Fool Me Once

“Seeing if I really look that dumb.” Shane turned back to her. “Why were you asking me about that Coast Guard guy? What the hell does Andrew Burkett, who died in high school, have to do with any of this?”

She hesitated.

“Maya?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But there could be a connection.”

“Between what? Are you saying that Andrew’s death on the boat has something to do with Joe’s murder in Central Park?”

“I’m saying I don’t know yet.”

“So what’s your next step?” Shane asked.

“Today?”

“Yes.”

Tears almost came to her eyes, but she kept them in check. “Nothing, Shane. Okay? Nothing. It’s Sunday. I’m grateful you guys came over, but here’s what I want to happen: I want you guys to finish sweeping this place. Then I want you all to leave so on this gorgeous autumn Sunday I can take my daughter out for a classic, cliché-ridden mommy-daughter day.”

“For real?”

“Yes, Shane, for real.”

Shane smiled. “That’s so cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you two going to go?”

“To Chester.”

“Apple picking?”

Maya nodded.

“My parents used to take me there,” Shane said with a lilt in his voice.

“You want to come?”

“No,” he said in the gentlest voice she had ever heard. “And you’re right. It’s Sunday. We’ll speed this up and get out of here. You get Lily ready.”

They finished up, found no bugs, and with a kiss on the cheek, Shane was gone. Maya packed Lily into her car seat and started the day. Mother and daughter did it all. They took a hayride. They hit the petting zoo and fed the goats. They picked apples and ate ice cream and found a clown who dazzled Lily with balloon animals. All around them, hardworking people spent their valuable day off laughing and touching and complaining and arguing and smiling. Maya studied them. She tried to stay in the moment, tried to just disappear into the joy of an autumn day with her daughter, but again it all felt so elusive, distant, as though she were just observing and not really experiencing it for herself. Her comfort zone was protecting these moments, not participating in them. The hours passed, the day ended, and Maya wasn’t sure how she felt about any of it.

Sunday night was no better. She tried the new pills, but they did nothing to quiet her ghosts. If anything, the sounds seemed to feed off whatever she was taking, the volume amplified.

When she woke up with a sharp gasp, Maya quickly reached for the phone to call Wu. She stopped herself before hitting send. For a moment she even considered calling Mary McLeod, Judith’s colleague, but there was no way she would do that either.

Deal with it, Maya. It won’t be much longer now.

She got dressed, dropped off Lily at Growin’ Up, and called into work to say that she wouldn’t be able to make it.

“You can’t do this to me, Maya,” Karena Simpson, her boss and fellow former Army pilot, told her. “I’m running a business here. You can’t cancel out a lesson at the last minute.”

“Sorry.”

“Look, I know you’re going through some stuff-”

“Yeah, Karena, I am,” she said, interrupting her. “And I think I may have rushed coming back. I’m sorry to leave you high and dry like this, but maybe I just need more time.”

It was part lie, part truth. She hated looking weak, but this was also necessary. Maya knew now that she wouldn’t be coming back to that job. Not ever.

Two hours later, she entered Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and drove past the trimmed hedges and stone sign reading “Franklin Biddle Academy.” The sign was small and tasteful, and in the lushness of this fall afternoon, it could easily be missed. That was, of course, the point. As she pulled past the green quad and into the visitors’ lot, everything around her screamed pampered, patrician, privileged, powerful. All the Ps. Even the campus had a sense of entitlement about it. You could smell the crisp dollar bills more than the fallen leaves there.

Money buys seclusion. Money buys fences. Money buys various degrees of insulation. Some money buys the urban world. Some money buys suburban neighborhoods. Some money-big, big money-buys a place like this. We are all just trying to get deeper and deeper into a protective cocoon.

The main office was housed in a Main Line stone mansion called Windsor House. Maya had decided not to call ahead. She had looked up the headmaster online and figured that she would just surprise him. If he wasn’t in, so be it. She would find someone else to talk to about the subject. If he was in, she was sure that he would see her. He was a prep school headmaster, not a head of state. Plus, there was a Burkett Dormitory still on campus. Her last name was sure to open most closed doors.

The woman at the reception desk spoke in a hushed voice. “May I help you?”

“Maya Burkett here to see the headmaster. I’m sorry, I don’t have an appointment.”

“Please have a seat.”