Page 36 of The Narrow

“I’m a senior,” I say haltingly. “I’ve been attending Atwood since sixth grade.”

“Ah, a lifer,” she says. She sounds enthralled. “Do you like it here?”

“Atwood? Yes, of course,” I say.

“It’s a hard thing, being away from your family for most of the year.”

“It’s definitely hard,” I lie. “But you get used to it. And it’s such a good school academically; plus, most of the private schools near us were religious, so they wouldn’t have worked for us.”

There’s no question of why I didn’t go to public school. For most Atwood families, it would be unthinkable.

“What do your parents do?” she asks me.

“My mother works for Denham and Brook, and my father works for Haley Imports, but I couldn’t tell you what they actuallydo. It’s all spreadsheets and mergers and meetings as far as I’m concerned,” I say with a false little laugh that’s reliable for charming people with.

“And they’re still working?”

There it is. I look at her earlobe so I don’t have to look her in the eye as I think. There’s no plausible lie I can come up with. Only the embarrassing, miserable truth. “You want to know why I need the tuition, right?”

“I don’t mean to pry, but there are students whose families are not nearly as well off who might benefit from the scholarship,” she says. “I want to make sure you actually need it.”

Meaning: She wants to make sure that I’m actually stuck here. That I have enough motivation not to just cut and run at the first sign of trouble—or the first sight of a dead girl at the foot of my bed.

“My parents are absolutely terrible with money,” I say. “They find ways to spend everything they make and then go into debt to buy more. They make enough that it isn’t usually a problem, but I guess something came up, and this time there wasn’t enough left over for tuition. So they just didn’t pay. I don’t know, I guess they thought it would work itself out somehow if they ignored it. They have a lot going on.” I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice, try to keep it light, almost like it’s funny. But I have to look away.

“I imagine that if they sit down to find the money, they could,” Madelyn Fournier says. There’s no judgment in her voice.

“But I would have to ask,” I say.

“There’s quite a bit you would do to avoid having to ask your parents for help, isn’t there?” she says quietly.

“It would all be my fault somehow,” I say. “I know I’m wildly privileged, and it’s not like we’re actually broke, it’s just bad decision-making. But...” I sound whiny, pathetic. But she reaches out and puts a hand on my wrist.

“You don’t need to worry that I’m going to kick you out because your parents make too much,” she says. She straightens up. “The money was going to go to Aubrey this year. No one is going to be deprived because you’re here. So put that out of your mind. And it’s no trouble for me at all, of course.”

There’s rich and then there’s rich, and she’s the sort of rich for whom more than a combined hundred grand a year in tuition is hardly noticeable.

Besides, she wants me to be grateful. I see it the moment before she says it. The tightening of her shoulders and the not-quite-casual way she lifts her mug to her lips, watching me over the rim. “Eden, there’s something a little bit awkward I’ve got to ask you,” she says.

“What is it?” Eyes wide, guileless, meeting hers without faltering. As if I don’t already know.

“I’m away quite often, as I’m sure you know. And when I’m here, there are parts of my daughter’s life I’m not privy to. I would like you to keep an eye on her for me and let me know how she’s doing. I’m not asking you to spy on her”—she says this quickly, obviously not believing it herself—“just to keep me updated andanswer a few questions. Delphine doesn’t like what a mother hen I am, so it would need to be just between the two of us. Oh, and I should mention—I always supplied Aubrey with a bit of a stipend. You’re welcome to the same.”

I could tell her I don’t need the money, but she’ll feel more secure in my loyalty if I take it, so I say, “That would be amazing. I don’t exactly want to have to call home for an allowance.”

“Wonderful,” she says. “Well! I’m sure you have plenty to do other than talk to an old lady like me. Don’t let me keep you from your weekend plans.”

I’ve been dismissed. I thank her for the coffee—she insists that I take it with me—and I flee back across the hall, feeling like I’ve just passed a pop quiz. And maybe I have. She likes me. For now. She thinks she has leverage. And as this summer has driven home, with the right leverage, you can get someone to do just about anything for you.

14

WE KNOW WHATwe have to do, but it’s harder to know where to begin. Cursory searches forGraceandAtwoodturn up Margaret Atwood stories, not drowned girls, and I can’t find any records of disappearances from the school. Then Monday classes begin and the scramble of staying on top of my work takes over.

The bruises on my arm fade. The dreams don’t come again. The week is dry and cool, hardly a cloud in the sky. At the end of every day, I go back to Abigail House, scrupulously following procedures. I do my schoolwork and then at some point every evening, I get a message from Delphine, and I head upstairs. Madelyn often leaves her door open; I see her watching approvingly as I head up.

In view of the cameras, Delphine and I act the part of friends. We watch movies together on her laptop, and I notice she loves any movie with complex social situations, watching them with anintense look of focus, like she’s studying. She has this way of tucking her lower lip between her teeth and furrowing her brow, and when she laughs it’s a quick, startling sound. It’s hard to make Delphine Fournier laugh, I learn. I haven’t managed it so far.

I want to.

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