I paused to study the display. Claudine certainly didn’t come across as the shy type. Under her picture was a neatly typed list entitled, ‘Some of Claudine’s Favorite Things.’ The list had easily at least a hundred entries. Squinting at it, I quickly read a few of them: blue eyes, camping and silver hair. Hmmm. Sounded a lot like a description of Claudine’s late boss.
Claudine Markham was sitting at her desk when I entered her classroom. I almost gasped out loud when I saw her. Gone was the stylish—if trampy—woman I’d met a few days earlier. The woman in front of me was a mess, her auburn hair disheveled, her face bare of make-up and her clothes wrinkled and looking like she’d slept in them. Instead of the tight and clinging fashion Claudine had been wearing on Friday, her outfit was shapeless and resembled an oversized garbage bag. Clearly the woman was still in a state of shock.
“Hello, Claudine,” I said.
Claudine looked up from the stack of papers on her desk and stared at me, obviously clueless as to who I was. “Yes?”
“I’m DeeDee Pearson—the caterer from Classy Catering?”
The foggy look in Claudine’s pretty eyes lifted. “Oh, yes. Of course. I’m sorry. I’m a little out of it today. I knew who you were. I just wasn’t sure why I knew who you were.”
“I understand,” I said reassuringly, not hurt in the least. The woman had been through a lot lately. “Please accept my sincere condolences on the death of your colleague.”
Claudine continued to stare at me but didn’t say anything. I cleared my throat a little nervously. I really didn’t want to have to bring up money at such an awkward moment but I did need to get paid and the sooner the better. I’d spent a lot on the groceries and extras for Friday’s meal and unless I got a check from Eden Academy, my credit card bill was going to be awfully close to its limit. When Claudine remained quiet, I spoke again. “I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, but I was wondering when I could expect to get paid for the luncheon.”
“Paid?” Claudine blinked.
“Yes. I left a copy of my bill in your mailbox before—before everything happened on Friday.”
Claudine placed thin hands on her desk and pulled herself up into standing position. “One of the finest educational minds in the country has been murdered and you’re here to ask me when you’re going to get paid? That’s the most tasteless thing I’ve ever heard of!”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized and I truly was but I didn’t know what other options I had open to me. I swiftly searched my mind for something additional to tack on to my apology that might make the enraged look in Claudine’s eyes fade a little. “It wasn’t my intention to upset you. I’m sure this is a very difficult time for you and for the rest of the staff. I’m still in shock myself and I barely knew Frank Ubermann––”
Claudine cut me off. “You have upset me. You’ve upset me a great deal. Of all the tactless, tacky things to do, to come in here and ask for money after Frank’s been murdered! You’re absolutely incredible!”
My embarrassment faded a touch. It wasn’t like I was asking for something that Eden Academy didn’t owe me. Maybe my timing left something to be desired but there was no reason for Claudine to jump all over me like I’d just planted whoopee cushions at a funeral. I pulled myself erect and met Claudine’s stare. “I’m sorry if I seem ‘tactless’ to you but we did have a contract, Claudine,” I pointed out. “I didn’t volunteer to make the meal I served you on Friday and I didn’t donate the groceries that I purchased. We entered into an agreement.” I was pleased that I managed to sound both calm and professional. Steve would have been proud of me if he could have heard me. I sounded almost like our lawyer, Doug Lawrence, only Doug had tried to warn me not to go into business for myself. ‘Nothing but trouble,’ he had said, ‘and you’ll never make any money at it.’ He’d been right on both counts so far.
“That may be true but this is hardly the moment I need to worry about petty things like your paycheck,” Claudine sniffed. She narrowed her eyes and shot me the iciest look I’d ever received. What had Jack Mulholland said? Something about Claudine sleeping in the freezer at night. At that moment, I could see what he was talking about. “If you’re so concerned about money, DeeDee, go see Monica. She’s the one who cuts the checks.”
“I’ll do that,” I agreed, more than ready to leave Claudine to her mourning in private. The atmosphere in the room was so dour and creepy that I half expected to see a portrait of Frank Ubermann tucked in a corner, draped in black crepe and with a candle burning underneath it. “Again, I’m sorry for bothering you.”
“Not half as sorry as I.” Claudine sat down again, her face suddenly old and defeated. She looked so sad, devastated really, that again I wondered if Claudine had been Frank’s lover. I had considered that possibility when I saw Frank’s hand grazing Claudine’s backside and also when I saw him fondling her knee, apparently without Claudine minding one bit. I know that I tend to be a bit naïve when it comes to people fooling around outside of marriage, but I really hadn’t believed that the two of them were an item. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen too often in the world Steve and I travel in, although it would account for Claudine’s present devastated mood. It was one thing to lose one of the ‘finest educational minds in the country’ but it was surely much, much worse to lose your lover.
“Good-bye,” I said somewhat awkwardly from the doorway. Claudine’s only reply was to lift one of her thin lips in a sneer before looking away from me and out her classroom window where a maple tree glowed with red leaves.
Leaving Claudine alone with her misery, I returned to the stairs and retraced my steps. I felt like I’d just intruded on Claudine and it made me uncomfortable. I hoped talking to Monica wouldn’t be as stressful, although I had my doubts. Monica had been extremely upset on Friday and it was obvious that she’d been very close to her boss too. Frank Ubermann had left behind a string of devastated women.
Reaching the business office, I patted my hair and sucked my tummy in while girding my loins for a confrontation with Monica. From the little I had seen of Monica at the luncheon, I felt like I was going into battle.
“You can mail the check to me,” I told Monica, attempting to sound casual and confident, although if truth were known, I was actually shaking a little inside my sneakers. Monica had eyes that resembled two green stones that had all the warmth of moon rocks and she was staring at me with those moon rock eyes as if I had come in with a tree growing out of the top of my head and demanding that she empty the contents of her wallet into my purse.
I smiled calmly at Monica, determined not to let the woman see how nervous I was to be on the receiving end of Monica’s narrow-eyed gaze. When Monica continued to look at me like I was from another planet, I looked away and took in Monica’s neat office. It was decorated with dozens of silver-framed photographs of the staff at Eden Academy. It didn’t take more than a second or two to notice that the majority of the pictures were of Frank Ubermann in a variety of scenarios and looking very movie starish in each one of them. With his silver hair and slim build, Frank Ubermann had been extremely photogenic. I focused in on a photograph of Frank standing proudly in front of a large target, a bow hanging rakishly over one shoulder. The picture made me shudder and I was surprised that Monica hadn’t taken it down.
Finally the silence got to be too much for me and I stopped inspecting the room and returned my attention to Monica. “I believe you have my address, don’t you?”
Monica continued to stare at me as she tapped a sharp pencil up and down on her desk with a quick staccato beat. Any harder and she’d break the perfect point off her pencil. I had an almost overwhelming desire to shrink like a flower under a heat lamp beneath Monica’s furious glare but I resisted. The school owed me the money I had spent on the food for the luncheon and also the fee I charged for preparing the food and serving it. I was entitled to ask for it. With that thought in mind, I responded to Monica’s glare with a stoic gaze of my own.
�
��I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Monica said after several more long awkward moments.
“I’m not sure I follow,” I replied. The leg shaking thing increased ever so slightly but by forcing my feet firmly onto the beige and brown linoleum tile on the floor of Monica’s office, I was pretty much able to control it.
“I mean that we can’t pay you right now. Frank has died and that means that we can’t write any checks.” Monica said, still looking at me as if I’d just asked her to hand over her firstborn son instead of the paltry check the school owed me.
“Why not?” I persisted. Monica had to be lying. Of course the school could write checks. How would the staff get paid if they couldn’t write any checks? It didn’t make sense.
The glare became laced with shards of pure contempt. “Because Frank is—was—the school’s director. He has to sign every single check that goes out of this office. Without his signature my hands are tied.”
That sounded absurd to me, not to mention fiscally irresponsible. “Don’t you have a back-up plan? There must be someone who is second in command. I’ve never heard of a business having only one person control the purse strings. Suppose something had happened to Mr. Ubermann?”
“Something did happen to Mr. Ubermann.”
“Exactly my point.”
Monica sniffed and turned her head away. She began picking at a large plant on her desk, her attention apparently focused on getting all of its leaves perfectly aligned. “We didn’t think it was necessary to have anyone else or any other kind of back-up plan. Frank was the picture of health and had the stamina of an Olympic swimmer. None of us ever imagined that he wouldn’t be here every single day.”
Now I had truly heard everything. What kind of place put all of their eggs—financial and otherwise—into one basket? It was hardly any wonder that the other staff members resented Frank Ubermann if he had been that much of a control freak that no one else had the authority to sign a check but him. Things like car accidents and heart attacks and murder happened pretty randomly, even to Olympic swimmers and private school directors. “Well, it looks to me like you’re going to have to come up with a plan now, aren’t you?”
“I hardly think that’s any of your business.”
This woman was really starting to tick me off and the angrier I felt, the less my knees shook. “Maybe not but getting paid is my business. So how long do you suppose I’ll have to wait before you’re able to write that check for me?”
Looking up from her plant, Monica gave me a small, tight smile that clearly took a great deal of control as well as a huge amount of effort on her part and I had the feeling that what Monica would really like to do was throw me out of her office and into the school’s parking lot. “I really have no idea, DeeDee.”
I wasn’t buying what Monica was trying to sell me. “Surely you’ll have to pay your staff this month. Can’t you cut me a check at the same time? I can wait a week or two.”
Monica sighed loudly and then spoke brightly, as if she’d just had a brilliant idea. “I know—why don’t I call you when I have a better picture of what’s going on? Do I have your number?”
It was better than nothing, although not much. “Claudine has it but I’ll give you my card too. All of my contact information is on it. I hope I’ll be hearing from you fairly soon, Monica. I have financial obligations too.”
Suddenly Monica slapped a stack of papers that was on the top of her desk, a stack that was easily three inches high and separated with several large paper clips, each one a different color and each one precisely one inch apart. Small wonder that Frank had been fond of Monica; she seemed to be something of a control freak too. “Financial obligations? You? You run a two-bit catering business. You have no idea of what true financial obligations are.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I began but Monica ignored me.
“Do you see all of these? This is just a tiny portion of the paperwork that I need to complete without Frank’s input and I have no idea of how I’m going to do that. Frank and I worked together very closely and it’s going to be next to impossible for me to handle everything I need to do without him next to me, giving me the firm support he always provided and helping me decide what needs to be done first. Do you hear me? Next to impossible!”
“I’m sorry––” I tried again but Monica wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.
“I am overwhelmed, DeeDee, both with grief and work, and I don’t have the time nor do I have the inclination to worry about some measly little check to you for that meal you served the other day. Which, I might add, wasn’t the best lunch I’ve ever had. Someone needs to teach you how to hold back with the salt shaker. I was parched all afternoon and my ankles were quite puffy when I got home. Plus your brownies tasted like they were made from a box. They were a little dry.”
“Everything was made from scratch,” I started to assure her but then stopped. It wasn’t going to do either of us any good to get into a verbal brawl and it wasn’t going to help me get paid any faster either. Besides, I could see that Monica was in no shape to argue with me or anyone else. If Claudine had look wrung out over Frank’s death, Monica looked even worse. Her face was almost grey and her hair was slipping out of the topknot she wore in messy strands that lay on her shoulders like platinum seaweed. Even from across the room I could see a large coffee stain on Monica’s ecru blouse and I wasn’t positive but I thought I was catching a whiff or two of chardonnay floating through the air. Although her voice was still tight and controlled, the rest of Monica was falling apart.
“I really am sorry,” I apologized as I attempted to take the high road. “I didn’t come here to upset you and I certainly didn’t come in to review the meal I catered. Right now I’m only concerned about getting paid.”
“Which you will when I’m able to write checks again!”
“But you have no idea of when that will be?” I was astounding myself with how assertive I was being but there was something about Monica’s attitude that was making me stand my ground. Monica was sending my justice meter into overdrive. I didn’t think I was being pushy or aggressive; I was simply right.
The door to the business office opened and Junebug McClellan marched in, bringing our conversation—if you could call it that—to a halt. Junebug was wearing jeans, the red cowboy boots, a dark green turtleneck and a tiny fur vest that made her look like an septuagenarian Sonny Bono. “Howdy,” she said, jerking her head into a nod at me. “Nice grub at that lunch on Friday. Not great but pretty good.”
“Thank you.” It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing.
“You got a card? I could use you sometime. My husband and I entertain quite a bit.”
With an exasperated, exaggerated sigh, Monica swiveled her chair back so that she was facing her computer again instead of us. “Yes, I have a card,” I said, digging a business card out of my purse and handing it to Junebug. I took a second card out and left it on the counter for Monica.
“This is hardly the time or the place to drum up business,” Monica remarked to the air in front of her. “As a matter of fact, since our conversation is over, feel free to leave at any time, DeeDee.”
“I was just about to,” I replied. I understood that Monica was upset but honestly, the woman had the manners of someone who’d spent the last twenty years in solitary confinement or who had been raised by wild boars.
“Hey, Monica,” Junebug chirped.
“What is it, Junebug?” Monica kept her eyes glued on her computer. “I’m very busy at the moment.
“I need a ream of paper. The copier down in the library ran out and since you keep all of the supplies under lock and key, you’re going to have to get off your big butt and get me one.”
I felt my eyes bulge over the way Junebug was barking at Monica. Maybe it was her age or maybe it was her basic personality, but it was clear that Junebug McClellan didn’t kiss up to anyone, not even someone as scary as Monica.
“Junebug, we’ve been
over this,” Monica replied, still not looking up. “The copier in the library is not to be used any longer. That means no more paper. If students need to make copies, send them down here.”
“It isn’t for the students; it’s for me. I need to make copies.”
“Of what?”
“Well, some papers for my accountant for starters. Then I have a few articles I want to mail to friends. They’re on Frank.”
Monica finally looked up from her computer and fixed Junebug with an annoyed stare. “You’ve got to be joking. You can’t use the copier for personal use and you know it.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever! Eden Academy isn’t here just to serve you, Junebug. Copiers are for school business only. I know Frank told you that repeatedly. Can’t you remember that?”
Junebug didn’t appear to be offended by Monica’s sharp tone. “I pay my taxes,” she said with a shrug. “Using the copy machine here is one way I get my tax money back.”
“Would you please shut up about your damn taxes? You’ve been getting your tax money back for years,” Monica snapped. “And I think we both know that you’ve been coming out way ahead of the state and the school on that score.”
Junebug raised sparse eyebrows and gave Monica a look that for some reason reminded me of a dead pigeon. I knew I should leave but I couldn’t seem to force myself out the door. “Meaning what, Monica?”
“Meaning that you have a nasty habit of taking a lot more than you give,” Monica shot back. “Everyone knows how you don’t work with the students unless you’re absolutely forced to and even then you don’t really help them. I can’t tell you how many students have complained that whenever they go to you for assistance, you just babble at them about the good old days when teachers were allowed to hit students or how your stock portfolio is doing instead of helping them with their math homework. Your teaching skills have faded along with your memory, Junebug.”
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