Ella waited outside. Gertie looked in. It was a wreck. Shredded papers were stacked by inches on the floor. The walls were painted with red Sharpie. Fuck You! someone had carved （With a letter opener? A knife?） into the small wooden desk. There were no windows here.
Rhea’s office.
“What are we doing?” Gertie asked.
Ella just stood there. She had a plain face, phlegmatic. And Gertie understood that this expression concealed a very real rage. This house was like that. It concealed. And then in corners, things burst out.
“Are you going to tell your mother you saw me?”
Ella picked a key from her dress pocket and held it out. “There’s a box in the bottom drawer. It’s Shelly’s. I want you to show me what’s inside. I’m the only one with the key. I took it to make Shelly mad. I used to take things from her.”
Gertie walked over. Her belly was too big to sit at the desk to check, so she pushed the chair aside. Opened the bottom drawer. A lockbox. On it was written: Pain Box.
Gertie felt a rush of relief.
She pulled it out, noticed the papers underneath. Printed-up newspaper articles. The one on top read, “In Aftermath of Hungarian Pastry Shop Accident, Little Jessica Suffers Aneurysm.” The picture was of a girl who looked just like Shelly. Long, black hair. Fair skin and eyes. High cheekbones. About the same age, too. But the paper was dated 2005.
Gertie pointed. “Do you know who this is?”
Ella shook her head. “Shelly?”
Gertie shut the drawer. “Looks like her, doesn’t it?”
Ella placed the key on the desk. “Will you show me what’s inside?”
“You’re sure?” Gertie asked.
The girl’s eyes watered. “Please show me.”
Gertie opened. It took a while because it was bent at the top, the lock inside it twisted. She had to jiggle it to unclench the spring. It popped open. It was empty except for a set of blue silk hair ribbons and a phone.
“What is it?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know,” Gertie answered. “We have to charge it to find out. Do you think I can take it home with me?”
“Shelly’s my sister. Did you know that? Lots of people don’t know because we don’t look the same.”
“Yeah, honey. I know.”
“Will you show me what’s in it if I let you have it?”
“I will, sweetheart.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.” Gertie closed the box, put the phone in her pocket. Then she bent down to eye level. “Are you okay, honey? Why aren’t you at camp?”
“I need to be close for when she climbs out. I watched all the Buffys. Even season six. So we can play like she used to want. I’ll be Dawn and she can be Buffy. Because I’m her sister. Her real sister, not like Julia. Julia’s not her real sister.”
“That sounds so nice, honey. Was there anything else Shelly was keeping? Secrets?”
“There was only that. Know why she called it her Pain Box?” Ella asked. “Because she was always hurting. I hurt her by telling on her. I won’t tell on her anymore. When she climbs out.”
“No. You’ll be a wonderful sister. Are you going to tell that I was here?”
Ella shook her head. So calm. So odd. Like a miniature adult. “Shelly wouldn’t like it. Did you know she wanted to live with you?”
Gertie squeezed the lockbox to her chest, her voice rough. “That would have been nice,” she said, as a car rushed past the kitchen window. Rhea’s car.
Hempstead Turnpike
Saturday, July 31
Rhea’s vision turned spotty. Her heart pounded so hard that she could feel her pulse in her eyes. Everything flashed, just like the ending of the movie The Black Hole. She was going to faint. She pulled to the side of the road.
She’d done something. A bad thing.
She’d spit. So ugly. So base. But something else. She’d talked about her dad. Allen had no business knowing anything about her saint of a dad! She’d said that because of her dad, she had something wrong with her. That she was damaged. She wasn’t damaged! She was the perfect outcome of a perfect family!
Cars passed around her, slow, even though she’d left them plenty of room.
Why was her heart beating so hard?
Attachment disorder? It was true that she’d never been close to other people. Not after her dad, and even then, that closeness had been a kind of lie （the orange juice, the milk, the swerving car, The Black Hole）。 In all the years she’d been raised by him, lived in his house, she’d never once had a friend over, or laughed like the people on TV. She’d only laughed later, with Gertie. She’d always assumed the media lied. That no one was really close to anyone. And they weren’t, were they?