The Drowning Girls

by Paula Treick DeBoard

  “It was an accident. Just a tragic accident,” Mom had said, blotting her eyes with a wad of tissue. She’d been up all morning, helping in the church kitchen with the ham and cheese sandwiches that were somehow a salve for grief. When we’d parked in our driveway, she’d gathered up a handful of soggy tissues and shut the door behind her.

  “Oh, pumpkin,” Dad had said as he sighed when I’d lingered in the backseat, arms folded across my jumper, waiting for a better answer. He’d promised to head over to the Warczaks’ house later, to help Jerry out. “It’s just how things go. It’s the way things are.” He’d reached over, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze in his no-nonsense, farmer-knows-best way.

  Somehow, despite all the years that passed, I never forgot this conversation, the way Dad’s eyes had glanced directly into mine, the way his mustache had ridden gently on top of his lips as he’d delivered the message. He couldn’t have known the tragedies that were even then growing in our soil, waiting to come to harvest.

  All he could do was tell me to prepare myself, to buck up, to be ready—because the way the world worked, you never could see what was coming.

  Copyright © 2013 by Paula Treick DeBoard

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing, for the most part, is a solitary activity. For days on end, it seems that I only see baristas at the coffee shops where I write in a dark corner, an anonymous figure with my laptop and my headphones. My conversations are polite exchanges with the regular patrons, as nameless to me as I am to them.

  But when I sat down to write the acknowledgments for this book, it was overwhelming to realize just how many people have helped along the way—with research, brainstorming, reading, editing, proofing, general and specific hand-holding, designing and marketing.

  A huge thanks goes to the team at MIRA, particularly my (very patient and wise) editor Michelle Meade; Sean Kapitan and Quinn Banting for a cover that still gives me chills; the marketing team of Amy Jones, Julie Forrest and Evan Brown; copy editor Tracy Wilson-Burns; proofreader Alexandra Antonel, Liz Stein and publicist Emer Flounders. Thanks always to the whip-smart Melissa Flashman with Trident Media Group, and I extend my standard wish for good karma to Alanna Garcia.

  On a local level, I’ve been blessed to have talented friends who can turn a chat over a cup of coffee into serious art. Thanks, Melissa Martinez, for your designer’s eye and behind-the-scenes tech help. Rob Brittain, I won’t be able to repay you for the late-night meetings and book trailer genius. (But will chocolate chip cookies help?) Overdue thanks goes to Blake Gentry and Scott Campbell for hours behind the camera and in front of the computer. Okay—cookies to you, too. Beth Boon is not only my sister but also a talented graphic artist who creates amazing designs for me in a pinch (which is usually when I think to ask). Thanks, thanks, thanks.

  When I set out to write this book, I didn’t anticipate all the twists and turns my life would take (let alone this plot). But I’m grateful for all the technical advice I got along the way from Craig Macho (who is hopefully writing his own book at this very moment), Julie Powers, Katie (VanderWal) Bos, Patsy Hite, and my sister-in-law and fearless emergency room nurse, Christina DeBoard Young.

  I’m immensely grateful for all the people who talked shop with me—my Go Deep! compatriots in yoga and word wrangling, the Tuesday night trivia crew, and of course, the Del Monte Avenue Feature Film Freaks. Love as always to my dear English Girls, to the Treicks and DeBoards, and to everyone who asked (perhaps not anticipating the long saga of my reply), “How’s the writing going?”

  Thanks to The Modesto Bee and the Stanislaus Library Foundation for supporting a writer in their community, to libraries and bookstores and book clubs, to teaching faculty and fellow writers at Stonecoast MFA, to my teaching colleagues and students past and present at San Joaquin-Delta Community College, Modesto Junior College and University of California, Merced. And thanks to my readers, nearby and far-flung, without whom my words would exist in a void. The “I owe you big-time” award goes to Kelly Jones, Beth Boon, Sara Viss, Leah Dashe and Beth Slattery, for reading early drafts.

  I always save my last thanks for Will DeBoard, who might not have known what he was getting into all those years ago when he asked me out for coffee. These days he juggles his busy professional life with mine—taking on extra dog-walking duties, understanding when it’s necessary for me to disappear for hours (or days) at a time, and always giving me the honest truth. I know the dedication of this book might seem odd, given the nature of this story—so let me finish by saying: Will, thank goodness for your sense of humor.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  Why is Liz so concerned about fitting in with her neighbors at The Palms? How does this change, and why? Does Liz’s desire to fit into this fictional world resonate with real life?

  As a parent, Liz is torn between wanting what’s best for Danielle and wanting to control (or at least influence) certain aspects of her daughter’s life—such as her friends and social contacts. Compare this to the approach other parents (such as the Jorgensens and the Sieverts) take toward their children. How much control can or should parents have over their teenagers’ lives, especially when it comes to technology and social media?

  Phil begins his narration by insisting that he isn’t a pedophile, and is merely trapped in a “lose-lose”

  situation. Do you think he has an accurate understanding of the dilemma? Would problems have been avoided if he had tried to seek legal action such as a restraining order against Kelsey from the very beginning?

  Kelsey is presented as deeply troubled in this book. What might be the cause of these problems? Why do her parents continue to believe and support her in the face of contrary evidence?

  At the end of the book, Liz is unsure of the role Danielle has played in what happened to Kelsey, but seems determined to protect her daughter (and therefore her daughter’s dark secrets). What motivates Liz at the end of the book? Is it the same thing that motivates the Jorgensens relating to their own daughter?

  Phil tells Liz that he believes they’re the same kind of awful, but Liz disagrees. Is Phil merely a helpless victim of circumstances brought on by his life at The Palms? Is Liz?

  A CONVERSATION WITH

  PAULA TREICK DEBOARD

  The Drowning Girls is an unsettling story about the dark underbelly of an idyllic neighborhood, and how one family finds themselves sucked into a world of secrets and lies just below the community’s seemingly flawless surface. What was your inspiration for this novel?

  For years I was a freelance writer for a real estate publication, and once or twice a month I would visit these fantastic new home communities that were each promising the world to their clients—not only the granite countertops and the six-panel interior doors, but the implicit guarantee of happiness. Deep down, those physical things can’t matter too much; they’re just the circumstances of our lives. There’s that saying that “wherever you go, there you are”—meaning that our problems and insecurities have a way of following us anywhere, no matter the change in location.

  The Palms is a perfectly manicured, incredibly wealthy gated community—a big departure from the rural communities and lower middle-class families that featured in your earlier novels. Why the change? What similarities and differences do you see between the people in these communities?

  Ultimately, I’m interested in the many varieties of the human experience—what makes us tick, and what pushes seemingly average or happy people over the edge? In my first novel, The Mourning Hours, the book revolved around a small, tight-knit community in Wisconsin. The Drowning Girls might be set in a gated community near Livermore, California, but in many ways the main characters are facing the same pressures: the scrutiny of their neighbors, the importance of their reputations, the personal secrets of marriage and family.

  All of your novels center on everyday fa
milies placed under an enormous amount of pressure from extenuating circumstances. What draws you to family dramas, and how do you decide which perspectives will narrate their experience?

  I’ve always been interested in the dynamics of family life. That’s not rooted in any deep-seated issues with my own family, but really just out of a curiosity about what makes people’s lives work. When it comes down to it, most of our joys and sorrows are connected with our families—those few people on earth who know the best and worst of each other. In my first two novels, I gave the young characters a voice in the narration, but in this book, the story seemed to belong to Liz and Phil. And actually, Phil’s voice didn’t come into the story until after the first draft. Once I started writing from his perspective, the whole story suddenly came together.

  Can you describe the writing process for this novel? How did the story evolve as you worked through it?

  This story went through several twists and turns in my mind before becoming the final version of The Drowning Girls. When I began writing, I saw The Palms much as it would have looked on one of the builders’ glossy brochures. With each draft, the place became a little darker in my mind, the characters more complicated, the stakes higher for Phil and Liz. When I look back on it now, it’s almost as if I approached the story from the outside and circled it in increasingly narrow loops until I knew exactly who the characters were and where their conflicts rested. This book really wouldn’t have come together without some wise advise from my beta readers, including my editor, Michelle Meade, who freed me to go further, push harder. In my mind, I needed that permission to go to the dark place where the story had to go.

  Do you read other fiction while you’re doing your own writing or do you find it distracting?

  I read constantly, even while I’m in the middle of a draft—but I’m careful not to focus too heavily on one writer or style of writing, as that has a way of influencing my own writing voice. I love to teach Hemingway, but there’s a problem when I start to sound like him. The trick for me has been to select at random from my massive “to be read” pile and approach each new book as an escape from my own writing. I’ve become hooked on audio books as well, which makes me pay attention to the sounds of individual words. That’s something I pay attention to as the story approaches its final draft.

  What was your greatest challenge in writing The Drowning Girls? What about your greatest pleasure?

  I juggle a few different lives at once—writer, teacher, wife/daughter/sister/friend—so sometimes it gets a bit tricky. I’ve learned to dedicate blocks of time specifically to writing, so when I sit down at my laptop, I’m entering a period of “hyperfocus.” You could stand in front of me and wave your hand in my face, and I might not notice—this has happened. I’m also learning not to feel guilty when I’m writing. There are a dozen little things demanding my attention, and just about all the time, those things can wait.

  My breakthrough with The Drowning Girls actually came while I was on a plane, traveling approximately five hundred miles an hour and 35,000 feet above my regular life. My husband was in the seat next to me, asleep, and I opened up a notebook and wrote for about four hours straight. Normally, I’m a laptop and neatly ordered folder-and-file type of writer, but there was something that was just so right about this moment, that I knew I had tapped into the heart of the book. Before that, The Drowning Girls was just a file with a lot of words. After that, it was a story.

  “Tautly written and beautifully evocative.”

  —Bookreporter.com on The Mourning Hours

  Discover more emotionally powerful and compelling reads from Paula Treick DeBoard:

  The Mourning Hours

  The Fragile World

  “Exquisitely told, [The Fragile World] is a study in grief and the transforming power of love. Absolutely unforgettable.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf

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  The Next Page: A Fiction Sampler for Book Clubs

  Enrich your discussions with chapter excerpts and bonus material from the following:

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  Madame Picasso by Anne Girard

  The Returned by Jason Mott

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  The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard

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  ISBN-13: 9781459293915

  The Drowning Girls

  Copyright © 2016 by Paula Treick DeBoard

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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