Death of a PTA Goddess

by Leslie O'Kane

  One of the girls then spotted Stephanie and whined about what she’d told them to do. Stephanie gave her a blank look and said, “I don’t recall anything about this matter. In any case, you should have talked to Ms. Birch long before now if you wanted to be on tonight’s agenda. She’s the president, after all. I can’t believe nobody told you that.”

  Then Chad Martinez stepped right in front of the students to squeeze close to Patty. “How’s the old ‘alemana turn’ going?” He did a couple of quick dance steps and chuckled.

  “I’m just being friendly,” Chad moaned, drowning out Patty’s taped response. “An alemana turn is one of the dance steps from the class I teach. In the class that Patty’s in.”

  “Shh!”

  The camera focused on Chad and caught him trying to peer down Patty’s blouse while Patty jotted a memo to herself.

  “Oh, God,” Chad cried. “Patty . . . I was just . . . er . . . Al, please tell me you haven’t shown this in your class already,” Chad asked.

  Mr. Alberti—whose real first name was Kevin but was nicknamed Al—said, “I did, but it’s not anything you should feel—”

  “Shh!”

  This time I pinpointed our shusher, Emily Crown, Patty’s best friend. Her attention was so riveted to the screen, my suspicion was she thought she was about to be caught on tape in an embarrassing moment.

  I realized with a start, however, that the next image on the screen was my own.

  The unseen girl reporter was saying, “Ms. Masters? We’ve been trying to—”

  “Oh, my God,” I muttered. “Are my nostrils that large in real life?”

  “Shh!”

  Shown from this angle, my nose looked hideous. I’d heard about the camera adding ten pounds, but not to one’s nostrils. I tented my fingers over my nose and watched in horror.

  “. . . so we’re, you know, doing this to learn what it’s like, taking a problem to the government,” the girl was saying. The date indicated this conversation took place last October.

  “I’ve never actually tried to get money out of us, so I’m not going to be a good source of information,” I was saying on the tape.

  “We were told we should attend the next meeting and present our case.”

  “Really? Well, for your sakes, I hope you only have to sit through one of them. They’re dreadfully boring. It’s like listening to a group of people impressed with the sound of their own voices. And I should know . . . I’m the worst offender of all. I’m a compulsive jokester.”

  To my mortification, they next showed a montage of my wisecracks at various PTA meetings this past year. A parent was calling for suggestions on ways to increase attendance at PTA meetings. My suggestion was “Say that we serve terrific snacks. That’s the only reason I come.” Next the principal was complaining that our school had done so well on standardized tests that he kept getting calls now from parents wanting to switch their kids into Carlton, which would overcrowd the classrooms. I said, “Tell them that our scores are high only because we encourage cheating.” Next, someone proposing an Asian-Culture Day was talking about China and said, “They don’t allow organized groups there,” to which I replied, “Ah. Well, the Carlton PTA would be fine, then.” The camera was focused on Patty’s face during this last remark, and a look of pure fury passed over her features, though she’d assured me when I’d apologized at the time that she’d taken no offense.

  Jane and Emily groaned repeatedly as the video showed the two of them, engaged in conversation at what was perhaps a table in the high school cafeteria. I was too consumed with my own shame to pay any attention. Though my quips, in context, had drawn big laughs, when edited this way, I looked like a pathetic buffoon. If I’d ever before felt this thoroughly humiliated, I certainly could not remember when.

  A gasp went up from the audience.

  “What happened? Can you rewind?” I asked.

  Everyone ignored me. Damn! Had I blinked during the one moment when the Loch Ness Monster had surfaced?

  Patty Birch was now being shown as the cameraperson approached. Patty’s face was red, and she winced as a door slammed. She looked at the camera girl, smiled, and said, “Oh, good. A friendly face for a change. You’re Skye, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m, um, sorry to catch you at a bad time, but—”

  “It’s not a bad time. What can I do for you, Skye?”

  “I just . . . came to ask you if there was any progress made on getting us that video camera we asked the PTA for.”

  “Not yet, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Yeah, um, I’ll just come to the next PTA meeting and ask again. About the camera.”

  “I’ll insist that that’s the first item on our agenda next meeting, no matter what. You’ve been more than patient. And, if I could make a suggestion to you, once you do get the camera, you might want to do a documentary on us, on how frustrating this procedure has been and how inefficient the PTA process really is. You could surreptitiously interview us on tape.” She looked straight at the camera. “That is, if you’re not already.” She smiled and winked. The picture faded to black.

  Chad was too busy holding his head in his hands to continue with his audiovisual duties. Instead, Stephanie crossed the room, stopped the VCR, and turned off the TV. There was a stunned silence. “So. Does anyone have anything to say?”

  The pause was long and heavy. “Could somebody please pass the popcorn?” I asked.

  No one laughed.

  “Anyone other than Molly?” Stephanie said.

  “Sorry. Like I said, it’s compulsive.” I turned to Mr. Alberti. “I hope you gave your students an A.”

  “I did.”

  “They also deserve a civics lecture on respecting people’s rights to privacy,” Susan snarled.

  “You can say that again. Can we buy the tape from them?” Chad asked. “And burn it?”

  “Patty, how did you know they were taping you?” Jane asked.

  “Because it was her idea in the first place,” Stephanie interjected. “She’s the one who suggested it as a possible project to Al.”

  “Patty! How could you!” Jane cried. “Why didn’t you at least warn us?”

  “We looked like a bunch of idiots,” Emily said. “All except for Patty herself, of course.” Even though she was supposedly Patty’s best friend, she went on to say, “Since we were all at the disadvantage of having no idea that we were being filmed.”

  Still calm and the picture of reason, Patty maintained her seat on the couch and said, “I didn’t know for certain that they were taping us. I suggested it, yes, but I didn’t know that the students had taken me up on the idea. I thought it’d be such a wonderful opportunity for them to witness firsthand a government in action.”

  “There’s an enormous difference between witnessing a group in action firsthand and secretly filming them,” Susan said.

  Patty scanned the room as if looking for sympathetic faces. “It’s not as if the tape revealed anyone’s private lives. They were simply taping public meetings in public places. There was no expectation of privacy.”

  “But we were recorded other times as well,” Emily cried, “such as during our private conversations! All it would have taken was a word of warning from you . . . a mention at the first meeting that it was possible students would be taping us.”

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “And what about the award from national that we’re finalists for? If they catch wind of this video . . .”

  Emily said, “This is so like you, Patty . . . forging straight ahead with your plans, no matter who or what stands in your way, leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces.”

  Clearly hurt, Patty scanned her friend’s face. “After all this time, that’s how you feel about me? So what you said about me on film was in context?”

  Emily merely averted her eyes.

  What had she said on that tape?

  Mr. Alberti dragged a palm across his bald pate. “I apologize for my role in this. Yesterday in class was the
first time I actually saw the video myself. The students had assured me that they’d left the embarrassing parts on the cutting-room floor. I should have given stricter guidelines, insisted that they not hide the cameras and never record someone without getting prior consent.”

  “And I, too, regret that I suggested this as a project in the first place,” Patty said.

  “It’s a little late now, wouldn’t you say?” Jane Daly cried, her focus still exclusively on Patty and not at all on Al’s role.

  Patty nodded and said nothing. “Clearly, the only ethical thing for me to do now is to resign. Molly Masters is going to have to take my place.”

  “Nobody wants this to go that far,” I immediately said.

  “I do,” came a voice behind me.

  “Me, too.” It was Jane.

  “All those in favor of Molly Masters taking over as—”

  “Wait!” I cried, leaping to my feet. “Just wait. We’re all reacting here in the heat of the moment. Let’s let ourselves cool down and take another look at this matter when the full PTA is present at the regular meeting in two weeks.”

  “Sounding pretty presidential there, Molly,” somebody remarked.

  “Don’t say that! I don’t want to sound presidential. I don’t want to be the president.”

  “Which is why you’re not seeing that Patty should resign,” Jane Daly said, getting to her feet. “Come on, everybody, let’s get out of here.”

  They rose and headed out the door en masse. I knew the right thing to do was to stay behind and reassure Patty that she’d done nothing wrong. But I couldn’t. Truth be told, I was angry myself. I came off looking like an idiot on that tape. The thought of having had an entire class in my daughter’s school witness that aspect of my personality was excruciating. Every one of us on that video had to feel equally bad, with the possible exception of Patty. Could she have done this deliberately— engineered this so that she could show us what idiots we all were?

  I left with the crowd, consciously trying to avoid anyone’s eyes. Stephanie, however, was waiting for me by my car.

  I held up a hand. “Not now, Stephanie. I need to be alone for a while and see if I can save face. Oversized nostrils and all.”

  She nodded. “Well, I told you so. They say that everybody loves a clown. Though some might quibble with the accuracy of that expression, it’s indisputable that nobody loves a shrew. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Neither do you, Steph. You were curt with the girls, but we can all stand to be more patient at times.”

  She widened her eyes and said, “Yes, we can, can’t we?” then grinned and went to her own car.

  That “I told you so” of hers must have been building up for years now. I wondered if she’d be willing to serve as president again. Maybe for a second ten-year term.

  I mulled things over during my drive home. Once again, I was embarrassed to admit to myself that I was feeling resentful toward Patty. Although I’d pulled into my garage and shut off my engine, I sat there for a couple of minutes, shivering from the cold, trying to put my thoughts in order.

  Wait. There was a reason I was so cold—I’d left my coat at Patty’s. That was an unconscious sign that I needed to say the things I was thinking to Patty’s face, admit to her how bad the tape had made me feel, and suggest that we figure out a way to put the whole incident behind all of us. Maybe we could all learn and grow from the experience.

  I pulled out and turned the car around, but cracked myself up at that last thought. Asking for personal growth from a half dozen people at once was as big a fantasy as the Easter bunny. Far easier to blame the person aiming the spotlight and exposing one’s flaws than to perform cosmetic surgery on one’s own personality. Truth be told, that tape could have been so much worse for me and, likely, every single person it depicted. Al’s students were probably telling the truth about the embarrassing sections having been left on the cutting-room floor.

  I parked in Patty’s driveway, then trudged up the steps and rang the doorbell, which was oddly loud. Then I noticed something by my feet. It was the leprechaun, who’d seemingly been torn from his position on the door. The wind must have caught him and torn him free, I thought, retrieving it. I opened the glass outer door and tried to hang the leprechaun on his little hooks.

  The door, which had been ajar, swung open from the gentle pressure of my attempt to rehang the decoration.

  I stared in horror. Patty Birch was lying motionless in a pool of blood in the center of her living room floor, a knife handle protruding from her chest.

  Chapter 4

  Feeling Woozy

  I screamed, my vision locked on her motionless body. This couldn’t be happening. Surely Patty was just playing a macabre joke on me. I took a couple of steps toward her. Her eyes were open and unseeing.

  Though I knew I should check for a pulse, I was so certain she was dead that I surrendered to my instincts and staggered back outside again, needing to get away from this house and the hideous sight.

  “Help,” I murmured, feeling dizzy. My knees were wobbly. I grabbed the railing on the front porch and steadied myself. I scanned the street, but it was quiet with no cars.

  My vision locked upon the large two-story house directly across the street. Patty’s ex-husband lived there, and the lights were on. I ran to the house and leaned on the doorbell.

  A young blonde opened her door. I couldn’t remember her name, but I’d seen her once or twice and recognized her as Patty’s ex-husband’s new wife. There weren’t many twenty-somethings with teenage students, so she stood out at school functions. I saw a flicker of recognition in her features, but I said, “Mrs. Birch? I’m Molly Masters.”

  She must have seen how grave my expression was, for she immediately demanded, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Patty. She’s been stabbed.”

  “Oh, my God! You mean . . . you . . . you saw . . . is she dead or just . . . bleeding?”

  “She’s dead. I need to use your phone.” I grabbed the edge of the door and started to enter.

  She put her hands to her face. “Poor Randy! He’ll be so upset when he finds out! They were married for nearly twenty years.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, and froze partway through the doorway, remembering now that Patty’s fourteen-year-old daughter was likely home. “Kelly. Is she here?”

  “She’s in her room.”

  “She’ll hear me. I can’t—”

  She held up a hand and shook her head. “Don’t worry. She’ll have her earphones on, listening to music. That’s what she always does when we’re here alone.”

  Her tone of voice was so matter-of-fact. What was wrong with this woman! Kelly was bound to be ten times as affected by her mother’s death as Randy would be over losing his ex-wife.

  “There’s a phone in the kitchen,” she continued. “I’ll get it for you.”

  To steady myself, I leaned against the wall by the front door. Damn it! I should have stayed at Patty’s. Called from there. I focused on the stairs directly in front of me, fearing that Kelly would come down those stairs and spot me shaking like a leaf.

  The woman returned and handed me a bright blue cordless phone. “I’ll call from outside,” I said, shoving back out the door. I dialed 911 as I stepped onto the front porch. To my surprise, she came out with me. I slumped down on the wood floor of the porch, unable to support my weight any longer. A male dispatcher answered. I said, “There’s been a murder. A woman was stabbed to death. Patty Birch. Across the street from where I am now.”

  “Your name?”

  “Molly Masters.”

  “Can you give me the address?” he asked.

  “What’s her address?” I asked the bleached blonde, holding the phone out so the dispatcher could hear.

  “Thirteen forty-six Blackwood Drive,” she answered.

  I put the phone back to my ear. “Is there anyone else on those premises?” the man asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t thin
k so. I just . . . came to her house. The door was open, and I found her like that. I’m looking at the house now, and I don’t see anyone. My car’s the only one in her driveway.”

  “What’s your address?”

  My entire body had such a case of the shakes that I was bashing my ear and lips with the phone. I wanted to ask if he meant my home address or the address I was calling from, but could only manage to mutter, “I feel sick.” I thrust the phone into Blonde’s hands.

  “Hel-hello?” she said as I crawled as far as the railing to be sick over the side of the porch. “This is Amber Birch. The, um, the woman who called you is vomiting right now. Can I . . . answer any questions?”

  She talked to the dispatcher, explaining her relationship to “the victim,” while I tried to pull myself together. When I shakily got to my feet, I glanced up at the house and thought I saw the curtains part in an upstairs room.

  “Is Kelly’s father home?” I asked Amber.

  She shook her head at me and said, “I hear the police sirens now,” into the phone. She hung up.

  “Kelly’s going to see the police cars pulling in across the street.”

  “Shit!” Amber said, stomping her foot. “Randy is in Japan. I’ll call him. He can’t make it back here till tomorrow, even if he left immediately. I’m going to have to tell her myself.” She went through the door, taking the phone with her. I felt too dizzy to do anything but sit down.

  A moment later, Tommy Newton’s patrol car came screeching to a stop in front of the Birches’ house. He gestured at another pair of officers in a second car to go ahead across the street to Patty’s house. By the time Tommy made it up the porch steps to me, an emergency van was pulling up in Patty’s driveway.

  “They’re too late,” I said to Tommy. “The paramedics, I mean.” I hugged my knees to my chest while seated on the top step of Amber Birch’s porch and shivered helplessly.

  “Molly? You don’t look so good.”

  I didn’t feel so good, either, but mumbled under my breath, “Neither do you.” Everything had such a surreal edge to it that his freckled features looked pale and gaunt in the bright light from the motion detectors above me.