And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

ask, one little murder? Don’t you love me above all others?” Reverend Frida had said, taking on an older woman’s querulous tone, then switching to her own mellifluous voice. “Really, the argument can be made that God is the first Jewish mother.” Which, she reminded her parishioners, she was allowed to say because she is Jewish, in terms of cultural identity if not faith. She scoffed at the verse “In sorrow thy shall bring forth children,” saying that it probably meant only physical pain, nothing more, that children were a blessing. Not that she had any.
    Reverend Frida also insists that Moses was the son of the pharaoh’s daughter, that the whole bulrushes story was “bull”—long, dramatic pause—“malarkey.” Pharaoh’s daughter—“Why no name?”—got pregnant, hid the pregnancy from her father, then went through the charade of finding the baby. “Could a young woman in an ancient time have executed such a daring plan?” the Reverend Frida asked her congregation.
    It was, of course, a rhetorical question, but Heloise is inclined to say yes.
    Later, at the fellowship meeting—Heloise would love to skip it, but the promise of cookies and punch is the only thing that gets Scott through church—she watches him take off with Lindsey. Coranne seems to assume that this means she and Heloise should pair off—her husband almost never makes it to church, a fact for which Coranne apologizes endlessly. Coranne is the type of woman who apologizes for everything, beginning with her name. It was supposed to be Cora Anne, she told Heloise the first time they met, but it was entered incorrectly on her birth certificate, and her parents seemed to think the legal document trumped their own intentions. She also apologizes for Lindsey’s name, saying she knows it has become more common for girls but that it was a boy’s name at one point. Luckily, Lindsey is a self-possessed little tank of a kid, bulletproof when it comes to teasing.
    â€œSo,” she begins, “school seems to be off to a good start. Except for Mr. Mathers.”
    Mr. Mathers is the social-studies teacher. He’s also a jerk. Or, as the Reverend Frida might ask, is it possible to know the stories about Mr. Mathers and not think he’s an asshole?
    â€œI talked to the principal about him,” Heloise says.
    â€œYou didn’t. ” Coranne is almost breathless with admiration—and shock. The principal has made it clear that he does not want parents to complain about faculty members unless a teacher’s misconduct reaches the level of felony, and Mr. Mathers is simply strict and unimaginative. The principal’s implicit threat is that students will suffer more if their parents complain. Heloise doesn’t buy it. But then, there are different rules for her, in her well-tailored clothes, than there are for Coranne, with patches of scalp showing through her hair, poor dear. That’s not right, but it’s the way things are, and for Heloise not to use her power doesn’t gain Coranne anything. Besides, Lindsey is in Scott’s class. If Mr. Mathers backs off on his pedantic style and ruthless discipline, all the kids will benefit.
    â€œI did. The principal acted as if he wouldn’t do anything, but there hasn’t been one of those stupid pop quizzes followed by enforced ‘quiet study’ for two weeks.”
    â€œWell—that’s great.” Yet Coranne’s tone implies more complicated, conflicted feelings, that Heloise’s intercession with the principal is great and awful and rude and awesome. That it is another reminder that life is unfair, with different rules for different people.
    The Reverend Frida joins them. She is very good about apportioning herself out equally to her congregants, and she does it with an attitude that suggests she considers this incredibly generous, because of course