The Finishing School Read online

  Dedication

  For Miguel, Jessie & Luke, who are everything.

  Epigraph

  “Of the not very many ways known of shedding one’s body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method, but you have to select your sill or ledge very carefully so as not to hurt yourself or others.”

  —Vladimir Nabokov

  “I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life.”

  —Zelda Fitzgerald

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Joanna Goodman

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  I want you to know the story of how you came to be and to understand why I had to do what I did. I know that some of the things I did were crazy. Some people thought I went too far, that I became unhinged. At times, I did, too. But no matter how strange or surreal it seemed, there was, for me, a perverse logic to it.

  I’m here to tell you it was worth it. You were worth it. And I would do it all over again if faced with the same choice. I challenge any woman in my shoes to walk away from the fortuitous opportunity that was presented to me, or to opt for defeat when a solution so miraculously landed in my lap.

  I never saw myself as the kind of person who would stop at nothing to get what I wanted, but this last year has proved that’s exactly who I am. I found within myself a selfishness and a relentlessness I did not know I had. Those traits are not always a bad thing, especially for someone like me. Someone who rarely staked a claim.

  You brought that out in me; my desire for you prevailed over all else, including that need to please everyone and be approved of and always do the reasonable thing. Nothing about how I wound up here was reasonable. Nothing about your story to this point aligns with the woman I thought I was. You summoned me to fight, to do the inconceivable and be utterly dauntless about my ambition. Funny, the harder I fought—not just for you, but also for the truth—the more I began to like myself.

  Turns out I’m not so different from Cressida after all. You have your life because of it.

  Chapter 1

  TORONTO—September 2015

  Lille is dead.

  Kersti rereads the letter, which arrived inside an innocuous envelope from her agent, Rona Sharpe. She tore it open, anticipating the usual royalty statement with Rona’s familiar for your records scribbled at the top. But inside that envelope there was another letter, still in its sealed envelope. It was addressed to Kersti Kussk-Wax, c/o Rona Sharpe Literary Agency. There was a Connecticut postmark and the name Robertson printed on the back flap.

  Kersti opened it and read the square yellow Post-it stuck to the letter, which was from Lille’s mother.

  Kersti, we found this letter on Lille’s computer after she died. I had forgotten about it until I received an invitation to the Lycée’s 100th Anniversary. Lille’s letter is unfinished, but it may be of interest to you. Best, Jaqueline Robertson

  Kersti’s mouth went dry. After she died? She unfolded the letter, her fingertips tingling. After all these years of silence, a letter? It made no sense.

  Dear Kersti,

  Mwah mwah mwah. Three kisses for old times’ sake. I know it’s been a long time, but I’ve been following your writing career and I’ve read your last two books and I’m so happy for you. My favorite was Moonset over Tallinn. (I tried to order The Ski Maker’s Daughter, but it doesn’t seem to exist.)

  I won’t get to read your next one. I’m going to die soon.

  After I graduated from the Lycée (I stayed to complete the year . . . where else could I go?) I was accepted at Brown, and managed to get a degree in Psychology. I briefly entertained the possibility of becoming a Jungian analyst. Ha! In the end, I decided I couldn’t risk further undermining the already fragile mental stability of my future potential clients. So I took some photography courses. I love photography. I even had a show at a small gallery in Williamsburg back in ’99, but my confidence wasn’t up for all that scrutiny—having my work displayed on the walls for people to judge. I even felt unworthy of the positive attention. Nothing sold. I wasn’t very good anyway and continued to pursue it only as a hobby.

  I’ve had an underwhelming life, even by my own standards. There was more I could have accomplished—there’s actually a fairly sharp intellect in this warped brain—but my desires and ideas never seemed to match my output.

  Fear. That was my problem. I’ve always felt like a child cowering in a corner. Oddly enough, the one thing I did not fear was death. I feared not being liked; not being good enough; not being worthy; not being respected; not being beautiful; not being happy or useful or productive; I feared being exposed, being abandoned, being seen, being judged, being rejected.

  But I never feared death. (Good thing, it turns out.) Do you remember that book The Secret that came out a few years ago? Everyone was talking about the Law of Attraction and how you could manifest whatever you wanted in life just by thinking about it—but also that you could manifest whatever you didn’t want just by thinking about it. The whole concept was oversimplified and exploited, but not without its truths. I believe the fear inside me eventually turned into a tumor and settled in my breast. Stage 4, at the time of my diagnosis. Seventeen lymph nodes infected. That’s a lot of fear.

  The process of dying stirs up a lot of shit, Kerst. I’m not intending this to be a confession, but I’ve kept a lot of stuff to myself over the years. I wonder if I should have shared it, at least with a shrink. I imagine that all the crap I’ve kept to myself lives inside that tumor. (Have you ever read the story “Hairball” by Margaret Atwood? After the main character has a tumor surgically removed, she stores it in formaldehyde, keeps it on her mantelpiece, and calls it “Hairball.”) That’s how I picture my tumors (I’ve got lots of them now—in my bones, my liver, my spine).

  I know this is a cliché of the dying person, but certain things in particular still haunt me:

  I don’t believe Cressida “fell” by accident.

  There’s something incriminating in the Helvetians ledger. I think Deirdre has it (if not, where is it?).

  I wonder if Magnus saw anything (I saw him leaving Huber House that night).

  I wish I’d spoken up sooner

  The letter ends abruptly. Obviously, Lille had more to say. Maybe she got too sick; maybe she wrestled with how much more to confess and then died before a satisfactory answer ever revealed itself.

  Kersti realizes she’s still standing at her desk and collapses heavily into the chair.

  Lille is dead.

&
nbsp; She sits with that for a moment, a feeling of trepidation pulsing inside her. She hasn’t seen Lille in almost twenty years, so it’s not like there’s a physical void, but there’s definitely a heavy-heartedness, a crush of dread that has more to do with Kersti’s recollection of that entire era; of what happened to them that forever expunged their freer, more hopeful selves.

  Lille was a strange, acutely empathic girl whose awkwardness and discomfort in the world was a palpable thing. Her sensitivity was an affliction, like an exposed nerve. Certain people dying young are not a surprise. Lille’s death, though tragic, is one of those unshocking deaths. She always possessed a certain sadness of spirit, a weary resignation about life that probably could not be sustained deep into old age.

  Cressida was the opposite. She was life itself. She was beauty, vitality, and possibility all breathed into an exquisite physical form. She was the embodiment of power, inner and outer. She was unforgettable, her impact no less potent in her absence.

  They’re both gone now and Kersti’s long-repressed grief over Cressida’s accident is starting to fester and rise to the surface. She can feel it in her chest, her throat, her head. As she folds up the letter and shoves it in her top drawer—as though hiding it can keep the truth from encroaching on her life—Kersti already knows that hearing about Lille’s death so soon after being invited back to the Lycée will be the inevitable catalyst that forces her to face the tsunami of grief and guilt she’s been holding back since the age of eighteen.

  The invitation to the hundredth birthday gala is hanging on the magnetic board above her desk. She glances at it now, still undecided about whether or not to attend. Her years in Switzerland were the best of her life; the way they came to an end, the worst.

  You are invited to celebrate our 100th birthday on June 11, 2016, at the Lycée International Suisse. 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland.

  Inside the envelope there was also a letter.

  Dear Kersti,

  In 1916, the Lycée opened its doors to a handful of students seeking the highest standard of education in the world. Since that time, we’ve been accredited by the European Council of International Schools and become one of a group of schools to be officially recognized by the Swiss Confederation. In 1925, our day school became co-ed and although we are proud of the great many achievements of our male alumni, as part of our centennial celebrations, we have selected “One Hundred Women of the Lycée” to represent the last century of our success in grooming young girls to reach their full potential and become thriving citizens of the world.

  In 2016, the Lycée Internationale Suisse will celebrate its 100th birthday. We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected as one of our “One Hundred Women of the Lycée” for your outstanding achievements in the Literary Arts. We invite you to be one of the keynote speakers at our 100th Birthday Garden Party on Saturday June 11th, 2016 . . .

  What would Cressida have thought of Kersti being chosen one of the One Hundred Women of the Lycée? She probably would have made Kersti feel like an idiot for feeling flattered.

  When Kersti first got back from Lausanne after the accident, it was hard not to think about Cressida all the time. She became so depressed and reclusive she finally had to make the purposeful decision to not go there anymore. From that point on, she stopped living in the memories—the good, the bad and the surreal; stopped visiting that dark, deep place in her mind and forged ahead with her life. That meant she had to ignore all the unanswered questions that had been left dangling, which became easier and easier to do over the years. And yet here it is, that sleeping beast, gently waking after all this time, claws extended, determined to pull her back there. She’s not surprised. It takes outrageous arrogance to think one can successfully outrun the past, and Kersti has never been that arrogant. Cressida was, but not Kersti.

  She opens her desk drawer and removes Lille’s letter again. She rereads it, finding herself stuck at the part about Magnus. I saw him leaving Huber House that night . . .

  Lille’s letter is a welcome distraction from her last, tense conversation with Jay. She gets up, leaving the letter on her desk, and goes downstairs to the basement, where she drags a box marked lycee out of the storage closet. In it, she’s saved report cards, photo albums, yearbooks, and a shoe box full of tokens and mementos—a coaster for Bière Cardinal . . . moment d’amitié; programs from the Fête des Vendanges in Morges and the 1989 Holiday on Ice at the Palais de Beaulieu; lift tickets from every ski trip she ever went on, from Thyon to Gstaad; placemats from Niffenager’s Brasserie (they called it Niffy’s) and from Café le Petit Pont Bessières (they called it 2,50’s, the price of a chope); her medals from the Vaud Volleyball Championships; an artsy black-and-white photo of the Molecular Structure; a paper menu from Chez Mario, which has a strong mildew smell; and a handful of photo-booth photos—Kersti and Cressida, Kersti and Lille, Cress and Raf; Lille and Alison; Kersti and Noa. All six of them. Serious, silly, smiling, tongues out, kissing, fake tans, frost-and-tipped hair, the nineties.

  The sharp stab of nostalgia is piercing. She hasn’t allowed herself to do this in almost two decades. Still, she kept everything. She was happy there, truly herself.

  The yearbook is unsigned by her friends. She left Switzerland before it was handed out to the students and it had to be mailed to her. Her “Bequeaths” aren’t even included. Neither are Cressida’s or Lille’s. She reads Noa and Rafaella’s Bequeaths and what surprises her now is that they were able to bounce back so quickly after the accident and compose their lighthearted summations of the school year. I bequeath my tweezers to Komiko; raw brownies to Ali; the third-floor bathroom to the “Helvetians of ’94.”

  Strange, given that one of their best friends had mysteriously plunged from her fourth-floor balcony just weeks before the end of the school year. Kersti had a much harder time recovering. Maybe she never did. Not just from the accident, but from the friendship itself. Going through the yearbook again, Kersti can’t help being transported back to that phase of her life that was both so brief and so deeply impressive. There she is in Stratford-upon-Avon, in Basel, at the Christmas Torchlight Descent, at Villars, Verbier, Chateau-d’Oex—

  “Kerst?”

  She looks up, disoriented. Jay is standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking disheveled and sleepy. He must have fallen asleep on the couch. She feels far away from him tonight, not just because of everything that’s been going on between them—the stress, the arguing, the tension—but because her mind is in the past.

  He looks older to her at this moment, as if she’s looking at him through the eyes of her teenage self. He’s just turned forty and has a wreath of silver in his dark hair, some lines indented in his forehead, which was as smooth as a candle’s surface just a year or two ago. But she’s being hard on him. She’s in that kind of a mood. He’s handsome and well preserved; he makes an effort. If not for the silver wreath and the newish forehead lines, he doesn’t look a day over thirty-five. Plus he’s got a formidable upper body—broad shoulders, slim waist, great abs—that can be attributed to the flour- and sugar-free diet he embarked on after his thirty-ninth birthday.

  He takes a step toward her, but keeps his distance. “What’s going on?” he asks, running a hand through his hair.

  “My friend died,” Kersti says, closing the yearbook.

  “Who?”

  “Someone from the Lycée. She had cancer.”

  “Shit. That’s young.”

  Not as young as seventeen, Kersti thinks, remembering something Mme. Hamidou once told her about Cressida. “Cressida is too brilliant to waste her talents on an ordinary life,” she’d said in a portentous voice. “She has a great destiny, which someday she’ll share with the world.”

  Kersti had always believed that to be true. Everyone did. And Cressida was destined for something far bigger and more unimaginable than the rest of them. Her great destiny turned out to be tragedy.

  “I might go back to Lausanne in the spring,” she tell
s Jay. “For that hundredth birthday thing.”

  Chapter 2

  LAUSANNE—September 1994

  Kersti and her mother arrive at the train station in Lausanne on a brilliant September morning. The air is muggy when they step out of the Gare. Most of her luggage was shipped to the school ahead of time so she only has one suitcase to manage. Facing the McDonald’s across the street, Kersti’s first impression of Switzerland is that it looks just like Toronto. It’s nothing like all those pictures of green valleys and pristine lakes and snowcapped mountains. It’s traffic, fast food, sour faces rushing to work. It could be any generic city, which bothers Kersti because what’s the point of coming all this way?

  Her mother hails a taxi. Kersti gets in and slumps against the window while her mother drones on about the fondue she used to have at some café in Place St. François. Her mother went to school at the Lycée when she was young and always wanted her daughters to have the same experience. The “privilege” has fallen to Kersti because her sisters didn’t have the grades to earn the Legacy Scholarship. Kersti had the grades, though not the inclination; but being her mother’s last hope, she didn’t have much say in the matter. Everyone thinks it’s some marvelous gift but the truth, Kersti knows, is that her parents are sending her away because they’re exhausted.

  Kersti’s mother was forty-five when she had Kersti, which makes her the age of most kids’ grandmothers. She’s got faded blue eyes and her pale blond hair has yellowed over the years, like discolored paper. She’s still slim, but her angles and lines are softening into old age. Kersti has always resented having older parents. From an early age, it was obvious to her that their energy and enthusiasm had been used up raising her three older sisters; she could sense they were tired and a little disinterested. Shipping her off to boarding school feels more like they’re giving up than bestowing a privilege.