Chapter 6
6
The next day, I figured out who Jane Doe was.
It happened in the morning. I’d gotten in earlier than usual and was taking the time to stalk Dom and Amelia on Instagram. Dom rarely ever posted—until now, when she’d put up a ton of lovey-dovey photos with Amelia: kissing in a red-lit lounge, grinning lazily over brunch, driving somewhere in hip sunglasses—where were they even? It looked rural…
Amelia had a luxurious mane and a cute gap in her front teeth. She and Dom together looked like actor/models who’d met on a movie set.
“Morning!” Amani sailed towards the coffee machine. “How’re you?”
“Hi! I’m fine.” And I was fine. Dom had originally found the apartment, and she was now allowed to bring in Amelia. I couldn’t have expected us to live together forever anyway.
“How are you ?” I turned to Amani. “Any wedding planning happening yet?”
She rolled her eyes as she poured a mug. “We had an argument about it last night. Derek has no concept of how much work is going to be involved. I think I’m going to demand a wedding planner.” She settled at the table next to me. “What’s been going on? Hey, weren’t you supposed to go on that date…”
“They canceled.” I rubbed my eyes. “It’s just so much freaking work. Sometimes I wish I lived in a small village and had only two viable options to choose from.”
“But that’s the cool part,” she protested. “I never would’ve met Derek in person—we moved here at different times, lived in different neighborhoods, and worked in different industries.” She smirked. “And he’s so different from the guys I used to date.”
“In…”
“College. High school.”
“What about junior high?” The question triggered that anxious, edgy feeling I’d had seeing the reunion Facebook page. “Did you date then?”
“I had a boyfriend.” Amani stared into space. It made sense, her being one of those girls who aways had someone holding her hand, carrying her books. “Jared.”
“Was he nice?”
“Nope. He cheated on me with my friend.” She chuckled. “Kissed her at our eighth-grade graduation party at Dave he died young, in his twenties.” I pulled out my phone, googled, and showed her a moody black-and-white portrait.
“Oh, he’s cute.” She considered. “He kind of looks like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic .”
At least she’d seen that . “Yeah, he had the same floppy early 2000s hair.” Warm nostalgia spread through my ribs. “Melissa and I really thought we were in love with him. He was in this bizarre movie that we loved: Stargirl .” Something twitched in the back of my brain.
“ Stargirl ,” Amani echoed.
“Have you seen it?” I asked eagerly.
“No. But if you saw it at thirteen I was only—what. Six?”
I clicked back to the images of Sebastian. Many were from his heyday as a young teen: middle-parted blond hair, large blue eyes, freckled snub nose. He looked so young, delicate, even feminine. Maybe that’s why Melissa and I had liked him. Compared to older men with muscular arms and bulges in their pants, Sebastian was pretty and safe.
“What was Stargirl about?” Amani asked. Clearly, she didn’t want to start work today either.
“It was kind of bizarre. It was about this Egyptian priestess.” I typed it in. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings showed a 22 percent critical score and 31 percent audience score. The still images from the film reminded me of the other reason I’d liked the movie so much: the actress who’d played the titular Stargirl , a thirteen-year-old redhead and Sebastian’s love interest, had looked a little like me. I googled the cast. The picture of Sebastian was from when he was older—still acting but swiftly moving towards his death by heroin overdose. His feminine features had morphed, his large eyes alien-seeming in his gaunt face.
“Egyptian priestess?” Amani echoed.
“Yeah. She was in love with this guard, played by Sebastian. But… yeah, I think she was also having an affair with the king?” The actress was Catherine O’Brien. Of course.
“Scandalous.” Amani yawned and stood, grabbing her purse and walking to the lockers.
And it had been scandalous. Melissa and I had snuck into the R-rated film after buying tickets for a PG movie. We’d both been shocked and titillated by how someone our age could be so tantalizing that adult men couldn’t stop themselves from seducing her. Thinking back now, it was quite horrifying that a thirteen-year-old could be sexualized to that degree. But at the time, at least in my memory, most people hadn’t questioned it. Maybe because it had been set in “ancient” times?
I clicked on Catherine O’Brien’s headshot. I remembered that she’d dated Sebastian IRL after the movie—which had caused it to seem even more romantic. The pictures that popped up mostly showed her as a teen, her red tresses blow-dried into the chunky layers people had back then. Wow. She really had looked a lot like me, more than I remembered. I scrolled down and paused on one of the few pictures of her as an adult.
My stomach dropped.
“Amani.” I waved her over and showed her the screen.
She squinted. “This is… the actress?”
My mouth was suddenly dry. I licked my lips. “Who does that look like?”
“What do you mean?”
The photo showed twentysomething Catherine on a white leather couch in a chambray shirt, smiling serenely into the camera.
All the pieces locked into place.
“It’s Jane Doe.” An immense relief settled over me. I had known her.
“What?” Amani grabbed my phone. “Oh my god.” She went on, her speech rapid, but I didn’t hear. It was like scratching an itch I’d had for days; I luxuriated in it, the answer to all the persistent questions.
“Thea.” Amani handed my phone back. “We need to tell Diane. I mean, this is her, right? It looks exactly like her!”
“Yeah.” I stood, taking a swig of my cooled coffee, feeling tranquil. “We do.”
On the way to Diane’s office, a memory popped up. At thirteen, I’d been so fascinated by Catherine—and by how she’d mesmerized Sebastian—that when I’d read she favored Clinique Happy perfume, I’d stolen a twenty from Mom’s purse to buy it at JCPenney at the mall. I’d never done anything like that before; I was always the good girl, but I couldn’t figure out how to explain to Mom why I needed it so badly without revealing that I’d seen an R-rated movie.
I hadn’t regretted it either. I’d kept the sweet, citrus scent in my backpack and only put it on in the bathroom at school. It was like a magic potion, giving me some of her confidence, so that the cruel barbs from Adam and the gleeful smirks of the cool girls didn’t hurt quite so much. The scent would fade by the time I got home, but often I’d put it on before I went to bed, hoping for a rare but delicious dream that I was Catherine, holding Sebastian’s hand and kissing his soft lips and basking in his adoring gaze.