clearly pegged Beth as someone Alex had duped. Perhaps he had.
“Let me write you a check,” Chloe said. “My uncle’s generous with me, as is Alex, though I worry about things he does. Whatever the case, it’s terrible for you to be out any money. Do you have five minutes? We’ll run back to the apartment now. No worries.”
Nothing had changed about the Belgravia except the bright wreaths now festooning the front doors.
“Chloe,” the doorman said, then nodded at Beth.
Passing through the marble lobby and under the chandeliers, Beth tried to imagine herself back into the first time she came here, but couldn’t.
They entered the apartment and Chloe began looking for her checks.
“They must be in the bedroom.”
Beth felt pressure build behind her eyes. She imagined telling everyone the trip to Paris had been canceled. She imagined Leah and her mother looking at her, thinking she’d screwed things up or gotten too emotional. Again. She imagined her grandmother telling her she shouldn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself if she wanted to meet another nice young man.
Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry. She noticed an Air France ticket on the coffee table for the flight she was supposed to have taken. The ticket had Chloe’s name on it and a receipt confirmed its purchase by Alex two days prior. How could he? But Beth had trouble blaming Alex. Perhaps he was trapped-all the “family stuff” he mentioned. And here she was, sitting in his apartment, allowing his stepsister to send her away with a check. What would Alex think when he found out she’d accepted a paltry sum-nothing compared with the fortune the two of them could make-instead of opting for a life of love and adventure with him? Her mind reeled. It made no sense to let Alex down. She loved him too much. He loved her.
There, on the table, a silver letter opener with a filigreed handle caught her eye. It wasn’t sharp, but it might do. She stepped on the Oriental runner in the hallway to avoid making noise as she came up behind Chloe, who was searching a drawer beneath the bed. Before Chloe could turn around, Beth plunged the letter opener into her neck. Chloe gasped and collapsed over the drawer.
But something was wrong. The weapon wouldn’t go deeper and Chloe was still alive, trying to move. Beth withdrew the makeshift knife, causing Chloe to scream and blood to gush out of the wound onto her white cashmere sweater. Beth forced the weapon into a new spot in Chloe’s neck. More blood, more gasping, but Chloe still breathed. Her eyes were open and her mouth twisted with pain.
Beth stood up, sweating and weak. She didn’t have much time. She found Chloe’s passport first. They both had brown eyes but Beth’s hair was dark. To play a convincing Chloe and make it to the airport by six-fifteen, she’d need to leave the Belgravia, visit a hair salon, and return to pack. She didn’t want to take any chances and decided to leave and come back as Chloe in case the doorman was paying attention. Finding scissors, she slit open the bag around Chloe’s head, then cut off all the blond hair not covered in blood. She tied up her own hair, then used clips to fasten Chloe’s to the edges, hiding the jagged line between the two with a winter hat. It looked amazingly natural. She hustled into Chloe’s coat, grabbed her purse, and ran out.
The afternoon became a series of tasks: she was Chloe, rushing to finish errands; she was Beth, discarding hair in the restroom at Liberty Place and washing flecks of blood off her wrists; she was whichever one’s credit card she used, stopping by Liquid Salon, explaining she was about to go to France to meet her fiance and wanted to surprise him by going blond. Could a colorist do that in the next two hours?
She was Beth, but with honey-colored hair, anxious to get things from her apartment, then suddenly aware of a police cruiser parked on Pine and 19th, so she was Chloe again, walking past Beth’s apartment, no turning back, and heading home.
“Chloe,” the doorman nodded.
She packed as if she might stay in France a long time and got ready to leave. It was a shame about the body-how odd it looked with hacked-off hair. She turned off the heat and opened the bedroom windows. The corpse might not smell for weeks if it stayed cold.
She was Beth, anticipating a romantic getaway with her boyfriend. She was Chloe, anticipating holidays with family. She was
SWIMMING BY HALIMAH MARCUS
Tom and Jackie Middleton’s swimming pool is the jewel of Narbrook Circle. The cool aqua rectangle is nestled on the western side of the Middletons’ house, which sits atop a hill and presides over the neighborhood. Standing on the porch of that home, one can easily survey the luscious green neighborhood, the houses that border it, and the stream that divides it in two. Narberth, their town, is a self-conscious time capsule of small-town America, always preserving old traditions alongside new ones: the Memorial Day parade, relay races at the playground, fireworks on the Fourth of July. Although the outskirts of Philadelphia begin only a few miles away, Narbrook Circle is the isolated within the isolated, a suboasis of the suburban oasis, a place as calm and beautiful as any place you could hope to be.
Tom, a psychiatrist, sees clients in the finished side of their basement. There is a separate back entrance to a room containing an armchair and a comfortable couch adorned with too many pillows. There’s a side table with a box of tissues, a Venetian screen hiding an exercise bike, and nothing on the walls. One of Tom’s clients is a seventeen-year-old boy by the name of Seth Lever. Seth attends a private Quaker school on City Avenue, where Jackie happens to be the guidance counselor. Seth is tall for his age and good looking, although he doesn’t seem to know it. He dresses the same way he probably has since middle school: old T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. In recent months Seth has become noticeably withdrawn and begun to fail his classes. While she did her best to help him, Jackie felt that Seth needed more frequent, longer sessions-beyond what she has time for-and that he might benefit from the positive male influence of her husband.
During their first session together, Seth plops down on the couch and says, “First off, you should know that I don’t want to be here, and that I think therapy’s bullshit.”
After that, Seth says very little. He reveals only the most basic of information: his parents are divorced; he is bored by high school and thinks maybe he’ll go to college to study music, if he goes at all. When Tom presses for more information, Seth mentions that he is also in the chess club at school and reads chess strategy books.
“I play a little chess myself,” says Tom.
“Oh yeah?” Seth brightens.
“Sure, not so much now, but I was crazy about it in college. Used to reenact Bobby’s games and whatnot. Fischer, I mean. We could play sometime.”
“No thanks,” says Seth, but Tom can see that he’s tempted.
For Seth’s next session, Tom brings the chess set down to the basement, just in case. He’s read about therapists doing this-playing games with their clients to put them at ease. Seth is fairly nervous and it would be good for him to be able to relate to Tom over something he already understands.
The thing is, Seth isn’t a shy kid. Tom can see that by the way he sits on the couch, leaning back, taking up lots of space. When he does speak he speaks confidently, knowing exactly how much he will reveal before he opens his mouth, unlike many people who negotiate with themselves halfway through a sentence.
At first, Tom doesn’t mention the chess set, and Seth doesn’t bring it up either. Tom begins as he normally would, by asking Seth what his goals are for therapy.
