Where'd You Go, Bernadette

The first document in Part 1 of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, is Bee Branch’s report card for her eighth-grade classes at Galer Street School in Seattle. In accordance with Galer Street’s progressive policies, the students receive grades of “S” (“surpasses excellence”), “A” (“achieves excellence”), or “W” (“working towards excellence”) (7) in place of conventional grades. Bee has earned straight “S”s; her teacher, Mr. Levy, notes her kindness, humor, and helpfulness, as well as her love of learning. Mr. Levy also notes that Bee is applying to attend boarding school on the east coast. This is followed by a brief section narrated by Bee, in which she tells her parents that she has earned the graduation present they promised her when she began school, and that she has chosen a family cruise to Antarctica. Her parents reluctantly agree. Bee’s mother, Bernadette Fox, subsequently confesses her fear of travel to her “virtual assistant,” Manjula Kapoor, who is based in Delhi. Bernadette says that even leaving the house is “something [she doesn’t] much like to do” (10), but nevertheless asks Manjula to arrange the trip, forwarding all the information necessary to do so, including credit card numbers.

An email to Galer Street parents from consultant Ollie Ordway—“Ollie-O”—reminds them that the school’s current lease, on a building in an industrial park next to a seafood wholesaler, expires in three years. Ollie-O urges the school parents to use the fundraising campaign for a new building as an opportunity to “move the needle” and discard their “Subaru Parent” mentality for that of “Mercedes Parents” (13). He announces that Galer Street parent Audrey Griffin has offered to host a Prospective Parent Brunch at her home as a way of introducing the school to a more selective clientele. A subsequent exchange of emails between Audrey Griffin and Tom, a “blackberry abatement specialist” (14), reveals that Audrey’s yard has been repeatedly invaded by blackberry briars spreading from the Branches’ unkempt property on the hilltop above. Audrey decides to raise the issue with Bernadette at school pickup. Another email, to Audrey from fellow Galer Street parent Soo-Lin Lee-Segal, reports her attempt at conversation on the Microsoft employee shuttle with Elgin Branch, Bee’s father. Elgin appears to be detached from events at Galer Street and from his wife’s and daughter’s daily lives. Soo-Lin notes that she and Audrey have long been annoyed by Bernadette’s attitude and her failure to participate in the school community. Soo-Lin has attempted to learn more about Bernadette online but can only find out-of-date references to “some architect in California” (18).

A memo from Galer Street’s Head of School, Gwen Goodyear, about “the incident at pickup” (19) reveals that Bernadette may have accidentally driven over Audrey’s foot when the latter confronted her about the blackberries. A bill from the hospital establishes that Audrey was uninjured but that “patient demanded X ray, Vicodin, and crutches” (21). Audrey tells Soo-Lin that Bernadette ran her over, but Bee, in her version of the encounter, insists that this never happened. Bernadette forwards the hospital bill to Manjula, asking her to pay it because it’s not worth waging “a gnat battle” (24) over. Bernadette explains that she refers to the other Galer Street mothers as “gnats” because “they’re annoying, but not so annoying that you actually want to spend valuable energy on them” (24).  

Bernadette, whose communications with Manjula are becoming more digressive and personal, also confides in Manjula the story of how she came to purchase Straight Gate, a decaying former school for wayward girls on three acres at the top of a hill, when Elgin first took a job at Microsoft. It seemed ridiculously cheap compared to real estate in Los Angeles at the time and Bernadette intended to renovate it into a functional home. Bernadette notes in passing that she left LA in part because a “Huge Hideous Thing” (26) happened to her there. Her descriptions of what she sees as Seattle’s quirks and flaws reveal how much of an outsider she has remained. In the present, Bernadette asks Manjula to make last-minute reservations for Thanksgiving dinner at the Washington Athletic Club. Instead, the family ends up eating at a tourist trap, Daniel’s Broiler, which Bee nevertheless loves. 

Bernadette tells Bee how difficult it will be for her if Bee is accepted by Choate, the prestigious boarding school Bernadette once attended. Bernadette jokes about taking a job in the dining hall at Choate to keep an eye on Bee, comparing herself to the mother in The Runaway Bunny, who will always follow her child. Meanwhile, Audrey insists that Tom clear the blackberries from the Branches’ hillside property in time for the Prospective Parent Brunch, even though he says the powerful equipment adequate for such a job should not be used until Seattle’s winter rains end. 

Bernadette becomes increasingly fearful of the trip to Antarctica after she learns from a report by Bee that the trip requires crossing the Drake Passage, “the most turbulent body of water on the entire planet” (37). She urges Manjula to find her a sufficiently powerful seasickness medication. This exchange is followed by a series of letters from Choate offering Bee admission. Bee finds out she has been accepted after helping her mother rescue their dog, Ice Cream, from a jammed closet in a remote part of their decaying house, an incident that also inspires Bee to recall: “Mom fixed up houses before I was born” (41). 

Bee and Bernadette drive out to the Microsoft campus, which Bee regards as a second home, to celebrate briefly with Elgin before he joins a video conference. Elgin writes a letter to the director of studies at Choate, revealing “the essential fact about Bee: she was born with a heart defect” (45), which caused her to spend much of her early life in the hospital undergoing repeated surgeries. Bee breaks into the narrative to insist that she is “not sick!” (45), even though she does have asthma. She has no memory of her time in the hospital and finds her parents’ and doctors’ fixation on her early struggles weird and embarrassing.

Soo-Lin emails Audrey with the news that she is being promoted to a new project at Microsoft. Audrey responds, describing her preparations for the Prospective Parent Brunch. Audrey arranges with Tom to look at the blackberries on the Branches’ property while Bernadette is picking Bee up from school. However, Bee is sent home early due to her asthma, and she and Bernadette are home when Tom and Audrey visit the property, leading to another confrontation. Bernadette asks Manjula to arrange and pay for Tom’s blackberry abatement work, but also requests that Manjula arrange for the installation of 8-foot by 5-foot “No Trespassing” sign painted red and yellow with an added inscription threatening “Galer Street Gnats” with arrest and “Gnat Jail” (57). Manjula agrees and notes that she has also found a physician willing to prescribe Bernadette ABHR transdermal cream, a powerful motion sickness treatment largely used on terminal cancer patients and only available from a special compounding pharmacy. 

Soo-Lin reports to Audrey that she is now Elgin Branch’s administrative assistant on his Microsoft project, known as Samantha 2. Audrey reports that Tom has begun ripping out the Branches’ blackberries, and that Gwen Goodyear has called her in for a conference after the empty bottle for the Vicodin Audrey was prescribed earlier has been found in her son Kyle’s locker. Bernadette visits the compounding pharmacy, where the pharmacist describes the potential side effects of ABHR, which contains an antipsychotic used in Soviet prisons, and urges her to take something less powerful. Bernadette agrees, but notes that she already has numerous prescriptions for anxiety and insomnia. She then falls asleep on a sofa in the pharmacist’s window, wearing a fishing vest purchased for the Antarctica trip. On their way to a lunch meeting, Soo-Lin and Elgin spot Bernadette asleep. Elgin, embarrassed and worried, asks Soo-Lin to change his schedule so that he can have dinner with Bernadette that night. This incident is narrated both by Bernadette, in an email to Manjula, and by Soo-Lin, in an email to Audrey. Bernadette’s email also describes how, afterward, she was recognized in the street in front of the library by a young man who looks like a graduate student, even though the only picture of her in circulation dates from the days before the “Huge Hideous Thing” (68). Bee describes how she and Bernadette drive home in the rain to find the blackberries removed from their property.

The “guy […] outside the library,” a graduate student in architecture, emails his professor in Los Angeles telling him that he has encountered “the elusive Bernadette Fox” (108) while in Seattle. His description of the conversation makes clear that Bernadette was a celebrated architect who dropped out of sight not long after winning a major award. This is followed by a blog post from Seattle weatherman Cliff Mass notes that a major rainstorm has settled in over Seattle.

An email from Ollie-O to the Prospective Parent Brunch Committee on the morning of the brunch notes the poor weather and provides a schedule of events, including a musical performance by Galer Street kindergarten students. A second, panicked email describes the appearance on the hill above Audrey’s house of Bernadette’s giant “No Trespassing” sign with its threat of “Gnat Jail.” This is followed by a long letter from Helen Derwood, PhD, a counselor specializing in PTSD as well as the parent of a Galer Street kindergartener. Helen Derwood’s purpose is to describe, from the perspective of a specialist in trauma, the events that led to the kindergartners returning home from the brunch “shoeless, jacketless, covered in mud, and full of fantastic stories” (82). Shortly after the musical performance began in Audrey Griffin’s sunroom, the house was struck by a mudslide originating on the Branches’ property and caused by the removal of the blackberries and the subsequent heavy rain. Bernadette’s “No Trespassing” sign, which may also have played a part in the slide, ends up jammed against Audrey’s shattered windows.

Bee describes how, that same morning, she and Bernadette sang along in the car to the Beatles’ album Abbey Road, a moment of great closeness. When they return home, they are confronted by a furious Audrey Griffin, who blames Bernadette for the mudslide and berates her in front of an angry and frightened Bee. Bernadette subsequently emails Manjula, telling her she cannot face the trip to Antarctica. 

Part 1 ends with a long letter from Elgin Branch to Dr. Janelle Kurtz, a psychiatrist at Madrona Hill, a residential treatment center on Orcas Island. Elgin describes how he found his wife asleep in a pharmacy where she was trying to obtain a powerful antipsychotic, and how he has subsequently discovered her numerous other prescriptions. Elgin reveals that Bernadette suffered a series of miscarriages before conceiving Bee, and that she was placed on bed rest before Bee was born. During Bee’s years of repeated hospitalizations and surgeries, their house fell into an deeper state of decay as Bernadette focused on Bee’s recovery. Elgin details what appears to him to be a pattern of increasingly erratic and irrational behavior and suggests that Bernadette should be admitted to Madrona Hill while he and Bee travel to Antarctica.