“Annie trusts me with her children. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Shh,” Rachel said.
“Babe.” Lena heard Evan’s voice. “My mom wants to know which bike you want to go into town?”
“I usually use the one with the flower basket,” Rachel said brightly. “Babe, I’m videoing my mom.”
“Oh, hello dear!” Evan pushed his face into the frame next to Rachel’s, straw hat against straw hat. “You look very blue over there. Is it an art project?”
“It’s cake fondant,” Rachel said.
“Wonderful!” Evan said. His fedora was a size too small. It sat atop his head like a fez.
“Does it look like the color of the ocean to you?” Lena held up the fondant. “Baja blue?”
“What will Laurel Perley know about Baja blue anyway?” Rachel said. “She’s in a landlocked state.”
“She wanted a beach theme.” Lena had kept things restrained, though: beach themes could so easily veer tacky.
“Awesome!” Evan said. “Who’s Laurel Perley?”
“A neighborhood kid,” Rachel said. “For some reason my mother is throwing her a massive party.”
Lena watched Evan’s face for a flinch or a protective glance. She often wondered what, if anything, Rachel had told him.
Not the truth: Evan wouldn’t be able to muster so many “dear”s for Lena if he knew that.
“Remember,” Evan said. “The whole point of a party is fun! So have fun!”
“Smart boy,” Lena said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Jen, wobbling on her tiptoes on the stepstool, reached a hand into the top cabinet, blindly felt for the edges of the large serving platter.
Janine had banned takeout containers. She wanted the food to appear, she had instructed the group, as though it had been homemade with love.
The restaurant that Jen had ordered from, on the other side of the city, didn’t even have the roast pig that Jen barely remembered from childhood barbecues at her uncle’s house.
In a panic, she had rattled off a few unfamiliar names from the menu in front of her—lumpio, sure, and one of the bulalo and throw in a sisig, please. The women would stuff their faces on these dishes that meant nothing to Jen, to—what—prove how accepting they were?
It was a total farce.
They wouldn’t really be accepting once they found out Abe was the vandal.
If.
If Abe were the vandal.
Maybe they would be accepting. Not every parent was like Jen, a Canada goose, ready to attack.
Although she was certainly passive enough when it came to challenging Abe. This morning, on the drive to school, she’d kept the questions raging in her head, hidden behind her regular cheery Have a good day.
She had just set down the platter on the counter when her phone rang with a call from an unfamiliar number.
Jen answered it with a curt “Yep.”
“Jen, it’s Nan Smalls. I want to schedule a chat. About Abe.”
Jen saw right through her gentle tone: this was how it started, how it always all started, with Dutton and the entire parade of others before him.
“Now?”
“I’m in Eagle County for a faith-based educators’ conference this weekend, but I’m back tonight. Maybe first thing tomorrow?”
“Paul’s out of town until tomorrow afternoon.”
Pause.
“That’s unfortunate, but this won’t wait. The cleaners are doing their year-end sweep at the school, and I’d like us to not be interrupted by vacuuming. Would you consider meeting at the Village Bean on Main Street? Around nine?”
There was probably an underground network on which the principals could warn each other: When you expel Abe Pagano, do it in a public place. The mother is batshit.
“Of course.”
“See you then,” Nan said, and hung up.
Where was her psalm? Was Jen so beyond hope she didn’t even get a psalm?
How many of these school principals pretended to love kids but in truth, only had time for the ones who were cookie-cutter perfect, a neat fit into whatever box—
Stop it, Jen.
Who understood the painful impossibility of protecting your child more than Nan? If Nan couldn’t handle Abe—
Jen lifted the platter above her head and let it go. A million sharp slivers all over the kitchen floor.
For a second things felt better, but soon after came the exhausted realization that no one else was going to clean it up.
* * *
The late-spring night was so lovely that Annie decided to wait for the window guy outside on the front steps. To the west, the setting sun streaked an electric orange-pink across the sky, and while it was a beautiful sunset, Annie’s mind was on that video call with Rachel Meeker.