“Are you changing your mind?”
“No—”
“Because I took you at your word before, and I made plans based on that. But if you’re changing your mind, say so.”
“No, no, I can get it to you. I’ll send it to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Great, thanks. You won’t be sorry, I promise. I’m going to make it work this time.”
“I know you will.”
The two of them stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then Vinessa left. As Dana watched her walk away, she wondered what was the right word to describe their relationship.
Back in high school they’d been best friends. They spent all their time together, confided in each other, reduced each other to tears laughing. More than that, Dana had admired the way Vinessa didn’t care what anyone thought, how she refused to be boxed in; she got good grades because it was easy for her, and then openly mocked the teachers until they had no choice but to give her detention. Sometimes Dana wished she could have been as brave, but she was too comfortable with the role of teacher’s pet to do anything that might jeopardize that.
Then came the field trip to Washington, D.C. The two of them had planned to host a party in their hotel room for their last evening in the city, but there was the problem of what to do if a teacher knocked on the door: alcohol was too hard to hide, marijuana too easy to smell. Instead they collected Vicodin from their parents’ medicine cabinets, leftovers from Dana’s father’s gum surgery and Vinessa’s mother’s hysterectomy, enough for them and their friends.
What they hadn’t counted on was that one of the teachers had borrowed a key card from housekeeping to do surprise room checks. The very first night, Ms. Archer came in just as the two of them were recounting their stash, two dozen pills arranged in neat rows across the top of the dresser.
“What in the world is going on here?”
They both stood there for a long moment, mute as statues. Dana could see all her future plans evaporating like morning mist.
“Neither of you have anything to say?”
That was when she said it. “They’re Vinessa’s.”
And Vinessa looked at her, more shocked than anything else. She could have denied it, but they both knew it wouldn’t change anything, that Dana would be believed and Vinessa wouldn’t. There was a moment when Dana could have taken back what she said, when she could have confessed the truth, but she didn’t.
Vinessa was suspended. When she returned to school, she pointedly ignored Dana, for which Dana could hardly blame her, but that wasn’t the end of it. Angry at the world, she began acting out: shoplifting, staying out all night, coming to school drunk or stoned, and hanging out with kids who did the same. Her grades plummeted, and her chances of getting into a good college vanished. It was as if, before that night, Vinessa had been balanced on a knife’s edge; she could have become either what society considered a good girl or a bad girl. Dana’s lie had pushed her off the edge, onto the side of being bad, and with that label the course of Vinessa’s life had taken a different direction.
They lost touch after that, but Dana ran into her several years later. Vinessa told her she forgave her, said she understood why Dana had done it. Now, after some time in jail and a stint in rehab, she was trying to get her life back on track; she wanted to take classes at a community college, but she couldn’t afford the tuition on her own, and her parents had given up on her. Dana had immediately offered to help.
That first attempt hadn’t been a success; Vinessa had discovered that she couldn’t engage with college on an emotional level and dropped out. Later on she had tried to start her own business online, and asked Dana for some money to help her get off the ground. That hadn’t worked out, either; she had misjudged the expenses involved. Now she had an idea for another venture, but she wasn’t asking Dana for money for it. Vinessa’s plan was to take the classes needed for her to draw up a sound business proposal, which she would present to potential investors. And so now she was asking Dana for tuition money again.
Dana knew Vinessa was taking advantage of her feelings of guilt, but it didn’t matter. Dana was guilty. She owed her.
Nat was coming out of the restroom when she heard Dana talking to someone just around the corner, in the hallway. Nat stopped, leaned against the wall, and held her phone up to her ear as camouflage. Then she slid over until she could eavesdrop: someone was getting money out of Dana, but it wasn’t clear what the situation was. Was this woman running some kind of scam? Nat told herself she ought to find out more, just to make sure that there weren’t any surprises that could affect what she and Morrow were doing, but mostly she was just curious.
She went outside and caught up with the woman. “Excuse me, but do you know Dana?”
The woman eyed her suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m in a support group that she facilitates. I was just about to leave when I saw you two talking. I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but it looked like you were angry with her. I was just wondering if you had been in a group she facilitated, or been a patient of hers, and had a bad experience with her. I don’t mean to pry, I’m just wondering if there’s anything I ought to know about Dana.”
The woman chuckled. “That’s an interesting question. What kind of group are you in?”
“It’s for people who have issues with using prisms,” said Nat. At the dismissive look on the woman’s face, Nat decided to play a hunch. “I used to be in NA before, though.”
She gave a single nod. “But Dana wasn’t your facilitator for that, was she?”
“No.”
“Good, because I wouldn’t trust her with that. For that prism stuff, though, I’m sure she’s fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Can you tell me why you wouldn’t trust her for an NA group?”
She considered it, and then shrugged. “Sure, why not. Drinks are on you.”
They went to a nearby bar. The woman’s name was Vinessa, and Nat bought her a Maker’s Mark while sticking with a cranberry and soda for herself. Nat told a sanitized version of her history of drug use, one that could plausibly dovetail with her cover in the support group; she didn’t think Vinessa would mention this conversation to Dana, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful. Once she was satisfied with Nat’s cred, Vinessa started talking about her own past; she explained that she’d had all the potential in the world when she was in high school, that she’d been on the path to a prestigious college and a charmed life. It all came to an end when her best friend had betrayed her, selling her out to protect her own prospects. Ever since then Vinessa had been traveling a hard road, a road that she was getting off only now.
“Which is why I wouldn’t want her for an NA group. You can’t trust her not to turn you in.”
“Everything that happens in those groups is supposed to be confidential,” said Nat.
“So is a secret between best friends!” Some other people in the bar turned to look at them. Vinessa resumed at a regular speaking volume, “It’s not like she’s the worst person I’ve ever met; at least she has the decency to feel bad about what she did. But there are people you can count on for anything, and then there are people you can count on only for some things, and you’ve got to know who’s who.”
“You still see her, though.”
“Well, like I said, Dana’s good for some things. My point is she’s not good for everything. I learned that the hard way.”
Then Vinessa started talking about her plans to start her own business. Nat didn’t ask her about the money that she was getting from Dana, but she could tell it wasn’t a deliberate scam. Vinessa was just using Dana, offering her a chance to atone for her sins by providing financial support for Vinessa’s latest venture. Nat thanked Vinessa and promised she wouldn’t mention their conversation to anyone, and then headed home.