Текст книги "Foul Play"

Автор книги: Jeff Shelby

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FORTY ONE

“I’m starving,” she said, sitting up on the bed. “Did you bring dinner, by any chance?”

She was in a pair of yoga pants and over-sized hooded sweatshirt. Her long black, Snow White-like hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and she had thick, pink wool socks on her feet. She didn’t appear to be in any distress.

Other than her hunger.

“Uh, no,” I said, staring at her.

“Is anyone bringing me dinner?” She picked up a phone from the bed. “It’s way late.”

“Uh, I have no idea,” I said. I took a small step toward her. “Can I ask why you’re here?”

She stared at me for a long moment. “I’m not supposed to answer that.”

A faint humming buzzed in the room, courtesy of a small space heater in the corner. There were several piles of clothes stacked neatly beneath the TV. If we hadn’t been in a barn, it wouldn’t have been a reach to assume we were in Amanda’s bedroom.

“Do you know there are a lot of people looking for you?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I sorta figured.”

“Were you kidnapped? Or what?” I shook my head. “I’m totally confused here.”

“Who are you anyway?”

“I’m Daisy Savage,” I said. “My daughters are in the play with you. Were.”

“Oh,” she said. “Why are you here?”

“Because...wait. Answer my question first. Were you kidnapped?”

She thought hard for a moment. “Technically, yes. It was the flowers.”

“The flowers?”

She sighed, like she’d told the story a million times already. “I answered the door at my house. It was a flower delivery lady. She had flowers for me. She told me to smell them. I did and totally passed out.” She frowned. “I think it was chloroform.”

“Flowers knocked you out?”

“They were covered in the chloroform. I took a deep breath.”

“And you ended up here?”

She looked around. “Yeah. But I’m only here for like two more days.”

“So you aren’t being held against your will?”

She messed with her ponytail. “I guess that’s what you’d call a gray area.”

“I don’t think there are gray areas when it comes to kidnapping.”

“Well, this is just...different.”

I took a deep breath, then exhaled. I was utterly confused. This hadn’t been at all what I’d expected to find.

“Okay,” I said. “How about if you start from the beginning?”

She sighed again, like starting from the beginning was a huge effort. “I told you. I smelled the flowers.”

“Who brought you the flowers?”

She sighed again. “Mrs. Claussen.”

“Joanne?”

“If she’s the one who owns the farm then, yeah, I guess.”

“Okay. Then what happened?”

“Well, I guess I fainted,” she explained, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “Because I totally don’t remember the drive out here. Next thing I knew, I was waking up on this bed.”

“Alone?”

“No. Mrs. Claussen was here. She had a bottle of water and a bag of Sour Patch Kids. Which I could totally use right now.”

She glanced around the room, as if expecting a bag would somehow magically appear.

“Was she the one who brought you here?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. She had like a delivery uniform and a baseball hat on when she brought the flowers. Plus, I didn’t really know her, anyway. But, yeah.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, then I freaked out.”

Finally. Something that made sense.

“I mean, freaked,” she said. “I mean, I was cool with the Sour Patch Kids, but I didn’t know where I was or what was going on, you know?”

“I’m sure.”

“So Mrs. Claussen apologized to me,” Amanda continued. “For the flowers. And then she asked if I was interested in striking a deal.”

“A deal?”

She nodded, her ponytail bobbing behind her. “Yeah. She’d pay me five hundred bucks if I’d just stay here until the play was over. At first, I wasn’t too cool with that. Because I also had a cheer competition. But then she offered me six hundred so I said, cool, whatever.”

My temples throbbed as I processed her words. So she had been kidnapped. She hadn’t run away. But she’d been in on it? Sort of?

“So she’s paying you,” I repeated. “To stay here.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?”

“No clue.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“She’s paying me six hundred bucks and I got to miss school,” she said. “It’s been kinda cool.”

“But you also missed the cheer thing,” I said. “And the play. And everyone’s been worried about you.”

She considered that for a moment. “The cheer thing, I didn’t even care about, to be honest. My coach is kind of insane and I should’ve quit that like a year ago. I don’t even like it.”

Having met Greta Mathisen and seen the level of insanity she’d exhibited, I didn’t doubt her coach might fall into the same category.

“The play, yeah, that was kind of a hard thing,” she continued. “I really wanted to be Snow White, you know? But I knew they’d find someone else to do it. And six hundred dollars is a lot of money.”

“And what about the part where everyone was worried about you?” I asked.

She made a face, like she wasn’t terribly concerned about that. “I figured my family would just think I took off again. I’ve done it before. And I just figured it would be cool when I got home. They’d be mad, but I’d be back and they’d get over it. Like before.”

I didn’t know the Pendleton family, but her reasoning seemed extremely flawed to me.

“Okay, so here’s the...six hundred dollar question,” I said. “Why? Why did Joanne do this? Set this up?”

“You should ask her.”

“Oh, I’m going to,” I told her.

“No, I mean you should ask her right now,” Amanda said.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Joanne Claussen said. “Ask me.”

I turned around.

Joanne was standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest, looking very, very unhappy.

FORTY TWO

“I saw you leave the theater,” Joanne said. “With Olga.”

“Is that the clown lady?” Amanda asked. “I think I saw her earlier.”

“I put two and two together,” Joanne said, ignoring her. “You’d been asking questions about Amanda and she was here at the farm. Alone.”

She didn’t have anything in her hands. That was good. Because I’d been imagining her harboring a pitchfork and stabbing both Amanda and me.

“She saw Amanda out here,” I told her. “She actually came to find you, but didn’t know where you were.”

“I had to go pick up the candy,” she said. “For the concessions. Tomorrow.”

“Ah.”

We stood there awkwardly while Amanda went to work on her ponytail again.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Joanne blurted out.

“Joanne. I can’t not tell anyone. You kept her here against her will.”

“Not exactly.”

“Because you were paying her to stay?” I said. “You showed up at her house and knocked her out.”

“It’s complicated. And I didn’t hit her,” she said. “I just let her smell the flowers.”

“The flowers covered in chloroform?”

She shuffled her feet against the wood floor. “My uncle was a chemist.”

“But you went there with the intention of taking her,” I said. “And then you did. And then you paid her six hundred dollars to stay here.”

“Like I just said. It’s complicated.” She looked at Amanda, her eyes narrowing. “And part of the deal was not telling anyone.”

“Whatever,” Amanda said. She made a face. “You kidnapped me. You have to pay me or I’ll tell everyone.”

Joanne frowned.

“Why?” I asked. “Why on earth did you do this?”

She stubbed the toe of her boot against the floor. “I told you. I was desperate.”

“So you took Snow White?”

“No, I did something to generate publicity for the play,” she said. “Which actually worked. We are sold out.”

“You took Amanda so that everyone would talk about the play?” I said, not sure I understood her correctly. “That was the best way you could thing to drum up publicity?”

“There isn’t a single ticket left for tomorrow,” she said.

I blinked. “You do realize that kidnapping is against the law, correct?”

“I don’t think it’s kidnapping if she can leave against her will,” Joanne argued.

“You knocked her out. You brought her here. You kept her here and told everyone that you didn’t know where she was. No matter what you offered to pay her, you took her,” I said, shaking my head. “You took her and that’s not okay.”

For the first time, her steely facade faltered. She looked at Amanda, then me, then Amanda, then me. She chewed on her bottom lip.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I told you, Daisy. Eleanor’s company is in trouble. She needs money. I need another job. I need money. The only way to make sure both of those things happened was to make sure we sold out the play and brought in as large of an audience as possible. And I did. This did it. Everyone in Moose River knows about the play. Everyone. Because of what I did.” She grimaced. “And I will get the job. It’s guaranteed.”

I thought about what Eleanor had told me: that not even sold out shows were going to be enough to save the theater. Maybe Joanne didn’t know the true extent of Eleanor’s financial situation. Even still, it didn’t excuse drugging and kidnapping the lead actress in the play.

“But what you did was wrong,” I said. “It was wrong. It doesn’t make it okay.”

“I didn’t have another choice!” she cried. “I really didn’t! I had second thoughts. I knew it was a dumb thing to do. But then...it got more complicated.”

I wasn’t sure when kidnapping was ever a viable choice for anyone or for any reason. It was like saying you had to rob a store because you needed money. You may have needed the money, but that didn’t make it okay to steal or put anyone else in danger. Joanne may have been desperate and the end result may have been what she’d hoped for, but that didn’t make what she’d done right.

“You can’t tell anyone,” she said again. “You just can’t.”

“Joanne, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “But I have to tell someone. I’m sorry.”

“But she’s fine!” she said, pointing at Amanda, who was now braiding her ponytail.

“I don’t care,” I said. “It’s not right. I have to let the authorities know.”

“I can’t go to jail!” she said. “And it’s not all my fault!”

“Who else’s fault would it be then?” I asked. “You did this. You brought her here. You bribed her to stay here.”

She chewed on her fingernail. “But I was going to back out. I wasn’t going to go through with it. Then...it got complicated.”

“You keep saying that. What exactly does complicated mean?”

“It means when things get hard, I think,” Amanda offered.

I waited for Joanne to give me her version of what it meant.

“It means that it wasn’t just me,” Joanne said. “That’s what makes it complicated.”

“It wasn’t just you?” I asked. “So someone else helped you do this?”

“I knew you wouldn’t keep your big mouth shut,” a familiar voice said behind her.

I leaned over and peered around Joanne.

Madison Bandersand, in her full Snow White costume, was standing there, brandishing a pitchfork.

FORTY THREE

“I just knew it,” Madison said, a sour frown on her face. “I knew you were too much of a wimp to keep this quiet.”

“Oh great,” Amanda mumbled. “The wicked witch is here.”

“I’m Snow White!” Madison yelled. She motioned at her blue and yellow dress. “How can you not know the difference?”

“I don’t think that’s what she meant,” Joanne said.

“Oh my God. Both of you just shut your dumb faces, alright?” Madison said.

I stood there, blinking, just trying to wrap my head around everything. Joanne was a kidnapper? And she’d been in cahoots with Madison? I couldn’t get a clear picture.

“Wait.” I looked at Amanda. “You knew Madison was a part of this, too?”

Amanda nodded. “Yeah. At first, I was like, no way. I’m not doing anything with Madison. But then, you know, I decided I really wanted the money. So I’ve been willing to put up with her. She’s only been here once, though, so it hasn’t been that bad.”

I turned to Madison. “And why aren’t you at the dress rehearsal?”

“We finished,” Madison said. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

She ignored me and looked at Joanne. “Did you tell her everything?”

“No, I didn’t–”

“I’ll bet you did,” Madison said. She adjusted the wig on her head. “You’re so...so...soft.”

Joanne’s shoulders slumped.

“She didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “I put most of it together.”

“Now that I believe, because you’re so nosy,” she said, frowning at me. “I mean, really. You need to learn to mind your own business.” She glanced at Joanne. “I’m totally gonna tell my mom about you now.”

Panic flared in Joanne’s eyes. “You told me you wouldn’t!”

Madison waved her pitchfork in the air and her wig slid to the right, revealing a patch of her blond hair. “Well, that was before all this.”

“You can’t tell her! I’ll go to jail!”

“Not my problem,” Madison said. “The deal was you keep her here and I’d keep my mouth shut.”

“I could’ve left,” Amanda said. “I just didn’t. I need the money.”

“Well, you aren’t getting that, either,” Madison said to her. “Because I’m pretty sure if she’s having to steal from my mom, she doesn’t have any money to pay you, either.”

“You stole?” I asked. “From Eleanor?”

Joanne’s face reddened, but she didn’t say anything.

“From the theater account,” Madison said, smirking at Joanne. “To pay her electric bill.”

“They were going to shut it off,” Joanne said, her eyes on the ground. “I’d held them off for as long as I could.”

I remembered the day Madison had snapped at her about her wig. There’d been something off about the conversation, but I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. Now, the undercurrent of tension that I’d sensed between them made a little more sense.

“Don’t try to make this all her fault,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes.

“It was,” Madison spat. “It was her plan.”

“It was my plan that I wanted to back out of,” Joanne said. “But then you talked me back into it. And extended it.”

Madison’s face colored.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Joanne sighed and wiped at her eyes. “I went to Amanda’s home, with the flowers and ready to do it. To kidnap her. But not to keep her. Just to create a story.” She paused. “But I got halfway up the walk and then turned around. I couldn’t do it. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a bad idea.” She paused again. “But then Madison came out of the house and saw me.”

The pitchfork twitched in Madison’s hands.

“She saw the opportunity,” Joanne said. “She realized why I was there. And then she suggested we work together. When I said no, she said she’d tell her mother about my taking the money. I didn’t have a choice. So that’s when I went back up to the door.”

“That was the day you came over,” Amanda said. “To drop off the music. And when you told me I wasn’t a very good singer.”

“You’re not,” Madison said. “I was trying to do you a favor. You should’ve just quit and none of this would’ve ever happened.”

“Yeah,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes. “Because it’s all my fault.”

“That role was mine!” Madison yelled. “It’s always been mine!”

Amanda smirked. “Apparently, your mom didn’t think so.”

Madison took a couple of more steps into the room and pointed the pitchfork at her. The tongs glinted in the light. “You need to shut up!”

“You’re an idiot,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “A pathetic idiot. If I don’t get my six hundred bucks, I’m telling everyone you’re an idiot. And that Billy Marler broke up with you because he said you’re a terrible kisser.”

“He did not!” Madison said. “And I broke up with him!”

Amanda dropped her braid and examined her fingernails. “Not what he told me. He said it was like kissing a St. Bernard. All slobbery and stuff.”

Anger flared in Madison’s eyes and she made a sound that was half-gasp, half-squeal. “He did not say that!”

“Oh yes, he did,” Amanda replied. “He said he just couldn’t take it any more.” She smiled at Madison. “And he said I was way better.”

A garbled scream escaped from Madison’s mouth. Her hands tightened on the pitchfork. Her face and neck flushed red with anger.

I knew she was about to run at Amanda and all I could envision was her stabbing Amanda with that pitchfork.

I had to do something.

As Madison shuffled her feet, almost like a bull getting ready to charge, I reached out and yanked hard on the garden tool. It came right out of her hands and I stumbled backward.

Madison looked at me, surprised, almost as if she’d forgotten Joanne and I were there. Her eyes darted from me to Joanne to Amanda, unsure of what to do. Then she hitched up her dress, spun and ran for the doors.

“You won’t catch me!” she yelled.

And she was right.

We probably wouldn’t have.

Except that as she crossed the doorway, a giant red shoe swung across the opening and smacked her right in the face. She tumbled backward and fell on her backside, her hands cradling her nose.

Olga stepped into the doorway and stared down at Madison.

Then she looked at us and held up her shoe. “I knew these would come in handy one day.”

FORTY FOUR

“She stayed another night?” I said to Jake as we stood in the hallway outside the high school theater. “Wow. Or did her flight get canceled?”

Jake shook his head. “No clue. Didn’t even know she was gonna be here. Again.”

It was the following night and the play had just finished. Stella Gardner was off to the side, her phone pressed to her ear, deep in conversation.

“She didn’t tell you last night that she was staying longer?” I asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The only thing we talked about after it was over was your disappearance. You know. Like the rest of the audience.”

After Olga conked Madison in the face, Amanda offered up her cell phone, which did, in fact, have service. I called the Moose River PD and Officer Ted showed up twenty minutes later with several other officers. As I explained to him what I’d learned and why I was there, he kept looking around the room like he’d entered some sort of fun house that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. When Olga finally offered to drive me home, Joanne Claussen and Madison Bandersand were in handcuffs, sitting on the bed, and Amanda Pendleton was pacing back and forth, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her family. I didn’t know what was going to happen to any of them and I didn’t feel the need to stick around to find out.

“I’m sorry,” I told him for what felt like the tenth time. “I didn’t know what was going on. And you were too paralyzed by clown fear to be any help at all.”

“I was not paralyzed.”

I stared at him.

“Okay, maybe I was a little paralyzed,” he admitted. “But still.”

“We heard you saved the day,” a shrill voice said behind us.

We both turned. Thornton and Babette were both standing there, Thornton scrolling away on his phone and Babette trying to keep an enormous pink bag from slipping off her shoulder.

“We heard you’re a real live hero,” she said, pushing a smile onto her face, as if it were the most excruciating thing she’d ever done.

“I’m not a hero,” I said. “At all.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, I’m just glad that the danger is over. Our poor children.”

“Yes,” I said, trying hard to keep my eyes from rolling on their own accord. “The danger.”

“The real hero was Grace,” Jake said. “Thank goodness she’d memorized Snow White’s role.”

With Madison in police custody, there’d been some discussion about Amanda Pendleton jumping back into the role. But the parent board for the theater – because, apparently, there was one – held an emergency meeting and decided that that wasn’t feasible or fair.

So they’d held an emergency rehearsal earlier in the morning and they’d turned to the one kid who knew all of Snow White’s lines.

Grace.

They’d found a costume and a wig and the show went on with a much shorter Snow White.

Thornton looked up from his phone and glanced at Babette. “The guy from the feed store just emailed. Says he needs to talk to us about rescheduling the gig.”

Babette frowned. “Oh my God! Did you tell him that’s impossible? That we’ve already sent out the invites? That I’ve scheduled an extra voice lesson?”

“Uh. No.”

She punched him in the arm. “Call him right now, Thornton! Right this instant!”

They shuffled away so Thornton could call the feed store.

“They are truly...one of a kind,” Jake said.

I started to say something, but stopped when I saw Eleanor Bandersand headed our way. A spike of fear stabbed me in the stomach, wondering if she was going to try and ban me even though the production was now over. Or yell at me for what had happened with Madison. Her black pants were nearly up to her neck, a long sleeve purple blouse with silver sparkles tucked into the waistband. Her chin was lifted in the air and her makeup appeared to have been applied with a roller and a spray gun.

“Daisy,” she said. “Good evening.”

“Hello, Eleanor,” I said, my entire body tense. “I’m not sure if you’ve met my husband. This is Jake.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, nodding. “I believe I’ve seen you around. A pleasure, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’m sure.”

“Daisy, I hear you played a large part in locating Amanda Pendleton,” she said, moving her imperious gaze toward me. “I think we all owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Well, I don’t know. I’m just glad she’s okay.”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I’m not sure what this nonsense is with Madison, but I feel confident we’ll get it straightened out soon. And as for Joanne, I hope she’s prepared to deal with the consequences.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe the nerve of that woman trying to steal from me!”

Before Officer Ted arrived at the farm, Joanne explained to me that Madison had witnessed her using a computer at the school to pay her electric bill. Madison recognized the theater credit card and put together what she was doing. Joanne knew it was going to come back to haunt her and it did the day they’d run into each other at Amanda’s home. So Joanne wasn’t denying her role in the whole thing. I wasn’t sure what the consequences were going to be, but I was fairly certain Joanne wasn’t prepared to deal with anything.

Madison, though, was apparently sticking to her denial. Eleanor may have been confident, but I wasn’t sure the “nonsense” with Madison would get straightened out anytime soon.

“Your daughter did...a nice job tonight,” she said. She sounded about as excited as praising a dentist for a root canal. “Given the short notice.”

“Thank you,” I said. “She was excited and happy she could step in.”

Eleanor pursed her lips, then gave a begrudging nod. “Yes, I suppose she was. It was the right decision to let her play the role this evening.”

I had no doubt that Eleanor hadn’t exactly pushed for Grace to take over the Snow White role, but I also didn’t doubt that there were many other options for her to consider.

“Anyway, I have other people I must greet,” she said. “But I did just want to pass along our thanks. Our theater family comes first, and your daughter proved to be a valuable member tonight.”

She smiled at each of us and continued on our way.

“Well, that was unexpected,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I fully expected her pants to be pulled all the way over her head.”

I stifled a giggle and elbowed him in the stomach.

“And I’m about ready to pull that kid’s pants over his head,” he muttered, nodding down the hallway.

I looked in that direction and saw Emily and Andy leaning against the wall, talking. Andy was half-turned, his dark hair obscuring his face. He wore dark jeans and a gray thermal. His jacket, a plaid hoodie, was draped over Emily’s shoulders. And Emily was laughing. She was clearly in like with Andy.

“Hey,” I said. “He came to her sisters’ play. That was nice of him.”

“I should offer him a ride home,” Jake said. “He can ride on top of the van.”

“It’s like fifteen degrees out.”

Winter had decided not to wait for November. An inch of snow had fallen that morning and the kids had squealed at the winter wonderland that awaited them when they woke up. I didn’t remind them that this would be their view for the next seven months.

“Exactly,” Jake replied with a glare.

“Stop,” I said. “He’s a nice kid. Save your anger for when she brings home a not-nice boy.”

“She’s going to bring home a not-nice boy?” he asked, his glare morphing into something more sinister. “When? Who?”

“Relax,” I said. “And here comes your ex-wife. Be nice.”

“She can ride on the roof, too,” he muttered.

Stella smiled as she came up to us, her phone in her hand. “That was a great play. Both of the girls were terrific. I can’t believe Grace stepped in to play Snow White.””

“They did a good job,” I said. “Both girls.”

On cue, they both burst out of the theater door and beelined for us.

“I told you I could do it!” Grace said, pointing at me, her face a little creepy in all the stage make-up.

“Yes, you did,” I said, pulling her into me with a hug. “You were fantastic.”

“Everyone is saying she should always have the lead,” Sophie said, leaning into her dad. “That she could end up in Hollywood or something!”

“Or something,” I said, squeezing Grace one more time. “Stella and I were just saying how great you both were.”

They both grinned.

“They have snacks for us backstage,” Grace said. “Can we go get some?”

“Of course.”

Grace grabbed Sophie’s hand and they scurried around Stella and disappeared back into the theater.

Both of them had been good. Sophie was excellent in her role as Sneezy, and Grace had impressed us all as Snow White. It didn’t matter that she was shorter than all of the dwarfs and that the wig she’d worn hid half her face or that her singing voice was almost painful to listen to. She knew all of her lines and all of her stage direction, too. It was evident that she really had been paying attention during the rehearsals. There had been a couple of hiccups – a tree had toppled over during one of the songs, and a rabbit had lost its cottontail when it hopped off stage – but overall, it seemed to have gone off without a hitch. They had three more performances, but if the first performance was any indication, it looked like they’d do just fine with the rest of the shows. Especially if they could dub over Grace’s singing.

“I’m glad you were here tonight, Daisy,” she said. She smiled. “For the whole thing. Sounds like you had quite a night last night.”

I wondered what she’d heard… and from whom. It wasn’t like she and Jake had chatty conversations. “It was interesting,” I said.

“I know you were probably surprised to see me here again,” she said, changing the subject. “I had a...change of plans.”

“Flight get canceled?” Jake asked.

“No.”

“Big sale at MOA you couldn’t miss?”

Stella enjoyed shopping almost as much as she enjoyed working. It had been a sore point in their marriage, since her retail therapy resulted in bedrooms and a garage overflowing with unused stuff.

“Uh, no,” she said, a frown creasing her flushed face. “I was actually offered the chance to...interview.”

Jake stared at her. “Interview?”

She nodded. “As I told you, I originally came up here because I had some business in Chicago. But last night, I got a call from a headhunter. They were calling on behalf of a company that really wanted to interview me. Normally, I blow those things off, but they’ve been persistent and they’re located down in Minneapolis, so I figured I’d meet with them this morning while I was here, just to see what they had to say.”

I felt Jake’s body go rigid next to me.

“So we met this morning,” she said. “That’s why I’m still here.”

“Was it a good interview?” I asked.

“Actually, yes,” she said. “They offered me the position on the spot. With a better salary and better benefits than what I have now.” She smiled. “So as of next month, it looks like I’ll be a Minnesota resident. Isn’t that just crazy?”

Jake’s mouth dropped open.

“Yeah,” I said, positioning myself closer to Jake, preparing to restrain him from throttling his ex-wife or catching him if he fainted. Because both were plausible scenarios. “Crazy. Um, congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she said. She glanced at the phone in her hand, then held it up. “Excuse me. I need to take this call.” She wove her way through the crowd, disappearing down the hallway.

I looked at Jake.

His eyes had glazed over.

“Relax,” I said. “Just relax.”

“You know what’s funny,” he said. “It sounded like she said she was moving here. Ha ha. Isn’t that funny? I must’ve had a stroke or something. PTSD from the clown encounter.”

I snaked my arm around his. “It’ll be fine, Jake. It’ll be fine. Just relax.”

“I mean, I must’ve blacked out during the part where she said she was kidding, right?” he said. “I totally missed that part. Ha ha.”

I squeezed his arm and shook my head. I didn’t know what Stella moving to Minnesota would mean, but we’d handle it. Like we did everything else. We could handle missing actresses and crazy directors and new boyfriends and ex-spouses.

“I did black out, right?” he asked. “Right? I just missed that part, right?”

As we stood there waiting for the girls to emerge from the theater so we could tell them how great they were again and how much we loved watching them, I didn’t have the heart to crush him.

“Sure,” I said. “That’s what you missed.”

“Oh, wow,” he said. “Good. Great. Because I can’t believe our life could get any crazier than it has been lately.”

I squeezed his arm.

He could deny it all he wanted, but I was ready to embrace it.

Bring on the crazy.

THE END

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