Now You See Her (20 page)

prints found were Hope’s. Comparison fingerprints were obtained from items such as her water glass in her dormi- tory bathroom.

Jim O’Malley, an off-duty forest service officer, also reported encountering a young woman wearing clothes that matched the clothes Hope was described as wearing when she vanished while running near Starwood.

The girl was jogging in the area of the hunting cabin Saturday, O’Malley remem- bered, because it was one of his days off from his job as a forest service officer. But O’Malley was unable to see her face because she wore a black ski mask.

Hope’s parents, Marian and Mark Romano of the Chicago suburb of Bellamy, Illinois, immediately issued a state- ment through Clark Neeland, a partner in Romano’s law firm. “Hope’s parents are shat- tered, and are pleading with the news media and others to give them the privacy and time to deal with this news as a

family. They are deeply sorry for the effort and appreciate each prayer and hope that Hope’s actions, however moti- vated, elicited,” Neeland said. “They are grateful to the police, to all the professional and volunteer searchers, and to the school that their daugh- ter was found and is safe. The only thing worse that could have come from this incident would have been for Hope to have suffered grave physical harm.”

Police and hospital person- nel were initially puzzled at how healthy the 5'3", 100- pound girl was after several nights in the open woodland. On one of those nights, the temperature dipped to ten degrees above zero.

From her statement, it seems that Hope was outside that night and possibly the fol- lowing night, but spent at least one other night inside the cabin, the police spokesperson said.

The young woman could face charges of fraud that could mean time in a juvenile

facility, according to Worwitz. It is not clear yet whether charges will be filed, according to Mesquakie County District Attorney Michael Harlowe’s office. A representative of Harlowe’s office said “a fur- ther investigation into Hope’s emotional condition will help determine that.”

Worwitz added, “So many people have told us that she was in a very poor mental state just before the incident. We need to determine whether she understood the gravity of her actions.”

Hope’s parents said she would not be returning to Starwood Academy. According to Neeland, every effort will be made by the family to make sure that Hope receives any medical help that she needs.

Investigators from Michigan traveled to Illinois to continue to interview the Romano family at their home, where they remained in seclusion today, about the aftermath of the largest manhunt in the history of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Despite revelations about the fraudulent kidnapping, Godchalk said the predomi- nant mood on the Starwood campus remained one of relief, not revenge.

“Kids here feel sorry for Hope,” he said. “They are try- ing to imagine the loneliness and desperation that would lead a kid to do this.” Godchalk added that counselors had been invited to the campus for “debriefing” sessions with the student body, so that they can talk out their feelings about the incident. One student, who asked not to be identified, said that Hope felt “jilted” by an older student, Logan Rose,

who appeared as Romeo in the production in which Hope was an understudy, though Rose’s family has said the two were only casual friends.

Contacted at his home in Brooklyn and told of Hope’s role in the strange occurrence at Starwood, Tony Award–winning actor Brook Emerson—the guest director who chose Hope to understudy the role of Juliet and who con- tributed most of a $15,000 reward for Hope’s recovery— commented only, “I think Shakespeare said it best. ‘For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’ ”

X
‌

I

’
M NOT SUPPOSED TO
have these news articles.

But naturally, I looked them up in the library and made copies. I pasted them in a scrapbook, including the pictures. And I studied them. They’re proof. They say you can’t believe what you read in the newspaper. But without them, I would never have been able to believe what they told me in the office, a few days after I cut

my arm.

I mean, later, bits of thoughts started coming to me— sort of like a dream, you know?

I guess getting pushed and pushed like I was when I was a kid, and being loved the way I was ( like one day yes, one day no) can let some pretty weird ideas move into your mind.

“X” (See? Remember what I said?) marks the spot where Hope is buried. And it marks the end of this journal.

I started it months and months ago.

And I hardly ever take out the journal and look at it anymore.

I’ve written other journals over the years, but not like this one. This journal was both the beginning and the end of the most important part of my life so far. “So far” is the key phrase. I know I’m going to have a life after- ward now.

I don’t need the journal anymore, because I’m a new person now. My name is Bernadette Romano. When I was Hope Shay, a teenage actor, I faked my own kidnapping because I thought it would help me get my boyfriend back. Well, he was never my boyfriend. I thought it would make him notice me and fall for me the way I had fallen for him. It was just a teenage crush that got way, way, way out of control.

Okay?

You have no idea how long it took me to be able to say that and not be faking it when I said it. At first it was just because it made people think I was all fine, and it was what they wanted to hear. But I’d been telling people what they wanted to hear all my life. You see? In order to get their approval? And that was part of the problem, if not the whole root of it. Finally, with a lot of work and thought, I felt able to sort of lift up a corner of the truth. And it looked familiar.

The woman who looked like she was on safari and used to come to our dorm meetings sometimes? I thought she was a teacher, but she was really a psychol- ogist. Anyway, that first day I started therapy with her, it felt like I was hallucinating. She had to
point out
that my parents were there in the room with us. And that was a total shock! I hadn’t even noticed them. She said she had deliberately asked them to wait to come to see me until I was out of the infirmary after I cut myself. That’s the policy at Taylor Hill. That’s what it’s called. Taylor Hill. That’s where I “go to school.” Infirmary visits, she said, tend to make families go all limp and want to take their kids out of this place. Taylor Hill used to be a convent, and then a convent school, hence all the stained glass and leaded glass on the windows.

But not for the past forty years. It’s a different kind of school now.

The first thing the doctor said was, “I want your par- ents to move across the room and face you, Hope. Is that okay?”

“Is this going to be like Miss Taylor’s jam sessions... ?” I began. I didn’t want any part of that. But my mother and father took each other’s hands and went and sat on a sofa across from me. My mother was already crying.

“Her name is Miss Tyler, not Miss Taylor,” said the doctor. “And I’m Dr. Lopez. Miss Tyler is a junior counselor.

A junior counselor lives on every ward. She lives on yours, except during her breaks, and then she’s replaced by another intern. She isn’t there to help you get better, but to help you stay healthy until you get better.”

“Then who’s Miss Taylor?” I was honestly totally baffled.

“Hope, there is no Miss Taylor. This place is called Taylor Hill because it’s built on Taylor Hill.”

“But Miss Taylor. I saw Miss Taylor!”

“I think you’ve been imagining a lot of things, Hope.” My parents just sat there. “I don’t mean you’ve been doing that on purpose. I mean that sometimes, when things are just too hard to deal with, one part of us can just see what she needs to see. The other part ignores what she doesn’t want to see. What you needed to see was . . . this Miss Taylor.”

“A big, heavyset woman? Like Em?”

I saw my parents look at each other, and my mother started to cry even harder.

“You don’t really like big, heavy women, do you, Hope?”

“I don’t have anything against them,” I said.

“But you associate them with things you don’t want to be, like fat, right?” asked Dr. Lopez.