Foul Play at the PTA by Laura Alden

Author:Laura Alden [Alden, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780451234087
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I left the grocery store and pulled back the sleeve of my coat to look at my watch. Just past eleven. Perfect. I walked across the brick street, checked my watch against the Victorian clock the chamber of commerce put up a few years ago, and opened the door of the Green Tractor.

The diner smelled of fried food and grilling beef. I stood by the cash register, eyes closed, breathing in the luscious scents, trying to convince myself that smelling it was just as good as eating it.

“Are you okay?”

I opened my eyes. Ruthie, the diner’s owner, was looking at me in the same way Flossie had. “Why do people keep asking me that?” I asked.

“Maybe because you look like you’re about to keel over.” Ruthie handed me a mug and a plate filled with a cinnamon roll. “Sit down and eat.”

Since I was constitutionally incapable of passing up one of Ruthie’s rolls, and as my life seemed to be full of women telling me what to do, I sat on the closest stool.

The Green Tractor was a leftover from what had once been a dime-store luncheon counter. When the dime store had abandoned Rynwood for good, Ruthie and her husband had bought the building and divided it into two businesses. The other side evolved from a butcher shop to a men’s clothing store to a furniture store and settled on being an eclectic gift shop. The Green Tractor side, after the initial renovation, hadn’t changed a bit.

Ruthie’s husband died a few years ago, clutching his chest with one hand and his trusty pancake flipper with the other, and Ruthie had marched on alone. The only difference was that instead of telling her husband what to do, she told her customers what to do.

I swiped off a fingerful of the roll’s cream cheese filling and licked it down before Ruthie came back with a knife, fork, napkin, and etiquette lessons.

“Here you go.” She set the implements of destruction in front of me and, after a glance across the mostly empty restaurant, sat next to me. “So what’s up? Have you decided to toss in the bookstore towel and come be a waitress for me?”

My fork froze halfway to my mouth, a piece of cinnamon roll perched precariously.

Ruthie let out a burst of laughter. “You should see your face, missy. Have you ever done the waitress bit?”

“One summer I worked at a fast-food restaurant. It was the longest five years of my life.”

Ruthie laughed again. “I don’t see you as the waitress type. Now, don’t take offense. Being a good waitress takes a special kind of person. You have to be willing to show people who you really are, and you’re not like that. You keep yourself to yourself. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not going to get you good tips.”

I’d never thought about it that way, and she was right. I’d never been comfortable engaging complete strangers in conversations that revealed too much. Marina said I was too uptight,

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