a handful of chocolate in her mouth.
“Don’t eat any more of that. You’ll spoil your dinner. I’m saying maybe Agnes likes to be alone. I would after a week with a school full of people.”
“Hmm.” Marina reached for the bowl. I yanked it away. “Some nights,” she said, “there’s a car in the driveway until the wee hours.”
“Then she doesn’t need an invitation from us,” I said. Not that Marina had been serious. She and Agnes went toe-to-toe at full volume the first year Agnes had been principal—something about the color Agnes wanted to repaint the cafeteria, if I remembered correctly. A decade later, neither one had a kind word to say about the other.
“Why the sudden concern about Agnes?” I asked. She made a grab for the bowl, but I held it out of her reach. “You can’t stand the woman. What’s the deal?”
“No deal.”
“Hah.” I held the bowl a scant inch from her stretching fingers. “Tell,” I said, making the bowl dance tantalizingly. She lunged, but with a mother’s instinct I anticipated her move and whisked it to a safe distance. “Tell!”
“Meanie.”
“Yes, I’m the meanest mom in the whole wide world. What’s your interest in Agnes?”
She slumped back and crossed her arms. “I want to know who the anonymous donor is.”
I stared at her, then started laughing. “And you think Agnes is going to just let that slip?”
“It could happen.”
“Oh, sure. And I could win the lottery. Agnes is as secretive as the CIA.” I relented and put the bowl back on the counter.
“She can’t be the only one who knows who made the donation.” Marina spoke around a mouthful of chocolate-chipless trail mix. She’d already picked out the good stuff.
“It’s probably no one we’ve ever heard of.”
“I have a theory.” She leaned forward, smiling in the special way that meant she had the tastiest tidbits of gossip to share.
I turned away and opened the refrigerator door. Inside was a dish of chicken I’d cut up into small bits and set to marinating an hour earlier. “Don’t want to hear it.”
“Ooo, all grumpy tonight, are we?”
“Yes. I’ve had my fill of Agnes and the Addition. That’s all I’ve heard about for two days. New subject, please.” I sloshed some oil in the bottom of the wok.
“Have you heard my theory that Joe Sabatini is mobbed up?”
“Yes, and I don’t believe you. Just because the guy owns a pizza place and has an Italian name doesn’t make him a member of the Mafia.”
“Spoilsport.” She kicked her toes against the island, just like Jenna and Oliver did. “Say, have you heard the latest about Rhonda, my next-door neighbor?”
“The one with the—” I made a big curvy motion in front of my chest.
“That’s her.” Marina nodded. “All real.”
“How do you know?” I’d always assumed Rhonda Tracy’s endowment had some assistance.
“Can’t you tell?”
“No. Why can you?”
“Reality TV,” Marina said promptly. “You find out all sorts of interesting things, and quit making faces at me. Anyway, Rhonda keeps getting home delivery of dry cleaning.”
“Oh?” I dropped the chicken into the wok. The instant sizzle sent small drops of oil bouncing high.
“The truck says ‘Lakeside Dry Cleaning.’”
I grabbed tongs out of a drawer and tossed the chicken around. “Since when does Lakeside deliver?”
“They don’t.”
“If they don’t deliver, what is the truck doing at Rhonda’s house?”
Marina raised one eyebrow. “You tell me.”
Light dawned. “Marina Neff, do you mean . . . ?”
“Yep. Rhonda and Don the dry cleaner. Same Don whose wife took off on him a few years ago for parts unknown. Not that I blame her,” Marina said. “Don’s weenieness has grown amazingly since he lost his hair.” She tipped the last of the trail mix out of the bowl and into her mouth. “All those chemicals can’t be good for you.”
“No one in the history of the world has had an affair with a dry cleaner,” I said. “Doctors, lawyers, health club instructors. But a dry cleaner?”
Marina and I looked at each other and started laughing. It was a good, long laugh, one that almost made me forget about the upcoming Monday meeting—almost.
Monday night at six forty-five we moved the PTA meeting from classroom to gym, and even then the place was packed from stem to stern. Occasional snatches of conversation reached the committee table, and every scrap carried the scent of mutiny. A revolution was in the offing, and all I wanted was to keep my head down, take notes, and get home before ten o’clock. After ten on a weeknight my babysitter charged double.
Erica pounded the table with her gavel, and the room quieted. “Thank you for attending this special meeting of the Tarver Elementary PTA. I am aware of the charged emotions regarding tonight’s topic.” She scanned the audience, studying the faces. “If anyone gets carried away, he or she will be removed.” She nodded at Harry, the school’s janitor, who doubled as a security guard. He stood at the back of the room, six feet tall and Ichabod Crane thin. “Everyone who wishes to speak,” Erica said, “will get an opportunity to voice her or his opinion.”
Rats. There went the babysitting budget.
“But with this many attendees, I will be strictly enforcing a speaking limit of three minutes.”
I counted heads and multiplied. Midnight, easy.
“Let’s begin,” Erica said. “The first and only item on the agenda is the Tarver Elementary addition.” She sat back. “Agnes, you have the floor.”
Out in the audience, dozens of arms crossed simultaneously. Agnes, who had been standing next to Harry, waded through a thick silence to the front of the gym. She turned and faced a wall of opposition. To her credit, she smiled. “Good evening, everyone. I’m delighted to have this opportunity to show my presentation to so many people. Harry?”
The janitor flicked switches, and we sat in a red glow cast by exit lights.
Agnes’s disembodied voice came out of the dark. “Start it, please.”
A click, and a PowerPoint presentation sprang up on the screen that had unrolled behind the head table. The committee hopped their chairs one hundred eighty degrees. Well, most of us hopped. Randy Jarvis hadn’t done any hopping in years.
A blast of pretentious music sequenced with the appearance of the title images.
“Oh, my,” I whispered. Agnes had hired an architect weeks ago. Months ago. She’d spent money that wasn’t hers on an unpopular project. She’d made plans without the input of teachers, staff, or parents.
I glanced down the table. Erica’s frown was visible in the glow of the pale green lettering. Randy looked jovial, but then, he always did. Julie Reed, the vice president, looked asleep. Though since she had a set of six- year-old twins and an advanced pregnancy, it was understandable that a dark room would send her nodding.
“This is our future.” Agnes spoke loudly enough to be heard over the music. “A wonderful future for us all.”
The title dissolved into a three-dimensional rotating image of the school.
“This is our current structure,” Agnes said. “Watch and wait.”
The familiar single-story brick building started to change. It sprouted oddly shaped boxes. It changed color, and the brick disappeared. Landscaping evolved from juniper bushes to grasses that waved in an unfelt breeze. The main entrance vanished and grew back in a different place. Large banks of windows morphed into triangle shapes. And, in the center of the building’s face to the world, the existing front door grew into a great expanse of shiny mirrored glass.
“This,” Agnes said, pride ringing through her voice, “is the new face of Tarver Elementary.”
