She ruined my entire life. I refuse to let her take it, too. I had to protect myself.
And really, she did this to herself.
What? You disapprove? Do you actually blame me?
No, you don’t. You’d do the same if you had to.
Happy birthday to me. I am finally, finally free.
* * *
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Goode School, and the town of Marchburg, are complete figments of my imagination, an amalgamation of several private colleges and high schools in central Virginia.
That said... I have always wanted to write a boarding school mystery, and I come to the story honestly. I had the great privilege of attending Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia (class of ’91), and I have woven pieces of the school’s legends and tragedies into this story, all put through my own creative lens. Alumni will easily recognize Main Hall, the Skeller (I still dream of those tuna melts), Odds and Evens, Chilhowies, the trolleys, the sewing circle, and other unique-to-Macon details like Goode’s version of the Honor Code. The rest are fabricated for this story.
A few ghost stories have also been molded to fit this particular tale, the red staircase chief among them. The Commons is named after a real attic room in Main Hall, colloquially called the Bean Bag Room, one that I lived below the spring semester of my sophomore year. Many a night, my roommate and I were kept awake by footsteps, furniture dragging, and other unexplainable sounds overhead. The problem was, after several of these events, we would creep up the stairs to see who was there—and find the room empty. It did have a stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains during the daytime, though.
The haunted arboretum path is based in part on a real and terrible event, the on-campus murder of coed Cynthia Louise Hellman in 1973. The subsequent ghost story of the girl in purple clogs made it very hard for me to walk behind Martin Hall during my tenure.
Allegedly, the Underground Railroad did move through Lynchburg. Non-allegedly, there are tunnels under the campus, though they are not as accessible as they are at Goode.
Secret societies flourished during my tenure; I had the great honor to be tapped for more than one. Stomps, in particular, were great fun. That is where the similarities end, though. Yes, there was hazing, but Ivy Bound takes it to the extreme.
Goode’s provenance as an all-girls high school begins one hundred years prior to R-MWC, which was started by William Waugh-Smith, one of the great champions of female education in his day. I daresay he and Sister Julianne would be fast friends.
I was quite dismayed to see R-MWC’s board vote to go coed in 2006, against the wishes of most of its alumni. No knock on the subsequently named Randolph College, but I still believe that single-sex education has innumerable advantages, especially for women.
And all hail Virginia Woolf. I studied her great essay A Room of One’s Own at length at R-MWC, and I took it to heart as I moved into the world.
One last personal note. If you are feeling sad, depressed, or suicidal, please reach out. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available twenty-four-seven at 1-800-273-8255. You are not alone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So much of this story was based on my own experiences that I didn’t have to do a great deal of research for this book, but there were several people hugely instrumental in helping fill in the blanks. Lisa Patton and Virginia Kay helped bring me up to speed on the intricacies of current Southern girls’ boarding prep schools. Erik Franey helped bring Ash’s computer skills to life. Laura Benedict kept me honest when I started veering off course. Paige Crutcher and Ariel Lawhon provided much needed queso dates and were always there for idea bouncing. Jeff Abbott was always there for those all-is-lost moments, and Leigh Kramer hand-held, cheerled, and otherwise kept the trains running on time. On our private Facebook group, the ladies of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College jumped in with their favorite remembrances and ghost stories, which helped me flesh out my memory.
My team: Scott Miller of Trident Media Group, Nicole Brebner of MIRA Books, and Holly Frederick of Curtis Brown are truly the best a girl can ask for. The amazing group of people at MIRA and Harper Canada who work so hard behind the scenes to get this book out, into your hands, are the very best in the business. Many thanks to Craig Swinwood; Loriana Sacilotto; Heather Foy; Amy Jones; Randy Chan; Margaret Marbury; Miranda Indrigo; Ashley MacDonald; Olivia Gissing; Elissa Smith, Margot Mallinson; Chris Wolfgang; Lisa Basnett; Marianna Ricciuto; Erin Craig, Sean Kapitain, Malle Vallik; Carol Dunsmore; Leo MacDonald; Cory Beatty; Kaitlyn Vincent; Irina Pintea; Karen Ma; Michael Millar; and my incredible publicist, Emer Flounders, who all need a nod of thanks and oodles of gratitude. And cake. Let them eat cake.
For my family, especially my parents, for giving me the opportunity to go to R-MWC and explore my gifts in that wonderful environment, thank you from the bottom of my heart. And my darling Randy, the keeper of my heart. You were the sounding board for this idea from the very beginning, on that fateful drive across Florida, and I will forever be grateful you pushed me to follow my heart and write this book. I love you so much!
On September 23, 1992, my friend from R-MWC, Dail Dinwiddie, went missing from Five Points in Columbia, South Carolina, after a U2 concert. It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty-seven years since she went missing (oddly enough, to the day, as I’m writing this on the anniversary of her disappearance.) Someone out there knows what happened to Dail. It is my fervent hope and prayer that we find answers. If you know anything, suspect anything, please contact the Columbia Police Department Crimestoppers at 888-CRIME-SC (888-274-6372); text to CRIMES (9274637); or log in to www.midlandscrimestoppers.com and click on the red “Submit a Tip” button. Together, we can finally discover what happened that night, and bring some peace to Dail’s family and friends.
I am forever indebted to the amazing booksellers and librarians out there who work so hard to elevate literacy in their communities. And for you. Keep reading, friends. I appreciate you so very much.
ISBN-13: 9781488023569
Good Girls Lie
Copyright © 2019 by J.T. Ellison
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