She was once again struck with how resilient kids are. As resilient as they are vulnerable. Mike had dealt with his distress of the day before and was back to being his normal self.
“Scott and I want to go to the library. Can I have the car for an hour?" he said, juggling a brownie that was still too hot to eat.
“I've never known you to be so eager to study," Jane said.
He rolled his eyes. "Mom, there's a new girl working there. We've just got to check her out. Check her out. . get it?" He roared with laughter, exhaling brownie crumbs which Willard got before they hit the floor.
“Okay with the car, but stop and get some orange juice while you're out." Jane fished some cash out of her purse and gave it to him.
“Wow! Brownies! Cool, Mom!" Todd said a moment later as he dumped his backpack on the floor.
“Take that upstairs first," Jane said, holding the brownie pan out of his reach.
“Aw, Mom. In a minute. I'm starving. Hey. Elliot's uncle gave him his old stamp collection Elliot says some of them are pretty cool. Can I gc over there?"
“If you're home by five. Hey! Leave some brownies for Katie. Eat a banana."
“Katie's dieting," Todd said.
“I'll drop you off at Elliot's," Mike offered. They each knocked back a glass of milk and grabbed a banana as they left.
Katie came in a minute later. The overdone makeup she'd started out with had smudged, making her look more raccoonish than ever.
“Did you have your picture taken early in the day? I hope," Jane asked.
Katie was startled. "How'd you know about the pictures? Oh, good. Brownies," she added, giving the lie to Todd's idea of her diet.
“I just know these things," Jane said. Better to let Katie think she'd known all along and had generously let her exercise her own judgment. Since it was too late to do anything about it anyway.
“Did they do anything neat out there today?" Katie asked.
“They might have, but I didn't see it. It's all really tedious and boring to watch."
“Well, I wouldn't know, would I?" Katie said archly. "Since I'm not allowed to set foot in my own backyard."
“I guess you could go out there for a while. As long as you don't go any farther than our yard.”
This was more tolerance than Katie really wanted. "Oh, never mind. I'm going to Jenny's. Okay?""Back by five," Jane said.
As the door slammed, Jane leaned down and petted Willard. "Why," she asked the big dog, "do I sometimes feel like the desk clerk at a Holiday Inn? And the janitorial service," she added, looking at Todd's backpack on the floor where he'd dropped it.
Willard wagged his tail and drooled happily.
She put together a tuna casserole, crumbling potato chips on the top the way the kids liked it, slid it in the oven, and set the timer — which sometimes worked. She leaned down and listened. Yes, it was making the clicking noise that meant it was going to function. Probably. She got a package of green beans out to thaw, checked that she had what she needed for salad and cornbread. Too much starch for one meal, especially on top of brownies, but they wouldn't die from malnutrition. And as long as tuna wasn't still politically incorrect with Katie, nobody'd complain.
When Jane got outside, people were drifting into the yard and cruising the snack table. The same two extras who'd been telling jokes earlier were still there. "How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?" one asked. "The answer is NO CHANGES! NO CHANGES!"
“Move it or lose it!" Butch Kowalski said to them, lunging for a bag of Doritos.
“How did it go?" Jane asked him.
“Perfect! Primo-exacto-perfecto!" Butch said, grinning and popping a chip in his mouth victoriously. "Everything was great. Jake woulda been proud of me. And that Harwell dame, well… she was great! I don't usually pay much attention to what the actors are doing, but you couldn't help but watch her.”
When George Abington came along a few minutes later, he echoed Butch's sentiments. "You know, I don't mind being acted right off the set for something that good. I hate to say it about Lynette, but that was an Oscar scene. She ought to just retire right this minute so she doesn't screw it up.”
Everybody was talking about Lynette's performance. "I'm ashamed to say it, but I got teary on the first take," one wizened extra said. "Ain't cried on a set for thirty years."
“Was she wonderful or what!" another chimed in.
“Someday we can all say we were here today," a breathless girl in a hobble skirt and picture hat said. "Just like the old fogeys say about being on the last scene of Gone With the Wind. I'll never forget it.”
Cavagnari arrived, looking exhausted. He'd shed his poncho and had sweated through his shirt. He took up the same theme as the extras, but predictably, in a more flamboyant manner.
“We have witnessed a miracle!" he pronounced. "An historic moment in film! Olive! Olive, tell Miss Harwell that all of us salute her!”
Olive Longabach, filling a coffee cup, looked surprised and embarrassed at being singled out, but she still glowed in Lynette's reflected glory. "I will," she mumbled, ducking her head and scurrying off.
“Where is she?" Cavagnari called after her. "Resting in her dressing room," Olive said, barely slowing down.
“And she deserves to rest. She must be drained! Emotionally spent! Such a performance! Such talent," Cavagnari raved on at Olive's retreating form.
For some reason, his frenzied tone put Jane over the edge. She was suddenly sick of dramatics — fed up with everyone's histrionics, smothered in theatrics. She turned away quickly and went inside. This experience had been interesting, but she was tired of it. She wanted her yard back, her ordinary life back. She wanted to smell her tuna casserole cooking and turn her cats loose and return to normal.
She wanted Jake's murder solved so she could have her weekend with Mel.
18
She pulled the curtains on the living room windows so she wouldn't even be tempted to look outside and, on a whim, got out a long-forgotten project. Last year Todd had made a Christmas tree ornament in Cub Scouts that really took her fancy. It was a toy soldier made out of a roundheaded clothespin. She had liked it so well that she'd bought clothespins, assembled all the interesting loose scraps of fabric and trim in her sewing room, and found glue, glitter, acrylic paints, pipe cleaners, and yarn to make more of the dolls. But something had interrupted the project before she got started and she'd put it all away last January. She went searching for the almost-forgotten box, brought it down to the dining room, and laid it all out.
This was the ticket! Something creative and solitary and peaceful that had nothing to do with movies or actors. She had promised, months ago, to come up with an idea for something "different" in the way of refrigerator magnets to sell at the next PTA carnival and these little dolls would do fine.
She'd painted faces and made little tutus in different colors for three ballerinas when Katie gothome. "Oh, Mom. That's cute," Katie said. "What are you going to use for hair?"
“I don't know. I guess I can't leave them bald. Maybe they could be wearing turbans of the same fabric."
“No, there's something. ." she closed her eyes for a minute, then dashed off to come back a moment later with a yellow-and-brown sweater with a ripped sleeve. "See? The yarn's all wiggly from being knitted and if you fray it a little, you have hair! Blondes and brunettes.”
Jane made another dancer while Katie made and applied hair to the others. Then she disappeared again and returned with a wad of Play-Doh. "What's that for?" Jane asked.
“Boobs."
“Ballerinas don't have boobs."
“This one's going to. She'll be a failure as a ballerina because of them, but will later make a good living modeling underwear for J. C. Penney's ads," Katie said.