Plotting at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  His face lost the attorney look and he became Evan again. He leaned forward and took my hands in his. “You’re still cold. Come here.” He pulled me up into his arms and sat us down again, this time with me on his lap.

  I laid my forehead against his, taking care to keep my wet hair away from him.

  “Now,” he said. “Are you going to tell me why you were out swimming all alone in the dark?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  He chuckled. “Is this when we start deciding how stupid you were?”

  “How about later?” His skin smelled of man-soap, a delicious scent that was doing quivery things to my insides. I kissed his temple, just where his blond hair was going white.

  “Was Marina involved in this?” he asked. “Don’t tell me it was some sort of dare.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.” Marina hadn’t the least idea I’d gone out to the lake. I hadn’t told her for the simple reason that she’d have insisted on going with me. She too would have wanted an explanation, and saying that I wanted to commune with a dead teenager would have earned me a burst of laughter and an elbow in the ribs. “Funny,” she’d have said. “Now tell me the real reason.”

  “Ah,” Evan was saying. “I thought so.”

  He’d misinterpreted my answer. I started to correct him, then let it go. He would have taken my protestations not as truth, but as a defense of friendship. Which it would have been. Truth, too, though.

  Evan kissed my forehead. I loved it when he did that. Loved the feeling of being taken care of, being close, being cherished. I watched his blood beat through the veins in his neck, counting the beats, mesmerized by the feel of this wonderful, handsome man. What did I ever do to deserve him? He was kind, he was thoughtful, he—

  “Don’t you think,” he said, “that it’s time to move on from Marina?”

  —he could be more than a little overbearing. I drew back a little. Watching his pulse wasn’t that interesting. “What do you mean, move on?”

  He stroked my damp hair. “Just a thought, Beth, that’s all. Don’t you think she holds you back? You have so much potential.”

  “Have you been talking to my mother?” I slid off his lap and sat on the hearth, fluffing my hair in front of the fire’s heat. “She used to say the same thing about my best friend in high school.”

  “And was she right?”

  I stopped, midfluff. “No, she wasn’t.” Though I spoke quietly, I spoke with a “no questions allowed” tone of voice.

  Evan shifted so that both his legs were on the hearth, crossed at the ankles. His position effectively trapped me—legs on one side of me, chair on the other. I pushed away the feeling of claustrophobia and concentrated on drying my hair. He wasn’t trapping me on purpose, he was just getting comfortable, that was all.

  “Don’t you think,” he asked, “that our friends are one of the ways by which we’re measured?”

  “Yes.” My breaths started to come short and fast. I didn’t like enclosed spaces, I didn’t like not being able to move when I wanted to, and I really didn’t like being kept from moving by another human being. I hated crowds, even when the crowd was only two people.

  I glanced at him. He was sitting with his elbow propped up on one arm of the chair, his chin resting on his thumb, middle finger laid just below his very kissable lower lip. His index finger, however, was tap tap tapping his cheek.

  I was not going to start a defense campaign for Marina. Of all the people in the world who didn’t need defending, it was Marina Neff. Sure, she could try the patience of a veteran nursery school teacher with her fake accents and constant wordplay games, but her virtues were as obvious as her faults.

  If Mr. Garrett thought he could dictate who my friends were, he was gravely mistaken. Matter of fact—I yanked my fingers through my hair too hard and winced with pain—if Mr. Evan Garrett thought he had any right whatsoever to tell me what to do about anything, he was mistaken. One more comment about Marina and—

  “May I ask you something?” Evan sat up, put his feet on the floor, and faced me.

  The intensity of his gaze made me nervous. “Um, sure.” As long as the question didn’t involve anything about ending a friendship, a change in staffing at the bookstore, or a lifetime commitment, I was good.

  “If I asked you to take Spot with you when you go out, would you do it?”

  “Take . . . Spot?” His request made no sense. “But . . .”

  “I know that Spot is certainly no protection against a real assailant, but just the presence of a dog could give you a small measure of safety. An attacker wouldn’t know that Spot is more likely to lick him to death than to bite him.”

  I gaped at him. “You’re worried about my safety?”

  His smile was crooked. “You’d rather I didn’t?”

  “Well, no. I mean of course I don’t want you to worry, but it’s just I didn’t expect . . . I didn’t . . . what I mean is . . .” I had no idea what I meant. I’d dived into babble mode, where every word I uttered was bound to be stupid.

  “Beth.” Evan took my hands. “We’ve danced around this for months. I know you’re not sure the kids are ready, but I want to marry you. I love you. I want to take care of you and make sure you’re safe and warm and happy. You deserve all I can give you and more.”

  I wanted to say something eloquent, something we’d both remember, something worth writing down. “Oh.”

  He smiled. “You don’t have to answer right now. I’ve waited for this moment for a long time and I’ll wait as long as it takes. But will you do one thing for me? Promise that you won’t go out alone without your dog?”

  His light blue gaze rested on my face. A caress. No, more than that. A claim. I was being laid claim to, even if I hadn’t yet acknowledged the ownership.

  “I’d be much happier about your safety,” he said, “if you at least had Spot with you.”

  The idea that this attractive, fit, intelligent, semirich man had just proposed to me was going to take some getting used to. There were a number of questions to be considered. Would he be a suitable stepfather for Jenna and Oliver? Was he the man with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life? I’d thought that, once, about Richard, and had wept long tears when I’d pulled the rings off my left hand.

  Then, softly, in almost a whisper, he asked, “Please?”

  The thoughts in my head fuzzed together and I said the worst thing possible. “I promise.”

  Chapter 15

  Marina’s voice roared out of my cell phone and into my poor, defenseless ear. “He what?”

  “You heard me the first time,” I said.

  “Sure, but I can’t believe Mr. Evan Garrett would propose like that. On a weeknight? I’d have thought he’d have witnesses and a string quartet at the very least.”

  “There was a fire in the fireplace.” Gas fire, but still.

  She grunted. “Point. But I am seriously bummed my guess was so wrong.”

  I put my hand over the phone. “Jenna! Oliver! Stay on the trail, okay? And make sure Spot doesn’t get into anything stinky.” Vague assents wafted backward. The section of the park where we were hiking was so thick with maple trees that darkness seemed imminent, even though it was only seven o’clock. After dinner the kids had been so full of energy that I’d suggested a walk.

  I took my hand off the phone. “So how wrong were you?”

  “Very,” Marina said, “since there was no moonlight, no horse and carriage, no flowers, no ring in a robin’s egg blue box, and no obscenely sized bouquet of roses. And I must say I’m not happy that it took almost twenty-four hours for me to get this news.”

  “I was swamped at the store. And I was trying to edit the story session stories, and the phone hardly stopped ringing all day.”

  “Mmm.”

  Why, exactly, I hadn’t told Marina right away I wasn’t quite sure myself. I hadn’t told the kids yet, either. Maybe tonight, after we got home from this walk. Or Sunday might be good. I could ease into
it over the weekend. Drop some hints. Jenna would pick up on those right away, though Oliver might need it spelled out a little more. As in, “How would you feel if Evan lived here all the time?”

  But would he? He owned a perfectly nice home. Not kid-proof, with its off-white upholstery and objects of art placed on pedestals, but nice enough.

  “So,” Marina said. “I hear you went for a swim last night.”

  I blinked. “How did you know that?”

  “I am all knowing and all powerful.”

  “Of course you are,” I murmured.

  “Plus, I can’t believe you forgot that Debra-don’t-call-me-Debbie O’Conner lives across the street from the beach.”

  I had forgotten. The O’Conners used to live not far from Marina, but last summer they’d moved. “Debra spies on people who go swimming?” I asked.

  Once upon a time, Debra had had ambitions to be much more than a small-town bank vice president. Plus, she’d had her hair cut in Chicago, worn spiky high heels, and made all other mothers feel inadequate by doing all her baking from scratch.

  In the last year or so, however, she’d shifted her goals from business to enjoying life as much as possible. Which, since I was lucky if I had time to enjoy my children’s kiss at bedtime, also made me feel inadequate.

  “No, Debra takes her dogs for a walk just before going to bed.” Marina clucked at me. “What were you doing out there, oh silly one? Trying to re-create the scene of Kelly’s death?”

  “Something like that.”

  I expected her to berate me for doing something so stupid without her coming along to take notes, but she said, “Well, did you figure out anything?”

  A cloud went over the sun, and the tree-induced gloom through which we were walking darkened a little more. Jenna and Oliver kept on, paying no attention to the sky, but Spot cast a doggy look upward.

  And there I was in the water, arching my head back, trying to find up, trying to find air, hearing Kelly’s voice in my head.

  I’d never told anyone, not even Marina, that I once thought I’d heard the voice of a dead woman. But it was only a stress-induced hallucination, that’s all. My own projection of what she would have said. My own wish to believe that the dead lived on in another place and might, under the right circumstances, have something to tell us.

  Then again, I’d been in extremely stressful circumstances last fall, when trying to help the family of a dead man, and I hadn’t heard his voice.

  Maybe you only hear women.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Didn’t say a word,” Marina said. “I’m waiting for you, remember? For the answer to life, the universe, and everything? And don’t tell me forty-two.”

  “You’d have a better sense of humor if you read more books.”

  “And you’d be less of a know-it-all if you didn’t read as much. And no sticking your tongue out at me.”

  I grinned. She knew me too well, and I was about to tell her so when my mom instincts went “twang.” The hiking path in front of me split and the kids were starting down the wrong trail; there wasn’t time on a school night to walk that long route. “Hey, you two!” But they’d already disappeared into the gloom. “Sorry, Marina, gotta go fetch my offspring.” I clicked the phone off and hopped into a slow trot.

  “Jenna?” I called. “Oliver? Come back!”

  Nothing.

  I started to run a little faster. “Jenna?” Her name came out in a pant. “Oliver?”

  Nothing. Why didn’t I see them? How had they gone so far so quickly? How could they just vanish like that?

  Faster, faster, faster.

  They’d be around the next bend in the trail, wouldn’t they? They’d be close by, waiting for me, of course they would.

  Nothing.

  Time spun out slowly and I lived an agonized life in which Jenna and Oliver never came home, never found their way back. All my fault, all of it. I’d never forgive myself. Jenna . . . Oliver . . .

  Then I heard voices. My children! But who else . . . ? A man’s voice.

  My mouth suddenly tasted of bright adrenaline. A medium-sized woman versus a grown man in a secluded part of a very large park. Spot would be no help; why hadn’t we adopted a Rottweiler?

  I put on a burst of speed, coming around a curve in the trail with fast, pounding feet.

  If I could get there first, head him off, maybe I could distract him, maybe by attacking him I’d give the kids time to get free, maybe I could—

  “Hey, Mom.” Jenna looked at me. “Why are you running?”

  —and maybe if I stopped leaping to the most extreme conclusions possible there’d be one less way to look like an idiot. My immediate drop from terror-induced run to embarrassed walk made my feet trip over themselves. Pete Peterson leapt forward, grabbed my arm, and held me upright.

  “Whoopsy daisy,” he said. “All you all right?”

  “Fine.” I brushed the sweat off my forehead. “Thanks. How are you doing these days?”

  “Oh, you know. Busy.”

  “Mr. Peterson likes Spot,” Oliver said.

  “Well, who wouldn’t?” Pete said. He squatted and held out his hand for a doggy lick. “Not sure you’d make much of a guard dog,” he said, ruffling the floppy ears, “but you’re a pretty good dog for a dog.”

  “A pretty good dog for a dog,” Oliver repeated, frowning slightly. Then he smiled. “That’s funny.”

  “Only on the third Thursday in May.” Pete gave Spot one last pat and stood. “Well, I’ll see you three around.”

  “Mr. Peterson plays disc golf,” Jenna said. “You know, they put a course in last year. Over there.” She pointed, glanced at Pete’s half smile, and frowned slightly. “Or is over there?” She pointed in the opposite direction.

  “I can throw a Frisbee.” Oliver went through the motions with an invisible disc. “Can we play, Mom?”

  I looked from one child to the other, sensing a conspiracy. “Not tonight. It’s much too late.”

  The instant chorus of “But, Mom—” died out when I put my fingers in my mouth and started to take a deep breath. For years the threat of my whistle had been an excellent behavior modifier. It wouldn’t work much longer and it was already losing its effectiveness with Jenna, but I might as well take advantage while I could.

  “Not tonight,” I said firmly. “Besides, we don’t have any Frisbees with us.”

  “Tomorrow?” Jenna asked.

  “Yeah, how about tomorrow?” Oliver bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “Please please please?”

  “Tomorrow night we’re having dinner with Evan.”

  Their long faces told me that dining at the country club compared badly to the adventure of disc golf.

  “I’m not busy Saturday afternoon,” Pete said. “We could do a round or two. If you want.”

  “Can we, Mom?” “Pretty please?”

  I looked at my children, then at Pete. “Are you sure you don’t have anything better to do?”

  “Sure, but playing Frisbee sounds like a lot more fun than cleaning my garage.”

  He grinned, and since he had one of those contagious kinds of smiles, I grinned back at him.

  “Cool,” he said. “Then it’s a date.” He gave Spot a pat and bumped knuckles with the kids. “Two o’clock? See you guys on Saturday,” he said, and strolled off.

  “Time for us to get home.” I herded dog and children together and we set off in the direction from whence we’d come, dog first, then kids, then me. After a few steps I looked over my shoulder. Pete was still in view, just turning away.

  “Caught you,” I said softly.

  Oliver started walking backward. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I skipped forward a step, took his hand, and spun him around. “No walking backward unless you can say the alphabet backward, too.”

  “Z,” he said. “Y, X . . . um . . .”

  “W,” Jenna said.

  Oliver pulled away from me and started skipping ahead. “Z,
Y, X, W,” he sang. “Z, Y, X, W . . . V!”

  I felt Jenna’s hand steal into mine. Here, in the park, in the dusk, where no one could see us, she wanted to hold my hand. A warmth rushed through me and I squeezed lightly. “So,” I said, oh-so-casually. “Is Coach Sweeney still calling you kiddo?”

  “Probably,” she said. “He calls everybody that. Even his girlfriend.”

  Uh-oh. “Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah, she came to the last lesson. Her name’s Roma and she’s a vet. Isn’t that cool? Don’t you just love her name? She lives in Minnesota and has this really neat haircut. She said my hair might look good with that kind of a cut, too.”

  I relaxed. Crisis averted; the crush was officially over. Bless Roma, whoever she was. “What kind of a cut is it?”

  Jenna talked on, and we walked down the trail, our feet in step, our hands and hearts together.

  * * *

  On Saturday morning I dropped the kids off at Marina’s, whereupon she interrogated me with the ruthless efficiency of a four-time mother.

  “Vhat,” she said in a horrible German accent, “are you doing about Amy Yaycobson?”

  “Not enough.”

  She nodded as if she’d expected my answer. “Und Kelly Engel?”

  I jingled my car keys. “Same thing.”

  “I see.” She tapped her index finger against her front teeth. “Are Amy’s death and Kelly’s drowning connected?”

  Marina’s game suddenly didn’t seem at all amusing. “I don’t know, okay? I just don’t know.”

  “Hey, Beth, I didn’t mean—”

  I waved off her apology. “Sorry. There are so many different versions of what happened that I can’t figure it out. Does a mother have the better idea of what her eighteen-year-old daughter is doing, or does the daughter’s friends? Is a police report the best answer to what happened to Amy, or . . .” I sighed.