Damn it. I forgot to tell Roger about that! He’s going to go through the roof.
I glance at the clock, wanting Roger to rush home ASAP. In fact, I have completely forgotten about Jillian…again.
~Seven~
“Hello, Mrs. Maxwell?” The woman’s voice on the other end of the phone sounds slightly nervous. And British. Definitely British. Maybe the British always sound nervous to untrained American ears.
“Yes?” I inquire while wrinkling my brow. I don’t know anybody British.
“Yes, yes, this is Mrs. Pumpernickel at the Cornish Conservatory.”
Cornish Conservatory? That sounds like a rather odd place. “Er, yes, Mrs. Pumpernickel…what can I do for you?” I am already under the impression that the woman has the wrong phone number, but the poor dear sounds so flustered that I don’t want to correct her quite yet.
“Erm, yes…I’m calling about your daughter Allie…”
Allie? Now I am surprised. How would this woman know about Allie? Where did she say she was calling from again? Cornish Conservatory? Is that a place where they grow those tiny little hens that my mother likes to buy at Easter?
“Allie?” I ask with concern. As far as I know, Allie is upstairs in her room, pretending to do homework. But then again, I’ve been wrong about my child’s whereabouts on several occasions recently...
I crane my neck to glance up the stairs and see that her door is closed. Hmmm, should I check to make sure she’s actually there?
“Yes, yes, Mrs. Maxwell! We’ve heard delightful things about your daughter and would like to invite her to study at our conservatory!” The woman sounds like she is clapping her hands together in earnest.
“Oh, you want Allie to go to your school?” A conservatory is a school, right? “And in Cornish?” Is Cornish a place?
“Ah, correct,” the lovely old biddy tells me, nervousness completely gone from her voice. “Now I do understand some parents may be a little leery about sending their daughter across the ocean to study abroad, but I assure you, our school has the most remarkable reputation for turning out generation after generation of well-behaved young ladies-”
“Excuse me, did you say, young ladies?”
“Correct!” Mrs. Pumpernickel gushes. “This is an all-girls school. We pride ourselves on a distraction free learning environment consisting of uniforms and no males, including male faculty.”
“Say no more,” I interrupt. “Where do I sign?”
Despite what I have told Allie, I am not planning to tell Roger about the boy in our daughter’s bedroom right away because I know he will hit the roof. Then I will have had to go looking for his nitroglycerine pills. And I’ve forgotten where I have put them.
However, as I pull the makeshift ingredients out of the fridge to prepare dinner, I quickly dial Laura. I am only passed through three kids today before I get her on the phone, which is actually impressive. In that time however, I discover the chicken is way too frozen to cook and I am going to have to get take-out instead. I quickly text Roger and tell him to pick up two pizzas since I don’t know how long Jillian is going to be at our house. She might as well let her taste real food if she’s staying for dinner.
When one of the twins finally gives Laura the phone, I quickly launch into my tale of woe because with my best friend, you never know how long you’re going to have to talk on the phone before one of her kids breaks a bone or crazy glues another one to the floor.
She sighs and tells me Kaitlyn had been using people to do her homework, too. “Not that Kaitlyn had a boy in her bedroom,” Laura reiterates. “I’m home all the time, so that wouldn’t be happening.” This sounds like a passive aggressive dig.
When I had told her about going back to school back in September, we had been sipping margaritas on my deck. She spit her drink halfway across the yard and laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes. When she finished drying her face, she looked at me with a shocked expression and said, “Oh, you were really serious about that? I thought you were making a joke!”
Tucking the cordless phone under my chin, I remark defensively, “Well, I was home, Laura. I just didn’t know that she was here. Or that this Taylor kid was here either.”
“Taylor? Taylor Jordan? Oh I think he was doing Kaitlyn’s homework for her for a while until I broke that up. Guess that’s why he moved on to Allie.”
I can’t help thinking that she’s trying to imply that my daughter is getting sloppy seconds. I’m about to make a snarky comment when an incoming text from Roger turns my blood cold.
Went to pick up Jill. Mom said other aunt picked her up.
“Uh, Laura…I gotta go.” I hang up the phone without even waiting for her reply.
Jillian’s only other aunt is Joey. And she is currently in Mexico on vacation.
~Eight~
My hands are trembling so badly that I can barely dial the numbers on my cell. The phone rings about ten times before it clicks over to voice mail.
“God damn it, Roger! Pick up!” I practically screech into the phone while gripping it angrily in my hands. “Pick up the fucking phone!”
“Bad-”
Evan starts to say, but I cut him off with a snippy, “I know it’s a bad word! That’s why I’m saying it! Mommy is very, very upset right now! Go in the living room and play with Colt.”
“I’m right here!” Colt pipes up and I notice he is still at the table doing his homework.
“Go play with Evan,” I order him and a look of pure confusion crosses his face.
“But…I thought I wasn’t supposed to play until all my homework was done?” He wrinkles his forehead and scrunches up his nose.
“Normally you’re not. But tonight I need someone to entertain Evan while I make a very important phone call.” He leaps to his feet at the prospect of getting out of homework and going to play instead. I slide him out of the kitchen with a shove.
I quickly try Roger’s phone again, but it goes straight to voice mail. This is where Roger and his deadly sin of SLOTH come into play. I know for a fact he is avoiding my phone call because he is LAZY and does not want to have to stop and pick up the pizza. He is going to pretend he didn’t get the text or hear the call, so I either have to go get the pizza or have it delivered. I am not new at this game, but it is enraging me right now because I need to speak with my husband and it has nothing to do with the damn pizza!
Now I don’t think it would have made any difference if Roger actually picked up or not, but maybe we would have gotten to the bottom of this issue faster. Maybe the sin of SLOTH was my fault. After all, I didn’t call and tell the “playdate” mom that my husband was coming. Not that I was necessarily being lazy…I just got distracted. But now I must call the woman, and pronto.
I feverishly scan the bulletin board, pushing papers aside till I find what I am looking for. I make a mental note to throw out receipts from last Christmas as I grab the piece of paper on which I have scrawled the cell number of Jillian’s friend’s mother. ‘Sherri’, the scrap says. My vision feels blurry and foggy as the numbers dance all over the page while I attempt to dial. The phone begins to ring on the other end and I inhale sharply through my nose, hoping to calm my racing heart. I am about to exhale when I hear a voice on the other end pick up.
“Hello?” The woman who answers has a high pitched nasally voice that I would generally call ‘Bitch Mom’ voice. That is, if I were sarcastically recounting this tale to Laura. I would even be willing to bet that this woman has ‘Resting Bitch Face’.
However, I am not even remotely in the mood for sarcasm right now as I manage to sputter, “Um, hi. Is this Sherri?”
“This is she,” the uppity voice replies. Ugh, I hate when people answer the phone like that. Like, wow, you’re grammatically correct but you sound like a pretentious asshole.
“This Amy Maxwell. Beth Phillips-Katz’s sister?” I end that statement with a high pitched question mark, barely stumbling over my sister’s tongue twister of a name. Talk
about pretentious. She needed to hyphenate for some ungodly reason. Or as she liked to say, to differentiate between her and Derek. Didn’t their first names accomplish that?
“Ah, yes, Amy. What can I do for you?” Her condescending tone clearly indicates that Beth has told her about me. And by told, I don’t mean Beth shared my redeeming qualities or what makes me a good mom. I am certain that Beth has made sure this woman knows every last flaw I possess and how our parents should have stopped with one (perfect) child. Or skipped over me and had Joey.
“I was wondering who picked Jillian up? You see, I was running late and I was sending my husband-”
Bitch Mom cuts me off. “Your other sister picked her up. I guess Beth realized you would be late and decided to send someone reliable.” The last word reverberates in my ear like the day after a Metallica concert. Reliable would be the last word I would ever use to describe my younger sister Joey. In fact, if you looked up unreliable on Wikipedia, I’m pretty sure Joey’s flakey selfie would be emblazoned on the page.
“Did she say she was my sister?” I ask as I wave Lexie away. She has flitted into the room and is mouthing something to me. Undoubtedly tattling on one of her siblings, but unless they are literally lighting each other on fire, I don’t give a flying flip right now. I cover the mouthpiece of the phone with my hand. “Go away, Lexie,” I whisper.
“But, Mom, Allie is-”
“Unless Allie is eloping with Elvis, I don’t want to hear it. Please, just go away.”
I turn back to my conversation with Sherri, queen of bitches. She sounds like she could give my neighbor Cammi a run for her money. How come bitchy women always have names that end with i?
“She said she was Jillian’s aunt. At first, I thought it was you, but then I realized it was impossible-”
“Why did you think it was me? And why was it impossible?” I ask with a feeling there was going to be some insult attached to this story.
“Because,” the woman replies in a very exasperated tone, “you were supposed to pick her up. But then, I realized it couldn’t possibly be you because this woman had beautifully styled dark hair and drove a Lexus.”
What is Beth telling people about me? I get my hair cut at Supercuts and I drive a minivan? Oh, wait, that’s true. But still, Beth doesn’t have to make me seem like some kind of schmuck.
“But that doesn’t describe my sister Joey either,” I explain. “She has short curly hair and drives…actually, I think she’s in between vehicles right now.” Joey could be driving anything from a Ferrari to a moped.
“Well, I just assumed-” Resting Bitch Face starts to say, but now it is my turn to interrupt condescendingly.
“Well, you know what they say when you ASS-UME. Maybe you should have picked up the phone and called Beth to make sure.” I am now giving this woman her share of the SLOTH. She was lazy for checking that whoever came to get Jillian was actually allowed to pick her up. How would she have felt if this was her child we were talking about? She seemed like the type to blame a teacher when a kid leaves school with an estranged family member but no one bothered to inform the school about the estrangement.
“I shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. Beth said Jillian’s aunt was coming for her and Jillian’s aunt came for her. End of discussion. I don’t understand why you are making such a big deal out of this, Amy.”
“The reason I am making such a big deal about this, Sherri, is because Jillian’s only other aunt isn’t even in the country right now. She’s in Mexico. So there’s no way she could have picked Jillian up from your house.”
The silence on the other end of the phone is deafening. I can practically hear the wheels turning in Sherri’s pea brain as she processes what I have just said and calculates what it means for her.
I am more than happy to spell it out for her. “That means you just sent my niece home with a stranger.”
Sherri immediately jumps in with a defensive, “Now wait just a minute! I would never-”
“Oh, but you did! Whoever picked her up said she was her aunt and she obviously was not.”
“I did not! Jillian clearly knew the woman! She went with her willingly! She even held her hand! And besides, the woman looked really familiar. I’m certain I’ve seen her before.”
Hmmm. Apparently it was someone that Jillian knew. Could Beth have sent someone else assuming that I would screw it up and forget to pick up her daughter?
I had my doubts. It is quite unlike my obsessive compulsive sister to change plans on a whim like that. Plus she didn’t call or text me to let me know she changed the plan. Very odd. I am now worried that she is lying dead in a ditch somewhere (despite the fact that sounds like something my mother would say).
“What did this woman look like?” I ask, nervously chewing on the cuticle of my thumbnail.
“I told you,” Sherri replies haughtily. “Long, straight black hair. Impeccably dressed. Drove a Lexus.”
I guess that could describe one of Beth’s friends, but I wouldn’t know for sure if Beth sent someone else until I located her and the ditch she had to be lying in. Without even a goodbye, I hang up on Sherri and proceeded to dial my sister’s number.
She answers on the third ring, sounding sleepy and breathless. I guess that’s how you feel after having a massage. I wouldn’t know. The last time I booked one five years ago, Roger called me just as I was disrobing, in a panic because Colt had swallowed a penny.
“Hello?”
“Beth? Are you lying in a ditch somewhere?”
“What?” I hear a thud and some rustling against the phone. “Why would you even ask that?”
Ok. Now I am done being worried. I’m just pissed. “Because I want to know why you would not let me know you were sending someone else to pick Jillian up. The only explanation I can come up with is that you are lying dead in a ditch and have no cell service. From what I hear, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“Send someone else? What are you talking about? I didn’t send someone else.” Beth sounds breezy as usual. Like I’m the ridiculous one.
“Don’t play innocent, Beth. I just talked to Sherri. One of your friends picked Jillian up,” I say in the ‘I am really exasperated with you’ tone that I usually reserve for Roger.
“I didn’t send anyone else to pick Jillian up,” Beth tells me, terror creeping into her voice. “Please tell me you are joking and you have her.”
I swallow hard. Oh shit.
“Amy!” Beth is now screaming on the other end of the phone. “Amy! This is one of your little jokes, right? You need to knock it off because I am not finding it funny at all!”
“I..I’m not…” I am barely able to formulate a sentence. Oh. My. God. Someone came and picked up Jillian unbeknownst to me or her mother. Jillian kidnapped? No, that’s not possible. There’s got to be a reasonable explanation for all of this.
“There’s got to be a reasonable explanation for this.” My sister echoes my thoughts. “Maybe Derek swung by to pick her up?”
I hate to deflate Beth’s bubble as I explain, “No, Sherri said it was a woman. The woman told her she was Jillian’s aunt, so she assumed it was me. But then when Roger got there-”
“Roger? What was Roger doing there?” I hear a car door slam in the background and an engine turn over. It sounds like Beth is getting in her car. But she doesn’t switch me over to Bluetooth like she normally would. This is how I can tell my sister is now panicky and I am becoming frantic, too.
“Roger went to pick her up because I…” Ok, Amy, you cannot tell her that you forgot to pick her child up. She’s going to think this is entirely all your fault. Well, it wouldn’t be your fault because whoever came for her showed up earlier than 4:30. Even if you had remembered and went to pick her up on time, she would have left with this person already.
“I got hung up here with a problem with Allie.” Ok, not totally a lie…
“Oh God!” I hear Beth cry. “Why would Sherri let her go with a complete stranger
?” Oh good, she’s going to blame Sherri.
“Well she said Jillian knew whoever picked her up and the woman told her that she was her aunt. But she didn’t check it out,” I quickly add, not wanting to totally let Sherri off the hook.
“Oh well, then maybe Joey picked her up?” Beth said hopefully, obviously grasping at straws now.
“Joey’s in Mexico right now, remember? And besides, did you ask Joey to pick her up? How would Joey know where Jillian was if you didn’t tell her?”
“I don’t know!” Beth wails and I hear a screech and honking, followed by a few choice curse words that I didn’t even realize my sister knew.
“What happened?” I ask, as Evan tugs on my pants leg. I shoo him away with a wave of my hand.
“Nothing,” Beth snaps. “Just almost rear ended a Mercedes, that’s all.
“Maybe you should hang up. Or use your Bluetooth,” I suggest.
“My child is missing! You want me to hang up?” Beth roars indignantly.
“No, I guess not. Well Sherri did describe the woman that picked her up,” I offer helpfully.
“Ok, well that’s good. Describe her to me.”
I recall Sherri’s description to Beth and I hear silence on the other end of the phone.
“Beth!” I want to shake my sister. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”
She remains quiet for a minute and I want to reach through the phone and shake her. I don’t understand why she isn’t demanding we call the police immediately. The Beth I know would be calling every state trooper in a ten state radius to find her kid. And while she definitely sounds upset, she sounds…well, unhurried.
“Beth, are you coming here? I can call the police for you and let them know what happened and they can meet us-”
Amy Maxwell & the 7 Deadly Sins (The Amy Maxwell Series Book 2) Page 9
