It would have been worth any amount of money not to have to deal with the foundation alone. Having grown up disadvantagedherself, Amanda believed deeply in the foundation’s mission—providing scholarships that allowed needy middle-school students to attend some of New York City’s best private schools. But running the Hope First Initiative was very stressful. And Amanda needed to get it right. After all, it had been Zach’s brainchild.
Zach’s parents—a pair of Poughkeepsie crack addicts—had abandoned him when he was nine. After that, he’d bounced from foster home to foster home. Zach had told Amanda all about it shortly after they met, how growing up in the shadow of swanky Vassar College he’d always known there was more to life. And he’d wanted it. All of it.
And so, Zach had gone out and grabbed it. At the age of fourteen, he began working an illegal overnight shift stocking supermarket shelves to earn enough for the requisite testing and applications to boarding schools. He was admitted to three, including Deerfield Academy, which he attended on full scholarship. From there, he’d gone on to Dartmouth, then a dual JD/MBA from Penn. Amanda had found it all so very impressive. She still did.
Once he and Amanda were together, Zach had shot up the corporate ladder, too, at start-up after start-up in California—Davis, Sunnydale, Sacramento, Pasadena, Palo Alto. Amanda gave birth to Case in Davis, and he was four when Zach decided that if he wanted to really get somewhere, he’d have to create something himself. It was then that ZAG, Inc. was born. (ZAG as in zigzag and also Zach’s initials, plus the A; he didn’t have a middle name.) Within five years, ZAG, Inc. was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But Amanda was not surprised when Zach resigned and stepped away, saying he was ready for something new. He’d always been a big proponent of challenging himself. Whatever the finer details of the new company Zach had started in New York—they never talked about the minutiae of his work—Amanda was sure it would be a big success, too.
“Why must my husband text to ask what we’re having for dinner in the middle of the day?” Sarah huffed, punching out another text. “It’s not even lunchtime. He should have better things to do.”
Amanda’s office phone rang. She startled, but made no move to answer it, even when it rang a second time.
“Um, you are aware we don’t have a receptionist yet?” Sarah asked. “That phone isn’t going to answer itself.”
“Oh, right.” Reluctantly, Amanda moved to her feet on the third ring and headed for her desk. She picked up the phone. “Amanda Grayson.”
There was no response.
“Hello?”
No answer. In an instant, dread all but overwhelmed her.
“Hello?” Amanda asked one more time. Still, there was nothing except that familiar sound in the background. Heavy, horrible breathing. Her gut twisted.
“Who is it?” Sarah asked from the couch.
There was only a series of zeroes on the caller ID. Amanda slammed down the phone.
“Whoa, killer!” Sarah called out. “What did they say?”
“No. Nothing. Sorry, I don’t even know why I hung up like that. There was no one there.” Amanda smiled, but it was not a good smile. She needed to change the subject. “It’s just—Case being so far away, it’s putting me on edge. I even had this ridiculously awful dream last night. I was running through the woods, barefoot, sticks cutting my feet. I think I was trying to save Case from something. God knows what.” When Amanda looked at Sarah, her eyes were already wide, and Amanda hadn’t even mentioned the most disturbing parts—the blood that had been all over her, and she’d been wearing something, a fancy dress, a wedding dress even; and then Norma’s Diner, from her hometown, appearing out of nowhere like some haunted house in the middle of the woods. Who dreamed such strange, awful things? Certainly not Sarah. “Obviously, it was just a nightmare. But every time the phone rings, I am worried it’s Case’s camp.”
Amanda knew that Case was safe at camp. She just felt unmoored without him. The only time he’d ever been away this long waswhen he’d been hospitalized with food poisoning as a toddler, and even then Amanda had slept in the hospital with him.
Sarah’s face softened. “Well,thatI do understand.” She came over to lean against the desk beside Amanda. “I always chew off all my fingernails when camp starts. Until I get that first letter, actually. And you’re dealing with a new camp. My boys usually go every summer to the same place.”
“You worry, too?” Amanda asked.
Sarah’s youngest son, Henry, was in Case’s class, which was how she and Amanda had met. Sarah was one of those blasé mothers who always had everything so under control no matter what new disaster her sons careened into. And there were a lot of disasters.
“Don’t let this tough exterior fool you!” Sarah exclaimed. “It’s just easier for me if I don’t let myself think about it—out of sight, out of mind. It’s like the ‘come in and see us’ message from Country Day I got about Henry right before the school year ended. You wanna know what I did?”
“What?” Amanda asked, on the edge of her seat. What she wouldn’t have done for one ounce of Sarah’s bravado.
“Iignoredit. Did not even respond. Can you imagine?” Sarah shook her head as though she was disgusted with herself, but really she seemed a little pleased. “Honestly? I couldn’t deal. I needed a break from everything kid-related. Of course, now we have this emergency PTA meeting tonight. So I guess the joke’s on me.”
“What emergency meeting?” Amanda asked.
“Come on, I told you. Remember? The contact list has been compromised!” She pressed her flattened palms to her cheeks and widened her eyes for a second, then smirked. “I know that Brooklyn Country Day isn’t one of those loosey-goosey progressive schools. We all love rigor and discipline and structure. That’s why we send our kids there. But honestly, you’d think the Country Day parents were all in witness protection or the CIA or something. They arelosingit.”
Oh yes, Sarah had told her about that and Amanda haddeliberately pushed it straight out of her mind. Zach would lose it, too, if he found out about some hacking situation. He was obsessive about their privacy. If their information got into the wrong hands, he would definitely hold it against the school, which he had picked specifically because of its attention to every last detail. He might even want Case pulled out andthatcould not happen. Despite its demanding academics, Brooklyn Country Day was the only bright spot for Case in an otherwise rough transition.
Amanda had hoped to wait until the end of the school year to move ten-year-old Case east, but in the end that hadn’t been possible. At least Case made friends easily. It helped that he fit in many different places socially. On the one hand, Case was an outgoing, athletic baseball fanatic, and on the other he was an introspective artist who could happily sit alone, sketching his favorite animal—jaguars—for hours. But a new school with only a few months left in fifth grade was a lot to ask of any child, even a flexible one.
There had been tears and some nightmares. Once Case had even wet the bed. Having often been plagued by terrifying dreams herself, Amanda had always taken her son’s sound sleep as a sign she was doing something right. Now even that was gone. At least Case had perked up once Amanda agreed to sleepaway camp: eight weeks all the way back in California with his best Palo Alto friend, Ashe. But what if her son’s sadness returned after camp ended and he came back to Park Slope? Amanda didn’t want to think about it. She’d always made whatever compromises necessary for Zach’s career, but never at Case’s expense. Her most important job was to protect her son, but in balancing Zach and Case, there were no easy answers.
“Oh, now don’tyouget all freaked out, too,” Sarah said. “I see that look on your face.”
“I’m not freaked out,” Amanda lied.
