“Elizabeth Manwill.” A faint murmur from the other end of the line. “You just caught me. I was about to step out for lunch.” More murmuring. To Mrs. Richardson’s ears, it sounded vaguely apologetic. “Eric, I don’t need excuses—I just need this done. No, I’ve been waiting for this over a week; I don’t want it to wait another minute. Look, I’ll be right down.” Elizabeth hung up and turned to Mrs. Richardson. “I have to run downstairs—there’s a report I’ve been expecting and I’ve had to nudge it along every step of the way. One of the delightful parts of being the director.” She stood up. “I’ll just be a few minutes. And when I get back, we’ll go for lunch. I’m starving—and I’ve got a meeting at one thirty.”
When she had gone, Mrs. Richardson sat stunned. Had that really been Betsy Manwill talking to her like that? Implying that she was unethical! And that last little dig about being the director—as if Betsy were reminding her how important she was, as if to say I’m more important than you now. When she’d helped Betsy get this very job. Mrs. Richardson pressed her lips together. The door to the office had been pushed to; no one outside could see in. Quickly she came around the desk to Elizabeth’s chair and nudged the mouse across its pad, and the black screen of Elizabeth’s monitor flickered to life: a spreadsheet showing the year-to-date expenses. Mrs. Richardson paused. Surely the clinic had some kind of database of patient records. With a click she shrank the spreadsheet and like magic there it was: a window listing the patients in just the period she’d wanted. So Betsy had changed her mind at the last minute, she thought with a flash of smugness. What had she always said? Wishy-washy.
Mrs. Richardson leaned over the desktop and scrolled quickly through the list. There was no Bebe Chow. But a name at the bottom of the list, in early March, caught Mrs. Richardson’s attention. Pearl Warren.
Six minutes later, Elizabeth Manwill returned to find Mrs. Richardson back in her own seat, composed and unruffled except for one hand clenched on the arm of the chair. She had reopened the budget spreadsheet and put the monitor back to sleep, and when Elizabeth sat down again at her desk that afternoon, she would notice nothing amiss. She would close the list with relief, proud of herself for standing up to Elena Richardson at last.
“Ready for lunch, Elena?”
Over saag paneer and chicken tikka masala, Mrs. Richardson put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “We’ve been friends a long time, Betsy. I’d hate to think something like this would come between us. I hope it goes without saying that I understand completely, and I’d never hold this against you.”
“Of course not,” Elizabeth said, stabbing a piece of chicken with her fork. Since they’d left her office, Elena had been stiff and a bit cool. Elena Richardson had always been like this, she thought, charming and generous and always saying kind things, and then when she wanted something she was sure you couldn’t say no. Well, she had done the impossible: she had said no. “Is Lexie still doing theatre?” she asked, and for the rest of the meal they made superficial chitchat about the common denominators of their life: children, traffic, the weather. This would, in fact, be the last lunch the two women ever had together, though they would remain cordial to each other for the rest of their lives.
So innocent little Pearl was not so innocent after all, Mrs. Richardson thought on her way back to the office. There was no doubt in her mind who the father was, of course. She had long suspected Pearl and Moody’s relationship was more than friendly—a boy and a girl didn’t spend so much time together at their age without something happening—and she was appalled. How could they have been so careless? She knew how much emphasis Shaker placed on sex ed; she had sat on the school board committee two years before, when a parent complained that her daughter had been asked to put a condom on a banana during health class, for practice. Teens are going to have sex, Mrs. Richardson had said then; it’s the age, it’s the hormones, we can’t prevent it; the best thing we can do is teach them to be safe about it. Now, however, that view seemed wildly naive. How could they have been so irresponsible? she wondered. More pressing: How had they managed to keep this from her? How could it have happened right under her very nose?
For a moment she considered going to the school, pulling the two of them out of class, demanding how they could have been so stupid. Better not to make a scene, she decided. Everyone would know. Girls in Shaker, she was sure, had abortions now and then—they were teenagers after all—but of course it was all kept very quiet. No one wanted to broadcast their failures in responsibility. Everyone would talk, and she knew how rumors would fly. That was the kind of thing, she knew, that stuck to a girl. It would tar you for life. She would speak to Moody that evening, as soon as she got home.
Back at her office, she had just taken off her coat when the phone rang.
“Bill,” she said. “What’s going on?”
Mr. Richardson’s voice was muffled, and there was a lot of commotion in the background. “Judge Rheinbeck just delivered his decision. He called us in an hour ago. We didn’t expect it at all.” He cleared his throat. “She’s staying with Mark and Linda. We won.”
Mrs. Richardson sank into her chair. Linda must be so happy, she thought. At the same time, a thin snake of disappointment wriggled its way through her chest. She had been looking forward to ferreting out Bebe’s past, to delivering the secret weapon that would end things for good. But she hadn’t been needed after all. “That’s wonderful.”
“They’re beside themselves with joy. Bebe Chow took it hard, though. Burst out screaming. The bailiff had to escort her outside.” He paused. “Poor woman. I can’t help but feel bad for her.”
“She gave up the baby in the first place,” Mrs. Richardson said. It was exactly what she’d been saying for the past six months, but this time it sounded less convincing. She cleared her throat. “Where are Mark and Linda?”
“They’re getting ready for a press conference. The news teams got wind of it and have been showing up left and right, so we said they’d make a statement at three. So I’d better go.” Mr. Richardson let out a deep sigh. “But it’s done. She’s theirs now. They just have to hold out until the story dies down and they can all go back to living their lives.”
“That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Richardson said again. The news about Pearl and Moody settled on her shoulders like a heavy bag, and she wanted badly to blurt it out to her husband, to share some of its weight, but she pushed it away. This was not the moment, she told herself. Firmly she put Moody out of her mind. This was a moment to celebrate with Linda.
“I’ll come down to the courthouse,” she said. “Three o’clock, you said?”