MARGOT BOBBLED THE plastic storage containers as she knocked on the door of the “main house.” The biggest and oldest of the cabins on the compound, Tootie and E.J.J.’s place had a sort of White House feel to it, with its pristine white flower boxes and the little leaping concrete fish that flanked the front door. Margot felt like she should be curtsying instead of smacking the trout-shaped door knocker against the aging wood.
A handful of unfamiliar cars were parked in the semicircular drive, all with local plates. She could hear people—well, women—inside laughing and talking. It sounded like there were dozens of them. It was oddly soothing, the sounds of a party, like slipping into old comfortable slippers. She stopped and smiled. Her hands itched for a clipboard and her earpiece. Her brain switched into full party mode, timing food platters and composing a pleasant toast in her head. She could almost feel the tray of empty champagne flutes in her hand.
She had to get a real job soon.
No one had answered her knock. Surely, even in the South, even when you were related to your nearest neighbors, it was rude to just walk into someone’s house without permission. Maybe it would be better for her to drop Tootie’s Tupperware by her front door and run back to her own cabin. She hadn’t spoken directly to Tootie since the argument in her car. She didn’t want to cause a scene if her great-aunt had guests. What if this was a private family thing? She didn’t want to interrupt that. Sure, it didn’t make sense that they would have a party without inviting her when they’d insistently included her in every remotely interesting moment since she’d arrived. But because her family had been so welcoming—aside from Stan—she didn’t want to intrude on the few things they’d kept for themselves.
Dropping the containers gently on the porch swing, Margot tiptoed toward the steps.
“Margot, honey, where’re you heading?”
Margot froze and turned to find E.J.J. standing in the doorway, frowning at her.
So much for a graceful exit.
“Hi,” she said. “I was just dropping off Tootie’s containers . . . I knocked, but no one answered.”
“Aw, honey, you don’t have to knock. You’re family, you just come on in.”
“I’m really not comfortable with that,” Margot said, shaking her head.
“Welp, you might as well come in. Tootie’s card night just started up. You’re gonna want to get some food before it gets in full swing.”
“Oh, I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Sweetheart, I understand that you’re trying to use your best company manners. But it doesn’t feel polite. It feels like you’re keepin’ us at a distance. I’m not sayin’ let us run roughshod all over you. I’ve only known you for a short while and I know that’s not your nature. You need to relax, just a little bit.”
“I’m relaxed.”
“Right now, you’re wearing your shoulders as earrings,” E.J.J. noted. Margot glanced at her shoulders, which were indeed tensed up around her ears. She frowned and forced them down into a slightly less intense posture. “There you go.”
“Has anyone ever told you that this level of insight is annoying, even in an adorable old man?”
E.J.J. grinned, his impossibly white false teeth winking in the dying afternoon light. “Your granpda would have gotten such a kick out of you. Now go on in there. I’m headin’ to Bob and Leslie’s cabin, where it’s safe.”
“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence about going inside,” Margot told him, though she let him shove her inside the door. “You are surprisingly strong for an old guy.”
The voices got even louder as she got closer to the kitchen. Margot had expected the house to be decorated in kitschy Americana and reproduction antiques. But it was subtly done in creamy whites and slate blue. A comfortable rocker stood by a river-stone fireplace. A blue-and-white quilt was thrown over an overstuffed navy couch. The hardwood floors were painstakingly restored and polished. It wasn’t magazine perfect, but it was cozy and clean. Margot’s eyes caught on her mother’s face, staring out at her from a framed family portrait on the mantel. She stepped closer. The photo was taken in the mid-eighties, judging by the hair. The family was mostly recognizable as the one she’d just met. Donna was smiling sweetly, tucked into the side of a big, burly man with Duffy’s eyes. Tootie was sitting next to E.J.J., who had his arm wrapped around her, pulling her close to him. And Linda stood out like a sore blond thumb, her body angled away from Stan and Margot. Linda stared straight into the camera, her dark eyes flat and bored. Her face was unlined but unsmiling. Margot had always thought her mother had grown into her unhappiness as she got older, but it seemed to be a lifelong trait. How could someone smiling as easily as Stan seemed to be want to make a life with someone so dour? How could the other McCreadys see this photo and not notice how dissatisfied she was?
Stan, on the other hand, looked pretty pleased with his life. He was grinning at the little girl in his arms, the toddler with golden curls who had her hands pressed against his sunburned cheeks. In fact, everybody but her mother looked perfectly content.
Every other photo in the room was up-to-date. Why had Tootie held on to this old one, displaying it in such a central location? Given Margot’s age, this may have been the last family photo taken before Linda ran off. Was Tootie passive-aggressively trying to remind Stan of the family he’d given up?
“Hey, sweetie, whatcha doin’ in there?” Tootie called from the kitchen. She was dressed in a purple velour tracksuit, but she was wearing a green poker visor on her head and shuffling a deck of cards between her hands like a street magician . . . which was different.
Margot cleared her throat. “Hi, Tootie, I brought the Tupperware back. Thanks again for the casseroles.”
“Well, we have to keep ya fed, don’t we?” Tootie motioned her closer with both hands. “Come on in and meet the girls.”
“Oh, I don’t want to impose,” she said, shaking her head.
“Come on.” Tootie dashed forward and looped her arm through Margot’s, practically dragging her past the enormous dining room and into the kitchen. The woman was awfully spry for a senior citizen.
Instead of the dozen women Margot expected, there were only three ladies sitting around the kitchen table, cackling and chatting. Aunt Leslie sat at the breakfast bar of Tootie’s rooster-themed kitchen, slicing cornbread in a blackened cast-iron pan.
At the sound of Tootie’s shuffling steps, the ladies’ heads snapped up in unison, like blue-haired velociraptors. Tootie gestured to the bar stool next to Leslie and Margot climbed on. Arlo sat at her feet, gently pawing at her stool and looking up with hopeful eyes. She shook her head and scratched behind his ears. She was just happy to see him somewhere besides her porch.
“Girls, this is Stan’s girl, Margot,” Tootie cooed, giving Margot’s hand a squeeze. “Margot, this is Lucille Bodine, Betsy Grandy, and Delilah Dawkins.”
Margot smiled. She didn’t curtsy, but it was a near thing. She watched as the three women, each sporting football-helmet-shaped coiffures and floral print dresses, scanned her from head to toe. Lucille, who had a little dashboard statue of Jesus standing guard in front of her chair, eyeballed Margot with a wary expression. There was audible sniffing. That didn’t bode well.
“It’s very nice to meet you all,” Margot said.
Betsy’s red-painted mouth popped open. “Well, don’t you sound fancy! Do you work on the TV?”
“No,” scolded Delilah, a reed-thin woman with cow-print reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Remember, Stan brought her in to work for the family business.”
“Oh, actually, Tootie brought me in to work for the family business,” Margot said, while Tootie waved a pig-in-a-blanket in recognition. “She’s quite the online recruiter.”
Margot didn’t mention that the position was only temporary. Somehow, she thought it would embarrass Tootie, and she didn’t want to do that in front of her card friends.
“Leslie, you didn’t put sugar in the cornbread, did you?” Tootie asked.
“One little teaspoon doesn’t hurt anything, Tootie,” Leslie said.
“You put sugar in it—it’s cake, not cornbread!” Tootie said.
“Well, when you make the cornbread you can use your recipe! Otherwise, feel free not to burden yourself by eatin’ my ‘cake,’ ” Leslie shot back.
“What are you playing?” Margot asked in an attempt at a subject change. “Bridge? Canasta?”
“Texas Hold’em, jokers wild, minimum bet twenty dollars,” Tootie said, spreading the cards in a broad fan across the table before sliding them back into her hand and shuffling them with speed unexpected in her arthritic hands. Delilah hauled a casino-style rack of poker chips out of her enormous shoulder bag and plopped it in the middle of the table. Lucille took a roll of bills out of her own handbag and counted out more than a hundred dollars in twenties.
“I did not see that coming,” Margot said as Arlo shoved his head insistently against her palm.
“You wanna play a hand, honey?” Tootie offered, to almost immediate objections from the other players.
“It’s bad luck to switch players!” Lucille protested.
Betsy cried, “You have to give us a chance to win our money back!”
“Is this some sort of hustle situation?” Delilah asked.
“I don’t think I’m at your level of play,” Margot said, raising her hands. “I’ll just sit over here, where it’s safe.”
“Down, Arlo,” Tootie called as he pawed at Margot’s legs, his little doggy expression still hopeful as he sniffed the air. Margot took a tiny piece of cornbread and held it out for him. Arlo snarfed it up, licking at her hand. She wasn’t sure whether it was a gesture of canine gratitude or he was searching for crumbs.
Leslie slid a plateful of sliced fruit and a bottle of water toward her.
“Thank you.” Margot sighed, spearing an apple slice with a fork, and gagged the moment she put it to her tongue.
“Did you roll the fruit in sugar?” Margot asked.
“Well, yeah, what sort of flavor would you have without sugar?” Leslie scoffed.
“Fruit?” Margot guessed.
“Speaking of the Food Carnival,” Tootie said, none too subtly, “Lucille here says she heard you were talking to Kyle Archer in the beauty section the other day.”
Margot narrowly avoided doing a spit take with the water she was using to rinse her teeth of the fruit sugar. She dabbed delicately at her lips with a poker-themed party napkin. “Where did you hear that? Why would you hear that?”
“The whole town has been keeping an eye on poor Kyle ever since his wife passed.” Lucille sniffed. Again with the sniffing.
Wait.
“Passed? As in ‘passed away’?” Margot said, an unpleasant cold feeling fluttering through her belly. She’d assumed Kyle was divorced, that his girls struggled because their mother had left them behind when she blew out of this backwater. It had never occurred to Margot that she’d had no choice in the matter. An uncomfortable pressure bloomed around her heart, making her chest ache.
Tootie nodded as she dealt the hands. “About five years ago, the sweet little thing was just et up with cancer. She was carryin’ their youngest at the time. Little Juniper? Maggie’s mama, Rosie, she said Maggie and Kyle had been trying for another baby for months with no luck, but all of a sudden she was tired all the time and sick. They thought it was just the usual morning sickness, but the doctor did all the blood work that you do on pregnant women, and they found something off with her cell counts. Breast cancer, can you believe that? She was twenty-eight years old, havin’ a baby, and dyin’ of breast cancer. It had already spread up in her lymph nodes by the time they caught it. And she had the choice between chemo or keeping the baby safe, and she chose the baby. They started her on the treatments as soon as they could after the delivery, but it was too late. She passed when Juniper was a few months old, bless her heart, leaving Kyle behind with those poor babies. It was one of the saddest services E.J.J. has ever presided over. And after all these years, his heart is pretty hard to touch.”
“He’s not over her,” Delilah said. “He was still wearing his wedding ring when I saw him at the church picnic last month.”
Margot pursed her lips. Well, that explained the misery. Was that how Kyle spent his time away from his children? Wandering around town, mourning his lost wife? But if he was still in so much turmoil over her, what was he doing kissing Margot until her insides went to jelly?
“I’ve never cared for him,” Betsy said, peering over her reading glasses at her cards.
Delilah shushed her.
“What? He’s lived in town a few years, but he’s hired on as the principal? Jimmy Greenway’s barely out of the door and all of the sudden he’s makin’ all sorts of changes at the school?”
“Kyle Archer was overqualified to teach in the first place and we were lucky to get him. Jimmy hasn’t quite managed to get out the door, if you’ll recall,” Tootie said. “And some of those changes he had to make because the state was going to slap some sort of sanction on the school. Kyle has every right to run the school as he sees fit. He’s got all those degrees for a reason.”
“Fancy degrees from some highfalutin school telling him every kid has to be wrapped in cotton wool and tricked into learnin’,” Betsy said with a snort. “Whatever happened to readin’, writin’ and ’rithmetic?”
Leslie leaned close enough to whisper, “Betsy is Jimmy Greenway’s cousin by marriage. She’s loyal to a fault.” When she was sure Betsy wasn’t listening, she added, “That fault is willful blindness to the fact that Jimmy is a jackass.”
Margot bit her lip to contain the laugh that bubbled up.
“He’s a good man. We want to make sure that if he starts seeing someone, it’s the right someone. Not a stranger who hasn’t bothered showing up to a church service since she rolled into town. Not some big-city girl who’s gonna up and leave without a word,” Lucille sniped.
Tootie shot her the nice Southern old lady version of side eye, and then announced that she’d just beaten Lucille’s flush and taken a lot of her money. Feeling somewhat vindicated by Tootie’s strategic support, Margot offered Lucille a frosty smile. “I’m not seeing him. I had a conversation with him in a grocery store. Is there some city ordinance stating that I’m only allowed to speak to an unmarried man if I have a chaperone?”
Strong words from someone who had done a lot more than have a conversation with Kyle. In public.
Also, how many church services could she have missed so far? She’d only been there a week.
“I’m just saying that there’s a couple of real nice girls around here who have set their caps for him. And if he’s gonna end up with anybody, it’s probably gonna be one of them.”
Margot tilted her head. “Are you telling me that there’s a dibs system?”
Lucille opened her mouth to answer, but Betsy demanded, “Are y’all gonna flap your lips or are we gonna play cards? Mamaw needs a new pair of shoes.”
“Fine, fine,” Lucille huffed, muttering under her breath, “Just like her mama.”
Margot was prepared to ignore this statement entirely, but Tootie shuffled her cards around in her hands. “Now, Lucille, how is that son of yours? Is he gettin’ along okay with his new parole officer?”
Margot watched Lucille’s righteous indignation deflate just a little bit. “He likes her just fine.”
“And your grandson?” Tootie asked casually. “Has he paid back Wally Simpson the money he owes for peeing in the drinks cooler at the Gas’N’Go?”
“Just about,” Lucille mumbled.
Margot watched this interaction with horrified fascination. She’d seen this sort of viciously passive reestablishing of pack order in high-society circles, but she expected better from members of the church floral guild. Somehow, she thought they’d have a carefully cross-stitched sampler reminding them to behave better. She felt a little bad for Lucille, for being embarrassed in front of her friends, but Lucille had basically told her that she wasn’t good enough for Kyle and besmirched her dead mother, so . . .
“Don’t take it personal,” Leslie told her. “Lucille’s had her eye on young Kyle for her granddaughter, Darlene.”
“Does Darlene feel that way about Kyle?”
“No, Lucille just wants Darlene to move out of what was supposed to be her guest room,” she said. “If you’re sparkin’ on Kyle and he’s sparkin’ on you, I think y’all would do well together.”
“Sparkin’?”
“You know, when you look at somebody and you just spark with ’em. Every time ya see ’em, you get flustered. Every conversation leaves ya all breathless and stupid. Your skin feels too tight and your chest aches.”
“I think that what you’re describing is a heart attack,” Margot told her.
“And there’s the Stan in you, remorseless smartasses the both of you. In particular, when you’re uncomfortable and tryin’ to change the subject.” Leslie snickered. “You’ll know sparkin’ when ya feel it. I had it with my Bob, Lord knows. The man could take me from giddy to spittin’ tacks and back again in a few seconds. But I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.”
“I don’t think I have to worry about sparking anybody. I’m not going to be here long enough to . . . spark. And if I did, I think I would try for something a little less complicated than a widower with two small children.”
“Complicated can be good, too,” Leslie said absently, and then suddenly grinned when Tootie won another big pot. Leslie pulled out a little notebook and scribbled Tootie’s winnings amid several carefully organized columns of numbers.
“What’s that?” Margot asked.
“Tootie’s bet book,” Leslie whispered. “I keep track of her winnings and debts, so she doesn’t lose sight of how much she’s gambling.”
“The pots are a bit richer than I expected,” Margot murmured. “I thought nice little church ladies played for matches or pennies.”
“Oh, no, Tootie hasn’t played small since the kids moved out and her pin money got more plentiful,” Leslie said. “She’s been saving up to take E.J.J. on a fancy cruise to Aruba for nigh on ten years now. Of course, step one would be getting him to retire, which will take an act of God and Congress.”
“I thought E.J.J. made a pretty good living at the funeral home,” Margot said. “It’s a recession-proof business.”
“Of course he does,” Leslie said. “But Tootie wants to pay for the cruise with her own money. And that means her poker winnings. Don’t let her fool ya. She’s a card shark.”
“How close is she?”
“Close enough that she might kick us out for talkin’ and splittin’ her attention in a couple of minutes,” Leslie said. “She’s got enough saved for a concierge room for a weeklong cruise. Now she just wants to make enough to cover the spa treatments. She’s hopin’ that once she finally gets E.J.J. on that cruise ship, he’ll finally retire. I keep trying to tell her that McCready men don’t retire, they just keep workin’ so long that they eventually fall into the newest grave they dug, but she’s holdin’ out hope.”
“That is very dark, Aunt Leslie,” Margot said, picking at her plate.
“Can’t shine up the truth.”
Margot blanched, tossing aside a carrot stick, which had been rolled in butter substitute. “I think I’m done.”
MONDAY MORNING BEGAN with Bob and Margot pulling into the McCready’s parking lot and finding Frankie loading embalming equipment into the funeral home van. Margot cast a sidelong glance at Bob, who didn’t seem at all alarmed that his daughter was absconding with thousands of dollars’ worth of sterilized stainless steel. Of course, Bob seemed to be ignoring the fact that their “upselling” argument had ever happened, so Bob was clearly pretty open to denial.
Margot hopped out of the truck, shuddering as her suit jacket seemed to vacuum seal around her body with the force of the humidity. It was a rare cloudy day on the lake, the water gunmetal gray and flat as a dime. Leslie called out from the Snack Shack, and Bob raised both hands to wave to her.
Shaking her head, Margot picked her way across the parking lot on her needle-thin heels. She was proud that she managed the gravel much more easily than she had when she’d first arrived.
“What are you doing, Frankie?” she called over the noise of several bass boat engines purring at the dock.
Just then, Frankie bobbled a heavy electrical appliance and Margot caught it before it hit the ground. Frankie turned and grinned at her. “Quick hands, cousin.”
Bob bussed Frankie’s temple. “Taking your show on the road, honey?”
“I’m going to the elementary school for Career Day. These are my visual aids.”
Margot glanced down at the appliance in her hand, which she now saw was a wicked-looking saw. The blade was covered by a heavy protective plastic sleeve. Between that and Frankie’s outfit, a black tiered square dance skirt and a black T-shirt covered in neon roller skates, Margot could only produce “What?”
“Mortuary sciences is a viable career option!” Frankie said. “I plan on luring the next generation into the fold with stories both horrific and whimsical.”
“Doodlebug, I know you’re gonna do a great job, but maybe you should leave the skull saw here. I’m sure the school has a ‘no weapons’ policy,” Bob said. “Also, maybe you shouldn’t use the word ‘lure’ when you’re describin’ a presentation for children. While you’re drivin’ a van.”
“You use this on people’s skulls?” Margot whispered. Frankie smiled and nodded. Margot tossed it back to her cousin and waved her hands in the air. “Gah!”
“Oh, take it easy, I’ve washed it since,” Frankie said.
Margot shuddered. “Still.”
“Doodlebug, the saw may be a little bit much for the third graders,” Bob persisted.
“Fine,” Frankie grumbled, dropping the saw into Uncle Bob’s waiting hands. She carefully slid a big, colorfully illustrated foam-board poster labeled HOW A CREMATORY WORKS into the back of the van and closed the door. “Tie my hands.”
“You’ll thank me later! The parents will definitely thank me!” Bob called as Frankie rounded the van to climb into the driver’s seat.
Bob chewed his lip as he watched his daughter fire up the engine.
“I should go with her,” Margot said, her brow creased.
Bob nodded and patted Margot’s shoulder. “Yeah, that would be a good idea.”
THE SCHOOL WAS not quite the colorful riot of noise and germs that she remembered from Back to School Night, though there was a new screen-printed WELCOME TO CAREER DAY! banner hanging across the entrance to the school. Margot wondered how much time and money was devoted to specialty banners in this school district.
The children were moving in mostly organized lines down the hallway to their next classes. They were mostly quiet and well behaved, though they still wriggled and yapped like little puppies. And the surfaces were mostly clean, but Margot suspected that the janitor mopping the area in front of the little boys’ room stayed in almost constant motion throughout the day trying to maintain even that underwhelming state.
It took Margot and Frankie two trips to unload all the props from the van, and that was with Margot forcing her cousin to leave the embalming needles behind.
“So, Aunt Donna said your fishing trip was a disaster,” Frankie huffed as they lifted a rolling cart full of funeral show-and-tell onto the sidewalk.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Margot said.
“Uncle Stan can be a puzzle,” Frankie said. “I’m not making excuses for him. He has his moments when I’d gladly smack him over the head with a bedpan. But I think he’s spent so much time being unhappy, it’s like he doesn’t trust himself to feel good. And any fool can see he doesn’t know how to talk to you. It’s like he tries to let out just a little bit of his feelin’ but the spigot breaks and it all comes up at once as word vomit.”
“Did you notice, earlier, when I said I didn’t want to talk about it?” Margot asked. “That was what is politely called a ‘hint.’ ”
Frankie waved her off. “Yeah, I usually get more information if I just ignore those. Just like I will ignore the fact that I found about ten copies of your resume in the office printer this morning. If you’re gonna misuse the office equipment, hon, you’re going to have to learn to be more subtle.”
“I was up way too late last night tweaking my CV. I’m lucky I made it home with my purse and my pants.”
“Well, that would have caused some talk, which would have added to the gossip already circulatin’ about you and our dear principal. Mama said the church floral guild is all up in arms. Half of ’em are already planning out your wedding bouquet and the other half want to file some sort of appeal with the dating police on behalf of their single daughters.”
“Do I need to explain ‘hints’ to you again?”
“Don’t insult my intelligence and pretend you’re not interested in— Kyle, how are you?” Frankie ended her sentence on a chirpy note, reaching out to pump the principal’s hand as he stepped out of the school office.
Margot’s hands wanted to smooth over her hair. She wanted to check her lipstick in the reflection on the office door. But she knew she looked good. She’d done her makeup less than an hour ago. Still, she stepped behind Frankie, because there were kids running around and her pants were Prada.
“Ms. Cary, good to see you again.”
Margot smiled briefly and then looked to Frankie for help in escaping this conversational death trap. Frankie completely ignored the social cue and abandoned her.
“Well, I better get down to Ms. Rainey’s classroom and set up.”
“I’ll come with you,” Margot insisted.
“Oh, no, you stay here. I’ve got this,” Frankie insisted. She cast a sly look toward Kyle. “I’m sure you have all sorts of things to talk about.”
“No, Frankie, I came along to help you.”
“Actually, if you could stay and chat for a minute, I’d appreciate it,” Kyle said.
“See?” Frankie asked brightly. “He needs you.”
“Traitor!” Margot whispered out of the corner of her mouth. Frankie didn’t look sorry in the least.
Kyle’s face became very serious very quickly. “You should know that I have the restraining order paperwork all filled out on my desk.”
Margot’s jaw dropped. Kyle grinned at her.
“That is not funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny,” he told her.
“This time, I’m here in a professional capacity,” she swore. “My uncle was worried when he saw Frankie’s visual aids for Career Day. I’m here to minimize the emotional trauma to the children.”
“No, Frankie’s presentation is probably going to be the most popular one today,” Kyle said. “I know she keeps up an . . . unconventional appearance compared to everybody else around here. But she really has a way of talking to kids. She was a huge hit during Health and Safety Week last year. Her speech was entitled ‘The Many Stupid Ways You Could End Up on My Table.’ Her list was alphabetical and it rhymed. She keeps them entertained, but for all her joking, she won’t go too far. She knows where the line is.”
“You know, I keep thinking my father’s family can’t surprise me any more, and then . . .” Margot shook her head. “So you said you needed to speak to me?”
“Please.” Kyle nodded and motioned toward the door marked OFFICE.
“How is your daughter’s hair?” Margot asked as they passed through a small reception area that smelled of peachy potpourri. The cheerful yellow-painted room was mostly occupied by a desk and a plump, gray-haired lady with narrow brown eyes. The nameplate on the desk read CLARICE YANCY—SECRETARY.
“We ended up having to use that olive oil concoction you recommended, but it’s returned to its normal nonfrizzy state,” Kyle said. “Miss Clarice, if you could hold my calls for about fifteen minutes, that would be great.”
“The first graders are heading to lunch in eighteen minutes,” Clarice said, glaring at Margot. “You know they’ll cover the whole cafeteria in mashed potatoes if you’re not there to keep an eye on them.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll keep that in mind,” Kyle said, smiling winsomely. He took a big bite out of a cookie he grabbed from a decorative metal container. “Did you put nutmeg in these snickerdoodles, Miss Clarice?”
“I know you can’t stand clove,” Clarice said with a sniff.
“You take such good care of me, Miss Clarice,” he said, winking at her. Clarice’s lips twitched into a little smile. But when she realized Margot was still looking at her, Clarice cleared her throat and frowned again. Margot pursed her lips and followed Kyle into his office.
Kyle closed the office door while Margot scanned the space. Instead of the cheerful yellow, the walls were painted a soothing muted blue. The few decorations on the walls involved nature scenes with animals and open spaces. He didn’t display his diplomas or awards. His desk was neat, but not rigidly so, and he kept a framed picture of his girls next to his phone. He’d designed his office to be comfortable for the kids and unintimidating for the parents. It showed a certain amount of awareness that she found endearing. But again, she had to wonder at the split sides to this man’s personality, that the same guy who oversaw lunchtime behavior was the despondent man she’d met at the Dirty Deer.
“Did you just manipulate your secretary out of her bad mood by complimenting her cookies?” she asked, sitting in the comfy wingback chair across from his desk.
“I know it’s a little misogynistic and heavy on the ‘aw, shucks, ma’am,’ charm,” he admitted, dropping wearily into his own chair. “When I was first hired on as a teacher, I tried to be progressive and forthright with her and she got offended, then called me ‘uppity.’ Took me months to win her back over. And now that I’m her boss, there’s a certain way things are handled around here. As I’m sure you’re finding out, bucking the system is not well received.”
“Yes, I have found that to be true,” Margot agreed, nodding slowly. “I take it that you’re not from Lake Sackett?”
He shook his head. “I’m from New York, originally.”
“Really?” Margot said, trying and failing not to sound gobsmacked. “Why? I mean, how? I mean . . . There’s no way to ask nicely. Why would you give up New York for this?”
“My wife,” he said succinctly, and all the good humor seemed to be sucked out of the room. “So Marianne says you were an event planner before you moved down here. What kind of events?”
“Oh, society galas, corporate launches, charity functions, that sort of thing,” she said.
“So . . . large-scale events,” he said, nodding. “Involving a lot of moving pieces, and sometimes on a very small budget.”
“This conversation is starting to feel pointed,” Margot said. “I think I would feel more comfortable if you asked me for what you want instead of giving me cookie compliments.”
Kyle nodded. “Straightforward. I like it. Marianne also mentioned that she’s told you about the Founders’ Day celebrations and how we’re pretty much off in the weeds in terms of planning. We’ve got about seven weeks left and we need your kind of help to make the celebrations huge this year. And for me, it’s personal.”
Because she didn’t want to bark no at him right off the bat, she asked, “How is it so personal if you’re not even from Lake Sackett?”
“The former principal, Jimmy Greenway, he worked at this school for more than thirty years. He was a teacher at Sackett Elementary when my wife was a student here. The school library is named after him.”
Margot nodded, pursing her lips, still unsure of what that had to do with anything.
“He announced his retirement years ago, when I was still teaching,” Kyle said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on the desk. Margot couldn’t help but notice how the blue dress shirt he was wearing strained across his chest, the chest she knew was toned and firm. This was not helping her keep her focus on the conversation. “Jimmy promised the school board he wouldn’t leave until they found a replacement, which was nice of him. He stuck around for almost a year while they ran a search. I took the job and Jimmy said, ‘Oh, well, I’ll stick around for a few extra months to help you make the transition.’ I thought, great, what a nice guy, caring enough about the school to put off his retirement and make sure I got off to a good start. Except he never left. He just kept showing up, day after day, checking up on me, making sure I was running bus procedures the way he taught me, making sure the Christmas pageant went smoothly, supervising the milk deliveries at the cafeteria, for God’s sake. And it kept that line blurred as to who was really principal, me or him. The school board finally told him he had to retire or his pension was going to be at risk. So he retired and I thought that would be the end of it. No. He starts showing up at the school as a volunteer. Any time I try to change policies, the teachers go to him to complain and he tells them not to worry about it, just go back to his policies. Parents go to him with problems. It’s like having the Ghost of Principal Past lurking around the hallways, undermining my authority with grandfatherly, passive-aggressive charm. And I can’t tell him to stay home and keep his folksy wisdom to himself, because then I’m the ungrateful city boy who locked a beloved educator out of the school building.”
Margot blinked, absorbing the sheer volume of his rant. “That is very unfortunate, but I fail to see how it connects to Founders’ Day.”
“If I can be seen organizing the kids’ participation in the festival, making it successful, then maybe it will help secure a little authority,” he said.
“You are grasping at some very thin straws.”
“I know, it’s a little far-fetched, but I’m trying to take the high road here. Community politics are very touchy in small towns like this, especially when it comes to schools. If I want to be able to do my job, I have to be seen as someone who’s effective but still respectful of traditions, like Jimmy Greenway . . . and yet slowly undermine those traditions until they go away, unlike Jimmy Greenway.”
“Did Marianne tell you how I lost my last job?”
“Yeah, I saw the news clips on YouTube. Don’t care. I need you.”
Margot sighed and sat back in her chair. Her first thought was that she didn’t have time for this, but honestly, for the first time in her life, she had plenty of spare time. Her job search was basically at a standstill. If word spread that she’d sent out blanket coverage of résumés, she would come across as desperate. She had plenty of hours in the evening that she could devote to the festival, and honestly, the McCreadys would probably be so thrilled she was involved in local events that they would let her conduct festival business from her office at the funeral home. It would be nice to do something to repay their kindness, so at the very least she wouldn’t leave town feeling indebted to them.
And then there was Kyle.
Kyle. Kyle. Kyle.
She’d moved beyond liking the idea of Kyle to actually liking the man with the frizzy-headed, opinionated children and the high-stress job. It would be so much easier to walk away, to prevent an attachment deeper than just liking. And her argument that she might not stay in Lake Sackett long enough to attend the festival herself still stood. But she found that she wanted to help him. Even with their strange, somewhat embarrassing history and the complications of his children, she wanted to spend more time with him. She wanted to help him see her as something besides a tragically manic woman with a tendency toward vehicular frottage.
Oh, who was she trying to fool? She was going to say yes anyway.
She moaned, pinching her nose. “All right, I’ll help. Because I would hate for you to get fired for tossing an old man out of a library window in front of impressionable children.”
He held his hands up as if he was going to cup her face or shout “Hallelujah!” But instead, he let out a long, relieved, cookie-scented breath and said, “Thank you. You are saving my dignity here.”
“You say that because I haven’t put you in a dunk tank—yet.”
“Your attempts to intimidate me mean nothing. You said yes. You’re committed. Now, our first grade class is particularly . . . energetic this year,” he said, pulling on a rain poncho over his clothes. “And if I’m not out there to glower at them, they will launch the fourth great mashed potato war. So I have to go. If you want to meet sometime over the next few days, that would be great.”
“I will call . . . the school,” Margot said. “I will call the school to set that up.”
“You don’t think it would be better for you to just take my cell number?” he asked.
“No, I think it’s better if I don’t have that,” she said. “I don’t think that will look good for you on the restraining order paperwork.”
“I deserved that,” he said, glancing at the clock. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but you seem to appreciate honesty. I find you very attractive. I enjoy whatever this dynamic is, but I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m not ready for one right now, maybe not for a long time. And you strike me as a relationship kind of lady.”
“You’d be surprised,” she muttered, thinking of her last three lovers, who barely qualified for the title.
He opened the office door. The noise and bustle of hundreds of children came pouring through the doorway. Clarice was already staring at Margot as if the secretary was accusing her of something ill-bred and skanky, but she just couldn’t figure out what it was yet.
“Probably should have kept the door open for your groveling,” Margot whispered out the side of her mouth. “I think I just ruined your reputation.”
“I didn’t grovel,” he protested.
Margot lifted a blond brow. “Dunk tank.”
“I groveled a little bit.”