The Perfect Mother: A Novel

by Nina Darnton

  She grabbed up the paper and pulled it inside, her heart pounding. She hurriedly read the story, fear turning to despair. Her first thought was to call Roberto, who was on his way to Paco’s village, about four hours away. She tried his mobile, but the phone went straight to voice mail without ringing, so either he was out of range of a signal or—unlikely, given his attention to detail—his phone needed to be charged. She hung up and tried Suzie, forgetting the time difference until she heard Suzie’s thickened, groggy voice.

  “Suze, I’m so sorry to wake you. What time is it there?”

  “Jesus, Jennifer. It’s two a.m. What’s up? Did something happen to Emma?”

  “No, not that. I’m sorry. But I don’t know who else to call. I just saw today’s Times and there’s a picture of Emma in that prostitute costume on the front page. The reporter says she interviewed students in and out of Emma’s program. She quotes people claiming Emma was crazed from the moment she arrived here, that she went to wild parties and slept around before she even met Paco. I mean, it’s totally shoddy journalism. I don’t see how they can use unidentified sources when it blackens someone’s reputation and could even affect a verdict. And no one even called me for a comment on this. My lawyer didn’t know it was coming or he’d have warned me.”

  “Well, there’s nothing really new in those accusations,” Suzie said. “They’re all lies and gossip. You know that. You’ve heard most of it before.”

  “I know, but that was local, the Spanish press. Now this is an American story, an international one—everyone will turn against her.”

  “No. We have to get the spin doctors we hired to get to work on this. They have to counter it somehow. She was celebrating Halloween. They’ll push the idea that this is an anti-American witch hunt.”

  Jennifer lowered her voice. “Suzie, I don’t even know if it’s true.”

  “Don’t say that, Jennifer. Don’t think it. It doesn’t matter right now. We’ll fight these rumors. The truth is, what if she did sleep around? So what? Maybe she went a little wild. That’s like every college freshman in the U.S. Maybe they’re not used to that there. Whatever it is, it’s a long way from being a murderer. Or helping a murderer. We have to get back to the original story where she’s the victim. Any luck in locating the Algerian?”

  “No. No one believes there was an Algerian. No one. Not the police. Not her lawyer. Not the reporter who wrote this damn story. Not even her father.”

  “Mark doesn’t believe her?”

  “No. That’s another story. Too long for now.”

  “Well, do you believe her?”

  “I don’t know anymore. There’s lots of evidence pointing away from that story.”

  “Is any of that in the paper today?”

  “No. But it will be. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “What does Mark say about this?”

  “I haven’t called him.”

  “Call him, Jennifer. Whatever is going on between you two, he’s her father. You have to call him. I’ll get hold of the PR company and get back to you when I hear what they have in mind.”

  “Thank you, Suzie. I love you.”

  “Me too. Call Mark.”

  Jennifer hung up and sat motionless staring at the phone. She noticed it was blinking and realized there must be a message, so she picked it up and pushed 6, which connected to the hotel’s individual message system. There was a voice mail from someone called Catherine Murphy asking her to please call back. The date was two days ago, meaning the delivery had somehow been delayed, since she checked her messages carefully these days and was sure the light wasn’t blinking earlier. The name sounded familiar. She glanced at the byline on the story, and there it was: Catherine Murphy. The reporter had called for a comment. Small comfort that was, though it would at least have given her a chance to explain that the picture was misleading and the implication, in her opinion, libelous.

  She broke the connection and punched in her home number. The phone rang four times before Mark picked it up. She could picture him first doubling his pillow over his ears, then rolling over to her side of the bed, where the phone was stationed, finally reaching for it, barely awake. He mumbled a sleepy hello.

  She didn’t bother to apologize for waking him, launching immediately into the story in the paper. He hadn’t known about it, and they wondered if it would be in that day’s New York Times, which would be delivered by 7:00 A.M.

  “We always knew this was a possibility, Jennifer. We’ll do everything we can to launch a counterattack, pushing our own narrative.”

  “I’m a little confused about what our own narrative is.”

  He answered quickly and fluently, making it clear he was ready for this question.

  “Emma is a star student at Princeton, a believer in social justice, an innocent who lived a supervised, hardworking, busy life of study, friends, sports, and volunteer work. She was overwhelmed by the relative freedom she experienced this first time completely on her own, and may have gotten involved with the wrong people. But she is essentially a decent, honest person and would never be involved in either drug sales or violence.”

  “Well, I believe that.”

  He let that go. “There will probably be reporters trying to interview us,” he continued. “Ask Roberto how to handle that. My gut says talk to no one.”

  “But maybe we should orchestrate an interview with the right publication or TV channel to give our side,” she suggested.

  “We can’t do that until we know the truth or falsehood of their allegations and why they made them. Does this come from gossip or somebody’s actual knowledge? You’ll need to have Roberto talk to the same students and others, and you should go back to talk to Emma again.”

  She agreed, telling him that she would consult with Roberto, who was out of town at the moment but should return the following day. She didn’t mention the errand Roberto was on, still intending to keep that secret until they found something. And she didn’t say that she would try to find Emma’s friends and fellow students herself while Roberto was away.

  “I might be able to come back in four or five days. Can you hold on by yourself until then?”

  “Of course. You don’t really need to come at all.”

  “Jennifer—”

  “Do what you think is best. I have to go.”

  She hung up. Already regretting her behavior, she reached for the phone and called him back to apologize but changed her mind and hung up after she heard the first ring. She knew she was wrong, but on another level, she felt better. It wouldn’t kill him for her to stay mad awhile longer, and it helped her. She didn’t want to waste time dealing with relationship issues between her and Mark. She had work to do for Emma today.

  She went downstairs for some breakfast before calling Julia. The dining room was relatively empty. A few men and women in business suits sat alone at tables, and she noticed one woman with two little girls sitting nearby. The children—she reckoned they were about four and seven—were quarreling. She remembered when Emma and Lily were about that age. How they fought with each other! Emma had taken the birth of a sibling hard. She had so loved being the first and only child and was loath to share anything—her toys, her room, and especially her mother’s attention. She was fine at first, even being protective of her baby sister and urging her mother to pick her up if she cried. But as soon as Lily got old enough to start wanting to play with Emma’s toys, or break Emma’s Lego creations, or sit on Jennifer’s lap, Emma rebelled. After that, there was open hostility, and although they occasionally played together when neither had a playdate, most of their interactions were competitive and explosive. It was different when Eric was born, because by that time, Emma had resigned herself to not being an only child. In fact, she had taken it upon herself to mother him. She begged to let him sleep in her room and showered him with little presents, including her collection of stuffed animals. Mark had joked that Emma was actually sending Lily a message: “You see, I don’t hate all my
siblings. Just you.” As they grew older, though, that relationship changed, and by the time Emma left for Spain, the girls were good friends.

  The two sisters had stopped bickering, busying themselves with the coloring books and crayons their mother had handed them.

  Jennifer ordered a continental breakfast with a basket of rolls, orange juice, and coffee, and ate a muffin when it came. Then she went back to her room to call Julia.

  The message light on the room phone was flashing, and she picked up the phone to discover that she had missed two calls. Hoping that one of them was from Roberto, she hurriedly played the messages back. They were both from reporters—one from El País in Madrid, another from Le Figaro in Paris. They each left a number and asked her to call back. It had begun. She erased both messages and called Julia’s cell phone.

  Julia’s voice mail picked up and Jennifer left a message asking her to call back. She figured Julia was probably at class and wondered if she should go to the university and try to meet her. But it seemed senseless—she didn’t know what class she might be attending, or even if she was actually there. She decided to wait for Julia to return her call. She felt restless and anxious and didn’t know what to do to pass the time. She tried calling Roberto again but was once more greeted by his voice mail. She called José but was told he was at a meeting. She hesitated, then called Mark on his cell phone so she could leave a message without waking him again.

  “Mark, it’s me. I’m sorry about before. Of course I want you to come and to come as soon as you possibly can. I’ve been rattled by everything that’s been going on lately, but I know we can handle it best together. Call me later, when you’re up and have a minute, okay?”

  She tried to read the rest of the paper but couldn’t concentrate and finally grabbed her bag and went downstairs. There was no point just sitting in her room and waiting, she thought, so she left the hotel and walked over to the university. It was a beautiful day: hot but not humid, with the bright sun illuminating the multicolored flowers, whose scent perfumed the air. How she would have loved it here under different circumstances. Even now, even after the shock of today’s newspaper story, she felt her spirits lift just by stepping outside.

  She was lucky; she spotted Julia as soon as she entered the university’s courtyard. She was walking with a group of friends, chatting and laughing, carrying her books in front of her. It looked as though class had just let out. Jennifer called out to her and waved and Julia caught sight of her. After a slight pause in which Jennifer thought a flicker of reluctance crossed her face, she waved back, excused herself from her friends, and joined her.

  “Hi, Mrs. Lewis. Are you looking for me?”

  “Hi, Julia. I am, actually. I’m sorry to take you away from your friends.”

  “That’s all right. I want to help Emma any way I can. A friend gave me a ride out to visit her. I wrote to her and she asked the prison for permission to let me in. It was so depressing. She seemed okay, but it was awful seeing her in jail with all those tough women. She’s trying to be brave, but she looked so alone.”

  Jennifer sighed. “I know. But she’s not. She has all of us. When did you see her? We saw her a few days ago, and I haven’t been told when I can go again.”

  “I saw her the same day, right after you did. She told me you and her dad had just left.” Julia hesitated and looked down. “She was really upset, Mrs. Lewis. I guess she had some kind of fight with her dad?”

  Jennifer ignored the question and thanked her for going. She told her that all the people trying to help Emma thought that her case could be cleared up if she would just tell the truth and stop protecting Paco. “It’s hard, because maybe she will have to admit that some of what she’s been saying isn’t true, but she won’t consider changing her story, not if she thinks it will get Paco in trouble.” She watched Julia’s reaction carefully, hoping she might give something away.

  Julia frowned and bit her lower lip. It seemed to Jennifer that she was deciding how much to reveal of what she knew.

  “Julia, please, if you know anything about Paco that might help separate him from Emma, tell me. That’s the best way to help her.”

  Julia avoided looking at her. “What if I know something that might hurt her case? Do you want me to tell you that?”

  Jennifer tensed as she girded herself for bad news. “Yes,” she said. “I need to know everything.”

  Julia glanced around uncomfortably to see if anyone was listening to them. Jennifer suggested they go out for a cup of coffee. They found a café nearby and Julia scanned the neighboring tables to be sure she didn’t know anyone.

  “Look, I think you’re right about Paco. She’s blind when it comes to him. You know he’s a drug dealer, but she may be more involved in that than you think. I mean, I’m sorry to tell you this, and I don’t even know if it’s true, but some of the kids say she had kind of become his partner. They said they sold the drugs together.”

  Jennifer stopped her. “But you don’t believe that, do you? That couldn’t be true.”

  Julia blushed, stammering as she answered. “I don’t . . . I mean, I’m not . . . Look, if she did, she justified it by believing the money was going to the poor people in his village who had no jobs and no hope of getting any in this economy. I’m sure that’s what he told her, anyway.”

  “What do you mean? Do you think he was lying?”

  “Who knows? Even if it was the truth, it’s no excuse.”

  “I know. Of course. But who did he sell to?”

  “I don’t really know. Mostly students, I’d guess. A lot of the foreign students, the ones they call los orgasmus.

  Jennifer vaguely remembered Emma mentioning something about this but couldn’t recall the context. “What does that mean?”

  Julia looked embarrassed. “You know, from orgasm. They’re a group of foreign students who like to party and go to bars and take drugs and sleep around. That kind of thing.”

  “And Emma was involved in that too?”

  “I don’t know. But lots of them had money and they spent it on drugs.”

  The waiter came over and Julia ordered a café cortado. Jennifer asked for a café con leche. She sensed that Julia was holding something back. She leaned in and spoke in an intimate, confiding voice. “I’d like to know more about Paco, Julia. Has he been in Seville a long time? Who was his girlfriend before Emma? Who are his friends? Do you know anything about that?”

  Julia looked uncomfortable. She seemed to be making up her mind about something, and finally she blurted: “I know that he was not always nice to Emma. That’s something else I wanted to tell you, but I wasn’t sure if I should. I saw them together a lot before she moved in with him. He’d be with her and then break up with her. He’d criticize her and make her feel awful about herself. Then he’d be charming and make everyone think he was great. He’d berate her for being rich, for being privileged, for being an American. He always had some girl after him and he’d use that to make her jealous, but if anyone else looked at her, he’d go ballistic. He didn’t like us and tried to get her to stop seeing so much of us, which she actually did for a while. He took the money you sent her, but he always said bad things about you and your values. We all thought it was kind of an abusive relationship, but she thought he was a saint or something.”

  Jennifer nodded slowly, taking it in, trying not to show any emotion. She asked again if she knew any of his friends or the name of even one former girlfriend. Julia said there was a guy she’d seen around them lots of times but she didn’t know his name. He was Spanish. She thought he’d known Paco for a long time, maybe before he came to Seville. He hung out at the Triana Bridge almost every Saturday starting around midnight, and he was always stoned.

  “I need to speak to him,” Jennifer said, her voice rising in excitement. “Today is Thursday. Do you think he’ll be there this Saturday?

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Would you go there with me so you can point him out?”

/>   Julia hesitated. “I wouldn’t want him to know I mentioned him.”

  “He won’t know. I promise. Just point him out and I won’t even talk to him right away. I’ll bring a friend of mine who used to be a cop.”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Lewis. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Please, Julia. It’s the only lead I’ve got.”

  Julia reluctantly agreed and they made a date to meet at the bridge a little before midnight on Saturday. Then Julia rummaged in her bag to pay for her coffee, but Jennifer stopped her, saying this was definitely her treat. Julia thanked her, gathered her books, and left quickly.

  As soon as she was alone, Jennifer pulled out her cell phone and tried Roberto again. This time he answered.

  “Diga.”

  “Oh, Roberto, I’m so glad to hear your voice. I need to talk to you. A lot has happened.”

  “I know. I saw the papers and there’s a lot of online traffic.”

  “Not only that. I also have some news. Someone for us to talk to about Paco.”

  “Bueno. I have some news about our friend Paco too. I have to make another stop, but I’ll be back early tomorrow morning and come straight to your hotel. Please don’t go anywhere. Wait for me.”

  “I will.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The morning was long gone and still Roberto hadn’t come. She’d been up for hours, had ordered room service for coffee and sweet rolls and, having decided that presenting Emma’s side might be better than saying nothing, had fielded half a dozen phone calls from reporters all over Europe. Finally she’d called the hotel operator and told her not to put through any more calls. She could look over her messages later. Anyone she wanted to talk to would reach her on her cell phone anyway, she thought. Calls to the hotel would almost certainly be from people she didn’t know.