License to Shop (15 page)

As everyone streamed out
to the next weekend events — high school games, family dinners,
whatever, Deb peeked her head into the door and beckoned me. “Have
you talked to Connery yet?”

“
Not yet. I think he’s too
smart to show up to something like this.”

“
Probably. Don’t kill me,
but I told him about your temp job in Admissions. He’s probably
going to ask you to go undercover again.”

“
What?”

“
What else could I
do?”

“
Pretend I moved to
another state!” I said. And then I added, “Maybe I should move to
another state.”

“
Too late,” Deb
said.

I turned to see James
Connery bearing down on us. I had forgotten how handsome he was,
and how he used his looks to make people do the most insane things.
Like go undercover when they were not real spies.

“
How are you doing?” He
asked, as if he cared. Part of his charm was that it seemed
adorable that he would bother to ask a question to which he didn’t
care to hear the answer. I wondered, suddenly, if this made him a
good interrogator. I shuddered at the thought.

I channeled my inner
Deirdre, smiled and said, “I am busy. Too busy.”

“
Molly.” That was all he
said. Just my name. The jerk.

“
Your bad luck that I’m
practicing the word ‘No’ today.”

“
I heard you knew the dead
guy.”

“
He interviewed me. I’d
hardly call that knowing him.”

“
Still.”

“
I know.”

“
Molly.”

“
Why can’t you use Martie?
Where is Martie, anyway?”

He frowned at me, as if my
question was an annoying mosquito. “Martie is somewhere in the
Grand Canyon with her family.”

“
Aha. Out of cell range.
Now I understand.”

“
Agents do get vacation,”
he muttered. “We’re trying to move fast. The murder probably means
the culprit running this identity theft ring is about to pack up
and leave town.”

“
How am I supposed to even
find him. I don’t know anything about identity theft.”

“
I can tell you what to
look for. It’s pretty simple.”

“
Why don’t I just let Dr.
Stubbs do the leg work.”

He cleared his throat and
said nothing.

“
You suspect her?” I
whispered. “I adopted one of her dog Sofia’s puppies.”

He smiled. “I don’t think
crime is catching. Besides, it might not be her. If we thought it
was, we’d already have her in custody.”

“
Fine. But I won’t wear a
wire.” I’d done that last time, when I was trying to catch a serial
killer. But now I was on Seth’s turf. “And I need to tell my
husband.”

He looked wary.

I said firmly, “That’s a
dealbreaker.”

He nodded. “Let me talk to
him, so he understands that no one can know about this.”

“
He understands.” I
thought of the dean, and realized this had the potential to put
Seth’s career ambitions in jeopardy. If he knew, and he didn’t tell
the dean…

“
Never mind.” I changed my
mind. “Let’s just get it over with. Maybe no one will ever need to
know.”

That’s the problem with
the spy business, even being a baby spy like a mystery shopper —
being observed changes the way things happen. In the end, there’s
no way around the fact that it’s just better if no one but you
knows what you’re doing.

If I told Seth, and he
told the dean, and the dean told Dr. Stubbs…

I saw Norma and her family
about to leave. “Whatever. I have to go ask someone a favor.” I
left him standing there without another word. If he’d ever been a
parent in need of an emergency after-school babysitter, he’d have
understood completely.

I’d never thought of Norma
as a backup before, but I needed to find someone so I didn’t let
Dr. Stubbs — and now the FBI — down. So I quickly explained the
situation to her and asked her if I could send the kids over there
after school.

I told her that I thought
I would be back by 5. But then I remembered James Connery and all
the things he wanted me to do, so I assured her that Seth would be
home by 6 at the latest. She didn’t hesitate to say yes. I guess
once you’ve hit five kids, two more don’t seem like such a big
deal.

She didn’t even mind
having to pick them up. She was definitely one of the mom saints,
unlike me.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Don't Bet
Your Life on Childcare

A casual
observer might have expected my mother to step up and offer to
change her airline tickets and babysit for that first week of my
two-week job, while I was scrambling for care.

But a casual observer
would not know my mother. She liked her house her way, and her
schedule to stay scheduled. Changing her plane tickets was a
non-starter. I didn’t even ask, though Seth suggested
it.

We dropped her off at the
airport Sunday afternoon. Seth and I took out her much lighter
suitcases, and gave her a hug. I even kissed her cheek, thinking
that I really should get to know her better. One day.

“
Good luck with the job,
Molly. I’m sure Penny won’t be as dedicated and observant as you
are.”

“
Thanks, Mom.” I meant it.
Compliments do not come easy from my mother’s lips.

“
I hope that woman who
will be watching the children after school is up to the task.
Homeschooling.” Mom shook her head ominously. “In my day we knew a
good thing when we saw it. A proper school is the only way to
civilize children.”

“
She’s doing a great job
with her children, Mom. And I’m sure watching Anna and Ryan for two
hours until I get home won’t be a problem for this week. I can find
something else by next week.”

Anna piped up. “Mom!
Penelope’s mom asked if I wanted to build a volcano in their
backyard tomorrow when I come home with her? Can I?
Please?”

I sighed. Norma,
Penelope’s mother was not just a stay-at-home mom, she was a
home-school mom, so it did not surprise me that she would invite my
daughter to build a volcano in her backyard. Not at all. No doubt
she thought I had neglected my child by not allowing her to do so
in ours. But really, I’m not a volcano kind of mom.

My mother raised her
eyebrows.

I ignored her and said to
Anna, who was dancing around impatiently, “I’ll talk to her and
see, when we get home. Okay?”

Anna nodded, but I knew
she’d have me over there as soon as the garage door had
closed.

As
predicted, the minute we drove into the garage and the door started
rumbling down, Anna said, “Can I help make the volcano?
Please?”

“
Let me talk to Norma,” I
said, walking to the fence, a prancing Anna beside me asking
questions without taking a breath in between,
“Doyouthinkitwillburn?Howhotislava?Coulditkillthegrass?ShouldIwearmybikehelmet?”

“
Hi Norma. I hear you’re
planning a big eruption.”

She took a moment from
supervising her five children as they took wet balls of papier
mache and stuck them onto the growing mound near her barbecue pit.
At the moment it looked more like a nest built by steroidal wasps,
but I had faith in Norma. After all, I’d seen her turn a rackety
garden cart into the Magic Mathmobile for the town’s Fourth of July
parade two years ago using only two boxes of colored chalk, origami
paper and a tattered edition of “You Can Love Math Too!”

Anna, taking my
conversation as approval, vaulted over the fence and began daubing
papier mache like a well-trained wasp.

Norma smiled as she
glanced at her brood plus Anna. “It was such a great day, and we’d
been meaning to do this all week, except for the rain.”

“
Do you think it will dry
by tomorrow?”

“
If we don’t have any
surprise rain. There’s not a cloud in the sky today. We’re going to
try to get it launched around four tomorrow, to avoid terrifying
the neighbors.” She glanced around at the neat suburban houses in
our neighborhood. Most folks weren’t out yet, despite the fact it
was a great afternoon for getting chores done. Apparently, it was
also a great opportunity for hard-working folks to take it
easy.

I joked. “We working folks
won’t be home to see Mount Waspoovious erupt, then?”

Norma dandled the baby on
her hip. “I’m sure someone will be home sick, or on vacation or
something. Probably the same someone who called the fire department
when we had the experiment on how to start a fire using a
magnifying glass.”

Anna had been determined
to recreate that experiment in our house—until all the magnifying
glasses mysteriously disappeared. Come to think of it, I should
probably get them out of the attic if I wanted her to do well on
the third-grade leaf project next fall.

“
Some people are just
jealous that you’re so creative,” I murmured soothingly. “I worship
at your feet, and not just because you’ve agreed to watch Anna and
Ryan while I’m at work this week.”

Norma gave me that look
that mothers sometimes give their children to let them know they
are neither amused nor fooled. “I’m not an idiot. Most of those
parents think education is something that should be sanitized of
all risk, not to mention entertainment value, and spoon fed
directly and neatly into their child’s cranium.”

“
You have to admit that
would be handy.” I laughed. “In theory anyway. I can’t help but
think that Ryan’s cranium would spit chunks of information back out
at me just like he spit globs of baby food at me when I tried to
feed him spinach.”

Norma and I shared the
same frustration with the modern educational system. Teaching to
the test was not an ideal way to encourage kids to want to learn.
It wasn’t even an ideal way to keep excellent teachers in the
schools.

Norma coped by taking
Elliot out and teaching him herself. Seth and I coped by making
sure Ryan had an excellent one-on-one reading tutor. If I got the
job, we might even be able to add an extra hour of tutoring in
every week. Not that Ryan would appreciate the fact until much,
much later in life.

Norma looked at Anna and
then toward my house, where Ryan was conspicuously invisible. “Do
you think Ryan would like to join us?”

I bit my lip. “Ryan would
prefer to play video games and watch cartoons until his brain
explodes than have anything to do with something that reeks of
homeschooling.”

“
Unschooling is about the
child,” Norma sighed. “If he would just open his mind…”

“
Ryan is not about to open
his mind—he’s too afraid he’ll find out he’s dumb as
dirt.”

“
Nonsense, if you just put
your foot down…”

I held up my hand. “I’m
letting him choose, Norma. Isn’t that what you advocate? He’d
rather have a tutor and go to school with his friends.”

Living with our principles
is hard. Which is why we so often don’t. But Norma was someone who
really did try not to convert the world to her way of thinking by
preaching.

She and I had both hoped
that Ryan would want to be homeschooled. We had both thought it
would be best for him, with his dyslexia to try a different
approach from the traditional ‘sit and do your worksheet’ type
education. But he hadn’t. And I, shamefully, thought sometimes
Norma knew that I was relieved.

“
You’re right. What should
I do with him tomorrow, then?”

“
Tie him up and gag
him?”

Norma smiled. “He’s giving
you that much trouble?”

“
He thinks he’s old enough
to stay home.”

Norma nodded. “He is
twelve. I was babysitting at twelve.”

She had a point, but the
very idea of leaving him home alone gave me hives. “So was I. But
this is not then.”

I could see her mind
working behind her placid expression. One great thing about Norma
is that she likes to find a solution that works for the most people
possible. At last, she said, “How about this: he stays at home, and
he can call me if he needs anything?”

It was probably the best
idea, but I couldn’t make myself agree. “I don’t know.”

“
I’ll look in on him about
halfway through.” She held up her hand to stifle my protest. “Not
like a jailor, but with some veggie chips and a kale
smoothie.”

“
Sounds perfect.” I’d
stress to Ryan that if he wasn’t polite about the veggie chips and
kale smoothie, he wouldn’t be staying home alone again for a very
long time.”

“
Great. We may even
convince him to watch the volcano go off, who knows?”

“
Stranger things have
happened,” I agreed. “What are you using for lava?”

She ticked the ingredients
off on her fingers. “Baking soda, vinegar, beet juice.”

Of course, Norma wouldn’t
have a vial of red dye #3 anywhere in her house. Did her kids like
to eat beets? With Norma, I could almost believe it. “If you spill
any anywhere, my mother the Hands-On Homemaker gave me some great
tips for getting stains out of things,” I offered.