“I didn’t reach for your gun. Why would I reach for your gun? I’m a mom!”
“I’m going to need you to quiet your voice.” Princep stands between her and Detective Bright, physically separating her from that brown paper bag.
A searing pain lances her directly through the right side of her skull. She pulls an ugly face and falls a small step forward before catching herself.
“I’ve warned you.” Princep moves into her space. The pain is not yet all-consuming, but she knows what’s coming and she tries to think. Her daughter is probably not the Little Shitter. But Lola could be. And Darby is a dear friend. And … and … and … She wouldn’t even have to get away with the bag. She could just contaminate it, render it useless to the police. That’s a possibility, isn’t it?
Mary Beth considers the next couple minutes of her life before they happen, minutes in which she may become a person with an arrest record on a day in which she isn’t 100 percent sure she put on deodorant.
And then God intervenes.
Or at least his envoy. Pastor Ben is at Mary Beth’s elbow before she’s even heard him approach. “Are you okay?” He touches her so lightly a rash of goose bumps races up the back of her arm and underneath the sleeve of her T-shirt.
“I’m fine. Mostly,” she adds. “They’re not listening to me.” She grips her forehead in her palm. The sudden pain is dissipating, but behind it, she notices a smudge of blurry light cast in rainbow colors just over the spot where Officer Princep stood two minutes ago. She blinks, but that hardly makes it better. Somewhere behind her, Mary Beth feels her daughter’s eyes on her, waiting. Questioning. “We have to do whatever we can to protect the children. The children. Just like you said,” Mary Beth insists.
Pastor Ben straightens. “I see. Detective. Officer. I’m afraid you’re not welcome on this campus without a personal escort from me. Do you understand?”
“That’s a matter to take up with the police chief.” Detective Bright plants her feet.
“Great. I believe he attends church here on occasion, so I’m sure he’ll know right where to find me.”
“We would be well within our rights to arrest her.” Princep nods to Mary Beth. But he makes no move to do it. Detective Bright tilts her head and the standoff ends. Shame and embarrassment rush in, leaving Mary Beth wishing deeply that there were a place she could sit down.
The smell of fruity shampoo overwhelms her nostrils as she finds that Zeke’s mother, Megan, is now by her side wearing her nurse scrubs. “Mary Beth.” Megan throws her arm around her. “Oh god, Mary Beth, are you okay? It’s okay, I can handle her,” she announces. Through her watery vision, Mary Beth can just make out the embroidered patch on Megan’s scrub pocket: Mindpath Psychiatry & Psychology. “She’s one of my patients.”
TWENTY-FOUR
This is probably a mistake, thinks Darby as she enters the gym, one of those big-box franchises with no personality. It smells like a combination of Lola’s laundry hamper and the wet-floored locker room of the old YMCA pool.
A man with shiny hair and biceps the size of her thighs stops her and asks if she wants to try a sample of the protein powder he’s selling in fat, squatty jugs, or how about an energy bar. He sits behind a folding table that’s been dressed up with a bright purple cloth, his brochures neatly stacked in front of him, like he’s presenting a fourth-grade science fair project. Nobody stops, not even Darby, who can often be guilted into these kinds of things.
The front desk manager takes a long sip from a bendy straw dug half into a gallon-sized water bottle with motivational words marking off the ounces. Good Morning! Remember Your Goal! Keep Chugging! “How can I help you?” the woman asks with a satisfied little ah to demonstrate her thirst has been properly quenched.
Beyond the manager’s vestibule is a sea of young people, many of whom dress like Kardashians. The women are wearing spandex pulled up far past their belly buttons to accentuate their voluminous asses and itty-bitty sports bras. She spots several girls filming themselves with their phones as they perform squats with a stunning amount of weight stacked on either end of a metal bar.
“I’d like to work with a personal trainer, please.” She avoids her usual chitter-chatter and knocks straight to the point.
The truth is, she might not have gone through with the whole trainer idea were it not for the conversation with Griff this morning. All afternoon, she found herself aggressively tapping away at her keyboard, anger simmering like a low-grade fever. Tap, tap, tappety-tap, as if her computer had been the one to insult her this morning and not her husband.
She kept thinking: How dare he? But, really, if she’s honest, there’s a lot more to this whole Griff thing, a lot she’s been tamping down over the last couple of weeks. And it all comes down to that terrible, unusual day on which Miss Ollie was murdered. The axis on which it hinges. She can feel it. She has been feeling it, the horrible mix of anxiety and inertia. Around they keep spinning, faster and faster, but if anyone in the Little Academy community is whirling most tightly, getting the most dizzy, Darby suspects it could be her.
For if she’d known, if she’d had any inkling that gorgeous afternoon while sitting in the school parking lot scrolling absentmindedly on her phone that by walking into the school she would be marching into a horror movie, she’d never have gone in there. Always she has harbored the belief that she would survive a scary movie for exactly this reason, not that she ever watches them; she covers her eyes. In this instance, she might have settled for that.
Instead, she saw.
She should tell someone. See something, say something, that’s patriotic, right? She might have told Rhea about it. She’d been building up to it, mustering her resolve after the memorial service, but then Griff had clomped over, wrecking the opportunity, sending her yo-yoing back and forth with indecision ever since. She’s still waiting for her moment of clarity to show up. Maybe at the gym.
“Absolutely,” says the front desk manager, who doesn’t look like one of the Kardashian girls now that Darby’s paying better attention. Her teeth are big and the two front ones overlap and she has a beautiful figure, as Darby’s mother would say, and thick auburn hair that does not look like it falls out in the shower. “We would love to connect you with someone to talk about your fitness goals.” She smiles widely, not like someone who is self-conscious of her crooked teeth. “I’ll just—” The manager picks up the handset phone on her desk and presses a button. “Personal trainer to the front. Personal trainer to the front.” Her voice booms throughout the entire gym, as though she’s a cashier at Target.
Darby feels her face get hot and her palms begin to sweat and she hasn’t even begun to exercise. She takes a deep breath, tucking her husband and Little Academy and Lola and Miss Ollie away in her mind for now.
“Someone will be right with you,” the manager informs her, and Darby is shuffled off to the side to wait with her droopy duffel bag and dirty sneakers, out of the way of the regular gym goers.
The someone who arrives is a fellow named Cannon. She shakes his calloused hand. She can’t be sure from this vantage, but she’s pretty sure she’s an inch or two taller than Cannon, who has a military haircut and veiny forearms and informs her that fitness is not just his career, it’s his life.