Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [102]
Shelley was engrossed in reading a new paperback and Lorie was going through magazines, such as Tea Time, and cutting out articles when the doorbell rang. Since they weren’t expecting anyone, both she and Shelley froze for a couple of seconds. Then Shelley laid her book aside, got up, and headed for the front door.
Shelley peered through the viewfinder and laughed. “It’s a couple of kids. They look like Mike Birkett’s children.” She opened the door.
Lorie jumped up and hurried to meet Hannah and M.J.
“We need to see Miss Lorie,” M.J. told Shelley.
“Hey, you two, what are y’all doing here?” Lorie asked.
Hannah came rushing forward, threw her little arms around Lorie, and then hugged her. M.J. stood less than a foot away and looked up at Lorie with wide, misty eyes.
“What’s wrong? Has something happened—?”
“Some kids at school were saying awful things about you,” M.J. told her. “I punched Payton Carpenter in the mouth when he called you a bad word.”
Oh dear Lord! Lorie had thought, short of her actually being murdered, things couldn’t get much worse. But she’d been wrong.
Hannah lifted her head from where she had pressed it against Lorie’s waist. “Jennifer Taylor said that you’re a bad woman. Her mama said so. And—” Hannah puckered her mouth as she began crying.
“This is horrible.” Lorie felt at a loss as how to handle the situation. What could she say to Hannah and M.J.? How could she explain?
“I told Jennifer that her mama was a liar.” Hannah looked up at Lorie, her little tear-streaked face breaking Lorie’s heart.
“I’m so sorry this happened.” Lorie took Hannah’s hand and held out her other hand to M.J. “It’s very sweet of you both to defend me, but…I don’t want either of you getting into fights with your classmates because of me. What is your father going to think about all of this?”
M.J. took Lorie’s hand and as she led the children into the living room, M.J. said, “They said some bad things about Daddy, too.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Colby Berryman said Daddy has the hots for you and he’s letting his other head think for him.” M.J. stood on tiptoe in order to reach her ear and then whispered, “I know what that means, but Hannah doesn’t.”
Crap! This was worse than awful. It was bad enough that Hannah and M.J. had to hear their classmates repeating the awful things their parents had said about her, but to have their father talked about in such a derogatory manner was shameful.
Lorie sat the children down on the sofa with her, one on either side. “I’m going to get Miss Shelley to call your father. He needs to know what’s happened.” And I need him to help me explain to both of you why your classmates said the things they did about me and your dad.
Up until that moment, Lorie had been so concerned about what had brought the children to her house this afternoon, both of them nearly in tears, that she hadn’t thought about how they had gotten there.
“How did you two get here?” she asked. M.J. and Hannah exchanged guilty looks before M.J. answered. “We sort of told a fib.”
“What sort of fib did you tell and who did you tell it to?”
“Grams plays bridge on Monday afternoons, so when Dad can’t pick us up from school, we ride home with Mrs. Myers. She’s got kids our age and…well, I told her that Grams wanted her to take us to Mrs. Shelby’s house, because that’s where they were playing bridge.”
“My neighbor, Irene Shelby?”
“Yes, ma’am. I knew Mrs. Shelby lived down the road from you and that we could walk from her house to yours.”
“Is your Grams playing bridge at Mrs. Shelby’s house?”
“No, ma’am,” M.J. admitted.