Plotting at the PTA Read Free Page B

seat, church bulletin in one hand, folder of music in the other.
    We sang up and down the scale in solfège; “Do re mi fa,” and we did some oooo’s and we did some aaaa’s. Kay tapped her music stand with a slender baton. “The first anthem is in good shape,” she said. “But the offertory is the Rutter and it needs some work. Sopranos, let’s run through your descant at measure one twenty-seven.”
    The Rutter. I’d forgotten all about it. “Why do we have to do the Rutter?” I groused to the alto on my left. “Why does he have to write music that’s so hard?”
    My complaint, spurred on by driving-induced fatigue, was a bit too loud. Thanks to the proximity of the tenor section—directly behind the altos—Rynwood’s police chief, my friend Gus Eiseley, overheard the comment.
    “We sing John Rutter’s compositions,” Gus said, “because he’s the best living composer of choral music.”
    I should have kept quiet, I should have nodded and left it alone. Instead, I turned in my seat and faced Gus. “If he writes the best music,” I said, “why isn’t he more popular in his own country? Why don’t the English sing his stuff? Why was the world premiere of his
Requiem
in Geneva, Illinois?”
    Cold words. I loved John Rutter’s music and always had. But this particular piece was difficult, I’d missed the last choir rehearsal, and I was deeply afraid of coming in early on one of the alto entrances.
    “Just because you always come in early in that middle part,” Gus said, “isn’t any reason to criticize the composer.”
    Heat spread across my face. “I do not always.”
    He raised his eyebrows. Not an ounce of humor showed on his weathered face. Gus was one of those men whose age was indeterminate; if judging only from the vaguely gray close-cropped stubble showing on his scalp, he could have been anywhere from mid-thirties to mid-sixties. He normally wore a pleasant expression, but right now his obvious irritation was giving me a glimpse at what he would look like at eighty. Worn, lined, and downright cranky.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I must have been out of the room the time you got it right.”
    I gaped at him. Was he joking? Gus wouldn’t say something like that to me. He must be joking.
    “Geez, Gus.” The tenor sitting next to him, a portly man with ever-present onion breath who sang like a brother of Pavarotti, bumped Gus with his elbow. “Give the girl a break. It’s just a song, you know.”
    “It’s John Rutter,” Gus said carefully.
    “Kay is our director,” I said. “Would you care to tell her the issues you have with my performance?”
    The last person who made a suggestion that contradicted her had been lambasted with more music theory than anyone saw outside a master’s degree thesis. It wasn’t an experience any of us wished to repeat.
    “For the Rutter,” Gus said, “I might risk it.”
    We glared at each other until Kay said, “Nicely done, sopranos. Everyone, let’s start at the beginning.”
    I turned around to face her. There was no way, no way whatsoever, that I was going to come in early on that middle part.
    That was the foremost thought in my mind, but close behind it was another thought. Gus and I, friends for almost twenty years, had just had our first fight.
    * * *
    “So?” Lois asked. “Did you come in early?”
    It was Monday morning, and Lois, the manager of my children’s bookstore, sat in my tiny office with the toes of her shoes on the edge of my desk. They were red sparkly shoes that reminded me of Dorothy’s ruby slippers, but the clothes Lois wore weren’t anything ever seen in 1939 Kansas.
    Lois Nielson, sixty-two, mother and grandmother, had cast off her sensible shoes and cardigan sweaters when her husband died and was well on her way to becoming one of the Characters of Rynwood. Where she’d found a sari, I didn’t know, but she was wrapped up in one that shimmered even in the sickly light cast by the fluorescent light fixtures.