Chapter 14

Despite my determination, the evening passed without one brilliant epiphany; not even so much as a bullet point list of possible options. I spent most of the night watching reruns of Sew or Die on Ade’s laptop while Dad watched something on some Man Network. Beatrice Hoffer-Rey’s talent for crushing designers’ hopes and dreams was admittedly amusing, but it failed to help me get in touch with my inner ruthlessness, and ruthlessness was what I’d need to plot my way out of this mess.

“You OK, Deanna?”

I blinked. Dad was looking at me – probably because his show had just gone to commercial.

But he kept staring. With a heavy sigh I paused the video. “I’m fine. Why? Do you need something?”

He shifted awkwardly in his chair, though we both knew he wasn’t exactly allowed to be surprised that I’d be suspicious of his concern. As if suddenly aware of the beer can in his hands, he set it down onto the table next to him and started flipping channels.

“Hey wait, stop,” I said suddenly, when I saw the words “Hedley Publications”, right below a video of people waving around signs underneath a particularly tall tower of a building.

A marching circle of bodies practically blocked the sky-high building’s entrance. Obviously a protest. I managed to catch a glimpse of a tall blonde carrying a sign that read “Freedom not Fashion” before the video cut to other protesters as the Wednesday morning news reporter explained, “There’s still no word on whether or not the editors of Bella magazine will respond to the accusations, but the question still remains: does the magazine’s advertising of the clothing line equate to promoting indentured swan labor? Or have the magazine’s critics directed their ire at the wrong target?”

Advertising a designer who uses slave labor to make his or her shitty clothes. That sounded just irresponsible and disgusting enough to be true.

Smelled like a scandal. Big enough to lose the Colemans? If so, it would blow Anton’s plan right up; after all, Beatrice was the editor in chief. She was the one this sort of thing would reflect badly on, not Hyde. Then what, Anton?

It was a satisfying thought, Anton pulling his hair out in frustration. Anton losing.

Still, without proof, accusations were easy enough to deny. I was back at square one.

Oh my God. A familiar face popped onto the screen as the camera scanned the crowd with a few skips of jolty editing. She was a little less naked this time, and her black-rimmed hipster glasses covered about half of her face, but it was hard to forget the girl who feather-flashed a bevy of “mourning” millionaires at a funeral.

“Shannon Dalhousie,” I whispered. The long red hair was the same, as was the pale skin and righteous indignation. Tough bitch.

Exactly the kind of confidence I need…

That was the spark. Those half-baked thoughts I’d been sifting through since leaving Lucien, thoughts as useless as scattered crumbs on a dirty floor, slowly started to coalesce into a legitimate idea. A half-baked, plan, but a plan nonetheless.

Sprawled out on my bed with my doors shut, I scrolled down the browser screen, trying to find her contact information. Each of her social justice blogs had the same one. Click.

I spent the next fifteen minutes crafting a passionately worded email filled with half-truths, bullshit, and a sob story I hoped would be just believable enough to get her to hit “reply”.

I couldn’t tell her exactly what was going on. I mean, I did ask her not to post up or mention the email on any of her blogs, but how did I know she wouldn’t anyway? Even though I needed her, I didn’t know her, and that meant I couldn’t fully trust her. I doubted Anton used the internet for anything other than porn, but still, I had to be careful.

So instead I told her the story of a young swan whose feathers were taken by her now ex-boyfriend years ago. I threw in parts of my own life just to make it feel real – dead mother, deadbeat but well-meaning father, lazy middle sister, trophy-wife eldest sister. The part about how alone and scared I felt came from a real place too, obviously. Living in fear and paranoia, feeling other people’s eyes on me, feeling used like my body was a site of transaction.

But I didn’t want to get too bleeding-heart lest it all come off as fake. So I got to the point. I told her about how I wanted to do something, anything to help other people like me out there.

I want to help. After everything I’ve been through, I can’t just stand by and watch more people be used the way I was. It’s just horrifying.

Beatrice Hoffer-Rey, The editor in chief at Bella (which I’m sure you already know), is throwing a masquerade party this Saturday at Arkham Hall on Broadway (you know, that try-hard “swanky” Manhattan beehive of parasitic socialites). Can you freaking believe that? Like normal parties aren’t epic enough for her. The arrogance.

I figured this might be the perfect opportunity to bring reality into their lives – force them to face it head on. Protesting outside the Hedley Building is all well and good, but after they get inside they can easily just shut you out. What about taking the protest inside?

I can’t do it on my own. Honestly, I’m a little scared. That’s why I was wondering if you and some of your friends wanted to help me out? I have a plan figured out. I live in East Brooklyn, so if you want maybe we could meet up somewhere and talk about it?

Please get back to me ASAP,

That was when I attached a photo I’d saved onto the desktop – the photo of me and Hyde someone took for us while we were up on the Empire State Building last Tuesday. Dalhousie would know exactly what that meant – that I had an in. I just needed the help.

With a sigh, I ran through the email once, pressed send and prayed that Shannon Dalhousie checked her inbox as obsessively as Ade did.

An hour passed. Two hours. I oscillated between stress eating, stress email-checking and then back to stress eating. Ade came home from evening shift at the telemarketing centre dismayed to find empty bags of chips strewn about the living room – not because the place was now an infestation waiting to happen, of course, but because I’d depleted her primary nutritional source and now she had to rummage through the fridge to find an apple to feast on.

I cleaned up. Three hours. False alarms in the form of junk mail from my years-old subscription to a Korean drama online streaming site. I was going crazy. Then at 3 o’clock in the morning, miraculously:

A new email from Lady Pen.

I was a mass of nerves. A twinge of excitement shook the breath out of my throat. Taking my laptop back into my room, I clicked.

Hey, girl, I’m totes glad you got in touch with me, not in the least because I’m always eager to connect with and possibly even meet other survivors. I’m hella sorry to hear about what’s happened to you… and I just want you to know that I can honestly SYMPATHIZE! I’ve been there.

Some of us just don’t have the luxury to ignore this kind of shit, you know? That’s why I do what I do. I’m glad you kind of understand that. I’m so used to getting hate mail from clueless privileged assholes who assure me that having your autonomy stolen isn’t really “that big a deal”, it’s become basic instinct to side-eye every email I get now and days (and I was kind of sceptical about yours too, tbh). Some of my friends and I have been trying to spread awareness about Bella Magazine for some time, now, but the only news coverage that we got was this morning… and I dunno, if you watched the whole thing, but the reporter kind of painted us as fanatical random hippies with nothing better to do than to hurl baseless accusations at innocent fashion conglomerates.

If what you’re saying is true (that pic isn’t photoshopped is it? If not you did a hella good job, but srsly, it’s not is it?) This might give us the opportunity to get more exposure.

I’m cool with meeting up, but just to be careful… meet me at Grand Central Terminal tomorrow morning at nine – under the clock. I’ll be around… I just want to make sure it’s you first. Then I’ll ~reveal~ myself lol.

My hands trembled a little when I sent back a confirmation email and began trying to figure out a route to Grand Central. Not out of fear, or anything. Shannon seemed eager enough to see me, though making Central the rendezvous point seemed needlessly complicated; I guess the whole East Brooklyn thing turned her off, which wasn’t surprising since her social justice blog pretty much shrieked “middle class” at the top of its lungs.

Seriously, if she wanted to meet, she could have made it less of a pain in the ass, but then maybe that was the point. Some bored dickhead wouldn’t go through the hassle of getting there just to jerk her around.

It was probably the nerves that made me shake. Or maybe excitement. Once I finished writing directions, I started planning everything else, tapping the pencil against the notebook. If the meeting was at 9 o’clock, I had to make sure I got there a little early, just to make sure I wouldn’t miss her. I also had to assume Anton would have me under surveillance. I’d have to disguise myself somehow. Did I still have that wig from drama club?

I shut my laptop so fast for a second I thought I might have broken the screen. Ade’s eyebrow rose.

“Hmm,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously as she pushed off the doorframe and strolled into my room.

“Um…” I paused to think. “Yeah, I admit that was weird.”

“Porn right?” She looked absolutely touched. “I knew my little Dee Dee would hit puberty one day.”

“Not porn,” I clarified, rolling my eyes as Ade fell onto my bed with her arms spread out over the sheets. Then again… it probably would have been smarter to just let her think it was porn. Damn.

Ade twisted her hair around a finger, raising the lock over her head and letting it fall onto her face. “Come on now. Nothing to be ashamed about. Just think of it as an educational experience.”

“It’s super late, Ade.”

“Is there any reason why you’re here?”

“Does there have to be?”

“Oh shit, now I have to quickly come up with a believable one.”

Sighing, I crossed my legs. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded being ambushed by Ade’s shenanigans, but there was just too much to going on, too much to think about, and unfortunately the Ade shenanigans were cutting into the very important planning-fretting-time I’d scheduled for today. I was just about to ask her to leave when she snatched the scrap notebook paper I’d been writing on.

“‘Take the F-train’,” Ade read. “Hey, isn’t that a song?”

“That’s ‘A-train’,” I grunted while trying to grab it back from her. Ade was too fast. For a girl who lived on the couch, her reflexes were way too good.

“Huh. Why are you going to Grand Central? You meeting someone?” Her eyes sparkled with shameless mischief when she added, “You seeing Hyde off or something? Or are you gonna chase him down and beg him not to go in a big dramatic display of eternal love? Aw, how very B-romantic comedy of you.”

“I’m not even sure how to respond to that.” I held out my hand, waiting for Ade to give me back my train schedule. When she didn’t, I groaned. “I’m meeting a friend from out of town,” I lied.

“Oh, is it Susie?”

“Wait, wasn’t Susie the one who went to Jesus camp in Wisconsin?”

“No, that’s John.” I shook my head. “Susie’s Jewish. You know this. You went to her Bat Mitzvah. Why are you here?”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I dunno. It’d be nice to know something around here.”

Ade had obviously been very careful to keep her tone bright, but there was no mistaking the frustration. She lifted herself off her back and faced me.

I avoided her gaze. “What do you mean by that?”

“Just that you’ve practically turned into a stranger ever since…” She paused, probably not eager to mention my “transformation”. Admittedly, I did appreciate her perceptiveness. “It’s just, you used to tell me shit, you know? And now you’re all ‘cloaked in secrets’ or whatever and it’s like… what’s going on? You don’t trust me anymore? You don’t think I can help?”

I never thought I’d ever use the word “innocent” to describe my sister, but now, as I watched her struggle to understand what she ultimately couldn’t, there really wasn’t any other word to use. When I’d manifested, I’d ended up shattering the blinders we were both using to keep the world of swans far, far away from us. I knew that. But there were some things that Ade would never understand, even if I tried to explain them, which I didn’t want to have to. I just… couldn’t.

“There’s nothing you need to help with,” I said quietly, taking advantage of her distraction to pluck the scrap of paper out of her hands. “I’m dealing.”

Ade rolled her eyes and fell silent for a few moments. Then, “I told Ericka.”

I whipped my head around. “You told… What? You told Ericka? You told her about me?”

Ade fiddled with a loose string on my sheets, looking as if she were contemplating telling me everything. Finally, she sighed. “OK. I left out the part about you being a swan, but I admit I called Ericka to tell her there was something going on with you. Honestly, Deanna, it’s like you’re shutting everyone out – everyone but Hyde of course.” She made a face – the first time I’d seen her do so while mentioning him. “But then, since I’m a thousand percent sure you’re not telling him shit either, I’m guessing he’s your boy-toy escape route out of reality.”

“You’re guessing.” I let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Well, clearly you suck at it.”

“What else am I supposed to think when you don’t tell me anything? Ericka’s worried, man. Even Dad is though he clearly doesn’t have the balls to do anything about it.”

“And?” I shoved the instructions into my pocket. “Look, I keep telling you guys I’m fine. It’s up to you to believe me or not. But you can’t force me to puke out all my problems when you want me to. This is my shit. Nobody can help me even if they wanted to, OK? So just get off my back and let me deal with my own personal issues by myself.”

I was going to tell her to leave, but Ade was already on her feet. Quietly, she walked up to the door without so much as a glance and swung the door open.

“You know, it’s funny,” she said without turning, her hand still gripping the knob. “It’s just like when Mom died. You shut everyone out and then angst about how alone you are. Irony.”