Page 53 of Every Step She Takes
I heard Karla’s words again, warning me not to speak to the media, not to believe anyone who said they were on my side.
I’d been played. Maureen Wilcox knew exactly the face to show me, exactly the angle to take, exactly the words to say. She got an exclusive interview by promising to tell my side of the story.
The only story she told was her own. Whatever fiction would sell her article and get her own name in the news.
I stared down at the paper. Then I folded it and tucked it into a drawer.
Let this be a lesson to you, Lucy. Every time you open that drawer, remember and learn. Be smarter. Be stronger.
I took a deep breath. Then I went to the kitchen to warn my mother.
Chapter Twenty-One
New York 2019
I stare at the TV reporter coming out of the bathroom. She looks like Maureen Wilcox, could be her if time had stood still, and I’m thrown back into that memory, the horror and humiliation and hurt.
Before the woman can look up, I stride past, and her heels click in the other direction. I zip out the back door, duck into an alley and jog behind a dumpster. An elderly woman peers down the lane, as if she saw me, but she doesn’t slow for a better look.
I keep seeing that article, feeling as if I’m back there again, reading it for the first time, and I start shaking so badly I need to lean against the wall.
It’s happening again. I’m going to see articles like that again.
I can’t do it. I just can’t.
I wrap my arms around myself, and squeeze my eyes tight and pull back into the present. I envision the article again through the eyes of Genevieve, older and at least slightly wiser.
I’d been so angry with myself for giving that interview. How could I be so stupid? Karla warned me. I knew better. Such a fool.
Looking back now, I don’t see a fool. I see a desperate and confused girl taken advantage of by a predator.
I’m sure Maureen Wilcox doesn’t see herself as a predator. Probably gazes back on that younger version of herself and applauds her chutzpah. A few years ago, I looked her up. Her article about me didn’t launch a career. She’d quit journalism school to work for theGazetteand was fired two years later for fabricating a story.
Maybe that should make me feel vindicated. It doesn’t. She isn’t the one who will come across the wordferalorhomelyfourteen years later and feel physically ill. I trusted a young reporter who claimed sisterhood, and she publicly pilloried me for a byline.
I’ll never be that naive again. Articles will come, and they will say horrible things that I’ll feel fourteen years from now. That thought might make my stomach clench, but at least I know I will never be an active participant in my own humiliation again.
I’ve just fled a reporter. I made a clean escape, but I need to be more careful. More alert and aware in a way I haven’t been for fourteen years. In a way I wasn’t, even then.
I stand in that alley and take deep breaths, ignoring the stink of New York garbage bins in June. Then I send a text to Thompson.
Me:Your news crew has arrived.
Silence. I think he’s going to leave it at that, which is fine. I just couldn’t resist comment. Then my phone pings with an incoming text.
Thompson:I just spotted them myself. I am appalled by their audacity, and I apologize for not understanding how quickly they’d jump on this case.
Thompson:I know you’ve had regrettable experiences with their ilk in the past, and I don’t blame you for being upset. Please allow me to send a car to retrieve you, and we will meet at another location.
I laugh, a burbling laugh that edges a little too close to hysteria.
Me:A location where you can absolutely guarantee me that I won’t encounter either media or police? Because if I do, I’ll fire you in a heartbeat.
A long pause.
Thompson:I can’t guarantee anything, naturally, but I assure you, I will choose a place with as much discretion as humanly possible.
Me:That officer was right. Screwing your client over like this should be a hanging offense. Or at least grounds for disbarment.
