was indeed a bow, he opened the door.
“Your party, Mrs. Jones,” he said.
Renie rocked on the heels of her brown suede boots.
This was definitely the Jones party. All three of Renie
and Bill’s offspring sat at a table for at least a dozen
other people, some of whom looked vaguely familiar.
“Hi, Mom,” Tom said in greeting. “We thought
you’d never get here. Where’s Pop?”
FIFTEEN
“WHAT IS THIS?” Renie demanded when the maitre d’
had left and she regained her equilibrium. “What do
you mean, ‘Where’s Pop’?”
“Didn’t you get our note?” Anne said with an innocent look on her pretty face.
“What note?” Renie all but shouted. Then, realizing that she must be in the presence of her future inlaws, she tried to smile. “No. Where was it?”
Anne turned to Tony, who was seated four places
down the table. “Where did you put the note, Big T?”
Tony’s chiseled features were vague. “I thought
Tom put it up by the hall closet.”
“Not me,” Tom said with a shake of his curly dark
head. “You wrote it, Annie-Bannany. What’d you do
with it?”
“I didn’t write it,” Anne retorted. “I thought—”
“Hold it!” Renie cried, this time unable to keep
her voice down. But she managed a smile for her bewildered audience. “Your father and I never saw a
note. We haven’t been home since early this afternoon. How about introducing your poor old mother
and your just-as-poor-and-almost-as-old aunt to
these other folks?”
Anne and Tony both gazed at Tom as they always
did when they expected the eldest of their lot to take
responsibility. The others included a fair-haired young
man who was growing something fuzzy that looked
like it might become a goatee, a raven-haired young
woman who looked as if she could be Native American, a red-headed girl who looked faintly ethereal, and
a half-dozen middle-aged adults who looked as if they
wished they were somewhere else. The whole group
stared at Renie.
“We told you and Pop about the dinner tonight,”
Tom said, looking wounded. “Remember, it was Friday, and you mentioned having everybody over at our
house. But we said we thought it’d be better to go out.
You and Pop didn’t say anything, so we assumed it was
all set.”
“Probably,” Renie muttered to Judith, “they were all
talking at once—and so loud—that we couldn’t hear
them.”
“What’s that, Mom?” Tony inquired.
“I said I guess we goofed.” Renie looked unusually
subdued. “I’ll call Pop and get him over here.”
