Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  Sara went to school and kept to herself. Never had she felt so lonely or so scared. She ate lunch in one of the empty classrooms, she avoided the halls, and when everyone else took gym, she used her doctor’s note to stay in the library. “What’s with you?” some of the kids asked, and when Sara was silent, they shrugged and turned away.

  Business as usual, Abby kept saying. One day, Abby and Jack took off work to drive Sara to Harvard for her college interview, just as if there weren’t a single thing to keep her from going. They sat outside during her interview while Sara tried to remember to keep the boxy jacket she had borrowed from Abby buttoned, to lean forward so you couldn’t tell she was pregnant. “Well, you certainly are impressive,” the interviewer said, and Sara curled her fingers into her palm. He should only know how impressive, she thought, because really, how many knocked-up kids did Harvard interview?

  Afterward, her parents walked with her on the tour, though she already knew the campus. Two other girls and four boys. And two of the boys kept looking at her, smiling, flirting. “If we both get in, I’m taking you to Schrafts,” one boy said.

  She couldn’t imagine having ice cream with any other boy, couldn’t imagine wanting to, but that was her old life, and as everyone kept urging her, she had to move on. “Only if it’s chocolate,” she said, and the boy’s smile grew.

  “I live just in Newton,” he said, and then suddenly, Sara felt that edgy sensation that Danny was just behind a building, just around a bend, that he was whispering something to her, and all she had to do was find the right place to stand and then she’d hear him. She tried to shake it off. She knew it was just another one of her Danny mirages, that she could think she saw him all she wanted, her mouth could form his name a million times, and it wouldn’t change anything. She looked to her left quickly: someone’s father.

  She forced herself to turn to the boy, to smile. “Newton’s cool,” she told him.

  One day Abby came home with big drawstring pants and oversized shirts because Sara needed something to wear. “Try it on so I’ll know what fits,” Abby said, and when Sara came out with the pants pulling against her swelling belly, Abby looked stricken.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom,” Sara said, and Abby waved her hand.

  “Anything you don’t want, I’ll take back myself,” Abby said slowly.

  One night, when Sara was sleeping, she heard a noise at the window, and for a moment, she thought Danny was back. She sat up, so happy and relieved she could have cried, and then she saw her father’s back, his arms moving behind her shades. He was checking the locks on the window. Then he turned, and she half shut her eyes. He was moving in the dark toward her. He placed one hand on her hair, just for a moment, and then she heard the creak of her rocking chair, she heard him crying and she opened her eyes. Then he got up and left the room, quietly closing the door, and she wept a little, too.

  Now, in the shower, that day seemed like lifetimes ago. Now Sara didn’t hear anything at her window anymore except the wind or the rain or an occasional cat. If she was awake nights, it was because she was doing the reading for school this fall. Every time she finished a book, she crossed it off the list.

  The water in the shower was turning cold. Sara stood, shutting off the spigots, getting out. The house was noisy. She heard a strange voice. She dressed quickly, in the same baggy clothes she had worn through her pregnancy, and then she went downstairs, and there was Jack and a man Sara had never seen before, but all Sara had to do was see the desperate look in the man’s eyes, and the two big brown paper bags overstuffed with receipts to know this was a client. Usually Jack saw them at the office, but the desperate ones, the ones who did their taxes last minute, the ones who got audited, always came to the house, laden with bags of paperwork and ledgers, and sometimes a gift for Jack. A bottle of wine. Packaged candies. Once, a bolt of silk from a man who owned a fabric store. “It’s the mom-and-pop stores that are truly appreciative,” Jack always said. “I’d rather deal with them than the big corporations anytime. Them I take good care of.”

  “You got to help me with this,” the man said, “I know I should have kept better records, I know, but this audit—”

  “We’ll pull it together in time, Donald,” Jack soothed. He led the man to a couch and had him sit. He took the bags and gently put them on the side of the couch, where the client couldn’t focus on them.

  Donald looked up and suddenly saw Sara. “Oh, hello,” he said, smiling.

  “My daughter, Sara,” Jack said. “Sara, Donald Weston.”

  “Your dad’s saving my skin,” Donald said to Sara. He gave Jack a look of real devotion. “Best accountant in the world. He can make sense of anything.” He lifted up the paper bags. “Even these. You’re a lucky girl to have such a smart dad.”

  Sara was sure her father was going to make some remark, that yes, she was lucky, or yes, he was indeed the smartest accountant in all of Boston, or what he usually always said, yes, but my daughter’s much smarter than I am. Instead, he gave Donald a funny smile, and then looked at his hands for a moment. “Well,” he said finally, “we’d better get back to work.”

  Sara excused herself and went into the kitchen.

  Abby was sitting at the table, a book open in front of her, a mug of chocolate in her hand. Her hair was shored back with one of the tortoise-shell barrettes Danny had given Sara. “Where’d you get that?” Sara asked, her voice chipping.

  Abby’s hand touched the barrette. “Oh, I found it in the bathroom—what, you don’t want me borrowing it?”

  “It’s mine”.

  Abby started to say something and then shrugged, and took the barrette out of her hair and handed it to Sara. Sara couldn’t bear to put the barrette in her own hair, but she tucked it into her pocket.

  “Interesting book,” Abby said, thumping a finger onto a page. When she looked down at the page, she saw one of her summer reading books. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

  “Mom,” Sara said, tapping her mother on the shoulder. “Mom,” she said louder.

  Abby looked up, her eyes bright.

  “It’s amazing, this book,” Abby said. “Would you believe I never read it?”

  Sara looked down at the book. Of all her reading, that had been the hardest to get through. She had felt so sorry for Gatsby, for all he couldn’t let go of.

  “By the time it’s fall, I’ll be as well-read as you are,” Abby said.

  Abby casually brushed a flurry of crumbs from her green dress and looked at Sara.

  Sara had scrubbed her face clean. She had pulled back her wet hair with a plastic headband. She had always had a young face, had always looked as if she were in the wrong class, and now, she knew she must look all of twelve years old. Well. Twelve years old with stretch marks. Twelve years old with breasts that only recently stopped leaking milk.

  “I thought you’d sleep later,” Abby said.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “So,” Abby said casually. “What are your plans for today?”

  Sara looked awkwardly around the kitchen. They had set a place for her. There was a muffin sitting on a plate. A glass of juice.

  “Want to join the Y? Start swimming? Get yourself in shape?” Abby took a bite of egg. “Why don’t you call your friends? I bet they’d love to hear from you.”

  “My friends?”

  “What about that nice Judy Potter? What about Robin Opaline?” Abby persisted.

  Sara tightened her mouth. That nice Judy Potter had told her not to bother calling anymore. The last she had heard about Robin Opaline was that Robin was telling everyone what an idiot Sara was.

  “You still have time this summer to take a class if you’d like. Or get a summer job.”

  “I have plans for the summer.”

  She could feel the mood changing. The air grew tight around her, scratchy like a too-small woolen coat. Abby sighed.

  “Why are you doing this?” Abby asked.

  “Do we have to talk about this?
” Sara said. “This was all settled.”

  “I want to talk about it,” Abby said. “It’s just crazy. We just want you to move on with your life. You need to be doing something with people your own age. You need to be out there instead of dwelling on what’s happened—” Abby said. “Look. Honey. We’d like you to get some counseling. I have a few names of people who are supposed to be very good, very helpful. We’ll all go.”

  “I’ll be home for dinner.”

  “Sara!” Abby called, but Sara was already out the door, out into the bright, shimmering heat of the morning. She couldn’t hear them anymore. They couldn’t stop her. She’d always find a way, the same way she had found ways to be with Danny.

  A mosquito kamikazed by her head and she slapped it away. A few neighbors were getting into cars, in dark suits or work dresses in dull prints. They were carrying cups of coffee, balancing pastries in a napkin. Everyone looked hot and preoccupied and pressed for time, but still they looked at her. Bill Tinker, who sometimes played golf with her father, who hadn’t said two words to her the whole time she was pregnant, nodded at her. “Morning,” he said. She felt like running over to him, but then he got in his car and started it up. She saw Judy’s mother and Sara held up her hand to wave. Judy’s mother gave Sara a clammy stare and Sara pulled her hand down and thrust it deep in her pocket. After that, Sara kept her eyes front. She kept walking, all the way to the bus stop.

  Forty minutes later, Sara stood in front of Eva and George’s house.

  She had loved this house the moment she had first come here, very pregnant, and very scared. Her hair had been carefully brushed, held back with a silver clip. But now, she couldn’t help but feel anxious.

  This was the first time Sara had been here not pregnant with Anne.

  The house was a white ranch, with a big sloping backyard, dotted with dandelions, shaded by two big maples. It was a rambling, comfortable house.

  Sara climbed the four brick steps to the front door. She lifted up the brass knocker, sipped in a long, slow breath, and then knocked.

  “Hang on—” Eva’s voice was muffled, and then the door opened and there was Eva, in a flowery dress, her hair wound on top of her head, her face flushed and happy. She was holding Anne, and as soon as Sara saw the baby, she felt a flood of yearning so strong she thought she might faint. She reached out her hands and Anne, stormy, screamed.

  Eva stepped back. “She was good all morning.” Eva swayed Anne, trying to calm her down. “She must miss her daddy.” She motioned Sara inside, and then she yawned, flustered. “I’m really, really, really glad you’re here.”

  Sara couldn’t take her eyes off the baby. She hadn’t seen the baby in what seemed ages, and already both Eva and Anne looked different to her. All she could think about was what she had missed, what had happened without her. “I’ll take her,” she said.

  “No, it’s all right.” Anne struggled in Eva’s arms. Eva led them deeper into the house. The house felt alive around Sara. There were the big windows she loved, covered with only the thinnest antique lace curtains floating over them so the rooms were flooded with light. There was the antique sofa and chairs, old and comfortable and nicked, there were the Oriental rugs faded where the sun hit them. But now there were piles of laundry breeding on chairs. Now there were dishes stacked in the sink. Everywhere Sara looked there were purple bags of disposable diapers. There were all sorts of things she had never seen before, a playpen and two different strollers, toys and blankets, and there, beside the picture of Eva and George and herself when she was nine months pregnant, was a photo of Eva and George and the baby, alone.

  Sara looked away from the photo and then back again, as if by some miracle she had made a mistake, as if she’d look back and see her own picture there, where it belonged. But no. There was the new photo and all Sara could think was that she had stepped into a strange, alien universe and she wasn’t sure the atmosphere was good for her to breathe.

  Sara glanced at Eva, who was turned away from her, and then she took the photo with herself in it, and put it prominently up front.

  “Come on,” Eva said. She led Sara into Anne’s room.

  Anne burped loudly and a rivulet of creamy foam dribbled across Eva’s bare shoulder. “Oh, you know what—please, would you? Just until I clean this up?” As soon as Eva fit the baby into Sara’s arms, she felt as if she’d never let go. Anne abruptly stopped wailing. Then the baby studied Sara.

  “Well, would you look at that,” Eva said, stunned. She reached for a tissue in her dress and swabbed at her shoulder. Anne’s whole body loosened and relaxed. Anne gummed the edge of Sara’s shirt. She yawned and flexed open her tiny, balled fists into fingers.

  Sara didn’t dare to move. “I think she likes me.”

  Eva gave a half-smile. “I’ll take her,” she said. Eva lowered the baby into the crib. Sara touched a small white plastic attachment clipped to the railing. Another new thing she didn’t know anything about. “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Turn it on,” Eva said. “The switch is in the back.”

  Sara’s fingers found the switch. The attachment hummed, vibrating the crib. “It’s supposed to get babies to sleep,” Eva said. “Like driving in a car. Consumer Reports said it’s the best thing.”

  “When Anne was kicking inside of me, I used to get her to sleep by playing music. I’d put the earphones on my belly,” Sara said. “She liked Tom Jones. The Beatles. She even liked my father’s old Herman’s Hermits albums. Maybe I could bring them over.”

  Eva took Sara’s hand and rested it on the crib vibrator, and then Sara felt that buzz, too, deep in her bones, the same way Anne must. She lifted up her hand. It still buzzed.

  “Look at that. She’s sleeping,” Eva said, looking down into the crib. “Didn’t I tell you? Now I can take a quick shower. Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. So very glad.”

  “I would have watched her,” Sara said, “I could have rocked her.” But Eva was moving from the room, holding the door, waiting for Sara to follow.

  “I’m just going to get a drink, want something?” Sara said, and Eva shook her head.

  “Oh, honey, there’s all sorts of things in the fridge because people are coming over. Don’t take the stuff in the pitchers, okay? And if you’re hungry later, just ask me.”

  “You want me to ask you?” Sara’s mind felt jumbled. She never had to ask. “Our house is your house,” they told her.

  “Things are just so crazy now,” Eva said.

  “I can help—” Sara started to say, but Eva was moving past Sara, opening the linen cabinet, reaching for a plush green towel.

  * * *

  Sara was too keyed up to sit still. She wandered the house. When she was pregnant, Eva and George wouldn’t let her lift a finger, even though she told them it was good for her to be active, though the truth was she just wanted to be so busy, she wouldn’t think about what was happening to her. Eva had cooked her huge, elaborate, healthy meals. Grilled vegetables and different kinds of veggie burgers. George was always popping into the car to pick up whatever it was she had a yen for. Chocolate ice cream. Ginger tea. Soft slippers in size six because her feet hurt. Every day George would tell her: You are the best. What can we do for you? How can we make you happy? Eva and George acted delighted all the time to do the littlest thing for her. They looked at her as if they couldn’t believe their good fortune, when really, she was the one who was grateful.

  “They’re doing that because they want something from you,” Jack had told her. “And once they have it, mark my words, you won’t be who they want anymore.”

  “You’re not there. You don’t see how they treat me,” Sara had said. She twisted the ring George and Eva had given her. She had been doing that so much lately that she was beginning to get a raw spot on her finger.

  “Oh honey, we don’t have to be there to know what’s what,” Abbv said.

  Well, Sara was there, right here and now in George and Eva’s house, and she still rem
embered what it had all felt like, and the horrible thing was it didn’t really feel like that anymore and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Sara sat and clicked on the TV and watched a few minutes of a game show, peppy music blaring. “Name the one thing that isn’t an animal: man, the elephant, a beetle,” a toothy announcer asked, and the contestant, a man wearing glasses, scratched his head and said, “Man?”

  “Wrong, they’re all animals!” the announcer shouted happily, and the studio audience roared with laughter. The man flushed and made a silly face, as if he knew that that had been the answer all along and he had just been trying to fool everyone, to be funny.

  Sara shut the set off. She should have brought some of her reading for school. Instead, she picked up a Parenting magazine with a laughing baby on the cover and leafed through it. It was all marked up in red pen, the same way Sara used to highlight her books. Pages were folded back or torn out, and tucked in one fold was a card for a parenting class. It reminded her of Abby’s adoption books. She put the magazine down. Why did you have to learn parenting? Wasn’t it something you just knew instinctively?

  Eva was still in the shower. Sara could hear the water, could hear Eva talking to herself. “I get my best thoughts and ideas in the shower,” Eva had once told Sara.

  Sara trailed about the house. There was a new throw rug in the den, some blue and red braided thing that looked handmade. A bright green playpen sat in the corner. Wandering into the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator. There used to be fresh fruit and cut-up veggies, things she could grab and eat, but everything was now in covered tubs. On the wall was a sampler: HOME SWEET HOME. Home, Sara thought. She didn’t feel at home, not with everything so changed. She didn’t feel like family or even like a guest.

  Digging in her purse, she pulled out a notebook. Maybe she’d make a list for herself of things to bring over. Things she wouldn’t have to bother Eva about. The crackers she liked. Diet Cokes. She opened a page.

  You sleep on your back, she wrote. You look so different each time I see you, but I’d still know you anywhere. She thought of the blue box Eva had, stuffed with letters and pictures and photographs, all things that were going to be an album for the baby. Well, she could make her own baby journal for Anne, if she wanted.