Kayla looked so happy. So did Olivia.
Olivia and Kayla stopped and turned around; they were joined by Cecily Carle and her mother, Rorie. He saw Olivia point at Zach’s truck, and then they all headed over.
“Hi, Daddy!” Kayla said, leaning up to kiss Zach through the window. “Cecily invited me over to her house to work on our oral presentations. Can I go?”
It amused Zach how Kayla could go from hating someone’s guts to adoring them in two seconds flat.
Last week, Kayla despised “the perfect Cecily Carle.”
“I’d be happy to drop her home around eight,”
Rorie said. “We don’t live very far away.”
At Zach’s “sounds good,” Kayla squealed, and off she went with the Carles.
“Nice girl?” he asked as Olivia got inside the truck.
“The nicest one of the contestants,” Olivia said. “I like her mom, too.” Her eyes were on Marnie’s car, speeding out of the parking lot. “Marnie mentioned HAUNTING OLIV IA
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she had an ‘important engagement’ after the meeting. Curious as I am?”
As they trailed Marnie at a reasonable distance, Olivia filled in Zach on the meeting.
“Doesn’t exactly sound like the good influence I’d wanted for Kayla,” Zach said. “Sounds more like an Inner-Baddie contest.”
Olivia smiled. “The good news is Kayla seems so self-motivated to write her essay and work on her oral presentation. She needs to be sponsored by a local business. Have anyone in mind she can ask?”
“Yeah, my architectural firm. We’re a one-man shop, but she’s got my vote.”
Olivia smiled. “I’ll check with Colleen to make sure she can be sponsored by a family member’s business. I’m sure it’s fine, as long you donate a certain amount of money to the kitty of prize money.”
Zach began slowing down as Marnie pulled into her driveway. “I have a feeling she’ll drop off Brianna and then head out again. Let’s wait.”
They didn’t wait long. In another few minutes, Marnie was back on the road and heading down a rural highway. Twenty minutes later, she exited and pulled into the parking lot of the Boxboro Township Motel.
“I guess her important engagement is sex,” Zach said as they watched Marnie dash from her car inside the Boxboro Township Motel. A sign at the main entrance said: “By the hour or week!”
“Why meet someone here?” Olivia asked. “It’s so out of the way—” They glanced at each other.
“Maybe her new boyfriend is married?”
Zach glanced around the parking lot, his gaze stopping on a familiar green Subaru Forester.
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“Now, granted, the Forester is a popular car in Maine, but I can think of one particular person who has that car.”
“Who?” Olivia asked.
“I’ll give you a hint. He’s definitely married. But more important—or perhaps I should say more sickeningly —he’s the only male judge of the Inner-Beauty Pageant.”
Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “The town manager?” she asked. She shook her head. “Do you think they started seeing each other before Brianna entered the contest?”
“If that’s the case,” Zach said, “she’s one hell of a hypocrite.”
The next morning, Zach waited in the kitchen as Olivia dealt with Johanna.
“Um, just forget everything I said yesterday,” Johanna said. “I was just really emotional about William. I don’t even know if what I said was true or not. It’s all jumbled.”
“Would you like to come—” Olivia began.
“I’m in a hurry,” Johanna interrupted, “so could you just give me your receipts and sign the roster?”
“Maybe next time,” Olivia said.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Johanna said, “of course, I’m sponsoring Brianna. She is my cousin’s daughter.”
“Of course.”
At the sound of the door closing, Zach met Olivia in the living room. “Let’s take a ride to the town hall and check our esteemed town manager’s license plate.”
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Five minutes later, they had a match. One minute after that, Zach was in Donald Hicks’s office.
“What can I do for you, Zach?” Don asked.
“Look, Don, we go way back, so I’m just going to come out and say this. I happened to be passing by the Boxboro Township Motel tonight and—”
The man’s face reddened. “You’re not going to tell Suzette, are you?”
“No, that’s your business. My business is the fact there’s now a conflict of interest concerning the Inner-Beauty Pageant. I’m talking about one of the contestants in particular. As my own daughter is a contestant, I don’t want to see the pageant judged on any merit other than the rules dictate.”
Don played dumb for a moment, then slapped his hand to his forehead. “Oh my gosh. Is Marnie’s girl a contestant in the pageant?”
Zach tried not to roll his eyes. “Yes, she is.”
“I had no idea, Zach,” Don said. “But don’t give it another thought. I’ll tell you what. You keep this between us, and I’ll resign as a judge immediately.
I’m really too busy as it is. You’re doing me a favor.”
Zach had a pretty good idea that the understanding between Marnie and Don was unspoken. A tit-for-tat kind of relationship. For example, you give me hot sex in a motel a couple of times a week, and maybe there’s something I can do for you, such as waive a town ordinance or, say, vote for your daughter in any pageants for which I’m a judge.
“We have a deal,” Zach said and shook the man’s hand. Karmic justice would take care of him. “By the way, Don, if you don’t mind me asking, how long have you and Marnie been seeing each other?”
He broke out into a smile. “Couple of months.
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Nothing serious, of course. I realize we were both seeing Marnie at the same time, but she assured me that you two had an open relationship.”
“We certainly did,” he said. “Thanks again, Don.”
As he left the town hall, he realized that Marnie was a better liar than he’d ever imagined. He had no doubt she was behind all the incidents at the cottage, and she very likely had had Johanna’s help.
Marnie would probably be difficult to trap, but Johanna would probably fall right into a confession.
He’d see how this interesting little development of her secret boyfriend resigning as a judge affected Marnie. And then he’d plan his next move.
Chapter 18
Zach barely slept the next couple of nights. For two reasons. The first was the beautiful woman, in that nothing of a slip, sleeping downstairs in the guest bed. How simple it would be to creep down the stairs, missing the squeaky sections (he knew where they were, thanks to Kayla’s bad habit of sneaking downstairs to go on-line on the computer in the living room), and crawl into bed with Olivia, who’d welcome him in. At least, he thought so.
Since she’d officially moved into the guest room, he hadn’t allowed himself to linger in there once she turned in for the night. If they were meant to be together, if they were meant to be a family, he didn’t want sex to be making the decisions. He wanted to think, to feel, with his heart, with a cool head.
Since he couldn’t sleep, he often did creep downstairs, missing the squeaky sections of the stairs. He’d do some research on-line, or he’d watch a late night movie using his headphones, and he’d hear Olivia flip-flopping in her bed. Which was how he knew that she’d welcome him in. She couldn’t sleep, either.
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Then again, who was to say that she wanted him the way she did thirteen years ago? He wasn’t that same kid on the beach. And the events that separated him and Olivia had shaped the man he was today. Maybe their old chemistry didn’t work with these new variables.
Except it did. Their chemistry felt as powerful and raw and
perfect now as it had then. That inex-plicable electricity that existed between two people.
He and Olivia had very little in common. It wasn’t like they both loved boating or dancing or watching kung fu movies. What they had in common was that ridiculous “Snoopy dance” feeling whenever they laid eyes on each other. A happiness in just being near. In being together. A rightness.
The second reason he couldn’t sleep had to do with Marnie. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her jumping through the window like a supervillain wielding a butcher knife. Until he caught her red-handed, he’d get little sleep.
Zach was doing some preliminary sketches for a client’s house when the principal of Blueberry Middle School called and asked if he could come right over. He assured her he’d be there in five minutes, then called Olivia on her cell phone.
“Oh no,” she said. “I’ll leave right now too. What did Kayla do?”
“I don’t know yet, but the principal sounded upset.”
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were a bit rougher around the edges than Kayla, and she’d gotten into her head that they lacked inner beauty and therefore weren’t worthy to be her friends. His daughter had a ton of growing up to do, but she was on the right path, and if she ran into a few huge craters along the way, they’d work on filling those in together.
So what had she done? Cheated on a test? No way. That would disqualify her for the pageant. He couldn’t imagine she’d risk doing anything that might interfere.
He and Olivia arrived at the same time from opposite directions. She squeezed his hand in support, and they headed in.
In the office, Kayla sat on a chair outside the principal’s office. Through the window on the door, he could see the principal, Marnie, and Brianna. Marnie appeared to be quite agitated. Brianna appeared to be crying.
“Kayla?” Zach said.
She jumped up and flew into his arms. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I didn’t do it! I swear I didn’t!”
“Do what, honey?”
“I’ll let Principal Sykes know you’ve arrived,” the secretary said to Zach, buzzing the intercom. A moment later, she said, “Please go in.”
As they walked in, Marnie shouted, “I want her expelled!”
“Mrs. Sweetser, please calm down and sit down,”
Principal Sykes said.
“Principal Sykes,” Zach said, “this is Olivia Sedgwick, Kayla’s mother.”
The woman shook Olivia’s hand, and everyone sat down. “Several of these posters were taped up 220
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around the halls and in the bathrooms,” the principal said, handing Zach and Olivia the evidence.
Brianna Sweetser is a slut!
Brianna Sweetser thinks she can win the Inner-Beauty Pageant even though she’s slept with seven guys.
Brianna Sweetser is a total slut!
“I didn’t do it!” Kayla cried.
“Shut up, liar, you did too!” Brianna yelled.
“Principal Sykes,” Zach said, “what does Kayla have to do with this?”
“Perhaps absolutely nothing, perhaps everything,”
she responded. “When Brianna brought the posters to me, she immediately said she thought Kayla was the culprit and explained that Kayla was probably trying to make her look bad because they’re both competing in the Inner-Beauty Pageant. When I called in Kayla, she said she didn’t do it. Brianna said she wanted her backpack and locker checked for pink and orange markers, and Kayla held out her bag for me to check. This is what I found.” She held up pink and orange markers.
“But they’re not mine!” Kayla said. “I have no idea how they got in my backpack.”
“Oh, please,” Marnie said. “Can’t you lie better than that?”
“I’m not lying!” Kayla shouted.
“It does seem odd that she’d offer up her backpack if she knew you’d find the markers,” Olivia said.
“She probably thought she hid them in a secret compartment,” Brianna said. “But she’s too stupid for that.”
“Shut up!” Kayla yelled.
“Enough!” the principal said, clapping her hands.
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“Dad, I didn’t make those posters,” Kayla said, looking him in the eye. “I didn’t.”
He believed her in that second. But then he wa-vered a moment later. Damn! He wanted to believe her. But the posters were something she would do.
And the markers were in her bag.
The thing was, Kayla wasn’t a big liar. She usually owned up to what she did.
But owning up to this could get her disqualified from the Inner-Beauty Pageant as a display of the opposite of inner beauty.
Where was that damned guidebook?
“Well, is she going to be expelled?” Marnie said.
“Mr. Archer?” the principal prompted. “What’s your take on this?”
Zach took a deep breath. “If Kayla says she didn’t do it, I believe her. My daughter is not a liar.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Marnie said. “She’s fresh back from a suspension and in trouble right away. She’s trouble, period.”
“Principal Sykes, I won’t sit here and allow my daughter to be spoken about this way. I’m sorry about those posters; they’re disgusting. But Kayla wasn’t responsible.” He stood up, and so did Olivia.
“So unless you have proof that Kayla was, I’d like this meeting to come to an end.”
Marnie shot up and grabbed her daughter’s hand. “Come on, Brianna. I’m not staying in the same room for another minute with these vermin.”
As the two huffed out, the principal shook her head. “Thank you for coming in,” she said wearily.
On the way out, Kayla said, “You really believe me, Daddy?”
“Yes, I do, Kayla.”
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She jumped into his arms, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Do you believe me too, Olivia?”
Olivia smiled and squeezed her hand. “Yes, I do.
The girl I’ve gotten to know wouldn’t do something like that.”
Kayla let out a relieved breath. “I might as well go to history class, even though there’s only a half hour left of school.” She leaned close to Olivia. “I like a boy in my class.”
Olivia smiled. “See you at home.”
Kayla grinned and ran down the hall.
“Why did she have the only two colors of markers used on the posters in her bag?” Zach asked.
Olivia shrugged. “Pink and orange are her favorite colors.”
“They are?”
“She told me that three times. She wants to wear her pink sweater dress when she reads her essay, and her orange corduroy miniskirt when she gives her oral presentation.”
“So it’s just a coincidence that the posters were in pink and orange?” Zach said.
Olivia slung an arm around his shoulder. “I know it’s crazy, but yes. I really meant what I said to her. The girl I’ve come to know wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t stoop to that. Kayla’s not a behind-your-back type. She tells you exactly what she thinks of you to your face.”
“That’s true,” Zach said. “The last thing she is is passive-aggressive. She’s aggressive-aggressive.”
Olivia laughed. “Go back to work. I’ll be home when the bus drops off Kayla.”
He kissed her on the lips. He didn’t know who was more surprised by that, Olivia or himself.
Chapter 19
The next few days passed without incident. Without bad incident, that was. There were no more calls from the middle school. Johanna didn’t revert back to her gruff demeanor. She refused every invitation to come in and talk, but at least she chatted about the weather. And the attacks against Olivia had stopped.
So when Olivia’s cell phone ra
ng on Saturday afternoon, Olivia didn’t answer with her usual trepidation.
She should have.
“We’re holding an emergency meeting for all contestants and their guardians,” said Colleen. “If you can’t make it this evening, I’m afraid your voice will not be counted in the final decision making.”
“Colleen,” Olivia said, “what is the meeting about?
Did something happen?”
“Something happened, all right,” Colleen said.
“The meeting is tonight at six at the town hall auditorium. I have several more calls to make, so if you’ll excuse me.”
Click.
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“What was that about?” Zach asked from the kitchen doorway. He was making a gourmet dinner for three tonight, in celebration of Kayla finishing her oral presentation. She wouldn’t tell them who she’d chosen as the most influential person in her life, but she was dancing around the house. At the moment, Kayla was in her room, trying to come up with potential questions and answers for the final round of judging.
“I don’t know, but it sounds serious, Zach. Colleen has called an emergency meeting of all Inner-Beauty candidates and their guardians for six o’clock.”
Zach let out a deep breath. “So much for my homemade chicken enchiladas.”
When Olivia, Zach, and Kayla arrived at the town hall, only Deenie and her mother had yet to show.
Everyone was seated in the first two rows of the auditorium, Colleen standing in front, looking grim.
“We’ll give the McCords a few minutes and then the meeting will begin,” Colleen announced.
“We can begin right now because Kayla’s here,”
Eva shouted, jumping up. “And she’s the one who sent me the letter!”
Olivia glanced at Kayla; the girl’s face registered the same surprise as her own and Zach’s.
“What letter?” Kayla asked, staring at Eva.
“Oh, like you don’t know!” Emily shouted.
“Will someone tell us what’s going on?” Marnie said, arms crossed over her chest. “Though from the sound of it, I can surmise. It sounds like something that happened to Brianna last week,” she added, her eyes narrowed on Kayla.
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