Jennifer just laughs and winds spaghetti around her own fork.
“Please, my reputation in town is already bad enough after the Gertrude incident last week,” she says.“I don’t need toalsobe the woman who thought she could tell Nancy how to do something better.”
Gertrude is a poorly-behaved husky who loves two things: escaping Jennifer’s yard, and stealing ladies’ undergarments from clotheslines.She’s a sweet dog, but it’s not a great combination of interests.
“Yeah, you should probably lay low for a while,” I say.“Your invitation to the annual Pumpkin Festival Celebration Dinner is probably hanging in the balance.”
Jennifer snorts, looking quickly behind her, as if to make sure that Nancy’s not listening in somehow.
“Ifthat’sthe threat, maybe I should actually?—”
On the table, her phone starts buzzing, and a picture of her thirteen-year-old daughter Jessie pops up on the screen.Jennifer doesn’t finish her sentence, just sighs.
“I’ll bet you five bucks she can’t find the microwave popcorn in the pantry,” she says, picking up her phone.“Hi, sweetie.”
I can hear Jessie’s high-pitched voice from where I’m sitting, and Jennifer’s eyebrows both go up at once.She stands.
“You’ve gotta slow down, sweetheart, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” she says into the phone, mouthingsorryat me as she walks away from our table.
“That girl was always a little high-strung,” says Mrs.Flughorn, seated across the long wooden table from me.“I wouldn’t have left her home alone tonight.”
“She’s thirteen,” I say, already defensive of Jennifer.“I stayed home alone every day when I was thirteen.”
“Some kids can handle it,” Mrs.Flughorn says, looking through her glasses at me.She’s got a helmet of gray hair that I’ve never seen move, no matter the weather.
“Jessie has to learn sometime,” I say, even though I don’t know why I’m arguing about this.Mrs.Flughorn is exactly the kind of stern-but-secretly-kind small-town old lady who’ll probably die without ever changing her mind.
I mean, I have no idea what her first name is.Everyone just knows her as Mrs.Flughorn.She just shakes her head and takes a dainty-yet-authoritative bite of her salad as Jennifer comes back.
“A raccoon got in the house,” she says without preamble, and leans over her chair, still standing as she shoves half a meatball into her mouth from her plate.
“Again?”I ask.
Jennifer nods, her mouth full.
“Youhaveto do something about that dog door,” I say.“Or at least teach the raccoons that it goes both ways.”
Jennifer shakes her head and swallows.
“Every one of those fuckers is probably rabid,” she says, then looks at Mrs.Flughorn.“Sorry.”
She leans over again, stabbing another meatball with her fork.
“I gotta go, can you present the plaque?”she asks casually, stuffing the meatball into her mouth.
My heart plummets, and suddenly I feel like something’s squeezing all my organs together, and it’s not my pencil skirt.
I just stare up at Jennifer, my mouth slightly open.
“Peez?”she says around a mouthful of meatball.
My mouth’s gone dry, and I glance at the microphone in the front of the room.There’s probably a hundred and fifty,maybetwo hundred people in here, and half of them I don’t even know.My palms start sweating, my toes curl inside my shoes, and the spaghetti inside my stomach starts writhing dangerously.
“Can’t, uh...”I trail off, looking foranyoneelse here who can represent the Forest Service.“Can’t Bryce do it?”
Jennifer glances over at our summer intern.He’s nineteen and currently being grilled about his future by Jane Widman, the high school’s college counselor.I canseehim sweating.
“No,” Jennifer says.“Clementine, you’re the Communications Ranger, just go up, say this is a token of our thanks for your hard work in containing the Elkhorn fire, hand it over, you’re done.”
