Scrapped

Vera was at her desk, going over the billing statements for the first of November, to be sent out next week. Every month she wished she could hire an accountant, but things were tighter than ever. Enrollment was way down, and she was afraid she’d have to raise tuition, which she hated to do. Dance was for everybody, not just the middle class. But at the same time, she couldn’t continue like this with the way the economy was tanking. And the latest talk was of a new dance school opening in town. Who knew what that would mean?

Her eyes rested on a picture of Tony that was framed and next to her computer. She’d see him again in two weeks—and this time he sent her the train ticket. She knew he couldn’t afford to do that a lot. But this was special—the whole weekend was on him. He had a surprise for her.

Back to the statements. The business. She thought about giving it up sometimes, but then she thought about the girls she knew for whom dance meant everything. The Dasher girls, for example. They had lost their mom in a tragedy, yet somehow they managed to keep dancing, and she could see how they poured themselves into it.

Suddenly, she remembered the strawberry blond hair of the youngest Dasher girl, who was in her Saturday morning “baby” class. Not exactly red, but still. She drifted to the river in her mind. She imagined a strand of red hair floating there, twisting around a tree branch, and she shivered. There had been no trips to the park since the body had washed up there. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Both of the victims were from Jenkins Hollow. Both had red hair. Both had these rune symbols, which basically meant they were thought to be evil, marked women. How many more could there be? If it was a serial killer, how many others could fit this pattern?

Just then the phone rang, and she nearly jumped off her chair.

“Hello. Cumberland Creek Dance.”

“Vera Matthews please.”

“Speaking.”

“This is Jennifer Blake at the elementary school. There’s been an emergency with Annie Chamovitz, and she has you listed as an emergency contact for her children. Can you pick her boys up at the school?”

“An emergency? Is she okay? Where is she?” Vera leaped to her feet.

“She was rushed to the emergency room about an hour ago.”

“I’ll be right there.”

After she called Beatrice, who had Lizzie for the day, she hightailed it to the school, where both Chamovitz boys were sitting in the front office with their backpacks.

She smiled. “How about some ice cream, boys?”

Sam’s brows knit. “Where’s my mom?”

“She got sick and was taken to the hospital. The doctors are taking good care of her,” Vera told them.

Later, with a house full of children and women, who had gathered at Vera’s place when they heard the news, Vera received a call from Mike, Annie’s husband.

“She’s all right. She’s, ah, out of surgery, and as soon as she’s up, we’ll be coming home.”

The adults in the room quieted.

“Yes,” he said and sighed. “She had an ectopic pregnancy. We are lucky we found it so early.” His voice was strained. “I need to call her parents, and . . . I’ll pick up the boys in about an hour.”

“I can keep them, Mike. It’s not a problem,” she said.

“I feel like I want my boys at home with us right now,” he said and sighed. “There was trouble at the school today, and I need to talk to them.”

“Okay. Good-bye,” she said and hung up the phone, thinking she was so glad she had made that huge batch of chili. That, along with Sheila’s corn bread, should help them out tonight.

“She’s fine,” she told the group of women who were gathered around her. Sheila, her longtime friend, DeeAnn, Paige, and her mom—the women she’d always had in her life. She couldn’t imagine life without them. Now she couldn’t imagine life without Annie, as well. Or Cookie, for that matter.

“Ectopic pregnancy,” she said in a low voice, partially because she didn’t want the children to overhear, partially out of respect for Annie’s baby, who was gone, whom Annie didn’t even know she was carrying.

“That is so dangerous,” Sheila said. “She’s lucky to be okay.”

“Indeed,” Paige said.

“Let’s pack up a box of food,” Beatrice said, rubbing her hands together. “We need to feed this family.”

“I popped him,” Ben was telling Sam loudly.

“Who did you pop?” Vera asked, only half listening as she poured the chili into a Tupperware bowl.

“Edward Carpenter,” he said. “A boy at my school.”

“Why would you do that, Ben?”

“He called me a devil Jew boy and told me I was going to hell with the rest of the Jews, and so I popped him.”

With that, Beatrice dropped her tin foil–wrapped rolls into the box with a thud. Her eyes met Vera’s, but she didn’t say a word.