Lovely Girls(47)

“You worry too much,” Callie said. She shook her hair back and used an elastic to secure it in a ponytail. “What do you think she’s going to do? Attack me?”

Alex hesitated. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“I don’t need a babysitter.” Callie laughed. “I’ll be fine. Trust me, I know how to handle Daphne.”

Callie turned and walked away, her step confident, her ponytail bobbing.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT




* * *





KATE

Ingrid’s counseling practice was located on the first floor of a nondescript office building near downtown Shoreham. The tiny waiting room had a few chairs, a magazine rack, and a philodendron on a plant stand. There wasn’t a receptionist, so I sat down and waited. I knew Ingrid was at work that day. Her car was parked in the small lot adjacent to the building.

After I’d been sitting there for a few minutes, the door to the outer hallway opened, and a man came in. He was older than me and had a slight limp. He sat down in one of the other empty chairs, crossed his arms, and stared at the framed poster of a mountain range that hung on the opposite wall.

At precisely two o’clock, the door to the inner office opened, and Ingrid stood in the doorway. She was wearing a crisp white button-down shirt tucked into navy-blue linen trousers. She blinked at the sight of me.

“Kate?” She glanced from me to the man sitting silently in the other chair. “This isn’t a good time. I have an appointment.”

“I just need a few minutes,” I said.

Ingrid looked at her patient again and then said, “Okay. Just give me five minutes, Roger.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I followed Ingrid back to her office. It was a calm space, with pale walls, a dark-gray sofa, and a Danish modern armchair. Abstract paintings in muted colors hung on the walls. There was a desk tucked discreetly away in one corner, where I could imagine Ingrid sitting, writing notes on her patients while she sipped green tea.

Ingrid motioned for me to sit on the couch, which was too low to be comfortable. She perched on the edge of the Danish modern chair. She practically vibrated with impatience, and I realized it was the first time I had ever seen her anything less than composed.

“I really don’t have time—” Ingrid began.

I cut her off. “Is it true that you wrote a thesis advocating that parents raise their daughters to become bullies?”

Ingrid stared at me for a long moment. “That’s a gross mischaracterization of my work.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“You’ve barged in on me, into my office, to demand that I defend my graduate school thesis to you?” Her thin pale eyebrows arched.

“I have a right to know if you trained your daughter and her friends to bully my daughter.”

Ingrid regarded me. “My understanding is that your daughter is the one who’s been accused of bullying.”

“By Daphne. Who has a track record of bullying other kids,” I said. “Including Alex. And Jazzy Taunton.”

There was a small table next to Ingrid’s chair, which held a water carafe, a glass, and a gold pen. Ingrid picked up the pen and rotated it slowly as she considered this.

“I never advocated that parents should raise their children to be bullies,” Ingrid finally said. “What I argued for was that we should stop raising our daughters to be people pleasers. To stop making them feel like they have to smile and get along with everyone. Little girls are praised for being kind or good at sharing. Little boys are praised for being assertive. It’s no wonder men are more successful in the workplace.”

“I don’t disagree with you.”

“There was a famous study that videotaped children interacting with one another. When it was two girls, or a boy and a girl, the girl would point out similarities. ‘You like biking? I like biking, too!’ or ‘Let’s play LEGO together.’

“But when it was two boys, or a boy and a girl, the boy would try to win. ‘I’ll build a rocket that will go higher than that skyscraper.’ ‘Oh yeah? I’ll build a rocket that will go to the moon!’ ‘Well, I’ll build a rocket that will go to Mars!’

“It doesn’t matter what the subject was. The little girls looked for common ground, the little boys wanted to outdo one another. I thought if we could stop telling our daughters to always get along and encourage them to be the ones to build rocket ships to Mars, that would be a good thing.”

“There’s a big difference between teaching girls to be more assertive and training them to be bullies,” I said.

“Yes, there’s a distinct difference. That’s not what I was advocating for. Although—” Ingrid paused. She looked at me for a long moment, as though deliberating how much to say. “I will admit that Genevieve might have taken the idea a bit too far.”

And there it was. It was the one thing I could count on with this toxic trio of women—they might pretend to be the closest of friends, but they were always so quick to turn on one another.

“How so?” I asked.

Ingrid lifted a hand almost wearily, her pale palm facing the ceiling. “I told Gen and Emma about my thesis back when we were pregnant with the girls. We joked that we should train them to become the next generation of alpha females. Or, at least, Emma and I thought it was a joke. But almost from the moment Daphne started crawling, Genevieve would reward her whenever she was aggressive. Even if it was naughty. Especially if it was naughty.”