A Farewell to Yarns

“I put that badly. I'm not. I meant I'm a single parent with mobs of kids. I'm a widow.'

“Oh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. How tactless of me,' Fiona said, a genuine blush of embarrassment brightening her cheeks.

Jane almost smiled. How odd that Fiona, a rather famous widow herself, should apologize to Jane. 'Please, don't be sorry. It's been nearly a year now, and I'm quite accustomed to it—' Jane stopped. 'Listen to me! I'm already picking up your accent. That's a terrible habit. I don't mean to do it.'

“Jane grew up all over the world, and she tends to talk like whoever she's talking to,' Shelley explained. 'Even if it's just a speech impediment, she mimics it.'

“I never!'

“You certainly do. Remember that woman in the grocery store last week who couldn't say her 'r's? She asked you where the sausages were, and you said, 'Wight down the thiwd isle.' '

“I didn't.”

Fiona smiled and said, 'Still, if you hear of anyone needing a small house, give me a call. We're uneasy about it standing empty. One hates to have an invitation to vandalism so close, you know.”

Shelley asked. 'Doesn't that Finch man live on the other side of it?”

Fiona looked as if she'd been caught in something. 'Yes, he does. But I really believe he's harmless!'

“Harmless! I wouldn't call anybody who poisons dogs harmless,' Shelley said.

“There's no proof it was Mr. Finch,' Fiona said. Her voice lacked conviction. 'We've never had any trouble with him.”

Jane had been so interested in listening to Fiona's accent that she'd hardly started on her tea when Shelley started bustling her along. 'Fiona, we'll be back tomorrow to help with setting up. Please don't go to any trouble on your own.'

“Please feel free to bring your houseguest along if she's interested in helping out,' Fiona said to Jane. There was something vaguely poignant in her voice. Loneliness? No, that couldn't be, Jane thought. You can't be rich and famous and lonely.

As they reached the front entry, a man stepped into the area from another door. 'Oh, Fiona, I didn't know you had guests.'

“Albert, this is Shelley Nowack and Jane Jeffry. They're on the placement committee for the church bazaar.'

“How nice to meet you, ladies,' Albert Howard said. He was American—a plumpish man with thinning dull brown hair and oversized tortoiseshell bifocals that made his receding chin appear almost nonexistent. Fiona had taken his arm in an oddly protective gesture and was gazing at him as if he'd just spoken words of enormous import.

“We've met before, I think,' Jane said. 'I substituted for Mary Ebert in the church choir one morning. You were there.”

Albert stared at her for a minute, recognition dawning, then started to laugh. 'Oh, yes! The director ended up asking you if you'd just hum.'

“I didn't expect you to remember the occasion in detail!' Jane said. 'My enthusiasm for music slightly exceeds my talents.'

“Jane—?' Shelley said with a meaningful glance at her watch.

'Odd, aren't they?' Shelley said as they pulled out of the driveway moment alter.

“You're a mind reader,' Jane said, smiling. 'I had no idea he was Albert Howard. I see him in the church choir, but I never connected him with Fiona. How could she have married him?'

“He's a very nice man, I hear from people who know him. Very soft-spoken and witty.'

“Yes, but married to Richie Divine's widow? I mean—Richie Divine was so—'

“Sexy?' Shelley asked.

“Slim, young, blond, talented, gorgeous, famous, rich. I was going to say. But I guess sexy sums it up. Was he really, Shelley, or were our hormones just at fever pitch when we were young and he was alive?'

“There's evidence against it,' Shelley said, craning her neck around to peer at traffic behind her. She changed lanes in such a way as to nearly cause a beer truck to run onto the shoulder.

“What evidence?''Well, there's the fact that my mother and her friends thought he was wonderful, and none of them were much given to admiring young men. Mostly their impulse was to bat them around the ears for impertinence. Then, too, there's that old movie he was in—I saw it on the late show a month or so ago and found my tongue hanging out.'

“Can you imagine slobbering over Albert Howard after having been married to Richie Divine?'

“No, but apparently Fiona can. You're sounding like the press. Remember the flap when it was revealed that Richie'd been married—?'

“Of course! Who could forget? Every girl in America thought she'd been personally jilted.”

“And then the reporters just about crucified Fiona when she remarried. As if it was really anybody's business.'

“I'd forgotten that, but I can see why. It's sort of like an ex-president running for county dogcatcher.”

They were silent for a few moments, then Jane spoke again. 'It makes me sad. If I'd been married to Richie Divine, I'd have never considered remarriage.'

“Stay a widow, forever worshipping at the shrine? Is that how you feel about your husband?'

“Lord, no! But Steve was hardly Richie Divine.'

“Maybe Richie Divine wasn't either.”

“What in the world does that mean?'

“I'm not sure,' Shelley said. 'It's just that he might not have been so 'divine' to live with. To be young and idolized might have made him an egotistical bastard at home. It would have been odd if it didn't. And it can't be fun living in the glare of public scrutiny—bodyguards everywhere, not being able to just run to the mall and shop or do anything like a normal person. You remember last year when Paul had that convention of his franchisers?'

“Yes?'

“Well, I got a little taste of very minor celebrity at the convention. Everybody was either toadying to me or resenting me because I was the boss's wife. It was creepy. I can see how Fiona's glad to be out of it.'

“I guess so, but why pick somebody like Albert Howard, the ultimate nerd?'

“Maybe he's terrific in bed,' Shelley speculated.

“Hmmmm—' Jane was sorry the subject had come up. Her imagination in such matters, after nearly a year of widowhood and celibacy, was beginning to revive like a desert plant suddenly watered.

“Forget hormones,' Shelley advised. 'Let's figure out how to get rid of your houseguests.”

SIX

It was too short a ride to come up with any  clear plan. They discussed and discarded murder, arson, bribery, rumors of epidemic, and outright rudeness. Shelley dropped Jane at the sidewalk and tore off to fulfill her school obligation.

Jane had just gotten in the house when the Jaguar was delivered. Jane was amazed at the way things worked for Phyllis. Perhaps there was something in her credit card number that tipped merchants off that they'd hooked a big one. The man who delivered her car all but swept off a cape and offered to let her walk on it.

Within minutes of the car's delivery, Bobby was gone, without apology, explanation, or indication of his anticipated return schedule. Phyllis gave him a handful of money and watched him screech away. A sickeningly fond look remained on her face long after he disappeared. Jane thought the odds were pretty good that he'd wreck the Jag by evening.

Phyllis went to her room to finish unpacking. Jane noticed that it was only one o'clock. This had already seemed a very long day, and it wasn't half done yet. She sat down at the kitchen table and smoked another cigarette. How many was that today? Far too many. What was she going to do with these people?

“Are you hungry?' she asked Phyllis when she came down from her room. She'd changed into jeans and a plaid shirt with a red sweater over it. Common enough outfit, but the jeans were so perfectly fitted and faded that