impression on me, which is why he's been hovering over Dad even more than me since he got here.'
'And getting in good with your Dad isn't important to making a favorable impression on you?' Michael asked. Dad saw us, waved, and began walking our way.
'It is, but I doubt if Barry has any chance of doing it,' I replied.
'What a remarkably obtuse young man,' Dad said, shaking his head as he joined us. Michael chuckled.
'I quite agree,' I said. 'Mother thinks he's very sweet.'
'Really,' Dad said.
'Of course, she has incredibly bad taste in men--present company excepted, of course.'
'Of course,' Dad said.
'She always liked Jeffrey, she's very taken with Barry, and she's even rather fond of Scotty the Sot,' I said.
'Your mother strikes me as the sort of person who would be a sucker for stray animals, too,' Michael remarked.
'Oh, she is.' Dad beamed.
'But since we kids started going off to college and weren't around full time to feed them for her, she's gotten very good at getting other people to adopt them,' I added.
I left Dad and Michael to entertain each other and strolled through the lawn, greeting friends and neighbors and adding to my napkin collection. One of Eileen's aunts gave me the new address for sending her invitation. A neighbor knew a calligrapher. Mrs. Fenniman knew a cheaper one. An aunt's new (third) husband was starting a catering business. By midafternoon I had to make a trip into the house to empty out my napkin collection.
When I came back out, I paused and looked over the lawn, bracing myself to dive back into the crowd. I noticed Samantha and Mrs. Grover standing a little apart at one end of the pool. From the looks of it, they weren't exchanging pleasantries.
I admit it, I'm nosy. I went over to join them.
'I'm sure you wouldn't want that to get out,' Mrs. Grover was saying as I strolled into earshot.
'I have no idea what you could possibly be referring to,' Samantha said in an icy tone.
'Well, we'll talk about it some other time, dear,' Mrs. Grover said, so softly I could barely hear her. For a few seconds, she and Samantha appeared to be having a staring contest, and although neither appeared to take any notice of me, I knew perfectly well that both were acutely conscious of me and that my arrival had interrupted--what? As far as I knew, Samantha and Mrs. Grover had only just met. What could possibly be causing this undeniable antagonism between Samantha and her fiance's future stepfather's first wife's sister? What did Mrs. Grover know that Samantha wouldn't want to get out?
'Aunt Meg!' My melodramatic speculations were interrupted by Eric, who had appeared at my side and was tugging at my arm. 'Come see what Duck did!'
'I can't imagine,' I muttered, following him to a spot in the shrubbery. Mrs. Grover tagged along.
'What is it?' she asked.
'Duck laid another egg,' Eric said. 'Aunt Meg, what am I going to do with it? I don't have another shirt pocket, and I could put it in my pants pocket, but--'
'In warm weather like this, I think it will be fine until we get the incubator,' I said. 'Don't worry about it.'
'Okay,' Eric said. Spotting some newly arrived cousins, he ran off to play, presumably entrusting the care of Duck's egg to me.
'He's remarkably dependent on that bird,' Mrs. Grover said, in a disparaging tone.
'Children are devoted to their pets,' I said.
'Not exactly a normal sort of pet, though, is it?' she said, in a slimy, insinuating tone that seemed to imply that most arsonists and ax murderers started on the road to ruin through unnatural attachments to waterfowl.
'They have a number of dogs, too,' I said, defensively. 'But only one Duck.'
'Yes, and I rather think we can keep it that way, don't you?' Mrs. Grover said, and before I realized what she was doing, deliberately squashed Duck's egg with the heel of her shoe.
'Don't! Eric's pet laid that!'
'Ugh,' she said, as the contents of the egg splattered her foot. 'The nasty thing is all over me.'
'Well, what did you expect? Did you think ducks laid hard-boiled eggs? Don't touch that!' I said, swatting her hand away as she reached to strip a clump of leaves off one of Professor Donleavy's more fragile tropical bushes. 'Don't touch any of the bushes; hasn't Dad warned you about all the galloping skin rashes you can get from the foliage around here?'
'Then get me some napkins,' she ordered, shaking her foot and spattering me with droplets of egg, while scrubbing her hand on her dress.
'Get your own napkins,' I snapped. 'And don't let Eric see you. We're going to have a hard enough time explaining why the egg's gone; you have no idea how upset he'll be if he sees you with egg all over your foot.'
I snagged a few napkins from the buffet table, cleaned the splatters of egg off my dress as best I could, and retreated to the opposite side of the yard to fume.
'What's wrong, Meg?' Michael asked, appearing at my elbow. I jumped.
'Don't sneak up on me like that!' I said.
'Especially when I'm already feeling guilty about contemplating homicide.'
'Really,' he said, handing me a fresh glass of wine. 'Who's the intended victim?'
'Mrs. Grover.'
'You may have to stand in line,' he replied. 'What's she done to you?'
'She deliberately smashed Duck's latest egg. I know it's trivial, but she very nearly did it in front of Eric, and you saw how upset he was at the very idea of something happening to the first egg. It was just so ...'
'Cold,' Michael said. 'Very cold. I know exactly how you feel. She sets my teeth on edge.'
'Who's that?' asked Dad appearing so suddenly that I jumped again. 'Goodness, you're nervous today, Meg.'
'That's understandable,' Michael said. 'She's contemplating homicide.'
'Mrs. Grover, of course,' Dad said, nodding. 'I do hope she won't come to visit often when they're married. I hate to think of Margaret having to put up with her all the time.'
'Mother's probably the only one of us who's a match for her,' I said.
'Meg!' Dad exclaimed. 'Your mother is nothing like Mrs. Grover!'
'I didn't say she was like her,' I protested. 'I said she was a match for her. As in, I defy Mrs. Grover to get Mother's goat the way she's getting to everyone else around here.'
'Your mother feels things more than she shows sometimes,' Dad said, reprovingly. 'I plan to do whatever I can to see that she doesn't have Mrs. Grover on her hands any more than necessary this summer. She doesn't need that with everything else she has to do to get ready for the wedding.'
'All the things she's doing!' I began, but before I could get much further, Dad had trotted off.
'He looks like a man with a purpose,' Michael remarked.
'Yes, but what purpose, I have no idea,' I said. 'Not to rescue Mother, certainly. Mrs. Grover seems to have latched on to Barry at the moment, and I'm all for letting him go unrescued for as long as possible.'
'Amen,' said Michael.
In fact, I was definitely hoping no one would interrupt Mrs. Grover's tete-a-tete with Barry, since she seemed to be accomplishing the hitherto unknown feat of getting him hot under the collar. He was frowning and getting very red in the face; you could almost see the steam pouring out of his ears. He seemed to be looking for rescue. He kept glancing in my direction and then frowning all the harder. He would have to wait a long time before I rescued him. Unless--a sudden thought hit me. He wasn't just glowering at me, he was glowering at us. Michael and me. I would be willing to bet almost anything that Mrs. Grover was trying to make him jealous of Michael. Only Barry would be dim enough to fall for that one, I supposed. But the ridiculousness of it wouldn't necessarily prevent Barry from taking some violent action if he got much madder. He should avoid getting angry, I thought. It didn't suit him at all. His eyes got small and piggy and he reminded me more with each passing moment of the bull in a cartoon bullfight, snorting and pawing the earth and preparing to charge. Michael, who would be playing the part of matador if Barry did charge, didn't seem the least bit alarmed.
I finally decided that it would be better to rescue Barry, for Michael's sake if nothing else, and had actually
