The Drowning Girls Read online

  I couldn’t believe, not for a second, that Danielle had gone to the clubhouse in the middle of the night and sprayed obscenities on the bathroom walls while Kelsey snoozed, innocent and oblivious. And even if I could let myself believe that it was true, or even possible—which would mean forgetting everything I thought I knew about my daughter, every moment accumulated over fifteen years—then I couldn’t understand Kelsey’s agenda. Was she a clueless kid? A scheming psychopath? Was she somehow, backhandedly, confessing her own involvement, wanting me to call her bluff?

  It was a relief to drop her off at her house, to watch her disappear between the towering marble columns and let herself in, a lonely latchkey kid.

  * * *

  At home, Danielle went up to her room and I paced downstairs, eager for Phil to come home. I wanted to tell him about Kelsey’s visit and my growing certainty that it was Kelsey who had vandalized the bathrooms and was now, for a reason I couldn’t figure, throwing Danielle under the bus. Of course, we would have to sort it out, make a plan of action. We’d have to talk to the Jorgensens and the Sieverts, plan a sit-down meeting between the concerned parties, laying all our cards on the table. Whoever was responsible—even, yes, if that was Danielle—would be punished.

  I checked my cell phone, intending to call Phil, and saw his text.

  HOA meeting tonight at 7. Probably won’t come home for dinner.

  The meeting could only be about the vandalism; it would be Myriam expounding on the general untrustworthiness of the construction crews, the background checks needed for gardeners and caddies and waitstaff. I’d been to one of the monthly meetings over the summer, at Myriam’s needling, acutely aware that I wasn’t a homeowner at all and deeply suspicious that I’d been targeted as some sort of personal improvement project. That meeting had centered around the adoption of “community-wide holiday decoration standards”—a plan to ensure that The Palms was not despoiled with inflatable reindeer or Santas, which would inevitably deflate into a plastic puddle during the daytime. After a spirited discussion, the verdict was in: only white lights, nonblinking, would be allowed, and door wreaths were encouraged. They had succeeded in stealing Christmas.

  This meeting promised to be more interesting, although just as nauseating.

  I called a goodbye to Danielle and headed out the door. In the clubhouse parking lot, I passed Ana, the Asbills’ nanny—a Colombian girl with wide hips and acne scars. Just unattractive enough to be safe in the home, I’d heard Janet Neimeyer quip. She was walking slowly, steering the double-wide stroller with one hand, texting with the other. Beneath their umbrella awning, the twins dozed, fat and blond. “Hello,” I called, and Ana looked up, startled. Maybe she had begun to think of herself as invisible in The Palms, like the gardeners, the men who stalked the parking lot with leaf blowers strapped to their backs. They were invisible until something went wrong, and then they were suspects.

  Lindsey, one of the club’s afternoon part-timers, passed me in the hallway with a clipboard. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail so tight the skin around her eyes was stretched along with it. “I think he’s got someone in there,” she said, gesturing to Phil’s office. “It’s been crazy today, one meeting after the other.”

  I groaned sympathetically. “I don’t mind waiting for a bit.”

  She smiled, edging past me.

  I paused outside Phil’s office. As bad as my day had been, plagued by doubts and the unwanted sight of Kelsey Jorgensen in my office, his had no doubt been worse. Parker-Lane, I knew, would be livid that the alarm hadn’t been set; our neighbors would have been in here all day long, complaining and seeking reassurance. I pressed an ear against his door and heard, “I’m trying to figure out what I can do here to fix this situation.”

  I backed away. Past Phil’s office, the hallway was roped off, a sign tactfully informing visitors that the bathrooms were under construction and temporary facilities were located in the parking lot. A crew had been scheduled to come in today to rip out the wainscoting, bloated and damaged from the flooding. It would be at least a week before the bathrooms could be reopened.

  I wandered back toward the main entrance, pausing in front of the notices on the community bulletin board. There were bright, cheerful invitations to jewelry and candle parties, notices for the rival book clubs led by Helen and Janet and a men’s prayer breakfast led by Jeremy Bergland. Marja Browers’s “buddy walk” list was there, although the enthusiasm for it had petered out—a few weeks after the mountain lion scare, people had gone back to their solitary routines.

  Beneath the bulletin board was a round table with a display of brochures and two comfortable chairs. I sank into one and thumbed through a brochure for The Palms. It was the sort of thing Myriam had no doubt shown the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society when she was planning the golf tournament. It was the sort of thing visitors picked up after a round of golf, enchanted by the view of the community from the greens, charmed by the hospitality of the waitstaff in the dining room. The pictures were glossy, no doubt altered and airbrushed to perfection. The home on the front of the brochure wasn’t even a photograph, but an artist’s rendition in subtle watercolors. Still, the message came across loud and clear: if you live here, you’ll be happy.

  Wasn’t that the grand promise? Wasn’t that the huge lie?

  I glanced at my watch again. It was five o’clock already, and if at all possible, I wanted to catch the Jorgensens and the Sieverts before tonight’s meeting. Maybe Phil could call them from his office. I passed his door again, pausing when I caught the thin scrap of a woman’s laugh. Then there was Phil’s voice, rising at the end of his sentence. Whatever I can do. The door opened, and Kelsey Jorgensen backed into the hallway, still wearing the black dress, hiked unevenly across her thighs.

  “Oh, I’ll take you up on that,” she said, facing away from me. “I think there’s a lot more you can do for me.”

  I was frozen a few feet behind her, considering the physical impossibility that my heart could plunge into my stomach. There’s an explanation, I thought, mind spinning. She only sounds flirtatious because she always sounds flirtatious. She visited him with the same story she told me, and he’s humoring her, the way I humored her in my office.

  But then Phil said, “We’re not going to tell anyone about this.”

  “Oh, I promise,” she purred. “It’s our little secret.”

  Phil closed his door with a decisive click, and Kelsey turned, eyes widening at the sight of me. She hesitated, as if she might try to explain, but in the end, she simply smiled.

  For the second time that day, she’d left me unsteady on my feet. In the lobby, I dropped into one of the club chairs, the leather settling with a soft hiss while I got ahold of myself. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, I saw her walking away, cutting a path between the parked cars, and I wondered if Phil was watching her, too, through the slatted blinds of his office.

  * * *

  Around six thirty, the front door clattered open and Phil hurried up the stairs. He spotted me in the den and called, “HOA meeting at seven. You want to come?”

  I didn’t answer. I was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a pillow clutched to my waist. On the table in front of me, my laptop screen had gone black. I’d been browsing Kelsey’s Facebook page, scrolling through an endless string of selfies. Had Phil done the same thing, looked at Kelsey in her bikini, in her never-ending assortment of tank tops and short skirts? Had it started with this, a peek at her cleavage, a glance at her bare midriff, at the low rise of her bikini bottoms? Of course, he could have that in person, at any time. It had probably started right here, in my own house. It had probably been going on for months.

  He came downstairs, tightening the knot of his tie. “I could use your support, Liz,” he said. I took in the effect, top to bottom—thick, sandy-colored hair that I knew up close was flecked with gray, a broad chest, sl
ightly fleshier than it had been four years ago, arms that stayed strong from occasional bursts of push-ups during commercial breaks. He looked just like my husband. He didn’t look like a man fresh off his rendezvous with a fifteen-year-old girl from the neighborhood. But then, clearly, I didn’t know what that looked like.

  “Okay, well,” he said, patting his pockets absently. “I’d better...” He left, the other Other Woman calling “front door open” in his wake.

  * * *

  I closed my laptop when Danielle came downstairs and wandered in the direction of the kitchen.

  She looked around the room accusingly. “What’s for dinner?”

  “We’re just going to grab whatever tonight,” I said.

  She frowned. “Where’s Phil?”

  “There’s a meeting in the clubhouse.”

  “About the vandalism and stuff?”

  I nodded. The vandalism and stuff.

  She rooted around in the refrigerator and came up with a pack of frozen burritos. Two of them were stuck together by the skin of the tortillas, a few shiny ice crystals glittering between them. I watched as she put the burritos on a plate and put the plate in the microwave. She studied her reflection for a moment in the window and then turned. “What?”

  I shook my head, remembering what Kelsey had told me about the beer, the pot, Danielle’s walk with Mac around the time of the vandalism. But that was tainted information, considering the source. One thing seemed to be linked to the other; there was no way of broaching one subject without it all coming out. Kelsey said you were out walking that night. But then, she might have been lying to throw me off the scent because she’s having a relationship with my husband. The thought produced a visceral reaction, a gag reflex, like those moments at the dentist’s office when too many things were cluttered in the back of your mouth at once. A relationship. With my husband.

  “Where are you going?” Danielle asked.

  Until her question, I hadn’t realized that I was shoving my feet into my shoes, reaching for the cardigan I’d draped over the back of a bar stool. “The meeting,” I said, as if I’d planned to do that all along.

  * * *

  The clubhouse was teeming by the time I arrived, raised voices echoing through the lobby. Instead of using the smaller conference room, site of the previous HOA meeting I’d attended, the kitchen had been closed early, and extra chairs had been added around the periphery of the dining hall. The waitstaff had left a giant tray of cookies on a long side table, as well as pitchers of lemon water and goblets, but these were mostly ignored.

  I paused in the back of the room, behind a cluster of potted Ficus trees. Myriam was standing near the front, reading from a piece of paper. Helen was sitting at a table next to her, taking notes. Her dog was parked at her feet, his button eyes looking out at the group. Myriam had to raise her voice to be heard over the commotion of two of the younger Berglands, playing with a stack of blocks. Carly sat in a chair next to them, hands folded across her ballooning midsection. There were a few families from the Phase 2 side of the community. I wondered if the ones I didn’t recognize were our soon-to-be neighbors from the homes under construction in Phase 3.

  Phil was in the front row, a yellow legal pad balanced on his lap. I watched as he scribbled something, a comment to be taken care of, an item of rebuttal?

  How could he think now, how could he focus? How could he go from flirting with Kelsey to home for a fresh shirt to back to business? Directly behind him sat Sonia Jorgensen and Deanna Sievert. From the back, they might have been sisters, their hair pulled into high ponytails, their phones strapped into armbands as thick as blood pressure cuffs. I’d been worried about Phil with those women, the ones who were more or less my age. I didn’t know I had to worry about the next generation, a girl the same age as my own daughter.

  “There are certain expectations that come along with an investment like this,” Myriam was saying, her perfectly threaded eyebrows narrowed. “Chief among those expectations is the safety of our families. As you may know, I was the organizer of an annual fund-raiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society this past weekend...”

  I leaned against the wall as she related the horror of the soaked carpet, the vandalized bathrooms, the shock, the shame of having a subpar facility for her guests, the mad scramble to save The Palms’ reputation. Not to mention the danger—if it could happen in the clubhouse, it could happen to any one of our homes, at any time.

  Deanna waved her hand impatiently until Myriam acknowledged her, with the pinched expression of a teacher calling on the worst student in the class. Turning to face the people behind her, Deanna said, “It’s horrible what happened, but I think Myriam should be acknowledged for all her hard work on this, and for bringing us all together. We need someone to take a leadership role here. Thank you, Myriam.”

  There was a smattering of applause. Phil joined in, pen clutched in one fist.

  Sonia echoed, “Yes, well done, Myriam.”

  It’s your daughter! I wanted to say, stepping into the room like a detective about to reveal the murderer in front of the assembled party of guests. It was Kelsey. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew Kelsey was at the heart of it, the way she’d been at the heart of everything going wrong—my sweet daughter, the strain I’d felt in our marriage, how distant Phil seemed when he held me, when he rolled off me and turned away, falling asleep.

  “Hiding out?” someone asked, and I turned to see Fran Blevins behind me. She put a finger to her lips and gestured for me to follow her back through the lobby to the night air.

  “You’ve got the right idea,” Fran said. “It’s all a bunch of ridiculousness, anyway.”

  “I think I’m done,” I told her.

  She unfastened her falling-down ponytail and shook out her curls. “Sometimes I tell Doug it’s like living inside someone’s papier-mâché creation. At its core, it’s just a bunch of air.”

  I nodded, attempting a smile. I couldn’t help it—a tear dribbled down my face.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, refastening her ponytail and enveloping me in a sturdy two-armed hug. I leaned against her, breathing in her smell—like baby formula and medicine and sanitary wipes. It was like being comforted by a medical professional, someone adept at handling precarious situations. “Don’t let them get to you,” she said into my ear. “You have your own life, your family. Everything else is survivable.”

  I pulled away, releasing myself from her grasp. She didn’t know why I was crying—she couldn’t—but her words made sense, anyway. I did have my own life, an education and a steady job, a daughter I loved more than anything. A day ago—a few hours ago—I would have included Phil in that list of assets.

  We walked back in the direction of our homes, Fran’s arm around my shoulder. I imagined my neighbors watching this display, wondering about poor Liz who couldn’t seem to get her life together. At my house, Fran stopped, apologetic. “I really should go. I told Doug I’d be back to help him with bath time.”

  We hugged again.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “Just take care of yourself, okay?” she asked.

  I watched her walk away, her white tennis shoes disappearing into the darkness.

  Take care of myself, I thought. Everything else is survivable.

  PHIL

  I’d been sick since the discovery of the vandalism—a deep-down sick, rooted in my bones. The afternoon of the golf tournament, I’d listened from the darkness of my bedroom to Myriam’s voice on the PA system, announcing prize drawings and silent auction winners. She would have complained even without the vandalism—the dining room wouldn’t have been set up properly, or the parking lot would have been inadequate—but I knew enough to brace myself for the real complaints, the ways that Parker-Lane had failed generally and I had failed personally.

  I rem
embered how Jeff Parker had stood, eyeing the damage, subtly not eyeing me. He hadn’t said it directly, but he didn’t need to—doubt was written all over his face. Maybe I wasn’t the right person for the job. Maybe it just wasn’t working out.

  Adding together the costs of portable toilet rentals, emergency cleaning, new carpet and wood paneling and paint, the repairs would be in the thousands. Chump change for people at The Palms, maybe; but then, they would never have to pay. I would be the one to pay, one way or another. Keep them happy, Jeff Parker had instructed me. At the time, it had seemed like the simplest task in the world.

  I hadn’t figured on Kelsey Jorgensen—the variable on which so many things suddenly hinged.

  That afternoon in bed, I toyed briefly and halfheartedly with the idea of calling the police. Parker-Lane wanted to keep it a private matter, because a police report would generate a crime statistic, and crime statistics were matters of public record. Even if I ignored their wishes, there was no way to make the call anonymously and have it carry weight. What would I say? I know something about the vandalism at The Palms over the weekend. If I revealed my name, I’d have to reveal the full circumstances. Well, there’s this girl who’s been following me around, harassing me. This was her revenge, because I wasn’t interested.

  Would they look from me to Kelsey Jorgensen and laugh themselves silly? And what would I give for proof? The message I’d photographed before painting over, one that only made sense to me?

  If I made the phone call, I’d have to tell Liz and Danielle, too. Liz—maybe, maybe—would understand. She worked with troubled kids; she’d seen just about everything come walking through her office door. It was the idea of telling Danielle that broke my heart—sweet, funny, naive Danielle. Your friend is only using you to get to me. No—I wouldn’t use those words, even though that was how she would hear them. It now seemed likely that their entire relationship, all those hours of YouTube surfing and texting and trying on clothes and makeup, was based on Kelsey having a juvenile crush on me.