ON PLANTING FOR THE FUTURE, that first one, it was seventy-four degrees, full sun, light wind. The most perfect May Saturday in the history of Pierson, in the history of the world. We lucked out, everyone said. Sometimes your number comes up. Underneath the weather talk Becky knew what people were saying. Things are finally turning around. We might catch a break yet.
Becky raced all over the riverfront—she’d been out since predawn—in the pale-yellow Town Hall T-shirt all the volunteers were wearing. She had a clipboard, she had a walkie-talkie. She answered a million questions: Are there any more gardening gloves? Do you know why the hose on Galena isn’t working? Where’s First Aid? Somebody told me to tell you one of the speakers shorted out.
Everyone had turned out: families, seniors, whole squads of Brownies and Boy Scouts and VFWs and Rotarians. Kids wandered the food tents, spending all their cash on corn dogs and popcorn and Diet Sprite. None of the Memorial Day or July Fourth parades had had this kind of turnout—not in years. Five hundred, six hundred people at the fullest part of the day, and if they weren’t seeding beds they were paying for rides on the Tilt-A-Whirl or the Gorgon’s Head; they were listening to a local band and eating hoagies from a cart.
Becky stopped by a gaggle of women who’d claimed one of the biggest planting beds. Old hands, they’d brought their own padded gardening kneelers. They praised her for getting the numbers exactly right: enough seed packets, hoes and forks, porta potties, coffee urns and packets of creamer. “Your dad would be real proud,” the most gray of the gray-haired women said.
All of a sudden Becky’s eyes watered, and she had to pretend to need to rush off. She did have to rush off, of course, there were a hundred other things that needed her attention. But the mention of Hank got to her. A few moments later she found herself wandering away from the crowds.
This is where he would be, in this patch of grass behind the Ace Restaurant. Not planting, but enjoying the day, the hustle-bustle, his girl running the show. He’d have been in a metal folding chair with plastic strips. A Packers hat on his head and white zinc on his nose. He’d have a magazine in his lap but he wouldn’t look at it; instead he’d have his eyes on the river ahead of him. Not noticing the patched-up unsightly riverwalk, that constant reminder of all that the town couldn’t get done.
Becky stood in the warm grass. Alone and not alone.
“Pretty nice,” Hank said, smiling up at her. “Check out those seagulls.”
A dozen birds floated on the green water, just north of the Galena bridge. Every few moments a couple shot up straight vertically, hovered in air, then dropped again to the water, plunging down, flapping like crazy.
“What are they doing?”
“Diving for fish, maybe. This warm weather’s got everything going.”
For a while they just watched the water, the wide eddying flow as it shunted south from Ash Hill State Park, poured down the cement breaker in a mini waterfall, and turned foamy against the rocks under the bridge. Little sloppy waves pricked up like scales, flashing sunlight back in wavy glimmers. Pages on Becky’s clipboard fluttered. Bass rumbled from the band covering “My Girl,” occasionally pierced by a feedback squeak.
Her walkie-talkie blared. “Anyone seen Becky? Registration needs her pronto!”
“Yep,” she said, holding down her button. “On my way.” By the time she turned back to Hank, he was gone.
As if she didn’t already see Becky approaching, a secretary waved frantically at her from the registration tent. Her name was Joni and she fit the type for one of Town Hall’s dozens of cubicle dwellers: short curly salt-and-pepper hair, bristly wide-eyed attitude. She wore her yellow Planting for the Future T-shirt over a lumpy blue windbreaker.
“We have a problem.” Behind the table with Joni, Marcia Knox nodded in urgent agreement.
Becky saw what she meant. “That’s the opposite of a problem.”
Cash, buckets of it. Crammed into the raffle bin, overflowing several banker’s envelopes, hundreds of small bills handed to two government workers with nothing but a card table and a flapping sign: ENTER THE RAFFLE (WIN A YEAR OF FREE PARKING), DONATE TO THE FLOWER MAINTENANCE CREW, SPONSOR A TYPE OF PETUNIA IN HONOR OF A FRIEND OR LOVED ONE. CASH ONLY.
“What about this?” Marcia whispered, half-rising off her chair. A gray metal cash box, stuffed overfull, held mostly closed by her butt.
“Now that’s a nest egg,” Becky said, but neither of the women laughed. “All right, don’t panic. Later on I can—”
“I’m not comfortable being in charge of this much money,” the first secretary said, with a meaningful loaded look. Oh for Christ’s sake, Becky thought. Do I have to do every goddamn thing myself?
“Fine, give it to me,” she said. With palpable relief Joni and Marcia immediately shoved the cash box and the banker’s envelopes into two canvas tote bags, then emptied the raffle bin into a third.
After fruitlessly looking around for someone to drive her, Becky began a slow heavy walk uphill to Town Hall. Maybe she could steal a few minutes in her office. In the cool quiet, with a few red licorice strands she’d stashed in her desk.
Instead of waiting for the terminally slow elevator she took the stairs, sweat cooling on her skin, forearms aching from the weight of the tote bag straps. The safe was kept in a filing room on the other side of the hall, but the light was on in her own office. Becky stopped. A figure was moving around inside.
Phil Mannetone. When Becky burst through the doorway he didn’t move to hide what he was doing—bent over her desk, searching through papers. Instead he casually looked up with a sideways grin. “I’m the only one who sees it, aren’t I? What you’re doing in plain sight.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Becky knew she needed to think, to get control of the situation, but all she could feel was a white-hot fury at this ape with his paws in her things. She stepped toward him and he quickly moved to the other side of the desk.
“About three months ago one of my underlings got ripped a new one for messing up the copier, again. Yelled at by one of your underlings, who said that seven visits from the tech service guy was way over the line and if he couldn’t photocopy a memo he had no business in our office.”
Becky felt her throat tighten. What to do. How to get around this.
“So I comfort the little shithead, tell him I’ll take care of it. Who knows, maybe we do need a new copier. But then . . .” Phil held a smile. “I looked up the invoice. And checked the dates. I bet you know what I found, Becky. No tech came out on those dates.”
Becky dropped her bags one at a time, soft thunks. Twenties and fives and wads of one-dollar bills spread onto the carpet, a messy pile. She went over to her file cabinet, took out a key and unlocked it.
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me,” Phil said, his voice wobbly. “I’m not playing any of your games again. I never wanted to—” Becky ignored him, pulled out the manila envelope, and took out the 8 × 11 photos. “What are you doing, what are those?” She set them out on her tidy desk, one at a time, giving each ample space. Then she simply stood back and waited.
Phil approached gingerly, hands behind his back. Eyes scanned one and then the next, and then the next. His face worked hard, clenching and chewing, mouth moving without sound.
The PI’s long lens had captured decent shots of the most incriminating interactions—in black and white, blurry in closeup but still definitively the two of them. The first set showed Becky pressed against Phil with his back against her car. Her face buried in his neck (she’d had to stand on her tiptoes), his head tipped back, eyes closed. What was great was how his hand was caught right smack cupping her ass cheek. He’d done that only for the briefest of moments, right after she’d gone on about their connection and his constant flirting, before yanking it away in horror and sliding out from her grasp. But it had been enough.
The next set of photos was even better. (Or worse, depending.) Becky, through the back windshield of Phil’s car, blouse ripped open and lacy bra exposed (she’d done that herself). The two of them in a clinch—three seconds, max, before Phil pulled away. The PI had even caught a gleam of wet on Phil’s mouth, and his smile—she forgave the hack his exorbitant fee for that alone. Phil must have been in the process of nervously apologizing, declining the offer although he was flattered, don’t get him wrong—but of course what he said wasn’t visible in the photo.
“You bitch,” Phil breathed.
“Here’s how this is going to go,” Becky said. She hadn’t fully prepared, hadn’t guessed today would be the day, but was nothing if not ready to step up. “You’re going to resign. You’re going to take a job way out in Freeman County. Lucky for you, there’s an opening in the Comms Department, and even luckier for you, your supervisor is willing to write you a glowing recommendation and pull a favor to get you hired.”
“You can’t do this,” Phil said. But his eyes were on the photos and she knew she had him.
“It’ll all be very amicable, just a change of pace, blah blah. Maybe you’ll even want to sell that two-bedroom ranch that you and . . . Karen, is it? That you and Karen bought. Maybe you’ll upgrade to—”
“Don’t you fucking—”
“Or these go to Karen,” Becky hissed, swooping in close. “They go to Mayor Brennan, they go to your new employer, any new employer you ever get, wherever that might be. If you even think about stuttering out word one about my business about which you know nothing—” Even she was surprised by the fury in her voice. “I’ll make it my mission to shred your high school sweetheart marriage into a billion miserable pieces.”
Nearly there. Nearly there. Becky had closed many a hard deal and she knew how to wait it out. Phil was crumbling but she knew he’d make one more weak-ass stand.
“I’ll tell the council, I’ll send an anonymous—”
“And you’ll watch your boys grow up with another father.”
Her ugly words hung there, and Becky saw them finish the job. Phil nodded, gaze cast down.
Becky smiled brightly and clapped him on the shoulder. Swept up the photos, filled the air with details and promises. His resignation on Ken’s desk first thing Monday. The great middle school out in Freeman County. How smart he was, she always knew he was smart, despite what everyone said. Look at him, taking care of his family as only a true man knew how to do.
Once Phil was down the hall and out of sight Becky gagged once, twice, then gained control. She’d give herself ten minutes, she told herself. In the cool, in the quiet, she collapsed on her couch. Maybe she’d even try one of those stupid four by four breathing exercises. Before she freshened up, straightened her shoulders, and went back down to plant more petunia bulbs.