Read Online (LB2) Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charlaine Harris
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appointments, church functions, and phone calling connected to the various civic organizations they join (and they join any that will have them) that they’ve found a perfect way to avoid free time and conversation with each other.
Jenny and Tom live in the ground-floor front apartment at the Shakespeare Garden Apartments, the one right by Pardon Albee’s. Naturally, they don’t have a minute to clean their own apartment, so they are clients of mine. I’m always glad when neither one is home when I’m working. But most often, whichever one has been on the night shift is just getting up when I arrive.
I hadn’t known the O’Hagens belonged to SCC, much less held a position on the board, but I might have figured. It was typical of the O’Hagen philosophy that childless Jenny had managed to finagle her way onto the preschool board, since the preschool is the most important one in Shakespeare and the waiting list for it is long. Jenny had probably made an appointment with Tom to conceive a child on October fifteenth, and was putting in her time on the board to ensure that infant a place in the preschool.
Since my clients were involved, I began listening with heightened attention to the heated words flying around the boardroom. Everyone got so excited, I wondered if I should have made decaf instead of regular coffee.
Finally, the board agreed to censure, not fire, the hapless young woman. I lost interest as the agenda moved to more mundane things like the church school’s budget, the medical forms the children had to fill out…yawn. But then I was glad I hadn’t drifted away to clean some more, because another name came up that I knew.
“Now I have to bring up an equally serious matter. And I want to preface it by asking you tonight, in your prayers, to remember our sister Thea Sedaka, who’s under a lot of strain at home right now.”
There was dead silence in the boardroom as the members (and I) waited in breathless anticipation to find out what was happening in the Sedaka household. I felt a curious pang that something important had happened to Marshall and I was having to find out this way.
Brother McCorkindale certainly knew how to use his pauses to good effect. “Thea’s husband is no longer—they have separated. Now, I’m telling you this very personal thing because I want you to take it into account when I tell you that Thea was accused by one of the mothers of one of the little girls in the preschool of slapping that child.”
I sorted through the sentence to arrive at its gist. My eyebrows arched. Slapping children was a great taboo at this preschool—at any preschool, I hoped.
There was a communal gasp of dismay that I could hear clearly.
“That’s much, much worse than mentioning evolution,” Lacey Dean Knopp said sadly. “We just can’t let that go, Joel.”
“Of course not. The welfare of the children in our care has to be our prime concern,” the Reverend McCorkindale said. Though he spoke as though he’d memorized a passage from the school manual, I thought he meant it. “But I have to tell you, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, that Thea is deeply repentent of having even given the child cause to think she was slapping her.”
“She denies it?” Jenny O’Hagen had thought that through before anyone else.
“What Thea says is that the child spoke back to her, not for the first time, but for the seventh or eighth time in one morning. Now, Thea knows part of her job is to endure and correct behavior like that, but since she is under such a particular strain, she lost some of her self-control and tapped the child on the cheek to get her to pay attention. Like this, is how she showed me.”
Of course, I couldn’t see or hear the Reverend McCorkindale’s demonstration.
“Were there any witnesses?” Jenny asked.
I decided Jenny had potential as an interrogator.
“No, unfortunately, Jenny. Thea and the child were alone in the room at the time. Thea had kept the child
Jenny and Tom live in the ground-floor front apartment at the Shakespeare Garden Apartments, the one right by Pardon Albee’s. Naturally, they don’t have a minute to clean their own apartment, so they are clients of mine. I’m always glad when neither one is home when I’m working. But most often, whichever one has been on the night shift is just getting up when I arrive.
I hadn’t known the O’Hagens belonged to SCC, much less held a position on the board, but I might have figured. It was typical of the O’Hagen philosophy that childless Jenny had managed to finagle her way onto the preschool board, since the preschool is the most important one in Shakespeare and the waiting list for it is long. Jenny had probably made an appointment with Tom to conceive a child on October fifteenth, and was putting in her time on the board to ensure that infant a place in the preschool.
Since my clients were involved, I began listening with heightened attention to the heated words flying around the boardroom. Everyone got so excited, I wondered if I should have made decaf instead of regular coffee.
Finally, the board agreed to censure, not fire, the hapless young woman. I lost interest as the agenda moved to more mundane things like the church school’s budget, the medical forms the children had to fill out…yawn. But then I was glad I hadn’t drifted away to clean some more, because another name came up that I knew.
“Now I have to bring up an equally serious matter. And I want to preface it by asking you tonight, in your prayers, to remember our sister Thea Sedaka, who’s under a lot of strain at home right now.”
There was dead silence in the boardroom as the members (and I) waited in breathless anticipation to find out what was happening in the Sedaka household. I felt a curious pang that something important had happened to Marshall and I was having to find out this way.
Brother McCorkindale certainly knew how to use his pauses to good effect. “Thea’s husband is no longer—they have separated. Now, I’m telling you this very personal thing because I want you to take it into account when I tell you that Thea was accused by one of the mothers of one of the little girls in the preschool of slapping that child.”
I sorted through the sentence to arrive at its gist. My eyebrows arched. Slapping children was a great taboo at this preschool—at any preschool, I hoped.
There was a communal gasp of dismay that I could hear clearly.
“That’s much, much worse than mentioning evolution,” Lacey Dean Knopp said sadly. “We just can’t let that go, Joel.”
“Of course not. The welfare of the children in our care has to be our prime concern,” the Reverend McCorkindale said. Though he spoke as though he’d memorized a passage from the school manual, I thought he meant it. “But I have to tell you, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, that Thea is deeply repentent of having even given the child cause to think she was slapping her.”
“She denies it?” Jenny O’Hagen had thought that through before anyone else.
“What Thea says is that the child spoke back to her, not for the first time, but for the seventh or eighth time in one morning. Now, Thea knows part of her job is to endure and correct behavior like that, but since she is under such a particular strain, she lost some of her self-control and tapped the child on the cheek to get her to pay attention. Like this, is how she showed me.”
Of course, I couldn’t see or hear the Reverend McCorkindale’s demonstration.
“Were there any witnesses?” Jenny asked.
I decided Jenny had potential as an interrogator.
“No, unfortunately, Jenny. Thea and the child were alone in the room at the time. Thea had kept the child
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