Lie in Plain Sight (2 page)

They looked at each other.

Maeve walked closer to the table. “I'm Heather Callahan's mom. I'm asking on her behalf.” Might do the girl good, Maeve thought. Maybe her home life wouldn't seem so terrible if she was doing something for someone other than herself.

The preppy kid held out his hand. “I'm Jesse Connors. And this is Tim Morehead. Tell Heather to come find us if she's interested in going. We'll give her all of the details.”

Maeve shook both of their hands. “I will. Thanks. And if you want a donation, come by The Comfort Zone. If I'm not there, I'll leave an envelope.”

The older man came forward. “Thank you very much,” he said, holding out his hand. “Charles Connors.”

“Maeve Conlon.”

“Whatever you can give will go a long way toward making this trip a reality,” he said. He pointed to the kid in the Bermuda shorts. “It was my son's idea. To give back to a less fortunate community.”

Maeve thought of the cluster of broken-down double-wide trailers that sat on the east end of town, and of the school lunch program that had been in effect for kids who couldn't even afford to bring their own lunch, and one of her late father's old sayings jumped into her brain: Charity begins at home. After the closing a few years earlier of one of the bigger businesses in town, a stonecutting yard that had been in existence for over a hundred years, Farringville had become a town of the haves and have-nots.

Maeve folded the brochure and put it in her back pocket. Regardless of her feelings, they were the nice kids, the good kids, the ones she wanted Heather to be around and to socialize with, not the crowd with which she currently ran. That crowd was looking for the next party, the next reason to be rowdy, not a way to help people half a world away. Where had she gone wrong as a mother? she wondered as she wended her way through the throngs of people in the school, the din of their excited chatter bouncing off the institutional cinder-block walls.

Trish Dvorak found Maeve in the cafeteria after the first session of the night. “Do these people really think that every kid is going to go to Cornell?” she asked, surveying the cookies and slices of cake that had been put out on a table next to a big coffee urn.

“Or Harvard?” Maeve asked, handing her a macaroon from The Comfort Zone.

“Delicious,” Trish said after taking a bite. “How do you do what you do all day and stay so thin?”

“Not so thin,” Maeve said, grabbing the hunk of flesh that sat above the waistband of her jeans. “But I'm on my feet all day, so I suspect that burns a bunch of calories. I do eat a lot of cake,” she said, smiling. “So Taylor is going to a state university?” she asked.

“That's the hope,” Trish said. She herself was rail thin, her clavicles poking out from beneath the striped T-shirt she was wearing, skinny jeans on her thin legs. “Her father isn't contributing toward the tuition, so it's a SUNY, financial aid, and hopefully some kind of merit package.” Trish took another macaroon. “He's a douchebag, in case I didn't make that clear.”

Maeve raised an eyebrow. She thought of her own ex as a lot of things but would never verbalize them in polite society, and in particular on back-to-school night. “Some ex-husbands are.”

“Oh, we were never married. And he barely acknowledges that she's his, so I've kind of given up,” Trish said. “Shocking, right?”

Maeve put another cookie in her mouth. People sleeping with ex-husbands shouldn't throw stones or live in glass houses or … whatever. She wasn't sure so she stayed silent.

“State schools are a lot harder to get into now because everyone has realized what a great deal they are,” Trish said.

Maeve knew Taylor from soccer, but barely; she had played with Rebecca. She knew Trish worked several jobs and hadn't seen her at many games. But she knew nothing about her academically. Hell, she knew next to nothing about her own daughter academically and held her breath every time a progress report came in the mail. There was a school for everyone, right? That's what the guidance counselor had said. “I'm sure it will work out,” she said, grabbing a cup for coffee. Trouble was, no decaf. She'd be up all night if she had coffee this late. That was another side effect of being in her forties, and not one of the welcome ones. Hell, what were the welcome ones? She didn't have enough time to spend thinking up what they might be.

“I haven't seen you in ages, Maeve,” Trish said. “When was the last time we really spoke? The Museum Village trip? Third grade?”

“Probably,” Maeve said, wondering why Trish had decided to let her know about Taylor's father now instead of back then when they had spent real time together, trying desperately to keep a group of little kids from wandering off. “Or maybe Ellis Island in eighth grade? Wasn't that the one where Heather split her lip open?”

Trish nodded. “Yes.”

“You were so nice to her,” Maeve said. “I remember that you were the only mom who had Neosporin in your pocketbook.”

“Always prepared,” Trish said. “Former Girl Scout.”

“I remember having a purse full of cookies. And old receipts. But you? A whole medical kit,” Maeve said, laughing. She tipped the coffeepot; three drops of coffee fell into her cup. “What's our next session?” she asked, looking at the clock and seeing they had five minutes to get where they needed to go.

“Tips on How to Pay for College,” Trish said, laughing. “I wonder if one of the tips is ‘rob a bank'?”

Maeve was lucky; Cal had started college funds the day each girl had been born, and though the price of college escalated faster than he could save, he paid for any shortfall himself. Maeve was on the hook for the meal plans, according to their agreement, and that was enough to shoulder financially. She looked at Trish. Sure, there was financial aid, and maybe there would be merit money, but it seemed like it would be a stretch anyway. “Trish, I hope I'm not out of line here, but I'm looking for someone—”

“Yes,” Trish said.

“You don't even know what I'm going to ask you,” Maeve said.

“I need a job, Maeve. I was just too embarrassed to ask,” Trish said. “That's why I came over here. I don't care if you need someone to wash dishes all day. I need to do something. I lost my job taking care of the Lorenzo kids. Do you know them?”

Maeve did. She might have been the reason that Trish lost her job, the father of the two children she had taken care of being someone Maeve had taken care of herself. In her mind, she had committed a public service that night a couple of years before.

Trish continued. “Terrible thing that happened back at the dam. Not sure you remember. The dad died.”

“Yes. I remember,” Maeve said, an image of his eyes as he went over the railing, the belief in them that he would make it until about three-quarters of the way down and then the realization that the choice he had made—to take his chances—had been the wrong one. Rather than feel sadness at that, Maeve felt happy and resisted the urge to let a little smile break out on her face. As she got older, it was getting harder and harder to act, to make believe that she was sad when bad people died, people others didn't know the truth about.

Trish was still talking. “They're moving.” When she saw Maeve's blank expression, she figured it was because Maeve had lost the thread of the conversation, not that she was thinking still about that night at the dam, Lorenzo falling onto the riverbank below, his body twisted and awkwardly posed, the life draining from him as she watched. “The Lorenzos.”

“Right,” Maeve said, taking a cookie from a tray and popping it into her mouth before thinking. Too much nutmeg. Always a sign of a bad baker. Less is more, especially with certain flavors, nutmeg being one of them. “Yes. I remember.” She needed out of this conversation, and fast.

“I'm cobbling stuff together,” Trish said, pleading her case. “I clean houses, something I swore that I would never do again. Almost killed me and I was young back when I first started. But people are cutting back. I need to add something to make ends meet.”

Maeve didn't consider herself a soft touch; far from it. She was a single mother, for all intents and purposes, but one who had support, both financial and sometimes emotional, from her ex. She looked the woman over, taking stock, thinking about Taylor's father, his reluctance to pony up for her tuition. Did she have to add a new person to her list, the one she kept in her head, of people who needed to be eradicated from the world? She tried not to let it show on her face when thoughts like that went through her mind. “Ten dollars an hour. I'll need you to do deliveries, some counter work. If you're interested in baking, I'll train you on some items.” She picked up a napkin and, pretending to wipe her mouth, surreptitiously got most of the cookie out and wadded up the paper.

“Off the books?” Trish asked.

“Most definitely on,” Maeve said. The last thing she needed was a run-in with the IRS. She was dating a cop and had slept with her ex. She needed to keep her nose clean in at least one area of her life.

Trish was disappointed, something she unsuccessfully tried to hide. “Okay. When do I start?” she asked.

“Tomorrow. Seven?” Maeve said. “We'll basically be a two-man operation, so the days are long, but I'm now closed on Mondays, so it's Tuesday through Sunday.”

“That's great, Maeve.” Trish leaned in and gave Maeve an awkward hug. “Thank you.”

Maeve watched her go, a trace of cigarette-smoke smell in her wake. That was the shortest job interview in history. She hoped she hadn't made a mistake.

 

CHAPTER 3

The Fitzpatrick twins were being christened on Saturday, and Donna Fitzpatrick had been in no fewer than four times making sure that Maeve had gotten the pink icing for their cake the correct shade. Maeve pulled a piece of bakery paper from the stack underneath the counter and grabbed her piping bag, the one she had at the ready, knowing that Donna would come in exactly at twelve-twenty after dropping her older son off at preschool to see if the color had changed, even the slightest, since the day before.

Maeve squirted a little squiggle of icing onto the paper. “See? Same as we discussed when you placed the order. It's a cross between salmon and Thulian.” The latter, Maeve had had to look up.
What the hell is a Thulian?
she remembered asking herself as she sat in bed with her laptop. She still wasn't sure she knew, but she had figured out how to create the color, and Donna almost seemed to be pleased, despite the curl of her lip indicating that maybe it wasn't exactly the shade it had been the day before or the one she wanted. “Yes? Good?” Maeve asked, Donna's ability to speak seeming to have left her.

“Yes,” Donna said. “Just like that,” she said, pointing to the farthest end of the paper, where a little dollop had hit the air and already discolored.

Maeve's sister, Evelyn, a few years older and developmentally challenged, was wiping down the café tables in the front of the store, quietly eavesdropping on the drama at the counter. Maeve prayed that she wouldn't say anything to Donna Fitzpatrick—she had a tendency to be a “truth bomb,” as the girls called her—but she just kept wiping the same table over and over, humming to herself. Maeve recognized it as her favorite Kelly Clarkson song. Evelyn had a job in another part of the county but loved being with Maeve; Maeve brought her up every couple of weeks to spend the day in the store since that was where she herself spent most of her time. Evelyn, as it turned out, was helpful on busy days, doing the things that Maeve's former employee and best friend, Jo, had never done with any regularity.

Maeve was relieved to hear the phone ring so she could excuse herself from Donna's observation of all things fondant and pink. “The Comfort Zone. Can I help you?”

“Maeve? It's Judy Wilkerson.”

The school nurse. This day just kept getting better and better. Behind Donna, the bell over the door trilled, and in walked a crowd of Maeve's regulars, six guys from the railroad who had discovered that at $7.95, Maeve's lunch special of a healthy slice of quiche accompanied by a small salad and a drink was one of the best deals in town. They clustered around the drink case, loud the way men in groups can be, particularly men who had just left the deafening machine shop at the station, where one had to scream to be heard.

“Judy, hi,” Maeve said. She walked into the kitchen with the phone to get some privacy. “Heather, right? She was complaining of a sore throat this morning when she left. But she also had a history test, so I didn't make much of it.”

“No, not Heather,” the nurse said. “It's Taylor Dvorak. Is Trish available? I tried her cell, but she's not picking up.”

“No, she's out on a delivery,” Maeve said, picking up a dirty knife and putting it in the sink, which was now overflowing with dishes.

“Okay, well, you can give permission.”

“For what?” Maeve asked.

“To send Taylor home. Her mother put you down as her emergency contact when she started working for you last week.”

News to Maeve. That would have been good information to have. “Oh. I wasn't aware of that.”

“You and every other person in town who either has their own business or works from home. I have one gal who works from home who has no fewer than thirty kids that she's emergency contact for. The last five—all of whom got the stomach flu at the same time—were kids she barely knew.” Judy let out a chuckle. “Anyway, I have Taylor here, and she said she has a nasty headache. She gets migraines and wants to go home before it gets any worse.”

Maeve walked back to the front of the store, where Donna Fitzpatrick was hitting the bell on the counter, impatiently awaiting Maeve's input on the pink frosting. The railroad guys were also making noise, and Maeve could see the front door opening and closing, a steady stream of customers entering. “Do I need to come get her?”