A Farewell to Yarns

be weighed, I had to be the reading lady for the third graders. The usual volunteer was sick. Sick, my eye! The canny bitch was just smarter than me. They were climbing me like a jungle gym. Why don't they all have nervous breakdowns before Christmas? More to the point, why don't we? Think it over, Jane. It's not a bad idea. We could stage some sort of seizure in the front yard. Foam at the mouth and chew sticks. They'd take us off to a nice sanitarium where somebody else has to wrap the gifts and stuff the clammy turkey and get hives taking the vile tree down when it's over.”

Jane considered. 'Doesn't sound bad. Do we get to wear our jammies all day?'

“Sure. If we play our cards right, we might even talk somebody out of wheelchairs, and we wouldn't even have to walk anyplace.'

“Would our families be able to visit us?'

“I certainly hope not!'

“It wouldn't work for me. My mother-in-law, Thelma, would take over my kids.'

“So let her. It would serve her right.'

“Yeah, but she'd convince them of her theory—that I was really a pathetic slut their father married out of pity.'

“Well?”

Jane laughed. 'Gotta go. Anything I can do for you while I'm out?'

“Nothing. Oh, yes. I'm trying to fix that gingerbread house that got the corner smashed. I'm out of powdered sugar.'

“I've got some. Just help yourself.'

“And go in your house? With your company? Have you lost your mind?'

“Bobby's gone. Only Phyllis is there.' At the sight of Shelley's raised eyebrows, she added, 'I'll buy you sugar. Say, Shelley, do you know John and Joannie Wagner?'

“You already asked me that this morning. I've been thinking about it. I know a Joanne Wagner. She and I are putting on the P.T.A. tea next week. You know her, too. She's the one who made all those grapevine wreaths for the bazaar. Hard-working, lovely voice, and very pleasant but dumpy, defeated looking.”

Jane understood this to apply to Joannie, not the wreaths. Now that she'd been reminded of who she was, she thought about Joannie Wagner as she headed toward the junior high. Jane knew her very slightly and had never made the connection between her and Phyllis or even between her and the aggressive volleyball player she was married to. Poor Joannie Wagner was a beaten-down sort of woman. Her hair was always curled, but badly. Her makeup was never quite right somehow. She wore expensive, but ill-fitting clothing and gave the general impression of a scared rabbit. Of course, she was a rabbit. What else could you be if you were married to John Wagner? You'd have to have the stamina of an Amazon and the temperament of a wolverine to assert yourself around a man like that.

She hoped Phyllis wouldn't be able to find him to invite him over. The last thing Jane needed was John Wagner in her house. If only she could go back to when she stupidly made that halfhearted invitation to Phyllis to visit. But as she pulled into the school parking lot she realized that, even knowing what was in store, she'd have probably done the same thing. Phyllis and Company might be not be any fun, but Phyllis needed a friend and considered Jane to be one.

Ten

It was a rare and treasured morning that Jane  didn't have to drive at least one school car pool. Even when her schedule wasn't thrown off by something like the electricity going out, with three children going to three separate schools that started at three different times, it took planning worthy of General Motors to work out a system that left her free to slop around in robe and slippers on an occasional morning.

This was such a morning. Jane had risen earlier than usual to get a head start on putting out the Christmas decorations. She got out the creche and set it up on the table just inside the living room doorway. She dragged some greenery in from the garage where it had been waiting, encased in plastic and sprinkled with water, for two days. Draping it along the mantel above the fireplace, she then dug through the Christmas storage boxes until she found the string of twinkle lights she wanted. She put the traditional red tablecloth on the dining room table and set out her collection of Santas from around the world on the sideboard.

Unfortunately, that was all the further she'dgotten by the time she had to get the kids stirring. Now she leaned on the kitchen counter watching the driveway for Mike's ride to arrive. Mike, her high schooler, was in the middle of the kitchen floor trying to force a tuba into its elephantine case. He was mumbling angrily, and Jane was being very careful not to hear the exact words. If she did, she'd have to be motherly about his language, and he was under enough pressure already.

“You wouldn't think a tuba could actually grow overnight, would you?' Jane said, trying to cheer him up.

Mike looked up at her and said scathingly, 'Mom, do you realize if I can't get this thing to fit, you'll have to drive me? I can't make everybody wait.”

Jane abandoned cheerfulness. 'I don't see why not. I wait nearly every morning I drive for Scott to finish combing his hair. Cram the thing in. I'm not driving anybody anywhere today.'

“You could let me have the car,' he suggested.

“Not if you set my hair on fire.'

“That's not fair, letting him have the car,' Katie said, galloping down the stairs with Jane's purse in her hand. 'Can I have five dollars?'

“What for, and I'm not letting Mike drive, and what difference would it make to you if I did?”

Katie ignored all but the first of this. 'The ninth-grade field trip to the Art Institute. You said I didn't have to pay school things out of my allowance.'

“Agreed, but how can it cost five dollars to ride a school bus to town?'

“Mother, there's lunch,' she explained condescendingly.

“Take five. Not a penny more. Mike, your ride is honking. Todd, what did you do with the skin?' she added, noting that her fifth grader had cut up a banana into his cereal, and there was no sign of its original container.

“I dunno,' he said, tearing his gaze away from the cartoons on the kitchen television long enough to glance around the table and his lap.

Jane had been vaguely aware of thumping and thrashing in the living room for some minutes and went around the corner to look. As she feared, Willard was there, tossing the banana skin around with a puppyish abandon that ill became a grown dog. 'Willard, give me that thing!' she shouted, lunging at him just as he flipped the banana skin up onto the half-finished afghan. This dislodged an indignant Meow, who had been curled there, happily milk-treading the soft yarn.

“Pets are supposed to lower your blood pressure,' Jane complained to no one in particular as she stuffed the banana skin down the disposal. 'My blood pressure is about to blow the top of my head off. Katie—are you ready? Did Mike leave?' she added to Todd. He didn't reply, but the tuba and case were gone, so the eldest must have left.

Katie was shaking some Rice Chex into her hand—and a few on the floor that Willard was inhaling. 'What happened to your friend, Mom?

Wasn't she supposed to stay here? You made us clean our rooms and everything.'

“No, she stayed in the house I told you about. If you'd come home for dinner instead of staying at Jenny's, you'd have known all about it. And in the future, when you're going home with Jenny, you have to tell me in advance.”

Katie ignored all the references to her transgression the afternoon before. 'You mean she just bought a house just like that? Neat. Denise Nowack said her mom said your friend's son was really cool looking. You should have kept him here.'

“That was fair-minded of her. I assume Mrs. Nowack must have also mentioned that he's a creep.'

“Yeah, but that's mom-talk,' she said, stuffing another handful of cereal into her mouth. 'Can we go over tonight so I can meet him?'

“Not if I can help it. Isn't that Jenny's mother honking?”