Over Her Head

by Shelley Bates

  “What?” She didn’t look up. Instead, she began hunting through his kitchen drawers until she found another knife, and then through the cupboards until she located a plate.

  “Stop running yourself down. I’d be happy to have you come with me. Laurie will understand. And maybe it’ll make my sisters-in-law back off for five minutes.”

  “Why, are they trying to get you married off?”

  “They are, they have been, they always will be, world without end, amen. Unless you do me a favor and help me out.”

  “A defensive play.”

  He opened his mouth to agree with her and realized what she’d said just in time. “You’re doing it again. Stop it. I’m not using you to keep their good intentions in the defensive zone. I’m asking you because you’re a decent person, and I think you’d enjoy it.”

  She blushed, the color starting in her cheeks and washing all the way out to her hairline. Maybe she wasn’t used to people being as honest as she was. Maybe it was easier to dish out than to take. Whatever. He was glad he’d said it, anyway.

  “Let me think about it, okay? Do you have a cheese grater?”

  He found it—one of his mom’s old ones—in a drawer and handed it to her. “What exactly are you doing?”

  She began to shred the potato into a neat pyramid on the plate. “I’m making potato pancakes. I’ll put them with bacon and melted cheese—unless you’re on a low-fat diet.”

  “Uh, no. Potato pancakes?” He couldn’t think of anyone who whipped up potato pancakes at the drop of a hat. “I can’t let you make supper when I’ve been making you work all day.”

  “You worked, too. Do you have an egg?”

  He did. For a miracle. “Here.”

  “What about applesauce?”

  “Tanya, nobody has applesauce unless they need it for something specific.”

  “I do.” She glanced up from the frying pan, where four shreddy-looking pancakes were already frying. “Little jars of it, for Randi’s lunches.” She swallowed, then went on gamely. “You spoon it on the pancakes. My grandma used to make them for me when I was little. It’s a German thing, and she was from German stock. A great lady, my grandma was. I named Randi after her—Miranda—much to Daryl’s disgust. He wanted her named after his mother, who couldn’t stand me.”

  Whoa. Stick with what was safe. Food. “Sorry, no applesauce. Just a couple of apples I keep around for a snack.”

  “Cut them up small, and we’ll microwave them and mash them.”

  He’d never mashed an apple in his life, but since he’d bought this house, winging it had become a habit. No applesauce? Nuke an apple and mash it up. Simple.

  Fifteen minutes later they sat down to their improvised supper. And it smelled so good and looked so tasty he said nothing when she bowed her head and said grace out loud without even asking if he minded.

  The woman had helped him install a vanity and then made them supper. If she wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t there, it was none of his business.

  All the same, he waited until she finished before he dug into his food.

  Chapter Eleven

  To: kedgar254

  From: JohnnysGrrl

  R u threatening me, Mayor Boy?

  I know something u dont know and if u tell it goes to the papers.

  What will daddy say then?

  Want to know what it is?

  Laurie left work promptly at three and drove straight over to the mayor’s house, which lay outside town on a couple of acres of perfectly landscaped trees and shrubs that would flower in the spring.

  Laurie had made a comment at Bible group during one of Janice’s rare absences about the army of gardeners it probably took to keep Janice’s yard looking the way it did. She’d been informed that Janice and one landscape design student from the university did it all. After that, she learned to keep her mouth shut and think twice before making snarky assumptions disguised as compliments.

  That was one nice thing, she reflected as she turned into the driveway. She did put her foot in her mouth, but generally only once on any given subject. The Lord was endlessly patient.

  The big item on today’s list was Kyle Edgar, who should be arriving on the bus at any moment. Anna was under strict instructions to go to Susquanny Building Supply and stay in her dad’s office until five o’clock, and then ride home with him. Tim, at least for now, could be trusted to come home on his own.

  The bell played the first four notes of Big Ben’s peal when she pressed it, and a moment later, Janice swung open the door.

  “Laurie!”

  She couldn’t blame Janice for being surprised. She’d been here once for a church fund-raising event, and once to hear a visiting gospel singer put on a house concert sponsored by Glendale Bible Fellowship. Other than that, she saw Janice at Bible study and on the news and that was it.

  “Can I talk to you?” Laurie asked. “About our kids?”

  “Of course. Come on in.” She closed the door and Laurie shrugged out of her coat, trying not to be impressed and envious. Her house didn’t have solid-looking wainscoting like this, or floor-to-ceiling windows. It didn’t have beautiful flower arrangements, either, or a music room with an antique Steinway and a Persian carpet on the floor.

  I love my house. It’s our refuge. Quit coveting.

  “I was just making a snack for Kyle when he gets home from practice,” Janice said. “Come on and let’s eat it all instead.”

  The snack turned out to be carrot cake from a boutique bakery whose sweets were more than Laurie could ever afford. The first bite was bliss.

  “So what’s happened to bring you all the way out here?” Janice asked, licking a quarter inch of cream cheese frosting off her fork. “You said it was about our kids. And something to do with . . . that night?”

  “You could say so. You told me at lunch yesterday that the kids were pointing fingers at Kyle, saying he was there, and you found out he was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, guess what. Someone else pointed a finger, and I found out Anna was, too.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “You were right. About the bedroom window as an escape route. She goes over the roof and down a wrought-iron trellis next to the garage.”

  Janice put her fork down and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear it, Laurie. I really am.”

  “I also found out who Kyle’s girlfriend is.”

  “Anna told you? Who is it?”

  Laurie had to laugh at the irony of it all, and how completely their kids had flimflammed them. “Her. Anna.”

  Janice stared, then blinked, then picked up her fork and put it down again. The tiny clink sounded like an alarm bell in the silence of the glossy kitchen.

  “Our kids are sneaking out to see each other?”

  “You’d think they’d just invite themselves over for dinner, wouldn’t you? Or come over to watch TV or study like normal people.”

  “Does Anna think I’m some kind of evil witch or some-thing?”

  Poor Janice. She looked ready to cry at the thought that a fourteen-year-old would make her boyfriend bike a mile into town in the middle of the night, just to avoid running into his mother.

  “According to Brendan O’Day, who got it from Nancy, it’s because I think you’re a social climber.”

  Janice choked on her cake and fumbled for the mug of tea next to her plate. “A what?”

  “Apparently I’m upset because you get all the TV coverage when I’m in the back room at community events, doing all the work.”

  Janice clapped both hands over her mouth, but a sound suspiciously like a giggle escaped. Laurie had never thought she’d see the day when quiet, elegant Janice Edgar would laugh out loud with her mouth full.

  “Do they have any idea?” Janice gasped at last, grabbing the mug for another gulp of tea. “Do they have a single clue how hard it is for me to speak in public? That I have to carry breath mints in case I throw up in the ladies’ room before a speech?”


  She did? Laurie had never had stage fright in her life, but she could imagine it. Just take the kind of fear she’d been living with over the last few days, water it down a little, and focus it into a pinpoint of time. Maybe it would be like that.

  “Of course not. They’re just petty, jealous people with tiny souls who can’t do anything themselves, so they talk about the people who do do things.”

  “No one knows better than I do what you contribute to this town, Laurie—how much organizing and cooking and legwork go on behind the scenes. If they knew how hard it is to be Barrett’s wife when all I want to do is stay home and grub around in the garden, they’d sing a different tune.” Janice shook her head and took another sip of tea. “I’m having a terrible time getting this plan for the women’s shelter off the ground. Maybe I should ask Nancy O’Day to be on the fund-raising committee.”

  “If you promised her a TV crew, she’d be your slave for life.”

  “No, thanks. But she has a gift for getting under people’s skin. That could come in handy if I set her on some of the corporations who’ve promised funding and not come through.” She sighed. “But you didn’t come over here to talk about my civic projects. We have a mutual problem.”

  Did she mean their two kids sneaking out to see each other, or the bigger problem of why their stories didn’t jibe about what went on at the bridge?

  “I wondered if Kyle has said anything to the police about Anna being at the bridge that night. Nick knows she was, but they’re going to want a statement from a witness.”

  Janice lifted her head, like a greyhound sniffing the wind. “Here he is now. Why don’t we ask him?”

  Laurie hadn’t heard a thing. Janice must have good hearing—or else she was so attuned to Kyle’s whereabouts lately that it had become almost another sense.

  Kyle Edgar came into the kitchen in sweat-drenched soccer togs, muddy to the knees and, from the look in his eye as he zeroed in on the cake, starving hungry.

  “Hey, you.” Janice kissed one damp temple as he swiped the last piece of cake without bothering with a plate.

  “Hey, Mom.” He did a double take as he realized there was more to this room than his mom and food. “Oh. Mrs. Hale. Hi.” He looked from one woman to the other, and Laurie could practically see his neurons rearranging themselves into defensive position with this new information.

  Moms have been talking. What do they know?

  Laurie took a sip of tea while she arranged the words in a way that might encourage him to be straight with her. “I was just asking your mom about what you might have seen that night at the bridge, now that we know Anna was there, too. Maybe you can help me out with some details, okay?” She glanced at his long legs and filthy clothes. “Or maybe you’d rather take a shower first?”

  “Uh—”

  “It’s okay, Kyle,” Janice said. “Mrs. Hale and I need to help each other through this the way you and Anna are probably standing by each other. We need to get all the details out in the open so we can move on to happier things, like inviting Anna over once in a while. After your grounding is finished.”

  The wariness faded from his eyes and mouth. Under the mud and the adolescent angles of his face was the potential of a fine-looking young man who would hopefully learn from this experience and maybe even make the kind of date Laurie would approve of once Anna turned fifteen.

  “I’ll be back in ten,” he said, and they heard the thump of his feet on the stairs as he took them two at a time.

  “He’s a nice kid,” Laurie commented. “You’ve done a good job with him.”

  “Clearly not, if he thinks it’s okay to lie to get what he wants.” Janice put her mug down and sighed. “Other than bars on the windows, I’m having a hard time coming up with a punishment I can actually enforce.”

  “Look at it this way. If Anna’s out of commission—and once Colin takes that trellis down, she will be—he’s got no reason to sneak out.”

  Janice brightened. “True. Now if we can just get them to grow a spine so they can talk to each other at school, they won’t feel so oppressed.”

  With a snort, Laurie said, “Don’t hold your breath. I’ve discovered that Anna’s just not the kind to walk up to the A-list girls and tell them to back away from her boyfriend.”

  Janice would have replied, but Kyle jogged back into the kitchen. Laurie wondered if he’d actually gotten wet—but he must have, because he was clean and changed. “Any more of that cake?”

  “Afraid not. I ate your second piece,” Laurie said without much remorse.

  “That’s okay.” He snagged an apple out of the bowl on the counter and inhaled it in a couple of bites.

  “So, about Anna,” Janice said over the crunching.

  Laurie spoke up. “From what we can gather, there was a commotion on the bridge and somebody pushed Randi over the rail, whether accidentally or on purpose, we don’t know. All we know is that you and Anna were under the trees talking, and when she heard the splash, Anna ran under the bridge. But she says she doesn’t remember anything after that. We’re hoping you can fill us in.”

  Kyle shrugged and reached for another apple. “I don’t know. I didn’t go under there.”

  So much for protecting the girl you wanted to date from possible danger. “Why not?”

  He bit into the second apple and chewed, thinking. “Mrs. Hale, if you’d have been there, you’d have seen a bunch of girls screaming and crying up on that bridge, having a mass breakdown. Anna’s got a brain, and compared to her, these girls were totally losing it. If anybody needed someone with a level head, it was them, not her.”

  Laurie said nothing. So you let my daughter go into the dark under that bridge by herself, where for all you knew there was a homeless serial killer living in a cardboard box, to try to see if Randi was still alive? You chose instead to help a bunch of girls who were perfectly safe?

  Never mind. Focus. “Then what? Who was the one who did the pushing?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it, and I couldn’t get any of them to make any sense. At least I got them off the bridge, and when a couple of the guys from the team showed up at the Stop-N-Go, I asked them to make sure they got home.”

  Janice glanced at Laurie. “The entire ninth grade, apparently, is out on the streets at night. Maybe it’s not just you and I who are clueless.”

  “Not everybody,” Kyle said a little defensively. “Just a few of us. The point is, the guys took the girls home, and then I went back down to see if I could find Anna.”

  “And did you?” his mother asked.

  “Yeah. She was standing there in that mud where the grass breaks and goes into the water.”

  “Standing in the mud?” Laurie repeated incredulously. “In November?”

  “I think she was in shock. She was just standing there, looking at the water, like she thought Randi was going to swim up to her.”

  “She never surfaced?” his mother asked.

  “Not while we were there. So I kind of shook her arm and she came out of it and I walked her home. Then I rode back here.”

  “That’s it?” Janice asked. He nodded. “And you didn’t see who pushed Randi over? This is really important, Kyle.”

  “I didn’t, Mom, honest. Up until we heard the splash, Anna and I were talking and not paying attention.”

  “That can’t be right,” Laurie said. “This thing about her standing in the water. I’d have noticed muddy socks in the laundry, or damp shoes the next day.”

  Here was a way out, and Laurie latched on to it fiercely. She could not bear to live like this—examining every sentence that came out of Anna’s mouth, looking, as Janice had said yesterday, for corroborating evidence before she accepted even the simplest words as truth.

  If it wasn’t Anna telling these lies, then she was going to make sure everyone knew about it. How long could her relationship with Anna survive otherwise? Once trust was lost, it would be a long, hard road back, like reeling in a boat that had already left the
dock. It might take years—teenage years that would be difficult enough if their relationship was loving and steady. Laurie couldn’t face those years if they were going to become a steadily widening chasm of rejection and distrust and guilt. She knew perfectly well what waited on the other side: Anna going off on her own to find people who accepted her. Maybe she’d attach herself to another family. Or worse, to friends who would lead her away from God and into drugs, alcohol, and unwanted pregnancy.

  Oh, Lord. Deep inside, her heart cried like a child to heaven. Please don’t let that happen. Please help me find a way to get through this.

  “I surprise myself with the things I don’t notice.” Janice’s lips twisted wryly. “She could have rinsed her socks out, or stashed the shoes in the closet until they dried.”

  “But Anna says she ran away from the bridge, not under it.”

  “She went under it,” Kyle said. “The river path goes under there and keeps going on the other side.”

  “But Kyle, no one but you has said anything about her standing in the water. And there’s no proof she did.”

  “What are you saying, Laurie?” Janice’s eyes had narrowed slightly. “Are you saying Kyle isn’t telling the truth?”

  Laurie pushed at her plate, then picked it up and carried it to the sink. Both Janice and Kyle stayed at the table, watching her. She needed to walk circumspectly here. Both these people could do Anna a lot of damage if they chose.

  And wasn’t that a horrible way to think about a woman in her own Bible study group, whom she’d prayed with countless times?

  “No, of course not,” she said carefully. “I’m just a little uncertain about what it means if Kyle is the only one saying this.”

  “I was the only one there,” he pointed out. “The others had already left.”

  “But Anna says she didn’t go under the bridge, and I choose to believe her.”

  Kyle shrugged. “That’s up to you. I just know what I saw. And it’s no big deal. There wasn’t anything under there anyway.”

  “Then why bring it up, Kyle?” Laurie wanted to know. “Why tell anyone about it? Did you tell Deputy Tremore?”