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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2021 by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman
Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Ploy Siripant
Cover images © dinodentist/Shutterstock, Wilqkuku/Shutterstock, Patty Chan/Shutterstock
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dobmeier, Tracy, author. | Katzman, Wendy, author.
Title: Girls with bright futures : a novel / Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy
Katzman.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2021]
Identifiers: LCCN 2020001705 | (trade paperback)
Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3604.O23 G57 2021 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001705
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Home of Maren and Winnie Pressley
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Memorial Hospital Emergency Room
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Memorial Hospital Emergency Room
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Memorial Hospital Emergency Room
Part 2
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part 3
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Authors’ Note
Reading Group Guide
A Conversation with the Authors
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Back Cover
To Van Katzman and Eric Dobmeier, the original KatznDobs
Home of Maren and Winnie Pressley
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 11:30 P.M.
If the drool at the corner of her mouth was any indication, Maren’s attempt to stay awake until Winnie got home from her babysitting gig was, as her daughter would say, an epic fail. Maren took in the laptop still perched on her chest, which had similarly slipped into sleep mode. With a quick tap, the web search she’d started before falling asleep flooded her retinas.
Out of sullen curiosity, she had Googled the unusual name of the professor she’d met earlier in the evening when she’d dropped by her boss’s house unannounced to deliver their tuned-up espresso machine. As the longtime personal assistant to Alicia Stone, one of the most powerful women in tech, Maren met celebrities and power players all the time. This Boston professor didn’t seem to be anyone special—likely just another pawn in Alicia’s elaborate scheme to secure admission to Stanford for her daughter, Brooke. But with the early admission deadline now just three days away, he served as yet another reminder that Stanford was off-limits for Winnie, just in case Maren had missed all the previous warnings.
Stretching her neck, which was stiff from dozing off at a weird angle on the couch, Maren slammed her laptop shut and jammed her hand between the couch cushions in search of her phone. The last thing she remembered was Winnie’s text saying she was heading home, but when she fished out the phone and unlocked the screen, Maren saw it was already eleven thirty p.m. Winnie’s text had been over an hour ago. Had she come in already and gone to bed without saying good night?
Maren was just about to check Winnie’s bedroom when the doorbell rang, followed by insistent knocking—and suddenly Maren realized it was the sound of the doorbell that had jarred her awake in the first place. With a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, Maren pictured Winnie on the doorstep, keyless once again. For such a smart kid, her daughter was ridiculously forgetful. As Maren strode the few steps to the door of their tiny bungalow, she called out, “OK, OK! Coming!” She turned the doorknob and prepared to greet Winnie with a classic motherly look that said, “I’m happy you’re home safe, but what the heck?”
But her wry grin faded the instant she threw open the door. It wasn’t her daughter; not even close. At the sight of the uniformed police officer standing under the dim, dead-bug-filled porch light, Maren instinctively closed the bulky cardigan she was wearing over her threadbare pajamas. “Hi, Officer. Can I help you?” Despite having been raised to believe the police were the world’s best helpers, Maren’s only real interaction with the police years ago had left her with an altogether different impression.
“Good evening, ma’am. I’m Officer Wilson. Are you Mrs. Pressley?”
How did he know her name? Maren’s nervous system switched into high alert. “Yes?”
“Is Rowan Pressley your daughter?”
No one ever called Winnie by her full name. “Yes,” she said with a growing sense of dread.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your daughter was in a serious accident.”
“No,” Maren said, shaking her head. “Are you sure you have the right person?” She wanted to slam the door shut and disappear back into her nap or her confusion or even her bitterness toward Alicia. Anywhere but here.
“Ma’am, is this your daughter’s cell phone?” Officer Wilson held out an iPhone with a familiar pink case. It looked silly in his large palm, and Maren almost said so, like if she could muster a wisecrack, that would somehow prove the phone wasn’t Winnie’s. As if in slow motion, Maren saw her hand reaching for the phone. The glass was badly cracked. She turned it over, hoping against hope not t
o find the most obvious identifier, the unique PopSocket designed to look like a salmon sushi roll that Winnie had splurged on with some of her babysitting money. Fear surged through Maren. “Oh my God…is she OK?”
“As I said, she’s been in a serious accident. On an electric scooter,” Officer Wilson said. “She’s been taken to Memorial Hospital. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information on her condition.”
“But she’s alive, right?”
“They didn’t share any details with me. I was only asked to notify her parents and bring them to the hospital.” Officer Wilson shifted his weight and appeared to peek over Maren’s shoulder into the house. “Is Winnie’s father home?”
“No. It’s just me. Just the two of us.”
He nodded. “You’re going to want to follow me to Memorial now, ma’am.”
Maren was frozen in place.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, OK. Just give me one minute.” As she closed the door and turned to change out of her pajamas, a black cloud of panic engulfed her. She leaned back against the door and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, willing her vision to clear and her legs to stop shaking. With one hand steadying her against the wall, she took a few steps toward her bedroom but was stopped cold by the photos lining the hall. Though she passed these pictures every day, she only rarely registered them. Now she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Winnie’s goofy grin on her fifth birthday showing off the gap where her bottom two baby teeth had once resided. Winnie and Brooke as ten-year-olds in matching Stanford T-shirts with their arms wrapped tightly around each other on the beach in front of the Stones’ San Juan Island cabin. Back when they were still best friends. Last year’s junior prom, with Winnie three inches taller in heels than her normal five feet seven inches, wearing a soft blue dress that highlighted her natural beauty without flaunting it. And the most recent picture on the wall—of Winnie’s induction into the National Honor Society just last month—in which she was almost the exact age Maren had been when her life changed forever. Maren remembered thinking as she snapped that photo that all she wanted was to preserve her daughter’s happiness and keep her safe. Winnie was all she had. She cast a tearful glance upward and begged an omniscient being she’d long since given up on: Please, please, please, let her be OK.
* * *
Maren followed the flashing lights of Officer Wilson’s squad car in front of her as they wound their way down the side streets of her modest neighborhood, one of the few left in Seattle’s tech boom landscape, and onto the arterial that would deliver them to Memorial Hospital. She tried to focus on keeping the appropriate space cushion between their cars, but her mind refused to cooperate, and she shivered uncontrollably as her fears bombarded her one after the other. What if Winnie died before she got there and she never got to say goodbye? What if she was paralyzed or brain-dead? And though she knew this was the least of her worries, how would she ever manage the astronomical medical bills no matter what happened to Winnie?
Despite working for Alicia for more than ten years and outlasting every other household employee, health insurance had never been part of the deal. Maren had looked in to getting them covered this past year, but even the subsidized rates available on the state healthcare exchange had seemed too daunting. She’d gambled on their good health and diverted the money to replace her car’s transmission instead, knowing that they just had to get Winnie to college, where at least Winnie would then be covered by a more affordable university plan. Would the hospital even treat Winnie? Should she text Alicia? As a member of the Memorial Hospital board, Alicia could ensure that Winnie received whatever treatment she needed. Alicia had always claimed to love Winnie like another daughter. Before all the college madness of the past few weeks, Maren wouldn’t have hesitated to ask her for help. But now Maren hoped that was a call she wouldn’t need to make.
After a sloppy parking job in the first available spot, Maren sprinted through the automatic sliding doors of the ER and approached the desk clerk, desperate for information. The clerk consulted her computer. “Your daughter’s in surgery right now. As soon as the doctors can, they’ll send someone out to update you. You can have a seat in the waiting area.”
Surgery already? “What kind of surgery?” Maren’s voice cracked. “That means she’s alive, right?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more information. A doctor should be out soon,” the clerk said. “Oh, wait. Mrs. Pressley? It looks like we don’t have your daughter’s insurance information in the computer. Do you have that with you?”
“Uh no, I don’t. I left my house so fast.” Maren made a show of patting her pockets. “That won’t affect her care, right?”
“No, but I’ll need that information when you have a chance.”
“Yes, of course,” Maren said. “I’ll take care of that as soon as I can.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, even if it was more aspirational statement than concrete plan.
Maren scanned the waiting area. There was a young family with three children running wild, a disheveled bearded man who was either homeless or hipster, and a woman sitting across the room wearing a black puffy coat and a baseball cap. Maren found a solitary seat, far away from the others, with a clear view of the “Unauthorized Entry” doors, and proceeded to wait.
A half hour passed, and Maren again pleaded with the desk clerk for information, studying her facial expression for any sign at all that Winnie would be OK. But there was still no word from the surgeon, and neither the clerk’s words nor her body language revealed anything. As she wandered back to her seat, Maren noted that the young family and homeless/hipster guy had been replaced by new anxious faces, but the woman on the far side of the room continued her own lonely vigil. Maren wondered what her story was. Who was she waiting for? Maren had the feeling the woman was sizing her up too. She tried to take comfort that she was not completely alone with her worry, but it was no use. She sat down and dropped her head into her hands.
There was simply no way a chance accident on a stupid neon electric scooter could mark the end of their story. Winnie’s life had begun as the ultimate heartbreak for Maren. But over time, with Winnie’s inner light to guide her, Maren had managed to chisel away most of the ugly parts. Now all she could think about was the past three weeks. They’d argued more than they had in all the years of Winnie’s childhood combined. If the worst came to pass, how would Maren be able to live with herself, knowing one of her last acts as Winnie’s mom had been to torch her dreams? Their story was supposed to be one of triumph, with Winnie graduating first in her class from Elliott Bay Academy and heading off to Stanford, not fighting for her life inside an operating room. With the sleeve of her sweater, Maren wiped away the tears on her cheeks. Lately, she’d begun girding herself for the intense loneliness she knew she’d feel when Winnie left for college. But losing her daughter to college would be nothing compared to being swallowed whole by grief—again.
Part 1
1
Maren
THREE WEEKS UNTIL STANFORD EARLY ADMISSION APPLICATION DEADLINE
Maren Pressley had walked the halls of Seattle’s Elliott Bay Academy multiple times per week for the past six-plus years, though ordinarily, she did so in her role as Alicia’s personal assistant, fulfilling the multitude of volunteer commitments her boss had no intention of doing herself. In fact, Maren could probably count on two hands the number of times she’d appeared on campus simply as Winnie’s mom. Unlike most of the other EBA moms, Maren had precious little free time, and when she did manage to carve out a few minutes for herself, she was loath to spend them sticking her nose in Winnie’s academic business. Her daughter had that well under control.
But at seven this morning, Maren had received an urgent summons from the college counseling office. It was a request—or was it a demand?—for both Maren and Winnie to meet that morning with Winnie’s college counselor. EBA moms frequently speculated that the school’s se
ven college counselors had virtually unchecked power to sort students into elite universities. At Back to School Night, Maren had overheard a group of parents swapping stories about dropping everything when the college counseling office called, no matter if they were titans of tech in the middle of negotiations, doctors performing routine surgery, or even, almost unbelievably, a wealthy divorcée undergoing a labia resurfacing procedure. (Being essentially invisible at EBA had its amusing perks.) So Maren figured she owed it to Winnie to show up this morning. Checking the clock on the way into the office, she hoped that whatever the reason for the meeting, it could be dealt with quickly so she could get to work on Alicia’s massive to-do list for the day.
When Maren walked into Ms. Lawson’s office, Winnie was already there, sitting on the edge of her chair, her long blond hair pulled back in a messy bun. Maren noticed Winnie staring at the wall with longing in her eyes and followed her gaze to the array of college posters and pennants that formed a patchwork mural of leafy quads, Gothic architecture, and earnest students of all shapes, sizes, and colors. “Hi, Ms. Lawson, I’m Maren Pressley. We met last spring.” Maren shook the counselor’s hand and slid into the open seat next to Winnie.
“Right,” Ms. Lawson said with a growing smile. “I still can’t believe you’re old enough to be Winnie’s mom.” She turned to Winnie. “You’re so lucky. My mom had me when she was forty-three, and people always thought she was my grandma. So embarrassing! I mean, other than the way you two dress, you could totally be sisters.”
“If I had a nickel…” Winnie laughed.
At thirty-five, Maren was well aware she stuck out at EBA: the elite prep school version of a sore thumb. In high-income Seattle, most moms her age were still nursing babies or chasing after toddlers. Although Maren tried not to call attention to herself, the comparative youthfulness of her skin set her apart from fellow moms of EBA seniors, most of whom were a generation older. But whatever small advantage Maren gained with her natural glow, she lost a hundred times over with her glaring lack of any of Seattle’s subtle signifiers of status. Electric luxury vehicles. Athleisure clothing paired with designer handbags. Prestigious professional degrees useful for dropping into casual conversation, preferably in shorthand (“My marketing professor at Kellogg used to say…”) or, even better, in acronym (“When I went to HBS…”). Maren could hardly wait until the coming spring, when Winnie and Brooke, Alicia’s daughter, would graduate from EBA and Maren could watch this place recede in the rearview mirror for good.
Girls with Bright Futures Page 1
