“It's fine. It still has to be done by tomorrow, and we might as well do it now. Fiona, this is my friend Phyllis Wagner, who's visiting me—for a few days," she added. "Phyllis, Fiona Howard.”
The two women greeted each other, subtly summing each other up as women do. A flickering glance to assess hair, clothes, manners then—recognizing they were nominally equals—the warmth of tentative acceptance passed between them. "Fiona, you and Phyllis have some friends in common."
“Oh? Who is that?”
Phyllis looked confused. "I'm not sure. I mean, I told Jane I knew about you living herebecause someone mentioned it, and I recognized the name of the suburb because of Jane. But I can't remember who it was."
“What a pity. Where are you from?"
“Originally Philadelphia, then Chicago. But for the last thirteen years, my husband and I have been living on a little island in the Caribbean.”
She made it sound like she had a Quonset hut on somebody else's beach.
“Phyllis and her husband own the island and the hotel on it," Jane couldn't resist saying.
Anybody else might have goggled at this; Fiona was unmoved. "How interesting that must be," she said with friendly blandness. "I've always liked the Caribbean, but I can't stay there long, because I sunburn so badly. Albert and I went to Jamaica once, and I got a horrible burn, in spite of the fact that I slathered on so much suntan lotion I couldn't sit on a chair without sliding off. Do you miss the seasonal changes?”
This, of course, was one of Phyllis's favorite topics and elaborations took them into the house and into the ground floor guest room where the church bazaar cartons were stored. Jane studied the array of boxes for a moment, wondering where to start. They were stacked everywhere with only a narrow aisle between them. Fiona had said a few people had dropped things off since this morning, but it looked more like an army had looted a small, holiday-oriented country and left all the spoils here.
As Jane stood, gazing with bewilderment, she heard Phyllis saying, "... And it will be so nice to be back permanently."
“Back permanently?" Jane asked, roused from her stupor by these chilling words.
“Yes, I was telling Fiona about moving back. We haven't had time to talk about it yet, Jane. Chet told me to find a nice house here, and he'd buy it for Bobby and me if I wanted."
“You're going to live in Chicago?" Jane tried to sound bright and cheerful but felt like she had a mouthful of mud. Having Bobby Bryant around permanently would be about as much fun as having a car wreck in a Pinto. She had to suppress the urge to run to the nearest phone, call Shelley, and scream, "Help me! Help me!"
“Maybe you'd be interested in the house next door?" Fiona asked, obviously as a conversational gambit, not as a sincere suggestion. "I was telling Jane about it just this morning." She went on to explain chattily about the old lady, the nursing home, and the son's anxiety to get a tax break by selling before the end of the year.
“That might be very nice," Phyllis said. "At least it would give me time to look around for something else without imposing on Jane. And we'd be so close. Wouldn't that be fun, Jane? Just like the old days.”
Please don't do this to me, God. I'm a good person, and I don't deserve it, Jane thought.
Eight
Jane held up a pinecone wreath and pretended she hadn't heard the question. "I wonder who made this. It's awfully nice work, isn't it? It's got these little peppermint sticks woven in, but they're not meant to be eaten anyway—"
“Would you really like to take a look?" Fiona was asking. "The man left us a key in case I wanted to show it to anyone."
“That would be fun, but we should help Jane—"
“Why don't I have Albert run over with you, while I—"
“Did I hear my name being taken in vain?" Albert had apparently come down the hallway just as Fiona referred to him.
“Oh, Albert—you know Jane Jeffry, she was here earlier. And this is her friend Phyllis Wagner," Fiona said.
He looked at Phyllis, at Jane, and at the room full of cartons and was struck dumb.
“It's not as chaotic as it looks," Jane assured him. The man had actually paled at the sight of what had happened to his home. "I pretty well know what all this stuff is, and it'll be out of your house in another week ' or so, after the sale.”
Fiona explained to Albert, who still looked stricken, what she wanted him to do, but he obviously didn't want to be bothered acting as somebody else's real estate agent. "I'm expecting the accountant any minute. He's bringing some forms over that need to go in by midnight."
“I'll keep him entertained if he shows up," his wife assured him. "It'll only take you a minute.”
“But Fiona—”
Jane glanced up, aware of the tension growing in the room. Albert was on the verge of digging his heels in. Phyllis was looking at him with undisguised fascination, as if he were some sort of museum exhibit: "The Nerd Who Married Richie Divine's Widow." Jane suddenly understood why Phyllis couldn't think of the name of the friend they had in common. There wasn't such a person. Phyllis had just kept up with the fan magazines and had been curious about Fiona and her husband.
Too bad Albert was such a loser, physically—the little pot belly, the thinning dull hair, the jowls that drew attention to his almost complete lack of chin. Everybody must look at him and make the comparison between Fiona's current husband and her former husband and wonder what on earth she saw in this one. It couldn't be easy to be Albert Howard.
“If you'd just let me in, I could take a little look around and bring the key back?" Phyllis suggested.
“Good idea," Fiona agreed.
“Oh, very well, I'll take you over there," Albert replied. It was just short of openly hostile. "Come along, Mrs.—uh--"
“Wagner, but you must call me Phyllis," she said, following his rather abrupt departure from the room. "I'm just sorry my son isn't with me. He's looking forward to coming back to Chicago, I think. He was raised here. You see—" Her voice stopped as a door closed. Good Lord, Jane thought, she's telling him the whole story. The woman didn't know the meaning of discretion.
Fiona started sorting boxes with Jane but seemed preoccupied. "Albert seems to be a bit out of sorts," she finally said. "It must be something about the accountant. I think, too, that he worries about anybody having to live next door to Mr. Finch, but after all, somebody has to. The township can't just level the whole block. I don't think he's half as bad as people say, do you? At least, he might not be. We had an old lady in the village where I grew up that everybody claimed was a witch, and she was really a sweet old thing when you got to know her. She just had an intimidating manner. Jane, what is this stuff?”
. "Oh, that! It was a gorgeous angel-hair angel that Suzie Williams made, but it's sort of turned into a blob with a head. Max and Meow got into it before I brought the carton over. I'll just pretend to have bought it before the sale starts so we don't have to put it out. Here's the box with the fruitcakes. Where shall we put the things with food?"
“Just out in the hallway. I'll have the maid move them to the family room, and then the yard man can take them out the back .door to store in my car until the bug people are gone.”
Jane smiled. "You know, I heard once that there are only a hundred fruitcakes in existence. Every year everyone exchanges the same hundred, and nobody knows they're the same ones."
“I can believe that. My family had a fruitcake that was an heirloom. We kept giving it to my Uncle Charles, and he kept giving it back on alternate years. I think he eventually sold it to an antique dealer," Fiona said with a giggle.