I drop my hand onto my lap. Of course Ava would notice the ring. She probably knows exactly what it costs, too. I ignore the compliment, focusing instead on the first half of her reply. “When have you seen my husband?”
“On your Facebook page.” She grins. “If I woke up next to him every morning, I’d be late to work, too.”
I give her a reprimanding look. “As much as I’m enjoying this conversation, shouldn’t you be getting back to class?”
Her pretty pink lips curl into a grimace. Even frowning, Ava is a gorgeous girl. Painfully, hauntingly beautiful. Big blue eyes. Peaches-and-cream skin. Long, shiny auburn curls. She’s smart, too, and wickedly funny when she wants to be. She could have any boy in this school...and she has. Ava is not picky, and if I’m to believe Twitter, she’s an easy conquest.
“I’m skipping lit,” she says, spitting out the words in a tone usually reserved for toddlers.
I give her my psychologist’s smile, friendly and nonjudgmental. “Why?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “Because I’m avoiding any enclosed spaces where Charlotte Wilbanks and I have to breathe the same air. She hates me, and let me assure you, the feeling is mutual.”
“Why do you think she hates you?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. Former best friends, Charlotte and Ava’s feud is long and well documented. Whatever sparked their hatred all those years ago is by now long forgotten, buried under a million offensive and tasteless Tweets that take “mean girl” to a whole new level. According to what I saw fly by in yesterday’s feed, their latest tiff revolves around their classmate Adam Nightingale, son of country music legend Toby Nightingale. This past weekend, pictures surfaced of Ava and Adam canoodling at a neighborhood juice bar.
“Who the hell knows? Because I’m prettier, I guess.” She picks at her perfect nail polish, a bright yellow gel that looks like it was painted on yesterday.
Like most of the kids in this school, Ava’s parents give her everything her heart could ever desire. A brand-new convertible, first-class trips to exotic locations, a Platinum Amex card and their blessing. But showering their daughter with gifts is not the same as giving her attention, and if they were the ones sitting across from me, I’d encourage them to set a better example. Ava’s mother is an Atlanta socialite with the remarkable ability to look the other way every time Ava’s father, a plastic surgeon touted around town as “The Breast Guy,” is caught groping a girl half his age, which is often.
My education has taught me to see nature and nurture as equal propositions, but my job has taught me nurture wins out every time. Especially when it’s lacking. The more messed up the parents, the more messed up the kid. It’s really that simple.
But I also believe that everyone, even the worst parents and the most maladjusted kids, has a redeeming quality. Ava’s is because she can’t help herself. Her parents have made her to be this way.
“I’m sure if you give it a bit more thought, you could come up with a better reason why Charlotte might be—”
“Knock, knock.” The head of the upper school, Ted Rawlings, fills up my doorway. Long and lanky and with a crown of tight, dark curls, Ted reminds me of a standard poodle, one who’s serious about pretty much everything except his ties. He must have hundreds of the hideous things, always school-themed and always ridiculous, but on him somehow they only look charming. Today’s version is a bright yellow polyester covered in physics equations. “I take it you’ve heard about the plane crash.”
I nod, my gaze flitting to the images on my screen. Those poor people. Their poor families.
“Somebody at this school is going to know somebody on that plane,” Ava says. “You just wait.”
Her words skitter a chill down my spine, because she’s right. Atlanta is a big city but a small town, one where the degrees of separation tend to be short. The chance that someone here is connected in some way to one of the victims isn’t small. I suppose the best thing I can hope for is that it’s not a family member or close friend.
“The students are anxious,” Ted says. “Understandably so, of course, but I don’t think we’ll get any classroom work done today. With your help, though, I’d like to turn this tragedy into a different kind of learning opportunity for everyone. Create a safe place for our students to talk about what happened and to ask questions. And if Miss Campbell here is correct, that someone at Lake Forrest lost a loved one in the crash, we’ll already be in place to provide whatever moral support they need.”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“Excellent. I’m glad you’re on board. I’ll call a town hall meeting in the auditorium, and you and I will tag-team the discussion.”
“Of course. Just give me a minute or two to pull myself together, and I’ll be right there.”
Ted raps a knuckle on the door and hustles off. With lit class officially canceled, Ava picks up her backpack, rifling through it for a few seconds while I dig a compact out of my desk drawer.
“Here,” she says, dumping a fistful of designer makeup tubes onto my desk. Chanel, Nars, YSL, Mac. “No offense, but you look like you need them way more than I do.” She softens her words with a blinding smile.
“Thanks, Ava. But I have my own makeup.”
But Ava doesn’t pick up the tubes. She shifts from foot to foot, one hand wringing the strap of her backpack. She bites her lip and glances at her oxford shoes, and I think under all that bluster and bravado, she might actually be shy. “I’m really glad it wasn’t your husband’s plane.”
The relief this time is a slow build, wrapping me in warmth like Will’s sleeping body did just this morning. It settles over me like sunshine on naked skin. “Me, too.”
As soon as she’s gone, I reach for my phone, pulling up the number for Will’s cell. I know he can’t pick up for another hour or so, but I need to hear his voice, even if it’s only a recording. My muscles unwind at the smooth, familiar sound.
This is Will Griffith’s voice mail...
I wait for the beep, sinking back in my chair.
“Hey, babe, it’s me. I know you’re still in the air, but a plane just crashed after taking off from Hartsfield, and for about fifteen terrifying seconds I thought it might have been yours, and I just needed to...I don’t know, hear for myself that you’re okay. I know it’s silly, but call me as soon as you land, okay? The kids are kind of freaked, so I’ll be in a town hall, but I promise I’ll pick up. Okay, gotta run, but talk to you soon. You’re my very favorite person, and I miss you already.”
I drop my phone into my pocket and head for the door, leaving Ava’s makeup where she dumped it, in a pile on my desk.
3
Seated next to me on the auditorium stage, Ted smooths a hand down his tie and speaks to the room filled with high-schoolers. “As you all know, Liberty Air Flight 23 traveling from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Seattle, Washington, crashed a little over an hour ago. All 179 passengers are presumed dead. Men, women and children, people just like you and me. I’ve called us here so we can talk about it as a group, openly and honestly and without judgment. Tragedies like this one can make us all too aware of the dangers in our world. Of our own vulnerabilities, of just how fragile life can be. This room is a safe space for us to ask questions and cry and whatever else you need to do to process. Let us all agree that what happens in this auditorium stays in this auditorium.”
Any other head of high school would hold a school-wide moment of silence and tell the kids to get back to work. Ted knows that for teenagers, catastrophe takes precedence over calculus any day, and it’s because he sees everything, good or bad, as a learning opportunity that the students follow him without question.
I look out over the three hundred or so kids that make up Lake Forrest’s high-school student body, and as far as I can tell, they’re split pretty solidly down the middle
—half the students are freaked by the images of an airplane filled with their maybe-neighbors falling from the sky, the other half giddy at an entire afternoon of canceled classes. Their excited chatter echoes through the cavernous space.
One girl’s voice rises to the top. “So this is kind of like group therapy?”
“Well...” Ted sends me a questioning look, and I dip my head in a nod. If there’s one realm Lake Forrest students feel comfortable navigating, it’s therapy, group or otherwise. Ours are the type of kids who have their therapists’ cells on speed dial. “Yes. Exactly like group therapy.”
Now that they know what’s coming, the students seem to relax, crossing their arms and slumping back into their plush seats.
“I heard it was terrorists,” someone calls out from the back of the auditorium. “That ISIS has already come out and said they did it.”
Jonathan Vanderbeek, a senior about to graduate by the skin of his teeth, twists around in his front-row seat. “Who told you that, Sarah Palin?”
“Kylie Jenner just re-Tweeted it.”
“Brilliant,” Jonathan says, snorting. “Because the Kardashians are experts when it comes to our nation’s security.”
“Okay, okay,” Ted says, calling everyone back to order with a few taps to the microphone. “Let’s not escalate the situation by repeating rumors and conjecture. Now, I’ve been watching the news carefully, and beyond the fact that a plane crashed, there really is no news. Nobody has said why the plane crashed, or who was on it when it did. Not until they’ve contacted the next of kin.” His last three words—next of kin—hit the room like a firebomb. They hang in the air, hot and heavy, for a second or two. “And moving forward, let’s all agree that there are more credible news sources than Twitter, shall we?”
A snicker comes from the front row.
Ted shakes his head in silent reprimand. “Now, Mrs. Griffith has a few things she’d like to say, and then she’ll be leading us in a discussion. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the CNN website on my laptop, and as soon as the airline releases any new information, I’ll pause the conversation and read it aloud so we’ll all have the same up-to-date information. Does that sound like a good plan?”
Nods all around. Ted passes me the mic.
* * *
I wish I could say I spent the next few hours staring at my phone, watching for Will’s call, but at seventy-six minutes postcrash, only ten minutes into our discussion and a good fifteen before the airline was scheduled to make its first official statement, CNN reports that the Wells Academy high-school lacrosse team, all sixteen of them and their coaches, were among the 179 victims. Apparently, they were on their way to a mid-season tournament.
“Omigod. How can that be? We just played them last week.”
“Last week, you idiot. You just said so yourself. Which means they had plenty of time between then and this morning to get on a plane.”
“You’re the idiot, idiot. I’m talking about how we lost the game that won Wells a tournament spot. Do the math.”
“Hold up,” I say, the words slicing through the auditorium before the argument can escalate further. “Disbelief is a normal reaction to news of a friend’s death, but anger and sarcasm are not good coping mechanisms, and I’m pretty sure every one of y’all in here knows it.”
The kids exchange contrite looks and slump deeper into their seats.
“Look, I get that it’s easy to hide behind negative emotions rather than confront what a close call our friends and fellow students had,” I say, my tone softening. “But it’s okay for you to be confused or sad or shocked or even vulnerable. These are all normal reactions to such shocking news, and having an open and honest conversation will help all of us work through our feelings. Okay? Now, I bet Caroline here isn’t the only one here thinking back to the last time she saw one of the Wells players. Was anyone else at the game?”
One by one, hands go up, and the students begin talking. Most of the accounts are no more relevant than same field, same time, but it’s clear the kids are spooked by the proximity, especially the lacrosse players. If they had won that game, if Lake Forrest had been the school with a slot in that tournament, it could have just as easily been our students on that plane. Corralling the conversation takes every bit of my concentration until just after one, when we break for a late lunch.
The students file out, and I pull my phone from my pocket, frowning at the still empty screen. Will landed over an hour ago, and he still hasn’t called, hasn’t texted, hasn’t anything. Where the hell is he?
Ted drapes a palm over my forearm. “Everything okay?”
“What? Oh, yes. I’m just waiting on a call from Will. He flew to Orlando this morning.”
Ted’s eyes go huge, and his cheeks quiver in sympathy. “Well, that certainly explains your expression when I came to your office earlier. You must have had quite a scare.”
“Yes, and poor Ava bore the brunt of it.” I waggle my phone in the air between us. “I’m just going to see if I can’t track him down.”
“Of course, of course. Go.”
I skitter off the stage and up the center aisle, pulling up Will’s number before I’ve stepped through the double doors. Lake Forrest is set up like a college campus, with a half-dozen ivy-covered buildings spread across an acre campus, and I take off down the flagstone path that leads to the high-school building. The rain has stopped, but leaden clouds still hang low in the sky, and an icy wind whips chill bumps over my skin. I pull my sweater tight around my chest and hustle up the stairs to the double doors, pushing into the warmth right as Will’s cell shoots me to voice mail.
Dammit.
While I wait for the beep, I give myself a pep talk. I tell myself not to worry. That there’s a simple explanation for why he hasn’t called. The past few months have been particularly stressful at work, and he hasn’t been sleeping well. Maybe he’s taking a nap. And the man is easily distracted, a typical techie who can never seem to focus on one thing at a time. I imagine him punching in my number, then forgetting to push Send. I picture him hobnobbing with conference bigwigs by the hotel pool, oblivious to the buzzing phone in his hand. Or maybe it’s as simple as his battery died, or he forgot his cell on the plane. I think of all these things, and I can almost taste the joy.
“Hey, sweetie,” I say into the phone, trying not to let the worry seep into my tone. “Just wanted to check in and make sure all is well. You should be at your hotel by now, but I guess the reception in your room is crappy or something. Anyway, when you get a second, call me. This crash has got me a little antsy, and I really want to hear your voice. Okay, talk soon. You’re my very favorite person.”
In my office, I head straight for my computer and pull up my email program. Will sent me the conference details months ago, but there are more than three thousand emails in my inbox and no good system for organizing them. After a bit of searching, I find the email I’m looking for:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: FW: Cyber Security for Critical Assets: An Intelligence Summit
Check me out! I’m Thursday’s keynote speaker. Let’s just hope they don’t all fall asleep, kind of like you do whenever I talk about work. xo
Will M. Griffith
Sr. Software Engineer
AppSec Consulting, Inc.
My skin tingles with relief, and I feel vindicated. The words are right here, in black and white. Will is in Orlando, safe and sound.
I click on the attachment, and a full-page conference flyer opens. Will’s head shot is about halfway down, next to a blurb advertising his expertise on all things access risk management. I hit Print and scribble the name of the conference hotel on a Post-it note, then return to my internet browser for the telephone number. I’m copying it down when my phone rin
gs, and my mother’s face lights up the screen.
A stab of uneasiness pings me in the chest. A speech pathologist, Mom knows what working in a school environment is like. She knows my days are crazy, and she never disturbs me at work unless there’s a life-and-death situation. Like the time Dad hit a pothole with his front bike tire and flipped a three-sixty onto the asphalt, landing so hard he cracked his collarbone and split his helmet clean down the middle.
Which is why I answer her call now with “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, sweetheart. I just saw the news.”
“About the crash? I know. We’ve been dealing with it all day here at school. The kids are pretty freaked.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Well, not exactly... I meant Will, darling.”
Something in the way she says it, in the careful and roundabout way she’s asking but not asking about Will, soldiers every hair on my body to attention. “What about him?”
“Well, for starters, where is he?”
“In Orlando for a conference. Why?”
The force of Mom’s sigh into the speaker pierces my eardrum, and I know how much she’s been holding back. “Oh, thank God. I knew it couldn’t be your Will.”
“What are you talking about? Who couldn’t be my Will?”
Her reply gets buried under a student’s loud interruption. “Mr. Rawlings told me to tell you they just released a list of names.” She screams the words into my office, as if I’m not sitting right here, three feet away, and on the phone. I shush her and shoo her off with a hand.
“Mom, start over. Who’s not my Will?”
“The William Matthew Griffith they’re saying was on that plane.”
The Marriage Lie Page 2