13

Mid-way through afternoon rehearsal, as Rachel shouted through the megaphone for poor Todd Perkins to speak up, for goodness’ sake, so that the audience would not have to be left in suspense for the rest of their lives, she noticed a hush blanket the room—a hush that could mean only one thing.

Yolanda Martinez had entered the building.

Rachel risked a glance over her shoulder and there she stood, hovering just behind her. Slim and straight in a crisp navy suit, Yolanda gazed over the top of Rachel’s head and smiled benignly at the cast.

She sat next to Rachel and tucked a sprig of dark hair behind her ear with one slim, dark hand. “By all means, don’t let me interrupt. You’re all doing wonderfully.”

Onstage, the cast shuffled awkwardly.

Rachel barked the next line through her megaphone, startling Todd so badly that he hopped sideways and stepped on Shayla’s foot.

Once the cast had resumed their rhythm, Ms. Martinez leaned forward and spoke to Rachel. “Miss Cooper, I heard you stopped by.”

“I got your e-mail.” A silence passed, during which Rachel waited for Yolanda to relieve her suffering.

Meanwhile, things had gone awry onstage. Since Yolanda didn’t seem intent on keeping their conversation flowing freely, Rachel lifted her megaphone to bark at Chris. “Slow down, Sir Rodger! Nobody will understand you when you run your lines together like that!”

“I understand that you’ve enlisted Lee Martin to help you build the set,” Yolanda commented in Rachel’s ear.

Rachel coughed in surprise. The megaphone squealed. Onstage, the cast covered their ears and glared at her. “Carry on,” she barked, as if the interruption had been their fault.

Lee? That’s what Yolanda wanted to talk to her about?

Well, why not. Everything else in her life was about Lee. Rachel gathered her scrambled wits and turned to peer at Yolanda. “Yes,” she said. “He drew up the plans.”

“I see,” murmured Yolanda.

A silence passed.

Rachel remembered her time in the interrogation room with Detective Smith, back when she thought the Memento Killer might be after her. How he’d responded to her statements in monosyllables, causing her to talk to cover up the long silences, saying all sorts of things that she hadn’t planned to say. Thanks to him, Rachel had already learned her lesson the hard way. She felt determined to volunteer nothing to Yolanda that wasn’t being asked directly. Not that she thought Yolanda was interrogating her.

Not exactly.

“I didn’t see Lee Martin’s name on the list of volunteers that you turned in for approval last week,” Yolanda told Rachel.

Rachel relaxed in her seat, relieved. An oversight on her part. Was that all? “Oh,” she said. “Well, since he’s Lee, and he used to work here, I figured he’d be approved, so I didn’t bother listing him. I mean, he’s had the background checks and everything. I’m assuming. Since he was on staff and everything.”

“Miss Cooper, I don’t just ask for lists of volunteers to ensure that they’re not a danger to the students and teachers. I also want to ensure that each volunteer is a good fit for the task. That they’ll be more of a help than a hindrance to any project.”

Rachel felt her eyebrows drawing together. “But he’s Lee,” she said simply.

Yolanda nodded. “Lee Martin is a wonderful artist and a good designer. I even approved his add-ons to the set, although I think they seem a bit excessive. I trust his judgment.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“May I speak frankly?”

Did Yolanda Martinez ever speak any other way? “Of course.”

“It’s not Lee that I don’t trust.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s you.”

“Excuse me?” Had she missed a key element in the conversation?

“Perhaps I phrased that badly. I think you’re a wonderful teacher and a trustworthy person. It’s your unpredictable relationship with Lee Martin that concerns me.”

“My—unpredictable relationship—” Rachel glanced once over each shoulder to check that no students sat directly behind them.

“I’m concerned that one of the periodic eruptions you two seem prone to experiencing might derail the smooth execution of the production.”

“This is ludicrous.” In her shock, Rachel had accidentally depressed the button on her megaphone, amplifying her words at top volume.

Onstage, all action ceased. The cast stared, jaws at half-mast. It was Chris who saved her. “Come on, Miss Cooper,” he drawled. “The scene’s not that bad.”

Rachel had no idea what had been taking place onstage, but she didn’t bother to correct the misapprehension. “Ten-minute break,” she barked through the megaphone.

Alice gazed at Rachel in silent concern, pushing the fake glasses that she wore when disguised as a maid onto the top of her head. Chris twirled his cane and whistled like a nineteenth-century dandy. Todd coughed awkwardly into the silence, and Shayla openly gawped.

“Are you sure we can afford a break?” Jessica Potts called. She folded her arms and tapped a toe against the floor.

Rachel merely raised one eyebrow—slowly, magnificently. Intercepting this look, Chris actually took a physical step back. His gaze flicked from Jessica Potts to Rachel to Yolanda Martinez. He rallied the cast and ushered them backstage. “Let’s go look over our lines for the next scene. Then maybe we won’t get yelled at so much.”

All too soon, Rachel and Yolanda were alone in the silent auditorium. Rachel hunched her shoulders and braced herself for the tirade to come.

Yolanda never raised her voice. She spoke steadily for three minutes, cool and calm. She laid out her concerns in brief, precise language that allowed no room even for Rachel to misunderstand.

She stood, straightened her skirt, patted Rachel on the shoulder twice, and strode up the aisle, leaving Rachel frozen to her seat and staring blankly down at the megaphone in her lap.

Much later, after dismissing the cast, Rachel sent a single text to Lee. Thanx for yr work on the set. No need to come in again—we’ve got it from here. She then texted Lynn to cancel their coffee date.

She drove home and microwaved a frozen dinner. Feeling too demoralized to eat alone at the table, she curled up on the couch with her food. She huddled under a fuzzy blanket, letting the light slowly fade from the room until she sat in the dark, listening to the pulsing music from upstairs and the screaming from next door.

Not for the first time, she wondered why her life was like this. Over the course of her years in the classroom, she’d routinely reminded her students that their lives would be the sum total of every decision they’d ever made. They should approach life decisions with precision and care, remembering that whatever they chose, they would have to live with the consequences.

She’d begun to suspect that it was possible to make all the right decisions and still wind up with questionable outcomes. How else could she explain a grown woman eating a microwaved frozen dinner alone in her dark den of spiders?

Rachel had never been one of those girls who mapped out her entire future and envisioned every detail of what her career, future husband, and potential children would be like. She didn’t set five- and ten-year goals. Instead, she took each year as it came. Until recently, she’d felt that she was just hitting her stride as an adult. Recent setbacks, however—not to mention Lynn’s precipitous slide into menopause—had her questioning her approach. For goodness’ sake, Lynn was only a few years older than she was. What if the same thing happened to her? If that were the case, she was almost out of time to get it together and grow up before she lapsed from adulthood into middle age.

~*~

Rachel wasn’t given to introspection, but the question still plagued her Friday night when she met Lynn and Ann for dinner at Stu’s. She didn’t feel brave enough to bring it up, however.

Lynn studied her closely. “Are you sure you’re OK? When I didn’t hear from you toward the end of the week, I just figured you were feeling better and getting caught up on work.”

Rachel coughed into her napkin. “I am feeling better.”

“You don’t look it,” Ann said from behind a menu.

Lynn nodded. “If anything, you look worse.”

“I haven’t thrown up or had any other weird stomach stuff in forty-eight hours. Nor do I have a fever, runny nose, sore throat, or headache.”

Ann studied her. “You have some pretty awesome eye pits going on.”

“You know me.” Rachel ran her fingers under her sunken eyes. “I always have eye pits. It’s one of the side effects of having such a fair complexion.” That and atomic-bomb blushing.

“They’re not usually this bad.” Lynn stacked the menus neatly in the middle of the table in preparation for handoff to their server. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Probably not enough.” Rachel shrugged. “It’s not easy when your upstairs neighbor is nocturnal and also a frustrated, wanna-be DJ. Oh, and your next door neighbors need marital counseling.” And you lie awake in the dark wondering if time has run out for you and questioning every decision you’ve ever made.

Ann shook her head. “I warned you not to move into that dump.”

“It’s not a dump! It’s brand new!” Rachel puffed up self-righteously.

Fortunately, Clark chose that moment to arrive, cowlick waving cheerily. “My favorite ladies!” Deep dimples bracketed his perfect smile. “You’re all looking fantastic, as usual.”

“Except Rachel,” Ann pointed out.

Clark stepped back and scanned Rachel up and down, tutting as he got a good look at her.

“Careful what you say,” she warned him. “It could affect your tip.”

Clark laughed. He took their order, promising to return in a few minutes with a hot tea for Rachel, on the house.

“I don’t need a hot tea,” she called as he retreated.

Clark swiveled, winked, and offered a double thumbs-up.

Rachel turned back to find Ann and Lynn both staring at her, waiting.

“What?”

“Aren’t you going to give us a Lee update?”

“There’s nothing to update,” she said flatly. “I haven’t seen him since he came by to check on the set and left with Sharon.” Which, technically, was the truth. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was a truth.

Lynn’s eyebrows lifted. “You guys haven’t called since? Spoken? Texted?”

“Well, I sent him a text,” Rachel said, “but he didn’t answer.”

Ann shredded her straw paper. “You should definitely give him space. He’s got issues of his own to work out.”

“As always,” Rachel muttered. She lifted her gaze to find Lynn eyeing her thoughtfully. She groped for a subject change, but once again Clark came to the rescue, bearing hot tea.

After that, the conversation sailed smoothly, at least from Rachel’s perspective. She regaled them with disasters from that week’s play practice, including the moment that Todd Perkins had tripped over his own feet and fallen face-first into Shayla’s abundant chest.

Ann described the methods she employed to keep a horse from sticking out his tongue while being ridden.

Lynn announced that Ethan had developed his first-ever crush on a girl.

Leaning back in her seat and listening to them talk, Rachel reveled in the chance to get out of her own head and focus on something other than her own obsessive thoughts. Warmed, filled, and cheered, she left Stu’s in better frame of mind than she’d experienced since the school year had started.

She tipped Clark 30%.

~*~

After spending almost the entirety of Saturday in bed, Rachel felt ready to return to solo running. She approached this task with single-minded determination. Telling herself that she’d be happy later, she alternately jogged and quick-walked in intervals around the two-mile loop of her apartment complex, rejoicing to finish in record time. Record time for her, that is.

As soon as she’d alerted Lynn of her victory via text, she showered, fell into bed, and—for the first time in weeks—dropped directly into an exhausted and dreamless sleep. Not even kickboxing workouts with Coach Donovan made her this tired. Waking to early-morning sunlight slanting across her room, she smiled and stretched, snuggling under her duvet. Maybe there was something to this running business after all.

Things really were looking up, Rachel thought as she pulled her new outfit out of the closet and the new boots out of their long box. Riding high on a wave of frothy emotion, she spared not a thought for who might or might not show up for church that day.