Cold Springs(5)

John handed her a margarita. “Your husband got stuck with that pretty blond Mrs. Passmore—had a question about her daughter's history project. Can't take him anywhere, huh?”

Ann wanted to slap him.

“We're about to start, honey,” she said instead. “Why don't you go check with the cashiers?”

“Done, honey. Spreadsheet. Printer. Cash box. Don't worry about it.”

He gave her a smug smile that confirmed what she already knew—letting John chair the capital campaign was the biggest mistake of her life. It was a pro bono thing for him, a good tax write-off, and since the school could hardly afford a full-time development director, Ann truly needed the help. But as she had been slow to figure out, the charity work made John feel superior, affirming his belief that Ann's career was nothing more than a hobby. Raising her $30 million would be his equivalent to helping her power-till a tomato patch or driving her to yoga lessons. My wife, the headmistress. Isn't she cute?

“I'll take Norma upstairs,” he told her. “You go ahead. The faculty is probably paralyzed up there, waiting for your orders.”

Ann contained her fury. She gave Norma's hand one last squeeze, then went off to join the party.

Upstairs, the removable wall between the two middle school classrooms had been taken down, making space for a main banquet room with an auction stage. Ann made her way toward the head table, past parents and student volunteers, waiters with trays of salads. Chadwick was talking to one of her sophomore workers, David Kraft, who sported a brand-new crop of zits. Poor kid. He'd been one of Katherine's friends until last summer, when Katherine gave up friends.

“Excuse us, David.” Ann smiled. “Duty calls.”

“Sure, Mrs. Z.”

“You going to spot those high bidders for us?”

David held up his red signaling cloth. “Yes, ma'am.”

“That's my boy.”

She maneuvered Chadwick toward the faculty table.

“How's Norma?” he asked.

“She's right, you know. Your idea stinks. Boot camp school? It absolutely stinks.”

“Thanks for the open mind.”

“Things aren't complicated enough right now?”

They locked eyes, and they both knew that Katherine was not the foremost question on either of their minds. God help them, but she wasn't.

Ann wanted to be responsible. She wanted to think about the welfare of Katherine and Mallory. She wanted to think about her school and do the professional thing, the calm and steady thing.

But part of her wanted to rebel against that. Despite her wonderful little girl, her successful husband, her ambitious plans for Laurel Heights, part of her wanted to shake off the accumulated infrastructure of her life, the way she suspected Norma would, if their roles were reversed. Norma, who had become as much her friend as Chadwick was. Norma, the woman Ann probably admired more than anyone else.

Ann was thinking, Don't say anything tonight, Chadwick. Please.

And at the same time, she couldn't wait for the auction to end, for all four of them to get somewhere they could talk.

Ann felt like two different people, slowly separating, as if the Ann on the surface were a tectonic plate, sliding precariously over something hot and molten.

And right now, the Ann underneath wanted an earthquake.

Even blocks away in the dark, Katherine could see the trees—four huge palms, much too tall for Oakland.

They made her think of Los Angeles—trips to visit the Reyes side of the family every other Christmas, her father always looking for excuses not to go, her mother tossing dishes and slamming pots around the kitchen until he agreed.

Katherine used to think a lot about L.A., about escaping, moving in with her cousins. Her cousins knew how to have fun. They knew the best Spanish cuss words and where to score dope. Their fathers weren't goddamn teachers.

But running away wasn't a fantasy she believed in anymore.

Katherine curbed the Toyota in front of the house. She stared up at the night sky, a few stars peeking through the mist and the palm fronds. The palm trees would die tonight. As huge as they were, they weren't designed to withstand this kind of cold. The freeze would turn their insides to mush. It made Katherine sad to know this with such certainty.

When she was eight, she and her dad had planted morning glories in the backyard, her dad telling her not to get her hopes up, the San Francisco climate was really too cold for them. But over the course of the summer, the vines had overgrown their cheap metal trellis and bloomed with a vengeance—red, purple and blue flowers like a mass of alien eyes. Every day they'd crumple, every night they'd reopen.

“Don't they ever die?” Katherine had asked.

Her dad smiled, cupped his fingers gently around her ear. “I don't know, sweetheart. I thought they were ephemeral. I guess they're not.”

Katherine hadn't known what ephemeral meant. Her dad never explained words, never watered down his vocabulary. But she liked the sound of it.

Eventually, the weight of the flowers made the trellis collapse. Her father had moved the beautiful, broken heap of metal and plants to the side of the toolshed, and still the flowers kept blooming for weeks, without their roots, not realizing they were dead.

“Kaferine?”

She'd completely forgotten Mallory. They must have been sitting in front of the house for minutes, Katherine staring up the sidewalk at the dark windows, the open front door. She must be freaking the poor kid out.