Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) (8 page)

“I’m glad you told me.”

“Enjoy the game.”

“I’m sure I will. I’m sure I will.”

She went home and drank half a bottle of wine.

CHAPTER 6: THE UNCERTAIN GLORY OF AN APRIL DAY

“Now she hates me. I have taught her that, at least.”
                       
––
William Faulkner
,
Light in August

Several things happened on Friday morning, the last school day before Christmas break.

First, it rained.

It rained hard, as though the weather was exacting payment from Bay St. Lucy for the penurious little snifter of snow it had rationed out some days before. You want some snow to let your kids slide around in and to inspire you to sing Bing Crosby songs? Okay, but it’s going to cost you! Here, take six and a half inches of rain!

Cold rain.

Rain that came down horizontally in a thirty mile an hour north wind; that rattled and spattered on Nina’s window, that made Furl want to put his cold little nose up against the plate glass and stare through it, waving his tail slowly and thinking:

“I’m one of the chosen cats. The indoor cats. The hell with all the rest of them.”

It also made Nina realize that most high ranking school officials—or low ranking school officials, for that matter––

––or anybody at all, for that matter––

––had a car.

Most people did not sputter around on Vespas, saving money on gas mileage and waving merrily to shop owners and pedestrians, but foregoing advantages such as speeds above ten MPH or sounds from radios or protection from driving rain.

Such as this.

How was she going to get to school?

The Nina of the last months, the last years, would simply have brewed herself a pot of tea, texted Margo that she would not be coming in, fed Furl, watered Furl, unlittered and littered Furl, forgotten about Furl, and then curled like a sow bug beneath her down comforter to read about English people murdering each other in villages with several names (Eaton Vale on the Donnybrook, or whatever), until some human necessity or other made her get up and pad about.

But not now.

Now she had to eat a quick bite of breakfast, poke around in her closet, lug out the heavy yellow slicker, find and extract the galoshes (the snow boots were so much more fun! They looked like Captain Kirk; these looked like Tugboat Annie). Put them on.

Take several deep breaths.

And wade out into the storm.

It roared and pattered and howled and saturated around her, obscuring the trees on Ocean View Boulevard, which now offered no ocean view and had been transformed into Ocean Obscured Panamacanal way.

She somehow managed to ignore the four inch pool of water that the galoshes were failing at keeping out of her wool socks while she unchained the Vespa, straddled it, turned it on, and backed up.

An angel assigned specifically to her, hovered just inches above her yellow vinyl rain hood and poured an even and steady stream of water on the visor, so that it trickled down onto her glasses and kept them barely transparent enough to see through.

Heading up the oyster shell lane, chug chug chug, pothole here SPLASH pothole there SPLASH and the wind driving at her as she drove into it, always lashing away at her face, as though it changed direction every time she did, never mind which damned direction anyway, just as long as it could be blowing straight into her.

Chug chug SPLASH—chug chug SPLASH.

Had a good time with your precious snow, eh? Well this is for YOU, Nina! And your little dog, too!

Or cat, whatever.

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE
RAIN
, SCARECROW!?

So that, then, was the first thing that happened on Friday morning.

The second thing that happened was an 8:15 conference with Sonia Ramirez, her mother, her history teacher (Ms. Douglas), her math teacher (Coach Burris), her science teacher (Coach Jorganson) and her English teacher (Ms. Forbes).

Sonia had been having problems.

She was a very nice girl, everyone agreed, and she was an excellent outside shooter and ball handler (eleven points last night and five assists against Portageville, very nice job, Sonia, very nice job). She also seemed to have a good mind. She was not doing that badly in math, which seemed her best subject. But the other subjects—no, the others were not going so well. She’d fallen behind in science, and far behind in English (several failing grades on essays,
Wuthering Heights
remaining unread)—and a very poor understanding of Herodotus’
Commentaries on The Peloponnesian War
, which was, and had been for some time now, required reading for any Mississippi sophomore.

What was the problem?

Several theories were discussed, each teacher making a contribution in turn, both Sonia and her mother nodding in consternation and agreement.

Diet.

Be certain Sonia had a good breakfast each day.

Routine.

Be certain she had time each evening to do her homework.

Help.

Be sure she had a mentor to help her after every assignment.

Eyesight.

Have her eyes checked. Perhaps she needed glasses.

(Although the fact that she’d nailed two three-pointers from well beyond the arch the night before seemed somewhat to belie this theory).

And this theory and that theory and this theory and that theory for twenty minutes or so, all of it coming to an end by eight thirty when everybody had to be back in class, and the meeting breaking up with the mutual assurance of all concerned that these things would continue to be tried until a solution was found and Sonia had begun to perform up to the level everyone knew she was capable of reaching.

The fact that Sonia did not speak English was not mentioned.

Because there was not a helluva lot anybody could do about that.

So why worry about it?

And the meeting was adjourned.

That was the second thing that happened on Friday morning.

The third thing was, she heard from the ghost-hunting Margot Gavin.

It was early afternoon. Her cell phone rang, and she opened it.

“Nina Bannister....”

“Hey Nina!”

“Margot! You’re back!”

“I am.”

“What kept you? I thought you were only going to stay a week; it’s almost two weeks now.”

“Well…it’s complicated.”

“I want to hear all about it.”

“And so you shall, my dear”

“Great. By the way, did you hear already? Meg Brennan and Jennifer Warren are getting married!”

“Wonderful!”

“Isn’t it? There’s a wedding shower planned for them tomorrow night.”

“Excellent. What time?”

“Seven.”

“Where is it to be?”

“Your shop.”

“Ah. Well, good. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find it.”

“No such worries now.”

“No indeed. Have I been planning it for long?”

“About a week. You’ve sent out all the invitations.”

“Good for me. I’m very proud of myself. By the way though, what was going to happen if I hadn’t made it back to Bay St. Lucy on time?”

“I would have opened the shop—I have a key, you know—and ordered a lot of liquor in your name. Nobody would have missed you.”

“Did you order the liquor anyway?”

“Of course I did.”

“Splendid.”

“By the way, Margot…”

“Yes?”

“Did you find a ghost?”

Pause.

Did Margot’s voice soften slightly?

“Yes,” she said. “Yes I did.”

It may have softened, or it may not have.

But whatever had happened to it, the humor had disappeared.

She meant it.

“I did meet several ghosts, Nina. But one of them…well. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow night, at the shower.”

For a moment, Nina knew nothing to say.

She finally settled on:

“Good to have you back, Margot.”

“It’s good to be back. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sure. See you then.”

And, so saying, she flipped her cell phone shut.

There followed two hours of chaotic bliss, since this was Friday, and the last Friday, before a long holiday.

“One o’clock!
 
Not much time to go!”

“What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“I’m going to sleep late!”

“Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Give me some of that egg nog!”

The students were in a festive mood too, of course, but they were locked in classrooms. The teachers and staff members, at liberty to roam the halls and pop in and out of various offices, felt no restraints and gave vent to the POTENTIAL HOLIDAY FRENZY that arises inevitably from the fact that no one hates school as much as the people who have to run it.

Two o’clock.

Two forty-five.

What could go wrong?

NOTHING COULD GO WRONG, THE DAY WAS ALMOST OVER…

And something did go wrong.

At precisely three o’clock, a man wearing a uniform—not an athletic uniform but a uniform like those worn by hotel bellmen or butlers in old movies—walked into the school, asked to see Ms. Bannister, the principal, and said to her:

“Your car is waiting, Ma’am.”

This pretty much stopped things in the office.

Ms. Peterson, Ms. Forbes, Ms. Janekosky, Tommy Lawrence, Lakeesha Roosevelt, and Coach Suggs (the offensive line coach in fall and the drivers training teacher the rest of the time), all froze.

The man, who was standing, framed in Nina’s doorway, his blue captain’s hat held under his arm, repeated:

“Ma’am, your car is waiting.”

Nina, who’d been sitting at her desk wondering whether to go over attendance reports or attempt the
New York Times
Friday crossword puzzle (which she had never succeeded in doing) rose, looked at everybody in the outer office, each of whom was looking back at her, and asked, firmly:

“What car?”

“For the yacht, Ma’am.”

“The yacht.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Don’t ask what yacht, don’t ask what yacht, don’t ask what yacht—