Laura Lippman - I'd Know You Anywhere

“Is he dead?” Even as she asked, she wasn’t sure how she would feel if Terry said yes, Walter Bowman had died, found a way to commit suicide, keeled over from a heart attack. But he was only in his forties. His cholesterol was probably below 180.

“Our friend at the prison called me. Bowman’s found Elizabeth Lerner, although that’s not the name she’s using now. She’s been added to his approved contact list. At his request, but she agreed.”

“Is she going to attend the execution?” Even as she asked it, she realized the question was nonsensical, a non sequitur, but she couldn’t think what else to say.

“Our friend at Sussex doesn’t know.” They had befriended a secretary over the years, earned her confidences by proving themselves discreet. And by giving her gift cards several times a year. “It’s her understanding that Bowman wants to talk to Elizabeth, and she agreed. That’s all. For now.”

“For now.”

“But you know Bowman. He’s always looking for a way to get a stay. He’s always got an angle.”

Trudy wanted to say: So does she.

Instead, she announced: “I have to take some things to the cedar closet.” She walked down the basement steps empty-handed, indifferent to whether Terry heard the snap of the match flint on the box, or smelled the heavenly tobacco that rose up and filled her lungs. She wrapped her arms around her middle, and she could swear they ached, from wrist to elbow. So close to the destination and she was still tugging, still trying to keep this plane aloft all on her own. Prove that she wasn’t.

THE PRINCIPAL IS YOUR PAL.The old mnemonic device sounded in Eliza’s head as she walked down the halls of North Bethesda Middle, her footsteps echoing in the classes-in-session hush. She had always struggled with homonyms, and the dominance of spell-check had not been a boon to her. She had Peter run his eyes over the rare things she wrote, and he almost always found one hear for here, or a too for two . There were also certain names she found it hard not to flip. Thomas and Thompson, Murray and Murphy, Eileen and Elaine. The principal is your pal . Maybe once, but not these days, where principals were like federal judges, saddled with mandates that allowed them little discretion.

The principal here was Roxanne Stoddard, a stylish, professional type who would not have been out of place in a K Street lobbying firm. And she had an almost rock star aura in the community. When people heard that Iso was in North Bethesda, almost everyone said, “Oh, Roxanne Stoddard. That’s wonderful.” Or even: “I saw Roxanne Stoddard at Louisiana Kitchen at eight-thirty one night and she was clearly going over work even as she ate crawfish étouffée.”

Today, she wore a pea green suit and plum suede heels, making Eliza feel at once short and dowdy. But she was also warm, carrying her authority lightly.

“Iso,” she said to the angelic figure who was masquerading as Eliza’s daughter, “I’d like to speak to your mother in private. Is that okay?” It was clear Iso had no say in this.

“Of course, Mrs. Stoddard.” Iso caught Eliza’s eye as she left the office, her face all innocence, as if to say: I have no idea what this is about. Must be some terrible misunderstanding.

“How is your family settling in?” Another round of polite preamble, only much more appropriate than Walter’s. “It must be a big change.”

“More a large assortment of small changes, if that makes sense. But, yes, I think we’re settled now. Children adjust so quickly.”

Please tell me that Iso is well adjusted. Please let this be an announcement of some prize she has won, or an amazing result on a standardized test.

“Iso is doing well here. She is popular with her classmates and, to my chagrin, a little advanced in some classes, although she has a lot of territory to cover in American history. But her math and English—it makes me wonder at the difference in educational standards. And, of course, she’s an amazing athlete.”

Eliza beamed, even as she anticipated the huge “but” that she knew was about to drop on her head, like a cartoon anvil.

“I do wonder, back in England—was there much emphasis on bullying?”

For a bewildered moment, Eliza thought the principal was asking if the UK encouraged bullying.

“Oh! I think there were the same general concerns. Mean girls and the like.”

“And the problem of subtle bullying?”

“Subtle…bullying? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

Roxanne Stoddard frowned, and Eliza glimpsed her power, how awful it must feel to be one of her students or teachers and inspire her disapproval. “Not at all. It’s an important distinction. Bullying is hard enough for teachers and administrators to detect, and students are loath to report it. But at least we can see the physical transgressions. Subtle bullying is all about exclusion, making other students feel not welcome.”

“Has Iso—?”

“It’s unclear at this point. For now, we’re willing to chalk it up to cultural differences between her old school and North Bethesda Middle.” She had a way of pronouncing the school’s name as if it should be written in gold and heralded by angels with little trumpets. North. Bethesda. Middle! It was the only pretentious note in her otherwise down-to-earth demeanor.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I have some materials for you, the same ones our faculty use.” The principal passed Eliza a thick manila envelope. “As I said, we’re not certain what happened. The girl involved—she swears it’s a misunderstanding. But one of the conundrums of this type of bullying is that the victim mistakes it for hazing. The child—and they are children here, no matter how worldly they think they are—believes if she endures it with good grace, she’ll be invited into the inner circle.”

“The girl—does she have some sort of disability?” Eliza was trying to remember Iso’s story, about the girl in her class who was to receive an iTunes gift certificate for her birthday.

“What?”

“Never mind. Just thinking about a classmate that Iso described to me.”

“This girl is not disabled. She’s not as bright and athletically gifted as Iso, but that’s the point. Not everyone is going to be. The strange thing is that Iso, at heart, seems unsure of her own place within the circle of popular girls, seems more threatened, possibly because she’s a newcomer. I think that’s why she might have told the girl she wasn’t allowed to sit with them.”

“That’s…all? She told a classmate that she couldn’t sit with them?”

“That’s more than enough,” Roxanne Stoddard said with stern disappointment, as if Eliza had asked: “That’s all? Just one joint in her locker? That’s all? An oral sex party with the boys’ wrestling team?”

“Obviously, I haven’t read the material yet.” Eliza gave the envelope a friendly pat, as if it were a novel she couldn’t wait to be alone with. “But, surely, cafeteria cliques are as old as time, and not something likely to change.”

“Mrs. Benedict, we have a zero-tolerance policy on bullying. Because there is some ambiguity here, we”—a royal we? a committee? a tribunal?—“have decided not to invoke the minimum punishment. If Iso had been determined to be in violation, she would have been given after-school detention and prohibited from school activities for a month. That’s the minimum penalty. The maximum is suspension.”

Eliza was torn. She understood that the policy was humane. She knew firsthand that her daughter was capable of an imperious indifference toward others. She was appalled that Iso was one of those popular girls who derived power by excluding others. But, still—was this grounds for suspension? Children needed a little grit in their lives, environments that fell somewhere between velvet-lined egg crates and Lord of the Flies .