Grime and Punishment

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 know 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?'

“Yes, mandarin orange and regular orange. No tangerine.'

“Kool-Aid?'

“Nope. I looked.'

“Jell-O?'

“I want to flavor a salad, not glue it together.”

“Let's check the gourmet section, ma'am.”

“This is proving a fruitless effort, in several senses,' Jane giggled.

“You might try a health food store,' he suggested, oblivious to her wit.

Jane shuddered. The only time she'd been in such an establishment, she'd seen only stuff that looked slightly less appetizing than the hamsters' food. 'I don't frequent health food stores. I don't even know where one is.”

In a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard giving information to the enemy, he gave her directions to a store several miles away.

Jane checked out and decided to do her other errands first. The health food store was the other way from her house. Smoking her second cigarette as she drove, she went to the bank, the office supply to pick up some graph paper Katie had requested, and to the dry cleaners to leave the sweater with the barbeque sauce on the sleeve. After a tiff with the girl at the desk, who insisted sourly that the stain looked like blood no matter what Jane might claim, she left.

She waited while a car pulled in next to hers. 'Oh, hello, Jane,' the woman getting out said.

“Robbie, you've done something to your hair. It looks nice.”

Jane always went out of her way to compliment Robbie Jones, sensing that she needed it. Robbie was, to be generous, an extremely plain woman. She had a portly body and the skinniest arms and legs Jane had ever seen. In addition, she had a lantern jaw, low forehead, and a perpetually stern expression. But she had lovely auburn hair with a deep natural wave.

“I just had it trimmed a bit, that's all. Bringing in your dry cleaning?”

What else would I be doing at a dry cleaners? Jane wondered. Poor Robbie. She couldn't help it she was the world's worst conversationalist. Just shy, Jane supposed. Still, she often wondered how she did her job; Robbie worked part-time as a psychiatric nurse. A superb if boring organizer, she could handle work schedules and budgets with devastating competence, but she was the dreariest, most depressing person in their circle.

“You're coming to Shelley's this evening, aren't you?' she asked her.

“Certainly. I've got my food in the car to drop off in a while.'

“I can take it for you, if you'd like.' '

“No, thank you. I've got my driving plan worked out and that would throw it completely off. I'll see you tonight.”

Jane got in the car, biting back a smile. 'I must learn to like her,' she said out loud as she pulled out of the parking lot. 'It's the Christian thing to do.”

When she got home, she flipped on the kitchen television to catch the noon news while she fixed a sandwich and smoked another cigarette. Shelley might make fun of her meat loaf, but cold, it made the best sandwich in the world. The weather report caught her attention. A cold front was heading in their direction and would arrive later in the week. Temperatures might drop into the fifties or lower.

“Furnace—' she mumbled to herself. Every fall Steve did things to the furnace before it was turned on for the winter. But not this year. One more thing she'd have to figure out.

It was amazing how many things there were to learn when you were a single parent and a homeowner. There seemed to be hundreds of boring chores somebody else had always done and which had to be learned. What surprised her most was how many of them seemed to be seasonal. Every time she thought she had a grip on things, the weather changed, and she had to start all over with a whole new set of problems.

First it had been the snowblower. The rubber blades had worn down, and she and Mike had spent a hideous Saturday morning the previous February in a hardware store finding replacements. That was very soon after her world had caved in, and she'd made a fool of herself, breaking into tears, in public, when the hardware clerk told her how to have her husband attach the damned blades.

Then spring had come, and there'd been all the assorted jobs and implements associated with keeping a suburban yard looking decent. The lawn mower had been bad enough, but Mike had manfully assumed responsibility for it. Then the underground sprinkler system had suffered a breakdown that caused all but one of the heads to put out a pitiful mist and the remaining one to look like Old Faithful. That she'd just abandoned. She bought a rotating sprinkler head and a couple of lengths of hose. She'd always felt an underground sprinkling system was a symbol of decadence anyway. Spring had also meant having the snow tires taken off the station wagon, and she'd stupidly bought an entire new set of tires without realizing they weren't an annual purchase and the old ones were in green