Plotting at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  Lindsay laughed. “And you think Gary’s going to have an opinion on this? He sits on the fence so long that he’s going to get a permanent crease in his behind.”

  “He’s still adjusting to being principal,” I said. “After being vice principal for so long, it’s bound to take a while.”

  “Been almost a year.” Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Say, Millie, you’ve talked to the kids about this project. Do you think Oliver’s too young?”

  “Oliver Kennedy,” Millie mused. “About this high”—she held her hand up where the top of my son’s head would be—“light brown hair, normal kid skinny.”

  Lindsay laughed. “That’s him.” She cocked her head, and her eyes went distant. “Uh-oh. That sounds like the UPS guy. I’d better get the door.” Her eyes refocused and she headed for the attractions of a young man in brown shorts.

  I looked at Millie. “What else can you tell me about Oliver?”

  And Jenna, too, come to think of it. But only tell me good things, please. I don’t want to hear anything bad. I’m sure there aren’t any bad things, naturally, but I don’t even want to hear semibad.

  “What else?” Millie looked at the ceiling. “Hmm. Serious eyes. More a watcher than an instigator. Smart. A little inward. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had an imaginary friend around age three or four.”

  I stared at her. How had she known?

  Millie hummed a little tune. “Math isn’t his strong suit, as I recall, but he does just fine with everything else.” She smiled at me. “He’s a wonderful kid. He and Jenna both. And regarding his participation in the story project, well, he may be only eight, but I imagine he’ll do just fine.”

  “Tristan,” I blurted out. “His imaginary friend was Tristan. And I have no idea where he got the name.”

  “It’s Claudia who’s objecting to Oliver?” Millie asked.

  I nodded. “Erica and Randy are both fine with it. Especially since the senior citizen in question is a good friend of Auntie May’s.”

  “Is this your aunt?”

  “Oh, no.” I recoiled at the thought of having May Werner as a blood relative. I flapped around for an explanation. “Not mine. Not anyone’s. It’s more of an honorific title.” It was a good question, though. Did Auntie May have real nieces and nephews? At her age she’d probably have great-nieces and nephews. Great-greats even. And if she didn’t have any of those relatives littering the landscape, why had the title of “Auntie” been bestowed upon her in the first place?

  Millie smiled. “We have a lot of those down in Carolina.”

  “I certainly hope not,” I said fervently.

  She threw back her head and laughed, a big, rolling, contagious bubble of joy. “So you’re the source of Jenna’s sense of humor. I wondered where it had come from.”

  If not me, it must have fallen from the sky. Poor Richard’s laughter had devolved to the strained type that always sounded as if he was trying too hard.

  Millie glanced at her watch. “Time for me to get to the next school.”

  Tarver shared a psychologist with three other elementaries. It worked out well, budgetwise, but the turnover rate for psychologists was higher than the average bear’s. It flabbergasted me that Millie already knew my two children so well. How many kids was she semiresponsible for? Hundreds, at the least. The woman was a keeper.

  “Thank you,” I said impulsively.

  “You’re very welcome.” She looked at me with a quizzical smile.

  Thanks for what, exactly, was her question, but she was too polite to ask it out loud. “It’s nice,” I said, “to have you here, that’s all.”

  “And nice of you to say so. Unless I’m in private session, I have an open-door policy.” She gestured with her thumb back to her office. “Tell your children to stop by any time they’d like. The same goes for you, too. I’m always happy to talk with parents.”

  A small, wicked part of me wanted to ask, Even if the parent is Claudia Wolff? Instead, I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

  * * *

  I sat on the edge of Maude’s loveseat, listening raptly.

  “We couldn’t just walk into a store and buy bags of groceries and walk out,” she said. “Not during the war.”

  Oliver, freshly approved for the story project by his principal, was sitting on a stool by Maude’s feet and frowning. “How come?”

  “Rationing.” She tapped the arms of her wheelchair. “But you don’t know about rationing, do you? Oh, dear.” She sighed. “You don’t know much of anything, do you?” Her words could have sounded harsh, but since they were delivered with a soft voice that breathed kindness, it was impossible to take offense.

  “Not really.” Oliver sighed back. “I’m only eight.”

  “When I was eight, it was . . .” She sucked in her lips. “Let me see, it was 1933. Things were bad because of the Depression, but I didn’t know that. My dad owned the only service station in town. Even with the gas rationing, we never went hungry. Sold gas for ten cents a gallon, back then.”

  “What’s a service station?” Oliver asked.

  Maude smiled, showing bright white dentures. “Something I bet your mother doesn’t remember, either.”

  I leaned back and clasped my hands around one raised knee. Leaned back carefully, because the loveseat was upholstered in a smooth brocade fabric that would be happy to see me slide off onto the floor. “There was one service station in town when I was a kid,” I said. “But by the time I started driving they were all gone.”

  “Where are you from, dear?” Maude asked.

  Oliver spoke up. “She grew up near Petoskey, Michigan. Here, see?” He held up one hand in a mitten shape and pointed to the tip of his ring finger. “Grandpa Emmerling ran a newspaper.”

  I smiled at my son. People rolled their eyes every time Michiganders pulled out their hands. Michiganders—and their offspring, apparently—saw it as the easiest way to communicate geographical information.

  “You know a lot about your mother,” Maude said.

  Oliver nodded. “And my dad. We had to learn it last year in school. My dad was born in Milwaukee in 1968, but my mom was born in 1970, and . . .” He stopped. Opened his eyes wide. Turned to look at me, panic setting in around his mouth.

  Because Maude’s eyes were filling with tears. One drop had started to trickle down her wrinkled cheek and a host of others were making ready to follow.

  “Oliver,” I said quickly, “why don’t you go down the hall to the dining room and see if you can find a paper cup and a straw for Mrs. Hoffman.” Another teardrop cascaded down. I stood. “And do you remember Tracy? Mrs. Hoffman’s aide? Find her and ask if there’s a special snack Mrs. Hoffman might like.”

  He looked at Mrs. Hoffman, his lower lip trembling. I put my hand on his head. “Go, sweetie,” I said. “It’ll be all right.” I leaned down and whispered in his ear. “It’s not your fault.”

  His face cleared slightly. “Okay.” He stood, headed for the door, then ran back and patted Maude’s hand as gently as if he’d been patting a kitten’s head. “I’ll bring you something to make you feel better.”

  I sat on Oliver’s stool and took Maude’s thin palm between my own.

  We sat. I patted her hand. She cried.

  And cried.

  After a few minutes, I pulled a facial tissue out of the box next to her bed and offered it to her. “Thank you,” she whispered and blew her nose delicately. I took the tissue from her, dropped it into a nearby wastebasket, and handed her a new one.

  When she’d used up a third tissue and was wiping her eyes with a fourth, I settled myself in Oliver’s listening position; elbows on knees, chin in hands. “Is there anything I can get you?”

  “No, dear.” She wiped at her eyes. “So embarrassing to sit here, bawling like a baby. You must think I’m a silly old woman.”

  “I think you’re wonderful. But if there’s something you don’t want to talk to Oliver about, let me know. The last thing we want to d
o is cause you any upset.”

  “You are a lovely girl, aren’t you? So kind and considerate. Your mother did a good job.” She reached forward and patted my knee. “And you’re doing a lovely job raising Oliver. Such a nice young boy.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured. Wasn’t me, it was sheer luck, but I was finally learning to accept compliments. I didn’t have to agree with them, after all.

  “Now.” She settled back in her wheelchair. “I owe you an explanation for my little scene. No, please don’t argue. What I hadn’t told Oliver yet is that my husband and I never had any children. Back in those days you never knew why and my husband didn’t care for the idea of adoption.” She paused to wipe her eyes, and went on.

  “One of my sisters lived down the street from us. Her children, my nieces, were in and out of our house so much they were almost like our own children.” She looked at her lap. “Almost, but not quite.”

  Her pain was so obvious it was almost visible. It would be a deep and burrowing kind of pain, pulsating with different colors: white with heat, red with fire, then black with the kind of sorrow that comes at three in the morning when there’s nothing, and no one, who can comfort you.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said softly.

  “Thank you. We do the best we can with what we have, don’t we, and at least I had children in my life, and they were my own flesh and blood, even if they never called me Momma.”

  “I’m sure you were the perfect aunt,” I said, handing her another tissue, for at the word “Momma,” more tears had started to brim over.

  “It was all so long ago, you’d think I’d hardly remember.”

  On the other hand, even at less than half her age, some of my sharpest memories were hurtful ones. The time the neighborhood boys put pine cones in my hair. My sister Kathy walking down the street with her friends and ignoring my eager wave.

  “When you get to be my age,” Maude said, “most things were a long time ago. But in here?” She tapped her chest, a small thumping noise that could have been the echo of her heartbeat. “Some things happened yesterday.”

  I nodded. I could feel how that was going to happen. It was already happening.

  “You were born in 1970.” Maude twisted her tissue so hard that small white pieces shredded onto her lap. “And so was my niece.” Her voice was trembling, a bird beating its wings against cold air. “Kelly,” she breathed. “My little Kelly. She was so beautiful.”

  “Was”? I didn’t want to hear this. I wanted to shut my ears to this poor woman’s story, which clearly wasn’t going to have a happy ending. “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “Oh, my dear.” Maude gave a sad, sad smile. “You already know, don’t you? She’s dead.”

  I nodded. “How old was she?”

  Maude’s clear eyes lost their focus. “My sister and her husband moved to a condominium after the girls were grown, and my niece and her husband stayed on. Their girls grew up just like my own nieces, in and out of our house every day. Kelly was the youngest. Long blond hair in braids, then ponytails, then loose down her back.” She trailed her hand down the back of her arm. “Her hair, it was the color of morning sunlight.”

  I didn’t want to hear what happened. I wanted Kelly alive and well and living in her mother’s house with her own sunlit-haired children. “What happened?”

  “She didn’t do it,” Maude said. “They say she did, but I knew Kelly. She wouldn’t do a thing like that.” She looked at me earnestly.

  I nodded. Not that I had any idea what she was talking about, but she was waiting for some sort of reaction, so I had to do something. Nodding was easy. And subject to interpretation.

  “It was all whispers, afterward.” She dropped her voice to a rasp. “Did you hear about Kelly? It’s so sad what Kelly did.” Her head came up, her chin firm. “Kelly didn’t do it, I tell you. She didn’t!”

  I was getting a bad feeling about this.

  “She was only eighteen.” The tissue lay in pieces on her lap. “Just turned eighteen. Why would a girl with everything ahead of her take her own life?”

  And there it was. It lay there in front of us, sallow and limp and big enough to pull all the air out of the room. Suicide, that sad, ugly word, no one ever wanted to hear.

  “Why would she?” Maude insisted. “Why?”

  But she didn’t meet my eyes. She knew as well as I that there were almost as many reasons for a teenager to commit suicide as there were teenagers.

  I edged forward and laid a hand on her knee. “What happened?” I asked.

  She took hold of my hand with a grip that ground my bones together. “How could she drown herself?” she asked fiercely. “She couldn’t. That girl was part fish. Swimming before she was three. Winning ribbons at summer swim meets when she was six. Drown?” Maude made a noise in the back of her throat. “Might as well say Johnny Weissmuller could have drowned.”

  “Did it . . . ?” I looked over my shoulder, through the walls and in the direction of Blue Lake, the lake where all young Rynwoodites learned to swim.

  Maude followed my gaze. “It was in late May, not long before her high school graduation. They say she was depressed from her boyfriend breaking it off with her on the night of her prom.”

  The poor girl.

  Maude pulled at my hand and I turned back to look at her.

  “She was going to college. Kelly was going to get her biology degree and work at a doctor’s office in the summers.” Maude’s pride in her great-niece shone in her ringing tones. “She had straight A’s always. She was going to be a doctor. Does that sound like a girl who would drown herself over some boy?”

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t.” But did we ever know who was likely to take her own life? Sometimes. Not always. Not nearly always.

  “Find out,” she said.

  I blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve done this before.” Maude leaned close. “May Werner told me about it. You’ve hunted down killers and put them in jail where they belong. Do it for Kelly.”

  “I . . . what?”

  “Now, no need to be shy. It was in the papers, both times. You do realize, don’t you, that you have a gift for talking to people?” She patted my hand in much the same way I’d patted hers. “And a tremendous gift for listening. That’s the most precious gift of all.”

  What I had was a gift for incredibly bad timing. Including this particular moment. If I hadn’t sent Oliver off, would I have heard all this? And the incidents that Maude had mentioned, I’d stumbled half blind into things that if I’d been using my brain properly, I wouldn’t have come within miles of.

  “No one remembers Kelly.” Maude’s shoulders curled forward. “Just her parents. And old Aunt Maude.” She sighed. “I’m not sure even her sisters really remember her.”

  “That’s . . .” I searched for the right words. Couldn’t find any.

  “Yes,” Maude said, her head hanging down. “But life goes on. For some of us, at least.” Her lower lip trembled. “Please tell me you’ll find out what really happened to Kelly. You’re the only one who’ll care enough. Please help me.”

  She pulled my hand tight to her chest. I felt her heart beating fast through her thin sweater. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. “Maude, I—”

  “Please?”

  So close, I could see the veins in her neck pounding in time almost with her heartbeat. So close, I could see the texture of her skin. So close, I could see how small red veins were branching out through the whites of her eyes. So close, I could see how badly she wanted me to do this.

  But how could I? I was just a middle-aged mom. A bookstore owner. Secretary of the local PTA. How could I tell this good woman that I’d help her when in all likelihood I wouldn’t be able to find out a thing? Her great-niece had died more than twenty years ago. How on earth could I uncover anything new?

  “Please?” she whispered.

  Then again, how could I not?

  I squeezed her hand. “Maude, I’ll—”
/>
  “Got her talked into it yet?”

  I whirled around to see Auntie May wheeling herself into the room.

  “You told her you’d do it, right?” She pointed at me.

  “Well, I—”

  “Better have.” The left front wheel of her chair rolled on top of my foot. “Maudie needs you. If you don’t help her and she dies without finding out what happened to Kelly, you’ll never forgive yourself. Bet on it.”

  “Auntie May, I—”

  “Don’t ‘Auntie May’ me, young lady. And don’t give me any song and dancing about being too busy. I see you traipsing down the street to talk to that pretty Evan Garrett all hours of the day. Spend a little of that time working on something constructive and the world would be a better place.”

  I felt heat inch up my neck. “That’s not fair, I—”

  “Pisher-doodle,” she said. “Maudie comes to you for help and all you think about is your boyfriend. There’s trouble in that, real trouble. What kind of example are you setting for that girl of yours? What kind of mother are you . . . eh? What’s that?”

  “I said I’ll do it,” I said loudly.

  “You bet you—” Auntie May stopped and cupped her hand around her ear. “Did you say you’ll do it?”

  “Yes. I can’t promise anything, but—”

  “Oh, goody!” Maude clapped her hands. “She’s going to do it, May!”

  “I heard.” Auntie May stared at me so hard I flexed my hands to make sure I wasn’t turning to stone. “No shirking, young lady. Do a good job, you hear? Otherwise you’ll be hearing from me.” She thumped her chest with her fist.

  Maude smiled. “She’ll do fine. I have complete confidence in Beth.”

  “Hmmph.” Auntie May speared me with a glare.

  She would make my life miserable if I couldn’t help Maude. She’d haunt the store like an avenging angel. She’d stalk me on the sidewalks. She’d cackle and point and become the screaming harridan who hovered on the edges of all Rynwoodian nightmares.