The Murderer's Daughter

Chapter 35

Twelve-year-old Grace lived with two strangers in a big, beautiful house in Hancock Park.

Nice while it lasted. It wouldn’t, of course, she understood reality. A few years in one place, a few in another, you never knew what the next day would bring.

But she had to admit being taken in by Malcolm and Sophie was by far her best turn of luck. And she was determined to learn as much as she could until they got tired of her.

Apart from the house being big and beautiful and always smelling clean and fresh, apart from the room they let her use as her bedroom being huge and comforting and now, furnished graciously, Malcolm and Sophie were nicer than anyone she’d ever met.

They made it easy for Grace to hold on to herself and not be swallowed up by what they preferred. Maybe that was because Malcolm was a psychologist, an expert on kids. Even though he’d never had any.

Or maybe it was more than that; after a month or so, Grace couldn’t help thinking he and Sophie seemed to really care about her comfort, nutrition, and general state of happiness. But they never pretended they were her parents, never asked to be called Mom and Dad. Grace wasn’t sure how she’d feel if they had. She’d never called anyone Mom or Dad.

She thought about it and decided to go along with whatever they wanted that didn’t actually hurt her.

Anything to stay in this heaven.

A few months later, she was still calling them Malcolm and Sophie, and Sophie had taken to routinely calling her “dear.” Malcolm usually never called her anything except once in a while, Grace. Mostly he just talked to her without a label. As if there was always a conversation going on between them and no one needed to get formal.

Grace began to think of them as a pair of new friends. Or maybe “acquaintances” — she liked that word — it sounded exotic and French. Same for “compatriots.” “Associates,” too, though that was more official than exotic.

So now, she had acquaintances who were much older and smarter and had a lot to teach her. And rich, as well.

One day, Malcolm asked if she’d ever thought about going to school.

It made her afraid and a bit angry, as if he’d finally had enough and was thinking about sending her somewhere and when she said, “Never,” some of that anger came out in her voice. She had to hold on to her hands so they didn’t shake.

Malcolm just nodded, and rubbed his big chin the way he did when he was thinking about something puzzling. “Makes sense, be hard to find a peer group for you — for anyone as brilliant as you. Okay, fine, we’ll continue with home study. I must confess, I like it myself — finding material for you is a serious challenge. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting lonely.”

I’m my own best friend. I don’t know what lonely is.

She said, “I’m ready for the next lesson.”

Grace’s nearly thirteen years on the planet had told her trust didn’t mean much, except for trusting herself. But the funny thing was, Malcolm and Sophie seemed to trust her. Never forcing food on her that she didn’t like, never telling her when to go to bed or when to get up. Though to be honest, they didn’t have to, Grace rose before they did and read in bed, and when she was tired she told them so and returned to her room to read herself to sleep. After she first moved in, Sophie asked if she wanted to be tucked in.

Ramona had only asked the one time, after that she’d just done it, and Sophie asking probably meant she didn’t want to do it but was being polite.

So rather than make Sophie put out a special effort, Grace said, “No, thank you, I’m fine.” And she was. Enjoying the quiet of the magnificent room they were letting her stay in. Though once in a while, she wouldn’t have minded a tuck-in.

Sophie said, “As you wish, dear,” and Grace put herself to bed.

As far as she could tell, being a professor was easy; Malcolm would drive to the university but not really early, and sometimes he’d come home when it was still light outside. Some days, he never left at all, working in his wood-paneled study, reading and writing.

Grace thought: I’d like this job.

Sophie was a professor, too, but she never went to work, just puttered around the house, cooking for herself and Grace, supervising Adelina, the nice but not-speaking-English cleaning woman who came in twice a week and worked hard and silently.

Sophie also went on shopping “excursions,” which could mean anything from buying groceries to coming home with boxes and bags of clothing for herself and for Grace.

She was probably doing some kind of work because she had her own study — a small room off her and Malcolm’s bedroom with no paneling, just a desk and a computer. Other than pictures of flowers on white walls, nothing fancy. When she did go in there, she kept the door open but she’d remain at the desk for hours, reading and writing, usually with classical music playing softly in the background. When mail came to her it was addressed Prof. Sophia Muller or Sophia Muller, Ph.D.

Reading and writing was what Grace was already doing, what kind of deal was this professor stuff? Grace started to think she should really learn to be one.

Three months after Grace’s arrival, Sophie cleared up the mystery. “You probably wonder why I’m here all the time.”

Grace shrugged.

“Next year, I’ll be back on campus like Malcolm — teaching, supervising grad students. But this year I’m on something called a sabbatical, it’s kind of a racket for professors, once we get tenure — once the university figures it wants to keep us around — we get a year off every seven years.”

“Like Sabbath,” said Grace.

“Pardon?”

“Work six days, rest on the seventh.”

Sophie smiled. “Yes, exactly, that’s the concept. Not that I’m supposed to be loafing, the understanding is I’m to do independent research. This is my second sabbatical. During the first, Malcolm and I traipsed around Europe and I churned out papers that no one read. But I’m older now, prefer to basically be a homebody and get paid for it. You won’t tell on me, will you, dear?”

Laughing.

Grace crossed her heart. “It’s a secret... you do read and write.”

“I’m writing a book. Allegedly.”

“What on?”

“Nothing that’s going to hit the bestseller lists, dear. How’s this for a catchy title: Patterns of Group Interaction and Employment Fluctuation in Emerging Adult Women.”

Grace thought that sounded like a foreign language, she’d never pick up a book like that. She said, “It’s pretty long.”

“Way too long. Maybe I should call it something like Chicks and Gigs.”

Grace’s turn to laugh.

Sophie said, “The title’s the least of my concerns. It’s excruciating for me, dear, I’m not a natural writer like Malcolm — so what would you like for dinner?”

Malcolm kept bringing Grace harder and harder lessons. When she hit pre-calculus she needed some help and he was able to explain things clearly and she thought, His students are lucky.

Most of the other stuff was easy, floating into her brain like iron to a magnet.

Life at the big beautiful house was mostly quiet and peaceful, everyone reading, writing, eating, sleeping. Malcolm and Sophie never had guests over, nor did they go out and leave Grace alone. Once in a while a thin white-haired man in a suit would stop by and sit at the kitchen table with them, going over paperwork.

“Our lawyer,” Malcolm explained. “His name is Ransom Gardener. The only things he grows are fees.”

Every so often, Gardener showed up with a younger man named Mike Leiber. Unlike the lawyer, who always wore a suit and looked serious, Leiber had long stringy hair and a beard, arrived in jeans and untucked shirts, and never said much. But when he spoke at the kitchen table, everyone listened to him.

Malcolm and Sophie never explained who he was but after his visits they were a strange combination of seriousness and relaxation. As if they’d just taken a hard exam and had done well.

Twice a month or so, Malcolm and Sophie took Grace to nice restaurants and Grace wore clothes Sophie bought for her that she’d never have chosen.

She stretched to try new foods when Malcolm and Sophie offered them to her. Even if something looked unappealing, she didn’t complain, just the opposite, she smiled and said, “Yes, please. Thank you.”

Same for the clothes. They came wrapped in tissue paper and bore the labels of stores that sounded expensive, some with French names, and she could tell Sophie had taken a lot of time finding them.

Grace thought of them as costumes. Dressing up for the part of Good Girl. She began to wonder when the play would end but got bad stomachaches when she thought too much about that. Chasing those thoughts out of her brain, she concentrated on the good things happening right now. Sometimes concentration gave her a headache.

As part of fitting in and being easy to live with, she began brushing her hair a lot, until it shined like Sophie’s and one day Sophie gave her a brush from England that she informed Grace was made from “boar bristles” and guess what, it made Grace’s hair even shinier so she resolved to pay special attention to what Sophie said.

Being clean and smelling good was important as well, so she showered every morning and sometimes a second time before she went to bed. Flossed her teeth and brushed twice a day, the way she’d seen Sophie do. When a few hairs sprouted in her armpits and she detected faint odor coming from them, she looked in her medicine cabinet and found a brand-new container of roll-on deodorant and began to use it regularly.

Somehow, someone — no doubt, Sophie — had known what to do.

Shortly after she began living with them, they brought her to a woman pediatrician who examined her and gave her shots and pronounced her “fit as an Amati.”

Same for an extremely old dentist who cleaned her teeth and told her she was doing “an excellent job with your oral hygiene, most kids don’t.”

When her shoes grew tight, Sophie took her to a store on a street called Larchmont where the salesman treated her like a grown-up and asked her what style she preferred.

She said, “Anything.”

“That’s a switch, usually kids are demanding.” This remark aimed more at Sophie than Grace.

Sophie said, “She’s an easy girl,” and hearing that, Grace filled with warm, sweet feelings. She’d passed her own test.

When the three of them were together, she made sure to look into their eyes when they spoke, pretended to be interested in what they talked about when she wasn’t. Mostly she was interested. In their discussions of history and economics, of how people behaved alone and in groups. Usually they began including Grace in the conversation, but soon they were talking past her, allowing her to just listen, and she didn’t mind that one bit.

They talked about art and music. About how bad certain governments were — Nazism, communism, Malcolm pronouncing that any kind of “collectivism is simply a way to control others.” They discussed what kinds of societies produced what kinds of artists and musicians and scientists and how there wasn’t enough “synthesis between art and science.”

Every discussion sent Grace running to her dictionary and she figured she was learning more just being with them than from the homeschool curriculum.

When they asked her opinion, if she had one she offered it briefly and quietly. When she had no idea, she said so and more than once Malcolm nodded approvingly, saying, “If only my students knew enough to admit that.”

Sophie: “If only everyone did. Starting with pundits.”

Another word filed for future investigation.

Malcolm: “Pundits are nitwits, for the most part.”

Sophie: “Any self-designated expert is by nature fraudulent, Mal, no?” To Grace: “That applies even to this guy and myself. Just because we have fancy professorial titles doesn’t mean we know any more than anyone else.”

Malcolm: “Anyone including you, Grace.”

Grace shook her head. “Maybe I know more about being twelve but you know more about almost everything else.”

Laughter from across the dinner table.

Sophie: “Don’t be so sure, dear.”

Malcolm, chortling: “Looks like we fooled her.” He leaned over, as if to tousle Grace’s hair. Stopped himself. He never touched her. Grace was thirteen and in all the time she’d been living here, physical contact between her and Malcom had been limited to accidental brush-bys.

Sophie occasionally touched her hand, but not much else.

Fine with Grace.

Now Sophie put down her silver salad fork and said, “Honestly, dear, don’t sell yourself short, you know more than you think you do. Yes, experience is important. But you can gain that. All the experience in the world won’t help an idiot.”

“Amen,” said Malcolm, and he speared another lamb chop.

Sophie had served up a platter of chops along with tossed salad, thick fried potatoes, which Grace found delicious, and brussels sprouts, which smelled and tasted to her like something dying.

Sophie: “Don’t eat the sprouts. I’ve cooked them poorly, they’re bitter.”

Malcolm: “I think they’re fine.”

Sophie: “Darling, you think canned sardines are gourmet fare.”

“Hmmph.”

Grace ate another yummy piece of potato.

Especially with Sophie, Grace was careful not to overdo the good-manners stuff because Sophie was good at spotting fakes. Like with antiques in the magazines she subscribed to. Sometimes she’d look at a picture of furniture or a vase or a sculpture and nod approvingly. Other times, she’d say, “Who do they think they’re kidding? If this is Tang dynasty I’m Charlie Chaplin.”

In general, Grace was polite but normal about it. Following a rule she’d set for herself a long time ago.

If people like you, maybe they won’t hurt you.

Sometimes, mostly at night, alone in her big, soft, sweet-smelling bed, snuggling under a down comforter, sucking her thumb, Grace thought about Ramona.

The slimy-green pool.

That inevitably connected to Bobby in his bed, air tube hissing.

Terrible Sam. His brother and sister, scared as squirrels fleeing a hawk.

When those thoughts invaded Grace’s brain, she worked hard to throw them out — to evict them, a word from her vocabulary lesson that she liked because it sounded hard, mean, and final. Finally, she figured out that the best way of clearing her brain was to think of something nice.

A delicious dinner.

Recalling Malcolm saying she was brilliant.

Sophie’s smile.

Being here.

Two months after her thirteenth birthday — an event celebrated at the fanciest restaurant Grace had ever seen, in a hotel called the Bel-Air — she discovered something other than sucking her thumb that helped her feel peaceful: touching herself between her legs, where hairs were sprouting like grass. Feeling dizzy and nervous, at first, but afterward warm and soft in a way she’d never experienced.

And she could do it by herself!

Combine all those things and bad thoughts didn’t have a chance.

Soon, she stopped remembering anything that had happened before she lived on June Street.

Sophie could cook very well but, as she reminded Grace more than once, she didn’t like it.

“Then why do you do it?”

“Someone has to, dear, and Lord knows Malcolm’s a disaster in the kitchen.”

“I can learn.”

Swiveling from the big six-burner Wolf range, Sophie looked at Grace, sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book on the birds of North America. “You’d learn to cook?”

“If you want me to.”

“You’re offering to relieve me of culinary duties?”

“Uh-huh.”

Sophie’s eyes got a little wet. She put down her pot holder and came over to Grace, cupped Grace’s chin and bent, and for a moment Grace was worried Sophie was going to kiss her. No one had ever kissed her, not once.

Maybe Sophie could tell Grace was worried, because she just chucked Grace’s chin and said, “That is a gracious offer, my dear Ms. Blades. One day I may take you up on it, but please don’t ever feel you need to take care of us. We’re here to take care of you.”

It was the first time since Grace had moved in that someone had touched her nicely on purpose.

“Okay?” said Sophie.

“Okay.”

“Then it’s settled. We will cast off the shackles of domesticity tonight and the eminent but selectively inept Professor Bluestone will take us both out to dinner. Somewhere pricey and chichi. Sound good?”

“Sounds superb.” Another great word.

“Superb it is, dear. I’m thinking French because no one understands haute cuisine like the French.”

“Haute couture, as well,” said Grace.

“You know about haute couture?”

“From your magazines.”

“Do you know what “haute” means?”

“Fancy.”

“Strictly speaking it means ‘high.’ The French are all about dividing their world into highs and lows. With them, there aren’t just restaurants, there are cafés, bistros, brasseries, and so on.”

“Which one are we going to tonight?”

“Oh, definitely a restaurant. Malcolm must treat us like the haute gals we are.”

That evening, at a place called Chez Antoine, Grace had a complicated time. Wearing a stiff dress that scratched her, she was a little frightened of the dark, nearly silent room filled with fast-walking black-suited waiters who looked as if they were ready to find fault.

She said yes to everything, enjoyed the meat and the potatoes and some of the green vegetables. But she felt her stomach heave when one of the grumpy waiters brought out little iron skillets of — could it be, yes it was — oh, God, snails! As if that wasn’t enough, another waiter brought plates of little bony things that looked like baby chicken legs and Grace thought how mean to kill tiny chicks but then Malcolm explained they were the sautéed limbs of frogs!

She tried not to watch as Malcolm and Sophie stuck tiny forks into the snail shells, pulled out gross clumpy lumps covered with parsley, chewed and smiled and swallowed. Tried not to listen as the frog legs crunched under the weight of Malcolm’s heavy jaws.

Look listen learn, look listen learn.

When Malcolm held out a frog leg to Grace and said, “Don’t feel obligated but you might surprise yourself and like it,” Grace sucked in her breath and took the smallest nibble and found the taste not great but okay.

Pretend it really is a baby chicken. No, not that, too gross. How about an adult chicken that just didn’t grow because it was sick or something.

A chicken with a problem in the pituitary gland. She’d learned about that in her biology lesson two weeks ago.

“Thank you, Malcolm.”

“Glad you like it.”

I like everything about this dream.

By age fourteen and a half, Grace had begun to think of herself as belonging in the big beautiful house. Dangerous feeling, but she couldn’t help it, she’d been here longer than anywhere else.

Except that place in the beginning but that didn’t count.

Sometimes she even let herself imagine she belonged to Sophie and Malcolm. But not owned in that crazy way she’d read about in the poems she studied. This was something more... civilized.

Three months ago, she’d taken a huge chance and allowed her fingertips to brush Sophie’s hand when they were shopping at Saks, in Beverly Hills. Lingering long enough for Sophie to maybe understand.

Sophie squeezed Grace’s hand gently and took hold of it and the two of them walked that way for a few moments until Grace grew twitchy and Sophie let go.

Later, when they were finishing a light lunch in the Saks tearoom, Sophie was the one to initiate: running her long, delicate fingers along the side of Grace’s cheek.

Smiling, as if she was proud.

They’d come to buy bras for Grace.

Sophie remained outside the dressing room, but not before offering advice: “Make sure it fits perfectly, dear. It will mean all the difference between proper support and backaches when you’re my age.”

Grace understood; Sophie’s bosoms were large for a woman so slim. Grace’s own breasts were little more than bumps, though her nipples had doubled in size.

She said, “Makes sense. Thanks for taking me, Sophie.”

“Who else, dear? We girls have to stick together.”

By fifteen, Grace had small, soft tufts of blond armpit hair and a reddish-blond triangle of pubic hair that she explored with her fingers to get herself in the mood before she masturbated each night. Downy nearly white hairs on her legs were close to invisible but Sophie showed her how to shave them anyway, without nicking herself.

“Use a fresh disposable razor every time and put this on first.” Handing Grace a glass bottle filled with golden lotion, the label lettered in French cursive. “It’s got aloe in it, that’s a spiky plant that looks pretty unimpressive but is impressively multitalented.”

Grace knew about aloe, about all sorts of botanical specimens. Her lessons were all college-level or above now, and Malcolm informed her that her vocabulary was that of “a doctoral candidate at a damn good university, remarkable, really.” Everything floated easily into her brain except math, but if she worked hard enough she could get that, too.

And that was her world: the three of them, Ransom Gardener every so often, occasionally Mike Leiber.

Mostly, her studies.

Once, in the beginning, Malcolm and Sophie had asked her if she wanted to meet other children. Grace decided to be honest and said, “I’d prefer not,” and when they asked again, months later, and got the same answer, the subject never came up again.

Then...

It was a Sunday. Grace was fifteen and two months.

Malcolm raked leaves in the backyard and Sophie read a stack of magazines under the giant quince tree at the rear of the garden. Grace was off by herself, stretched out on a lounge chair near the rose beds, reading Coleman’s text on abnormal psychology and trying to fit people she’d known into various diagnostic categories.

Suddenly Malcolm stopped raking and Sophie stopped reading and the two of them looked at each other and came over to Grace.

A couple of giants converging on her.

“Dear,” said Sophie, “do you have a minute?”

Grace’s stomach — her entire gastrointestinal tract, she’d learned anatomy and could visualize the organs — began quivering. She said, “Of course.” Amazed at how calm she sounded.

Or maybe she didn’t because Malcolm and Sophie looked uncomfortable and when grown-ups looked that way it was a bad sign.

A precursor.

“Let’s go inside,” said Sophie, and that clinched it. Something terrible was going to happen. Grace was surprised, but at the same time she wasn’t because you never knew when life would turn disappointing.

Sophie took Grace’s hand and found it clammy with sweat but she held on and led Grace into the house, ending in the kitchen. Explaining, “I’m in the mood for lemonade,” but not coming close to convincing.

Malcolm, trailing behind and still looking uncomfortable — that horrible concerned look — said, “Lemonade and ginger cookies. To hell with the avoirdupois.”

Sophie set the lemonade and three kinds of cookies on the kitchen table. Malcolm ate two cookies immediately. Sophie looked at him and raised an eyebrow and held the plate out to Grace.

“No, thank you.” Now Grace’s voice was quivering stronger than her intestines.

Sophie said, “Something wrong, dear?”

“No.”

Malcolm said, “You’ve got a sensitive antenna, Grace.” Addressing her by name; this had to be really bad.

They were kicking her out. What had she done? Where were they sending her?

She burst into tears.

Sophie and Malcolm leaned forward, each of them taking a hand.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” said Sophie.

Grace was helpless against the torrent of water pouring from her eyes. She felt out of control. Like the psychotics she’d read about in Malcolm’s psychology books.

“Grace?” said Sophie, stroking her hand. “There’s nothing to be upset about. Really—”

Then the water stopped pouring out and words took their place, as if someone had turned Grace upside down and shaken the speech out of her. “I don’t want to leave!”

Sophie’s deep-blue eyes were huge behind her glasses. “To leave? Of course not — oh, my God, you thought — Mal, look what we’ve done, she’s terrified.”

And then Professor Malcolm Bluestone, who’d never touched her, walked behind her and placed one huge, padded hand on her cheek, the other lightly on her shoulder, and kissed the top of her head.

Another man might’ve spoken softly and gently. Malcolm boomed with authority. “You are not leaving, Ms. Grace Blades. You are ensconced here for as long as you choose to be. Which from our perspective is forever.”

Grace cried some more until she’d emptied herself of tears and had to gasp to regain her breath. Feeling relieved but now worse than stupid — idiotic.

She vowed never to lose herself that way again. No matter what.

Sophie inhaled deeply. “I reiterate what Malcolm said: You’re here, period. But there will be a change and you need to know about it. My sabbatical — my extremely extended sabbatical, as you know I cadged another eighteen months out of the rotters by forgoing salary — has come to an end. Do you understand what that means?”

Grace said, “You have to go to work.”

“Four days a week, dear. The rotters have loaded me up with classes, allegedly because of budget cuts, tenure be damned.” Sophie’s smile was wry. “The fact that my alleged book hasn’t materialized hasn’t helped my position.”

Malcolm said, “You’ll finish when you’re ready, darling, they just need to—”

Sophie waved him quiet. “So sweet and psychologically supportive, Mal, but let’s all be honest: I’ve idled and now the piper must be paid.” She turned back to Grace. “Malcolm’s sabbatical doesn’t come around for another three years. That means both of us will be going to work.”

Grace said nothing.

“You understand?” said Sophie.

“No.”

“You can’t be here by yourself.”

“Why not?”

Sophie sighed. “We should’ve prepared you. Be that as it may, reality is upon us and we must cope. Why can’t you remain unattended? Because if something happened — a fire, God forbid, or a break-in — and we’d left you alone it would be calamitous, dear. Even if you weren’t hurt, we’d lose our guardianship and possibly face charges of neglect.”

“That’s inane,” said Grace. “And insane.”

“Maybe so, dear, but the fact is, you’re too young to be by yourself all day and we need to find you a school. We must work together to obtain the best fit available.”

Grace looked at Malcolm. He nodded.

She said, “Isn’t there a school on your campus? The one where your students do research on kids?”

Malcolm said, “That is for children with learning problems. You are quite the contrary, you’re a learning superstar. We’ve done our research and narrowed down the possibilities, but you need to weigh in.”

Grace said, “Thank you, I appreciate the effort but nothing will fit.”

“How can you be sure, dear?” said Sophie.

“The thought of school is repulsive.”

Malcolm smiled. “Repulsive, repugnant, repellent, and quite possibly regressive. But, unfortunately, necessary.”

“There’s really no choice, dear,” said Sophie. “We’re hoping this process doesn’t turn out more difficult than it needs to be. That you might actually find the experience rewarding.”

“Or at least interesting,” said Malcolm.

Grace said nothing.

“It might only be for a year or so,” said Malcolm.

“Might?” said Grace.

“Given your present academic level you’d easily qualify for college at sixteen. In fact, on a purely intellectual level, you could handle college right now. But we don’t believe sending you straight from homeschooling to university at fifteen is a great idea and I’m sure you concur.”

Grace thought about that. Realized she’d never been to USC with either of them. But she had seen pictures of colleges. Read about college life in books and magazines. Photos that showed students who looked like adults, relaxing on the grass, huge buildings in the background.

As inviting as an alien planet...

Malcolm said, “Do you? Concur?”

Grace nodded.

“Good, then. Onward.”

Sophie said, “A year or so spent in high school could serve as an excellent preparatory experience for college.”

“Prep school,” said Grace.

“Literally and figuratively, dear.”

“Holden Caulfield hated it.”

Sophie and Malcolm both smiled.

Malcolm said, “Yes, he did, but admit it, Caulfield was basically a snide, spoiled twit. The arrival of the Messiah would leave him unimpressed.”

Despite herself, Grace laughed.

“You, on the other hand,” he went on, “are a young woman of substance. Surely one year, give or take, spent in the company of other highly gifted adolescents won’t trip you up.”

Grace said, “A school for the gifted?”

“Would you prefer a clutch of morons?”

“Mal,” said Sophie. To Grace: “We’ve narrowed it down to two.”

They brought out brochures.

The Brophy School was a forty-minute drive to Sherman Oaks in the Valley and featured an emphasis upon “high-level academics combined with personal growth.” High school only, student body of one hundred twenty.

Malcolm said, “It’s a little bit lax, standards-wise, but still serious.”

Grace said, “Personal growth?” She snickered.

“Rather touchy-feely, yes.”

“What about the other one?”

“The Merganfield School,” he said. “From seventh through twelve but small classes, the student body maxes out at seventy.”

“Smaller classes and extremely rigorous,” said Sophie.

Grace said, “No personal growth, huh?”

Malcolm smiled. “I asked Dr. Merganfield about that, as a matter of fact. He said growth comes from achievement. He’s a bit of a martinet.”

Sophie said, “It’s somewhat authoritarian, dear.”

Malcolm said, “Lots of structure.”

Grace said, “Where is it?”

Sophie said, “Not far from here, actually. One of those big mansions, near Windsor Square.”

Grace said, “Is it expensive?”

Silence.

Sophie said, “No need for you to worry about that.”

“I can pay you back,” said Grace. “One day, when I’m successful.”

Malcolm reached for a cookie, changed his mind. Sophie sniffed and wiped at her eyes.

“Dear girl,” she said, “we have no doubt you’ll be successful. That, in itself, will be our payment.”

Malcolm said, “Not that we need recompense.”

Grace said, “I hope it’s not too expensive.”

“Not at all,” said Malcolm, blinking the way he did when he tried to hide something from her.

Grace said, “Sounds like Merganfield’s the optimal choice.”

“You’re sure?” said Sophie. “It really is a no-nonsense place, dear. Maybe you should visit both of them.” She broke out into laughter. “How foolish of me. Touchy-feely isn’t your thing. If you approve of a place, you’ll thrive.”

“First, visit,” said Malcolm.

“Sure,” said Grace. This hadn’t turned out so bad. Taking a cookie, she reached into her vocabulary vault. “Guess now I’ll have to be pro-social.”

Two days later, she took the Merganfield admissions test in the mahogany-paneled reception room of the cream-colored building that served as the school’s main building, the only other structure a triple garage converted to a no-frills gym.

Sophie had called the place a mansion. To Grace, it felt like a palace: three stories on Irving Street, easily double the size of Malcolm and Sophie’s Tudor. The house sat centered on a vast, park-like lot surrounded by black iron fencing. Trees were huge but most looked neglected. Lawns, hedges, and shrubs appeared shabby.

The style was one Grace recognized from her readings on architecture: Mediterranean mixed with a bit of Palladian. To the north were the enormous homes of Windsor Square, to the south the office buildings on Wilshire.

The exam duplicated many of the IQ tests Malcolm had administered to Grace and with the exception of some of the math, the achievement components were only challenging at the uppermost levels.

“Same old story,” Malcolm had warned her. “Impossible to get everything right.”

No matter how long they knew each other, Grace decided, he’d never stop being a psychologist.

The letter of acceptance arrived a week later. The owner-headmaster, Dr. Ernest K. Merganfield, was a short, slight man with little personal warmth but, somehow, an aura of reassurance. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, plaid slacks, and rubber-soled blue cotton shoes, and Grace came to learn that was his daily uniform.

He had two doctorates: a Ph.D. in history from Yale and an Ed.D. from Harvard. The teachers were all Ph.D.’s, mostly retired college professors, with the exception of Dr. Mendez, the biology instructor, who was an elderly retired medical pathologist. Upper-class students — sophomores, juniors, and seniors — took their classes on the top floor, with some rooms offering nice views. Grace’s score on the exam qualified her to be a fifteen-year-old senior, but when she arrived to join her classmates she found she wasn’t the youngest in the class, not even close.

Sitting next to her was a twelve-year-old math prodigy named Dmitri, and behind her were fourteen-year-old twins from Nigeria, children of a diplomat, who spoke six languages fluently.

No one exhibited any curiosity about her entry in the middle of the school year and soon Grace learned why: Her brand-new peers were, for the most part, shy, introverted, and obsessed with scholastic achievement. Of the eleven students in her class, seven were girls, four quite pretty, but none with any fashion sense.

Then again, without Sophie, Grace figured she’d have been clueless about clothes, makeup, nickless shaving. How to walk and talk. How to hold a fish fork.

Merganfield students had biological parents who probably didn’t care much about anything but their getting into a top college. The twins had already been guaranteed admission to Columbia in two years.

The lack of maintenance Grace had noticed in the garden extended to the interior. Bathrooms were old and balky and papered with warnings not to flush anything but toilet paper and “scant amounts of that.”

Of the four boys in her class, one was obese with a stammer, two were shy to the point of muteness, and one, the oldest pupil in the senior class, was a tall, rangy, good-looking seventeen-year-old named Sean Miller, gifted in math and physics. He had dark curly hair, hazel eyes, nice features marred by virulent acne.

Also shy, that seemed to be the Merganfield way. But definitely interested in Grace, she could tell because every time she looked up from her notebook, she caught him averting his eyes. Just to confirm her hypothesis, she sidled up against him at the end of rhetoric class and smiled.

He colored crimson around his zits and lurched away, as if hiding something.

Definitely hiding something. The front of his khaki pants had tented.

This could be interesting.

Three weeks after arriving at Merganfield, having earned nearly straight A’s on every test and certain that she was considered “fully integrated,” she encountered Sean Miller as he left the garage/gym that hardly anyone used because P.E. was optional (though Dr. Merganfield did espouse “Grecian ideals of integrating mental and physical mastery”).

Not a chance encounter. Grace had observed Sean and he was predictable as a well-tuned clock, lifting weights and running on a treadmill every Wednesday after class. Grace had finally convinced Malcolm and Sophie to let her walk the mile and a half home, promising to keep to Sixth Street, with its busy traffic and easy visibility. Tonight, both of them would be coming home late due to meetings. Sophie had pre-cooked a tuna noodle casserole for Grace to microwave.

She wasn’t hungry for pasta and canned fish.

Sean Miller learned that quickly enough.

Soon, they were doing it every Wednesday, outside behind the gym, and Grace had shoplifted enough condoms from a local pharmacy to keep everything nice and safe.

The first time Sean attempted to talk to her afterward, she quieted him with a finger over his lips and he never tried that again.