Address to Die For

by Mary Feliz

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “We’ll see.” But I was kidding. Much of what Tess was doing for me was similar to what I often did for my own clients. I felt a twinge of guilty pleasure at putting myself in the capable hands of someone whose expertise and professionalism rivaled my own.

  Tess laughed, climbed in her car, and rolled down the window. “Let’s get coffee in the morning and take the dogs to the park. I’ll show you around town.”

  I nodded and waved. She rolled up the window and flogged her fancy BMW down the bumpy drive.

  I grabbed my sandwich and the rest of my coffee, took them to the front porch, and sat in the shade. The coffee was lukewarm, but just as tasty as it had been with that first sip. Belle flopped next to me and fell asleep, exhausted from her romp with Mozart. I checked my watch and my notes on school-dismissal times. I didn’t understand why Silicon Valley people complained about traffic and air quality but could find no money for school buses. I shrugged. I couldn’t fix that problem today.

  Today, I needed to move the cats to the barn bathroom before Adelia and her army arrived, but I had time to tap out a short email to Max before I picked up the kids.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what Max might be doing right now. Sleeping, if I had the time zones right.

  I tried to recapture the image Tess had given me of our house with gleaming floors, polished wood, and fully repaired shining windows. The magic had left with Tess. My imagination was good, but not that good.

  To: Max.McDonald2111@gmail.com

  From: SimplicityItselfOrganizing@gmail.com

  Miss you! Kids got off to school this morning. There was a mix-up with Brian’s schedule, but we got it sorted out. Movers won’t be here until late in the week. It’s a long story. Met a new friend with great contacts to help with fixing up the house. Sounds like it might cost a fortune but it will be good to get the floors done before the furniture comes. I’ll get a better idea of her rates and what she can do and we can decide how much more we want her to tackle. I’ll write again tonight with news on the boys’ first day. Let me know how things are going in India and where you’re living, etc. Bri wants to know if you ride an elephant to work.

  Love, Maggie

  To: SimplicityItselfOrganizing@gmail.com

  From: Max.McDonald2111@gmail.com

  Hang tough. Do you need me to come home? If so, I’ll jump on the first plane out of here. You know that, right? The job’s important, but you and the kids are more important. Can’t wait to get your emails about how school went. Details, please! Tell the boys to email me. Tell Brian I’ve seen a sacred cow, but no elephants yet.

  It’s odd getting to know my co-workers in Santa Clara from 8,000 miles away. Bangalore is exotic in spots, but inside the hotel and at Influx, you wouldn’t know you were away from Silicon Valley. The guy I report to here is great, but he was in a terrible car accident this morning. It may extend my stay here, since there is really no one else they can leave in charge. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear. I’m hoping to visit him tonight and will talk more to Jim in Santa Clara in the morning, after which I should be able to give you a more definite return date. If you need me, I’ll start home in a heartbeat.

  Have the police learned anything more about the man in the basement?

  Love, Max

  Chapter 9

  If you’re spending all your time in the car, make the car work for you. Stock water and healthy snacks. Load a plastic bin with homework helpers: papers, pencils, calculator, scissors, markers, and tape. Children waiting for siblings can use the time to recharge and do homework.

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Tuesday, September 2, Early afternoon

  An hour later, Adelia’s team arrived and began sanding the floors with four giant machines. Tess must have warned Adelia about the sketchy electricity because each sander connected to one of two generators with a long orange cord. The sound was deafening. The tripping danger was huge.

  Another team washed the windows on the outside. Adelia had more helpers pulling weeds, sweeping up leaves, and cleaning the gutters. A fourth team replaced the broken windows, cut new boards to fix the damaged planks on the front porch, and repaired the sagging screens.

  At the rate they were moving, they’d have the house remodeled by the time I picked up the boys. The house filled with happy energy as they shouted and teased each other over the sound of the sanders, driving out some of the sadness from Mr. Hernandez’s death. That thought led to the fact that I still hadn’t heard whether the medical examiner had ruled his death a murder, an accident, or an unfortunate natural death.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled up in front of the high school to wait for David. I was early, so I called the housing inspector both Jason and Tess had recommended. After so many unpleasant surprises, I wanted to make sure that Max and I knew everything the house needed before we got too far ahead of ourselves. Making the house comfortable and safe was one thing. Going into debt over renovations that could wait was another. The inspector agreed to meet me on Saturday at noon.

  I’d just ended the call when David climbed into the passenger seat. Belle licked his face as though he’d been gone a year. I handed him a bottle of water and a granola bar.

  I checked over my shoulder to avoid running over any kids or absentminded parents, pulled out of my parking spot, and headed to the middle school to repeat the pickup process there.

  “How was it?” I asked David, whose backpack bulged with books and other lumps and bumps I couldn’t identify. “Do you have much homework?”

  “Some, but it’s not too bad. Is all our stuff unloaded from the moving van? Our first P.E. unit is swimming and I need to find my board shorts.” David reached into his backpack. He grabbed some forms and shoved them in my face. I pushed his arm back so I could see the road, then showed him the dish tub I’d put on the floor between the two front seats to hold the forms I needed to review and sign for the kids and the house.

  “I need them signed right away, Mom,” David said. “I want to take marching band zero period. I’ll have to be here at quarter to seven every morning. We’ll have all-day practices on Saturdays. Afternoon practices on Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe some trumpet sectionals.”

  “Wow, when did this happen?” I wondered how David, who could have qualified for the Olympic Sleeping Team, was going to drag himself out of bed early enough to be showered, breakfasted, dressed, and at school by 6:45 each morning. And how would he stay awake in his classes?

  “In concert band. The other kids asked me to join.”

  “It’s a huge commitment,” I said. “I don’t want you dropping out because you change your mind and want to sleep in.”

  David rolled his eyes. “I know this speech, Mom. I’ll stick with it. It’s music with other musicians. It’s trumpet. Sign the papers.”

  I pulled up in front of the middle school and chose a space in a far corner of the parking lot—away from the spot Pauline Windsor had laid claim to. I’d have to ask Tess about that. Were there really assigned spots, or was Pauline one of the odd parents with entitlement issues who crop up in every school?

  “Here, Mom. Sign the papers,” said David.

  I took the papers and looked them over. There was a long list of expenses for shoes, uniform cleaning, buses, gloves, and T-shirts, but it didn’t look too bad. David still had the trumpet he’d played since fifth grade, so we could skip the instrument rental or purchase costs. Those predawn hours could be a problem, though. I didn’t think I’d have time to drop off David and go home to pick up Brian and get him to school before the first bell. If David joined marching band, we’d all be forced into the same predawn schedule. Decisions involving the whole family were the sort of thing I’d ordinarily discuss with Max, but this issue was too big to explain with email, and I didn’t want Max to feel guilty. If he were here, one of us could take David and one of us could take
Brian. The schedule wouldn’t be an issue.

  “Mom, sign the papers.” David waved a pen in my face.

  “David, stop,” I said, snatching the pen from his hand and tossing it in the dish tub. “I hear that you want to do marching band. I hear that you’re committed, but this decision will have a huge impact on our family and I need to think about it.”

  “I signed you up to make brownies for Saturday.”

  “David . . .” I sighed. “Honey, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Marching band demands a lot of students and their families. We don’t have a working oven and you signed me up to bring brownies?”

  David started to protest, but I cut him off. “I’m willing to buy brownies, so that’s not a problem, but there will be other requests for parent help, and I’m up to my ears with the move and renovations, and getting Simplicity Itself off the ground again. If it’s important to you, we’ll find a way to make it work, but it’s not the slam-dunk decision you seem to think it is. Do you think you can find a carpool to help out?”

  I flipped through the papers in the tub. I was going to have nightmares about drowning in paper. Paper that turned into bats and house-wrecking vandals, no doubt.

  “You said something about a bathing suit,” I said. “When do you need it?”

  David shrugged. “Right away. We started P.E. today, Mom. It shouldn’t take me too long to find it, though. I know what box it’s in.”

  “That’s good, honey, but the movers can’t get here until Thursday and I’m hoping to push them back to Friday or even Saturday. You won’t have your swimsuit until Monday.”

  “Seriously?”

  “If we have to buy a new swimsuit, we’ll do that,” I said. “But if you know you won’t have pool time until Monday, that would save us a trip to the store.”

  “Let me ask my friends,” David said, picking up his phone and typing. “I got some numbers at lunch.”

  I smiled, delighted that David had new friends already. “If you want to invite any of them over . . .” I began.

  “How ’bout we wait until we have a fridge,” David answered, rolling his eyes. “Look, there’s Bri. Looks like he’s had a good day too.”

  Brian was in the middle of a knot of boys carrying instrument cases, shoving each other, and laughing. I’d fought for band for him this morning, knowing it was one of the fastest ways for him to make friends. Now David was asking me to do the same thing for him.

  A rapid-fire series of pings erupted from David’s cell phone. He bent over it, thumbs flying as he texted back.

  “Board shorts can wait until Monday,” he said, still typing. “I’ve got a ride home from practice on Saturday.”

  One advantage of having so many things go wrong this week was that I’d learned I needed to become better at accepting help and asking for it, especially from the kids. I needed to remember that anything could be fixed and that I couldn’t manage everything on my own. I was making new friends and breaking new ground, just like the kids. So was Max. What we were going through wasn’t all bad. It was, in fact, exactly the change Max and I had been looking for. Be careful what you wish for was another one of Aunt Kay’s favorite sayings.

  I signed David’s band form and handed it to him. “As long as you can be flexible and promise to help as much as you can when you’re not in band, we’ll make it work.”

  David shoved the form in his backpack and beamed at me.

  Brian flung open the car door. “The coolest thing happened after lunch,” he said, climbing in, dropping his backpack on the floor and buckling his seat belt.

  “Right after lunch, a porta-potty exploded—the one at the construction site next to school. What a stink! There was sh- well, you know, stuff, everywhere. Harrier was furious, but all us kids couldn’t stop laughing. The fire department came to clean it up.”

  “But what happened? How?” I started.

  I handed Brian his water and granola bar and started the car. “Do they know who did it?”

  “That’s all anyone talked about the rest of the day,” Brian said. “But no one was about to rat anyone out. The police talked to a few kids, but I don’t know if they found out anything.”

  Two explosions, one in our mailbox and another at the school. That was too much of a coincidence for me. I needed to call Jason and see if he thought there was a connection. And I needed to ask Tess about it too. She would know if there were usual suspects at the middle school. I had to remember to ask her about the funding issues too. But that could wait until we walked the dogs tomorrow.

  I told the boys we’d be sleeping in the barn for at least another night. They didn’t seem to mind. Apparently, camping still held charms for them that were lost on me. But the prospect of gleaming floors sustained me. All I wanted was to settle my family into the house and the town. I felt as though I’d been trying to do that for days and not getting any closer to my goal. Now, the goal was in sight, at least in terms of the house. But I couldn’t help feeling unsettled. And it wasn’t because we were new to town and living in the barn. With the sabotage at our house and the school, a man dead by accident or misadventure, and the mysterious school-funding issues, I feared Orchard View might not be the rural escape Max and I had hoped it would be.

  Chapter 10

  When any plan, including a plan to reorder your life, is going badly, it’s important to: Identify the problem. Consult someone. Make a plan. Repeat as necessary. Exercise and fresh air often help and seldom hurt.

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Wednesday, September 3, Morning

  Wednesday morning, I pulled up in front of the middle school, planning to drop Brian before meeting Tess for our trip to the park. But three police cars with lights flashing were parked in the red zone. More lights flashed near the front office door.

  Something was wrong. I parked the car and walked toward the school buildings with Brian. April, dressed all in red today, stood atop a broad concrete bollard. Waving her arms as if she were directing aircraft toward a gate, she instructed students to walk to their classes and asked parents to depart quickly. No one listened. Groups of chattering parents and students pointed toward the office door.

  “We might as well join them,” I told Brian. “At least until we figure out what’s going on.”

  It didn’t take long to get the gist. Someone, maybe the same delinquent who’d blown up the portable toilet, had moved beyond malicious mischief. On the wall next to the front door, three squirrel carcasses were nailed in a triangle with their bushy tails hanging down and their heads lolling. My stomach turned. I’m not a squirrel fan, but the scene was gruesome, violent, and held all the horror of a medieval torture chamber.

  “Eww,” said Brian, echoing my thoughts. “I’m going to the band room.” I squeezed his shoulder and watched him go.

  A uniformed officer removed the bodies from the wall with gloved hands. A jumpsuit-clad tech with what looked like fingerprinting paraphernalia stood by hoping, I assumed, to pick up prints from the wall. Good luck with that. When I’d dropped Brian off on the first day, I’d seen a group of kids trying to see how high they could jump and slap that same wall. The surface would be full of fingerprints left by the innocent.

  I sighed and walked to the car. Shoving Belle out of the driver’s seat, I turned the key and drove to meet Tess.

  Tess had pulled a black pickup truck out of the garage for the trip to the park. The dogs climbed into the back of the cab. I sat in the front and fastened my seat belt while Tess told me the plan for the day.

  “First, I’m showing you stuff,” she said. “I brought coffee and we’ll talk about school while the dogs play. Until then, focus. Here’s your intro to Silicon Valley.” She wore black-and-red business wear this morning, which seemed an odd choice for the dog park, but I didn’t ask her about it. I had other things on my mind.

  Tess drove down Shoreline Boulevard, pointing out the public pool, the
train station, and movie theaters where she said we’d spend lots of weekend evenings delivering the boys and their friends to blockbuster films. And then we hit Google and traffic ground to a halt. Crosswalks and sidewalks were filled with casually dressed Googlers, most of whom looked like high-school kids carrying black backpacks. Some walked, but many rode bicycles painted like preschool toys: red, yellow, blue, and green.

  “They ride them between buildings,” Tess said. “Leave one in the rack when you go in, pick up another on the way out. There’s no mistaking them, so no one steals them. Or maybe Google has enough money to replace them if someone steals them, I’m not sure.”

  Tess turned left at the next corner and slowed to turn left again into a drop-off circle. She slowed and pointed to the lawn between her car and the nearest building.

  I felt as though I’d fallen into a game of Candy Land. Giant dessert-shaped statues including a cupcake, gingerbread man, and what looked like a bright green robot filled with jelly beans were plopped on the lawn, scattered randomly as though a giant had been bringing treats to a picnic and spilled his lunch. Tourists stood next to the installations, posing for photographs with sugary treats that towered over their heads.

  “The statues represent various phases of the Android operating system,” Tess explained. “The jelly-bean robot made big news a while back when its head popped off during a heat wave.”

  “I know how he must have felt,” I said, laughing.

  Mozart woofed, reminding us to move on to the dog park. Tess drove back to the main road, where we passed buildings belonging to other high-tech icons and a giant tentlike structure that Tess told me was a concert venue.