The dog followed him upstairs.
Jane waited until the shower stopped running before ordering. As Mike backed out of the driveway, she stood watching and thinking. That was something else she was going to have to deal with soon. A car for Mike. Her wealthy mother-in-law Thelma kept offering — threatening — to buy him one. But it would be of her choosing and Mike was terrified of what she might get. "Mom, it'll be some awful old-lady car! Worse yet, she'd get herself something new and give me that big gray battleship she drives. I'd never live it down," he'd wailed when he heard of the offer. Jane didn't like the idea of being beholden to Thelma because Thelma was' the sort who made sure you never forgot you were beholden.
Jane had to have more money. Her late husband's life insurance had all gone into trust funds for the kids — they had more assets than she did and she didn't have to worry about money for college. But she did have to get by day to day on part of Steve's share of the family pharmacy chain's profits. His share was equal to his mother's and brother's even though he wasn't alive and working there anymore, but Jane doggedly put half of it back into the trust funds. It really was the kids' money more than hers. The worst thing about that pharmacy money was that she had to accept it by hand from Thelma every month, who bestowed it grudgingly, like a gift that was far too good for the recipient.
That was part of the reason she was working— fitfully — on her book. Not that she really dreamed of ever making any money on it. Well, she did dream of it, but didn't take the dreams seriously. She'd also
been checking books out of the library lately about real estate. Everybody told her the market was not booming at the moment, but if it got better, being a realtor might not be a bad choice. She could get out and meet people, which didn't happen when she was in her basement working on the novel. And it offered some independence. She'd love to say to Thelma, "Check? Oh, that check! I'd forgotten." She'd laugh merrily and stuff it in her purse without looking at the amount.
She was still engaged in this happy fantasy when Mike came back with the food. They ate off the coffee table in the living room, Mike channel-surfing the whole time with the remote control. After Jane cleaned up dinner, she got a jigsaw puzzle out and dumped it on the coffee table. "Got time to help me sort out the edges?" she asked.
"Sure. Calculus can wait." Mike said.
Within minutes Meow was daintily picking her way through the puzzle, sniffing pieces. "I forgot," Jane said. "This is the one the cats like."
"I think Todd put a tuna fish sandwich down on it once. Right on the barn. They always go for the red pieces."
They sorted edges, rescued red pieces from the cats, and watched television for a while. "How come you aren't over at what's-it tonight?" Mike asked, fitting two long sections together.
"The reunion? Shelley let me off duty."
"I don't get it. Reunions," Mike said. "Once I'm through with high school, I'm gonna be through. There's nobody I'll want to see again."
"Not even Scott?"
"Oh, I'll never get rid of Scott," Mike said with a laugh. "But we aren't friends 'cause we go to school together. We're just friends."
"But you wouldn't really go to a reunion?"
"What's the point? Those are the people who knew you when you were a dumb kid. I want to really be somebody, without a bunch of people reminding me how I accidentally dumped a lemonade all over my first date, or having a good laugh about putting the mouse in my tuba and I threw up when I discovered I'd been blowing the thing around in there. Or how I failed my driver's test because 1 ran a red light—"
"Mike! You told me you failed the written part!"
"I lied, Mom. It was for your own good," he added with a grin. "But, geez, who wants to be reminded of that stuff?"
"I don't understand reunions either," Jane admitted. "But then, I didn't go to one school for long enough to even remember my classmates. I think, though, that some people like them for just the reason you said. They grew up and got to be 'somebody' and they come so that everybody else will know it. And the ones who didn't become somebodies probably come so they can pretend that they are."
"Waste of time," Mike pronounced judgment. "I figure this is the worst time of my life. At least this week is. It's gotta get better and I don't want to relive this. Todd said he heard one of those women died. I told him he was full of it."
"One of them did," Jane said.
"What was it? Heart attack?"
"I don't know, exactly," Jane said. She didn't want to tell him it was murder because he'd worry about her needlessly. Whatever the reason, it had nothing to do with her, so she was in no danger. Besides, the reunion was nearly over. A picnic tomorrow afternoon, a dinner dance at the country club, and Sunday morning
they'd all go home and, with any luck at all, Jane would never see any of them again.
Mike burrowed back into the sofa with his books and Jane continued working on the puzzle, plucking a green piece off Willard's nose as he went by. She blotted it on a napkin and put it in place.
At about nine-thirty, the doorbell rang. "Shelley, what are you doing here?"
"Hiding?"
"Come in." The phone rang as she was walking past it. She answered it, listened, and said, "Mike? It's for you." She covered the phone and mouthed, "It's a girl."
She waited until he'd picked up on the upstairs extension, then gently hung up. "I wonder what would happen if I said to one of them, 'Look here, you little hussy! Leave my son alone!'"
"Not much. Paul's mother's still saying that to me."
Jane laughed. "Would it help if I told you that you looked smashing?"
"Not much, but you can try. Jane, we need to talk—"
17
"So you let her go on a date?" Shelley asked a few minutes later when she'd taken off her shoes and knocked back half a glass of diet Coke.
"The date from Hell. Hazel and I are hoping."
"So she's made up with Jenny? What was their fight about?" Shelley was leaning back in her chair and had her eyes closed.
"Jealousy. The new' girl. I think."
"Isn't it amazing the things kids can get worked up about?" Shelley said.
"Oh, I don't know that they're so bad. Neither of them put anything in the other's deodorant. Unlike some adults I know."
"Isn't it a nightmare?" Shelley said.
"Who do you think is playing the tricks? Not to mention killing Lila…."
"You think it's the same person?" Shelley asked.
"I assume so. Unless you've got two nut cases."
"I think they're all nuts!"
"Do you really?"
Shelley sat up. "No, I really don't. That's what's so weird about this. They're all very distinct, some with strong personalities, but none of them seems like the kind to play stupid stunts, much less murder anybody. I still think it must have been someone from outside. It had to be, Jane!'.'
"Maybe—"
"Look, as obnoxious as she was to the Ewe Lambs, Lila didn't get that way overnight. She's had long years of practice making people miserable. And being made miserable. She could have had an enemy who followed her here and bumped her off where it could be blamed on someone else."
"That seems sort of baroque."