The Finishing School

by Joanna Goodman

  “Holy shit. Magnus did that to you?”

  Cressida doesn’t answer. Instead, she goes over to the sink and brushes her teeth.

  “Did Magnus do that to you?” Kersti repeats.

  “Why are you still up?” Cressida asks her, her ravaged mouth full of toothpaste suds.

  Kersti sits on the bed and waits for her to finish.

  “It was just sex,” she says, gently patting her face with a towel.

  “That was just sex?” Kersti cries. “You’ve been battered.”

  “He likes it rough.”

  “I’ve never seen you look like this before,” Kersti says, horrified. “Those bruises . . .”

  Cressida gets into bed and pulls the duvet up to her chin. She groans from the pain. She must be sore everywhere.

  “Has he always been like this with you?” Kersti asks.

  Cressida looks away.

  “Did you let him do this to you, Cress? Or were you trying to stop him?”

  “Oh, Kerst,” Cressida says, as though Kersti could never be expected to understand.

  “Because if you wanted him to stop and he did it anyway—”

  “Yes, I know what rape is, Kersti. This wasn’t rape.”

  “But if Magnus forced you—”

  “It wasn’t Magnus.”

  Kersti falls silent. Cressida turns off her lamp and rolls over on her side, giving Kersti her back.

  “Who was it?”

  Silence.

  “Cress. Who was it? Did someone rape you?”

  “It wasn’t rape!” Cressida responds impatiently. “I love him. It was consensual. It’s just getting way more intense, but it’s amazing.”

  The room begins to swirl around Kersti. She feels dizzy, winded. “Who the hell is it?”

  After a long moment, Cressida’s voice cuts through the dark. “Mr. Fithern,” she says, her tone defiant, unapologetic.

  A million things run through Kersti’s mind—Mrs. Fithern and Cressida discussing Tender Is the Night together; Nicole and Dick Driver’s disintegrating marriage; Mr. Fithern biting Cressida’s lips until they bled. Magnus.

  Magnus.

  “What about Magnus?” Kersti manages.

  “He’s the one you’re most concerned about?”

  “And Mrs. Fithern—”

  “It hasn’t been good between them for years,” she says with authority.

  Kersti can’t even speak.

  “I’ve always had a thing for him,” Cressida informs her, as though this is ample justification for what she’s done. “I love him. For the first time in my life, I’m really in love with a man.”

  “I thought you were ‘in love’ with Magnus,” Kersti snaps, using air quotes to make her point. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “I do love him,” she says. “But he’s not a man. With Charlie it’s on a whole other level.”

  Kersti wants to slap her. “What if Mrs. Fithern finds out? The whole school would know. You’d be expelled for sure, right before graduation—”

  “We’ve been seeing each other since The Hague,” Cressida says.

  The Hague? Almost two years ago? Around the time Kersti slept with Magnus and then Cressida had to have him back because she couldn’t live without him?

  Kersti stands up and backs out of the room, feeling like she might throw up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Away from you,” she says, closing the door behind her and retreating to Lille’s room.

  Chapter 21

  BOSTON—November 2015

  Kersti and Jay hop in a cab at Logan Airport, the mood between them still tense. She convinced him to come to Boston with her and make a mini-vacation out of it, but their interactions have been strained. They’re being civil to one another, making an effort to avoid all potentially perilous topics, but their usual jokey camaraderie is noticeably absent.

  They ride in silence to the XV Beacon hotel, with plans to spend Saturday afternoon at the spa and have dinner at Moo, in the hope of resuscitating their marriage. But first, Kersti is going to pay Deirdre another visit.

  As they veer onto Route 1A, Kersti pulls out her Moleskin and tries to recap everything she’s discovered since she embarked on this journey, trying to fit it all into some cohesive timeline. She knows Cressida snuck out to see Magnus, broke up with him, and then went to Mr. Fithern’s. As soon as she left his place, Magnus went to Huber House and told Mrs. Fithern about the affair. He left Huber without seeing Cressida and claims never to have seen her again.

  “What are you working on?” Jay asks her, putting his hand on her knee.

  “Just some notes.”

  “For which book?”

  “Possibly the story of a beautiful but troubled girl who mysteriously falls from her balcony at a Swiss boarding school.” Even as she says it out loud, her whole body tingles.

  “I’m happy to see you excited about a new book,” he says. “I feel like maybe you’ve been a bit bored with the other one.”

  “We’ll see how this all plays out,” she says, returning to her notebook and writing, “Mrs. Fithern?”

  Mrs. Fithern claims not to have gone to Cressida’s room after Magnus told her about the affair, which Kersti finds hard to believe. Wouldn’t it be the very first thing any woman in her shoes would do? The fact that the Fitherns both think Cressida jumped—when either one of them had much to gain from silencing her—seems a little too convenient.

  And then of course there’s the missing ledger, this being the most frustrating dead end of them all.

  “Kerst? We’re here.”

  Kersti looks up and realizes the taxi has come to a stop in front of a regal-looking building with a black iron façade and intricate copper cornices. The doorman opens the car door and helps her out. Inside, the lobby is sleek, done in tones of espresso and cream with mahogany built-ins, taupe couches on a zebra-hide rug, bold modern art on the walls, and two original cage elevators. After they check in, it’s decided Kersti will go straight to Deirdre’s while Jay explores Beacon Hill.

  “I’m glad I came,” he says, pulling her into his arms. “We needed this. It was a good call.”

  As she kisses him, she feels a surge of relief. “I’ll be quick,” she promises. “And then I’m all yours. There’s a restaurant on Newbury we can try for lunch—”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Laylay opens the door. “Mrs. Deirdre is waiting for you,” she says, stepping aside. “In the parlor.”

  The parlor. Who still uses words like that?

  Laylay takes her coat and Kersti finds Deirdre reading on one of the brocade couches, her feet neatly tucked beneath her, her face tilted slightly into the sunlight, as though she’s posing for a portrait.

  “Hi, Deirdre.”

  “Kersti,” she says, looking up and setting her book down. “What’s going on? You sounded so cryptic on the phone.”

  Kersti sits down on the other sofa.

  “Do you want a drink? Or some tea?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Tell me then,” she says. “What did you find out that was so pressing?”

  “Cressida was pregnant.”

  The color disappears from Deirdre’s cheeks, leaving two circles of bright coral blush on the stark white canvas of her skin.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Deirdre?” Kersti asks her.

  “Why would I?” Deirdre snaps. “You didn’t need to know. No one did.”

  “Deirdre, didn’t you think it warranted some investigation at the time?”

  Tears spring to Deirdre’s eyes and she looks away.

  “I know it couldn’t have been easy,” Kersti says.

  “That’s right!” she cries. “It wasn’t easy. I was trying to protect her reputation!”

  “Hers or yours?”

  “That’s unfair, Kersti.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  Deirdre reaches for a fur throw that’s
draped on the arm of the couch and pulls it over her bird legs. “You don’t have children,” she says. “You don’t know how hard it is to protect them from what the world thinks of them. People can be so cruel, Kersti. I didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant. Or that she tried to kill herself. She was special. That’s how I wanted her to be remembered.”

  “What about getting justice for her?”

  “Justice?” Deirdre sneers. “You think she cares about justice? She’d rather be able to feed herself and go to the bathroom. There can never be justice.”

  “What if someone pushed her?” Kersti perseveres. “The fact that she was pregnant . . . I mean, if you think you didn’t want anyone to know about it, what about the people who had even more to lose?”

  “I don’t understand,” Deirdre says. “Why would Magnus—”

  “Magnus wasn’t the father.”

  Deirdre sighs.

  “She was having an affair with her history teacher.”

  “Mr. Fithern?” she cries, sitting upright. “From the Model United Nations?”

  “Yes.”

  “She worshipped him,” Deirdre remembers. “She talked about him all the time—”

  “She was in love with him. And he was supposedly in love with her.”

  “Wasn’t he married?” Deirdre says. “To one of the teachers at the school?”

  Kersti nods, giving Deirdre time to absorb it all.

  “Still,” Deirdre says, her voice smaller, barely audible. “It was so long ago.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think someone might have pushed her,” Kersti says, the sentiment crystallizing even as she says it out loud. “I spoke to Mrs. Fithern the other day. She’s the one who told me Cressida was pregnant.”

  “She knew?”

  “Fithern told her. She thinks Cressida tried to kill herself. Apparently they both do.”

  “Well, we do have the suicide note,” Deirdre acknowledges. “Maybe they’re right.”

  “Yes, it’s very neat and tidy. But we both know that note is bullshit.”

  Deirdre is pulling nervously at the strand of pearls around her neck. “Oh, Kersti. Honestly, what can we do now?”

  “You can open an investigation in Lausanne.”

  “What for?” Deirdre cries. “It won’t give Cressida her life back. It will just humiliate her and ruin her—”

  “Her what? Her life? Her reputation? Does that really matter anymore?”

  Deirdre buries her face in her hands and cries silently, her narrow shoulders shaking. She flings out an arm in search of a tissue. Kersti jumps up and hands her the box.

  “You really think someone pushed my baby?” she says, blowing her nose.

  “I think it’s worth looking into it, Deirdre. At least worth talking to Bueche and Harzenmoser.”

  “I can’t go back there—”

  “I’ll go with you,” Kersti says. “I’ve been invited back for the Lycée’s hundredth birthday. We can go together.”

  “There must be some sort of statute of limitations,” she says. “Besides, what would I ask them? What could they possibly tell me after all this time? I would just embarrass myself.”

  “Bueche and Harzenmoser covered up the note and they covered up the affair. They must have known about it. Everyone knew at the end. They shut it down before the police even had a chance—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Madame Hamidou could help you,” Kersti says. “She might still be there. She loved Cress like a daughter.”

  Deirdre frowns.

  “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” Kersti asks carefully. “Do you have the ledger, Deirdre? Is there something in there . . . Are you still protecting her?”

  Deirdre shakes her head and opens her mouth to say something, but before she can respond, a young girl about eight years old gusts into the room, breathless and red-cheeked. “Mama?” she says, flopping down next to Deirdre and eyeing Kersti with curiosity. Mama? Kersti thinks, shocked.

  The girl is exquisite, with pale green eyes and curly auburn hair tied up in two high pigtails. She’s nearly as tall as Deirdre and just as slender, wearing sparkly leggings and a sweatshirt with a bejeweled peace sign.

  “Darling,” Deirdre says, daubing the corners of her eyes and trying to regain her composure. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Why are you crying?” the girl asks, staring at Kersti.

  “We’re talking about Cressida,” she says. “You know that makes Mama sad. Sloaney, this is Kersti, Cressida’s friend from school. Kersti, this is Sloane.”

  “Hi, Sloane.”

  “Hi.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seven and three-quarters.”

  “Sloaney,” Deirdre says, “the heels of your socks are filthy. Please go and change them and start your homework.”

  “Can I have a snack?”

  “Laylay will cut you a mango.”

  Sloane slides off the couch with a reluctant groan and shuffles out of the parlor. When she’s gone, Kersti turns to Deirdre. “She’s beautiful,” Kersti says. “She called you Mama.”

  “Yes.”

  “She can’t be yours,” Kersti says, guessing by the child’s crazy mane of curls, her pale green eyes, and the perfect curve of her mouth who she belongs to.

  “When Cressida was twenty-seven,” Deirdre explains, “I flew her to a fertility clinic in Colorado for in vitro.”

  “My God. She’s Cressida’s daughter?”

  “Right after Cressida got back to the States, I had them do a D-and-C to make sure nothing from the first pregnancy would interfere with a future pregnancy. Just in case. At the time, I still hoped Cressida would recover and lead a normal life. Eventually, it became apparent that she wasn’t going to get better. So in 2007, I found a sperm donor and a surrogate, and now I have my Sloane.”

  Kersti remembers the little girl’s room she saw the last time she was here. She should have guessed. Deirdre has created a replica of Cressida.

  “She’s the light of my life,” Deirdre says. “My second chance.”

  “Does she know Cressida is her mother?”

  “I’m her mother,” Deirdre states.

  “You’re her grandmother.”

  “I’ve raised her as my own.”

  “Who does she think Cressida is?”

  “Her sister. My first child.”

  Kersti is speechless. She has to concede that the frozen eggs were an ingenious idea if the goal was to preserve Cressida’s legacy, rather than to re-create her.

  “I have no regrets,” Deirdre tells her. “We’ve still got fifteen frozen eggs in storage—”

  Fifteen eggs.

  The words land like a bomb. What occurs to Kersti in that moment is so utterly insane, it astonishes her with its perfect irony.

  “Anyway,” Deirdre says. “I’m going to think about it.”

  “About what?” Kersti asks, completely lost in her own thoughts.

  “About going to Lausanne and speaking to Bueche and Harzenmoser—”

  “Deirdre,” Kersti blurts out, knowing this is her only chance; that if she’s going to have a baby she has to make it happen any way she can. “I have a proposition for you.”

  Chapter 22

  LAUSANNE—November 1997

  At midnight, Kersti bursts out of her room to get Cressida. She still isn’t used to them not sharing a room. They both have single rooms on the fourth floor now, which is supposed to be a privilege for the top senior students. Kersti’s lonely, though. Her small room with the single bed and the sloped ceilings sometimes feel like a cell. She misses Cressida’s company.

  Their feud at the end of last year is mostly forgotten. The night Cressida confided about her affair with Mr. Fithern, Kersti decided she wouldn’t speak to Cressida for the entire summer. It was already May, which meant only a few weeks of silent treatment to get through until the end of the school year.

  She lasted about two weeks, which made thing
s very awkward in their room. Cressida kept trying to explain, tell her side of it. But Kersti was too hurt. At first, she couldn’t get past the fact that Cressida had claimed to still be in love with Magnus while she was already seeing Mr. Fithern, but morbid curiosity ultimately trumped Kersti’s self-righteousness. She couldn’t stand being excluded from Cressida’s unfolding drama. It was killing her not to be able to ask Cressida all the questions that kept popping into her head. She wanted to know everything about the affair. She wanted details. Where did they rendezvous? Was he going to leave his wife? Who else knew? And naturally, Kersti wanted to know if Magnus would be available again.

  She finally caved the night of the Ascension holiday. She was in bed unable to sleep and Cressida was at her desk, working on an essay. She always did her homework in the middle of the night—an afterthought. “You told me you loved Magnus and that’s why you wanted him back,” Kersti blurted into the dark. “You knew I liked him, but you had to take him anyway—”

  “I didn’t take him from you,” Cressida said, turning around to face her.

  “And the whole time, you were also screwing Mr. Fithern. Why?” Kersti demanded. “Why couldn’t you just let me have Magnus?”

  “It wasn’t my decision to make,” Cressida said. “Magnus is his own person. He made his own choices. I had no control over that. Besides, I did have feelings for him.”

  “Did?”

  “Do.”

  “But you have stronger feelings for Mr. Fithern,” Kersti said, turning on her bedside lamp. “You said so. I don’t get why you had to have both!”

  “Haven’t you ever loved two people at the same time?”

  Kersti thought about Cressida and Magnus and the answer was yes, but she said nothing.

  “I didn’t think Charlie and I had a future,” Cressida said.

  “So you used Magnus as your backup, which also kept him away from me. Just because you could.”

  “No, Kersti. I had a fling with Charlie. I never planned to fall in love with him. I planned to be with Magnus. Magnus and I made sense. Charlie and I . . .”

  She shook her head, bewildered. Like she was the victim in all this. “I may be impulsive,” she said. “I follow my heart and sometimes it’s reckless and people get hurt, but I’m not a bad person, Kersti. I don’t make calculated decisions to deliberately hurt people. Especially not you or Magnus.”