Both Shelley and the Happy Helper stood aside and allowed Jane room to safely negotiate the door with the unwieldy cake. "I didn't get your name," Shelley said to the cleaning lady.
“Ramona Thurgood, ma'am."
“I'll show you where everything is, Ramona, so you can get started.”
Jane leaned against the counter, studying the kitchen and wondering how it could possibly look cleaner. Shelley had the sort of house that Jane's mother would have said you could eat off the floors in — if you didn't mind the taint of fresh wax and Lysol. As many years as she'd known Shelley, Jane had never figured out just when Shelley did all that cleaning. She'd never caught her at it. Once she'd appeared at the door with a dustrag in her hand, and occasionally Jane was able to discern the scent of fresh furniture polish, but she never actually saw Shelley clean anything.
But then, there was a lot she didn't understand about Shelley. They'd become friends, Jane supposed, more through geographical proximity than natural inclination. Over the years, they'd come to spend a lot of time together and had a frank, friendly relationship, in spite of the fact that they were very different. But if they hadn't lived so close, Jane wasn't certain she'd have ever learned to like Shelley so well. She was a little too perfect, a smidge too attractive, a bit too bossy and self-assured for most people to warm up to her.
“You weren't supposed to make a cake," Shelley said when she returned to the kitchen a moment later. "I assigned you a carrot salad."
“I know you did, and it's in my refrigerator," Jane said.
“Yes?" Shelley cocked a shapely eyebrow.
“Well, it will be as soon as I fix it. This is Dorothy Wallenberg's cake. How is it that you can wear a paisley scarf with a sweat suit and look like a model? I wrap a scarf around my neck and I look like Dale Evans."
“Don't be a dolt. You could wear anything if you could just believe in yourself. You looked great last week in that green dress with the gold scarf."
“Only because you came over and tied it for me."
“Put that cake on the counter. You're getting icing on your shirt. Frenchy! Stop that!" she added as a tiny orange poodle came tearing around the corner, legs whirling like a cartoon dog on the slick floor. He sank his teeth into Jane's pant leg.
“He really thinks he's a fierce beast, doesn't he?" Jane said, shaking him loose. "Big old Willard would be afraid to attack a piece of notebook paper, and this little thing thinks he can bring me to my knees."
“He's going to the kennel this morning. I'm not having him ripping everyone's hose tonight and shedding all over—"
“Poodles don't shed," Jane said.
“Whoever told you that was trying to sell you a poodle. That reminds me, I didn't show that woman where the vacuum cleaner is. Won't be a sec. Pour us some coffee, would you?”
Jane had their coffee ready and had also put out a plate of cookies when Shelley got back from the basement. Jane was having her first cigarette of the day. She'd been cutting down slowly for months, half-intending to take a plunge into quitting, but not ready yet. This month she was allowed twelve a day: four each in the morning, afternoon and evening.
“I assume you got the kids off yesterday. How do you think they'll like Disney World?" Jane asked when Shelley sat down.
“They'll like it fine. It's the principal who's hating it. He tried to tell me the only excused absences were for family trips, and I told him they were with family, my sister's family. Silly man started carrying on about the sanctity of the school day—"
“He didn't!"
“Well, not in those terms, exactly, but it was pretty haughty stuff, so I made him look up their grades and he settled down a little.”
Brilliant students, Shelley's kids brought home report cards that made Jane's mouth water.
“So when do they come back?"
“Not till Sunday night, but I've got to go to the airport today. To think, when we bought this house I knew how far it was from O'Hare, and I didn't think that would matter! What a fool."
“If the children aren't coming home, why are you going clear out there?"
“My mother's going to Hawaii, and she beat some poor, downtrodden travel agent into scheduling flights so she'd have two hours stopover for lunch with me and another two hours for dinner with my brother Fred in Los Angeles. Here, eat this instead of the cookies," she ordered, taking a bowl of tapioca out of the refrigerator.
“Yuck!"
“I've got to get the middle shelf cleared so everybody can put their food for the potluck in while I'm gone. I'm really irritated about the Happy Helper people sending this woman. I hate leaving someone I don't know a thing about in the house when I can't be here."
“You don't know Edith either. You've only had her clean for you once before, haven't you?"
“Yes, but I know of her from the other people around here she's been with for ages. Actually, I'd be glad to try someone else if I didn't have to leave the house. I wasn't all that impressed with the wonderful Edith. I know everybody raves about her, but I didn't think she was so great. She smudged up more windows and mirrors than she cleaned, and I know for a fact she didn't even touch the kids' bathroom."
“How odd. Robbie Jones and Joyce Greenway swear by her, and Joyce is probably the most compulsive tidy person I've ever known — next to you, of course," Jane added.
Shelley regarded her mania for cleanliness as an affliction. "I know it's shallow of me, but I really love to clean," she'd said once. "You know my favorite shopping place in the world? The hardware store — the section with the industrial cleaners and mops and buckets. I sneak in sometimes just to look at the new products." Shelley was the only person Jane knew who actually apologized for her house being so immaculate.
“I hope Edith isn't sick or something," Jane went on. "I'm supposed to have her at my house tomorrow for the first time. I've never even seen this wonder woman.”
The previous month Jane and Shelley's regular cleaning lady had decided to give it up and go live with her married daughter in Little Rock, after being with them for years. Shelley had immediately set about finding a replacement. Edith had recently lost two of her regular customers, and Shelley got her for Thursdays and arranged for Jane to have her Fridays.
Jane had originally decided not to get anyone, thinking she could do it herself and save money. Then she found out what sort of housekeeper she really was. Within two weeks it looked like a band of cossacks had been using the house.
“I could come over and keep an eye on your Ramona, I guess. If you're worried about leaving a stranger in the house," Jane said.
“And what reason would you give for hanging around here all day when you live just next door?"
“There is that."
“Don't worry, Jane. It'll be fine. If she goes off with the silver, I'll worry about it later. The Happy Helper people are supposed to be bonded. Wouldn't you eat some of that tapioca?"
“Not if you set my hair on fire.”
Jane cleaned up the kitchen when she got home, a slap-dash dean because the great Edith — or a substitute — would be along soon to take care of the residue. Max and Meow all but clung to her legs, howling pitifully for cat food while she worked. Willard simply sprawled, snoring, underfoot. She got them all fed, then started looking around for the ingredients for the carrot salad. Shelley had given her the recipe, but she'd lost it twice already and was afraid to admit to such chronic domestic carelessness. Not that Shelley would be surprised, of course.
Jane was fairly certain she remembered it, though. Sliced carrots ("Fresh and cooked just to tenderness, Jane. Not those orange plastic circles they sell in cans."), some onions ("Sliced paper-thin, not hacked-up chunks like you do in meat loaf. Your meat loaf always looks like Attila the Hun had a part in fixing it."), and some sort of sauce. That was going to be the tricky part, faking a sauce. To the best of Jane's recollection, it was based on some sort of salad dressing — Italian, most likely — and had some strange liquid added. Orange
juice, Jane thought. Or maybe lime.
Well, she didn't have any carrots, so she'd have to hit the grocery store before she could begin. Who gave Shelley that recipe anyway? Jane closed her eyes, trying to remember where she'd had the dish. She could visualize the yellow bowl with the scalloped edges that the salad had been in. . the tablecloth with the leaf motif… ah! She'd had it at Mary Ellen's! Surely she'd know the recipe.
She dialed, and on the third ring, a soft, husky voice answered.
“Mary Ellen? Jane Jeffry. Hope I didn't disturb you. I wondered if you had that carrot salad recipe. Shelley gave me orders to make it for tonight, but I've lost the recipe."
“I've got a recipe, but it might not be the same. Why don't you just get it from Shelley?"
“She's gone for the day, or getting ready to go if she hasn't left yet," Jane said, unwilling to admit she didn't want to face Shelley's wrath.
“Oh, yes. To have lunch with her sister or something at the airport. She told me Monday, when I was collecting for the Cancer Society. Just a minute — my buzzer's going off."
“I'll just run over and get the recipe.”
Jane peered out the kitchen window. Good. Shelley's minivan was gone. But, just in case, she sprinted across the street to Mary Ellen's house and lurked behind the tall evergreen next to the door until Mary Ellen let her in.
Mary Ellen was a real beauty. Her appearance was stereotypically southern California; very tan, streaked blond hair, a lot of makeup appliedso skillfully that it looked like nearly none, and trendy clothes. She, too, was in a tennis outfit, but it was apparent she wasn't going to play anytime soon. Her right arm was in a cast from thumb to past her elbow. "How's it feeling?" Jane asked.
“Fine, so long as I don't try to use it. And I keep banging the cast into things."
“Shelley said you fell in the grocery store parking lot?"
“Yes, but not the grocery store down the street. I'd driven clear over to Oakview because somebody told me they had a good fish market. I never did find it, so I just ran into a strange store for a pack of cigarettes. I slipped on something as I came out. A nice man who was just behind me helped me up and took me to the emergency room of the community hospital.”
Mary Ellen had put a cup and saucer in the dishwasher and pushed several buttons on a control panel that looked like part of NORAD as she spoke. Still using only her left hand, she was awkwardly rummaging in a recipe-card box. She tried to use her right hand to take out a card and winced.
“I always wanted a cast when I was a kid," Jane mused. "So people could write things on it. But I never broke a thing. I tried to make a cast once when my sister had some plaster of paris for a hobby project, but it just looked like I'd grown a limestone arm. My mother made me break it off and it took all the hair on my arm along with it. God, it hurts to remember.”
Mary Ellen looked so pale that Jane was sud‑ denly stricken with guilt. "Never mind the recipe. I shouldn't be bothering you."
“It's all right. Here it is," Mary Ellen said, handing her a card. "I think Shelley adds a little lemon juice and parsley to hers. Just don't lose the recipe card."
“Oh, I won't," Jane assured her, glad Shelley wasn't around to hear her making such a rash promise.
Mary Ellen walked to the door with her, and as they passed the den, Jane noticed that the computer was on and the screen was filled with some sort of graph. Mary Ellen had something to do with an investment group. Jane had never quite understood it or wanted to. All she knew was that it was extremely lucrative, and Mary Ellen did it at home most of the time, but had an office somewhere in Chicago where she went once every week or so. Steve had told her more, back when he'd been in his investment phase, but she hadn't been very interested. "So you can at least work?"
“What? Oh, yes. A little. Just with the one hand, though. It's very slow.”
The phone began to ring. "Go ahead. I'll let myself out.”
Jane hurried home, still half-afraid Shelley would catch her. Safely inside her own kitchen, she looked at the card and groaned.
Tangerine juice! Where the hell was she going to get tangerine juice?
Three
Jane was standing at the kitchen window, mis erably contemplating where she'd find the elusive ingredient, when she heard Shelley's minivan pull back into the driveway between their houses. She must have taken the dog to the kennel and come back before going on to the airport. Thank heaven she hadn't been a minute earlier and caught Jane galloping across the street, waving a recipe card like a red flag.
Jane paced around a minute to see if Shelley would come right back out. Willard had inhaled his breakfast, and she shoved him out the back door into the fenced yard. He looked around cautiously to see if anyone was lurking there to get him. Willard, whose life's ambition was to escape into the front yard, was terrified of the back.
Going back in the kitchen, Jane found that the cats were still eyeing each other over their food bowl in a stare-off to determine who would eat first. "Get on with it, you dopes!" she said, giving them ear scritches they didn't appreciate.
Why didn't Shelley go? She didn't dare make a grocery-store run while there was a danger o Shelley catching her and asking where she was going. She found it was impossible to lie convincingly to her, even on small matters like tangerine juice. Jane would have to wait her out. It was like being in a castle under siege.
To kill the time, she occupied herself with one of her least favorite duties. She checked on the hamsters in Todd's room, which were living in precisely the kind of filth she'd imagined. "You are rats in disguise," she said to them. "You may fool children, but not mothers.”
Popping the fuzzy creatures into a shoe box, she dumped the contents of their cage into a plastic trash bag — checking carefully just what she was throwing away. Once she'd tossed out their newborns not realizing what those repulsive little pink lumps were. She'd assumed they were evidence of some nasty digestive process she was better off not knowing anything about. Todd had been crushed, and had put no credence in Jane's statement that if he'd cleaned it himself as he was supposed to it wouldn't have happened. Sooner or later Todd would run out of friends to give the frequent offspring to, and they'd have to move out and abandon the house to the little rodents.
In the meantime, she'd keep cleaning their cage occasionally. She knew she shouldn't be doing this for Todd. It really was his responsibility. But there were reasons she continued to make regular forays into the hamster den. First, he was always so pleased when he came home and discovered that his little pals had a clean house. It was a refreshing change from the usual to have someone notice her efforts. Second, Steve had always been a bear about it, insisting that Jane was absolutely not to clean the cage. He didn't consider the creatures as pets, but as a learning experience for Todd. Now that he was gone, it was a backward sort of way to assert her independence.
Max and Meow had finished their breakfast and come upstairs to help her. They took up positions on either side of the shoe box and had their heads cocked alertly, listening to the hamsters scramble around. Jane had just put the hamsters back into their cage and was watching them burrow under the clean wood shavings when the phone rang. She shooed the cats out, slammed the door, and ran down to the kitchen to answer it so she could check on whether Shelley was gone. Her minivan was still in the drive as Jane lifted the receiver.
“Jane? You sound out of breath. There's not something wrong, is there?" a male voice rumbled.
“Hiya, Uncle Jim. Not a thing. What's up?”
“I'm calling about dinner Sunday—"
“You are coming, aren't you?"
“If you want me."
“That's a wimpy sort of thing for a macho cop to say. Of course I want you to come. If you didn't come every month, I'd be left to the mercy of Steve's mother and brother without any protection at all.”
Uncle Jim, uncle in honorary terms only, asked, "Are they treating you all right, honey?"
“As all right as they k
now how. It's not their fault they drive me crazy."
“You're doing okay, then?"
“I'm fine, Uncle Jim. You haven't got around to why you're calling."
“Oh, just to warn you I might be a few minutes late. I've got to go out to the boys' detention home and take a statement from a kid who cut up his sister with a butcher knife."
“Don't try to kid me. You love nothing better than a nice hour of kicking ass at a detention home.”
He laughed, then with mock-seriousness said, "Jane! What a way for a nice girl to talk.”
Jane smiled to herself. To Uncle Jim she was still a girl. "You can't tell me a Chicago inner-city cop is shocked by my language."
“Honey, nothing shocks me anymore. Except maybe that cheese dip your mother-in-law made last time I came over."
“See you Sunday then.”
As they concluded their conversation, Jane noticed Shelley get in her minivan and leave. She was looking ravishing in a rich, maroon suit with black piping and black patent accessories that were only slightly less shiny and neat than her hair.
The siege was lifted.
Jane changed from jeans and sweat shirt into tan culottes and a tan-and-white-striped sweater, took a quick swipe at her lips with a coral lipstick that Shelley had told her was her color, and headed for the closest grocery store. She got the carrots and onions, and for good measure picked up a wicked-looking paring knife, in the belief that any knife she might find in her kitchen would be too dull for the tricky business of cutting the onion as neatly as Shelley had specified. The last time she'd had a truly sharp knife Mike had used it to cut off a length of garden hose for a mysterious project. It was now good only for cutting butter — warm butter.
As she came down the dairy aisle, she spotted a plump, pimpled, and thoroughly harassed-looking young man with a tag that identified him as an assistant store manager. "Could you tell me where to find tangerine juice?" she asked.
“Tangerine juice?" He seemed deeply unhappy and slightly offended, as if she'd asked for amphetamines or hand grenades. "Have you checked the canned fruit juices?"
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