I'm Not Who You Think I Am

by Peg Kehret

  “Do you and Laura want to stay at our house tonight?” Mr. Bradley asked as he drove Ginger home. “We can wait while you get your things.”

  “I’d love to,” Ginger said, “but you don’t need to wait. Laura has an early class on Saturdays, so she’ll want the car at your house. We’ll drive over.”

  “I’ll make popcorn,” Karie said. “I’m too excited to sleep.”

  When the car stopped in front of Ginger’s house, Laura opened the door immediately. Once inside, Ginger related the whole story.

  When she had finished, Laura hugged her and said, “What a terrible ordeal to go through. We should have—”

  “I know,” Ginger said. “We should have called Mom and Dad.”

  “It’s partly my fault. When you told me that woman had called here and that she waited for you at school and wanted to talk to you, I should have called Mom or Dad. But I never dreamed she would do anything like this.” Laura hugged Ginger again. “You’re safe, and that’s all that matters now.”

  “There’s something else I need to tell you,” Ginger said. She wondered if Laura would be so understanding when she learned that Ginger had alienated B.A. Catering’s most important customer.

  How do you tell your sister that you blew her chance to stay in college?

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  “I SPOKE AT THE HEARING,” Ginger said. “I gave the school board some videotapes of Mr. Wren that proved he’s a good coach, and the petition against him was dismissed. Mrs. Vaughn got really angry at me and she’ll never hire you or Mom again.”

  Ginger kept her eyes on the floor, not wanting to see her sister’s reaction. She talked faster and faster, needing to say everything and get it over with.

  “I’m sorry, Laura. I didn’t want to wreck your business, or Mom’s, but nobody else had any proof and Mr. Wren was going to leave our school if he got fired, and his family would have to move, and he’d never get another coaching job, and it was so unfair that I—”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “What?” Ginger looked up.

  “You did the right thing,” Laura repeated, “and I’m proud of you.”

  Ginger’s eyes filled with tears. “You aren’t mad at me?”

  “Of course not. Mrs. Vaughn is a bully, and I’m glad you had the guts to stand up and tell the truth.”

  “But your catering business! She’ll tell all her friends not to hire you, and you won’t have enough money for your tuition.”

  “I’m tired of cutting up broccoli and making tiny little cream puffs,” Laura said. “I think I’ll apply for a part-time job as a cook in one of the dorms, where I could prepare real food, like waffles and big baked potatoes. I can probably earn even more than I have with B.A. Catering.”

  “I wrecked Mom’s business, too. She’s going to hate me when she finds out.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Just then the phone rang. Ginger jumped as if a rifle had gone off in the room. She hadn’t realized her nerves were so taut.

  “This is Officer Tyle. I thought you’d like to know we have the man in custody. A police dog tracked him to some shrubbery in the green belt behind the administration building.”

  Ginger felt the tension float out of her. She thanked Officer Tyle for calling and relayed the news to Laura.

  “You need to call Mom and Dad,” Laura said.

  “I’d rather not tell them about Joyce over the phone,” Ginger said. “Do you think I can wait until they get home?”

  “No,” Laura said. “You have to call tonight.”

  “Now that Joyce and the man are both in custody, the danger is over.”

  “What about the newspaper photographer who was there? And the TV reporters who listen to the police scanners? The story will be on tonight’s news. It could get picked up by one of the networks and broadcast in Chicago or Atlanta.”

  Ginger found the note her mother had left, with the hotel phone number on it. When she finished telling her mother what had happened, Mrs. Shaw said, “I’ll be home as soon as I can get a flight.”

  “But the wedding is tomorrow! I’m perfectly safe now; there’s no need for you to come home early.”

  “I’m going to call the police, and your father,” Mrs. Shaw said, “and then I’ll decide what to do. I’ll call you back.”

  Ginger gave her Officer Tyle’s name, and the phone number off the business card. Half an hour later, Mrs. Shaw called. “The police assured me that there’s no need to worry,” she said, “so I’m going to stay for the wedding and come home as planned. Mrs. Thomas is on her way over; she’ll stay with you and Laura until Sunday.”

  Ginger didn’t protest.

  Mrs. Shaw ended the conversation in her usual way: “I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Ginger called Karie to tell her the man had been caught. “We’ll stay here tonight,” Ginger said. “Tell your dad thanks for the invitation, but Mom has Mrs. Thomas coming to stay with us.”

  “Good idea,” Karie said.

  • • •

  For the first time in a week, Ginger slept soundly. When she woke up Saturday morning, splinters of sunshine patterned the floor near the window. She did not look to see if the white car was parked outside. She fed Flopsy, then went to the kitchen. She poured a glass of juice and sat down beside Mrs. Thomas, who was reading the morning newspaper.

  “It says here,” Mrs. Thomas told Ginger, “that the woman who claimed to be your mother has a long history of mental illness.” She handed the paper to Ginger.

  Three stories shared the front page. A picture of the man in the Fred’s Fish House cap, being led away in handcuffs by the police, accompanied the first story.

  SUSPECTS NABBED AT SCHOOL HEARING

  Two people were arrested last night at the Roosevelt School District Administration Building for the attempted abduction of Ginger Shaw, a thirteen-year-old student. They were identified as Joyce Enderly and Jake Gallo, both of Seattle.

  Enderly, whose legal name is Joyce Gallo, is wanted by the police for the abduction three years ago of a ten-year-old Montana girl. The girl escaped at a freeway rest stop, and other travelers called 911 on a cellular phone. Joyce Enderly’s husband, Arnold Gallo, was sentenced to prison for the crime. Enderly eluded capture.

  Ginger wondered if the child’s escape, and the imprisonment of Joyce’s husband, were the “small problem” she had referred to.

  Seven years before that incident, Enderly was sentenced to a psychiatric hospital after snatching a three-year-old girl from a store in Seattle. She was discharged after eight months but was in other psychiatric hospitals prior to the Montana abduction. Psychiatrists who have treated Enderly testified in court that she did not believe that her own child had died at birth and she suffers from delusions that these other children are hers.

  Ginger shuddered at her close call, and kept reading:

  Enderly began trailing Shaw last Saturday. When Shaw refused to meet with her alone, Enderly hired her brother-in-law, Jake Gallo, to help arrange a meeting with Shaw. The pair was arrested after Shaw signaled a friend, Karie Bradley, for help. Bradley called police.

  Ginger went on to the second article, which featured a photo of Ginger handing her tapes to Mr. Hixler. Ginger wished she hadn’t cut her hair so short.

  A second picture showed Mr. Wren surrounded by happy students. The headline said “Roosevelt Coach Retained.” Smiling, Ginger read the article.

  The third front-page article said:

  LOCAL SOCIALITE ACCUSED OF COERCION

  Victoria Vaughn, wife of Vaughn Enterprises CEO Claude Vaughn, was accused last night of threatening to withhold business from local people who supported Mr. Bill Wren in the Roosevelt School District controversy. Mrs. Vaughn had filed the petition to remove Wren as coach of the girls’ basketball team.

  Before yesterday’s hearing, Kevin Bradley, an executive with Elite Advertising, called the Daily Journal with a list of people who, h
e said, had been contacted by Mrs. Vaughn.

  Ginger wondered if Karie knew her dad had called the newspaper. She continued reading:

  When the Journal questioned those people, all of them said that Victoria Vaughn had pressured them to speak against Wren and had implied that if they did not do so, they would lose future business with Vaughn Enterprises. Those people are:

  Mr. Randolph was the first name on the list. Ginger skimmed down the rest of the names, astonished to see that Laura was one of them. No wonder she wasn’t angry with me, Ginger thought. She had already taken a public stand herself.

  The article concluded:

  Victoria Vaughn was not available for comment. However, a spokesperson for Vaughn Enterprises stated that the company does not sanction such tactics and that no business will be withheld because of testimony in the Wren case.

  “I wonder if Mrs. Vaughn will ever ask Mom to plan a party again,” Ginger said.

  “I predict she will,” Mrs. Thomas said. “She has been thoroughly embarrassed by this article; she’ll want to pretend that she did nothing wrong.”

  Ginger had just finished reading the front page when Tipper and Marcus rushed in. They each carried a can of root beer, and Tipper waved a copy of the Daily Journal. “You got your name in the paper!” he shouted.

  “Twice!” yelled Marcus.

  “And your picture!” Tipper said.

  “I know.”

  “It says that woman was spying on you!” Tipper was so excited, his voice squeaked. “Why didn’t you tell me? Marcus and I could have helped you. We could have trapped her and tied her to a tree!”

  Ginger smiled at her brother. “I know you could have,” she said, “but I didn’t want to put you in danger.”

  “Next time, tell us,” Tipper said. “We’ll protect you. If that woman in the white car comes around again, we’ll spray shaving cream on the windows so she can’t see to drive away. We’ll put tacks in the street and give her a flat tire. We’ll . . .” Tipper paused for breath.

  “Next time, I’ll ask for your help,” Ginger said, although she knew that with Joyce in custody there would not be a next time.

  “Are you boys drinking root beer for breakfast?” Mrs. Thomas asked, her tone implying that they were ruining their health forever.

  “It isn’t our breakfast,” Tipper said. “It’s our teaching tool.”

  “Sweetie, your teeth will rot and fall out if you drink pop all day long,” Mrs. Thomas said.

  “They didn’t print all the news,” Tipper grumbled. “We looked through the whole paper, and they left out a really important story.”

  “Oh?” said Ginger. “What’s that?”

  “The notice about our burping school. We named ourselves The Big Bold Burpers, and we wrote a story about our lessons, and Marcus’s mom drove us to the Daily Journal office so we could turn it in.”

  “Maybe they’ll print your notice tomorrow,” Ginger said. “There was a lot of local news today.”

  “We spent all our money on twelve cans of root beer, and now we need more pupils,” Tipper said. “Do you want to come? We’ll give you lessons for half price.”

  “No, thanks. I already know how to burp.”

  “Not as good as we do,” said Tipper.

  Both boys took huge gulps of root beer and loudly demonstrated their skill.

  Author Q&A

  1. How did you decide to weave these two very different plot lines together?

  For a long time I thought I was writing two separate books. One I called “the stalker” book and the other one I thought of as “the coach” book. I would work on one manuscript for a while, then switch to the other. I went back and forth for a long time but I wasn’t satisfied with either book. Then one day I realized that the two ideas could be part of the same story. As soon as I tried that, the plot gelled and I was able to finish the book.

  2. Do you think we are taught not to trust our instincts and intuition? Why?

  We are taught to follow the rules. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think we also need to teach children to think for themselves and to pay attention to their instincts.

  3. Why do you think some parents take sports so seriously?

  I think they are living their own dreams through their children. An incredible amount of parental pressure gets put on students—both in athletics and academics—by parents who mean well. They want what’s best for their kids, but their own competitive feelings overpower their good judgment.

  4. Did you ever have a coach or teacher like Mr. Wren who influenced you?

  Mr. Wren is loosely based on my son, who has been a teacher and coach for more than twenty years. He’s encountered numerous parents who want their child to be the star athlete, at any cost.

  5. How do you maintain such suspense in your writing?

  I work hard at it. I love to write suspenseful stories and often scare myself as I’m writing. I know that if I create tension in myself over what is happening in a book, then the readers will probably be caught up in the tension, too. There’s a craft to it, as well as an art. I’m especially careful with the first and last sentence of each chapter.

  Discussion Guide

  • Ginger’s intuition is right about the woman and yet she doubts her decisions several times. Why? How do you know when you’re feeling threatened or just being paranoid?

  • What does Ginger want to be when she grows up? How does she practice her skills? Do you have a goal like hers? How can you develop your talent for it?

  • Describe Mrs. Vaughn. What kind of person is she? What does she want? What is she willing to do to get it? Are her motivations more insidious than they first appear? Why?

  • What kind of coach is Mr. Wren? Do you agree with his philosophy on coaching or with the parents who are trying to have him fired? What do kids gain from being involved in sports?

  • Why is Ginger forced to choose between what she believes in and her family’s livelihood? Do you think she makes the right decision?

  • Ginger doesn’t want to ruin her parents’ business trips by calling and upsetting them. Is this a mistake? Why? What would your parents do in this situation?