remote, no one local person to blame. Not one upstanding local citizen who was already nearly broken with grief and guilt. He sneaked around, getting unflattering pictures of Dad, showing them on the news, carrying on about the poor innocent baby… Well, you've seen him in action here.'
“To my disgust,' Shelley said.
“It made King's career. And utterly destroyed my father. His reputation went into the hole with the house and people. Somebody…' He paused and cleared his throat to get the next words out. 'Somebody spat at him on the street.”
Bruce's voice shook and his eyes shone with tears.
They were all silent for a moment, trying to absorb the awful humiliation. Finally Shelley asked, 'That's why your family moved here?”
Bruce pulled out a big, ragged handkerchief and dabbed at his nose and eyes. 'Dad had a sister and brother in Chicago. He and Mom moved up here — I finished college in Kentucky and joined them. He intended to start over, but his heart and spirit were broken. He was such a good, good man. When he got here, he had a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized for a while, and his health started failing. He died three years later.'
“I think my heart is broken, Bruce,' Jane said.
He was obviously embarrassed. 'I'm sorry. I don't go around talking about this, but I thought you should know and I'd be glad if you didn't mention this to anyone else. It's downright dangerous for Lance King to even know who you are. He's always on the lookout for someone to destroy. And he's an expert at it. Makes himself look like a crusader for all that's right and good while perfectly innocent people have their lives torn to shreds. He killed my father. It was a long, tortured death.'
“That does it, Shelley. Lance King is pure scum and it would pollute my home to let him in,' Jane said, knowing she was sounding melodramatic and not caring.
Shelley said mildly, 'It's going to make him come down on you and Julie, you know.'
“Shelley, are you saying I'm wrong to take this stand?'
“Absolutely not. I'd do the same, but you do need to consider the possible consequences.'
“I don't care what kind of trouble Julie gets into. It's her fault to begin with. And there's nothing he can do to me. I have no dark secrets.' She smiled. 'Sometimes I wish I did. I'd be so much more interesting.'
“Jane, Bruce's father didn't have dark secrets either,' Shelley reminded her. 'There's nothing to stop Lance King from simply making up something.”
Jane sat down, deflated. 'I know that. But it's a matter of principle. Bruce is right: Lance King is evil. Deliberately, coldly evil. I couldn't betray someone as nice as Bruce by letting the man in the house and appearing to approve of him. I'm going to call Julie before I waver.”
Julie was crushed by Jane's ultimatum. Her voice wavered and she was near tears, but she agreed to call and cancel the Lance King visit. It was only ten minutes later that Julie called Jane back, bubbling and cheerful. 'It's all right. He took it really well, Jane. Said he understood that a television crew was a big imposition at the last minute.”
Jane was stunned. 'You actually spoke to him and he said that?'
“Yes, he was very considerate and understanding. I'm so relieved. I'm really sorry I acted without thinking and got us into this mess, but it's all worked out now.”
Jane hung up the phone, more alarmed than ever. This didn't sound like Lance King at all. And Jane simply couldn't buy the concept that he was secretly a considerate gentleman. But what could she do? He'd backed off, taken himself out of the picture, ceased to be a problem.
Jane spent the rest of the morning and half the afternoon getting out the Christmas decorations. The bottle- brush plastic tree was the first item. She hated having a plastic tree, but the real ones gave her hives. She dragged its assorted parts out of the big cardboard box in the basement, set it up, and then tackled the lights.
Strings of Christmas lights were mysterious and frustrating things. Every January when she put them away, she wound each strand separately, put a rubber band around it, andwrapped it in tissue paper. And every year, when she got them back out, they were in a hopeless snarl. During the summer they must have been doing wicked and vaguely obscene things with each other. Either that or Max and Meow, her two cats, entertained themselves playing in the box — which was much more likely but less fun to contemplate.
The next step was the tree ornaments. This always made her maudlin. Every ornament meant something dear to her. Among her favorites, there were the balls covered with glitter that Mike had decorated when he was a first-grader; the paper chain of rapidly disintegrating snowmen holding hands that Todd had cut out; the tiny china bride and groom her mother had sent the first year Jane was married; the miniature, fragile Swiss clock Shelley had given her; and the bird nest.
That one really made her weepy. The year Jane's husband had died, her honorary uncle Jim had declared that the children needed a real tree, Jane's hives notwithstanding. He promised her he'd put it up and take it down and she'd never have to touch the thing. They bundled up the kids and Jim drove them to a tree farm where they found a tree with an abandoned bird nest. It was carefully woven and held together with mud. Uncle Jim had made an uncharacteristically sappy remark about Jane and her baby birds that reduced her to tears then — and every time she got the bird nest out since then.
She so dearly loved the older man who had been a lifelong friend of her parents and had served as their substitute when she was wid? owed. Her father was with the State Department and had been helping to negotiate a treaty in a small African community that was unreachable by phone the week Steve died. But Uncle Jim, retired career army, second career Chicago cop, stiff as a poker and tough as nails, had been there for her.
She wiped away her tears and finished putting up the ornaments, then moved on to setting up the little manger scene. The kids had loved to play with the scene when they were little. The lambs had lost their little ceramic ears, baby Jesus had a crayon mark on His arm, and one of the wise men's camels had lost a leg years ago, which Jane had glued back a bit crookedly. The camel now stood in what looked like a drunken slouch with the wise man poised to fall off. The thatch on the roof of the manger had gradually disappeared in packing, unpacking, and being played with. But she'd never replace it with a respectable-looking new version.
The nutcracker figures were lined up on the mantel — it was supposed to be bad luck to put them away, but Jane always did so anyway. She got out the punch bowl and Christmas cups, the felt tree skirt her mother-in-law Thelma had made when Jane had Mike. Jane had always taken this gesture to mean that Thelma had acknowledged (grudgingly) that, having given birth to the first Jeffry grandchild, Jane was finally part of the family.
She filled the Santa bowl with candy canes, stuck the artificial wreath made of tiny foil packages on the refrigerator door, and set out the red and green candles all over the house. Mikecould set up the train and miniature village when he got home from college. It had always been his special job and he guarded it jealously. She hung the red tapestry stockings she'd gotten at the church craft sale the year before, put out the Christmas afghan, and stood back to admire her handwork. As if it were a signal, music started blasting from next door.
“O
She sighed heavily. Her activities had put both the dreaded Lance King and her very odd new neighbors out of her mind for several hours. Now reality and the present intruded and she went back to fretting about what the next couple days might hold in store.
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Jeffry, but I'll walk. My father says I can't get in other people's cars,' Pet Dwyer said precisely.
“I'm sure he meant strangers' cars, dear, and I'm not a stranger. But it's good advice. See you later.”
She was still shaking her head and chuckling when she pulled into the driveway. Shelley was just coming out to get her newspaper and followed Jane into Jane's house. 'What are you grinning about?' she asked. 'Did you win the lottery? Inherit fabulous jewelry from a long-lost aunt? Is your mother-in-law going on an around-the-world cruise for a year?'
