motion? If no one else did, I’d have to, but that would look like failure from the get-go.
Randy stirred, but said nothing.
I pulled off a too-big piece of cuticle and watched red ooze to the surface.
“Okay,” Claudia said. “I guess I’ll make a motion that the Tarver Elementary PTA coordinate with the school and Sunny Rest for a story session between the kids and the residents, details to be determined at a later date.”
“Second,” Randy said.
“All in favor?” Erica asked.
There was a chorus of ayes.
“The motion has passed.” Erica adjusted her glasses. “Next on the agenda is a gluten-free bake sale.”
I tried to look interested, but on the inside I was doing cartwheels and pumping my fist into the air as if I’d won the Stanley Cup. They’d listened to me and paid attention to me and by golly they’d voted for the idea I’d proposed all by my lonesome. I couldn’t wait to tell Marina.
The rest of the meeting passed by in a rosy haze. Finally, Erica said, “Meeting adjourned,” and banged the gavel.
A general leave-taking commenced. People stood, pulled on their coats, and went out into the cold, dark evening. I gathered up my legal pad and tape recorder and pushed them into the worn bag that had, once upon a time, carried diapers.
“Beth, do you have a minute?” Erica asked.
Except for Harry, we were the last people left in the building. Harry, the janitor who doubled as security guard, always checked that the doors were locked. I’d caught sight of him on the way into the meeting, walking like a shadow through the halls in black pants, black long-sleeved shirt, and black sneakers so old they were back in fashion again. Ever since Harry and I discovered a mutual passion for hockey, we’d never run out of things to talk about. He cheered for the wrong team, but I was working on that.
“Um . . .” I glanced at the wall clock above the whiteboard. There was a push to purchase interactive whiteboards, but the school’s budget barely allowed replacement of worn-out regular whiteboards, let alone anything technologically cool. The Tarver Foundation, funded by the estate of the late Agnes Mephisto, had been approached by the interactive advocates, but as yet there was no answer. “Marina’s watching the kids, but I have a few minutes.”
“Excellent.” Erica, slim, elegant, and gray-haired, was the woman my mother had wanted me to be. Assertive without being aggressive, kind yet not a pushover, with the courage to stand up for what she thought was right.
She’d been widowed as a young mother and parked her three children with her parents while she attended law school. She graduated with high honors, one of two women in the class. Erica found a job at a midsized firm in Madison and moved herself and her children north. Ten years later she was a partner. Five years after that she’d become senior partner and led the firm to be the largest in the region.
Only now, in her retirement, did she have time for joining the library board and the garden club, and heading up the PTA. It was a good thing she was retired; otherwise, I would have had to reevaluate my vow to keep all lawyers at a quarter-mile distance.
“This project of yours,” Erica said. “How deeply are you committed?”
Deep? I blinked. What would be a good answer—five feet committed, but not six? “Um, deep enough to see the project through.”
Erica chuckled. She did this regularly, but I was always surprised to hear such rich, easy laughter come out of the patrician framework. Bad Beth, for clinging to limiting stereotypes.
“You’ve been spending too much time with lawyers,” she said. “Even recovering ones maintain a particular mind-set.”
“Um . . .”
“Back to your project. You came up with the idea yourself, correct?”
“Yes, but I doubt it’s original.”
“Hmm.” She drummed her fingers on her leather briefcase. “We can put our own spin on this.”
I got the stomach-dropping feeling that “we” meant me. “What do you mean?”
Erica buttoned her black coat. How she managed to have a dog and three cats and own a coat free of pet hair, I had no idea. Between the black from our cat George and brown from Spot the dog, pet hair was a permanent part of my wardrobe. “How big do you think?” she asked.
Yet another open-ended query. Maybe I’d missed the e-mail that today was Hard Question Day. “Bigger than a breadbox, smaller than the solar system.”
She laughed. “Do you think in terms of the entire state?” She lifted her leather case off the table, I picked up my ratty diaper bag, and we headed for the main entrance. “I think it has the potential to get big,” she said. “Fantasize with me for a minute.”
My fantasies usually had more to do with grandchildren or a certain tall, blue-eyed man, not the PTA, but I could play along.
“The Tarver PTA completes its first senior story session in June. We send out press releases across the state. We get newspaper, television, and blog coverage. We are suddenly the PTA to watch.”
The two of us pushed through the metal double doors and the outside air slammed hard against our bodies. Erica kept talking, as if she hadn’t felt a thing.
“Think of it, Beth. We could start a program that sweeps statewide. If we organize this well, it could go nationwide.”
We walked across the lonely parking lot. Erica’s highheeled boots made clicking noises on the asphalt. My clunky trail boots made a quiet
“Your story sessions,” Erica was saying, “could open a national conversation on ways to improve relationships between generations. And it all starts here.” She stopped at her car, a silver sedan from some foreign country. “It starts with you, Beth. How big do you think?”
Why did my friends keep trying to talk me into doing things? More specifically, why did they try to talk me into doing things I didn’t want to do?
A gust of wind blew down from the north, slithered around my neck, and snuck between my layers of clothing to hit skin. I shivered and the small of my back tightened with cold.
“We have time to consider the ramifications,” Erica said. “But we should agree on how far we want to take this by the January meeting.”
I’d turned to put my back to the wind, and doing so gave me a view of the far corner of the parking lot. An SUV sat all alone, surrounded by nothing but empty parking spaces and dormant grass.
“This has the potential to be a life-changing project, Beth. Think of the people who could be touched by these stories.”
Whose SUV was that? I squinted at it, trying to see in the gusting wind. What I noticed most about cars was size. After that, color. After that . . . well, there wasn’t anything after that. I frowned. It was hard to make out true color underneath the orangey hue cast by the parking lot lighting.
“The possibilities are tremendous,” Erica said. “I have a few ideas for—”
“Sam,” I said.
“Helmstetter?” She flipped up the collar of her coat. “I hadn’t considered him, but you’re right. No reason not to tap into the business community.”
I shook my head. “No, over there. That SUV is Sam’s.” He often took the parking spot the farthest away. The walk did him good, he always said. Plus, he’d add, why not leave the closer parking spots for someone who didn’t have two good legs.
Erica turned. “Sam left long before we did.”
The wind was rising, roaring with the threat of winter. A small sliver of a moon appeared briefly through the scudding clouds, then disappeared as if it had never been. There was no good reason for Sam’s SUV to be sitting there. If he’d been having car trouble, the hood would have been up and he’d have been waiting for a tow truck
