Little Fires Everywhere Read online

  “Elena,” Mrs. McCullough sighed. “You always know what to do. What on earth would I do without you?”

  “Don’t say anything to Bill or Mark,” Mrs. Richardson said, gathering her purse. “Let’s not get their hopes up yet. Trust me. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Bebe had not, in fact, been pregnant. Under the stress of the impending hearing, with news crews filming outside the restaurant one day and a journalist stopping her on the street to shove a microphone into her face the next, with a story about the case out every other day, it felt like, and her boss grumbling about the time she’d have to take off for the hearing—she had given in to junk food cravings: Oreos, French fries, once an entire bag of pork rinds, ballooning up fifteen pounds in a month. She’d put in extra hours to make up for the time she’d be taking off, working until two or three on the nights she closed and arriving at nine to open the next morning. That time, in her memory, existed only as a blur. And then she’d gotten food poisoning—a box of leftovers that had sat too long in the fridge—and thrown up right in the library, in front of the social worker. She hadn’t been able to eat for days afterward, and when she recovered, she found that, with the hearing mere weeks away, she was too nervous to eat. By the time the hearing began she had lost the extra fifteen pounds plus ten more.

  Mrs. Richardson, however, knew none of this. With no way to prove a negative, she began, logically enough, by searching for evidence of the positive. She could find anything out, she reminded herself. Even if she didn’t know it herself, she had connections. The next morning, she pulled out her Rolodex and flipped to the M’s: Manwill, Elizabeth.

  She and Elizabeth Manwill had been roommates freshman year in college, and though they’d found other roommates in later years, they’d stayed in touch, through graduation and afterward. They had reconnected when Elizabeth moved to Cleveland and became the head of a medical clinic just east of Shaker Heights—the only clinic on the East Side, it happened, that provided abortions.

  It was a small thing Mrs. Richardson wanted to ask: a small, illicit, slightly illegal thing. Could she check the clinic’s records and see if Bebe Chow’s name appeared in the list of recent abortions? “Unofficially. Off the record,” Mrs. Richardson assured her friend, tucking the phone receiver against her shoulder and double-checking that her office door was shut.

  “Elena,” Elizabeth Manwill said, shutting her own office door. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a big thing. No one needs to know.”

  “It’s confidential. Do you know how much the fines are for that? Not to mention the ethics of it.”

  Elizabeth Manwill had been friends with Mrs. Richardson for many years, and she owed Mrs. Richardson a great deal, though she herself hated to put it that way. She had shown up at Denison as Betsy, a painfully shy girl from Dayton, relieved to escape the constant teasing that had been her high school years, terrified that college might turn out to be the same. At eighteen, Elizabeth Manwill was an easy target for mockery: glasses perpetually sliding down her nose, forehead knobby with acne, clothes frumpy and ill fitting. Her new roommate looked just like the snotty girls who had made high school miserable: pretty, beautifully dressed, somehow at ease with the world, and that first night she had cried herself to sleep.

  But Elena had taken her under her wing and transformed her. She’d lent her lipstick and Noxzema, taken her shopping, taught her new ways to style her hair. Walking to class with Elena, sitting beside her in the dining hall, Elizabeth had learned a new confidence as well. She began to speak as Elena did—as if she knew people wanted to hear her thoughts—and to hold herself taller, like a dancer. By the time they graduated, Elizabeth was a different person, Liz Manwill, who wore pantsuits and heels and architect’s glasses that made her look almost as smart as she was, a person who would go on to run a clinic with ease. In the years that followed, Elena—now Mrs. Richardson—had continued to offer her assistance. With her many local connections, she had put in a good word when Elizabeth had applied to the clinic, and after Elizabeth had gotten the job and moved to town, had introduced her to all sorts of people, both professionally and personally. In fact, Elizabeth had met her husband at a cocktail party the Richardsons had thrown some years before; he had been a colleague of Mr. Richardson’s. Mrs. Richardson had never asked, or even hinted, at repayment, and both of them were keenly aware of this.

  “How is Derrick, by the way?” Mrs. Richardson asked suddenly. “And Mackenzie?”

  “They’re fine. Both of them. Derrick’s been working too hard, of course.”

  “I can’t believe Mackenzie is ten already,” Mrs. Richardson mused. “How is she fitting in at Laurel?”

  “She loves it. She seems so much more confident now. I think it makes a real difference, being at a girls’ school, you know?” Elizabeth Manwill paused. “Thanks again for putting a word in.”

  “Betsy! Don’t be ridiculous. It was my pleasure.” Mrs. Richardson tapped her pen against her desktop. “What are friends for?”

  “You understand, Elena, I’d love to help you. It’s just if anyone found out—”

  “Of course you can’t show me anything. Of course not. But I mean, if I were to come and take you for lunch, and I just happened to glance over your shoulder at the list for the past few months, no one could possibly say you had shown me on purpose, could they?”

  “And what if this woman’s name is on there?” Elizabeth asked. “What good does it do? Bill can’t use it in court.”

  “If it does, he’ll look for other evidence. I know it’s a huge favor, Betsy. He just needs to know if it’s even worth digging. And if it’s not? This goes no further.”

  Elizabeth Manwill sighed. “All right,” she said at last. “I’m tied up the next few days, but how about Thursday?”

  The two women scheduled a lunch date, and Mrs. Richardson hung up the phone. She would soon have this cleared up. Poor woman, she thought, thinking of Bebe with new generosity. If she had had an abortion, who could blame her? In the middle of this custody case, with only a dead-end job, and after what she’d been through with the first. No one had an abortion without regret, she thought; abortions were an action of last resort, when there was no better option. No, Mrs. Richardson could not blame Bebe, even as she still hoped the McCulloughs kept the baby. But she can always have another, Mrs. Richardson thought, once she gets her life together, and she propped her office door open again.

  18

  Mrs. Richardson’s benevolent mood toward Bebe lasted until her lunch date with Elizabeth Manwill.

  “Betsy,” she said as she was buzzed into the office on Thursday. “It’s been way too long. When did we last get together?”

  “I can’t remember. Holiday party last year, maybe. How are the kids?”

  Mrs. Richardson took a moment to brag: Lexie’s plans for Yale, Trip’s latest lacrosse game, Moody’s good grades. As usual, she glossed over the topic of Izzy, but Elizabeth didn’t notice. Until that very moment she had planned to help Elena; Elena had done so much for her, after all, and anyway, Elena Richardson never stopped until she got what she wanted. She had even gone so far as to pull up the records Elena had asked for, a list of all the patients in the past few months who’d had a procedure at the clinic; they were in a separate window on her screen, behind a budgeting spreadsheet. But now, as Elena prattled on about her marvelous children, her husband’s high-profile case, the new landscaping they planned to do in the backyard once the summer came, Elizabeth changed her mind. She had forgotten, until they were face-to-face, how Elena so often talked to her as if she were a child, as if she, Elena, were the expert in everything and Elizabeth should be taking notes. Well, she wasn’t a child. This was her office, her clinic. Out of habit she’d picked up a pen at the sight of Elena, and now she set it down.

  “It’ll be strange having just three of them in the house next year,” Mrs. Richa
rdson was saying. “And of course Bill is so frazzled about this case. You remember Linda and Mark from some of our parties, no? Linda recommended that dog sitter for you a couple of years back. We’re all hoping it’s over soon, and that they get to keep their baby for good.”

  Elizabeth stood up. “Ready for lunch?” she said, reaching for her handbag, but Mrs. Richardson did not move from her seat.

  “There was that one thing I wanted your advice on, Betsy,” she said. “Remember?” With one hand she pushed the door shut.

  Elizabeth sat down again and sighed. As if Elena could have forgotten what she wanted. “Elena,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Betsy,” Mrs. Richardson said quietly, “one quick glance. That’s all. Just to know if there’s even anything to find out.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to help you—”

  “I would never put you at any risk. I’d never use this information. This is just to see if we need to keep digging.”

  “I would love to help you, Elena. But I’ve been thinking it over, and—”

  “Betsy, how many times have we stuck our necks out for each other? How much have we done for one another?” Betsy Manwill, Mrs. Richardson thought, had always been timid. She’d always needed a good push to do anything, even things she wanted to do. You had to give her permission for every little thing: to wear lipstick, to buy a pretty dress, to put her hand up in class. Wishy-washy. She needed a firm hand.

  “This is confidential information.” Elizabeth sat up a bit straighter. “I’m sorry.”

  “Betsy. I have to admit I’m hurt. That after all these years of friendship, you don’t trust me.”

  “It’s not about trust,” Elizabeth began, but Mrs. Richardson went on as if she hadn’t been interrupted. After all she’d done for Betsy, she thought. She’d nurtured her like a mother and coaxed her out of her shell and here was Betsy now, at her big desk in her posh office at the job Elena had helped her get, not even willing to grant her a little favor.

  She opened her purse and drew out a gold tube of lipstick and a palm-sized mirror. “Well, you trusted my advice all through college, didn’t you? And when I told you you should come to our Christmas party all those years ago? You trusted me when I told you that you should call Derrick instead of waiting for him to call you. And you were engaged—what?—by Valentine’s Day.” With small precise strokes she traced the contours of her mouth and clicked the tube shut. “You got a husband and a child by trusting me, so I’d say trusting my judgment has worked out well for you every time before.”

  It confirmed something Elizabeth had long suspected: all these years, Elena had been building up credit. Perhaps she’d honestly wanted to help, perhaps she’d been motivated by kindness. But even so, she’d been keeping a running tally of everything she’d ever done for Elizabeth, too, every bit of support she’d given, and now she expected to be repaid. Elena thought she was owed this, Elizabeth realized suddenly; she thought it was a question of fairness, about getting what she deserved under the rules.

  “I hope you aren’t planning to take credit for my entire marriage,” she said, and Mrs. Richardson was taken aback at the sharpness in her voice.

  “Of course I didn’t mean that—” she began.

  “You know that I’ll always help you any way I can. But there are laws. And ethics, Elena. I’m disappointed that you would even ask for such a thing. You’ve always been so concerned with what’s right and wrong.” Their eyes met across the desk, and Mrs. Richardson had never seen Betsy’s gaze so clear and steady and fierce. Neither of them spoke, and in that pocket of silence, the phone on the desk rang. Elizabeth held the stare for a moment more and then lifted the receiver.

  “Elizabeth Manwill.” A faint murmur from the other end of the line. “You just caught me. I was about to step out for lunch.” More murmuring. To Mrs. Richardson’s ears, it sounded vaguely apologetic. “Eric, I don’t need excuses—I just need this done. No, I’ve been waiting for this over a week; I don’t want it to wait another minute. Look, I’ll be right down.” Elizabeth hung up and turned to Mrs. Richardson. “I have to run downstairs—there’s a report I’ve been expecting and I’ve had to nudge it along every step of the way. One of the delightful parts of being the director.” She stood up. “I’ll just be a few minutes. And when I get back, we’ll go for lunch. I’m starving—and I’ve got a meeting at one thirty.”

  When she had gone, Mrs. Richardson sat stunned. Had that really been Betsy Manwill talking to her like that? Implying that she was unethical! And that last little dig about being the director—as if Betsy were reminding her how important she was, as if to say I’m more important than you now. When she’d helped Betsy get this very job. Mrs. Richardson pressed her lips together. The door to the office had been pushed to; no one outside could see in. Quickly she came around the desk to Elizabeth’s chair and nudged the mouse across its pad, and the black screen of Elizabeth’s monitor flickered to life: a spreadsheet showing the year-to-date expenses. Mrs. Richardson paused. Surely the clinic had some kind of database of patient records. With a click she shrank the spreadsheet and like magic there it was: a window listing the patients in just the period she’d wanted. So Betsy had changed her mind at the last minute, she thought with a flash of smugness. What had she always said? Wishy-washy.

  Mrs. Richardson leaned over the desktop and scrolled quickly through the list. There was no Bebe Chow. But a name at the bottom of the list, in early March, caught Mrs. Richardson’s attention. Pearl Warren.

  Six minutes later, Elizabeth Manwill returned to find Mrs. Richardson back in her own seat, composed and unruffled except for one hand clenched on the arm of the chair. She had reopened the budget spreadsheet and put the monitor back to sleep, and when Elizabeth sat down again at her desk that afternoon, she would notice nothing amiss. She would close the list with relief, proud of herself for standing up to Elena Richardson at last.

  “Ready for lunch, Elena?”

  Over saag paneer and chicken tikka masala, Mrs. Richardson put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “We’ve been friends a long time, Betsy. I’d hate to think something like this would come between us. I hope it goes without saying that I understand completely, and I’d never hold this against you.”

  “Of course not,” Elizabeth said, stabbing a piece of chicken with her fork. Since they’d left her office, Elena had been stiff and a bit cool. Elena Richardson had always been like this, she thought, charming and generous and always saying kind things, and then when she wanted something she was sure you couldn’t say no. Well, she had done the impossible: she had said no. “Is Lexie still doing theatre?” she asked, and for the rest of the meal they made superficial chitchat about the common denominators of their life: children, traffic, the weather. This would, in fact, be the last lunch the two women ever had together, though they would remain cordial to each other for the rest of their lives.

  So innocent little Pearl was not so innocent after all, Mrs. Richardson thought on her way back to the office. There was no doubt in her mind who the father was, of course. She had long suspected Pearl and Moody’s relationship was more than friendly—a boy and a girl didn’t spend so much time together at their age without something happening—and she was appalled. How could they have been so careless? She knew how much emphasis Shaker placed on sex ed; she had sat on the school board committee two years before, when a parent complained that her daughter had been asked to put a condom on a banana during health class, for practice. Teens are going to have sex, Mrs. Richardson had said then; it’s the age, it’s the hormones, we can’t prevent it; the best thing we can do is teach them to be safe about it. Now, however, that view seemed wildly naive. How could they have been so irresponsible? she wondered. More pressing: How had they managed to keep this from her? How could it have happened right under her very nose?

  For a moment she considered going to the school, pulling the two of t
hem out of class, demanding how they could have been so stupid. Better not to make a scene, she decided. Everyone would know. Girls in Shaker, she was sure, had abortions now and then—they were teenagers after all—but of course it was all kept very quiet. No one wanted to broadcast their failures in responsibility. Everyone would talk, and she knew how rumors would fly. That was the kind of thing, she knew, that stuck to a girl. It would tar you for life. She would speak to Moody that evening, as soon as she got home.

  Back at her office, she had just taken off her coat when the phone rang.

  “Bill,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  Mr. Richardson’s voice was muffled, and there was a lot of commotion in the background. “Judge Rheinbeck just delivered his decision. He called us in an hour ago. We didn’t expect it at all.” He cleared his throat. “She’s staying with Mark and Linda. We won.”

  Mrs. Richardson sank into her chair. Linda must be so happy, she thought. At the same time, a thin snake of disappointment wriggled its way through her chest. She had been looking forward to ferreting out Bebe’s past, to delivering the secret weapon that would end things for good. But she hadn’t been needed after all. “That’s wonderful.”

  “They’re beside themselves with joy. Bebe Chow took it hard, though. Burst out screaming. The bailiff had to escort her outside.” He paused. “Poor woman. I can’t help but feel bad for her.”

  “She gave up the baby in the first place,” Mrs. Richardson said. It was exactly what she’d been saying for the past six months, but this time it sounded less convincing. She cleared her throat. “Where are Mark and Linda?”

  “They’re getting ready for a press conference. The news teams got wind of it and have been showing up left and right, so we said they’d make a statement at three. So I’d better go.” Mr. Richardson let out a deep sigh. “But it’s done. She’s theirs now. They just have to hold out until the story dies down and they can all go back to living their lives.”