Curse of the PTA (12 page)

“It’s when you get a tumor of a gland. You know, like the pituitary gland?”

One more thing I didn’t want to know anything about. You only knew about diseases
like that if you were intimately involved with them. Ergo, I didn’t want to know.

“Are you studying for a test?” I asked.

“Kind of.” She pushed at her hair. “The MCATs. Since I didn’t know for a year that
I wanted to do premed, I’m a year behind in taking the MCATs. There’s one more test
in September and maybe there will be some open slots in the med schools, so if I do
really, really good, I won’t lose any time. I mean, my mom and dad say I could do
with a year off, go work at a doctor’s office or something, but I’m already a year
back, and if I can catch up, that’d be so great.” She stopped, having either run out
of words or breath. I wasn’t certain which.

Old memories were slowly bubbling to the surface. MCAT. The Medical College Admission
Test. The bête noire of many a premed student. Doing well on the MCAT is considered
essential to getting into medical school and so creates a tremendous stressor for
test takers.

“Is that what you’re doing?” I poked at her backpack. “Studying for your MCAT?”

“Yeah. This is a great study guide.” She pulled out the soft-covered textbook and
thumped it on the table. The beast must have been a thousand pages long. “It’s not
as good as taking one of those tutoring courses, but those cost so much money. I mean
like thousands. I’m doing pretty good on the practice exams, so I should do okay.”
She made the end of a sentence more of a question than a statement: “. . . I should
do okay?”

I wanted to reassure her that she’d do fine. At the same time, I wanted to tell her
that acing the MCAT didn’t matter, that she could always take it again, that she didn’t
need to try so hard, that her parents were right, that taking a year off would be
good for her, that resting for a year before heading off to the rigors of medical
school might be the best thing for her. I wanted to tell her all of that, but I knew
she wouldn’t listen to any of it.

“Sara.” I sighed. How was I going to say this? “You’re going to make yourself sick,
working so hard. That’s why you were crying the other day, isn’t it? You’re wearing
yourself to a frazzle, trying to do everything.”

“It’s just until I’m done with the MCATs,” she said earnestly. “After that, I’ll be
okay.”

“And what happens when you hit mid-terms? And finals?”

Her head went down again. “I can do it,” she whispered.

“Yes, you can,” I said. “But you shouldn’t.” I pushed Sara’s backpack toward her.
“Go home.”

She blinked at me. “But I’m scheduled to work until close.”

“Not anymore you’re not.”

“I’m . . . not sure what you mean.”

“Sara, sweetheart, you need to quit working here.”

“No!” Her eyes went wide, showing all white around the blue irises. “I love this store.
I love everyone here and the books and the town and . . . and everything. I love working
here, it makes me happy. I don’t want to quit. Ever.”

“Then you’re fired.”

Her lips trembled. “You mean, fired, fired? Like it’ll have to be on my job applications?”

I sighed. “Of course not. I want you to stay, but I also think you’re going to work
yourself into exhaustion. This is a part-time job that doesn’t pay you half of what
you’re worth. You’re headed to medical school. What’s more important, studying for
the MCAT or working here?”

“But working here isn’t like working. It’s more like . . . fun.” Her eyes pleaded
with me.
Let me stay, keep me on, don’t make me leave.

I reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Go home. Study. Get a good score
on your MCAT. Get good grades this semester. Then, if you still want to, come back
at Christmas.”

“Oh, Mrs. K.” Sara lurched forward and hugged me. “You’re the nicest boss ever.”

Tears stung my eyes. I wasn’t that nice, not really, but it was kind of her to say
so. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

She sniffed. “Can I really come back after the semester’s over?”

“I’ll be counting on it.”

Chapter 9

A
fter I’d walked Sara to her car, had another round of tearful hugs, and waved good-bye,
I broke the news to Lois and Yvonne.

“You did what?” The unfazeable, nothing-shocks-me-anymore, jaded-to-the-core Lois
stared at me with her mouth open.

“Fired Sara.”

Lois reached out with a bony index finger and poked me in the upper arm. “Still flesh
and blood. No, wait. Let me see your teeth. Come on . . . Okay, good. You’re not a
vampire. So the only possibility is that you’ve been possessed by . . . by the spirit
of Auntie May.” She smiled and nodded, obviously happy with her conclusion. “Auntie
May’s spirit can’t stand being restricted to the confines of Sunny Rest and has reached
out for a malleable soul that she can use to do her evil bidding.”

It sounded reasonable. Except for one thing. “Auntie May likes Sara. Almost as much
as she likes Yvonne.”

Lois and I looked at Yvonne. “She just likes the books I pick out,” she said. “That
doesn’t mean she likes me.”

Her horrified tone sounded quite real. Which I could understand. The thought of having
Auntie May as a close friend and confidante was not a comfortable one. Not only that,
but the knowledge lurking inside Auntie May’s head was generations deep and Rynwoodites
of all ages hoped it would never be passed on.

“Anyway,” I said. “Firing isn’t really the right term. It’s more like I encouraged
her to quit for a while.”

Lois put her hands on her hips. “Are you nuts? Sara’s the hardest worker we have.
She’s willing to sort stickers and clean the bathroom, and she always wants to work
during the big sales and on Saturdays and she’s young and pretty and energetic, and
how on earth are we going to get along without her?”

When she paused to roll her eyes, Yvonne said, “Beth’s right. Sara needed to quit.
She’s been working too hard.”

Lois glared at Yvonne, then at me; then the huff went out of her in a rush. She sighed.
“So that means what? That I haven’t noticed what everyone else around here has?”

“You said it, not me.” I smiled at her. “And I told Sara to come back to work at Christmas,
when the semester is over.”

“Do you think she will?” Lois asked.

I thought about it, then sighed. “Not really.”

Yvonne rubbed her arms, as if she were cold. “She’ll come back to visit.”

“Well.” Lois sagged back against the counter. “So much for my theory.”

“Which one was that?” I asked.

“That she’s been upset because she was Dennis Halpern’s illegitimate daughter.”

“Oh, please.”

“Hey, why not? There’s good—”

The back door closed and a young man walked in. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs.
Nielson, Miss Ganassi.” He stood a respectful distance away and smiled at us, his
white teeth brilliant against his brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes.

Lois eyed him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were doing some sort of writing
semester thing and couldn’t be bothered to come back here to work until the end of
the month.”

“Yes, that is correct.” Paoze made a nod that gave the impression of a bow. He’d been
born in Laos and his family had immigrated to Wisconsin too late for him to learn
English without hard work. Maybe because of this, he’d evolved into a literature major
at the university and was sketching an outline for a novel based on his family’s struggles.
Recently, I’d found out that those struggles began about six hundred years ago. It
was going to be a long book.

Lois put her hand to her forehead. “I always thought correct meant being, you know,
right. Accurate. But now I’m wondering . . .”

I exchanged glances with Yvonne. Though Paoze’s English grammar was better than most
native-born Americans, there were language quirks that escaped him. And, in spite
of working with Lois for almost four years, he remained slightly gullible. Lois lived
to exploit this crack in his armor. Once, just once, he’d turned the tables on her,
and it was clear that the episode still rankled.

“You need wonder no longer,” Paoze said. “Mrs. Kennedy called me to say that Sara
is unable to continue here. I am willing to help in any way I can until a replacement
can be found.”

Lois’s hand came down with a snap. “Exactly. It is your job to find a new Sara.”

I stirred. “Now, Lois—”

“Come, come,” she said heartily, winking at me with the eye Paoze couldn’t see. “You
know it’s the responsibility of the newest hire to find a new employee. Okay, technically
Yvonne is the newest hire, but she’s only lived in this state a year, so the responsibility
transfers to you.” She pointed at Paoze. “You’ve heard of the low man on the totem
pole, right?”

“I have heard of totem poles.” He eyed her warily.

“Actually,” I said, “the lowest figure on the totem pole is—”

Lois ran over what was going to be a statement of fact. “Low man on the totem pole
means everyone else is above you. You lack any real status, see, so you’re the one
who gets stuck making the new totem pole. Employee totem poles are a tradition in
this part of Wisconsin. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed them.”

“An employee totem pole.” His eyelashes came so close together that the brown irises
couldn’t be seen.

“Well, duh.” Lois tossed her hair back in a middle-school move that didn’t quite work
for her. “How are we going to find a new Sara without a totem pole? Tell you what.
Start with a small carving. Leave the very bottom blank and—”

Paoze turned to me. “You said Sara was working on the early readers. Shall I continue?”

“Hey,” Lois said.

He gave her a blinding smile. “I do not believe in employee totem poles. Better luck
next time, Mrs. Nielson.”

Yvonne giggled. “He’s onto you, Lois. Bet you never get him again.”

“I’ll get him,” she said firmly. “Sooner or later, I’ll get him. Count on it.”

I wasn’t so sure, but decided not to say so. No point in fanning the flames of her
one-upmanship desires. Besides, I had something else I wanted to discuss with her,
something serious, and I didn’t want her distracted with planning her next attack.

“Yvonne?” I asked. “I know we have a troop of Girl Scouts coming in soon”—which was
why I’d called Paoze in a mild panic and begged him to come in; thank heavens he’d
been able to borrow a roommate’s car instead of having to ride his bicycle—“but do
you mind if Lois and I step out a minute?”

•   •   •

Knowing that the upcoming Girl Scout visit would be action-packed and loud, we chose
to sit outside. I eschewed the sidewalk benches in favor of the quiet and sunny courtyard
next to the town’s new restaurant, Ian’s Place. After years of scrimping and saving
and begging for investors, Ian Byars, former cook at the Green Tractor, had finally
raised enough money to open the bistro of his dreams.

Full of exposed brick, hardwood floors, frosted glass dividers, and pendant light
fixtures that dangled from a high ceiling, the styling wouldn’t have looked out of
place in downtown Madison or even Chicago. How it would go over in little Rynwood
remained to be seen. But Ian had Ruthie’s full support—“I wish the kid luck. He’s
a great chef, and it’s not like he’s going to be competing with my cinnamon rolls
and pea soup”—and though the food was expensive, area food critics were swooning over
his Boursin-topped salmon, mushroom-stuffed chicken roulade, and his mustard spaetzle.
I wasn’t exactly sure what roulade was, and I kept forgetting to look it up, but if
Ian was making it, it was bound to be good.

I went inside to buy two iced teas and came out to find Lois slouched into a wire
chair and looking at the world with a sour expression.

“This sucks.”

I looked around us. At the blue sky. At the tubs of small trees that twinkled with
white lights in the evenings and would bloom white flowers in the spring. At the restaurant
wall painted with a mural depicting farmers and artisan food-making. At the brushed-metal
tables and chairs. At the tiny vases on each table crowded with local flowers. “Doesn’t
seem so bad to me,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

And, of course, I did. “She would have left in the spring, anyway.”

“Maybe not.” Lois pushed her tea around the table, leaving a wide track of condensation.
Though fall was almost upon us, today the temperature was in the seventies and the
humidity was high. “Maybe she would have changed her mind about medical school and
come to work at the store full-time.”

“That is one of your worst maybes ever.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I just don’t want her gone.”

“Me, either.”

We sat a moment, wishing that things could be different, wishing that things could
stay the same for a little longer, please. Not forever, that would be asking too much
and would probably be boring anyway, but just a little longer, pretty please?

I picked up my tea. “Paoze is going to post flyers at the university, and I’ll put
an ad in the paper. Do you know anyone who’s looking?”

“Not anyone I’d want to hire.”

I slid her a glance but didn’t say anything. Lois’s extended family was large and
varied and their exploits were just as likely to include overnight stays as guests
of local law enforcement as vacations to Door County.

“We’ll find someone,” I said.

Lois grunted noncommittally.

“So.” I put down my tea with a slight thump. “How serious were you about Sara being
Dennis Halpern’s illegitimate daughter?”

“Hey, it could have happened that way. Sara’s smart with math and chemistry and all
that stuff that doesn’t make sense to normal people. Dennis was smart with math and
financial stuff, and most of that stuff doesn’t make sense, either. Like father, like
daughter, right?”

I studied her, but she looked perfectly serious. “Do you have any real basis for thinking
this? Or are you just pulling a theory out of thin air, much like someone else we
know?” Honestly, sometimes I wondered if Lois and Marina were twins, with Marina being
cryogenically frozen for thirteen years until their parents were ready for another
daughter.

“Mostly out of the air. Like this.” She reached out and plucked a dust mote that had
been wafting slowly over the table.

I shouldn’t have been disappointed that Dennis hadn’t been running around fathering
children out of wedlock, but I was, just a little. “So Dennis didn’t have a long-running
reputation for . . . for . . . ?”

“For being a horn dog?” She laughed at my wince. “I didn’t know him hardly at all,
but one of his sisters ended up moving back to Rynwood and living down the street
from me. Long time ago.” She shook her head at the questions that were starting to
tumble out of me. “She and her husband left for South Carolina years back, so everything
I know is out of date. But.”

She pursed her lips. “But I remember her saying that her little brother was quite
the Romeo. That he always had a girlfriend hanging on him. Sometimes more than one.”
She shrugged. “Does that mean he did the same thing when he was older? Your guess
is as good as mine. Better, probably. You’re good at noticing things.”

I nodded vaguely. Maybe Marina’s notion of Dennis having a mistress wasn’t as over
the top as I’d thought. Still unlikely, but maybe not completely out of the realm
of possibility. But . . . Summer? No. It couldn’t be.

“Do you smell something?” Lois sniffed, looking around. “It almost smells like—”

The earsplitting noise of an air horn made us jump. A second blast was followed by
a siren’s up-and-down wail. A fire truck rushed past. On its heels was a fire engine,
an EMT vehicle close behind.

We sat, tense, waiting for the sirens to wail off into the distance, waiting for the
anxious sound to be gone, waiting for the afternoon calm to return.

But that didn’t happen.

What happened was the sirens stopped midshriek. They couldn’t be more than a block
away.

Lois and I shared a quick, wild glance. Our mutual thought was so big and dreadful
that it could almost be seen, writhing in the air between us.

The store!

We leapt to our feet and bolted from the table.

•   •   •

My fear for the store paled away to a wisp in comparison to my fear for Yvonne and
Paoze. We pushed tables aside and tumbled chairs over in our race toward the sidewalk.
If anything happened to either one of them, I’d never forgive myself. How could I
have gone off with Lois when my employees were in danger? How could I have left them
alone while I went gallivanting off to do more poking around into a death that the
county sheriff’s office was far more qualified to investigate?

We hit the sidewalk. The mass of fire trucks and revolving lights and emergency personnel
was a block ahead. With Lois panting at my side, I ran hard as I could toward a sight
I’d never imagined seeing in downtown Rynwood.

A fire chief with a bullhorn cracking out orders.

Firefighters pulling out hoses.

The metallic rattle of equipment.

The awful, acrid stench of fire.

Adrenaline kicked me along fast, and I started to pull ahead of Lois. Time slowed.
Everything I saw was a brighter color than I’d ever seen. Everything I heard was crisp.
Everything was sharper and more vivid than life.

And it was all terribly, horribly, frightening.

Business owners and staff were coming to their doorways and spilling out onto the
sidewalk. Alice and Alan were in front of their antique mall, Alan holding a broom,
Alice with her baking apron gathered up in her hands and pressed against her mouth.

Denise and her current crop of stylists stood at the window of the hair salon, scissors
and combs in hand. Three women, plastic cutting capes tight around their necks, crowded
next to them.

All had their eyes trained on the sight up the road; all had wide eyes and slack mouths.

Evan stood tall and straight in front of his hardware store. A curly lock of graying
blond hair dipped down over his forehead, making me think to tell him he needed a
haircut, but no, that wasn’t any of my business, not anymore.