I shifted the topic slightly to take the pressure off. “He and Amanda were dating?”

She hesitated. “Yeah. For like six months.”

“But not anymore?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You don't sound upset about that.”

She shrugged, but I thought I saw a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Not really any of my business.”

“Sort of seems like you’re making it your business.”

She sighed again. “Mom. Seriously. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Clearly. And you don’t know anything about her being gone? And to be clear, I’m not asking to be nosy. I’m asking because it affects your sisters and the play.”

Emily shook her head. “I really don’t. I swear. I just know everyone’s talking about it, but I have no clue where she is.”

“Does Andy?” I asked.

Her face colored again. “I don’t think so, no.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Mom, jeez,” she said, completely exasperated. “I don’t know where she is. Andy hasn’t said anything to me about her, and I’m pretty sure if he knew where she was, he’d tell someone.” She paused. “He’s...he’s a good guy. He wouldn’t lie to anyone.”

“He’s a teen-aged boy,” I told her. “They all lie to someone.”

FOUR

I was on costume duty the next night.

The day had flown by in a flurry of guitar lessons and a trip to the library and a documentary on the Serengeti and an hour of bottle rocket building. Just another typical day of homeschooling. I loved how we did things, cobbling activities and events and lessons together to create our own version of “school,” but it also meant that my days were busy and fragmented. Most of the time, I’d glance at the clock and see it was approaching evening, and I would never be quite sure how we’d gotten there so quickly.

When I saw six o’clock flash on the clock on the stove, I panicked. I threw pasta in a pot, made Will watch over the sauce (he was restricted from all computer activities for a week as punishment for hacking his sister’s accounts), and then hustled the younger girls into the shower. With wet heads, they slurped down a quick plate of spaghetti and we headed out the door just as Jake was pulling into the driveway.

Because – yay, me – I was on costume duty.

Grace and Sophie had both been cast as dwarfs. Grace was Dopey and Sophie was Sneezy, and neither of them were terribly happy with their roles. Not because they didn’t like little people, but because neither part involved a lot of lines. Jake and I had reminded them that they needed to earn their way up the ladder, and that this was their first time with this theater company. And that it could have been way worse.

They could’ve been cast as, like, trees.

But we were getting closer to the performance nights and it was time to pick up the costumes, a process slightly more complicated than entering nuclear codes in the underground bunker near the Badlands. After I dropped the girls off, I ran to the grocery store to grab the nine things I’d forgotten to get the day before and then headed back to rehearsal to begin the checkout process for the costumes. There were multiple forms to fill out, required signatures, identification checks, and blood sample collection. Okay, so I didn’t really have to give blood, but by the time I’d filled out the mountain of necessary forms to take home the dwarf costumes for the following week, I felt like I’d left blood on the papers.

Nancy, one of the theater moms, handed me two tags. “Take this down the one hallway, the main one. That’ll take you to the main room, the one we use as a dressing room. There’s a smaller room in the back of the main room. That’s where the costumes are.”

I tried to create a mental picture of her directions. And failed. “Lots of ‘mains’,” I said, smiling.

She frowned at me. “Be sure you match the number on the costume to the number on your tag. You’ll be held responsible if you take the wrong one.”

By her tone, I wondered if I would meet a firing squad if I somehow ended up with Grumpy’s costume instead of Sneezy’s. Didn’t all the dwarfs dress the same? I was tempted to ask her, but the sour look on her face kept me from engaging in any further conversation.

“Okay, thanks,” I said instead. “I’m sure I’ll find them.”

Her lips pressed together. She clearly didn’t have the same confidence in me that I did.

After ten minutes of wandering the labyrinth of hallways, a helpful teen took pity on me and pointed to a door at the far end of a hallway. I stepped inside an empty classroom that had been turned into a makeshift dressing room. A few backpacks and book bags littered the floor, along with a scattering of trash and hangers, which made me think it was a big locker room of sorts, too. I made my way toward the back of the room. I pushed open the door and was greeted with a pile of costumes on the floor that looked more like a collection of cast-offs ready to be given to Goodwill. I sighed, set my purse down and got down on the floor to start sorting through the wreckage in order to find the girls’ costumes. I didn’t want to experience the wrath of Nancy if I accidentally took the wrong ones.

I’d just located Dopey’s hat when I heard the door to the main room open. I assumed it was another late-arriving parent there to join me in the search for costumes.

But I was wrong.

“I can’t believe we have to pick all this crap up.” It was the voice of a girl and, judging by the sound, probably someone close to Emily’s age. “We didn’t make this mess. I swear, my mom is so lame.”

“Couldn’t she have had the little kids do it?” Another teen girl. “I mean, she is the director.”

My mom. The director.

Which meant the first girl was Madison Bandersand, Eleanor Bandersand’s super-entitled, spoiled, pain in the rear end daughter.

I didn’t use those descriptions lightly, especially to describe a kid. I barely knew Madison. But I knew enough. In the short amount of time I’d spent around her at the rehearsals, she’d fit all three of those descriptions to a tee. And other parents who knew her far better than I did described her in even worse terms. This was apparently the first time she hadn’t gotten the lead role in one of her mother’s plays and it hadn’t set well with her. She was sullen, mouthy and generally rude, sneering at any of the younger kids who dared to ask her a question, and openly mocking any adult who offered her direction of any kind. Sophie had accidentally stepped on her foot during a dance number during the first week of rehearsals and Madison had come unglued, yelling at her until she was on the verge of tears. Grace, not caring for how her sister was getting yelled at, ‘accidentally’ stepped on Madison’s other foot. Hard. Jake had refrained from cheering from his position in the back of the theater and we’d both encouraged them to keep their distance ever since. The girls had been more than happy to oblige.

“Who knows?” Madison was saying. “All I know is this play is going to be about a hundred times better now that I’m going to be Snow White.”

“For sure,” the other girl said. “But you aren’t Snow White yet.”

I crawled closer to the door so I could hear better.

“Whatevs,” Madison said. I couldn’t see the eye roll but I knew it was there. “I’m gonna be Snow White. There’s no one else in this stupid play that can handle the role. I mean, I should’ve been Snow White in the first place.”

“I don’t know.” The other girl’s voice was a little hesitant. “Amanda was pretty good...”

“Amanda was lame,” Madison spat. “She just sucked up to my mom.”

“Well, she does sort of have Snow White’s hair and—”

“Oh my God, whatever. I’m, like, ten times the actress she is, alright? This should teach my mom to never try to put me in a small role.” She cackled. Really, truly cackled. “It’s like payback or something.”