The Finishing School

She splashes water on her face and goes off in search of him. It’s lunch and he usually hangs around the school grounds socializing and smoking before walking home. She looks for him in the garden, but he isn’t there. She asks around. Someone saw him heading around back, so that’s where she goes.

She follows the dirt path behind Huber House and stops immediately when she spots them standing together by the tennis courts. Her first reaction is paralyzing jealousy. Cressida’s back is to Kersti, but when Kersti recognizes her wild hair, she’s hit with such intense despair it knocks the wind out of her. She watches them for a long time, feeling betrayed, and more inadequate than ever. She contemplates fleeing, hiding in her room and never speaking to either of them again, but then it occurs to her, what if Magnus is asking Cressida for advice? Who else would he turn to if not Kersti’s best friend?

Feeling slightly buoyed, Kersti continues along the path that winds around the statue of Helvetia and decides to play it cool. Hey guys. What’s up? But as she approaches, she notices they’re standing very close together and that Magnus’s fingers are hooked inside the front pocket of Cressida’s jeans. There’s a perceptible intimacy between them that makes Kersti feel instantly sick. Where did this relationship come from? “Hey, guys,” she says, and it comes out sounding like an accusation.

They both spin around and Magnus guiltily steps away from Cressida, pulling his fingers out of her pockets. Before Kersti can think of anything clever to say, she starts to cry.

“Kerst—”

She instantly regrets confronting them. Now she feels like an idiot, a loser. He used her. They’re probably laughing at her behind her back. Before she can humiliate herself further, she runs off toward Huber House.

Cressida runs after her. “Kerst!” she cries out. “Wait!”

Kersti swings open the front door and goes inside, with Cressida right behind her. “Stop being a baby,” Cressida says. “Just talk to me.”

“Fuck you! You know how much I like him! You know he was my first!”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Excuse me?”

They’re alone in the narrow corridor outside the TV lounge. Everyone else is in the dining hall for lunch.

“Magnus and I have been here a lot longer than you,” Cressida says, as though that explains something.

“And?”

“We have a history.”

“You’re only telling me this now?” Kersti fires. “I’ve been confiding to you how much I like him for over a year and all you’ve ever said is he’s not your type. Now all of a sudden he shows some interest in me and you want him?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?” Kersti says. “You have to win. You have to get everything you want. You can’t let anyone else have anything—”

“It’s complicated.”

“You’re a bitch,” Kersti tells her. “You are a real bitch.”

“He was my first, too!” Cressida blurts.

Kersti steps back. It takes her a few seconds to recover before she’s able to speak again. “You said it was that actor—”

“It was Magnus,” Cressida states. “We were thirteen. It was the year before you came to the Lycée.”

“Thirteen?”

“I got pregnant,” she explains. “Hamidou took me to Zurich for the abortion.”

“Hamidou took you?” Kersti cries, incredulous.

“I couldn’t have anything to do with Magnus after that,” Cressida says. “But I never stopped . . . I’ve always had feelings for him. We’ve liked each other since fifth grade.”

“Does Magnus know you were pregnant?” Kersti asks, forgetting her own stake in their triangle.

“Yes, but we were kids. Literally. Like, little kids.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry—”

“So because he liked me and he slept with me, now you’ve decided you want him back?”

Cressida looks down at her feet. “Maybe,” she murmurs. “Do you know how hard it’s been for me to listen to you go on and on about him? And when he asked you out and then you guys . . .” As she wipes away tears, Kersti has to wonder if she’s acting. It’s in her blood, after all.

“Does he still like you?” Kersti asks her.

Cressida gives her a look, as though to say, “What do you think?” but doesn’t respond.

“Because he sure seemed to like me on Saturday,” Kersti says.

“I’m sorry you’re hurt, but don’t you get it? He used you to get to me.”

“I find it hard to believe that he made everything up,” Kersti says, remembering his tenderness when he thought he was hurting her, the things he said to her. You’re so real. So down-to-earth and authentic. You sweet little virgin.

How could he not have meant those words? He sounded so sincere. “He can decide for himself,” Kersti says. “You don’t have any more right to him than I do. Let’s see who he wants to be with.”





Chapter 13





TORONTO—October 2015



The Estonian House is on Broadview, near Chester Hill Road. It used to be a school, an ugly, brown brick building that the Estonian community took over in 1960. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s serviceable and satisfies just about every need of the community, including its own credit union, the Estonian Family Services office, the Estonian consulate, the Estonian language school, Girl Scouts, and the Estonian travel agency owned by Kersti’s father. Kersti practically grew up here and knows it as well as her own home: the front and back stairwells, the musty basement, the dingy offices and pale green classrooms, the cafeteria and banquet halls. Between the Estonian classes every weekend, Girl Scouts, the art center, and all the holiday parties over the course of her life, she’s probably spent more time in this building than anywhere else.

Kersti climbs the stairs to the third floor and pokes her head inside her family’s travel agency—really just a small office—which moved into the Estonian House in 1998, two years after Expedia came on the scene and turned the travel-booking industry on its ass. The rent is much cheaper here than its former location on Broadview, and her father has a loyal clientele of elderly Estonians who don’t book online and keep him in business.

Jutta and Tuule both look up from their computers. “Tere,” they say, at the same time. They both have the same haircuts—short bobs—and wide round faces, which make them both look about a decade younger than their forty-something years.

“Hi,” Kersti says, opting for English.

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