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
“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
“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 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
