Safe in My Arms

by Sara Shepard

  Could people tell, somehow, how small of a house she’d grown up in, and that she knew a lot of people who’d never learned to read, and that no one where she was from amounted to anything? Maybe they could see the sort of people she’d had to endure just by looking at her face: The men at Kittens. Her sister. Jerrod.

  Or maybe someone’s husband had employed Topless Maids in the past. One of those mothers had a nanny-cam or something, and up popped Ronnie and her bare tits. Maybe this was the mom’s way of subtly shoving Ronnie out, saying they didn’t want her kind at Silver Swans.

  She glanced at Lane, who was flicking the automatic lighter to reignite one of the votive candles. She was dying to tell him about the note, but how could she? It would beg the question of why?

  “By the way,” Lane said, “I called you this afternoon, but your cell went straight to voicemail. Stuck with a client?” He widened his eyes. “You didn’t get vomited on again, did you?”

  “Oh. Um . . .” Ronnie kept her gaze fixed on the enormous palm across the street, which, at this hour, was a midnight-blue silhouette. It was so much effort to keep up the lie about her fake job. Half the time, she feared she got the details wrong, or that Lane would call the fake number she’d provided instead of her cell. She kept telling herself too much time had passed by now, or that she’d come clean later. She should have just told Lane at the start, gotten it over with. If he would have dropped her, then so be it. The problem was that Ronnie loved Lane. Adored Lane. Also, telling him now was so wrapped up in telling him so many other things that she couldn’t. She hadn’t even told him she was from a tiny town in Pennsylvania—she’d said it was a tiny town in West Virginia. And for all she knew, her story was all over the news—a stripper disappears with a little girl in tow. Just do a Google search with the real facts, and there it might be. Even if Ronnie could have told Lane some of the truth . . . well, she hadn’t, and now too much time had passed, and there was no way.

  Ronnie looked up at Lane, realizing she hadn’t answered his question about work. “I was just running around,” she said. “Work’s been crazy.”

  “Yeah, mine, too,” Lane agreed.

  Ronnie glanced at him quizzically. What could be crazy about teaching kindergarten at Silver Swans? And then, almost involuntarily, she blurted, “Do people roam the school hallways? Is that allowed?”

  “Huh?” Lane paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. “What, at Silver Swans?”

  “Yeah. During the day. Are there lots of people . . . mothers, maybe . . . moving about?” Her heart was suddenly pounding.

  “Well, parents aren’t allowed in after a certain time. You have to check in through the office.” Lane looked confused. “Why?”

  “No reason.” Ronnie pretended to be really interested in the shape of a pita chip. “Have there been a lot of incidents of . . . oh, I don’t know, families being bullied at the school?”

  Lane looked startled. “Bullied?” Ronnie shrugged. “Honey, Silver Swans would never, ever tolerate that. You really think I’d send Esme to a place where bullying was allowed?”

  Ronnie shook her head. Of course Lane wouldn’t.

  “And you heard Piper,” Lane said. “She strives for equality and acceptance. We’re all in this together. That’s what she pitched to that documentary! Which is amazing, huh?” Seemingly noticing some change in Ronnie’s posture, he added, “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just . . . Piper,” Ronnie said. “I’m not sure about her.” Piper had seemed like every other mom in the group—sort of like the queen bee of the moms, in fact. Ronnie also hadn’t liked how nervous Lane seemed around her. If she were being honest, she’d always felt slightly annoyed by his hero worship of Piper—she’d heard Lane speak about her plenty over the past year. And now that she’d met Piper properly, she wasn’t impressed.

  And oh God, that documentary series. The last thing Ronnie needed was to be on camera. It wasn’t just about someone spotting her as a Topless Maids girl, either. It was about Jerrod spotting her. About her truth going public.

  Lane sat back. “What do you mean, you aren’t sure about Piper?”

  “I . . . I got this vibe at that breakfast. The way she looked at me. She seemed condescending.”

  There were two vertical creases between Lane’s eyes. “I think you’re overreacting.”

  He sounded defensive. Maybe this was the wrong road to go down. “I felt”—how to put this without putting it all out there?—“I felt like she could maybe tell I was from somewhere not as nice as here. Maybe all the parents could tell.”

  Lane’s eyes softened. “Oh, honey.” He shifted closer to her, clapping his hand over hers. “No. That’s not true.”

  “But . . .” Ronnie felt like a fraud for twisting sympathy out of Lane, but there was no turning back now.

  “Look, I can’t speak for all the parents, but Piper’s a good person. She does not judge. I promise you. Last year—I shouldn’t be saying this—but there was this kid in my class, and his dad had just been arrested for some kind of white-collar crime, but Piper was as kind to that kid as she was to the daughter of that A-list actor who’s now at the private school up north. She has a heart of gold—and she has great politics.” Lane raised a finger. “I mean, honey. I quit my other job in order to work for her.”

  “I know.” Ronnie nodded. “And you’re a good judge of character.”

  “And her son? Raised him with no help. I’m sorry if you got off on the wrong foot. But you’re welcome there. I promise.”

  Ronnie rolled her jaw. She couldn’t bring up the note. It drew a circle around her. Someone was shaming her, and what if Lane then started digging into why? She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m probably just tired.”

  “You’re a good person,” he said quietly. “The best person. I wished you believed that as much as I do.” Ronnie let out a sniff and turned toward the hillside. “I love you, Ronnie. I want us to be more than partners.”

  Ronnie looked at him, her heart breaking a little. “I know. I love you, too.”

  “I know you still need time—and I’ll wait. But you should know how I feel. And how badly I want to be with you.”

  She couldn’t speak. The pressure in her chest felt like a heart attack. All she could do was nod. Finally, the sliding glass door scraped, and Lane stepped into the quiet living room to put away their food. Ronnie listened to the crickets. She shut her eyes, envisioning the diamond engagement ring he’d presented her with a few months before that now sat tucked away in her top drawer. I want to say yes, she’d told him. But not yet.

  Lane had nodded, his eyes full of sadness. Because of him? he’d asked. Esme’s dad?

  Ronnie looked away. They’d never spoken of Jerrod by name. Ronnie had given Lane the impression that Jerrod’s name traumatized her. That was true, considering what he’d done on that last day. When she’d come back into the house. Found the baby screaming. Decided that it was the last straw.

  Jerrod grabbing her shoulders.

  Pressing her against the wall.

  Hissing in her ear, You aren’t going anywhere until I say so.

  The toddler’s screams in the background.

  Her screams in the foreground.

  And those hands, all over her body, doing whatever they wanted—until something broke loose inside her, and she made them stop.

  But that wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t say yes to Lane’s proposal, despite the fact that she really wanted to. Some of what she’d told Lane was a lie out of self-preservation. If Lane knew the truth, he might change his mind about her.

  But now she worried someone did know something.

  She had to figure out who’d written that note.

  Seven

  On Wednesday morning, when Andrea stepped into the lower level where the Silver Swans offices were, there was a big video camera sitting in
the hallway almost blocking her way. It was the size of a small dinosaur and had all sorts of technical buttons. Property of Raisinette Productions, it read. She gazed at it warily, remembering the documentary Piper had announced at the breakfast.

  “Cool, right?” said a voice, and Andrea wheeled around to see Carson, Piper’s assistant, standing in the doorway, his hands jauntily on his hips. “It’s really happening!”

  “So they’re going to film here?” Andrea asked.

  “They’re just doing some tests first. They’ll film me, maybe Piper, a few of the kids . . .”

  Andrea stiffened. “I don’t want my son filmed.” That was the last thing she needed—after a lifetime of cameras following her, she wanted a different life for Arthur.

  Carson shrugged. “Your loss. This documentary is going to be great. A real portrait of the community. But if you don’t want to be a part . . .” He opened the door to Piper’s office. “Make yourself at home. Want some tea? We have a really good chaga.”

  “I’m fine,” Andrea said, trying to keep the sharpness out of her voice. This was not, she thought, going to be a meeting over tea. She had something to say, and she didn’t want any pretense or friendliness.

  “Piper will be here in a sec,” Carson said, and then walked back into his own office.

  The interior of Piper’s office was all white like an Apple store. There were several shaggy rugs, and textured, monochromatic art hung on the walls, likely by famous artists, though Andrea had no idea who. Art hadn’t been her thing in college, when everyone else seemed to embrace it. Actually, all Andrea had wanted to do in her college days was either hide in her dorm and watch Melrose Place or go to dark, seedy clubs where no one recognized her. Those were really miserable times. Even after she and Christine, the part-time model/fashion student, became a couple, she felt drained and empty.

  Oh, Christine. Sexy, slinky, seductive, and utterly unsuitable. “Dude, she’s the most bangable woman I’ve ever seen,” Andrea’s brother told her. Max’s approval had meant the world. If she, back then, could land a chick her brother wanted to fuck, then no one would guess what she was secretly feeling inside.

  For a while, Andrea was able to be what Christine wanted her to be, but it proved to be too difficult. About a year after they started dating, and only months after they’d married—their courtship had been a whirlwind, as Andrea had thought that marriage would fix something inside her, prove to the world she was okay—things started to fall apart. After Christine came home from fashion shows and they were actually in the same city for long enough, Christine grew jaded. She was baffled by how miserable Andrea seemed—“like a freaking washrag,” she said. She also didn’t like that her new husband would disappear for hours at a time or sit in the bathroom with the door locked—Andrea would be in there either experimenting with makeup or crying in the bathtub, which Christine could probably hear.

  Andrea tried to be a husband, she really did, but all too soon she knew it was a mistake, maybe she was a mistake. And they had arguments about sex; Christine was baffled as to why Andrea didn’t seem to want her like other men did. Which, of course, had made Andrea feel ashamed, and so she overcompensated, and then Christine wound up pregnant.

  Andrea had always wanted a child, and for a while she thought, Yes. This will save me. This will save us. But Christine had other ideas. After all, kids weren’t something they discussed before marrying. She had a meltdown when she got the positive test, her reaction so vehement that Andrea had had torturous dreams that Christine was going to sneak off and have an abortion. Keeping the baby safe was all Andrea could think about for a while, even putting her own unhappiness aside. She bargained with the universe, saying that if only Christine kept the baby, Andrea would walk the straight and narrow. No more nonsense, as her mother might say.

  Best laid plans, though. Christine did have the baby, and Arthur was wonderful, but after some time, Andrea was who she was, and Christine was who she was—a woman who still didn’t want a child. Christine resented the lack of freedom, the responsibility; she didn’t look at Arthur with the same sort of wonderment that Andrea did, which broke her heart. Christine was capable of love, Andrea thought, but she let her resentment and disappointment eclipse any maternal instinct.

  An even bigger chasm formed between them, with Andrea doing most of the childcare duties and Christine . . . well, who knew where Christine went. Tabloids sometimes spotted her at various clubs and parties. There were whispers in gossip columns that she was fooling around with some ambassador from Egypt, and then a semi-famous artist, and then a punk musician. Andrea didn’t care. She was knee-deep in her own issues again, everything raging back. She’d decided to enter therapy. Dr. Westin was a specialist in gender issues, and she needed clarity.

  And then came Roger. Roger, who Andrea could talk to. Roger, the first person who got her. All at once, in Piper’s office, she could smell Roger—bananas, ChapStick, and the musty old apartment building where he lived with his family. They’d met outside Dr. Westin’s office. Actually, she’d noticed Roger in the waiting room, occasionally, though he hadn’t looked like himself back then. It was only on the sidewalk outside the office that they spoke, and that was because a man had been walking past with a llama on a leash. A llama, in Midtown!

  Roger stepped forward with only the excitement that someone so young could have. “Can I take a selfie?” he asked the llama’s handler. The man nodded and grinned; he seemed to expect this. Then Roger turned, looked straight at Andrea, and said, “Wanna be in it, too?”

  Andrea still had that photo in a drawer. In a parallel world, there were supposed to be more pictures of them to follow: Snapshots from dinners out. Pictures of their trip upstate. Jaunts around the city. A long-standing friendship.

  But she only had three pictures of him, in the end. The other was one they’d snapped during their dinner out; Andrea had liked it so much she’d had it printed at CVS. And the third picture, well. The third picture wasn’t really Roger at all. It was a school portrait from his senior year that had been printed in the newspaper when the story broke. Roger wore a uniform blazer and had a bright smile, but there was something bruised behind his eyes.

  And the caption gave Roger’s dead name: Jeanette McCafferty, 18.

  There was a click, and Andrea sat up. Carson poked his head in swiftly, his brow furrowed. “Everything okay?” he asked, his eyes darting to her, then to Piper’s desk, which was irritatingly free of clutter.

  “Yeah,” Andrea said. Had she given some indication she wasn’t okay?

  Carson looked like he didn’t believe her. “I just need to grab . . .” He walked over to Piper’s desk, brushing invisible crumbs off the surface and then, so subtly that Andrea almost didn’t catch it, pulling at one of the drawer handles. It didn’t open. “Well. Piper’s on her way.”

  The door shut halfway again. Andrea sat back, rolling her jaw. Was Carson acting paranoid? Or was she paranoid? The drawing in Arthur’s bag had turned her world upside down. She’d been so worked up she almost mentioned it to Reginald—but she was glad she didn’t. She’d also briefly considered showing it to Arthur—who put this in your schoolbag?—but she was afraid it would upset him.

  She’d also been so worked up she’d called Jerry. “Andrea,” he’d said stiltedly, still getting used to her new name. “How are you? How’s your little guy? Has he started school?”

  She hadn’t known what to say. Even though Jerry was a trusted confidant, the note made her feel so vulnerable and terrible. It felt like a reflection on her, as a mother, as a person. And so she’d just said, “Yeah, he did start. It’s going great. How’s Susan?” And a perfectly pleasant call unfolded from there.

  She worried about Arthur. She didn’t want anyone to pick on him, ever—and especially not because of her. The optimist in her said it wouldn’t happen, but look. Now, maybe, it had begun. Was someone watching her, maybe someone
from inside the school? And what was the next step, the next threat? She feared that the note was just the tip of the iceberg.

  Suddenly, a voice floated through the windows from the parking lot. “I can’t believe this,” someone said. It sounded like Piper’s voice.

  Andrea stood and peeked through the window blinds. Piper was standing in the parking lot, one hand on her hip, her back to the window. She held her cell phone to her ear. Andrea couldn’t make out the next few sentences, but then she heard “Fuck you!”

  After, Piper stood there for a beat, her fist clenched, jaw tight. A full minute passed. She seemed to be in a trance. Andrea blinked, wondering if it was wrong to be witnessing what seemed to be an intimate moment. Finally, Piper lifted her phone again. Tapped the screen once more. And pivoted toward the office entrance.

  Andrea ran back to her seat and arranged herself. By the time the door flew open, Piper was a breezy cloud of white silk and linen pants. “Hello!” she said brightly. “Andrea, right?”

  “Uh, yes.” Andrea leaped to her feet so zealously, her knee bumped the coffee table. She tried not to wince.

  Piper was still looking at something on her phone. “Sorry,” she said to Andrea. “Just FaceTiming with my son quickly. It’s his free period right now—I thought I could catch him.”

  “Oh.” Andrea tried not to give anything away of what she’d witnessed in the parking lot. Was it her son she’d had that argument with?

  “Want to say hello, North?” Piper asked in a syrupy voice. So maybe it had been someone else on the phone before.

  There was static on the other end. Andrea tipped her head to see the screen, but then Piper frowned and tilted it toward herself, tapping the button at the bottom of the device. “Shoot. Dropped.”

  “Where is he?” Andrea asked. “What school?”

  “He goes to private,” Piper answered breezily, placing the phone facedown on her desk. “St. Sebastian. It’s a few towns over. And let me tell you, I’m thrilled school has started again.” When she looked back up at Andrea, her eyebrows knit together. “Has anyone told you that you bear a striking resemblance to Robert Vandermeer? He’s this major real estate magnate in New York City. My ex-husband used to admire him, though actually, I’ve heard he’s a real bigoted prick.”