CHAPTER ELEVEN
The PTA fair planning meeting had started by the time I arrived. I sneaked in, glad that Bianca was not in charge tonight. Guaranteed, she would have already assigned me a few duties I would not have wanted to do, as punishment for being late.
Normally, I would have stumbled in awkwardly, mumbling apologies and wanting to disappear. But my new power bra made me bold. I waved at Deb and settled into the seat at the table next to her. She gave me a surprised look, reinforcing that my entire being radiated I’m late, deal with it bitches. She nodded her approval.
Norma smiled at me, but did not stop her report on the state-of-the-fair planning. Who knew acting like you were confident of yourself could make life so much easier? I needed more killer bras.
Halfway through, Norma gave us a ten-minute break. As expected, the gossip started immediately. And there was only one topic: the latest victim of the serial killer. “She was a mystery shopper,” I heard one person across the room say in a stage whisper, and I strained to hear more.
“I thought that was a fake job. Like stuffing envelopes at home.”
“Well, that’s what I heard. She got lured to her death through mystery shopping.”
Whoa. Wait? I looked at my smart phone and calculated whether I could get away with checking my email to see if the shopper boards had gotten hold of this story.
I wondered if Deb would tell me, if I asked. Maybe nod if I guessed right? She didn’t like to gossip about her job, which made her a good cop, but a less-than-helpful friend in this situation.
My suspicion was confirmed when one of the mom’s said, “Hey, Deb. How worried should we be? The police say this guy stakes out the mall, but what if he decides to moonlight at a local strip mall because you guys are all over the real mall?”
Deb put on her official no-comment expression and said, “It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”
All the moms groaned at the unhelpful cliche, and she shrugged. “If you can avoid the mall, avoid it until this guy is caught. If not,” she glanced at me. “If not, then take a friend, or pepper spray. And make sure it is in within reach, not inside the car when you need it most.”
I wanted to stick out my tongue at her. I regretted telling her about Nosy Cowboy Guy. But if I reacted, I’d out myself as the guilty party, and the others would start asking questions I didn’t want to answer.
After the meeting, Deb whispered. “Sorry. But I thought it was worth it to do the public service announcement.”
“I guess.” I wanted to find a way to ask her just how much danger we were all in, with this guy out there.
She changed the subject on me before I could. “What do we do if we don’t have enough cakes for the cake walk? Nobody bakes anymore and Bianca says they have to be homemade. That’s always a popular game, and the more cakes, the more money it brings in.”
“What Bianca doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt us, right? I’m not going to be the cake police. Who can tell between homemade and store bought, anyway?”
Nancy Sackris overheard us and scooted over. Nancy was my co-leader for Anna’s Brownie troop. She was a lifelong Girl Scout, and proved it once again by offering to help. “What if we had the girls help with the Cake Walk for their service project.”
Deb looked doubtful. “They’re a little young to be baking cakes.”
Nancy waved her hand in the air to dismiss Deb’s doubts. “Molly and I will make it a troop project. We’ll have the mothers come and help. They’ll bake the cakes ahead of time, and then we’ll all decorate them.” Nancy’s blue eyes twinkled. “Competition usually brings out the creativity. And I’ll make sure to have some pre-made icing flowers and do-dads to make sure every cake is worth winning.”
Deb nodded. “Better you than me.”
I thought Nancy’s idea deserved more praise, so I chimed in, “I love you, Nancy. Don’t tell Seth.” We all laughed.
Deb relaxed about the cake walk…a little…as we figured out how to handle the logistics of planning the troop meeting and delivering the cakes to the fair on time.
I even forgot about the mystery shopping link to the serial killer until I was on the way home and heard the news soundbite on the radio announcing that the FBI was on the case, and our local mom was an official victim of the Shopping Mall Killer.
For some reason, all I could see was a James Bond silhouette with a pair of vibrant green eyes pointing a gun at a shadow at the entrance to the mall.
I shivered, and shook the image away. But I kept my fingers curled around my pepper spray as I walked from the car to the house. The first rule of the Secret Shopper Sisterhood was to be prepared for anything and everything to go wrong.
I needed to get Celeste a thank-you gift. Maybe a set of brass knuckles. She’d like that.
The PTA fair planning meeting went longer than I’d predicted, and the house was quiet when I came in. To my surprise, the TV wasn’t on. Seth was sitting on the couch in the dark, bathed only in the light of his laptop monitor. There was an oddly still quality to his fixity, unlike when he was engrossed in a game of World of Warcraft.
“How was the meeting?” His question was perfunctory politeness and I was quite sure I could have said that Bianca, the PTA president, set me on fire and he wouldn’t have heard me, or remembered that Bianca was in Paris.
“What are you doing?”
At that, he looked up, a sheepish grin on his face that made me worry I wasn’t going to like his answer. Surely not pornography. Not Seth. He liked the occasional foray into Playboy, and he was the only one who ever looked at the Victoria’s Secret catalogs which clogged our mailbox periodically. But online porn? Not unless he’d been taken by pod people.
“I checked our email. We’re a hit.”
“Really?” I shouldn’t have been put out that he’d checked the site without me. After all, hadn’t I done the same?
I should have been glad that he was interested in my work at last. He had a glass of wine next to him. Before I could really get worried, I noticed the second glass of wine.
He patted the seat next to him. “Come see what these millionaire losers have to say. It’s pathetic. They’ve fallen for Serena’s siren song easier than Ulysses and his men.”
“Classic.” I’d already battled the dowagers of the PTA, I had no more strength left to protest that he’d usurped my job. “How long have you been on?”
“Not long.”
I could see the time-online counter, he’d been on since 9:00. Wow, what was so fascinating? I wondered guiltily if he’d been as curious about the rich women on the site as I’d been about the rich men? I hit the browser’s back button, and saw the profile of one Theona Perkin-Pepper. Not a great beauty, but she had a very nice job — wealth manager. “Wish you’d married someone like her?” I couldn’t help but add sourly, “I bet she hires only the best nannies for her children.”
“She doesn’t have any children,” Seth said. “She wanted to have her career in a solid place before she settled down to a husband and children.”
“Well, I guess she’s done that. Of course, let’s see her in a year after she’s got the husband and the first kid. Money can make many things better—but it doesn’t make morning sickness easier and it doesn’t make a newborn sleep through the night.”
“She knows it won’t be easy.”
“No one knows how not easy it will be until the baby throws up on your best suit the same day your boss needs a final report. Not to mention that your husband is out of town on a business trip.” That was the day I quit my “real” job. Without notice. Talk about burning bridges.
If I’d had a man for a boss he might have understood. But I had a woman boss. Worse, I had a woman boss with four children and a full-time nanny. She didn’t understand why I let “these little things” interfere with my responsibilities. I didn’t bother to explain. I just hoped she had developed Alzheimer’s or empathy before I was ready to come back into the workforce and needed a reference.
“She waited until she was the boss.” Seth smiled smugly. “When you’re the boss, you don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself.”
“Hah. Wait until she becomes a wife and mother. That answering-to-herself stuff will stop cold.”
“Does she look like a woman who will stop thinking for herself? She’s a self-made millionaire.” There was definitely a hint of lust in his voice. I didn’t like that.
“True. She looks like a woman who will marry a man long enough to get pregnant, find a good nanny, and establish a case for child support.” I added, to appease his sense of outrage. “And think the alimony she gets stuck with fair exchange for the trouble.”
“Since when did you get so cynical, Mary Sunshine?” Seth flipped forward again, and I saw that Serena’s mailbox had fourteen more messages, all read. “Or should I say Serena Sunshine?”
I knew I should read them all, but I was so annoyed—and tired—that I didn’t want to prolong the agony. “Which are the top three?”
“Depends on what Serena’s looking for?”
“According to us, Serena’s looking for a man who will understand her ambition, drive for perfection, and love of a good martini.” And maybe have a sense of humor, like Hammond.
I opened a text file for our report notes. “However, what the company that hired us wants us to look for is anyone whose answer sounds perverse, scummy, or like someone panning for gold.”
“So the company’s cynical, not you? Is that it?” Seth opened a message. “Well, then, this guy should be in the running.”
I read the message quickly. “Oh yeah. How did he get through? A man who can whip it out for a photo shoot should want a broader audience than this exclusive site.” I typed up some quick stats: name, handle, age, and two select quotes from the email.
I made reference to the picture attached, but did not send on. Interested parties could pull up the man’s file…so to speak…when they made the very necessary decision to kick him out of the exclusive club.
“Any other bad boys?”
“Depends what you mean by bad. Does boring count?”
“Nope. Boring is not one of the screening criteria.”
“Then most of them pass muster.”
I checked the screening sheet. “Any mention of rule-bending or breaking?”
“Such as?”
“Trying to set a date in a private venue—”
“What’s wrong with that? Does everything need to be public these days?”
“First dates at this club do. Everyone signs the agreement to abide by the rules. There aren’t many.” I counted down. “Only six. My mom had at least ten.”
“Your dad only had one.” He grinned and for a moment he was nineteen again, just like the first time I met him.
“Not that you abided by it.” I felt a flush of memory. Had that reckless young couple really been us? Impossible. It had to have been some movie we saw, once long ago at a black-and-white film festival.
“Okay, what are the six criteria these pathetic pusses are supposed to abide by?”
“Public first date. No mention of salary—”
“Uh oh.” He opened a message. “This guy not only mentioned his salary, he mentioned his job title and the golden parachute he would get should his company ever realize he had overreached his abilities by a job level or two. I think he was being humorous, though.”
“Still, he broke the rules.” I quickly noted the guy in my text file of notes and moved on to the rest of the criteria. “No separated-but-not-divorced, nothing kinky—”
“Does a trip to the bondage club after drinks count?”
“You’re joking.”
He opened up the file right in front of me.
I know we must meet in a public place. May I suggest Club ChiChi? Then, if things go well, we’ll only be a few steps from Dark Designs, a wonderful adult playground.
I didn’t recognize the name of either of those places. “How can we be sure—?”
Seth didn’t look at me, but kept his eyes on the screen as he answered. “It was in the student newspaper. Dark Designs specializes in S&M. They run an ad almost every issue.”
“Yuck. You’d think students would have better things to do.”
“And to think I was going to suggest we spend our next anniversary there.”
“Me on top, I hope.”
“I believe they call it Dominant, not on top.”
The thought that he spoke with too much authority flipped through me at the speed of light. No. Not Seth. He’d probably stopped at reading the ads with avid interest.
“What do they call the bottom?” I half hoped he wouldn’t know the answer.
With alacrity, he said, “Submissive.”
“Well, that’s out for us then, neither of us could be called submissive.”
“True. Do you think this guy is breaking the rules?”
“I’m not the one who has to make the final call. But I’ll report his email and let those who wrote the rules decide.”
“Sounds like a perfectly mysterious decision to me.” He looked at me curiously. “Does it ever bother you that you are like a spy, sneaking around snarking on people?”
I tried not to bristle. “I prefer the term secret agent to spy. And I report the good things, not just the bad. Besides, I represent the company, not the employee.”
“Molly Bond, secret agent? I guess it has a ring to it.” He smiled. “I can see how this could get addictive — getting a look into other people’s lives. Wish I had a million bucks. Heck, I’d be happy with a couple thousand extra.”
I always hear his wish for more money as a direct complaint about my lack of income-producing work, but I didn’t want to ruin the nice mood we had going to fight about it. “Anyone—wait, let’s check out the last two rules.” I consulted the list. “Make phone contact without explicit permission? Or solicit for investments or political candidates?”
“No. Phone’s been quiet all evening. Your friends must have all been at the PTA meeting. Political candidates? You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Very strict rule.”
“Makes me wonder if a ringer got on the list just to work for their candidate once. Oddly specific rule,” he mused. “Politics and romance are definitely not compatible subjects. Must be an interesting story.”
I nodded. “Unfortunately, we’ll never know what it is—that is the fate of the lonely mystery shopper.”
“What do you do with all those?” He pointed to my text document full of notes.
“I cut and paste into the second part of the assignment sheet and submit it.”
“And then they pay you part of your fee? Did you get paid for the first part yet?”
I would have preferred not to answer, but there was no way to avoid the question. “They’ll pay me all at once. In sixty days.” Or ninety, if they felt like it.
“Two months?” He was instantly angry. “That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the way it is in this business. The client solicits the shopping company, who hands out the assignment to the scheduler, who finds someone to do the job, who does the job and turns in the report to the company, who turns it in to the client, who then pays the company, who then pays the scheduler, who then pays the shopper. More red tape than a Fourth of July parade.”
“Do you think any of the people on this list got where they are by agreeing to sell themselves short like that?”
“Accepting the realities of the business is not selling myself short. It’s a flexible job, with relatively low pay, I know. But it can be fun and I learn a lot about how businesses run. If I ever need to get a real job—”
“If?”
Oops. Hit a sore subject. After fifteen years of marriage we had quite a few buried land mines to watch out for. Sometimes I wondered what our conversations would be like in twenty years. Maybe that’s why older couples never seemed to say much to each other.
“Ryan’s dyslexic, not disorganized, Seth. He needs lots of help and support to learn to handle this. You wouldn’t believe what I need to do with him—like read all of his math word problems to him because he just guessed at the operation and pulled the numbers from the problem without reading it.”
“He needs to get it together. He’s too old for that nonsense.”
Sometimes I forget that Seth doesn’t really believe in dyslexia. He thinks Ryan could read better if he only worked harder. His refusal to read any research on the subject infuriated me. He’s a scientist, after all. He lives and dies by data points.
“The tutoring is helping. He’d be doing fine if he just learned to ask for help when he needed it. I’ve told him repeatedly that it is not a horrible thing to ask for help. He has yet to show that he has heard me. He prefers to look as though he can handle things—as long as no one looked too closely, which his classroom teacher clearly is not doing. Maybe you should tell him. Maybe he’d hear it if you said it.”
Seth had tuned out my rant by the end of the first sentence, I could tell by the way his gaze was focused back on the computer. “Maybe we should pay for an extra tutoring session a week. Get him up to speed so he doesn’t need any help.”
“He’s doing very well in his program, he just needs to overcome that common tendency for kids with dyslexia to avoid reading blocks of text that seem irrelevant.” Like directions. “And it will take a while before the tutoring helps his reading ability catch up to his grade level.”
“He’s a smart kid, he’ll get it.”
“He will. I’ll make sure of it.” It would take time and vigilance, though, since Ryan had his father’s independently proud nature. He would rather fail than openly ask for help, which would be like painting a big red LOSER on his forehead. I’d never gotten Seth to see that was not a useful approach to life, so I couldn’t expect Ryan to embrace asking for help.
“Do you really think it matters if you go back to work or not?”
“I don’t know Seth. If we’d caught it sooner…gotten him into the tutoring program in third grade maybe…he’s so competitive, he’s internalized himself as stupid. He does his homework, but not with any conviction that he can do it right.”
Seth said sharply, “You baby him. If he had strict consequences…”
“What’s more strict than an F? Humiliation before his peers?” Seth didn’t get it. Worse, he didn’t want to get it. He wanted to believe his son would wake up one day “cured” of dyslexia by the intense tutoring program we had him in. The idea that it was a brain hardwiring issue that was as real and as permanent as a limp was a reality he was not willing to face. Like father, like son.
I’d bought several books on dyslexia back when I was trying to figure out what to do to help Ryan. They were all piled on the table beside Seth’s side of the bed, decorated with a layer of dust. “Read the books, Seth, and then you’ll understand.”
“They’re just into scaring money out of parents. Ryan’s a good kid, and he’ll get this reading thing down soon, I know it.”
Right. I could argue with him pointlessly, or enter my report. I chose to enter the report. Seth watched as I logged into the report site and answered the long string of questions in complete, descriptive sentences.
“Why so fancy? It’s not as if they’re paying you well—or quickly.”
“It’s the job. The better your reports, the better paying jobs you get. Two hundred bucks for this is good pay. It would take me ten or more regular little jobs to make that much. I want more jobs like this one, so we can afford those little extras we both like, like hot water and electricity.”
“If you got a regular part-time job—”
“Regular jobs mean regular hours, Seth. Are you willing to stay home with a sick kid if I’m scheduled to work?”
“Employers do have sick leave and vacation.”
“Yes, they do. And they do get really impatient with people who mess up the work schedule by using them without much notice.”
“I heard of this thing called job-flex. You could try that.”
“I could.” I tried to say it as if I had an open mind, but I think my general frustration and disinterest came through because Seth slipped the laptop onto my lap and stood up.
“I’m going to bed. You shouldn’t be too much longer. Don’t forget we have dinner with the dean and his wife tomorrow.”
“I’ll be up soon,” I promised, not letting my expression reveal that I had forgotten dinner. Again. Which meant I didn’t have a babysitter lined up.