Hide and Seek (22 page)
An uneasy calm descended on the house in Bedford.
It was calm sometimes too with Phillip
, I thought.
I was getting everything in order, talking to Nathan Bailford and taking care of the legal aspects as best I could. I just needed another day or so, then I would talk to Will. In the meantime, I saw a very good psychiatrist in nearby Tarrytown. I was, as the papers would later say, “
under a doctor’s care
,” whatever that is supposed to convey.
Something came up unexpectedly. I received a call to come to Jennie’s school. They said it was important. The Bedford Hills Academy’s administration building was a small, neat Victorian-style house that looked like a thriving country inn. As I hurried inside, students and office staff recognized me and tried not to stare. I waved to the kids I knew, and even to some I didn’t recognize.
I ran up the stairs, stopping long enough in a bathroom to comb my hair, put on lipstick, check to make sure that my head was on straight.
I was going to meet Dr. Henry Follett, Dean of the Academy, and I wanted to look no different from other mothers with children at the school. For some reason, I was already more upset than the occasion probably required.
Dr. Follett’s office was small but pleasant, with a picture window looking out over the campus, and school memorabilia everywhere—pennants, championship banners, photographs of Follett with students or local officials.
He was a likable man in his fifties, compact and natty, and I guessed he had a sense of humor, though his expression was serious and his smile was professional. Still, his eyes were kind. And he had a nice handshake.
I didn’t know why he had summoned me. I was busy at home, distracted with Will, but I had come to the school right away. My stomach, my back, my neck were all in knots.
“It’s about Jennie,” he said, as soon as I was seated in front of his large, cluttered desk.
“Yes. I figured as much. Is she in some kind of trouble?” I asked. I was trying not to show what I was feeling inside. I had to be strong here—for Jennie. I could do that.
“I’m not sure, Mrs. Bradford. Maybe you can tell me.”
I hadn’t noticed anything too unusual about Jennie. She
was
a teenager though. “She seems fine. Rebellious at times, argumentative, mimics Butthead and Beavis around the house to drive me crazy.”
“Acting the same at home though? Not sick lately? Not depressed or unhappy?”
I shook my head, and continued to feel both confused and worried. What was he getting at? I saw Jennie every day. Of course she had her own life and her own friends. I operated on the principle that the best thing a mother can do for her teenage daughter is to give her a reasonable amount of space to grow up in. That, plus love.
“Certainly not sick,” I said. “What’s going on, Dr. Follett? Please tell me why you called.”
He drummed his fingers on his desk. “This semester, Jennie has skipped seventeen days of school.”
Bombshell!
I felt suddenly cold all over. “Skipped seventeen days?”
“Cut her classes. Didn’t show up at all.”
“My God! I had no idea. I almost don’t believe it, but of course I do. It isn’t like Jennie.”
“No, it isn’t like Jennie,” he agreed.
He handed me some papers from his desk. A report card and several illness notes. “Is that your signature?”
I looked at the notes and the report card. My hands were shaking. “My name, not my handwriting.”
Another bombshell
.
“Jennie’s?”
“I’m not sure. Could be.” My head was spinning too. This was the last thing I’d expected. Jennie had never been in trouble.
“We think she was trying to forge your signature,” Dr. Follett said, bringing me back from my reverie.
“Jennie wouldn’t do something like that.” I winced. Obviously, she had.
“Are you sure? If it’s not your signature, and it’s not Jennie’s forgery, then whose could it be?”
My brain whirled. “I really haven’t a clue.” Suddenly, I was angry at Jennie though. We had always trusted each other. I’d made time for Jennie no matter what else was going on.
“Mr. Shepherd?” the dean asked.
“No. He’s her stepfather. He’d simply sign. And this isn’t his signature either.”
“Look at the latest report card,” he said. “Have you seen this?”
I looked. B’s and C’s. I wanted to cry. Jennie had always been an A student. Maybe I hadn’t been paying enough attention because of that?
“Mrs. Bradford, Jennie is one of the best students at Bedford Hills Academy. Then suddenly, just this semester, she gets very bad marks. For her anyway. That sometimes happens in the senior year, when a kid’s been accepted at college and feels she deserves a break. But Jennie’s a sophomore. Just the time her grades should be highest.”
“I know.
Jennie
knows,” I said. I didn’t understand what could have happened. This had come out of the blue. I didn’t think she had picked up on Will and me, but maybe she had. Kids can tell.
Dr. Follett stood up from his desk, and extended his hand. “We all love Jennie here at the Academy. Faculty and her classmates both. If you find out anything, please call me. It wouldn’t be betraying her secrets. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to a student, and we’re pretty good at fixing things.”
I shook his hand, then I headed out—to try and find Jennie. She had skipped classes again today.
First though, I sat in the school’s visitor parking lot and tried to stop my body from trembling. My world seemed to be falling apart again.
J
ENNIE ARRIVED HOME around three-thirty, her knapsack full of books, looking innocent of any wrongdoing. I asked her to take a ride with me.
I drove to the Pound Ridge Reservation, a nature preserve in the heart of Westchester. At around four, the two of us hiked up a hill toward an antique fire tower, from the top of which you could see Long Island Sound, and even the New York City skyline far to the south.
Jennie, of course, wanted to know what was going on. I asked her to wait. All in good time, my sweet darling.
We walked silently—I didn’t know where to start—and stopped, breathless, when we reached the crest. I was feeling maternal, angry, hurt, optimistic—just as in the songs I wrote.
True songs out of life, right?
“I’ve been to see Dean Follett,” I finally told her.
The first shoe drops!
Jennie had been looking at me. Now, she turned her head away. Not a word.
“He says your grades are falling. He also says you’ve been skipping school.”
The second shoe
.
“School’s boring and I hate it.” Jennie’s tone was surly and defiant. Not like her at all. It was Jennie at her absolute worst, and not something I saw very often.
“You didn’t used to think so,” I said to her.
“I do now. There’s nothing worth learning. The teachers there aren’t very bright, you know.”
“So you don’t go anymore. That’s interesting, Jen. Quite a revelation. What do you do with your days?”
“Nothing much. But nothing is better than my classes.”
“You’re not home.”
“How would you know that for sure? You’re shut up in your study most of the day.”
Now she was being completely unfair, but I kept my cool. “I’d know, and
you
know I would. I love you, Jennie, and if you’re in any kind of trouble—”
“Nobody gives a damn about anybody else. Don’t fake it. Don’t condescend to me now.”
Even without touching her, I could sense an awful tenseness in her body, the effort she had to make to speak at all. When had this happened? How had it happened? Why?
“I love you,” I said, my voice unsteady. “You’re the most precious thing in my life. It’s always been that way.”
Her composure finally broke. So did mine. “Don’t say that,” she suddenly wailed. “Don’t say you love me, Mom. I don’t deserve it.”
I could barely speak. I was holding back great, racking sobs. “Why? I
do
love you. Why shouldn’t I tell you what’s true?”
“Because you
couldn’t
. You don’t know who I am, and it takes something like this to get your attention.
Failing grades!
I mean—
who cares
?”
I finally bowed my head, and I started to cry. I thought that I could handle anything, but not this.
Suddenly, Jennie flung herself at me, burying her face in my neck. I could feel her hot tears, her body’s warmth.
“I can’t tell you,” she sobbed. “I’m not even sure that I know. I’m fifteen and it’s all a little nuts. So what’s new?” she finally choked out a laugh.
“My God, Mom,” Jennie said to me then. “You’re shaking all over.”
We sat on the ground and held each other for a long, long time. A breeze came up, and I wrapped my sweater around her.
My baby
, I thought.
My friend for so many years. My sweet Jennie
.
But I could think of no way to comfort her, and make it better for either of us. I blamed myself, of course. I’d tried so hard to be supermom, but it wasn’t enough. It never is.
I
SPENT A blessed hour the next morning, which was unseasonably warm, working in the garden behind the swimming pool. The time alone, the feel of sunlight on the back of my neck, the physical exertion—all were exactly what the doctor ordered. I began to regroup.
I needed time to think things through in a straight line. The worsening situation with Will. Jennie’s problems at school. My own bad experience in San Francisco. It was a lot to take at one time; I was afraid that I wasn’t handling it very well.
There was an explosion in the woods beyond the pool.
I stopped digging, stopped thinking, stopped breathing, and listened with total concentration. And dread.
A second explosion came from behind a thick wall of evergreens. The trees masked my view.
Gunshots? Oh my God
.
I was on my feet, running at full speed toward the thick pocket of trees. A scream was stuck in my throat.
Oh God, dear God … what’s happened?
What’s happened now?
I plunged into the woods, heading for the sound of the shots. My heart was pounding and there was a sharp pain in my chest.
Instinct drove me; I didn’t even think of calling for help. Whom would I call to anyway?
Gunshots? Near our house? How could that be?
My ankles were stabbed by rocks and thistles. There were no more shots, just a frightening, desolate silence. Finally, I came to a clearing. I stopped running.
Will was standing there. Will was holding a rifle in the crook of his arm.
He turned at the sound of my footsteps. He looked at me as though I didn’t belong there.
“What are you doing?” I managed to speak.
“Target practice,” he said. He motioned to a row of beer and soda cans set up on a log. “Care to give it a go, Maggie?”
He flashed his best North Downing smile. “I’m getting quite good. I’m a natural it seems. Great hand-to-eye.”
Phillip had a gun too. I had used it to kill him. I remembered dark blood pouring from his mouth, saw his look of horror, heard his grunt of surprise as the fatal bullet struck him
.
“Get rid of it!” I screamed. “I don’t want it anywhere near my house. Get rid of that gun!”
Will looked at me coldly, but then he grinned. “
Our
house. But it’s your call, Maggie. If it disturbs you, it’s gone. If you don’t trust yourself around guns, I understand.”
T
HIS WAS THE day. I just couldn’t have known it. I wouldn’t have expected it. This was the day
.
Having been unable to sleep, I slipped out of the house at dawn. I was wearing a terrycloth robe and my rattiest sneakers. My long hair was in knots. Hopeless.
I figured the air would be good for me, give me a fresh start. I hoped no one would see me like this. No paparazzi sneaking shots through the fence.
I walked to the partly crumbled fieldstone wall that divided my property from the grounds of the Lake Club. My sneakers stamped defiantly through damp leaves and creepers. Chattering blue jays and robins darted among the high trees over my head.
“Oh, shut the heck up,” I grumped at the birds.
I was startled to hear another kind of sound in the woods. A human voice.
“Who’s there?” I called ahead.
“Hello?”
J. C. Frazier appeared. He was coming out of a meadow that belonged to the Lake Club, where he worked as head groundskeeper. J.C. was always outside, so we met from time to time. I knew that he was seeing Mrs. Leigh, and she thought he was a good man.
Yes, and they are hard to find
, I was tempted to tell her.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Bradford. You the one responsible for this fine weather?” he asked. Not a care in the world, and why should he? His grounds were in perfect order.
“I thought
you
were in charge of the weather, J.C.”
“No way, ma’am. I’m charged with the grounds only. I believe
you
have the upper atmosphere. And a real good job you’ve made of it today. Blue skies everywhere I can see.”
We stopped to talk over a mossy stone wall. J.C. probably knew more secrets about the residents of Bedford than anyone around, but his discretion was as much responsible for his keeping his job as was his skill, so our talk was of seasonal flowers and the approaching summer. Harmless small talk, but it hit the spot, and took my mind off my problems, if only for a little while.
I remembered something I’d been meaning to ask somebody at the club, or maybe something I’d been afraid to bring up before.
“Sometimes at night I’ve noticed lights on in the club. I’d say around one or two in the morning.”
J.C. thought about what I’d said, then shook his head. “That’s not possible. No, I’m afraid not, Mrs. Bradford.”
“I’ve seen the lights. I’m positive that I have.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t think so. Couldn’t be. The club closes at eleven. Always. That’s the golden rule.”
I thought of arguing with him further, but gave up. If J.C. didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t talk.