Small Town Girl

kissed her forehead.

'Thanks, dear.'

The kitchen was small. He turned to leave and found Tess in his way, the coffeepot clutched in her right hand, her eyes bulging with anger. ''Excuse me,' he said, and moved around her as if she were a stranger on an elevator. When the screen door closed, she was left behind, blushing.

CHAPTER TWO

Tess McPhail was unaccustomed to being treated like a tree stump. Where she moved, people paid attention. Fans loved her. Radio stations vied for her interviews. People in restaurants asked for her autograph. Her agent thought she was the greatest female talent he had represented in his career. Her producer said she had an ear for a hit and the talent to perform it that had elevated his status to that of star in his own right simply for having worked with her. She had the business and home telephone numbers of all the hierarchy from MCA Records, who picked up their phones the moment they learned she was on the other end of the line.

Yet if Kenny Kronek had been a dog with a natural urge, he'd have raised his leg on her ankle.

The moment he left she slammed the coffeepot on the burner, spun to the table and began throwing some dishes into stacks. 'Well!' she exploded, marching to the sink and whacking them down. 'Since when did he become the man of the house?'

'Now, Tess, don't be ungrateful. There are lots of times when one of the kids can't get over here to help me, and Kenny is more than willing. I don't know what I'd do without him.'

'I could see that.'

'Why, Tess, what are you so upset about?'

'I'm not upset! But he comes right in here like he owns the place! And who's Casey?'

'His daughter, and will you stop throwing my dishes around?'

'I suppose she walks in here without knocking, too!'

The truth hit Mary. 'Why, Tess, you're upset because he didn't pay any attention to you!'

'Oh, Mother… really. Give me a little credit.'

'I give you all the credit in the world when you deserve it, but not when you criticize Kenny. And I said to quit throwing my dishes around. You're going to break them.'

'If I do I'll buy you some new ones. Just look at these old pieces of junk anyway! They're all chipped and the gold color is worn right off the edges! Why don't you buy some new ones with the money I send you? Come to think of it, why don't you buy anything with the money I send you?'

'I like those old dishes. They've been around since your dad was alive, so please take some care.'

'Mother, you shouldn't let a man just come walking into your house whenever he pleases!'

'Oh, Tess, just listen to yourself. He's my neighbor. What are you getting all worked up about? I knew his mother for forty years.'

'He's rude.'

'Not to me he's not.'

'No, just to me!'

'Can you blame him? You just got done telling me how awful you used to treat him.'

Tess made no reply. She turned on the tap, filled the sink with soapy water and began washing the dishes, a job she abhorred. Five years ago she'd offered to build her mother a new house with a dishwasher and air- conditioning and anything she wanted! Five years! But would Mary say yes? Of course not. Instead here was Tess, washing dishes by hand and glaring out a window at Kenny Kronek's house!

'All right! So he aggravated me, but the man is a complete boor!'

Her mother found a dish towel hanging inside a cupboard door and picked up a wet plate. 'I don't want to argue with you, Tess. You never thought much of Kenny, I don't expect that to change now. But he has been good to me, and it makes me feel good to know he's right across the alley anytime I need him.'

Tess took the towel and plate out of her mother's hands. 'I'll do the dishes. You go do whatever you want to- lie down and rest, read, get your things ready for tomorrow.'

Mary glanced wistfully toward the living room. 'Well… the nurse did give me some special soap that I'm supposed to take a bath with tonight, and then again in the morning.'

'Go ahead, take your bath while I clean up the kitchen. Do you need help with anything?'

'No… no, I can manage.'

When Mary was gone, Tess gripped both ends of the dish towel and snapped it into a straight line, staring again out the window. Four weeks, she thought. I'll be crazy before two. A moment later the water could be heard running in the bathroom and Tess continued cleaning up the kitchen, trying to ignore the presence of the house across the alley and the fact that its owner had just snubbed her royally.

She could see his kitchen window through this one, and occasionally a head moving past it. The glass porch, which had been added to the back of the house in the sixties, was also lit up, though nobody was in it. Tess had dim memories of playing in it with Kenny when they were both toddlers and their mothers were having coffee together. More clearly she remembered balking at going there to play with him as she grew older.

She was nearly finished washing dishes when the front door opened and a familiar female voice called, 'Tess, you here?'

Renee. Tess's heart gladdened at the sound of her other sister's voice, even as she quashed the instinct to run toward her with a hug. Instead, she waited for Renee to appear in the kitchen doorway. Momentarily Renee did-a dark-haired, tall and classically pretty woman with a face composed of smooth lines, like a Walt Disney drawing of a princess. The middle of the three McPhail girls, Renee was thirty-eight but looked thirty. She was dressed in a pastel blue skirt and blouse with a white sweater tied over her shoulders. Her collar-length auburn hair looked as if she'd been driving with her windows down.

'You are here!' she rejoiced, opening her arms and smiling broadly.

'Hi, you little shit.'

Renee laughed, got Tess in a hug and rocked her like a bowling pin. 'What do you mean, little shit?'

'You know what I mean, ordering me to come home and take care of Momma. I'm so mad at you I could choke you.'

Renee found it amusing. 'Well, if that's what it took to get you home, I guess we did the right thing.'

'You probably got me in a heap of trouble, you know that, don't you?'

'Oh, come on,' Renee said disparagingly.

'I've got a record contract and I'm supposed to be in a studio recording right now.'

'And I'm supposed to be at home putting supper on the table for my family, but I've been off running down twenty-five potted violets for the tables at a wedding reception, and taste-testing Florentine chicken at a caterer's and trying to find anyone with a white horse-drawn carriage because Rachel insists they're going to arrive at the church in a carriage, and the only ones I can find in the whole country are black and look like they hauled Robert E. Lee through the battlefront.'

'Do you know that I had to cancel seven appearances because of this?'

'What do you think we had to cancel the last time Momma had surgery?'

They were no longer hugging but leaning back taking each other's measure.

'But it's easier for you,' Tess reasoned. 'You live here.'

'Try that argument on Judy and see how far it gets you.'

'Judy. Ha! I won't have too much to say to Judy after the way she talked to me on the phone.'

'She's disgusted with you, too. Has been for the last ten years because you never come home.'

'What do you mean, I never come home? I come home!'

'Sure. Once a year or so when your schedule permits. Honey-pie, families deserve more than that.'

'But you don't understand.'

'Sure we do. You've got your priorities.'