Chapter 19
Helena
Cassandra—well, Julie, I guess—didn’t text me the morning after Estelle had shown me the whole thing with Cassandra Evans-Pierre.
It was probably my fault. After that whole conversation, I had a hard time talking like everything was normal, and I think it came through in my texts, my tone guarded, distant.
She messaged that she was heading home, and I responded without giving her much, and she didn’t follow up.
And just like that, poof, Houdini disappeared. I wanted to send a message and ask if all was well on her end, but I felt so uneasy, like the floor was ready to drop out from underneath me.
I needed to stop taking people at their word when they said it would be okay for us to sleep together.
Luckily or unluckily, I had a busy day, meeting with some Shiyun stakeholders at an upscale gallery event in SoHo, and I kept my mind off Cassandra—off Julie—for the better part of the day, but it was four in the afternoon and I was back at my apartment getting ready when I finally had to break the conversational barrier.
HELENA
Are you on track to make it to the mixer on time?
I wasn’t normally so formal, but everything about this felt strange right now, from the lingering uncertainty about why she wasn’t Cassandra Evans-Pierre to this whole awkward silence that had settled between us.
I set about getting changed and touching up my hair and makeup, pretending I wasn’t anxiously watching the screen the whole time, and something surged in my chest when she texted back.
HOUDINI
Oh Jesus Christ I forgot about the mixer
I’m so sorry Helena I don’t think I can make it
Gone suddenly were all the concerns, the haunting mistrust, suddenly just a cavernous hole where the feelings were. Maybe there was a reason she hadn’t sent me a made it home safe text last night. Maybe she hadn’t made it home safe.
HELENA
What’s going on?
HOUDINI
It’s just some stuff. I’ll talk to you about it later.
Please tell Linyue I’m really sorry and that I trust fully in you and that I said she can be mad at me all she likes, I really fucked up this time
Or something less self-pitying than that idk
HELENA
Julie, talk to me now. I’m worried for you. What’s happening?
HOUDINI
It’s a developing situation. I’m trying to get it resolved as we speak. I don’t want to talk too much about it over text.
HELENA
Are you safe?
HOUDINI
Yeah.
That wasn’t convincing in the slightest. I gripped my phone tighter, my chest aching, heart pounding. She was the one still dragging herself to the door on no food and no sleep with her head bleeding after a traffic accident to keep working. What had to happen for her to skip this?
And if she wasn’t going to tell me, what could I do about it? How was I even supposed to concentrate at the mixer while my mind was busy worrying about her?
Frustratedly, I shot a text to Krysten, feeling an ugly pull in my chest at using the other name now that… now that I didn’t know what.
HELENA
Have you heard from Cassandra since last night? Did something go catastrophically wrong at the office last night?
KRYSTEN
What did the little one do now?
HELENA
She’s trying to skip the mixer tonight, talking like it’s a crisis but she won’t tell me what. “A developing situation, won’t talk about it over text.”
KRYSTEN
Ah.
She is a troublesome one.
I believe she has something to tell you.
HELENA
Something like what? Do you know what it is?
KRYSTEN
With that one I cannot say.
She is as fickle as the subway when you are already running late.
Well, fickle as she may have been, I still cared about her a lot more than I wanted to right now. I groaned, a hand to my forehead leaning against my bathroom vanity, staring at myself in the mirror. I looked ragged already.
Why was I not getting a straight answer from anyone?
Settling into a cold sense of resolution, I texted Julie back.
HELENA
Where are you right now?
HOUDINI
How come?
HELENA
Just answer the question.
HOUDINI
Please let me handle what I need to handle.
HELENA
Julie, I’m half convinced you’re dying somewhere and I’m about to ask the police to help.
HOUDINI
I’m at the courthouse. I can’t be talking too much, my phone will die.
HELENA
The courthouse? Are you in legal trouble?
HOUDINI
No. I’ll meet you after the mixer, okay?
HELENA
I am not going to be able to focus on the mixer while I’m thinking about you locked up in the courts, Julie.
Will you please answer me?
I just need to see you for a minute. Long enough to know you’re okay.
She didn’t reply. Didn’t even read the messages. She’d probably shut off her phone.
God dammit.
Thankfully, Estelle picked up quickly. If there was one thing I could always count on her for, it was to be two inches from her phone. “Hey, babe,” she said, trying to sound cheerful even though I could tell she was concerned—I never called directly unless it was an emergency. “What’s going on?”
“Cassandra—I mean, Julie—whoever the hell she is—says she won’t be able to come to the mixer, said she’s in a developing situation and she can’t tell me about it over text, refused to meet me in person, and when I pressed her on what’s going on, said she’s at the courthouse and that she’ll explain everything to me after. ”
“What?”
“And now she’s ghosting me.”
I heard her putting down a crinkling bag, a chair creaking. “What courthouse? For what? That raises so many more questions.”
“Welcome to my Saturday afternoon. Can you… I don’t know, just…”
“Help you find out which courthouse she’s in so you can show up there anyway and get some answers? Babe, you have but to ask.”
I relaxed, just a little. “Technically I didn’t even have to do that.”
“She’s based in Queens, right? Kate’s out there right now, I’ll tell her to pop into the police department and ask if they’ve seen her around any of the offices, and I’ll call some court offices to ask about our girl.”
I hung my head, breathing out a slow, shaky sigh. “Thanks, Stellie.”
“Let me know what you find on your end. I’ll keep you posted. Uh… what name do you think we should be using?”
Wasn’t that a question? I grimaced, and the thoughts I didn’t want to acknowledge won out, because I said, “Julie Branch.”
She sighed. “I’m gonna shake this girl down for answers once this is settled.”
Yeah, well, she could get in line.
∞∞∞
I should have known Estelle would solve things just like that.
It only took half an hour before she got back to me with a police precinct in Queens that had just referred a Julie Branch to the Housing Court last night, although they wouldn’t disclose the matters of her case any further, and I was already on the train out there with no room for second thoughts by the time I got the message.
The courthouse was like government buildings always were, stuffy and uncomfortable, with an air like you weren’t supposed to be there.
The receptionist told me she couldn’t tell me who exactly had been through, but that if I was here about a housing issue, I needed to go ahead and through the door on the right, so my shoes rang sharp, punching footsteps on tile floors as I made my way through to a waiting room where my heart surged at the sight of her sitting in the corner, clasping a paper ticket in both hands with her head on the cold concrete wall, eyes half-closed like she might have fallen asleep there.
Julie. Neglecting herself as usual. Although if she was seeing the Housing Court, god knows what else was forcing her to neglect herself at this point. I marched across the room, and she only stirred when I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh—sorry,” she said, shaking back to awareness, and she startled at the sight of me, her pupils dilating. “Holy—what the—Helena? What are you doing here?”
“You know what I’m doing here,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Jesus, Helena, the mixer, we can’t both miss it.”
“It’s fine. I have time. Or at least, I will if you don’t drag this out for the entire rest of the day.” I lowered myself to her level, where she was sitting like a scolded schoolgirl in one of the sad cheap folding chairs. “Talk to me. I didn’t track you down like this for nothing.”
“Ma’am,” a uniformed attendant said behind me, and I looked back at where a tired middle-aged woman gave me a deadpan look. “I’m sorry, but if you’re not here to take a ticket and see—”
“I’m here as a representative for Julie Branch,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me.”
She bought it—or more likely, didn’t care enough to press it, turning and heading back behind the counters. By the time I looked back at Julie, she’d crumpled up into herself, her expression changed from shock to heartbreak.
“I didn’t want to do it like this,” she mumbled.
“Do what?” I said. “I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s happening.”
She put her hands over her face. “Let’s step out into the hallway. It’s going to take at least an hour for them to get to me anyway. Not that it’s going to change anything when they do.”
I swallowed my frustration for long enough to join her out in the hall, where the two of us stood close together under dim lights and cheap paint that flaked from the walls.
“So,” I started, arms folded. She shoved her hands into her pockets, looking down at the floor, and even though she’d always been small, I’d never seen her so…
small. Even when she came up to my lips at the highest, she’d always had this posture like she could fill the room.
But now she felt like she was a thin reed in the wind, ready to blow down.
“I’ve been lying about a bunch of things,” she said quietly.
I hated how much I liked her. I was supposed to be pissed off hearing the confessional, finding out the truth was exactly like I’d been afraid of, but it hurt so much to see her look this sad, this broken, that I just wanted to hug her. “Okay,” I said carefully.
“I’m not Cassandra. My name’s Julie. That’s it. Always was.”
I swallowed hard, a thick feeling tightening in my neck. “Why did—”