The Drowning Girls

by Paula Treick DeBoard

  JUNE 19, 2015

  7:09 P.M.

  LIZ

  We waited in the hospital parking structure, six floors up, the exit sign a bright red flash in the dim interior. Danielle peeked at me from time to time, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. The motor was still running, and I held my hand on the key in the ignition.

  It had been so easy for Phil to run off, to shed his old life and put on a new one. Maybe he’d been doing that all along—leaving Australia for Greece, leaving Greece for the United States, leaving bachelorhood for married life and leaving us behind, too.

  Maybe that was the freedom that came with being a man. Wives and children could be shucked off, because the woman would stay with her daughter, would do her best and see it through. Danielle had been his pal, but not fully his responsibility. What if I did call him, if I dropped all this at his feet? Would he say, Shit, Liz. What are you going to do? Would he hang up, glad he’d dodged this bullet?

  “Mom,” Danielle said sharply.

  “I’m thinking,” I snapped.

  She made a small movement with her forefinger, and I followed the gesture. Sonia Jorgensen had passed our car, moving toward the exit. She looked disheveled, her blouse hanging out of her skirt, one of her purse straps flopped to the side.

  Maybe in some ways we were the same. We’d each had one daughter, and we’d had years to watch that daughter grow and mature. We’d had the same fears about broken bones on the playground or our girls running into the street, oblivious to oncoming traffic. It was easy for me to judge Sonia Jorgensen, to believe that she had failed as a mother because she’d produced a monster of a daughter.

  But was I any better?

  I turned the key in the ignition, the car falling silent.

  “Come on,” I told Danielle. “We’re going in.”

  FEBRUARY 2015

  LIZ

  The news of Kelsey’s suicide attempt was all over MLHS that January, spawning memos to parents and extended hours in the counseling office and a #prayforkelseyj hashtag on Twitter. It was the talk of The Palms, too. Sonia had backed out of a women’s conference she was supposed to be planning for later in the month, and she was staying near the private treatment center in Carmel where Kelsey was a patient. I heard this from Carly, who’d heard it from Janet, who’d heard it from Deanna, who had spent long hours on the phone with Sonia, offering advice.

  To me, Carly said, “It’s just like last time, then. She just wanted to get everyone’s attention.”

  I turned this comment over in my mind, looking at it from every angle.

  And I began to think.

  On my next quiet afternoon in the office, I searched the Ashbury Prep website, clicking on the individual pages of staff members, scrolling down their biographies and links to publications and their syllabi and homework assignments. I remembered the Incomplete notification on Kelsey’s transcript for her English class and clicked on a dozen dead ends before I found her: Megan Cummings, Honors Freshman English and Classical Mythology. Her biography said that she held a master’s degree in English from Berkeley, but her picture told me she looked too young to have been teaching for very long. She had brown hair cut in a severe chin-length bob, glasses instead of contacts. Her navy blazer, embellished with the school crest, was tight through the shoulders. Young, earnest, helpful, self-conscious—yes, she was the one I needed.

  I called the main phone number for Ashbury from my office phone and asked to be put through to her.

  “You’ve called at just the right time,” the secretary told me. “Ms. Cummings is on her preparatory period now and should be in her classroom. I’ll put you through.”

  Preparatory period, I thought. Not prep period, not at Ass Bury. Aaron would get a kick out of that, if I ever told him about this conversation—which I would not.

  After a series of beeps, Megan Cummings answered in a timid voice that made her sound like a high school student herself. Telemarketers probably asked if they could speak to her mother.

  I introduced myself as a behavioral counselor with the county. “I was wondering, Ms. Cummings, if I could speak to you privately for a moment.”

  “Yes, I...suppose. I’m not sure what this is about. You said you were from...where?”

  “The Alameda County Behavioral Health Services,” I repeated. “I’m calling about a confidential matter concerning a student who attended Ashbury last year.”

  “Oh. I think you would want to speak to one of our administrators, then?” Her voice rose uncertainly, a question for me as much as herself.

  I plowed ahead, the fake title bestowing me with a strange power. “I intend to do that, Ms. Cummings. But in my position, I’ve worked with a number of school personnel, including teachers and administrators. It’s been my experience that administrators know a few of the bare-bone facts, but the teachers are always more knowledgeable about situations regarding students. After all, you spend so much time with them on a daily basis, and administrators barely know their names.”

  “Well, that’s true.” She laughed a bit nervously, as if there were an administrator lurking on the line, waiting to catch her in a trap.

  “The student I’m calling about now attends Miles Landers High School in Livermore, and there have been some concerns. Her name is Kelsey Jorgensen.”

  Megan Cummings inhaled sharply.

  “I’m not sure if you’re aware, Ms. Cummings, but Kelsey was recently involved in a serious incident, and I’ve been working with the staff at Miles Landers to see how we can best handle the situation. Whatever you tell me is completely confidential, of course, but I’m trying to develop a whole picture of Kelsey at the moment.”

  “An incident,” she repeated.

  “I’m sure you understand that I have to speak a bit obliquely, as there are some concerns about privacy. I think it’s enough to say that we’re concerned with treating both Kelsey’s physical health as well as her mental health.”

  “Um, okay. I— What is it you need to know?”

  “The staff here is very concerned about how to look out for Kelsey’s best interest, as well as the interest of other students and staff members. It would be very helpful if you could shine a light on some of her past behavior, so we can be informed about how to proceed.”

  “The thing is—” Megan hesitated, and I thought for a moment that I’d lost her. She might insist that I speak to an administrator, and then that would be the end of my charade. “Her parents had us sign these papers. What do you call them? Nondisclosure agreements.”

  Ah—that explained why nothing had popped up on Google. “I know about the nondisclosure agreements,” I said, thinking fast. “As you know, those papers are legally binding, but they don’t apply to situations where the person is at medical risk. I’ll be blunt, Ms. Cummings. Kelsey Jorgensen attempted suicide right after the first of the year.”

  “That’s horrible. I mean, again? You know that’s what happened last year.” Her voice was raw. I could imagine how she’d felt last year, learning that one of her students had attempted suicide. Shock, disbelief, guilt.

  “You see why this is so important,” I prodded.

  It was all I needed to say. Megan exhaled deeply, then launched into the story. Kelsey had come to Ashbury in seventh grade, the year the Jorgensens moved to their house in The Palms. She’d been popular with the other students, elected as a class representative. There had been some minor problems with a few of the girls—rumors of jealousy and sniping and on-again, off-again friendships. “Typical adolescent stuff,” Megan said, dismissing this. The real trouble had started at the beginning of her ninth grade year, when she’d become obsessed with her history teacher.

  “Yes?” I urged, my pulse racing.

  “Well, it was a crush at first—that’s how he explained it. She just started hangin
g around, trying to get his attention, doing extra credit work and volunteering to clean his classroom after school. He didn’t take it very seriously, but then...”

  Then things had turned ugly—he was finding notes she’d left in his classroom, in his car. She got his cell phone number and called him at all hours. “He had a fiancée when all of this started,” Megan said, “but then, I guess she intercepted one of Kelsey’s calls, and she’d had enough. And that wasn’t even the worst of it.”

  The worst came at the beginning of March, when Kelsey went to the administration and said that she had been forced to give her teacher oral sex in the bathroom on a class field trip. “There was no way to prove it,” Megan told me. “I mean, I’m not saying that we should doubt women who come forward with stories of rape and abuse, but—this had supposedly happened months before, and one day it was like she just woke up and decided to ruin his life.”

  Kelsey’s parents had called for the teacher’s dismissal, but they’d wanted to keep what happened out of the news. In the end, the board agreed to dismiss the teacher (but with glowing letters of recommendation). In exchange for the staff’s silence on the matter, Kelsey’s parents wouldn’t bring a lawsuit against the school. The teacher didn’t even finish out the year. Once he was gone, Kelsey swallowed a bunch of Advil, and she finished the year on independent study.

  That was last spring, right before we moved to The Palms, before Sonia Jorgensen told me the students at Ashbury had been bad influences, before she suggested that our daughters could be friends.

  “I was just so appalled that something like that could happen here, at Ashbury,” Megan said. “I mean, you hear of these things...”

  “What I’ve learned over the years,” I said drily, “is that a thing like that can happen almost anywhere.”

  “I feel bad saying this, because she was one of my students, but when she left, it was like we all let out a sigh of relief. I mean, if she could do that to one of us, who was next? We were all sitting ducks.”

  I thanked Megan Cummings very sincerely on behalf of the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department, telling her she had been very helpful and assuring her that I would not be mentioning her name in my report.

  “It was my pleasure, Ms.— What did you say your—”

  I repeated, “Thank you so very much,” and hung up.

  It wasn’t until I hung up the phone that I started shaking—literally shaking, my hands wobbly, my knees too soft to stand. Kelsey had been obsessed with an older man, one with a fiancée, and she’d come close to ruining his life. I hadn’t fully believed Phil when he told me; it was too much to absorb, all at once, and too conveniently packaged.

  But now I could see her hand in it—the underwear left behind, like an animal marking its territory; the vandalism in the bathrooms, retribution for something that hadn’t gone her way. She could have sent the message to MLHS Stories herself, intending to blackmail him or drive a wedge between us—or maybe even because she believed it had happened. I was already convinced that she’d started the rumor about Danielle, and now that made a kind of sense, too. Had she only been interested in Danielle’s friendship for the chance to get inside our house, to get closer to Phil? He was sure that the fire was all about getting his attention, too. I remembered the way he’d stood there, hands in his pockets, his face a shiny canvas reflecting the flames. And when she couldn’t have him, she’d swallowed a bottle of pills—just like she had with the history teacher.

  It made, in its own nightmarish way, a kind of sense.

  But even then, I wasn’t sure it excused anything.

  Since Phil’s confession, it was as if I were split in two, entertaining both possibilities. Phil was telling the truth, and our marriage could be saved, so I would look for jobs near LA and begin planning our move. Or Phil couldn’t be trusted, and Danielle and I were going to stay. That Sunday after smashing his phone, I’d driven to school, deactivated the alarm and locked myself in the counseling office while I surfed information on divorce laws in California and rentals around Livermore. More and more, the idea was growing on me. If nothing else, it would buy me time to think.

  * * *

  Phil moved out on a Monday in February, while Danielle and I were at school. He had to—his job in LA started that week, and Parker-Lane had already cleaned out his office, rekeying the locks. I knew it was coming; since our talk, the clock had been ticking. Still, it was horrible to come home and find his SUV gone, his laptop and files out of the dining room. Upstairs, Phil’s side of the closet was empty, the coats and shirts and ties, the hanging dress pants. His dresser drawers had been emptied, too, even of the musty, heavy sweaters he would never need in Southern California. Staring into the closet, it felt like half my life was gone.

  We’d talked to Danielle the Saturday before he left. She’d been watching TV, and Phil hit the mute button, prompting her protests. I wished he would have turned it off; through the entire conversation, the actors distracted me with their exaggerated facial expressions, their behind-each-other’s-backs gestures.

  He told her about his new job, and I explained that we would be staying through the end of the school year. Parker-Lane wanted us out, but Jeff had assured Phil that as long as we were completely gone by the end of June, they wouldn’t raise a fuss.

  “I knew there was something going on,” Danielle spluttered. “How long have you known about this?”

  “Not long,” I said, at the same time Phil said, “A few weeks.”

  She glared at us. “What does this mean? What’s going to happen to us?”

  “At the end of the school year, we’ll pack up the house and you’ll move down south. We’ll be living in Laguna Niguel. You’ll love it there,” Phil said.

  Danielle was watching me. “Mom?”

  “We’ll see, honey. We’ll just have to see.” I didn’t look at Phil.

  We slept side by side the next two nights, not touching, but somehow companionable. I was too tired of hostility. I was too tired of it all.

  And then he was gone.

  After Phil left, I received a letter from Parker-Lane. It had clearly gone out to all residents of The Palms, and had been delivered to us, too—either as an act of spite or an administrative oversight.

  Dear Homeowner,

  Due to some recent changes in personnel at The Palms, Phil McGinnis is no longer employed as our community relations specialist. A new member of our team will take up residence at The Palms later this spring. In the meantime, residents are encouraged to call...

  * * *

  Our neighbors must have noticed Phil’s car was missing from our driveway, and I was sure the note set off a vicious round of gossip, to which I was no longer privy. I could read their bewilderment each time I passed through in my Toyota.

  What the hell is she still doing here?

  Does she think she can afford this place on her own?

  Someone from Parker-Lane came to inventory Phil’s office, and he left a message for me when Phil wouldn’t return his calls. Did I know if my husband had made backup copies of any of the files, any of the video surveillance? For all he could see, the hard drive had been completely wiped clean, and there was some kind of bug that prevented the software from recording.

  One day Deanna called my name when I was getting out of the car, and she came across the street in slightly teetering steps, four inches taller in her wedge heels. “I just want you to know that I don’t blame you, not one bit.”

  I wondered what exactly she didn’t blame me for, and I decided to ask. “For what?”

  “Oh, you know,” she said, embarrassed. Her hand went to her hair, probably checking to see if her walk across the street had displaced some strands in an unforgivable way. “Everything that happened here under Phil.”

  A car passed, slowing in front of our house to gawk. Deanna gave
me a little wave and scuttled back to her own driveway as if she were afraid to be seen talking to me.

  * * *

  School was the one constant in our lives. As busy as the fall and winter seemed, spring was a marathon of state testing, schedule requests for the fall and the typical issues of failing seniors and approaching graduation. We left earlier in the morning and stayed later at night, picking up dinner on the way home, carrying inside paper bags with limp fries and cold hamburgers, pizzas with grease stains seeping through the boxes. We ate in front of the TV, not talking, and then Danielle would disappear upstairs. She’d been slowly finding her place at Miles Landers without Kelsey, although her closest friend, surprisingly enough, was now Hannah Bergland. They spent a lot of time together at night, watching TV in the den or talking quietly in Danielle’s room. Hearing their voices through the walls, the earnest confessions and muted sounds of laughter, I felt incredibly alone.

  At the beginning of April, I was in the lobby of the counseling office with Jenn, sorting through testing materials, when a dark sedan passed the window once, then circled the visitor lot and returned. I stood up.

  Jenn squinted into the parking lot, following my gaze. “Who is that?”

  I couldn’t form the words, although of course I knew the car. I’d seen it threading through the streets of The Palms, parked in the Jorgensens’ driveway. I’d seen it follow the ambulance that day Kelsey was taken away. Tim stepped out of the sedan, his navy suit coat unbuttoned, tie flapping in the slight breeze. He held a briefcase in his right hand.

  “Is he from the district office or something?” Jenn asked, noting the suit.

  I shook my head and moved trancelike toward the door. Tim looked up, surprised to see me right there, watching him. I pushed open the door, and the bell overhead gave its customary merry jingle.

  He nodded at me, oddly formal. “Do you have a few minutes, Liz?”