“I don't mind,” I said. “You're right. The other kids will be home.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
The line buzzed for a moment. “Okay. Alright. So he's going to take the bus home with me in a minute and then his mom will pick him up by 4:30. You can come home after that.”
“That sounds fine.”
“Thanks, Mom! You're the best!”
She hung up and I dropped the phone in my purse and smiled.
Foolish, foolish girl.
I pulled out of the gas station and pointed the minivan in the direction of my home.
We'd see if she still thought I was the best when I was home to greet her and her new friend.
TWELVE
I watched the bus pull up at the corner.
I’d made it home in about four minutes, which I knew would give me just enough time to get settled before the bus got them to our street. I put the stamps away and peeked in on the girls before I returned to the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water and waited.
Several minutes later, I was rewarded as the yellow bus pulled to a halt across the street.
I smiled again. I knew she was going to freak out, but I also knew her freak out would be decidedly less than what it would be later on, when Andy was gone and she went full-on crazy with me. She’d dial it down while he was there because she wouldn’t want to embarrass herself. We could deal with the crazy later on.
The bus pulled away and they both stood there, laughing about something.
And I realized that I recognized Andy.
A month or so earlier, I’d been involved in a fundraiser at Prism, Em’s charter high school. The fundraiser was a talent show that I’d planned to help the school deal with the theft of its computers. While we were backstage at the show, I’d seen Emily talking to a boy I didn’t recognize.
That same boy was now walking across the street with her.
Emily was running a hand through her hair and laughing, a sure sign that she was nervous, when she finally realized my car was in the driveway. She stopped in the middle of the street and I could tell by their expressions that he was asking her what she was doing.
I knew what she was doing.
She was realizing that it had been a mistake to underestimate me.
She finally started walking again, her feet dragging across the pavement like a convicted felon might to their jail cell.
I pulled open the kitchen door and smiled at them as they reached the bottom step. “Wouldn’t you know, I finished my errands sooner than planned?”
She looked like she wanted to growl at me as she trudged up the stairs. Andy came up behind her, a large backpack slung over his shoulder, his dark brown hair swept to the side.
“Andy, this is my mom,” Em mumbled as she passed me.
He held out his hand. “Hi.”
“Hi, Andy,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’m Daisy.”
“Hi,” he said again. He had blue eyes and a dimple in his chin. He wore a thick red hoodie and jeans with running shoes and I noticed he was slightly taller than me. He smelled like bubblegum and some kind of boy teen body spray.
“Are you coming?” Emily asked from the dining room.
Andy stood there awkwardly, unsure where to head.
Which made me like him because he wasn’t making a direct beeline to my daughter’s bedroom.
“Actually, I need you to do something for me,” I said.
Her shoulders fell and she shoved the backpack off her arm. “What?”
“I need you to run downstairs to the basement and unload the dryer and move the clothes from the washer to the dryer,” I said, smiling. “Please.”
“I’ll do it later.”
“Actually, no, I need you to do it now because it was supposed to be done yesterday,” I said, maintaining the smile. “I’ll keep Andy occupied until you’re done. Oh, and while you’re down there, I also need you to go up in the crawl space and grab the scissors and flashlight that Jake left up there last winter. Okay? Thanks.”
“Mom.”
“Emily, hurry.” I grinned at her. “That way when you’re done, you’ll be able to spend a few minutes with Andy.” I looked at Andy. “Do you like bars?”
“Bars?” He looked confused, like it was a trick question or something.
“Cookie bars,” I corrected and his eyes lit up with relief.
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Chocolate chip?”
“Sure.”
Emily groaned and stomped past us, through the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement, slamming the door as she went.
Never underestimate your mother.
I gestured at the kitchen table. “Have a seat. I’ll grab the bars.”
He pulled out a chair and sat. I grabbed the plastic container of bars and brought it to the table, then sat down across from him. I pulled off the lid and pushed it toward him.
He pulled one out. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” I said. “So, you and Em are in the same grade?”
He took a bite. “Yeah. I mean, yes.”
“How do you like Prism?”
He shrugged again. “It’s okay, I guess. Kinda small. But it’s fine.”
“You didn’t want to go to Moose River High?”
“Actually, I did, but my parents weren’t crazy about it,” he explained. “They thought it was too big.” He shrugged again and polished off the bar.
I nudged the container toward him. “Have another.”
He hesitated, then pulled out another.
“So I hear you and Amanda Pendleton were friends,” I said.
He shrugged and bit into the second bar. He was very good at shrugging. “Yeah, sorta.”
“And no one’s heard from Amanda yet?” I asked.
Andy hesitated. “Not that I’ve heard.”
“Emily said you and Amanda were...dating?”
He froze in mid-bite. Then he unfroze and swallowed hard. “Yeah. We were.” His cheeks turned red. “We, uh, broke up, though.”
“She told me that, too,” I said, not wanting to intentionally embarrass him. “It’s all just sort of awkward, with her disappearing or whatever people are calling it.”
He finished the second bar and folded his hands on the table. “I guess so. I don’t know. It’s all just weird. I just hope she’s okay. I mean, I don’t like her anymore. Not like that. I mean, we’re friends and stuff. But we’re not together. So I just hope she’s okay.” He paused. “That all probably sounds pretty weird.”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “Sounds pretty normal, actually.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to anyone,” he said. “But especially not someone I know.” He cleared his throat. “So yeah. It’s all kind of weird, I guess.”
Any thoughts I might have entertained about Andy somehow being involved with Amanda’s disappearance were quickly vanishing. Unless he was the world’s greatest actor, he seemed like a sincere kid who hoped his ex-girlfriend/friend was okay. There was no nervousness, no desire to cover anything up. He seemed flustered talking about it but not because he had anything to do with it; he just seemed weirded out because he was talking about his old girlfriend with his new girlfriend’s mother. I thought about how I’d reacted to questions about Olaf and my connection to him. I’d been a little unnerved, too… and I’d actually had his dead body in my coal chute.
I didn’t think Andy was faking anything or lying to me. Or hiding his ex-girlfriend’s body in a coal chute.
Score another point for Andy.
I heard the washer lid bang shut down in the basement.
“So,” I said. “How do you and Em know one another?”
He squirmed in his chair. “Just school, I guess. We had a class together last year. Think it was math.”
“I think I saw you with a violin.”
He smiled, relaxing a little. “Yeah, I play the violin. Probably at the talent show that you put on. That was you, right?”
I nodded. “That was me and, yes, I think that was it.”
“That was a cool night.”