•••
Laura had been up half the previous night reading through all of the town ordinances Connor emailed her about the rules for holding a contest. There was more for her to do than she had originally thought. First of all, she needed someone to count the coins in front of her and a town executive, if there was one. Harry might do, except he was also her landlord, so she needed someone else. The rules were specific about conflicts of interest. She went through name after name until she finally settled on two individuals to whom no one could object: Vicky Forte, a high school math teacher, and Laura’s friend, Father Eddie Barlow, from the church.
She had made arrangements for them to come over for dinner on Friday, and the trio set to work counting the coins on the work table in the back room. First, Vicky measured the huge bowl and did some calculations on its volume, then came up with a total number of coins, in the two sizes that were ordered, that would fill it to near the top. She wrote down her estimate. Then Laura showed them the boxes and boxes of bags of chocolate coins that sat on the work table from which they would get the coins they needed. It was clear that it was a good thing Laura had ordered so many.
Laura went first, counting the coins into groups of fifty each, then Father Barlow went behind her, recounting the groups of fifty and ensuring they were indeed fifty. When the pair was finished, Laura took pictures of the three of them next to the table. Then Vicky, who had overseen the creation and verification of the groups of fifty, began counting up the groups of fifty, marking each row of the groups on one of Laura’s white boards. When she was done, Father Barlow also counted up the groups of fifty and put his total on the whiteboard. All three saw that both Vicky’s and Father Barlow’s totals matched, and Laura took a shot of that, as well. Then came the grand total of multiplying the number of groups times fifty, for which they used both Laura’s iPhone and Vicky’s calculator. The numbers matched, and they had a total of the coins that would go into the bowl. It came very close to Vicky’s original estimate.
Their witnesses were Max and Nicky, Connor’s friends, who had been fed as well when they arrived and had watched the whole counting process. The two men now carefully loaded all of the piles of coins into the bowl, being mindful not to lose any in the portage. The heap of coins reached close to the top of the bowl, and Laura was glad she had used Vicky’s help in calculating the interior volume of the bowl. Very few chocolate coins were left over.
Laura printed out a statement on her shop’s letterhead about the contest, listing the “officials” and the witnesses, all of whom signed the paperwork. Then Laura pulled back the movable backdrop wall, and Max and Nicky lifted the very heavy bowl, placing it on a platform covered in green velvet in the front window of Second Treasures. A plastic seal was put over the bowl’s mouth with tape colored green, of course. With the correct number of coins on the form and a copy of the rules that were being followed, including the prizes and required disclaimers, all the paperwork was turned over to Father Barlow, and the contest was almost ready to begin!
Around eight in the evening, Jenna and Erica showed up to help Laura drape the rainbow-colored ribbons along the walls above the product shelving, beginning at a fluffy cloud of pillow stuffing that Jenna brought, and flowing over the backdrop of the window and ending on the back of the enormous bowl of golden coins. Big green ribbons adorned the register counter with bows at each corner.
Next, the “contest coming” sign was taken down and the contest rules affixed to the backdrop next to and slightly above the bowl’s placement on the platform. The ladies decked out the rest of the front window with some of the Irish goods for sale, picture frames with Irish proverbs, green teacup sets, a green glass mug, one of Jenna’s appliquéd tote bags and a couple of green hand towels. All was set and in the morning, Laura would take down the butcher paper covering the window. She made a mental note to get some kind of folding shade installed above the front window to make it more easily hidden and unhidden in the future. Drapes, blankets and butcher paper were tedious.
With St. Patrick’s Day just a few weeks away, she hoped the contest would bring more business and boost town spirits. Everyone worked hard, and they needed to play hard, too—her mother’s mantra. She’d given a lot of thought to the prizes and what to do with the chocolate coins when the contest was over, as well as the contest entry forms which she’d printed out and cut up late into the night after everyone had left. She hoped for a success.
•••
Saturday morning arrived, and Laura saw crowds trying to peek in the front window and door, just waiting for Laura to remove the window cover. It was fifteen minutes yet until the store opened, and Laura waved and smiled to everyone as she pulled down the butcher paper that blocked their views of the display. They oohed and ahhed over the decorations and gold coins in the bowl, squinting to see the contest rules.
Laura checked stock in the store, paper in the register, bags under the counter, and, of course, stacks of contest entries. She took a moment to sip some of her coffee. Then she opened the door and was flooded with folks who wanted to guess the number of chocolate coins.
“Good thing your shop is faced away from the south, Laura,” one customer told her, “or all that chocolate would melt!”
Laura laughed and sold more green wax teeth than she thought possible. The cutout for the leprechaun photos would come on Monday, Kelly had promised, so all the kids could do in the shop was buy the green wax teeth, tees, shoelaces, and green popcorn, but it was enough. The green foil-covered box that held the contest guesses began to fill, as did the register with money spent on Irish-themed goods. Laura had added special codes in the register for the contest entries, the popcorn, and the framed proverbs. That way she could make sure donations got to the recipients, as well as contest entry money hitting the right buckets.
She had also put up two posters, one on the shelf of Irish proverbs and curses to track the total dollar donations for the fire station microwave, and the second, on the front of the counter, tracking total dollar donations for the police station brass railing. Right now, the numbers were at zero. But she knew both numbers would go up quickly today and continue to do so. She wanted everyone to see their donations.
The frames with Irish sayings were popular, as well. One man was laughing as he read, “You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind” and “When the drop is inside, the sense is outside.” He bought both of the framed proverbs for his uncle.
Customers thought the idea of donations to the Fire Department and Police Station was a great idea, and no one quibbled over the prices of either the bags of popcorn or the frames. By late afternoon, business slowed, as it did every Saturday at this time, and, exhausted from her exciting day, Laura checked her phone, expecting a text from Connor about their movie date this evening. She puttered about the store, rearranging and adding more items from the back room. A space was made on the floor and goods moved for the leprechaun photo cutout frame coming Monday. More items were moved to accommodate it, far away from the breakables. More green wax teeth were loaded into their basket for sale. She looked sadly at the two popcorn bags remaining; hopefully, she’d have time to make more before the shop reopened on Tuesday.
Then Connor’s text came and she closed up the shop for the week to get ready for their movie date. She left the town to be tantalized over what she might do next week to entertain them. They had no idea what was in store.
•••
Sunday passed like a flash of lightning as Laura tried to make progress on her tax customers’ federal and state tax returns. One of her customers had a very tricky set of financial information that gave her pause. The numbers didn’t add up, and she was tempted to call her old boss down in Maryland to ask his opinion. Instead, she called the customer herself and asked about the financial details. There had been a mix-up with the lady’s two accounts. It turned out to be a simple typographical error and the
lady scanned and emailed over the correct 1099 form. Problem solved.
But it made Laura think how easily numbers can be worked one way or the other, if they weren’t just plain mistakes. She didn’t know all the tricks, and there were likely endless possibilities for how people could steal money, lie about it, and cover it up. She started thinking about that missing man again and what he might have done and how he could have done it.
eight
The UPS carrier delivered several large boxes of a donation of antique cut glass serving pieces on Monday morning. Laura gaped over them, boxes of bowls, serving dishes, goblets, and plates. The bowls alone were various sizes and shapes, and like the serving dishes, some were partly cut glass and some etched with late Victorian era designs of flowers and leaves. This was definitely something she wanted to keep and sell, and she was grateful to the woman who had donated them upon her father’s recent death. They must have been in the family for years, possibly over a hundred. The house had to be sold and there was nowhere to store or keep these exquisite pieces, and they were donated in hopes that someone or a bunch of someones could enjoy them as her family had.
Laura left most of the items in their boxes and in the back of the work room as there was no time right now for her to research them or figure out how to price them. They were beautiful enough that she decided she would keep an eye out for more of such items. It just couldn’t happen until after St. Patrick’s Day.
Around noon, Kelly showed up with the promised leprechaun photo-shoot frame. It turned out she had made two face holes next to each other, one for a taller child and a lower one for a younger and shorter child. The pictures and painting were adorable. No one would be able to resist them.
Noticing the prickly orange beard painted around the jaw of the taller leprechaun gave Laura an idea for the SPDP&G committee’s costumes. There were a bunch of possibilities.
Max and Nicky arrived about thirty minutes after Laura texted them that the photo frame had arrived. They brought a pickup truck with tools and wood scraps. It took very little time for them to fasten one side of the painted plywood to a wooden pillar in the shop and attach a piece of scrap wood to the lower edge of the other side and screw it into the floor, with a promise to fix the floor and make it look like new when the festivities were over.
Laura stood back when they were done. The leprechaun photo frame looked amazing, and Laura smiled, thinking that everything was coming together for the shop and the upcoming holiday. She had nothing but maintenance left and could turn her evenings to tax work.
Oh, wait.
She still had costumes to make for the SPDP&G committee members.
Speaking of which committee, that evening, after Laura had worked on taxes all afternoon, the SPDP&G committee was called to order at Rina Holm’s house with about an hour’s prior notice. The rest of the committee members looked comfortable in the woman’s home, but Laura glanced about her at the incredible symmetry of everything in Rina’s living room. Everything was in groups of two, four, or six, and with them matching or exact opposites, including the dangly vines of two pothos plants which looked to be carefully trimmed to be mirrors of each other, one on either end of the fireplace mantel. Even the fireplace grate was divided into two halves. She wanted to pick up the two neat stacks of color-matched magazines placed in exact opposite spots on the coffee table and toss them around the room. Or bend the page of one. Or change the order of one pile. No one else seemed to notice Laura’s discomfiture.
A white board was placed perfectly parallel to the fireplace in front of which it stood, centered in the room, with two clean erasers at either end of the pen tray and two blue pens, lined up head-to-head, in the exact center of the tray. Laura wished she had brought her own array of dry-erase pens in a variety of colors so she could give in to her insane desire to scribble nonsense all over the immaculate dust-free board.
Rina handed out agendas and wouldn’t let anyone start talking until everyone was there and they had read their agendas which were perfectly typed, all text centered, and names assigned with estimated dates of completion. She wrote bulleted topics on the white board with perfectly drawn little boxes after each one that could be checked off, then capped her pen and replaced it in the pen tray, its head in the proper direction.
It was alarming that even though Laura was not named first on the Agenda, Jade Olson Wilkin spoke up immediately after she arrived and asked about the costumes. The woman was still settling herself in a chair but wanted to make sure the costumes would fit and flatter everyone’s figures, especially the women on the committee, and more specifically, Jade. Laura said nothing but imagined Jade with a prickly orange plastic beard wrapped around her jaw thinking she had just found the very purpose for the beards, or at least one for Jade, and waited for Rina or Miles, the committee chair, to return to the order of the agenda.
Rina was red in the face and looked as if she were about to suffer an asthma attack.
“Thank you, Jade. Now let’s follow the agenda,” she said, taking a couple of huffing breaths.
Laura noticed that no food or drink was served, probably to save Rina’s sanity should an out-of-place crumb or drip fall somewhere on the sterile surfaces of the room. She wondered if the room was going to be fumigated after they all left. Or perhaps Rina would just repaint, re-carpet and re-furniture the room, and then have it irradiated.
The first item to be discussed was the floats.
“We have nine floats—” Bryce began.
“Why can’t we have eight or ten?” Rina broke in. “They’re such nice even numbers. Ten is better. There are ten tens in a hundred, another nice round number with two zeroes.”
“Rina, we don’t have time or funds to build new floats this year. Maybe next year.”
But Rina’s distress at the odd number of floats in the parade continued.
“We had an even number last year.”
“And then the hardware store’s float caught fire, remember?”
“Oh, yes, oh, dear,” Rina said.
There was general grumbling and eye-rolling.
“Why can’t the hardware store still have a presence in the parade? Think about it,” Laura suggested, eager to calm Rina down to get the meeting moving. She had hoped to make more popcorn bags tonight, and the evening was growing shorter by the minute.
“How can they do that?”
“We can have a lawnmower or snow blower brigade, all decorated and decked out in green. Anyone from the town can participate with their own machines.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Erica said. “My dad has an old push lawn mower, one of those old pre-electric and pre-gasoline ones. We can decorate it up with ribbons and flowers and he can push it in the brigade. Mom and I might even be able to get him to wear green.”
As the others put in the usual cuss-and-discussing, it was decided they would insert a lawnmower-slash-snow blower brigade in the place of the hardware store float in the parade. They would require green Irish-themed decorations on the machines, just as the kids who wanted to ride a bicycle in the parade had to decorate their bicycles with Irish colors and themes. Rina didn’t look as settled as Laura would have liked, but the solution seemed to have averted her panic attack.
“Okay, then, we’ll have ten entries in the parade,” Miles pronounced, finally taking his eyes and brain from his smart phone. “Are we all in agreement that there will be a Fire Department float, a Police Department float, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Town Council, the Green Beer Drinkers County Chapter float, the—er—Lawnmower and Snow Blower Brigade, the Kids on Irish Bicycles—which we won’t put next to the lawnmowers because they’re both bunches of people pushing or riding on things with wheels—the Viking Descendants Association Who Claim to Be Somewhat Irish float, and the Truly Irish float, which is always last because it’s the most popular and we want people to stay to the finish before we all march ov
er to the Community Center for the Gala. Are we agreed?”
Miles’s word didn’t seem to be enough, and in the silence that followed his summary and request for a vote, he looked to Aaron Nilsson for help. Nilsson’s word was clearly the bible in this group, and when he nodded to Rina, she dutifully put a large “X” in the first empty box on her white board. Without a vote. She then recorded the list of participants and floats in their proper order in the parade.
Next on the agenda was the origin and ending point of the parade and the route. No one argued about any of it because it had never changed in all the years the parade had been held going back to the time before the oldest of them had been born, so that item also received its perfect X with no straggling ends outside the box. Rina had rubbed the two specks away and immediately cleansed her fingers with hand sanitizer.
Laura was next to report on the costumes. Although she was usually a very truthful person, she relied on her dissembling skills this evening, as she had not given the costumes a thought beyond everyone wearing a green top hat and Jade Olson Wilkin wearing a bright orange scraggly beard.
“Since we have to be seen from a distance or easily recognized in case a parent loses a child or someone has an emergency, I’ve ordered a dozen hard plastic, molded, bright green top hats. They are adjustable in size and will fit every one of our heads. They are also tall enough that our team can be seen over most people’s heads, and if some of us are shorter, then the color will stand out. I’m working on a design for the rest of the costumes. Does anyone have preferences, because women’s costumes should be a little different from the men’s?” She made a mental note to go home and order the hats tonight before she made the popcorn.
Laura emailed their ideas to herself and said she’d work with her friends on a viable and do-able design. She noticed that Rina didn’t quite know what to do with the empty box next to the costumes item on the white board since they weren’t finished.
Hanging by a Thread Page 5