The Finishing School

by Joanna Goodman

  Kersti suspects Cressida has more than just one.

  Chapter 3

  TORONTO—September 2015

  The view through Dr. Gliberman’s picture window on the eighteenth floor looks like a grainy black-and-white photograph. Sheets of rain against the glass blur the Toronto skyline, completely obscuring the CN Tower. Kersti is distracted today. Lausanne’s been on her mind, whether or not to go back. And Lille has, too. Ever since Kersti got Lille’s letter, she’s felt uneasy. The new information that Magnus Foley was at Huber House the night Cressida fell has been niggling at her. Did Lille want her to do something? Is that why she wrote her? And if so, what?

  “Kersti?”

  Her gaze drifts away from the window and over to the baby pictures on Dr. Gliberman’s Wall of Success. Thank you for making our dreams come true! We will be forever grateful, Dr. G! Introducing Kiley and Kiera! Introducing Jack, Sam, & Mason! Singles, twins, triplets. The cards on the wall seem to be multiplying as fast as the infertile couples around her. She wants her own card up there on the wall. Introducing Eila! She’s had the name picked out since age six, her first year at Estonian summer camp.

  “You’ve got a few options,” Dr. Gliberman says. Kersti’s head snaps back and she regards him with her usual blend of reverence and desperation. Gliberman is self-important and abrasively arrogant, but he has a reputation for getting even the most hopelessly infertile couples pregnant. His desk is cluttered with framed pictures of his own five children, who mock Kersti whenever she sits across from him.

  Behind his head, there’s a life-size poster of a woman breastfeeding her baby. The mother and baby both have milk mustaches, and beneath them, the slogan: got breast milk?

  “I don’t recommend more IVF, Kersti. You’ve already done six cycles and you’re just not producing good-quality eggs. In fact, your eggs in this last cycle were the quality of a woman in her mid-fifties.”

  Kersti lets out a soft gasp and looks down at her feet, ashamed. She’s only thirty-five. Jay reaches for her hand and she can’t help but think about all the promise of their wedding day. She’d felt utterly triumphant walking down the aisle toward him, so damn handsome in his black tux and white Converse. She believed then that only good things lay ahead for them, the fulfillment of every wish and dream.

  Jay had just quit his job and was about to open his own ad agency when he showed up at Kuusk Tours, where Kersti was working for her father, looking to book one last trip before his new business swallowed his freedom. The moment he walked through the door, Kersti was taken. He had dark hair that fell to his jawline, brown eyes that kind of winked at her without actually winking, and a smile that made her feel like a jelly fish. He was wearing a suit with Converse running shoes and had a computer bag slung across his chest. He could have been a college student or a stockbroker, but he was exactly Kersti’s type. She knew right away with a sinking feeling that she was with the wrong guy. What had been only a nagging suspicion about her current boyfriend of four years, Aleks Rummo, the beloved Estonian camp sweetheart whom her parents had practically chosen for her, was now a sickening, irrevocable fact.

  Jay ended up buying a plane ticket to Stockholm that day and, thinking she was Scandinavian, asking Kersti out on a date. Lucky for her, he wasn’t too disappointed when he found out she was Estonian and by the time he got back from his Scandinavian holiday, Kersti had already broken up with Aleks.

  In the years that followed, life began to unfold in delightfully unexpected ways. Jay proposed and Kersti started taking creative writing courses at a local college. After their wedding, which was officiated by an Asian Unitarian minister—a reasonable compromise, given that Jay is Jewish and Kersti is an emphatically nonreligious Lutheran descended from a long line of nonbelievers—Kersti took time off from Kuusk Tours and, with Jay’s moral and financial support, began to work on her first novel. The marriage was in a renaissance. Jay’s agency was thriving. She was writing. They bought a house.

  And then one day they looked at each other and they both knew. It was time. They were ready for a baby. She remembers the excitement of deciding on their timeline. How naïve she’d been, thinking she could choose the timing of her pregnancy. But those first few months of trying were wonderful. Sex everywhere, all the time. Lying upside down with her legs in the air, believing this was it. “I think we just made a baby,” she would giggle. “I feel it.”

  When nothing happened, panic set in. It was fertility monitors and thermometers and increasing anxiety, until it all culminated with a grim diagnosis of blocked tubes. Not technically blocked—which would have been simpler to fix—but closed. Or, as her ob-gyn put it, deformed. The ob-gyn drew a picture of normal tubes, and then Kersti’s, which looked like a pair of boxing gloves. Still, her doctor was optimistic. Kersti was a perfect candidate for IVF. She was only in her early thirties and everything else was in perfect working order.

  Thus began their long journey here, and what is starting to feel like the end of the road. One last chance to please her old-world Estonian parents. Motherhood surely would make her less of an outsider in her family; at least that’s what she keeps telling herself.

  “I think it’s time to explore other options,” Dr. Gliberman says. “I don’t want to risk another miscarriage—”

  Jay turns to her abruptly. “We could go on that cruise in the Baltic Sea,” he says, sounding way too excited for the situation at hand. “The Baltic Beauty, the one that goes to Copenhagen and Oslo and Russia. And then we could even pop over to Tallinn for a few weeks—”

  “A cruise?” she says, astonished. “Instead of becoming parents?”

  “We talked about our life getting back to normal if this cycle didn’t work. Dr. Gliberman is telling us it’s over—”

  “I haven’t said it’s over,” Dr. Gliberman interrupts. “I can get you pregnant.”

  “We’ve given this everything we’ve got,” Jay says, grabbing her hand with urgency. “We can see the world together. Let’s move on, Kerst. Let’s put our life back together—”

  Kersti looks over at Dr. Gliberman. “How can you get me pregnant?” she asks him.

  “With an egg donor.”

  Jay jumps up. “We’re not using a donor,” he says.

  “Jay, just listen—”

  “I never signed on for this,” he mutters. “I’m done.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

  When they’re alone, Kersti folds her hands in her lap and looks at Dr. Gliberman as though nothing has happened. “What are the next steps?”

  After the appointment, Kersti goes home by herself and Jay goes back to work. She heads up the front walk to her house, bending once to inhale the sweet scent of her stargazer lilies, which are still blooming happily in the sun and completely indifferent to her self-pity. She loves her garden, especially now, wet and lush, carpeted with soaking grass. The thrips are swarming the sunflowers, burrowing holes in their leaves, their fringed wings propelled by the post-thunderstorm gusts. The neighborhood is otherwise still. Life goes on, she thinks. All around her, life goes on, and she’s slightly buoyed by the reminder.

  Inside, the foyer is light and open, flooded by sunlight; a mirrored Venetian pedestal table sparkles beneath an admittedly ostentatious crystal chandelier. The walls are Cloud White, the wood floors and stairwells stained almost black, the three fireplaces carved white marble. Kersti likes her spaces simple, soft, and clean. The only bright color is found in their art—bold, bright pieces personally selected for them by their art dealer at the Bau-Xi Gallery. She drops her bag on the table and goes into the kitchen to make lunch. She pulls out the pot of leftover nogesesupp, sets it on the stove, and then retrieves the hard-boiled eggs she prepared this morning. She stirs the soup, tastes it with a wooden spoon, adds salt, and tastes it again. Sunlight is streaming in through the kitchen window, softly lighting the six eggs that are perfectly arranged in the glass bowl. Like a painting, she thinks, ladling soup into a ceramic bowl. She
crumbles one hard-boiled egg over the bowl, places it on a tray with some sourdough bread and the day’s mail, and heads upstairs to her office.

  Her office is a small oasis that occupies its own wing at the end of the second-floor hallway. It’s got sloped ceilings and wood beams and the wall-to-wall bookcase Kersti always dreamed of having when she used to fantasize about writing for a living. Today, her laptop sits open on her desk, the words from the first chapter of her next stalled effort ridiculing her. The three novels in her bookcase with her name printed on the spine do nothing to silence that voice in her head that shrieks: You’re not a real writer! You suck! You’re going to humiliate yourself with this one!

  Her first short story was published by the Tundra Peregrine Literary Review, a prestigious though obscure Northwest Territories magazine, while she was still at Humber. With her creative writing professor’s guidance and encouragement, she decided to turn that story into a novel. Three hundred and seventeen pages later, when she was just twenty-six, The Ski-Maker’s Daughter was published by Snapping Turtle Press, a small publisher out of Nova Scotia, to decent reviews. The novel, which sold about twelve copies and was quickly removed from the shelves of Indigo and Chapters bookstores, vanished from the literary landscape as though it had never existed. But its publication helped Kersti land a fairly prominent Toronto agent named Rona Sharpe, who was instrumental in getting her next book, Moonset Over Tallinn, published in Canada and the United States by one of the big publishing houses.

  The love story of an Estonian refugee and his beautiful Russian lover, Moonset Over Tallinn sold an astonishing hundred thousand copies in Canada alone, making it a surprise bestseller. Kersti was not yet thirty, which added to the PR frenzy around the book’s success. She was nominated for all sorts of literary awards, including the prestigious Luba Shishbaum Prize for best writer under thirty, which she did not win. There were a lot of accolades at that time for being the Most Promising Writer Under Thirty, or the Most Promising Canadian Woman Writer Under Thirty, or the Most Promising Historical Women’s Fiction Writer Under Thirty. The only thing that did not happen for her before thirty was having a kid.

  Her third novel generated respectable sales and brought forth another round of literary prize nominations, although again no actual prizes. And no sign of her parents’ approval, either. “Another corny saga about star-crossed Estonian refugees?” her father said. At least she was solidifying her own literary niche, in no danger of being challenged by another better writer under thirty. She dominated the Estonian refugee market.

  It doesn’t seem likely at this point that she will be able to please her parents, not even if she wins a Nobel Prize for literature. What would have made them happy is if she had married an Estonian and been able to breed.

  She opens her desk drawer and takes out the letter from Lille. She notices a newspaper clipping in the envelope and realizes Mrs. Robertson also included Lille’s obituary.

  After a long battle with cancer . . .

  Lille would never have “battled” cancer. She didn’t battle anything or anyone. She succumbed. Cressida was the one who fought. She fought for what she wanted, fought against what she didn’t want, fought for the sake of fighting. Which was what made the fall so shocking. Whether she was drunk and indifferent or suicidal, Kersti always felt the falling implied she’d given up.

  One of Kersti’s last memories of Cressida is of her floating across the grass in the moonlight to meet one of her lovers, daring to snatch the freedom she believed she was owed. How can you know everything is about to change? You can’t, of course. Kersti had no premonition. That night, she was angry with Cressida. She felt betrayed.

  Cressida had changed by then. It was obvious to Kersti and the rest of their inner circle that the more selfish, self-centered side of her was now fully in command. Their friendship had become something of a love/hate roller coaster. Cressida had a way of always drawing Kersti back in, but that night, as Kersti watched Cressida escape from the school grounds, she wasn’t sure she could be there for her much longer.

  The next morning, when Mme. Hamidou told Kersti what had happened to her roommate, Kersti was paralyzed with guilt. She’d contemplated the possibility of abandoning Cressida that very night. In the end, it was Cressida who abandoned her.

  The days that followed the accident are still quite hazy. Kersti remembers Mme. Hamidou sitting down with her on the front steps of Frei House. It was dusk, the same day Cressida’s body was found. The ambulance and police were long gone and an eerie silence had fallen over the school. Hamidou had given her a sedative that morning and even though it was almost dark, Kersti was still groggy. Hamidou handed Kersti a cigarette and lit it, and then lit one for herself. “Take a deep breath,” she said. Her voice was shaky, but it was also soothing. Kersti tried to focus on it in order to feel calmer.

  “Did she go out last night, mon amour?” Hamidou was looking at Kersti expectantly with her warm brown eyes. “Do you know if she snuck out?”

  Kersti nodded.

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know,” Kersti lied, not sure if Hamidou believed her.

  Hamidou put her arm around Kersti and held her. She loved Cressida, too, had practically raised her. She was a mother to all the motherless boarding school girls in her care.

  The police asked Kersti questions. Did she know where Cressida had gone last night? Who she had gone to meet? Had she heard any noises? Fighting? Kersti’s answer was always the same. No, no, no, no. Had she confided in Kersti about being depressed? Had she been suicidal? Had she fought with anyone?

  No, no, no.

  They searched her room for a note but found nothing. It soon came out that she’d been very drunk. A bottle of vodka had been found. Her blood alcohol level came back .26. Word spread through the Lycée that Cressida had been wasted and accidentally fallen from the fourth floor. There was little time for speculation before the school closed ranks and put an end to the entire unpleasant matter. The fall was declared an accident, which was confirmed by the police investigation. Any other possibility was bad for business. And the Lycée was a business, first and foremost.

  The next thing Kersti remembers, her mother was in Lausanne, standing in the middle of her room, helping her pack. She may have tried to persuade Kersti to stay and finish out senior year, but Kersti refused. She had to get away.

  The memories of school she’s tried to keep close to the surface are the lovely, sentimental ones—flinging open her window every morning to look out at Lake Geneva; train rides through perfect green pastures and snowy mountains; afternoons lingering in cafés, sipping hot chocolate, nibbling pastries and gossiping with her best friends. Nights out on cobblestone streets with European socialites or dancing in discotheques with royalty. But that wonderful life tucked away in the Alps also had a sinister underbelly, which culminated with Cressida’s beautiful body broken on the concrete. In the end, that image edged out all the rest, no matter how hard Kersti has tried to blot it out.

  She has a few spoonfuls of soup and then turns back to her novel. The voice in her head attacks immediately. How many Estonian Harlequin romances can you write?

  She quickly abandons the chapter she’s been working on and googles an egg donor website, losing herself in an endless parade of potential donors. One after another, the fertile, vibrant twenty-somethings smile back at her, their youth and properly functioning reproductive parts making her feel a little more useless with every click.

  “What stinks?” Jay calls from downstairs, startling her.

  “Boiled eggs!” she answers, closing the donor website and returning her novel to the screen. “There’s Nogesesupp on the stove!”

  Moments later, Jay appears in the doorway, holding a bowl of soup. He sits down on the chaise longue and balances the bowl on his lap. “I’m sorry about today, babe,” he says. “I just . . . I freaked out.”

  “It was a lot to take in.”

  “Can we just take a few days and
not talk about it?”

  Kersti purses her lips and nods. She doesn’t bother telling him she’s already been researching possible donors. Somewhere along the way, this became her crusade. It wasn’t always this way. When they first found out she had deformed fallopian tubes, Jay pulled her into his arms at the clinic and declared, “We will have a child. We’ll do whatever it takes. We’re partners.”

  “Soup’s delicious,” he says, filling the silence.

  She reaches for the letter from Lille. “Can I show you something?” she asks him, wanting to change the subject. “I got this letter from Lille. The Lycée friend who just died.”

  He takes the letter and reads out loud:

  . . . certain things in particular still haunt me:

  I don’t believe Cressida “fell” by accident.

  There’s something incriminating in the Helvetians ledger. I think Deirdre has it (if not, where is it?).

  I wonder if Magnus saw anything (I saw him leaving Huber House that night).

  I wish I’d spoken up sooner.

  “She never finished it,” Jay says, looking up at her.

  “What should I do?” she asks him.

  “What can you do?”

  “I’m not sure. But I feel like I let Cressida down.”

  “How?”

  “I moved on. I never questioned anything. I just assumed it happened the way they said, that she was drunk and she fell—”

  “Did you really?”

  “I don’t know anymore,” Kersti says. “But I think Lille knew something she never got to tell us.”

  “What’s that ledger she’s talking about?”

  “It belonged to some Lycée girls who were expelled in the seventies,” Kersti explains, not wanting to elaborate. “Cressida was obsessed with it. I never knew why.”

  “Was Cressida the suicide type?” Jay asks her.

  Kersti thinks about it for a moment and realizes she’s always known the answer. “No,” she says. “She could be dark, but she was never hopeless or depressed. She always had an idea or a plan. I never thought it was suicide.”