'I suppose I should bring this back later,' he said, shifting from foot to foot and rolling the top of the bag a little tighter.
'Oh, no; I'm sure we can find a space,' I said. I opened the refrigerator door wider and began shifting around Tupperware containers and foil-covered casseroles. 'What is it you've brought? Can we slip it here on top of the ham or--' I heard a slight noise and turned to find the kitchen empty. 'Mr. Wendell?' I peered out the back door. I could see Jake scuttling around the corner.
Irritating little man. I seemed to make him nervous. Probably senses that you don't like him, I told myself. Perhaps trying to get to know him was a lost cause. Perhaps I should just ignore him.
On the other hand, if Mother had asked him to bring over something for the party, she would expect to see it. I gulped the rest of my coffee and went after him.
Jake was making better time than I was. By the time I arrived at his house, a block and a half away, he was nowhere in sight. I trudged up the porch steps and was lifting my hand to knock on the screen door when I heard a female voice say, 'So there you are!'
I whirled, and saw no one.
'I just went down the street to Margaret's,' came Jake's voice from inside the house. I realized the woman was inside, too, and not talking to me.
'To hide something, I suppose?' the voice continued. 'Something of Emma's? The missing jewelry, maybe?'
'Just some food for the party,' Jake said, meekly. 'I told you, Jane; all of Emma's jewelry is in the safety deposit box. Emma was very careful about that. I'm sure the key will turn up.'
Ah, I thought. This must be the sister-in-law. Emma, presumably, was Jake's late wife. And here I'd arrived in the midst of a family quarrel. Over missing jewelry, no less. I was tempted to stay and eavesdrop, but my conscience won out. I turned and began sneaking quietly off the porch.
'I'll bet you've given it all to that blond hussy you're marrying,' Jane went on. I paused. I'd heard Mother called many interesting things--had called her a few myself--but 'blond hussy' was a new one, even for Mother.
'No, no, no! Margaret doesn't know they're here--or in the safety deposit box, rather. I told her all Emma's good things had gone to pay the medical bills that the insurance didn't cover.'
'Well, they've gone somewhere, haven't they? The Sheridan console that used to be here, and the Wyeth--'
'I told you, Jane; it's all in storage.'
'We'll see about that. We'll see if your fiancee happens to have a Sheridan console like Emma's.'
'Please don't do that. You'll upset her.'
'I've a mind to go over there right now,' Jane said. Hearing her footsteps coming my way, I whirled and ran pell-mell for home.
I need to exercise more, I told myself, as I sprawled, panting, on my chair in the kitchen, awaiting the onslaught of Jake and his sister-in-law. I'll just have to tell them I was doing my exercises, I thought. Oh, sure; Jake will certainly believe that, having seen me semicomatose in the kitchen a few minutes before. I stood up and did a few jumping jacks to add a note of realism for their arrival. After a few minutes I switched to sit-ups. When five or ten minutes passed with no sign of irate sisters-in-law, I abandoned my charade and went back to the kitchen for more coffee.
Damn Jake, anyway. At least he'd talked his sister-in-law out of storming over here immediately, but I had a premonition that trouble was still coming. Did Jake really think he had to put his late wife's possessions in storage to keep them out of Mother's clutches? And why didn't he just show them to his sister-in-law? Probably no time; she'd only just arrived a few hours ago. I hoped he did it soon. The way she sounded, I suspected that when she didn't find her sister's jewelry and furniture here, she'd accuse Mother of selling them. Which was nonsense. I could see Mother appropriating a piece of jewelry or furniture she thought was about to become hers anyway, and having to be gently but firmly told to give it back. I couldn't possibly see her selling them.
Mother arrived back from church just before noon, followed almost immediately by about fifteen or twenty relatives and neighbors, bearing flowers, extra plates and glasses, and more food in amazing quantities. The expected chaos reigned right up until the party began. I was a nervous wreck, expecting Jake's sister-in-law to arrive any moment shrieking accusations. The fact that she hadn't shown up yet was no relief; I was sure she was postponing the confrontation till the party, where she'd have a bigger audience. At least that's what Mother or any of my aunts would have done.
In retrospect, it seems appropriate that the summer's first known threats of homicide were uttered during the party preparations--although unlike at least one other local resident, I wasn't serious. My nerves were shot, and I was only trying to keep Dad and several of the uncles from decimating the buffet before the other guests arrived.
Mother is fond of remarking that she looks forward to the hour when a party begins because then she can stop working and start having fun. That may be true for her--although Pam and I have noticed that any work she does is purely supervisory. For me, the start of a party only means a change from the tangible, boring, but satisfactory work of cooking, cleaning, and decorating to the unpredictable and far more difficult task of keeping several hundred neighbors and family members from injuring each other or driving me crazy before the end of the evening.
I almost jumped out of my skin when Mother glided over to me with another woman in tow and said, 'Meg, this is our guest of honor--Jane Grover, Jake's sister-in-law.'
At first glance, Mrs. Grover seemed harmless. She was a short woman with badly hennaed hair and a loud print dress. She and Mother didn't look as if they'd had a quarrel. But after a second I realized that her smile looked artificial and her eyes cold.
'How nice to finally meet you, my dear,' Mrs. Grover said, with a look that somehow seemed to insinuate that she had witnessed my shameless eavesdropping on the porch. 'We must talk later.'
I stammered a greeting and escaped as soon as possible. In the direction of the bar. I watched her and Mother making the rounds of the party. Well, at least they were both on their best behavior.
The party was in full swing, and I'd already confiscated firecrackers from two small cousins and a golf club from an inebriated uncle when Michael arrived.
'Didn't your mother say she was just having a few people over?' he said, incredulously, as he stood at the edge of the sea of guests in our backyard.
'For Mother, this is a few people,' I said.
'She doesn't count family,' Pam said. 'At least half of the horde's family.'
'The weirder half,' I added.
'Oh, by the way,' Michael said, holding out a bunch of flowers.
'Mother will be charmed,' I said. 'I'll lead you to her so you can present them in person. Don't get in the way of the croquet players,' I warned, giving the flying mallets a wide berth. Michael paused to watch the game.
'Croquet!' he exclaimed, taking in the spectacle of a dozen middle-aged and elderly aunts in flowery summer dresses and sun hats posing among the wickets. 'It's wonderful! Like something out of a Merchant Ivory film.'
'Yes, the croquet clique do tend to dress the part, I'll give them that,' I said. 'But if you're under the impression that croquet is a genteel, civilized, Waspy way to spend a summer afternoon, don't look too close-- they'll spoil all your illusions. It's a blood sport for them.'
'Really?' Michael said, incredulously. Just then, one aunt hit another's ball out with a swing that would have been more at home on a golf course than the croquet grounds.
'Ball!' shrieked all the croquet players, and most of the assembled guests-- family, anyway--either dropped to the ground or flung their arms over their heads. The ball landed harmlessly in the swimming pool. Its owner, after a few minutes of waving her mallet around and verbally abusing her rival, stormed over to cajole Eric into diving for her ball.
Yes, the party was definitely hitting its stride. One of the uncles had taken his favorite perch on the diving board and was enthusiastically conducting a program of chamber music. My niece was lurking near the CD player in the hopes of slipping the 1812 Overture into the program and seeing him fall off the board again. About the usual
