A Lie for a Lie (14 page)

I shook my head. Vehemently. “Grady treats him badly.”

“Grady was always such a sweet, patient boy.”

“Grady is no longer a boy.” I thought about telling her what Fred had said. But what was the point? Veronica looked at Grady Barber and saw the high school student she had known and admired. I didn’t think I could change that.

“Did you talk to Grady, too?” she asked.

“No. He shut himself in the bedroom, and my first priority was to get Fred out of there alive.”

“He’s very upset. He says Fred screwed up one too many times, and he fired him. Fred was abusive, and he admits he snapped.”

“Maybe it doesn’t matter what happened between them. We just have to get through the next week.”

Veronica was biting her lip, something I’d never seen her do. “Aggie, Grady says he can’t go on without an assistant. There are just too many details he can’t handle alone. There’s no time for him to hire a real replacement. Not with his schedule here. He wants us to assign him a volunteer.”

“Good luck finding one.”

Veronica was silent, but her eyes never left my face.

I held up my hands, as if warding off an attacker. “Oh, no, don’t even think about it.”

“Look, who else could do it? From the moment they arrived you’re the one who’s been helping Fred. You have the lists. You know all the arrangements. You understand the situation better than anybody else. You’re good at working with people. You handle everything with tact, and you know how to keep from antagonizing him—”

“I’m not sure there’s any way not to.”

“Don’t you see? You’re the only person who can do this.”

“It took two of us, Veronica. Fred
and
me. Two to keep him calm and somewhat in line. And even that was tough. Now you want me to handle everything by myself?”

She leaned forward earnestly. “No! I’ll get somebody to help. I promise. Camille will do it. She likes you.”

I wondered if this meant Camille was the only committee member besides Sally who did. “Camille’s great, but she’s already busy.”

“Not that busy. She did the first round of tryouts, remember? They’re over now. I know she’ll help. She thinks you’re great.” Now she realized how that sounded. “Of course we
all
think you’re great, but Camille will go that extra mile to help. The two of you can do it together. You can do whatever Fred was doing, and Camille can be your go-between with everybody else.”

“Don’t you dare say, ‘Think of the children.’ ”

She sat back. “I can see I don’t have to. So I’ll say this instead. He’s really upset. Maybe upset enough to walk out on us if we don’t fill Fred’s shoes with somebody else. Please, Aggie. Tell me you’ll do this. There’s just one more week to go, and we’re making so much money for the hospital. Please!”

On the way home I asked myself why I’d caved in and said yes. It wasn’t as if these women were going to be my enduring friends. We would nod when we saw one another on the street, maybe stop to reminisce a moment or two. But our paths would seldom cross. I didn’t have to impress anybody, and in truth that’s not what this was about. Despite all the hassles, I was feeling good about what I’d done for the hospital, if not with the process, and I didn’t want one Grady Barber to ruin that. Veronica was right. We had one week. I could survive one week. We all could.

I pulled into the driveway with trepidation. There had been enough time since I’d left for the thunderclouds to gather and the storm to begin. The tiniest possibility existed that Deena hadn’t heard any reports about Ed’s sermon. An even tinier possibility was that, as Ed believed, she had been proud to have her failures trotted out in front of the congregation as a humorous example of courage and fortitude.

Right . . .

I gathered my purse and my own courage and went inside to see.

“Do you know what Daddy did?”

Deena was standing by the door and didn’t even wait for me to close it. She jumped out at me the way a mugger might, but I’d been expecting it and didn’t use any of her grandfather’s blocks or kicks.

I was hoping with all my might that this was about peanut butter sandwiches for lunch when Deena had asked for grilled cheese. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“He talked about me in his sermon! He told everybody about the Price Girls and how we got thrown off the Idyll.”

“He absolutely did not put it that way.”

“Are you defending him?”

I believe in united fronts. Parents standing together arm in arm to combat the ravages of colic, teething, and adolescence. I also believe in honesty. I did my best to straddle that considerable distance.

“I think your dad is really proud of you for trying out, and proud of the way you handled not making it to the next level. We both are. I know he didn’t realize mentioning that in his sermon would upset you. He would never do anything to hurt you, Deena. But sometimes it’s hard to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.”

Her eyes were narrowed; her hands were on her hips. “Why didn’t you stop him! You knew I’d be mad, didn’t you? You figured that out, and you’ve been practicing what you were going to say to me!”

“Only a little. And I mean every word of it.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I don’t read his sermons, and he didn’t tell me. I would have suggested he ask you how you felt first. But you’d better believe he’ll always ask you in the future. I know he understands that now.”

“I have never been so humiliated. Not in my whole life! Do you know how many people came up to me afterwards and patted me on the back and told me it was okay that we didn’t win?” Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry you’re upset. Really, I am. And I know you’re feeling—”

“You don’t know! Did your father ever stand up in front of hundreds of people and tell them all about your most embarrassing moment?”

Actually, once when I was fourteen and visiting Ray for the summer, he’d climbed up to the top of the water tower for a small town in Minnesota and spray painted “Cheat the IRS” in bold red letters. I’d been so embarrassed that when the local police hauled him off to jail, I’d called Junie and insisted she send me a bus ticket back to wherever she was living at the moment. She’d done one better and gotten me a seat on the next plane out and a cab for the two-hour ride to the airport.

But no, that was not quite the same thing.

“There weren’t hundreds of people sitting there,” I said. “It’s not Christmas or Easter, and half the church is on vacation. Nobody’s going to remember this by next week.”

“I will. I’ll remember it until the day I die!”

She thundered into the hallway and up the stairs.

When her bedroom door slammed, Ed came in from his study. Sunday afternoons are never his best time. I’m usually here to pump food and liquids back into him and protect him from all domestic dramas until he’s breathing normally again. Clearly today my absence had been missed. He looked ten pounds lighter and fading fast.

“I guess you heard,” he said.

“Uh huh.”

“For the record, I more or less got down on my knees and begged for forgiveness.”

“You don’t believe in astrology, do you? It’s not part of your personal theology? Because whether we believe it or not, I can pretty much guarantee our stars aren’t aligned today. Something’s in retrograde or ascending and descending simultaneously. I’m thinking a meteor shower or a black hole in the vicinity. We might need to get in bed and pull the covers over our heads.”

“I think we have to put this mess down to good old-fashioned human failing.”

I went to him and put my arms around him. “I think we’ll be doing that a lot until the girls leave home for good.”

Despite wanting to resume his place in Deena’s affections, Ed agreed that she couldn’t go to Madison’s party. The other Price Girl mothers agreed, too, although, of course, Crystal O’Grady had to be talked into compliance. Until we intervened, Carlene had planned to attend without her friends, which was like throwing harmless Fourth of July sparklers into a keg of dynamite. Now Deena wasn’t the only Price Girl who was angry at her parents. I figured it was just as well Deena was already upset with Ed. We were getting a two-for-one bargain, and now she wasn’t speaking to either of us.

I also told Ed my suspicions that Grady’s reasons for coaching Madison had nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with her nubile sixteen-year-old body. Like me, he was concerned, and like me, he wasn’t sure that telling Tammy with such scant evidence would do more good than harm. Tammy has always been sensitive to anything that implies her parenting skills might be lacking. Ed and Tammy have sidestepped a couple of blowouts about the church youth group, but only just. He was afraid that she might go out of her way to prove I was wrong by reinterpreting every sign I was right. We decided to watch closely and play this by ear.

Astonishingly, in the two days after Fred resigned and left town, Grady Barber was, for the most part, on his best behavior. He gave me a long list of things to do, but he stayed out of my way. We met each morning, went over phone calls I needed to make and lists of errands to run. He introduced me to his manager and publicist by way of conference call, and gave me access to his calendar. He clearly had an aversion to paperwork, preferring that I do as much of it as I could, even if a few mistakes were made. So I wrote letters and gave them to the hotel staff to key in and fax. I checked incoming contracts from other organizations that wanted him for their own versions of the Idyll, and I noted questions in the margins, going over them point by point when we were together, since he never seemed to have time to read.

“He even gave me an amethyst bracelet,” I told Junie on Wednesday morning, after an hour in Grady’s suite in which he had not shouted or used more than a whiff of sarcasm. I held out my wrist. I thought the bracelet was nice, small, emerald-cut amethysts interlaced with silver charms in the shapes of rainbows, jungle animals, doves, and arks. In a few years it would suit Teddy well.

She looked it over with a practiced eye. “Nicely done,” she pronounced. “Not cheap, but not so expensive he’ll necessarily expect a favor in return.”

Junie believes in positive thinking, but not stupidity. She understands the world of men and women, and so do I. I suspected Grady had a cache of
Wayfarer
bracelets that he gave out on all sorts of occasions, some of which I didn’t want to dwell on. But I had been surprised he’d wanted to impress and even thank me. Possibly the man still had a good instinct or two deep inside him. More likely he just wanted to endear himself, so I’d work harder and faster.

I lowered my wrist. “I may survive Grady, but I’m not sure I’ll survive Deena.”

A customer came up to us, and Junie gave advice about one brand of thread versus another while I waited. When we were more or less alone again, she pulled me close for a hug. “Just enjoy the silence, precious. It will end.”

Deena knew she would never be allowed to get away with not answering when we spoke directly to her. That would be an unforgivable offense. Still, she hadn’t initiated a conversation with either of us since Sunday.

“It’s not a blackout, exactly, more of a brownout,” I explained.

“Is Teddy making up for it?”

“She’s beside herself. She’s a fixer. She keeps trying to bring everybody together. Deena’s stopped speaking to her, too, because Teddy keeps telling her that when somebody says they’re sorry, they’re supposed to be forgiven. And since they’ve been studying the Ten Commandments in Sunday School, honor thy father’s been coming up a lot.”

“Oh, my.”

I finished with a flourish, ending my daily news broadcast. “Last but not least, your buddy Nora’s been to see Ed, as well as every other minister in town. Ed said some of them are meeting regularly to discuss how to get rid of the tent show.”

“Ed, too?”

“You jest. He’s a ‘freedom of religion’ man. But he’s concerned things might get nasty, and some of the people most upset about Nora and her animals could take matters into their own hands.”

“It’s an odd world, isn’t it? She’s asking people to take care of the planet and respect it, and they’re afraid she’s the problem.”

I didn’t think things were quite that simple, but Junie definitely had a point.

Another customer appeared at Junie’s side—a sale was in progress—and I said good-bye. I didn’t leave, though, because just then Tammy Sargent walked in and headed straight for the notions room.

Since she hadn’t seen me I followed to say hello, although I wasn’t really fooling myself. Despite Ed’s well-founded concerns, I was still hoping that somehow I could ease into the subject of Madison and Grady. I had decided to alert Camille to my suspicions, and neither of us had come upon any alarming episodes. But we couldn’t be with Grady twenty-four hours a day. If Tammy admitted to even the weakest of doubts, I might be able to bring my concerns into the open.

Luckily no one else was in with the notions, since fabric was on sale, not seam rippers or flying geese rulers.

“Hi, Tammy. I saw you come in,” I said, when she didn’t look away from a revolving rack.

“Aggie.” She looked pleased to see me, and I hoped that lasted. “I can’t believe you have a whole minute off.”

I laughed obligingly, but I was glad we’d gotten to the subject of Grady so quickly. “Looking for something special?”

She lowered her voice. “I found a great sequined tube top at Here We Go Again, and I think it’ll be perfect with capris for one night of the finals. Trying to keep up with all these costume changes is expensive. But the top is missing some sequins.” She put her hand just above her breast to demonstrate. “So I’m looking for something to cover the spot.”

Here We Go Again is our local consignment shop, and I was glad to find Tammy wasn’t spending Madison’s college fund—if there was a college fund—on clothes for the Idyll. “If you don’t find what you want in here, Junie has boxes of trims and beaded appliqués upstairs. She’s going to put together a little bridal gown corner in the spring. You can tell her what you need and she’ll help.”