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But then Albie came along, and I couldn’t help noticing how hapless the boys were. The one good boy character turned out to be a fairy princess in disguise. The other one is Button-Bright, and all he does is get lost….”

Her voice trailed off as her words reached her own consciousness. The principal was nodding, not unkindly. Eliza added on a feeble note: “Iso had moved beyond bedtime stories by then, anyway.”

“I don’t doubt it. And I don’t think there’s anything the least bit unusual about Iso. It’s natural for girls her age to be secretive and sly. Healthy, even. But she crossed a boundary when she stole this phone, and it was important to intervene now. After all, it’s not only the phone, but the cost of these calls, which were outside the family’s plan. Unfortunately, the girl who owned the phone thought she had lost it and was scared to tell her parents, so this has been going on for two weeks.”

“Well, Iso will make restitution. That’s easy.”

“Yes, but it’s not enough. My suggestion and it’s just a suggestion? Take her out of the soccer league for the rest of the fall.”

“She’ll die. She’ll hate me.”

“She won’t die. But, yes, she will hate you for a while. Still, she needs to understand how serious this was.”

ELIZA TRIED TO CALL PETER on the way home, but his assistant said he was in the kind of meeting that could be interrupted only in a life-or-death emergency. Eliza was tempted to say, “Well, this is it,” but thought better of it. She would have liked to speak to Peter before she confronted Iso back home, but Albie was in the car, and that little pitcher really did have enormous ears. It would be unfair to Iso to discuss her situation in front of her brother. Eliza would go home, invoke the sitcom line, “Wait until your father gets home.” (It was quite the day for sitcoms. Eliza felt a laugh track should have been bubbling beneath the scene in the principal’s office.) She wouldn’t use the phrase ominously, simply make it clear to Iso that this was such a serious matter that it required two parents, united.

“Iso?” she said, coming in through the garage.

“I’m in here, Mom.” Her voice showed not a hint of apprehension, which was maddening. She should be a little afraid to face Eliza after a meeting at school.

“Here?” she echoed.

“In the dining room, with your old teacher. We made tea.”

Oh, so that’s why you’re calm. You have a witness. You know I can’t bitch you out. Then: Old teacher?

She and Albie entered the formal dining room, which the family seldom used. The table had been set for a small but proper tea, the fish-shaped teakettle sitting on a trivet, cookies spread fanlike on a plate. They were Eliza’s secret cookies. More stealing? Was Iso trying to impress her mother, or the visitor, an incongruously well-dressed woman who was instantly, tantalizingly familiar to Eliza, her name just on the tip of her tongue, but the context made no sense. Teacher? She didn’t remember ever having such an elegant teacher.

“Trudy Tackett,” the woman said, standing up and holding out her hand. “I’ve been enjoying getting to know your daughter. She reminds me so much of my daughter at the same age.”

39

WALTER WAS OUTSIDE FOR HIS hour of recreation for the first time in almost a week. Legally, the men on Sussex I were supposed to get an hour a day outside, but something was always coming up. They claimed they found a weapon, put the whole place in lockdown, then they said there was a piece of fence that needed repair, although they could have just not used that particular dog run, as Walter thought of the individual recreation yards the men used. Today, for example, there was no one on either side of him, no way to talk, or play a hand of cards. That was okay. He wasn’t feeling very sociable today. He was happy to be with his own thoughts, feel a little light on his face. He always had looked better with a tan, bad as it might have been for his skin, according to Barbara.

Back in the day, when Walter realized what his future was—what his lack of future was—and found that he could accept it, his first thought was: I’ll probably learn to play chess. He wasn’t sure where this idea came from. Like most people, he knew what he knew about prison