“How right away?”
“End of the hour,” said Simon.
Diane sighed. “That’ll have to do. Thanks, Sy. Toodles.”
Simon echoed, “Toodles.” And just like that, Diane and Maggie became white-collar criminals without even knowing it.
46
MAGGIE MAKES HER MOVE
Maggie spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with herself. Her love for Danny was so intense, so achingly immediate. The needs of other kids, other schools, were comparatively nebulous. Coming down on their side felt prudish, borderline officious—like pulling a bride out of her limousine to hector her for allowing guests to throw rice, instead of birdseed. Yes, Maggie knew tattling was the right thing to do, the “correct” thing. But did she have to? Danny was so charming, so handsome, so hers. Should she give up a lifetime with him just so she could have a joyless moment of consumer activism? On the other hand, could she spend a lifetime with someone she didn’t fully trust? And how could she respect herself? Wouldn’t she be complicit?
By nighttime, she decided to cash in a favor and call Winnie Lawlor. Maggie didn’t normally trust journalists, but she hoped the boozy blonde would have a soft spot for her. Maggie’d given the woman her shawl. That had to count for something!
The next morning, just after dawn, Maggie stood waiting for the reporter under the nurse’s skirt. The twenty-five-foot-tall nurse was part of San Diego’s brightly colored “Kissing Statue.” The statue commemorated Japan’s surrender—ending World War II—by reenacting a classic photo of a jubilant sailor kissing a nurse. Maggie had no idea whether the nurse was jubilant about being grabbed and kissed, but she tried not to think about it. The statue stood on the waterfront next to the dour gray USS Midway Museum. For adults, the statue was a bit of kitschy nostalgia. For Maggie’s younger students, especially the kindergartners, it was scandalously erotic.
But for Maggie, the statue was—above all—convenient. Though the area would overflow with tourists in just a few hours, it was deserted at six in the morning. And Maggie doubted that any passing jogger or homeless person would notice her meeting with a reporter at the nurse’s feet. The Kissing Statue was such a spectacle that anyone milling about it became virtually invisible.
Still, Maggie had taken precautions against being recognized. She wore a drab brown trench coat, a broad-brimmed hat, and sunglasses. And at 6:10, Winnie Lawlor approached. The reporter looked freshly scrubbed and wholesome—nothing like the soused, loudmouthed creature Maggie had sent away from Walter Tilmore’s house in an Uber months earlier. Trim and fit in a body-hugging lululemon tracksuit, Winnie had pulled her blond hair up in a high ponytail, and her fresh face seemed devoid of makeup—like Post-Rehab Barbie.
Winnie dispelled any mirage of wholesomeness as soon as she opened her mouth. “This better be good, Maggie. I left a very handsome stranger passed out in my bed.”
“Does that happen to you a lot?” Maggie didn’t sound prudish, just interested.
Winnie answered, “Sure, it’s like Christmas every morning. I never know who Santa’s left under the tree.”
“You’re positive you don’t have a drinking problem?” asked Maggie.
Winnie sipped from a coffee cup. “I’m fine with my drinking. It’s other people who have a problem with it.” Suddenly all business, Winnie said, “So are we going to do this or not?”
“Yes, but nobody can know this came from me. My name must never come up. Understood?”
Winnie nodded. “You shall remain an anonymous source.”
And so, standing underneath the giant nurse’s skirt, Maggie told Winnie about the MathPal: the doctored test results, the bogus claims of greatness, the media stories touting it as the next great thing. As Maggie spoke, Winnie scribbled frantically on a notepad. She’d asked to record Maggie, but Maggie’d refused.
At the end of Maggie’s sordid tale, Winnie asked, “Do you have any proof of this?”
Maggie reached into her purse and pulled out the pink receipt she’d taken from Danny’s apartment. It showed that Edutek had shredded documents to cover its tracks. Winnie asked, “Can I keep this?”
Maggie nodded. “Yeah, I don’t want it.”
Winnie studied the receipt, initialed by Danny. “Whew. So this Zelinsky guy, was he the only one in on the cover-up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how Edutek works. But you should know Daniel is a good man. A really fine man. I think he was just under a lot of pressure.”
“Sure, yeah, whatever.”
Maggie felt her heart sink. “This is going to be terrible for him, isn’t it?”
Winnie took a deep breath, then exhaled. She said, not unkindly, “He’s not really my concern. But you are. You’re a source now. And I need to explain what that means. I won’t tell anyone you brought this to me, but I can’t guarantee people won’t figure it out on their own. When you leak a story, you can’t control where it goes. Understand?”
Maggie hesitated. “I, um . . .”
“A story is like a tiger,” said Winnie. “When you leak it, you control the tiger’s first bite. But after that, the tiger will go after the juiciest flesh, wherever that is. Got it?”
Maggie flinched. She’d said nothing of her personal relationship with Danny, of Edutek’s stock grant to the district. She had no idea what the tiger would do with any of that, but she was about to find out.
47
YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE
Maggie tried to warn Danny. She left messages asking, then pleading, with him to call her back. By noon, she couldn’t wait anymore, so she blurted it out in a voice mail, “Maggie here. Daniel, I . . . We need to talk. I told a reporter about the MathPal, the shredded documents, all of it. I’m so sorry, sweetie. Not for what I did. I had to do it. But I’m sorry for all the pain it’ll cause you. Please call when you can.”
But Danny didn’t call back. And Winnie Lawlor did not waste any time. She had the MathPal story ready for the five o’clock news, and she’d done a bang-up job.
The story’s lead-in made Maggie nauseated—an ominous basso profundo saying, “Next up at five, a Fox exclusive: How the Makers of the MathPal Fudged the Numbers and Tricked the Entire Education System.”
Winnie showed clips from Danny’s 20/20 interview—handsome, charming Danny shilling his handsome, slick product. Then she established the local connection by explaining that Edutek had beta tested the MathPal at San Diego’s own Carmel Knolls Elementary. In case viewers didn’t know what a school looked like, Winnie showed stock footage of students filing into Carmel Knolls Elementary. Maggie’s breath hitched. It could have been worse. If the story had broken while school was in session, there would have been reporters sticking microphones in her little students’ faces. Next, the camera showed talking heads from the education world climbing over each other to praise the MathPal and its “fantastic potential.”
And finally, the camera returned to Winnie, saying: “Sounds too good to be true? Well, it is. Fox 5 has obtained evidence from an anonymous source indicating that Edutek fabricated the MathPal’s supposedly wondrous beta-testing results. And just days ago, Edutek chief executive officer Daniel Zelinsky tried to cover up that fraud by shredding thousands of documents.” The camera showed a blowup of the pink Birox receipt. “Fox 5 will keep you updated on this story as it develops.”
Two days later, after still not hearing back from Danny, Maggie banged on the front door of his Carmel Valley apartment, begging him to let her in.
She’d almost given up when she heard a soft click and the door swung open. He looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, his face covered in stubble. He gave her a bleary-eyed smile, saying, “Hey, Mag. Come in.”
Maggie walked in, and he shut the door carefully behind her. He told her, “You’re lucky. The camera crews are gone, for now.”
Maggie said meekly, “I tried to warn you. I . . .”
He waved this off. “Yeah, I know. I got your messages after the story broke. B
ut hey, it was thoughtful of you. Thanks.” He said this perfunctorily, as if thanking her for a fruit basket.
He led her into the living room and gestured for her to sit on the couch. She asked, “You understand why I did it, why I had to do it, don’t you?”
Danny sighed. “Yeah, I can see your side.” He sounded detached, almost bored. “It was stupid of me to expect you to keep a secret like that. You can’t cheat with the principal.”
Maggie smiled feebly. “So what happens now?”
“What do you think?”
Maggie ventured, “I think there’ll be more bad press, and schools will probably rescind their preorders for the MathPal.”
“Probably?” There was an edge to Danny’s voice now.
Maggie gulped. “Definitely.”
“What else, Maggie?”
“Excuse me?”
“What else do you see in your crystal ball for me and my company?”
She hesitated. “I, um, I think you won’t be able to launch the MathPal, and that’ll hurt.”
“Go on.” His eyes, normally so expressive, were dead now. He looked at her as a stranger might.
“Um, I guess maybe Edutek might go under?”
“That’s right. Very good. I’d reward you with a chocolate, but I threw them out.”
“You did?”
“Yes, ma’am. Crushed them down in the bin with my foot, sorta like what you did to my career.” He said this jokingly, but the joke fell flat.
Maggie felt a tear glide down her cheek. She wiped it away. She didn’t want to look like she was playing for sympathy. Her pain wasn’t the point now. Danny’s was. “I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“Oh, you’re sorry, well, I guess that makes everything all better, doesn’t it?” The edge had gone from his voice now, as if he was too exhausted to bother hating her. “Lemme ask you, Maggie. What do you think is going to happen to me now? Hmm?”
Her hands were folded in her lap. She kept her eyes on them, not daring to meet his gaze. “Um, you’ll maybe get a slap on the wrist? Or you’ll have to step down as CEO? Something like that. I don’t know how these things work, Daniel.”
“That’s right. You don’t.” His anger flared.
Maggie wiped a tear away, then turned to say what she’d come to say. “Daniel, I know you probably think that if the MathPal goes down, that’s it. Your career is over. But I know that’s not true. That can’t be true. You’re so smart and charming and talented. There’ll be other products, other companies even. You’re going to make it past this, Daniel. I know it. I believe in you.”
Danny answered, “Let me get this straight. You admit that you have no idea how my world works. But somehow, in that Holly Hobbie brain of yours, you’re sure I’m going to come out okay because . . . what? Because you believe in me? What does your believing in me have to do with anything? I’m not Tinker Bell. You can’t raise me from the dead by just ‘believing.’” Danny fluttered his eyelashes, mocking Maggie’s naïveté.
Maggie winced. “So what happens now? What’s the process?”
Danny rubbed his face for a moment, took a deep breath, and blew it out. “I don’t have a process, Maggie. My world doesn’t work like your world.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled bitterly. “In your world, a kid comes forward and tattles on another kid. Then the tattler goes off on her merry way, and the kid she’s ratted on gets a good talking-to. Then you pat him on the head and send him back to class. Maybe, if it’s serious, you’ll call his parents and tell them about what he did. Maybe they’ll take away his iPad for a few days; maybe they’ll just threaten to do that. Everybody gets to go back to their own life. The end.”
“And in your world?”
“In my world, well, let’s see. I’m . . .” He closed his eyes for a moment, visibly willing himself not to lose his temper. “Maggie, do you know why I didn’t call you back when you told me you’d gone to that reporter?”
“Because you were mad at me?”
“No, that’s not why. I mean, yes, I was mad at you. I was fucking furious at you. But no, that’s not why I didn’t call you. I didn’t call because as soon as Winnie what’s-her-face hit the airwaves, I got myself a lawyer. And my lawyer told me that I should cut off all contact with you.”
“But why? I don’t . . .”
“Because I’m under investigation, Maggie.”
Maggie drew back. “What? By whom?”
“Oh, there’s the Securities and Exchange Commission, for starters. Edutek is a public company, remember? And we lied to the world . . . I lied . . . about what our product could do, and our stock went through the roof. That’s securities fraud, Maggie. Look it up. It’s a big no-no.
“And then, there’s my investors. They’re pretty ticked off about this whole brouhaha. And as you might imagine, the Walter Tilmores of the world are not an especially forgiving bunch. And after that, who knows? If things get salty enough, the Department of Justice might join the fun. So many possibilities for your viewing pleasure.”
Maggie studied the floor for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Daniel. I didn’t think . . .”
“That’s right. You didn’t think. You saw me doing a bad thing. So you told on me, figuring everybody would be nice and reasonable about punishing me. But it doesn’t work that way, Maggie. By the time they’re through with me—”
Maggie cut in, “No, we’ll figure this out. I’ll stand by you. I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever you . . .” She faltered then, dismayed by the look on his face. It was the look of a man listening to a stranger spout nonsense—a detached, bemused expression.
“Maggie, you don’t get it. The time to stand by me is over. We’re over.”
“But I love you. I . . .”
“And I loved you too. But it’s done.”
48
RICHARD’S AMENDS
Maggie spent the next few days hunkered down in her house with Diane—crying, eating chocolate, and watching the MathPal scandal spin out on television. Danny’s looks and charm—so useful in shilling the MathPal—made his downfall media catnip. The Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating him and everyone else on staff at Edutek. And Edutek’s stock price had plummeted.
Diane assured her, “Maggie, you did what you had to. I know he’s dreamy and all, but that man was going to take serious chunks of change out of schools across America.”
“He said he wasn’t going to charge that much.”
“Oh, bullshit. Those tech companies don’t go by some ‘take a penny, leave a penny’ system. There was a reason those investors were drooling all over themselves. They thought Edutek was going to make a killing.”
“So?”
“So nobody gets to make a killing unless somebody gets killed.”
As talking heads on TV threw around alien phrases like “securities fraud” and “insider trading,” Diane and Maggie started to grow nervous. The media hadn’t noticed Maggie’s involvement yet, but it was just a matter of time. Wasn’t it? Maybe she and Diane needed lawyers too. There were so many hidden rules underfoot, rules that could snap shut like bear traps. Diane proposed going to Richard. “He’s in corporate compliance, right? This is his jam.”
Maggie colored. “The last time he saw me, I was lying spread-eagled on the hood of a car while Daniel was humping my brains out.”
“Don’t forget the Pilgrim dress. That Pilgrim dress sorta completes the picture.”
“Thanks for reminding me. I like my traumas to be as specific as possible.”
Diane smiled. “Honey, don’t be that way. I bet Richard would jump at the chance to help you. Remember all that twelve-step stuff he said about making amends and whatnot. That sounded like some real sincere crap.”
And it was. As soon as Maggie called, Richard eagerly agreed to meet with her and Diane. He came to Maggie’s house, sat on the couch, and listened as the two women explained what had happened. While Winnie Lawlor had focused exclusively on Edutek’s
lies about the MathPal, Richard probed further. He got it all—including Diane’s bogus call to Simon Petal.
After listening, Richard sighed and leaned back on the couch, plainly exhausted. His methodical questioning had cost him. “Okay, ladies, I’m glad you called me. I really am. Now, here’s my advice: you need to lawyer up, and you need to do it right now.”
Maggie balked. “But we haven’t done anything wrong.”
Diane echoed, “Yeah. Going to Winnie Lawlor was a public service. Maggie didn’t have to squeal on Danny Z. But she did it anyways because it was the right thing to do.”
Richard responded, “Yes, and if that’s all you’d done, you’d be in the clear. But it’s not all you’ve done. You tricked the district into dumping the stock before you went public on the MathPal.”
Diane shot back, “Of course we did! We needed that money for STEAM projects—PE and science and tech and art and music and—”
Richard cut in, “It doesn’t matter what you needed it for. You’re not allowed to sell off your stock if you have insider information telling you the price is about to drop.”
Diane bristled. “But we’re not insiders. We don’t know anything about stocks and whatnot. I don’t understand half the stuff you’re talking about.”
Richard went on, “Yes, you’re not insiders when it comes to securities law. I get that. But you were insiders when it came to Edutek.”
Diane answered, “Nah-uh. We . . .”
Richard was losing his patience. “You were insiders. You had information that Edutek was keeping private information with the potential to tank the stock price. And you used that information in deciding when to time your trade.”
Diane answered, “But it wasn’t our trade. It was the district’s trade. We’re not gonna see a penny of that money. We just wanted to make sure the kids would be covered. That’s all.”
Richard replied, “Again, it doesn’t matter why you tipped off the district.”
“We didn’t tip them off. We tricked them. I made the call myself,” Diane boasted.
The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield Page 25
