Today Will Be Different(45)

“‘Happy birthday to you…’” filtered through the hallways.

I followed the voices into the administration suite. The outer office, Lila’s area, was empty.

“‘Happy birthday, dear Gwen-sie! Happy birthday to you!’”

They were all in Gwen’s office having cake. Perfect! I reached over Lila’s counter and plucked a Sharpie out of her cup. I grabbed an envelope and, in big block letters, wrote, FOUND THESE.

But then, a voice… a loud voice… a voice in the same room with me: “I’ll get a knife!”

It was Stesha, the afterschool coordinator.

“Hi, Eleanor!” Stesha did what she always did when she saw me: rolled up her T-shirt to show off her Looper Wash tattoo. She was a Vivian apparently.

“There it is!” I said. Because what can you say?

“Do you need Lila?” Stesha asked.

“No, no—”

“Oh, hello.” Lila now! “How’s Timby feeling?”

“Much better.”

The three of us stood there.

“Can we help you with something?” Lila asked.

“I wanted to sign out,” I said. “I forgot to this morning. And didn’t you send an e-mail reminding everyone to sign out if they left early? Citizenship or something?”

“Oh, you didn’t have to make a special trip,” Lila said. “I was here when you picked up Timby.”

“That’s just for parents who take their kids directly out of the classroom,” Stesha clarified.

The whorl of dull information had a mysterious, paralyzing effect.

“Is that for me?” Lila finally said of the envelope in my hand.

“Nope!” I said, ripping it to pieces.

“Tell Timby we hope he feels better.”

I went out to the hallway where my son was kneeling, his face close to a padlocked Lucite box filled with dollar bills.

“Mom, look! There must be a thousand dollars in here!”

Above the box, a sign: DOLLAR DROP. Beside that, a Post-it note. LAST DAY TO GIVE!

“It’s to buy socks and blankets for a homeless shelter,” Timby said.

“Sheesh,” I said. “Homeless I get. I just don’t know why it has to be all homeless all the time.”

“The parents are counting the money today,” Timby said. “If Galer Street beats the other schools, we get to go to Wild Waves.”

The lights now blazed in the conference room. Two young moms and one young dad were on hand (the same ones? You’re asking me?) clearing space on the table for the counting party. (Galer Street’s policy: If a job requires two volunteers, why not send out harassing e-mails asking for six?) It gave me an idea.

“Timby, go to your locker and get your backpack.”

“I have my backpack.”

“Get your gym shoes.”

“Why?”

“So we can wash them.”

“How do you wash gym shoes?”

“In the washing machine.”

Timby made a face. “You do not.”

“I’m not having this conversation,” I said. “Go.”

Timby trudged up the staircase to his locker.

The fifth-graders’ Lewis and Clark journals lined the wall. Feigning interest, I took the keys from my purse and slipped them into the dollar drop. They hardly made a sound, that’s how many dollars these do-gooders had dropped.

In minutes, one of those parent volunteers would open the box, find the keys, and return them to Delphine’s mom. No harm, no foul… ish.

Through the second-grade classroom window I could see the school yard. Wee ones carrying rakes formed into columns, preparing to come inside.

Time to scram. I fished in my purse for my car keys. They felt funny. I looked down.

D-E-L-P-H-I-N-E.

Gah! I spun around.

My keys! In the dollar drop! The padlocked dollar drop!

A flashback to the days when I belonged to the New York Health and Racquet Club. They’d been experiencing a rash of locker break-ins; it turned out a bad element had been popping open the padlocks. How? By slipping a gym towel through the loop, holding both ends, and yanking down really hard. I’d always wanted to give it a whirl.

Farther down the Lewis and Clark wall, the kids had hung tomahawks: sticks and stones tied together with… leather strips!

And they say God doesn’t provide.

I unwound the leather from a tomahawk and folded it back and forth a few times.

The coast was still clear, but the kids were now on the march. In a minute they’d burst in.

I threaded the leather through the loop in the lock and got a firm grip on both ends. I gave a sharp tug, and…

The box flipped off the table and crashed to the floor!

I dropped to my knees. The goddamned box was still locked. I grabbed another tomahawk and began pummeling the lock. The stupid thing wouldn’t give up the ghost. Finally, the hinge screws popped free. I pried off the lid and reached in, dollar bills splashing everywhere. I grabbed my keys, jumped up, and threw D-E-L-P-H-I-N-E onto the money spill. Success! And nobody saw me.

Except Timby, standing there holding his dirty sneakers.





“Have you ever heard of the word subconscious?” I asked Timby in the mirror as my car tipped down Queen Anne Hill.