“When were you and Regina to have been married?' Shelley asked.
He looked offended at the bluntness of the question and answered stiffly, 'We hadn't set a date yet.'
“Oh, I must have misunderstood,' Shelley said. 'I thought you were to have announced your engagement at the ground-breaking.'
“You didn't misunderstand. That was our intention. We just hadn't decided on a date.'
“I guess Regina wasn't in any hurry to get married,' Shelley remarked. 'What with having a good job and her own home and—'
“If you'll excuse me?' he said, flipping off the computer and rising. 'I believe I'll wait by the front door.'
“That's a pissed-off architect,' Jane said when he was out of earshot. 'What did you do that for?'
“I just wanted to get some idea of what he was like, and he's wrapped in so many layers of social respectability, I figured making him mad was the only way.'
“Well, the making-him-mad part sure worked. What did we learn?'
“That he's a snob.'
“Right. So?'
“I don't know. What if he found out that Regina wasn't what she was supposed to be? Maybe she was from the wrong side of the tracks.'
“Was she?'
“I'm being theoretical, Jane.'
“Well, theoretically, then, I imagine he'd break the engagement rather than kill her. And it probably wouldn't have been hard to break it off. Sharlene said Regina was hesitant anyway.'
“Yes. And that really got under his skin, didn't it?'
“Well, it would, Shelley. If he really loved her, which we have to assume he did — in his own upper-crusty way — it must have been painful that she wasn't snatching the ring from his hand and shopping for a wedding gown.'
“But why wasn't she, Jane? He's a catch. Rich, good-looking, respectable. I've seen his picture in the society section of the paper any number of times. Always heading up one charity ball or another.'
“Maybe she wasn't madly in love with him.'
“Then why would she bother with him at all?' Shelley asked. 'She was an attractive, intelligent woman; had a good job, social position of her own — if that mattered to her. I admit I didn't know her at all well, but she didn't strike me as the type who was panting after marriage. She was well into her thirties. If she'd wanted to marry, she must have had plenty of chances before.'
“Biological clock?' Jane suggested.
“Maybe. Or maybe she really did love him, but knew something about him that made her wary.'
“Like a crazy wife locked up in the attic?”
“Jane, you're being silly!'
“And you're really stretching your imagination to the breaking point because you don't like Whitney Abbot.”
Shelley grinned. 'No, I guess I don't. I wonder why that is.'
“Because he wouldn't let you bully him.”
“Moi? A bully? Jane! Oh-ho,' she finished, glancing past Jane to the door.
“Who have you been bullying now?' Mel asked from the doorway. 'And where is everybody?”
Eleven
Having determined the rest of the day was ruined for working, Jane and Shelley left the Snellen, resolved to make up for lost time tomorrow.
Jane snagged her younger son as he was leaving for the swimming pool and made him go shopping with her for new school clothes instead. For the first time in history, he didn't object. She came out of the mall an hour later, blowing on her credit card as if it were singed.
“Thanks for the cool clothes, Mom,' Todd said.
“They're not cool clothes. They're ridiculous and you'll probably get sent home from school to grow into them, but you're welcome anyway.'
“Drop me at the pool?”
She nodded and turned the car in that direction. 'So long as you're home in time for dinner.'
“What's for dinner?'
“Tuna casserole.'
“Yuck!' he said. 'I mean, oh, yum!'
“You know perfectly well you love my tuna casserole. You're just programmed to say yuck.”
She dropped him off and went home, dragging his new clothes inside and dumping them at the foot of the stairs. Her daughter, Katie, ever alert to the sound of shopping bags, galloped down the stairs. 'You went shopping without me!' she said accusingly.
“For Todd. You're this weekend.'
“Mom, I can shop for myself. Why don't you just give me the money and save yourself the trouble of coming along?'
“Nuh-uh. Unless you can do it on fifty dollars.'
“Fifty dollars! I couldn't even get decent shoes for that.'
“That's exactly what I'm afraid of.'
“Come on, Mom. You only want to buy me geeky-looking stuff.'
“I thought only boys could be geeks,' Jane said, perplexed. 'And you're the one who wants all that clunky, no-color, ugly unisex stuff, not me.”
Katie rolled her eyes. 'Yeah, you'd have me in perky little white sandals and pink dresses with matching ribbons in my hair if you could. Mom, you're okay, but your sense of style is twenty years out of date.'
“But my checkbook's not,' Jane said firmly.
This was such an old argument that either one of them could have recited her part and the other's in her sleep. Often Katie actually seemed toenjoy the familiar dispute. Today she wasn't in the mood. She followed Jane into the kitchen. 'What's for dinner?”
Jane sighed. 'Tuna casserole. And you like it, too, no matter what you say.'
“I think I'll eat at Jenny's house.'
“Jenny's mother might have an opinion on that.'
“I'll call.' But before she could pick up the phone, it rang. Todd, reporting that his friend Elliott had invited him home for dinner. After ascertaining that Elliott's mother theoretically knew about this, Jane put away the tuna and pasta. Next time they asked what was for dinner, she'd lie. Her older son, Mike, was working as a delivery boy for a fancy deli and usually got dinner as part of his pay, so there was no point in cooking for him. In fact, she'd order out from the deli as well, she decided, after giving the contents of the refrigerator a once-over.
She'd just settled down an hour later with a Reuben sandwich and the deli's special homemade potato chips when Shelley knocked at the kitchen door. Jane waved her in.
Shelley had brought her own enormous coffee cup and set it down across the kitchen table from Jane. 'Well, you'll be glad to know I did a Good Thing,' she said. 'After you left the museum, I went back in and apologized profusely to Whitney Abbot for upsetting him. I was gracious. He was even more gracious. All is sweetness and light between us.'
“But you still suspect him?'
“Of course I do. But I can't think of a good reason, except that he's a prig.'
“And I still think you're on the wrong track. From all I've heard about Regina, she and Whitney Abbot were perfectly suited. Remote, formal, socially acceptable, ambitious—'
“But, Jane, that's precisely the point! If they were such an ideal couple, why the shilly-shallying on Regina's part about getting engaged and setting a date?'
“Maybe she had a secret dream of a dashing reprobate sweeping her off her prim feet. Not such a bad dream, or an uncommon one.'
“Are you telling me you're turning Mel in for a pool hustler?”
Jane laughed. 'Not quite. Have a potato chip.”
