so unless someone walks in, I think you’re my only customer this morning.”
Madge smiled sympathetically, then brightened. “Which means you can get started checking the supplies.”
“True. And color my hair.”
“And have time for lunch?”
“Also true,” Judy admitted.
“Good. I’ll pick you up at twelve. We’ll celebrate the start of the school year by having a quick lunch at The Diner, and then we’ll go to see Barbara together. I’ve been meaning to stop at the shop next door to order something for Andrea anyway. She and Bill are celebrating their second anniversary in a few weeks.”
Lunch at The Diner, the quaint little restaurant that was one of the few businesses like Pretty Ladies that had thrived during the years when Welleswood was just another dying, suburban town, sounded wonderful. Judy’s purse, unfortunately, held barely enough to last for the week as it was, even counting Madge’s tip.
“My treat,” Madge insisted, as if reading Judy’s mind. “I owe you lunch, remember?”
Judy frowned. “You owe me lunch? Since when?”
“Since September, 1986. We both went to lunch at The Diner to celebrate when Candy started her last year of high school. Remember? I’d forgotten my wallet, so you paid the bill. When I tried to repay you, you told me I could pay for both of us the next time we got together on the first day of school, which we never did because that was Candy’s last ‘first day’ of school.”
Judy laughed. “You’re making that up. Your memory might be good, but it’s not that good.”
Madge narrowed her gaze. “As I recall, you were a redhead back then. On that particular day, you were wondering whether or not to go blond or try frosting your hair.”
“So you remember our conversation, too?”
“Tell me you don’t remember what happened to your hair that very afternoon?”
Judy opened her mouth to respond, but a memory flew out of the past. A painful memory that flashed a horrid mental image of the disaster later that afternoon that had left her with bright orange hair less than half an inch long over her entire head on the very day that Candy started her senior year. “Oh, that day?”
“Exactly that day,” Madge insisted. She smiled and patted Judy on the shoulder. “I’ll pick you up at twelve,” she insisted. “In the meantime, stick to the inventory and if you do have time to color your hair, stick to dark brown. It’s more becoming, and it’s safer,” she teased before she left.
Chuckling, Judy hiked up her slacks again. When she saw the tube of conditioner on the counter, her smile widened. She could give Madge the conditioner at lunch, free of charge, one friend to another. The phone rang again. “Pretty Ladies, this is Judy,” she said as she grabbed her pen to either make an appointment or change one.
“Judy Roberts?”
“Yes.”
“Judy, this is Marsha, the school nurse at Park Elementary. It’s Brian. I’m afraid you need to come to the school immediately. He’s—”
Judy dropped the phone, grabbed her purse and ran out the door, barely remembering to lock it behind her before charging down the avenue toward the school.
Chapter Two
T he nurse’s office at Park Elementary School smelled of alcohol and disinfectant and sported freshly painted medicine cabinets with shiny locks. There was a child in one of the four yellow plastic chairs that served as a waiting area for students sent or brought to the school nurse, who was sitting behind a metal gray desk.
Judy shoved her visitor’s pass into her pocket and rushed straight to Brian. Ignoring the nurse, she crouched down in front of her grandson and ran the edge of her finger along one of his tearstained cheeks. “Feeling sick?” she asked, too concerned to waste time worrying about how she was going to salvage the rest of her workday.
He shrugged and kept his gaze downcast.
She heard the nurse approaching as she felt his forehead with the back of her hand. “I don’t think you have a fever.”
“His temperature is quite normal,” the nurse quipped.
Judy stood and turned slightly to face the other woman, who had stretched out her hand. “I’m Marsha Chambers, the school nurse. We spoke on the phone.”
Judy shook the younger woman’s hand and wondered how this woman-child could possibly be old enough to be a nurse. She did not look a day over seventeen, but then, everyone Judy dealt with these days seemed impossibly young. “I came as quickly as I could. I had to walk. I don’t have a car,” she explained, wishing Hannah Miller, who had been the school nurse here at Park Elementary for as long as Judy could remember, had not retired last year. Or was it the year before?
“I understand. You’re Brian’s grandmother?”
“Yes. I’m raising Brian. Temporarily. What’s wrong? He doesn’t appear to have a fever.”
The nurse glanced at Brian and hardened her gaze. “No. Physically, he’s fine.”
“Then why on earth didn’t you tell me that when you called?” Judy argued.
The nurse arched her back, and flipped her long, blond hair over her shoulder. “I would have told you, if you hadn’t hung up on me,” she countered, with just a slight tone of impatience. “Actually, Miriam called me from the front office to let me know you’d arrived. I’ve arranged for Brian to spend a few moments with one of the secretaries so we can talk. Privately,” she added with a nod toward Brian.
Judy swallowed hard and tried to stem the flow of miserable memories that threatened to sweep over her, despite the relief she felt that Brian was not seriously ill. When Candy had been in high school, Judy had been called to the school too many times to count, let alone remember, but that had been high school, not elementary school. When the secretary arrived, Brian left without an argument or a glance at either his grandmother or the nurse, and Judy sat down in the chair positioned at the side of the nurse’s desk.
After the nurse took her own seat, she looked at Judy with a gaze softened by pity. “I know it can’t be easy to be raising a young child at your age.”
Pity? Judy’s backbone stiffened. “I was busy raising his mother before you were even born,” she snapped. “How many children are you raising?”
The nurse huffed, and her cheeks reddened. “I’m not married so I don’t have any children of my own, but I had four years experience at Grace Academy before coming here last year. If you’d rather speak to the principal—”
“No,” Judy murmured before their encounter became any more adversarial. “I’m sorry. Your call scared me half to death. I should have given you an opportunity to explain what was wrong. Brian seemed perfectly fine this morning when I walked him to school, so if he had taken sick this quickly, I was afraid it might be something serious.”
The nurse nervously twisted her hands, which were resting on top of a manila folder on her
