The Best Kind of People (6 page)

“Wow, wow. That’s so cool,” she said, and kissed him. “So romantic.” She was having a hard time faking enthusiasm; she knew this was supposed to be such a special moment, one he’d planned for weeks. She dangled the necklace, pretended to admire it, then handed it to him to clasp around her neck.

They were silent for a few minutes, both thinking about her father. “It’s so weird. Of all the people to be accused of something like this, your father would be
last
on the list,” Jimmy said, taking off his ball cap and replacing it twice — a nervous habit. He reached out and straightened the locket on her chest.

“I would never have suspected him of even cheating on my mother. He has always been an example of one of the ‘good guys,’ like” — she started counting things off on her fingers — “one, he’s pro-choice; two, he donates to the local women’s shelter every single year; three, he’s been giving me the ‘girls can be whatever they want to be’ speech since first grade!” She was sitting up now, shouting and using her hands for emphasis. “He taught me how to defend myself against an attacker! He read the Gloria Steinem biography!”

“I’ve always been a little bit jealous that you have such a good father.”

“I mean, besides his inability to notice dirty dishes and bring them into the kitchen to be washed, he is pretty much, like, a perfect man. Other women have always wondered how my mom ended up with such a great guy. I’ve noticed that my whole life.”

She knew that feeling, the one that would spread across her chest when she realized an adult was flagrantly ignoring the social codes that dictated when kids were kids and not sexual objects. She’d had coaches with the propensity to stare too long; a camp counsellor who liked to tell dirty jokes and take Missy Lederman on long walks to discuss what Jesus thought about her virginity. She could see it. She had a keen sense of people. Her dad treated her like an equal; he was interested in her opinions. He never seemed to care about whether or not she had made her bed; those kinds of life lessons were reserved for her mother.

She knew that Jimmy trusted his mom. Elaine was like a rock of stability. Boring, boring stability, he joked, but it comforted him. From her thick brown horn-rimmed glasses to her wraparound wool sweater from the L.L. Bean catalogue of the mid-nineties that was neither brown nor grey but a colour so basic and earthy it didn’t even need a name — everything about her was consistent.

“I don’t think we have to go to school today,” he said. “At least, you don’t. Cheryl can run the meeting.”

Cheryl was student council vice-president. Sadie was president, Jimmy treasurer. Cheryl was odd, obsessed with animated Disney movies and playing the trombone. Sadie was nice to her, because she was nice to everyone, but she felt an uncontrollable sense of both pity and disdain whenever she watched her brushing her hair and gazing at the collection of Mickey Mouse postcards she had taped to her locker.

The kids at Avalon prep school had everything that most children in America lacked. Not just money, food, and shelter, but the vast majority also had attentive parents who wanted them to achieve. Parent–teacher nights scared the crap out of the teachers, because almost all of the parents seemed to care, wanting to know what was going on and keeping their own scorecards on each teacher. Some of them even brought their lawyers along. The town seemed ripe for parody, with its perfect greenery, cafés boasting fair-trade coffee and chocolate, a yoga studio on every block, and its low high school dropout rate. Sadie was the kind of kid other parents used as an example. But now she was going to be the kind of kid who would be talked about for at least a decade: the daughter of Mr. Woodbury, the man who had once stopped a gunman from killing all the children, the school’s most popular teacher, arrested for being a predator. Sadie stared up at the sky while Jimmy talked, but she couldn’t hear him.

GEORGE WOODBURY HAD
nearly completed his PhD in physics in his mid-twenties. He did everything besides defend his thesis, which he’d been constantly updating ever since, during the summer months. Joan was studying journalism when they met — which was baffling to Sadie now, that her mother ever had such aspirations. She switched to nursing when she got pregnant and was living in Boston, where George was studying. Andrew lived in that city for the first few years of his life — something he still clung to, defining himself as
not
being
from
this
town — and in his last year before defending his thesis George decided to quit and move back to Avalon Hills to be a teacher. “Happiness can be a lot more simple than you think, bug,” he used to say to Sadie, explaining how he gave up this dream. “I wasn’t cut out for the competition. I want to nurture the basics and watch kids’ eyes light up when they first understand something about classical mechanics. That’s where pure joy is. And I wanted to raise a family somewhere stable, so your mother would be happy. She wasn’t happy in the city. She’s a small-town girl.”

Joan always used to say, when she told this story, “I don’t know why he gave it all up for me,” and she’d smile. George would say, “Oh Joan, you know how special you are.”

JIMMY DREW AN
energy bar from his sweatshirt pocket, unwrapped it, and pulled it into two chewy pieces. “You shouldn’t have to go to the hearing if you don’t want to. You’re the kid, not the parent. You don’t have to accept everything they do.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Sadie said, pushing her thumb into the protein bar, making a thin fingerprint.

Jimmy didn’t have a father. Elaine used an anonymous sperm donor to get pregnant when she was tired of waiting around for a good man to marry. This made sense to Sadie; a woman has more chance of contracting the plague than of marrying after the age of forty. In this town, however, a
DIY
pregnancy made her a bit suspect. She was older than most mothers in the town, although a year younger than Joan. Sadie hadn’t been planned, she’d realized only recently. “A beautiful surprise,” her mother had said.

“But his blood is
in
mine,” Sadie said. “What if he
is
guilty? What would that make me?” She balled up her portion of the bar and threw it onto the grass.

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Come on, you
know
you’re a good person.”

A flash of the man with the rifle came to mind, as it often did in times of stress. Like a blink went off in her head, and it was a clear image floating behind her lids. She wondered, what made him do it? What makes someone do something so insane, as though they have nothing to lose?

“How does anyone
know
they’re good? Isn’t goodness a lifelong process?”

“You think too much,” Jimmy said. “Some things just
are.
”

A mere month previously, she’d read an article about the genetics of a criminal disposition. She’d been horrified and entranced by every family story of criminal birthing criminal, even when the child was adopted and raised by ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

“Well, our frontal lobes are still developing. According to science, I don’t even have the maturity to understand the consequences of my actions,” she said.

“Science isn’t always right. Scientists used to believe skull size was the key to our intelligence. Plus, as soon as you start blaming genes for criminal behaviour, then you open up this whole world where everyone is blameless. It’s not credible.”

“I’m worried. You know, they rarely arrest people without enough proof. You know — white, powerful men, they get given every benefit of the doubt, right? It makes me nervous. What if he is guilty?”

“People, and systems, make mistakes all the time. You can’t start thinking he’s guilty,” Jimmy said, though he didn’t sound at all convinced.

“Right, right. He’s not guilty,” she said.

Jimmy’s phone rang the dog-bark ring tone he had programmed for his mother. Sadie knew he would ignore it; he usually did.

“Sixty-eight percent of American teens say they would rather lose a limb than have to go without their cellphones,” Sadie said. Statistical non-sequiturs was a game they played.

But Jimmy didn’t want to play. “I know you told the cops that he didn’t, but seriously, he didn’t touch you, did he?” Jimmy asked, cutting the coolness of his normal face with one that expressed concern, rolling back onto the grass beside her.

“Fuck no
, no
.
Gross
.”

“Yeah, your mom would not let that happen. She’s like one of those moms who could lift an entire car off a child if she had to. I want her around when the apocalypse hits.”

Jimmy and Sadie stayed curled up together on the grass until they heard the first bell from across the field. Jimmy jumped up and looked towards the school.

“Oh shit, Sadie.”

“What?”

“Amanda.”

Amanda was walking towards them, barrelling actually, like she was looking for a fight. But when she reached them, she smiled a normal Amanda smile, brief and all teeth as though for a camera.

“Dudes,” she said, catching her breath. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you or explain much last night. The cops freaked me out so much. Are you okay?”

“Not really. I mean, I guess.”

“Yeah, of course, that was a stupid question.”

“How … 
exactly 
… is your sister involved?”

“Apparently your dad … you know, asked her inappropriate stuff, on that ski trip?”

Amanda’s sister had just turned fourteen; Sadie could remember her when she was seven. She ripped out handfuls of grass, depositing nervous little hills around her body.

“What stuff?”

Amanda twirled her hair with a finger and scowled. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Right.”

“She was drunk, apparently. But she took off and nothing happened, you know. He just said strange things, was acting totes weird.”

Sadie pressed the grass in her palms so tight her fingers hurt.

“I just wanted to come over and make sure
we
were all … okay … you know. This doesn’t change anything with us …”

“Of course not.”

Amanda leaned over and gave Sadie a limp hug. She smelled like the rosemary and mint shampoo her mom bought in giant pump bottles.

“Do you think your sister is telling the truth?” Sadie yelled after her as she walked away.

She turned back and squinted, cocked her hip to one side. “Of fucking course she is. She’s a kid, Sadie. What kind of question is that?”

Sadie shrugged. “Last night you said that she lies about stuff.”

Amanda walked back and bent over so that she was eye to eye with both of them. She spoke a little softer. “I know that I said that, because it’s true, she’s a little shit sometimes. But I dunno. This morning she started crying at breakfast, like real crying, not for-attention crying.” She stood up again, and paused before she continued. “You better not spread any lies about her, just because it’s your dad. She’s been through enough.”

“We can’t know, though, Amanda, what’s real. You have to admit this is weird. You
know
my dad.”

“I know. It
is
weird. I have no idea who to fucking believe.”

They watched her walk away, not speaking until she was inside. Sadie’s mouth felt sour and dry at the same time, as though something was blocking her from breathing. She took a deep breath in and exhaled, hearing that she was indeed breathing, but it didn’t feel like it. She placed her hand on her neck, the spot where she felt her throat was closing.

“I’m going to go home to check in with my mother.”

Jimmy nodded. He grabbed her hand and they headed towards Jimmy’s car. Sadie put Elaine’s bike in the trunk, one tire sticking out, and they drove in silence, away from the school on the edge of town, curving around the lake until she was down the block from her house. They watched the media trucks as they idled, journalists sipping on coffee from the Hut — shorthand for the exhaustively named Country Cottage Fair Trade Ethical Coffee Hut, a few blocks away by the public beach, a place mostly known to residents. The owners, Pat and Alex, kept a spiral notebook with locals’ tabs scrawled in ballpoint so you could come and get a coffee if you didn’t feel like carrying your wallet on your morning jog. Pat and Alex loved her dad. Pat gave him free coffee all the time and every year Alex made him a cherry pie for his birthday.

Jimmy drummed his fingers on the dash until Sadie placed her hand on his to soothe him. They watched the neighbours out pretending to get their mail, or re-oiling the gates at the ends of their winding driveways. It made Sadie want to change the plan. She didn’t want to check in with her mom. They pulled up to the gate, which was blocked by a line of journalists who didn’t even react to their car’s presence because they were so entranced by the house in front of them.

SADIE AND JIMMY
usually chose to hang out at the Woodbury house because its size and splendour allowed them to imagine they were alone most of the time. Sometimes they would sneak into Clara’s guest suite and pretend it was their own apartment. At that moment, as she looked at the house, with the journalists at the gate, she knew her family would be gathered in the kitchen. The house seemed to shrink before her eyes.

Jimmy beeped the horn, then laid on it. The reporters turned, flashbulbs popping. The neighbourhood had transformed from familiar haven to movie set, the same way the school had transformed on the day the man with the rifle walked through the door. Sadie had returned to being a spectacle again. She remembered standing on the front steps of the house when the reporters came after the school incident. She’d worn her favourite red terry cloth dress with the white plastic belt, and the perfect white Keds that all the girls wore that year. She’d gripped the eraser in her hand the whole time. Her mother had wrapped her arm around her while they huddled together before they took the photographs, and she remembered being surprised that her mother was nervous. Joan smelled liked she did on holidays, as if she’d worn perfume for the occasion, even though you wouldn’t be able to smell her in a photograph. Later, Joan said, “A whole lot of fuss. That was a whole lot of fuss, right?” She’d laughed nervously while preparing supper, a flush in her cheeks. George had thrived in the spotlight. “Your mother is a bit shy about these things,” he’d explained to Sadie, pouring Joan a glass of wine. “I’m just not meant for the spotlight,” she’d agreed. “But you’re a natural,” she’d teased, and kissed him on the cheek.