You wouldn’t recognize me if you had known me a year ago, Shelly thought as she sat across the table from Jeff. They were on a first date, and she was only half listening to his story about his summer travels. She knew it didn’t matter. She knew that the chances of them making it past a third or fourth date before he realized who she was and went running were slim.
Her full name was Michelle Carson. Growing up, she had always been called Michelle, but after moving away from Mt. Shasta this spring, she had realized it was easier to go by Shelly, at least until she could get her name changed completely. Too many people recognized, Michelle Carlson. There wasn’t a person in the country who hadn’t heard her name on the news or radio in the last year. At least Shelly threw them off, for a bit.
She had moved away from California as soon as the courts allowed it. There was nowhere she could hide there, not even by changing her name. Everyone knew her face. Knew her story, sometimes, it seemed, better than she knew it herself. She’d since the pictures, heard the story enough to know what had happened, and what everyone else thought had happened. She’d been found covered in blood sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the television, while her three roommates lay upstairs, having been bludgeoned to death.
The courts never could prove that she had a part in it, and she still didn’t have any memories of the event, so she couldn’t say for sure that she didn’t do it. Everyone just assumed that she went crazy, blacked out, and killed them all. So even though she had never been found guilty, no one thought she was innocent.
And so it went. She was a pretty girl. Before the “incident” as she called it, she had been startlingly attractive with fair skin, snow white hair, and crystal blue eyes. Now, even with her hair a dark brunette, she still turned heads.
As she looked across the table, she realized that while she hadn’t been paying attention, that little light bulb had gone off in Jeff’s head. Without thinking she had given the server her credit card, and when he came back, he thanked her by her first name.
“Michelle, Michelle Carlson. Why does that sound so familiar?” Jeff looked at her quizzically for a moment. “Wasn’t that the name of the girl involved in that unsolved murder in Cali?”
She sat there, waiting, and knowing that in a few short seconds he would have it all put together. And he did.
“Oh, Shit! That’s YOU?!?!”
She just nodded. When this had first started happening, she had tried to explain, tried to protest her innocence, but by now, she knew, it didn’t matter and it wasn’t worth the effort. He’d be gone in a matter of minutes, and she would never see him again.
