Introduction

At Windemere School for Girls, one of America’s elite private schools, Dr. Gregory Copeland is the beloved chair of the English Department. A married father with a penchant for romantic poetry—and impressionable teenage girls—he operates in plain sight for years, until one of his former students goes public with allegations of inappropriate conduct. With the help of an investigative journalist, and two additional Windemere alumnae who had relationships with Copeland as students, the unlikely quartet unites to take him down.

Set in modern-day Los Angeles, These Violent Delights is a literary exploration of the unyielding pressures and vulnerabilities that so many women and girls experience, and analyzes the ways in which our institutions and families fail to protect or defend us. A suspenseful and nuanced story told from multiple points of view, the novel examines themes of sexuality, trauma, revenge, and the American myth of liberty and justice for all.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

JANE

APRIL 2016

“What is the point of a high school reunion when you can already see who got fat and bald on Facebook?” asks Caryn, the intern working with me this semester, and I can’t help but laugh because she’s right.

Caryn works one desk over from me, but she often steps into my cubicle to chat—and she’s quite chatty—anytime she’s on her way to or from the bathroom down the hall, which feels like ten times a day on average. I sense her hovering while I glance at the digital save-the-date invitation to my twentieth high school reunion, being held next year at a forgettable budget hotel in my quiet northern California hometown.

“Do you really want to have to talk to those people?” Her eyes are wide and full of judgment.

“I think those are stock photos.”

Nothing, including the aforementioned reunion, makes me feel older than being around Caryn. A perky-titted, size two, eyelash-extension-wearing USC journalism student who peppers her sentences with internet slang that people, and, oh fine, I, simply don’t understand.

“I am never going to a reunion.” She announces the decision with the conviction of a twenty-two-year-old who simultaneously knows everything and nothing about life. “What could possibly be the point?”

I decide against a minilecture about nevers and instead ask her if she’s come up with any pitches for next week. Interns don’t typically write stories for the Daily, but she’s a talented reporter with a gift for putting subjects at ease, and I’m determined to get her a few more bylines before her internship is up. Since Caryn’s working here for a small pittance and school credit, at a time when “newspaper reporter” has been named the worst job in America for the third year in a row by financial magazines, I figure it’s the least I can do.

“Actually, there’s a piece I’ve been working on for a while.” She rolls her office chair over to sit opposite me, her heavy chain-style bracelets clanging along the way. “But I’m not sure it’s something yet.”

I didn’t sleep well last night and spent fifty-three minutes in traffic driving from the Westside to our downtown office, so I’m not feeling like much of a cheerleader at the moment. Especially for someone being vague. “Do you want to at least give me the lede?”

She looks sheepish; something seems off, but I don’t have time to find out what since I have to file one of my own stories within the next half hour.

“Can I just email it to you later after I work on it some more?”

“Of course.”

I’m always amazed by the amount of exhaustion I am capable of feeling from sitting in a chair all day. After an epic battle on Olympic Boulevard to get home, I plop onto the couch, tired and hungry, open my laptop, and go to my work email since I’m waiting for an edit on my latest piece about the effects of California’s ongoing drought. My contact lenses feel dry, but I’m too lazy to take them out and go grab my glasses from the bedside table. I see an email from Caryn in between messages from our deputy editor and PR people who are furious about the way I covered their client.

From: Caryn Rodgers

To: Jane March

Date: April 21, 2016 at 6:25 P.M.

Subject: Personal essay . . .

Hey, so I’ve wanted to write this for a long time. You know I went to Windemere, right? Something happened there with a teacher and it’s always bothered me that he was never punished for it. I know the Daily doesn’t do first-person stuff outside of the Opinion pages, but I think this will work better as an essay—see if you agree. I’ve attached it here and hope you’ll help me make it into something great.

—Caryn

My eyes scan the first few lines and before I’ve even finished the first paragraph, I grab my phone, silently scolding myself for not getting its cracked screen fixed weeks ago, and text her.

“Do you have time to chat tonight?” Within a few seconds I see the three little dots that denote her typing.

“I wish.” She adds three pissed-off-looking emoji faces. “My dad is making me have dinner with the freaking Korean Consulate General. Pretty sure it’s going late, especially since they are all drunk.”

I sometimes forget that Caryn is part Korean, even though she has long, pin-straight black hair, high cheekbones, and dark almond-shaped eyes. But I never forget that her family is ultrawealthy. We don’t typically get interns at the Daily who sport a two-thousand-dollar carryall as their work bag and make reference to more than one private Pilates instructor.

Since finishing her first draft, my appetite has magically disappeared, and I know I won’t be sleeping well tonight, either. I guess even money can’t protect you from certain things.

After hitting the Snooze button on my iPhone for the second time, I wonder if Caryn’s already getting cold feet, but I change my mind when I see a message from her stating that she’s coming in this morning to talk about the essay. I’m desperate to get more details before our staff meeting at two. These are big claims after all.

She’s in the office before me, waiting in my cubicle.

“I can’t name him.” Caryn blows on her to-go coffee cup.

“Okay, but why?”

“I mean, I can tell you, but not the world. My parents won’t be thrilled with the idea of me going public with this.”

“Well, I can appreciate that they probably want to protect you, but these are serious allegations and they fully merit an audience and proper investigation. I’d like to pitch it at today’s meeting. For the Sunday magazine. It could be a cover, Caryn.”

“Oh my god, are you serious? Isn’t that too much?” She looks scared, and maybe a little bit excited. “Windemere is going to freak out.”

“I can’t guarantee anything, but you did a great job with it and I think if we can just corroborate your story we’ll be good to go. Of course, Eric is going to want you to name the teacher.”

“I can’t. In fact, maybe we shouldn’t even mention Windemere. Just let people wonder which girls school it is.”

“But anyone will be able to put it together with a simple online search because of your name.”

“I guess.” She looks distracted, like she’s going through a mental Rolodex of every place she’s mentioned on the internet.

“Caryn, are you sure about all of this? You know how it is now. It’s not just the story in the paper. It would run online, get shared, linked to all over social media, picked up by TV. . . .”

“I have to do this. My therapist said it was okay.”

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to legal too because I’m sure they’ll have some questions for you.” I wonder if she’s in therapy because of this or because she’s an anxious twenty-two-year-old young woman living in Los Angeles.

“I kept all of his emails.”

“That was smart of you.” She is far savvier than I thought.

“They’re in my Gmail.” She twirls a section of shiny hair around her manicured finger, which is appliqued with sequin-like art on the tips. “Windemere has them, too.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was.” My stomach tightens. “I’ll be around if you need me, but I just want to work with you on this,” she continues. “I don’t want to talk to Eric or Chris or any of the other guys about it too much.”

“I understand.” I want to offer some kind of reassurance as she heads to the bathroom for her first of many visits today. “Oh, and Caryn?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry this happened to you. You know, it’s one thousand percent not your fault.”

“I know.”

I recognize the terror in her eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen her look unsure of herself and it makes me wonder if her overconfident demeanor is simply an act.

“This is really brave of you.”

“Thanks, Jane, but brave would have been writing this six years ago.”

After corroborating some of the basic facts via Windemere’s extensive website and combing through the emails, which made every hair on the back of my neck stand at attention, I read Caryn’s story aloud at the two o’clock meeting:

My Tenth-Grade Teacher Claims He Fell in Love With Me

By Caryn Rodgers, Special to the Los Angeles Daily

Six years ago, I felt like an awkward teenager, and didn’t have much experience with boys since I went to a well-known, all-girls school starting at age twelve. I was the editor of our school paper, eager to line up a new Teacher of the Month profile, when someone recommended our school’s beloved English chairperson. I wouldn’t have him as a teacher until the following semester, which was a few weeks later, but I knew him, of course. I knew everyone on campus in our little corner of Los Angeles.

I emailed him to set up the interview and he replied that he’d love to participate and added a few happy faces, which I found odd coming from a fortysomething man. Our meeting, held off campus at a Starbucks that was walking distance from school, made me feel extra grown-up, even though I was still in my school uniform: a standard white polo shirt embroidered with our school’s logo and pleated gray skirt, cut exactly three inches above the knee as our dress code required. I’m sure people thought he was my dad, in retrospect. His answers were quick, charming, and funny. At certain points, I felt like he was flirting with me and I have to admit that I enjoyed the attention. I was flattered, which sounds delusional now, but I was fifteen. A fifteen-year-old who thought she was in total control.

Before we parted ways, he mentioned that I would be in his class next semester and I said I was looking forward to it. He paid me numerous compliments. “I know how talented you are,” he remarked. “You run the entire school paper and have time to kick butt on the soccer field.” I smiled, looking down at my iced tea. “I can’t wait to get to see you every day,” he said. We were seated on the back patio and no one was paying us any attention. He noticed this as well, because he put his hand on top of my thigh, rubbing the top of his thumb on the skin, which raised my skirt an extra inch. It took me a few seconds to fathom what was happening. I felt like I was frozen. After I moved my leg, I could still feel his hand there. I thanked him for his time, told him when the piece would run, and said I had to go. “Thank you for the great date,” he said.

With my heart racing and entire body sweating, I speed walked back to campus to catch a ride home with a friend since I didn’t yet have my driver’s license. She asked me why I looked like I had seen a ghost. I replied that I was stressed out about deadlines and finals next week. That night, my dad asked me how my day was and I just made something up. I told no one. When the article ran a few weeks later, the teacher sent me an email, thanking me for “a most generous and completely undeserving profile of an old dude.” I replied that I didn’t think he was that old. He wrote back, “Really? I’m so happy to hear it because I can’t stop thinking about you.” I was shocked he was so bold, and that he would put this in writing, over our school’s email system. I figured he was really into me if he would take such a risk.

Two weeks later, I was sitting in his class as a student. I often caught him staring at me, which was embarrassing and thrilling, and I hoped no one else noticed. He was generous in his praise of my writing, particularly an essay I wrote on e.e. Cummings. “You are the most talented English student I’ve had in years,” he said. “And that smile could probably get me to give you an A even if you didn’t already deserve one.” He made me feel beautiful, which was an unfamiliar feeling. I could see him blush in my presence at times and I felt powerful and proud to have this control over a grown man. I told myself that I was doing nothing wrong and it was all pretty harmless. After all, he was the one breaking the rules, and it’s not like I was enticing him in any way. I now know that for someone like him, my behavior of no behavior, really, was a bright green light in his mind. He was testing the waters.

One afternoon, when class was over and there was a free period for students to visit with teachers to talk about assignments or other issues, I found myself alone with him after two other students left the classroom. He was still sitting at his desk and I walked over to have him sign off on a form I needed so that I could miss class for an out-of-town soccer game. He did so, joking that I was torturing him by my upcoming absence, and as he stood to hand me the paperwork, he kissed me, briefly, on the lips. Stunned, I said nothing. He then asked me if I would meet him after school sometime. I felt like my stomach was in my chest, my heart in my shoes. I stammered something about having to babysit my little brother and walked out as fast as I could.

That night I hardly slept. I could see my hands shaking anytime I went to grab my phone. I was racked with guilt. I had brought this upon myself because I never told him to stop paying attention to me. I didn’t want to have to tell my parents, because they would make a big fuss, and I knew if I told a friend they would go straight to our Head of School. But I knew I had to do something before facing him again the next day. So I typed a short email. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” I wrote. “This isn’t right and I just want to be treated like a normal student.” He didn’t reply, but after class the next day he scolded me for being “just a tease” who knew what she was doing. He thought I chose to profile him because I liked him, even though I interviewed different teachers each month as part of my job as editor. He looked hurt as though he were a fifteen-year-old boy I had denied a date to the prom.

Within two weeks, I had lost eight pounds. My friends knew something was wrong and I was having a hard time keeping up with school because I wasn’t sleeping well. I had regular nightmares and anxiety every time I had to go on campus. I was basically a mess. And even though my school’s mission is to empower girls, I felt helpless, confused, and ashamed—like the worst person on earth. In addition to being married, he had children, one of whom I had met casually through a friend of a friend a few years ago. My teacher sensed something was wrong, or perhaps he feared I was going to say something to someone, anyone, because he wrote me a final note, telling me he was sorry for the things he said and that he couldn’t help that he had fallen in love with me.

“From that first meeting at the coffee shop, you’ve been on my mind pretty much every hour of the day. I truly feel like I can’t control my feelings,” he wrote. “Don’t get me started on your exquisite beauty. The fact that you are so unaware of it makes you even more enticing.” He asked if I would please just meet him one time after class and he would explain more. There were mentions of my long, shiny black hair and perfect white teeth. He said I was the most mature student he had ever met and that I was “as special as a rare rose” because there was no one else like me.

That was the final straw. I printed out the emails and put them in a folder with a card he had given me with a book of e.e. Cummings poetry and presented them to my parents. Surprisingly, they didn’t blame me, but they did fight about whether it was a mistake to have sent me to an all-girls school, and how furious they were that they had given the school so much money over the years, in addition to the $18,500 tuition payments each semester. The three of us met with the Head of School the next morning. They listened, but offered very little in the way of a reaction. Because I had the email proof, it wasn’t possible to get into a debate. I assumed he would be quietly let go, maybe at the end of the school year to avoid any public drama, and I would be thanked for coming forward. All I wanted was to finish the semester and my academic career without having to transfer to a brand-new school.

Instead, nothing happened. He was asked to participate in counseling and is still teaching on that campus this very minute. He is still everyone’s favorite teacher. He currently has a 4.6-star average on RateMyTeachers.com.

I place the printed-out essay on our large conference table, exhaling loudly while trying to push the image of Gregory Copeland, Caryn’s former teacher who I found online, easily, out of my mind.

“Jesus.” Eric runs his fingers through his thick gray hair.

“How do we know this is even true?” asks Chris, the Daily’s assistant managing editor.

Celia, our chief metro reporter, retorts, “Who would make this up?”

“But why now? It feels out of the blue to suddenly be covering something that supposedly happened years ago.”

“Are we really going to treat Caryn as suspect and not the pervy teacher?” Celia asks.

“I’m just saying, I think it’s weird to come out with this years later. People do make these things up for attention or whatever. Maybe she saw some of these type of essays going viral and thought she’d make a name for herself off this.”

“Well, by all means, let’s make sure to not support her because the timing isn’t convenient for Chris.” Celia shakes her head. “She was just a kid. She’s still practically a kid. And please know that no one wants to make their name as a writer because of something like this.”

I cut them off. “She has their email correspondence. I’ve seen a few of them already. They’re time-stamped. Everything is checking out. We have an obligation to run it.”

“Why didn’t she go to the police or the media back then?” asks our new copy editor, Ken. I refuse to answer him and look at Eric, hoping he’ll say something so I know he’s on my side, but he doesn’t. I feel my body temperature rise.

“An accusation like this can ruin someone’s life. That’s all we’re saying, Jane,” Chris adds.

“Don’t you find it interesting that these types of crimes against women—whether it’s violence, sexual assault, rape—are the only kinds where we force the victim to make a case about their own innocence before even investigating?” The room goes quiet. I feel my face and neck redden with increased blood pressure, but I can’t stop now. “If someone told you their car or iPhone was stolen would you believe them and try to help, or make them prove it to you? I’m serious. If someone walked in the office right now and said they were hurt and needed help, would you need an investigation and a prosecutor to bring charges and a judge or jury to convict them before you attempted to assist them? Why do you think this is?” More silence. “I mean, really, why do you think this is? Do I have to spell it out?”

The new copy guy averts his eyes and mumbles something incoherent under his breath while fumbling with a paper clip. Celia gives me a knowing smile.

Eric stands, ready to hit his next meeting. “Jane, let’s discuss this at four. I want it for Sunday. Can you ask Anjali from legal to join us? See if Caryn is willing to stick around a bit late, as I’ll want to talk to her as well. And let’s talk about the photography. We need to make sure she’s ready for this.”

I hope I’m ready too. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. How did each woman's background make it challenging for her to come forward?

2. What reverberations did Copeland's abuse have on these women?

3. The women in These Violent Delights have bonded not over romances or dating mishaps, but a shared search for justice. Did these unlikely friendships feel authentic to you?

4. How did you feel about Sasha's form of revenge?

5. Jane models leadership and offers support to each of Copeland's victims. What does she get right and wrong while doing so?

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