by Dave Cravens
Both Heller’s and Bill’s faces contorted into a portrait of disgust. “Oh, wow,” said Bill.
Heller waved her hand to clear the air of the dismal suggestion. “Ms. Monroe – really!”
Parker stood her ground. “As an uninformed parent, how am I to know that isn’t the case?”
Bill shook his head. “Really, Parker, yuck. I can assure you that is not true. And you can’t go spreading rumors about stuff like that. You’ll ruin a person’s life.”
“I would never do that,” Parker argued. Her mind flashed back to the headline she ran about Senator Hammers. She would never make that mistake again. “I just want you to understand my concern.”
Heller adjusted her suit jacket. “If you wish for a recommendation of a good piano teacher, I can supply you with that, Ms. Monroe. However, I would advise you not to involve Mr. Bernstein. He has much to process.”
Parker looked down at the beady eyed devil. “No, that’s alright. I’ll find one on my own.”
Bill nodded and slapped his hands together. “Alright then! Problem solved! I guess we all can move on with our day now.”
“Of course! Good day, Bill. Heller.” Parker forced one last smile and moved toward the office’s front door. But just as she reached it, Bill snapped his fingers.
“Oh,” said Bill forgetfully. “I meant to ask, is everything okay with your truck? The Highlander, I mean?”
Parker paused. Fuck. Why would you ask me that now? She could feel Heller’s eyes burning through her back.
“Highlander?” Heller repeated. “What would be wrong with her Highlander?”
“The towing guy is new, and we’ve received a number of complaints about scratches and—” Bill’s sentence sputtered as he saw the white of Parker’s enraged eyes. “And uh, never mind. It’s not important.”
“Your car was towed?” asked Heller. Her nostrils flared. “Generally, cars are towed if they are not functioning, or parked somewhere they shouldn’t be. I had a Highlander towed from my driveway just yesterday.”
“Huh,” Bill shrugged apologetically, signaling he never knew why Parker’s car was towed in the first place.
Parker drew in a deep breath through her teeth. How do I play this? “Are you accusing me of parking my Highlander in your driveway?” She feigned indignance.
Heller folded her arms. “Did you?”
Shit. She called my bluff.
Parker held her head high. “I’m not going to lie you, Mrs. Heller,” she stated. “So -- I’m leaving.” Parker dashed out of the front office without another word.
19.
“For the love of Vera Wang, why didn’t you just own up to it?”
asked Valerie as she poured a fresh glass of wine in the living room. She handed it to Parker but held on for an extra beat to grab her attention. “Try sipping it this time, hmm?”
Parker replied with a snide smile. “I will savor every drop,” she assured her mother. Parker took the glass and kicked her feet up onto the nearby chair of the dining room table. It was the evening now after another full day. Ally was in bed early after an extended adventure with Valerie at a park down the street. Drew was finishing up his common core math homework that seemed to make simple problems more complicated than they should be. And Maddy was playing piano in the next room, running through her scales and arpeggios like a champ. She wanted to stay sharp for whoever her next teacher might be and insisted on practicing every night.
Parker sipped her wine as promised and looked at her mother. “I should have owned up to it,” she admitted, then stuck out her tongue. “If it was anyone else I would have. Maybe. But man, does Heller rub me the wrong way. She had no right to talk to me the way she did. I could probably have her fired for that.”
“Oh, Parker, leave it alone. She’s not worth your time.”
“She’s a bully,” decided Parker after she took another sip. “With a secret. She’s hiding something.”
“Is she now?” Valerie looked away as she poured her own glass.
Parker frowned. She was all too familiar with her mother’s tone when she tried to politely disagree. “What? You don’t think so?”
“I think a big part of you misses investigative reporting,” said Valerie.
“I’ve always had a nose for trouble.”
“Smelling it, or stirring it?”
Parker winced. “How the hell would I stir trouble with my nose?”
Valerie shrugged tiredly. “It made more sense in my head,” she relented. “My point is, this is Oak Creek, not Chicago. The biggest scandal here was your father dying in my bed with a huge smile on his face forty years ago. Huge smile.” Valerie took a longer sip. “You have other things to do now than chasing down leads and sniffing out stories.”
“I know that, Mother.”
As if on cue, Maddy entered the room. “I’m done practicing.” She announced.
“We heard,” encouraged Valerie. “It sounded lovely.”
“So,” Maddy kicked at the floor. “I sure could use some new music. And, you know, a teacher. Where are we at with that?”
Parker turned to her daughter to make a bold pronouncement. “I’ve made several calls to piano teachers this afternoon. We just need to settle on one.”
Both Maddy and Valerie’s eyes widened in shock. Neither of them had expected Parker to have made any progress. “So, how do we do choose?” asked Maddy.
“Maybe we just try the first available and see how you like her,” Parker paused, looking at her wine glass as if trying to divine the future from its color. “Though I wouldn’t mind some kind of recommendation.”
Valerie forced another smile as she rolled her eyes. “Maddy, why don’t you help Drew get ready for bed?”
“Okay,” Maddy’s eyes narrowed, unsure of what just had happened. She quietly exited the room.
Parker ruffled her brows at her mother. “What was the eye roll for?”
“Oh, Sweet Mary Magdalene,” whispered Valerie in a harsh voice. “You’re looking for an excuse to talk to Mr. Bernstein, aren’t you?”
“He’s a qualified music professional.”
“He’s a stranger who was just mysteriously fired from his job!”
“We don’t know the whole story,” Parker corrected. “And that is partly why—"
Just then, there was a quiet knock at the front door. Valerie and Parker looked at each other in wonderment. Parker checked her phone – 8:42pm. A borderline time to be considered rude for solicitors. Well past time for any Amazon delivery. “Are you expecting someone?” asked Parker.
Valerie innocently shook her head. “Should I grab my shotgun?”
“Or,” Parker interjected as she rose from her seat. “We could look through the peephole.”
Parker sauntered toward the front door and leaned in to look through the peephole. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me.”
20.
“Sheriff Bill,” Parker greeted as she opened the front door.
“And to what do we owe the pleasure?”
Bill offered a confused smile. “Parker?” he asked in surprise. He lifted his phone to double check his notes. “You live here? I have this home registered to a Valerie Parker.”
“My mother,” answered Parker.
“Right.”
“Who is it?” asked Valerie from the background.
“The Sheriff!” Parker shouted back.
“What does he want?”
“He’s come for your guns!” Parker shot back.
“He’s come for my gams?”
Parker shook her head and looked to Bill. “You have a habit of popping up unexpectedly. What can we do for you, Sheriff?”
“We’re going door to door in the neighborhood,” Bill aimed his thumb over his shoulder to the deputy at the house across the street. “Letting folks know to keep their cars locked at night. There’s been an uptick on car thefts and break-ins, some of it may be gang related.”
“Gangs? In Oak Creek?”
/> “We’re not that far from San Diego or the border. Towns like Oak Creek make an easy target because no one expects it. And I see a Highlander is parked in your driveway.”
“Too much shit to park it in the garage.”
“Just be sure to keep it locked.” Bill tilted his head sheepishly. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I didn’t mean to stir up trouble with Principal Heller earlier about your car. I didn’t know.”
“Vice Principal,” Parker corrected. “And yes, for the record, I parked in her driveway. Not my finest moment. But it won’t happen again.” Why did I confess that to him and not Heller?
Bill nodded, then simply stared at Parker with his mouth slightly open.
“Is there anything else, Sheriff?”
“You – don’t really remember me from high school, do you?”
Parker sighed. “Not really,” she confessed again. “I’m sorry.”
“Wow,” Bill turned red. “You know, we were like, physics partners.”
“Are you sure?”
“For a week,” answered Bill. “Your usual partner, Neil Carter, got sick that one time with the stomach flu, and then my partner, Trisha Johnson got sick with it too, and so the teacher, Mr. Keiser, had us work together in the lab.”
Parker recalled the Great Stomach Flu of ’92 but still drew a blank as to the identity of her lab partners. “You remember all of that?”
“You don’t’?”
“High school is a big blur for me. To be honest, I couldn’t wait to get out of it. How do you remember so much about me?”
Bill’s face turned more red. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever met named Parker,” he answered. “Parker Jane Parker. That’s hard to forget.”
Parker allowed herself a smile. Her name was an unusual legacy her mother had bestowed upon her. Because Parker was an only child, and a girl, Valerie wanted to honor her husband’s last name and ensure it carried on. Valerie made her daughter’s first name her husband’s last name, so that if she ever married and took a new name, “Parker” would live on no matter what. Until she married Kurt, Parker’s name was technically Parker Parker. “I never liked my middle name,” she admitted. “But I suppose my mom had to break it up somehow.”
“Well, Parker is a fine name.”
“It is,” Parker’s eyes suddenly widened. She was hit with a memory in physics class. “Omigod, you’re that kid who liked to do magic tricks! Bill! Bill Johnson!”
Bill raised his right hand. “Guilty. So – you do remember!”
“Yeah,” Parker’s voice cracked. As her memories flooded back, she recalled Bill getting beat up a lot by bullies and his tricks never quite landing. He may even have been laughed out of a talent show gone horribly wrong. “You – uh, keep up with all – that?”
“Oh, I love magic,” said Bill. “You want to see a trick?”
“I’m good,” answered Parker. Yup, he was definitely laughed off the stage of the talent show. “Maybe some other time? It’s getting rather late.”
“Right. I should be going. Keep those doors locked, okay?”
“Of course.”
Bill turned to walk down the porch steps. He stopped just as Parker was about to close the front door. “And Parker?”
“Yes?”
“Bernstein is okay in my book.”
Parker’s eyes widened. “Come again?”
Bill turned to face Parker again. “Mr. Bernstein. You were asking about him at the school. You wondered if he was a child murderer or something crazy like that? He’s not. He’s a good guy. He’s taught music in this town for a long time. I just – thought you should know.”
Parker stepped onto the porch. If Bill was willing to talk more she was willing to listen. “Why were you at the school today?”
Bill snorted. “Parker,” he shook his head, then looked up to the night sky. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. The district will send out a notification tomorrow. There was a break in last night.”
“What kind of break in?”
“The music room. Instruments were stolen, probably a few thousand dollars’ worth.”
“And you don’t think that’s odd with Bernstein getting the boot the day before?”
“His alibi checks.” Bill hunched his shoulders. “Sure, it’s an unfortunate coincidence, but he’s not the type, Parker. I have his contact info if you’d like. He’s a good man who could probably use a little more music in his life right now.”
Couldn’t we all?
21.
After a relatively painless drop off the next morning with Maddy and Drew…
Parker made her way south just outside of town to a run-down diner called The Bottomless Cup. It didn’t take long for Parker to regret her choice of coffee shop with which to meet Mr. Bernstein. The Bottomless Cup made good on its promise of unlimited refills, but the bonus of chunky grounds in one’s cup of steaming hot sewage water did little to encourage any but the most die-hard of caffeine addicts. In Chicago, Parker couldn’t walk two blocks without tripping over a Starbucks -- an eyesore her eyes sorely missed.
Parker cringed as she put the foam cup to her lips again to choke down another sip, burning the last of her taste buds. She fantasized about throwing the scalding liquid into the face of her squinty eyed tattooed octogenarian barista, then following it with a lecture about the crime against nature foam cups commit simply by existing. But she worried “Popeye” might throw her out with no coffee – and somehow that seemed worse.
Finally, the front glass door swung open with a jingle of its bell as a grey haired, middle aged man wearing a brown sweater vest and round gold spectacles stepped inside. Parker instantly recognized Mr. Bernstein from the picture he had texted her. “Mr. Bernstein!” she waved.
Bernstein straightened his bow tie and glided across the floor with a gentle grace. “Ms. Parker, I presume?” he greeted her with a soft handshake.
“Ms. Monroe,” corrected Parker. She offered him the seat across from her. A fresh cup of swill waited for him. “I’m going to apologize right away for the coffee.”
Bernstein chortled nervously. “I must say, I was a little surprised by your choice of meeting place. Normally, I get my coffee at The Bean near the school.”
“You said you lived on a ranch south of town. I thought this might be closer for you.”
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” said Bernstein as he sat down. “Though I’d argue patrons who come here believe coffee is something to be endured, not enjoyed. As if our beverage needs to remind us how trying life can be.”
Parker grimaced. She could see Bernstein’s eyes moistening. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bernstein. I know this is a tough time for you right now.” Having lost her own job a few months ago, she spoke from the heart.
“Fifteen years,” Bernstein had to whisper. He cleared his throat and straightened his posture. “Fifteen years I gave to that school. And now – just –” Unable to say the word, he gestured to mimic an explosion with his hands.
“Why do you think you lost your job, Mr. Bernstein?”
“Money,” He answered with a rapid certainty. “It’s always about money. The music program has been on the chopping block for years. Year after year Heller fought tooth and nail to keep it going. I guess, this year proved too much for her to overcome.”
“Heller?” Parker asked in surprise.
Bernstein took a sip of his coffee and frowned. “Oh, god, that is awful.” He carefully set the cup down as though it might explode. “I’m sorry, yes, Heller has always been a champion for music. She started the music program with me.”
“Karen Heller?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I just assumed she was the one who cut the program.” Because she’s awful. And I hate her.
Bernstein shook his head. “No, not Heller. This new Principal, Mendez, she’s the culprit. She takes her cue from the district, I’m afraid. It’s why she was hired. Always concerned about the budget. Never the children.
Music and the arts are always the first casualty.” Bernstein stared at his coffee cup as if debating another sip was worth the risk to quench his thirst. He looked up at Parker. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”
Parker grimaced, unsure how to answer. “I used to be a reporter,” she decided. Huh, that sounds weird. ‘Used’ to be.
“Oh,” answered Bernstein. He shifted in his seat. “Am I being investigated?”
Parker smiled. “Sorry, no -- occupational hazard. No, no, of course not.”
Bernstein pushed his glasses firmly back up the bridge of his nose. “I don’t mean to be obtuse, Ms. Monroe, but what exactly are we doing here?”
“I need to find a good piano teacher for my daughter, Maddy.”
“I can put you in touch with some people.” Bernstein nodded. “But honestly, I could have suggested some over the phone.”
Parker hunched her shoulders innocently. “I wanted to meet you in person.”
Bernstein nervously pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Whatever for?”
“A friend of yours mentioned you could use some more music in your life, Mr. Bernstein. I’d like you to instruct my daughter on piano.”
Bernstein smiled and coughed out a chuckle. “Oh no, I think I need to take some time to figure things out. I need to look for a new job.”
“I’d pay you, of course.”
“I couldn’t, really.”
“Please hear me out,” said Parker. She leaned forward, warming her hands on the Styrofoam cup. “My Maddy is a brilliant player – a natural. And for most of her life she’s only had one teacher. Her father, Kurt. Kurt played professionally. He loved music. I think you two would have a lot to talk about. I loved going to his shows in the jazz clubs. It’s how we met. We got married and decided to start a family. But, Kurt put his career on hold to stay at home and raise our three kids. I don’t think he ever regretted doing that, but I do know he missed performing. He’d try to hide it from me, was always polite, but that twinkle in his eye, you know, it wasn’t there as much anymore. He needed more music in his life.”