A Paper Plate at My Own Table novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Towed

Meredith has the Lexus lease cut at the church Advent sale and it is towed in front of Norma's choir friends; Timothy brushes her wrist as he takes the dealer's slip, and Kristen announces a livestream about the woman destroying her family.

The church on Ashby Ford Road held its Advent sale in the parking lot every year.

By ten on Tuesday there were forty tables of wreaths, jam and hand-knit hats, and Norma was running the cookie stand.

Her silver Lexus sat in the front row, the best spot, with a bow still on the grille from the last holiday.

I stood by the hedge with my coffee and watched a tow truck turn in at the far gate.

The driver didn't hurry.

He backed up to the Lexus, got out with a clipboard, and walked over to the cookie stand.

"Norma Ellery? I need the keys to the vehicle."

Norma looked up with a tray of shortbread in her hands.

"Whose vehicle?"

"The silver Lexus. The lease holder ended the contract this morning."

Three women behind the stand stopped talking.

"The lease holder," Norma said, "is my daughter-in-law, who has her little tantrums. Tell her it can wait until after the sale."

"I can't, ma'am. The paperwork is signed."

"By whom?"

I stepped out from the hedge.

"By me," I said.

Norma turned her head slowly.

She had no smile ready for me this time.

"You," she said.

"It's my name on the lease, Norma. I signed for the car in March. I'm returning it."

"That car was a gift."

"It was a lease," I said. "A gift would have had a card."

A woman in a Christmas sweater snorted behind the cookies and turned it into a cough.

The tow driver hooked the chains.

Norma dropped the tray.

Shortbread went all over the asphalt.

She ran at the truck, her good shoes clicking.

"Stop that! My purse is in there! My pills are in there!"

"Ma'am, you can take your personal items."

"I will not be treated like a criminal in front of my church!"

She wrenched the passenger door open and dragged out a leather handbag, a scarf, a tin of mints and a hanging air freshener shaped like a pine tree.

Behind her, the whole lot had gone still.

Forty tables of people held jam jars and stared.

Her bow slid off the grille as the Lexus lifted its front wheels.

The red ribbon dragged across the asphalt.

"Meredith, you will regret this," Norma said, loud enough for the choir to hear. "You will regret it on your knees."

"I regret that I didn't do it in March," I said.

The truck rolled out the gate with the Lexus tilted on its back.

I let out my breath.

A pickup truck pulled in beside me, a dusty gray one with a ladder rack.

Timothy got out.

He had been hauling folding tables for the church since eight. I could see the dust on his flannel sleeves.

"Norma called me," he said. "She said she needed her driver."

"Are you going to drive her?"

"She asked politely for once. I'd like to see how long it lasts."

He looked at the empty spot where the Lexus had been.

Then at me.

"You did the card first," he said.

"Yes."

"I'd have done the car first. A card, she pays off. A car she has to walk away from, and everyone sees her do it."

"You've thought about this."

"I've watched her for thirty-five years," Timothy said. "I think about it most Sundays."

My hand was still shaking from the confrontation.

I hadn't noticed that I was crushing the dealer's slip in my fist.

Timothy put his hand out, palm up.

I gave him the paper.

His fingers brushed the inside of my wrist as he took it, and stayed there a half second longer than they needed to.

He read the slip, smoothed it flat, and handed it back.

"Your signature," he said. "Your name. You're clean."

"I know that."

"I know you know."

He didn't let go until I took it.

His hand was warm and rough and larger than mine.

I felt it all the way up my arm.

Over by the cookie stand, Norma had begun to cry loudly into a church lady's shoulder.

"I'll take her home," Timothy said.

"Timothy."

He stopped with his hand on the truck door.

"Why do you do it? Drive her. Fix her house. She hands you paper."

He thought for a moment.

"I promised my father I'd look after the house," he said. "He didn't say anything about her."

He climbed in, and Norma climbed in beside him with her tin of mints, and the truck pulled out.

My phone buzzed in my coat.

It was an alert from Kristen's account.

*GOING LIVE TONIGHT 7PM. Meet the woman who is destroying my family. You will not believe what she did today. Bring your tissues.*

Forty thousand people had liked the Thanksgiving video.

Now they had a time and a date.

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