verbal abuse, but it knocked me down, every time.
Marina appeared. “That woman is a menace. If we held a vote for someone in town to be murdered, she would win, hands down.”
Shades of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” I shuddered. “You don’t really mean that.”
“Want to bet? Anyway, don’t let her bother you. She’s all bluster and smoke with no flame.”
“She shook her fist at me.”
Marina moved in and looked at me closely. “Get that hollow tone out of your voice. Claudia Wolff isn’t worth a finger snap of worry.”
I tried to snap my fingers, but the noise was barely audible.
Summer had edged forward. “Let me try?” She snapped her fingers. Nothing.
“Oh, for crying out loud. You two are pathetic.” Marina held out her hand and made the snapping motion. The result was a tiny thudding noise. “Well, shoot,” she said. “Let me try my left hand. Maybe I’m becoming ambidextrous in my middleish middle age.” But when she tried, the result was, if anything, even less impressive.
I stared at her hands, at mine, at Summer’s. This was not an omen. The fact that all three of us suddenly couldn’t perform the simple act of snapping our fingers didn’t mean that Claudia’s threat would turn into a hex that would end the PTA as we knew it, which would in turn create a gradual slowing of sales at the store because no mother would shop at a store owned by an ostracized PTA ex-secretary, which would in turn force me to sell the house, and, with Richard unemployed, the kids and I would move to a studio apartment above a video arcade, where Jenna and Oliver would spend too many hours learning how to shoot things, and by the time they reached high school their biggest concerns would be making high score in Halo 13 and what color of leather belt to wear around their necks. All for want of a finger snap.
“Ladies.” Evan stepped into our small circle. “If I may?” He raised his hand, put thumb and middle finger together, and snapped. The noise was loud enough to make children stop whining.
“Hey.” Marina gave an approving nod. “That’s a good trick. Got any more?”
“All in good time.” He bowed to her, to Summer, then to me. “Milady? Can I have this dance?” He held out his hand, palm up, and smiled into my eyes.
“Kind sir.” I dropped a small curtsy and took his hand. We spun off into a waltz and all thoughts of Claudia, hexes, and tumbling bad luck fell away as we danced and danced and danced.
Chapter 11
“A waltz,huh?”Lois looked at me over the top of her steaming tea mug. “Are you sure?”
“No. What difference does it make if it was a waltz or a polka?”
“It’s like flowers,” she said.
After years of working with Lois on an almost daily basis, you’d have thought I’d be used to her non sequiturs. “Flowers?”
“Sure.” She sipped the lemon-flavored brew. “You know how flowers have meanings? Roses are love, daisies are innocence, freesia is trust.”
“Why is freesia trust?” I wasn’t sure what freesia looked like, exactly, but how could any particular kind of flower mean trust? For that matter, how could a daisy mean innocence? I could see how roses meant love—as in I’d love to be able to grow roses free of mold or spots or bugs—but who dreamt up all the other things? “Are there flowers that mean death and destruction?”
“Just like flowers,” Lois went on, “dances have emotions associated with them. A fox-trot indicates a platonic relationship. A tango is passionate love. A polka shows that your partner has a sense of fun.”
“You’re making that up,” I said.
Lois drew herself up tall. Which today was very tall, considering that she was wearing four-inch-high platform shoes. On a purely period basis they went well with her bell-bottom pants, wide leather belt, and gauzy white shirt complete with square neckline.
“Questioning my veracity on a Monday morning? How can you do this to me, your loyal employee, your compatriot in arms, your friend and coworker of many years, your—”
“You’re overdoing it,” I said.
Her spine unstiffened and she sank down three inches. “It was the compatriot part, wasn’t it?” she asked sadly.
“Over the top.”
Lois sighed and took a sip of tea. “So what happened after that?”
“Claudia left in a huff.” She’d tried to slam the selfclosing door, which hadn’t gone well. “After that, everything went fine.” The air had seemed to clear, the atmosphere had felt brighter, and the music had sounded more playful. Jenna had taken her partner back, and Marina and I doled out goody bags and ladled punch the rest of the night.
“That Claudia Wolff is nothing but a bully,” Lois said. “Has been ever since she was a toddler. Some tigers never change their stripes.”
I looked at her. “Which tigers do?”
“Oh, you know.” She waved her mug at me. “The ones who can. There’s this breed in a remote province of India that has been known to have their stripes change to white if they’ve had a close call with death.”
I was about to call her bluff when the bells on the front door jingled. “I’ll get it,” I said, and headed out front, a pleasant owner-of-the-store smile on my face. “Good morning, let me know if—” When I saw who’d come in the door, my words dried up and my feet stopped moving. The nightmares I’d suffered the last two nights weren’t nightmares any longer; they were reality.
“My, aren’t we nice when it’s in our own best interest?” Claudia asked. “Be polite and get people to buy things so we can make a buck, right?”
Behind her ranged a group of women, all of whom I knew. Tina Heller, Claudia’s best friend. Heather Kingsley, Isabel Olson, and Carol Casassa. At the back of the pack was Cindy Irving. She was well known for being Johnny-on-the-spot for whatever was happening in town, so I wasn’t sure if she was here in support of Claudia or if she was here in hopes of catching some fireworks.
“What can I do for you ladies?” Smile, smile, smile. Defuse the anger, be their friend, show them there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Or something like that.
“You know perfectly well what you can do,” Claudia snapped.
There were a number of things on my list today: finish the already late December newsletter, take the pile of flattened boxes out for recycling, inventory the picture books, call the gift wrap supplier and ask why we were delivered Valentine’s Day paper instead of Christmas paper, and see if I had money to pay a few bills. However, I had a feeling none of those was what Claudia was talking about. In all likelihood, she wanted one of two things: me to resign from the PTA or—
“It’s that Yvonne Ganassi,” Claudia said. “I can’t think what you were thinking when you hired her.”
I’d been thinking she was my hero. “Yvonne is—”
“A convicted murderer.” Tina Heller stood shoulder to shoulder with Claudia. The two of them created a solid, nylon-parka-covered wall. “A murderer in a children’s bookstore is about the dumbest hire anyone could make.”
My chin went up. “Yvonne didn’t kill anyone. She was exonerated.”
“Then why was she sent to prison?” Claudia demanded. “They don’t send innocent people to prison.” Her cohorts nodded; human bobble-heads, all in a row. “Innocent until proven guilty, and the guilty go away for life. Or they should.” She glared at me.
I could see that any argument I made would be laughed at, ignored, derided, or all three. These women had made up their minds and nothing I said would convince a single brain cell to lean another way. Still, I had to try.
“Would you like to see a copy of her acquittal?” I asked. “The governor of California handed it to her
