Plotting at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  Evan and I chatted with the other Rynwoodites standing in line for the forty-five minutes it took us to get seated, learning that Stephanie Waldress’s son was doing well in the 800 meter this track season, and that Carol and Nick Casassa were planning on a trip up the Alaska Highway. Small talk in small towns. It was the glue that held us together. I’d once thought of it as gossip—and some topics I still considered so—but I’d come around to the belief that it mattered why Mr. Brinkley stopped a fifteen-year tradition of having breakfast at the Green Tractor.

  After all, if I hadn’t heard that he’d been diagnosed with an advanced case of stomach cancer, I wouldn’t have stopped by his house for a visit. We wouldn’t have started talking about his Depression-era childhood. I wouldn’t have made a vague comment about how children never really understood how different life had been for their grandparents. Mr. Brinkley wouldn’t have laughed and told me to send them over, that he’d tell them all about hand pumps in the kitchen sink and helping his mother can tomatoes in August heat. And I wouldn’t have come up with the idea for the senior story project.

  “So what do you think?” Evan asked.

  I blinked, and had no idea what he’d been talking about, none at all. “A glass of diet soda?”

  He laughed. “No, what do you think about this?” He tapped a collection of brochures that had magically appeared on the table. Judging from the creases, they had been in his pocket. “What do you think?”

  I fanned through the glossy trifolds and tried to figure out what was going on. “They’re all . . . nice.” As in Hawaii nice. Mexico nice. Alaskan and Caribbean cruise nice.

  “That they are.” Evan smiled at me, that crooked grin that melted my heart into a puddle. “Anything else?”

  Was he saying . . . ? No, he couldn’t be. We’d never truly broached the topic of . . . of . . . “Um, I’ve never been to any of these places. Have you?”

  “Did you see this?” Evan turned to the back of the Hawaii brochure. “On Kauai there’s a train ride that takes you through a working plantation and—”

  My cell phone trilled out a digital rendition of the theme song for The Twilight Zone. Over Christmas, Jenna had declared that the standard ringtone I’d been using was embarrassing her to death. I’d said she could change it to anything she wanted, not anticipating that she’d actually spend the time to figure it out, and then keep changing it on a random basis. But as I told Marina, it could be worse. She could download the “Chicken Dance.”

  I dug deep into my purse. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Forgot to turn it off. Do you mind?”

  Evan made a go-ahead gesture, and I looked at the number. “This won’t take long,” I said, and put the phone to my ear. “What’s up?”

  “The temperature, the grass in my yard, and Zach’s height,” Marina said. “Do you realize that boy has grown three inches since last fall?”

  “You called to tell me that?”

  “Of course not. That’s the kind of really important stuff I save for telegrams.” There was a pause. “Do you think there still are telegrams?”

  “Marina, I’m in a restaurant. With Evan.”

  “And answering your cell phone?” She tsked. “Goodness, how rude of you.”

  “You’re right. I’d better go.”

  “No, wait! I found out something.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, how big a something?”

  “Um . . . ten. Or maybe a zero. Depending.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not this is actual proof that Amy was murdered.”

  In an instant, the sights and sounds around me receded to the back of my consciousness, and I was once again in Amy’s backyard, seeing her porch and lilacs and bird feeders. “Tell me.”

  “The cans of bee killer you were so curious about? Well, thanks to your friendly neighborhood busybody—that’s me, by the way—we now know that Amy had one can with her.”

  One? One didn’t make sense. If she had one, she’d have had two.

  “You can thank me later for my hard work,” Marina said. “The sweat of my brow is as nothing.”

  I made appropriate noises of admiration, then, “How did you find out, anyway?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  She was well launched into a long tale of finding out that her neighbor was the sister of the cousin (or was it the brother-in-law? She couldn’t remember for sure) of one of the EMTs that was called to Amy’s house when Evan tapped the back of my hand. Our waitress was fast approaching and I hadn’t even looked at the menu. Not that I needed to. Tonight was a salad night, dressing on the side, please. I made my good-byes and set the phone on my lap.

  “What can I get for you?” The waitress stood with pen poised over an order pad.

  I placed my low-calorie order and listened to Evan ask for a medium pizza with pepperoni and Italian sausage. Men.

  When the waitress left, he reached across the table and took my hands in his. “There are so many places I’d like to take you. This could be just the start.”

  I looked into his light blue eyes. Dove down in. My grandmother Chittenden had always said handsome is as handsome does. As a child I hadn’t known what that meant, and I still didn’t, not for sure. But I did know that the handsome man across the table made me feel different than I’d ever felt in my life. The problem was, I hadn’t quite figured out what that difference was. As soon as I did, I’d know what to do, but until then, I had to slow things down. For me, yes, but for my children’s sake even more.

  “As in, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship?” Smiling, I pulled my hands away. “Traveling is something I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s hard with the kids so young.” I opened the brochures and looked at the pictures of sandy beaches. If I managed to lose those twenty pounds I might wear a bikini like that, but I doubted it.

  My thoughts wandered away. I wondered what kind of swimsuit Kelly had been wearing that night. Wondered if Amy had owned a swimsuit. If she’d even known how to swim . . .

  Evan watched me. “Beth, is something bothering you?”

  I blinked. “Like what?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. You seem preoccupied. I know you’re always busy, but lately you’re farther away than ever. Is there something on your mind?”

  There were all sorts of somethings on my mind. If he was asking me to discuss all of them, we’d be here until midnight. On Tuesday.

  “You’ve been looking preoccupied in a very focused way,” he said. “Like you looked last Thanksgiving after Sam Helmstetter was murdered and you took it upon yourself to do something about it.”

  He was making it sound as if I’d become a vigilante. I hadn’t really wanted to do anything, but circumstances had pushed me too hard.

  “No one in Rynwood has been murdered,” Evan said. “So there’s no investigating going on, correct?”

  This whole conversation was making me feel very prickly. “And what if I was?”

  “Then I’d ask you to stop. It’s not your place. We have laws and law enforcement officers to enforce those laws.”

  “What if they’re not doing their job?”

  “There are more appropriate ways to—”

  My phone rattled against the plastic laminate tabletop as we were once again treated to the The Twilight Zone theme song.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “Thought I’d turned it off.” But, weak person that I was, I looked to see who was calling. I jumped to my feet. “Evan, I need to take this call. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  I hurried through the restaurant, trying to get outside, trying to get somewhere that wasn’t so packed with background noise. “This is Beth.”

  “And this isn’t,” said an old, crackly voice. “You got any answers yet? Or is Maudie going to have to die knowing you didn’t lift a finger to help her?”

  When I’d seen the number for Sunny Rest on my phone’s screen, I’d expected bad news, for how could any call from there on a Satur
day evening be anything else? But I hadn’t prepared myself for something worse than bad news: A phone call from Auntie May.

  “I’ve been working on it,” I said. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to talk to Maude.” But tomorrow I had church and I needed to finish up the story project stories that had been handed in. Plus it was Mother’s Day and Richard was dropping the kids off early. “Or Monday. Tuesday at the latest. And what do you mean, about her dying. Is she sick? She looked fine the other day.”

  “At her age, you can’t expect much,” Auntie May said. “Now tell me. Have you been doing your best? Maudie deserves it, and if you aren’t doing your darnedest I want to know about it.”

  Her snide words cut at me. “Well, I—”

  She rode right over the start of my explanation. “Ah, I knew you were shirking. Don’t waste your breath denying the truth. Makes you look stupid.”

  “But I have done something. I’ve talked to the police. The official report said it was an accident.” I paused. “Auntie May? Hello?” No answer; nothing but an empty phone line that was giving a very good impression of censure.

  I stared at the phone that I was beginning to hate. Auntie May’s taunt stung because she was, as per usual, correct in her accusation—I hadn’t been doing my best. And I’d promised Maude I would.

  Vandalism, cheating, stealing, wanton waste, cruelty, greed—I hated all of these, but I hated hypocrisy even more. It was too late to take back the promise I never should have made, but at least I could do something about my hypocrisy.

  * * *

  John Engel, Kelly’s father, stirred his decaf coffee and smiled at me. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  I hated when people said that. It made me feel slightly naked, for one thing. For another, whatever they’d heard was probably wrong. And wrong for different reasons, depending on where the information had come from.

  “Yes,” Barb Engel said. “Aunt Maude hasn’t talked about anything except you and your son since this story thing got going.”

  Taken straight, her comment was a simple statement of fact. The vocal inflections she’d colored it with, however, gave her words a harsh edge that made me want to squirm.

  I didn’t reply for a moment. The woman had lost a child, after all. There couldn’t be anything in the world harder to bear, and I couldn’t imagine what it would do to someone’s heart and mind.

  I busied myself with pouring a substantial amount of milk from the tiny pitcher into my exceedingly dark coffee.

  When I’d called right after church, John had answered the phone. I’d introduced myself as a friend of Maude’s and he’d immediately issued an invitation to afternoon coffee. I’d expected us to sit around a kitchen table with clunky, mismatched mugs. Instead, the three of us were settled into a living room that looked like something straight out of the furniture store. Sofa, chairs, loveseat, coffee table, and end tables all showed an equal amount of wear, which was to say none. Barb had carried in the tray of coffee accoutrements and the three of us had sat equidistant from each other, the husband and wife in facing chairs, me in the middle of the sofa.

  One of my intentions in stopping was to find out what everyone else seemed to know about Maude, but the brittle atmosphere in the room wasn’t going to make that easy.

  “So.” John sipped his coffee. “Maude says you’re going to figure out what happened the night Kelly died.”

  “Be nice if someone did.”

  John ignored his wife’s sour comment. “The police said it was an accident, as I’m sure you know,” he said. “I’m not sure what you expect to find out after all this time. It’s very nice of you to help Maude, she’s something isn’t she, but I’m afraid you’ll be wasting your time.”

  “It’s her time to waste,” Barb said. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Now, Barb—”

  “Don’t ‘now, Barb’ me!” she snapped. “Just because you don’t have the courage to face the truth doesn’t mean I don’t.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “Barb, we’ve been over and over this. There’s no proof Kelly was murdered. There’s no motive, no nothing. It was an accident, honey. Why can’t you accept it?”

  “Because I know my daughter!”

  The intensity of her words rang through my skin and into my bones, and my body shook with a sudden chill. Kelly had been dead for twenty years, but Barb had used the present tense. “I know my daughter.” And so she did. Barb’s knowledge wouldn’t disappear because the flesh was gone. Her love for Kelly lived on; how could it not? The use of present tense made complete sense to me.

  For the first time since I’d entered their house, I looked deep into their faces. Coward that I was, I’d skated over really looking at them. They’d had to endure the loss of a child and I didn’t want to know what that looked like.

  From what Maude had told me, I’d calculated the Engels to be in their early sixties. Maude had said they’d met at school, so I’d assumed the two were close in age. But either my assumption was wrong or their paces of aging had taken different routes. Much different.

  John, dressed in casual slacks and a polo shirt, looked fit and trim enough to be featured on the cover of the AARP magazine.

  Barb, however, had taken the harder road. Her skin already had the crepey look of advanced age, and her hair looked brittle enough that a rough combing would break off the strands an inch from her scalp. If her housedress was any indication, she hadn’t bought new clothes in years. Each of her movements were choppy and disconnected, as if they’d been planned in advance, but had forgotten half the plan’s steps.

  “I knew her, too,” John said quietly. “You seem to forget that.”

  “I don’t forget anything.” She pushed her chin into the air. “You’re the one who forgets. You can’t even remember her face without a picture, can you?”

  John got to his feet and looked down at his wife. “No one murdered Kelly. She swam out too far and drowned. There’s no bad guy, no conspiracy, and no stealthy figures running around in the night. It’s time to stop being angry, Barb. It was an accident. An accident. You’ve held this too close for too long, and I don’t care what Maude says, I’m not about to let this young woman take on your obsession.” He looked at me. “Beth, thank you for coming, but there’s really nothing you can do.”

  I glanced at Barb. She was perched on the edge of the chair, legs pressed tight together, fists on knees. Poised for action, waiting for . . . something. “Um,” I said.

  “Let me see you to the door.” John waited politely as I maneuvered myself off the couch. I tried to make eye contact with Barb, but her head was down so all I could see was a mass of gray hair. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

  John opened the front door, ushered me onto the porch, and closed the door behind us. “I’d like to apologize for my wife.”

  “No need. Really.”

  “Before, she saw every day as an opportunity for fun. Now she spends her days reading biographies.”

  “. . . Biographies?”

  “She read though the entire biography section in the Rynwood Public Library in two years. Then she started driving to Madison, and somehow she got permission to check books out of the university’s library. And now she has an eReader. Do you know how many biographies she’s stuck onto that thing in the last year?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Five hundred! She reads all these books and a week later can’t remember a thing about them. I used to ask questions, but when I asked her the names of Henry VIII’s wives two days after she finished a book on him and she could only come up with Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, I couldn’t take it anymore.” His voice trembled. “Just . . . couldn’t.”

  I lifted a hand. To comfort him, to sympathize with him, I wasn’t sure what, but he turned away from my touch.

  “And now I need to apologize for my behavior.” He was back to the patrician gentleman. “I am sorry. This isn’t how you’d intended to spend your Sunday afternoon, I’m sure.”


  “My children are spending the weekend with their father,” I said. “But they’ll be home soon. It is . . .” I stopped.

  “It’s what?”

  “Mother’s Day,” I whispered.

  My steady gaze met his, and after a moment, he looked down. Blew out a light sigh. Shifted his feet. “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Well. It is, isn’t it? I’m sure the girls will be calling Barb soon. That should perk her up a bit.”

  He nodded and retreated into the house.

  I walked down the porch steps and over to the bicycle I’d parked on the side of the driveway. I turned it around and glanced over my shoulder at the classic Colonial home where Kelly had grown up.

  Four rooms down, four rooms up, a basic white box with green shutters and darker green shrubbery in front. Once upon a time there may have been flowers softening the edges of the hard-trimmed shrubs. Once upon a time there may have been tiny pink bikes scattered across the yard. A playhouse in the back.

  I faced forward, swung my leg over the back tire, hopped on the seat, and started pedaling for all I was worth. I suddenly wanted to get away from this house. A house was all it was; it wasn’t a home any longer. There was no nurturing going on there, no happiness, and certainly no laughter. And without laughter, how could love survive? Laughter was a—

  “Wait!” A woman stepped out from behind a massive lilac bush, waving her arms. She ran out across the sidewalk and into the street.

  I braked as hard as I could as fast as I could and almost somersaulted over the handlebars. The back tire lifted up, then came back down with a thump. My feet slipped, and the pedals whacked my shins as my shoes hit the pavement. Hard.

  “There wasn’t any way to talk to you in the house. Not with him there,” Barb said. “Come on. He might be looking for me.” She walked over to the shade of the lilac bush without looking to see if I followed.

  I looked at my shins. There’d be big, dark bruises tomorrow.