An Anonymous Girl: A Novel

Dr. Shields notes that people tend to judge themselves severely, scrutinizing their own actions throughout each day and looking back on past moral choices, wondering how they affected others. People have regrets about many of these choices, and many sit in wait for the day that their past choices come back to haunt them.

Jessica gets to her apartment and locks her door immediately. Realizing that her impulsive decision to participate in the study is what led to all of this, she resolves to be methodical. She writes down everything she knows about both Thomas and Dr. Shields and realizes it is very little and very superficial. Jessica searches for information about April’s suicide on the internet and finds it, along with her full name. April was only 23 when she died. Jessica then finds her Instagram page and sees a photo from a few days before April’s death that seems ordinary. She notices a wrap in the photograph, much like the one Dr. Shields gifted her. She comes across a photo of Thomas lying half-nude in a bed, and all she can feel is fear.

Over dinner, Thomas flirts with Dr. Shields and attempts to win her favor as usual. After dinner, Dr. Shields rejects Thomas’s advances and goes home alone, where she records the events of the evening before looking over her two most important files: Jessica’s and April’s.

Jessica decides to be mostly honest with Dr. Shields and to “lean into” the setup rather than backing away. When Jessica is invited over, she tells Dr. Shields that the man at the diner did in fact want to meet, but she never agreed to do so because she suspected he was Dr. Shields’s husband. Jessica notices that Dr. Shields is shaking slightly, and Jessica pulls together a string of half-truths to explain how she knows about Thomas. Dr. Shields realizes she has no option and admits that Thomas is her husband and that he cheated on her. She explains that she chose Jessica because she reminded her of April and she wanted to see if Thomas would fall for temptation again. Jessica briefly sees the humanity in Dr. Shields, but it is immediately replaced by the cold professionalism she always upholds. When Dr. Shields explains that the woman Thomas was with was older than Jessica, Jessica is alarmed, knowing that April was only 23. She realizes there must be yet another woman with whom Thomas was involved. Dr. Shields demands that Jessica text Thomas to meet.

Dr. Shields describes her views of truth, believing it to be subjective and something that changes based on who is claiming to know it. She awaits a call from Jessica after Jessica is scheduled to meet Thomas at a bar. When Jessica calls, she tells Dr. Shields that Thomas is devoted to her and not to worry about his loyalty anymore. Dr. Shields, weak to the idea of getting Thomas back, falls for the ploy temporarily. She sits in a restaurant two blocks from the bar and watches as Jessica leaves. Dr. Shields notices Jessica meeting up with a man—Noah—at another restaurant nearby and wonders what else Jessica is hiding.

Jessica’s meeting with Thomas went exactly as she said: She and Thomas discussed his loyalty to Dr. Shields, over and over, for almost 30 minutes. Their real meeting took place hours before at a pub, where Jessica explained the reasons for being hired by Dr. Shields and Thomas begged her not to tell Dr. Shields about April. All Thomas said about April was that their fling lasted only one night and that at the time, he had no idea she was part of Dr. Shields’s study. He admitted that he had an affair with a woman who owned a clothing store near his office. Jessica wonders if April was set up to test Thomas, just like she was. Jessica becomes suspicious that April’s death wasn’t a suicide at all.

Dr. Shields waits for Thomas at home, and when he arrives, she is happier than usual to see him. She tells Thomas about a suspicious woman from her study that has been stalking her both at work and at home and pretends to be worried about her safety. Thomas vows to protect his wife, staring into her eyes longingly. With Jessica’s assurance that Thomas is devoted, and with his promise to protect her, Dr. Shields takes Thomas to her bedroom.

Jessica pretends to be an old friend from college and goes to April’s house to meet her mother. April’s mother is happy to see someone who claims to be a friend of April’s, and the two sit and talk in April’s room for a while. April’s mother gives Jessica a funeral program that shows a mourning dove on its cover, along with the Beatles quote, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” (309). April’s mother tells Jessica about how she was in and out of therapy for years and had a history of self-harm but did not seem to be on a trajectory toward suicide when she died. April’s mother admits that April’s most recent therapist was more secretive than others and that she hadn’t even mentioned that she was seeing her. April’s mother went to Dr. Shields after April died to find out more information and see April’s file, but the therapist refused to hand it over, citing confidentiality. As a result, April’s mother hired a private detective. Jessica feels horrible for faking friendship but hopes that if she can find answers about April’s death, April’s mother may also be able to start healing.

On December 22, Dr. Shields wakes up after a night with Thomas, feeling refreshed and optimistic. They have breakfast together and part for the day, planning to meet up later. Dr. Shields buys lingerie and takes a bubble bath, sure that she has won Thomas over. She receives a text from Jessica, who claims to be going on holiday with Lizzie; when Dr. Shields tries to verify this, she finds out that Lizzie left the day before. Thomas comes home early and tells Dr. Shields he has a surprise for her.

Jessica breaks into Dr. Shields’s home with the help of Thomas, who keeps Dr. Shields distracted with a date. Jessica sneaks through Dr. Shields’s house and up to her study, where she finds both her file and April’s. Jessica takes photographs of every page in her file, which includes documentation of the original study and everything since, pictures of her family that Dr. Shields found online, and Dr. Shields’s notes, which contain statements like “You belong to me” (321). She takes photographs of the number for a private investigator looking into April’s case.

Jessica opens April’s file and sees that April only came to one session of questions with Dr. Shields and that she joined the study two weeks after she posted the photo of Thomas, suggesting that she met Thomas first. Jessica starts to feel like Thomas is the dangerous one and moves to leave as soon as possible, attempting to leave no trace of her presence. Jessica resolves to find out what Thomas is hiding and debates about sending the photos of April’s file to her mother.

Dr. Shields is at dinner with Thomas and another couple when Thomas claims to be called away by a patient. She goes into her study and looks around, and upon examining her desk, she notices that her files are in the wrong spot. She concludes that it must have been Thomas and thinks back to his behavior during dinner, recalling how he seemed slightly different. Dr. Shields entertains the possibility that Thomas looked at the file containing Jessica’s information, breaching Dr. Shields’s trust in him once again. The thought angers her, and she takes off her lingerie and throws it in the corner.

Jessica wonders why Thomas is so eager to hide his involvement with April but didn’t mind admitting he had an affair with the woman at the clothing store. She decides to go meet the woman in person, and the woman is shocked to hear that Thomas claimed to have had an affair with her. She states that she is happily married, that she has not had any affairs, and that she only met Thomas once when he came in to buy his wife some clothes, which he returned the next day.

Dr. Shields realizes that Jessica has been manipulating her and that she has been so focused on Thomas that she missed this threat. She compares this mistake to the invisible gorilla experiment, in which subjects watching a video are unaware when a man in a gorilla suit enters the scene because they are so focused on counting the number of basketball passes. Dr. Shields wonders what specifically Jessica is lying about—whether she is sexually involved with Thomas, whether she has hidden information about her past, whether Jessica was planning this all along, and whether Jessica purposely skewed the experiment regarding Thomas’s fidelity.

Jessica wants to know why Thomas is hiding his involvement with April. Thomas tells Jessica that he has no more obligation to her and hangs up, but she calls him back and tells him that she has withheld some pages of April’s file and won’t provide them until he meets her in person. Thomas agrees to have Jessica come to his office, and Jessica calls Noah to wait for her outside. In Thomas’s office, Jessica tells Thomas everything she knows and asks him to do the same. Thomas explains that he made up the affair with the clothing store lady because he didn’t want Dr. Shields to know he slept with someone who was 23. He sent the text to Dr. Shields on purpose in the hopes of inspiring a divorce, but she insisted on reconciling. No matter what Thomas did, he could not escape. He tells Jessica that he only met April once but that she became obsessed with him. This led to April joining Dr. Shields’s study in the hopes of getting closer to Thomas but only resulted in Dr. Shields taking an interest in her. Jessica notices that Thomas has a mug with the same Beatles quote as April’s funeral program. From the file, Jessica believes Dr. Shields was not aware that April was the woman Thomas slept with but that she began to manipulate and control April the same way she did with Jessica. When April admitted she slept with a married man (though not with whom), Dr. Shields rejected her. Jessica then receives two phone calls from her employer, BeautyBuzz, telling her she’s fired for giving out free services.

Dr. Shields discovers that Jessica and Thomas are at his office together and becomes overwhelmed with anger. She calls Jessica’s employer and reveals the free services, causing Jessica to lose her job. Dr. Shields considers it a fitting punishment but not severe enough. When she finds Noah standing outside Thomas’s office, she tells Noah that Jessica has been lying to her employer, visiting drug dealers, and sleeping with countless men. She shows him one of Jessica’s texts that refers to Thomas and tells Noah that she is Jessica’s psychologist and is treating her narcissism and compulsive lying. Dr. Shields proudly states (internally) that she knows Thomas was lying about the woman at the clothing store and that she knew about April and Thomas all along.

Jessica receives a text from Dr. Shields asking if she has heard from her family on their vacation, and Jessica begins to panic, thinking that Dr. Shields has done something to them. She calls both parents, neither of whom answer, and rushes to Dr. Shields’s house. Dr. Shields acts collected, pretending to wonder why Jessica is so concerned. Jessica demands the number of the resort her family is staying at, and when she calls, her mother answers, perfectly fine. Dr. Shields gaslights Jessica as Jessica questions her about being fired and losing Noah. Dr. Shields denies being responsible for either. She pretends to be concerned for Jessica and hands her a white pill in a clear bag. Jessica stares at the pill and wonders if this is what Dr. Shields did to April. Jessica puts the pill in her purse and leaves; she considers what Dr. Shields may or may not know about her and Thomas.

Dr. Shields sits with her parents on Christmas Eve. The stockings are filled, including one for Dr. Shields’s sister, who is often the topic of conversation during the holidays. Dr. Shields believes that her sister was selfish and immoral and that was the reason she died. She recalls how she was prone to sneaking out at night with boys and how on one such night, she was out with Dr. Shields’s ex-boyfriend. As a form of revenge, Dr. Shields locked her sister out of the house, and when her sister returned home, she was too scared to ring the bell and incite the wrath of her parents. Instead, she got back in the car with her sister’s ex, who was drunk at the time. They crashed and both died as a result. Dr. Shields believes her sister’s choices led to her death. She feels betrayed by and disappointed in Jessica because since they both had a hand in their sisters’ deaths, she felt they were connected on a meaningful level. Dr. Shields thinks about how she has arranged for Jessica to be totally isolated over the next 24 hours and the plans she has for her.

Jessica returns to the fountain where April died and realizes there is a bench dedicated in her name with the caption, “Who surrendered too soon” (376). Jessica is certain that Dr. Shields paid for the donation. Looking at the scene before her, Jessica suddenly realizes that it mirrors April’s funeral program. She pulls it out and stares at it, noticing that the Beatles quote from the program doesn’t match the quote on the bench. She believes Thomas never sung the song at all but that April must have noticed it on his mug when she went to his office—as a patient.

Dr. Shields sits alone, feeling the weight of isolation. She texts April’s mother to let her know she donated to a suicide charity and thinks about the notes in April’s file that her mother so desperately wants. Dr. Shields admits to altering the notes that recorded the events of their last day together but gives the accurate series of events now.

April came over to her house, emotionally charged and distraught over the man she claimed to be unable to get over (Thomas). Dr. Shields, irritated with April’s emotional state, held back her emotions and listened as April admitted to stalking the man after their one and only therapy session together. Dr. Shields was empathetic at first and told April she was taken advantage of, but when April told her that the man was married and quoted the same phrase on Dr. Shields’s wedding band, it suddenly occurred to Dr. Shields that the man in question was Thomas. April admitted to having slept with a married man but refrained from giving his name. Dr. Shields invited April for a walk and took her to the fountain at the conservatory. There, Dr. Shields claims that all they did was talk, and Dr. Shields provided her with some pills. Dr. Shields then left April alone, and she was found dead two hours later.

On Christmas Day, Jessica phones the private investigator that April’s family hired to tell him what she knows about Dr. Shields and Thomas, but not before booking a flight to Florida and planning to start her life over once everything is taken care of. She writes a letter to Noah explaining everything in the hopes that he will give her another chance. Jessica receives and declines calls from Dr. Shields. She gets a call from an unknown number and thinks it’s the investigator calling back, but Dr. Shields is on the line and tells her she will be picked up at six o’clock for Christmas dinner. Jessica vehemently declines, but Dr. Shields blackmails her, saying she has a recording of Jessica sneaking into her house. Jessica realizes she has no choice, and after hanging up, she desperately tries to think of a way to get out of Dr. Shields’s grasp. First, she calls her parents in Florida and tells them about how she locked Becky in her room the day of the accident. She is overwhelmed with relief and shock to find her father blames himself as well and that neither of her parents are angry with her. Jessica wonders if it is the last time she will ever talk to her parents but hangs up knowing she has to deal with Dr. Shields. She hopes that between her knowledge of Dr. Shields’s unethical choices, her phone call to the investigator, and her letter to Noah, Dr. Shields won’t have any power over her.

Jessica arrives at Dr. Shields’s home “full of surprises” (402); she is dressed immaculately, looks calm, and brings Dr. Shields a gift. She also calls her by her first name, Lydia. Dr. Shields has a surprise of her own: Thomas is sitting in the library. He seems equally surprised to see Jessica, and Dr. Shields pretends that everything is normal. Dr. Shields wants to know the nature of Thomas and Jessica’s relationship, and Jessica blatantly tells her that she was hired to act as a setup to see if Thomas would cheat again. Dr. Shields reveals a vital piece of evidence she has against Thomas: the visitor log sheet showing April’s entry when they first met. The log would cause Thomas to lose his license to practice and possibly worse. Dr. Shields does the same thing to Jessica, playing the recording of her breaking in. She tells both Jessica and Thomas that she will give them their evidence if they are honest with her.

Jessica stops on her way to Dr. Shields’s to buy a voice recording watch so she can catch Dr. Shields saying something incriminating. She sets up emails compiling evidence against Dr. Shields and schedules them to be sent out to everyone that night. When she gets to Dr. Shields’s home and finds Thomas there, and then hears Dr. Shields blatantly admit she knows about April, Jessica realizes she needs a new plan. Thomas tries to apologize, and Dr. Shields seems immediately forgiving, causing Jessica to realize just how much Dr. Shields loves Thomas. Jessica sees this love as “all-consuming and toxic and dangerous” (412).

Dr. Shields demands that Thomas and Jessica confess their relationship, taking them aside one by one. Thomas lies and says nothing happened in an effort to protect Jessica, and Jessica admits the truth. Dr. Shields immediately knows who is lying and tries to blackmail Jessica once again. Jessica realizes that Dr. Shields trapped April in a similar way. She accuses Dr. Shields of providing April with too many pills on purpose. Dr. Shields tries to deny it, but Thomas remembers having some left over from an injury. When he starts upstairs to check the cabinet, Dr. Shields stops him, crying out that she did it for him. Thomas is aghast to hear that his wife set April up to end her own life in order to protect his reputation. Dr. Shields tries to defame Jessica, saying nobody will believe her story, but Thomas is suddenly disgusted with Dr. Shields. He takes Jessica home and tells Dr. Shields that they’ll call the police in the morning. 

Dr. Shields is utterly alone, having lost Thomas and failed at her experiment. She opens Jessica’s present and finds the photograph that April took of him in bed, framed, though she still doesn’t know whose bed he was in. She writes a final note confessing her involvement in April’s death and leaving out Thomas’s part in it. She feels as if “the endless sky is devoid of a single star” (422), and she does not want to go on without him or face the consequences of her actions. Instead, she decides to end her life the same way April did and writes herself a prescription.

It is March 30 of the following year. Jessica is working in theater again, and some of her old friends exposed Gene, relieving Jessica’s worries. While Jessica was given the chance to make amends with Noah, too much had happened for them to continue their relationship. Jessica looks back on her final meeting with Thomas in January and writes from the perspective of Dr. Shields as she describes it. Jessica blackmails Thomas with the Beatles quote, demanding a huge sum of money to be paid to her every month. Thomas, who inherited Dr. Shields’s estate and kept his job, has the means to provide it. He realizes he has no option and admits defeat, and Jessica leaves wondering if it was “all worth it” (428).