Little Broken Things

by Cheryl Bradshaw

Next to the poem was a handwritten note that said: Excellent use of imagery. It needs a few tweaks here and there. I can help you. I’d like to include it in The Looking Glass this year.

  I suspected the handwritten note may have been written by Olivia’s creative writing teacher, something I’d follow up on the next day. I flipped through a few more pages, finding more of the same. Halfway through the book, the tone of her poems took an abrupt, unexpected turn:

  * * *

  bad life choices

  are like the spotted

  window we peer

  through as we watch

  the dirt pile on until

  one day it’s nothing more

  than a muddy blur

  * * *

  The next entry was even darker in tone:

  * * *

  thrusting her to the floor

  he climbed on top

  mounting her as he

  fisted a handful of her hair

  * * *

  you’re so pretty … he said

  do you know how pretty you are?

  pretty as a picture

  * * *

  awareness of her current predicament

  rained down in the cruelest way

  the reality like a dagger’s blade

  slashing gashes into her heart

  * * *

  she pressed her hands into the floor

  desperate to find a way to escape him

  but somewhere inside herself

  she knew she couldn’t

  * * *

  frozen and immobile

  part of her wished to die

  death would be easier than

  enduring what was to come

  * * *

  moments slipped away

  moments she’d never get back

  leaving her unsure of what

  was real and what wasn’t

  * * *

  she felt detached from her body now

  like she was hovering over it

  staring down at a girl she no longer recognized

  her only solace coming in the form

  of a promise she made herself

  right then and there

  a promise that one day soon

  everyone would know what he’d done

  * * *

  I set the book down for a moment and closed my eyes, taking in the heaviness of the verses I’d just read.

  Was this the true Olivia?

  Was I seeing the other side of her for the first time?

  I picked the book back up again, determined to continue on, but there was no continuing on. What followed was a series of blank pages. I shut the book and reclined back on the pillow, with two questions in mind: had the disturbing poems been about Olivia, or was she writing about someone else?

  Chapter 10

  The following day I stood outside of a classroom at Cambria High School and watched the students shuffle into the hall after the bell rang. Once the students left the room, I went in, making a beeline for the teacher who was sitting at her desk, shuffling papers into one of three plastic trays. Leslie Bartlett, a woman with stripes of brown highlights in her long, platinum-blond hair was young, in her mid-twenties, I guessed. The ill-fitted coral romper she wore was cinched at the waist, secured in place with an oversized black belt.

  We made eye contact and she pushed her red cat-eye glasses over the ridge of her nose and smiled at me. “Hello, can I help you?”

  “I’m Detective Georgiana Germaine. I’d like to talk to you about a past student of yours.”

  “Sure, which one?”

  “Olivia Spencer.”

  The smile on her face faded, replaced by a look of despair. She folded her hands together in her lap and said, “I heard about what happened. I suppose the entire town has by now. It’s heartbreaking.”

  “It is. I came across her poetry book, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. I read through them last night, and I guess what I don’t understand is … What made the poems she wrote go from light in tone to dark and, well, startling to read.”

  Leslie crossed one leg over the other and looked up at me. “When students take my creative writing class, it’s natural for their writing to evolve over time. Most start out writing poems that are timid and safe. I encourage them to share a side of themselves they’ve never shared with anyone. My goal is to help each student get vulnerable enough to open up in a way they never have before.”

  “Are their poems shared with anyone else?”

  She shook her head. “I make sure my students know this classroom is a safe space. Whatever they hand in is kept confidential.”

  I removed the poetry book from my bag, set it on the desk, and thumbed through it until I found the one I wanted. “In this poem, there’s a comment off to the side.”

  Leslie read the handwritten note and said, “Yes, I suggested Olivia submit this poem to The Looking Glass.”

  “What’s The Looking Glass?”

  “It’s a collection of short stories and poems made into a book each year. The book is sold around town and serves as a fundraiser for the school. Twenty percent is set aside for a pizza party I throw for my creative writing students at the end of the year.”

  “If you sell the poetry books to the public, the poems aren’t kept private.”

  “I know who wrote them, of course. But the entries in the booklet are anonymous.”

  Leslie reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a file folder with Olivia Spencer’s name on it. She opened the file and shuffled through some of the poems inside. “Olivia had a unique voice. She was a talented writer.”

  “Why do you still have some of her poems?”

  “I always ask my students if I can keep a copy of their best work. I sometimes use their poems to inspire new students who have never taken creative writing before.”

  Seemed weird to me, but what did I know about teaching methods?

  “How long did Olivia take your class?” I asked.

  “Her freshman, sophomore, and junior years.”

  “Why not her senior year?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. I imagine she became more interested in other electives.”

  I grabbed Olivia’s poetry book off the desk and opened it to the page where Olivia had written about the shapes of the clouds in the sky. “When did she write poems like this?”

  Leslie leaned in for a closer look, mouthing the words of the poem to herself. “Seems like something she would have written the first year she took my class.”

  I skipped ahead to the last poem in the book. “What about this one?”

  “I believe this was written her junior year.”

  “I’m trying to figure out whether there’s any personal connection to Olivia in the poem.”

  Leslie squirmed in her chair, her demeanor taking a sudden shift. She leaned back in her chair, removed her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. “It’s like I said before. Some students evolve to a place of raw honesty by the time they’ve finished my class.”

  She said it like it wasn’t a big deal—like she read poems like this all the time and they no longer fazed her.

  It irked me, but then I questioned whether she was as aloof as she seemed, or if she was trying to play it cool.

  “Don’t poems like this bother you or make you question what’s going on in the student’s life?” I asked.

  “They do, sometimes.”

  She bit down on her lip like she’d intended to say something more and had stopped herself.

  I stabbed a finger at the poem we’d been discussing. “When you read this poem, did you question it?”

  “Of course. I always consider the meaning behind the words.”

  “What were your thoughts when you read it for the first time?”

  “I … I just figured the inspiration came from something she’d seen or read about. From a movie, perhaps, or a TV show.”

  Leslie was either one of the most naïve women I’d ever met, or she was withho
lding information. The way her eyes darted around the room as our conversation became more intense told me it was the latter.

  Let’s see if we can shake the apple out of the tree.

  “I have more questions I’d like to ask you,” I said. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

  Leslie’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “I’d like you to come down to the police station with me. We can finish this conversation there.”

  “I can’t. I have three more classes to teach today.”

  “And I have a murder to solve. Care to guess which one takes priority?”

  She sat there, stunned, unsure of what to say.

  “Tell you what—I’ll go have a chat with the principal and let him know you need a substitute teacher for the remainder of the day. Then we’ll head out.”

  I pivoted and walked away, and she whispered, “Fine, okay? I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  I turned. “I’m listening.”

  “Olivia’s mother … she was raped.”

  I froze for a moment, allowing Leslie’s words to sink in. Then I shut the classroom door and walked back to her desk. “Just so I’m sure I heard you right, you just said Olivia’s mother, Barb Spencer, was raped, right?”

  She nodded.

  “How did you come by this information?” I asked.

  “Olivia told me.”

  Now I had new questions. “How long until your next class begins?”

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Ten minutes.”

  I pulled a worn, green plastic chair out from a nearby desk and sat down. “Better start talking, then. Tell me everything you know.”

  Leslie crossed her arms and stared at the wall like she wished there was a way out of her current predicament. “In my class, I have a privacy policy. Sometimes my students write things they don’t want anyone else to know. As I said before, my goal is to offer them a safe space where each student is free to speak his mind, or her mind, in this instance.”

  “Are you saying you’ve learned some troubling things about some of your students over the years, and because of your ‘privacy policy,’ you did nothing about it?”

  “No. I … it’s not what you think. If they needed help in some way, I referred them to the school counselor. If they refused to see him, I spoke to the student’s parents. It hasn’t happened often, just twice so far.”

  “What did you do in Olivia’s case?” I asked.

  “Once I read some of her darker poems, I asked her to stay after class, and we talked. I asked if there was someone in her life who had been raped. She confirmed there was someone. Then I asked if she had been raped. She assured me she hadn’t.”

  “Did you believe her?” I asked.

  “I did. She clammed up and didn’t want to talk about it, even though I urged her to do so. I suggested she either talk to the school counselor or her parents, and that’s when she opened up to me. She said when she was sixteen, her mother decided to talk to Olivia about her past since Olivia was of dating age. She thought telling her about the rape would serve as a warning about how cautious she needed to be with the guys she was dating.”

  I couldn’t decide whether Barb’s decision to share something so intimate about her life was right or wrong. On one hand, she was trying to protect Olivia by warning her. On the other, it was obvious the revelation distressed Olivia enough to write about it.

  “What was Olivia’s demeanor like when she told you about her mother?” I asked.

  “She was calm and well spoken, but I believed she was putting on a brave face. The poem told me she was struggling with her mother’s unfortunate experience. I believe pouring her feelings out on paper was a coping mechanism. It helped her face the truth about it all, which is a good thing. Writing is therapeutic, you know.”

  “Did Olivia speak to anyone aside from you about the poem she wrote?” I asked.

  “If you’re asking whether she told any of her classmates, I’m not sure. I convinced her to talk to the school counselor and to her mother about how it affected her.”

  “And did she?”

  “She told me she spoke to her mother, and I took her at her word. The school counselor confirmed he saw her once, and the poem she’d written was addressed. Around that time, school let out for the summer. When she returned for her senior year, she’d dropped my class.”

  “Did you ever have another conversation with her again?” I asked.

  “Once or twice. She seemed fine. She was still dating the same boy she’d been seeing for a while, which made me feel like her mother’s story hadn’t scared her away from dating.”

  I checked the time. Leslie’s next class would start rolling in soon. I stood, pushed the chair back into the desk where it belonged, and grabbed the poetry book from Leslie’s desk. “Are there any poems in Olivia’s folder that aren’t in this book? Poems other than the ones she submitted to The Looking Glass?”

  Leslie closed the folder, placed a protective hand over it, and said, “Hard to say since I haven’t looked through her poetry book in some time.”

  I held out my hand.

  “I’ll need to take the folder with me,” I said.

  She blinked at me like she had an important decision to make, even though the decision had already been made. Then she lifted her hand off the folder, took a deep breath in, and slid it toward me.

  “Please,” she said. “Barb Spencer is grieving right now. Don’t make it worse for her by dredging up a part of her life I’m sure she wants to forget.”

  Chapter 11

  I found Aunt Laura sitting on her back patio, enjoying a Coke and playing a game of fetch with Luka.

  “I think he likes it here a lot more than he likes it at my place,” I said.

  She shot me a wink. “Well, of course he does. I have a back yard, kiddo. You don’t.”

  Not yet, I didn’t.

  I sat next to her and rehearsed what I wanted to say one more time in my mind. Before I could get a word out, she narrowed her eyes at me. “That bad, eh?”

  Sometimes it seemed she knew me better than I knew myself.

  “Yeah, I … ahh, I need to talk to you about something,” I said.

  “I figured as much. It’s not like you to pick up Luka in the middle of the day.” She tipped her head toward her Coke. “Am I going to need something stronger?”

  I nodded. “Depends on what you know and what you don’t, but I’d say so.”

  She tossed Luka’s ball toward the end of the yard, stood, and walked into the house. A minute later, she returned with two glasses and a bottle of rum.

  “None for me,” I said. “I’m still working.”

  It was my polite way of not saying how much I disliked the stuff.

  She shrugged and grinned at the bottle. “Okey dokey. More for me then.”

  My thoughts turned back to the conversation I’d had with Giovanni the night before and my commitment to speaking my truth to those closest to me.

  “You know, I’ve never liked rum much,” I said.

  She poured a large shot of it into one of the glasses and then knocked it back. “And I’ve never liked prosecco. Too light, too airy-fairy for this old broad. When I want a drink, a real drink, the stiffer the better. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  I nodded, trying my best not to laugh.

  She poured herself a smaller second shot and then dumped the remaining can of Coke over it. “Guess you better tell me what’s troubling you. Come on, out with it.”

  I cleared my throat and got straight to the point. “Has Barb ever mentioned anything about being raped when she was younger?”

  For a moment, I thought the large gulp of rum and soda Aunt Laura had just taken might be spewed all over me. She pressed a hand to her throat and managed to swallow it down. Then she stared at me like she hoped I was joking, even though she knew I wasn’t.

  “Why would you … where is this coming from?” she asked.

  “Do you remember
the poetry book I found in Olivia’s room yesterday? The theme of one of the poems was rape. It was written when Olivia was in high school. I’ve just been to see the creative writing teacher, Leslie Bartlett. She said she questioned Olivia after reading the poem, and Olivia said the poem was written about her mother, who admitted she’d been raped.”

  Aunt Laura crossed her arms and took in a long, deep breath. “I don’t care what the teacher said. I don’t believe a word of it. When did she say Barb confessed this information?”

  “After Olivia turned sixteen. She said it was Barb’s way of warning her about how some boys can be. If you don’t know about her past, maybe Chad doesn’t know about it either. Why would Barb risk telling Olivia something this serious and not tell either one of you?”

  Aunt Laura shook her head. “It can’t be true. It just can’t. I’ve known Barb for ages. She would have never talked to Olivia about something so disturbing in nature. She would have spared her from it. And besides, if she had been raped in the past, she would have told me.”

  “How certain are you that Barb tells you everything?”

  “Let me put it this way—I know plenty of things about her that would curl your toes. Rape isn’t one of those things.”

  “If she wasn’t your close friend, I’d be at her house right now asking her in person. I figured I’d come here first. I hoped you’d know more details. Now I’m not sure what to think.”

  Luka dropped his ball at Aunt Laura’s feet. He looked at her, then at me, and, resigned to the fact the ball wasn’t being picked up and thrown for whatever reason, he hung his head and curled up beside me for a nap.

  Aunt Laura tapped a polished black fingernail on the table and sighed. “I’m telling you, this doesn’t make sense, Gigi. Believe me, something is amiss.”

  “Tell me about it. I spoke to the school counselor on my way out. He backed up everything Leslie Bartlett said. Olivia gave him the same story she gave her.”

  “Where is this poem you’ve mentioned? Do you have it with you?”