Oh Jesus, what was going on? Max wondered if the price for finding the damn rolling pin might be way too high.
Virginia swam on, totally oblivious to this newest undertow. “Why don’t you try accounting, Jada?”
After returning three of the four pieces of meat, Jada slapped the plate down in the middle of the table, and the thread of the conversation turned yet again. “I’d throw up if I had to balance checkbooks all day.”
Max had the suspicion Jada would throw up anyway.
“I don’t even balance my own checkbook,” Max revealed. “Accounting’s more than debits and credits. It’s about understanding a business.” She wondered briefly why she’d suddenly gotten defensive. Maybe it was Jada’s tone. Maybe it got to Bethany.
“What’s a debit and who cares about business anyway?” Jada gibed, running a hand roughly through her hair. Her fingers were short, nails blunt and uneven. A biter’s nails.
“It doesn’t matter,” Virginia breezed right over the question. “You can learn it. Yes, I think accounting is perfect.” Her own dinner less than half gone, Virginia picked up the mashed potatoes. The spoon clinked against Jada’s china once more.
Jada never said she didn’t want the food, never told her mother to leave her alone. Instead she said, “I don’t want accounting, Mother. I don’t want to be a secretary or a computer programmer or a buyer for the shoe department at Nordstrom’s.”
They hadn’t even finished eating what was on their plates, yet the endless passing of serving dishes began all over again, as if agitation forced Virginia into activity. Just as Jada threw her food back, Max was compelled to take more. And more.
Bethany wasn’t full yet.
“Then what do you want, Jada?” Virginia asked, tone slightly exasperated, as she piled more food on Jada’s plate despite the fact that the girl had merely used her fork to smear what was already there. “I’ll help you with whatever it is. I want you to have lots of friends and lots of fun and start all over again.”
Jada snorted. “What you want—”
“Let’s not argue, Virginia,” Bud said.
It didn’t escape Max that Jada was the one arguing, yet Virginia was the object of Bud’s reprimand.
Virginia tried one more time. “I thought we’d decided—”
Bud held up a hand. “We’ll discuss it later. Let’s finish eating.”
Max looked at her plate and felt her eyes bulge. She’d eaten all of the more than average-sized first helping she’d dished herself and was plowing into the second. Yet she wasn’t full. Nowhere near full.
The meat platter was empty when she glanced at it, but two pieces still sat forlorn on Jada’s plate. Bethany wanted them. God, she wanted them. They were the perfect shade of pink, the—
“Jada, why don’t you cut more meat? The platter’s empty.” Unexpectedly, the order came from Bud. Was he taunting the girl with adding yet more food to the table?
Max almost jumped up and said she’d do it. Finally a chance to get into that kitchen.
There was that strange billowing of the tablecloth between them. Jada then pursed her lips, threw her napkin on the table, and rose. The kitchen door swung closed behind her, and a moment later, came the sound of an electric knife.
“Virginia, you’re pushing her.” Bud carefully cut into his last slice of beef.
The woman pulled her upper lip between her teeth and chewed. Her eyes glistened. “I’m trying, Bud. I really am. I don’t know how to say the right things to get her to do what’s best for her. She won’t listen to me. Bethany would never listen either.”
Tears. Max started to sweat.
Virginia turned to her. “I’m sorry, Max. I can’t imagine how this all started.” Her hands waved forlornly in the air. “We wanted a friendly meal. A little respite. Before tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Bethany’s funeral. At two o’clock in the afternoon. Virginia wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, that they were a happy family having a nice meal together.
With Bud Traynor at the table, they were anything but.
“Maybe you try too hard, Virginia,” he offered. Sympathy? Or manipulation?
Bethany’s mother patted her cheeks, sniffled, took a deep breath, and straightened her shoulders. “All right. I won’t push on the school thing. At least not yet. She can always start back in the winter quarter. Of course. That’s best anyway.” She brightened visibly as she made her plans. “Why yes, it’s silly for her to start in the middle of the quarter.”
Bud smiled. “Now, Virginia, do we really need more meat?”
She laughed, almost a giggle, like a happy child. “Oh silly me, what was I thinking, of course we don’t.”
She seemed to have completely forgotten that Bud was the one to suggest it.
Chapter Thirty-Two