You Can't Catch Me Read online

  It took a lot of planning. We didn’t have a phone in the Upper Camp, only a two-way radio for emergencies. The phone at the Gathering Place was closely guarded. Some said bugged by Todd. It was hard to know what was true at that point, which was one of the reasons it felt so dangerous to stay there. Then there was the way Todd kept looking at me. Kiki told me I was imagining it, but I saw how my mother looked the other way whenever he was near me.

  Like a bargain had been struck and she had seller’s remorse.

  By that time, I barely thought of her as my mother. She’d birthed me, but then she’d let me be led away from her and into the woods, my hand clasping Kiki’s like Hansel’s gripped Gretel’s. Even at five I knew she’d been given a choice, and I wasn’t it.

  I was seventeen when I met Liam, though it wasn’t a birthday that was celebrated. When we turned eighteen, though, we got to come down the mountain and build our own house. Kiki and our friend Sarah were going to get to share a cabin, but not me.

  Not me.

  Two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, my aunt took me into town. My mother was supposed to do it—I heard her arguing with my father about it after the weekly assembly—but that was “too much to ask” apparently. Giving me up for whatever Todd had in mind could be borne, but buying what I now know, with the benefit of hindsight, was to be my “wedding dress” was a step too far.

  I’ll never truly understand my mother. But she did give me the gift of anger.

  It has a way of focusing you that forgiveness can’t.

  Even though it’s after seven, none of my roommates are home from work. The benefit of living with two investment bankers and a lawyer: I have this place to myself most of the time. My room is the “maid’s room,” that quaint term for a tiny room that probably never housed a maid, though one of my roommates—Josh, the annoying, know-it-all lawyer—says he looked up the census data from a hundred years ago and it lists “maid” as one of the occupants. He’s always making shit like that up. Regardless, I’m most certainly not the maid of these slobs. They contribute to a weekly cleaning service, which was my one condition on moving in since we share a bathroom. They’d given each other a look that made me think I wasn’t the first woman to ask and agreed. The room is small, but it’s more personal space than I had in the Land of Todd. I’m debt-free, college all paid for, and had the comfort of knowing, until I crossed paths with Jessica Two, that if I were suddenly out of a job, I wouldn’t be out on the street.

  I’ve made the space my own. The queen-size bed that touches both walls is the most comfortable bed you’ll ever sleep on. There’s no window in here, just the painting Kiki gave me. Underneath it is a desk with a large monitor that doubles as my television. I installed a hanging bar near the ceiling that raises and lowers on a pulley system to hang my clothes on, and I built a set of drawers that fits under my bed.

  I grab my laptop and return to the common area.

  “You want a beer?” I ask Liam. He’s standing in the middle of the living room, which is composed of two uncomfortable leather couches and a massive flat screen. Men and their priorities.

  “Sure. Mind if I put the game on?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Liam’s a die-hard Mets fan and has season tickets at Citi Field that he inherited from his dad. Mostly, he gives them away or resells them, but he watches on TV when he can. He used to take me to games, telling me about this whole hot-dog-and-beer ritual he had with his dad and how they scored every game they attended together, keeping the results in a series of three-ring binders. It made me jealous of the normalcy of his upbringing, so I acted out by changing the score sheet when he wasn’t looking. He stopped taking me after that.

  Liam turns on the TV and finds the right channel while I go into the galley kitchen and fetch two beers from the fridge. Its contents are labeled like they were in my freshman dorm: the yogurt is mine; the fancy craft beer is Josh’s. I take two of his beers, a tithe for the guacamole that was clearly labeled as mine that I caught him with a few weeks ago.

  “I think we should start with Twitter,” I say, handing him his beer and taking a seat next to him. I open the laptop and log on.

  “What does that mean?” Liam asks, pointing to the number 293 over the little bell symbol next to Notifications.

  “Have you never been on Twitter?”

  He grimaces as he tugs on his beer. “What’s it notifying you of?”

  “All the people who’ve liked a tweet of mine or retweeted it or @-ed me.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Like direct tweeted at me. They sent a message to @reallyJessicaW specifically.”

  “That’s your Twitter name?”

  “Yep.”

  Liam pulls on his beer and barely avoids rolling his eyes at me. “Do you need to answer all of those tweet thingies?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you even going to check them?”

  “It’s not anything I need to see.”

  He reaches over and moves the mouse on the trackpad until the cursor’s over the symbol, then clicks. My notifications are full of what I’ve come to expect—horrible misogyny and hate.

  “What the hell is this?” Liam asks.

  “This is what happens when you’ve been publicly shamed.”

  Liam’s eyes scroll down the page. He stops when he gets to the first guy threatening to rape me.

  “What the fuck, Jess. You need to call the police.”

  “It’s just Twitter. They won’t do anything. And they don’t mean it. Not most of them, anyway.”

  Liam looks away and swallows half his beer rapidly. “What are we doing on here, then?”

  “I wanted to see if I could find other women named Jessica Williams.”

  I execute a quick search in the people tab. The first result is the former Daily Show correspondent, but it goes on for pages and pages. “I’m not going to get anywhere here.”

  “Why does anyone use this?”

  “It was kind of essential in my old job.”

  “And now?”

  “A bad habit, I guess.” I navigate away from it. “Anyway, it’s not the right place for this kind of search. Maybe Facebook.”

  “Do you have Facebook?” Liam asks.

  “Everyone over twenty-five has Facebook.”

  He frowns at my jab. Liam does not have Facebook. He turns his eyes to the TV screen. The Mets are up by two against the Phillies in the second inning. I’m sure it won’t last.

  I log into my Facebook account. I don’t go on Facebook much these days, though I used to spend a lot of time on there. There’s a survivors’ group—Not in Todd Anymore—where some of us saved by Liam and others who left on their own started gathering seven years ago, after Todd died, but there’s little activity there now.

  “If I remember right,” I say, “you can’t search for age on here. Just names, and then you can see, sometimes, where they live and their age on their individual page if they want that information to be public.”

  “I thought Facebook was shit about privacy?”

  “They know everything, but that doesn’t mean it’s easily accessible to ordinary users.”

  I type Jessica Williams into the search bar. A list of Jessicas appears, sorted by what algorithm, I don’t know. One of the first on the list has a common friend, someone I used to work with, but when I check this Jessica’s page, she’s ten years older than me. The next two both have their privacy settings on high, and no personal information but a photo.

  I click on the expand tab—the list goes on and on and on.

  “There has to be a better way,” Liam says.

  “You’re the guy with the skills.”

  “You want me to call in a favor?”

  “Would you?”

  The distinctive sound of a well-hit ball draws Liam’s eyes back to the TV screen. The Phillies have loaded the bases.

  “Goddammit.”

  “Maybe you should switch to the Yankees?” I say. “I rea
d this article recently about how they’re New York’s ‘real’ team now, based on fans.”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “Liam Davis. Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”

  “And yet, you want my help.”

  “Yes, please.”

  He takes the laptop from me and concentrates on the screen. Liam’s built up a web of contacts over the years that can help him locate people, some of which he’s shared with me, and some of which he keeps to himself. I take a sip of my beer as I watch him.

  Liam starts with a background-check website and enters some parameters. It chugs along and produces a report that says that there’s no one with a criminal record in the state with my name and birthday.

  “I thought we were looking for other victims?” I ask.

  “It was worth trying before I called in the favor.”

  “Is it really that big?”

  “They’ve been cracking down on leaks. Mario needs to be more cautious.”

  “But you’ll ask?”

  “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  I kiss him quickly on the cheek. “Thanks, Liam.”

  “Well, now . . .”

  “Relax. I’m not going to jump you or anything.”

  I take the laptop away from him and sit on the opposite couch. It smells faintly of the cigars one of my roommates likes to smoke. He’s trying out for Douchebag of the Year, an award he’s going to win. Liam fiddles with his beer, looking uncomfortable, his concentration on the game now feigned.

  “I have an idea,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  I go back to Facebook and start a new post.

  Is your name Jessica Williams? Were you born on July 10, 1990? Have you met another one just like you? Me too! DM me if you want to talk about it.

  I make the post public, then pass the laptop to Liam.

  “You think that’s going to work?” He leans back into the couch with his beer cradled in his hands. Another crack of the bat and the Mets are now down by six.

  “You’d be surprised what works on here.”

  “Please don’t tell me.”

  “It’s not like Twitter . . . well, mostly not.”

  “Didn’t you meet that Pete guy on Facebook?”

  It was Tinder, not Facebook, but that wouldn’t make a difference to Liam. He’d taken an instant dislike to Pete when we met once for a drink last fall. It wasn’t anything serious, and we broke up months ago. Was Liam . . . jealous? No. I put the thought out of my head.

  “Pete wasn’t so bad.”

  “He didn’t steal all your money, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Shut it.”

  “Seriously, Jess. You can do better.”

  “Maybe I like being alone.”

  “I doubt it.” He takes another swig of his beer. “God, this is awful. And I’m about to turn off this game.”

  “That would be a first.”

  “Not these days.”

  My computer pings! Someone’s tagged a Jessica Williams in the post. “We’ve got a hit.”

  “So fast?” Liam says.

  “Technology. It’s not all bad.”

  “I don’t have anything against technology per se . . .”

  “You sound like Todd.”

  Liam stands abruptly. “It’s late, I should go.”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have said that.” I stand up, knocking my beer over. “Shit.”

  I rush to the kitchen to get a rag. There’s beer dripping down one of the leather couches, the only thing my roommates care anything about.

  “Josh is going to kill me,” I say, but Liam’s already out the door.

  Chapter 6

  Connections

  When I check the Facebook post the next morning after the guys have left for work in their noisy way, the post has gone semiviral, and thirty-five women named Jessica Williams have been tagged in the comments. A quick scan shows me that half the people who’ve commented on the message are the same trolls who were plaguing me before I left for Mexico, because anything I post online will forever be another opportunity to tell me I’m a piece of shit.

  This much I know already.

  Despite all the reactions, and the Jessicas, I have no direct messages. Added to that: Liam hasn’t returned the two texts I sent before I crawled into the cocoon of my bed and willed the day to disappear.

  I resign myself to the silence and settle in on the couch. I go through the tagged Jessicas one by one. None of them were born on the same day as I was as far as I can tell, and there’s a string of conversations on the thread like Dude, what made you think that I was born on July 10? Or I’m not that old, bee-atch. So helpful.

  It’s a weird exercise. These other Jessicas are like a series of doors I never walked through. If I hadn’t been born in the Land of Todd, or I’d never left, what might my life be like?

  After an hour, I get sick of looking at all the Jessicas and waiting for a DM to appear or Liam to get back to me. It feels like I’m in a holding pattern, circling the city, waiting for the weather to clear.

  To pass the time, I decide to reach out to The Twists, a group of misfits and weirdos Liam helped save from various cults over the years. We gave ourselves this title, mostly to piss Liam off, because it was part of our new freedom to poke fun at our savior.

  I open the group-text thread we started years ago:

  Anyone up for some trouble?

  Covington replies first, as he always does. Next up is Daisy, then Miller. Everyone else begs off because of work, promising they might catch up with us later, though we know from previous experience that they won’t.

  The only one who doesn’t reply is Liam.

  But the word Read is right there under his name.

  I smile to myself, knowing I can still get under his skin.

  Feel free to join us, Liam! I write, then wait.

  Have fun, he texts, but just to me, and I know that’s the last I’ll hear from him for a while.

  We decide to meet at High Dive in Brooklyn. Miller and Daisy share an apartment nearby, so we go there often enough. With everything, it’s been a few months since I’ve seen them.

  I take the B train from West 4th, and as we lurch along, I read through the comments that continue to appear on my Facebook post like popping kernels, only now, two people have tagged a Jessica who lives upstate, and she’s one of the Jessicas who turned up early in my name search yesterday. She’s got her privacy settings on high, nothing showing in her feed except a picture with her face half in shadow. She has mousy brown hair and pale skin that probably burns on impact with sunlight. She looks tiny, almost elfin, but pictures can be deceiving.

  I take a screenshot of her profile and plunk it into a text to Liam as we pull into the station.

  Can you ask your guy to investigate her?

  It only takes a moment before the word Read appears below my text.

  I smile. As well as Liam knows me, I know him. He can’t ignore a text or a challenge.

  Then, feeling too much like an ex-girlfriend who’s stalking a man who doesn’t want to be with her anymore, I slip my phone into my pocket and vow to ignore it for a while.

  Covington’s already in High Dive when I walk through the bright-red door, reading something on his phone. He came from the Land of Todd, too, only he’s five years younger than I am and—as the son of Todd’s most trusted associate, and, if the rumor mill was right, maybe an actual son of Todd—got to skip the Upper Camp while I was there. As a result, he and I barely knew one another until he left the LOT; he was simply another face in the weekly gathering, one of the fervent ones I used to look at with disdain. He’s the last person Liam saved, a year before Todd died.

  Covington is sitting with his chair turned around, his gangly limbs spilling out in all directions. He always does this. Todd made us sit up straight with our feet on the floor and our arms by our sides. The way Covington sits is his way of saying “Fuck you, Todd” every
single day. We all have our own ways of doing that.

  “Where are Miller and Daisy?” I ask as I sit next to him at the table he’s commandeered in the corner. Some of us came to Liam with disastrous names like Stardust and Riverstone. Another Liamism: it’s never too late to pick the name that suits you. Hence, Daisy, Miller, and Covington.

  “Miller’s late as per usual. Daisy’s in the bathroom.”

  “Ah.”

  “No, not like that. She’s been . . . Man, Jess.”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  “I put on an automator for this, but if you’re going to be like that . . .”

  Covington’s a day trader, and he’s always using words I don’t know the meaning of or whether they even exist at all.

  “Please stay,” I say.

  “You’ll leave it?”

  “Of course.”

  The waitress comes over and does a double take when she sees me.

  “Oh, wait, you’re that girl!”

  Covington starts to laugh. “You’re famous!”

  “For all the wrong reasons.”

  The waitress shakes her head. “No way, man. You’re, like, my hero. The way you took that asshole down.” She holds up her hand for a high five. I meet it. “Solidarity, sister.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now, what can I get you to drink?”

  We give her our orders and then Daisy joins us. She survived David Koresh and Mount Carmel when she was a baby, but only barely, so her cocaine habit shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Only she looks like a librarian, glasses and argyle sweater and all, so it does tend to throw you for a loop.

  She leans down to hug me. She smells like toothpaste and the cheap soap from the bathroom, but no other chemicals.

  “I’ve missed you!” she says.

  “Me too.”

  She sits next to Cov. “So, what’s up?”

  “Let’s wait for Miller.”

  “Did someone say Miller Time?” Miller’s voice booms behind me. He’s short and slight, the product of his hippie, WASP mother who went to India and fell in love with his Hindu father at Rajneesh’s original ashram. His parents wore orange and then maroon and were at that crazy compound in Oregon. He was born after it all fell apart, but his parents hadn’t quite worked the cult out of them. When Miller was six, his parents joined some splinter group no one’s ever heard of, but which was just as weird. Maybe worse.