Girls in Trouble (24 page)

The girls lost interest and left, and then Robin Opaline, her old friend, came over and sat beside Sara. “I need a new lab partner,” Robin
started to say, and then she stared down at her burger. “Oh shit, I just miss you,” Robin said. “I’m sorry all this happened.”

Sara filled with relief, cool as a splash of water. “Me, too,” she said, and then she didn’t know what else to say, because she wasn’t sure how much Robin wanted to know, and also, she was afraid she might cry. Instead, Sara pushed her fries toward Robin, and when Robin took a handful, Sara felt as if some agreement had been struck, as if things would be all right between them.

“So, I heard from Berkeley,” Robin said, and then her smile spread across her face. “Accepted,” she said, and she leaned over and hugged Sara. “What about you?”

“Nothing yet,” Sara said.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we ended up in the same place? The way we used to talk about?” Robin asked.

“Sure,” Sara said. “It would be great.” She tried to look enthusiastic, to feel a bright nudge of hope.
College,
Sara thought. She tried to imagine herself in school, but every time she thought of being at school in Boston, the way she had planned, her breath stopped. Her stomach rolled. What would she do if she didn’t get into Columbia? How could she stay in the same area when Anne and Danny were gone?

Robin talked nonstop, telling Sara all the things that had happened that Sara had missed. How Robin had gone out with a boy named Paul for a while and then had broken up with him when she discovered he was cheating on her. How Robin’s dream was to live in Europe after college. Sara struggled to concentrate. She was surprised how easy it was to smile at Robin’s stories, how simple a thing it wras to act as if everything in your world was all right. It was easy to crowd everything you couldn’t bear away from you.

When the lunch bell rang, Robin touched Sara’s hand, making her jump. “Hey, this was fun,” Robin said. “Maybe I’ll call you later. We could see a movie. Like old times.”

“Sure. Like old times. I’ll call you,” Sara said.

* * *

That night, when she came home, Abby was setting up an elaborate new chessboard made of glass. “Chess is great for concentrating the mind,” her mother said. “I bought books and everything.” She stood, surveying the board, moving a few of the glass pieces about. “Oh, learn to so we can both play,” Abby urged, and Sara sat down and made herself study it, immersing herself in it the way she would any other new subject, memorizing the pieces and how they moved, looking at the range of possibilities.

For weeks, every night, she and her mother played game after game until Sara felt vaguely hypnotized by the procession of roving bishops and tricky knights, by the way a lowly pawn could form an impenetrable shield or be promoted to queen, transformed into something so powerful it ruled the board. Her father came in sometimes and watched them, or he brought in cookies for them to chew while they considered moves.

“Checkmate,” Sara said, moving her rook down the file opposite her mother’s king.

“She’s getting so good!” Abby marveled to Jack. “Third game she’s won in a row!”

Sara stretched her arms over her head. “It’s fun,” she admitted. Abby started to clear the pieces, and Sara reached out her hand to stop her. “One more game,” she said.

Behavioral therapy,
Sara thought, setting up the pieces, lingering on the queen. Act like a winner and you might be one. Act like you’re fine, and the brain rewires, and then you don’t even have to understand the reason for it, you are fine. Exercise like crazy so the endorphins flow, brewing a chemical feast of good feeling.

“I’m going to have to learn just to keep up with you two,” Jack said.

The next morning, on a Saturday when the sky was so blue it looked painted, Sara couldn’t bear to be in the empty house another second. Abby and Jack were out shopping and wouldn’t be home until later. Sara called Robin and got the machine.

Sara’s legs jittered with energy. She got up and laced on her running shoes and ran for half an hour through the neighborhoods. She panted. She
felt as if her past were nipping at her heels, and so she ran faster. She took in more air. Chess moves played out in her mind. See yourself as the pieces, one of the instructional books had advised and she struggled to feel like the queen, all-powerful, able to move in any direction she pleased. Her legs stretched, covering more ground. A collie dog barked and ran at her and then ran away.
I’m okay,
she told herself.
I’m okay.

She came home, bathed in sweat, her hair damp, her heart pounding. And when she came inside the house, there on the floor by the door were three acceptances to colleges: Brandeis. Harvard. No, no, she couldn’t stay here. She’d die if she had to. Hands shaking, she ripped open the last one. Columbia. And they accepted her.

For the first time in a long while, despite her sorrow, she felt excited. Here she was with her whole life still ahead of her, and soon, she’d be packing off to college, going off to a new place where nothing would remind her of what she had lost.

Her parents couldn’t do enough for her. The house seemed almost giddy. “Nothing but good things from now on,” her mother told her. It was early, there was plenty of time, but Sara couldn’t wait. Abby took her shopping, for more clothes than she’d ever need, for a new CD player and a PC. Jack bought her a key ring with a flashlight attached to it and a big bottle of pepper spray. “Daddy—” she said.

“Just taking care of my baby girl,” he said.

That night, for the first time since Eva and George and Anne had dis-appeared, Sara slept until morning. She dreamed she was running outside and it was snowing, a blizzard of flakes, but the air was warm like spring, and when she looked up at the sky, she saw that the flakes were really millions of white butterflies, brushing against her skin.

G
eorge and Eva had a yearly lease on a cozy little two-bedroom in Boca Raton until they could find something more permanent. The day they moved in, exhausted from unpacking, dusty and rumpled, they took the baby and sat outside for a bit on the front porch. Six o’clock and it was still so sticky that Eva’s clothes felt pasted on. Anne fussed in George’s lap, blowing spit bubbles. Cicadas clicked and buzzed among the palms. Eva was about to suggest they go back inside, when a woman bounded over to the house, startling Eva, so her hand flew to George’s shoulder. He held the baby tighter, but the woman lifted up a wicker basket. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” she said gaily.

The woman stuck out her hand and pumped Eva’s. “Hazel Reardon,” she said, pointing to a green house down the block. She was tall and blond with a brown-sugar tan; she looked cool and sparkly as a fizzy drink. And then she took one look at Anne’s hair and looked at Eva and George. “Where’d she get the red corkscrews!” Hazel said.

“From me,” Eva blurted before she could stop herself.

Hazel looked surprised. “No! Your hair is stick straight! And who’s your colorist?”

“Oh no. I meant she gets it from my side of the family. Recessive gene.”

George watched Eva, but he didn’t contradict her. He didn’t say one thing about it until late in the evening, long after Hazel had gone, when they were in bed, Anne beside them, sleeping in her bassinet. George rubbed Eva’s back. “Anne’s ours,” he said.

“Of course, she is,” Eva said. “It’s just—I can’t help worrying.”

His fingers stroked a knot at the back of her neck. “Come on. We’re far away.”

“But we’re not off the planet. Dentists are licensed. All anyone has to do is go to the library, do a little research. We’re not that hard to find.”

“For a kid we are. And you’re talking about a sheltered kid whose parents want her as far away from us as we do. A kid in trouble,” George said. “No one knows where we are, not even the adoption lawyer. And we have the courts on our side.”

“Do we?” Eva said quietly. “Do we really have the law on our side?”

George took Eva’s hand and held it, stroking his thumb across her wrist. “We have Anne,” he said finally. “And that’s all that matters.”

“I don’t even know what’s fair anymore. All I know is I love Anne.” She rubbed at her forehead. “Do we ever have to tell her? That she’s adopted? I know we talked about this, how important it is, but—” Eva looked pained. “Would it be the worst thing in the world if we didn’t? If we just were able to forget everything terrible that happened?”

George lay down, pulling Eva toward him, holding her close, as if he were protecting her. “I don’t think I even know that anymore, either,” he said.

Every time the phone rang, Eva flinched. Every time the doorbell rang, she thought about running out the back door. She could only imagine how Sara felt now, and the one big mystery was what, if anything, Sara would or could do about it. All you had to do was listen to the news to know that you never knew how adoption cases would turn out. What if Sara contacted some organization and convinced them that she had been too young to know what was going on? What if the organization hunted her and George? And what if Abby and Jack changed their minds, suddenly yearning
to be grandparents? She had read about cases like that. Grandparents’ rights. What if Danny suddenly reappeared?

“You’ve got to relax,” George told her. “We have a whole new life here.”

For George, staying relaxed meant focusing on how lucky they really were. They had Anne! They had a new home, a fresh start, and he, thank God, had found a job. When he had first told Eva he wanted to leave Boston, he hadn’t really thought it was possible. At his age, you didn’t just give up a whole practice, start again, did you? You didn’t run like you were some criminal—which they weren’t, were they? But in Boston, he kept tensing every time the doorbell rang, every time he saw a flash of red. He and Eva were always looking over their shoulder, always bolting awake at night to make sure Anne was still there, still safe. How could the idea of relocating not seem like a good idea? He and Eva quietly talked it over, and he began putting out feelers, scanning the ads in the professional journals. And just the mere fact of looking for a new position made him feel so hopeful, that he began to search even harder.

Selling his Boston practice hadn’t been all that difficult—he had a colleague who was happy to take it on, no questions asked, not even where George was going. But finding new work quickly wasn’t so easy. He combed papers all over the country. He was used to working solo—preferred it—but you couldn’t just move to a brand-new place and expect patients to come to your door. You needed referrals, and time, two things George didn’t have.

He was going through his old address books, struggling to find contacts, when he came across Tom. Of course. Tom. His old friend from dental school, the guy who every once in a while would call to shoot the breeze, to try and convince George to move down to Florida and go into practice with him. And there had been no reason to until now.

George called Tom, breathing deeply, trying his best to hide his desperation. “Hey, remember that offer about a partnership? That still good?”

George swallowed hard. If Tom said no, who knew where they’d end
up? “Tom?” George said. “I’d take the brunt of the patients. I’m just in need of a change.”

There was that silence again, and then Tom said. “Buddy, you must be psychic because I was just about to put an ad in the paper selling my practice.

“You were? No kidding?”

Tom laughed. “I’m getting married. Peggy, my hygienist. Her dad’s got a little seafood restaurant in the Keys and we’re going to be partners. Buy my practice and you don’t have to worry about a wedding present.”

George had laughed out loud, so gleefully that Eva moved closer to him, resting one hand on his arm. “Great,” he said. “This is just terrific. Good luck to you!” George hung up the phone, his smile splitting wide across his face.

God, was it a great job! The office was so close, George didn’t have to fight traffic to get to it. Instead, he bought a red ten-speed bike and rode it over, a ten-minute ride lined with palm trees and brilliant flowers. He could smell new-mown lawns and the spark and tang of citrus. He loved the feel of the sun on his scalp, and the cool, delicious breeze he could generate when he coasted down a hill. Delighted, he tilted his head up.

Tom had left him a whole cheerful suite of rooms in an adobe building surrounded by cactus. Everything was in good shape: the sleek leather couches and chairs, the huge aquarium, the freshly painted walls filled with photographs of the beaches that had lured Tom away, but the first thing George did was to change everything, to make it his own.

He hired a new hygienist named Sally, a new office manager, Barb, and both were bright, capable women who said they could start immediately. He took a weekend and painted Tom’s pale blue walls a sunny yellow. He got rid of the aquarium, and the heavy leather furniture was replaced with soft, comfortable cloth. A small color TV fit in the waiting room, along with a small fridge for iced herb tea. And because dentists were sometimes accused of being humorless schlubs, he hung funny antique advertisements about teeth. A bride with her hand over her mouth saying, “Jilted because my teeth were telltale yellow!” A man shaking his head: “Did bad breath cost me my job?”