The Drowning Girls (23 page)

JUNE 19, 2015
6:57 P.M.

LIZ

“It was a stupid idea,” Danielle said. She wasn’t looking at me, but down at her hands resting nervously on her skinny knees.

But I already knew that. How could it be anything other than a stupid idea, when we’d all but signed our lives away to the Jorgensens, when my name had been in the paper, accusations whispered from the lips of everyone I knew?

Danielle sighed. “We made this fake Twitter page. Well, Hannah did. She’s really good at that. She took some kind of independent study in computers and she can do all the back-end stuff, you know?”

I asked what was on the page, although I was fairly sure I knew—at least the tenor, the tone. It had been months since Danielle’s humiliation at Winter Formal, but of course that hurt wasn’t gone. It had just been dormant, waiting for the right moment.

“So, Hannah made a mock MLHS Stories page, and we put up this fake picture of Kelsey. It was pretty bad.”

“What picture?”

Danielle closed her eyes. “It was Kelsey’s face on this naked woman. She was really fat and—just, unattractive.”

“That’s horrible. No matter what she did, that’s horrible.”

“It was just a fake page! But we made up all these accounts with comments under it. We were going to show it to her, like it was real. We just wanted to freak her out. I mean, after everything she did to us...”

“So you invited her over?”

“Hannah did. Yeah.”

“I saw Kelsey earlier today. She came up to me when I was working in the garage, and I sent her away.”

Danielle ran her palms over her legs. She was sweating, I realized, even though I was blasting the air conditioner. “I guess she went around to the back. But we didn’t know! She was supposed to text when she was there and I was going to let her in. We were waiting for her upstairs and Hannah was adding this animated thing to the site.”

I massaged my temple with my right hand. “Who else knew about this?”

“No one. Me and Hannah.”

“It’s on your laptop?”

“Yeah. Hannah’s parents check hers like crazy. She can’t even—”

“When we get home,” I told her, “you’re going to delete it. Do you understand? You need to erase it off your hard drive.”

“But it has nothing to do with—”

“Danielle! You’re going to delete it.”

“Okay,” she said, chastened. “Fine.”

I pulled back onto the road, the headache that had been a fine pulsation beginning to throb, as if it were keeping time with my heartbeat.

JANUARY 2015
LIZ

The stench from the fire lingered for days—sharp and acrid, stinging my nostrils. Even the omnipresent sprinklers couldn’t quench it. All but the most hard-core runners took a few days off; the Zhang boys didn’t even go near the tennis courts. But still, we kept visiting the sight of the burned home, singly and in pairs, gathering in little clumps to marvel at what was left.

Allie and Mom left the day after New Year’s. It had been the plan all along, but when their bags and odds and ends were placed by the front door, it felt way too soon, as if circumstances had ripped us apart. “I want to drive by that house one more time on our way out of here,” Allie told Mom, and I understood—there was something magnetic about it, something that demanded a mute, compulsive obedience. Mom was still shaking her head at the waste of it—the beautiful home she’d never seen, reduced to beams and pieces.

“All it takes is a bit of faulty wiring, I guess,” she said. “One bad connection.”

I didn’t believe in the electrical wiring theory that was circulating. A burning house was just a more extreme manifestation of a vandalized bathroom or holes kicked in walls. I’d waited until after Allie and Mom had been gone half an hour, long enough to ensure that they wouldn’t come racing back inside for something left behind, a phone charger or a pair of shoes. Phil had left early that morning, too, briefcase in hand, off for an emergency meeting with Parker-Lane. I wondered if he would come home without a job, if Parker-Lane would give us at least a month to get settled somewhere else. When Danielle came out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her body, I was waiting on her bed.

She froze when she saw me, her hair flicking water droplets onto her shoulders. “What?”

“I know you left the house the night of the fire.”

“Yeah, with you. Remember?”

“Before that,” I said.

She turned her back to me, carefully sliding on a T-shirt and shimmying into a pair of underpants behind the modesty of her towel. “I was home with Gram. We were watching TV.”

“She went to her room, and she heard you leave the house and come back about ten minutes later.”

Danielle whirled around. “And she told you that?”

“She was worried.”

She yanked open a dresser drawer to grab a pair of jeans and jammed it closed unevenly. “I didn’t realize I was still under house arrest. Okay, I left for a few minutes. I was at an orgy across the street.”

“Very funny.”

She sighed, exasperated. “Hannah left her iPod here, and I brought it back.”

“Except Hannah was gone, too,” I said, remembering the snatch of Carly Bergland’s conversation that I’d heard on my way out of the clubhouse.

“Yeah, I met her outside her house. It’s too noisy to talk in there.” She pulled on her jeans, the fabric sliding easily over her slim hips and turned, watching me watch her. “What is this? Now you think I’m an arsonist or something? First it was the bathrooms, and now this?”

“I didn’t say anything about arson. I asked where you went,” I said evenly. “And at first you lied and said you didn’t go anywhere.”

“What do you want—my alibi? Okay. Hannah was there, and her million brothers and sisters, and some babysitter for the little ones. They were watching
A Christmas Story
, you know, that stupid movie with the little kid with the big glasses. Maybe you can dust their doorbell for my fingerprints. Go ahead, start the investigation!”

I picked up a sweatshirt from the pile on the floor, the one she’d been wearing that night. It smelled vaguely like smoke—although to be fair, everything smelled like smoke, beginning with the inside of my nostrils. “It seems like a bit of a coincidence, that’s all.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. You were gone, too, and Aunt Allie and Phil. Maybe one of you set the fire.”

“Danielle.”

“This is unbelievable! I don’t even understand you. It’s like you think the worst of me, all the time. One time I made a mistake. I was grounded and everything, but it’s like you want me to keep paying for it. And it’s not like you’ve never made a mistake. I know that. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Stop. Stop it right now.” I was on my feet, and she was dodging my approach. “You were not a mistake.”

Her laugh was more like a shriek. “What’s the politically correct term, then? A blessing in disguise?”

“Come on,” I said. “I asked you a simple question—”

“It wasn’t a simple question! And I had to lie, because if I didn’t, you would think what you were already thinking, anyway.”

“Danielle. Come on, let’s talk,” I said, but she sidestepped me and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

I waited outside her bathroom door for a long time, growing worried at the silence behind it. “Open up, so I know you’re okay,” I ordered her. “I’m not kidding. I’ll break the door down if I have to.”

The lock turned and she was there, glaring at me. “Fine. As you can see, I’m just peachy.”

* * *

I was downstairs, staring at a pile of last night’s dishes, when I heard the sirens. Danielle met me in the hallway, and we stared at each other.

My God
, I thought. Whose house was it this time?

We made it to the front lawn by the time the ambulance passed, its red strobe light bouncing off surfaces, catching us in its glare. Deanna was on the sidewalk in a bathrobe, her hair flat and lifeless. Helen Zhang, dogless, hurried past. We exchanged wordless glances.
What now?

The ambulance had stopped in front of the Jorgensens’ house. A crowd was assembling on their curb, like mourners at a prayer vigil. The Zhang boys joined us. Carly Bergland was there, her baby slung around her neck in a sort of miniature hammock. Behind us, the soft whirr of wheels on the asphalt announced the arrival of Fran, pushing Elijah.

The paramedics hurried into the Jorgensens’ house, leaving the door gaping open. It was funny, but after all the open houses and jewelry parties, after all the mornings I’d picked up Kelsey and all the afternoons I’d dropped her off, this was my furthest glance into the Jorgensens’ lives.

“Maybe I should go in there,” Deanna said, next to me. “To see if they need anything. It’s just that I’m feeling so sick. I have this awful cold...”

We ignored her. What did she think she could do, exactly? What services could she offer?

“Whose car is that in the driveway, next to Tim’s?” Helen asked.

Danielle whispered, “Kelsey’s.” No one else heard her.

“We don’t know anything,” I told her. “It could just be...” But I couldn’t find a satisfactory way to finish the thought, and my voice trailed off.

Deanna said, “This is killing me. I need to find out what’s going on.” She had just started down the sidewalk despite our feeble protests when the paramedics came out, a stretcher rolling between them. There was a collective moan—we recognized that blond hair hanging over the side, even if the face was obscured by an oxygen bag, quick puffs of air being dispensed into her mouth.

Danielle and I looked at each other, and she grabbed my arm with a clammy hand. Tears pooled in her eyes.

Sonia was right behind them, wearing jeans and slip-on tennis shoes, her face tear-streaked. I took a half step back. It was the closest we’d been since the day she stormed into my office.

Deanna ran toward her. “What happened?”

“We found her that way,” Sonia sobbed into Deanna’s bathrobe.

Tim came out of the house then, holding Sonia’s giant shoulder bag and a set of keys. “Come on, let’s go now. We don’t have time to stand here talking.” He took Sonia by the elbow and they exchanged a few words with the paramedics before getting into his sedan.

We watched stupidly, silently, as the ambulance did a three-point turn in the cul-de-sac, lights flashing. Through the back windows, we could see the paramedic bending over Kelsey, her bare feet upright. The siren resumed as the ambulance rounded the corner, the Jorgensens on their tail. I imagined the gates opening slowly, so slowly, the way they always did, before the ambulance could emerge into the outside world. No one said anything until the siren faded completely, not even a strand of sound floating back to us.

Helen said, “It’s just like last year.”

I turned. “What do you mean? What happened last year?”

She pursed her lips. “I shouldn’t say.”

I stared at her. I’d never noticed before how pinched Helen’s face was, how tight and disapproving. “Why shouldn’t you say?”

Carly adjusted the baby in its sling. “Helen, for goodness’ sakes. Last year, Kelsey took some pills—”

Deanna stepped in front of Carly. “Sonia wouldn’t want us talking about this! She told us these things in confidence.”

“She didn’t tell
me
in confidence,” Carly said. “It was all over Ashbury.”

“Did you know about this?” I asked Danielle.

“A little bit,” she said.

“She took some pills, and she made some crazy claims, and they yanked her right out of that school,” Carly said. To me she added, “That’s why I don’t like Hannah hanging around her.”

Deanna said, “Carly! She was a friend of your daughter’s. And we don’t even know what’s happened now. She could be dead. How would you feel if you were standing here spouting off these things and it turned out she was dead?”

Next to me Danielle began crying in earnest. Her hand was gummy in mine.

“That’s enough,” someone said. It was Fran, on the outside of the group, the voice of reason. “It’s no good to stand here speculating. Deanna, why don’t you give Sonia a call in a while and see what you can find out, if there’s anything they need. We should be thinking about how we can help them, not stirring up trouble.”

* * *

At home, Danielle went straight upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. I stood inside our entryway for a long moment, listening to the silence, before heading over to Fran’s house. She talked to me while she fed Elijah, a giant navy bib tucked to cover his entire torso. He submitted to the spoon reluctantly, looking off to the side.

“I don’t know all the specifics,” Fran said when I asked about the incident Carly had referred to. “Something about Kelsey and a teacher at her school. It would have been a big scandal, but the Jorgensens are good at keeping things hushed up. Must be all his training as a lawyer.”

“Are you talking about an inappropriate relationship?”

“That’s a nice way to say it. I don’t know the details, mind you. Just that it got pretty ugly, and it ended with Kelsey swallowing a bottle of pills. It was like déjà vu all over again, hearing those sirens and seeing her get wheeled away. The weird thing is, Elijah doesn’t mind the sound. Maybe it’s the lights—I don’t know.” She swiped the edge of the spoon against Elijah’s mouth, scraping off the excess. “I wonder if something like that is going on again. An older guy, taking advantage. But I guess you’d know if that was happening at her school.”

I inhaled sharply.

Straightening, she looked up at me. “Are you feeling okay?”

I shook my head. “I think just...the shock of everything. I should go.”

Outside, I steadied myself with my hands on my knees, ready to lean over and retch into the low bushes that marked the division of our properties.

* * *

Kelsey’s suicide attempt was the talk of The Palms that weekend. Deanna got in touch with Sonia, then spread the news of Kelsey’s near-tragedy throughout the community with her customary indiscretion. Apparently Kelsey had taken a bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills sometime that morning, and Sonia and Tim had found her in the bathroom, passed out next to the toilet. She’d vomited some of the pills, which meant that she was out of the woods by the time the paramedics arrived. By Monday, Kelsey would be transferred to a “private hospital,” Deanna told me, putting air quotes around the words. “Of course,” she concluded, “I’m only telling this to the people who know Kelsey and care about her.”

I wasn’t sure I fit both of those conditions, but I said, “Of course.”

Deanna shuddered. “And right after New Year’s. I mean, just the
symbolism
of it.”

“I think the reality is somewhat worse than the symbolism,” I commented.

She took a step back, as if I’d slapped her. “Well, obviously, Liz. I only meant... Never mind. Just, never mind, then.”

I watched her walk down the sidewalk, heading not back to her own home, but in the direction of the Zhangs and the Mesbahs, no doubt reveling in her privileged position of knowledge. There was a dark, horrible part of me that wanted to slip some crushed sleeping pills into whatever it was that Deanna drank—some mango or acai berry concoction, a pomegranate margarita.

And maybe I’d fix one for myself, too. Phil hadn’t come home the night before, calling late to say that his meeting would be continued in the morning. At least I knew he wasn’t with Kelsey; the two of them weren’t holed up together in a love nest. Was that still an expression? I thought again of the website for the law firm he’d been looking at, the brief flash that was there and gone when he’d closed the screen, and suddenly I doubted very much that he’d been chatting with Parker-Lane.

When he called from wherever he was, I told him the news about Kelsey Jorgensen. He was quiet for so long that I thought maybe he had hung up.

“Did you hear me? She took some sleeping pills. They had to pump her stomach.”

“This morning?” he asked.

“Yeah, this morning.”

“It’s horrible,” he said finally. “It’s absolutely horrible.”

After that, neither of us had anything to say.

* * *

Danielle kept to herself that weekend. On Sunday night, I found her sitting next to her bed with the lights out, listening to the ukulele version of “Over the Rainbow.” A few years ago, she’d burned a CD with the song playing on an endless loop, but now it struck me as so sad—a desperate yearning for trouble to melt like lemon drops.

At one point I put a blanket around her shoulders and found her glassy-eyed, tears melted on her cheeks.

“Is it because of me?” she asked.

“Why would you say that?”

“I mean, I just stopped talking to her after what happened at Winter Formal. And I was her friend. Maybe I could have helped her. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to.”