The drinks were all named for other poisonous berries, a theme I appreciated because it was as subtle as you wanted it to be. Only girls who grew up on a farm would recognize it. Girls like me, though that was not something I was going to admit to Lena. I had my backstory laid out by this point and growing up in a religious cult was not part of it.

I’m twenty-six, from Providence, Rhode Island, a place I visited for research and determined to be the most innocuous but interesting New York–adjacent city to claim residency. Everyone seems to know someone from Rhode Island, but most people haven’t been there themselves, thus removing the risky conversation starter: Oh, I love that bar on that road with cobblestones, what’s it called again? Though, I memorized my way up and down the modest winding streets, so I’d probably be able to keep up. I have no siblings, no parents—no relatives to speak of—a guaranteed conversation-stopper. No one wants to ask for more details from an orphan who doesn’t want to talk about it.

I knew that part of my backstory needed to involve an Ivy League school, a place that would be unabashedly accepted by this elite crowd. But not one as dull as Harvard that would raise eyebrows. People from Harvard don’t apply for jobs at the Brit & Ash Agency. I figured I could just fake it—put whatever school I wanted down on my resume—but I had a brilliant idea after watching an episode of Law & Order: SVU. I started calling the less exclusive schools—UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, Brown—claiming I was from a grad school admissions office looking for the missing transcript for Elizabeth Bennet. I was hoping I’d get lucky. Perhaps there was an Elizabeth Bennet whose experience I could borrow. I struck gold at Brown.

“Hmm, Elizabeth Bennet,” the admissions assistant at Brown hummed when I called. I could hear the click clack of her keyboard aggressively typing in the background. “I don’t see anyone with that name, I’m sorry.”

I’d gotten used to that answer—prepared to pull my usual no problem, I must have the wrong number, so sorry for the inconvenience! that I’d offered to all the other schools I’d already called. But before I could respond, she said, “Oh wait, maybe you mean Eliza Bennet? Class of 2014?”

That could work. I was the Covenant University class of 2013, but I could pretend to be one year younger. People pay good money for doctors to send their faces back in time; turns out all you need to do is claim the identity of a younger person.

“Yes,” I said quickly. “You know what, my apologies, it’s absolutely Eliza Bennet. That’s what I meant. Can you fax over her file?”