“Dreadful baby?” said Harriet. “Did he really call Grace a dreadful baby?”
“Actually he used a much stronger term,” said Fifi with a touch of bashfulness. “But I don’t want to be rude.”
“Kurt isn’t a very nice person,” said Dooley.
“He’s nice to me,” said Fifi. “But you’re right. He’s not very nice to other people.”
“And babies,” said Dooley.
“Babies are people, too, Dooley,” said Harriet. “Only they’re a lot smaller.”
“They’re like miniature people,” Brutus explained with an indulgent smile. “They have tiny toes and tiny fingers and tiny ears and a tiny nose and—“
“Yes, yes, we get the picture,” I interrupted my friend’s vivid word picture of what, exactly, constitutes a human baby.
“They’re not really going to get rid of Grace, are they, Max?” said Dooley, a look of concern now marring my friend’s funny little face.
“Of course not,” I said. “The whole idea is ridiculous.”
Still, I have to admit I wasn’t sanguine about Fifi’s report, straight from the front lines. Kurt has been known to throw the odd shoe in our direction, you see, expressing in word and gesture his displeasure with our vocal performance of an evening. Was it so hard to imagine the lengths he’d go to to rid himself of an admittedly vociferous infant? After all, no man is born a shoe thrower. As a young boy Kurt probably threw matches at passing cats, then gradually worked his way up to twigs and sticks, then shoes, and now he was moving into the baby removal business. If he kept this up, pretty soon he’d morph intoa full-fledged Bond villain and construct a secret lair underneath his lawn so he could destroy the world.
CHAPTER 2
[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]
Vesta Muffin hadn’t slept well. Now she’d read in some magazine that once you reach a certain age you need less shut-eye but lately she’d been more awake than asleep during those restless nights. It had become so bad she’d developed a habit of getting up in the middle of the night and going for a midnight walk around the block. The fresh air and the brisk exercise usually tired her out to such an extent that by the time she tumbled into bed again, she slept like the proverbial baby… until what seemed like moments later it was time to start her day.
She’d talked to Tex, her son-in-law, who was a doctor and was supposed to know about this stuff, but he’d merely offered her some platitudes about old age that she hadn’t appreciated in the least.
“Old age, my foot,” she now muttered as she threw off the comforter and swung her feet to the floor. Once again she felt she hadn’t enjoyed nearly enough sleep, and feared that if this kept up, she might even develop issues with her ticker. Hadn’t she read somewhere that insomnia could leadto heart problems?
“Chamomile tea,” her daughter Marge had advised. “And no screens before bedtime.”
“I hate tea, and I never had trouble falling asleep after watching TV before.”
“I’m not talking about TV, Ma. I’m talking about your phone.”
“My phone? What’s wrong with my phone?”
“Blue light,” Marge had said, rather mysteriously, she thought.
“Blue light, my ass,” she said as she threw her curtains wide to see what the weather was like. The sun was benevolently splashing its rays across a grateful world, but Vesta squinted, giving it the evil eye. “Sunlight, that’s the problem,” she said. Maybe she had to move up North, where they never had any light, blue or otherwise. Wasn’t there some place in Alaska where they never got any light at all? Months and months of utter and complete darkness? Now that would probably lull her to sleep—a nice long winter sleep. Like a bear. Or a hedgehog. Then again, since she hated the cold, that probably wasn’t an option either.
She sighed deeply and shuffled out of her room and into the bathroom, which, lucky for her, hadn’t yet been occupied by the rest of the household. With a flick of the wrist, she locked the door, and started the tedious daily ritual of addressing her personal hygiene needs—which were plenty and getting greater every day.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]
Tex awoke with a start, lifting his head half an inch from the pillow then letting it fall back again with a groan of dismay. It was his fervent wish that one morning he’d be able to get up before his mother-in-law, so he could be the first one to occupy the bathroom, but so far he hadn’t yet succeeded in fulfilling this modest desire.
“We should have built a second bathroom,” he now told his wife, who was stirring next to him.
“We still could,” she muttered, her eyes firmly closed.
“But where? There’s no space for a second bathroom.”
“We could build one in the garden house,” Marge suggested.
He gave this some thought. It was an idea, of course. When they’d recently rebuilt the house, he’d suggested to the architect to squeeze in a second bathroom, but the man had convinced them it wasn’t feasible, nor was it necessary, since they were only three occupants. He’d pointed out that the man had never lived under the same roof as his mother-in-law, and the architect had given him a look of such compassion he’d been moved to tears and had never mentioned the topic again.
“We’ll never get permission,” he said as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“We could build it illegally,” said Marge.
He directed an indulgent smile at his wife of twenty-five years.“We’re talking major plumbing, honey. No plumber would touch the project without the necessary permits.”
Marge yawned and stretched, then gave him a yearning look.“For once in my life I want to be the first to get into the bathroom, Tex. The first one to take a shower.”
“I know,” he said. “Me, too.” He sighed a wistful sigh. “But as I get older I’m starting to realize it’s simply not in the cards for us. One of those pipe dreams like winning the lottery or finishing the crossword puzzle. We’ve been getting up earlier and earlier and she’s still beating us to it. The woman never sleeps.”
“And spends what seems like hours in there.”
“Worse than Odelia when she was a teenager.”
For a moment they both were silent as they contemplated ways and means of fixing a problem that had been vexing them since they’d invited Marge’s mom to share their home with them. “We could always hire one of those cowboy builders,” Marge suggested.
“You mean like the ones that destroyed our old home? Aren’t they in jail?”
“There must be others,” said Marge with a touch of desperation. “Others like them?”
He swallowed away a lump of unease. It was one thing to dream of going down a certain route, but quite another to actually go ahead and venture into illegality. Theirs had been a life built on a strict adherence to the rule of law. He never even jaywalked, and always dropped his litter in the appropriate receptacle. So the prospect of suddenly venturing into a life of crime gave him quite a jolt.
He blinked.“Are you sure about this?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse as he nervously licked his lips.
The voice of Marge’s mother suddenly rang out. She’d burst into song and was obviously taking one of those long, hot showers she loved so much, using up all the hot water and leaving nothing for the rest of the family.“I’m a poor, lonesome cowboy!” she was belting at the top of her voice.“And I’m a long way from home!”
Marge hesitated but for a moment, then nodded eagerly.“Let’s do it,” she whispered.
In spite of his misgivings, he whispered back,“Don’t tell your mother?”
Marge mimicked locking her lips and throwing away the key.“Cross my heart.”
“And hope to die,” he murmured. “Though on second thought, maybe scratch that.”
“Let’s break the law, Clyde,” Marge smiled.