twenty-three

WHAT NADIA SAW

I have Taylor to blame for all of this. She had the brilliant idea of looking up the details of the Farouk penthouse online, so we could see if there might be any way to sneak in. She found a big article in a glossy magazine about the building, which apparently was new just a few years ago, and in the gush of purple prose about its famous architect and interior designer, we learned more about how the very rich live than I really wanted to know. All the penthouse apartments have saunas and wet rooms and built-in climatized closets for fur storage and temperature-controlled wine rooms. They also have service lifts, so that when a delivery arrives downstairs with the doorman, no one in Penthouse A, B, or C has to do anything as vulgar as going downstairs to collect it (just imagine!). Instead, the doorman signs for it, rings upstairs to make sure someone’s in to receive it, and then puts it in the appropriate lift.

“Wow,” Taylor had said, reading that aloud. “You could order Chinese food and it would arrive in your apartment, like the restaurant was in your basement. How cool is that?”

For security reasons, the lifts aren’t full-size, the article explained. From my perspective, they aren’t even half-size. As the Penthouse C lift slowly judders and rattles its way up the shaft, I am packed in tighter than cartons of Chinese delivery food under a delivery guy’s moped seat. My stomach is so squashed into my knees that I’m beginning to feel queasy. My face is pressed into the metal floor of the lift, which is really cold. And one of my feet is torqued at an odd angle, which is beginning to hurt.

It’s stopped! My heart jolts as hard as the lift coming to a halt. I actually squeeze my eyes shut, so scared that I’m stuck in the lift shaft and Taylor will have to send in the troops to rescue me and we will both be in the worst trouble in the world.

The doors aren’t opening. And it’s not just my panic that’s stretching time out infinitely, making the couple of seconds before they slide open seem like an eternity. Oh no. They’re really not opening. And there’s no thin strip of light between them that would show that we’ve reached Penthouse C, which would at least mean that I could try to force them open and climb out.

Oh God. I feel nausea rising up my esophagus. Acid bites at the back of my mouth. If I have to ring Taylor, this entire mission will be aborted.  .  .  . They’ll have to get the Fire Brigade in to save me.  .  .  . Nadia will hear about it and she’ll tell everyone at St. Tabby’s, the humiliation will be worse than anything I’ve been through before.  .  .  . Even Dan’s death wasn’t humiliating, because he wanted to kiss me, but this, well, I might as well just kill myself now.

It occurs to me that by the time the Fire Brigade or the lift engineers come that problem may well be solved. I will probably have run out of oxygen by then anyway. They’ll have to drag my corpse out of the lift.

This idea is not as comforting as my brief fantasies of suicide might have made it seem. I thrash around frantically, trying to get to my mobile phone. But guess what? I am wedged so tightly into this dog-kennel of a lift that I can’t get to my phone. I can feel its outline in my jeans pocket, but my arms are sandwiched between my legs and the walls, squashed in like a sausage in its casing, and I can hardly get any movement in them, let alone extract one and reach into my pocket. The phone is right there. It’s actually digging uncomfortably into my thigh. But it might as well be on the moon for all the use it is to me.

I stop thrashing around, as that’s making the lift rock precipitously and I’m scared I might break the cable and send it crashing to the ground floor. The acid in my throat is making me retch a little. I’m more frightened than I’ve ever been before in my life. And with horror, I realize something that hadn’t occurred to me before.

I weigh too much for this lift. It’s all my own fault. I am so fat that I have managed to jam this lift between floors. Oh God. What fun Plum and Nadia and Venetia and Sophie will have with this. I can’t bear it. I physically can’t bear it. My foot, which is twisted under me, is starting to hurt really badly now. I’m scared my entire body is going into spasm.

And then, suddenly, the lift jerks under me, like a horse that’s finally decided to start walking again. I catch my breath, unsure if this is good or bad. But how could it be bad, how could movement be bad—even if we’re going down again, at least I’m going somewhere there might be fresh air, which has to be better than this.

The lift sighs, clanks, gathers itself up, and starts rising again. My face presses harder into the metal floor, as if it’s coming up to squash me. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but getting out of this bloody contraption. I am so grateful I could cry.

It stops again. I realize I’m still holding my breath. The doors ping open. Daylight floods in. I hear a weird yelping noise and realize that’s me, letting out my breath on a hysterical sob of relief. I’m really glad no one else was around to hear that.

Ironically, it takes ages to untwist my pretzeled body and crawl out of the lift, and the doors keep trying to shut on different bits of me. But finally, I clamber out and onto a granite shelf, which seems more than capable of bearing my weight. I sit there, looking around, getting my bearings, and firing off a quick text to Taylor so she knows I made it in okay and not to stage an emergency lift extraction on my behalf.

This place is even more impressive in the daytime. I’m in the main hallway, and there’s a big skylight above it through which daylight pours down, showing how shiny and spotless and gleaming every surface here is. Marble floors, granite shelves, walls painted faux tortoiseshell, waist-high vases filled with exotic flowers. Their florist bill alone must be gigantic.

I jump down from the shelf and stroll into the living room, which I remember from the party. It looks like a film set. I can’t believe people actually live here. The mirrored bar glitters with reflected sunlight bouncing off the faceted bottles and glasses; the leather sofas are arranged at perfect right angles to each other. There’s nothing out of place here, not a newspaper thrown on the floor or a mug with coffee dregs standing on one of the many smoky-glass coffee tables.

Through the French doors I can see the terrace, and if I went up to them I could see the exact spot where Dan died. But I don’t. It would be too much of a temptation to go outside, and I’m sure I can’t, as the doors must be alarmed. Besides, I need to focus on what I’m doing, searching for anything that might help me work out why Nadia left me that note. If I start remembering that night right now, back in the place where it all happened, I know I’ll start crying, and I mustn’t do that. I mustn’t. For all I know, Nadia might be back really soon. I didn’t go through that terrifying ride in the lift just to get caught here by Nadia.

So I turn my back on the French doors and the terrace, setting my teeth against the temptation, and begin to make a circuit of the apartment, looking for Nadia’s room. In the process, I learn something about myself: I am a horrible snoop. I want to look in everything, every single drawer and cupboard, open every door to see what’s behind it. I am massively curious about how these people live, what they own, what their secrets are. I keep reminding myself that only Nadia is my business, but it’s really hard to keep going through this lavishness without gawking at everything in sight.

The wet room and sauna are particularly impressive.

I don’t know what I was imagining that Nadia’s room would be like. I don’t even realize it’s hers at first. I mean, she just left it to go out to brunch, she’s the only person in residence here, with no one to shout at her for not picking up her clothes from the floor, and yet her room is so tidy and spotless that at first I actually assume it’s yet another spare bedroom. It’s done in pale greens and even paler yellows and it looks incredibly elegant, like a guest room in a magazine, with everything matching and perfectly in place. The silk coverlet is embroidered with a pattern of white bamboo, and the bed is piled high with white and pale gold silk pillows that look pretty but must be really slippery to sit on or put behind your head if you want to curl up in bed. The light green carpet is so thick and plush you could sleep on it. There’s an en suite bathroom all in pale yellow. It’s gorgeous. It’s just weird that it feels like no one actually lives here. I only realize it’s Nadia’s room when I open one of the wall-full of built-in cupboards and recognize her clothes hanging there. My God. She has an entire cupboard just for her jeans. I goggle at it for a long time in utter and complete jealousy.

Then I pull myself together and get to the task at hand: searching through her stuff. I don’t know what I’m looking for, or even if there’s anything to find. But Taylor and I decided that this had to be the first step. We didn’t think that confronting Nadia would have any results at all: she’d just deny everything and say Lizzie is a delusional idiot, which, frankly, would be hard to counter. We need some evidence, something concrete.

There’s a laptop on the built-in desk, open and humming quietly to itself, but I leave that as a last resort. When I write down private things, I don’t put them on my computer. Computers can crash, or be nicked. People can hack into them and copy all your private stuff in five minutes and print out tons of copies for everyone else to laugh over. It happened to a girl at St. Tabby’s a few years above us—someone worked out her password, accessed her diary, and put pages from it in everyone’s pigeonholes, all about her secret crushes and how much she ate every day. After that, I’d never trust my private stuff to a computer, and I doubt any St. Tabby’s girl would either.

It takes me fifteen minutes to find it. It isn’t under the mattress. I didn’t think there’d be anything there, because in a place this smart, the maid must be changing the sheets and turning the mattress on a regular basis, so that wouldn’t be a safe place to hide anything. It’s on the bookshelf, which is pretty clever of her. Like in “The Purloined Letter,” where the best place to hide something is in plain view, in a really obvious place, so no one would even think it was being hidden at all. It’s in a row of books with similar spines, brightly colored hardbacks, and she’s even gone so far as to write something on the spine, so at first or second glance it just looks like one of many, something your eye would skim over in passing. Nothing that would make you think: Oh, that looks like a private diary! and pull it off the shelf for a good old snoop.

It’s a really nice notebook, the size of a hardback book, covered in yellow and pink matte paper that feels very heavy and expensive. I sit down on the floor (the bed’s so perfectly made I’m worried about creasing the silk coverlet; I don’t think I could ever get it that smooth again, and I mustn’t leave any signs of my presence here) and start thumbing through the pages.

The first words that catch my eye are the ones that started this whole thing:

It wasn’t your fault.

I read on, my whole attention riveted to the page.

I sit and look at those words for a long time. I want to write more, I really do.

But I’m scared.

I rip through the pages, speed-reading now.

The lesson is not that it’s hard to keep a secret.

The lesson is that it’s impossible to keep a secret.

This is too much for me to hold. I feels as if I’m going to explode with it. My head actually hurts with the effort of not telling anyone what I saw.

Okay, I take a deep breath and stop for a second. If Nadia saw something, she’ll have written it earlier than this  .  .  . earlier than her endless debates with herself about whether she should try to get me the information or not.

I flick back, and back, and back, looking for my name and Dan’s.

Which aren’t hard to find.

Scarlett came to school today to pick up her stuff. We had a go at her by her locker. She grabbed Plum and pushed her. I couldn’t believe it. Plum was actually scared, you could tell. Ever since she got her chin reduced, she’s been terrified of anything happening to her face.

I told Sophia I felt sorry for Scarlett. Big mistake. I can’t believe I was that stupid. Plum owns Sophia. She just stared at me and said:

“But Scarlett got off with Dan, and Plum liked him! You don’t do that! I mean, everyone knew Plum liked Dan!”

God, she’s like a little Plum-bot—press a button in her back and Plum’s voice comes out.  .  .  .

I can’t help giggling at this. Plum-bot’s pretty good.

But I’m a Plum-bot, too. We all are. I really fancied Dan and I would never have made a move, never, because of what Plum would have done to me. I’m as pathetic as Sophia.

Yes, you are, I think smugly.

And look at Scarlett! She’s no better! She gave me this really stuck-up look when we were all having a go at her, but she dropped those two frumpy friends of hers like a shot when I invited her to my party! And then she turned up dressed just like us, not in that crappy exercise stuff she usually wears. Desperate to fit in. She’s just as pathetic as we are!

Alison and Luce. She’s right. I betrayed them. I feel so guilty it’s like a big lump in my throat just thinking about them.

Nadia and I are the same. Or at least, we share something. The need to be liked and wanted, to be part of a cool group, to feel admired. And the moral weakness that means we’ll make compromises, sacrifice things, to fit in. Alison and Luce, for me. And Nadia: well, you don’t stay a slim-as-a-wand Plum-bot by eating nice nourishing healthy meals three times a day.

I flick back through the pages. Looking for my name.

Simon’s got this huge crush on that girl Scarlett in our year. He spotted her sitting on a bench after school with those two ugly friends of hers. I don’t know why she even caught his eye—they always look so shitty. Pink and shiny and dressed in really unflattering exercise clothes. It must be her tits. God, I’d love to have tits. Maybe I can talk Mother into paying for them. Venetia wants a boob job, too. We could go together.

Anyway, Simon keeps asking questions about Scarlett, in that really casual way that just makes it obvious how much he’s crushing on her. He goes bright red whenever Plum says her name. Plum’s really funny, she calls it “going Scarlett,” which makes him worse, of course. Plum says to invite Scarlett to my next party so Simon can get off with her. I don’t want people at St. Tabby’s thinking I ask just anyone to my parties, or they’ll all pester me for invitations, but Simon is so rich it’s not true. And as Plum says, Scarlett might actually be okay-looking if she bothered to do anything about her appearance.

Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves, right? “Might actually be okay-looking.” Wow. I feel so flattered.

Actually, what I feel is cross all over again at seeing the part about my only being invited as a present for Simon. You were like a gift bag, Taylor had said when I told her the story. (In America, apparently, guests sometimes receive a present for coming to a party. Weird.)

I was Simon’s gift bag. Charming.

I grit my teeth and flick forward again. I’ve gone too far back. It’s hard to find the right place  .  .  . the pages are fine and Nadia’s writing is small and tight, the black ink running through the thin paper and making it hard to read.

And then I find it. I can feel my eyes widening as I read, as if it’s such a huge piece of information, my irises actually need to get bigger to take it in.

It wasn’t Scarlett’s fault. It couldn’t have been. How could she have known Dan was allergic to nuts? We didn’t know, and we were his friends!

No, that’s not true. I’ve got to tell the truth here, even if I can’t tell it anywhere else. That’s what my therapist says, that’s why I’m writing this diary. I have to release the pressure somehow, that’s what she says, and here’s a good place to start.

Plum knew. She must have known.

I didn’t realize what I was seeing at the time. I was looking for fags—I can’t believe I’d run out so fast, I really need to cut down——and Plum always has some. So I went to look in her bag. I didn’t even bother asking her, we’re always in and out of each other’s bags for all kinds of stuff. And I knew which one it was—the Marc Jacobs in chestnut with the limited-edition buckle.

There weren’t any cigarettes in it after all. Weird. Plum must be running through them even faster than me. I just closed up the bag again and went to see who had some Silk Cut Ultras. And the thing I saw inside  .  .  . I did mean to ask her about it, but the party was raging and it went out of my head. I mean, it was odd, but not that interesting.

But later, when the police were talking to us, I realized what I’d seen in Plum’s bag. It was bright yellow—it looked like a big marker pen, and it was in a plastic case with a yellow top. At the time I just thought, what does Plum need a marker pen for? And then I realized, because the police were describing it to us, and asking if we’d seen it.

It was Dan’s EpiPen. If he’d had it on him, he wouldn’t have died. And it was in Plum’s bag.

I can’t believe what I’m reading.

I should have asked her about it straightaway. Dan’s death was an accident, it must have been! And there’s probably some very good explanation for why his EpiPen was in Plum’s bag.

And Plum probably didn’t tell anyone because it was too late anyway and she was embarrassed.

But it’s never good to make Plum feel embarrassed. If I do ask her about it, she’ll be so angry with me when I tell her what I saw that she’ll send me to Coventry forever and then no one else will talk to me either.

I keep reading, to see if anything else is going to come up. But no. It goes into the bit I’ve already read, about me coming back to school to pick my stuff up  .  .  . lots of entries about parties, boys, endless whines about how fat she is, details of how far she’s run on the treadmill and how little she’s eaten that day  .  .  . blah blah blah  .  .  . then the bit about writing the note for me.  .  .  . Nothing more about me that I haven’t seen already.

I jump up and leave her room, carrying the diary. I remember seeing a lavishly equipped home office off the living room.