if he's your son. How utterly ghastly. She actually thinks he's great.'
“He's pond scum,' Shelley said, striding across the parking area. 'Her Chet should have stuck to fixing her teeth. What do you suppose she meant about it being Chet's doing? Is he Chet's kid?”
Jane tried to cast her mind back seventeen years, not an easy thing with all the lively clutter of events that intervened. 'I wouldn't think that's possible. Phyllis always made a big deal about how she and Chet had only known each other a month before they were married. All very romantic. I guess she might have been lying, but I don't think she knew how to back then.'
“A month would be a pretty quick gestation,' Shelley said. She'd found the minivan and was fishing around in the depths of her purse for the keys. She located them, and the two of them piled in. Jane found a battered half pack of cigarettes in her purse. She was trying to cut down on her smoking in the hopes that she'd make it easier to actually quit altogether at some vaguely defined future date. But this called for a cigarette. If she'd been a drinker, it would have called for a fifth of vodka.
Shelley's minivan bolted into traffic, and she said, 'Jane, I don't like this. Circles within circles,' she added ominously.
“Oh Shelley, the temptation to fling myself out the door in front of traffic is almost too much,' she said, puffing so frantically she made herself a little dizzy. 'As if the stress of any Christmas, much less my first Christmas as a widow weren't enough ... You know what this means, don't you? She's bringing that overgrown brat to my house. My
“Well, it won't be forever,' Shelley sad. 'You said she was only staying two or three days.'
“I said that's what I assumed, but obviously my assuming powers aren't at their best. I didn't specify a time limit, and neither did she. Just said she'd be here today. It didn't cross my mind to ask when she'd be leaving. It didn't seem to matter. She's so easy to be around, I figured she'd stay as long as she wanted without being in my way. Oh, what have I done?”
They worked their way through airport traffic. At the entrance to the baggage claim area, Phyllis was standing alone. She got in the backseat of the minivan and was quiet for a minute. She was very pale with bright, angry circles of red on her cheeks.
“Poor Bobby,' she finally said, but she didn't sound sympathetic. After a paused, she worked up to tolerant understanding. 'I don't think he likes traveling. Of course, he won't admit it, but I wonder if he's afraid of planes. Lots of people are, but a boy his age wouldn't admit it. Yes, I think that must be it. He's been—well, touchy, I guess, you'd say, ever since I told him about our plans for Christmas.'
“Your plans for Christmas?' Jane asked, her heart in her mouth.
“Why visiting you, I mean.' She started rummaging in her purse for a tissue.
Jane cast Shelley a despairing look and mouthed, 'Two weeks!'
“Where is Bobby?' Shelley asked. She was blocking traffic, and people were starting to honk and swerve around her.
“There's some problem with one of this bags,' Phyllis said with a definite sniffle. Jane immediately thought of a drug bust.
What might happen if someone coming to visit her had a suitcase full of cocaine? Would the authorities think she had something to do with it?
“The airline scuffed one of them up horribly, and he's very upset. Bobby isn't used to having nice things, and he's rather fussy about them now. That's only natural.”
At this point, Bobby himself came slamming out through the doors with a skycap loaded down with luggage in his wake. Shelley got out, opened the back doors of the minivan, and supervised while Jane and Phyllis sat silently in the car. Jane noticed that Bobby didn't make any move to tip the man, so Shelly took care of it.
She'd have to remember to reimburse Shelley later.
Bobby and Shelly reached the driver's door at the same time. 'I'll drive,' he said.
“I beg your pardon?' Shelley said in a voice that would have frozen anyone else.
“I said I'll drive. I'm not riding with no broad.'
“Bobby, dear—' Phyllis bleated.
But Shelly didn't need help. She gave Bobby her look, which had been known to make car repairmen and school principals cringe. 'This 'broad' owns the vehicle and pays the insurance. You'll ride with me, or you'll walk.'
“Oh, dear—' Phyllis said.
Bobby opened the back door, nearly yanking it off the hinges, and threw himself in next to Phyllis. Shelley climbed into the driver's seat with frigid dignity. Her knuckles on the steering wheel were white. Before pulling into traffic, shejammed a Christmas music tape into the tape player with a savage gesture.
Jane lit another cigarette.
Everyone pretended interest in traffic. They were two miles from the airport before anyone ventured to speak. Phyllis, her voice a bit shaky, said, over the sounds of 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,”
“Oh, look. It's starting to snow. How wonderful. You can't imagine how I've missed snow all these years. And how I've missed Chicago. Not that I don't love living on the island—but I always get a little sad at Christmas. Chet has a pine tree flown in from Canada every year, of course, but it's not the same when you're sitting around in shorts with the windows open. A pine tree just doesn't smell the same in a warm climate.'
“Screw the snow,' Bobby mumbled.
“Oh, no, Bobby darling! You can't fool me,' Phyllis said with ponderous jollity. 'You're happy to be back. You'd miss a Chicago Christmas as much as I have.'
“There's nothing about Chicago I'd miss.'
“Are you from Chicago?' Jane asked him, desperate to get the conversation on a friendlier footing.
This wasn't the way to do it.
“You mean Phyl didn't tell you all about Mommy's Little Bastard?' he asked.
“Bobby, I've told you that you mustn't say things like that,' Phyllis said.
“Why not? It's the truth.'
“Phyllis, I was telling Shelley about the beautiful Christmas ornaments you made when we lived in that apartment—' Jane broke in franti? cally. 'Remember the one with the starched lace you gave me? I still have it.'
“You don't! Oh, Jane, how sweet of you.'
“You'll have to show me how you did it. We're putting together a church bazaar right now, and we need all the help we can get.
Maybe we can run over to the craft store after you've unpacked—'
“Oh, I'd
“Maybe you can show my daughter. Katie, how to tat. I'm hopeless, but she's pretty good at that sort of thing,' Jane said.
“Is that knitting you have in your bag there?' Phyllis asked.
“Crocheting, actually. Is that knitting you have along with you?'
“Just some little hats and mittens I'm making for charity. It gives me something to do with my hands. And I'm working on a sweater for Bobby, too. A sort of crimson; his color, I think.”
Bobby had sunk into some silent reverie of his own. He was glaring out the window at the snow as if he could stop it by sheer disapproval. Shelley was no longer driving as if she were looking for a cliff to plunge them all over. The rest of the ride home was taken up with pleasant talk about crafts. Jane dragged out her afghan and showed it to Phyllis, who admired it enormously and reciprocated by hauling forth an elaborately designed sweater.
Eventually Jane started breathing normally, but in the back of her mind, she was turning over the problem of what to about her guests. Phyllis apparently believed that the invitation to visit was open-ended. Jane supposed a monthlong visit wasn't odd at all in the lifestyle Phyllis was accustomed to. After all, if you had a whole hotel to put your guests up in, they could stay for years without being a nuisance. Jane was certain Phyllis had no idea she was being an imposition.
