Page 40 of Potion Sickness

“We should tell Englebert,” I say.

“Obviously we’ll tell Englebert. He’ll want a briefing. He’ll want a diagram. He’ll want to cross-reference Emma’s log.”

“Emma’s log might actually help, now that you mention it. The croak tonic didn’t brew itself on the props table. Someone brought it in, in a bottle or a vial, and used it during the run.”

Her phone buzzes on the table. She glances down and makes a face. It’s not the face she makes for work calls. It’s also not the face she makes for her mother, which is a particular blend of love and, well, bracing, is the best way I can come up with to describe it.

The face she makes is almost a smile. It lasts about a second and a half as she picks the phone up, reads whatever’s on the screen, and puts it back down.

“Everything okay?” I say.

“Fine. Where were we?”

“Croak tonic.”

“Right,” she says. “So we have two crimes. Crime one is petty and aimed at me, and points at Tiffany or Skye or both. Crime two is layered, ongoing, aimed at Damien, and we still have no idea who’s behind it, or if it’s even a crime at all, because he could have easily accidentally done it himself.”

Her phone buzzes again. She types something quickly in response and sets the phone screen-down beside her plate.

Pru doesn’t set her phone screen-down. Her phone is face-up at all times because she bills in six-minute increments and she needs to see the clock.

“I have a two o’clock,” she says, standing up. “Go brief Englebert.”

She collects her tablet, her blazer from the back of the chair, and her phone, which she checks one more time before it goes into her pocket.

“I’m getting a drink with Hannah and Gabe at the Hearth after rehearsal tonight. The kids are having a sleepover at Hannah’s mom’s,” I say. “You in?”

“Can’t tonight. I’m meeting someone.”

“Who?”

“A person.”

“You’re meeting a person?”

“People meet people, Mari.”

“Not you. You have a calendar that accounts for every fifteen minutes of your day, and you’ve never once described an appointment as ‘meeting a person.’ You’ve never been vague about anything in your life.”

“I’m being vague right now. Clearly I’m capable.”

“Is it a date?”

“Goodbye, Mari.”

“It’s a date.”

“It’s a meeting, over food, with someone whose company I find tolerable. If you want to call that a date, that’s your business.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere that isn’t the Hearth & Stone, where the entire town can narrate my evening to Dorcas by morning.”

Pru doesn’t turn down an invitation to get drinks. I’ve never once seen Pru turn down an invitation to get drinks, and I’ve known her my entire life. She’s turning down the invitation tonight, though, because she has somewhere better to be, and she won’t say where, and she won’t say with whom, and on top of that, she’s smiling about something she’s refusing to explain.

She’s definitely got a date.

“Have fun on your not-date,” I say.