Curse of the PTA (5 page)

In my house, mornings were made for rushing around like a nutcase, frantically trying
to make sure the kids were ready for school, that the dog had been out, and that both
my socks were of the same general color.

But I knew what she meant. And if the calm that radiated from her was the result of
appreciating morning, maybe I needed to take my store’s garbage out in the morning
instead of doing it at night.

“So.” Flossie turned to look at me directly. “I hear you tried to be a hero last night.”

“What? Oh, no. I’m not the hero type.”

She chuckled. “I heard you and Nick Casassa tried to chase down a gang with automatic
weapons and hand grenades.”

And by tonight, the story would have grown even more ridiculous. “Not exactly.” I
told her what happened, then asked, “Did you know Dennis?”

“Knew of him. He was much younger than me. He had an older sister who dated my babiest
brother for a time, but I was gone by then.”

Gone to Chicago, returning only after her career was over. But Flossie had never sounded
regretful about those lost days, so why should I think she was? Then, for one brief
second, the politeness that kept me from diving too deeply into her personal life
blinked out. “Do you miss it?” I asked. “The dancing, I mean?”

She kept her gaze on the sky and didn’t say anything.

Politeness surged back, and I felt heat stain my face. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.
Forget I said anything.”

“I wasn’t ignoring your question,” she said calmly. “I was just trying to decide how
to answer.”

Oh. Well. That was different. I kept my mouth shut and waited.

“In all the years I’ve been back home, no one has ever asked me if I missed dancing.”

Any other time or place and I would have said, “Really? You’re kidding.” But sitting
here, catching some of the peace that enveloped Flossie, I stayed silent and gave
her time to find words.

“Maybe an analogy would be best,” she said at last. “As I recall, you swam competitively
when you were young.”

“All the way through high school.” Years of training, of competition, and of hair
that smelled like chlorine.

“And when you weren’t on a team any longer, did you miss it?”

I thought about the luxury of sleeping in instead of getting up in the winter dark
for morning practices. I thought about the excitement that had coursed through me
when I stepped up onto the starting block. The hugs and cheers and tears of teammates.
The long bus rides to other schools. The long meets.

“Some of it I missed a lot. Some I didn’t.”

“Do you still?” Flossie asked.

“. . . No.” Which was surprising, because for years I’d assumed I did. “No, I don’t.”
I thought about it some more. “What I miss most, I guess, is . . .” But what did I
miss? Something, certainly.

Flossie filled in the gap. “What you miss is being young,” she said. “Your swimming
was a part of your youth, and you miss the energy and the optimism and the sense that
the world was out there waiting for you.”

I looked at her. “And that’s how you feel about dancing?”

“If I thought only about the dancing, I’d miss it every minute of every day. But it’s
never just the dancing. The rivalries, the fussing with the costumes and the costumers,
the inability to ever, ever eat what I wanted . . . no. That I do not miss at all.”

“You’re happy.” I said it as fact, not as a question, and she turned to me with a
wide, brilliant smile.

“Beth, dear, you have no idea how happy I am.”

“Do you think I have any chance of being like you when I’m your age?”

She laughed and put one arm around me for a quick hug. “Every chance in the world.”

•   •   •

Thus reassured, I walked back to the store with a light heart. Everything would work
out. Jenna and Oliver would grow up to lifelong happiness, I’d grow into Flossie’s
wisdom, the store would continue to support me into my old age, and Rynwood would
continue to be Rynwood.

As I opened the front door, I was considering how long I’d stay in the large pseudo-Victorian
house my former husband, Richard, and I had purchased when Oliver was born. No need
to stay there by myself after the kids went on their own ways. But where would I move?
There were some lovely small bungalows a few blocks from downtown. I could walk to
work from there and—

“Well, if it isn’t the Green Lantern.” My manager stood in front of me, hands on her
hips.

Today, the sixty-two-year-old Lois was wearing butter-yellow cropped pants, white
sandals, and a fluorescent-green shirt. Both of her wrists were crowded with rubber
bracelets. Her necklace might or might not have been pieces of colored macaroni strung
on a thread, but her dangling earrings were definitely marbles.

I ignored the jewelry and gestured at the sandals. “White, after Labor Day? Are you
sure you want to flout fashion dictates so flagrantly?”

She snapped a bright purple rubber band against her wrist. “Did I miss the memo on
using words that start with F today? And I’m not exactly worried about the fashion
police. They’re too busy following Kelly Osbourne around.”

“Who?”

“Stop trying to change the subject. What I want to know is why you were trying to
run down a killer with nothing but your bare hands.”

Ah. That explained the Green Lantern comment. Sort of. “At the time, I didn’t know
there had been a murder.”

“Had you or had you not heard a gunshot?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“And did you or did you not run pell-mell straight toward the sound of said gunshot?”

“Yes, but—”

She rocked back on her heels and crossed her arms. “I rest my case.”

I raised my hand. “May I present my final argument?”

“You may.”

I made a ‘come along with me’ motion, and we walked to the back of the store. As I
started the morning routine of tea selection, water heating, and mug choosing, I told
Lois what happened the previous night. “The county sheriff’s office is probably in
charge of the case already.” I handed Lois a mug that said
KEEP CALM, EAT COOKIES
and picked up my own, one Jenna had bought me years ago. Why she thought I’d like
a mug featuring a yellow smiley face that sported a pair of sunglasses, I didn’t know,
but I treasured the cheap ceramic as if it were china made by Royal Doulton.

When I came to the end of the tale, Lois was looking at me oddly. “What?” I asked.

“The basic question is still on the table. Why on earth did you run
toward
a gunshot? Most people would hit the ground, freeze in place, or run in the opposite
direction. Not you.” She blew on her tea, making tiny brown ripples, and raised her
eyebrows. “Why?”

“It wasn’t just me. Nick did, too.”

She made an impatient gesture, as if what I said wasn’t important. And it probably
wasn’t. “You weren’t thinking about your own safety. You weren’t thinking about what
might happen if you got in the way of bullet number two—and don’t tell me there wasn’t
a second bullet, because you had no way of knowing there wouldn’t be one—you just
ran straight toward what was likely to be extreme danger. Why?”

The full import of what I’d done finally sank into my tiny little brain. “I . . .
I . . .”

What had I been thinking? Or more, why
hadn’t
I been thinking? How could I have done such a thing? I should have thought about
what might happen. I should have thought about the danger. I should have considered
what might have happened to me and the consequences for my children. I should have . . .

Lois
tsk
ed at me and shoved a chair behind my knees. “Sit, you silly child. You hadn’t really
thought it out, had you? And now you’re shaking. Let me take that mug before you drop
it. That’s a good girl. Now, take a deep breath. And another. There. Feel better?”

I nodded. The dark spots that had been shadowing the edges of my vision faded to gray
and then dissolved completely.

“Okay, then,” Lois said. “It’s time for promises. Hold up your hand. Let me get . . .”
She cast about for the nearest book. “Here. Put your left hand on this copy of
Tuesdays at the Castle
. Right hand up and repeat after me: I do solemnly swear that I will never again run
straight toward what might be certain death.”

I pulled my hands away. “That doesn’t make sense. You can’t qualify a term like certain
death.”

Lois hooked her index finger under her chin. “How about ‘I swear I will never again
run straight toward the sound of gunshots’?”

It sounded like a very good idea. “I want to, but . . .”

She sighed. “But you don’t want to make a promise you can’t keep. Well, we’ll just
have to hope you won’t run into any more gunshots. I mean, really, how likely is that
in a town this size?”

Next time I talked to my physicist brother, Tim, I’d have to ask if he could run the
statistics for me. Or not. Because if I told him, I’d have to explain why I wanted
to know, and he would inevitably tell his son, my beloved seventeen-year-old nephew,
Max, and Max would tell his Grandma Emmerling, also known as my mother, and after
her recent back surgery, I didn’t want Mom to worry about me.

Or scold me, whichever came first.

The bells tied to the front door jingled. “Hello?” Alan, owner of the antique mall,
wandered back. “Ah, there you are, Beth. I wondered if you’d be in today after last
night’s excitement.” He hefted a small white bag. “Alice sent over some of her oatmeal-raisin
cookies. She considers them medicinal,” he said, winking. “Maybe she’s wrong about
that, but do we want to take the chance?”

Alan and Alice, both retired schoolteachers, had opened the antique mall a few years
ago so that Alan could pursue his hobby of collecting antiques without having to purchase
a ten-thousand-square-foot house and so that Alice could reap some financial benefits
from making the best cookies in the world.

Lois dove into the bag and started handing out the morsels of goodness. Alan patted
his stomach. “No, thanks. I’ve already had my quota today.” As the two of us munched,
Alan asked, “Lois, did you know the gentleman who was killed?”

I blinked at them. Of course. Dennis had attended Tarver Elementary, and Lois had
lived in Rynwood all her life. Lois was bound to have known him.

“Nope,” Lois said, spattering a few cookie crumbs on the sleeve of my shirt. “His
family moved to Madison about the time he would have started junior high. He was a
year or two behind me, and I was much too cool to hang out with the younger kids.”

I brushed the crumbs off my shirt. “You were cool?”

She grinned. “Can’t fool you, can I? Of course I wasn’t. I didn’t get cool like I
am now until recently.”

Though I wasn’t sure that anyone who wore what she’d worn last week—a shirt with flowers
the size of teapots and pants with horizontal stripes—could be considered part of
the kingdom of cool, I let the comment slide. “Was Dennis?”

“Was he what? Cool?” She shrugged. “Hard to tell in someone who’s only ten years old.”

She was probably right. Although coolness is inherent and not something that can be
learned, it usually doesn’t emerge until adolescence. At least as far as I could tell.
Coolness was something I only observed from afar. I’d had a brief brush with the concept
when I’d dated the handsome and rich Evan Garrett, but I’d ended that relationship
in May and hadn’t come within spitting distance of cool since.

The front door jingled again. “Hello? Is anyone in here? Oh, there you guys are.”

Whitney Heer, a young woman I’d met last spring, walked back to join us. She was pregnant,
halfway through her second trimester with her first baby, and she’d begun to haunt
the bookstore with happy frequency. I’d first guided Whitney toward the shelf of new-mother
books. Once done with those, she’d worked through the Sandra Boynton board books and
was moving on to the classic Winnie-the-Pooh releases. It had been a natural move
to ask her to join the PTA. Maybe she wouldn’t have a child in Tarver for a few years,
but why wait until the last minute?

Whitney was wearing a loose, flowing, cotton plaid dress that looked as comfortable
as pajamas. “Morning, ladies. And gentleman.” She grinned at Alan. “Are you here for
the same reason I’m here?”

“Yes, but I had an excuse.” He pointed his elbow at the white bag. “I brought some
of Alice’s cookies.”

“Seriously?” Her blue eyes flared wide, then went back to normal. “I mean, how nice
of you to bring cookies to Beth and Lois.”

I’d assumed they were also for my part-time help, Sara, when she arrived, but I took
pity on the pregnant girl. “Here,” I said, holding out the bag. “We’ve had ours already.
Right?” Lois’s mouth was opening, and I bumped her ribs with my elbow.

“Oh. Right,” she said. “Eat up.”

Whitney held her hands behind her back. “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you can,” I said. “I know what being pregnant can be like.” I jiggled the bag,
making the cookies rattle against each other. “Oatmeal raisin. You know you want them.
They’re calling your name.”

“Whitney!” Lois squeaked. “We’re yours!”

With a quick whip of her arm, Whitney snatched the bag out of my hand. “I couldn’t
eat this morning, and now I’m starving and—” Her next words were lost amidst a monstrous
bite of cookie.

I looked at Alan. “So what’s the reason you and Whitney are here?”

Lois did an eye roll. “Yes, folks, she really is that clueless.”

Alan chuckled. Whitney’s giggles sent crumbs flying in all directions. She slapped
her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and made a huge swallow. “Sorry,” she
said out loud. “It’s just that, well, you were right there and all. I was in the other
room most of the time.”

Light dawned. They wanted a blow-by-blow account of the whole business, the gunshot,
the running, the fear, the ambulance, the body bag, the whole sad tragedy. “You want
to hear about what happened last night,” I said flatly.