want me to quit?”
Yes, please. But I couldn’t say that out loud. Or . . . could I? “Yes, I do.”
Her face went still. “After all these years? All the days and nights and weekends I’ve worked for you, and just like that you want me gone?”
Not nearly as many nights and weekends as she’d been scheduled to work, but whatever.
“All the things I’ve done for this store, and when I ask for a little time off, it’s time to get rid of me?”
There wasn’t any point in answering. She’d decided to cast herself as victim, and I was the villain. It was a new role for me, outside of the times I was dubbed the Meanest Mom in the Whole Wide World, and I already knew I didn’t like it. At all.
“You’re firing me, aren’t you?”
Her voice was loud now, and I tried not to think about how many customers were listening in. A smart bookstore owner would have had this conversation in her office behind a closed door.
“Aren’t you?” Marcia’s white face had gone a blotchy red.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m firing you. I’ll pay you through the rest of the week and—”
“You can’t fire me.” She snatched her coat off the hook and forced her arms through the sleeves. “I quit!”
She stomped through the store, head high, the edges of her long woolen coat swinging open, catching at the occasional low-shelved book and pulling it to the ground. At the front door she turned and made determined eye contact. “I hope you have a good lawyer!”
And she was gone, leaving behind a trail of animosity, pain, and a few picture books. The picture books I could put away, the others . . . I sighed.
A female face peeked up over the top of the Middle Grades books. “Is she gone?” she asked in a stage whisper.
“Afraid so.” My smile was weak. “I’m sorry you had to listen to that.”
“Good heavens.” The customer straightened and walked around the end of the shelving, and I ran through names until I found a set that fit. Barb. Barb with a W. Two syllables. Walker. Wilhelm. Wylie . . . Got it.
“Mrs. Watson,” I said, “that conversation should have been private and I apologize. It couldn’t have been very pleasant.”
“Hah!” Mrs. Barb Watson came close and thumped me on the shoulder. As she was six inches taller than I was and sturdy as an overengineered bridge, I rocked back on my heels and tried not to wave my arms about.
“Best eavesdropping I’ve had in years,” she said. She thumped me on the shoulder again. This time I was prepared for it and leaned into the blow. “Top-notch moment in the history of this store, if you ask me.” She guffawed. “You hit a high note at the bowel movement. Good girl!”
“I liked the ‘Why do you work here at all’ part.” A short, stoop-shouldered woman edged closer. Her white hair curled up and around the wildly colored knit hat she wore. “That was my favorite.”
“No, the best part was ‘And I’m always on time, except for once in a while.’ Please.” A middle-aged man in a suit and tie leaned against an endcap of stuffed animals. “I would have fired her then and there. Your restraint is admirable.”
I looked from customer to customer to customer. “You think so? I mean, I’ve never fired anyone before. It’s not . . . not a very nice thing to have to do.”
“Course not,” Barb said.
The man shook his head. “It never is. That’s why it’s so important to hire the right people in the first place.”
“Wait a few days,” advised the elderly woman. “Things will settle down and you’ll find the store operates fine without a clerk like that.”
“You think so?” Management consultants lurked everywhere; you just had to open your eyes.
Barb chuckled, a rich, throaty noise that rose up out of her body like a warm fountain. “Know so.”
The stoop-shouldered woman edged closer. She looked left and right and we all drew close. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but . . .” She looked at the floor and we leaned farther in. “But Marcia once told me that
My male consultant looked puzzled. I was appalled. Barb threw back her head and laughed. And, since her laughter was too big to stay inside one person, it spread first to the elderly woman, then to the man in the suit, and finally to me.
We held on to bookshelves to keep from falling to the floor, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
A mere four hours later, I was sitting in a freshly empty Tarver classroom. Erica placed her half-glasses on her nose. “This special meeting of the Tarver Elementary PTA will come to order,” she said, managing to convey disapproval without so much as a sniff.
I looked out across the minimalist audience, which consisted of three of the four dance committee members and no one else. Marina, the fourth member, was in the gym, babysitting the kids.
Erica forged ahead. “Our vice president, Claudia Wolff, called this meeting. Claudia, you have the floor.”
“Thank you, Erica,” Claudia said gravely.
I glanced down at the agenda: “Thanksgiving Father-Daughter Dance.” The PTA had sponsored this dance every year for eons. Always held the second Saturday in November, it was consistently the PTA’s most successful fund-raiser.
What on earth could be so important that Claudia needed to call a meeting? The dance committee had met a few days ago; all the dancing ducks were in a row. There was the small matter of who was going to play deejay, but I was almost sure the issue would be settled without bloodshed. CeeCee Daniels was committee chair, and though she didn’t always present herself as someone who could sort a sock drawer, she was, in fact, a very competent organizer.
“Having this meeting was a difficult decision for me,” Claudia said. “I’ve had hardly any sleep as I’ve struggled with what’s the right thing to do.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a hard thing to decide.”
Erica started tapping her index finger on the tabletop, a sign to “get to the point or I’ll make your point for you.”
“Some things are easy to decide,” Claudia said, “but the tough decisions are hard.”
Maybe it was the deejay. Or maybe . . .
Erica couldn’t stand it any longer. “Please. We all have other places we’d rather be.”
A sudden flash of Claudia insight filled my brain. “Oh, no,” I whispered, too softly for anyone to hear. “Please, no.” But the universe is a cold, hard place and my plea went unanswered.
Claudia focused her big wet eyes on our PTA president. “What are we going to do about the murder of Sam Helmstetter?” She swung around to look at me.
I wanted to put my head in my hands. Almost by accident, I’d once helped put a killer in jail. The odds of doing it again were about as good as the chances of me losing ten pounds over the holidays. The odds of me
Firm thoughts. Excellent. Keep it up, Beth. Don’t let your mind wander off into investigations you aren’t going to pursue. Stop wondering about who knew of the change in the meeting date. Stop wondering about that white van you saw on the way home that night, parked where you’d never seen any vehicle parked before. Stop wondering about any of it.
“We are all troubled about Sam’s death.” Erica, as always, was ready with the right thing to say. Maybe in a million years or so some of her ability would rub off on me. “But this agenda”—she held up the sheet of paper—“is related to PTA business.”
“I know.” Claudia dabbed at her eyes. “That’s why this is so hard. The dance is important, but not as important as Sam.”
Erica folded her hands and spoke in a patient voice. “Claudia. What are you proposing?”
“I think . . .” Her mascara was almost, not quite but almost, smearing. “I think we should cancel the dance. In honor of Sam. It wouldn’t be right for us to dance the night away with poor Sam dead.”
