You Are Not Alone

by Greer Hendricks

Sean’s the first guy I really liked since I ended things with my college boyfriend. I began to fall for Sean months ago. I thought he felt the same.

AMANDA EVINGER WAS TWENTY-NINE. Single. Childless. She lived alone in a studio apartment in Murray Hill, not far from Grand Central Station. She worked as an emergency room nurse at City Hospital, an occupation so consuming and fast-paced it prevented her from forming close ties to her colleagues. She seemed like the perfect candidate, until she threw herself under the wheels of a subway train.

thirty-two, Cassandra is two years older

than Jane. It’s easily apparent the women—with their long, glossy black hair, gold-flecked brown eyes, and creamy skin—are sisters. But Cassandra is composed of sleek muscles, while Jane is softer and curvier, with a high, sweet voice.

Stacey, so small and scrappy and smart, who possesses at least a dozen Marvel T-shirts, a temper quick to flare, and a reservoir of loyalty that appears bottomless.

Daphne, who at thirty-two owns a chic boutique in the West Village and has the sort of innate sophistication that makes it easy to imagine her charming clothing designers and selecting styles that will entice her clients. Daphne always appears camera ready; her buttery-blond locks are professionally blown out twice a week, and her makeup is flawless.

And finally Beth from Boston, a thirty-four-year-old public defense attorney who often seems to be overwhelmed and a little flustered—her purse filled with crumpled receipts, half-eaten granola bars, hair bands, and loose chan...

“A loss like the one we’ve endured can cause fissures,” Cassandra begins. “Right here, right now, let’s make a vow that we won’t let that happen. With Amanda gone, it’s more important than ever we stay aligned.…” Cassandra reaches out to take the hands of Jane and Beth, who are closest to her. They in turn reach for Daphne and Stacey, forming a circle as they listen to Cassandra’s words: “Let’s remember why we came together in the first place. Let’s embrace the safety in our sisterhood.”

“I’m Cassandra Moore.” Her almond-shaped eyes are golden brown, and her cheekbones are high and sharp. Her shoulders are pulled back, and her posture is so flawless I can almost imagine a book balancing perfectly on the top of her head.

It’s no longer about the connection I feel toward Amanda. It’s the connection I want to feel with her friends.

They were a group of five: First Cassandra, Jane, and Valerie, then Beth—whom Valerie had gotten to know because they were neighbors in an apartment building—had joined the circle. And shortly thereafter, Beth had brought in Stacey.

Another stat from my Data Book: The percentage of adults who routinely eat on their own is estimated at 46 to 60 percent. Some studies show that eating alone is more strongly associated with unhappiness than any other factor, except mental illness.

woman with short, frizzy red hair was waiting by the small table.

“Hi, Stacey, I’m your public defender,” she’d said, her Boston accent sharpening her words. “My name is Beth Sullivan.”

When Beth had brought Cassandra and Jane to meet Stacey in the medium-security prison, they were immediately taken by the small blond woman whose eyes constantly flitted around while they chatted. It was as if Stacey always needed to see what might be coming at her, as if she was accustomed to being viewed as prey. “She deserves another chance,” Cassandra had said to Jane as they watched the guards round up all the prisoners at the end of visiting hour. “Beth was right.”

Cassandra and Jane had irrevocably changed my life in a week. I had to keep up the momentum. I wanted to tell them about my day when I thanked them for introducing me to Anne. I wanted to seem busy and interesting, like them.

SHE LOOKS LIKE AMANDA. Cassandra stares at her computer monitor, her skin prickling.

Cassandra studies Shay, her pulse quickening, as Shay tilts her head from side to side. Amanda’s eyes weren’t as widely spaced as Shay’s, and she didn’t have a cleft in her chin. But with the right clothes, the right hair, the right coaching …

One of the threats facing the group is Detective Santiago’s interest in Daphne’s connection to James. The other is Shay, and her unrelenting probing into Amanda’s life.

Cassandra remembers how they’d heard about the ER nurse from Valerie, who’d gone to City Hospital after fracturing her ankle stumbling off an uneven curb.

I get a good vibe from Amanda, Valerie had said to the rest of the women—Cassandra, Jane, Beth, Stacey, and Daphne—during their next meeting. You’ve all spent a little time with her by now. I think she’s one of us.

It’s Amanda’s old apartment. I guess it makes sense that a few weeks after her death her place has just become available. And that I would find it, since I’ve been scouring rental websites nearly every day. But how could I ever live there?

Then it began. “So, guess what I learned the other day?” Beth had looked around at the others, her expression revealing it wasn’t happy news. “My ex has a poetry reading next week at Slam.”

But Valerie lived in my building back then, and one day when I was struggling to get in some groceries, she helped me. Then she knocked on my door the next day to check on me.” Valerie interjected, “She knew I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“It would be a shame if he was told the time of the reading had changed and he arrived too late to do it.” The test had begun. Jane smiled. “Or if he got so nauseous he couldn’t stay onstage.” Beth threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, sweet justice! That would be perfect. But how could we make that happen?” Everyone fell quiet. It was important to see if Amanda took this further.

The Moore sisters knew their dear friend Amanda didn’t have a cat. So they must also have known I was lying all along.

It could prove invaluable later to have public evidence of Shay’s unrelenting desire to replicate elements of Amanda’s life. But it won’t be enough.

An even more urgent element must be established: The other women in the group must be led to believe Shay is obsessed with Amanda—and that her preoccupation has only been growing since Amanda’s death. Earlier tonight, the sisters tried to plant the seeds establishing Shay’s fixation by sending Beth and Shay on a collision course. Jane made separate dates with them to meet at the same CrossFit class. Jane canceled a few minutes before it began, pleading a fabricated work emergency.

“Hey, thanks.” The man spun around a quarter turn to fully face Amanda. He looked her up and down, appearing to like what he saw. “I’m James.”

CASSANDRA AND JANE ARRIVE at the restaurant twenty minutes before the others. They dined here earlier in the week to get a sense of the space. The best table, they agreed, is the circular booth in the back right-hand corner. It can comfortably fit five. Every member of the group will be in attendance tonight except for Valerie, who has another obligation.

“What we haven’t shared with you yet is that we bumped into Shay a few weeks ago. At the time we thought it was a coincidence. We took her to tea to see if we could get any more information from her. And she admitted something shocking.” Cassandra looks around at the intent faces of the others. “Shay was with Amanda on the subway platform right before Amanda died.” Daphne gasps as her hand flies to her mouth.

Everything is working beautifully. Even though Cassandra and Jane don’t enjoy deceiving the other women, it’s necessary to protect them. If they are ever questioned by the police about Shay—and if all goes well, they may be—their answers will be forthright and honest. They’d even pass a lie detector test if need be. As for Shay, she must be sacrificed. She will be a necessary, though unfortunate, casualty.

Cassandra looks around the table at her close friends, the women she considers her sisters. She would do anything for them. She has done things she would never have thought possible only a year ago. “Something is deeply wrong with her. She seems … unhinged.”

Although Cassandra and Jane created the fake profile for TedTalk and have been communicating with Shay on Cupid, tonight it will be Valerie who takes over Ted’s role.

Two years ago “MISS?” Valerie turned around, expecting the silver-haired gentleman who’d placed his lunch order to modify it. Instead, he snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “I just figured out who you are!”

Her instincts told her to seek out Cassandra and Jane. Even though she’d only seen them a few times since she’d fled from their hometown, they were the touchstones of her childhood. The memories she held of them seemed like the only good pieces of her past: the three of them lying in a row on Valerie’s bed, flipping through Tiger Beat magazine. Making batches of dough for chocolate-chip cookies—but usually eating most of it raw out of the bowl. Grabbing a hairbrush as a microphone and leaning in close together while they sang the lyrics to Madonna’s “Holiday.”

Soon they began to notice atrocities everywhere. There were so many horrible misdeeds in the world. Why should innocent people suffer while perpetrators roamed free, continuing to amass victims? Their way is more effective than the unpredictable and often disappointing legal system. It’s a lot faster—not to mention cheaper—than therapy.

Valerie stares down at James’s dried blood, remembering how he’d looked splayed on that bench in Central Park. It had taken so much work—countless hours of thought and planning and strategizing—to get James alone and vulnerable so that he could be punished. Now Valerie wonders how Shay located the envelope containing evidence from the night James was finally punished, when Cassandra and Jane had carefully sifted through the contents of Amanda’s apartment immediately after her death, then again several days later.

She leaves two other items she brought on the floor beside the dress: James’s wallet and watch.

Before, it had always been the seven of them aligned. But now it would be her against the other six women.

She knew what the other women in the group were capable of, and the punishments they had inflicted, even against people they’d never met—like the parents who’d never bothered to visit their teenaged son as he lay in a medically induced coma after they threw him out of their house because he was gay. The women had waited for months, biding their time until late on a Saturday night after the lights in the parents’ house on Long Island were turned off. Then they uncoiled the garden hose in the front yard. They slipped it through the mail slot and twisted the metal knob to turn it on. Thousands of gallons of water pumped into the main level while the parents slept—saturating the wood floors, seeping through rugs, leaking into the basement, and damaging the home’s structure. “Let’s see how they like being homeless,” Valerie had whispered to the others as they’d crept away from the house. And slipping a bit of syrup of ipecac into the drink of the ex-husband who’d left Beth when she was diagnosed with cancer wasn’t enough of a punishment for him, the group decided, even though they’d enjoyed viewing the footage Stacey had recorded of his disastrous event. He’d rushed off the stage just minutes into his poetry reading—but not quickly enough to make it to the bathroom. They’d also created a GIF of him throwing up on the café floor and uploaded it to YouTube, linked to his name, so it could live on in perpetuity. “That GIF will show up anytime his name is googled,” Cassandra had sa...

She hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been before the other women had embraced her, filling the void she’d carried around since childhood. But she wasn’t truly one of them, after all. They must know it now, too.

nightmare came. Sometimes—especially after dinner, when she was smoking Virginia Slims and elevating her tired feet—their mother would speculate about the author of the anonymous letter. “Who would have sent that note?” she’d ask, stubbing another butt stained by her frosted pink lipstick into the ashtray. “It’s like someone wanted to punish me.” A silent gaze would pass between Cassandra and Jane.

“If any of my daughters would want to attend, it would be the other two.” The hair on my arms stands up as an electric charge courses through my body. “Valerie has two sisters?” I whisper. “Yeah.” Belinda sounds surprised. “Cassandra and Jane.”

Valerie took a deep breath. “You don’t understand.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Trey—he grabbed me.” She felt her chin tremble. Tears pricked her eyes. “He wanted to—he was on top of me—” Her mother picked up the jean jacket Valerie had thrown and began to fold it. “Valerie, don’t be so dramatic. That’s ridiculous.” “He wouldn’t stop!” Valerie blurted. Finally, she was able to put words to what had happened: “He tried to rape me!”

Guys like James Scott Anders the Third—with their pedigrees and trust funds—always won. Who would believe her word over his? Not even her own mother.

But the other tale Valerie relayed on the stormy night when she reunited with Cassandra and Jane—the one in which she played the role of the innocent victim who was tricked by her conniving roommate Ashley—was tweaked and altered for dramatic effect. Valerie is an actress, after all. Ashley hadn’t drugged Valerie or hidden her phone on the night before her big callback. Those details were a complete fabrication. Or, as Valerie prefers to think of it, creative license.

Ever since the three sisters reunited, Valerie has been a powerful stealth influencer, shepherding Cassandra and Jane in an exciting new direction. Valerie is the invisible architect of every act of vengeance their larger group has perpetrated. After being alone for so long, she relishes having her sisters by her side.

It’s hard to admit this, but even after everything they did, a part of me misses them. When they were around, I never felt alone.