Alex Lake - Copycat

In total it was nearly twenty dollars. A fifty-cent fish with a nineteen-dollar tank. The man laughed when she pointed it out.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but if the fish dies, it’s only another half-dollar to replace it.’

‘And they all look the same,’ Sarah said. ‘So the kids will never know it’s a new one.’

The man gave her a strange smile. ‘You’d think so,’ he said. ‘But it turns out kids always know. In my experience they pay attention to the details much more than we do. They can tell the difference between one fish and another pretty darn good. Best to come clean, tell ’em the fish died, and let ’em pick another.’

‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘Either way, it’s still only fifty cents.’

‘That, ma’am, is the truth,’ the man said. ‘Now enjoy your fish.’

On the way out, the man had told her to fill the tank, then put the fish – keeping it in the plastic bag full of water he had put it in – in the tank, so the water in the bag and the water in the tank could come to the same temperature. Then, after a few hours, she could pour the fish into its new home.

She didn’t want to do this at work, so she stopped at home and followed his instructions. On the way out, she waved to the fish. It already felt like one of the family. The kids were going to love it.

That evening, as she was leaving work, she got a notification on her phone informing her she had been tagged in a post. She tapped on the link.

It was in a post from Sarah Havenant. The Fake Sarah. No photo this time; just her name, as part of a new post.

A post which read:

Got my goldfish! She’s a beauty!

Sarah stopped at the front door of the medical center. Her head spun and she felt close to passing out. She sat on one of the benches by the door. Before smoking was entirely banned on the premises it was where smokers had sat, and it still had faint traces of the acrid smell of cigarettes.

June, one of the nurses, tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Are you OK, Dr Havenant?’

Sarah nodded. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I didn’t have lunch. Low blood sugar.’

The nurse walked into the medical center. When she came out she was holding one of the lollipops they gave to kids.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Have this.’

Sarah sat in the car. She was cold, her mind blank.

There was no doubt now. Whoever this was, they were doing it to get her attention.

They were fucking with her. They were deliberately trying to mess with her head.

And it was working.

Worse, they knew she had been to the pet store. They had been there and seen her walk out with a goldfish in a bag.

Whoever was doing this was watching her.

Hands shaking, legs weak, she started the car. She had to get home, and she had to get there immediately.

Ben’s car was in the driveway when she pulled up. She could hear the kids playing in the backyard.

She went into the house and walked through to the kitchen. Ben was closing the oven door.

‘Baked potatoes,’ he said, and smiled at her. ‘I’ll make some burgers on the grill.’

‘I didn’t know we were having burgers,’ Sarah said.

‘I needed to distract the kids,’ Ben replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We had a bit of a nasty surprise when we got home.’

Sarah’s mouth went dry. She felt the blood rush from her face. What now? What had Fake Sarah done now?

‘What kind of surprise?’ she said, her voice little more than a croak.

‘Are you OK?’ Ben said.

She wasn’t, but she nodded. ‘What surprise?’

‘There was a dead fish floating in a bag,’ he said. ‘At first they were excited when they saw it, then they started to ask why it wasn’t swimming. They figured it out pretty quickly. Faye had a bit of a meltdown. Hence the burgers. I promised bacon and avocado on top as well.’

Sarah relaxed, a little. ‘A dead fish is all?’ she said. ‘I thought – I thought it might be worse.’

‘Worse?’ Ben said. ‘Why were you expecting worse?’

The skin around Sarah’s eyes tightened and she felt her mouth begin to tremble. ‘It – it happened again,’ she said. ‘A post. About the goldfish.’

‘On the fake Facebook account?’

She nodded. ‘They posted about the fish I bought at lunchtime.’

Ben straightened. ‘They did? How did they know?’

‘I don’t know. They must – they must have been following me.’

‘Shit,’ Ben said. ‘If this is someone’s idea of a joke, then it’s not funny.’

‘It’s not a joke, Ben. None of my friends would do this.’

‘Then who?’ he said. ‘Who would have been following you?’

‘I have no idea.’

She called Toni when the kids were in bed.

‘Hey,’ Toni said. ‘How are you?’

‘Good,’ Sarah said. ‘Well, kind of. But I’ll get to that in a bit. How are you holding up?’

Toni had separated from her husband, Joe, six months earlier and was in the process of getting divorced. They’d met when she was thirty-two and she had married him despite her – and her friends’ – misgivings. He was tall, good-looking, well-dressed and had a whiff of the snake-oil salesman about him. It was his shoes which had put Sarah off: every time she saw him he was wearing a new pair, and they were always meticulously shined or brushed or cleaned. Ben had good shoes, solid English brogues from Church’s or Loake, but they had a reassuringly scuffed appearance. From time to time he polished them, but only when necessary. He didn’t want to polish them; he had better things to be doing. But Joe must have spent hours on his shoes and clothes and hair. It was, as far as Sarah was concerned, a bit suspicious. It couldn’t all be for Toni’s benefit.

And it turned out it wasn’t. Joe was having a series of affairs with women who worked in his office. One, Toni might have forgiven. Six or seven was too much.

‘The divorce comes through in a fortnight,’ Toni said. ‘Can’t wait.’

‘It’ll be good to get it over with. You been busy?’

‘Oh yeah. My life is a laugh a minute. All I need is to get all the hot twenty-six-year-old firemen to leave me alone so I have time to write my novel and then I’ll be OK. But enough about my amazing life. How are you?’

‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘There has been some weird stuff going on.’

‘Don’t tell me Ben is having an affair. I couldn’t take it. Not Ben. He’s too boring.’

‘He’s not boring!’ Sarah paused. ‘OK, well maybe. But no. It’s not an affair. It’s – there’s a Facebook account. In my name. It’s easier if I send it to you. Let me know when you have it.’

She messaged a link to Toni.

‘Here it is,’ Toni said. ‘I’ll bring it up.’ There was a pause. ‘OK, got it on my screen now. There you are, posting stuff. What’s the big deal?’

‘The big deal is, it wasn’t me who posted it. Any of it.’

‘What do you mean? These are your photos. There’s one of us in Portland with Anne.’

‘I didn’t post them,’ Sarah said. ‘That isn’t my account. It’s someone else’s, someone who has been posting photos of me, under my name. And there’s one from inside the house.’

There was a sharp intake of breath.

‘You didn’t do this?’ Toni said. ‘This is crazy.’

‘It isn’t’ – Sarah hesitated, but she had to ask – ‘it’s not you, is it?’

‘What? Why would it be me?’

‘You do have a track record of pranking people, Toni.’

‘Yeah, but firstly that was when we were in college. And secondly, even I would never come up with a prank like this, let alone be able to do it. I mean, where would I get the photos?’