front of me as a buffer.

“Let’s stay calm, friend,” Burly Man warned in an even tone. He spoke with a heavy Staten Island accent. “There are no boys allowed past these doors. I think you know that by now.”

“This is
bullshit
,
man!”

“Kid, you are violating an order of protection right now,” Burly Man said. He’d clearly dealt with a Victor or two before. “Maybe you want to give me your probation officer’s name so I can clue him in?”

“Yo,
eat
me, Tony Soprano! You don’t
know
me. You don’t know
shit
about
me!”

“I do know this is a women’s-only facility. And I know you can’t be within thirty feet of her, so unless you’d like my boot in your ass, you better get it moving.”

Victor hocked up a loogie and spat it at the steps near Burly Man’s feet.
“Pinche maricón.”
He raised his pained eyes toward the second-story window. “Helena!” he howled. “Baby, you gotta stop this! Come down here and talk to me. I’m sorry! I told you it won’t happen again. I’m done with all that! Lena-Niña,
please.
”

My heart actually went out to him. He was repellent, but he loved Helena so much that he was calling to her balcony like Romeo. Where exactly did you draw the line between Hopeless Romantic and Psycho Stalker?

“Helena!” he called again. “BITCH, GET YOUR SKANK ASS DOWN HERE, GODDAMN IT!”

Okay, that’s where you drew it.

Burly dropped his nonchalant cop routine and charged down the steps, just far enough to launch Victor into a full sprint down the street. Once Victor had vanished, Burly huffed back up and threw the door open with all the frustration he’d kept in check. He didn’t even notice us in the shadow. It was luck; the door swung closed slowly, and something in me jumped for the handle.

“What are you doing?” Andy whispered.

“I’m going in,” I whispered back.

“After that? We should wait.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

“No way. I’m going with you.”

“Are you kidding? You heard Burly. No boys allowed. You want to start another scene like that one?”

“Theo,
please
,” Andy snapped. He sounded just like Victor. “I don’t want you in there alone. This place is already creeping the hell out of me. No way Sarah is staying here. No way.”

“Andy, don’t worry. This is like the safest place a girl can possibly be. I’ll be fine.”

He took a deep breath and gave in. “Fine. Fine, I’ll let you go in alone. But if she’s really in there . . . if you really find her . . . then you’ve got to bring her out here to me. She might not want to see me after whatever happened that morning, but she’s got to at least give me a chance to talk to her. You’ve got to convince her to talk to me.”

I could see all the fear and anticipation in his silver-flecked eyes. “Andy, if she’s in there, I will bring her to you. I promise. Five minutes. Just wait for me.”

“I’ll wait,” he said.

I watched him watch me as the door swung shut between us.

The lobby walls were
bare all the way to the high ceilings. Dirty cloth tarps and paint cans were strewn across the floor, but only half of the room had gotten a fresh coat of white paint so far—

My toes clenched inside my sneakers.

Andy had definitely been here before. “
That fresh paint smell,”
he’d said.
“Fresh white paint.”
It was one of the few details he’d remembered. Late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, he had been in this lobby. But how?

There was only one possible answer: Sarah had snuck him in. Jesus, she
was
here.

“Are you in any grave or imminent danger?” a woman’s voice barked at me.

I jumped. I hadn’t even noticed I was standing slack-mouthed right in front of a bulletproof plexiglass sliding window, like you’d find at the post office. Wrinkled paper signs and announcements were scotch-taped all over the office inside—a contradictory mix of inspirational messages
(if you don’t like being a doormat, then get off the floor!)
and
wanted
signs with dead-eyed sketches of rapists and murderers (
have you seen this man?
).

“Young lady?” the woman pressed. Her voice was raspy; I could smell cigarette smoke. I tried to focus on her sour, heavily lined face. Her wig was an unfortunate shade of red. A nameplate on the desk beside her read,
delores danello
. “Are you in any grave or imminent danger?”

“What?”

“Oh Lord, another one of these,” she mumbled to herself. She began collating a stack of forms and placing them onto a clipboard, this time repeating the phrase as if I were mentally deficient. “Are
you
in any
grave
or
imminent DANGER
?”

“No,” I said.

“Are you
currently under the influence of drugs or alcohol?”

“No, wait. You don’t understand. I’m not here for me—”

“Do not be nervous. You have found safe harbor.” She had clearly read from this same invisible script every single day for years. “Gentlemen are not permitted past our doors, with the exception of Mr. Wyatt, our founder, security staff, and approved maintenance. No police presence is permitted without warrant or legal representation. If you are currently under the influence of drugs or—”

“No, maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m here to find my friend.”

She stared at me. “Are you sure about that?”

I caught her eyes darting over to the left side of my face.
Oh, God.
I draped my hand over my cheek, but it was too late. I hadn’t reapplied my concealer. I’d been so wrapped up in our mission, I hadn’t even thought about the scar. And now Delores Danello had sized me up as a textbook victim of domestic violence, one of those girls too ashamed to admit it, trying to hide injuries behind a hair curtain. The pity in her eyes—no, it wasn’t just pity. It was condescension.

As far as Delores Danello was concerned, I was a tiny, battered flea, clinging to the itchy ass of the world. This was probably how every single girl who’d ever walked through the door felt. Maybe even Sarah. And it pissed me off.

“Delores,” I said through clenched teeth, “I am just here to find a friend.”

She sniffed and rolled back in her chair. “And who’s your friend, sweetheart?”

“Her name is Sarah.”

Something flashed across Delores’s face. Like she’d swallowed a bug or choked on her own saliva. “Last name?” she asked.

“Last name?”

“Yes. Does this friend of yours have a last name?”

Andy, why didn’t you get it? Why? No. Last. Name.
Something came over me, a shaky, electric,
fuck-you
energy. I knew
Sarah was here. I’d reached the finish line, and I didn’t want any more questions; I just wanted to see her face. I was about to launch into a hysterical rant, but someone spoke up.

“Mac, is he gone yet?”

I recognized the voice. I turned and spotted Helena, peeking her head into the lobby. She was wearing her dowdy floral dress again, but her platinum hair was choppy—she hadn’t flattened it into the good-girl ponytail. And she’d re-pierced: little silver hoops glistened along the side of her ear. “Mac” was Burly Man. I hadn’t even noticed, but he had taken a seat at a small table on the opposite wall, apparently his security station.

“I took care of him,” Mac grunted.

Victor had a point; he did sound a little like Tony Soprano.

“You’re the best, Mac,” Helena said with a toothy smile.

“Helena!” I backed away from Delores and ran to her.

Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to be searching her memory banks. “Hey, I know you . . . Theo, right?”

“Right.” I wished I hadn’t given her my real name.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m still trying to find—”

“She’s looking for a girl named Sarah,” Delores interrupted, her head poking through the office window. “No last name.”

Helena stared back at Delores for a second too long, and then turned back to me. She sized me up, just as she’d done the first time we met. “What happened to you at the party? You ran out of there like the place was on fire.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I’d had a little too much to drink. I got sick.”

“Been there,” she said.

Helena, Mac, and Delores were all staring at me now. Delores cleared her throat loudly. “Ms. Reyes,” she said, “if you’re done with your little chat, I’m going to have to ask your friend to leave. I can’t allow visitors without authorization. Frankly, I’m not even convinced she knows—”

“No,
please
,” I interrupted. I turned to Delores, then back to Helena. “Please, I just need to see Sarah.”

“I’m sorry,” Delores said, “I can’t allow—”

“Nah, it’s cool, Delores.” Helena locked eyes with mine. “Theo’s visiting with me today.”

“You know this girl?” Delores asked dubiously.

“Hell, yeah,” Helena said, searching my eyes. “She’s a friend of Ms. Renaux’s.” Helena dialed up the attitude. “She’s a guest at the wedding. You want to tell Ms. Renaux that you threw her out?”

With that, Delores’s head disappeared back into her office. “Ten minutes,” she called.

I almost hugged Helena in gratitude. “Thank you,”
I mouthed.

“Come on,” Helena said, flashing a grateful smile at Mac, who buried his head back in his
New York Post
. “I’ll show you my room.”

It was all exactly
as Andy had described: long, dorm-like hallways lined with metal doors. Maybe less like a dorm than a prison. The rooms were numbered, with a tiny pane of glass at the center of each door, just large enough to see inside, probably so Mac could check on the girls, make sure they were safe, make sure they’d made curfew.

I could feel Sarah behind one of those tiny windows. I could almost see her, even if the features were still a blur. How far away was she now? How many doors down? We passed Room Twenty-One, Room Twenty . . .

“You got to forgive Delores,” Helena whispered. “A lot of these girls are running from something or someone, so they’re real strict about who they let inside.”

“Yeah, I saw what happened with Victor—” I clamped my mouth shut.
Ugh. There goes your clinical lack of discretion again.

“Ay, Victor. You know, sometimes you just make really, really bad decisions, and then you got to keep paying and paying and paying.”

“I know it,” I said, though I really didn’t. Past Room Sixteen, Fifteen . . .

“Well, there’s no way Victor’s getting his scrawny ass through that door again,” Helena said with a sad little laugh. “Only way he gets another crack at me is if I’m dumb enough to go out there alone. See, the twisted dudes—the really
twisted ones are always trying to lure us outside. And some girls fall for it. Some girls make whack-ass decisions like that and they end up . . . you know. Love just makes people really, really stupid.”

I felt a sharp twinge in my stomach as Andy’s words darted through my mind.
If you find her, then you’ve got to bring her out here to me
.
You’ve got to convince her to talk to me.
It would be a pretty brilliant move. If he couldn’t get in, then he could convince a clueless girl like me to do it instead. I could get past Mac without a problem, vouch for Andy’s sweetness and undying love to Sarah, and convince her to come outside.

But I’d learned my lesson at the Magic Garden. I knew who Andy was. He wasn’t one of the twisted ones. He wasn’t Victor. I dumped the thought and moved on.

“So you’re telling me there are never any boys in here, ever?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” Helena flashed a sly smile. “Nah, believe me, not every girl in here is ‘keeping our promise.’” She pulled me into Room Ten and shut the door, lowering her voice to a cautious whisper. “Mr. Wyatt’s got an office on the second floor. It’s got a window in the back, near the fire escape, with one of those window gates on it. But he never locks the gate in the summer because he likes to keep the window open. So if a girl really wants to sneak a dude in, all she’s got to do is tell him to meet her around back at the window. And if you tell anybody that, I’ll break your face.”

A second-story window around back.