Death of a PTA Goddess Read online

  “Molly?” The voice was tense and unfamiliar to me. “This is Jane Daly. You’re down as a substitute chaperone for the eighth graders’ ski trip this evening.”

  “I am?” I muttered, needing a moment to transition from stupid-cartoonist mode to addled-mother mode. “Oh, of course I am.” This ski trip was an anticipatory celebration for the eighth graders who’d be graduating from junior high in a few months. With tomorrow and Friday scheduled as in-service days for the junior high, this was not a school night. “My son, Nathan, has been really looking forward to it. Somebody got sick?”

  There was a pause. “Patty was supposed to be one of the chaperones.”

  I winced. “Oh. Of course. Stupid of me not to realize that.”

  “You couldn’t have known she was going.”

  “Sure I could have. She started the whole tradition of the ski trip, after all.”

  “Yes. It was another of her terrific ideas.”

  Her voice sounded flat. Having witnessed her videotaped harangue of Patty, I immediately bristled and asked, “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m just a little upset, because I just now found out that Kelly’s going on the ski trip, in spite of everything.”

  “Kelly Birch?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “Keep a special watch out for her, would you?”

  “I will, but I’m . . . surprised to hear she’s going. She hasn’t been in school. I assumed she’d be needing time to cope with her loss.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, but she’s in school today, and I just got off the phone with her stepmom. Amber thought it’d be good for her. Amber’s going to be working at the ski slope tonight. Wouldn’t do to change one’s routine, just because your stepchildren’s mother died horribly right across the street from you, not four days ago.”

  “Yes, well . . .” I let my voice trail off, not really knowing what to say. On the one hand, I shared Jane’s indignation at what appeared to be Amber’s indifference to Kelly’s grief. But Amber, as well as her stepdaughter, was a source of guilt for me.

  After assuring Jane that I’d be at the school to help with the loading up of students and ski equipment, we said our good-byes and hung up.

  I returned to my seat and pondered my feelings toward Amber Birch. Initially I had drawn nasty conclusions when I’d barged in on her to use her phone, yet it was impossible to say how I’d have reacted under those same circumstances. She was such a natural target for scorn from all of us forty-plus-year-olds who resented anyone’s trophy wife. None of this could be easy on her. I could seek her out and give her a kind word. More important, establishing camaraderie between us would help allow me to discuss her relationship with Patty and learn if she was a suspect . . . said my one face to my second face.

  After school, Karen reminded me that I’d promised her that, if I went on the trip, she could go as well. Since then I’d learned that the high school teachers did not have in-service days this week, so this was a school night for her. Even so, these days I was anxious to spend some time with my growing-up-too-fast daughter. So far, Jim and I had only managed to elicit her usual one-word responses to questions about her budding romance with Adam Embrick. That she was at all interested in going skiing with her mother and a hundred eighth graders was almost a welcome surprise. I told her that she could come skiing as long as she got her homework done first.

  That evening, we each had a bowl of macaroni-and-cheese—the Goddess of Processed Food’s little gift to us harried moms—and a Flintstone vitamin for dessert. Okay, so I’m not exactly centerfold material for Good Housekeeping. Or even So-so Housekeeping. Truth be told, Unlikely-to-cause-permanent-damage Housekeeping was more my speed. I left a message at Jim’s office as to where we’d be. Then we took off to meet everyone at school.

  It was a hectic scene in the junior high parking lot. In their excitement, the students had reverted to that peculiar tendency of young children to be able to spot a Cheerio in the dirt from a hundred paces, but not the twelve-feet-high, fifty-feet-long display of fine china directly in front of them. With many of them carrying skis, the trek along the sidewalk was hazardous to us non-Cheerios.

  Jane Daly was the first person to greet me. Again, she was wearing her red gnome hat. “Molly. Several parents are driving up and hauling the kids’ ski equipment.”

  “I can do that,” I quickly interjected.

  She shook her head. “Those slots have already been taken. We need chaperones on the buses. It’s just you, me, and Chad on one bus, and we’ll have our hands full.”

  I nodded. “Good thing it’s just the first hundred eighth graders to turn in their permission slips and not all three hundred of them.”

  “Really.” She patted my arm. “I’ve got some running around to do. You take the clipboard and start checking off kids as they get on the bus.”

  I got Karen and Nathan situated on the bus and began to check off names as a mob of eighth graders boarded. Their noisy voices were getting to me, so afterward I went outside to catch the few late-arrivals on my list. In the corner of my vision, I caught sight of Chad Martinez, who was pacing the sidewalk a short distance away, looking downhearted.

  I smiled at him when he neared. He gave me a slight smile in return. “I’m really sorry about Patty’s death, Chad.”

  “Me, too,” he said, his voice choked.

  “I know you two were close friends.”

  He made no reply, and the silence was heavy. As a less-somber conversation starter, I said, “Well. Two hours on the bus. With a group of young teenagers. Oh, boy.”

  Chad’s deep-set eyes were now red-rimmed and appeared to be almost sunken into his skull. He said forlornly, “Patty used to lead us in song the whole way. She knew so many . . . great songs for groups. The only one I know is ‘A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.’ ”

  “That’s quite a crowd pleaser. Wouldn’t be appropriate now, though. Besides, I keep forgetting the lyrics.”

  He furrowed his brow. “It goes: ‘A hundred bottles of beer—’ ”

  “I was kidding, Chad.”

  “Oh. Of course.” He sighed. “I seem to have lost my sense of humor lately. Not that there’s much to smile about anymore, anyway.”

  “Patty would have been the first one to say not to let our”—I stopped at the sight of Kelly Birch, shuffling toward the bus, her head down. Her father gave her a wave, then drove off—“spirits sink,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  She was carrying skis and a boot bag, and Chad leaped at the opportunity to help her out by loading her equipment into a parent’s minivan. By the time she returned to the bus, she was the last on my list and walking side by side with Chad. “Glad you could make it, Kelly,” I said, feeling that this was the wrong time for saying anything substantive.

  “Yeah, right,” she muttered into her shoes as she stomped up the stairs of the bus.

  Chad sighed and shook his head. He gestured for me to go ahead of him. “After you, Mu—Mo—, er, ma’am.”

  “Molly.”

  On that note, we were off.

  Having lived in Colorado for several years, I found that this eastern ski range made for an interesting switch in terms of overall skiing experience. The steepest run on this mountain would be the bunny hill at Vail. On the other hand, at the Colorado ski resorts, they have snow. At the Adirondack resorts, they have ice. To execute a turn when skiing on ice, one must possess: a) young and strong quadriceps, b) natural grace and coordination, and c) newly tuned skis with edges sharp enough to slice through an overripe tomato. Ignoring a and b so as not to sink into depression, the trouble with c for me was that it required getting off one’s fanny before it turned into an overripe tomato, going to a ski store, and having one’s skis tuned. Mine had last been tuned in 1982— assuming that the original manufacturer had tuned them prior to shipping them to the store.

  After helping the kids get their skis, poles, and boots from the rental shop at the lodge—
where they did indeed have skis with actual edges—Karen, Nathan, and I got on the chairlift. This lift featured two-seater chairs, resembling slightly padded metal benches that are fastened onto a thick, continuous cable overhead. We rode up, got off without incident, and Karen waited for Nathan and me at the top of the run. When we reached her, Nathan looked at me and asked, “Ready, Mom?”

  I shook my head, looking down at the illuminated ski run. Despite the relative lack of altitude compared with the Rockies, it would be a long way to fall. If only my pants, jacket, and hat were equipped with air bags. “I’m going to start out as slow as possible. You’ll have to wait for me at the bottom.”

  “Okay, but can I go right back up and meet you after my second run?” Nathan asked. “That’ll take about the same amount of time.”

  “No.”

  He pushed off, and soon the top of his head in its bright blue helmet was all that could be seen from my vantage point as he effortlessly whooshed down the slope. I glanced over at Karen in her yellow helmet, wishing not for the first time that I had purchased one of those for myself. Which I easily could have done while having my skis tuned.

  “Want to go down with me?” Karen asked. “I don’t go as fast as Nathan.”

  “I think I’ll stay up here and enjoy the view for a while. Have a nice run, and I’ll see you at the bottom.”

  I watched her go down, till she and her yellow ski helmet were a safe distance away, then shoved off. As is often the case, I wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected to be and managed to get down just fine, but I was glad to get the first run of the day behind me. Both kids were dutifully waiting for me by the ski lift.

  “I’ll go up one more time with you, Mom, then I’m gonna wait up for Robert,” Nathan said, naming one of his closest friends.

  “Gallant of you. Thanks.”

  Kelly was waiting in line immediately in front of our threesome, noticeably, I thought, keeping to herself, as if unable to participate in the excited voices of her peers surrounding us.

  “Would you like to ride up with me, Kelly?” I asked.

  She shrugged. Nathan and Karen were giving each other dirty looks at this idea, which would mean that they’d ride the lift together. They rarely argued these days, but they also avoided each other whenever possible. “How about if I ride up with you, Kelly?” Karen said sweetly.

  “Okay,” she said, and almost smiled. They got onto the lift.

  Nathan and I had only just hopped onto the next seat on the lift when a commotion arose from Karen and Kelly’s chair up ahead. The people waiting in the lift line beside us were all looking up at her.

  Aghast, I saw that Kelly was hysterical, waving her arms and screaming, “Get me down! Get me down! Oh, my God! I’m going to die!”

  “Stop the chair!” I yelled.

  Our cries finally caught the attention of the operator, who stopped the string of chairs. By now, the two girls had to be a good fifteen feet in the air, and Nathan and I were at least six feet up. Kelly let her ski poles drop. They bounced on the hard ice and skittered down the slope, finally stopping just below my chair. I felt a little queasy at how rough the landing had been, unable to block out the thought of how much worse it would be for a person.

  Kelly yanked off her mittens and hurled them down. She seemed to be clawing at her face with her bare fingers and was shrieking.

  “Do something!” I hollered down to the lift operator. “Back us up!”

  “Can’t!” he called back.

  I could tell that Karen was trying to soothe her and had one arm around her shoulder, the other, thankfully, gripping the chair itself.

  Kelly was squirming so badly in her seat that the chair was swinging in a nerve-wracking manner. I was petrified, unable to look away but increasingly frightened by what I was seeing. Karen would live through a fall from such a height, but not without breaking a bone or two.

  “Just stay seated, Karen, Kelly! Everything is going to be fine,” I shouted.

  Downwind from the girls, I doubted they could even hear me. Meanwhile, the two lift operators and a third man dressed in the red jacket for the ski patrol had rushed over underneath the girls. They were trying to talk to Kelly, who kept screaming through her tears, “Get me down!”

  “Sheesh,” Nathan said. “Kelly’s really freaked out. I’m glad I’m not sitting with her.”

  I was too engrossed in silent prayer to comment, but I’d have given anything to have been in that chair with her instead of my precious daughter.

  “Do you think Karen’s going to fall?”

  “No, Nathan, I don’t,” I snapped. “And I don’t feel like talking right now, okay? I’m trying to watch!”

  “You can watch and talk at the same time.”

  “No, I can’t. I have to concentrate.”

  “Why?”

  “So that Karen won’t fall!”

  Nathan, fortunately, recognized from the tone of my voice not to push me. He sat quietly, swinging his skis, which, under the circumstances, was agitating my nerves, but I managed to hold my tongue. “Cool,” he said. “They’re bringing a ladder.”

  “How are they going to get her skis off her to get her down?” I asked, not expecting an answer. Nevertheless, Nathan felt compelled to give me one, and though I was too busy holding my breath to listen, caught that his thinking was based on the theory that the ski-patrol members would have “really strong thumbs” to work the ski releases.

  Meanwhile, one young man was climbing the ladder while another steadied it. Fortunately, they were both muscular. Kelly continued to sob. Karen looked back at me. Even from this distance it was obvious that she was anxious. Her eyes were wide open, and her face pale.

  The man on top of the ladder managed to release each of Kelly’s bindings and to hand them down to his partner. Kelly let out a piercing scream as he pulled her out of the chair, and kept a grip on one armrest so that the whole chair was tilting horribly. I bit my leather mitten to keep from crying out at the sight.

  Karen managed to keep a grip on the chair herself and to stay seated. They brought Kelly down safely on the ladder. Only then did I feel as though I could breathe again.

  “Should I get down, too? To keep Kelly company?” I called down to the lift attendant.

  “Are you her mother?”

  “No, but I’m the nearest chaperone.”

  He hesitated, and I knew he was weighing the thought of having to get me out of my chair and onto a ladder. He shook his head. “She’ll be all right. Meet her in the lodge.”

  “I’ll be down as soon as I can, Kelly,” I shouted down to her. The chairs started once again in their squeaking, groaning ascent. “Her stepmom’s here someplace,” I called over the racket. “She’s a ski instructor. Amber Birch.”

  The attendant waved, but I wasn’t sure if he was signaling that he heard me or that I should shut up and let him handle things.

  I returned my attention to Karen, in the seat ahead— and above—me. Would she be able to ski down safely after all of this commotion?

  “That was so weird,” Nathan said to me after a while. “I thought Kelly skied here all the time.”

  “Her mother just died, Nathan. Thankfully, neither of us knows how that feels. I think it’s a good idea for you and Robert to meet up and ski together. I think I’ll be spending most of my time in the lodge with Kelly.”

  Karen was waiting for us at the top. “Jeez, Mom. I didn’t know what to do with Kelly. She seemed perfectly fine as we got into our seats. Then she, like, totally freaked.”

  “She’s had more trauma over the last couple of days than anyone should have to handle, especially at her age.”

  “I offered to come down the ladder with her, but it was like she couldn’t even hear me.”

  “I’ll check on her as soon as I get down. Don’t worry about it. She shouldn’t have come up here tonight in the first place.”

  “See you at the bottom,” Nathan said, clearly having grown too eager to ski to withstan
d any more of our chatter.

  I called after him, “Meet me at the lodge at eight p.m., okay?”

  “Okay,” he called over his shoulder.

  “I’ll just join up with Anna. She’s my friend Kimberly’s younger sister. Okay?” Karen asked.

  “Sure. Go ahead, Karen. Just be sure to meet me at eight, as well.”

  She, too, took off. I waited another moment, just to be sure that Karen had a good enough lead that I didn’t have to worry about crashing into her. Then I aimed my ski tips downhill and let gravity do its thing.

  I decided to go down along one side of the course and to go without stopping so that I could get to the lodge as quickly as possible. As is often the case when I don’t try too hard, I was skiing quite well now, which reminded me how much fun skiing was. It was a shame that we didn’t manage to ski more often.

  All of a sudden, someone came flying at me from behind some trees on the side of the course. “Hey!” I yelled, automatically turning and getting a shoulder up to block the impact.

  The skier barreled right into me and sent me flying. I managed to get one hand down to break my fall slightly. My body was spun around, and I tumbled head over skis.

  My head jerked back, smacking the ice. One ski came off. I was sliding toward the evergreens at a terrifying rate. I managed to dig the heel of my ski boot into a soft patch in the ice. Thankfully, my slide toward the tree trunks stopped just in time.

  I lay on the ground for a moment, waiting for a hideous pain to overtake me. None was forthcoming. I wiggled my fingers and toes and breathed a sigh of relief, glad to discover that I still had control of my extremities.

  A skier stopped right beside me. “Lady, are you all right?” he asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Oh, it’s you, er . . . Mona.”

  I looked up to recognize Chad Martinez. His black, rectangular mustache had frost at the ends and resembled a toothbrush.

  “Did you know that maniac?” he asked.

  “Which maniac?” I automatically joked and tried to sit up.

  “That other skier deliberately elbowed you.”

  “I figured he or she was just trying to clear a wide swath down the mountain.”