Page 20 of Always Murder

“You know what we could do?”Millie said.“We could look at MAJORS!Then you could pick what you want to do, and you’d feel more excited.”

Millie’s expectation must have finally been too much for Keme, because it dragged a “Maybe” out of him.

I tried not to move.I tried not even to think.I didn’t want to risk any possibility of interrupting this moment.For the last few months, the Last Picks and I had been scrambling in that completely ineffectual way adults have, trying to figure out what to do with Keme after he graduated high school.Any attempts to have a conversation about it had been rebuffed.Even Indira and Bobby, who usually got more out of Keme than the rest of us, had been met with a wall of disconnect.I’d tried a few times myself.Each attempt had gotten progressively scarier; by the end, I came out of a fugue state and found myself in the kitchen after I’d eaten half a dozen of Indira’s whoopie pies.(Also, they were delicious, so I have zero regrets.)

So, I crouched on the cold hard ground, my hands and knees covered in needles and sap and dirt, practically holding my breath so that I didn’t cause even the slightest disruption in the universe.

Which was when I heard a familiar—and shrill—voice cry out, “MILLIE!”

I actually groaned.

Fortunately, the groan was covered up by Millie’s own grumpy-sounding exhalation.

I couldn’t see Keme, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he looked like a man who’d been spared by the executioner.

The sound of steps came through the dark, and then another piercing cry of “MILLIE!”

“OVER HERE!”

If there were any wild animals still living around here, I figured they were all packing up now to find somewhere quieter.

The rustle of branches mixed with huffs of exertion, and then Christine said, “There you are!We couldn’t find you!”

“You told us to find this year’s pinecone,” Millie said.“Look at this one.Keme found it—isn’t it GREAT?”

“You took too long.We had to decide all the parts in the Christmas pageant without you.Millie, you’re a shepherdess.”

“BUT MOM, you said I could be Mary!”

“Gracie Sterling is going to be Mary.”

“BUT YOU SAID—”

“And I’m telling you,” Christine snipped, “Gracie Sterling is going to be Mary this year.”

Several seconds passed.I caught the faint notes of “Auld Lang Syne” drifting to us from the barn.

With a wobbly return to her former enthusiasm, Millie said, “Oh, Mom, Keme could help with the music.He’s SO GOOD at that kind of stuff—”

“Keme,” Christine said over her, “you’re the donkey.”

Okay, listen: I try not to take pleasure out of watching my friends suffer.Honestly.I want to be a good person.I don’twantto build my life on schadenfreude.

But Keme had called me a donkeyso.many.times.

“Mom,” Millie said.“That’s not—” She stopped and tried again.“Isn’t there anything else?”

“I’m sorry, but if you two hadn’t dawdled, you could have picked parts with the rest of us.”

“But you said the boyfriends were going to be the Three Wise Men.”

“And David and Elliottaregoing to be Wise Men, dear.And we’re saving the third spot for Paul, since he couldn’t be here.”

“But you said it was going to be the boyfriends.”

“Paul’s not here, Millicent.”Christine’s voice had taken on the crisp, no-nonsense tone of a veteran parent.“And we can’t havefourWise Men.You don’t mind being the donkey, do you, Keme?”

It was the kind of silence on which episodes ofDatelineare built.

---