“You know we'd be happy to help."
“I know, Mom. So would Thelma, but I want to do it myself."
“How is 'dear' Thelma?"
“As awful as ever," Jane answered. Cecily laughed.
“Still trying to steal the children," Jane went on. "There are days I'm tempted to let her. Good news, though. Dixie Lee is pregnant, and she's an even more unsuitable daughter-in-law than I am. Thelma's gearing up for a new grandchild to spoil and bribe. Poor Dixie Lee."
“Is Katie home?"
“No, she's working at the pool this afternoon."
“What fun this is going to be, just the three of us girls.”
They were still standing in the kitchen doorway, and a pair of cats suddenly shot between their legs. "Where's the cowardly lion?" Cecily asked.
“Oh, he's probably identified you as a terrorist who has come to kidnap him and hold him for an enormous ransom. He's been expecting it for years," Jane said. "Willard? Willard!”
The basement door squeaked open and a wet nose appeared, hesitated for a long, analytical sniff, and was followed slowly by the rest of the dog. He crept cautiously to Cecily, smelled her knees approvingly, and then lovingly leaned against her so hard, she nearly toppled over.
“Willard!" Jane exclaimed, shoving him away. "I'll take your things upstairs, Mom. Help yourself to some coffee if you want. It's decaf. You better start looking over the class work. The first meeting is tonight. This pile is yours," Jane said, patting the stack of manuscripts on the counter.
When Jane came back downstairs, her mother had poured them both coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table, examining the manuscripts. "I'm so glad you agreed to take this class with me. I see the awful Agnes Pryce is in the class."
“You know Mrs. Pryce?"
“I knew her once, to my sorrow. Portugal, I think. Her husband was involved with the embassy for a mercifully short time. They were both terrible people. Mean-spirited and very superior-acting, without any good reason. He was quite the old lech, as I recall."
“Portugal? Was I there?"
“No, it was a year or so after you got married. Your father and I hosted a party once that they came to. Some poor man spilled champagne on her, and you'd have thought it was the outbreak of world war. She chewed him to little shreds. Fortunately, he was an American or there would have been an international incident over it. I don't suppose she's mellowed?"
“Not that you can tell. She's on a perpetual campaign to have all children within a hundred-mile radius of Chicago confined to their homes until they're thirty. Something all the mothers are fighting.”
Cecily Grant was skimming through the pages of Mrs. Pryce's book, holding it carefully as if the pages themselves were soiled. "Evil woman. Can you imagine writing down all these stories with pride?"
“I haven't looked at it yet," Jane said, rummaging in the cabinet for some crackers.
Cecily was silent for a minute while Jane was setting the crackers on a cookie sheet in the oven for a minute to crisp them up. "Here's a story about some poor seamstress in Hawaii," Cecily said with venom. "Pryce says she fired the woman when she wanted to bring her baby to work because the grandmother had died and she had no one to keep the child. Listen to this: 'I told her, of course, that children had no role in the workplace, as all decent Americans knew very well. Though she was very unhappy about it at the time, I'm sure she benefited from the knowledge and later had cause to thank me in her prayers.' The nerve!”
Jane was frantically searching the refrigerator. She'd bought some very good brie as a concession to her mother's visit just the day before, and couldn't find it. Where could a large, white cheese hide in a confined area?
“Here's another one," Cecily was continuing in anoutraged tone. "Mrs. Pryce was interned in a prison camp in the Philippines during the war—can you imagine being locked up with the woman for a couple years? She turned in a young woman who had stolen some powdered milk from the stores. One of their own people. The woman was tortured to death for it. Pryce says it was 'unfortunate,' but makes the point that they had to behave in a civilized manner and keep close control of their limited food supply or face the consequences. Garr!"
“Mother, are you sure you want to take this class?" Jane said, spying the missing cheese getting squashed under an orange juice carton. Katie must have done that.
Cecily closed the book and shoved it aside. "Of course. I just won't look at this anymore. We can ignore her."
“She doesn't strike me as the ignorable type."
“My dear, I have ignored heads of state when it was prudent," Cecily said with a smile. "What else have we here? Who's this on the pink paper?" -
"Are you really going to take this class?" Jane asked Shelley later in the afternoon. She'd run over to Shelley's to borrow some milk. They were sitting at the table in Shelley's always immaculate kitchen. That was one of the great mysteries about Shelley. Her house was always spotless, but Jane had never actually caught her cleaning. When did she do it all? Jane often wondered.
“Yes, I think I will. I've dragged down the box of photo albums and letters, and I've been sorting through it. That's what that stuff on the sofa is," she said, gesturing toward the family room. "What's all that you've got?"
“It's my copy of the class materials. I've already read all of it except Mrs. Pryce's, which I don't intend to read. Mom's working on her copies now, and you can have mine."
“Are you enjoying having your mom here?"
“Sure. She's got a real talent for visiting people. She's really no trouble at all. You know how some people are—my mother-in-law's a perfect example. They'll say, 'I won't put you out a bit, but I don't eat any meat or dairy products or bleached flour, and MSG gives me hives, and do you have the receipt for that blue dress I bought you in 1963?' “
Shelley laughed. "Thelma's not that bad, is she?"
“She would be, if she thought of it. But Mom's not like that at all. She settles right in, does her share of the work without any fuss, and will eat absolutely anything. She does her own laundry without even asking how the machine works or where the soap lives and can unload the dishwasher and get everything back in its proper place. I don't know if she got that way under the pressure of living all over the world or whether it's the other way round. That she was naturally suited to be a gypsy and saw in my father a man who would let her be."
“Do I detect a sour note?"
“Oh, just the usual, I guess. It was a weird childhood, never having a home or friends for more than a year before uprooting all over again."
“But you've got a home of your own now." "And they'll have to take me out of it on a gurney!" Jane said, getting up from the table.
“Stay a minute and tell me about these chapters. I don't think I can get them all read by this evening."
“Sorry. Can't stay. I've started a fake autobiography I want to type up.""A fake autobiography?"
“Yes, I'm really having fun. Her name is Priscilla. She was born in 1773 and she has a very mysterious past—"
“Jane! Let me read it!"
“Not now. Not until I mess around with it a little more," Jane said. She was sorry she'd mentioned the project now that she realized Shelley would want to see it. It was still too tentative and fragile for even a best friend's eyes. "I've really got to go. I've got to get dinner ready. Uncle Jim's coming over to see Mom."
“And you—"
“Yeah, but Mom's the main attraction. By the way, I suggest you skip Mrs. General's book. Mom glanced through it, and it nearly made her crazy.”
Jim Spelling was a former army officer who'd been friends of the Grants since before Jane was born. Retired from the service now, he'd joined the Chicago police department as a detective. An honorary "uncle" to Jane, he'd kept in touch with her over the years and had been a regular visitor since Jane's husband died and year and a half earlier. Uncle Jim was one of the few people outside the family who knew the truth about where Steve was going when he was killed. Everyone had been told it was a "business trip" when, in truth, he'd left Jane for another woman that very night and was on his way to her when his car skidded on the ice and hit a guardrail. For Jane it was a double loss, but the anger had helped assuage the grief somewhat.