Chapter 11
Eleven
KANE
Hannah Goodwin exists.
Sandy does not.
I confirm both before I get home.
Hannah’s social media is almost empty. One profile picture. Dark hair down, no glasses, small silver hoops, the same black top she wore tonight.
Archaeology major.
Chicago.
Freshman.
Her account has fewer than two hundred followers and no public posts. Most tagged photos are from high school academic events, graduation, and one youth basketball team account that posted her standing beside seven middle-school boys.
She wears a navy jersey over leggings and holds a clipboard against her chest.
The caption reads:
Welcome Coach Hannah!
I zoom in.
Bubble braid. Whistle. Serious expression.
Coach Hannah.
That explains why she had opinions about basketball in the parking lot.
It does not explain Bookworm.
I search for Sandra Goodwin.
Nothing.
Cassandra Goodwin.
Nothing useful.
Hannah has no twin listed, no sister in family tags, and no mysterious cousin with giant tortoiseshell glasses.
I stare at her profile picture again.
The mouth is familiar.
So is the dry look in her eyes, though tonight’s makeup softened it. Her voice kept tugging at something I couldn’t place. Then there was the almond scent.
I smelled it in class when I leaned across her desk.
Bookworm uses almond shampoo.
Hannah uses coconut shampoo.
That proves nothing. Half the women on campus probably smell like almonds, vanilla, or some fruit that has never existed in nature.
Maybe she has a split personality? I should warn her roommates?
Hannah has an alter ego and possibly a psychological condition.
It would be the honorable thing to find her dorm and room number, right?
My phone vibrates.
Eli: You survive Krista?
I type back.
Find Hannah Goodwin. Freshman. Archaeology.
Three dots appear.
Is this a replacement Sandy?
Just search.
You have her full name. Search what?
I send him the tagged team photo. I used Google to find every freshman Hannah on campus.
His reply comes fast.
She coaches children?
Apparently.
Is that what we’re into now? Responsible women with whistles?
I lock my screen.
It vibrates again.
Cortez to Krista to youth coach. Your range is inspiring.
I throw the phone onto the passenger seat.
The rideshare driver glances at me through the mirror.
“Everything okay?”
“Fine.”
“Relationship trouble?”
“No.”
He nods like I said yes and drives the rest of the way without speaking.
* * *
Eli is waiting outside my room when I get back.
He holds up his laptop.
“I found her.”
“So did I.”
“Then why am I here?”
“You invited yourself.”
“I came for the plot.”
I unlock the door.
He follows me inside and drops onto the couch while I grab water from the refrigerator.
“Sparse online presence,” he says. “Good grades. Chicago. Archaeology. Coaching some independent thirteen-under team near Palo Alto.”
“You found all that in twenty minutes?”
“Most people are easy to find when you know their real name.”
His emphasis is unnecessary.
I drink half the bottle.
“She looks like Bookworm.”
Eli turns the laptop toward me.
Hannah’s profile picture fills the screen.
“Does she?”
“Maybe.”
“Those glasses change her whole face.”
“She isn’t wearing glasses.”
“I know.”
He clicks to the team photo.
“This could be Sandy without the frames and sweater.”
“Or Hannah looks like Sandy.”
“That sentence is useless.”
“I met Hannah tonight.”
“At the bar?”
“Parking lot.”
“While Krista was ending your arrangement?”
“She didn’t end anything.”
“She left you there.”
“I didn’t want to go with her.”
“Mutual abandonment. Very mature.”
I toss the empty bottle into the recycling bin.
Eli studies me.
“You flirted with Hannah.”
“I talked to her.”
“You searched her before you got home.”
“She looked familiar.”
“Because she’s Sandy.”
“She said she didn’t have a sister or cousin.”
I stop.
Eli’s smile spreads. “You said she talks like Bookworm.”
“Plenty of women insult me.”
“Not with that level of commitment.”
I take his laptop and enlarge the picture.
Hannah’s hair is down. Contacts. Makeup. No oversized hoodie hiding her shape. At the parking lot, she looked soft in places Bookworm never showed beneath all that fabric.
Still, the chin is the same.
The small tilt of her mouth.
The large gray eyes.
Without those heavy frames, I missed them.
“She let me ask if she had a twin.”
Eli laughs.
“She watched you flirt with her while you described her to her face.”
“She said she didn’t know Sandy.”
“You got played by a girl who carries emergency pens.”
“I did not get played.”
“She gave you a fake name, disappeared in an ivy maze, then reintroduced herself and let you think she was someone else.”
I hand back the laptop.
“She’s going to be in class Monday.”
“Good. Ask her out.”
“I will.”
“What are you going to say?”
I picture Hannah in the parking lot.
The smile she tried to hide when I asked about Sandy.
The way she looked straight at me and denied knowing herself.
Eli closes the laptop.
“I’m not sure yet. She thinks she’s smarter than me.”
“She might be.”
I look at him.
He lifts both hands.
“You asked for honesty.”
“I didn’t.”
“Still free.”
He heads toward the door, laughing.
“You have two days to decide whether you’re mad at Hannah, Sandy, or Bookworm.”
“They’re probably not the same person. She might have multiple personalities.”
“You have strange types, Haverhill.”
The door shuts behind him.
I pull up Hannah’s profile again.
Then Bookworm’s face in class replaces it.
Glasses sliding down her nose.
Lip caught between her teeth while she studied my game.
Her fingers wrapped around the opposite end of my pencil.
The jolt when our hands touched.
I blamed the cold room.
The parking lot wasn’t cold enough to explain why I felt the same pull when Hannah looked up at me.
I set my phone facedown.
Thursday is too long a wait.
* * *
Monday’s practice starts badly.
I miss my first three shots.
Turn over a pass I should make blindfolded.
Then drive left, see the help coming, and abandon the play before it develops.
Coach’s whistle cuts through the gym.
“Haverhill.”
I stop beneath the basket.
“What was that?”
“Bad read.”
“No. A bad read happens once. You’ve made that one for three weeks.”
He points toward the sideline.
“Sit.”
My teammates go quiet.
I jog off and drop onto the bench.
Coach runs the offense without me.
Eli catches my eye from the court and lifts one eyebrow.
I know what he’s thinking.
Bookworm.
Hannah.
Sandy.
I grab a towel and wipe my face.
My game tightened after she named the problem. Now I’m thinking about the flaw before every drive, which makes it worse.
I’m letting a five-foot-nothing archaeology student live in my head and rearrange the furniture.
Coach walks over during the water break.
“You distracted?”
“No.”
He waits.
I don’t change my answer.
“You’re forcing everything,” he says. “Slow down and read what’s there.”
I nod.
He studies me another second, then sends me back in.
On the next possession, I use the screen.
Keep the dribble alive.
Let the defender commit.
One more step left.
Finish high.
The ball drops cleanly through.
No hesitation.
Bookworm’s voice still follows me down the court.
You decide where you’re escaping before the trap closes.
I hate that she was right.
I hate more that I need to know what else she sees.
* * *
I arrive at the seminar fifteen minutes early.
The back-corner seat is empty.
Good.
I set my laptop on the desk and wait.
Students drift in.
Professor Aldridge organizes his papers at the front while I check the time twice.
Five minutes before class, the door opens.
She walks in wearing an oversized burgundy hoodie, black leggings, Uggs, and those tortoiseshell glasses.
Hair twisted into a high bun.
There she is.
No black top. No soft waves. No silver hoops.
Still Hannah.
I see it immediately now.
The mouth.
The large gray eyes behind the lenses.
The exact expression she wore when she told me she didn’t have a cousin named Sandy.
She reaches my row and stops.
Her gaze moves from me to the seat.
“You’re early.”
“Hannah.”
One eyebrow lifts.
There.
The tiniest crack in her control.
“You learned my name.”
“I did.”
She adjusts the strap on her backpack.
“Congratulations.”
“You could’ve saved me the trouble.”
“You never asked.”
“I asked at the beach.”
“You asked Sandy.”
My jaw tightens.
She starts toward another chair.
I catch the back of it and pull it away before she can sit.
The metal legs scrape across the floor.
Every conversation around us stops.
Hannah looks at my hand.
“Move the chair back.”
“Tell me why you lied.”
“You were a drunk stranger at a private party I wasn’t supposed to attend.”
“You shook my hand.”
“That didn’t entitle you to government records.”
“You met me again and pretended you didn’t know who Sandy was.”
Her mouth curves.
“You looked so close to solving it.”
A laugh comes from the row ahead.
I glance toward the student who made it.
He lowers his head.
Hannah reaches for the chair.
I hold it in place.
“You enjoyed that.”
“A little.”
“You let me think you were two different women.”
“I never told you that.”
“You denied having a twin.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Cousin?”
“No cousin either.”
I lean closer.
“You knew exactly what I meant.”
“You made assumptions. I watched them fail.”
Professor Aldridge looks up.
“Mr. Haverhill, must every class begin with furniture?”
Hannah takes advantage of the distraction and pulls the chair free.
She sets it beside mine.
“I’d prefer his seat,” she says.
Aldridge checks his watch.
“I’d prefer silence.”
She sits.
Not in front of me.
Beside me.
Her knee brushes mine beneath the narrow desk.
Neither of us moves.
Aldridge begins the lecture.
I angle my body toward her.
“You coach basketball.”
Her fingers pause above the keyboard.
“Sometimes.”
“That’s how you know my game.”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly.
I lower my voice.
“Then how?”
She opens a blank document.
“Pay attention to the lecture.”
“You lied about your name.”
“I protected my privacy.”
“You humiliated me in class.”
“You asked what I saw.”
“You ran from me.”
“I had somewhere to be.”
“You disappeared.”
“I knew the building.”