Chapter 4
Susan
Wednesday
I swivel her phone to look. Facebook. It’s made it to Facebook?
“I don’t think I want to…”
“I think you should. Someone in a local buy-and-sell group doxed you. They’ve shared the screenshot, your phone number, your postal address, and suggested people might like to email your principal.”
My stomach drops. “How could they have got that information?”
“Well, everyone in the Oakpark WhatsApp group can see your phone number, and any of them who know you in real life know who ‘SO’D’ is and which house you live in…
” She trails off, biting her lip. “It’s shit, I know.
People with too much time on their hands.
Look, it’ll be old news by tomorrow.” Even Greta, ever practical Greta, doesn’t sound convinced.
How is this happening? Why do people care so much?
If I was in any other job, this would have blown over by now.
But people—some people, anyway—like to get a dig in at teachers when they can.
To get up on high horses, to get all “won’t someone think of the children.
” A little voice inside my head reminds me that, this time, maybe they have a point.
· · ·
When the doorbell chimes again, I check the Ring app.
A familiar red uniform fills the screen—a delivery.
My heart lifts just the tiniest bit. Packages cheer me up.
I know that sounds shallow, but the anticipation of a delivery has got me through many a fraught day in the last four months and I’m waiting for some skincare stuff I ordered last week.
By the time I get to the door, the courier has gone, but the package is waiting for me, tucked behind a pot of pink hydrangeas on the porch.
A brown box, a familiar logo. My briefly lifted mood dips.
Sighing, I carry the box through to the kitchen counter.
“Anything nice?” Greta asks, looking up from her phone, Bella still cradled in her arms.
“Undoubtedly, but sadly not for me.”
She squints at the logo. “Sézane. What’s that? Something for Jon?”
“Nope, worse.” I sit back down at the table. “It’s for my alter ego, the beautiful Savannah Holmes.”
Greta tilts her head. “OK, you have an alter ego now? Have you been on the wine?”
“It’s a long story.”
It’s not a long story, but it will earn me an eyeroll.
“Go on, I have loads of time. I don’t have to be at hockey camp until this afternoon.”
She’s trying to distract me from the text drama, and I love her for it.
“Here though”—she adds, passing Bella carefully into my arms—“take this one for a sec.” She rummages in her bag and pulls out two lots of pills—one brown bottle, one cheerful orange-and-purple container.
She pops a supplement into her mouth, then a tablet.
She takes a lot of supplements and chastises me regularly for taking none.
“Right, go on?”
“So, you know the other Oakpark, down the N11 toward Loughlinstown?”
Greta rolls her eyes. “You know I wrote to the council about that?”
In the midst of all that’s going on, this makes me smile.
Greta is generally calm and largely unruffled by the kind of minor frustrations that get to me—very much a don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff kind of person.
So it’s surprising to hear she’d taken the time to write to the council over something like this.
Then again, she has a history with the council…
a memory that makes me deeply uncomfortable. I push it away.
“Did they reply?” I ask.
“No!”
I adore that this surprised her. “It probably isn’t the biggest issue on their agenda.”
She folds her arms. “Who on earth thinks giving two housing estates the same name is a good idea? I mean—”
I decide to cut her off before the rant escalates. “Anyway, the woman who lives at the same address as ours—26 Oakpark—is called Savannah Holmes. I get her packages sometimes and she gets mine.”
Greta’s eyebrows arch. “Eh, how often is this happening? I’ve had maybe two packages that went to the other Oakpark in the last three years.”
“Yeah, I’d say Savannah and I have similar online shopping hobbies…”
Greta tsks. As the anti-fast-fashion member of the family, she has never understood my weakness for shopping.
“It’s mostly stuff for Bella,” I say, faux defensiveness masking actual defensiveness. “Babygros and bibs.”
“And what does Savannah buy?” She nods toward the package.
“ME+EM, Sézane, Reiss, and one time I opened a parcel by accident and it was a Marc Jacobs tote bag. I googled it and they’re, like, three hundred euros. Imagine.”
Greta, who’s had the same black leather bag for twenty years, shakes her head.
“So yeah, Savannah lives quite a different life to me.” I look down at my outfit. Ancient denim shorts, a tank top I got in Oasis before the shops closed down, and a muslin cloth over my shoulder.
“Maybe she’s sitting in the other Oakpark right now with a baby on her knee, as her Marc Jacobs bag gathers dust.” Greta is nothing if not loyal.
“Nope. Here, look.” I tap into Instagram and type Savannah’s name.
This is definitely more appealing than worrying about my screenshot drama.
“See? She’s roughly the same age as me, but no kids.
She works in banking and lives on her own.
She spends a lot of time at the gym, takes luxury all-inclusive holidays, loves clothes, eats out a lot, and has an allergy she posts about to raise awareness. ”
A thoughtful expression settles across Greta’s face. “You got all that from Instagram?”
“Yep. There aren’t many Savannahs around, even in South Dublin.
And she looks like a Savannah.” I turn my phone again to show her.
Like me, Savannah has dark, shoulder-length hair, but where mine is usually shoved in a ponytail, hers is glossy, highlighted and well maintained.
And while I stick on some CC cream before facing the world, Savannah has the skills of a professional makeup artist—contouring and dotting like she’s Charlotte Tilbury herself.
Yes, I know far too much about this person.
“She’s very pretty,” Greta says. “Why is she doing her makeup on Instagram?”
“She just does the occasional get-ready-with-me post.”
“And you’re watching all of this?” She’s shaking her head, but she’s also searching for Savannah’s account on her phone.
“Eh, pot, kettle?” I point at her screen. “And speaking of kettles…tea?”
“Yeah, go on, thanks.”
I make green tea for her and a coffee for me, all one-handed with Bella on my shoulder.
Greta is still scrolling Savannah’s page. She stops on a makeup reel.
I lean in to see. “It’s a great account to follow for product recs.”
Greta looks up at me.
“I tried the retinol she recommends in this,” I add, “but weirdly, it’s disappeared. I’m waiting for a new one.”
Greta shakes her head.
“Stop judging!” I punch her shoulder lightly. “Anyway, following Savannah is genuinely educational—she posts a lot about her tree-nut allergy and one of the girls in my tutor class has a tree-nut allergy. So I’m not just here for the makeup.”
Greta looks unconvinced.
“I’m serious! You wouldn’t believe how many things contain nuts—Oh.” I go cold as it hits me. “Actually, it’s Nika Geary who has the allergy. Celeste’s daughter.” “Bratty” daughter. “God, that bloody message. I’m such an idiot.”
Greta puts her phone down. “Yeah, there’s something else about Nika Geary you should know…”
“Oh no, what now?”
She fiddles with the lid of her pill bottle. Is she avoiding eye contact?
“Actually, it’s not important, I’ll fill you in another time.” She pushes back her chair. “I’d better go, I’ve to do paperwork before I go down to hockey camp.” She gives me a quick half-hug. Greta is not tactile, and this takes me by surprise. “Turn off your phone,” she adds as she leaves.
I watch from the sitting-room window as she walks down our driveway, phone clamped to her ear, and I do as she suggests and switch off mine.
· · ·
Just before 10 a.m., the drama escalates. I’d switched back on my phone in case Jon was trying to reach me, and it almost jumped off the table, buzzing and chirping with notifications, including a text from a number I don’t know:
You got away lightly last night. You deserve to die for that message and what it’s done.
And even though it’s the kind of keyboard-warrior empty threat I’ve heard about on social media, there’s something about seeing it here on my own phone—directed at me—that sends a sick feeling snaking through me.
I blink back tears. Why would I deserve to die?
Someone having a bad day and taking it out on me?
Or has my message triggered something I don’t know about?
And what does “you got away lightly last night” mean?
The broken window? Maybe the text is from kids at the school, assuming that’s who threw the brick?
God, imagine the glee in some quarters of the pupil cohort, getting their hands on a teacher’s phone number.
They already do whatever they can to find us on social media, which is exactly why I use a made-up name online.
Now that they have my phone number, all bets are off.
A small part of me feels stung, hurt. I’ve always prided myself on being firm-but-fair.
I genuinely thought I was reasonably well liked.
Nobody is liked by everyone, I suppose, and never has that been clearer than now.
I send a screenshot to the email address the guard gave Jon last night and try calling Jon, but it goes to voicemail.
Just then, a calendar notification reminds me that I’ve overlooked an appointment, one I’d been dreading, yet completely forgotten.
Maybe this is my out? On autopilot, I snooze the notification and sit in my kitchen, trying to order my thoughts.
My eyes keep going back to my phone, to the text.
If this happened to anyone else, I’d tell them to ignore it, but it’s different when it happens to you.
It’s weird and uncomfortable and upsetting and kind of scary.
I’m lost in a spiral of confused thoughts when my calendar reminder pops up again.
I really don’t want to leave the house. I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything.
But that’s what happened the last time, back when Bella was new and I was failing. And that’s why I need to go.