Ah. Every conversation with the reverend eventually came around to the beta school.
“We haven’t even broke ground on the high school yet,” Rhonda said. “The town can’t afford two new school buildings. Now if you wanted to start a private school…”
“You know the Co-op can’t do that,” the reverend said. “Most of us are on social assistance. We just don’t have the kind of
Rhonda almost laughed. The reverend also never failed to get a dig in about the vintage, thinking that her thinly veiled references would put Rhonda on the defensive. “I wish I could help you, Elsa.”
“What about the grants?” the reverend asked. “Do you honestly need all thirty million? Some of that money, just two or three million, could be used for a beta school-it would still be for education, after all. And say my girls don’t ever go to the high school, they go to this Co-op school instead. Then we don’t need as big a building.”
Rhonda pretended to consider it. “I hear what you’re saying. I do. And I’d like to help you, especially if it would make your people happy.” She shook her head. “But hon, that money’s been preallocated-the plans are submitted to the state. The federal and state grants are for building Switchcreek High School. Nothing else. The government don’t just let you spend it on whatever you want.”
The reverend paced the small room. Rhonda let her stew about it, think it was as unfeasible as all the other times they’d talked. Then when she didn’t say anything for a minute, Rhonda said, “Well, we could propose… No, Deke would never go for it.”
“What?”
“A branch campus.”
The reverend blinked at her. “High schools don’t have branch campuses.”
“Let’s just say it’s part of the high school that’s not connected to the main building,” Rhonda said. “We amend the plans to put a separate wing on the high school. Then after construction starts, we put the wing over here instead of over there-we don’t even have to change the blueprints.”
“You can’t do something like that and not have anybody notice, Mayor.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t hide it from anyone. We just make sure the whole council approves it.” The whole council being Mr. Sparks, the reverend, and Deke. Rhonda, as mayor, was a nonvoting member. “Then we make sure that none of our people make a fuss, or complain to the state. As long as we keep our paperwork straight and sell it to the town we’ll be all right.”
“That’s one tough sell,” the reverend said. “Mr. Sparks doesn’t want to change anything. The argos went along with the school last time because of their young ones, but those kids will graduate in a few years, and there aren’t any to replace them.”
“Not yet,” Rhonda said.
“Maybe not ever.” A few of the younger argos still hope to have their own babies some day, and so the high school plans made a concession to optimism: fifteen foot ceilings and double-wide doors.
“I’ll talk to Deke,” Rhonda said. “Maybe if we promise to throw some of the construction work his way…”
“He won’t take anything that looks like a payoff, Rhonda.”
“Any work his company gets is money in the pockets of his workers. It’s good for his people.” She shrugged. “But it won’t feel like a payoff if I convince him that the beta school is for the good of all of us.”
“And what’s
“Oh hon, I’m not risking the school. I’ll still get my football field. But I’m willing to cut out a few classrooms to help you build your school because I can do the math.” She smiled sweetly. “You betas are breeding twice as fast as my clade. The argos aren’t breeding at all, and the skips are dying off. In a few years the majority of voters are going to be little bald girls.” She shrugged. “I’m just preparing for the world to come.”
The reverend offered to walk Rhonda back to her car. The heat seemed worse when they stepped out of the air-conditioning.
They passed a group of natural-born girls, some of them only four or five years old, spread out on the patch of grass between two trailers playing Mother-may-I. They were being watched by some teenagers in white scarves. “Are any of these yours?” Rhonda asked.
The reverend pointed out a girl of about three or four, in matching green shorts and top. She held hands with one of the older white-scarf girls. “That’s my youngest.”
“Ah! The one that almost killed you.” The reverend had been on bed rest for the last five months of the pregnancy, her blood pressure through the roof. Two minutes after giving birth, she suffered a minor stroke. The right side of her face was briefly paralyzed, and she’d slurred her words for months. Even now her right arm was still weak, and she walked with a limp.
“A beautiful girl,” Rhonda said. “Now is that one of Jo Lynn’s daughters she’s holding hands with?”
“No, that one’s Marsha’s daughter. I’m sure Rainy and Sandra are around here somewhere.”
“I hope they’re fitting in all right. It must be hard, coming back into the fold. Especially with what those white- scarf girls think of their mother.”
“That’s all history.”
“Oh, hon, that kinda hate don’t go out of style. When those girls found out about Jo Lynn’s operations”-that was the politest word Rhonda could think of-“you’d have thought she’d been caught eating newborns for supper. And then when she tried to introduce birth control-”
“I’m not going to talk about this with you.”
“Jo committed the unforgivable sin,” Rhonda said, lowering her voice. “Maybe those white-scarves think that expelling Jo wasn’t punishment enough. People are saying, who knows what those girls are thinking?”
The reverend turned to face her. Her red face was smooth, almost unreadable. “People?” she said.
“It’s just rumors, Elsa. You know how people talk.”
“The DA said it was a suicide. They don’t believe the DA?”
“Of course they do! Some of them. Probably most of the town. Now you and me know that Roy Downer couldn’t find his butt cheeks with both hands, but the public, what they don’t know… Well, I’m just saying. If one of your girls, or God help us, Tommy Shields, had anything to do with this…”
“That’s enough,” the reverend said coldly. “Tommy loved Jo, and you know it. And these girls wouldn’t hurt a fly-it’s not in their nature.”
They’d almost reached the entrance to the farm. Everett stood next to the Caddy, talking on his cell phone, but he was looking at them. “Get the air-conditioning on,” Rhonda called. “I’m about to die of stroke.”
The reverend touched Rhonda’s arm, and Rhonda turned to face her. The reverend said, “I hope you aren’t riling people up, Mayor. It’s irresponsible and hurtful. If you go around accusing people-”
“Oh, I’m not accusing,” Rhonda said, her voice calm. “I’m advising.”
“What advice is that, exactly?”
“If your people had anything to do with Jo’s death, Elsa, then you better take care of it.” Rhonda patted her arm. “But I’m sure none of them did, did they?”
Everett drove slowly over the rutted drive. He waited while she dabbed the sweat from her forehead, but when they reached the gate he said, “So?”
“I didn’t see any laptop sitting out,” Rhonda said. “And I didn’t really have a chance to poke around.” She was sure that the reverend had grabbed Jo Lynn’s computer. Rhonda had had Everett search the church, to no avail. It was really too much to hope for that Elsa would leave the thing sitting out in plain view. “She’s got it somewhere,” Rhonda said. “Or Tommy has it. They were first into the house after the paramedics.”
“And what about our little bet?”
She allowed a little smile and put away her handkerchief. “Oh, most definitely.”
“Huh! She tell you that?”
“I gave her plenty of openings, but she wasn’t having any of it. Still, there’s no hiding it. The reverend is pregnant again.”
Everett shook his head admiringly. “You win,” he said. He accelerated away from the Co-op. “So now that I’m paying for lunch, where do you want to go?”
“Just drive out to Lambert,” Rhonda said. “And stop at the first place with a buffet.”
