The Promise Girls

by Marie Bostwick

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Every child prodigy grows up eventually. For the Promise sisters, escaping their mother’s narcissism and the notoriety that came with her bestselling book hasn’t been easy. Minerva Promise claimed that her three test-tube daughters—gifted pianist Joanie, artistic Meg, and storyteller Avery—were engineered and molded to be geniuses. In adulthood, their modest lives fall far short of her grand ambitions. But now, twenty years after the book’s release, she hopes to redeem herself by taking part in a new documentary.

Meg, who hasn’t picked up a paintbrush in years, adamantly refuses to participate, until a car accident leaves her with crushing medical bills. While she recuperates in Seattle, the three sisters reluctantly meet with filmmaker Hal Seeger, another former prodigy. Like them, he’s familiar with the weight of failed potential. But as he digs deeper, he uncovers secrets they’ve hidden from each other and a revelation that will challenge their beliefs, even as it spurs them to forge their own extraordinary lives at last.

Release date: March 28, 2017

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 372

Sample

The studio lights are glaringly bright and white-hot.

A disembodied voice from the loudspeaker announces, “One minute to air,” in the way Joanie imagines the autopilot of a doomed spaceship might announce, “One minute to impact.” Everyone in the studio—audience, host, and guests—goes instantly and utterly silent, waiting for what comes next.

Three weeks into the book tour, Joanie still isn’t used to the silence of televisions studios, ponderous silence that feels like being closed in a concrete box with walls so thick no noise from the outside world can penetrate, just as no sound emanating inside can escape. Joanie can scream as loud as she wants and no one will hear her.

Joanie, Meg, Avery, and their mother sit in upholstered side chairs, like the ones you see in the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices, motionless, waiting. Avery is so little her feet can’t touch the floor, but she doesn’t kick her legs or even fidget.

The audience is still as well. They stare at Joanie and her little sisters in a way that makes her think about people at the zoo staring through the glass at the reptile house, waiting for the snakes to do something interesting.

Soon they will—she will. If she doesn’t lose her nerve.

The voice comes again, droning “Ten seconds.” Joanie feels a bead of sweat along her hairline. She lifts her hand to wipe it away, but catches sight of her mother’s eyes. She puts her hand back into her lap, feels the bead trickle down her forehead, into the crevice behind her ear, dropping onto her dress collar.

The floor director, dressed in black, counts down the final five seconds on his fingers and points at the host, whose smile appears out of nowhere.

“We’re back. Today we’re discussing child prodigies. We’ll be meeting children and teens whose remarkable achievements in the arts, sciences, mathematics, and business can’t help but make us reconsider our preconceived notions about the limits of human intelligence and even the nature of childhood itself. It also brings up long-debated questions about what matters most in tapping the depth of human potential. Nature? Or nurture?

“In her newly released book, The Promise Girls, our first guest, Minerva Promise, mother of three artistic prodigies, argues that nature and nurture play equally important roles in fostering genius. Please welcome Minerva Promise and her daughters, Joanie, Meg, and Avery—the Promise Girls.”

The audience, happy to have a role to play and eager to approve of anything put forth by their host, one of the wealthiest, most famous, and most trusted women in America, claps enthusiastically. When the applause begins to fade, the host asks her first question.

“Minerva Promise, most expectant parents are happy just to have healthy children, but when your daughters were born, and even before they were conceived, you made it your goal to raise three highly accomplished artists—a pianist, a painter, and a writer.”

Minerva, who has been nodding in agreement while the host speaks, smiles. “That’s right. My daughters were given expert artistic instruction as soon as they were capable of creating on their own. Joanie received her first piano lessons at two and a half. Meg began painting—with her fingers, of course—even before that. Avery is only five, so she can’t yet write sentences, but she creates and dictates remarkably complex stories. Even as babies, my girls were intentionally and intensely exposed to great music, art, and literature to tap their natural creativity.”

“And yet,” the host comments, her brow furrowing, “some have said there is nothing natural in your methods. You didn’t just encourage your daughters, but engineered them with the specific intention to raise prodigies in three separate areas of the arts. Is that true?”

Minerva frowns, but in a way that will not make her appear any less attractive on camera.

“I think ‘engineered’ makes it all sound a lot more Mary Shelley than was actually the case. I’m no Dr. Frankenstein.” She flashes a maternal smile to prove it. The audience chuckles. “However, I did take advantage of technological advances to conceive and bear children with a higher likelihood of achievement in the arts.

“As a single woman with infertility issues that made conception by natural means or even by artificial insemination impossible, I feared I would never have children. But when Louise Brown was born—”

“The first test tube baby,” the host clarifies, “born in England in 1978.”

“Yes,” Minerva says. “She was the first baby born via in vitro fertilization, in which the egg is fertilized in a laboratory and then implanted into the mother’s womb. Soon afterward, I went to Europe to undergo the procedure, choosing donor sperm from an anonymous classical pianist for my first child, Joanie, and a gifted painter for my second girl, Meg.” She smiles affectionately at her daughters, who smile back. “By the time Avery was born, in vitro was widely available in the U.S., so I . . .”

Joanie stops listening. The press packet prepared by their publicist and sent ahead of each interview has suggested questions written out in advance. The host has written her own questions, but Joanie knows more or less what will come next—the pseudo-serious discussion of pseudoscientific theories, the host’s gentle chiding about the social and moral implications of designer babies . . . It was pretty much the same every time.

Only a few questions will be directed toward Joanie or her sisters and those will be softballs—easy inquiries about the artists they admire most, what their average day is like, if they have time to play and have friends like “normal” kids, possibly a cheeky question about whether or not Joanie has a boyfriend—questions formulated to make them seem like other children, which they are not.

Other children don’t get paraded out to perform like monkeys at the circus, stared at like snakes in the Reptile House, like freaks in a sideshow. Even now, as the grown-ups talk about the children as if they aren’t there or can’t hear, the audience keeps sneaking furtive glances at them. The boy in the front row, the geeky math whiz who tried to talk to her in the green room, is staring at them outright, at her, and has been the whole time.

Like the others, he probably wants to know what the big deal is about them, about her. Are they as genius as Momma claims? Joanie doubts it. Meg is different perhaps, the only true genius in the room. But they all work very hard, Momma too.

The Promise Girls—the children and the book—are Momma’s life’s work, the only means she had of making a living, for all of them. Having just turned seventeen, Joanie is old enough to understand about money and the need of it. That’s why she agreed to go along with this, to be the one whose job it is to prove that Momma is telling the truth and has successfully and intentionally raised prodigious artists.

Avery is too little to be anything but adorable, though she absolutely is and enjoys the attention. But being adorable doesn’t prove the success of the experiment, does it? Meg can’t produce a painting on demand in an eight-minute television segment. Even if she could, she’s too timid. She hates being stared at, being judged by strangers. Just sitting here is agony for her.

It is for Joanie, too, but she can bear it better. She must because she’s the oldest. It’s her job to protect the little ones, and so she agreed to this. For three weeks. It was supposed to be over by now. The publicist said that three weeks after a book is released, the public will lose interest. Unless you are on this show.

Apparently, it is a very big deal. Joanie wouldn’t have known unless someone told her—they don’t own a television. But because the host read Momma’s book and decided to do a show built around them at the last minute, now everyone wants them. Paula, the publicist, is booking them three months out. Three months.

Joanie hadn’t agreed to that. None of them had.

Avery is turning into a brat, starting to act out because she thinks the others are getting more attention. Momma has threatened to spank her even though Avery knows her mother would never lay a hand on Avery, on any of them. Momma has a sinus infection. Joanie has a cold. All of them are exhausted. When it began they were excited because the hotels have swimming pools. Now they are too tired to use them.

Meg is suffering the most. She woke up crying this morning, has headaches every day, all day. She’s anxious all the time, too nervous to eat.

Meg is suffering. Can’t they see that? Someone has to put a stop to it.

The first segment is over. A stagehand comes to escort Joanie, but she knows what she is supposed to do. She gets up from her chair and goes to the piano on the far side of the stage. She will play her usual piece, Liebestraum No. 3, by Liszt. When she is done, she will go back to the chairs with the others. The host will ask the softball questions while pictures of Meg’s paintings flash onto the big screen at the back of the stage.

Then it will be over. Except it won’t be. Not unless someone puts a stop to it.

The commercial break ends. The cameras roll again. The host introduces her and Joanie begins to play.

How many times has she played the Liebestraum? The “Dream of Love”? Hundreds, certainly. Thousands, maybe. Yet she never tires of it. Maestro Boehm has taught her to see mystery in every note, to understand that every time she plays, no matter how familiar the notes, chords, and arpeggios become, the music can reveal something new to her, and in her, if she will release herself to it.

But today is not one of those days. She is not playing very well. Not badly, but not well. She has learned that television audiences don’t know the difference; it’s not like playing at a competition. But surely even they will notice the mistake she has planned, timing it to occur during the change from arpeggios to chords, where someone might easily trip up. If she goes through with it, makes this mistake on purpose, they’ll see that she’s not a prodigy at all, just a lazy, mediocre girl, a failed experiment, and they’ll send her home. They’ll send all of them home.

Will Maestro Boehm forgive her? Will Momma?

But someone has to put a stop to it; Momma should have already. When Paula started talking about booking three months out, Momma should have said, “I’m sorry, we’re done. It’s enough.” But she didn’t and now Joanie doesn’t know if she’ll be able to forgive her, ever, for forcing her to do this, for leaving her no choice.

Here they come, two bars away now, the chords.

Joanie’s eyes shift to the far side of the stage, ignoring the suspicion she sees in her mother’s eyes. Joanie looks at the keyboard and makes her fingers stumble, or seem to stumble. She frowns, pretending to be perturbed, flustered. Then she pretends to recover herself and plays the end of the piece perfectly.

The final notes fade away. Joanie lifts her hands from the keyboard and stands up as the audience applauds. Her cheeks feel hot. She knows she doesn’t deserve their adulation and doesn’t understand why they don’t realize this, but she curtsies because that’s the procedure, that’s what you do after a performance. Momma always says, “It’s one thing to make a mistake, another to let people see it.”

The host crosses the stage to meet her. The audience claps even louder when she folds Joanie into a congratulatory embrace before leading her back to the chairs.

Momma stands up as if to greet her. Her lips are pressed into a thin line and her eyes are two cold gray mirrors. She draws back her arm and slaps her daughter across the face with such power that the sound is like the crack of wood against leather when a batter swings away and hits one into the bleachers.

The audience gasps as if they are one person and then, just for a breath, falls into shocked silence. They can’t quite believe what they have just seen, can’t believe that the mother of these brilliant children who has been making the rounds of all the talk shows, including this one, hosted by the empress of them all, has just slapped her daughter while the cameras rolled.

But Joanie is not surprised. She expected . . . well, not this. But something like it. She knew Momma would be angry.

Joanie totters a step, feeling off-balance. She removes her hand from her cheek, exposing the angry red imprint of her mother’s hand. The crowd gasps again. They see the evidence of Minerva’s wrath.

And then . . . pandemonium. It all happens so fast.

The host grabs Joanie, pulls her close, calls for security. Within seconds, two security guards grab hold of Minerva, clasping her arms, limp at the elbow. Two black-clad producers appear from the wings, swooping down on Meg and Avery. Avery is sobbing, crying for her mother and Joanie at the same time. Meg is crying, too, but no sound comes out of her mouth even though her eyes are streaming with tears and her face is contorted. There are cries and boos. People calling their mother names—terrible, terrible names. Others are calling for 911, for the police.

The floor director shouts, “Cut!” The red lights on the cameras go dark. The security guards are dragging Minerva off into the wings. Another of the black-clad strangers grabs hold of Joanie’s arms and pulls her in another direction, away from her mother, away from her sisters, too, separating them like four points of a compass, to the end of the map of the world, the end of their world.

Joanie is crying now, too, louder than anyone, sobbing, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it! Let me play it again, please! I’ll do it right this time, I promise. Please! Let me play it again!”

It does no good. She can scream as loud as she wants. No one hears.

March is the season of waiting in Seattle.

Rain drizzles down day after day in a dithering trickle, too hard for a sprinkle, too light for a deluge. The temperature, too, is indecisive. It’s hard to know what to wear—coat, jacket, sweater, or shirtsleeves—so people tend to dress in layers, trying to prepare for anything, irritated that they need to. The skies are neutrally gray, refusing to make an endorsement or prediction. Everyone lives in suspense, waiting for the unveiling that, this year, could well pass them by, waiting for spring. Or something like it. Anything different would do, anything to break the monotony, and the tension, of waiting.

Meg Promise Hayes sat in the dining alcove that doubled as her home office, her desk heaped with papers, looking out the window. Mrs. LaRouche was tromping dutifully down the sidewalk, holding an umbrella in one hand and Punkin’s leash in the other. Meg waved and then checked her e-mail, hoping there might be a message from the mortgage broker saying their new client’s loan had been approved. She’s unlikely to hear anything on a Saturday, but checks anyway. With Asher’s winter work wrapping up, they really needed that job.

Finding nothing in her in-box, she went back to work. As usual, there were more bills than all the rest put together. It was discouraging. She sighed.

It wasn’t Asher’s fault that building Not So Big houses generated Not So Big profits, or that they never completely regained their footing after the recession. What bugged her was that he wasn’t more concerned about it.

“We make enough to get by and can feel good about what we do. That’s more than a lot of people can say. I’ve got no complaints.”

That was Asher in a nutshell: no complaints. About anything.

After one look at those laughing eyes, Mrs. Hayes decided to name her son Asher, which means “happy” in Hebrew. It suited him. “Happy” was Asher’s default mode and one of the reasons Meg fell for him so hard and so fast—that plus the dizzying, disorienting chemistry between them, an instantaneous attraction that was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

Joanie still told the story of what happened when Meg moved to Seattle and Joanie introduced her little sister to Asher, a friend who was helping remodel her decrepit Capitol Hill bungalow. Joanie made lunch for the three of them and spent the whole time talking and talking, trying to fill the silence while Meg and Asher stared at each other across the table.

“The most awkward hour of my life,” Joanie would say. “But I probably didn’t need to say a word. For you two, there was nobody else in the room.”

True enough. After one look at Asher, Meg was off the market. Not that she’d ever really been on the market. Until that moment painting was her only love. Asher changed all that.

His eyes were brown with flecks of gold, and his smile so bright and easy that it was impossible not to smile back. He didn’t have a beard yet, but even then he wore his hair long, in a ponytail that was as thick and strong as stout manila rope. He stood six foot six and had shoulders that went on forever.

He played the guitar, read voraciously, loved hiking, skiing, and telling terrible parrot jokes. If that weren’t enough, with a load of good lumber and a little advance notice, he could build just about anything you could imagine. He was sweet, funny, considerate, and incredibly masculine, a kind of urban mountain man, the perfect mix of hip and homespun, the kind of man that Seattle was made for.

What girl wouldn’t have fallen in love with Asher?

They were married just six weeks after they met. She was nineteen and he was twenty-two. Nine and a half months later, they became parents of a baby daughter, Trina. They bought their first house a year later and barely escaped with their lives when it burned to the ground. Even now, Meg could close her eyes and smell the smoke, feel the heat of the flames, and remember how it felt to stand on the curb with Trina sobbing in her arms and Asher’s arm heavy over her shoulders, watching the flames devour their home, grateful to be alive even as she wondered how and where they were to live.

But Asher, happy Asher, never complained, not even after realizing the insurance money wouldn’t be enough to replace what they had before. He built them another house—better but much smaller—on the same lot and with his own hands.

That experience convinced them he should go into business building smaller, smarter, quality-constructed homes. They started RightSize Homes with what little was left in Meg’s trust from the sales of The Promise Girls and thirty thousand borrowed from Joanie.

Asher was a good builder but a bad businessman. He could construct a 600-square-foot house that was cute as a button, tight as a drum, and as comfortable to live in as one twice its size. But he couldn’t keep track of scheduling, contracts, expenses, and, most importantly, income. Months could pass before he got around to sending bills for his work. Meg gave up painting entirely and became his bookkeeper, scheduler, office manager, and co-designer.

When she heard of it, Minerva left a voice mail rant about how stupid and selfish Meg was to abandon the artistic gift her mother had sacrificed so much to develop and nurture. Meg blocked Minerva’s number. That worked for almost a year. Then Minerva got a new number. Meg blocked her again . . . and again . . . and again. Now, unless she knew exactly who was calling, Meg let the phone ring.

In truth, it was a relief to give up the artificial seeds of aspiration planted by Minerva upon her birth. If Meg had been braver, more realistic, she’d have scrapped it all years before, like Joanie. She’d have been happy, like Asher. For a time, she was.

It was good working alongside her husband, building beautiful little houses that people of modest means could afford, even better to build a business and family and life together, something solid that they could be proud of.

But this far in, shouldn’t life be a little more certain? Shouldn’t she know for sure what and who she could count on? But she didn’t anymore. She hadn’t for months. That was what bothered her, far more than finances.

Meg opened the Visa bill and groaned when she saw the total. The screen door slammed and she heard Asher in his work boots clumping into the kitchen.

“Hey, babe! I dropped Trina off at the Science Center and then went to the job site. They delivered an electric water heater instead of gas, so I’ve got to return it. I thought I’d swing by, grab some food, and say hi.” He opened the refrigerator and started rooting around. “Do we have any of that leftover quinoa salad?”

“Trina finished it,” she said without looking up from her work.

Asher came into the alcove carrying a container of potato salad and a spoon. He stood behind her and bent down, pressing his lips onto the curve where her shoulder became her neck.

“How’s your morning going? Feel like taking a break?”

“Asher, not now. Really.” She twisted her shoulders, breaking contact. “We’re either three thousand dollars under budget or six hundred over. I need to figure out which.”

“Bet I know,” he said with a wry smile. “And what difference does an hour make? We’ll be just as broke at one as we are at noon, won’t we? And since Trina’s not home . . .”

He lowered his head again. Meg scooted her chair closer to the desk and sat up very straight, refusing to look at him.

“Asher. Stop. I’m not in the mood.”

He was quiet, so quiet that she thought he might have left the room. But after a moment he walked around to the side of the desk. For once, he didn’t look happy. He took the credit card bill from her grasp and laid it down on the desk.

“Meg, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. You haven’t been in the mood for six weeks, three days, and fourteen hours. Not that I’m counting or anything.” A wisp of a smile broke through his somber expression, but quickly dissipated. “We’ve never gone six days before, let alone six weeks. It’s not just the sex. I miss you, Meg. I feel like you’re a million miles away.”

Meg felt her jaw set. “I’m tired, that’s all. And drowning in paper. I’ve got to get the tax stuff organized, pull together that new bid—even though I’m sure they’re going to go with somebody else—all the husband could talk about was price per square foot. I also have to write the grant application for the new computer lab at Trina’s school by myself.”

“Wait . . . I thought Rhonda somebody-or-other was helping you with that?”

Meg shook her head. “It’s Robin. And now she can’t. Her mother has cancer so she has to go to Florida. I’m fine. Just tired. Tired, overworked, and overwhelmed.”

He studied her as she talked, his brown eyes searching.

“And you’re sure that’s all. There’s nothing you want to tell me?”

“No!” she snapped, irritated by his prodding. “Anything you want to tell me?”

His concern turned to confusion. “Like what?”

Meg grabbed the Visa bill and stabbed her finger toward one of the charges. “Like what you bought for $478.28 at Best Buy?”

“That was the telescope. For Trina’s birthday. We talked about it.”

“Not for five hundred dollars we didn’t. Do you know how tight things are for us right now?”

“It’s her birthday,” he said, as if this should be explanation enough. “You only turn sixteen once. And it’s not like it’s something frivolous, like a toy. You know Trina. She’ll use this for years and . . .”

His voice trailed off. He stood there. Meg could see he was struggling, trying not to lose his temper. She almost wished he would.

“You’re right,” he said at last. “We should have picked it out together. Listen, I’m going back to work.” He squeezed her shoulder and carried his dishes back to the kitchen. Meg wilted in her chair and rubbed her forehead, feeling guilty.

“Don’t forget,” he said, “you’re picking Trina up at the Science Center. Her workshop ends at noon.”

“Great. Downtown traffic.”

“You want me to go instead?”

“No, no. Get the water heater. We’re three weeks behind schedule already.” Meg spun around so she could see him. “Hey. Sorry I’m such a witch today.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled that everything-is-fine-nothing-is-ruined Asher smile that she knew so well, then grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and headed toward the back door. “By the way, your sister called me.”

“Which one? Joanie or Avery?”

“Joanie. She called me to find out why you haven’t returned her calls.”

“It’s spring—sort of. Bid season, tax season. I’m busy.” Meg furrowed her brow as she tried to remember what she’d charged for $62 on PayPal.

“That’s what I told her. She said to tell you to call back anyway and that she hates CoupleQuest.com. Oh, and something about some guy who wants to make a documentary about you and your sisters. She said not to tell you about it, so if she brings it up act surprised. Mostly I think she wanted to vent about the dating thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Meg said distractedly. “Tell her she’s never going to meet anybody if she doesn’t make an effort. It’s not like some great guy is just going to knock on her door and declare himself.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you tell her. See you tonight. Love you.”

The door slammed. Only after she heard the truck pull out of the driveway did Meg whisper, “Love you too.”

Two hours later, Meg’s desk still wasn’t clean, but she had sorted out the accounts. Sure enough, they were already over their monthly budget. She made an online funds transfer from savings, then checked her cell phone.

Joanie had called her again. So had Asher. She didn’t have time to talk to either of them now. Asher was probably calling to check on her and ask, yet again, if anything was wrong. In previous days, she’d thought his solicitousness was sweet. Now it felt stifling. Or disingenuous? Time would tell.

Meg checked the time. If she didn’t leave in the next five minutes, she’d be late picking up Trina. She ran into the kitchen, plugged in the Crock-Pot, then went back to her desk to check her e-mail one last time, still hoping for some good news. Instead she saw a message that she hadn’t been expecting for another two weeks, one that could allay her suspicions. Or confirm them.

For a moment, she thought about hitting the delete button and forgetting that any of this had ever happened. But it was too late for that. She had to know the truth.

She scanned the e-mail, absorbing figures and percentages, charts and graphs, until she reached the bottom and knew for certain that her suspicions had been correct. Even so, she sat there for a long moment, trying to wrap her mind around it all, feeling her heart pound but nothing more, feeling numb.

What was she supposed to do next? Whom should she talk to first and when? What was she supposed to say?

She scrolled down to read other files, the ones that were supposed to be merely diversionary, finding more figures, more charts, more evidence, a conclusion she could never have anticipated.

“Dear God,” she whispered, her head dropping to the back of the chair, as if the weight of newly attained knowledge made it too heavy to hold. “I don’t believe it.”

She lifted her gaze to a wall filled with family pictures, eyes focused on a photograph of herself and her sisters taken at a barbecue in Joanie’s backyard.

“How could she? After all this time . . .”

Meg’s heart hammered even harder. Numbness gave way to anger and she felt her fingers clench into fists. She spotted another picture, one that Asher had taken four years before, in August.

They had gone camping at Mt. Rainier to see the peak of the Perseids meteor shower, hiked the Skyline trail, and posed for a picture near Panorama Point.

Trina was shorter then. Meg stood behind her daughter, draping her arms over Trina’s scrawny shoulders, looking over the top of her head. The sky was so bright, the bluest of blues, the mountain so close it looked like you could touch it. They were the only people on a trail that cut through a meadow carpeted with purplish blue wildflowers. It was a perfect day.

Meg remembered squeezing Trina, wishing she could hold on to her child and that day forever. In the photo, Trina tilted her head, smiling up into Meg’s eyes. She had lifted her hand to rest it on her mother’s cheek. Asher had snapped the picture, preserving the moment, in a way granting her wish.

Meg closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She couldn’t give in to her emotions. Not now. She had to get her daughter, get through this day, and consider her options. It wasn’t just about her.

Usually, Meg avoided I-5 when it was raining. But it was the only practical route to get downtown. Since it was early she thought maybe she’d get lucky.

She didn’t.

Meg squinted through the opaque haze left by windshield wipers that should have been replaced months ago, overwrought and anxious and late, stuck in the middle of a line of cars with red brake lights that stretched for miles. Her cell rang and she picked up without looking at the screen.

“Trina? Sorry, honey. Traffic is a nightmare. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Meg?” The woman’s voice . . .