They Rejected My Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Seventy-Eight Calls

On day two of the semester the principal calls Audrey seventy-eight times. Chloe Staniforth waits at the Cedar Hill gate with a text from her mother to the principal about the fourth spot.

By ten o'clock on the second day of the new semester, my phone showed seventy-eight missed calls from Ridgeline Middle School.

I was sitting in a conference room downtown with a cup of coffee going cold at my elbow.

I turned the phone face down on the table and let it keep buzzing.

Ruby had started at Cedar Hill the day before.

She had come home that first afternoon and said the math room had a poster of Ramanujan.

She said the teacher had put her in the advanced section after a ten minute talk.

She had not said she was happy. She had said, "It's fine."

From Ruby, fine is a good review.

The voicemails started at seven-fifty that morning.

I listened to the first one in the car after drop-off.

"Mrs. Sharples, this is Howard Haskins at Ridgeline. I'm calling about a paperwork matter. Please call me back at your earliest convenience."

The eleventh one started differently.

"Ms. Lund. Ms. Lund, please. I think there has been a misunderstanding."

Nobody at Ridgeline had ever used that name for me.

I deleted the voicemail and finished the meeting.

I let all seventy-eight stay unanswered.

At three-fifteen I parked outside Cedar Hill and waited for Ruby in the pickup line.

She came out with two girls I did not know, laughing about something with her hands.

I felt the day loosen a little.

Then Ruby stopped on the sidewalk and looked past me toward the gate.

"Mom," she said. "Don't be mad."

A girl was sitting on the low wall by the bike rack with a backpack in her lap.

She was tall, with long blond hair she kept pulled over half her face.

Her good wool coat was too wide in the shoulders.

She stood up as we came closer.

Her nails were bitten down to the skin.

"Chloe," Ruby said.

"I took two buses," said Chloe Staniforth. She looked at the ground. "I'm sorry. I didn't know where else to go."

I told her to get in the car.

She sat in the back with her backpack on her knees, and for a block nobody said anything.

"You said you know who did it," Ruby said finally.

Chloe nodded.

"My mom did."

Ruby turned all the way around in her seat.

"It wasn't a test," Chloe said. "There wasn't even a try-out. I didn't try out. I found out on Friday I was on the team, and I thought it was a mistake, and then I saw the iPad."

"What iPad?" I asked.

"The family one. Everything my mom sends gets copied onto it."

She said it in a rush, with her eyes on her hands.

"She forgets it's there. I wasn't trying to snoop."

She pulled a tablet out of her bag and held it up between the seats.

I stopped at a red light and took it from her.

The screen showed a text thread.

At the top was a contact: Howard Haskins, Principal.

The message above the cursor was from the week before the roster went up.

I read it slowly.

It said: We're agreed on the fourth spot. Chloe needs this for her high school applications.

Under that: Booster check goes out Friday as promised. Just keep the Sharples girl's mother from making any noise.

The one under it was his reply.

Understood, Lorna. It will be handled.

The light turned green.

A driver behind us leaned on the horn.

I handed the tablet back to Chloe, put the car in drive and pulled over at the next gas station, where I turned off the engine.

"Why are you showing me this?" I asked her.

Chloe wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"Because I can't do the math," she said.

Ruby did not say anything.

"I get Cs," Chloe said. "I've been getting Cs since sixth grade."

"My mom says it's because I don't try, and I do try."

"Now there's a competition in front of the whole district, and I'm going to stand up there and everyone will find out."

Her voice cracked on the last word.

"And Ruby really is the best, and everyone knows it. I would have voted for her. I didn't even get a vote."

Ruby looked at her for a long moment.

"You wrote to me once and then you went quiet for a month," she said.

"I was scared of her," Chloe said. "Of my mom. I'm still scared. She thinks I'm at piano."

I looked at this girl in my back seat, thirteen years old and shaking, holding a tablet that held the proof.

Behind her the gas station sign flickered on.

My second phone buzzed in my coat.

I took it out and glanced at the screen.

It said: Ridgeline, Haskins, W. 79 missed calls.

I put it back in the pocket without answering.

"Chloe," I said, "have you eaten today?"

She shook her head.

"Then you're coming home with us," I said. "And you're going to eat first. We'll talk about your mother after."

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