Page 73 of The Change
The girl in the picture was the one they’d just buried.
Nessa rubbed at her eyes as if trying to scrub away the image they’d seen. “Why would your client have a picture like that?”
“I think her husband took it,” Jo said. “Rosamund must have found it and—”
“Jo?” Harriett interrupted. “Hold on for one second. Where did those flowers come from?”
All three heads swiveled toward the enormous vase of white lilies that stood on one corner of the changing room counter. They were identical to the ones Harriett had received at her house.
“I don’t know.” Jo felt the blood drain from her face. She hadn’t noticed the flowers until that moment. She stuck her head out of the changing room door and called for Heather, who immediately rushed over. “Do you know where that bouquet came from?” Jo asked.
“No idea. When they arrived, I asked Art, but he said he hadn’t sent them. So I put them in here. I can’t believe they still look that good. They’ve lasted for over a week.”
“What day did the delivery come?” Harriett asked.
“Memorial Day,” Heather answered.
Rosamund Harding Wasn’t Herself
Rosamund lay very still as the two women walked toward her across the beach. She wasn’t convinced they were real. And if they weren’t real, what the hell could they be? Her heart fluttered inside her chest. One of them looked like the lady from the gym. But that didn’t make any sense. Why would she be here? And why did she keep getting closer?
Rosamund slid on her sunglasses and shut her eyes. The dark could be trusted. The dark was real.
She opened her eyes, and her heart hurled itself against her ribs. The women were only a few yards away, and Spencer wasn’t home. There was no one around to say they were figments of her imagination. No one could tell her the sound of their footsteps was all in her head. For once, Rosamund had to figure it out for herself.
It was a sign, she decided. She’d put that picture inside the locker for safekeeping. Now the woman who ran the gym had shown up. She’d saved Rosamund once—she might be able to do it again.
Chertov came out of the house, and he looked angry. That meant he could see them, too. That meant they were real. She had one chance to get a message to the gym lady before the bodyguard caught her. So Rosamund plucked an apple out of the bowl on the table and carved the word that had been stuck in her head.
People always said they couldn’t imagine what she had gone through. Rosamund knew they weren’t being sincere. Of course they could fuckingimagineit. What happened to her was their worst nightmare. You get right to the brink of glory and fame. The girl who takes your cash at the supermarket loses her shit when she realizes that’s you on the cover ofPeoplemagazine. Famous brands literally beg to sponsor you. Nike has a campaign just waiting to roll. You’ve got your own line of swimsuits and lingerie ready to launch right after the games. Thenpoof!One day you slip on a patch of ice and tear a ligament. Suddenly everything you’ve worked for your whole life is gone.
Of course people could imagine it. They just didn’t want to. Because no one wants to admit their world is that fragile. No one wants to think that in less than a year, they could go from being America’s sweetheart to a drug-addled drunk. But they could. Rosamund never bothered to point that out. She was content to sink into her own private abyss. She didn’t crave anyone else’s company.
She’d met Spencer at her worst. She got so drunk on their first date that she still couldn’t understand why he’d ever asked for a second. It took a year to wean herself off the painkillers she’d kept taking long after her ankle had healed and the booze that wrapped her double-edged depression in a cloud of cotton wool. When the cravings were too bad to bear, she’d head for the gym. She’d been clean for six months when they married.
The anxiety was harder to shake. She found it difficult to socialize, but Spencer didn’t seem to mind. He was always jetting off to meet a client in one exotic locale or another. There were a handful of events he needed her to attend every year. The rest of the time, Rosamund stayed at home with all the other beautiful things he’d collected.
She felt guilty that she wasn’t yet well enough to be by his side.
“Rosamund, don’t torture yourself,” he told her. “I love you just as you are.”
She adored Spencer. She honestly believed that he’d saved her. She tried so hard to be better for him.
She’d spotted the flyer on the bulletin board at Furious Fitness when they were in town to see what their decorator had done at the new house Spencer had bought on the Pointe. “PERSONAL ASSISTANT, CARETAKER, NANNY,” read the headline. At the bottom of the page was a photo of a teenage girl who looked like Anne of Green Gables. Rosamund laughed. The girl was just what she needed. Someone to answer the fan mail that still came. Someone to make her the smoothies that would help her get into shape. Someone to hold her back from the edge. At the bottom of the page, the same telephone number had been typed a dozen times, and the paper was cut into a tear-away fringe. Rosamund ripped a number off and dialed it when she got to the car.
The girl’s name was Mandy, and Rosamund’s call took her by surprise. No one else had answered the ad. After she heard that, Rosamund offered her twice as much as she’d planned. She could sense how desperately the girl needed money, and it made her feel good to be able to give it. When she got off the phone, Rosamund felt more hopeful than she had in ages. Mandy was coming to see her that afternoon.
As evening approached, Rosamund waited and waited, but the girl never showed. She kept calling Mandy’s number, and once she could have sworn she heard a phone ringing.
She told Spencer about it when he brought her a cup of tea. “Go to bed, darling,” he advised. “You’re upset and your mind’s playing tricks on you. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
She didn’t feel better, though. She felt groggy and sick.
After that night, she began seeing things—like the long, black hair on his robe. She heard strange sounds in the dark. Visitors seemed to arrive at strange hours of the night. Rosamund was acting crazy, her husband said. And Spencer was getting very worried.
Then she discovered the photos. There were three inside a portfolio case. At the bottom of one, someone had writtenFAITH. Rosamund stole an unlabeled photo and stuck it in a locker at the gym. Even then, she wasn’t convinced that it was what it looked like. It had to be some kind of weird art instead. Then Chertov showed up at the gym, and she knew she’d found something real.
That was Rosamund’s last truly lucid memory.
