Hyacinth Girls Read Online Free Page A

mascara was running so I raised my hand to her face. I used my sleeve to wipe it and Robyn let me. She seemed really thankful, but embarrassed, too.

2
    The next day, I met with Callie’s principal. Mrs. Jameson was a large, distracted woman whose makeup had melted into a thick soup beneath her eyes. Her jewelry hung sloppily into her cleavage and as she offered me a seat she called me “Mrs. McKenzie.”
    “I’m actually Rebecca Lucas,” I corrected her. “I’m Callie’s guardian, not her mother.”
    “Pardon me,” she said without warmth, and I wondered if she’d even bothered looking in Callie’s file. How could she miss that one of her pupils had no parents? She made a notation on a loose piece of paper as I settled into the plastic chair. There was a single leafy plant on her desk and a framed landscape on the wall, but the room felt dead, as if she’d intended to decorate and had given up early. Mrs. Jameson looked at me intensely, her eyes crossing a little behind her glasses, searching my face for something. Guilt, deceit. I’d arrived late, trotting through the halls, perspiring and uneasy, gulping down air that smelled of new computers. I already sensed how this would look. I’d got trapped in unusual traffic—a vintage tractor show was on that weekend—and for ten minutes, I’d been delayed behind a steam-powered tractor. The gargantuanmachine belched smoke, chugging along at twelve miles an hour, bullishly refusing to let anyone pass.
    “Tractor show?” Mrs. Jameson repeated doubtfully, as sweat pooled inside my blouse. I offered a second apology and then proceeded with Callie’s defense.
    “I was shocked by your call yesterday,” I said. “I’d never had a call like that before in my life, and I knew before I even spoke to Callie that she couldn’t have done it. She’s been extremely upset by what this girl said—”
    Mrs. Jameson cut me off, looking down at the loose paper on her desk, a hint of disgust tugging her coppery lips. “I’d just like to start with the incident report,” she said, and then she began to read in a disappointed tone. “The student Callie assaulted was working at her desk when Callie approached her and called her ‘Bullets.’ She then threw ink on the student’s shirt and hair—”
    “It wasn’t ink,” I interrupted. “It was paint, and Robyn actually put it on her own shirt to get attention.”
    “I understand why you’d like that to be true, Ms. Lucas. But I’m afraid that you’re misinformed.”
    I began trying to make Callie’s case then, telling how Ella had witnessed everything, while Mrs. Jameson responded with icy, noncommittal phrases.
I see. That’s what she told you. Mmm. Mmhmm
.
    “You don’t think it’s possible Robyn did this to herself?” I asked.
    “It’s not rational.”
    “It is if she wanted to get Callie in trouble. If she did it out of spite.”
    “I want to be clear,” Mrs. Jameson said curtly. “I take any kind of bullying seriously, but what happened yesterday was particularly disturbing to me. The student was distraught.” She gave me a woebegone look. “One of our teachers had to sit with her for an hour trying to calm her down.”
    I pressed my elbows against her desk, staking out a little piece of territory. If I wavered for even a second things could devolve quickly. I might offer to pay for Robyn’s shirt. Or promise to question Callie further. But I had to remember: a crying girl proved nothing. That was the thing about modern parenting: kids were treated like ticking time bombs, as if every misery or setback could trigger their own self-destruction. Mrs. Jameson was behaving as if Robyn was permanently damaged, but that just showed a worrying lack of perspective.
    The night before, I’d gone downstairs to talk to our landlady. Mrs. Romero had raised her own kids in Pembury, so I was hoping for some good advice. In the eight years we’d lived on the second floor of her house, she’d never once