My Flawless Life

by Yvonne Woon

Synopsis

Yvonne Woon, author of If You, Then Me, has crafted a slow-burn thriller about fixing—our friends, ourselves, and our complicated pasts. For fans of Allegedly and We Were Liars, My Flawless Life features a compelling narrator who grapples with the secrets of her private school classmates as well as her own life.

At the most elite private school in Washington, DC., whenever anyone has a problem that they need to go away, they hire Hana Yang Lerner.

Hana is a fixer. She knows who to call, what to say, and how to make sure secrets stay where they belong—buried. She can fix anything. Except her own life, which was destroyed when her father, senator Skip Lerner, was arrested for an accident that left one woman nearly dead.

Now Hana’s reputation is ruined and her friends are gone. So when she gets a job from an anonymous client called “Three” to follow her former best friend, Luce Herrera, Hana realizes this might be her way of getting back her old life.

But the dangerous thing about digging is that you never know what you’ll unearth. As Hana uncovers a dark truth about her supposedly flawless classmates, she’s forced to face a secret of her own.

* A Junior Library Guild Selection *

 

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Release date: February 14, 2023

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Print pages: 345

Sample

1

Picture, if you’ll indulge me, a portrait gallery.

It’s a jewel-toned room wallpapered to look seamless, as though there are no windows or doors, no entrances or exits. The subjects clasp their hands stiffly at their waists, emanating a quiet power. Power that was framed and nailed into the walls. Power that trapped you, that seemed dead but was very much alive, that you could pass every day, not knowing it was there, watching you, altering the direction of your feet as you walked.

If you asked me to describe St. Francis School in a single image, this is the one I would choose. Not because it depicts a place steeped in old money or a sycophantic worshipping of the past, though both were true of St. Francis, but because it was a trick.

The thing about portraits is that they’re an illusion. The subject puts on their best outfit, their finest face. The painter makes their shoulders squarer, their cheeks rosier, their fabrics richer. You believe what you’re seeing is true, but it’s a distortion.

Look closer. Maybe you’ll spot a telling detail: a fly on the still life, a wrinkle in the skin, an errant brushstroke that makes the eye glint.

Are you paying attention?

 

I was standing in the portrait gallery at St. Francis when the message came in.

The room that evening was humming with people. We were there for the fall alumni gala, which was billed as a night for students to network with alumni about colleges, but it was really a fundraising event for the school. Every event in the Washington, DC, area is, at heart, a fundraiser, you just have to figure out who has the money and who’s asking for it. In the hierarchy of fancy parties, alumni galas, even at a school like St. Francis, weren’t high on the list of places to be seen at, but my family and I had long stopped being invited to public events, so the ones at St. Francis were all I had left.

“What do you think he did to get his money?” Adam said beside me, nodding to one of the portraits. “Oil? Railroads?”

“Newspaper magnate,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“The newspaper on the floor by his chair,” I said. “The black smudges on his thumb and forefinger. Everything in art is a symbol.”

He feigned skepticism, but I could tell he knew I was right.

Adam Goldman was one of my few remaining friends, if you could even call him that. We didn’t spend time together

outside of school; in fact, we rarely spent time together in school because he didn’t like to be seen with me. I pretended I didn’t care, that I wasn’t bothered by the way all my former friends avoided me as if what had happened to me was contagious. Though Adam wasn’t part of their group, he orbited them—the popular and powerful at St. Francis, which I once was a part of. Sometimes I resented that he had access to them when I didn’t, though I was glad for his company, even if it was only in moments like these, when everyone else’s attention was directed elsewhere.

“Okay, enough about the dead. How about him?” Adam nodded to a man who looked like he was in his thirties and was talking to Jessica from the volleyball team. The sticker on his shirt read Mark, Dartmouth.

“I say banker,” Adam said.

“His clothes aren’t nice enough.”

“Corporate lawyer,” he countered.

“He looks too friendly.” I studied him. “Like he’s trying to sell her something. I’d guess advertising.”

Adam and I were similar in that we made it our business to know things. We traveled on the periphery, observing others, figuring out their secrets, though I liked to believe that I was much better at it than he was.

“What about her?” Adam asked, nodding to a woman talking to Rahul from AP Calculus. Her tag read Sarah, Columbia.

I considered her clean white suit, the way she crossed her arms and nodded her head. “Head of a nonprofit.”

“Interesting,” Adam murmured. “I would have guessed CEO.”

“CEOs wear black. Charity heads wear white.”

Adam looked unconvinced. “Is that true?”

“Probably not, but it sounds right, doesn’t it?”

Adam adjusted his glasses, a tic of his. He styled himself as a gentleman of sophistication and culture. I thought he looked like a newspaper man from the 1950s—a mixture of dapper and bookish. Most of our classmates found him pretentious and out of touch with contemporary culture, which he took as homophobia and hatred of anything remotely feminine. “Men still aren’t allowed to like beautiful things,” he’d said, which was one of the traits I appreciated most about him—his dedication to beauty and how he took great pains to surround himself with it.

“Okay, what about her?” Adam said, nodding to a young woman standing next to an older man. “Third wife or daughter?”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on. Daughter.”

“How do you know?”

“They look alike.”

Adam squinted at her through his glasses. I was one of the only people at school who knew that he didn’t actually need glasses and that the ones he wore were a prop with no prescription. Still, I indulged him and waited.

You’re right,” he said.

That’s when my phone vibrated. It was from a number I didn’t recognize.

>I have a job for you.

Odd. I had gotten messages like it before, but normally they were phrased as requests.

<Who is this? I wrote back.

>No one important.

Also odd.

<I don’t take cases from people I don’t know.

>You’ll take this one.

I tried to suppress my curiosity. It was probably just someone messing with me.

“Give me a second,” I said to Adam.

“Another desperate soul with a problem that needs fixing?”

“You were once a desperate soul,” I reminded him.

“I wasn’t desperate,” he countered.

“That’s not how I remember it.”

Adam pushed up his glasses. “I guess it’s time for me to network. If Sarah from Columbia is a CEO, you owe me one unit of information.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Then you can add it to my tab.”

I watched Adam put on a pleasant face and approach her. They talked for a moment, and when she turned to get an hors d’oeuvre from the table, he mouthed to me, You’re too good at this.

I shrugged and turned back to my phone. A mystery person who claimed they had a job for me that I wouldn’t refuse.

<Why do you think that? I wrote back.

>Because it’s about your best friend.

I felt my chest constrict.

<I don’t have a best friend.

>But you did.

I could see her across the room: Luce Herrera, a golden silhouette standing in front of one of the portraits, her face framed as though she were mounted on the wall. She was there with her friends, the five of them conspiratorial as they whispered among themselves, their faces partially lit by the picture lights like they were works of art.

She must have felt my gaze because she looked up. For a fleeting moment, her eyes met mine. I had once known her face better than I’d known my own, but now it was unreadable, a mask of itself.

I quickly looked away. After a moment, another message came in.

>Don’t be so conspicuous. She doesn’t know.

I froze, suddenly aware that I was being watched.

<Who is this? I demanded.

>Oh, don’t look so scared.

I scanned the room, taking a mental inventory of who was there. Everyone in our class usually went to the alumni mixer, and so many of them were on their phones that it seemed impossible to single anyone out.

<What do you want?

>I want you to follow Luce.

<I’m not a detective.

>But you are a fixer. And Luce is working on something that she needs help fixing.

<What do you mean?

>That’s your job. Figure it out.

I paused, torn between curiosity and suspicion.

<I told you, I don’t take jobs from people I don’t know.

>But you do know me.

Our school was small enough that if my mystery sender was in this room, I had to know him. Or her. But how well did I know this person? Did we pass each other occasionally on campus, or had we once been friends?

<I don’t know your name.

>You can call me Three.

Why Three? As if reading my mind, a new message appeared.

>You’ll find out why when you get to the end.

I stared at the phone, bewildered. Before I could respond, another message came in.

>I’ll pay you $5,000.

I considered myself someone who offered a high-end service to high-end clients, and charged accordingly, but even I was surprised at a sum so large for a single job.

<Why doesn’t Luce just hire me herself? I asked.

Enough time had elapsed that I had started to think Three wasn’t going to respond. Then a final message appeared on my screen.

>When you finish the job, you’ll know.

I stared at the message, considering how to respond, when I saw a man extricate himself from conversation and find a drink. I’d been watching him all night and didn’t know if I’d have another opportunity. I stuffed my phone into my bag. Before approaching him, I peeled off my name tag and put on a new one.

“Hi,” I said, smiling.

He looked me up and down, then smiled, clearly pleased. “Hi.”

He was on the younger side, generically good-looking, if not a bit square. If I had to guess, I’d say he worked in finance. His alumni sticker read Brandon, University of Pennsylvania.

“Do I know you?” he said, swirling his drink.

“I don’t think so,” I said. It was a lie. Though we’d never met before, I was certain he knew who I was; he just couldn’t place me. It wasn’t the first time it had happened.

He glanced at my name tag, which read Heather, Senior. It wasn’t my real name. “Are you sure? You look familiar.”

“I get that a lot. I guess I have a common face.”

He smiled, amused. “I wouldn’t say that.” It appeared that my answer had quelled his curiosity. “So, Heather, what do you see yourself doing after you graduate from St. Francis?”

He was probably ten years older than I was, though that didn’t stop him from flirting with me. I studied him with distaste. I could have told him the truth: that I had no interest in bantering with a mildly lascivious man and was only talking to him because I had been hired to, but instead, I told him what he wanted to hear.

“I’d like to major in economics and go into finance,” I said. “The plan is to eventually get an MBA. I’ve heard UPenn has a great program.”

A surprised grin spread across his face. I’d gotten it right. “It does.”

We chatted a little bit more. I asked him questions about his job and feigned interest when he talked about wealth management and diversification. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I scrawled my fake name on a napkin and asked him for his card, which he eagerly gave me after writing his personal email address on the back.

A caterer walked by with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and while Brandon helped himself to a mini quiche, I took the opportunity to excuse myself, weaving through the crowd until I was out of his line of vision. There, I crumpled the fake name tag and put it in the trash. Then I texted my client, Heather.

<All set. Can you meet in the hall bathroom in five minutes?

>Sure, she wrote back.

I slipped my phone into my bag and made my way to the door.

There were fancy names for my job—disaster consultant, crisis manager—but I preferred fixer, which was what most of my classmates would call me if you could find anyone who would admit to hiring me.

Kids at St. Francis didn’t need help getting internships or building their résumés; they had their parents for that. What I fixed were the more delicate issues that they couldn’t ask their parents to repair. I restored reputations, I suffocated rumors. I kept secrets from spilling, and if they’d already spilled, I cleaned them up. In short, I solved problems, and I was great at it.

The bathroom was empty. I checked my appearance in the mirror. People used to say I dressed like Audrey Hepburn—prim and sleek in crisp white shirts and tailored trench coats that made me feel like I was walking through a vintage black-and-white photo of Washington, DC. I still had most of my old designer clothes and wore them even though I had nowhere to go. Up close, they were showing signs of wear, but I couldn’t afford new ones, so I had to make do with what I had.

I wiped a smudge from beneath my eye. I’d gone a little heavy on my eyeliner that night, but I didn’t hate it. It made me look tough, like someone who flicked other people’s opinions about her into a tray like ash.

The door opened.

Heather Harmond didn’t look like an heiress. She didn’t appear glamorous or wealthy, and if you didn’t know her last name, you’d never guess that her great-grandfather started one

of the biggest weapons manufacturing companies in the country. Heather was neither confident nor powerful like her father, nor conventionally beautiful like her mother. She was quiet and awkward, with only a few friends, and walked around school hunched, as though she was coiling into herself, hoping that everyone would leave her alone to her hobbies.

“Hey,” I said, catching her eye in the mirror over the sinks.

“Hey,” she said.

I took out a stack of business cards from my pocket. On top was Brandon from UPenn, along with four others I’d coaxed out of alumni under the pretense of being Heather.

“Contact them whenever. They’re expecting to hear from you.”

Heather looked sheepish as she took them from me and thumbed through the cards, reading their names and titles.

“I only needed four,” she said.

“I know, but I threw in an extra just in case.”

Though Heather didn’t have to network in the conventional sense—she had a trust fund and definitely never needed to work, let alone go to college—her parents were the kind of people who wanted their offspring to prove to them that they could “make it on their own,” which they defined by a series of arbitrary expectations that they enforced without warning in an attempt to try to mold her into the kind of daughter they thought they should’ve had. All of this Heather had relayed to me two weeks prior, when she’d contacted me to ask if there was any way I could do it for her. Much to her parents’ distaste, she suffered from anxiety and was willing to pay me a sizable sum to get a handful of business cards to show her parents.

I sympathized with her. Though being rich was nothing to pity, being bullied and belittled by your family members was unpleasant at best, and having a trust fund didn’t make it go away.

“Do you think they’ll notice that it wasn’t me if I ever meet with them in person?” Heather asked.

“No way. They’ve already forgotten my face. I picked these men specifically for this reason. They’re the kind of people who think girls are interchangeable.”

Heather looked unconvinced, but we both knew it didn’t really matter if I was right. “I probably won’t meet them in person anyway,” she said. “My parents want me to collect business cards so they have proof that I’m not as big of a failure as they think I am. Whether or not I follow up is beside the point. Everyone knows I’m getting into Princeton no matter what I do.”

“Do you even want to go there?” I asked.

“It’s inevitable. My name is on two of the buildings.”

“Are they good buildings, at least?”

Heather grimaced. “A gym and an athletic facility.”

“What is it with rich people and sports buildings?”

“It’s the only part of college that alumni can still participate in,” Heather said. “A library would have been nice, though.”

“At least it’s not a dorm,” I offered. “Filthy, sagging futons. Hookups. Vomit.”

“Or a dining hall,” Heather said. “No one’s excited to go to a dining hall.” She looked down at the business cards, then met my gaze in the mirror. “How do you talk to people like that? You make it look so easy.”

“My dad always said that there are infinite ways to get someone to like you, but only three are foolproof: make them laugh, compliment them, or ask them questions.”

The mention of my dad made her go quiet. Of course. Sometimes it slipped my mind.

“Also, it’s easier when you’re pretending to be someone else,” I said.

“I think you’re just good at what you do,” she said, and took out her phone. A moment later my phone vibrated, alerting me that I’d received a payment.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I should be the one thanking you,” she said, and slipped the cards into her pocket. “This will keep my dad off my back for at least a few weeks.”

“May he name a science building in your honor.”

Heather gave me the beginning of a smile before opening the door and disappearing down the hall.

I waited a moment, then returned to the crowd in the gallery, snagging a canapé from a tray before I ducked outside. It was drizzling, the mist blurring the campus streetlamps into dim yellow orbs. St. Francis looked like an old convent, its stone buildings designed to inspire both awe and supplication.

Alone, I read the cryptic messages again.

Luce. Three. When you finish the job, you’ll know.

I should have known. I should have written back and rejected the job. I should have stayed away. The canapé was dry, but I finished it anyway. So many jobs were banal. Nothing more than minor distractions. I didn’t mind doing them, but when they were done, I felt just as empty as I had before.

I want you to follow Luce.

What do you do when someone offers you a chance to get closer to the life you once had? Do you take it?

 

The road blinked in and out of focus through the wipers as I drove home.

My actual name was Hana Yang Lerner. I was seventeen years old and a senior at St. Francis, one of the most elite private schools in the country. I had long black hair from my mom and a handsome, mare-like face from my dad. Freckles scattered the bridge of my nose. A sign of trustworthiness.

The media liked to use euphemisms when talking about me. I was blossoming into a beautiful young woman, they used to say, which meant I was old enough to receive the male gaze. I was exotic, they’d say, which was code for mixed-race. I had almond-shaped eyes, which was code for part-Chinese.

I’d spent my entire life in Alexandria, Virginia, a picturesque suburb of Washington, DC, where every house had an American flag flying out front and was decorated with tasteful seasonal décor. It was like living in a greeting card.

Serene, still—a carefully crafted image to convince visitors that nothing bad ever happened there.

Everyone worked in DC, and in politics, or at least adjacent to it. My parents did once, too, so I suppose you could call me a political creature. At one point in time, people thought I had a bright future. No one thought that anymore.

My house wasn’t actually a house, but a dated town house a few miles away from the home I grew up in. We’d moved there just a year and a half ago, in a frenzied rush that still made me physically ill when I thought about it. As a result, I hated the town house. Technically there wasn’t anything egregiously wrong with it—it was just a generic rental with generic furniture and generic décor, on a generic street where all of the townhomes looked alike, but that was exactly the problem. It felt temporary, like it wasn’t ours, and every time I stared at the beige walls or the beige carpeting or the beige couches, I was reminded of the life we’d lost.

The downstairs light was on when I got home. Predictably, my dad was still up watching the news, pretending not to be waiting for me.

“Can you believe this?” he said, gesturing at the screen. Ruby, our Cavalier, was asleep on the couch beside him.

I had no idea what he was talking about but humored him anyway. “I can’t believe it.”

The news always exasperated him. He still hadn’t gotten used to being an onlooker. “You know, you don’t have to stay up every time I go out.”

“I wasn’t, and of course I do,” my dad said, before turning off the TV and following me into the kitchen. Though it was a joke, it also wasn’t. He studied me. “So how was your night?”

I hated how worried he looked when I went out on my own. “Fine,” I murmured, peering into the fridge. “How was date night?”

He glanced at the ceiling. My mom was in the room directly above us, reading in bed. “Fine.”

Twice a month, my parents went out under the pretense of a date, but I knew that they were actually going to couples’ therapy. This was how things happened in our house—in secret. Everything was about keeping up appearances, and they were good at it.

Take, for example, ...