The Jodi Picoult Collection #4 Read online

  “And the rest?”

  “Well, some are better with special needs kids than others, but you didn’t hear it from me. A student like Jacob can be challenging, to say the least. There’s some deadwood in this school, if you know what I mean, and when you get a kid like Jacob who challenges a lesson plan you’ve been too lazy to adapt for the past twenty years—and when it turns out he’s right—well, that doesn’t always sit well.” She shrugs. “But you can ask the staff. On the whole, Jacob interacted much more fluidly with them than with his peers. He wasn’t caught up in the usual high school adolescent drama—instead, he wanted to talk about politics, or scientific breakthroughs, or whether Eugene Onegin was really Pushkin’s tour de force. In many ways, having Jacob around was like talking to another teacher.” She hesitates. “No, actually, it was like talking to the kind of enlightened scholar that teachers wish they could grow up to be—before bills and car payments and orthodontist appointments get in the way.”

  “If Jacob wanted so badly to fit in with students, what was he doing in the teachers’ room?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I suppose there’s only so many times you can take being rebuffed before you need some validation,” Mrs. Grenville says.

  “What do you know about his connection to Jessica Ogilvy?”

  “He enjoyed spending time with her. He referred to her as his friend.”

  I glance up. “How about as his girlfriend?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Did Jacob ever have a girlfriend in school?”

  “I don’t think so. He took a girl to prom last year, but he talked more about Jess, who’d encouraged him to do it, than about his actual date.”

  “Who else did Jacob hang around with?” I ask.

  Mrs. Grenville frowns. “Here’s the thing,” she says. “If you asked Jacob for a list of his friends, he’d probably be able to give you that list. But if you asked those same kids for their lists, Jacob wouldn’t be on them. His Asperger’s leads him to mistake proximity for emotional connection. So, for example, Jacob would say he’s friendly with the girl he’s paired with as a lab partner in physics, even though that might not be a reciprocal feeling.”

  “So he wasn’t considered a discipline problem?”

  Mrs. Grenville purses her lips. “No.”

  I place the open school file on her desk and point to a note inside it. “Then why was Jacob Hunt suspended for assault last year?”

  * * *

  Mimi Scheck is the kind of girl I drooled over in high school, in spite of the fact that she wasn’t aware we even inhabited the same building for four years. She has long black hair and a body made for worship, artfully showcased in clothes that reveal just an inch of skin above the waistline of her jeans when she reaches up or bends down. She also looks so nervous that she’d bolt, if not for the fact that Mrs. Grenville just closed the door of her office.

  “Hi, Mimi,” I say, smiling. “How are you doing today?”

  She looks from me to the guidance counselor, her lips pressed tight. Then she melts into the couch, anguished. “I swear, I didn’t know about the vodka until I got to Esme’s.”

  “Well. That’s interesting . . . but it’s not why I asked to speak to you today.”

  “It’s not?” Mimi whispers. “Oh, crap.”

  “I wanted to ask you about Jacob Hunt.”

  Her face goes beet red. “I don’t really know him very well.”

  “You were involved in an incident last year that led to his suspension, right?”

  “It was all just a big joke,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I mean, how was I supposed to know he couldn’t even take a joke?”

  “What happened?”

  She sinks down farther on Mrs. Grenville’s couch. “He was always hanging around. It was creepy, you know? I mean, I’d be, like, talking to my friends and he’d be standing there eavesdropping. And then I got a forty on a math quiz because Mr. LaBlanc is the biggest jerk ever and I got really mad and asked to be excused to go to the bathroom. But I never went to the bathroom, I just went around the corner and started crying because if I failed math again my parents were going to take away my phone and make me give up my Facebook account—and Jacob walked up to me. I guess he’d left class for one of his weirdo breaks or something, and he was headed back. He didn’t say anything, he just kept staring at me, and I told him to get lost. So he said he would stay with me because that’s what friends do, and I said that if he really wanted to be my friend, he’d go into math class and tell Mr. LaBlanc to go fuck himself.” Mimi hesitated. “So he did.”

  I glance at the guidance counselor. “And that’s why he was suspended?”

  “No. He got detention for that.”

  “And then?” I ask.

  Mimi’s gaze slides away. “The next day a bunch of us were hanging out in the commons when Jacob showed up. I guess I sort of ignored him. I mean, it’s not like I was actively being mean to him or anything. And he just went crazy and came after me.”

  “He hit you?”

  She shakes her head. “He grabbed me and threw me up against a locker. He could have killed me, you know, if a teacher hadn’t stopped him.”

  “Can you show me how he grabbed you?”

  Mimi looks at Mrs. Grenville, who nods, encouraging her. We both stand up, and Mimi takes a step forward until she has backed me against the wall. She has to reach up because I am taller than she is, and then gingerly, she wraps her right hand around my throat. “Like this,” she says. “I had bruises for a week.”

  The same bruises, I realize, that Jess Ogilvy had revealed at her autopsy.

  Emma

  As if I need any further reminder after Oliver Bond’s visit that my life is not and never will be what it was, my editor calls. “I was hoping you could come in this afternoon,” Tanya says. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “Tanya,” I say, “Jacob’s under house arrest. I’m not allowed to leave.”

  “Well, that’s sort of why I wanted to meet . . . We think that it might be best for everyone right now if you took a leave of absence from your column.”

  “Best for everyone?” I repeat. “How is losing my job best for me?”

  “It’s temporary, Emma. Just until this . . . blows over. Surely you understand,” Tanya explains. “We can’t really endorse advice from—”

  “From a writer whose son was accused of murder?” I finish for her. “I write anonymously. No one knows about me, much less Jacob.”

  “For how long? We’re in the news business. Someone’s going to dig this up, and then we’ll be the ones who look like idiots.”

  “By all means,” I say hotly. “We wouldn’t want you to look like idiots.”

  “We’re not cutting you off. Bob’s agreed to keep you at half salary plus benefits if you do freelance editing of the Sunday section for us in return.”

  “Is this the part where I’m supposed to fall to my knees in gratitude?” I ask.

  She is quiet for a moment. “For what it’s worth, Emma,” Tanya says, “you’re the last person in the world who deserves this. You’ve already got your cross to bear.”

  “Jacob,” I say, “is not a cross to bear. He’s my son.” My hand is shaking where it holds the phone. “Go edit your own fucking Sunday section,” I tell her, and I hang up.

  A tiny cry escapes as I realize the magnitude of what I’ve just done. I’m a single parent; I hardly make any money as is; I can’t work outside the home right now—how am I going to afford to live without a job? I could call my old boss from the textbook company and beg for freelance assignments, but it’s been twenty years since I worked there. I could scrape by on whatever savings we’ve got, until this is over.

  And when will that be?

  I admit that I’ve taken our legal system for granted. I assumed that the innocent prevail, that the guilty get their due. But as it turns out, it isn’t a