Cold River (6 page)

“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll get back to you.”

“The menu is printed on Friday so it’s ready to be posted on Monday.”

“Well, that gives me a couple of days.” Mandy opened the door.

Nettie didn’t stir. “I’m headed in to work right now. Do you want me to tell Arvella you want to talk to her?”

Mandy’s smile turned brittle. “Thank you, no. Mrs. Berman will arrange an appointment for me. I know you don’t want to infringe on someone else’s time. It was nice to meet you, and we will be in touch.” She said no more, but stood expectantly, waiting for Nettie to rise.

When she didn’t, Mandy called, “Mrs. Berman?”

Her secretary came out of her office.

“Would you tell my next appointment that I can see him now? Mr. Fellows, was it?”

Nettie snorted. “Good luck with him!”

Mandy was beginning to think she was going to have to forcibly remove Nettie. Considering she was about a third the size of the cafeteria worker, she had her doubts about being able to do so and wondered if Mrs. Berman’s job description included such things.

It wasn’t until Reuben Fellows appeared on the landing that Nettie finally gave up her chair. “All right, then.” She stomped out with hunched shoulders and a scowl on her round face.

Mandy judged Reuben to be about her own age. He was short and stocky and sat uneasily in the side chair, glancing now and then through the door as if checking that the coast was clear for his retreat. His complaint, which he had a hard time voicing, was that he was never assigned to drive the bus on athletic or band trips. It was always Harvey or Les who got those assignments, and though Reuben and the other drivers had asked to be given a turn for the extra work and money, it had not happened. Reuben had been elected to come and talk to the superintendent.

“Who makes the assignments?” Mandy asked.

“Harvey,” Reuben said bitterly, clenching the baseball cap he held in his lap.

“I see. Tell me what you expect of me.”

“Talk to him. He needs to make it fair for all concerned. We all have families. Some of us are just getting by, and he goes out and buys a boat. It doesn’t need to be that way.”

“I see.” Mandy pulled her notepad over and found a pen. “What is Harvey’s last name?”

“Berman.”

Mandy looked up. “Is he related to—”

“Her son.”

Mandy wrote the name and put down her pen. “I will definitely look into this. It’s in the district’s best interest to have our transportation people work together in harmony, since you get the students safely to and from school. I want you to know your work is appreciated.” She stood. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Reuben stood as well. “That’s it? ‘I’ll get back to you?’”

“You asked me to talk to Harvey. I have said I will do that.”

“What’s wrong with hauling his sorry… Pardon. What’s wrong with calling him in right now?”

“Well, I would imagine he’s driving the bus right now, picking up students. Or am I wrong about that?”

“School starts at eight.”

“Nevertheless, I would rather speak to him at another time. I assure you, I will get back to you before the end of the week.”

“There’s a band competition the end of April. Four buses will be going. I’d like to be one of the drivers.”

“Before the end of the week. I promise you.” Mandy held out her hand.

Reuben hesitated just a moment and then took it in his, briefly.

“I’ll hold you to that.” His exit was similar to Nettie Maypole’s— shoulders hunched, brows down, almost stomping.

Mandy shut the door behind him, reflecting that her people skills seemed to be slipping. She returned to her desk, sat, and turned to face the windows, watching as Reuben stalked out to a yellow bus and got in. As he exited the parking area, she saw him wave to Grange Timberlain, just entering. She grabbed her notepad and wrote next to Reuben’s name, “Talk to Grange about this.”

A knock at the door made her turn her head, and a tall young man waved through the glass at her. “Come in,” she called.

He did so, introducing himself with a lopsided smile. He was very dark, with brown eyes behind rectangular glasses, and a five o’clock shadow. “I’m Oscar, computer tech for the district.”

“Hello, Oscar. You’re very young to be a computer tech.” She got up to give him room to work.

“I’m a senior,” he said as he turned on her computer.

“Where? Is there a school nearby?”

Oscar laughed. “Right down the road. North Cascade High School.”

“You’re still in high school?”

“Yep. Dear old Inches.”

At Mandy’s quizzical look, he explained, “North Cascade High School. NCHS. We call it Inches for short.” Turning his attention to the computer screen, he clicked on an icon and worked intently for a moment at the keyboard, then gave the chair back to her. “If you’ll enter your password, you’ll be in business.”

She sat and did so. “Okay. Now I want to make sure that the calendaring program is up and running.”

“Calendaring program?”

“I want Mrs. Berman to have access to everyone’s schedules so she can arrange appointments and meetings. Is that already set up?”

“Nope. That will take me a little while to work out. Do you have something else to do so I can have your desk for ten minutes or so?”

Mandy hesitated, but the note she’d written by Reuben’s name caught her eye, and she said, “Yes. I’ll be next door at Mr. Timberlain’s.”

She picked up the notepad then walked past Mrs. Berman’s small office to Grange’s slightly larger one. It had a multi-paned door similar to her own, and she noticed again the room’s untidiness. Three filing cabinets, piled high with books and arranged along the wall, encroached on the door’s ability to open all the way. Boxes covered every other available surface. Seated at his desk with his back to the door and his forearms resting on the desk, Grange studied a document spread out in front of him. His shirt pulled tightly over his broad shoulders, and she could see the muscular definition of his back. His dark hair curled a bit over his collar.

There was no response to Mandy’s first, hesitant knock, so she tried again. As he straightened and turned, she saw the good side of his face first, and she had the impression— more a physical reaction than a thought process— that he was an extremely handsome man. As he faced her full on, the expressionless half was so jarring that the feeling fled, and Mandy had to force herself not to look away.

He stood and opened the door, but said nothing.

“Oscar is working at my desk. I thought, if you had time, I could confer with you about some district business. Do you mind?”

Still not speaking, Grange shook his head and looked around his untidy office for a place for her to sit.

As he moved boxes to free up the side chair, she examined the room. Two objects hanging on the wall next to the door caught her eye. One was a framed diploma from Central Washington University, with “Frederic Granger Timberlain” written in gothic script. The other was a picture of a young woman with sable curls and brown eyes, dressed in walking shorts and hiking boots. She stood on a rock with the sky as a background, and she laughed as she looked down at the picture taker. Mandy touched the corner of the frame to straighten it.

“Who is that in the picture?” As Mandy asked the question, Grange invited her to sit, but before she could repeat her question, Mrs. Berman sailed in, crowding the area with her girth.

“Tea time,” she announced, a steaming cup in each hand.

Mandy put up her hand in refusal. “I’m really not a tea drinker.”

“You’ll drink this,” Mrs. Berman insisted. “It’s comfrey. Also called knitbone. I don’t think you’ve broken anything, but it couldn’t hurt.” She turned to Grange. “And here is yours. Do I have to stand here and make sure you drink it?”

One side of his mouth curled into a smile. “No, Edith. I’ll drink it. Or, at least, if Dr. Steenburg will drink hers, I’ll drink mine.”

Mandy took a tentative sip. “It’s really quite nice. It even sounds nice. Comfrey. Mmm.”

Mrs. Berman nodded her approval and slipped out, closing the door behind her.

Grange raised his mug. “Mine, on the other hand, is called skullcap and tastes like it.”

“But you did promise.”

In answer, Grange took a sip. He grimaced, and the sight of his face was so comical that Mandy laughed.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“No, that’s all right. What happened to your arm?”

Mandy tried to ignore the surreal, periodic wink on that half-frozen face. “I fell. It was a stupid thing to do. It may be a bit of a sprain. I was looking for an Ace bandage, and the next thing I knew Mrs. Berman had me in the kitchen and was putting this mass of wet weeds on my arm, all the while assuring me she never treated anyone with her
yarbs
unless they asked.”

“Does it feel better?”

“That’s just the thing! It does. How do you account for that?”

“She knows her stuff.” Grange took another sip and set his cup down. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you about the people who came to see me this morning.”

“I saw Reuben. Who was the other?”

When Mandy told him it was Nettie Maypole, Grange turned away. She couldn’t see his expression, but she thought she heard a chuckle.

“I’m unfamiliar with district policies,” she said, “and I don’t want to blunder into an area where I have no authority, so I’d like you to advise me.” She went on to outline the problem that each presented.

Grange listened intently, head tilted towards her and eyes on her face as she spoke. He nodded as she finished and leaned back in his chair. “The simple answer is that you can do nothing for Reuben and the other drivers. You were right about not wanting to blunder into an area where you have no authority. The classified staff has a strong union that favors seniority. Harvey is the most senior of bus drivers and therefore gets to assign the other drivers. Les, having almost as much seniority as Harvey, gets to drive the extra hours if he wants them. Reuben is on the bottom of the heap and is out of luck. The only way the situation can be changed is for the drivers to talk to their union reps and change it from within, but that can’t happen for two more years. That’s how long this contract has to run. Reuben is talking to the wrong person. You couldn’t do anything about it if you wanted to.”

“I see. I think I’d like to read the contract we have with the classified people. Where would I find that?”

“Midge has it. Downstairs, in records. Just ask her and she’ll get it for you.”

“Thank you. Now, about the other matter.”

“The Yum Yum Potatoes? I can’t advise you there. You’re on your own.”

The way Grange’s lips lifted on one side irritated Mandy. “Thanks a lot,” she said dryly.

He took a sip of his skullcap brew. “You’ve got another personnel situation you need to address.”

“Oh?”

With one long arm, Grange reached up and grabbed a thick folder from the top of a filing cabinet and handed it to Mandy. “This is next year’s budget in the current rendition. We were just under by the skin of our teeth, and then we got hit with something that threw it out of whack. The only way we can balance the budget is to let two teachers go.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I am not. You may have noticed that this is a depressed area. We don’t have the tax base that we used to when the cement plant and the lumber mills were operating, and we have to manage what money we have very carefully. Take some time to go over the budget. Then read this.” He handed her another folder. “That’s the contract we have with the teachers, who also have a powerful union where seniority rules. The teachers that will go are obviously the last two hired.”

“There must be another way,” she said.

“If you can find another way, let me know. I’ll be the first to cheer you on.”

Oscar tapped on the door, and she stood, cradling the files in her bandaged left arm as she opened the door to speak to the young man. “All done?”

“I’ll need to take a moment at each of the district office’s computers, but I can do that in a minute. Do I need to walk you through the procedure?”

Mandy shook her head. “I’ll study these files,” she promised Grange over her shoulder as she stepped into the hall. She closed the door and spoke to Oscar. “It’s the same program we had in Albuquerque. I know my way around it. Thanks so much.”

“No problemo. Call me any time. It gets me out of World Lit.”

As she walked back to her office, she heard Oscar asking Mrs. Berman if he could borrow her computer for a moment. Checking her watch, Mandy saw she had an hour before she needed to meet Fran at her prospective new house. She dropped the files on her desk and sat, eyeing them. Dull reading, and she needed to get some others, equally dull, from Midge.

She noticed that Mrs. Berman’s poultice had leaked out onto the Ace bandage, so she decided to take it off. When it was unwrapped, she put the soggy green mass in the trash can and set the bandage on her suitcase to wash. After wiping her arm with one of the towels she had used that morning, she compared both wrists and decided the swelling had certainly gone down.

She was about to turn back to her reading assignment when she remembered she wanted to make some appointments for the next morning. The names she wanted weren’t on the yellow phone sheet, so she got out the older, well-thumbed directory. As she set it on the desk, it fell open to the district office page, and something caught her eye. Her name was not listed as superintendent of schools. The name of the man she replaced was there, and all of a sudden Mandy understood the lack of welcome, the frigid tones, the icy stares. She even understood the cramped, untidy office two doors down. There, staring back at her like that unblinking eye, was the name Grange Timberlain.