Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
When you're living a lie, you find it's best to avoid close attachments entirely. Other people might see you for what you really are, and that might mean anything. From a beating to a jail sentence to never being seen again. Walk into someone's life with the right energy, a convincing enough smile, and you might leave with something. But if you want to get away with it, you'll be on your own. In the end, you're supposed to be.
If you steal from people, you spend your whole life watching them, looking for patterns and missteps. You can get so hung up on their failures that you don't even notice yours. I think that's what I like about it. That's why Clare had to go. She saw things she shouldn't have. And things in me I didn't see in myself. Clare thought there was hope for everyone. She thought I could still change.
* * *
I buy a drab, secondhand suit on my way to the station, trying to look like somebody I'm not. At Gare du Nord, I stand in line and pay in cash. Then I clear security and catch the first train off the continent. I never got around to packing that bag, and I spent the last of my euros on the ticket. After the way things had completely unraveled with Clare, it seemed only right to leave empty-handed. When I start to see the smoke rolling through London, it feels more like a mistake. I'm blowing Paris with a cheap mismatching suit, a dead iPhone, and my pride. Climbing off the train at St. Pancras, it doesn't feel like enough.
I grab an apple from the food court and slide a Coke into my pocket from the fridge in a Starbucks. There's an unattended phone charger I've got my eye on, but then I'm hovering over a handbag, left out on the same table, and I have to walk myself to the door.
I need to slow everything down somehow. Even if I'm not quite ready to stop. I need somewhere safe where I can close my eyes and unclench for a few seconds. So I take an escalator underground, pick my moment, and hurdle the barrier. I walk through a long, winding tunnel, then take the first train I see, ride it for a while, and change. I change again and again, until it feels right.
And at some point, I must finally let my guard down and nod off, because when the train jolts, I snap back, with the sensation that I'm being watched. I hold my eyes shut for a few seconds, giving no outward hint that I'm awake. Then I open them wide, taking everything in. It's just disinterested commuters and warning signs.
Looking up and down the carriage, I can see I'm the only person on here without any luggage and that even though the train's full, the seats on either side of me are both empty. I see I'm sending out all the wrong signals and try to smarten myself up.
When the train terminates a minute later, we come to an abrupt stop. The lights flicker, then fade out. I don't move for a few seconds, listening to the hum of the engine powering down. The doors slide open, and the other passengers grab their stuff, groping their way out of the dark carriage. I start to follow them, but then the light comes back, and I'm surprised by my reflection in the window. No cash, no case, no traveling companion. I'm the only person here who's going nowhere.
* * *
Out on the platform, a sign confirms what I thought the driver had just said. Heathrow, Terminal 5. It's the last stop on the Piccadilly Line. And with no cash, that might be a problem. For starters, I haven't gotten a ticket to get off the platform and into the airport with. And there's a security goon, standing on the barrier. I'm stuck for a second until I spot an older woman on the platform, wrestling with too much luggage. I take a deep breath, smooth back my hair, and approach her with a smile.
"Excuse me," I say, neutralizing my accent. "I couldn't help but notice..."
I insist on carrying all three of her cases at once, then make a big thing about it at the barriers. Like I'm struggling with the weight and can't spare a hand to find my ticket or phone. The guard looks past me at the people waiting, then opens the gate and lets us both through. I take the old girl's cases as far as the lift for her on the other side; I even give her a little salute like a bellboy.
"What a nice young man," she says with one of those blue-veined hands on her heart.
"Safe trip," I say with a smile.
Once I'm inside the terminal, my lack of luggage won't even look strange. Right now, I know it marks me out. After buying my discount suit this morning, I'd found a quiet alley, off the boulevard, then dowsed the clothes that Clare bought me with lighter fluid and burned them.
...
