Plotting at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  But, if I failed, even harder to bear would be Maude’s disappointment.

  Maude nodded at me, her kind smile flaming the embers of my deeply embedded and ever present guilt. If love made the world go around, then I was pretty sure guilt was what started the spinning.

  “You’ll do fine, honey,” Maude said, still smiling. “I know you will.”

  I smiled back.

  And didn’t say anything.

  Chapter 7

  “How was your week?” Evan reached across the table for my hand.

  It was a wide table and had a large expanse of white tablecloth between the two of us. Evan’s generous arm length allowed his hand to reach past the halfway point with ease, but clasping his hand required that I lean forward until my chest rested on the tabletop. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a position in which I wanted to spend a lot of time, either.

  “My week? Um, fine, I guess. How about yours?”

  Jenna and Oliver were with their father, watching the latest Pixar movie for the fifth time, and I was having dinner with Evan. His hardware store was in the black, and as a reward to himself he’d joined the local country club. Not that the hardware store was paying for the membership. As a retail storeowner, I knew the chances of that were zero to negative quad-zillion. It was Evan’s former life that had purchased the hardware store, paid for his condominium, leveraged his vacations, and bought him a new car every year.

  I looked around. Everything in the room was done in a big way. Big chandeliers. Big flower arrangements on the accent tables. Big windows with a big view of the golf course. Everything larger than life, everyone good-looking. Or if not good-looking, then dressed as if they were, which was almost the same thing.

  A waiter soundlessly laid menus on the table, took our drink orders, and wafted off. I detached myself from Evan’s hand and opened the leather folder.

  “My week,” Evan said, paging though the wine list, “was spent listening to reps from three different paint companies, each of whom was trying to convince me to carry their new, improved products. Paint has changed—” He stopped. “What’s the matter?”

  “This menu.” I flipped the thick pages. I’d heard about menus like this, but I’d never seen one. “It’s missing some key information.”

  “Oh?” The outside corners of Evan’s mouth turned down. “Let me get you a new one.” He looked for our waiter and started to raise his hand.

  “Don’t bother. I bet he brings me one that’s just the same.” I laid the menu flat on the table and pointed at the right side of the pages. “See? No prices.”

  Evan chuckled. “Priced menus are only given to the club members.”

  “I know. It’s just”—I turned the pages, each one looking like a printing mistake—“just weird.”

  “That’s how it’s done,” he said, reaching for my hand again. “You know you can order anything you like, don’t you?”

  My politeness reflex kicked in. “Yes. Thank you.”

  He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb. “I hear a ‘but’ in that sentence.”

  “No, no buts.” I put on a smile. “See? All happy.”

  Laughing, he squeezed and released my hand. “You always make me laugh. No matter what my day’s been like, you make it better.”

  My face went warm and I buried myself in the menu. Most of the words I’d seen before, but pronunciation was going to be a problem. Salmon was easy enough to say, but Le Filet de Saumon au Beurre Rouge presented a bit of a challenge. Maybe I could just point.

  Evan was still looking at me. “This is okay, isn’t it?” He gestured at our surroundings. “It’s really the golf course I care about. We don’t have to come here again if you don’t like it.”

  “I’m fine.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I didn’t feel sick, and I wasn’t angry, or upset, or worried that I’d use the wrong fork. No, I just felt a little . . . itchy.

  “You’re sure?”

  I looked up and fell deep into his blue eyes. Evan was a kind, thoughtful, incredibly handsome man and I was doing my best to enjoy the places he took me. Okay, it was easy to have a good time at the hockey games, but that was my thing, not his. On a regular basis the two of us ate at restaurants where children weren’t part of the normal clientele. We went to art gallery openings. We’d been to cocktail parties and dinner parties. Though I rarely made a complete idiot of myself, time after time I never felt as if I truly fit in. But how could I explain that feeling to someone who’d always fit in? I wasn’t sure there was any way to make him understand.

  “I’m fine,” I said. And, for a moment, smiling into his eyes, I almost believed it.

  The waiter advised us on dinner choices, the wine steward helped Evan choose the bottle that would best enhance our meals, and we were left to our own devices.

  “Alone at last.” Evan fingered the lapel of his jacket and I had the sudden, horrifying thought that he was going to pull out a ring and propose, right there and right then.

  Not in public. Please, not in public. Please don’t turn me into a spectacle. I don’t even like anyone to watch me open birthday presents. I really, really don’t want you to go down on your knee with a restaurant full of people watching. Please . . .

  “What do you think of this?” He slid a piece of paper out of his inside pocket and pushed it across the table.

  No, not paper. A small-ish, white, rectangular piece of cardboard. White cardboard on white cloth, it was almost invisible. “Um.”

  Evan turned it over. “This is from the new paint line that sales rep number two is touting. What do you think?”

  I eyed the colors. “They’re, um, nice.”

  “Do you really think so, or are you just being polite? If this is boring, just say the word and we’ll talk about something else.”

  “No, I like paint.” What a stupid thing to say. “I mean, these colors don’t offend me.” Though I couldn’t think of a color that would. Some might make me squinch my eyes shut and others might make me feel vaguely ill, but finding a color offensive didn’t seem possible.

  “Is that the one you like best?” Evan asked.

  I looked down to see my index finger pointing to a shade somewhere between light off-white and medium off-white. “It’s a color worth considering.”

  Evan nodded. “Not too dark, not too light. It’s good for public areas.” He talked on about the value of a neutral background for artwork, and I faded away.

  Also worth considering was Auntie May’s vague threat. Or was it a curse? Either way, thanks in large part to my fear of a ninety-one-year-old woman, I was about to embark on a journey twenty years into the past.

  But how on earth was I going to find out anything about a death that had happened so long ago? Sure, most of the major players were still alive, but how accurate was anyone’s memory at such a distance? I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten for breakfast on Sunday, let alone something that happened when I was still in high school.

  Yes, tragic events loom large in a memory, and their edges can stay razor sharp, but isn’t it the pain that lingers longest? Does the clarity include events leading up to the cancer diagnosis? Do the precise recollections include reliable accounts of what your grandfather said the week before he died?

  I didn’t know. Sadly, there were an awful lot of things I didn’t know, including the difference between Italian and vinaigrette dressings. Figuring out a way to find out what happened to Kelly Engel was just one more on a long, long list.

  “You don’t like it, do you?” Evan asked. “That look on your face is a dead giveaway. Here, how about this one?” He reached into his jacket for another sample.

  Then again, making lists was one of the things I did best. Marina, my children, my former husband, my siblings, my fellow PTA board members, and my employees might all make fun of my lists, but how many of them had asked me to put something on a list? Every one of them. Over and over again.

  Making a list would help me help Maude. Even if
I didn’t unearth anything new, lists would at least be something I could wave at Auntie May. Here, I’d say. I tried, I really tried. I did my best. See all that I did?

  “Not that I’m telling you what to do,” Evan was saying, “but if you were going to repaint your bookstore, what color would you want?” He fanned the samples out on the table.

  I’d missed the switch from darker shades of pale to bright pastels. “Um . . .”

  “Yellow could be a good option.” Evan poked at the color. “Though we’d have to see how it looks under those halogen lights.”

  I nodded. “Those lights do funny things. It’s hard to know ahead of time what a color’s going to look like.”

  Of course, it was hard to know ahead of time about anything. Impossible, really, without the ability to see into the future. What was Jenna going to be when she grew up? A wife, a mother? Dedicated to her career? What about Oliver? A husband, a father? Good at golf for the sake of his profession?

  For that matter, what was I going to be? At forty-one, I still hadn’t figured it out, not really. Growing up, I thought I’d wanted to run a newspaper, like my father. Growing up, all I’d wanted to be—

  Be? Or bee?

  I rubbed my upper arm, touching the place where I’d been stung by a bee last summer. The bee had been lurking in my dying rosebushes and when I’d pushed leaves around, looking for clues to their illness, it had buzzed out and defended itself. I’d melted an ice cube on the bite and forgotten about it in two days. No need for me to carry an EpiPen, no need for me to tiptoe outside warily all summer. For me, a warm spring day was cause for rejoicing, not for fear.

  Poor Amy. What had she wanted to be? Had she seen any of her dreams come true?

  Was I nuts to think she might have been killed? Cans of bee killer or no cans, were my suspicions just the daydream of a woman who didn’t have enough going on in her life, a woman who was so bored that she’d manufacture murder out of an accidental death?

  Gus thought so. And, if I mentioned any of this to Evan, he’d likely agree with Gus. He’d give me that concerned look, warn me about interfering, and push more paint samples at me. Here, Beth. Let me distract you.

  Neither one would want me poking my nose into Amy’s death. And it didn’t do to think about what would happen if either one found out what I’d promised Maude Hoffman.

  “You did what?” Evan’s eyebrows would zing halfway up his forehead. “Beth, helping people is a commendable trait, but how can you make accurate conclusions about an event more than twenty years old?”

  And the new Gus would say something along the lines of, “Don’t be an idiot. Kelly committed suicide. Maude just doesn’t want to admit it. Go back to your kids’ books.”

  I didn’t like keeping things from Evan. He deserved better than that. But Amy deserved better than to have her death written off as an accident without more questions being asked. To me, Amy’s needs topped Evan’s.

  Plus, I’d made a promise to Maude. And with Auntie May as a glowering witness there was no wiggle room. I was lucky she hadn’t made me swear to deliver daily progress reports.

  “I know that smile,” Evan said. “You must like this green the best.”

  The thought of my store painted that pale green made me slightly queasy, but I kept smiling anyway.

  Because I had half a plan.

  * * *

  Sunday morning came with a rush of rain. I stood at the kitchen window, listening to the thunder, watching the lightning, wondering what Richard was going to do with Jenna and Oliver. So much for his plans for playing miniature golf. They’d probably end up in front of the television, playing video games and shortening their attention spans by another few seconds.

  I, on the other hand, was going to spend the afternoon looking over copies of the papers the story project kids had handed me on Thursday. With only a few short Thursday sessions to go before the stories needed to get to the publisher, I needed to keep on top of the kids’ progress. The height of the stack of paper, however, indicated that I’d be spending more time editing than trying to elicit words to be edited. The children were writing more than anyone had guessed, and I was looking forward to telling Claudia so.

  I glanced at the clock. Time to get going.

  “Don’t want to,” I muttered, then got into my raincoat, into the car, and backed out of the driveway.

  * * *

  I slid into my chair just as Kay started warm-ups. Between aaaaa’s and eeeee’s, my left-hand neighbor leaned over. “Where’s Gus?” she whispered, tipping her head toward his empty seat.

  “Don’t know.” The words came out a little short. Just before we launched into iiii’s, I added, “Tried calling Winnie yesterday, but no one answered.” The answering machine had clicked on and Gus’s voice had started the spiel. I’d listened to the sound of the old and friendly Gus, and had swallowed down the urge to cry. After he’d said “Please leave a message. We’ll get back to you soon,” the machine had beeped. I’d stood there, phone tight in my hand, listening to myself not talk.

  What should I say?

  What was there to say?

  I’d hung up, not saying a word, feeling like an idiot, feeling miserable. Feeling sad.

  And now Gus wasn’t at choir. Gus was always at choir. He could get a gold star for attendance and was punctual to the point of irritation.

  I knew the earth didn’t revolve around me. I’d known that from a very young age. Both of my sisters had made that very clear. But it was hard to look at the seat behind me and not think that I was the cause of its emptiness.

  Kay ran her fingers through her hair. “That was awful. Let’s run through the gradual anthem and see if we can sound anything like a choir. Tenors, you need to be—” She looked at the tenor section, then looked at me. “Where’s Gus?”

  I shook my head and shrugged, shame creeping through my skin. For in addition to being clueless about his whereabouts, I was also glad he wasn’t there.

  * * *

  The sun came out as the minister made the benediction, a good omen if there ever was one. By the time I got home, replaced the dress, nylons, and pumps with jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes, I’d finished thinking through my half a plan.

  “And half a plan,” I told George the cat as I polished off the leftovers from last night’s dinner, “is better than no plan at all.”

  George, who was sleeping on Jenna’s chair, opened his eyes to small slits, gave me a measured look that clearly said, “If you say so. Just leave me alone,” and closed his eyes.

  Spot, on the other hand, was very interested.

  “You’re a pretty good dog,” I told him, “but are you good enough to behave properly with strangers?”

  Spot barked and jumped up, raking the air with his front paws.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” The fur on the top of his head was soft under my hand. “Maybe next time.”

  I picked up my purse and took a stagger step at the weight. I put said purse on the kitchen table and turned it upside down. Away across the table rolled loose change and pens and pencils. The checkbook bounced one way, my wallet went another. The cell phone bounced left, the car keys bounced right. Then came the rest; rubber bands, bookmarks, scraps of paper, a deck of cards, paint samples, a small calculator, yellow sticky notes, adhesive bandages: the dozens of oddments that end up in a mom’s purse.

  The program from last winter’s school play went in the trash, as did Evan’s paint samples and six pens that didn’t work. But the rest?

  I studied the pile. The fairly large pile. Everything in it was useful.

  “That didn’t help much, did it?” I asked Spot.

  He cocked his head and looked at me with big brown eyes.

  “What am I going to do?” I asked him. “That is the question of the day. As someone once said, problems can’t be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. What’s needed here is a new approach.”

  Spot gave a small whine and ran to t
he back door.

  While I was taking him on a short walk in the backyard to do a little bit of dog business, the new approach I needed popped into my tiny little brain. “Got it,” I said out loud. Spot looked back at me over his shoulder. I gave him a pat, which seemed to reassure him, and he went on with his work.

  After I escorted him back to the house, I headed to the garage and rummaged through the bin of sports paraphernalia. Not the soccer ball or the inline skates or Wiffle bat or croquet mallet or . . . there!

  I reached down to the bottom of the bin and extracted a very flat and slightly tattered backpack. Richard had used it in Jenna’s stroller days since no power on this earth could have made him carry a diaper bag. For a moment, I stood here, looking at it. Saw Richard kissing Jenna on the top of her head, saw him picking her up and lifting her high. Heard her giggles. Felt the love the three of us had shared.

  “Don’t.” My voice echoed off the cement floor, off the hard walls and hard ceiling. “Just don’t.” I replaced the bin’s lid with a loud thump and stabbed the garage door opener with my thumb. The door rattled up and light flooded in.

  I stepped outside. The temperature had risen ten degrees in the short hour since the rain clouds had blown off, and the streets were almost dry.

  It was the end of April, a beautiful spring afternoon, and the sun was out.

  Time for another new approach. Two in one day, which must be a world’s record for me. Marina would never believe it.

  * * *

  I bicycled the two miles to Amy’s house, the backpack’s straps resting comfortably against my shoulders. Fresh air sang through my lungs and I felt a rush of freedom that was like a memory.

  An approaching car honked and a man’s hand stuck out the window. “Hey, Beth!”

  Since I was hopeless at vehicle recognition, I gave a half-hearted wave. Then, as the car passed, I saw who it was. “Hi, Pete!” I called just after he’d gone by.

  But he wouldn’t take my sluggish response personally. Of all the people in Rynwood, Pete Peterson would be at the top of the Least Likely to Take Offense list. He owned and operated Cleaner Than Pete, a company that cleaned up all those truly icky things no one wanted to touch. He’d started with sewers that had backed up into people’s houses, expanded to skunk cleanup, and finally branched out into the lucrative crime scene cleanup.