Page 27 of Promise Keeper

"What's going on?" Irene shrieked.

"If it weren't true, would she be so upset?" Roy asked the jury, pointing to Fiona.

"I said, that's enough!"Fiona shoved her way out from behind the table, sending the laptop lurching to the floor.

"Hello? What's going on?" Irene shouted from the laptop on the ground. "Pick me up, Fiona! I must have order! Hello?"

"We won't stand for stopping progress in the search for truth!" Roy raised a fist in the air. "We must have justice!"

Cass started clapping. Elaina followed suit, and added a loud whistle using her fingers. Judy and Betty gathered their handbags and got ready to leave. Johnna stood up, giving Roy a round of applause to which he bowed.

Fiona grabbed the laptop off the floor and slammed it shut in a huff. As she stormed for the door she called, "Meeting adjourned!"

Soapy pulled the door open for her to stride through, and closed it shut behind her. "Well," he said, turning toward us. "That was fun. We should do this more often. Coffee's on the house!"

13

We sat at a bar table in the Cornerstone. I bought Roy a drink and Mom said she had his next one. Johnna offered to give him a ride home when he got done celebrating. Cass joined us and so did Monica.

"That was like nothing I've ever seen before," Mom said. "You went in with no plan, no strategy and pulled out a win."

"That's what I do," Roy said, leaning back in his chair. "I save the day. Call me Superman."

"More like super lucky," Johnna said. "That stunt could've gone either way."

"I fixed what you screwed up, no luck about it."

Johnna wrapped her yarn around her needles double time. "You just pushed Fiona over the edge. First Cam starts saying it was her who dumped those bones, then I asked her and got her wound up, and when you did it in front of all her friends she went cuckoo. It was good timing, that's all."

I jumped in before the two of them started lobbing cocktail peanuts at each other. "Who knows what went on inside Fiona's head? All I know is that by luck, talent, or a bit of both Roy got her to flip out and end the tribunal."

"Your mother-in-law was having a breakdown," Mom said, smiling around the edge of her wine glass.

I couldn't help but laugh. "Her screaming,'What happened? Fiona?'from the floor almost had me in tears. I held it in though. I knew cracking up would only get me in more trouble."

"I wish I would've been there to see it," Monica said, picking paint from her fingernails. "I like Irene, but she and her cronies deserve what they get sometimes."

"Oh, we all like Irene," Mom said. "When she's not bullying everyone in town she's even fun to be around."

Cass held up her right hand. "I swear when the older generation are no longer a part of the Daughters, it'll be a dinner club only. We'll still do charity work, but no more ruling over the town."

"Too bad we can't do that now," Johnna said. "I don't want to die and miss the fun stuff."

"We can do fun things now," Cass said. "We don't have to do it as a Daughters activity."

"Good," Monica said, "then we can all go."

"I told Steve I'd help him with the carnival this afternoon," Cass said. "There's a bus coming in for dinner at the Briar Bird and Steve's giving them a tour of his tent and all the wonders it holds." She spread her fingers wide and waved them, mystically, through the air. "Come with me and we can watch fire eaters. What could be more fun than that?"

"I can think of several things," Carl said, coming up behind Mom and kissing her on the ear.

"Monica and I already went through once," I said, "but I didn't get to see any fire eaters."

"I need to get back to putting another coat of paint on the kitchen," Monica said, so I have to skip this outing.

"Cam," Roy said, poking me in the arm. "There are the trash men. I told you they come in after their shift."

"I think the correct term is sanitation collectors," Cass said.

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