“Certainly. It’s in all the papers. And with you up at the APOA during all these goings-on, I was hoping for a comment on the story from you—one with a local connection, of course.”
Before Marliss finished making her pitch, Joanna was already shaking her head. “I don’t have anything at all to say about that,” she answered. “It’s not my case.”
“But you are involved in it, aren’t you? Eleanor told me that you missed Thanksgiving dinner because—”
“It’s not my mother’s case, either,” Joanna said tersely. “I can’t see how anything she would have to say would have any bearing at all on what’s be happening.”
“Well,” Marliss said. “I just wondered about the woman who was injured. Is Leann Jessup a particular friend of yours?”
“Leann and I are classmates,” Joanna answered. “We’re the only women in that APOA session, naturally we’ve become friends.”
“But she’s, well, you know.... “
“She’s what?” Joanna asked.
Marliss didn’t answer right away. In the long silence that followed Marliss Shackleford’s snide but unfinished question, Joanna finally figured out what the reporter was after, what she was implying but didn’t have nerve enough to say outright.
Of course, the lesbian issue. Since Leann Jessup was a lesbian and since she and Joanna were friends, did that mean Joanna was a lesbian, too?
Knowing an angry denial would only add fuel to the gossip-mill fire, Joanna struggled momentarily to find a suitable response. She was saved by a timely knock on the door.
“Look, Marliss, someone’s here. I’ve got to go.”
Joanna hung up the phone and hurried to the door, where she checked the peephole. Bob Brundage, suitcase in hand, stood outside her door.
“I came by to tell you good-bye in private,” he said, when she opened the door and let him in. “Good-bye and thanks. I couldn’t very well do that with Eleanor hanging on our every word.”
“Thanks?” Joanna repeated. “For what?”
He shrugged. “I can see now that showing up like this was very selfish of me. I was only interested in what I wanted, and I didn’t give a whole lot of thought as to how my arrival would impact one else—you in particular.”
After all those years of being an only child, I confess finding out about you was a bit of a shock,” Joanna admitted. “But it’s all right. I don’t mind, not really. Was Eleanor what you expected?”
Bob shook his head. “Over the years, I had conjured up a very romantic image of the young woman who gave me away—a cross between Cinderella and Snow White. In a way, I’m sorry to give her up. It’s a little like finding out the truth about Santa Claus.”
“What do you mean?” Joanna asked.
“I mean the woman I spent a lifetime imagining is very different from the reality. I’d say Eleanor Lathrop was a lot easier to live with as a figment of my imagination than she is as a real live woman who can’t seem to resist telling you what to do.”
“Oh, that,” Joanna laughed. “You noticed?”
He nodded. “How could I help but?”
“She’s done it for years,” Joanna said. “I’m used to a
