The Class Menagerie

of them. She was sorry that she and Shelley couldn't sit out on the patio, or at one of their kitchen tables, and chew it over together. They were such good, familiar friends that they could communicate in a verbal shorthand that was very comfortable. And sometimes very productive.

Edgar took over the sauce and Jane went to the dining room to set the table. Most of the women had gathered there and were standing around the silver coffee urn. They were discussing the fund-raising activities that had been decided on the evening before. Shelley would have been pleased.

As preoccupied as she was, Jane couldn't help but notice the change in Kathy. Instead of the dreadful

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hick/hippy clothes she'd been wearing before, she had on a very smart, crisp plaid blouse and neat denim skirt. This preppy, casual outfit even included a colorful woven belt, hose, and apparently some very effective underpinnings that did wonders for her rather generous figure. She was still a big woman, but a very tidy big woman.

Mimi and Beth were still in robes, albeit a very elegant black silk robe that would have done as a hostess gown in Mimi's case. Beth, in a tailored blue robe that looked utterly sexless, had gone remote, as if she'd fully realized that this wasn't a good place for a woman who had to maintain an impeccably orderly public life to be.

Avalon, in jeans and an elaborately knitted beige sweater with beads and what appeared to be twigs woven in, had really gotten into the fund-raising spirit and was chattering with Pooky about a craft booth someplace. They were deeply involved in the theoretical pricing of tie-dyed scarves. Crispy was still sulking.

Jane went back to the kitchen to eat. Gordon and Edgar were at the kitchen table, where they'd set a place for her and the policeman, who'd apparently heard about the practical joke with the underwear and was looking distinctly worried. Gordon was studying a piece of paper. 'It's very clever, isn't it? Look at all the details.'

'What's that?' Jane asked.

'One of the women gave Edgar this picture,' he said, turning it so she could see.

'Oh, Avalon's drawing of the carriage house. I thought Pooky had probably gotten it away from her. It is clever. That was nice of her to give it to you.'

'I'll get it framed next week. A deep gray mat with

a narrow black frame, I believe,' Gordon said. 'Where do you think it should go?'

'Upstairs for now,' Edgar said, 'if one of the guests is hot to get her hands on it. These women are really odd.'

Echoing Mel, Jane said, 'No, not all of them. Only one.'

12

'Where's Shelley today?' Crispy asked from the kitchen doorway.

'She's gone home for a while — to punch out her sister-in-law, probably,' Jane answered, stacking the last of the breakfast plates in the dishwasher.

'And what's become of Edgar?'

'He needed a few things from the grocery store. I told him to go on and I'd clean up.'

'Want some help?'

'No, but I'd love company. There's some coffee left, if you'd like.'

Crispy poured herself a cup and sat down with it and a cigarette. 'Want one?'

'When I'm done,' Jane said. 'I'm trying to cut down to six a day. But I went off the rails last night and smoked four in a row because I couldn't sleep.'

'I wish I could stop entirely,' Crispy said.

'Unfortunately, it takes more than wishing,' Jane replied.

'Listen, I'm sorry I was such an ass this morning about the underwear. It was just such a nasty trick and it really embarrassed me.'

Jane put a dishcloth in the bottom of the sink and laid the crystal juice glasses on their sides on it before running hot water over them. 'Crispy, answer me honestly, okay? Haven't you been the one playing the tricks?'

'God's truth, no!'

Jane poured dishwashing soap over the glasses and began to wash them. 'But when I first met you, you implied that you were here just to cause trouble.'

'Yes, but it soon became apparent to me that Lila was going to cause quite enough without any help from me,' Crispy said wryly.

'But Lila wasn't responsible for the underwear. Or that antique thing of Pooky's being stolen and hidden.'

'No….'

'Then who do you think it is playing the tricks?'

'I really haven't the faintest idea. Mimi, maybe?'

'Surely not! She was really angry about that thing of Pooky's being taken. She's the one who made everybody look for it.'

'How do you know that wasn't a good act?' Crispy asked. 'She's quite an actress, you know. Always had the lead in the school plays. We did Oklahoma our junior year and she played the goody- two-shoes role. Five minutes into it, you forgot all about her Chinese features and believed she was that girl. She played Lady Macbeth just as well.'

'Is that so?' Jane said. That was interesting information, and put her conversation with Mimi the previous afternoon in'a whole different light. Jane had accepted everything Mimi had said about the others without question. Maybe she should get a second opinion.

'Tell me about the others,' she said, carefully rinsing the crystal glasses and setting them on the counter on a dry towel.

'The kind version or the catty version?'

'Have you got two versions for everybody?'

Crispy laughed. 'No, I've only got the catty version. Well, you know everything I know about Kathy.'

'I mean what they were really like in high school. Not now.'

'Kathy in high school — hmmm, a spoiled rich girl with too much energy and intelligence, looking for something to focus it on that would make people pay attention to her and drive her parents crazy at the same time. She had attention and respect and love all mixed up and thought they were the same thing.'

Jane finished with the glasses and came to sit down at the kitchen table with Crispy, who pushed a leather cigarette case and silver lighter toward her. 'You've thought about them a lot, haven't you?' Jane said, taking a long drag.

'I did then. You probably won't believe this, but I was really shy and insecure then.'

'Come on.'

'I was. I thought I was the most boring person in the world — which was probably quite true — and so I paid a lot of attention to everybody else. Trying to decide which one of them I wanted to be when I grew up, I guess. Living a vicarious life through the others. I did have the sense, thank God, to know I didn't want to be Kathy, though.'

'Who did you want to be?'

'Either Beth or Lila,' Crispy answered without hesitation. 'That's odd, considering the way Lila turned out, but I did admire her then. She was a snooty little bitch, but she carried it off with style. Sort of like a young Katharine Hepburn. She always wore clothes that looked like they were hand-me-downs from a maiden aunt, but she wore them with such self-assurance that I envied her. I thought she seemed much more mature than the rest of us. I suppose it was

really only discontent, but it seemed like sophistication

to me.'

'You admired her more than Beth?' 'Not more. Just in a different way. Beth was absolutely perfect, but sort of remote, without any interesting sharp edges. Like she was always concentrating very hard on not turning into her mother. Poor Mrs. Vaughn, if she was a 'Mrs.' She tried so hard to fit in for Beth's sake. Came to all the Mother's Meetings and things, but always with too much makeup and clouds of cheap perfume and a voice a little too shrill. Beth was the kind of girl who probably didn't dare make very close friends with anybody because then she'd have to let them come to her house like friends do. And that might have wrecked her ambitions.