Gulping down breaths for courage, Bree moved to stand but her feet remained rooted to the floor. She put all her focus into one leg, but it was frozen. Panic swept over her as she wrenched her legs to move, but she was going nowhere.
From the right wing of the stage, a man emerged, wearing all black and a headset and carrying a clipboard. He moved into the spotlight and leaned into the microphone. “Bree Carter, you’re wanted onstage.”
Bree was light-headed. There had been a misunderstanding. She wasn’t ready to play. Her throat constricted, choking off any words of defense against this wave of expectation she could never fulfill.
The stage manager tapped on the microphone and cleared his throat. “Bree Carter, you’re needed on the stage.”
Her body refused to cooperate. The spotlight clunked off and the house lights went up. Tut-tuts of disappointment pecked at her shattered confidence as tears flowed and people rose to leave, bitter complaints floating across to her and down to her from above.
The stage manager shook his head. “Sorry, miss, your audition is over.”
Over before it had begun. Just like last time.
* * *
The woman stared back at Eliza from the darkened window, a carpet of blinking Los Angeles lights stretching out behind her. Flawless skin, jet-black hair tied back, two tendrils framing her eyes—chocolate-brown pools of promise.
This woman looked incredible—she had to be in an industry with perfection as its prerequisite, creating generations of women with built-in disappointment when that perfect beauty wasn’t achieved. Oil to the machine.
Eliza stared into the eyes of her reflection. How did she get here?
At her heart she opposed the ideals she was paid handsomely to champion. Was she that driven in her job that all she did was tick whichever box was next?
Something in the reflection’s eyes flickered. A restlessness. A slip of the mask.
With a burst of white light the reflection melted away and Eliza was faced with the harsh reds and oranges of the Australian outback. The rocky ground crunched under her feet as she made her way along a dirt road, emptiness in every direction for miles. She spun, looking for a reference point but was rewarded with nothing.
Ahead of her, the road veered to the left, then sliced toward the horizon. She spun faster. Eliza saw nothing but red, felt nothing but sick. Dizzy and out of control, she put out her arms and a hand reached for her—
She woke with a start, Bree’s hand sitting on her shoulder.
“We’re nearly there, Lize. Sorry to wake you.”
Outside Eliza’s window the stark black had submitted to the first rays of a sunrise they had spent half a day fleeing. The soft lilac of the sky gave way to the full, rich spectrum of blue.
The flight map said Australia was close. Eliza craned her neck to see ahead of the plane. The first smudge of a haze appeared as an entire continent appeared to rise from the sea. She elbowed Bree and pointed ahead as the exotic, faraway continent came into view and stretched as far as the eye could see. The change was so sudden—like God had reached down and plonked a whole country in the middle of nowhere. Which, in a way, He had.
Bree stifled a yawn. “I can’t believe we’re nearly there.”
Neither could Eliza. She sat back, her nerves still pulsing from the dream. It had to mean something. She had looked into her own eyes and seen something that showed her she needed to change.
Eliza was sure her life was about to restart.
Seven
A cramp seized Andy’s shoulders as he pulled them in tight, hemmed in by a domestic flight cursed with the lack of the luxurious space of international business class. He had withdrawn into the view. For two hours the ground had changed thirty thousand feet below as the crisscross suburban gray of the city gave way to deep green, which gave way to dusty brown, which gave way to an ochre orange. Now the earth was rich red. It was as if the lifeblood of the country was being cleansed as it flowed back to its heart.
Andy smiled, again safely out of reach. The sign warning against cell phone use in passport control at Sydney Airport had provided him with a welcome alibi. And the adrenaline rush of running the gauntlet of duty-free alcohol had given him a few moments to slip away and buy snacks, security against the possibility Lincoln wasn’t joking about eating bugs and spiders.
Andy winced at the only slip—absentmindedly switching on his phone in the airport transfer bus and releasing a cacophony of messages. And while he thought he’d recovered, he was sure Eliza was staring at him from across the aisle.
She leaned across him to see the view. “The outback is huge!” A crinkle appeared above her nose. “We never got around to finishing our conversation from before.”
So she had seen it. Andy’s defenses dropped into place as he unraveled the spiel the long flight from Los Angeles had allowed him to prepare. “Am I in trouble? I’ve got troubles like everyone else, and I’m looking forward to unwinding in Australia and getting away for a while, you know?” That answer should withstand serious scrutiny.
Eliza frowned. While his answer might’ve been perfect, he’d answered the wrong question. “That wasn’t what I was referring to.”
The familiar chill of uncertainty gripped him.
“You said you never wanted to be found again. What did you mean by that?”
Andy’s mind fired in all directions as a new threat found a hole in his carefully constructed perimeter. “I . . .” He slumped with a sigh. He had nothing. “I don’t know, what does it mean to you?”
Eliza mirrored his sigh. “You sound like me, that’s all. I’ve had so many demands on me for so long now that I feel the same. There’s a part of me that wishes I could disappear too.”
Andy’s confidence trickled back as a chance to wrestle back the conversation unveiled itself. “Is that why you don’t want to take this CEO job?”
“Not really. I’m good enough to do it and do it well. But I wonder if it’s the road I should take.”
Their conversation found a comfortable groove they’d last hit in college. Andy settled into it, enjoying a connection he’d not felt with anyone in ages.
“We were always alike, and it looks like we still are.”
Andy fingered the Mars bar in his pocket. Between the perfect exterior of his friend and his own overweight mess of a facade, he might have found someone who could understand what he needed to do. A realization dawned on him—he still didn’t know how he was going to disappear, but maybe Eliza could be an ally.
* * *
Bree thumbed the video back on for a tenth viewing. Two tiny princesses in cowboy boots shouted into her face. “Good night, Mommy! We hope you see a koala and a kangaroo and we miss you already and wish you were home with us.”
Tears welled, as they had each time her daughters yelled their good nights. The video shook and bumped, as it had nine times before, and her screen was filled with Sam’s smiling face. “Sorry about that. They didn’t stick to the script. Hope you had a great flight, and if you want to send us a message from Down Under, that would be great. Love you.” Sam froze mid-grin.
Lincoln handed back her phone. “You’ve got a wonderful family.”