“Libby?”
Oh, hell.
I looked up and found Chelsea looming over me. Her blond hair was artfully sculpted around a round face with Kewpie-doll lips and big baby-doll blue eyes. When she spoke, you could practically hear cartoon chipmunks and birds scampering away in terror. It was like Snow White and Satan had an evil, chirpy blond baby.
Believe it or not, I’d been comforted by my interactions with Chelsea, because, so far, she’d treated me with just as much condescension as she had before I was turned. She was consistent, and for that, I was grateful.
“Do you have the list of local businesses you need to solicit for raffle prizes and donations?”
I wished she would stop using the word “solicit.” It was unseemly.
I cleared my throat, shuffling through the papers in front of me. “Yes. I have the list. And the sublists. And the list of sublists.”
“Are you and Caroline—”
“Kerrianne,” I supplied.
She sniffed. “Yes, Kerrianne. Are you two able to handle it, or do I need to assign a few more people to your committee?”
Behind her, I saw several eyes go wide and my fellow parents shaking their heads. I schooled my lips from the smirk that wanted to form. “No, thanks. We’ll do just fine.”
“I expect a report from the committee at next week’s meeting,” she singsonged.
Next week? I would have to do this again next week?
I sighed, glancing around the room again, as if Wade had somehow materialized in the last five minutes. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hoped he would attend this meeting until I saw that he wasn’t there. We’d actually managed to build a shaky rapport after the birthday party. It would have been nice to see a friendly face, but it would appear that even he had his limits in terms of parental volunteering. I did, too, but was forced to ignore them for the sake of pending litigation. That was something reasonable parents did, right?
Chelsea eventually ran out of things to drill the various committee heads about, and we were dismissed. Some people shot out of their seats and ran for the door. Others milled around in the room to chat. I tried to hold on to a bit of my dignity and split the difference.
A few of the moms were friendly. Jenny Marcum and her cousin, Penny Bidcombe, stopped me to ask how Danny was faring after the incident with Mrs. McGee. In my now weekly calls to the school, I’d found out that Mrs. McGee hadn’t gone near Danny since Mr. Walsh informed her that I was aware of her opinion and “displeased” that Danny had overheard her. So I couldn’t report much beyond “I indirectly threatened a septuagenarian.” But it was nice that they’d asked. Penny and Jenny, whose mothers were sisters with an odd sense of humor, had daughters in Danny’s grade. I’d have liked to think they would have allowed the girls to attend a birthday party at my house, but because of Danny’s girl-cootie-phobia, I supposed we wouldn’t know for a while.
“Soooo, Libby, how are you?” I turned to find Marnie Whitehead standing behind me, smirking. Marnie’s son, Brian, had been on the invite list for Danny’s party. I desperately wanted to ask where the hell she and her son were on Friday night, considering that my son had continued to sit next to “Buggy Brian” at lunch even after his well-known and unfortunate head-lice outbreak the year before. But I bit my tongue.
Also, as an aside, I was really tired of people asking how I was, with their heads tilted to the side. It was becoming annoying.
“Just fine,” I said, with my sweetest smile.
“Really? Because I’ve heard Les and Marge are planning to sue you for custody of Danny,” Marnie said. “I just can’t imagine how I would feel if someone tried to take Brian from me. I would be so stressed out if I were you.”
“Well, it’s a good thing that you’re not me. But really,” I said, all easy smiles and wide eyes, “everything’s just fine with Les and Marge.”
Just at that moment, because the conversational gods hated me, a man in a plaid shirt and jeans tapped me on the shoulder. It was unusual to see dads at this sort of thing, which was part of the reason I’d assumed that Wade was a school employee. I gave him that same easy, empty grin. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Liberty Stratton?”
“Most people call me Lib—” My sentence was cut off as the man in plaid slapped an envelope into my hand.
“You’ve been served.”
My mouth hung open as the man strode away as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.
If vampires were capable of blushing, my face would be on fire at that moment. I unsealed the envelope and scanned the contents. Les and Marge had used a lot of scary legal terms to file for full custody of Danny.