Somebody Else's Music(27)

“You know what it’s like with Stu. If he’s in the wrong mood, he goes berserk. None of us wanted to—”

“Talk to me,” Peggy said.

“We don’t really know why he’s here. We just think he’s here because of Michael. And the stories in the supermarket newspapers. What else could it be, right? What other reason would he have to be down here? We don’t think it’s a very good situation, under the circumstances.”

“Why don’t you ask her about it?” Peggy said. “We’re all supposed to be grown-ups these days, right? We’re all practically fifty. None of that high school stuff should matter anymore. Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call her house and ask her—”

“Listen,” Nancy said. “There was an incident. Last night. Somebody got into the garage out there and left a dead dog in it.”

“In Betsy Toliver’s garage?”

“Right. Exactly. I don’t know the details. It was Kyle Borden who took the call, and you know what he’s like. Chris couldn’t get a thing out of him, even though she tried, except that it was deliberate. I mean, the dog was killed, it didn’t just die of something. If you could think of anybody doing anything stupider—”

“It doesn’t have to be connected to us,” Peggy said. “It could be somebody else, doing it for some other reason.”

“What?”

“Kids. Bugging the famous person.”

“Don’t be asinine,” Nancy said. “Why would kids put a dead dog in Betsy Toliver’s garage? Even your standard sociopathic adolescent has to have some reason for what he does. No, I’m with Chris. I think somebody meant it as a warning.”

“A warning of what?”

“A warning for her to get out of town,” Nancy said. “For Betsy to get out of town. Chris thinks it came from one of us, and I’m with her—”

Peggy snorted. “Could you just see Belinda dragging a dead dog out there where the Tolivers live? You must be joking.”

“I’m not joking, and you shouldn’t be joking, either. The situation would have been mucky enough if she were just down here on her own, but with Demarkian here with her it could get very nasty. So Chris and I decided. We’re going to invite her to things.”

“What?”

“We’re going to invite her to things,” Nancy said. “Chris is going to have her to dinner. I’m going to invite her to lunch. We’re going to invite her to things. Just like we do when Maris comes down from New York.”

“Are you crazy? Whatever makes you think she would come?”

“Oh, she’ll come,” Nancy said confidently. “People like that always do. I’ve had enough ed psych to know that, and so have you. It doesn’t matter if she lives to be a hundred and five, she’ll still be trying to make up for what happened to her when she was fourteen. Why do you think she puts up with Maris?”

“I thought she and Maris had become friends in college.”

Nancy smirked. “If Maris is Betsy’s friend, I’m Hillary Clinton’s hairdresser. Maris can’t stand Betsy Toliver now any more than she ever could, and you know how Maris was about Betsy. Worse than Belinda. She’ll come, Peggy, trust me.”

They were driving through the gates onto the long drive that led to the new high school. Peggy cleared her throat. “Remember that night when we invited her to the White Horse?”

“Yes. It won’t matter. She won’t believe we’d do something like that again, not at our ages. And we have to make it clear to that Demarkian person that none of us has anything against Betsy Toliver anymore. You got that?”

They were at the end of the drive and into the faculty parking lot. Peggy picked her purse up from the floor and watched a thin line of students climbing their way up from the lower level lot. They carried book bags instead of just books. Peggy couldn’t remember when that had started, but she did remember that none of them would have been caught dead with a book bag when she was in high school. Of course, none of them would have been caught dead in jeans, either, at least not on a school day, and now nobody seemed to wear anything else.

“So,” Nancy said. “What do you think? You going to help us out?”

“How?”

“Chris is going to have a lunch on Saturday, with Betsy as the guest of honor. Do you think you could manage to be there?”

Saturday was the day after payday. Stu would be unconscious by ten in the morning. “Yes,” Peggy said.

“Good,” Nancy said. “Chris is going to call her this morning to firm things up. After that, we should know something about times. I think Chris is going to have it catered. All you’ve got to do is show up and behave yourself. No commenting on how she still has really awful taste in clothes.”