Plotting at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  Jenna scrunched her face, took the smallest piece of carrot on the plate, and waved it around. “She’s got this big high voice that goes right through you, you know? And this one time Bailey and I were on the sidewalk and she just starts yelling at us for no reason.”

  When Bailey was involved, “no reason” could involve anything from banging fences with sticks to having a screaming contest at nine in the morning.

  “I like her.” Oliver took a sliver of celery. If the boy didn’t start eating more, I was going to have to start stuffing him with protein drinks. “Auntie May, I mean.”

  Jenna and I shared a long glance. I was pretty sure that in the history of Rynwood, no one, but no one, had ever admitted to liking May Werner. I respected her age and valued her life experiences, but the concept of liking her wasn’t something that had ever occurred to me.

  “I’m glad,” I said. And I was. If Auntie May was going to have a new friend, who better than Oliver? Empathic and intelligent, he was also loyal and thoughtful. How he’d gotten that way, I had absolutely no idea.

  “Can I go back tomorrow?” Oliver looked at me over the top of his plate. When I didn’t answer right away, he took a bigger piece of celery and bit hard. “Mrs. Hoffman wants to tell me about being really depressed.”

  “The Great Depression?” I asked.

  He nodded, chewing. “She must have been really sad, to call it great.”

  Gently, I started to correct him, but the phone rang.

  Jenna jumped up and tossed her napkin on the table. “I’ll get it.”

  “We’re eating,” I said automatically. “Take a message.”

  “I know, Mom,” she said as she picked up the receiver. “Hello? Kennedy residence.” She turned and pointed at me. “I’m sorry, but we’re eating dinner right now. Can I take a message? Oh, hi, Mrs. Hale. Sure, I’ll tell her. Good-bye.” The phone went back into its cradle with a solid thump. “Mrs. Hale wants to have a PTA call at seven.”

  “Those were excellent phone manners,” I said. “You earn a gold star for the day.”

  She slid back into her chair and retrieved her abandoned napkin. “Does that mean I get out of doing dishes?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think . . .” She slid a glance my way, read my expression, and slumped a little. “No.”

  I patted her on the shoulder. “You’re learning, kiddo.”

  * * *

  “Beth, are you taking notes?” Erica asked.

  It was seven o’clock. Dinner was over, the dishes washed, the dog walked, and the kids were ostensibly in their rooms working on homework. From the giggles and dull thumps that straggled down the stairs, I had my doubts about their efficiency, but as long as I didn’t have to drive anyone to the emergency room, I was willing to let them toil at their own pace.

  “Pen at the ready,” I said. Through the magic of technology, the four PTA board members were on the phone for what Erica called a work session. I found these calls more of an Erica Keeping An Eye On What’s Going On session. But it wasn’t a bad idea, really, though it had been much more pleasant before Claudia became vice president.

  “Then let’s get started.”

  We slid through a few issues concerning other projects and discussed options for the end of the year PTA gift to students. Then: “If I recall correctly,” Erica said, “today Beth took the students to Sunny Rest for the first time. Beth?”

  As the chances of Erica recalling incorrectly were roughly seven million to one, I interpreted her use of my name as a call for a report and not a memory confirmation.

  “We arrived at Sunny Rest ten minutes before scheduled.” Which I’d planned. Inevitably, half the kids on any group trip would plead for a bathroom upon arrival, even if we’d made sure the restroom had been visited before departure.

  “Why so early?” Claudia asked.

  I started doodling in the margins of my legal pad. Hatchets dripping a dark liquid. Bull’s-eye targets and arrows. “Just the way it worked out.”

  “Well, I hope you didn’t mess up anyone with getting there so early.”

  “It worked out,” I said mildly. “The kids all had their notebooks, I handed out the questions, and the Sunny Rest CNAs took the kids to the residents’ rooms. We regrouped in the meeting room after an hour, and the carpool moms did their thing.”

  There was a grunt, which I assumed was Randy Jarvis giving a vague sort of approval, then Erica asked, “Any glitches?”

  “Not that I can—” Then I remembered. “There was one little thing.”

  I could almost feel Claudia perking up. “What?” she demanded. “Bet it wasn’t as little as you think. Sometimes you really don’t pay enough attention to other people, Beth. Like last fall. You hurt my feelings when—”

  “Back to Sunny Rest, please,” Erica said. “Beth, go on.”

  I doodled a face with X’s for eyes and a tongue sticking out, and described the scene with Auntie May and Oliver.

  “You let Oliver be part of the project?” Claudia asked. “He’s not approved. You shouldn’t have let that happen.”

  Randy guffawed. “Like to see anyone tell May Werner she can’t have what she wants.”

  “It couldn’t be that hard,” Claudia said stiffly. “You should have simply told her Oliver wasn’t approved to do a story.”

  My face doodle expanded to include an anvil dropping out of the sky. I tried to imagine telling Auntie May that her friend Maude would have to go without a storyteller. Imagined Mrs. Judy, Oliver, and me deaf from her screeches. Imagined her apoplectic fury. Envisioned the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding me down.

  “I disagree,” Erica said. “Dealing with May can be . . . difficult.”

  At that, my own ears perked up. Could Auntie May be the one person Erica couldn’t handle?

  Claudia sniffed. “Whatever. If I’d been there, this never would have happened.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. Because if Claudia had been there, Oliver wouldn’t have come within a mile of the place. “She yells at kids,” he’d told me when we’d opened the birthday party invitation for one of her sons.

  Oliver had looked up at me beseechingly, and I’d mussed his hair and telephoned Claudia that, sorry, Oliver would be with his dad that Saturday, and they had something special planned. Which wasn’t a lie, because eating take-out pizza and watching Disney DVDs could be very special.

  “So what are you going to do about this?” Claudia demanded.

  I drew a noose around the face doodle. Started drawing another face, one that was watching the death, and smiling. “I’ll talk to the school,” I said. “If they give permission for Oliver to be a part of the project, will this board object?”

  There was a loud swallowing noise. “Not me,” Randy said.

  “Given what I know of the boy,” Erica said, “he’ll do fine.”

  Claudia cleared her throat. Cleared it again.

  The margin on the left side of my paper was full, so while I waited for Claudia to bow to the inevitable, I moved to the right margin. Time to draw something nicer than nooses. Say . . . flowers. Flowers were always nice. I drew a bloom that somewhat resembled a rose and added a sun shining down from on high. Tried to draw a drop of dew. Added a bee in search of pollen. Added a—

  My pen stopped. I stared at the bee.

  Amy. And bees.

  Amy, who, the single time I’d seen go outside, had been armed with a fresh can of bee killer spray in each hand, both uncapped and ready for killing. It was the only way she’d go out in the day, she’d said, she was that allergic.

  So . . . had Amy had cans with her when she died? And if not, why not?

  Chapter 6

  “Are you going to ask Gus?” Marina asked. “You know, about Amy and the cans of bee killer?”

  “Umm . . .” It was Monday and I was leaning against Marina’s kitchen counter, watching as she plopped spoonfuls of dough onto a cookie sheet. All three kids—Jenna, Oliver, and Mari
na’s youngest-by-far, Zach—were outside. After Marina’s last day care kid had been picked up by a harried father, the trio had run out into the cool early evening air to play a complicated version of tag.

  Marina had opened the kitchen window a few inches, letting the shouts and laughter slip inside. It was getting close on to dinnertime, and by rights I should be grabbing the kids and heading home to start cooking, but a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

  “Are you in there?” Marina rapped her knuckles against the air a few inches from my head. “Are you going to ask Gus, or what?”

  Go back into that unwelcoming office and be greeted with an antismile? Mention the possibility of an absence of spray cans, get a reply of raised eyebrows and a comment of “Anything else?”

  “No reason to rush over there,” I said. “I’m thinking of waiting until I have a better idea of Amy’s everyday habits.”

  As a diversion, it was good one. Marina, however, had known me for a long time. “Is Gus still mad at you?” she asked.

  “When I stopped by the other day to ask him about Amy, he said . . .” I felt the muscles at the back of my neck tighten with unhappiness and closed my eyes against the memory. “He said he was sorry she was dead, but that there’s no mystery. He said if I find evidence of murder, to bring it to him, but until then we didn’t have anything to discuss.”

  I opened my eyes to see Marina staring at me, her mouth hanging open. “But . . . but that’s . . .” Her mouth flopped a few times. “That’s not like Gus.”

  “No.” The bowl was now empty of dough. I took it to the sink and turned on the faucet. “It’s not. I tried to apologize about the thing at choir, but he wouldn’t let me. Just said he was busy and to shut the door behind me.”

  “There’s only one answer,” Marina said.

  “What’s that?” I looked over my shoulder and saw her strike her Roman senator pose. This was the one where one hand held her invisible toga closed while the other stroked her chin. I turned back to the sink.

  “Gus’s body,” she stated in round tones with an English-y accent, “has been taken over by aliens.”

  “No doubt.”

  “It is the only possibility.”

  “Or it could be that he’s mad at me.”

  “Oh, please.” Marina cast off her imaginary toga and grabbed a dish towel. “So you made fun of some composer. So what? When have you ever known Gus to get bent out of shape about anything?”

  “Well, never, but—”

  “No buts.” She flicked the towel at me. “You’re nuts to beat yourself up with a big heavy hammer because of something you said. There’s something else wrong with the man.”

  I wanted to believe her. I tried to believe her. I stared at the soapy dishwater running out of the sink and concentrated on believing her completely and thoroughly. I was almost there, I could feel the beginning of comfort, but then my brain reversed itself. I hated my brain sometimes. “If that’s true, why is he so angry at me?”

  Marina started to say something. Stopped. Started again. Stopped again.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “And you know how much I hate saying that.”

  A half-formed idea sent out a tendril. “Maybe it’s something about Amy that’s bothering him.”

  “Maybe.” Marina peered through the oven’s window at the flattening cookies. “But he was mad at you before you started asking about her, remember?”

  So much for that tendril. I couldn’t even garden in my head. “Maybe it’s all related.”

  “Call Winnie.” Marina grabbed a pot holder, opened the oven door, and rotated the cookie sheet one hundred and eighty degrees. “If anyone knows, it’s Gus’s wife.”

  “Marina Neff,” I said solemnly, “you are the smartest person on the planet.”

  She tossed her loose ponytail over her shoulder. “About time you recognized that.”

  I walked around the end of the counter and rooted around in my purse for my cell phone. Marina rattled off Eiseley’s phone number and I punched in the numbers. When Winnie answered, I said. “Hey, it’s Beth. How are you this lovely day?”

  “How am . . .” Winnie’s normally cheerful voice faded into flat silence. “Why are you asking?”

  Frowning, I walked into the study that Marina’s Devoted Husband had created out of the bedroom their oldest child had vacated almost a decade ago. “It’s what I ask everyone. It’s what everyone asks everybody.”

  “Oh.” A couple of short breaths forced themselves into the phone. “Then, yes, I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  It didn’t even require shutting my eyes to picture my friend Winnie. Comfortably round and permanently red-faced, she’d be sitting at her kitchen table, TV turned to the Weather Channel, her hands busy with crocheting or knitting or quilting. Either that, or she’d be studying the classifieds for garage sales, but it was a little early in the week for that. “No reason,” I said slowly. “Actually, I was calling about Gus.”

  “He’s nasty busy these days, what with all those budget cuts. Seems I hardly ever see the man.”

  Now that sounded like Winnie. “Yes, but is there anything else wrong?”

  “What makes you think there’s something wrong?”

  And that didn’t sound like her. “Well, he’s not speaking to me, for one thing.”

  She chuckled. At least I assumed it was a chuckle. It didn’t sound very humorous, but I couldn’t think what other noise it might be. “Now, Beth, you know Gus doesn’t get mad at anyone. You must have gotten the wrong end of the stick, that’s all. I’ll tell him you called. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

  And she hung up before I could get in another word.

  I went back to the kitchen and returned the phone to my purse.

  “What’s the matter?” Marina asked. “You look befuddled. Or bewildered. What’s the difference, anyway?”

  I didn’t answer, but Marina didn’t care, because she started singing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” using the words from the stage musical, not the movie that had come years later.

  The woman was a marvel, but the puzzle of the source of her knowledge was nothing compared to the puzzle of that phone call. Gus wasn’t talking to me, and now Winnie was being evasive. Gus always talked to everyone and Winnie’s transparency was legendary. Something was up, and—

  “Mom!” Oliver banged in the kitchen door. “I’m hungry! When are we going to eat?”

  “Yeah!” Jenna barged in after him. “I’m starved.”

  Zach came in last. He made a beeline for the cookies, but Marina snapped him lightly with a dish towel. “Back, young sir. Yourst dinner preparations have begunest. And shall commence soonest if the table is set.”

  We headed home, the kids chirping happily about school and sports and friends, and my prickles of unease about Gus and Winnie and Amy’s death almost dropped out of my thoughts.

  Almost.

  * * *

  Thursday afternoon, I stopped by Tarver Elementary with a load of books. “Hey, Lindsay.” I plopped the heavy box on the office counter with an “oof” and a smile for the secretary. “Orders for Mrs. Pattengill, Ms. Burke, Mr. Adler, and Mrs. Lehrer.”

  Lindsay got up from her desk and peered into the box. Last year Tarver’s secretary had retired and the unanimous choice for a new lifer was the six foot tall, thirty-ish, model-skinny, fashion-blind, über-competent Lindsay. I hoped she’d stay at Tarver forever. “Lots of goodies.” She squinted at me. “Are you singing?”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I felt a tinge of red tiptoe up my neck. Once again, evidence of my father’s addiction to Tom Lehrer’s music had snuck out. “Just an old song.” Echoes of “New Math” banged around inside my skull and I shook them away. “Is Gary in?”

  Lindsay picked up a copy of a Newbery winner, Moon Over Manifest. “Is this any good? No, our esteemed principal is out meeting with the superintendent and if I tell you what the topics of discussion are, I’ll have to lock you i
n the attic until fall.”

  Since Tarver didn’t have an attic, I wasn’t overly worried. “Do you know what it’s about?”

  She opened the book. “Budget cuts. Again.”

  “And I heard Gary say something about expanding middle school orientation.” A round-faced woman stood in the doorway that led to the back offices. “He’s had parents complaining their children are scared about moving to the big school.”

  Lindsay turned a page. “We already have one meeting in May, one in June, and another right before school opens. Beth, you got the announcement, didn’t you?”

  She looked at me, at the newcomer, then back at me. “Have you two officially met? Beth Kennedy, this is Millie Jefferson. Millie, Beth owns the Children’s Bookshelf and is secretary of the PTA. Beth, Millie is the new school psychologist. New-ish, anyway.”

  We shook hands and said the polite things people say to each other. Millie wore a denim jumper over a bright yellow knit shirt, and had a comfortable smile that gave me the impression that if we knew each other a little better I’d be getting a great big hug.

  “Sorry I haven’t introduced myself before this,” Millie said, “but soon after I was hired, I had a family issue that required a lengthy stay back in Charleston.” Her voice had the attractive soft vowels that come from the Carolinas. I wanted to ask her questions just to keep hearing her talk.

  “What do you need Gary for?” Lindsay asked me.

  “There’s a little glitch with the senior story project.”

  “I hear this was your idea,” Millie said. “And I must say it’s a wonderful one.”

  “Unfortunately not everyone thinks that way.”

  “Who could think it’s a bad idea?” Lindsay leaned against the front of her desk and crossed her ankles. “No, let me guess. Someone on the PTA board?” She grinned at Millie. “Bet it’s Claudia Wolff.”

  Millie’s face flickered, then went back to its former pleasant expression.

  “Hah!” Lindsay laughed. “I saw that. Beth saw it, too, didn’t you, Beth?”

  “The reason I need to see Gary,” I said, “is a Sunny Rest resident wanted in on the project at the last minute and Oliver was handy. Claudia says eight is too young for a project like this, so I said I’d get the school’s permission before a second session.”