Chapter 1

"Old and boring," she said. "No doubt about it."

I looked up from my notes to see my best friend, Marina, staring at me with that it's–time–to–improve–Beth look on her face. "Forty–two isn't old," I said. "Forty–two is the new twenty–five."

"Stop making stuff up. And I notice you didn't say anything about not being boring."

"Boring is in the eye of the beholder." I went back to studying my notes. There were a lot of them. Tonight was the annual September organizational meeting of the Tarver Elementary PTA, and due to what must have been temporary insanity on my part, I'd volunteered to be the PTA's president.

I'd been secretary for two years, and you'd think I'd have soaked up knowledge aplenty about how a meeting is run, but I was realizing there was a lot to learn. Which shouldn't have been a surprise. Everyone else's job is always simple, and the previous PTA president had made running a meeting look as effortless as eating chocolate. I'd spent the last two weeks researching parliamentary procedure, reading up on management techniques, and wondering if I was up to the job.

Marina had made great fun of my self–assigned homework, saying that it was just a PTA meeting, for crying out loud, but I wanted to be prepared. Really prepared. The PTA vice president, Claudia Wolff, would love to catch me making a mistake, the bigger mistake the better. Time spent making sure that wouldn't happen was time well spent.

"And anyway, I wasn't talking about you," Marina said from the too–small chair upon which she was sitting. The fifth–grade furniture was the biggest in the school, but it still wasn't exactly adult–sized.

"Oh?" I glanced at the classroom's wall clock. Ten minutes until the meeting began and the room was starting to fill up with parents and grandparents. Normally we had high school students in the gym to watch over the children, but the gym had spent the summer in a state of repair and the finish on the new floor wasn't quite ready for prime time. Instead, the kids and their keepers had been divided among two homes close to the school.

Which, thanks to the temporary suspension of my former husband's visitation schedule due to a Wednesday evening insurance seminar he was leading, meant my Jenna, twelve, was probably playing a shoot–'em–up video game. My Oliver, nine, was probably playing a quiet board game with some other quiet children. Jenna was of the opinion that since she was in middle school, she was old enough to stay home by herself, but she hadn't convinced me yet. Maybe when she was sixteen.

"No, I wasn't talking about you." Marina stood. "Not exactly."

"That's good," I said vaguely, sorting my stack of papers. Two more PTA board members came in and settled at the collapsible table the janitor had set up. Two down, one to go. Randy Jarvis, the treasurer, nodded at me. Claudia busied herself with a fluffle of movements that accomplished exactly nothing. She repositioned her chair. She cleared her throat. She moved her purse from her left side to her right. She fussed with her hair. I made sure my polite smile was on. This could be a very long year.

"It's your clothes." Marina plucked at my sleeve. "I was talking about your clothes. They're old and they're boring. You need to venture out of your rut, Beth."

"My rut is very comfortable, thanks." After all, there was nothing wrong with khaki poplin pants and button–up camp shirts. Average clothes that, I thought, went well with my average–ish height of five foot five and my completely average brown hair. And today I'd even slipped on a navy blue jacket. I thought I looked professional and businesslike, a style equally appropriate for tonight's meeting and for my career as owner of a children's bookstore.

"Clothes can be fun." Marina waved her arms. "Don't you want to have fun?"

"No, I don't. Not ever."

"Liar," Marina said comfortably, sitting back down, her red hair in disarray. "If that were true, you wouldn't have spent half of last summer playing disc golf."

"Exercise. For me and the children."

"Fun. It's all about fun. And those clothes are definitely not."

I crossed my eyes at her and looked at the clock. We had a missing board member, but it was time to start the meeting. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," I said. "Tonight's meeting of the Tarver Elementary School PTA will come to order."

"Um . . ." A slight, dark–haired woman, a PTA newcomer whose name I couldn't remember, stood up. "I don't know if this is the right time, but . . ." She walked to the front of the room and handed me an envelope. "It's from Nat. She says she's really sorry."

I took the envelope from her. Without opening it, I knew what was inside. It didn't take any great leap to guess that the empty board seat, reserved for the new PTA secretary, Natalie Barnes, was going to stay empty a little longer.

"What does it say?" Claudia asked, leaning over and craning her neck in her attempt to read the letter.

"Just a second." I scanned the pages. Natalie's large handwriting and her lengthy explanations filled up almost five sheets of paper.

Randy Jarvis, who'd been treasurer for as long as anyone could remember, grunted. "Bet she says she can't be secretary."

I read the last page and handed the letter over to Claudia. "You're right, Randy. She resigned." The scrawling pages had detailed how sorry she was, how much she wished things were different, and how horrible she felt about all this, but with the way things were, she was just too busy to be secretary.

He nodded and opened the pack of corn chips he'd brought from his downtown convenience store. "She got gas from me the other day. Said she got a new job."

The PTA newcomer, who'd retreated to her seat as soon as she'd given me the envelope, spoke up. "It's a really good job, and with her husband on short hours, she couldn't pass it up."

"No, of course not." It would have been nice to have had a phone call from Natalie before the meeting, but you couldn't have everything. "We still have a quorum," I said, "so we'll continue. But I'd like to add an item to the agenda. New PTA secretary."

Feet shuffled around in the half–filled room. We had a nice–sized group of about twenty, but you wouldn't have known it from the flat silence. I saw a couple of people half stand, then sit down. It was the fight–or–flight reaction starting to take effect, and who could blame them? Volunteering to bake cookies was one thing; offering your services for an entire school year was quite another.

I could have stood up and made an impassioned speech about the many pleasures and rewards of being on the PTA board, but one accidental glance at Claudia would have made my words cling to the insides of my throat. Working with her this year was not going to be a pleasure or any sort of reward, unless I was being rewarded in a negative way.

What had I ever done to deserve Claudia? Sure, I'd skipped school once when I was a high school senior, but I'd been caught and I'd had my car privileges revoked for a month. I wasn't always as patient with my children as I could be, though, and my good intentions to have all three of us eat more fruit and vegetables were constantly being eroded by the smell of fresh–baked cookies just down the street from the bookstore, and—

Marina's overly loud throat clearing shook me out of my reverie. I blinked, briefly reflected that it was good to have friends who kept you from making an idiot of yourself in public, and went back to the agenda. We moved through approving the agenda, approved the minutes of the last meeting, and approved payment of the few invoices that had accrued over the summer.

The only old business item was my recap of last spring's senior story project. We'd paired Tarver Elementary students with residents of Sunny Rest Assisted Living. The end product was a softcover book of the life story of the residents as seen through the eyes of the children. Sales had done much better than expected by anyone—especially me—who'd come up with the idea in the first place. The fact that the Tarver PTA was making serious money and was receiving state–wide attention was a fresh shock every time I thought about it. A nice shock, but still.

I finished with the latest sales figures. The pleased murmurs were music to my ears. There was nothing—nothing—that Claudia could say that would take this moment away from me.

"What does that mean in terms of money for the PTA?" one of the fathers in the audience asked.

I checked my notes to make sure I would be totally, absolutely correct when I publicly stated the number. I said it, and this time there weren't even any murmurs. Wide eyes and open mouths were the order of the day.

The part of me that was small–minded and petty desperately wanted to sneak a look at Claudia to see how she was reacting to the news. The noble and forgiving part of me knew that doing such a thing was beneath the person I wanted to be.

So I compromised; I snuck a tiny, fast look.

She looked just like the others. Eyes wide, mouth dropped open.

On the outside, I kept a polite smile on my face. On the inside, I was running around, shrieking with joy, thrusting my fists into the air. All last spring, Claudia had done nothing but question the whole story project. Everything from the concept to the choice of printer had been raked over the hot coals of her caustic commentary.

Sweet, sweet victory.

"We'll talk about the financial aspects of the story project in a minute," I said, nodding at a man sitting in the back row. "But first, we need a secretary." I looked across the audience. "Being PTA secretary is a thankless job that is never rewarded and brings you only criticism and more work than you imagined."

"Sign me up!" called a female voice from the back of the room. Carol Casassa waved wildly, grinning.

"She didn't mean that," said her husband, Nick, trying to pull her hand down. "Joke. It was a joke, honest."

Carol crossed her arms and pouted hugely.

So, yes, a joke. Too bad. Carol would have made an excellent secretary. I looked around the room, skating over Marina's upraised hand. She wanted to be secretary about as much as I wanted to gain back the fifteen pounds I'd so laboriously lost in the last six months. "Anyone else?"

Marina stood up, ignoring the way that I'd ignored her. "Can I nominate someone? Because if I can, I nominate Summer Lang."

All eyes skewed toward Summer.

The thirtyish woman had lived in Rynwood for only a couple of years, but the two of us had discovered that we had so much in common it was almost scary. Besides the straight brown hair and the tendency toward clumsiness when feeling uncomfortable, we shared a compulsion for list making that was not understood by most and made fun of by many, including my best friend, my offspring, and my employees.

Summer squirmed, looked at the floor, looked at her fingernails. "Um . . . well . . . I guess I—"

Claudia's voice soared out. "I nominate Tina Heller."

My eyes flew open wide and I felt the beginnings of panic stir around in my stomach.

"You want to do this, don't you, Tina?" Claudia said, prompting her bosom friend. "You can be secretary. I mean, it can't be that hard."

I kept my mouth closed. My mother had always told me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Forty years later, her admonition was finally taking effect.

"Oh." Tina, determinedly blond and always on a diet that for sure was going to help her lose weight this time, opened and closed her mouth a few times before anything else came out. "Sure. I guess I could. I mean, if you want me to."

I most certainly did not want her as secretary. "You accept the nomination?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, there you go." Claudia lounged back in her chair, smug as a bug in a rug. "We have a secretary."

Not so fast, missy. "There is another nomination on the floor."

Claudia sat upright, fast. "What do you mean? I nominated Tina, and she accepted. That's all we need, one nomination, and she's it. That's the way it works."

"Another nomination is on the floor," I repeated. "Summer, do you accept the nomination of secretary?"

Summer looked at me. Looked at the glowering Claudia. Looked at Randy, who was crunching through the last of his corn chips. Looked at Tina, who was biting her lips and texting madly. Looked back at me.

I hoped that she could magically see on my face the begging that was going on in my head.

Please run, Summer. Please please please, don't make me be president of a PTA board that I'll be arguing with for the next year over everything from meeting times to what color paper to use for the father–daughter dance flyers. Please . . .

I held my breath.

"Okay," she said. "Sure, I accept."

The sharp pain in my chest eased to nothing. "Then we have two nominations." I tried to keep the elation out of my voice, but if Claudia's sour sideways glance meant anything, I hadn't done a very good job.

"But we can't have two nominations." Claudia tapped the table with her red–painted fingernail. "We always only have one. There can't be two."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because . . ." Her glare sharpened to a point that ended in the middle of my forehead and started to drill deep into my skull. "Because that's the way we've always done it."

Of all the stupid reasons to do something, I'd always thought that was one of the stupidest. Easier, sure, and it was the way the world worked in a general sort of way, but I still thought it was stupid.

"That's the way we've always done it," she said again, "and there's no reason to change now. Tina accepted first, so she'll be secretary."

"Not necessarily." Reaching into the old diaper bag I used as a PTA briefcase, I reached for a manila folder and dropped it onto the table with a small plop. "Our bylaws state that in cases of multiple nominations, there will be a vote."

"Where? Let me see that." Claudia half stood and grabbed the folder. "Where does it say that? I don't see it anywhere."

"Page four," I murmured, earning a thumbs–up from Marina.

"Four? I don't see it. You're wrong about this. You must be."

I tucked my lips between my teeth, leaned over, and pointed out the pertinent paragraph.

"No, this only talks about . . . oh." Claudia slapped the folder shut. "Fine," she said. "We'll vote. Something like this, it has to be a board vote, right? I vote for Tina. Randy, how about you?"

Randy, who'd been busy collecting the last crumbs of his corn chips on the end of his thumb, grunted.

"There," Claudia said. "Randy votes for her, too. That's two votes and that's enough. Tina, you're the new PTA vice president. Come on up." Smiling, she pointed at the empty chair.

I dreamed a short dream of a distant and secluded island populated only by Claudia. She'd be happy there, after a short period of adjustment. And even if she wasn't, I'd be comforted by my own happiness in knowing that she'd never attend another PTA meeting.

"Page five of the bylaws," I said, "states quite clearly that multiple nominations will be voted upon by the PTA membership."

"It can't." Claudia snatched at the bylaws and flipped through the pages. "It just can't."

"Page five," I said. "Robert's Rules of Order concurs. I can find the section number if you'd like."

Claudia didn't answer; she was too busy running her finger down the text on page five, muttering as she went. "Nominate . . . office of . . . multiple . . . PTA." Her finger stopped right where I knew it would.

After a moment, her chin went up. Grim–faced, she looked out at the people in the audience, one by one. "All right, then," she said. "We'll vote."

"By secret ballot," I said.

"Oh, absolutely," she said, smiling.

I watched her smile turn into more of a smirk and wondered what she was up to. Coercion by narrow–eyed glare? Telepathic mind control? Please. But Claudia looked far too confident for my comfort. What if . . . ? I shook my head and concentrated on the task at hand.

In short order, Claudia, Randy, and I rounded up paper, ripped the pieces into quarters, wrote down the names of both candidates on each one, folded each ballot in half, and passed one to each PTA member in the room.

There was a rustle while women fished through purses for pens, a few murmurings as the men present asked to borrow a pen from their wives; then the ballots were refolded and passed to the front, where they were deposited on the table in front of me.

I looked at the pile. It shouldn't have been a surprise that the ballots were given to me. I was president, after all, but somehow it I wasn't ready for this. Part of me still thought the presidency thing was a mistake of some kind. Erica Hale was president. She'd been PTA president for years. Surely she was going to walk in the room any second and motion me aside.

Only that wasn't going to happen. Erica had made it quite clear that she was done with the PTA. "I'll be in Italy from mid–August through October," she'd said. "You're on your own. And don't look like that. You'll do fine."

So. It was up to me to run this meeting and make sure it was run smoothly. I looked at the ballots and reached out to take the first one.

"You think you're the one who should count?" Claudia asked.

My hand froze.

"Don't the bylaws have something in them about counting votes?"

I revised my earlier fantasy involving Claudia and a distant island. It didn't have to be far away. A close one would do. And it didn't even have to be an island. It just had to be somewhere that Claudia was and I wasn't.

"We'll all count," I said. "You, me, and Randy; we'll each make a tally, then compare. A triple check."

She started to protest, but the audience was nodding in collective agreement. I felt an odd rush of pleasure. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I wouldn't want to crawl into the back of the closet when I got home.

Turning to a fresh sheet on my legal pad, I wrote the names of both nominees at the top and drew a vertical line down the middle of the page, dividing it in half. Tina on the left, Summer on the right.

Out in the audience, murmurs of conversation started up and grew in volume. Marina was asking Carol and Nick about their summer vacation to Nova Scotia, and Summer was asking someone about an upcoming ski swap. Good. Being eyeballed throughout this process wouldn't have been good for my blood pressure.

An errant breeze made the ballots shift in their loose pile. If Tina won, it'd be Claudia and Tina against Beth the entire school year. Randy would swing between being a tying vote and a three–to–one vote in favor of whatever Claudia wanted to do, and since Randy wasn't big on confrontation, there'd be three–to–one votes from now until June.

Icky didn't begin to cover how I'd feel about that. Okay, maybe Claudia and I didn't disagree on everything. We agreed on some things. Like . . . like . . .

I gave up the effort, took a shallow breath, and reached for the first slip of paper.

A few short minutes later, I was steepling my fingers and dreaming more island dreams, this time with me on the island along with my children, our cat, our dog, and an enormous pile of books. My pleasant reverie was interrupted when Claudia and Randy handed their tallies to me. I unfolded their papers and looked at their totals. Both agreed with mine. Exactly.

I signed all three tallies and had Claudia and Randy also sign all three. Better to cross the T's with too long of a cross and dot the I's with too big of a dot than to be called up later for not doing things properly.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, and waited for the chatting to die down.

I could have used the gavel, but something in me balked at the idea. At the June meeting, the one in which I'd been voted president, Erica had ceremoniously handed me her gavel. "Use it wisely," she said, smiling, "but not too well." Since I wasn't the gavel–banging type, I didn't want to use it at all. Before tonight's meeting started, I'd felt like a poseur pulling it out of the diaper bag and setting it on the table. Me as president was weird enough. Me wielding a gavel was ridiculous.

When everyone was facing front, I stood.

For a moment, I didn't say anything. All eyes were upon me, and surprisingly, I didn't feel uncomfortable. I didn't want to speak fast and sit down as quickly as I could, I didn't feel as if I were undergoing a sort of Marina–induced torture, and I had an odd confidence that I wasn't going to say anything deathly embarrassing in the next two minutes.

Wonders, truly, never cease.

"I'd like," I said, "to announce the name of the new secretary of Tarver Elementary's PTA."