“It’s not that bad.”
“Oooh, I think it is. Face it, Jenna, Madge is hopeless! Terribly, horribly, indecently miscast.” She frowned in the eerie blue light. “My fault. I should have gone with someone else.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Jenna argued, though watching Madge try to emote as Mary Bailey had been painful.
“No, I’m not. I’ve got some ideas about the part.”
“If it involves me stepping in, forget it. Madge will get it right.” Jenna checked her watch. A glass of wine sounded like heaven. Coffee laced with Kahlua, even better. She needed to unwind, to forget about all the stresses in her life, but it was already late. “I’d really better take a rain check. We could discuss this over coffee in the morning, though.”
“Fine, spoilsport,” Rinda acquiesced. “Coffee it is…say, ten at the Canyon Café?”
“I’ll be there.”
“And you’re buying.”
“Right.” Jenna unlocked her Jeep and slid inside. Shivering, she started the engine; then with the doors locked, fired up the defrost, turned the fan on to its highest setting, and waited for the ice on her windshield to melt. Within five minutes there was a patch of visibility in the window. She drove out of the lot a few seconds after Rinda did, following the red taillights of her friend’s car, bothered slightly that the lights in the theater still blazed and Lynnetta was alone in the basement.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told herself, but worry had been her steady companion over the last few weeks. Everything in her life was eating at her, keeping sleep at bay. Driving through the snowy streets, she noticed that the town seemed inordinately quiet; few cars were traveling the narrow streets lined by storefronts proudly displaying holiday decor.
None of the lights, garlands, or wreaths brought Jenna any joy, nor any comfort. As was the case ever since Jill had died, Jenna dreaded the holidays, a time of year that felt empty and cold and riddled with guilt.
You should have died instead of Jill.
How many times had those words echoed through her skull?
A hundred?
A thousand?
Ten thousand?
“Stop it!” she said out loud. She was overreacting to the coming of Christmas. The disturbing letters she’d received and the missing women only added to the tension she felt as the holidays approached. She turned on the radio and, as if the DJ had sensed her mood, the strains of Blue Christmas wafted through the speakers. Elvis Presley was warbling about a sad holiday. Just what she needed.
“Great,” she said to herself, clicked off the radio, and reached for her cell phone. She dialed home and Allie answered before the second ring.
/> “Mom?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got my backpack, right? I mean, I left it in the car and forgot it and I didn’t have it all day and I need it for my homework and—”
“Hey, whoa! Slow down, honey.” While trying to keep the SUV on the road, Jenna turned on the dome light and hazarded a quick look into the backseat. “I don’t think it’s here.”
“It was in the way back. Remember? Critter jumped into the backseat with me yesterday and I threw my backpack into the cargo space, you know, with all that other junk you were taking to the theater.”
Jenna’s heart sank. “You mean with the bags of clothes and purses I was donating?” Jenna flashed back to her arrival in the parking lot. Wes Allen had just been getting out of his truck and had offered to help her unload the back. She’d been grateful for the help at the time. “It’s probably at the theater, then.”
“I have to have it,” Allie whined.
“Tonight?” Jenna asked, trying to think of some way to avoid a return trip into town. “You want me to go get it?”
“Pleeeeaaaase, Mom. If I don’t do my algebra assignment, Mrs. Hopfinger will kill me.”
“I doubt that the situation’s that dire.”
“It’s dire-er!” From the sound of it, Allie was on her way to a mega-meltdown, the last thing Jenna needed to deal with tonight.
“Life and death?” Jenna teased.