Nothing but Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  It was probably a message for Connie. From her office.

  It could, however, be Boone, making good on his threat.

  Or maybe it was Connie, calling from a beach in Mexico.

  Except what if it was Boone, leaving a little verbal bomb to terrorize her night? She hadn’t heard a word from him since yesterday, and she’d routed the urge to call him when Boris met her this morning armed with a towel and a bucket of water. She’d have to check some of her translations on her list of rules.

  In the next room, under the soft twilight hues turning the office crimson, Boris sat at Connie’s computer, surfing. He’d bargained away his religious freedom for an hour on Connie’s computer.

  She turned away from the answering machine. “How about some milk, little man?”

  Davy nodded and she poured a cup and handed it over. He made a mustache.

  She stared hard at the blinking light, gulped a breath, and pressed.

  “Hey, PJ, it’s Joe, down at Sunsets Supper Club. Yeah, we have an opening. Come by tomorrow morning, and we’ll see if your old uniform still fits.” Joe’s message ended on a hard laugh, and PJ hit Delete before it could turn over to the time/date stamp.

  Last night’s survey of her George Washingtons trumped the pride that wanted to waggle its impertinent head.

  Besides, maybe she could still fit into the uniform.

  She slid onto a stool next to Davy. “You have a field trip tomorrow.”

  “I don’t like field trips. They make us be quiet.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, kid. But the good news is that you won’t have to be quiet at the museum. Ask lots and lots and lots of questions. Really, lots.”

  The phone jangled. PJ’s hand hovered over it only a moment before she picked it up. Just conjuring him in her mind didn’t mean she had the ability to make Boone materialize on the other end. “Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Fellows Academy. We’re looking for David Morton.”

  She wanted to bang her head against the ash cupboards. “Davy’s, uh . . . occupied.” And four. Did they not have that fact somewhere in their records?

  “Can you tell him he has a book overdue?”

  “What’s the title?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am; I’m not allowed to tell you.”

  “What?” She handed Davy a napkin.

  “Ma’am?”

  So maybe her tone had been a bit strident. She lowered her voice. “How am I supposed to know what book to bring back if you’re not allowed to tell me the title?”

  “It’s David’s book.”

  “He’s four—you do know this, right?” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Davy, did you know you have a book out from the library?”

  Davy slid down from the high-top stool at the counter and stuck out his tongue.

  Apparently it was time to institute Connie’s rule about manners.

  “He doesn’t know where it is. You’ll have to clue me in so I can search for it.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am; those are our rules.”

  For a long beat, she just rolled the words around in her head. “What? I’m sorry. . . . I don’t understand.” PJ retrieved Davy’s lunch box and began to clean it out. “Really, just tell me the name of the book; I’ll find it.”

  “It’s against our privacy policy to tell you.”

  PJ listened as, in the next room, Boris let out a stream of Russian. She had the dark urge to hand him the phone.

  “Let me get this straight. I, as his guardian, am not allowed to know what my four-year-old is checking out of the library?”

  “It’s a privacy issue.”

  “You mean to tell me he could be checking out books about nuclear weapons, or even—” PJ lowered her voice—“other books, and you wouldn’t tell me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs.—”

  “Who do you think is going to pay for Davy’s overdue book? Is he going to cough it up out of his milk money?”

  Out of her peripheral vision, PJ spotted Davy climbing the stool again, his eyes darting to her, as if she might not see him inching his way to the oatmeal cookie box. She swiped the box off the counter. “What kind of school is this? The kid is four years old!”

  “Hold, please.”

  Hold?

  Davy settled down on the counter, his legs crossed, arms folded, waging a sit-in. “I want a cookie,” he said, his little blue eyes fierce. Yeah, well, she wanted a job, a tan, an insight into Boone’s brain, a house like Connie’s, and perhaps even world peace.

  “Mrs. Morton, this is the director of Fellows Academy. What seems to be the problem?” Despite her crisp memory of appearing on the Fellows stoop in her pajamas, PJ didn’t appreciate the derision in the director’s tone . . . in her familiar tone.

  Oh no. The voice matched the visual picture of the stout woman who sentried the door every morning. Ms. Nicholson. Perfect. She schooled her voice, extricating from it everything she felt. “Thank you for your help. I’m trying to locate my nephew’s library book.”

  “I hear you have a problem with our privacy policy?”

  No, PJ, don’t—“I have a problem with your entire school. Just tell me the name of his book, and I’ll bring it in.”

  Silence, and in it PJ heard Connie’s pleading: “Please, PJ, this is important.” But behind that, she saw Davy, his uniform rumpled from yet another round of hide-and-seek (this morning she’d found it wadded in a truck under the bed). Nearly a week into summer and the kid hadn’t a bit of a tan, not one decent stubbed toe.

  “Perhaps tomorrow, if you can make it on time, we could have a chat in my office—”

  “Sometimes, someone just needs a champion.”

  “Davy is a little kid. He should be at the beach, swimming or chasing frogs or burying his aunt in the sand, not spending his summer doing math problems. He won’t be there tomorrow . . . or ever, until you reveal to me the title of this contraband book he’s been hiding!”

  “I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible.”

  The words formed in her throat, like the roll of a wave on the ocean crashing to shore, disseminating sand castles and dragging back to the cold depths all the pieces of shell, now broken and lost. She could hear a faint Stop! Knew she should close her mouth before her words swept her out on a riptide to a place of no return.

  But she’d never been proficient at stop.

  “It’s schools like yours that make people believe they’re more or . . . or less than they are. I wouldn’t send Davy back there if you fell at my feet and begged!”

  “Which we most certainly will not do. Call me when you find the book.”

  Click.

  Click? PJ stared at the phone, her heartbeat pelleting her throat.

  Click?

  Davy stood on the counter and, with a look she couldn’t place, began to peel off his uniform.

  * * *

  Trudi’s day care, Peppermint Fence, encapsulated PJ’s wildest five-year-old daydreams. The backyard, through the black chain-link fence, declared a moratorium on tidiness, with toys strewn from one side to the other. A jungle gym pinnacled the center of the yard, complete with safety netting, two towers, a sandbox, a swing set, and a sprinkler tree under which a group of youngsters frolicked as PJ pulled up.

  For a long moment, she wished she could whip off her dress pants and white cotton blouse—she knew her old Shrimp Shack uniform would come in handy—and join them in abandon. Maybe she’d forget that she’d managed to evict Davy from his five-star school in the space of three days.

  “We’ve already filled David’s spot.” The words dug into PJ’s brain and lodged there like a pike, dissecting her hopes of a victorious stint as Davy’s caretaker.

  Who was she trying to kid? She hadn’t a prayer of competing with Connie. And after tearing apart Davy’s room, searching even between the mattresses for the renegade library book, she simply hadn’t possessed the internal fortitude to call her mother and ask her to watch Davy while she interviewed at Sunsets.
Between the expulsion from school and her old high school job prospect, PJ wasn’t sure where to start that priceless conversation.

  Besides, at least here at Peppermint Fence, Davy would have fun, albeit illiterate fun. Connie would return to a fat, happy, academically stunted son.

  Trudi stepped out from the shade, carrying a tray of what looked like Dixie cups and graham crackers, looking very motherly in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a pink sleeveless T-shirt. She set the tray on a little tykes-size table and turned, as if she could sense PJ in the parking lot, deliberating.

  No doubt a skill Trudi had honed long ago.

  “What are you doing here?” She said it in a welcome tone, one filled with surprise. It mustered PJ’s courage to slide out of the car and open the door for her uniformed little future tycoon in the backseat. She should have brought him a change of clothes, but she’d dressed him with hope. And apparently, naiveté.

  “Help.” PJ gave Trudi a quick rundown. “Can you just watch him while I interview with Joe?”

  “Seriously? Sunsets Supper Club? I thought you hated that place.”

  “I hate starvation worse. And I have a couple Russians living with me that will feed me scary things like fried liver if I don’t bring home my own bacon. Besides, if I hope to stick around . . .”

  Trudi reached for Davy’s hand. “Come with me, pal.”

  He yanked his hand away and looked up at PJ with what could only be the eyes of a death row prisoner about to meet his fate.

  “You’ll have fun, Davy. I promise.” PJ gave him a little nudge toward the Dixie cups and graham crackers.

  “Let’s just sign a couple papers, and we’re all set,” Trudi said. Davy drank down one cup, threw it to the ground, and then ran to the sandbox. He was digging his way to Taiwan when PJ left.

  Sunsets Supper Club had never been high elegance, with its long ramp leading to the front door, the dark wood paneling, the wide window advertising the weekly specials. Now the early seventies decor would be called retro. Still, the place bore hints of updates—gleaming hardwood had replaced the thinned brown carpet, and the menus were linen-bound instead of in the previous red plastic folders. PJ spotted an earlier version of herself in one of the summer staff photos. She’d worn her hair pulled back then, and from this vantage, had on way too much makeup.

  The vacancy at the hostess stand gave her opportunity to peruse the new menu. They’d added a few Caesar or club wraps to the usual surf and turf platter.

  “PJ Sugar!” Joe hadn’t changed much in ten years—short, slightly balding, and missing a right incisor. He still wore Hawaiian shirts over khaki pants, and he greeted PJ with a hug like she might be his long-lost daughter.

  PJ found herself holding on far longer than she planned.

  “I didn’t expect you to dress up to interview for a waitress gig,” Joe said. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Just till I get on my feet.” PJ followed him through the restaurant. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that until last night’s conversation with Director Nicholson, she’d planned on showing up in her shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops.

  “How long are you back for?” Joe settled himself on one of the chairs at a white-linened table.

  PJ straightened a place setting, not sure how to answer.

  Joe finally nodded, gathering in her silence. “I’m going to need at least the summer. Can you promise me that?”

  Did she want a job she had in high school?

  Better question—did she want to eat? Because once Connie discovered Davy’s truancy, she just might be out on the street. “Yes,” she said, sliding the word from her constricting throat before it got stuck. “The summer. But I can’t start until after Connie gets back from her honeymoon.”

  “Give me a call then, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  She took her time tooling back to Trudi’s, unable to shake the sound of defeat dragging behind her like shackles. So much for breaking free, starting over.

  She couldn’t bear to pass Fellows, with its manicured lawns, the shaved shrubbery along the walk, the fragrant, pristine gardens, and turned instead onto a side street. She recognized it as the route to the old VFW, the other country club in town.

  Except the square, brown brick building no longer stood in the lot, replaced instead by a new building, shiny and white, with a three-story steeple. PJ tapped her brakes long enough to read the sign on the outside—Kellogg Praise and Worship Center.

  Her Bug nearly pulled in on its own.

  PJ sat in the parking lot, hands tight on the steering wheel, once again hearing Matthew’s pronouncement like a gavel upon her soul: “You’re not pastor’s wife material.”

  She found herself climbing out. The cool air prickled her skin under her shirt as she entered with a swoosh of air into the quiet building. The place felt . . . large. Looming double doors led to a dark sanctuary; a hall extended to room after Sunday school room, the smell of new carpet embedded in the walls. A bulletin board by the door white-lettered the weekly events. She noted the time of the service, then wandered to a reception desk and picked up a brochure detailing women’s events.

  For the first time in over a week, she didn’t hear the ghosts, didn’t feel her past sneaking up behind her, ready to lunge over her shoulder.

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep, fragranced breath.

  Sunday’s bulletins lay stacked on the table and she picked one up, read the order of service, the message title, and the text for the week. Taken from 1 Peter, the first chapter, the words were written in italics at the bottom: To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father . . .

  She didn’t read more. She knew just how it felt to be a stranger, to be scattered in home and purpose. Except she didn’t feel at all chosen—well, maybe chosen for trouble. Chosen to mess up people’s lives, starting with Davy and Connie.

  The trapped air of sanctity swelled over her as she crept inside the dark sanctuary, dim light streaming in through the window-paneled doors. She guessed it must hold over five hundred people. A muted spotlight up front hued a dark drum set, a baby grand piano.

  She sat in a pew, closed her eyes, and tried to hear the beat, the tones of a praise song, but all that thrummed under her skin was the dormant rhythm of a peace she had once, briefly, known.

  She hadn’t even thought about attending church in Kellogg. But maybe here in Kellogg she needed God more than anywhere else on the planet.

  She’d learned plenty in the three years since becoming a Christian. Enough to dispel the common myth that Christians always made the right decisions, that they threw off the shame or guilt of bygone mistakes without a backward glance, and most of all, that they didn’t, at times, long to fold into the temptations that blinded them before.

  Temptations like Boone. Or the urge to pack up her duffel and flee, leaving behind the rubble.

  She ran her hand over the sleek wood of the pew, the smoothness soaking through her palm to her veins, her bones, calming the frenzy of her thoughts.

  I think I need help. I thought I had changed . . . but it’s looking to me like maybe I haven’t.

  She bent forward and leaned her forehead onto the pew in front of her. Was it possible for a girl to rewrite her past, create a new future?

  Lord, help me understand the person I’m supposed to be here.

  She sat in the dark, trying to decipher the silences.

  As she left the church, a slight breeze scurried through the poplar and oak, and the sweet breath of incoming rain softened the crisp air. Across the street, the savory aroma of hot dogs lifted from the outside grills of the credit union—Customer Appreciation Days written on the blowing sign stretched across the doors. She skirted the temptation to be anonymously appreciated and arrived at Trudi’s just in time for an afternoon snack inside the house.

  Five children sat at a pint-size table in the center of the room, holding Dixie cups,
some wearing red mustaches.

  “C’mon in, PJ. We’re having fresh-from-the-oven peanut butter cookies.” Trudi set down a cookie on Davy’s napkin square.

  PJ yanked the treat out of Davy’s hand seconds before his life flashed before his eyes.

  Above his scream, she met Trudi’s eyes, shaking. “He’s allergic to peanuts.”

  Trudi set down her tray of cookies. “You forgot to write that on his form.”

  “Oh . . . I did.” PJ collapsed into a toddler chair. “I can’t believe I nearly killed the kid.” She cupped a hand to her head. “Or maybe I can.”

  Trudi dug through the cupboard, snagged a box of graham crackers, and handed one to Davy. His screaming silenced. Then she crouched before PJ, as if she might also need a cracker. “Calm down. I’ve dealt with allergic reactions before. I would have known what to do. But more than that, you were here in time.”

  “I don’t know, Trude. It just seems that . . . trouble seems to follow me. I dodge it. And now I’m back here, the same person I tried to leave behind.”

  “The same?”

  “Joe hired me.”

  “PJ, you’re hardly the same person. For one, you’re smarter.”

  “I got my nephew kicked out of preschool.”

  “You had to make a stand.”

  “And I’m all but sitting by the phone. Hoping . . . you know.”

  “That Boone will call?” Trudi’s eyes told PJ exactly how pitiful she’d become.

  “I just don’t know how things can get worse.”

  “Hey, Trude.” A door opened behind her and Jack poked his head out. “Has the postman been here yet? I’m expecting a package.”

  “No—”

  “That’s not all you should be expecting.”

  The voice came from behind Jack, who turned. PJ groaned. It just wasn’t fair that even here, even now—

  “Boone, what are you doing here?” Trudi rose as he appeared at the door.

  Boone wore an unfamiliar, even dangerous expression, similar to the one he’d worn on Sunday at the club, his eyes unyielding.

  His gaze scoured over PJ, unreadable for just a moment before he turned to Jack. “Jack Wilkes, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ernie Hoffman.”