Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

  Kate looked down at the address on the page: 968 Fifth Avenue, 6C.

  “The kid being local and the fact that he went to the trouble to lie about where he was—it puts him up near the top of my list again.”

  Kate couldn’t pull her eyes away from the address. Why would some boy from Manhattan lie about being from Albany? None of the reasons that jumped to mind were good ones.

  “Your list?” she asked quietly.

  “Of people who are going to stay ruled in, until they can rule themselves out: Dylan, Zadie, the rest of the Magpies, maybe even Woodhouse and the English teacher. They’re all still on the list. But a kid who lied about where he was—who he was—and then said he might be on his way to see Amelia right before she died? That’s a kid who’s definitely got some explaining to do,” Lew said. “I just got the address this morning. I should have the details on who lives there soon. That address ring any bells for you?”

  “No,” Kate said, wishing that it did. “Are we going to go talk to him?”

  “Me, I’m going,” Lew said. “And don’t get any ridiculous ideas this time. Going after some kid at Grace Hall is one thing. But we have no idea who this Ben kid is, or what he might be trying to cover up. Being guilty can make anybody dangerous.”

  When Kate finally arrived home, there was a deliveryman with a large box trudging up her steps. She signed for the box, taking it from him tentatively, as though there might be a bomb nestled inside. She couldn’t bear any more documents from Duncan. She’d already had her fill, and she still had stacks of texts and some e-mails left to go through. Once she was inside, Kate peered at a note stuck to the top.

  To: Kate Baron

  From: Phillip Woodhouse

  Personal and Confidential

  Kate hauled the heavy box to the kitchen table and stared at it some more. When she finally opened it, there were stacks of photocopied documents inside, some handwritten, others typed. There was also a note, from Woodhouse.

  Enclosed are the minutes from school board meetings and records of Amelia’s visit to the Grace Hall guidance counselor. I’m sorry I didn’t come forward earlier. I felt like my hands were tied. Now that feels like a stupid excuse. I took this job because Grace Hall was supposed to help me open a charter school in the Bronx. Now I’m realizing that that might have been a lie, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t—didn’t—do more to help Amelia. The world is a darker place without her in it.

  An hour later, Kate knew more than she wanted to about the clubs at Grace Hall and the efforts that had been made—or not made—to stop them. She knew about the Magpies in particular, the members of which were referred to as the Maggies, just as they had been in Amelia’s texts and as Kate had expected. Shortly after the Magpies and the other clubs had resurfaced a year and a half earlier, the school board—in consultation with a lawyer hired by Adele Goodwin—had given the administration strict instructions to turn a blind eye to them. According to this conveniently never physically present lawyer—who Kate quickly came to suspect was Adele herself—ignorance would be the school’s best defense to future liability. The theory Adele proffered was that because Grace Hall would not be able to successfully stop the club’s off-campus activities, the only viable alternative was for the school to distance itself as completely from these activities as possible.

  From the minutes, some members of the school board—and, most vocally, Woodhouse—had strongly disagreed. Woodhouse went so far as to say he was willing to risk a lawsuit against himself personally if it meant that he could stop the clubs. At one point he called the Maggies “potentially more destructive than any drug, certainly more vicious.” He talked about the dangers of hazing and the perils of bullying, all of it cloaked in a veil of secrecy. He even threatened to quit.

  But over a series of meetings that had dragged out through the preceding spring, Adele had worn the other board members down. Her most effective approach had been to use Woodhouse’s own words against him. If the clubs were so potentially dangerous, Adele reasoned, Grace Hall might be held liable for any wrongs they committed. But the school and its administration could be liable only if they were aware of the clubs. Aggressive efforts to remove the clubs from campus—threats of academic suspensions for participating, code of conduct violations for students who wouldn’t turn in fellow members, which Woodhouse continued to lobby for—would actually be, Adele cautioned, an implicit admission of the school’s responsibility and, hence, liability.

  As the school board reluctantly fell into line, Woodhouse had threatened again to resign if he was not permitted to act against the clubs. The only response on record was Adele’s. And whoever had been taking the minutes had been sure to take down each and every word:

  Perhaps you should take a look at your contract, Phillip. I think you’ll find that you don’t need to quit. We can fire you for pursuing any course of action inconsistent with the wishes of this school board. You’d lose your job and your benefits, and you’d have to pay back your moving costs. Not to mention the liquidated damages we’re entitled to collect. We set the figure in your contract. You should check, but I think the amount runs well into six figures. A lot of money to prove a point, especially one that—once you’re fired—you’ll never be able to prove anyway.

  There weren’t any details in the minutes about the look on Adele’s face, of course. But having met her, Kate could imagine it: beautiful but venomous. There wasn’t any mention in the notes of Zadie or any other specific student either. But there didn’t need to be. It was obvious that Adele hadn’t been acting in the best interests of the school. She’d been acting in the best interests of a child she could not control.

  The last set of minutes Kate turned to were the ones for the meeting immediately after Amelia died, at which the board had decided to put the security measures into place. “Woodhouse thinks too soon to confirm suicide,” read the minutes that followed. After that, Adele asked that the meeting go off the record. When the minutes resumed, the discussion had moved on. According to the minutes, Woodhouse didn’t speak again.

  Kate was still staring down at them when there was a knock at her door.

  Lew was standing there on the stoop.

  “Did you talk to Liv?” Kate asked as she swung the door open.

  He nodded grimly. “Said that she thought it might get her closer to the kids, that she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

  “That’s it? That’s the whole explanation?”

  “Don’t look at me”—Lew shook his head—“it’s not my excuse.”

  “But if she knew all of that, she knew what the Maggies were doing,” Kate said. “She could have stopped them. How could she not have? She’s responsible.”

  “You’re right,” Lew said. “And she knows it. It’s not enough, but she’ll have to live with that for the rest of her life.”

  facebook

  OCTOBER 23

  Amelia Baron

  “She felt very young, at the same time unspeakably aged.” Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

  Amelia

  OCTOBER 24

  “Bye, Mom!” I called as I raced through the kitchen toward the door.

  “Whoa!” she said, looking up from the New York Times, which was spread in front of her on the kitchen counter. She was dressed in a suit, with her hair pulled back tight. A big meeting, court—those were the only reasons she ever got that dressed up. “What’s the big rush?”

  “Nothing,” I said, breathing hard as I circled back to grab an apple. “Gotta meet Sylvia, that’s all.”

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze.

  “Wait, hold on, Amelia.” She looked suspicious. “I thought you wanted to talk about the semester in Paris. I set aside time. Let’s talk about it, now. While I’m here.”

  It took me a second to remember what she was even talking about. Then it came to me, Ben’s whacky leave-school-and-hide-out-in-Europe plan. I’d almost forgotten about it.

  “That’s okay,” I s
aid, heading for the door. “Never mind.”

  “Amelia, don’t be that way. We really can talk about it.” Now she looked worried. “I’m not excited about the idea of you being gone so long, but I am honestly willing to listen with an open mind. I was in a rush yesterday, but I heard how important this is to you. Please don’t shut me out.”

  The look on her face was intense, too, like she’d been up most the night thinking about it. I felt bad for her. My mom was always worried about the wrong things. And it wasn’t even her fault. I could have told her everything. I should have, probably, like Dr. Lipton had told me to. But it didn’t really matter anymore now. I had a good feeling. The whole thing was going to turn out okay.

  “It’s not important anymore, Mom. For real,” I said, looking her right in the eye. “I’m fine with not going. Better than fine—I want to stay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, Mom, totally. One hundred percent.”

  “Okay,” she said, hugging me tight. It still didn’t look as if she believed me. “As long as you’re sure.”

  I felt good on the walk up to the corner to meet Sylvia. My mom and I were finally back on the straight and narrow, and I’d even put the whole who’s-your-daddy thing to bed on my own. After I’d decided I didn’t want to read through any more of my mom’s journals, I’d decided just not to care who my dad really was. I hadn’t known him my whole life. What difference did it make if I knew him now? It helped that the texts about him had stopped coming. I’d even come clean with Sylvia about Dylan and the Magpies, and she’d forgiven me. No more secrets, no more feeling bad. It was all sunny and almost warm, too, like we were on the front edge of spring instead of the backside of fall. All of it felt like a sign. Like maybe everything was going to work out. Like my e-mail to Dylan might even change things back into the awesome way they’d been.

  Maybe I could have thought of the answers myself, or whatever, like Dr. Lipton had told me to. But it was way more accurate to go straight to the actual source. It wasn’t like I was trying to get Dylan back or anything. I mean, if it happened, that would be fine or great or whatever. But Dylan would have some serious explaining to do first.

  I hadn’t told Sylvia, or Ben, that part. I’d told them that I wouldn’t have gotten back together with Dylan no matter what. Because that was what they had wanted to hear. Sylvia had actually made me promise that wasn’t what I was after before she’d even help me write the e-mail. Sylvia said she wasn’t going to sit around and let me make an ass out of myself for some girl who definitely didn’t deserve me. Sylvia had kept saying that part—about Dylan not being good enough for me—as we worked on the e-mail. She said it a hundred times. Like it was some kind of spell. I knew she was trying to help, but it was kind of annoying. Really annoying, actually, especially coming from her. After all, she’d let, like, a million guys treat her like crap over the years.

  But it had been worth putting up with Sylvia riding me because the e-mail she wrote to Dylan was awesome. Sylvia really knew how to go right for the gut, without looking totally desperate. It wasn’t all nice either. Some of it was even a little harsh, which made me kind of wonder if Sylvia ever would have been that tough on any of the guys in her life. But she convinced me that honey and vinegar was the way to go. If you acted like you weren’t gong to let anyone disrespect you, they wanted you more. At least that was true with guys, Sylvia said. Maybe it was different with girls, but she didn’t think so.

  After Sylvia left, I did slip some softer stuff into the e-mail. About how Dylan had been the first person I’d ever been in love with, that she would be that person always. And right before I hit Send, I added a line, right at the bottom: I think I can forget everything bad that happened. All I want is to be together again.

  Sylvia wouldn’t have liked that part. Ben wouldn’t have either. They would have said that it made me look needy and desperate. Maybe I kind of was. Dylan had said before that she thought it was cute. And the truth was, I missed Dylan. And that e-mail was probably my last chance to turn things around. I couldn’t risk not saying absolutely everything I felt. I crossed my fingers as I hit Send.

  “Anything yet?” Sylvia asked when we met up at the corner.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, not as of when I left.”

  “Come on, check again,” Sylvia said. She sounded almost as wound up as me.

  I pulled out my iPhone as we turned up onto Prospect Park West, shuffling into the crazy-crowded school-traffic flow. I looked around before I checked my e-mail. I didn’t want Dylan to see me obsessing. Even I had more pride than that. But my in-box was empty, except for a new message from Ben.

  “Nothing.”

  I didn’t really think Dylan would write back at that hour, when everybody was on the way to school. But I wished she had. Sylvia and I walked on without saying anything else, me staring down at my phone, her staring down at her pointy ankle boots, until George McDonnell ran passed and smacked Sylvia hard on the ass.

  “Asshole!” she screamed after him, but she was smiling a little as she turned back to me. Things with Ian might not have been completely over, but she was already lining up new options. “Maybe she didn’t get it yet,” Sylvia offered, but it didn’t sound like she really believed that. “And if she doesn’t write back, then she’s a bitch, which, let’s face it, wouldn’t be a total shocker. She is best friends with Zadie, you know.”

  Sylvia’s eyebrows were raised hopefully. She was trying to make me feel better.

  “Sure,” I said, as we climbed the front steps. Because there didn’t seem to any point in telling her that it wasn’t working. “Totally.”

  As we moved with the crowd through the front doors of the school, I noticed Carter and George up ahead looking back at us. Then I saw some other kids from our class—Kylin, Matt S., Raoul—looking at us, too. And the more I looked around as we walked on, the more it seemed like everybody was looking at us. Or me. Really, it seemed like they were looking at me. They were doing that whisper and nod thing, too—like the Maggies had done. But the Maggies had done it so I’d know they were saying something mean about me; these people seemed like they couldn’t help themselves. And the more I looked around, the more of them there were—staring, whispering.

  “Why is everyone looking at me?” I asked Sylvia, backing up against the rotunda wall, near the creepy photograph of the stripper lady. It was a bad place to stand.

  “What do you mean?” Sylvia asked. I watched her look around. She saw what I did, but tried not to show it. “No one’s looking at you.”

  They totally were, though, and she knew it. I felt my throat tightening as I met eyes with one kid after another—giggling, smirking. Some of them I knew. Some of them I didn’t. The ones I knew were sort of trying to hide it, but I could still see the laughter in their eyes.

  “Grace girls!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Bringin’ out mad love.”

  A couple of people hooted. Someone shouted, “Yeeah, boyee!”

  “Put it up on YouTube, man!”

  “Shhh!” Mrs. Pearl hissed, appearing in the rotunda like a ghost. She was holding a long gray finger up in front of her long gray face. “Lower your voices! You are inside, and this is a school. Show some respect. And those phones need to be switched off and stowed, or they will permanently become my property!”

  “Pearly,” someone croaked, “stealing the phones.”

  A tide of shouts and giggles followed.

  Sylvia’s eyes were all big and round. There was no denying it. She was definitely seeing it, too. And so there we stood, pressed up against the wall as people ignored Mrs. Pearl’s squawking about their phones and instead kept on passing them around, dragging their fingers across the screens as they read. Every once in a while, they’d look up. Straight at me.

  Suddenly, Sylvia grabbed my arm.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said as she yanked me through the crowd, shoving at the people in front of us. “Get the fuck out of
my way, you stupid shits!”

  My feet felt heavy and all huge. I tripped over them as Sylvia dragged me down the hall toward the school’s main offices. Halfway there, she turned and banged into the medical clinic. The nurse, Ms. Appleman, startled up from her desk, where she was paging through a Macy’s sales flyer. She pressed a hand to her bony collarbone.

  “What’s the matter?” She looked terrified that she was about to face an actual medical emergency.

  “She feels dizzy, and she has her period,” Sylvia said. “She needs to sit in here for a few minutes.” Then she turned to me. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  As Sylvia disappeared out the door, Nurse Appleman leaned back even more, gripping the edge of her desk like she was afraid I might have Ebola.

  “Are you sure it’s just your menstruation?” she asked.

  The roar of the kids was dying down out in the hall as they made their way to first period. I knew what Sylvia had gone to do, to see for herself what they’d all been looking at on their phones. She’d put together the same thing that I had: a text blast had gone out. Something about me. The Maggies had finally done what they’d been threatening to do all along: send out to everyone a half-naked picture of me. The worst part was that I hadn’t even told Sylvia about the pictures; I was too embarrassed. And now, everybody would know.

  All of a sudden, I felt sick for real—woozy, hot. My palms were sweaty, and my face was tingly. I dropped myself down hard on the stiff leather sickbed, crinkling its paper covering.

  “Are you going to vomit?” Nurse Appleman squeaked. “Please try to make it into the lavatory if you’re going to vomit.”