We Hope for Better Things Page 3

  He smirked as he scribbled out Nikon F and then held the paper out to her. She took the slip and looked pointedly at the photo.

  “All right, all right,” he said. “It’s coming down.” He lifted the framed print off the wall and looked from it to Nora and back again. “I can see the resemblance now.”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment and breathed slowly through her nose. “Very funny. Where will you put it?”

  “I got a box, don’t worry.”

  She stuck the slip of paper into her jacket pocket and looked at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. “I’ll try to be back in thirty minutes or so.”

  He gave her a mock salute. “Hey, you know that’s an expensive camera, right? It’s what professionals use. You sure you can afford it?”

  It was Nora’s turn to smirk. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

  three

  Detroit, July

  I didn’t remember the trip back to the office. I knew that at some point, after a disastrous meeting with Vic Sharpe, I had stepped onto the People Mover platform at the Renaissance Center station, careful to keep away from the yellow caution line lest I pass out and fry myself on the electric monorail. Then somehow I was standing at Jack McKnight’s door.

  “Almost didn’t recognize you in that getup,” he said. “Come in and close the door.”

  I did as directed. “I’m sorry, Jack,” I began. “I made a mistake.”

  He held up his hand. “No, I’m sorry. I got wind of that video footage late last night. I tried to catch you before you left. I knew what was coming.”

  “I can still fix this,” I said, knowing it wasn’t true.

  Jack shook his head. “I hate to do this. I wish there was another way, but I have the integrity of the paper to think about. I’m going to need you to sign this.”

  Still in a fog, I took a pen from his hand and moved toward the papers he was indicating on his desk.

  “You’ll have a decent severance,” he said.

  I took a step back. “Severance?”

  “Of course. We wouldn’t send you away empty-handed.”

  “Wait, why would you be sending me away? Because of one botched story? Are you kidding me?”

  “Liz, I’m sorry, but Ryan and Vic Sharpe are powerful men, and someone needed to take the blame.”

  Another step, this one forward, toward my boss. “And you laid that on me? That was on you! You told me to—”

  “Liz, it’s done. You need to sign this statement and—”

  “I’m not signing any statement!”

  “If you don’t sign attesting to the fact that you investigated Judge Sharpe under false pretenses and an assumed identity and release the Free Press from any liability, you’ll get nothing in severance. Nothing.”

  I don’t remember throwing the pen. It bounced off Jack’s chest and clattered to the floor. We stood for a breath in that awesomely empty space, and I contemplated how suddenly my life had changed in the space of just two hours. Then I thrust open his office door and stalked to my desk. Heads swiveled. Eyes stared. I pulled the last two reams of paper from a box beneath the printer table, plopped it onto my chair, and commenced packing.

  “Elizabeth?”

  I shoved a photo of my parents into the box.

  “What’s going on? Why are you dressed like that?”

  A coffee mug I hadn’t cleaned with actual dish soap in four years.

  “Elizabeth.”

  An ugly paperweight I’d received from an interviewee who wanted to thank me for not misquoting her.

  “Elizabeth!”

  I scanned the rest of the desk. Was that it? Was that the extent of me? Three measly personal items? I scraped the change from the shallow tray in my middle drawer and dumped it in the box as well. A familiar hand caught my arm. I finally looked at Desiree, who was looking at me like my mother had the first time I got dumped.

  “Did you get fired?” she said.

  I started to shake my head.

  “Did you quit?”

  Did I?

  “I can’t talk about it now,” I said. I looked in the pitiful box, pulled out the photo of my parents, and stuffed it in my purse. “I’ll text you later.”

  Leaving everything else on my chair, I kicked off the horrible three-inch heels I was wearing in place of my normal sensible flats, pushed my way past the gawkers, and rushed down the back stairs barefoot. At the bottom, I threw my body against the crash bar and stared down at the parking lot. It had been soaking up the summer heat all day and was littered with bits of gravel and broken glass. I half ran, half tiptoed the thirty feet to my car, sat down hard, flicked the stones out of the balls of my feet, and slammed the door.

  My breath came in shallow gasps. The last two hours had felt less real than any dream I could remember having.

  Three months ago, Jack had summoned me to his office, shut the door, and leaned against his desk. “I’m pulling Roger off Judge Sharpe,” he said. “I want you on him.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But not you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want you to go in as someone else, not a reporter. Just as a woman.”

  “Like, undercover?”

  “Yes. We’re getting nowhere with tying him to the riots. I want you to see if you can get inside using the back door. His son Vic is a developer.”

  “I know that, Jack. His name is on every empty building in town.”

  “He’s also single.”

  So I invented Dana Bowers, bought her a wardrobe I’d never be seen dead in, and set her on a collision course with the judge’s son, convinced it would result in a breakout story.

  Becoming Dana had felt a little like getting ready for church as a kid, except then it was my mother curling my hair and makeup was limited to tinted lip gloss. The sweat was the same, as was the sense that I was putting on someone else’s identity in hopes that the real me wouldn’t be recognized.

  My alter ego had met Vic Sharpe at a lavish wedding reception—one to which she had not been invited—at the Detroit Athletic Club, slamming into him outside the men’s room. He was going in. She was coming out.

  “Oh! I’m sorry, miss,” he said as he steadied Dana with two warm hands on her bare arms. “Please excuse me. I thought this was the men’s room.”

  “It is,” Dana said saucily. “The ladies’ had a line.”

  She tossed a brazen smile over her shoulder as she walked to a nearby mirror and reapplied her lipstick. Vic hesitated a moment, then walked into the men’s room and immediately back out again.

  “What are you doing after the reception?” he said.

  Just like that, Dana was in. It was so easy.

  There had been no reason to think today’s coffee date would be any different than any other time Dana and Vic had gone out. But when Dana arrived at the RenCen Starbucks, Vic was already there, an unusually serious expression on his face. She focused on staying upright in those shoes until she reached the table, where her usual—an Americano—already steamed next to a poppy-seed muffin. Not half a muffin. Vic hadn’t cut it in two as he normally did so they could share. In fact, as Dana looked closer she saw that there was nothing on the table in front of Vic other than his folded hands.

  She smiled anyway as she sat down. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”

  Dana was always a little late.

  Vic nodded. “We need to talk.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I know what’s going on here.”

  My blood froze. I was no longer Dana. I was Elizabeth. And I didn’t like the way Vic Sharpe was looking at me—as if he knew it.

  He unfolded his hands, revealing his phone. He swiped the screen, turned it toward me, and tapped a play button. A shot of his home office came up. At the bottom right-hand corner of the screen was last Saturday’s date. I already knew what would come next. I watched with a growing sense of dread as Dana came into the office, sat down behind the desk, and began going throu
gh drawers and tapping away at a laptop that wasn’t hers.

  “This video was brought to my attention on Sunday. I was going to ask you about it, but then I thought I might do a little snooping of my own, and you know what I found?”

  He waited for my answer, but I couldn’t give it. It felt as if the entire poppy-seed muffin was lodged in my throat, though I hadn’t taken a bite.

  “I discovered that you are living a bit of a double life.”

  I found my voice. “I can explain.”

  “I’m sure you can, Elizabeth, but there’s no need. I’ve spoken with your editor. He explained everything to me. I imagine he is waiting for you back at the office.”

  The email. The attempt to talk to me as I rushed downstairs to become Dana. Jack had been trying to save me from this moment.

  “Before you run off,” Vic continued, “I want to ask you something, and I want an honest answer. Why is everyone in this town suspicious of anyone who cares enough to make a real difference?”

  “Vic, this isn’t about you.”

  “Look, I get it that some investors are predators. They’re just looking to make a profit. Some people are wolves. But some people are shepherds.”

  I tried to break in, to tell him that I wasn’t doing a story about him, but he barreled on.

  “I was straight with you about my business. I don’t have some secret diabolical plan to suck the city dry. I’m pouring money into this city in the slim hope that it can rise from the ashes and live again.”

  “Vic, I know. That’s not what this is about. It’s about your father.”

  “My father.”

  “I—I was hoping to get some insight into your father. For a story.”

  “What story?”

  “About his time in the National Guard.”

  He stared me down. “You mean the riots.”

  “I’m doing a series on law enforcement and city services involved in the riots. He refuses to talk about anything that happened before he enlisted and went to Vietnam. Everything hinges on getting him to open up about that time.”

  He sat back in his chair. “So you’ve just been using me to get to him.”

  I bit the inside of my mouth. Yes, Elizabeth. That’s what you have been doing. “It’s not like that,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  He stood up and dropped his phone into the inside pocket of his suit coat. Then he pushed in his chair and leaned on it. For an instant a look of disappointment passed across his face. Then the stony anger returned. “You have a nice day.”

  Then he walked out.

  And now I was out. Out of a job. Not quite out of my mind, but getting there. How fast would word of my failure travel? How much time did I have to get my résumé out? Where could I go? I didn’t want to work anywhere else. This was my paper. My family. My family had disowned me.

  I turned the key in the ignition. I needed air. Cold air. I was going to throw up. I opened the door and leaned over the blacktop, but nothing came out. This sick feeling would not leave me. It was settling in my gut like the film on cream soup that needed stirring.

  I shut the door, threw the car in reverse, and went anywhere but there. I drove aimlessly, taking the path of least resistance, until I found myself in a mostly empty lot near the Riverwalk. I pulled on the black pants and flats I had been wearing earlier, wrenched Dana’s body-hugging red dress off over my head, and slipped my arms into the sleeves of my white blouse.

  I got out of the car and walked slowly down the Riverwalk, trying to stay out of the way of cyclists. I passed playgrounds and artwork and the calm blue carousel with its beautiful carved fish and frogs and water birds. The fountains danced in front of the gleaming towers of the Renaissance Center. Across the river, Canada lay flat and placid and modest, tied to Detroit by the umbilical cord of the Ambassador Bridge. And somewhere under my feet—it was rumored—lay the storied corpse of Jimmy Hoffa.

  So much history. So much commerce. So much pain and beauty and restlessness. Detroit was a city that vibrated with pent-up feelings looking for an outlet—ambition and desire, greed and rage, suspicion and deep love of community. Everyone looking for a break, looking for a second chance, looking for the next big thing.

  I sat down hard on the stone steps.

  It had taken me three years of hit-and-miss freelancing after college—along with some concentrated stalking—to land a full-time position at the Detroit Free Press. Like all newbies, I got put on fluff pieces. It was a start. Then, by sheer chance, I was in the right place at the right time and got sent to the courthouse to cover the civil trial of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s alleged affair and unlawful dismissal of the bodyguard who knew too much. I started filing stories Detroiters actually read.

  The mayor became my bread and butter, staying in the news for six years as scandalous text messages, corruption, abuse of power, assault, tax evasion, and fraud came to light, one after the other. When the sentence came down in the fall of 2013—twenty-eight years in federal prison—I wondered how I’d be able to keep my momentum going without him. I needn’t have worried. He was just one canker on Detroit’s body. If I dug around long enough, I’d be sure to unearth another one.

  And I did. City council members, police officers, businessmen, and predatory lenders. Arsonists, drug dealers, and pimps. Scrappers who stripped vacant houses of every bit of metal they could sell. And plain old garden-variety neglect—sins of omission—which did as much damage to the city as the corruption and greed of the people bent on taking advantage of a place where nearly everyone was down on their luck.

  I became known as the woman who exposed people, who showed them for what they really were. And I loved it. People from all over the city sent me tips to follow up on. Wherever I went, I was either respected or feared, depending on which side of the story you found yourself on.

  Vic Sharpe wasn’t a bad guy. He owned a firm that was doing good work, investing in small local-business start-ups rather than simply buying up defunct properties in order to sell them at a premium to outsiders looking to make a killing on others’ misfortunes. I actually admired him, liked him even, and I’d started feeling uneasy with the way I was using him to get to his father, even if it hadn’t been my idea. And even if Judge Sharpe was another one of those cankers that needed to be excised.

  I stood up and paced a few steps. I couldn’t let this stop me. Detroiters didn’t quit. When the whole city burned to the ground in 1805, we rebuilt. When white flight robbed the city of its tax base in the 1960s and ’70s, we struggled on. When it became the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, it came out leaner, meaner, stronger. It rose from the ashes, facing every challenge with grim determination.

  And that’s what I would do. I’d get my job back. All I needed was a story no one else could get. All I needed was a box of old photos no one else had.

  I felt my pocket. The card was still there. I dialed Mr. Rich’s number and waited while it rang three times.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Rich, this is Elizabeth Balsam.”

  “Oh, yes. Good to hear from you so soon.”

  “Sir, I just wanted you to know, Nora Balsam is my great-aunt.”

  “She is, is she?” His voice was bright.

  “And I will return those photos for you.”

  four

  Detroit, March 1963

  Nora stalked off to find Diane. It didn’t take long, as she was eavesdropping just around the corner and pounced on Nora the minute she laid eyes on her.

  “Oh my word,” she whispered loudly, “I can’t believe that guy! And frankly, I can’t believe they’ve allowed someone like that to enter this contest. Deplorable.”

  Nora ignored her friend’s outrage and pulled her keys from her purse. “Let’s go. I have to buy a camera and you’re coming with me.”

  “We can’t just leave. I told Mrs. Rasmussen we would help with the reception afterward.”

  Nora grabbed Diane’s elbow and began steering h
er toward the front door. “We’ll be back before anyone knows we’re gone. Come on.”

  “Ooh! Are we going to Hudson’s?”

  “If you can get your feet to move, yes.”

  Nora shoved the exhibit hall doors aside and hurried down the sidewalk to where she had parked, Diane trailing her. She pulled into the traffic on Woodward Avenue and headed downtown. Several minutes later they were standing at the elevator bay near the northwest entrance of the twenty-five-story department store that covered almost an entire city block.

  During the drive, Diane had not ceased talking. Now she was silent as the elevator operator took them to the correct floor. But once the doors closed behind them again, the barrage picked up where it had left off.

  “Nora, you’re not really going to buy that guy a camera.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “You can’t buy those people nice things. They don’t take care of them.”

  Nora pressed Diane forward. They turned a corner and nearly collided with a woman in a fox fur coat. Nora didn’t even slow down to make a proper apology.

  “Why do you think your father was so angry?” Diane went on. “The guy obviously insulted him or something worse. You shouldn’t reward him for that.”

  They drew up to a long glass case filled with cameras. Lens filters hung from a spinning rack on the counter. Behind them stood an older gentleman in an impeccable suit and bow tie.

  “Hello, sir, I’m in need of this camera.” Nora slid the piece of paper across the counter. “Do you carry it?”

  The man smiled. “Of course, miss. We carry all top-of-the-line models.” He fiddled with a lock, slid open the cabinet, and reached under the counter for the floor model.

  “Do you have a box?” Nora asked.

  “Well, yes, of course it comes in a box, but allow me to show you—”

  “I’m so sorry, sir, but it’s not for me. It’s a gift. Could you simply ring it up? I’m in a terrible hurry today.”

  The man seemed irritated by the interruption, but relented at her constant smile and fluttering eyelashes. “Of course, miss.”