Forgotten: A Novel Read online

  “You were in the village when the earthquake struck?”

  I nod, though I wasn’t technically in the village. Instead, I was on the first of the many walks I’d end up taking in the coming months. Walks I took when I couldn’t stand to be around anyone anymore. When I needed to cry, to shake, to fall to the ground and huddle there until the tears dried up.

  On that day, I sat on the hard ground with my back resting against a rough tree, thinking about going home. The river trickled behind me, and I watched a snake slither through the edge of the dead grass at my feet. I remember almost wishing it would bite me, inflict a wound that would distract me from my broken heart, my painful brain.

  Then the air was full of the thwap, thwap of birds and the squeals of animals I couldn’t identify. I looked around in confusion, and before I could rise to my feet the air started vibrating, shaking, cracking.

  Earthquake, I thought, having been through a few small tremors in my lifetime. But nothing like this. The sound was so loud, the shaking so violent, I felt like I was inside it, like the heaving ground might open up and swallow me, gulping me down whole.

  I clung to the tree out of instinct, nature’s door frame. Its unfamiliar fruit fell like bombs around me, exploding in all directions. And when the ground finally stopped shaking and the roar subsided, I stood unsteadily and felt glad to be alive.

  “Yes,” I say to Detective Nield, “that’s right.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet . . . you never managed to call home again?”

  I feel a twinge of guilt. “No. The earthquake knocked out the power supply, took down cell towers . . . we couldn’t make calls. We were stranded.”

  “And the airport was closed until a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes, when we heard that international flight services had started up again, I took the first transport back to the capital.”

  “You didn’t have any problem going through Immigration? Your passport should have been flagged.”

  “No. Nothing.”

  He frowns. “That doesn’t speak much for our security systems.”

  I think back to the bored customs official who didn’t scan my passport. “I guess I don’t look like a terrorist.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “How come you thought I was . . . dead?”

  His eyes turn serious. “Mr. Talbot and Ms. Granger filed a missing-person report when you didn’t evacuate with the rest of the tourists. With all that was going on over there, it was impossible to get anyone on the phone, and extremely difficult to obtain the names and addresses of the others who were on the tour with you. When I finally was able to track them down, all they could tell me was what we already knew. We all thought you were in the capital—”

  “Like I said I would be.”

  He nods. “That’s when you were placed on the list.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t do better.”

  “I’m sure you did all you could.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Ms. Tupper.”

  “I’m alive, right?”

  He smiles. “You are.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “I’ll give you some forms so you can reactivate your bank accounts and the like.”

  That’s not quite what I was getting at, but it’ll do for now.

  “Thank you. Why were they frozen?”

  “Standard procedure.”

  “Right. Well, do you need anything else from me?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We’ll take care of issuing the press release.”

  “ ‘The report of my death has been greatly exaggerated,’ or some other such Samuel Clemens?”

  His top lip curls. “Something like that.”

  “All right. Thank you.” I stand to leave.

  “Can I make a suggestion before you go?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve dealt with many people in your situation—not the exact same, mind, but people who’ve gone missing—and they mostly found it a struggle to reintegrate into their lives. It’s not just a question of picking up where you left off.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Only that I can recommend someone to talk to, if you’d like. A psychologist who runs a victims’ group.”

  I’ve never liked the word victim, and I certainly never thought I’d be one.

  “But the people you’re talking about, they were abducted, right?”

  “Generally, yes.”

  “It’s not the same for me. I wasn’t really missing; everyone just thought I was.”

  “Nevertheless, your friends and coworkers thought you were dead. That will have ramifications—”

  I cut him off, switching into Emma Tupper–superachiever mode. “Thanks for your suggestion, but I’m going to have all this sorted out in a couple of days. Once people know I’m alive, everything will fall back into place.”

  “I admire your courage, Ms. Tupper. And I hope you’re right.”

  “I’m not courageous. I’m just a sidebar in tomorrow’s newspaper.” I extend my hand. “Thank you for trying to find me.”

  He grips my hand firmly. “I’m glad everything turned out the way it did.”

  “Me too.”

  I turn and walk through the maze of police officers and clerks toward the exit. Along the way, I pass a large whiteboard full of columns of names written in red and black marker. My last name is there too, in red block letters, like I’m this week’s victim in an episode of The Wire.

  I know what happens next; I’ve seen it on TV countless times. In a few moments someone, Detective Nield maybe, will erase my name and rewrite it in black. When the year’s over, I’ll be erased forever. And the space I took up, small as it was, will be available for someone else.

  Red to black. Case solved. I once was lost, and now I’m found.

  Easy.

  Chapter 5: All Work and No Play

  Worn out from my conversation with Detective Nield, I don’t feel up to tackling Thompson, Price & Clearwater just yet. Given how they reacted when I wanted a month off, I can only imagine the Management Committee’s selfish indignation when I got myself killed. Just who was going to handle the Samson trial, and the rest of her caseload? Ugh.

  Instead, I take refuge in the food court that sprawls through the basement of the office tower where TPC is located. I sit hidden behind a pillar in what used to be the smoking section (if you breathe deeply enough, I swear you feel like you’re smoking), taking in the familiar smell of Thai, Lebanese, and Burger King. This has been my dining room away from home ever since I started working here. It makes me feel nostalgic, though I’m not quite sure for what.

  One of the questions on law school applications should be: Can you survive solely on fast food? Instead, every school I applied to asked why I wanted to be a lawyer. I think we were supposed to write about all the good we wanted to do, but I wanted to be honest. (If I was going to uphold the law, I figured I should at least start out being honest.) Unfortunately, I was pretty sure telling the truth wasn’t going to get me in. Because the truth was, I wanted to be a lawyer because I liked arguing. I liked it so much I’d argue either side of anything just for the hell of it, whether someone asked me to or not. Anytime, anywhere.

  And that’s not an appealing characteristic, right? Being argumentative? I want to go to law school so I can learn to argue so well no one will ever dare disagree with me again . . . Won’t I be popular then? Won’t I be happy? Oh well, at least I’ll be right.

  But it worked. I wrote five hundred words about how much I liked to get inside the tiny little facts of every public issue so I could trounce anyone who dared take me on, and I was accepted to ever
y school I applied to. Shit. I probably even took the place of a few people who truly wanted to better the world. A couple of schools offered me the scholarship I needed, and one, a big fancy one that makes people “ooh” and “aah” when you tell them you went there (yup, that one), gave me a full ride.

  I took that ride, of course I did. Even though my mother didn’t want me to. It’s funny, because the last thing she wanted me to be was a lawyer. She wouldn’t tell me what the first thing was—that would be too easy, too controlling, too direct—but I still remember clearly how her face fell when I announced, some time around the tenth grade, what I wanted to be when I grew up. “Why would you want to do that?” she said before she could help herself. Was she the only parent in history who was dismayed when her child made this kind of announcement? Maybe not, but her reaction surprised me.

  Anyway, off I went to law school, my mother wishing me luck and providing unending support. And when I finished within sight of the top of my class, I had my pick of jobs. TPC had the best reputation in litigation and promised I’d be allowed to speak in a courtroom before I turned forty.

  I signed on. The hours were brutal and the work was sometimes mind-numbing. But they held up their end of the bargain; I got to speak in court. And that’s when I realized I didn’t like making an argument. I loved it. Especially if there was something on the line (millions of dollars, say, or the survival of a company), and I won. Of course, everyone likes to win. Winning is better than losing, after all. But I loved it.

  So for the years between twenty-seven and thirty-four, I worked hard to make sure that if I argued, I won. And the work meant there wasn’t time for much else. Something had to give, and it was my friends I gave. I stopped returning calls, and one by one, they stopped making them, until it felt like all that was left were Stephanie, Craig, Sunshine (when she was around), and my mom.

  I don’t know if it’s sad or just life that I didn’t think about it much. I didn’t have that many friends. So what?

  But now I’m regretting some of the choices I made. I’m feeling it.

  Boy, am I ever.

  I smooth out the piece of newspaper with Stephanie’s cell-phone number on it and punch it into the dirt-cheap phone I bought at a kiosk in the mall with some of Dominic’s money.

  Stephanie’s phone rings, rings, rings, then clicks to voice mail.

  “This is Steph. Please leave a message.”

  “Steph, whatever you’re doing, sit down. It’s me. Emma. I’m okay. I’m back, and most importantly, I’m alive. I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t able to call sooner. Please don’t hate me, okay? Call me as soon as you get this message, whatever the time. My new number is 555-7982. Okay now, breathe. I love you.”

  I hang up and hold the phone in my hand for a minute, willing it to ring, though I know I might not hear from her for days. God, maybe even weeks. Why, why, why did she have to go looking for me?

  “Ohmygod.”

  I look up into the stunned face of Jenny Macintosh, my twenty-two-year-old assistant. She’s fond of tanning and is wearing a black shift dress whose skirt is way too short, but that’s the thing about Jenny. She looks and talks like she should have a camera crew following her around while she parties till 3 A.M., but she’s smart as a whip and, in the year we worked together, saved my ass more than once.

  “Hi, Jenny.”

  She hugs me tightly. “You’re alive.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But they told us that you were dead, and we had this service and everything.”

  Jesus. They had a service. I’d been memorialized, summed up, dispatched into the past tense. I wonder if anyone cried.

  She flops into the chair across from me. Her latte sloshes over the side of her cup. “This is just too freakin’ weird.”

  You’re telling me.

  “Careful, you’re going to spill your drink.”

  She blinks slowly. Her eyes start to fill with tears. “Where were you all this time?”

  I fill her in, touched by her concern. She listens quietly, her baby-blue eyes round saucers of bewilderment.

  “That’s like something out of a movie.”

  Yeah, one of those depressing ones where the main character’s life starts out badly and just gets worse and worse. Those movies all have a turning point in them, though, when something happens to tip the balance back toward goodness.

  I’m going to get one of those soon, right?

  “I guess.”

  “Does anyone else know?”

  “At the office? No, not yet. I’ll be heading up there in a minute.”

  “Oh,” she says, sipping her drink. “I work for Mr. Wilson now.”

  “That’s great, Jenny.”

  “And Sophie took your office.”

  That figures. If there’s such a thing as a nemesis in real life, then Sophie Vaughn is it. I’m not exactly sure why she has it in for me, but it seems like she has ever since I started working at TPC. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m pretty sure hooking up with her ex at my first office Christmas party had something to do with it. (Not my proudest moment, but I didn’t even know they’d been dating till afterward.) But still, tangling with her always reminds me of the fights I had with the popular girls in high school. I guess you can take the popular girl out of high school, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stop acting like it’s high school. Or maybe life after high school isn’t any different from life in high school? What an awful thought.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Yeah, she must really hate you. I mean, why else would she . . .”

  “Why else would she what?”

  She fidgets with the chunky ring on her index finger. “We should go upstairs and tell everyone the good news, don’tcha think?”

  “I guess so.”

  As I walk with Jenny through the mall, a knot forms in the pit of my stomach. Everyone at the office thinks I’m dead. They wore black, listened to someone (Matt, probably) talk about how dedicated I was, ate some finger sandwiches, and went back to work. I doubt many of them have given me much thought since. Judging by Jenny’s reaction, my showing up out of the blue is going to be a shock. I probably should’ve called ahead.

  Too late now.

  The elevator opens onto the cherry-wood-paneled lobby. Light floods through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the large receptionist station, where two nearly indistinguishable women with slicked-back black hair answer the constant flow of calls in their public-radio voices. “Thompson, Price and Clearwater, how can I help you?” There’s a string of white mini lights running along the edge of their shared desk. A massive Christmas tree sits in the left corner, its pine smell permeating the air. A menorah glows gently on a coffee table next to it.

  TPC covers all its bases.

  I spend the next twenty minutes watching the shock of my return spread through the office like a wave. As I walk down the long carpeted corridor of the litigation floor, everything becomes eerily quiet, amplifying the sound of the ringing phones. Lawyers stick their heads out of their offices with their mouths hanging open. I get some high fives, a few slaps on the back, and the ubiquitous thumbs-up.

  It’s kind of fun, in the way it must be in those first few heady weeks of celebrity. Until I get to my old office, a place that feels more like home than my apartment.

  Only now it’s Sophie’s office, and it’s full of her furniture, which has been reconfigured so her back’s to the hall. Her long, ash-blond hair is perfectly straight above the thin shoulders of her signature black Armani suit. She’s talking on the phone, the handle tucked against her cheek.

  Feeling disoriented, I turn away. Matt comes striding down the hall with the same look everyone else is wearing. He pulls me into a great bear hug, lifting me off my feet. And it’s this uncharacteristic display of emotion from a man who’s challenged me, and nurtured me, and ma
de me work so hard I developed a twitch in my right eye, that breaks the fragile veneer that’s been checking my tears.

  “I’m sorry, Matt,” I say a few minutes later in his office after I’ve used his handkerchief to dry my face.

  He sits next to me on the ultramodern couch in the corner of his cavernous office. His silver hair glints in the bright halogen lights that shine down from the ceiling. The smell of his expensive aftershave is strangely comforting.

  “What are you apologizing for?”

  “I don’t know. Disappearing, I guess. I must’ve left you with an awful mess. The Samson trial, for one.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Emma.”

  “Was it postponed?”

  “No, Sophie did the trial,” he says gently.

  “Oh, right. Sure.”

  “What happened to you?”

  I take a sip of the water his secretary, Nathalie, brought me and tell him my story. He listens with the total attention that makes him a great trial attorney.

  “You didn’t know we thought you were . . . missing?”

  “No. Didn’t Craig tell you we spoke?”

  A jolt hits me as my mouth forms his name. Craig. I’d forgotten all about him and come instinctively to Matt’s office instead.

  “You spoke to Craig today?” Matt asks.

  “No, I meant when I was in Africa, before the . . . I’ve tried calling him since I got back, but his home number’s been disconnected, and I don’t have my BlackBerry, and his voice mail said something about being out of the office . . .” I stop myself, feeling the heat rise up my cheeks.

  “He’s on the west coast working on a deal. I’m sure his assistant will have his coordinates.”

  “Right. I should’ve thought of that.”

  “Nathalie,” he calls out the door, “please find out when Craig Talbot will be back, and get his numbers from his assistant.”

  “Will do,” she answers.

  “Thanks, Matt.”

  “Of course. Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do now?”

  “What do you mean? Can’t I . . . I mean, I thought I’d come back to work.”