Chapter 4
The doorbell rings just as I’m crawling out of the wall.
And no, that’s not a metaphor about escaping the confines of my mind-numbing life.
I mean it literally. I’m exiting the secret room hidden behind a bookcase door that I built using a YouTube do-it-yourself video.
No one but me—and maybe the Home Depot employee who helped me pick everything out for the project—knows about that room, and I’ll do pretty much anything to keep it that way.
As the doorbell chimes again, my American bully, Zoomie, does what he does best. He barks his gigantic head off while zooming around. Although he slobbers all over my walls and is missing half his teeth, it was love at first ugly sight.
Years ago, my husband and I found him wandering along a rural highway rooting through garbage, and I instantly recognized that this skin-and-bones dog had been a bait dog in a fighting ring.
Emaciated with roughly chopped-off ears and a tail broken in several places that give it a zigzag lightning bolt shape, he and his overactive salivary glands found a home in our bed instantly, despite my husband’s objection.
As a photographer, I couldn’t resist the name Zoomie when I realized he had a midnight adrenaline habit.
The bookshelf door swings shut behind me with a click, sealing the entrance.
After double-checking to ensure my secrets are safely locked away, I smooth my hair in the hallway mirror, plaster on my I’m perfectly normal with nothing to hide semi-smile, and open the door.
On the other side is Ivory, dressed like she’s ready to go clubbing while I’m wearing sweatpants and a coffee-stained sweatshirt I bought at a thrift store.
“Ready to go?” Ivory gives me a once-over with a hint of disproval.
“All set.”
“You’re going out in public wearing that?” Ivory physically turns me around and gawps. “Your butt says Juicy, Shar. How old are you again?”
I assumed the bejeweled word across the pants’ rear was fashionable again since other Y2K trends had made a comeback, but apparently not for a woman in her thirties. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“Where do I begin?” She blinks her obviously fake eyelashes.
“First of all, your pants predate Britney Spears. Second, every time you make a public appearance, you could potentially meet your future husband. But looking homeless… well, that’s not going to attract the right clientele, if you know what I mean. ”
“Did you just say public appearance and clientele? You make me sound like a prostitute. We’re going to the jewelry repair store, not the disco.”
“And third,” she adds, “no one goes to the disco anymore because they’ve been extinct since the 1970s. Look, hon, you never know where love might find you. But with that outfit, you’re more likely to attract loose change than a man.”
“I could use the money, so I’ll consider that a win.”
“Ug, what am I going to do with you?” she groans. “Let’s go.”
While Ivory descends the porch steps, I glance back at the bookshelf and think of what’s behind it, the room full of things I’ve hidden so well I sometimes forget they exist. But not today.
All because of Marshall. I can’t shake the feeling that I know him, or maybe he knows me.
Either way, he’s too familiar not to ignore.
And the way he said “you’ll regret it” like he meant it creeps me out.
I deadbolt the front door behind me, forcing my secrets to remain hidden for another day.
Half an hour later, I’m still wonderfully comfortable in my Juicy sweatpants as I drop off my necklace to get fixed. Then we head over to our favorite coffee shop, The Alibi Café.
The sky is a wet gray-blue, so we sit inside.
It smells like espresso and permeates with hope for a better future as book nerds fill nearly every table with their overachieving book club picks.
I luck out and find a table next to the window near the door, the one spot no one wants due to the draft every time someone enters.
Sitting across from me, Ivory is draped in an expensive sweater probably spun from the coats of endangered cashmere goats. She stirs her oat milk latte, the spoon a tiny, silver baton conducting a symphony of flavors.
“I think Freida is dating an ex-con,” Ivory opens the conversation with an explosion.
Her daughter Freida, named after Fred, is still in high school.
If I had an eighteen-year-old daughter dating an ex-con, and a husband who wasn’t dead, I’m pretty sure she would be sent off to a convent, if they still exist. Though it’s pretty judgmental of me to think this since I, too, am an ex-con.
“What does Fred think of the guy?” I ask.
“He doesn’t know about him yet. I haven’t for sure verified it either, but when I do… well, her ex-con will be made ex-tinct.”
I laugh, because imagining Ivory doing anything as messy as murder is hilarious. “Let’s keep homicide off the table for now. I’m sure he’s not as bad as you think.”
“Speaking of bad, what do you think of your newest student?” she asks me, and without a name I already know she’s referring to Wren.
“She’s… opinionated, I’ll give her that.”
“You know, if she ends up enjoying your class, that could really boost business.”
“How so?”
“She’s an influencer, Shar. Didn’t you hear her mention it only a thousand times in class?”
“No, I must have missed that during Macho Marshall’s weird FaceTime call.”
“Macho Marshall?” Ivory chuckles. “Anyway, so I checked Wren out, and sure enough, she’s got hundreds of thousands of followers on pretty much every social media platform. Plus she has a popular podcast.” Ivory taps the screen of her phone and shows me the podcast: Zen with Wren.
I’m not as impressed as Ivory seems to be. “Doesn’t everyone have a podcast these days?”
“Don’t mock it,” she warns me. “A little word-of-mouth praise from her could go a long way in building your business. Wren has a lot of influence, so it’s in your best interest to keep her happy.”
With Wren’s ability to destroy me just as easily as it would be to help me, I definitely plan to at least try. Though after spending an hour listening to her complain about how none of my photography techniques involved slimming filters or portrait mode, it might be an unreachable goal.
I’m sipping my hazelnut macchiato when my phone blinks with a notification that Shoot to Thrill has been tagged in a Facebook post. I’ve spent the past year scrubbing any internet presence of personal pictures that could lead someone to finding me here in Doomwood Falls.
The only person I had worried about finding me is presumed dead, so I’m not regimented about it but I still try to be careful.
It gets harder as more people have phones glued to their palms, constantly filming and TikTok-ing every minute of their lives.
When I check the post, my chest tightens. “Someone just wrote a negative review about my photography class.”
The public bashing is left by a woman named Sue on the Doomwood Falls Community Page. Worst of all, it’s not just a bad review. The more I read, the more I sense that it’s a personal attack:
I signed up for a photography class at Shoot to Thrill, run by the infamous Shari Catalano, a woman whose résumé feels less “creative professional” and more “unsolved questions.” The class itself was a masterclass in overexposure, specifically of talent and technique.
The instruction felt like an endurance test—blink twice if you need help.
By the end, I wasn’t inspired; I was terrified.
Shoot to Thrill isn’t a studio name. It’s a warning label.
I suspect the fee doesn’t pay for instruction so much as it aids whatever past she’s outrunning.
If you’re thinking about booking, do yourself a favor and look into Shari’s past. Not deeply—just enough to decide photography might be safer as a hobby you never pursue.
It makes no sense. I can name every person I’ve taught in my classes, and I’ve never taught a Sue. No one has ever complained. I can’t imagine anyone hating me this much. But there is someone who strikes me as publicly opinionated, fluent in social media, and impossible to please: Wren.
“Did you hear me, Ivory? I got a bad review,” I repeat.
“Okay, so what?” But she seems lost in whatever she’s staring at out the window.
“Hello? This could shut my studio down!” I emphasize, because while it may not be a big deal to Ivory, who has job security and a well-off husband, this could bankrupt my fledgling business that I rely on to survive.
She glances at me and rolls her eyes. “One bad review isn’t going to ruin you.”
“It sure isn’t going to help. You know how word-of-mouth spreads in this town.” Especially the bad kind. Gossip is like catnip to these folks.
I wait for her to agree with me, to demand accountability, to seek justice on my behalf, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she’s mutters, “You’re overreacting,” and returns her attention to the window behind me.
She’s miles away, in the labyrinth of her own mind, leaving me alone in this purgatory of social media cancellation.
“Forget it,” I say, too stressed to sit here doing nothing. “You clearly are occupied. I’m heading home to deal with this.”
Though I have no idea what dealing with this should involve. Running a sale price on all lessons? Calling my regular clients to make sure they’re happy?
When I rise to my feet, the chair screeches across the floor. Ivory’s head snaps back, a marionette yanked by an invisible string.
“Where are you going?”
“If you paid any attention, you wouldn’t need to ask!” I grab my purse, hoping she’ll beg me to stay since she is my ride home, after all.
“Sit down and stop acting like a child!” she demands loud enough to draw the attention of several customers around us.
“What’s the point of spending time together if you’re just going to ignore me?” I yell back.
“Boo hoo. Get over yourself, Shar. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”