After Rehabilitation but before we left for Redemption the next morning, Abe put his plan into action. Valerie was in her office, and the other Vibers were brushing their teeth and making their beds before the van came for us at eleven o’clock. With every minute that passed, it became more and more likely that Lisa had read my e-mail and posted it somewhere, that it had been picked up by everyone on the Surprise I Can Spell website, everyone on Reddit, everyone everywhere, that my life was falling to pieces again at this very moment as I was here, unaware of any of it and therefore unable to nip it in the bud.
“We’re going to make it look like I fell out of my wheelchair,” Abe explained in a low voice, as we were around the corner from Valerie’s office.
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely. But I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“Just don’t watch me.”
I blinked at him. “Is that helpful?”
“Well, I’m not going to pretend to fall out of my chair with you staring at me,” he said.
It occurred to me that, somehow, I’d never seen Abe get in or out of his wheelchair. He was always the first one in the van to go to Rehabilitation, so by the time I got out there, he was buckled in and Kevin was storing his chair in the trunk. And when we arrived wherever we were going, Abe was always the last one out. I figured I must have seen him transfer out of his chair at some point since we got here, but now that I was focusing on it, I couldn’t think of when exactly that might have been.
“Keep your back to me,” he said, “and keep an eye out to make sure no one’s coming.”
I turned around and listened to the sounds of Abe shifting in his wheelchair, a few thumps on the floor, a bang, and then he said, “Okay, you can look at me again.” I did. He was sitting calmly on the floor, his legs in front of him, grinning up at me.
“I don’t think Valerie’s going to buy that you’re in great need,” I told him.
“I’m going to make it more dramatic, don’t worry. Now can you lay my wheelchair on its side, like it fell over completely and it would be impossible for me to right it by myself?”
I laughed softly and did so. It was lighter than I’d expected it would be.
“Maybe have it lying partially on top of me?” Abe suggested. “Maybe we can convince her not only that I fell and can’t get back up but that I’m, like, trapped down here.”
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” I said.
“I feel like I’m using my power for good,” he said.
As I was trying to arrange his wheelchair on the ground so that it looked believably impossible for him to get back into without help, Jazmyn rounded the corner.
“Oh!” she said, taking in the scene.
“It’s fine!” I chirped, lest she call for help right now, before we were ready. “He’s totally fine.”
“You were supposed to be our lookout,” Abe reminded me.
I rolled my eyes at him. “I was a little busy, okay?”
“What are you guys doing?” Jazmyn asked.
Abe and I looked at each other, not sure how much we could trust her.
“We’re trying to get Valerie out of her office,” I explained.
“Okay.” Jazmyn seemed fine with that. I waited for her to leave so we could get on with it, but she stayed right there, as if waiting to see how this all would play out.
Abe and I exchanged another look. We didn’t have much time before we had to leave for Redemption. Either we went through with this now and hoped Jazmyn didn’t blab to Valerie or we gave up.
“Okay,” Abe said, “let’s do this. Go.”
He crumbled from his seated position into a prone sprawl on the floor, partially pinned down by his wheelchair, and as I darted away, he howled, “Valerie! Help!”
Instantly, Valerie came flying out of her office. Seconds later, I ran in there myself. I grabbed the telephone on her desk, my heart racing. I was doing this. I was about to call Lisa Rushall. My nemesis, my life-destroyer, Lisa Rushall.
And if this went wrong, both Abe and I would be in really serious trouble.
What the hell was I doing?
I found The Pacific’s phone number on Valerie’s computer and dialed it with fingers so frantic that I got it wrong on the first try. “Come on, come on,” I muttered to myself, hanging up and then redialing. This time, a recorded voice answered. “You’ve reached the offices of The Pacific. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time.” I paced around the small room, phone pressed to my ear. “For a company directory, press one.”
I pressed the number one. Then I was told to press the number five, which I did, followed by the numbers eight-two-zero, and right around the point when I was becoming convinced that Valerie was going to come back and find me in her office before I even managed to speak to an actual human being, a voice answered the phone.
“This is Lisa,” it said.
I somehow had not prepared for this.
“Lisa Rushall?” I said stupidly.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Winter Halperin,” I said.
Lisa didn’t immediately say anything.
“You received an e-mail from me last night,” I went on, “and I wanted to ask you to please, please delete it. Please just act like you never received it.”
“Oh, here it is,” she said in a moment. “I hadn’t gotten through all my e-mail yet.”
That stunned me for a moment. The whole past fourteen hours, there had been no question in my mind that she was plotting something horrible against me—maybe even something she had already begun to execute. And now it turned out that, all along, she hadn’t even noticed that she got an e-mail from me. It made me wonder for a second what the hell I was doing here, sneaking into Valerie’s office.
But, I reminded myself, sooner or later, Lisa would have read my e-mail, and then she would have plotted something horrible. Again.
“Just delete it,” I told her. “You don’t have to read it.”
“Oh, Winter Halperin!” she said. “Of course. I blanked on your name for a moment.”
“You … what?” I asked, stupefied. “You ‘blanked on my name’? Are you kidding me?”
“What?” she said.
I raised my voice. “You ruined my life, and five months later you can’t even remember who I am?”
This was not how I’d imagined this conversation going. I’d prepared myself to talk her out of destroying me yet again. I had not prepared for reminding her of my existence.
“Excuse me?” she said. “I haven’t ruined anybody’s life, as far as I’m aware, though maybe my editor would tell you differently.” She said this last bit as though it were a joke.
I wasn’t laughing.
“Yes, you, Lisa Rushall. You ruined everything. And now how dare you act like you don’t even know who I am or what you did? Thanks to you, I’m at a crazy reputation rehabilitation retreat right now, having to write stupid apologies, which is the only reason you got that ridiculous e-mail from me yesterday. I didn’t mean it. I mean, I am sorry. I’m constantly sorry. I’m sorry I’m alive, I’m sorry anyone has to know me, I’m sorry I ruin everything I touch. But I’m not sorry to you. You don’t deserve my apologies. You should be apologizing to me.”
“What is a reputation rehabilitation retreat?” Lisa asked, like that was the most interesting part of my statement.
“Exactly what it sounds like. Did you hear me? You should apologize.”
“What’s it called?” she asked. “Your retreat, I mean.”
“Revibe. Can you—”
“Is it in Malibu?” she asked, sounding excited.
“Yes.”
“And you’re there right now? That’s fantastic!”
“It doesn’t feel fantastic to me,” I told her.
“I’ve heard whispers about this place for the past year or so, but it’s almost impossible to get any concrete information about it. I’ve reached out to the owners, but they refuse to talk. Listen, Winter, I’m so glad you called. Could I interview you about Revibe?”
“No,” I said immediately.
She paused for only a second. “Then will you connect me to any of the other people who are there with you?”
“No. Are you nuts? Why would I help you?”
“I’d really like to speak with someone about it,” she tried. “I think it’s fascinating. There’s a story about Revibe that’s just waiting to be told. What can I do to convince you to trust me?”
“Hmm, let’s see … Oh, I’ve got it: you could go back in time to May and leave me alone.”
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Delete my e-mail from last night,” I said. “Never quote it, or photograph it, or post it where anyone could ever see it.”
“Done,” she said. “What else do you need?”
I paused. Because maybe there was something she could do.
Somehow, and completely without my expecting it, I had something that Lisa wanted. So now the question that occurred to me was: What did I want from her?
“If you get to ask me about Revibe,” I said, “it’s only fair that I get to ask you some questions first.”
Repentance didn’t work for me. The idea that I was supposed to apologize to Lisa Rushall and that would fix me … I could not accept that.
But if I could get Lisa to apologize to me, if I could get her to actually see what she had done to me and regret it—well, that was the sort of repentance I could really get behind.
“Sure,” Lisa agreed. “I’m ready now. Ask away.”
This was a gift. This was what I had dreamed of for so long. This was finally my chance to understand why. After months of going around in circles, trying to figure out why hundreds of thousands of strangers would band together to hurt me, I could now simply ask for the explanation.
Just then, I heard a motion at the door to Valerie’s office. I froze, but it was only Jazmyn. And Jazmyn, it turned out, was on our side. “She’s coming,” she whispered at me, then ran.
“I’m going to need to call you back,” I said into the phone before hanging up. And then I ran, too.