Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3)

by T'Gracie Reese

  That was the ticket.

  Bagatelli’s, then back to Elementals: Treasures of the Earth and Sea (Margot’s gift shop, where Nina spent most of her mornings these days anyway) and then home by lunch, having soaked in the careful counsel of a dear friend, and what did dear friends exist for anyway if not to give such counsel?

  At six fifty, she wrapped herself in a scarf, donned her heavy winter coat, pulled on a toboggan, slipped into her winter, fur-lined gloves, and, secure in long underwear and two sweaters as well as thermal socks, lurched out into the frigid air of Bay St. Lucy, air which, overnight, had been chilled to a temperature as low as (at least rumor had it) thirty eight degrees.

  The snow, she noted, was all gone.

  Darn.

  But the crisp air actually felt good as she walked, and the sight of lights going on in various coffee shops and boutiques heartened her.

  She’d have to give up her morning walks if she became a principal again.

  Ridiculous!

  She turned the corner of L Street and Archie Manning Boulevard and rejoiced to see the little frame house that was Bagatelli’s Bakery a hundred or so yards in front of her, its brick chimneys emanating gray smoke and succulent aromas.

  She entered the shop to find the Bagatellis shouting at each other.

  They were always the same, always in their bakery, he always covered in flour, she always bustling around with the same absolutely perfect blue-striped apron, both of them yelling at each other at the top of their lungs: ‘ADEPENTO! ADEPENTO, DECCOLATERI, SOPALIUSCIA!’ or some such gibberish, that nobody in town could ever understand—

  ––and it was so strange, because they were the most amiable, the most outgoing, the most loving and giving and caring and caressing and smiling and hugging and ‘We love life and everybody in it-ing’ couple in the world, except when they happened to be addressing each other, which they did only in terms of seemingly bitter hostility and with words of Italianate hatred.

  ‘MOSCOTARI! NON-CIALENTO QUATORCE! NON SPOSE SENTURURARI COME NUNCIO ADUE!

  ‘ANDENTO CONMIUS NON SCENTE!”

  Who knew what it all meant?

  But after a few moments of it, Senora Bagatelli would appear at the counter with sacks of wonderful things, beaming that star-white smile that seemed to explode out of her every time she opened her mouth and scream deliriously:

  “Questo!”

  HERE IT IS!

  Nina stood for a time and marveled at the effect of flour floating in the air, mixing with both sunbeams streaming through the great windows in the back of the shop and baking aromas hanging so densely about the ovens that they could almost be seen as well as smelled—and ordered, expertly, as she always did:

  “I’ll take one of that, and three of those things, and give me maybe a half of that thing—no, no, the whole thing—and then—oh, I don’t know, a dozen of those doohickeys over there.”

  Which would send the Bagatellis rolling into action.

  “ADEPENTO!”

  “NON SCOLARSI PARMIENTO!”

  And while this chaos was going on, Margot Gavin walked in—as Nina knew she would—and asked: “Want to go on a trip?”

  “What?”

  “A trip. I’ve got to go on a trip, be gone a little over a week, and I’m wondering if you want to go with me.”

  “I can’t go on a trip right now, Margot. I’ve got a big decision to make. Last night––”

  “Oh, you can make decisions any time. You need to come with me. It’ll get you out of the house.”

  “I don’t want to get out of the house. I like being in the house. It’s just that––”

  “It’s just that I need to do some shopping and get my morning croissants. Then we’ll go back to ‘Elementals’ and I’ll tell you about this trip.”

  “Okay, but I need some advice. This is kind of a big thing, Margot. You’re always so good at taking things apart and putting things together so that they make sense. You’re analytical.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Well, all right, if you say so. But we’ll do the analyzing back at the shop over some hot coffee and cinnamon croissants.”

  “Good.”

  And so they made their purchases and returned to Elementals: Treasures etc. etc.

  They had seated themselves comfortably in the garden area and were chowing down, butter melting evilly and fatteningly before them in two croissants that lay like prehistoric pastry-monsters, when Nina said: “Okay. So last night Paul and Macy Cox asked me…”

  And Margot, not hearing at all and letting her eyes play across a new series of Ramoula Peters seascapes that hung on the south wall—

  ––and, improbably, not lighting a cigarette—

  ––for Margot was attempting, if not to give up smoking, at least to keep her consumption levels under thirteen or fourteen packs a day

  ––said: “I have to go check out a plantation house and I want you to go with me.”

  Margot not smoking. What a bizarre thing!

  What was happening?

  Nina’s brain, out of sheer mental muscle memory, began to supply the smoking gestures usually made by SMOKINGMARGOT—and it was fine, because she was now able to enjoy the elegance of Margot Gavin Smoking with none or the smells.

  “Where is the plantation house?”

  Margot did not lift a cigarette to her lips, did not inhale deeply upon it nor let the thick gray smoke escape from her mouth and rise swirling toward the ceiling. But she did say: “Mississippi.”

  “We’re already in Mississippi.”

  “Different part.”

  Then she did not lay her cigarette on an ashtray that sat on the table between her and Nina, since none existed there. But she did continue: “I have a kind of––well, a kind of commission to do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m to look into buying a plantation house.”

  “A whole plantation house?”

  “Yes.”

  “For whom?”

  “I’ve been asked to look at it by a group of colleagues from Chicago. People I used to know from my days in fundraising.”

  “All right; and why does this group want to buy a plantation house?”

  “They’ve conceived a plan to offer singers, painters, writers, etc., a kind of retreat.”

  “Retreat?”

  “Yes. Artists spend their lives charging. Administrators such as myself and the group I’ll be meeting at the plantation spend our lives retreating. It’s what we do. We’re always looking over our shoulder to see if someone is coming up behind us to hit us over the head with the fact that we have no actual talent.”

  “You retreat.”

  “Constantly. And so this group has conceived a place where artists from the North can come to the South and be anesthetized.”

  “They can rest.”

  Margot shook her head.

  “Artists never rest. But they can come here and be warm, and stroll across the grounds, and suffer in a more comfortable climate than might otherwise be possible. Also, they can perhaps meet some people from Mississippi, which will give them something to make fun of when they return home.”

  “Do you have to put any money into this venture?”

  “No. It’s all from other sources. Mostly places where there is money and nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound too difficult. It should be an easy thing for you to do.”

  “It wouldn’t be difficult, except for one thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “The place is haunted.”

  “It’s what?”

  “It’s haunted.”

  “Who haunts it?”

  “Ghosts haunt it. Or at least ghosts are going to be haunting it, when I will be there.”

  “Ghosts are not real, Margot.”

  “They’re as real as paintings. And if it weren’t for paintings, I wouldn’t have had a career.”

  “I s
uppose there’s a kind of twisted logic there, somewhere.”

  “The logic is not twisted. It’s perfectly reasonable, and in line with common sense. Also—there will be other ghosts. The group of people that is going to be there. Several of them will be ghosts.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It’s possible because these people were alive to me once, in another life, quite another life entirely—and then they were dead to me, to my existence. And now I’m sure I don’t know which they will be when I see them: dead or alive. So do you want to go?”

  “And why do you want me to go?”

  “Because of the ghosts. They’re real, and I need protection from them. I’m going to a haunted house, Nina. It’s HAUNTED HAUNTED HAUNTED AND THERE ARE GHOSTS GHOSTS GHOSTS EVERYWHERE AND THEY TERRIFY ME!”

  “I can’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “Last night Paul and Macy Cox asked me to come back to the high school and be the new principal.”

  “They asked you what?”

  “To be the new principal.”

  Margot stood up.

  “That is absolutely the most ridiculous, fantastic, utterly unbelievable thing I’ve ever heard.”

  And, not stubbing out her cigarette, Margot walked out of the garden.

  So the plan to discuss, at length, the entire matter with Margot, did not exactly work out.

  There was, of course, another option, for Nina had at least one more friend she could confide in.

  It thus happened that the following conversation took place along a stretch of beach some half mile distant from her shack, in the early afternoon, with the wintry disc of a washed out sun playing ragtag with the shreds of clouds, and the mournful bray of an oil tanker serving as bass backdrop for the screeching of what seemed an abnormally large number of seagulls.

  “I’m not sure what to do about this.”

  “So what’s your initial thought?”

  “That it’s crazy.”

  “Then turn it down.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not that crazy.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “Because I miss it; I miss school.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s what I do. Who I am.”

  “Do you need the money?”

  “Not really. I don’t have much. But I have enough. Retirement pays me enough.”

  “Are you miserable in your life, the way it’s going now?”

  “Of course not. I like hanging out with Margot, helping at the shop. I go and come as I wish. It’s nice not having to be here or there at a certain time. And all the grading. The hassles with whatever kid is mad or whatever parent has screwed up.”

  “You really miss all those things?”

  “For a while I tell myself that I don’t; but somehow—somehow, I guess I do.”

  “Couldn’t they get somebody else?”

  “I’m sure they could. But they asked me. Paul and Macy asked me. And that means a lot. I don’t want to let them down.”

  “Are you in good enough health for this? I mean, you’re in your late sixties, you know. Most people your age are retiring.”

  “Well, if we want to look at it that way, a lot of people my age are dead. Doesn’t mean I have to be dead. And as for health, I feel better than I used to when I was teaching.”

  “That’s because you’re not teaching.”

  “Good point.”

  “Nina, you’ve been away from the whole thing for almost ten years now. Surely a lot of things have changed.”

  “I guess so.”

  “There’s testing. From what you can read about in the papers, all the students do these days is take standardized tests. If they don’t do well enough, the teachers get laid off. As principal, you’d be right in the middle of that.”

  “I know. But maybe I can make it easier on everybody.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll figure out a way to cheat.”

  “Oh, right, I can see you doing that.”

  “If the students like what they’re studying, if it’s genuinely interesting in class—then the test scores will take care of themselves.”

  “How many students like what they’re studying?”

  “None of them.”

  “So that kinds of leaves us where we were, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re just being difficult.”

  “I’m being a realist. And I’m telling you, Nina: you killed yourself in the educational salt mines for thirty years. You deserve a break now.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “Paul will find somebody else. Somebody younger.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “The school will survive. And you’ll live a lot longer. And a lot happier.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “So you’re going to turn it down, right? You’re going to call Paul Cox this afternoon, after you get back to your shack, and apologize to him, and tell him how gratified you are for the offer, and how you thought about it a long time, but how, after all is said and done, it would be better if you said ‘no.’”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  Pause pause pause pause––

  The waves breaking, the tanker honking, the fish white and jumping in the afternoon tide—

  “But then, of course, Nina, there is that thing that you’re always saying. You know the thing I mean.”

  “Yes. I know it.”

  “How does it go?”

  “It goes, ‘If human ignorance is the raw material upon which educators do their work, then no true teacher has any excuse ever—ever—to be unemployed.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  Pause pause pause pause—

  “You’re going to take the job aren’t you? You’re going to go back into the schools, and be a principal again.”

  “Yes.” “And you always were. You had your mind made up the minute Paul made the offer. We’ve been talking for no reason at all.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “No, of course not. We always have a reason to talk. And we always will.”

  “Good to hear you say that, Nina. Now—why don’t you go back home, and accept your new job?”

  “All right, Frank. And thanks.”

  So saying, she turned and went back to her shack.

  CHAPTER 3: ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS!

  Thus it came to be that, slightly more than one month later—she had spent a number of days following Paul around and re-learning the ropes, and a certain amount of time had been needed for contract signing, re-licensure, etc.––she found herself sitting in her shack, preparing to eat dinner, savoring her last night as a civilian.

  It was a microwave dinner, but there was nothing wrong with that. There were going to be evenings spent in her office at school, and time for cooking would be less than before.

  She walked into her bedroom and opened the closet door.

  Three new suits; four pair of new shoes; a new purse.

  Had she chosen to open the vanity drawers, she would have found new underwear and new stockings.

  Christmas gifts to herself.

  No, she was ready to look like a principal again.

  So she took the lasagna out of the microwave, set its black plastic tray on the dining room table, stared at Furl, who was staring back at her, and said quietly:

  “All right cat. This is it. After this, life changes.”

  Then she poured herself a glass of milk—the old Nina would have had a glass of wine, but no more of that in the new life––and gave a toast to her reflection in the glass of the sliding deck door.

  “Here’s to tomorrow!”

  She had just sipped the first drops when she heard a knock at the front door.

  Strange.

  Sunday night.

  Funny time for visitors.

  She rose, apologized to Furl, who hated visitors on any night, and walked acros
s the living room.

  She opened the door to reveal Jackson Bennett.

  “Nina. Sorry to bother you.”

  His huge frame darkened the doorway and blocked the quietly glowing blue porch light.

  He glowered down at her.

  Few people had the capability to glower.

  Nina certainly did not.

  She could squint but not glower, and she’d never been tall enough look down at anyone.

  “Jackson—come in.”

  “I can’t, Nina.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “Nina, I––”

  He seemed uncertain, which was strange for Jackson, who was always certain about everything.

  “What is it, Jackson?”

  “Well, there’s––”

  “Come on. Tell me.”

  “Something’s come up. Something pretty serious.”

  “Is anybody hurt? Has there been an accident?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I think you need to come with me.”

  “Come with you? Where, Jackson?”

  “Downtown. We need to go downtown.”

  “Well, all right. But what’s this about?”

  “Why don’t you get a jacket on. It’s chilly. I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

  And so she did.

  But he did not.

  Actually he was silent as a stone during the two mile ride into the center of Bay St. Lucy, nor did he speak while parking the big black limousine he now drove regularly.

  Lights in the town hall glowed.

  “Can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “In a minute, Nina.”

  “Is this city business?”

  “In a way.”

  “You know I’m not on the town council anymore.”

  “Yes. I know that.”

  “Surely I haven’t done anything wrong as a principal. I haven’t started yet.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Is there some last minute objection about my taking the job? I thought we’d gone over all the paperwork, checked my certificate, gotten everything up to date, crossed all the ‘t’s, dotted the––”