Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
C atherine returned to Rainer, April, and Stephan’s apartment in the Upper West Side that evening. The doorman gave her a grim hello and opened the door to the opulent lobby. “Mrs. Fellini is expecting you,” he said.
Catherine thanked him. She entered and took the elevator all the way to the top.
This time, April hadn’t bothered to make herself up for a visitor. Catherine knew the single worst fact of April’s life—that her daughter was gone—and thus, the facade fell. Catherine had been among the affluent long enough to understand that every wealthy person built up a persona; that everything was false and apt to crack when times got tough. Catherine had experienced that herself when she’d been diagnosed with cancer. All her care about society and what people thought had gone out the window.
She’d focused on what mattered.
April wore a pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt, and her hair hung in a loose ponytail. The only light in the house came from the television, where April watched reruns of Gilmore Girls. A shiver went down Catherine’s spine. She loved watching that show with her girls. Probably, April did, too.
“Rainer and Stephan are visiting Dee,” April explained as she led Catherine down the hall. Her hand shook when she opened the last door on the right.
Catherine understood that April didn’t want her husband or her father-in-law to know she’d sought outside help. It was a matter of embarrassment.
Catherine and April stood in the middle of Felicity Fellini’s bedroom. It was decorated in the style of a teenager-turned-twenty-one-year-old—with photographs of friends who changed from braces to long-legged models within the course of a couple of years, posters of pop stars, and handwritten lyrics and notes. It might have been Ivy or Scarlet’s room.
“Rainer and I haven’t been able to bring ourselves to go through her things,” April said quietly. “It feels too invasive.”
But the way she said it meant: we need you to do it.
“Would you like something to drink? Eat?” April asked as she backed out of the room. It was as though the place was haunted.
“I’m fine, thanks.” Catherine set her jaw. She wanted to say something like I’m going to find her. But she knew better than to make promises she couldn’t keep.
April clicked the door closed and left Catherine in Felicity’s space. Catherine took a deep breath and searched her gut for her journalistic instincts. She needed them. Why would a girl like Felicity skip out on her glorious life at the drop of a hat?
But Catherine had been in the business long enough to know that nothing like that really happened out of the blue. Something had happened. Felicity had met someone; she’d been clued into an idea about the world. Maybe there was a diary that would chart those events.
Catherine had brought gloves just in case. She hoped and prayed the room wouldn’t require police investigation, but she didn’t want to leave fingerprints if it did. She didn’t want to mess anything up.
Catherine went through the desk first. She found diligent notes from Felicity’s classes at Columbia, a printed-out application for an internship at a Midtown magazine set for the current summer, and several more photographs. She found books that Felicity had underlined and underlined, probably for a paper in an English class. But there was nothing like a diary in any of it.
Catherine kept going. She went under the bed, scooped through the clothes in a pile in the walk-in closet, and looked through the bedding. She searched for hiding places. She found several things Felicity had wanted to hide—including a photograph she’d taped on the underside of a drawer. The photograph was of Felicity and a handsome guy a couple of years older than her. The guy wore a black T-shirt and a black hat. Felicity wore a long dress that covered her arms and went all the way up her neck. Was that kind of thing back in style?
Something about the photo gave Catherine pause. She put it in a plastic ziplock bag, which she stored in her purse. Maybe she’d need to ask someone about the guy down the line. Maybe April would even know who he was.
Catherine sat on the edge of Felicity’s bed and searched online for Felicity’s social media. Of course, Felicity hadn’t posted anything since right before she’d “disappeared.” But her activity prior to her disappearance wasn’t exactly normal. Alarm bells rang in Catherine’s ears.
All the way through 2021, 2022, and most of 2023, Felicity seemed like a normal, healthy, happy teenage girl. She posted photos of her friends and song lyrics; she complained about school. She posted photos of her parents on vacation, one of Dee playing poker, and another of her entire family on a Mediterranean beach.
But by October of 2023, there was a sharp shift in Felicity’s online presence. It was then she began posting things with quasi-intellectual slants. But most of the posts did not support feminist values. In fact, they seemed rather backward, in support of women abandoning the pursuit of education in pursuit of family.
Another of Felicity’s posts read, “They want us to give them everything. Push, push, push yourself through every conceivable test and paper and class. For what? I’ve been working to get into a good university since I was eight years old. And now that I’m in one, I feel so empty. What is it all for?”
She was burned out, Catherine thought.
But it seemed Felicity had decided her burn-out was the fault of society. It seemed she wanted to return to old-fashioned values—and loosen herself from modern constraints.
Catherine had never seen anything like it.
Why would a young, intelligent woman—a woman with everything—fight her own principles like that? Why would a woman reject the hard work of generations of women before her?
It didn’t make sense.
Catherine left Felicity’s bedroom after two and a half hours of searching. She found April in front of the television, wrapped in a ball. She gave Catherine a brief and hopeful smile that soon fell. It seemed April had expected Catherine to find her daughter within the span of a couple of hours.
“I made good progress,” Catherine told her. She made sure to keep her voice formal. “I’ll be in touch.”
April didn’t walk her to the elevator this time. Just before the elevator doors closed, Catherine heard April whimpering.
It was late—nearly eight, but Catherine decided to charge forth with her next plan of action. She’d transplanted her obsession with finding her grandfather with finding Felicity. As long as I have something to obsess over, I’m happy, she thought.
Based on last semester’s syllabus Catherine had found in Felicity’s room, Catherine wrote a few emails to Felicity’s professors.
Dear Professors,
My name is Catherine Copperfield. I’m a freelance journalist, currently looking into the disappearance of Felicity Fellini. It is my understanding that she took your course last semester. I’m eager to speak with you if you have time.
Catherine didn’t expect to hear back before the night was through. But ten minutes after she’d sent the emails, her phone dinged. It was a message from Professor Timothy Grass, Felicity’s Creative Writing professor. Catherine bolted upright.
Dear Catherine Copperfield,
Yes. I’d be happy to talk. I’ll be in my office at Columbia from eight to noon tomorrow morning. I look forward to seeing you there.
Professor Grass
Catherine could hardly sleep that night. She felt just as she had as a young and hungry reporter—so eager to tie up all the loose strands into a wild yet articulate story.
She woke up early for a run, then called Quentin as she drank coffee. He could hear the exhilaration in her voice.
“I can’t wait to read this book!” he said because he still thought she was looking for Gionnocaro.
“It’s gotten a whole lot weirder.” That was all Catherine could bring herself to say.
Catherine reached the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia University by eight forty-five that morning. It was still August, and the students hadn’t yet returned to campus, which gave the long and high ceilings a feeling of alienation. Just a few people milled about, walking too quickly, their steps echoing. Catherine walked quickly, too.
She reached Professor Grass’s office and steeled herself before she knocked.
A kind voice called, “Come in!”
Catherine entered and found a man with a grizzled beard seated behind a desk. He wrote with an ornate pen and seemed to hide behind a pair of white eyebrows as thick as caterpillars.
Catherine fixed her face into a professional smile. But before she could say a thing, Professor Grass offered, “Catherine Copperfield, I presume?” He gestured toward the chair across from him.
Catherine bowed her head and closed the door behind her. Despite the ninety-degree weather outside, it was surprisingly chilly in here. Goose bumps ran up her arms.
“You’re looking for the Fellini girl,” the professor stated, leaning back in his wooden chair until it creaked. “That was a mysterious event indeed.”
Catherine took out a notebook for notes. “Can you tell me why it was so mysterious? From your perspective, I mean.”
“I can really only tell any story from my perspective, unfortunately,” the professor said.
Catherine offered a small smile.
“This wasn’t the first time I had Felicity Fellini in class,” Professor Grass began. She took Introduction to Creative Writing her freshman year and carried on with it sophomore year as well. I was struck by her writing. It was far more mature than the other students her age. But I could sense, too, that she pushed herself more than they did. She was very hard on herself. I don’t think she always slept very well. She had big bags under her eyes.”
“I suppose it’s hard to keep up at Columbia sometimes,” Catherine suggested, remembering the social media posts Felicity had made before her disappearance.
“Something was weighing on her,” Professor Grass said. “My first hunch was familial pressure. Felicity’s great-grandmother is the great Dee Fellini, and her great-grandfather came from Italian royalty. I believe the Fellinis always thought themselves better than everyone. And they needed their daughter to validate their beliefs.”
Catherine was beginning to get the picture. Too much pressure. A breakdown.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” Professor Grass said. “Felicity began dressing differently in February or March of last semester.”
“Differently how?”
Professor Grass scratched the skin under his beard. “Long dresses. No skin exposed. The styles were vaguely hippie-ish, but with a sense of conservatism. Propriety. I wondered if she’d found religion or something. And it’s really none of my business, you know. These kids enter university and experiment with all sorts of things. But a few weeks later, a man a couple of years older than her appeared outside the classroom door every day to walk her out. He was peculiar. He always addressed me head-on—as though nothing frightened him. Not that I’m a frightening man, but I do enjoy a sense of, shall we say, respect at Columbia. And this man did not respect me in the slightest.”
Catherine squinted, then dug into her purse for the photograph of Felicity and the man dressed in black. She set the ziplock bag on the desk in front of Professor Grass. He adjusted his glasses and nodded.
“That’s him,” he said. “A boyfriend, I suppose? But something was very odd about it.”
“What about her writing?” Catherine asked. “Did that take a turn, too?”
Professor Grass’s eyes darkened. “Yes. Very much so. I remember she wrote a story about a very depressed young woman who dropped out of society and never spoke to anyone she’d ever known again. It worried me, especially with her startling personality change. I asked her to come to office hours, but she didn’t.” He sniffed. “It was a well-written story. It felt terribly real.”
Catherine knew these were all clues. But they were the sort of clues that didn’t necessarily add up to anything. She couldn’t give them too much power.
“A few other young women started dressing like that last semester, too,” Professor Grass finished. “It was bizarre. Truly bizarre. But I decided at the time it was just another trend. That’s what the kids do, you know. They fall into trends. They let themselves get swept up.”
Catherine jotted several additional notes to herself, then glanced up. Professor Grass gazed out the window thoughtfully. It was as though he was in another dimension.
“Thank you for your help, Professor,” Catherine said quietly.
“Any time,” Professor Grass said. “I hope it’s all a misunderstanding. I hope she’s safe.”
It was all the rest of them could do right now— hope.
But Catherine still had a job to do.