The Guest Room(43)

Okay. Fine. You’re not. She heard the words again in her mind and understood that she had to wipe at her eyes. It wasn’t merely that she could feel them growing moist; it was also a feverish, OCD-like compulsion. But if she did, there was the danger that she would be opening the dam and she would be reduced to sobs in front of her class. She took a breath and sat on her hands.

“Caroline,” she began, unsure what she was going to say. “Yes. This was an awful couple of days. It seriously…sucked.” She paused, surprised at her candor and her choice of words. She wasn’t trying to talk down to her class; rather, she wondered if she had instinctively reached out to them. “I’m sorry. But the last forty-eight or fifty or whatever hours? The worst of my life. Yup, worse than the death of my father—who I loved a lot. You just never expect to be awakened to the news that there are two dead men in your house. Criminals, yes. People you’ve never met, sure. But still: a double murder. In your home. And you’ve probably heard the rest of the story: my brother-in-law’s bachelor party got a little…crazy. I guess you all know that.”

She wondered if she sounded a little crazy herself, but it no longer mattered. She released her hands from beneath her hips and wiped at her eyes. At her cheeks. Because now the tears had been set free, a glacier melting in May, the channels at the edge of her nose brimming with sadness.

“And you know what, Caroline? Your dad was right. That craziness is an elephant in the room. I’m glad you brought it up.” She forced a smile. “I am kind of a mess. But you know what else? My family will get past this and I will get past this. I’ll make sure you all kill it when AP testing time comes. I’ll be fine and you’ll be fine. I mean that.”

Caroline nodded. Ayelet stood up, and for a second Kristin feared the girl was going to embrace her. She was afraid that was the extent of her collapse: she needed comfort from the teen girls in her class. In her care. The students had never seen anything like this, and she wondered if she was going to have to rewrite the books on adolescent psychiatry and child development: these kids were empathetic. They were actually worried about her.

Fortunately, however, the girl simply handed her a tissue.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Welcome.”

She blew her nose. Then, as Ayelet was sitting down, she had a thought. “One more thing before we get back to the Compromise of 1850. I know a lot of you have younger brothers and sisters, some in the elementary school. So, I have a favor: when you talk about Mrs. Chapman’s meltdown—which I know was epic—please do what you can to make sure the story doesn’t get back to my daughter. Melissa is in the fourth grade. Kazuo, your sister and my daughter obviously are great friends. They’re in the same class. Same after-school dance class, too. So, I would be seriously grateful if all of you could be—and here is an SAT word to keep in mind—circumspect. Judicious.”

Kazuo grinned. “No prob, Mrs. Chapman. These days? She’s all about the clothes and inappropriate TV.”

“Melissa, too,” she agreed, and once again she dried her cheeks with her fingers. She felt her wedding and engagement rings against the skin there, and found herself—much to her surprise—smiling back at the boy.

…

Richard watched the afternoon sunlight pour through the wide restaurant window and brighten the soupspoon beside his napkin. Most of the lunch crowd was gone now, and the hostess was helping a waiter straighten the white tablecloths and tidy the menus. When Richard looked up from the spoon, his brother was talking—it seemed as if his brother was always talking—moving his hands a bit like he was a lunatic given a conductor’s baton and an orchestra. The gestures were too big for a table this small. And he seemed to be speaking mostly to Spencer Doherty, who was leaning back rather comfortably in the third of the four chairs. The fourth chair, the one opposite the window, was empty except for the blazer that Spencer had draped over it. He was wearing gray suspenders with silhouettes of people tangoing on them.

“I mean, I know we’re lucky to be alive,” Philip was saying to Spencer, “and I’m not blaming you. It’s not your fault, buddy, it’s really not. But how the hell did it all go so wrong so fast? One minute those girls are like this dream come true—”

“Wet dream,” Spencer said, pretending to correct him.

“Wet dream. Agreed. But the next? A nightmare. I mean, how much legal trouble are you in?”

“Me? A lot. My lawyer is going to stress that I thought I was just hiring dancers. The problem is that I used this service before, and the girls—different girls, but still smoking hot imports—were pretty much down for whatever. So, it will depend on how much the police feel like digging and how much the feds feel like prosecuting me. It’s early, but it looks like the deal will be something like this: no criminal charges in exchange for my testimony against the escort service.”

“You would testify against the Russians? Are you nuts?”

“I probably don’t have a choice. If I don’t, I’m looking at charges that may even include sexual assault on a minor—if they can prove either of the girls was underage.”

Richard felt himself cringe reflexively at the word underage. He almost said something, but his brother beat him to it. “How would they prove that? And…either? Does that mean you f*cked them both? You dog, you! Wow!”