Chapter Two
Brent
Two months earlier
Tires squealed as Brent pulled into the parking marked off for parents in front of the two-story, clean-white La Jolla Country Day School. He was late. After years of parking in the lower school lot, he’d naturally driven over there for the parent-teacher conference, instead of the middle school, where his daughter actually attended now.
He hopped out of his Porsche, straightened his tie, and secured his phone before jogging up the stairs. Cara would still be on campus for her after-school activities. He was pretty sure that she either had band or Homework Club today. Or lacrosse? Or was that the fall sport?
Walking briskly but with care not to appear rushed, Brent checked his phone once more to ensure that he was heading to the right classroom. The guard at the front door checked his ID with a nod and gave him directions. The hallways were so wide and clean that almost everything looked alike, although there were some posters here and there for a school musical.
When he arrived at Ms. Ramirez’s room, he could hear her still speaking with another parent. This irked him a little. His time was valuable. He slipped inside and took a seat to wait while looking around at the room. The desks were arranged in a circle facing the center of the room, and the windows were so enormous. The sun was setting, and the dying light streamed through them, casting long shadows. He scanned the room to see what the children had been up to. It had seemed strange to him that La Jolla sent the children on to middle school at fifth grade rather than sixth, but Cara was sharp enough that it hardly mattered. They’d been struggling to find additional age-appropriate materials for her to read in the lower school anyway.
Finally, the other parents seemed to be moving toward the door. Brent rose. A few more time-consuming pleasantries and he was sitting with Ms. Ramirez and being offered coffee.
“I’m glad you could finally make the time for a face-to-face meeting regarding your daughter, Mr. Sanderson.” There was no malice in her voice, but Brent felt annoyed by the “finally” anyway. She continued, setting a folder in front of him: “As you can see, Cara is an excellent student. She finishes her work far faster than the other students – I think so she can go back to her book or daydream. But there are no subjects she’s currently lagging in.”
“So she’s on track for her level?” Brent took a moment to look through the papers, where he saw his daughter’s neat but utilitarian handwriting. The girl had learned cursive but always refused to write with it.
“She’s definitely above level with most of her subjects. Math is a struggle, but she is keeping up with her class. The Homework Club seems to be helping her there.” Ramirez paused and looked Brent over. “And she’s keeping up, in spite of her focus on her athletic activities.”
“So she’s doing very well, it looks like.” He gestured to the folder. “Her grades are excellent. Why did you call me in today?”
Ramirez sighed. “Cara doesn’t socialize much. You know that La Jolla focuses on making students into the best, most well-rounded citizens that they can be… However, she’s not interested in talking with her peers during breaks or at lunch. Most days, she’ll find an empty table and sit to read. I’ve noticed her twice trying to approach a group of girls and walking away without having engaged.”
She hesitated.
“Have you noticed a change in her behavior at home? Is she more withdrawn than usual? Or has something happened that might cause her to turn inward?”
“Cara is the same as she’s always been. If the girls at your school won’t be friends with her, that seems like an issue with the girls and the school,” Brent said sternly.
Ramirez folded her hands in front of her. “Mr. Sanderson, I think Cara needs better socialization. She doesn’t know how to talk to people and gives up quickly when she tries. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have any friends. She’s lonely, Mr. Sanderson.”
“Is that so? Where is she, by the way? Shouldn’t she be here for the conference?”
Ramirez raised her brows. “I’m sorry, but I think the email did mention that we don’t have the children attend these meetings unless it is a case of redirecting behavior of the student. I wouldn’t consider this a behavioral problem, but it could be a developmental one if she continues to feel alienated and separated from her peers.”
She hesitated again.
“I think that she is spending too much time alone at home. She has her school activities, but those mostly provide a structured environment for physical activity or completing her schoolwork. Afterward, she goes home, where she has mentioned she has the penthouse to herself and sometimes doesn’t see you that evening at all. If you have an early meeting, she doesn’t see you in the morning.” Ramirez held a hand out. “Cara is remarkably adaptable, and you should be proud that she manages so well on her own, but she may need much more time with you than you’ve been able to offer, as a single working parent.”
Heat rose through Brent’s chest and neck. “You’re telling me that I need to spend more time with my daughter?”
“I’m suggesting that Cara simply needs more time with another person. A maid around cleaning, a butler, or additional tutors won’t cut it.”
Brent frowned. Ramirez must have asked Cara about her home life. She smiled, an expression too warm and practiced to be entirely free of judgment, and slid a few pamphlets over to him.
“I have some suggestions for after-school activities that require more one-on-one social interaction. Or if she’s too busy for that, having a nanny at home or to accompany her to activities when you’re not available might help her come out of her shell a bit.”
Brent tensed his jaw but took the pamphlets.
After pressing Ms. Ramirez further about Cara’s performance in math and extended tutoring, they parted with civil goodbyes, and Brent strode down the hallway in search of his daughter. After peering into a few windows, he spotted her in a classroom that had to be the Homework Club.
Of all the “clubs” Brent had ever heard of, he had imagined this one would be the least popular, but La Jolla was competitive, so sessions tended to be pretty full. He saw Cara sitting by herself, frowning determinedly down at her paper as two girls beside her chattered incessantly. The teacher came over to get in between the girls and redirect them to their work, but their obedience only lasted until he had gone to help someone else.
Cara didn’t look up. She sat there, erasing furiously, then writing again, just as intensely. She didn’t seem maladjusted to him. Just focused. Most parents with kids her age could only be so lucky to have a girl who would sit there quietly and do her work without a peep of complaint.
Still... Brent watched her with worry, her shining blonde hair tied perennially into pigtails on either side of her head, her shoes swinging back and forth in the chair as she worked. He would give her everything in the world. Anything that was humanly possible to give her. Regardless, the idea of introducing someone into her life who was only there because they were paid to spend time with Cara was repellent to Brent.
***
The problem irked Brent all week. He mulled it over, chewing over every possible consequence or benefit that might come from this new person’s contact with Cara. He’d even made the error of complaining about Ms. Ramirez’s judgments to his father at their standing Wednesday night dinner.
This, of course, only resulted in his father telling him, yet again, that he needed to get remarried to a proper woman and hand the job of Cara over to her, as though a wife were simply someone hired on to babysit the children while a man was at work. Annoyed, Brent reiterated that marrying a woman with an ulterior motive like that would be worse than not having a wife at all.
It did no good, of course. His father was impervious to logic or even scientific data. Especially scientific data. Brent had once tried to bring him articles attesting to the fact that children would fare worse under the care of parents who fought constantly or couldn’t demonstrate a healthy, loving relationship than they did under the care of a single parent. His father could always turn any argument around, dismiss any source, ignore any point made. He was slippery as hell and would never be caught admitting he was wrong.
Admitting fault was weakness to Donald K. Sanderson.
The man had never brooked weakness in Brent, certainly. Or anyone else around him. Brent had, at one point, tried to convince himself that this stemmed from his father’s time in the Navy, but percentage-wise, the man had spent more of his life in communications technology building a damn fortune to hold over Brent’s head.
Truthfully, Brent suspected that the old man just liked controlling people.
The following day, Brent found thoughts of nannies and unsubtle fatherly puppeteering driven out of his head by schedules and contracts and all of the other issues demanding his attention from his independent movie studio. They had several movies they were juggling at the moment, some of which they expected might do well at Sundance and Cannes.
Brent kicked back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk as he started skimming through the second pass on a script one of the agents had secured for them. It had merit, but the characters on the first run hadn’t been nearly clear enough in their motivations. He had just started making notations when his assistant, Mona, popped her head in and told him that the school had called.
He straightened up and motioned for her to hand him the phone. “This is Brent Sanderson. To whom am I speaking?”
“This is Principal Davenport. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to come pick up your daughter.”
“I’m sorry, what? What happened?”
“I can explain when you get here—”
“I’m at work, at a company that I run,” Brent said in a firm but smooth tone. “It isn’t optional for me to be here. We have projects that need to be done today, some that need to be sent out in less than an hour. I would consider it a professional favor if you could tell me directly why you’re sending my daughter home for the day.”
Davenport hesitated, but eventually said, “Cara had a bit of a problem with a couple of other girls in the bathroom in between classes.”
“I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Cara would start a fight. Are you bringing in the other girls’ parents?”
“We are looking into it, Mr. Sanderson, but it wasn’t really a fight.” Davenport paused. “Another girl apparently grabbed her pigtails and cut them off. We’re not sure who is responsible yet – since, of course, Cara couldn’t see them, and there were multiple grades out at that time. Still, she’s very upset, and I think it would be best for her to take the rest of the day off.”
Brent felt his heart pounding so forcefully that he thought it would jump out of his chest. “Let me get this straight: you called to tell me that you failed to prevent my daughter from being assaulted?”
“I wouldn’t go that far—”
“Trust that I know the law, Mr. Davenport. And trust that you and I are definitely going to schedule a meeting about how you and the teachers are handling the situation with my daughter,” Brent said sternly.
Had he not told Cara’s homeroom teacher just this week that the problem was the other girls?
***
Nothing became clearer when he’d reached the school. Cara was staring solemnly at her black buckle shoes with her hair hanging loose and unevenly shorn. It was jarring to see her without all that long hair streaming from either side of her head.
One look at her, and he’d swept into the principal’s office to read the man up and down in a voice booming enough to startle students out in the hallway. Cara said nothing as she waited for it all to finish, then followed him out to the car, her little body heaving the occasional sigh.
She didn’t cry. She barely looked up. In the car, she fixed her gaze on the passing scenery and refused to lift her head.
“I’m proud of you,” Brent said after a time. “You were very strong back there. It isn’t always easy to be different, and children can be cruel and foolish. We’ll get your hair taken care of before school tomorrow, and you can show them how little effect they have on you.”
Cara didn’t acknowledge what he’d said. She just sighed again.
Brent didn’t know what more he could do to help her immediately. Once they entered the office again, he instructed Mona to find a salon where she could take Cara that afternoon and order the girl some lunch.
“What do you want, darling?” he asked her.
“I’m not hungry.” Cara hopped on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, and pulled out a book.
Stumped, Brent decided to leave her alone for a while. Mona could take care of the problem with her hair, and Cara could keep herself occupied. She was very good at that.
The next time he looked up, an hour had passed, and there was a gorgeous young woman in his doorway. He was captivated by her large, dark eyes and the pout of her lips. His first thought was that an actress had slipped past Mona to beg for a quality role. She was pretty enough.
The girl approached him with a slim 8x11 envelope.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Sanderson, but I have a delivery from your CFO, Allen Billings. He said you needed to sign these papers right away, and I’ll just run them right back to him,” she said.
He found himself frozen for a moment. Her voice was thick and just a shade deeper than he’d expected from the doe-eyed young woman. Brent recovered after a moment and rose to take the envelope from her.
“I’ll take care of these right away,” he said.
“And if you need to make any changes, he said to just initial them. I’m not sure what they’re in reference to, but he indicated that you’d seen them before,” the girl added.
“I’m sure.” Brent opened the envelope and glanced at the papers. “And your name is?”
“Oh! It’s Jessica.” She put her hands behind her back and shifted her weight to one foot.
Brent gestured to the side of the room. “You can sit on the sofa while you wait.”
She looked over and rocked on her heels once, as though deciding what to do. Brent returned to his desk to look over the papers carefully.
“Hey, shouldn’t you be in school?” Jessica’s voice teased.
“I had to leave,” Cara said quietly.
“Oh? Are you not feeling well?”
“I feel fine. Some sixth-grade girls cut my hair,” Cara said with an edge to her voice that added, silently, “Obviously. Can’t you see?”
“Ugh. Middle school is the worst. Something in kids’ hormones from sixth-eighth grade makes them all insane. It starts to get better after that. When I was in middle school, these girls spread so many rumors about me that I just hid in the bathroom during lunch.”
“If you do that at my school, you’ll get in trouble.”
“I would have, too, but I just got so tired of dealing with them.”
Brent looked up and saw Jessica reaching out to touch Cara’s hair.
“It’s not so bad though. I mean once you get it evened out. This is a pretty good length for you. I bet now that it’s short, you’ll get just a little bit of curl. You could even have the hairdresser give you a swing bob. You’d look like a flapper.” Jessica smiled. “Do you know what that is?”
Cara arched a brow. “Of course I do.”
“Sorry. I don’t know what references fly anymore, now that kids have Netflix. I heard my friend’s little brother make a Friends joke the other day. So old!”
Cara smiled a little. “Kids in my grade are always repeating memes. That’s all they ever say. Over and over. And the boys all do this thing where, if you trick someone into looking at you doing this—” She made a circle with her index and thumb and let the remaining finger curve just slightly. “—they get to slug you.”
“Oh my God. Why so violent?”
“It’s so dumb. Two kids got suspended a few weeks ago ‘cause Troy hit Gabe too hard, and he fell and cut himself on the edge of something. So now you’re not supposed to do it. But they still do.”
Jessica shook her head. “I’m sorry to say, it’s gonna take a while for the boys to start acting like humans again. Some of ‘em never really make it back.”
“They dab for life,” Cara lamented solemnly.
“They dab for life, definitely.” Jessica looked up and crossed herself.
Cara giggled.
This Jessica had gotten Cara to laugh. Brent realized that he hadn’t heard Cara laugh in quite a while. And as Brent finished reading through the paperwork, Cara laughed twice more and started talking about her lacrosse season.
Brent could only stare. For the first time in ages, Cara sounded like a normal ten-year-old girl. It was unsettling to realize that Ms. Ramirez may have been partially correct; he didn’t entirely know what was going on with Cara.
“Tell me, Jessica.” Brent strolled over to the sofa as he tucked the papers back into the envelope. “How much is Billings paying you?”
“What?” Jessica tilted her head to the side.
“I’ll double it. No more running around town, fooling around with silly errands.” Brent toyed with the envelope, running his finger along the side. “What do you say?”
Jessica shifted on the sofa and looked up at him curiously. “I dunno. It’s a little sudden. I think Mr. Billings might wonder about you poaching his errand girl.”
“Allen and I have known another for a long time. He can forgive me this one trespass.” Brent flashed her a smile. “I need someone to stay with Cara when I’m not available. She’s my world, and you two seem to get along.”
Cara tucked her feet under her. “So, Jess would just hang out with me?”
“For the most part. Today, she could help you with your hair. Tomorrow, she could come to your lacrosse practice and spend the evening with you when you get home.” Brent shrugged. “Then, hopefully, on weekends and days when school is out, she would make sure you don’t have to be alone.”
Cara looked down and played with the end of one of her socks. “It sounds like you’re hiring her to be my friend.”
“The proper word is ‘nanny’,” Brent said. “What do you think, Jessica?”
Cara glanced up at her hopefully, and Brent found himself tensing with anticipation himself.