Poison at the PTA (8 page)

Claudia glared at me. “Then what’s the deal with you walking away with approval for doing this?” She flicked at the list.

A shameful thought sparked. I could say it was my superior negotiating skills, my instant rapport with the foundation’s board, and my magnetic personality that coaxed the money out of them. The spark flashed, then died. “It was luck.”

In the front row, Marina put her head in her hands. After I’d told her what had happened yesterday, she’d told me to play it up for all it was worth. “That’ll teach that Claudia Wolff,” she’d said with satisfaction.

But I couldn’t do it. “Sheer luck,” I said. “In December they had a reorganization of the foundation’s priorities. At the top of the pyramid is the advancement of Rynwood’s youth. The board liked all these projects and they answer to no one but themselves.” And the ghost of former Tarver principal Agnes Mephisto, I thought, whose inherited money was the foundation’s nest egg. “They’re ready to approve the funding if we agree to their terms.”

Claudia pounded. “
If
we agree,” she said. “If you ask me, that’s a big if. Why should we agree to their restrictions? Why should we do all that extra work?” Out in the audience, at least one person grunted. Claudia, naturally, assumed it was a supportive grunt and warmed to her new theme. “Hours and hours of extra time, and what’s the gain? To answer to some faceless board?”

She wasn’t the one who’d be doing the work, it would be Randy and me, but I decided not to pursue that particular point. “The foundation’s board isn’t holding us back from doing anything,” I said. “They just want accountability.”

Claudia waved off my words. “That’s what they say now. What will they want next week? Next month?” She shook her head. “I vote to reject the foundation’s offer.”

Since no one had made a motion, her vote was out of order. I started to say so, but she ran roughshod over my mild statement.

“I see that most of you agree with me,” she said, smiling, “and I appreciate your support.”

What I’d seen was Tina Heller, Claudia’s best friend, nodding like a bobblehead. How one person’s assent could be construed as “most,” I wasn’t sure, but Claudia had managed to do so. How nice to be able to see the world as you wanted it to be, instead of how it really was.

“We should reject their offer.” She crossed her arms. “We have plenty of money of our own to do what really needs doing. And first thing is to redo the soccer field. We could write a check to do that right now. The contractors could get started as soon as the snow melts and—”

“Over my dead body!” Summer stood up so fast her chair hit the wall with a
thunk
.

I winced at the phrase. There had been too many dead bodies in the recent past. One had been in this very building. But no one else seemed to notice the poor word choice. Marina had a small grin on her face as she watched the action at the front of the room, Carol’s face was starting to get red, and there was more than one glance at the door. Judging the distance for escape purposes, I assumed.

Summer’s cheeks were flushed. She leaned on the table, looking around Randy Jarvis and staring Claudia down. “We are not—I repeat, not—going to continue to ignore the artistic needs of our children. Keep on going the way we’re going and the next generation will grow into a bunch of ignorant adults who don’t know a sculpture from a sonata.”

Tina turned around and looked at Nick Casassa. “What’s a sonata?” she whispered.

Nick had been on the sports committee with Tina, Claudia, and Whitney Heer. Nick’s wife, Carol, had been on the fine arts committee. At Tina’s question, Nick shrugged. Carol rolled her eyes.

“Who cares about sonatas?” Claudia flared back. “What’s more fun, listening to boring music written by some guy dead for three hundred years, or being outside in the fresh air learning sportsmanship and fair play?”

“Sportsmanship?” Summer snorted. “You mean like in the fall when you tried to bribe the referee?”

Claudia jumped to her feet. “I didn’t bribe anybody! I was just being nice to him. Nobody likes refs. I thought it would be a nice gesture to give him that gift certificate, that’s all.”

“Right before the championship game?” Summer asked. “You really expect anyone to believe that?”

The room erupted. With no great expectations that my hopes would come true, I waited a moment for people to sit down and stop shouting. It didn’t happen, of course, so I slowly but steadily banged the gavel on the table until there was silence.

“Thank you,” I said. “Summer, is there a motion on the floor at this time?” She shook her head. “Thank you. Now. We have ten days to accept the Tarver Foundation’s offer. Everyone, please go home and think about this. Consider what we’ll lose if we reject their money. Consider what we’ll lose if we accept. Decide which option is best for the children. And not just our children, but all the children of Tarver, today’s and tomorrow’s.”

I looked around the room, meeting the gaze of every person who would look at me. “We have ten days,” I said again. “I move that we hold a special meeting next Wednesday evening for a vote on the issue.”

“Second,” Randy said.

“All in favor?” I asked. The board members said, “Aye,” in grudging unison. “Those opposed? The ‘ayes’ have it. We’re adjourned.” I banged the gavel and the meeting was over.

I stood and tried to get around the table, but Summer was faster. “Can you believe her?” She tossed her head at Claudia, who was already in a huddle with a small group of like-minded friends. “Just assuming we’d all go for the sports stuff. I mean, jeez, all you need to play soccer is a ball. Why do we need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on—”

“Hang on a minute, okay?” I sidled around her and trotted across the room. “Marina? Hey, Marina, wait up a minute.”

But she was already moving away from me. “Sorry, Beth,” she said, zipping up her coat. “I have to get home right away. I have to . . . to . . . help Zach with his homework. He’s having a hard time with . . . with his math homework. Word problems, you know?” She picked up her purse. “I’ll see you later.”

I stared after her. For all she said I was a horrible liar, she wasn’t much better. One, the kids were on half days and the likelihood of homework was slim to none. Two, if Zach had math homework, Marina’s DH would help their son. Marina could hold her own in many subjects, but her math skills were more the practical type, like how to split four pieces of pizza among three people, or calculating how many loads of laundry were left in a jug of detergent.

What was going on? She’d done a duck and cover at the mall not once, but twice. Then, when I’d called her, she’d evaded my questions with “Oh, you were at the mall, too? Nice day, wasn’t it?”

I shied away from the reality of what was happening, but kept coming back to the sore point. True-blue Marina, my bosom buddy, my best friend forever and ever, my cheerleader, confidante, propper-upper, and architect of my improvements, was avoiding me.

The hurt swelled and started to go deep. What had I done that was making Marina treat me as if I had a contagious disease? What had I said? Whatever it was, I’d take it back. I’d undo it, I’d make it all better. A life without Marina as a companion would be drab and gray. Annoying as she could sometimes be, she knew how to make life sparkle with fun.

I stood there, looking at the vacant doorway, feeling my future turn into a series of dreary days, one after another.

“Stop it,” I muttered to myself. I’d figure out whatever was wrong with our friendship and fix it. If it was unfixable, well, I’d learn to live with it. In the meantime, there was no one here from the intervention squad, and since the best cure I’d ever found for the blues was to help somebody, what was I doing standing there like a stump?

I turned. At the refreshment table, Whitney was waiting for the snackers and coffee drinkers to finish. She’d given birth to a beautiful baby boy in the middle of December and this was her first night out on the town. During the meeting I’d seen her texting at least half a dozen times, asking her husband, no doubt, about the status of their child.

Perfect. I walked to Whitney’s side. “Hey, Mom.”

She blinked, looked left and right, then focused on me. “It’s still weird, being called ‘Mom.’ I mean, my mom is the
real
‘Mom.’ How can we both be moms?” Her expression was puzzled, yet radiant.

I knew exactly what she meant and exactly how she felt. “One of the happiest moments of my life was the first time Jenna called me Mommy.”

“Oh . . .” Whitney’s breath caught. “I’ll melt. I swear, I’ll just melt.”

“I’ll do the cleanup tonight,” I said. “You go home to your baby.”

“Really? Are you sure? I mean, I told Claudia I’d stay, and I don’t want to back out on a promise.” But she was already halfway into her coat and fishing for her car keys.

“Go on,” I said, laughing.

“Thanks, Beth.” Whitney gave me a quick, hard hug. “You’re the best.” She backed away, grinning broadly. “The absolute best!”

By this time, the room was mostly empty. Claudia and Tina were still there, talking about what color to paint Tina’s living room, and Carol and Nick Casassa were still there, talking to Rachel.

“Anyone still eating?” I asked, gesturing at the foodstuffs. Claudia and Tina ignored me; the others shook their heads. Soon everything was done except washing the lemonade jug and cleaning out the coffeepot, a task I’d never cared for, as my skin had an odd attraction to coffee grounds. The wet gritty stuff stuck to my hands with the power of a covalent bond and spread to my arms, clothes, and face in my efforts to get it off.

Well, maybe this time would be different.

I trudged down the hall to the kitchen, jug under one arm and holding the coffeemaker as far away from my body as possible. The leftover coffee went down the drain and I pulled open the little drawer where the coffee grounds hid out. Sure enough, one side of the filter was folded down.

Different, I told myself. This time will be different.

I carried the drawer to the garbage can and tipped it upside down.

Nothing.

I tapped the drawer on the side of the can.

Nothing. Once again, I’d been foiled by the incredible surface tension of coffee grounds. No wonder I drank tea.

I gave the thing one almighty hard tap and
ka-blam!
Wet grounds scattered across the lip of the garbage can, all over my hands, across the front of my shirt, and up against the bright white kitchen wall.

The mess was tremendous.

For a long moment I looked at it. Then I sighed and started the cleanup.

Half a roll of paper towels later, everything was as I’d found it. Everything, that is, except a part of the wall that was very hard to reach. For some reason, the countertop ended three inches shy of the wall, creating a gap destined to collect dust, dirt, and stray coffee grounds.

I dampened a couple of paper towels, knelt down, and wiped down the wall. The towels came out thick with coffee grounds and other unknown gunk. I tossed them into the garbage and did it all over again. This time the towels weren’t as gunky, but they still weren’t what anyone except a teenaged boy would call clean.

Once again I went into the fray. Last time, I promised myself, and stretched my arm as deep into the gap as possible. I even squeezed my elbow back there. After all, as my father had often told me, if you’re not going to do a job right, why do it at all? It had been a way of life for Dad, and now here I was, on my hands and knees, cleaning what probably hadn’t been cleaned in—

The far edge of the paper towel touched something that rolled. It was a plastic-sounding roll.

A spice jar, I figured. Easy enough to see that happening. Pepper, maybe, falling on its side, rolling toward the wall, and dropping over the edge. Too much trouble to retrieve, so it had been abandoned.

Poor pepper, I thought, and extended my arm a little more. Almost . . . a little farther . . .
Ha! Got you!

I scooted it out into the light and picked it up. Peered at it. Not a spice jar at all. It was a small pill bottle for an over-the-counter medication. I picked it up and immediately recognized the label. Acetaminophen.

That was weird. Or maybe not. Almost everybody had a bottle of the stuff in their house. Maybe one of the kitchen staff got regular headaches and had carried it in her purse.

I shook the bottle. No rattle.

Huh. More weirdness. Something was in there. I could feel the weight of it shifting around. I fussed with the childproof cap, wishing Jenna was there to open it for me, and finally figured out how to pop off the top.

As I’d suspected, there were no pills inside. But there was something.

I leaned the bottle this way and that, trying to get the contents into the light. There, at the bottom, was . . .

From my kneeling position, I sat down hard on the floor. Pulled in some deep breaths. Maybe I’d been wrong, maybe I was too tired to see properly, maybe I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. It was possible. Likely, even.

I looked into the bottom of the bottle and saw exactly what I’d seen the first time.

Powder. White powder with little bits of reddish orange scattered throughout. Powered acetaminophen. It didn’t take much of a mental leap to land on a conclusion I really didn’t want to face.