Lois said I was dreaming if I thought college kids did nothing but study on weeknights. “Most of them are out spending Daddy’s money on video games and iTunes and beer. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Do you really think so?” But I was happy in dreamland, so it was easy to picture blond, blue-eyed Sara chewing the ends of her hair while working on arcane organic chemistry equations. Even easier to see the brown-skinned, brown-eyed Paoze sitting in the library surrounded by the novels of dead white guys as he scribbled away on a paper for his latest English literature class. “Even Paoze?”

She relented. “Well, not him. If he was freezing to death he wouldn’t have two quarters to make a spark.” She grinned evilly; quite a look on her sixtyish face. “Say, do you think I could get him on that?”

Lois had developed a habit of playing on the gullibility of young Paoze. From snipe hunts to Paul Bunyan exploits, Lois worked hard at her tall tales. Even I got caught once in a while. She’d nailed Paoze multiple times—the fact that he’d fallen for the snipe hunt story still rankled with him—and for a week she’d had Sara believing in a left-handed wrench.

Despite the fact that Paoze was born in Laos and didn’t move to the United States until he was a teenager, he probably knew better than most of us that flint is what sparks. “Remember last spring?” I asked. “He had that American Literature of the Early 1900s class and did a term paper on Jack London.”

“That’s right.” Lois looked thoughtful. “ ‘To Build a Fire’ and all that. Hmm.”

I made a mental note to warn Paoze about stories set in Alaska, and waved good-bye to her when she left at five.

The clock ticked time away slowly. A woman came in and asked if we had anything by Jackie Collins. “There’s a bookstore in the mall,” I offered, but she wasn’t mollified and went away empty-handed and annoyed. The course of running a children’s bookstore never did run smooth.

After she left, I did some alphabetizing, jotted down a few books to order, and was about to haul out the feather duster, when Marina breezed in.

“Hail, fellow! Well met!”

Along with my bigger-than-life best friend, the front door ushered in a blast of winter-cold air that made the back of my neck tense up. I cast a longing look toward the thermostat, which was resolutely set at sixty-eight degrees, and sighed. I loved Wisconsin, I told myself. There’s nothing prettier than sun sparkling on snow and nothing better than skating and skiing and seeing white puffs of air coming out of your mouth six months of the year.

Marina shivered, sending waves of damp chill over me. “Nasty out there,” she said. “Remind me again why we live so far north?” She shook back her hair and droplets of water scattered in every direction.

“Because this is where my house is?”

She unbuttoned her bright pink coat. The color clashed horribly with her red hair, but a few years back Marina had decided that she liked pink, that she loved pink, and she wasn’t going to let any out-of-touch fashion traditions dictate what she was going to wear.

Though I admired her attitude—I still found it hard to wear white shoes before Memorial Day—sometimes fashion rules were rules for a good reason. I trotted out that point of view when we were coat shopping, but she said I had no sense of adventure. In my experience, limited though it was, adventure meant uncertainty, discomfort, fear, and pain. None of those seemed like very sensible things to pursue on a regular basis.

“You, my dah-ling”—Marina was back in Greta Garbo mode—“could use a large dose of excitement.”

“How can you tell?”

“You have a wistful cast to your dainty features. You have that air of faint discontent.” She put her nose high and sniffed. “And, yes, the scent of ennui.”

“It’s the smell of burning leaves, and the last time you said I needed excitement in my life we ended up sitting in traffic for three hours and overheating your engine.”

“Minor annoyances must be expected. Especially during Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was an excellent time and you’re everlastingly grateful that I kidnapped you.”

She was right. Watching the parade, seeing the cheerful crowds and the greened river, even sitting in a traffic jam had been the stuff of which fond memories are made. But saying so would just encourage her. “That was only eight months ago,” I said. “Talk to me about excitement when the snow melts.”

She brushed an infinitesimal piece of dust off the counter, and when I saw the way her pinkie was extended—high etiquette style—I knew the argument was far from over. She sighed. “It’s so sad.”

I looked at her warily. “What is?”

“Your precious children.”

The kids were with their father, having a great time stuffing themselves with fat-laden pizza, drinking sugar-saturated soda, and playing video games guaranteed to rip half an hour off their attention span. “What about them?”

“Growing up without any adventure in their lives.” Mournfully, she straightened a pile of bookmarks. “When they’re old and gray, they’re going to bow their heads and say, ‘Remember when we were young? We never once did anything that wasn’t sanitized, supervised, and structured. Why weren’t we ever allowed to be kids? Why didn’t we have any adventures?’ ”

I rubbed my forehead. “One minute you’re saying I’m boring, the next you’re wringing your hands over Jenna and Oliver’s old age. If there’s a connection, I’m missing it.”

She slammed her open palm on the counter. “You! You’re the connection, dear silly one.”

“Um . . .”

“Don’t you see?” She looked me solid in the eyes. “If you don’t teach them that life is to be lived to the fullest, that it’s worth wringing out every last drop of enjoyment, that there are no small parts, just small players, who will? Richard?” She snorted.

I leaned against the cash register. “So I should be something I’m not for the sake of my children?”

Marina crossed her arms. “Why did I know you wouldn’t take me seriously?”

“Because I’ve known you more than ten years. And, thanks to those years of precedent, I know you have something up your sleeve.”

“Me?” She tugged at the cuffs of her pink coat. “Nothing up there except air.”

“You invoked the specter of future unhappiness for Jenna and Oliver. You never do that unless you’re trying to convince me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“Poor Beth.” Marina shook her head sadly. “Always believing the worst in people.”

“Poor Marina,” I said. “Having her past actions remembered so clearly.”

She reached across the counter and, with her index fingers, pushed at the corners of my mouth until I wore a stretchy smile. “Much better.”

“Quit that. Just tell me what you’re after, okay? I know you enjoy the convincing game, but I have work to do.”

She pounced. “Exactly! Too much of it.”

“That’s the fun of owning your own business. You get to pick which eighty hours a week you work.”

“No, no, no.” She swatted away my words. “I’m not talking about the oppressive hours you slave without just compensation; I’m talking about the work you’re doing right now that should be done by someone else who shall remain nameless but her initials are Marcia Trommler.”

I tried, and failed, to diagram Marina’s last sentence in my head. “That again.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding so hard that her hair fell forward across her face. She hooked it back over her ears with impatient hands. “The problem isn’t going away.”

“I know that.” My voice gained an unattractive edge. “But where am I going to find someone to replace her? It’s not easy to find someone who’ll work long hours for low wages, no benefits, and no bonuses.”

“Long hours, you say?” Marina cupped a hand to her ear. “How many hours are on Marcia’s time sheet? And now she’s taking Wednesday nights off? Wednesday nights are PTA nights, remember?”

“It’s her grandson,” I said lamely. “How can I not let her have time off? She shouldn’t have to miss watching him grow up.”

Marina scoffed. “Then she should quit and spend all day with him instead of wreaking havoc with the store’s work schedule.”

I busied myself with straightening a stack of postcards. It could have been Lois standing there. Actually, she had been standing there, just a few hours earlier, and had said almost word for word what Marina was saying.

“She’s been here a long time,” I said. “No one knows the picture books as well as Marcia. And she has great rapport with the customers.” At least the ones she knew. Strangers she didn’t much care for. “And kids like her.” Well, some did. The clean ones. Kids who came in with dirty hands were marched to the bathroom to wash.

Marina gave me a look. “You’ve never let anyone go, have you?”

“Um . . .”

“Hah!” She grinned triumphantly. “This isn’t about Marcia’s inability to fulfill her duties as an employee; this is about your fear of firing!”

“Is not.” But my gaze slid away from hers.

She shook her index finger at me. “Prove it.”

“It’s not fear.” So what if I hadn’t ever fired anyone? So what if the thought of firing Marcia made my stomach hurt? So what if the idea of inciting confrontation went against everything my mother ever taught me? If I had to fire Marcia, I would.

“No?” Marina looked at me askance. “Then what is it?”

“Timing. It’s too close to Christmas. And I’ll thank you to remember that this is my store, not some playground for your management theories.”

Marina shook her head, sighing. “Poor Beth, still afraid of life. You need to show your daughter and son how to overcome fear. Show them how to push through the anxiety and come through on the other side. Fear is nothing,” she said solemnly. “If you’re scared, it means whatever you’re scared of isn’t happening. If it was, you’d be too busy working your way out of trouble. . . .”

As she talked, I studied her, trying to figure out what was really going on in that busy brain. Clearly, she had an ulterior motive. And, just as clearly, she wasn’t going to tell me what it was. Ah, well. Time would eventually tell. It always did. Marina couldn’t keep a secret for beans.

To my right were my three fellow board members: Randy Jarvis, treasurer and owner of the downtown gas station; Erica Hale, president, attorney, and grandmother; and our new vice president, Claudia Wolff.

The four of us had our knees under a rectangular table at the front of the room. It was a fifth-grade classroom, so the furniture was close to adult-sized, but Randy’s size was far from normal. Erica, Claudia, and I fit our bottom halves under the table without any trouble. Randy, on the other hand, kept whacking his knees on the bottom of the table. There was a reason I taped the meetings, and it wasn’t because the board had voted to do so. Many a night I’d studied my handwritten notes, eyeing the jigs and jags due to Randy bumps, and turned on the tape recorder.

Erica put on her half-glasses and banged the gavel. “The Tarver Elementary School PTA meeting will come to order.” Erica, silver-haired and slim, with just the faintest trace of a Southern accent, was one of the first grandparents to join Tarver’s PTA. A dearth of volunteers had called for drastic measures, and allowing extended family to join had swelled the Tarver PTA’s ranks nicely.

I took roll and tried not to wince when I called Claudia Wolff’s name. Our former vice president, Julie Reed, a perky young mother, had come down with twins last year and, understandably, had to resign. In her stead was Claudia Wolff, the PTA’s perennially underappreciated volunteer.

Well, underappreciated according to Claudia, and to be fair, she was probably right. She labored for hours on PTA projects, but spent just as much time asking people to feel sorry for her because she was working so hard on PTA projects.

I tried to like her, honestly I did. One night when the kids were in bed I even sat down and made a list of Claudia’s good points. “Works hard,” I said, writing the words on a yellow legal pad. She was a tireless worker. She’d come early for setup during bake sales, and she’d stay late to help put things away.

“Reliable.” Never once had Claudia forgotten to bake cupcakes or call her branch of the phone tree or missed a PTA meeting.

“Sincere.” Claudia wasn’t the type to say things behind your back. No, she’d tell you to your face what she thought of your ideas, your choices in clothing, and your parenting methods. No one had to wonder what Claudia thought; it was out there front and center.

I’d never gotten any further with the list because Oliver had woken with an earache and I’d had my hands full the rest of the night. Now, as I finished taking roll, I tried to keep the three things I’d written down in the forefront of my mind. If I could continue to think well of Claudia, and if I could stay away from Randy’s pant leg, the meeting would be a rousing success.

We pushed through the only old business item, the upcoming Father-Daughter Dance, and all through the dance committee’s report my mouth grew drier and drier. If I tried to talk, would my voice work, or would it just squeak?

“Next up is new business,” Erica finally said. “Item number one is a new spring project.”

My hands were sweating. What if everyone thought my idea was dumb?

Erica looked at me over her glasses. “Beth, you have the floor.”

“Thanks.” I took a deep breath and looked out at the audience. Isabel Olson was in her son Neal’s seat. Sam Helmstetter, dubbed the Nicest Guy on the Planet, his nice brown plaid scarf still around his neck, had his head tilted toward Tina Heller, who was giggling. Sam’s expression was one of patient fortitude. He was used to Tina. The Hellers and the Helmstetters, in addition to their close proximity in the alphabet, lived backyard to backyard.

Also out there was a mother newly arrived in town, though I couldn’t remember her name. Plus there was Debra O’Conner, formerly known as the Rynwood Woman Who Most Intimidates Me; Heather Kingsley; and CeeCee and Dan Daniels. Marina was home, watching over my children.

I knew almost all of these people. Most of them I knew very well. I sold them books and stickers and stuffed animals, for heaven’s sake, so why was I suddenly so nervous?

“First off,” I said, “please accept my apologies for changing the meeting date at such short notice. What I’m proposing”—my throat froze shut for an eternal moment—“is a story session between the children of Tarver and the senior citizens of Rynwood.”

“At Sunny Rest Assisted Living,” Erica added.

“That’s right.” My face lost its heat and my potential embarrassment suddenly seemed like a silly thing to worry about. “I think we’d all like more interaction between generations. My idea is to match Tarver students with Sunny Rest residents. The students will write stories about their residents, and the end product will be a book that both Sunny Rest and the PTA can sell as a fund-raiser.”

“Lovely idea,” Erica said.

I breathed a little easier. There’d be at least one vote for my motion. Well, two, including mine. When I’d first come aboard as secretary, I’d asked who made a tiebreaking vote. Erica looked thoughtful, Julie started paging through the bylaws, and Randy said he couldn’t think about things like that on an empty stomach. The question hadn’t been answered, and I’d forgotten all about it. Until now.

Debra O’Conner raised her hand.

“Yes, Debra?” Erica asked.

“You said stories. What kind of stories?”

I leaned forward, eager to explain. “The kids decide. But they’ll have a list of questions that need to be answered. Where the resident was born, what they liked to do as children, what music they listened to—oh, all sorts of things. We’ll decide on a minimum and maximum length, and the PTA will edit them.” I’d do the editing, probably, but the project was my idea, so it was only fair.

“So more like an interview than a story,” Claudia said.

Why did a comment that was factually accurate come across as derisive? I tried to separate tone from content and focused on the meaning. “Exactly. The kids will learn about lives very different from their own, and the residents will get their stories in print.”

The room went quiet. I picked at my cuticles. Should I make the motion? Wait for someone else to make the motion? If no one else did, I’d have to, but that would look like failure from the get-go.

Randy stirred, but said nothing.

I pulled off a too-big piece of cuticle and watched red ooze to the surface.

“Okay,” Claudia said. “I guess I’ll make a motion that the Tarver Elementary PTA coordinate with the school and Sunny Rest for a story session between the kids and the residents, details to be determined at a later date.”

“Second,” Randy said.

“All in favor?” Erica asked.

There was a chorus of ayes.

“The motion has passed.” Erica adjusted her glasses. “Next on the agenda is a gluten-free bake sale.”

I tried to look interested, but on the inside I was doing cartwheels and pumping my fist into the air as if I’d won the Stanley Cup. They’d listened to me and paid attention to me and by golly they’d voted for the idea I’d proposed all by my lonesome. I couldn’t wait to tell Marina.

The rest of the meeting passed by in a rosy haze. Finally, Erica said, “Meeting adjourned,” and banged the gavel.

A general leave-taking commenced. People stood, pulled on their coats, and went out into the cold, dark evening. I gathered up my legal pad and tape recorder and pushed them into the worn bag that had, once upon a time, carried diapers.

“Beth, do you have a minute?” Erica asked.

Except for Harry, we were the last people left in the building. Harry, the janitor who doubled as security guard, always checked that the doors were locked. I’d caught sight of him on the way into the meeting, walking like a shadow through the halls in black pants, black long-sleeved shirt, and black sneakers so old they were back in fashion again. Ever since Harry and I discovered a mutual passion for hockey, we’d never run out of things to talk about. He cheered for the wrong team, but I was working on that.

“Um . . .” I glanced at the wall clock above the whiteboard. There was a push to purchase interactive whiteboards, but the school’s budget barely allowed replacement of worn-out regular whiteboards, let alone anything technologically cool. The Tarver Foundation, funded by the estate of the late Agnes Mephisto, had been approached by the interactive advocates, but as yet there was no answer. “Marina’s watching the kids, but I have a few minutes.”

“Excellent.” Erica, slim, elegant, and gray-haired, was the woman my mother had wanted me to be. Assertive without being aggressive, kind yet not a pushover, with the courage to stand up for what she thought was right.

She’d been widowed as a young mother and parked her three children with her parents while she attended law school. She graduated with high honors, one of two women in the class. Erica found a job at a midsized firm in Madison and moved herself and her children north. Ten years later she was a partner. Five years after that she’d become senior partner and led the firm to be the largest in the region.

Only now, in her retirement, did she have time for joining the library board and the garden club, and heading up the PTA. It was a good thing she was retired; otherwise, I would have had to reevaluate my vow to keep all lawyers at a quarter-mile distance.

“This project of yours,” Erica said. “How deeply are you committed?”

Deep? I blinked. What would be a good answer—five feet committed, but not six? “Um, deep enough to see the project through.”

Erica chuckled. She did this regularly, but I was always surprised to hear such rich, easy laughter come out of the patrician framework. Bad Beth, for clinging to limiting stereotypes.

“You’ve been spending too much time with lawyers,” she said. “Even recovering ones maintain a particular mind-set.”

“Um . . .”

“Back to your project. You came up with the idea yourself, correct?”

“Yes, but I doubt it’s original.”

“Hmm.” She drummed her fingers on her leather briefcase. “We can put our own spin on this.”

I got the stomach-dropping feeling that “we” meant me. “What do you mean?”

Erica buttoned her black coat. How she managed to have a dog and three cats and own a coat free of pet hair, I had no idea. Between the black from our cat George and brown from Spot the dog, pet hair was a permanent part of my wardrobe. “How big do you think?” she asked.

Yet another open-ended query. Maybe I’d missed the e-mail that today was Hard Question Day. “Bigger than a breadbox, smaller than the solar system.”

She laughed. “Do you think in terms of the entire state?” She lifted her leather case off the table, I picked up my ratty diaper bag, and we headed for the main entrance. “I think it has the potential to get big,” she said. “Fantasize with me for a minute.”

My fantasies usually had more to do with grandchildren or a certain tall, blue-eyed man, not the PTA, but I could play along.

“The Tarver PTA completes its first senior story session in June. We send out press releases across the state. We get newspaper, television, and blog coverage. We are suddenly the PTA to watch.”

The two of us pushed through the metal double doors and the outside air slammed hard against our bodies. Erica kept talking, as if she hadn’t felt a thing.

“Think of it, Beth. We could start a program that sweeps statewide. If we organize this well, it could go nationwide.”

We walked across the lonely parking lot. Erica’s highheeled boots made clicking noises on the asphalt. My clunky trail boots made a quiet thud-thud as I hurried to keep up. Another mystery of life—how did any woman walk in high heels, let alone walk as fast as Erica did? I’d have to ask my physicist brother about it someday. Or not. If I asked, he’d tell me, and I’d be required to feign interest throughout the explanation.

“Your story sessions,” Erica was saying, “could open a national conversation on ways to improve relationships between generations. And it all starts here.” She stopped at her car, a silver sedan from some foreign country. “It starts with you, Beth. How big do you think?”

Why did my friends keep trying to talk me into doing things? More specifically, why did they try to talk me into doing things I didn’t want to do?

A gust of wind blew down from the north, slithered around my neck, and snuck between my layers of clothing to hit skin. I shivered and the small of my back tightened with cold.

“We have time to consider the ramifications,” Erica said. “But we should agree on how far we want to take this by the January meeting.”

I’d turned to put my back to the wind, and doing so gave me a view of the far corner of the parking lot. An SUV sat all alone, surrounded by nothing but empty parking spaces and dormant grass.

“This has the potential to be a life-changing project, Beth. Think of the people who could be touched by these stories.”

Whose SUV was that? I squinted at it, trying to see in the gusting wind. What I noticed most about cars was size. After that, color. After that . . . well, there wasn’t anything after that. I frowned. It was hard to make out true color underneath the orangey hue cast by the parking lot lighting.

“The possibilities are tremendous,” Erica said. “I have a few ideas for—”

“Sam,” I said.

“Helmstetter?” She flipped up the collar of her coat. “I hadn’t considered him, but you’re right. No reason not to tap into the business community.”

I shook my head. “No, over there. That SUV is Sam’s.” He often took the parking spot the farthest away. The walk did him good, he always said. Plus, he’d add, why not leave the closer parking spots for someone who didn’t have two good legs.

Erica turned. “Sam left long before we did.”

The wind was rising, roaring with the threat of winter. A small sliver of a moon appeared briefly through the scudding clouds, then disappeared as if it had never been. There was no good reason for Sam’s SUV to be sitting there. If he’d been having car trouble, the hood would have been up and he’d have been waiting for a tow truck inside, where it wasn’t thirty-five degrees with a wind chill that cut to the bone. If he was having an illicit assignation, he wouldn’t have left his vehicle out for everyone to see.

Not that Sam would be having an affair. He and his wife still held hands in public and sat shoulder to shoulder whenever seating arrangements allowed.

“I suppose . . .” Erica sounded uncharacteristically indecisive. I glanced over and, even in the poor light, saw anxiety and concern on her face.

“I’ll go check,” I offered. “Probably he had car trouble and someone gave him a ride home.”

“Yes.” Her relief was obvious even in the one syllable. “How clever of you to come up with a likely explanation.” I started walking, and after a half-step hesitation, she came along. “My mama always said I made things more complicated than they needed to be. She said I was born to be a lawyer.”

My mother had told me I was born to make her hair go gray, but I didn’t pass that comment on to Erica. I’d never understood Mom’s exasperation until I had children of my own. Oliver probably hadn’t understood my reaction when he shoved his multitudes of stuffed animals in the washing machine and added a bottle of detergent. And Jenna probably hadn’t understood how I could be angry when she’d taken the scissors to her bangs. “It’s my hair,” she’d said, weeping. I’d wept, too, over the quarter-inch-long tufts sticking straight up out of her head.

Erica and I approached Sam’s SUV, her boots clicking, mine thudding. “Do you have any plans for your garden next year?” she asked. Erica was a master gardener and her garden was so spectacular that the Madison newspaper had done a Sunday feature on it.

“Oliver wants to plant cucumbers.” The SUV’s windows were tinted slightly; I couldn’t see through them at all.

“He’s eight? An excellent age to have his own gardening space. Old enough to have full responsibility and old enough to understand the direct relationship between hard work and the payoff hard work can bring about.”

Why was Erica talking about gardening? She almost sounded nervous. “Old enough to pull weeds?” I couldn’t quite see into the driver’s seat. To gain some elevation, I walked on the balls of my feet for a few steps, but it didn’t help.

“Old enough by far to detect the difference between a weed and a desirable plant. I had my children taking care of their first tomatoes by the time . . . ah, it appears that he just fell asleep.”

“He’s been putting in long hours, trying to get his business off the ground.”

“Well, he can’t sleep here all night. His wife will worry, and besides, he’ll freeze to death.” She rapped on the window. “Sam, wake up.” Her knuckles made a dull sound against the glass. “Sam?”

I edged closer. Inside, a shadowy form sat in the front seat, slumping forward against the shoulder strap. If he slept like that much longer, he’d get a horrible stiff neck. As a business owner myself, I understood all about long weeks and fatigue and wearing myself thin, but I’d never fallen asleep in my car. At my desk, yes. On the couch trying to make sense of invoices, yes.

“Sam!” Erica pounded on the window with her fist.

Unease prickled at the back of my neck. I’d had this feeling before, and it hadn’t turned out well. “Um, Erica?” I dropped the diaper bag, pulled off my mittens, and reached into my purse for my cell phone. I flipped it open, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest. “Erica, something’s wrong. There’s no way Sam is asleep.” Not even Jenna, my out-like-a-light daughter, could possibly sleep through all that window whacking. I punched the first number. Nine.

“Sam?” Erica called. “Are you all right? Sam!” She grabbed the door handle and lifted it.

I stabbed at the second number. One.

Erica yanked the door open. “Sam? Are you—” Her question ended in a gasping shriek. Sam fell toward her, his scarf too tight around his neck. There was no life in his slumped body and his open eyes were seeing nothing but death. “Sam!” Erica screamed. She jerked off her gloves and felt for a pulse, then dragged Sam’s body out of the SUV and onto the cold ground. As she started the pointless job of CPR, I pushed the last button. One.

There was a single ring. Then: “Dane County dispatch. What is your emergency?”