Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty Page A

sometimes she made him laugh when they Skyped, and he had a dry little chuckle that melted her heart. Ari’s mother—Paul’s wife—had died of cancer when Ari was in preschool. So sad, so poignant, so … “convenient?” suggested one of Frances’s friends, and Frances had slapped her wrist.
    Frances was planning to move from Sydney to Santa Barbara. She had her flights booked. They would need to get married to secure her green card, but she wasn’t going to rush into things. If and when it happened, she planned to wear amethyst. Appropriate for a third wedding. Paul had sent her photos of the room in his house that he’d already set up as her writing room. There were empty bookshelves waiting for her books.
    When that terrible phone call came in the middle of the night, Paul so distraught he could barely get the words out, crying as he told her that Ari had been in a terrible car accident and there was a problem with the health insurance company and that Ari needed immediate surgery, Frances didn’t hesitate. She sent him money. A vast amount of money.
    â€œSorry, how much?” said the young detective who carefully wrote down everything Frances said, his professionalism slipping for just a moment.
    That was Paul’s only misstep: he underplayed his hand. She would have sent double, triple, quadruple—anything to save Ari.
    And then: terrifying silence. She was frantic. She thought Ari must have died. Then she thought Paul had died. No answers to her texts, her voicemail messages, her emails. It was her friend Di who made the first tentative suggestion. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Frances, but is it possible that…?” Di didn’t even need to finish the sentence. Itwas as if the knowledge had been lurking away in Frances’s subconscious all along, even while she booked nonrefundable airfares.
    It felt personal but it wasn’t personal. It was just business. “These people are getting so smart,” the detective had said. “They’re professional and polished and they target women of your age and circumstances.” The sympathy on his handsome young face was excruciating. He saw a desperate old lady.
    She wanted to say, “No, no, I’m not a woman of age and circumstance! I’m me! You’re not seeing me !” She wanted to tell him that she had never had any trouble meeting men, she had been pursued by men all her life, men who truly loved her and men who only wanted to have sex with her, but they were all real men, who wanted her for herself, not con artists who wanted her money. She wanted to tell him that she’d been told on multiple occasions by multiple sources that she was really very good in bed, and her second serve caused consternation on the tennis court, and, although she never cooked, she could bake an excellent lemon meringue pie. She wanted to tell him she was real .
    The shame she experienced was extraordinary. She had revealed so much of herself to this scammer. How he must have sniggered, even as he somehow responded with sensitivity, humor, and perfect spelling. He was a mirage, a narcissistic reflection of herself, saying exactly what she so obviously wanted to hear. She realized weeks after that even his name, “Paul Drabble,” was probably designed to begin the act of seduction by subconsciously reminding her of Margaret Drabble, one of her favorite authors, as she had posted for all to see on social media.
    It turned out many other women had been planning lives as Ari’s stepmother too.
    â€œThere are multiple ladies in the same situation as you,” the detective said.
    Ladies. Oh my God, ladies. She couldn’t believe she was a lady. That sexless, gentrified word made Frances shudder.
    The details of each scam were different but the boy’s name was always “Ari” and he always had a “car accident” and the distraughtphone call always came in