“Oh, thank you so much!” The woman gratefully plops the application into April’s waiting hands. “Getting the kids out of the car is such a hassle. “
“Believe me, I know!” April says.
And then as the woman drives away, April winks at me.
What the…？
And then she does it again. And again. We stand there for another twenty minutes and accept a dozen more applications. I know I should stop her from doing this, but I can’t. I just keep watching her in fascination. She’s so sweet. She even handed one of the women a tissue to wipe up some drool on her baby’s face.
Then when we each have a stack almost too heavy to carry, she motions to me and we walk back to her car. She tosses her applications in the back and nods for me to do the same.
“April,” I say. “What are you doing?”
She winks again. “Improving our odds.”
“Yes, but…” I look up at the preschool, then at all the applications littering the backseat of April’s SUV. “This isn’t right. We should bring them to the school. Everyone should get a fair shot.”
That makes her throw back her head and laugh. “Come on. Let’s go get some coffee.”
We go get a cup of coffee. But not before April stops at a dumpster and throws all the applications inside.
Chapter 38
ONE YEAR EARLIER
“Do you want to hear some incredible gossip?” Kathy Tanner asks.
I hate myself for how excited I am about this. A piece of good gossip? That’s the highlight of my week. This is what my life has become. It is ten o’clock on a weekday morning, and I’ve been sitting in Kathy’s kitchen for the last fifteen minutes, drinking coffee and complaining about having stepped in a pile of dog crap right outside her house.
（Although honestly, what sort of psychopath lets their dog crap right on the sidewalk and then doesn’t clean it up? We live in a society, for God’s sake!）
“Of course,” I say.
Kathy flashes me an evil grin. “Are you sure? It’s about your BFF April.”
It doesn’t surprise me that the gossip is about April. People love to gossip about April, maybe because she’s the closest thing we’ve got to a celebrity in this town, thanks to her little YouTube show. It isn’t even that popular, which goes to show how little we have to talk about.
Also, Kathy doesn’t like April. It’s not entirely clear why, but it likely has something to do with the way her husband Mark is always flirting with April and staring at her breasts. To be fair, my husband always stares at April’s breasts too. Yet somehow it doesn’t bother me as much.
“Tell me,” I say.
Kathy giggles. “Okay, this is a good one. So you know how April sometimes talks about how she went to culinary school, but she decided it wasn’t for her?”
“Yes…”
“Well,” she lowers her voice, “I heard from a very reputable source that April did not leave culinary school voluntarily. She was kicked out.”
I clasp a hand over my mouth. “No…”
“Yes!” Kathy squeals. “And this is the best part. It’s because she was having an affair with one of her professors!”
I take a sip of my coffee, letting this little detail percolate in the back of my head. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that much. It seems like the sort of trouble April might get herself into. Maybe not now, but when she was younger.
Or maybe now. Hard to say.
“God, I can’t wait to tell everyone,” Kathy muses. “April acts like she’s such a big deal. This will totally put her in her place.”
I pick up my spoon and stir my coffee, even though it’s black. When I worked at the DA’s office, I got into the habit of drinking a cup of bitter black coffee every morning to wake me up, even though I hate the taste. And now I can’t break that habit. “Maybe you shouldn’t go around telling everyone.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on. April deserves it. She’s awful. You know it better than anyone.”
I have some idea what she’s talking about. Obviously. That incident at the preschool—which we both got into, incidentally—was just the tip of the iceberg. April has an edge. Most people who know her well enough find out about it. Although most people just think she’s very sweet.
“I just think,” I say, “it’s better not to mess with April.”
Kathy snorts. “Please. If there were anything she wanted to do to me, she’d be doing it. I’m not worried.”
I can’t help but think that she’s wrong. She should be worried.
_____
Today April and I are on our way to see her mother at the nursing home.
I met Janet Portland a few times before she became ill. She reminded me a lot of April. Very sweet and friendly and pretty for her age, with a similar build to April, even though she was thirty years older. One night a few months after I moved to the neighborhood, April and I went for drinks while Janet stayed behind to watch our boys, and I completely trusted her. She seemed very sensible and trustworthy.
That’s why I was surprised when barely six months after I moved in, April tearfully told me she had to put her mother in a nursing home. “The doctors diagnosed her with early-onset dementia,” she says. “She just can’t be alone anymore. I had to get power of attorney.”
April ends every single episode of her show by telling her mother goodnight. It’s very sweet. It even melts my own icy heart a bit.
Now Janet lives at Shady Oaks, a nursing home about forty minutes away from where we live. We’re driving down there because April got the brilliant idea to include her mother in an episode. I have to admit, she has a lot of clever ideas. That’s why her show has taken off as much as it has, although it’s not nearly as successful as she likes to pretend it is.
“You remembered the extra butter, right?” April asks as we merge onto the highway.
“Check,” I say. April cooks with a horrifying amount of butter. It’s one of the reasons why I try not to eat her delicious treats anymore. Just because I don’t go to work anymore, it doesn’t mean I’m okay with not fitting into any of my suits.
She turns the radio down a notch as she glances at me. “Have you heard the horrible rumor Kathy Tanner is telling everybody about me?”
I toy with a loose thread on my blouse, debating whether I should tell the truth. “Yes. I heard it.”
April lets out a huff. “The nerve of her! It’s not true you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not,” she says more firmly. “It’s pure fiction Kathy made up just to make me look bad.”
“Right. I assumed.”
She flashes me a grateful smile. “I knew you wouldn’t believe it. Honestly, I don’t know why Kathy hates me so much.”
“She’s jealous,” I reply honestly.
“Well, she’s horrible.” April speeds up a bit to pass an SUV. “I don’t understand what Mark sees in her. She’s so vile, and he’s such a hottie. Don’t you think so?”
“I guess so.” Vaguely, I’m aware that Mark Tanner is attractive. At least, I know all the other mothers think so. But it’s not something I think about.