“So what’s your plan?” Kersti asks her.
“I guess on Monday morning I’ll go see Bueche,” she says. “I’ll tell him everything that happened. Maybe you could let Deirdre know and ask her if she’d like to join me? Power in numbers.”
“Of course,” Kersti says. “I want to tell her first, though. I was just about to go and find her.”
“If Deirdre presses criminal charges for sexual abuse, that’s fine. But I don’t want any part of a civil suit. I’ll help, but I’m not interested in suing or getting any money out of this.”
“What do you want then?”
“I want Hamidou fired,” Alison responds. “I want the students to be safe. I want everyone at the school to know what she’s done and what she is. I want her to be publicly shamed and disgraced and I want to be the one to do it. I don’t want any more regrets.”
“Regrets,” Kersi murmurs. “You know, when Cressida and I were friends I thought she had the most charmed life. I would look at her and think how lucky she was to be so beautiful and revered and completely exempt from the rules the rest of us had to follow.”
“You didn’t know what was going on.”
“I was so jealous of her,” Kersti confesses. “There was never a moment when I wasn’t jealous. I don’t think I even realized it at the time. I was constantly comparing myself to her; always bitter about how easily everything came to her. I thought she was the one who made me feel worthless and inadequate.”
Kersti lets out a sad laugh. “But then I also blamed my family for making me feel worthless and inadequate. And then I blamed not being able to get pregnant. Notice a theme here?”
“You’ve always felt inadequate?”
“Turns out I didn’t need Cressida for that,” Kersti acknowledges out loud, probably for the first time. “But I always held her accountable anyway.”
“You seem more than adequate to me.”
“Thanks,” Kersti says. “But I’m still always focusing on what’s wrong with me. What I didn’t do, what I didn’t say. What I can’t be. Cress was always trying to get me to see what I had to offer. I’m the one who took her beauty and her magic and twisted them into something threatening and diminishing. Not the other way around.”
“You were a teenager.”
“I’m not anymore. And I’ve been doing this my whole life.”
“You’re doing it now,” Alison says. “You’re still talking about what’s wrong with you. There’s a lot right about you, too.”
Kersti nods, trying to absorb that. “I don’t want regrets anymore, either,” she says.
They sit there for a while, the sun still blazing above them, the spicy scent of dianthus hanging thick in the air. It isn’t until Kersti’s phone rings that she remembers she’s expecting the call.
“This is Afzal from the Chateau D’Ouchy.”
“Yes, thank you for calling,” Kersti says. “Someone left a package for me last night?”
“Yes, she didn’t leave her name.”
“She?”
“Yes. A woman.”
Kersti’s heart is pounding. Her whole body feels like it’s vibrating, or maybe it’s the babies. “This may sound bizarre,” she says, “but can you describe her?”
Poor Afzal is silent on the other end. He probably speaks to dozens if not hundreds of people a day behind that front desk. “It’s hard to remember,” he finally says. “She didn’t say much.”
“Was she American?”
“Oh no. She spoke French. Swiss French.”
“Was she old? Did she have short hair?”
“She was older, maybe forty?” he says. “I didn’t see her hair. She wore a hat.”
“A baseball cap?”
Alison is looking at her strangely.
“Yes,” Afzal says. “It might have been blue. Or brown?”
“Anything else?” Kersti asks, desperate.
“I’m sorry, Madame. She handed it to me and left immediately.”
Kersti thanks him and hangs up, discouraged. She’s not one step closer to figuring out who gave her the Polaroids. Alison is watching her, but doesn’t ask any questions.
“I have to find Deirdre before she leaves,” Kersti says.
The chairs have been removed and the crowd is thinning on the back lawn. Kersti scans the grounds looking for Deirdre. She sees Bueche, talking with some alumni, his smile forced and his charm cranked up at full volume. He must be sweating on the inside, Kersti thinks. Praying that whatever happens with Hamidou happens after today’s celebration, behind closed doors.
Someone offers Kersti a glass of champagne, which she waves away, annoyed. She could use a glass of water and some food, though, so she sets off in the direction of the buffet—an enticing spread of all her favorite Swiss pastries. She stops when her eyes land on Deirdre and Mme. Hamidou, huddled together in deep conversation, with little Sloane by their side.
Kersti forgot Sloane was going to be here. Beautiful, precocious Sloane, the spitting image of Cressida with her mane of curls, loose and wild, and her exquisite features. She’s got a pastry in the palm of each hand and a wide grin on her face. Hamidou playfully tugs on a coil of her hair and she giggles.
Kersti takes a couple of steps back, a wave of revulsion rising up inside her. Part of her wants to flee; another part wants to ambush Hamidou and snatch Sloane away. She realizes she can’t speak to Deirdre now, not with Sloane here.
“Kersti?”
She spins around. Noa and Raf are standing there, looking sunburnt and wilted. “You okay?” Noa asks her.
Kersti looks back at Hamidou and Sloane, standing side by side. Hamidou’s fingers are still twirling the little girl’s hair. “I have to get out of here,” Kersti says, and she rushes away from the Lycée garden as fast as her chafing pregnant legs will take her.
Chapter 34
LAUSANNE—June 1998
Kersti wakes up with the sun shining directly in her eyes. There are noises outside her door, which is probably what woke her. Banging, yelling. She sits up and waits. She hears someone say her name. Where’s Kersti? Is she in her room?
And then she hears wailing in the background. She jumps out of bed just as someone throws open the door. It’s Mme. Hamidou. Her face is as white as the bedsheets, her eyes swollen and ringed with red. She comes to Kersti and takes both Kersti’s hands in hers. Her body is trembling violently. Kersti can feel it just holding her hands. Hamidou can hardly look her in the eyes.
“What is it?” Kersti whispers, expecting to be told her parents are dead.
“It’s Cressida,” she says softly.
“What?”
“Something’s happened—”
“What?” Kersti starts shaking. Her heart is in her throat, pulsating.
“She fell.”
“Fell?” Kersti is confused. “Where?”
“From her balcony.”
“Is she alive?” Kersti cries, trying to understand if it’s a matter of broken legs or a broken back or—
“Yes, but it doesn’t look good,” Hamidou says, her voice quivering. “She . . . if she lives, I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same.”