Over Her Head (4 page)

When the alarm clock in her bedroom, where she was folding laundry, said ten to five, Laurie could stand it no longer. She
dropped Colin’s underwear back in the basket and grabbed her cell phone.

Where r u?

Love, mom

A minute later, her cell jingled.

Kates. Home soon.

Soon? “Soon” had once meant two minutes, but since Anna had hit fourteen, it sometimes meant two hours.

Dinner 5:15. Home now.

No reply. Laurie went downstairs to put more tomatoes in the marinara sauce, and by the time she got them stirred in, Anna
was pushing open the front door.

“Hi, sweetie.”

“Mom, can I ask you a favor?” Anna dropped her coat on the floor next to the hall tree instead of hanging it up like a civilized
person, went straight to the fridge, and pulled out a packet of string cheese.

“Sure. What?”

“Can you not ding me when I’m late like I’m a little kid? It’s totally embarrassing to get a call in front of your friends
and have it be your mom.”

Laurie bit back her first response and kept her tone calm. “I’ll be happy to, when you text me and let me know you’ll be late.
Until then, you get dinged.”

Anna rolled her eyes and headed out of the kitchen.

“What were you doing?” Laurie called after her. “Hanging with the kids?”

But Anna was already halfway up the stairs and pretended not to hear her.

Laurie sighed and stirred the sauce more out of habit than because it needed it. She’d read more books on parenting adolescents
than she could count. She was patient, supportive, and positive about self-image. She gave advice on the rare occasions when
Anna asked for it, and on a lot of occasions when she didn’t, but she always tried to couch it in noncritical terms.

Anna did not seem to appreciate this maternal care one bit. What happened to teenagers? Did they drink some evil potion that
turned them into careless, scatterbrained, inconsiderate half humans?

No, she took that back. Anna had beautiful moments, when her big blue eyes would fill with tears over the poverty suffered
by the kids in the Bolivian mission schools the church supported, or she’d go out of her way to help a friend struggling with
a school project. But she had her share of ugly moments, too, and sometimes it was all Laurie could do not to turn her over
her knee—if she could have. Anna was nearly as tall as she was. Thank goodness she’d taken after Colin, for which they could
both be grateful.

When Colin came home from work a few minutes later, she put the water for the spaghetti on to boil and followed him up to
their room.

He hung up his trousers and his tie, put his shirt in the hamper, and pulled on his jeans and a comfortable T-shirt. Then
he turned to her and held out his arms. “Hey.”

She leaned against his chest, grateful for his strength and the tight circle of his arms. “Hey.”

“You all right?”

“I am now. Bible study helped a lot.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“We need to talk to the kids about it, though. Once we’ve finished eating.”

He held her a little away from him so he could look into her eyes. “Is that necessary, Lor?”

She nodded. “It’s going to be all over the school tomorrow, and my name will be in the papers. Think how you’d feel if your
mom had been involved and she didn’t bother to tell you.”

“Their mom isn’t ‘involved.’”

“Colin, you know I am. I discovered the poor little thing.”

“But you make it sound as though you have some part to play in this. You don’t. Yes, you found the girl. But that’s as far
as it goes.”

She pulled away and bent to pick up the stack of his underwear where she’d dropped it earlier. “I know.”

“I’m just saying, keep to the facts.”

“Like I wouldn’t? What, do you think I’m going to lie? To make up things to make me sound more important than I am?”

She didn’t need to do that kind of thing. She never
tried
to hog the spotlight or take over in situations. It just seemed to happen, as though people wanted her to be out in front.

“Of course not, sweetheart.” He pulled her to him and she tried to relax against his chest once more. A fight was the last
thing she wanted. “Look, say what you need to say to prepare them. Then if it upsets them, I’ll step in.”

“Okay.”

So, even though she was dying to jump right in and ask the kids if they’d heard anything as soon as they’d said grace, she
held it in until everyone had finished eating.

“Hang on a minute, sweetie.” Laurie smiled at Anna as she slid sideways out of her chair. “I want to talk to you and Tim.”

“I didn’t do anything,” her youngest said immediately from across the table.

Thank you, Lord, for my baby’s innocence.
“What’s that, a preemptive strike?”

“I’m just saying,” he said, and she heard the echo of Colin’s voice.

“This has nothing to do with either of you. But something happened this morning that we need to talk about.”

Tim and Anna slid back into their chairs. Tim’s eyes lit up now that his innocence had been established. Anna was interested,
too, but in front of her little brother it was no doubt cooler to look as though she didn’t care.

As she’d promised Colin, Laurie stuck to bare facts as she outlined what had happened that morning. “So,” she concluded, “I
wanted you guys to know, in case it’s in the papers tomorrow and the other kids come to you asking questions. Now you know
as much as I do.”

“I bet I can find out who it was,” Tim said with the macabre interest of childhood.

“Right, Sherlock,” Laurie said. “You just let Nick and the other cops do their jobs. They have to notify next of kin first.”

“What’s that?”

“The girl’s family. Her kin,” Colin said.

Anna hadn’t moved during the whole recital. In fact, her face had gone white and she looked as though she was about to cry.

Laurie reached across the table for her hand. “Sweetie, are you okay? I know this is shocking. We’ll all pray for the family
tonight, even though we don’t know who they are yet. It’s probably not anybody you know.”

Her daughter turned a horrified, teary glare on her. “Like that’s supposed to make me feel better?” She pushed her chair back
and ran out of the dining room. Her sneakered feet pounded on the stairs, and a few seconds later a door slammed like a sonic
boom at the far end of the house.

Laurie traded glances with Colin. “Better let me talk to her,” he said. “In a little while.”

But when he slipped into their room later that night, it didn’t look as though talking had done much good. Laurie took off
her reading glasses and put them on top of the book she’d picked up to prevent herself from putting her ear to her daughter’s
door.

“Any luck?”

He shrugged and shook his head. “It’s clear she’s upset about it, but she won’t say a word. She’s such a softhearted kid.”

“Maybe I should try. My best friend died of a staph infection when we were kids.”

“That’s different. This could be foul play. Has anyone thought of that?”

“In Glendale?” Laurie shook her head. “It’s more likely the poor kid was struggling with depression and decided to end it
all. Or maybe she was goofing around and there was an accident.”

“Nobody is going to jump off the bridge, even on a dare, at this time of year.” Colin folded his jeans and T-shirt and sat
on the edge of the bed.

“She didn’t have to jump. She could have been bird-watching or daydreaming. She could have slipped on those wet boards and
hit her head. Anything is possible.”

Her husband gazed at the rug. “It’s pointless to speculate. Whatever we’re supposed to know will come out in the papers.”
He glanced up. “You going to pray?”

Together, they knelt. Laurie often thought that this time as a couple, alone at God’s feet, was the most beautiful few minutes
of her day. But tonight there was someone else in the room with them. Someone who didn’t even have a face. Yet. Again, she
prayed for the girl’s mother. Prayer usually calmed her, set her at peace for the night. But in the dark, Laurie lay and wondered
about the bereaved family. Who were they? What were they thinking right now? Had they even been notified yet?

And most important of all, were they part of a social fabric the way she was? Laurie tried to imagine getting through such
a horrible time without support. It would be like trying to cross a desert without water or shelter or transportation. The
simple fact was, her life was knit so tightly with those in her family, in Bible study group, in the leadership of Glendale
Bible Fellowship that she couldn’t even imagine living a different way. Her friendships had started in kindergarten—and her
kids’ friendships started that way, too. She was so used to joining her mom and aunts in organizing benefits and events for
church and school that she’d practically learned leadership by osmosis. And by the time she’d earned her degree at Murdo,
she’d begun to realize that Colin was more than the lanky kid who had played on the high-school basketball team and sang tenor
in the row behind her family’s at church. Marrying him and working to put him through his MBA before the babies came had just
seemed a natural extension of a life she’d established without really thinking much about it.

For the most part, she loved her life. Unfortunately, somewhere out there was a poor woman who would never be able to say
that again.

I
n the morning,
Laurie looked at Anna closely when she came downstairs. She touched her daughter’s forehead under the curve of her bangs.

“Did you sleep okay, honey?” Anna’s skin was cool, but her eyes were shadowed, as though she hadn’t slept at all.

Anna nodded, and Laurie frowned. Anna was a sound sleeper—so sound that if she didn’t have to get up to go to school, she’d
be out cold from ten at night until ten in the morning.

“You’ve got dark circles under your eyes.”

“Thanks, Mom, I needed that.” She refused to meet Laurie’s gaze.

“If something is bothering you, it might help to talk about it. Maybe tonight, after supper.”

“Nothing’s bothering me. Have you seen my backpack?”

“It’s by the door, where it always is, and your lunch money is in it. Do you have all your books?”

“I think so.”

“You’d better know so. Double-check. Sweetie, I lost someone when I was your age. Maybe it’s time I shared that with you.
We’ll talk about it tonight, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.” She pounded back up the stairs, returning with her math notebook and stuffing it into the backpack.

Laurie herded both kids out to the van, which was warming up in the driveway, and dropped the subject while she drove them
to school. But as she watched Anna join a group of girls and make her way across the lawn to the main doors, she nibbled her
lower lip.

Laurie needed to find a way to break through this new reluctance to talk so she could give her daughter some comfort. Maybe
it wasn’t the discovery of the girl’s body at all. Maybe something else was going on that she felt she needed to keep from
her mother, like a crush or a clique being mean to her. If Laurie shared her own loss with Anna, it might break down her reticence
and help them find some common ground.

Her decision made, Laurie drove up the hill to the university and tried to concentrate on work. On her break from collating
handouts on the significance of metaphor for one of the creative-writing profs, she cruised the staff room in search of the
morning paper. They didn’t get it at the house because both the English department and Susquanny Home Supply took it, and
there was no point in putting out a few dollars a month when you could read it at work for free.

The story had made the front page, with an enlargement of a school picture showing a teenage girl with a lot of eye makeup
and a heartbreaking sincerity in her smile. Laurie gathered up the paper and took it back to her cubicle to read in private.

A morning jog is part of local community leader Laurie Hale’s routine, but yesterday’s discovery was anything but routine.
Hale discovered the body of Lincoln High freshman Miranda Peizer, 14—

Peizer? As in Tanya Peizer?
Laurie caught her breath as her gaze raced down the column.

—in the Susquanny River about half a mile downstream from the bridge. According to the Glendale sheriff’s office, the young
woman’s body had sustained multiple contusions, but it is unclear yet whether they were the result of her trip downriver or
injuries sustained before she entered the water. When asked for comment, Deputy Sheriff Nicholas Tremore stated, “The family
has been notified. We’re investigating all avenues at this point and not ruling anything out.” If Miranda Peizer’s death turns
out to be the result of foul play, it will be the first homicide in Glendale since the murder of attorney Reginald Holzing
in 1996.

Laurie sat back, her breath bottling up in her chest.

Miranda Peizer.
Oh, no. Surely not.

She grabbed the phone and dialed Maggie. “Have you seen the paper this morning?” she asked as soon as her friend picked up
the phone. “The front page?”

“Who hasn’t seen it?”

“The girl, Maggie. Miranda Peizer. Is that—”

“Isn’t it just awful? Poor, poor Tanya. She had so much trouble with her. She told me once she caught Randi smoking pot when
she was only eleven.”

“Is anybody with her? Maggie, she’s in our study group. We have to do something.”

“I’ve called over there, but the answering machine keeps picking up.”

“I’ll take some sick time and get out of here early. I’ll pick you up at two and we’ll go over, okay?”

“See you then.”

Laurie could hardly concentrate as two hundred and forty interminable minutes dragged past. Fortunately, the day wasn’t all
that heavy—the most complicated thing she had to do was a couple of updates to the lit department’s Web page. At two o’clock
she practically ran out the door and kept her foot on the gas as she negotiated the winding quarter-mile drive and then the
back roads over to her neighborhood.