Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  George shut the office. He drove home, stopping to pick up fresh flowers from the Korean greengrocer, a box of chocolates he knew Eva would love. All he wanted was to eat dinner and lie in bed with Eva, the baby between them, a blissful oasis of family.

  He didn’t know what he had thought would happen, but with Sara there, the whole dynamic had changed. Yesterday, when he had come home, Sara had been there cooking in the kitchen with Eva. He hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise, but Eva had looked so happy that he had let it go. He had gone in to see Anne, lifting her up out of her crib. He had wanted a moment with her, quiet time, just the two of them in the rocker. The baby smelled so delicious, like powder and vanilla, and he held her tiny hand, admiring the little nails, the peachy skin. “Let Daddy tell you about his day,” he started to say and then the door opened and Sara burst in with a bottle and the mood was spoiled.

  “I’ll feed her,” he said, and took the bottle, warm in his hand. Sara sat on the bed and he felt a flicker of annoyance. He liked Sara, but really, couldn’t she just leave him alone with his own baby for a minute? “We’ll be fine,” he told her, and Sara hesitantly stood up. “See you in a while,” he told her. “Oh, could you just shut the door?”

  “The door?” She blinked at him. He nodded and she shut it.

  But he could still hear her, right outside, laughing and talking about something, Eva’s voice a counterpoint. Even with the door closed, he still felt her presence, and it suddenly felt too near to him, like clothing that was a size too small. And even after she had left, two hours after dinner, she was still there, too.

  * * *

  He opened the door. The house smelled spicy with garlic and he was suddenly ravenous. There was music, something soft and bluesy. He felt giddy with happiness. The bad day swept away from him. Eva had always been able to do that for him, from the first day he had met her, when she had been the last of his patients after a particularly bad day. Her eyes were big and sparkling as mica, and while every patient that day had sat glumly or complained that he was hurting them, Eva was bubbling. Every time he took an instrument from her mouth, she talked to him, as if she remembered something more she had to say, and he found himself talking back, unable to stop, and six months later, they were married.

  “Anybody home?” he called. He looked for a space to put the paper down. He smelled his wife’s vanilla perfume, and then, like an undertone, he caught a whiff of something else. The damned smoky-smelling scent Sara wore. It clung to everything. He headed for the kitchen, tripping over something. He leaned down and picked it up. Sara’s hairbrush. Right there on the floor. Last week he had found her sweater in the bathroom, pulled over a rod as if it were a towel. She was everywhere, all over the house, and he suddenly began to feel a little cramped.

  He started taking off his coat, pushing the hangers to the side to make himself room. “Hey, you.”

  There was Eva, in a pale blue dress. “Hey, you, yourself,” he said. Her feet were bare, her hair tumbled down her back. She looked so beautiful, so luminous, he forgot he had ever been annoyed today. He reached for her.

  “Anne’s sleeping,” she said, and he bent to kiss her neck. He started unbuttoning her dress, to kiss her throat, her shoulders. “Hey,” she said, wait—

  “Let the dinner burn,” he said, in his best Barry White voice, and then he heard something. He looked up, his mouth on Eva’s skin, and there was Sara, in an apron, in oven mitts, smiling. “I made dinner for all of us,” Sara said.

  * * *

  Sara got her coat after dinner. She was almost at the door, ready to leave, when he remembered. “Wait,” he said, and she turned. “Don’t forget your other things.” He walked around the living room. He felt suddenly grumpy, he felt crowded in, as if there were too many people in an elevator. He hadn’t minded Sara’s being over every day when she was pregnant—no, that, in fact, had made him feel better, as if the fact of her being over so often might bond her to them more, and it had made Eva happier, too. He hadn’t thought he would mind Sara being here after the baby was born, but now—her presence made him a little anxious. He wouldn’t even mind if Sara came a few days a week, or called all the time, but being here, a presence, every day? He plucked up Sara’s sweater, her comb, her tube of mascara, and handed them to her. “Wait. There’s a book in the kitchen. Let me just go fetch it,” he said.

  “I can get it tomorrow,” Sara said, but he waved a hand. “No, no, it’s easy enough to do it now,” George said.

  He put everything in a brown paper bag for her. “That’s everything, right?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sara said.

  When Sara left, George watched her from the window, and he didn’t know why, but it bothered him the way she stopped at the end of the block, the way she turned and looked back at the house. He heard Eva in the kitchen, the whistle of the kettle.

  He walked into the kitchen. Eva was wiping the counter with a damp sponge. “She’s here too much,” George said.

  Eva shrugged. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “We said she could be here whenever she wanted.”

  “I know, but did you think she’d be here every day? Didn’t you think it would taper off, the way the agency said?”

  Eva started wiping the table.

  “Look, she’s a nice girl, but doesn’t it bother you, the way she’s here all the time?” George asked. “Wouldn’t you like time alone with the baby?”

  Eva stopped wiping the table.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She looked away from him, and then Anne started to cry and she went into the baby’s room and he followed her. Bending, she lifted Anne up; she moved in an awkward dance and Anne wailed louder. He touched her shoulder and she whipped around. Anne’s face was tight with rage.

  Eva?

  Tense, she handed the baby to him.

  “There you go,” he said. He rocked Anne, he did his own sort of awkward dance until the baby quieted a little. “Look at this face,” he said, holding the baby up for Eva to see, and then he leaned toward her and kissed her. “And look at this one,” he said.

  Eva burst into tears.

  He looked up at her, stunned. He held Anne, gently rubbing her back.

  “Eva, what is it? What’s going on?”

  She hesitated. She rubbed her nose. “It’s just sometimes being a mother is overwhelming, that’s all. Sara helps out.”

  “Is that all it is?” he said, relieved. “We’ll hire you help. Or we can get Anne into one of those fancy day cares. Just a few hours a day, so you can have a little space.”

  Eva was still. Her breathing calmed a little. George glanced around the room, at the big Disney calendar they had bought for the baby, and suddenly perked up. “School’s starting soon. Sara won’t even be able to be here as much. You’ll see. You’ll be alone here with Anne, and you’ll have some time for yourself, too, and Sara and you will work it out together.”

  “You think?” said Eva, and then George kissed her. “I know,” he said. “Trust me.”

  chapter

  five

  Sara stood in front of the school. Jefferson High. Three floors of red brick, ringed by woods. A big American flag waving at her like a crazy hand out front. She glanced at her watch, the third time in five minutes. Quarter to nine. Last year, she made a point to get to school by eight at the latest, sometimes even by seven. She was always rushing, eyes glued to her watch, worried she’d fall behind. Jack had even offered to drive her this morning, but she had walked instead, dragging her steps, stopping and starting like a rusty car, just to draw the time out. She couldn’t go slowly enough.

  The buses were long gone. The parking lot, filled with cars, was eerily quiet. Even the kids who usually hung around until the last possible minute, flirting, smoking in their cars, were inside. Sara was alone, in a new short black jersey dress and black tights, her book bag slung over her shoulder. Her parents had been so happy she was going back to school that Abby had given Sara her Fi
lene’s charge card. “Buy out the store,” Abby said.

  They had made such a fuss about her that morning. Abby prepared a special waffle breakfast and they all sat down together, though Sara was so anxious she barely could manage a sip of juice. Jack beamed at Sara. “Senior year!” he said. “You’ll see all your friends. There’ll be all those activities. You’ll feel so much better!” he said, but Sara knew what he meant was he hoped she wouldn’t have time to go over to Eva and George’s.

  She had brushed her hair that morning until her hand ached. It was less curly now, the color dulled, which surprised her, and when she gathered it into a pony tail, she noticed, to her shock, it had thinned. “That happens with pregnancy, sometimes,” Abby told her, and it made Sara a little sad, as if she had lost an important piece of herself. She had applied makeup and then washed it off and applied it again. A line of black rimming her eyes. A wash of pink on her cheeks. She felt so old, why didn’t she look it?

  She heard the warning bell from inside and her bones seemed to soften and turn liquid. Attendance was already taken. In a few more minutes, another bell would ring, and kids would be swarming from home room toward their first class.

  Sara forced herself to climb the cement steps. She pushed open the big red door. As soon as she stepped inside, she felt ill. There was the same scuffed black linoleum, the cork bulletin boards fluttering with notices no one ever paid attention to, the blue lockers lining the walls. There was that school smell, her old life, the one she had loved.

  This was nothing like being sixteen again. This was not where she had left off.

  She walked past her locker and touched it, the metal cool against the heat of her fingers, but it didn’t feel familiar, and unnerved, she touched it again, as if for luck. Sara breathed hard. And then the bell rang, making her jump, and kids poured out into the hall and she didn’t have to think at all. All she had to do was get to her next class.

  She bolted ahead, wishing she could be invisible. “Sara—” she thought she heard, her name, snaking toward her. There was a group of kids standing by the elevator and when she passed by, one girl, someone Sara had never seen before, pointed right at her. “That’s her,” the girl said, and the others huddled around. Sara walked faster, her head down. They know, Sara thought. Robin must have told.

  All that day no one really talked to her. She felt people watching her; every once in a while she’d see a familiar face—Robin, Judy, kids she knew from her honors classes, but they met her eyes and then, embarrassed, they looked away again, and she was too anxious to push a connection. No one ever stopped. Instead, she heard snatches of talk. “Knocked up. How clueless can you get?” Every word hurt her, and after a while, she stopped smiling, she stopped trying to find a friendly face or be friendly herself. She pretended she didn’t care, that it was fine to walk the halls all by herself, it was terrific to have all this quiet about her, because look how well she could study now.

  She was getting a book out of her locker when a hand reached out and slammed her door shut. She turned, and there was a boy she didn’t know, with rough-cut blond hair and icy green eyes, his arm still stretched out on the locker, keeping her pinned where she was. Behind him, she saw another group of boys, watching, nudging one another, giving her knowing grins. “You and me, hooking up Friday night,” the boy said, his voice low. “All night.”

  She stared at him. He was standing too close, leaching the air from around her. “No,” she said, and then he slowly, deliberately, lifted up his arm and freed her. He stepped away, still watching her, muttering under his breath, loud enough for her to hear, for the crowd of boys to hear, too—cunt—before he casually walked away.

  Her mouth trembled, but she wouldn’t let him see how he had hurt her. She wouldn’t let any of them see. She forced her head up, and started walking, down the corridor, to the other end of the school, the boys’ laughter a trail behind her.

  All that day, she took her time getting to and leaving her classes, fiddling with her books so that by the time she got to the hall there were only a few kids, rushing to another class, not having time to stare at Sara anymore. At lunch, she found an empty room to eat in. In gym, she hid in the exercise room, curling up on one of the machines, while everyone else played tennis, and when class was over and she went to change out of her uniform, she found her clothes on the floor by her gym locker were tied in knots.

  But if the kids were cruel, her teachers were surprisingly kind, and somehow their kindness made her feel even worse, more separated from the kids around her. Carl Morgan, her art teacher, set down a circle of clay in front of her. “Go ahead, pound,” he said quietly. “You should see how many tables I’ve broken myself.” She hit the clay halfheartedly. “It won’t always be this hard,” he said simply. When she turned around, he had vanished. You don’t have to leave me alone, she wanted to cry, but he had.

  Mademoiselle Antoine, her French teacher, praised Sara effusively when she conjugated a simple verb. Mr. Reynolds, her calculus teacher, didn’t know what to say to her, so he didn’t say anything at all, not until she was leaving his class. “Nice to have you back, Miss Rothman,” he said, and Sara, surprised and grateful, turned to him, but he was already moving away, already talking to someone else. And Mr. Tillman, her honors English teacher, snapped at her the way he always did, but to Sara it was welcome. It felt like everything might be the same. “Did you do your summer reading?” he asked her, and she perked up because, oh yes, she most certainly had. She thought of her pile of books by her bed, how all she had to do was look at how high they were and feel comforted, because time spent with every book meant less time spent in her real, waking life. She thought of the careful notes she had made. She thought of Abby, sitting at the kitchen table, swept up in Sara’s books. Reading had saved both of them, Sara thought.

  “Which book affected you most?” Mr. Tillman asked, and then suddenly, Sara’s mind felt whitewashed. Blank. She couldn’t remember a single title. She tried to think back, to remember a cover, or words on the page, but the more she tried to visualize, the more her thoughts stalled. “Um—” she said.

  Kids turned around in their seats, staring at her, some of them grinning.

  “I—” she said.

  “Well, what were you doing then?” he snapped, and someone snickered, and then a few other people laughed, and Sara felt her face heat with shame, and she suddenly bolted to her feet. “Miss Rothman!” Mr. Tillman said, but she was already out the door, down the corridor, and then she was running, her shoes smacking on the linoleum, not stopping until she was at the far end of the school, at the bank of pay phones there.

  She dug out a quarter, she dialed, and as soon as she heard Eva’s voice, the tightness inside of her loosened. “Eva—” she said. “I just had to talk to you.

  She could hear Anne crying in the background, she could hear a clatter of pots.

  “Sara, hang on—” Eva interrupted. Sara heard Eva talking to someone. “Okay, I’m back. Now calm down, take it slow,” Eva said, her voice soft, sympathetic.

  “It’s so awful here! No one’s really talking to me!”

  “The what? Wait, wait—Sara, it’s going to be okay. Listen, the dishwasher repairman is here. I’m sorry, honey, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later. I promise.”

  “Wait!” Sara said. “Wait!”

  “Sara, I have to go—you’re crying, the baby’s crying—”

  Dial tone. Sara couldn’t let go of the phone. She held on, and in the dead quiet of the hallway, she took deep, shaking breaths. Calm, she told herself. Calm. She glanced at her watch. It was two. She had one more class to get through. She hung up the receiver. She started back to her class and then two girls rounded the corner and both of them stared at Sara so hard, she was pinned in place.

  “So how’s Danny, Sara?” one of the girls asked. Sara started. How did this girl know her name? And even worse, how did she know Danny?

  “I fucked him, too. We all did.”

  The
other girl laughed, watching Sara, taking her measure.

  “We both know that’s a lie,” Sara said.

  “Oh, we do?” The girls laughed and nudged each other.

  For a moment, Sara wavered. Then she turned, and instead of walking to her class, she walked out the front door. It’s not true, she told herself. And even if it was true, well then, it was true before they were Danny and Sara, and any time before that didn’t count. Outside the air was clear and blue. There wasn’t much traffic on the streets, and the only person she saw was an elderly man with a shock of white hair, walking a big, woolly-looking dog. Sara headed for Eva’s and as soon as she rang the bell, as soon as she saw Eva, it was like oxygen. She felt so relieved that she burst into tears, and for a long while, Eva did nothing but hold her.

  * * *

  Afterward, she felt better. Eva gave her a cool cloth to wash her face, some extra tissues for her nose. Her nose prickled. “The house smells like lemons,” Sara said.

  “We have a woman who comes in mornings. You wouldn’t believe what a help she is! She cleans, does laundry. She even helped me bathe Anne.”

  “I could do that,” Sara said slowly.

  “Don’t be silly, you’re not a maid,” Eva said. “I just have to make a few phone calls. Why don’t you take it easy and when Anne wakes we can take her to the park.”

  “Okay, I’ll just study in the other room, then.” Sara sat on the couch. She pulled out her notebook. She had history reading to do, and a paper to write, too. She opened the history book and started reading about World War II when she heard Anne whimper. Sara jumped up and went to check, but when she opened the door, Anne was sleeping.