Terry looked at Melissa. “When did you think you told Erin about this allergy?”
“Oh…” Melissa looked around. “When…? We were talking about Trenton… I don’t remember…”
Erin shook her head. “The only time we talked about Trenton was when we were grocery shopping that day, after Angela died. You were talking about how you knew him in school. We didn’t talk about allergies or anything like that. And then here, when you found out that he was back in town, from Lottie… but we didn’t talk, then. You were just… upset.”
“Why were you upset about Trenton being back in town?” Terry looked at Melissa, putting down what was left of his pizza cheese bread.
“Because I hate him! I hated him. I didn’t ever want to see him again.”
“Hated him. Why? From what I’ve heard from the older residents who remember him, Mr. Plaint was quite charming.”
“He always was. To the people he wanted to impress. But to other people… he could be really nasty.”
“Like Angela was?” he suggested.
“No. Much worse than her. She was… verbally bullying and abusive. But Trenton took it to a whole new level. With him, it wasn’t just talk.”
“He physically assaulted you?”
Melissa shrugged, not answering him directly. “I suppose Angela probably physically abused Trenton and Davis,” she said. “That’s what they say about bullies. They are that way because of how they have been treated. Angela was never physically abusive in public, but maybe in private…”
Terry refused to be sidetracked. “Trenton hurt you when you went to school together?”
“You never knew what he might do when no one was looking.”
Before Terry could ask anything else, Melissa swept up the papers from the table. “Got to run. Clara will be wondering where these are. The Sheriff wanted them ASAP.”
Erin and Terry watched her go. Neither said anything at first. Erin took a few deep breaths.
“Well, I guess I’d better get back to work. Can’t just leave Vic to get run off of her feet.”
Terry put his hand over hers for a moment. “I’m sorry about the news,” he said. “I would rather have told you that he just had a coronary. But I knew you’d hear the truth sooner or later anyway.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” She raised her shoulders and let them fall again, feeling helpless. “I’ll get over it. It isn’t like he was someone I knew. He didn’t matter to me. And I didn’t do it on purpose. If I’d known he was allergic to soy… I would never have allowed Joelle to take those cupcakes…”
She stood up. Terry picked up what was left of his pizza cheese bread. “What would you have done?”
Erin paused. “What do you mean?”
“What would you have done when she came in to buy something vegan, and you knew that her boyfriend was allergic to soy? What would you have done?”
“Well, I would have told her!”
“And what if she still wanted to buy the cupcakes? Just for herself? Would you have still have sold them to her?”
“I suppose.”
“Would you have done anything differently at all?”
“I guess not… I already packaged them separately. She bought one kind for herself and one kind for him; I didn’t think they’d be sharing them…”
“You wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
“No.”
“Did she know they had soy in them?”
“Yes, of course, she looked at the ingredients.”
“So, you didn’t need to give her any separate warnings. She knew what was in them.”
“A lot of good that did if she didn’t know he was allergic to it!”
“But that’s not your problem, is it? How could you be expected to facilitate communication between them, so that Miss Biggs would know that Mr. Plaint was allergic?”
Erin let out her breath. “I couldn’t. That’s not my job.”
He nodded, looking satisfied. “Darn right it’s not. There’s only one person who was responsible for telling Miss Biggs that he had an allergy. And that was Mr. Plaint himself. It wasn’t your job, or mine, or Melissa’s. He knew he was allergic. It was his responsibility to tell her and to be careful of what he ate.”
Vic moved away from the cash register to allow Erin to take her position again. She watched Terry and K9 head out the door again to get started on their patrol.
“What did he have to say?”
Erin figured Vic already had a pretty good idea, but she filled her in on the details anyway. Vic looked appropriately shocked at the news that Trenton had had an allergic reaction to the cupcakes, but her shock turned to anger.
“I can’t believe it! Why would he do that?”
Erin frowned at her, surprised. “Who are you mad at? Terry? He didn’t accuse me. It wasn’t like with Angela, where I was the prime suspect. It was just an accident.”
Vic shook her head. “I’m still mad. I don’t know. I don’t think he should even have told you. Isn’t he supposed to keep stuff like that confidential? He just made you feel bad.”
“I know, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t do it to upset me. What else could he do? Lie about it?”
“Just not tell you. Keep it to himself,” Vic repeated.
They served the next few customers in silence. Erin had made some tiny raspberry tarts that sparkled like little gemstones, and they were going fast. The lunchtime rush had slowed, and it would be quieter until school let out.
Vic watched Mrs. Marshall, a black woman Erin recognized from the after-church teas, go out the door. Vic still had a scowl on her face, which was unusual for her. She was usually so pleasant and cheerful.
“Even if Terry hadn’t told me, Melissa would have,” Erin told her.
Vic looked over at her, appearing confused for a moment like she couldn’t remember what they had been talking about. Both were pretty proficient at conversations that were broken up over long periods of time by customer orders, the phone, kitchen timers, and other interruptions.
“Yeah, she would,” Vic agreed. She still looked peeved.
Erin decided to ignore Vic’s moodiness. They were all under stress with Trenton’s recent demise. Vic would take it personally that he had reacted to one of their cupcakes just as much as Erin. Best to just buckle down and focus on work and not talk about it.
But as the after-school rush picked up, it seemed like Vic was just getting more and more irritable. She banged her head when she bent down to get the last few tarts out of the display case. She kept knocking against the edge of the case with the tongs and put the orders down on the counter next to Erin with much more force than was necessary. Erin looked over at her.
“Are you okay?” she asked in a low tone.
“Don’t you see the way that they’re looking at us and talking about us?” Vic demanded in a harsh whisper.
Erin looked toward the waiting customers. There had been a lot of covert looks and whispered comments the last few days. But Erin just put it down to curiosity about Trenton’s death and Erin’s involvement. She had been the one giving him CPR. Now they knew that she was also the one who had unintentionally poisoned him. It made sense for them to look.
“It will blow over. It’s just morbid curiosity.”
“No, it’s not. It’s something else.”
Erin shook her head. “Don’t worry about what other people are saying. Small towns are gossip mills. You should know that from home.”
“I know that. And that’s why I know what those looks are. People aren’t looking at us because of your involvement in Trenton’s… accident. That’s not what this is about.”
Erin shot another look at the people waiting in line. They all looked away, avoiding her gaze. Lottie Sturm was there with her twelve-year-old, a diminutive, dark-haired girl who looked as different from Lottie as a cuckoo in a crow’s nest. Lottie spoke quickly and nervously to little Sarah, discussing dinner options.
“S
omething is going on,” Vic insisted.
Erin just shook her head, waiting for Lottie to make her choice and get a move on. She gave Vic a look, one which she knew Vic would interpret properly as ‘put on your customer face and stop being silly.’ Erin felt a bit bad about it. She wasn’t Vic’s mother, and she wasn’t usually too bad as a boss. Vic was more of a partner to Erin than an employee. But if Vic were going to be sulky, people were not going to come as often. Without even knowing why, they would avoid visiting.
Vic pasted a smile back on her face and faced the customers like a firing squad.
“Did you have a good day at school today?” she asked Sarah.
Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but Lottie cut right across her. “Don’t talk to strangers,” she snapped.
Sarah and Vic both stared at her with their mouths open. Erin was going to step in, but decided that would be one too many people involved in the conversation, which had already taken a weird turn.
“But Mama, we know Vic,” Sarah protested. “She’s not a stranger.”
“We don’t know her,” Lottie insisted. “We have no idea what kind of person she is. What kind of morals she has.”
Vic’s face went sheet white. She just stood there, staring at Lottie. Lottie indicated what cookies she wanted and Vic got them out and handed them off to Erin, moving robotically. Erin didn’t know what to say. She knew that she should say something to defend Vic, but she had no idea what to say. Vic hadn’t done anything wrong. But they were essentially eavesdropping on a private conversation, too. Lottie had been talking to Sarah, not to Vic or Erin. They were intended to overhear, for sure, but that didn’t make it right to barge into the conversation.
Sarah looked at her mother and then at Erin, opening her mouth half way, but not knowing whether it was okay to talk to Erin. Erin was in the same boat, afraid to even smile or say hello to Sarah for fear of getting attacked. What was going on with everyone all of the sudden?
“Not her either,” Lottie said firmly. “And I don’t want you coming over here with your friends or alone. Only with me. The rest of the time you stay away from here. Understood?”
Sarah nodded, blinking, releasing tears from the corner of her eyes and letting them slide down her face. Erin couldn’t understand what was going on.
“Do you have some concern about my store, Lottie?” she asked. “If you do, you really should talk to me. Maybe I can address it. I know there are a lot of rumors going around about Trenton, but what happened to him was unavoidable. No one knew that he was allergic…” Erin petered out, recognizing from the look in Lottie’s eyes that she couldn’t care less about Trenton.
There was something else going on. But Erin had no idea what.
“Thank you,” Lottie said archly, “but I wasn’t talking to you. I was having a private conversation with my daughter. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of it.”
“You’re talking about us, though,” Vic cut in. “You can’t very well say that it has nothing to do with us when you’re talking about us! Just tell us what the problem is.”
“I haven’t said anything to you or about you,” Lottie said. “You have the right to live your own lifestyle and I will live mine.” She raised her chin, looking down her nose at them as if they were dirty children who had just tracked mud into the house. Erin felt humiliated and had no idea why.
Vic turned and gave her a look.
I told you so.
Vic had said that people were talking about them. That she had seen those looks before.
We don’t know what kind of morals she has. What exactly had Lottie been talking about? All in a rush, Erin realized that she must have figured out about Vic being transgender. Terry had said that they wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret forever. Not in such a small town. Now Lottie had figured it out, or someone else had figured it out and told Lottie, and she was afraid that her daughter was going to be tempted into some kind of unrighteous thoughts or behavior just by talking to Vic.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said to Lottie. “We’re all living the same lifestyle. We are all women living in Bald Eagle Falls. Part of this community. No one is living some wild, dangerous lifestyle. There’s no reason to be worried about us.”
“I am a good, Christian woman. I don’t have anything in common with two women living in a… an unnatural relationship.”
“What?” Erin was flummoxed.
“It’s unnatural. Paul warned against unnatural affections. And you two…” Lottie made a motion to include Vic and Erin and gave a little self-righteous shudder.
Erin handed Lottie her change. Lottie grabbed her daughter by the hand and hauled her out the door. Erin and Vic looked at each other.
“What the hell was that?” Erin demanded.
Vic just shook her head, her eyes wide, close to tears. Erin moved over and motioned Vic toward the kitchen.
“Take a break. Go splash some water on your face and calm down,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what the heck that was, but you don’t need to worry about it. Just take a break and take a few deep breaths.”
Vic looked for a moment like she was going to argue, but then she nodded and turned away, disappearing into the back. Erin faced the rest of the waiting customers, giving them an anemic smile.
“Well, then, let’s see if we can get this line moving, shall we? What does everyone want for supper?”
They were stone-faced rather than empathetic. Erin couldn’t help feeling that they all agreed with Lottie, whatever it was she thought. Erin thought it was mostly aimed at Vic, and must have to do with her gender identity, but some of it seemed to be aimed at Erin as well, and she didn’t understand why. Because she had taken Vic in? Both as an employee and to give her a home? Wasn’t that one of those Christian duties that people were expected to do? Feed the hungry and clothe the naked and all of that? Why should it make any difference what gender the person in need was?
Erin rang the next few orders through in silence. She tried to keep her smile up, but it wasn’t easy. Unnatural affections? Because they thought that Vic was unnatural? Not a real woman? Erin wanted to argue the point, but she was afraid to raise it with any of them, especially if she were misinterpreting the archaic expression.
The last few customers skittered away and no one else entered the shop. Erin went into the kitchen to check on Vic. The bells on the door would alert her if anyone else came in. She found Vic sitting on a stool beside the sink, a damp, folded-up washcloth on the counter that she had obviously been holding over her teary eyes to try to make them less bloodshot. Erin tried to hug her, but Vic pulled away from her.
“Are you okay?” Erin asked, though the answer was obvious. “I’m sorry about… whatever that was. I guess… does that mean they found out that you are transgender?”
Vic shook her head. She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t get what they were saying?” she demanded.
“I… I guess not.”
Vic laughed bitterly. “I thought I was supposed to be the naive country cousin!”
“What? Exactly what was she trying to say?”
“They think we’re gay!”
Erin just stared at Vic blankly. “What?”
“You and me. They think we’re lovers.”
“Because we live together?”
“Your guess is as good as mine!”
“But…” Erin was at a loss for words. “They really… how could anyone think that?”
“I don’t know! Just this weekend, we were off adventuring with two men. And went for drinks at the restaurant afterward. How people could see us there and still think…”
Erin, who was always worried that people were looking at her when Terry flirted with her, felt herself blushing furiously.
“You and me…?” She spluttered. “Why? It’s not like we hug and kiss in public! We work together and we share the house, that’s all!”
“I would guess it’s sharing the house that’s the problem,”
Vic said. She dabbed at her eyes with the wet washcloth. “I can’t believe this!”
Near-hysterical laughter bubbled up in Erin’s throat. She swore. “I’m going to close up. I don’t want anyone walking in…”
She went to the front of the store, flipped over the sign, shot the bolt, and turned off the lights. She returned to the kitchen. Vic appeared to be recovering from the shock, starting to smile a little at the ridiculousness of the situation herself.
“Like I don’t have enough to worry about being transgender,” she said. “I don’t have the first clue about how to deal with a boyfriend and explain the situation to him. And now… we have to deal with this!”
Erin let out a high giggle. She gasped for breath. “Well, why don’t we just tell them your birth name is James? Then they wouldn’t think we were gay!”
Vic just shook her head, laughing and not able to respond.
Erin giggled until she could barely breathe, and then borrowed Vic’s cloth to put over her own eyes and try to calm herself down. “I think… I’m a little… hysterical…”
“With all that you’ve been through lately, it’s no wonder. We’d better get everything settled here, and get you home to bed.”
Her words sent Erin into another fit of hysteria and she half-laughed and half-cried into the cold washcloth.
Chapter Nine
ERIN GOT UP IN the morning, determined to make a fresh start.
“I don’t care what anyone has to say,” she told Vic. “If they don’t like our living arrangements, they can do their shopping at the grocery store or go into the city. I’m not going to apologize or explain. I thought Christians were not supposed to judge.”
“Christians aren’t supposed to do a lot of things,” Vic agreed. “But no one is perfect. Everyone is going to fall short in some areas.”
“I think it’s ridiculous. What does it matter to them what other people do? Shouldn’t they just be worried about themselves and what they’re doing that’s right or wrong?”
Vic nodded. “Yup.”
“Well, I’m not going to worry about it. You and I know the truth, and anyone who prefers to read something else into it, that’s their own problem.”
Dairy-Free Death Page 9
