Then
Monday, August 16
Woodstock, New York
My necklace, my fucking necklace.
I’d worn it this morning. When George had grabbed me, the clasp must have broken—or even the chain. Who knew what had happened when he squeezed me so hard.
Was I going to leave it? Let him take this one thing from me, the one thing I cared about, the one thing that was mine?
No way. Guys like George only ever took took took. He wasn’t going to get my necklace, too.
I turned immediately, retraced my steps, doubling back toward Tinker Street. Holding my head suddenly higher, not caring about what might show on my neck. I wasn’t the bad guy here. I had been trying to even the scales. I had been one of the only ones to ever stand up to the Haywoods.
Me. Charlotte Anne Williams.
Call me a con artist. Say I used men. But all I’d ever been guilty of was trying to get some compensation for all the things I did. How much would my labor have cost all those men if I’d actually charged them? But you couldn’t charge for things like that, of course. Women were expected to do it for free.
When I got to the main strip, I paused, fear tingling within me, the feel of George’s hands once again on my neck.
I wasn’t going to go in unprepared this time. Fuck that.
I walked up the main strip until I found the waterfall again.
I spotted rocks—big ones—large enough to knock someone out if it came to that.
A gap in the fencing, where I could reach through.
Adrenaline coursed through me as I sank onto my knees, wrestled my arm through the gap, stretching it as far as I could go.
I pushed until my fingers scraped the edge of the rock.
George didn’t know who I was.
What I was.
What I could become if pushed hard enough.
Fucking prick, I thought again.
I pulled the rock back, shimmying it beneath the fence.
Then I stood up, carefully slipped it into my purse, on top of my wallet and a pair of Poppy’s fancy diapers.
Rage flared within me as I pictured George. The spittle flying from his mouth as he grabbed me, squeezed me. Wanting to squelch the life from within me, just because I’d dared to challenge his ego.
You can’t get away with it, Georgie. Not this time.
This time your family isn’t here to save your rich ass like they always do. Money can’t buy you protection—not now, not from me.
I was always going on about how unbalanced it all was, the deep unfairness of money. Of men. And yet I was never really able to act, was I? Even my crimes were so petty. Forty dollars here, a swiped credit card there, like Holly Golightly asking for cash for the powder room.
Why had I doubted my own power? My own worth?
George and Henry and my ex in Pennsylvania—men like them—they deserved to die, because they hurt us. Responding violence for violence was survival. Insurance against them grinding yet another woman down to nothing.
Protection for the next victim down the line.
After all, who would deserve it more than George?
For what he’d done to Mary, to Alex? For what his family had done to Cass? For the way he had just treated me, tried to kill me, then pretended like he was such a nice guy, like it was all a big mistake? For the marks already rising on my neck?
Fuck him, I thought. Fuck him and every man like him.
Finally, I was back in front of the house. I looked left and right—no one.
The car I’d seen earlier was gone. This was my opportunity, my chance. One I wouldn’t get again, maybe not ever.
The chance to do something right by Mary. To even the scales.
I stepped up to the porch, reached into my purse, felt the weight of the rock inside.
George would never fuck with another woman again.