Saturday, October 11, 7:40 AM, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
The email was from the district volunteer office.
Your volunteer clearance has been placed on hold pending review of a complaint regarding concession cash handling.
That was all it said.
It didn't name whoever filed the complaint.
It gave no date for a review.
I read it sitting up in bed with the blinds still shut.
My badge hung on the doorknob, where it always hangs in season.
District lanyard, blue and gold.
My picture from 2016, with bangs I regret.
As of that morning, it opened nothing.
At 7:58 my phone buzzed again.
It was the parents group.
Nineteen hundred members.
Rod Haskett had posted.
Lot of talk after last night. Before we hang this on one mom, ask who counted the cash at that stand for nine years. I've asked the district to look.
At 7:59 Kendra liked it.
By 8:30 it had more comments than the homecoming photos.
Some said my name.
Some just said "the stand."
I made coffee and read it again at the counter.
He didn't mention the Venmo.
He didn't mention the text Hector read.
He didn't mention the drive at all.
A board member had watched a mother get caught on her own phone.
Then he went after the hot dog money.
You don't go after cash you don't care about.
You go after the cash you want.
I got dressed for work.
Saturday shift at Fenner's runs eight to four.
By ten the line was six deep.
A woman in a Hornets sweatshirt reached the front.
"You the booster lady?"
The man behind her looked up from his phone.
"What can I get you?" I said.
"Honey ham."
I sliced it thin.
I weighed it.
"Half pound."
"Anything else?"
She shook her head.
She took the ham without saying thank you.
The man behind her ordered roast beef and watched my hands the whole time.
Like I might slip a slice into my pocket.
My manager came by at lunch.
"People are asking if you're okay."
"I'm okay."
"Some are asking other things."
"I know."
The next home game was Friday, October 17.
With my badge on hold, I couldn't work my own window.
Monday, October 13, 9:00 AM, the district treasurer's office.
Ellen Voss had a corner office with one window and three calculators.
I set the white binder on her desk.
It was three inches thick, the spine split at the bottom.
"A hundred and eight count sheets," I said.
"Twelve a season."
"Two signatures on every one."
"A bag number on every one."
"Bank receipt stapled behind."
She opened it to the first page.
September 2016, the season opener.
My signature, then Dale's.
She pulled up the Fund 300-9014 deposit ledger on her monitor.
"You can wait outside," she said.
"I'll wait here."
She ran every line.
Bag number, date, amount.
She didn't talk.
She made a small pencil check beside each sheet.
It took an hour and fifty minutes.
I counted her checks upside down.
At sheet 108 she put the pencil down.
"Every bag."
"To the cent."
"I could've told you that," I said.
She typed for a minute.
"I'll put it in a memo."
"The hold stays until the board reviews."
"Even with the memo?"
"It's a board member's complaint."
"The process is the process."
She slid the binder back across the desk.
"Keep this somewhere safe."
"It's been on my kitchen shelf nine years."
"Then keep it there."
Monday afternoon, two o'clock, Jason walked into Fenner's.
He didn't take a number.
He waited by the back hallway until I came around the case.
We stood by the mop sink.
He kept his hands in his jacket.
"Kendra's working on the money," he said.
"Good."
"By the fifteenth."
"I know the date."
"Rod's handling it for Kendra."
"Handling what?"
"The district, the complaint, all of it."
"He says it all goes away if you let it go."
"Let what go, Jason?"
"Whatever you're doing."
"I took a binder to the treasurer."
"That's all I did."
He looked at the mop sink.
"Rod's handling it."
"Let it go."
He went out the back door instead of the front.
At 4:05 I sat in my car in the Fenner's lot with the engine off.
Somebody in the parents group had posted a link.
Board of Education — Regular Meeting — Monday, October 20, 7:00 PM, HS Auditorium
I scrolled past the minutes and a bus contract.
Item 9. Stadium Concessions Partnership — Big Rod's Smokehouse LLC
I read it twice.
The trailer by the visitor gate.
The fryer he called a fire hazard.
The patch on the warm-ups.
The complaint was never about the cash.
He wanted my stand.
Board votes on the stand October 20.