My Flawless Life by Yvonne Woon

Author:Yvonne Woon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

15

The office was in a charming stone building at the edge of Old Town. Ivy climbed up the side. Nestled in its leaves was a discreet sign: A Brighter Future.

Linda, the office manager, greeted us. “You must be Hana and James,” she said with a smile. She held out a warm, fleshy hand. Despite myself, I liked her. “Welcome to our little corner of the world,” she said. “Come on back. Let’s get you set up.”

She led us down the hallway, where pictures of children in classrooms hung on the walls. A Brighter Future purportedly ran after-school programs for low-income children, offering homework and reading help. Surely they had to do some real work, though I still found myself wondering if the photos were a sham.

“We’re always so glad when young people decide to give back to their communities with us,” Linda said as she led me past an office that said IAN GOODJOY. The door was closed. “I hope you weren’t expecting anything lavish. Most of the work we need done is administrative.”

“I love administrative work,” I said. “Organizing, filing. I find stuff like that soothing.”

I could feel James studying me and felt slightly self-conscious. He’d never seen me at work and was clearly surprised by the sudden change in my demeanor.

“Is the director here?” James asked.

“He doesn’t come in on the weekends,” Linda said.

“I heard he went to St. Francis too,” James said.

Linda gave us a warm smile. “We love St. Francis kids around here.”

I wondered if she knew. It seemed unlikely that she didn’t, but her smile was so sincere that I wanted her to be ignorant. Maybe they’d kept her in the dark; it would be to their benefit to make sure as few people as possible knew what was really going on.

“Speaking of which, we have one other student from St. Francis volunteering with us,” Linda said. “I wonder if you three know each other.”

My skin prickled. Another student?

“She’s been with us for a few weeks,” Linda said. “I hope it’s okay that I have you working together.”

I knew who it was before we rounded the corner and walked into the back room, before I saw her standing in front of the photocopier, the morning light streaming through the window, making her bleached hair look almost white.

Luce turned. The machine spit out copies. A brief look of surprise crossed her face. Of course, she seemed to say. It felt both shocking and inevitable, like we were being pulled together by an invisible thread.

James nudged me. Are you okay? he said silently. I nodded, though I wasn’t so sure, and felt grateful that he was there.

“Hey,” I said to Luce.

Her face was stone. “Hey.”

James glanced between us. I’d never told him what had happened with Luce and me. I couldn’t. “Hey,” he said.

Linda tasked James with preparing the fundraising mailings and handed me a large crate of papers to file.

While Linda gave us instructions, I watched Luce from the reflection in the window in front of me.

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