The Finishing School

by Joanna Goodman

  Magnus sighs and Kersti can’t tell if it’s remorse over his behavior, or dread at having to have this conversation twenty years after the fact. “I’m sorry, Kuusk. I liked you. You were a cool chick. But me and Cressida . . .”

  “I get it,” she says. “It’s just how you did it.”

  “I was an asshole,” he says. “I only knew how to be an asshole.”

  They resume eating in silence. Kersti figured that telling him how she felt after all these years would be freeing. She imagined that having him acknowledge what he did and apologizing for it would be cathartic, healing. But she feels no different, no better about herself. Turns out it changes nothing.

  “What about this ledger Lille mentioned?” he says, trying to change the subject. “Why would she think there’s something incriminating in it?”

  “Because Cressida got it in the mail the day she fell,” Kersti tells him. “She took it with her when she went to meet you.”

  “The plot thickens,” he mutters. And then, at length, “What’s she like now?”

  “You’ve never been to see her?”

  “No,” he says, disappearing for a moment. His eyes go dim, his expression vacant. She wonders where he’s gone. “I know we were just kids, but I really . . . she meant a lot to me. Obviously much more than I meant to her.”

  “Same,” Kersti says, feeling a beam of compassion for him, remembering how Cressida had once described their relationship as a “trivial high school thing.” “She’s still beautiful.”

  He nods, probably grateful he’s never seen her in her current incarnation. “What now?” he asks Kersti.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t exactly have a plan.”

  She thinks of Jay with a shudder of sadness, imagining him home alone, worrying about what she’s doing in New York, when she’s coming home, where she’s going next. She feels guilty for having fled Toronto. She misses him, but she doesn’t miss their fertility stalemate. Besides, it can’t hurt to let him suffer a bit, to let him miss her and rethink his position on using an egg donor.

  “You know, Kuusk, maybe Cressida was sitting on her balcony railing drunk off her ass and she just fell backwards,” Magnus says pragmatically.

  “And then someone wrote a fake suicide note for no apparent reason? Or wait, maybe she wrote it and then accidentally fell. What a coincidence!”

  “Okay, so maybe she jumped. Maybe she was fooling us all and she did want to die. She hated her parents; she grew up in a boarding school. Wouldn’t be the first time someone who seemed to have it all was really miserable inside. My point is, Kuusk, I don’t think you’re ever going to know the truth. Too much time has passed.”

  “Mrs. Fithern was there,” she says, ignoring him. “She was the one on duty. She must know something. Do you think they even questioned her? Or anyone?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure they just cleaned up the whole mess and swept it under the rug.”

  “I’d like to speak to her.”

  “So now you’re going to Europe?” he says, teasing her. “She’ll never speak to you.”

  “I’m good at research. I can find things out.”

  “Is that what this is about? Research for your next novel?”

  “Maybe,” she says, already feeling excited about the possibility.

  The bill comes and this time Kersti insists on paying half. “It was good to see you,” she tells him, not quite sure she means it. She can’t say anything has been resolved for her as far as Magnus is concerned, or that there’s been any diminishment of that baked-on, twenty-year-old hurt. What does closure feel like, anyway?

  “Do you want to come back to my place?” he asks her, smiling that cocky grin that used to make her melt inside. Nothing’s changed. She despises his arrogance and is fiercely attracted to him at the same time.

  “You never told me why you went to Huber House that night,” she says. “Why did you want to see her after she broke up with you?”

  “Cressida wasn’t at Huber when I got there,” he says. “She hadn’t come back.”

  “Why did you go to her dorm then, if you knew she wasn’t there?”

  “This is starting to feel like an interrogation.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I’m curious. I’ve wanted to ask you these questions since the night it happened.”

  “I went to talk to the house mother on duty,” he says.

  “To tell her what?”

  “Where Cressida was.”

  Chapter 18

  LAUSANNE—February 1997

  It’s Saturday morning study hall. Kersti is still lying in bed, rereading the letter from her mother.

  Dad wasn’t able to find cheap flights. He tried right up till the last possible minute. We won’t make it for Parents Weekend. Sorry to disappoint you.

  Kersti crumples the letter and tosses it at the garbage can. It misses, but she leaves there, not caring.

  “What’s wrong?” Cressida asks, looking up from her book. She’s reading Gatsby again.

  “My family’s not coming again this year.”

  “They’re telling you the week before?” Cressida says. “I thought it was all booked. You told me it was for sure this year.”

  “It was supposed to be,” Kersti says, embarrassed.

  That’s what they promised her over the holidays. It was supposed to be her Christmas present from them. She opened up her card and inside it said: Four plane tickets from Toronto to Geneva in February! Love, Mom, Dad, Tuule & Maaja.

  Her parents and two of her sisters were going to fly over for five days and let Kersti show them around. Kersti was thrilled. She even brought the card back to school with her, hung it on her wall, and was secretly counting down to Parents Weekend.

  “Why aren’t they coming?” Cressida asks her.

  “They can’t afford it.”

  “I’m sorry, Kerst.”

  “Whatever,” she mutters, but hot tears are already sliding down her face. “They just don’t want to come.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “They don’t give a shit about me,” Kersti says. “Let’s go down for lunch. I’m hungry.”

  “Let’s skip it and go to McDonald’s.”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “So?”

  “We can’t just not show up for lunch.”

  “Of course we can,” Cressida says. “Hamidou’s in Bern and Ms. Bowell is on duty.”

  Ms. Bowell is basically senile. Aside from having a name that demands ridicule, she’s also really old—at least in her eighties—both of which render her utterly ineffectual as a teacher.

  “We’re free,” Cressida says, throwing on a pair of Uggs with her sweatpants. “Let’s go.”

  Kersti grabs her ski jacket and tuque and they set off, deciding to brave the cold and walk all the way down to the Gare. They link arms and sing most of the way down.

  “What if God was one of us?” Cressida bellows, deliberately singing off key.

  “If God had a face,” Kersti chimes in, already feeling better, “what would it look like?”

  “Monsieur Bueche,” Cressida returns.

  The following Saturday morning, Cressida charges into Kersti’s room, flushed and breathless. “You’re still in pajamas?” she says.

  “I told you I’m not going with you and your parents.”

  “Get dressed and come down,” Cressida says. “You at least have to say hello to Armand and Deirdre.”

  “No I don’t. I’m staying here all weekend.”

  “Stop sulking and come and say hi to my parents,” Cressida says, starting to sound annoyed.

  “It’s humiliating.”

  “Stop thinking about yourself,” she scolds, which Kersti finds both hilarious and ironic coming from Cressida. “They’ll be insulted if you don’t make an appearance.”

  Kersti reluctantly rolls out of bed and puts a cardigan over her pajamas. She slides her feet into her fur-lined moccasins and follows Cressida
out into the hall. “I know they’re going to try to convince me to spend the day with you guys,” Kersti says. “And I’m telling you now, I’m not.”

  “Fine.”

  They head downstairs, Kersti shuffling her feet to annoy Cressida.

  “You could have brushed your teeth,” Cressida mutters.

  When they reach the main floor, Kersti looks around. Other parents are showing up to collect their daughters—it’s the usual flurry of hugging and crying—but no Deirdre or Armand.

  “They’re in the smoking lounge,” Cressida says.

  Kersti rolls her eyes and follows her there but when she steps inside the first person she sees is her father, filling most of the small room with his substantial height and girth. He pulls her into his arms and squeezes her tight against his belly before releasing her. Anni pops out from behind him and then her sisters, Maaja and Tuule, rush over to her with outstretched arms. Kersti is flabbergasted.

  “Was that letter your idea of a joke?” she says to her mother. “Were you planning on coming the whole time?”

  “Not exactly,” Anni says, looking over at Cressida.

  “I don’t understand. Why did you tell me you weren’t coming?”

  “We weren’t,” Paavo says, his deep voice reverberating off the walls.

  “We couldn’t afford anything,” Anni tells her. “We tried, but even one flight with our best rate through the agency was too much for us right now.”

  “It hasn’t been a good year,” Paavo mutters.

  “Cressida called us and told us how upset you were,” Tuule explains.

  “You did?” Kersti says, turning to Cressida.

  “She paid for our flights,” Anni says.

  “We’re going to pay her back,” Paavo adds.

  “Please,” Cressida says dismissively. “I just arranged it through Armand’s secretary. It’s no big deal.”

  “When did you arrive?” Kersti wants to know.

  “Late last night,” Anni says. “We’re staying at the Ibis hotel.”

  “Aren’t you happy we’re here?” Maaja asks her.

  “Yes!” Kersti cries, hugging her.

  “You guys are clones,” Cressida says, looking at Kersti beside her sisters. Maaja and Tuule still have the same hair—white-blond bobs held to the side with those old metal clips from when they were little. They’re wearing knee-length skirts with crisp white shirts and cardigans. Kersti is happy to see them.

  “I have to shower before Deirdre and Armand get here,” Cressida says.

  “Show us your room, Kerst,” Tuule says.

  Kersti takes them upstairs. She’s floating, proud. She glances into the staff room on the second floor and notices Angela Zumpt sitting there, staring at nothing. Hamidou is reading in the armchair beside her. Angela’s parents aren’t here. The rumor is she has no parents and lives with an uncle during the summers. For the first time ever, Kersti feels sorry for her. She looks so lonely sitting beside Hamidou, like a pet dog. Waiting to be petted or acknowledged, any shred of attention she can get.

  Kersti continues up the stairs, not wanting to think about Angela or pity her.

  When Cressida heads off to her room, Kersti catches up to her and hugs her. “Thank you so much,” she says. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  “Life is short.”

  “No it’s not,” Kersti responds. “It’s long and slow as hell.”

  Cressida smiles, like she knows something Kersti doesn’t.

  Chapter 19

  TORONTO—October 2015

  Kersti comes home in the late afternoon to an empty house. She timed her return flight so Jay would be at work. She texted him while she was away—short, terse messages to let him know her hotel, her flight information—but he never responded.

  She settles at her writing desk with a cup of tea and a pile of Social Tea cookies. She hasn’t written in way too long. There have been too many distractions, none of them pleasant. These dry spells make her very anxious. She always feels tremendous pressure to get a new book out before she vanishes into obscurity. Her last one was published two years ago, a long gap, given that this one won’t go to print for at least another year after she writes it.

  She dunks a cookie in her tea and stares grimly at her computer. Chapter One.

  She thought Magnus might text her today. Thought he might follow up, see if she was able to track down one or both of the Fitherns, which she did. It was as simple as typing Mrs. Fithern’s maiden name and up she popped on LinkedIn. Annie Brains-Chowne. Teacher at Abberley Middle School, Abberley, Worcestershire. Among her credentials was the Lycée Internationale Suisse, 1985–1993, and if that wasn’t enough, her professional email address was also listed. All that was missing was a recent photograph.

  Kersti debated whether to reach out to her by email. She concluded she was less likely to get a response, whereas if she calls her—perhaps at home one evening, without any warning—she will have a much better chance of connecting with her. So, thanks to the whitepages.co.uk, Mrs. Brains-Chowne’s phone number is now safely stored on Kersti’s phone.

  Surprisingly, Kersti also found Mr. Fithern as effortlessly as she found his former wife. She thought he might be in hiding, still running from the scandal at the Lycée and its lingering cloud of shame, but there he was on LinkedIn, his fifty-year-old face smiling back at her as though he had nothing to hide. His once-black hair was gray and significantly thinned out, which made his ears look disproportionately huge, and his chin looked weaker than she remembered. His teeth were crooked and slightly buck, much less forgiving to his overall appearance than when they’d been brighter and whiter in his youth, but his eyes still had that twinkle of mischievousness and rebellion, or whatever it was that had once made him so enthralling.

  He’s still teaching, though now at an all-boys school, where he’s been since the late nineties. Prior to that, he taught at the international school in Lilongwe, Malawi, no doubt a period of soul-searching and regrouping in the aftermath of Cressida and the evident dissolution of his marriage. Staring at his picture, Kersti can’t believe that the legendary Mr. Fithern—the love of Cressida’s short, young life—is now a middle-aged schoolteacher with bad teeth and big ears, and a secret past that probably no one gives a shit about anymore.

  She wonders if he ever really loved Cressida. In retrospect, it’s doubtful. He was probably just seizing his opportunity to screw a young girl of her stature while he had the chance. By virtue of being one of the only male teachers at a small girls’ boarding school—his only competition was old M. Mahler—he was lucky enough to be able to choose from the crème de la crème of teenage heiresses. In the real world a girl like Cressida would have been way out of his league.

  Chapter One

  Imbi stepped out from the twisting cobblestone lane into Raekoja plats, the town square where she had last seen Gunnar twenty years ago. Built out of the thirteenth-century town of Reval, Tallinn’s Old Town was a bustling enclave of Hanseatic architecture, colorful gabled houses, Gothic-spired churches, hidden courtyards, and markets. But on that morning, Imbi was preoccupied, her thoughts consumed with her memories of Gunnar

  She hears the front door slam downstairs and stops writing. Jay’s home early.

  She realizes, as she waits for his footsteps on the stairs, that she’s nervous. She has no idea where his head is at, if he’s angry with her or if he’s had time to reflect and calm down. Her heart is racing and she’s bracing for a fight, even though it’s possible he won’t speak to her at all. He’s been known to give her the silent treatment for days. It doesn’t happen often, but when he makes up his mind to punish her by shutting down, he can be frighteningly unyielding.

  The Sonos goes on and for a long time she hears nothing but the sound of Drake’s moody rapping. She returns to her work and tries to sink back into the lives of Imbi and Gunnar, but it’s pointless.

  “Hi.”

  She looks up, startled, and he’s there in the doorway. Instinc
tively, she jumps up from her desk and rushes over to him, throwing her arms around his neck and holding on to him. Soon she’s sobbing out loud, her whole body making jerky little spasms in his arms. He rubs her back and she can feel his heart beating against her cheek. “I missed you,” she tells him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “Why do we keep doing this?” she asks, looking into his face, not caring that her nose is running and her eyes must be red and puffy.

  “I guess because we’re both hurting.” He sits down on her swivel chair and gently pulls her onto his lap. “This hasn’t been easy for me, either. I’ve always wanted to be a father.”

  “But you’re ready to give up now—”

  “Isn’t it time? When will you be ready?”

  She shrugs, not knowing the answer.

  “When our marriage is over?” he continues. “When we’re bankrupt?”

  She snuggles up against him and presses her face into his warm neck. She’s always loved the smell of his skin. She doesn’t want to lose him. But. But. How can she be expected to release her dream of motherhood? Not just the dream, but also the sense of purpose inherent in raising a child? “I guess the journey would end for me if we couldn’t get pregnant with an egg donor.”

  “Would it, though?”

  “Yes, of course. I mean, I would consider adoption, but the fertility part of the journey would end—”

  “After how many egg donor cycles?” he flares. “Because I know you. You wouldn’t stop at one.”

  She doesn’t bother to argue, because he’s right. She would never stop at one. She will never stop. It’s not in her DNA. “Let’s be friends,” she says, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I miss you.”

  “Me, too.” He kisses her and touches her hair. “What did you do in New York?”

  “I met with Cressida’s old boyfriend,” she says, leaving out the part about him being her first love, her first lover and the Guy Who Broke Her Heart. “Magnus Foley.”