Poison at the PTA Read online

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  That night was the regular January PTA meeting, the second meeting to have Claudia’s indelible stamp on it. During the November meeting, Claudia had insisted on adding “refreshments” to the agenda. “Food will add to the PTA camaraderie,” she’d stated. “We’ll get to know each other better.”

  Treasurer Randy Jarvis, his mouth half-full of corn chips, had agreed. Secretary Summer Lang had shot me an apologetic look. “I like the idea.”

  I didn’t. I thought it added even more burden to the already busy PTA members and had the potential to add pounds to my hips, but I’d been outvoted three to one on the topic of having coffee and some sort of dessert snack after every meeting.

  In December I’d had the will to stay away from the Christmas cookies. Tonight, however, Carol Casassa had brought dark, gooey brownies. With walnuts.

  There they were, on the far side of the classroom we commandeered for the meeting, on the table Claudia had persuaded Harry, Tarver’s janitor, to set up for us. The table sat directly underneath the cabinet that Claudia had coerced the classroom’s teacher to let us have Harry install. The cabinet was small, but large enough to hold coffee supplies, napkins, and the multitude of other items that went along with having refreshments. The only thing that didn’t fit in the cabinet was the coffeemaker itself, but Claudia had convinced the school to let us store it in the kitchen.

  I called the meeting to order. All went smoothly until we came to the only agenda item of any real importance. “Storybook Sale Proceeds.”

  Just under a year ago, the PTA had paired Tarver Elementary students with residents of Sunny Rest Assisted Living. The end product was a paperbound book telling the life stories of the residents as seen through the eyes of the children. Sales had done much better than expected. and for the first time ever, the Tarver PTA had serious money.

  But, as everyone except me had probably anticipated, not all was rosy. Half of the PTA wanted to spend the money on sports-oriented projects. The other half wanted to spend the money on fine arts projects. The two viewpoints had split our group apart with name-calling and other conduct unbecoming to PTA members and I was past fed up with the entire mess.

  I fingered the gavel’s handle and looked out at the group. It was like a church wedding with a twist: pro-sports on that side, pro–fine arts on the other. Marina sat on the artsy side, Tina Heller on the sports. Nick Casassa and his wife, Carol, sat on different sides. “As most of you know,” I began, “last fall we had two committees draw up two different plans for disbursement of the storybook monies. Each of you should have a copy in front of you.”

  There was a rustling and all the heads went down.

  “If you were on a committee,” I went on, “you’ll notice one thing—”

  “Half our stuff is gone!” Tina said. “Where’s my suggestion for a zip line? And what about the climbing wall?”

  “Where’s the line item for purchasing instruments?” Carol asked. “How can we build a strong music program without instruments?”

  I’d known there would be objections, which was why I’d met with the rest of the PTA board an hour earlier to review this pared-down list. There had been grumblings, of course, but they’d seen the necessity.

  “What both committees handed in was a wish list,” I said. “Even if we spent every dime of the storybook money, the PTA couldn’t afford half the total items.” To my left, I could feel Claudia stir, so I kept talking. “We have to be realistic. We have to be wise and we have to think of what will most benefit the children of Tarver, the children of today and the children of the future.”

  “Exactly,” Claudia said into the pause I’d created when I stopped to draw in a breath. “That’s why—”

  I gave up on getting a full breath and kept going. “That’s why I approached the Tarver Foundation with this.” I tapped the paper of short-listed projects. “The two top projects are new playground equipment and the hiring of a part-time music teacher for a minimum of five years. The next projects are an irrigated soccer field and the creation of a summer arts camp.”

  The original lists had gone on and on. Accessible playground equipment. Hiring a full-time art teacher. A disc golf course on school property. A swimming pool. Having weekly dance instruction. Bus trips to Milwaukee and Chicago for everything from attending professional sporting events to attending ballets. The estimated dollar amounts had made my eyes bug out and I’d almost crunched both lists into cat toys and e-mailed the committees to start over again.

  But I’d walked away from the fantasy lists, then gone back to them a few hours later with a fresh viewpoint. I’d told both committees they wouldn’t get everything they asked for, and had told them so more than once. I’d been on the fine arts committee myself and had had to rein them in from pie in the sky.

  Now I put down the list and looked at the audience. “Yesterday I had an appointment with the Tarver Foundation and I have some good news. The foundation has agreed to match our funds. If we choose, we can fund all four of these projects.”

  There was a short moment of pregnant silence, and then the room filled with applause and cheers and shouts of joy. I heard “Atta girl!” and “Bet even Erica couldn’t have done that,” which made my head swell with pride until I heard Claudia mutter to Randy that “If it’s that easy to get money, why haven’t we done it before?”

  When the noise started to subside, Rachel Helmstetter waved for recognition. “Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but you said ‘some good news.’ Does that mean there’s also some bad?”

  “Not bad bad,” I said. “Not exactly, anyway.”

  The energy in the room whooshed out so fast I thought my ears might pop. What had been a happy band of PTA smiling members was now a glum group presenting me with a wall of stony silence.

  “What does that mean?” Claudia asked.

  “There are some strings.”

  Simultaneously, the audience slid down in their chairs six inches.

  “Not huge strings,” I hastened to add. “Just . . . foundation strings. They’re not horrible—really they’re not. We just have to be held accountable, and that seems reasonable to me. If the board votes to accept their offer, that is.” I nodded down at the other three board members.

  “What do you mean, ‘accountable’?” Randy asked. As treasurer, he would be the one stuck with the bulk of the paperwork, and he knew it.

  I checked my notes from yesterday’s meeting and outlined the basics of what the foundation wanted. Estimated costs, receipts, time sheets, weekly progress reports, monthly progress reports, quarterly progress reports, anticipated outcomes, estimated completion dates, actual completion dates, actual outcome, and unintended outcomes. All done on the computer, please, in the latest version of Excel.

  Randy’s face remained placid. When I was done, he shrugged. “We can do all that.”

  Claudia slapped the table with her open palm. “We can, but why should we have to? Don’t they trust us? We’re the PTA, for crying out loud! Do they really think we’re going to cheat them?”

  I tried to soothe her. “Starting this year, the foundation has tightened up their grant disbursement policies. We’re no different than any other group that—”

  “No different?” Claudia fairly shrieked. “Of course we’re different! We’re the PTA! We’re parents of the future parents. We’re here to do what’s best for our kids. How dare they question our honesty? If they’re going to call us thieves, why don’t they do it to our faces instead of through you?”

  I let her talk. Interrupting Claudia in midrant would take more energy than I wanted to expend.

  “Honestly, Beth, what were you thinking?” she went on. “You handled this all wrong. You should have shown them that we’re doing them a favor by giving them a chance to fund our projects, not gone to them all wishy-washy and pretty-please-give-us-your-spare-change.”

  My eyebrows went up. Letting her talk was one thing. Letting her launch a personal attack was something else.
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br />   “And you shouldn’t have gone in the first place.” Claudia gave the table a thump with her fist. “If anyone was going to present anything to the foundation, it should have been the entire PTA board and it should have been after the entire membership voted on it.”

  I flashed back to the meeting I’d had yesterday morning with the board of the Tarver Foundation. The very citified and straitlaced businesswomen and -men who wielded the power behind the foundation’s extremely deep pockets. The financially conservative people who didn’t waste their time on projects they didn’t deem worthy. The extremely proper people who didn’t care for hyperbole or exaggeration or any shade of gray. Picturing Claudia in front of that prim group brought the phrase “bull in a china shop” to mind. No way would the board have handed the PTA money after Claudia got done with her demands, and demands they would have been.

  But she was right about one thing. I should have waited until the membership voted. And, if the situation had been as she described, I would have.

  “My appointment with the foundation,” I said, making sure I was speaking loudly enough to be heard even by the father half-asleep in the back row, “was strictly for fact-finding. My only intention was to get information on applying for funding.”

  Claudia glared at me. “Then what’s the deal with you walking away with approval for doing this?” She flicked at the list.

  A shameful thought sparked. I could say it was my superior negotiating skills, my instant rapport with the foundation’s board, and my magnetic personality that coaxed the money out of them. The spark flashed, then died. “It was luck.”

  In the front row, Marina put her head in her hands. After I’d told her what had happened yesterday, she’d told me to play it up for all it was worth. “That’ll teach that Claudia Wolff,” she’d said with satisfaction.

  But I couldn’t do it. “Sheer luck,” I said. “In December they had a reorganization of the foundation’s priorities. At the top of the pyramid is the advancement of Rynwood’s youth. The board liked all these projects and they answer to no one but themselves.” And the ghost of former Tarver principal Agnes Mephisto, I thought, whose inherited money was the foundation’s nest egg. “They’re ready to approve the funding if we agree to their terms.”

  Claudia pounded. “If we agree,” she said. “If you ask me, that’s a big if. Why should we agree to their restrictions? Why should we do all that extra work?” Out in the audience, at least one person grunted. Claudia, naturally, assumed it was a supportive grunt and warmed to her new theme. “Hours and hours of extra time, and what’s the gain? To answer to some faceless board?”

  She wasn’t the one who’d be doing the work, it would be Randy and me, but I decided not to pursue that particular point. “The foundation’s board isn’t holding us back from doing anything,” I said. “They just want accountability.”

  Claudia waved off my words. “That’s what they say now. What will they want next week? Next month?” She shook her head. “I vote to reject the foundation’s offer.”

  Since no one had made a motion, her vote was out of order. I started to say so, but she ran roughshod over my mild statement.

  “I see that most of you agree with me,” she said, smiling, “and I appreciate your support.”

  What I’d seen was Tina Heller, Claudia’s best friend, nodding like a bobblehead. How one person’s assent could be construed as “most,” I wasn’t sure, but Claudia had managed to do so. How nice to be able to see the world as you wanted it to be, instead of how it really was.

  “We should reject their offer.” She crossed her arms. “We have plenty of money of our own to do what really needs doing. And first thing is to redo the soccer field. We could write a check to do that right now. The contractors could get started as soon as the snow melts and—”

  “Over my dead body!” Summer stood up so fast her chair hit the wall with a thunk.

  I winced at the phrase. There had been too many dead bodies in the recent past. One had been in this very building. But no one else seemed to notice the poor word choice. Marina had a small grin on her face as she watched the action at the front of the room, Carol’s face was starting to get red, and there was more than one glance at the door. Judging the distance for escape purposes, I assumed.

  Summer’s cheeks were flushed. She leaned on the table, looking around Randy Jarvis and staring Claudia down. “We are not—I repeat, not—going to continue to ignore the artistic needs of our children. Keep on going the way we’re going and the next generation will grow into a bunch of ignorant adults who don’t know a sculpture from a sonata.”

  Tina turned around and looked at Nick Casassa. “What’s a sonata?” she whispered.

  Nick had been on the sports committee with Tina, Claudia, and Whitney Heer. Nick’s wife, Carol, had been on the fine arts committee. At Tina’s question, Nick shrugged. Carol rolled her eyes.

  “Who cares about sonatas?” Claudia flared back. “What’s more fun, listening to boring music written by some guy dead for three hundred years, or being outside in the fresh air learning sportsmanship and fair play?”

  “Sportsmanship?” Summer snorted. “You mean like in the fall when you tried to bribe the referee?”

  Claudia jumped to her feet. “I didn’t bribe anybody! I was just being nice to him. Nobody likes refs. I thought it would be a nice gesture to give him that gift certificate, that’s all.”

  “Right before the championship game?” Summer asked. “You really expect anyone to believe that?”

  The room erupted. With no great expectations that my hopes would come true, I waited a moment for people to sit down and stop shouting. It didn’t happen, of course, so I slowly but steadily banged the gavel on the table until there was silence.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Summer, is there a motion on the floor at this time?” She shook her head. “Thank you. Now. We have ten days to accept the Tarver Foundation’s offer. Everyone, please go home and think about this. Consider what we’ll lose if we reject their money. Consider what we’ll lose if we accept. Decide which option is best for the children. And not just our children, but all the children of Tarver, today’s and tomorrow’s.”

  I looked around the room, meeting the gaze of every person who would look at me. “We have ten days,” I said again. “I move that we hold a special meeting next Wednesday evening for a vote on the issue.”

  “Second,” Randy said.

  “All in favor?” I asked. The board members said, “Aye,” in grudging unison. “Those opposed? The ‘ayes’ have it. We’re adjourned.” I banged the gavel and the meeting was over.

  I stood and tried to get around the table, but Summer was faster. “Can you believe her?” She tossed her head at Claudia, who was already in a huddle with a small group of like-minded friends. “Just assuming we’d all go for the sports stuff. I mean, jeez, all you need to play soccer is a ball. Why do we need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on—”

  “Hang on a minute, okay?” I sidled around her and trotted across the room. “Marina? Hey, Marina, wait up a minute.”

  But she was already moving away from me. “Sorry, Beth,” she said, zipping up her coat. “I have to get home right away. I have to . . . to . . . help Zach with his homework. He’s having a hard time with . . . with his math homework. Word problems, you know?” She picked up her purse. “I’ll see you later.”

  I stared after her. For all she said I was a horrible liar, she wasn’t much better. One, the kids were on half days and the likelihood of homework was slim to none. Two, if Zach had math homework, Marina’s DH would help their son. Marina could hold her own in many subjects, but her math skills were more the practical type, like how to split four pieces of pizza among three people, or calculating how many loads of laundry were left in a jug of detergent.

  What was going on? She’d done a duck and cover at the mall not once, but twice. Then, when I’d called her, she’d evaded my questions with “Oh, you were at the mall, too? Nice
day, wasn’t it?”

  I shied away from the reality of what was happening, but kept coming back to the sore point. True-blue Marina, my bosom buddy, my best friend forever and ever, my cheerleader, confidante, propper-upper, and architect of my improvements, was avoiding me.

  The hurt swelled and started to go deep. What had I done that was making Marina treat me as if I had a contagious disease? What had I said? Whatever it was, I’d take it back. I’d undo it, I’d make it all better. A life without Marina as a companion would be drab and gray. Annoying as she could sometimes be, she knew how to make life sparkle with fun.

  I stood there, looking at the vacant doorway, feeling my future turn into a series of dreary days, one after another.

  “Stop it,” I muttered to myself. I’d figure out whatever was wrong with our friendship and fix it. If it was unfixable, well, I’d learn to live with it. In the meantime, there was no one here from the intervention squad, and since the best cure I’d ever found for the blues was to help somebody, what was I doing standing there like a stump?

  I turned. At the refreshment table, Whitney was waiting for the snackers and coffee drinkers to finish. She’d given birth to a beautiful baby boy in the middle of December and this was her first night out on the town. During the meeting I’d seen her texting at least half a dozen times, asking her husband, no doubt, about the status of their child.

  Perfect. I walked to Whitney’s side. “Hey, Mom.”

  She blinked, looked left and right, then focused on me. “It’s still weird, being called ‘Mom.’ I mean, my mom is the real ‘Mom.’ How can we both be moms?” Her expression was puzzled, yet radiant.

  I knew exactly what she meant and exactly how she felt. “One of the happiest moments of my life was the first time Jenna called me Mommy.”

  “Oh . . .” Whitney’s breath caught. “I’ll melt. I swear, I’ll just melt.”

  “I’ll do the cleanup tonight,” I said. “You go home to your baby.”

  “Really? Are you sure? I mean, I told Claudia I’d stay, and I don’t want to back out on a promise.” But she was already halfway into her coat and fishing for her car keys.