Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  He was always surprised to find her there. He didn’t know what he expected anymore. That the house might explode. That Sara would come back. He pulled into the drive. There was Anne reading on the porch. “Anne!” he called and she looked up at him, wary.

  “Come drive,” he told her. And then Anne put the book down and shyly got into the car. “Drive and you can go anywhere,” he said, the same words he had said to Sara when she was this age, too, and he was hoping Sara would learn to drive away from them, that she’d have so much fun, the thought of coming to their house would seem an imposition on her. Anne lifted her chin, her eyes shining. She took a right turn. “Like a pro!” George told her. “Keep going! Keep going! Soon you can take the car on your own.”

  “Really? You’d let me do that? You’d trust me?”

  He stroked her hair, amazed that she let him. He loved her, God how he loved her, and now, he was giving her permission to leave him, and hoping, with all his heart, that she’d find her way back.

  Anne woke up, shivering from a dream, not sure where she was. The room came back into focus. This is my house. My parents are here. My mother saved my writing.

  She could hear a lawn mower roaring outside. Swinging her legs over the bed, she went to her bureau, pulling open her sock drawer, digging for two pairs that matched. Her fingers touched paper and she pulled something out, a folded slip of blue. She opened it, and there in Eva’s handwriting was a fortune. “Lucky are the parents who have a one-of-a-kind daughter.” She laughed out loud. She folded the fortune over, and held it in her hand.

  Sara sat in her apartment staring at the phone. She picked it up and started to dial Anne and then slammed the phone down again. This was ridiculous. She had done this so many times since Anne’s last call that her wrist ached. “Control yourself,” she said out loud. She knew if she made Anne feel cornered, she’d lose her forever, and if she pressured Eva and George, they would turn away from her, too. Her hand hovered over the phone as if she could make it ring by sheer willpower.

  She didn’t feel like sticking around the apartment.

  * * *

  Betty’s Books wasn’t very crowded for a Friday night. She wandered over to the magazine section, then when she’d had her fill, she went over to the fiction section, pulled out a book that looked interesting. As she passed the nonfiction section she pulled down a few books from there, too. A biography of the scientist George Fenyman, and a book on the psychology of desire. She sat down on one of the plush chairs to read for a while.

  She was planning to read the fiction book first, but she started leafing through the psychology one instead, and was soon lost in a chapter called “Everyday Eros.”

  “Excuse me, is that your newspaper?” someone said, and Sara looked up. A woman was standing, pointing to the paper on the floor by Sara. “Not mine,” Sara said, and then she looked past the woman, and there, staring at her, was Scott.

  Flustered, Sara got up, and as soon as she did, she lost her place in her book. It tumbled from her lap onto the floor. “Scott,” she said, and he gave her a tight smile, as if he were biting down on something hard. “How are you?” she said.

  “I’m good,” he said, and then another voice interrupted.

  “Scott?” And a woman, tall and exotic looking, appeared, grabbing for Scott’s hand. “Honey, I want to show you this book,” she said, and Sara’s smile tightened, but the woman didn’t seem to even register Sara. She tugged at Scott, who lifted his brows at Sara and then let himself be pulled away.

  It stung. She was surprised how much. Her heart drummed, sounding in her ears. She didn’t want to stay here anymore. Even though she couldn’t afford it, even though she’d be short of money all next week, she went to the checkout counter and bought both books. She walked home, twenty blocks, beginning to pant. If the books weren’t so heavy, she would have run. Before she even got the key in the lock, she heard the phone ringing. The key stuck, and then she was inside, grabbing for the phone.

  “Hi, darling,” Abby said, and Sara sat down and told her about Scott. She knew Abby’d berate her for letting Scott go, but she knew she had done the right thing, and she knew that all the disapproval, all the promises to take away the pain, wouldn’t change her mind about it. Abby didn’t say much the whole time Sara was talking, though Sara heard these odd clicks and catches in her mother’s throat, as though she were choking back-words.

  “Well,” Abby said slowly. “Staying with Scott is something I would have done. But you’re braver than that.”

  “You think I’m brave?”

  “You went out there and found your daughter even though your father and I told you not to. You went even though it cost you Scott. I’m glad you didn’t listen to my stupid advice. I look at you and I’m amazed.”

  “Mom?”

  “I wish I had had it in me to be like you. But some people can’t. You’ve always risked everything, Sara.”

  “And lost,” she said bitterly.

  “No, you didn’t lose,” Abby said. “You found your daughter. You found you didn’t want to be with Scott.” Abby drew in a breath. “Tell me more about her.”

  “You really want to know? After all this time?”

  “I’m asking, aren’t I?” Abby said.

  “I know, but why? Why now?”

  “I don’t know. All these weeks you’ve been in Florida, I’ve thought of nothing but what a mess you were making. Then, when we didn’t hear from you, I started wondering what was going on, why you were there so long, what was happening. And then after you called us and told us, I couldn’t stop thinking about it all. Your father and I talked about it, and then I imagined all these scenarios, and then, as soon as I did that—” Abby paused.

  “She became a person to me.”

  “She is a person, Mom. An amazing person.”

  Abby cleared her throat. “Did you know I held her? When she was newborn.”

  “I knew.”

  “You did?”

  “I pretended to be sleeping. I heard you and Daddy talking.”

  They both laughed. “Well, then,” Abby said, and then Sara heard another voice, her father’s. “Your father’s waving at me. He has something he wants to tell you.”

  “How’s my baby?” Jack asked.

  “Your grown daughter’s fine,” she said, then she noticed something oblong and brown by the refrigerator. A waterbug, the size of her big toe. Recoiling, she lifted her feet up.

  Jack cleared his throat. “Sara, you know I didn’t think much of what I saw of your little job—”

  “Daddy—” Sara said. “It’s not a little job.” The bug skittered under the baseboards and disappeared.

  “No, no, let me finish. But what I saw was you did it on your own and I’m really proud of you. You know how to stand on your own feet.”

  My own feet, Sara thought. She remembered how when she was little, she’d stand on his feet and he’d waltz her around, making sure her feet never touched ground. Flying, she had been flying, a lovely illusion. “You can stand on your feet,”he had said. If Sara could have wished for her father to ever have said anything to her before, this would have been it.

  “I want to give you a loan. Just a loan. For a better apartment,” Jack said.

  “I can’t take a loan—”

  “Sure you can. And you’ll pay it back. I’m an accountant, remember? I know about money. Maybe you could even get a two-bedroom.”

  Sara looked down at the baseboards. If you had one roach, you had thousands. “What am I going to do with two bedrooms? Are you planning to stay with me?” she asked.

  “No,” Jack said. “But Anne might.”

  It startled Sara, hearing her father say Anne’s name. “Mom?” she said. “Daddy?”

  “Oh honey, don’t sound so astonished. Don’t you think we’ve been talking about this? Can’t parents make mistakes?” Abby said.

  Sara rubbed at her arms. She had seen graffiti in the bathroom at the bookstore; “Mistakes are
God’s way of calling you to attention,” it had said. Well, maybe that was true.

  Sara smiled. She picked up the psychology book she had bought and ran her hand over the smooth cover. “I think I want to go back to school,” she said.

  It was winter again, and Sara was walking home, a knapsack loaded with books slung over one aching shoulder. Back in grad school full time at City College, and it felt great. Paying for it herself, too, with a little help from a loan and a terrific financial package. Paying back her father, too, a little at a time. Never had she felt so excited. She couldn’t wait to get up in the morning, to get to class. Even studying was, well, exhilarating. In a few more years, she’d be a psychologist. Already, she knew she wanted to work with teenage girls. “I know how you feel,” she’d tell them, and she’d mean it.

  She sidestepped a snowdrift, manuevering the frosty streets. Fifteen minutes and ten blocks and she’d be at her apartment, a small onebedroom with an alcove just big enough for a single bed with a soft peach comforter her parents had sent. “You said Anne liked this color,” Abby said. After two months, Abby even called Anne, phoning Sara immediately afterward to tell her. “I told her she doesn’t have to call me grandmother,” Abby said.

  “Did Daddy talk to her?” Sara asked, and Abby grew quiet.

  “Not yet,” she said. “It’s harder for your father. But he made me repeat everything we said to each other.”

  Anne had never had a chance to see the peach comforter, let alone sleep under it. Every time an opportunity came up for a visit, something happened. Sara had invited Anne to New York for Halloween, thinking she’d love the big raucous parade in the Village, but then Anne came down with the flu. Thanksgiving time, Sara was planning to go there, but then she was the one who got sick, and by the time she was well, Anne was back in school. “Oh, Anne, I’m so disappointed,” Sara told her.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Anne said, and it sounded so casual that Sara felt a pang of insecurity. Bundling deeper into her coat, Sara crossed the street to her block. Next year, Anne would be in college. If she was anything like Sara had been, she wouldn’t be coming home so often, she’d want to use her breaks to be with her friends. Or with a boyfriend. Anne’s life would be knit together so tightly that all the lost time Sara had hoped to make up for wouldn’t be much more than a loop if she were lucky. Pained, she pulled her coat tighter.

  There Sara was. 409. A small brick building with a rusting gate. Scott would have hated it, she thought wryly, he would have found fifty things wrong before he even stepped inside, including this sticking door, but Sara pushed the door expertly open with the toe of her boot, and happily entered.

  The night stretched out in front of her. Maybe tonight she’d call a friend, go out and have dinner. That new Thai place. Or the Mexican. Maybe see a movie. Grabbing her mail, she headed upstairs.

  Inside her apartment, she dumped her books on the table. Then she slid onto the couch, curling her legs under her, riffling through the mail. Damn. Bills. More bills. A letter from her mother. A newsletter from the National Cheese Society.

  And then an envelope, pale blue with a flower in the corner, fell out. She opened it up. “Dear friends,” it said, and Sara thought, good God, one of those corny holiday form letters she always made fun of, and she cringed, about to throw it out, when Danny’s name jumped out at her. Sara propped herself up in the bed and read:

  What a busy time it’s been! Danny was promoted (just call him Mr. Regional Manager!) at the bank and we celebrated by taking the whole family to the Poconos for a week of hiking, camping, and just plain old relaxing. And Charlotte got her own promotion, too, to something even more exciting than Danny’s—to new mother-to-be! Our little Gift from God will be arriving in June, and we’re hoping it’s a little sister to join her handsome brother Joseph and her beautiful half sister Anne!

  She turned the envelope over, but it was typed and she couldn’t tell who had sent it to her, and really, what did it matter. They had thought of her. And then, another envelope fell out from her pile of mail, a small grey square, and she opened that one up.

  PLEASE JOIN US FOR

  ANNE RIVERS’S GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL.

  DINNER FOLLOWING AT ARNOLDOS.

  RSVP.

  Sara had just been on the phone with Anne a few days ago, but why hadn’t Anne told her about the party? Or the invitation? She turned the card over. Please join us, it said, and all she had to do was look at the signature, as familiar to her as her own palm print. Eva’s delicate scrawl. I know this is early but I just want to make sure you aren’t signing up for a trip around the world! Eva had invited her, and maybe Anne didn’t even know that yet. Sara got up and wrote the date on her calendar, almost like a promise she was making to herself.

  It was hot again. Ninety-five degrees in June, twenty degrees hotter than it was in New York, and when it started to rain, a light sun shower, Sara hurried into the restaurant, two gaily wrapped presents tucked under her arm. All the preparation and planning she had done to get here, and her plane had been delayed for an hour, and then there was a stopover and another delay in Ohio, and she couldn’t believe it, she had missed the ceremony, the one thing she had been imagining for weeks and weeks. And worse, she couldn’t shake the vision of Anne looking around and not seeing her there. What could Anne possibly think except she had been slammed again? Flustered, she glanced at her watch again. Dinner. She was still in time for the dinner.

  Sara squinted across the room. Four in the afternoon and the restaurant was dimly lit, all potted ferns and barn wood walls, a floor so black it looked like midnight. She could barely see in front of her, let alone find someone she knew. Eva told her they had rented a private room, but Sara wasn’t sure where the room was, and she didn’t see a hostess. Abby and Jack had even been invited, but Sara wasn’t surprised when they didn’t plan to go, when they hedged with excuses. “Why should our first meeting be in a crowd?” Abby said on the phone one night. “That’s not right.” Her voice stopped and stuck, then Sara heard Jack draw in a long breath. “What are you going to do,” Abby said quietly, and it was then that Sara heard the pain in her mother’s voice, the regret. “But we bought her a gift. An antique pen and pencil set. Perfect for a writer. Perfect for writing to her grandparents. And we sent her a nice check.”

  “She’ll know we’re thinking about her,” Jack said.

  “I’ll know that, too,” Sara told him.

  Now a man in a sparkling white tuxedo jacket suddenly appeared, raising one brow at Sara. “Rivers party?” she said, and he nodded, bored, and led her to a door, pushing it open, making her blink at the sudden light, the flurry of noise.

  Sara stood on the sidelines, looking for a familiar face among all these people. She felt suddenly nervous, as if she were on a first date. A woman walked by Sara, beaming. A man in the back threw back his head and laughed out loud. Her own graduation hadn’t been so happy, she remembered. Eva and George had already vanished with Anne. Her parents took her out to dinner, Abby smiling too hard, Jack overly boisterous, and Sara pretending that she really did have something to look forward to, that her dreams weren’t like hard roots now, frozen under winter ground.

  A waitress whisked a tray full of champagne past her and Sara grabbed one. “Everyone is sitting down for dinner,” she murmured to Sara, as if she were sharing a great secret.

  “Where do I sit?” Sara asked, but the waitress was gone, winding through the crowd, and Sara suddenly felt as if she were in one of those dreams where she was out in public, stark naked, but only she knew it. Everyone else just passed her as if she were a ghost.

  She tried to get some bearings. She hadn’t seen any placards telling where her table was, so she looked around for an interesting-looking one. There by the corner was a smallish one, with a man with ginger-colored hair and a deep tan, a few women in bare summery dresses. The singles table, Sara thought, the one for people without babies, people without great loves. For a moment, she
felt sorry for herself, and then she straightened. She had had both. She walked over. “Hi, I’m Sara,” she said, and the man brightened and the women nodded.

  “Bill, Anne’s neighbor,” he said.

  “Monique,” said one of the women. “I work with Eva at the school. What’s your connection?”

  Sara smiled. This was too complicated for a party. “Friend,” she said simply.

  The woman clinked glasses with Sara. “Ah, here’s to friends, then,” she said, and then she looked over Sara’s head. “The happy mother!” she said, and Sara turned around, and there was Eva in a pale blue sheath, her long blond hair held back with a glittering rhinestone clip. Jumping up, Sara hugged Eva.

  “You’re not sitting here, are you?” Eva asked, puzzled. “You sit at the table with us.”

  Monique gave Sara a curious look. “Hey, how’s she rate preferred seating?

  “Anne’s birth mother,” Eva said simply, making Sara start.

  “Now this is interesting,” Monique said, looking from Sara to Eva, but Eva was guiding Sara through the crowd.

  “Thank you,” Sara said. “For saying that. For inviting me.”

  Eva waved a hand. “I’m happy you’re here,” Eva said, scanning the crowd. “Where’s George? I know he wants to see you,” she said, and then she turned back to Sara. “Did she tell you? University of Michigan. Just found out.”

  Michigan, Sara thought. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved that the college wasn’t all the way across the country or disheartened that it was still far.

  They moved to the long table at the back of the room, and Eva said, “There she is—” Sara looked over, and for a minute, she didn’t recognize her. Anne’s hair was almost as long and curly as Sara’s now, her lips were shined, and she was wearing a simple green dress that brought out her eyes, green like Danny’s. “She grew up, didn’t she,” Eva said wistfully to Sara, and then, as if Anne had known they were talking about her, Anne turned, and shrieked, “Sara!”