For the last two years and change, I’ve always walked Bobby right to the front door when I dropped him off at school. There is a drop-off line by the front entrance, but I always parked and walked him to the door. I always wanted to watch him go into the school, and there was the extra bonus of getting to chat with the other mothers.
But today, when I get to school, I don’t want to get out of my car.
Leo is going back to school today. That means Julie will be there. And even without Julie, it’s been awkward showing up at school since the accident. Everybody seems stiff and uncomfortable when I come over. Like I am the one who pushed poor Leo. It doesn’t help that they all think I brought a bunch of contaminated food to the bake sale.
“I think we’ll do the drop-off line today,” I tell Bobby.
He’s strapped into his booster seat in the back. He doesn’t say anything when I make this suggestion. But he doesn’t say not to do it. So I pull up alongside the school.
“Okay, honey!” I try to keep my voice as chipper as possible. “Have a wonderful day at school. I love you!”
Bobby doesn’t budge.
That’s unusual. Most days, he leaps out of the car and is running for the school, and I’m left racing to keep up. But now he is just sitting there in his booster seat, not making any moves to unbuckle himself.
“Bobby?” I don’t have much time. This is not a parking area, and if I linger too long, other parents will start honking at me. “Time to get out.”
He still doesn’t budge. And now his lower lip is trembling.
Right on cue, somebody honks at me. “Bobby, honey, what’s wrong?”
I hear another honk. Somebody yells something at me, possibly an obscenity.
“Bobby?”
He’s just sitting there. His Star Wars backpack is on his left side, stuffed with God knows what. We need to go through that backpack tonight. Last time, I found the rocks inside. Like five legit rocks. But that’s the least of our problems right now.
There’s a rap at the passenger side window. It’s a teacher.
“If you’re not dropping off a child,” the teacher says, “you need to park in a different area. This is the drop-off line.”
“I understand that. But my son is very upset and—”
“But this is the drop-off line. We need to keep the line moving. If you’re not getting out—”
“All right! I’ll move!”
I throw the car back into drive. I pull out of the drive-through line and off to the side. My hands are shaking on the steering wheel. The early bell has already rung and we’ve got about five minutes before the late bell rings. I’ll probably have to walk him in and get a tardy slip.
“Bobby,” I say as calmly as I can. “What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to get out of the car?”
Finally, his little face crumples. Tears start to stream down his cheeks. “Everybody hates me!”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Bobby has always been very popular. He’s one of those kids everybody likes. He gets it from his father. “No, they don’t. Why would you say that?
“They think that I pushed Leo. But I didn’t!”
“Oh, Bobby…” I’m not sure entirely what to say. People always say “little kids, little problems” but this is a big problem. I don’t know what kind of advice to give him when I’m not dealing with it any better than he is. “Listen, the other kids will forget all about it. I promise.”
I end up going in the backseat and the two of us talk for another ten minutes. Part of me wonders if I should just take Bobby home for the day. On the other hand, why should he have to stay home? Bobby did nothing wrong. Owen is the one behind everything.
I finally manage to persuade Bobby to go to school, and I have to walk him inside and he gets a tardy slip. His first tardy in over two years of school.
After sending Bobby off to his classroom, I’m about to leave for home, but then I see Julie Bressler coming out of the nurse’s office. My first instinct is to cover my face and make a run for it. But of course, she sees me.
“April,” she says. I take it as a positive she didn’t ignore me.
“Hi, Julie.” I force a smile, which is the hardest thing I’ve had to do yet today. “How are you?”
She ignores my question. “I need to speak to you.” “Um…” I shift in my flats. “Okay… when?”
“Now, if possible.” “Um, okay…”
I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Is she going to serve me with a lawsuit? How does that even work? Or maybe she believes me about Owen, and she’s asking for my forgiveness.
No, not likely.
Whatever it is, I’m not sure I want to hear about it.
My legs feel like jello as I follow Julie to her office on the first floor. It’s not really an office. It’s just a spare room that they let the president of the PTA use for work, but she likes to call it her office, and I’m not going to argue with her. Sometimes I do think Julie ought to go back to practicing law.
The office consists of a small conference table, and Julie sits on one side of the table. She gestures at a chair on the other side. “Sit down,” she says.
“No ‘please’?”
My attempt at humor is met with silence. I slide into the chair, not a moment too soon because I feel like I can barely stand up. I’m getting upset over nothing though. Julie isn’t serving me with a lawsuit—that doesn’t make sense. She probably just wants my help with something for the PTA.
Julie leans forward in her seat and folds her hands together. The purple circles she had under her eyes yesterday are gone. She has the best makeup. “I want to talk to you about the silent auction.”
My shoulders sag in relief. I knew it had to be PTA related. And the auction went amazing. She probably wants to start planning for the spring. “Yes?”
She pauses, her face a mask. “I was looking at the app you used to record the bids and accept money into the PTA fund. And I noticed that there was a second account recorded. That a percentage of the money was being filtered into an account that wasn’t related to the school.”
Any relief I had been feeling a moment ago has vanished. “What… what do you mean?”
Her eyes become slits. “I mean, somebody created another bank account that’s been stealing money from the silent auction that was supposed to have been going to the PTA.”
I clasp a hand over my mouth. “Oh my God. Who would do something like that?”
“You. You did it.”
I feel dizzy. I can’t believe this is happening. It’s like some sort of a horrible dream. “Do you think I’ve been stealing money from the PTA?”
Her lips are a straight line. “Yes. I do.”
“Julie, I would never do that.” My words are coming out in a jumbled rush. “You know you can trust me. I would never steal from the PTA. Why would I do something like that? Elliot and I have plenty of money. And I get all that advertising money from my show. It’s crazy!”
“You’re always talking about how Elliot is getting angry at you over your spending,” she reminds me. “How you want to buy this or that for your show, but you can’t afford it. Maybe you decided to skim a little off the top. I don’t know. All I know is that money is missing, and you’re the only one who had access to do it.”
“But—” Something suddenly occurs to me. “Maria! She and I were working on the silent auction together! She also had access to the account.”
Julie lets out a loud huff. “It wasn’t Maria.” “How do you know?”
“Because it wasn’t.”
I nearly asked her how she could be so sure, but then it hits me. Everything suddenly makes sense. “Maria is the one who told you to look at the account, didn’t she?”
She’s silent for a moment. “I received an anonymous text message telling me to look into it.”
My whole body goes cold. My anonymous tormentor has struck again. But now it seems like they have upped the ante once again. My head is spinning.
All I know is my gut is telling me Maria Cooper has something to do with this.
“Look,” I say, “Maria set me up. She created this false account, then she ‘discovered’ it. And now it looks like I’ve been stealing money! But you have to know, I would never do something like that.”
“April…”
“Maria is evil!” I spit out. “She… she’s been tormenting me for months by sending me threatening text messages.”
For the first time since I sat down with her, Julie seems slightly rattled.
She’s finally taking me seriously. “She has? How do you know?” “I just do.”
She frowns. “What sort of text messages? Can I see?” I hesitate. “I… I deleted them.”
“You deleted them? Why would you do that?”
I open my mouth, but I realize I don’t have a great answer to that question. I can’t tell her that I deleted them because whoever is texting me is reminding me about things that I would rather they not know. Things that could destroy my career and my marriage if it got out there.
“Look,” I say, “you saw that Facebook post saying I had a stomach bug. I didn’t make that post! Maria made it to torture me!”
“Hmm,” Julie says. But I can tell I’ve lost her. I wish I hadn’t deleted all those text messages. But at the same time, I could never show them to Julie.
There’s a lump in my throat. “You’ve known me for years! You really believe her over me?”
Just like the other night when I came by with the pie, I’m holding my breath. Hoping our friendship holds more weight than Maria’s claims.
“Listen, April.” A deep groove forms between her eyebrows. “I’m not going to turn this matter over to the police, but I expect you to return the money. If you don’t, well, then it will be a police matter.”
“Return the money! But I don’t have any money to return!”
“That’s not my problem.” She holds up her hands. “I’ll give you five business days to give me a check. Then I’m going to the principal, and we’ll be contacting the police. And obviously, you are no longer a part of the PTA. I’ll be disabling all your access.”
I don’t want to cry in front of Julie, but if I don’t get out of here quickly, it’s going to happen. It’s an unstoppable force.
“Julie,” I gulp. “This is a huge mistake. Believe me…”
“I’m sorry.” She gets to her feet. “The only reason I haven’t gone straight to the police is that we’re neighbors and I don’t want a scandal. But I expect to get that money back.”
Then she leaves the room without looking at me again. I’m surprised she left me alone in here. After all, I might steal everything that isn’t nailed down.
I thought I would start crying as soon as she left, but now that she’s gone, the tears aren’t coming. The truth is, I’m not sad. I’m pissed off. Even though Julie denied it, I know Maria is behind this.
And I am going to confront her.
