getting married when this is all settled.'
“What!' It was a yelp.
“Aren't you? Oh, I'm sorry. But we heard that's why she was divorcing her husband.'
“She's telling people that?' he asked, dropping his notebook and pencil. 'No, no. She wouldn't. No. Mrs. Stonecipher and I are just friends. Really. Boys! Are you ready? Are your rides all here?”
He scrabbled for his notebook and went tearing off to hustle them along.
“Jeez, Jane!' Shelley said, laughing. 'What a reaction. You scared him half to death.'
“I think it's Rhonda who's scaring him,' Jane said.
Shelley watched as Tony Belton started herding the boys toward the waiting cars. 'I don't think any of that was an act, do you? I think the blackmailing news was really a kidney punch.'
“Mel's going to have a fit if it gets back to him that I talked about it. But if Patsy Mallett's figured it out, I imagine a lot of people have. Wonder why Tony didn't?'
“When's he had time to figure anything out?' Shelley said. 'Rhonda's been leading him around by the nose, making him fetch and carry and write eulogies and call relatives. He can't be too stupid to have seen what the police were getting at if he'd had time to consider about it. From his viewpoint, it must be pretty devastating. Whatever his role is in what remains of the firm, think how bad it'll look when it's public knowledge that Stonecipher and Weyrich were keeping blackmail files.'
“Wow! I hadn't thought about that!' Jane said.
“But Tony is,' Shelley said. 'Poor guy. And then you hit him with that marrying Rhonda thing. That was a master stroke, Jane.'
“Rhonda sure wouldn't have been flattered at the way he reacted.”
They headed toward the car, just as they heard the first roll of thunder.
Shelley pointed at the sky. 'Please note! My lawn watering worked.”
1 9 It was pouring down rain by the time they got home. They'd dropped off the other boys in the car pool and their own two had hopped out. As she got out, Shelley said, 'Being in a closed car with a bunch of sweaty twelve-year-old boys is not one of life's dreams. In fact, we may have just had a glimpse of what hell really is like.”
Jane went inside and contemplated the contents of the refrigerator. It was a rare treat to have a range of choices. Of course anything she made would seem ordinary after she'd eaten so much of Conrad's marvelous cooking lately. The rain had been swept in by surprisingly cold air, and Jane thought a stew might be nice, but it was too late to start one. She rejected chili because it wasn't cold
Katie came into the kitchen and offered to help. Jane tried to hide her astonishment. She put the macaroni and cheese into the oven, started making the hamburger patties, and set Katie to work on the salad.
“That's not veal, is it?' Katie asked suspiciously.
“Veal? Of course not.'
“Because I saw a program on television about veal and the way the poor little calves are kept in these tiny pens—'
“Katie, please. I know. And I don't want to hear about it. I can't afford veal anyway so it will never be a political issue around here.'
“But not buying it because you can't afford it isn't the same as not buying it because it's immoral,' Katie said.
“Comes to the same thing,' Jane said, putting plastic wrap over the plate of hamburgers and checking on the macaroni.
“Mom, don't you care about stuff like that?”
This sort of question was normally rhetorical and belligerent, but this time Katie seemed to be asking it sincerely. 'Katie, there's so much in the world that a person could be upset about that you could be miserable every minute of the day. Come sit down. The salad looks good.”
They sat at the kitchen table. 'It's so hard to be your age,' Jane said.
“Yeah, you're telling me!' Katie said.
“You're just starting to really notice the world around you — in an adult way,' Jane went on. 'And there's a lot wrong with it. But there's a lot right with it, too. A lot of good things.”
Katie nodded. 'Like those little kids at the Vacation Bible School. Mom, they're so cute.”
“You're liking this job, then?'
“Sure. It's fun. Too bad they're not paying me better,' she said, descending from her high moral plateau to the purely practical.
Jane bit back the response that she and Katie were both lucky Katie had any kind of summer job, otherwise they'd be in each other's hair all the time. As it was, they still had all of August to drive each other crazy since the bible school only ran through June and July.
“So, why don't you care about the cute little calves?' Katie asked, unwilling to let the subject go.
“I do care, but there are things I care about a lot more. You and Mike and Todd being at the top of the list and taking up a lot of space. And then I pick and choose pretty carefully what else goes on my particular list. I drive my group of blind kids to their school once a week during the year because the school can't afford bus service and that's a little way I can help. I helped at the graduation night party, which I think is worthwhile. I work on fundraising things for good causes like—'
“But Mom, those are nice things, but they're so — so small. I'm talking about big problems. Like the environment and peace and stuff like that.'
“I know. But since I haven't got the slightest idea how to ensure world peace and nobody would have any reason to listen to me even if I thought I knew, I do what I can.'
“Well, I want to do something important!' Katie said.
“I hope you do. I think you will someday. And if you want my advice, pick
“Uh-huh. Gross! Dying there in the middle of all that food!'
“The point is, he was one of those people who couldn't pick a cause and stick to it. He had a new cause every couple weeks. And he didn't get very far with any of them because he'd made so many people mad with the ones that went before. Someday,' she added with a grin, 'when you're old enough to appreciate it, I'll introduce you to Patsy Mallett. You could probably take over the world with her philosophy. But I don't think you're cynical enough to appreciate it yet.”
Jane got up to check on the progress of dinner, and Katie started setting the table.
After dinner, Jane went into the living room and moved an easy chair where she could sit and just look at the rain soaking the back yard. Her floundering vegetable garden would be happy even if the petunias already had their faces down in the mud. Max and Meow came in and got into tidy watchful positions in front of the window, glaring at the rain as if it were a personal affront.
Jane found herself thinking back to what she'd said to Katie about Stonecipher and his causes. In retrospect, she decided she'd been wrong. It wasn't merely that he went from one cause to another, it was that all of them were essentially adversarial to someone else with a lot at stake. Unlike Jane's own driving of the blind children or working at the graduation night party or helping raise funds to replace dangerously out-of-date playground equipment at the park — in which there were no 'enemies' — Stonecipher's causes always pitted him against someone else: property owners, individual businesses, and people's personal freedoms.
His causes also made him highly visible. Which, the more Jane thought about it, could have been the basic motivation. Maybe his real desire was simply to show off and garner lots of attention. Of course, Jane's view of him now was highly colored by knowing about his nasty secret file cabinet. She simply couldn't believe that somebody who was basically immoral could sincerely espouse moral causes.
Trying to be fair, if only in her own mind, Jane reminded herself that there was no proof that Stonecipher had ever made use of the files. But even if he hadn't used them yet, why would a person keep such things if he didn't
