Zowee! Edie thought as she walked back across the campus to her mother’s car. Zowee! Zowee! Zowee!

In the car she pulled off her jacket, tossed it onto the back seat, kicked off her heels, which had elevated her exactly to the level of Peter Darling’s gray-green eyes, threw them into the back, too, and sat grinning idiotically at the cracked green vinyl-covered dashboard.

Zowee!

Shaking her head, she pulled down the driving mirror to look at her face: flushed scarlet. The car, she noted belatedly, was a furnace. She rolled down the driver’s window, still seeing Peter Darling’s face.

Zowee!

If every female in the place wasn’t having indecent dreams about him, she’d…eat her press pass.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I think that writing fiction is a little like making a patchwork quilt—you take a little of this, a piece of that and, oh yes, got to find a place for that little scrap. I felt that way as I wrote Return to Little Hills. While the characters, the situations and the locales are all fiction, I frequently found myself digging into the ragbag of my own life.

Okay, this is the time to say—I should probably underline this part—that my own elderly mother, while hard of hearing, is much more kind, understanding and all-around wonderful than Edie’s mother. Are you reading this, Mum? And my sister, Kathleen, is—thankfully—nothing at all like Viv. Okay, Kaff?

That said, though, I really enjoy writing about the dynamics of family relationships. Families are a source of incredible joy and comfort and, let’s face it, have the unique capacity to get under our skin in no time flat, as my heroine, Edie, discovers when she returns to her hometown of Little Hills, Missouri.

I hope you enjoy Return to Little Hills. Please write to me at Janice Macdonald, P.O. Box 101, 136 East 8th Street, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or visit my Web site at www.janicemacdonald.net.

Oh, one more thing. If, like Edie (and myself), you’re a gooey-butter-cake aficionado, send me your recipes! I’ll try to publish a few on my Web site.

Best wishes,

Janice

Return to Little Hills
Janice Macdonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Kaff, with much love

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

“DON’T SNAP AT ME,” Edie Robinson’s mother said as Edie maneuvered Maude’s elderly Chevrolet Nova into the parking lot of the Little Hills IGA. “No one asked you to come back. You’re busy, we all know that. You’ve got an important job. Nobody expects anything from you. All I said was I needed toilet paper—”

“You told me four times, Mom.”

“Why would I have said limes?” Maude’s voice was indignant. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a lime if it bit me on the nose. I need toilet paper and…denture cleaner,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper. “But if you’re going to snap at me, forget it. Viv will take me. Viv can always make time, not that she isn’t busy, too, but all I have to do is pick up the phone and—”

“Viv walks on water, Mom. I don’t.” “Sarcastic,” Maude would have shot back if she’d heard anything more than a muffled jumble of words. “You’ve always been sarcastic, Edith.” With her right hand, Edie massaged the knot of tension in the back of her neck that usually only hit her when she procrastinated on a deadline, and cruised the lot for a parking space close to the market entrance. She watched a woman in pink tights and a maternity top load groceries and three small kids into a minivan. God. Three kids and the woman had to be at least fifteen years younger than she was. Edie glanced in the rearview mirror, frowned at the vertical lines around her mouth and thought to hell with it. When the van finally pulled away, Edie slid into the spot, switched off the ignition and turned in the seat to look directly at her mother.

Maude was eighty and, despite the late-summer Missouri heat, wore a black woolen cardigan over a cotton housedress blooming with improbably vivid peonies. On her feet, little pink ballerina-style slippers and knee-high support hose. For some reason, the sight of Maude’s tiny slipper-clad feet and swollen ankles made Edie want to weep. She reached over and scooped up Maude’s left hand in her own. Maude’s felt soft and almost boneless, fingers clutched around a wad of tissue. “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Edie said. “I’m sorry.”

Her chin trembling, Maude scrabbled for the door handle. “You’ve always had a short temper, Edith. I said to Viv just the other day, I never know what’s going to set Edith off. You’ll have to come and open this door for me, it sticks. You’re just like your father in that way.” She pushed ineffectively at the door. “Viv said she’d have Ray look at it—”

“Mom, leave the door alone. I’ll open it for you. You need to get rid of this damn car. Unless,” she muttered facetiously, “you’re going to start driving again.”

“Ham.” Maude clutched her purse close to her chest. “They’ve got that sliced ham on sale. I like a slice of ham for dinner. Can’t eat anything too heavy before I go to bed, or I’m up all night with heartburn. Viv tell you about the new principal at Ray’s school?”

“She mentioned him.” An understatement. From the moment Viv picked her up at the airport the night before, her sister had talked about little else. Peter Darling: English, wife died of cancer, four small children, collects butterflies, Ray says he won’t last. Too pie-in-the sky. Twenty years of journalism had trained her to isolate and retain the salient facts of any information she was given. She’d retained these particular snippets because the idea of raising four small children with or without a spouse appalled her and because she’d probably meet Peter Darling tomorrow when she gave a talk to students at the school. Her brother-in-law, the assistant principal, had hit her with the request late last night and she’d agreed before she realized she didn’t particularly want to do it.

Too late now. She grabbed the keys, got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. Waves of heat rose up from the parking lot. A line of sweat trickled down her back, pasting her cotton shirt to her skin. It had been nearly midnight when she’d stepped out of the airport and the warm, moist temperature had hit her like a slap in the face. This morning, the relentlessly cheerful weatherman on Maude’s ancient Magnavox had announced that the day promised to be another scorcher, even hotter than yesterday. She’d snapped off the set as he’d been yammering on about the misery index.

No one expects anything from you. She pulled open the heavy door and leaned inside to unfasten her mother’s seat belt. Maude’s hair, soft and fine as cobwebs, brushed against her cheek. Edie caught a whiff of mothballs and peppermint candy. But you’re glad I’m here, aren’t you, Mom? You miss me sometimes. Don’t you?

“Okay, there you go.” She stood back and extended her hand; Maude ignored it. “Going to be another hot day,” she said as Maude slowly swung her legs around. “You’re going to bake in that sweater. Want me to help you off with it?”

“Don’t rush me.” Maude’s little pink slippers were gingerly touching down on the asphalt. “I know you’re in a hurry, you’re always in a hurry, but it takes me a while these days.”

“Take your time, Mom. I’m not going anywhere.” Her mother’s face was flushed with heat and exertion and, as she helped her out of the car, Edie slid her palm under the shoulder of Maude’s black sweater and felt damp warmth. “Let me help you take it off, Mom. You’ll be more comfortable.”

Maude shook off Edie’s hand. “The store’s air-conditioned. I’ll need my sweater.”

“You got it.” Her arm linked in Maude’s, they made their way slowly across the parking lot. “Okay, toilet paper, denture cleaner and ham. Is that it?”

“Yams?” Maude shook her head. “Get some for yourself if you want, I won’t eat any.” She turned her pale blue eyes on Edie. “You probably ate that sort of thing in…where was it you were last? I can’t keep up with all the places you’re off to. I said to Vivian, no wonder Edith never married. What man would want to go traipsing around the world after her?”

“I’ll get you a basket.” At the entrance to the store, Edie separated a cart from the line and wheeled it over to Maude. “There you go. Want me to push it for you?”

“I need it to lean on.” Maude elbowed Edie aside. “Now, I’ll be as quick as I can,” she said as they progressed sedately along the dairy aisle. “Just don’t lose your temper with me. There’s no call for it. Vivian doesn’t snap at me the way you do, she knows it takes me longer these days. She said to me when we knew you were coming, she said, ‘Mom. Edith’s just going to upset you the way she always does.’ Viv thinks about these things.”

Edie bit the inside of her lower lip very hard and sent a prayer aloft. Please, please give me patience. Half of my sister’s saintliness would help, too. And please, please, I know it’s too late to expect much in the way of mother-daughter bonding. I know we’re not going to snuggle up in bed for heart-to-heart talks over mugs of cocoa, but please, please, let this be a…pleasant visit. And please, please, don’t let me snap at her. Even though I didn’t snap at her in the first place.

“EDIE ROBINSON!” the cashier shrieked some forty-five minutes later when Edie followed Maude with her brimming basket to the checkout line. “My God, I don’t believe it. When did you get back?”

“Last night.” A package of toilet paper in one hand, Edie grinned at the woman she’d last seen at their twenty-year high-school reunion which—she did a quick mental calculation—was nearly three years ago. Honey Jones, she immediately observed, was probably fifteen pounds heavier than she’d been back then and her blond hair was gray at the roots. God, you’re shallow, Edie scolded herself as she began piling stuff on the conveyor belt. Yeah, but when you’re barreling along the road to middle age, she justified, you notice these things. “So, Honey,” she said. “What’s going on with you these days?”

Honey grinned broadly. “Same old, same old. Get up, go to work, come home, get dinner for Jim and the kids. Go to bed. Do it all over again the next day. But what about you?” She glanced at Maude, who had dug a fistful of coupons from her purse and now held them close to her face as she slowly inspected each one. “The last I heard, your mom said you were in…”

“Afghanistan,” Edie said when it became clear the answer wasn’t on the tip of Honey’s tongue “Before that, Bosnia.” Chechnya, Somalia, Rwanda. She’d covered them all. Dangerous, difficult, complex, frustrating. But a piece of cake compared to Little Hills, Missouri. “Doing okay, Mom? Want me to help you sort through those coupons?”

“Frozen peas,” Maude said. “Too much sodium in the canned ones.”

“So you’re just back for a visit?” Honey asked.

“A month. Mom’s decided the house is too much for her, living alone and everything. My sister thinks Mom would be happier in a…more structured environment, so I’m back to help her find something.”

“Viv’s such a doll,” Honey said. “So patient. Always a smile. I don’t know how she does it.”

“Yeah.” Edie forced a smile of her own. “Mom’s lucky to have her living close by.”

“Edie’s giving a talk at Ray’s school tomorrow,” Maude said. “Ray’s the principal. He’s married to my daughter Vivian.”

“I know, Mrs. Robinson,” Honey said, kindly as though to a child. “I was a bridesmaid at their wedding.” She looked at Edie. “Assistant principal, right? My kid’s a junior there. I guess you’ve heard all about the new principal, huh?”

“Yeah. Viv filled me in. Everyone seems all agog.”

“That’s small-town life for you,” Honey said and shook her head. “I can’t even imagine your life. The farthest I’ve ever been is New Jersey. Do you get scared? I mean, all that shooting and everything.”

Edie shrugged and thought about the bullet in Sarajevo. She’d left her room for five minutes to talk to a photographer about the story they were working on. She returned to a cloud of dust and a .50-caliber slug embedded in the wall behind the desk she’d been using. If she’d been there, the bullet would have gone right through her forehead. She’d kept the bullet. “You take your chances,” she said. “It’s part of the deal.”

“I’ve got coupons,” Maude announced. “Here, Edith, you sort them out. Don’t know why they make the writing so small. Did Edith tell you about her big award?” she asked Honey. “Twenty-five cents off the coffee, the coupon is here somewhere. And the canned salmon is two for three dollars. Edith, look at these coupons. I know you can’t be bothered with that sort of thing, but it’s a savings, let me tell you. My daughter thinks money grows on trees,” she said with a glance at the cashier. “Always been that way. I remember Vivian used to save her allowance until she could get something she really wanted, but not Edith. As soon as she got it, she spent it. Still that way.”

Edie exchanged glances with the cashier, who smiled sympathetically.

“In your mother’s eyes you never grow up.” Honey scanned a roll of paper towels. “Doesn’t matter if you’re fifteen or fifty, you’re always this kid who doesn’t have sense enough to cross the road.” She reached for a can of pineapple chunks. “So. Tell me about your award.”

“Oh…” Edie started sorting Maude’s coupons into little piles. “I got a Pulitzer for a series on the rebels in El Salvador.” She picked up a ten-cents off coupon for grape jelly and checked the contents of the basket to see if she’d actually picked up the jelly as Maude had asked her to. “It was a team effort though, three other reporters and myself. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

“Wow.” Honey’s eyes were shining. “I am so proud of you, Edie. But, hey, we always knew you were smart. So…no husband on the horizon?”

“You got grape jelly.” Maude shoved the jar under Edie’s nose.

“I know, Mom.” She looked at Maude, whose eyes, brimming and clouded by cataracts, could look frighteningly hostile. “You said that’s what you wanted.”

“I said strawberry.”

“You said grape.”

“Strawberry,” Maude said. “That’s my daughter for you,” she said with a sigh. “Never listens. Never has. Snaps at me too.”

Edie held her breath. I won’t snap again if it kills me. And it might.

Honey winked at Edie. “So, no handsome man in your life?” she asked, rephrasing the question this time.

“No man, handsome or otherwise.” Edie took the grape jelly from Maude. “Wait right there, Mom. I’ll go back and get the strawberry. Anything else while I’m at it?” Maude didn’t answer, but as Edie walked away, she could hear Maude’s voice telling Honey, “Edie’ll never marry. Too darn independent and set in her ways.”

LUTHER HIGH SCHOOL principal Peter Darling stood in the sweltering heat at the side of the quad watching the faces of the assembled students for signs that they were actually listening to the tall woman up at the podium. To his vast relief, he saw no signs of the pushing and snickering and not-so-muffled yawns that had turned last week’s spotlight-on-careers program into an embarrassing fiasco. The assistant principal, openly skeptical about a weekly spotlight on careers, had smirked afterward that maybe they should line up hookers and pimps to discuss their work, with possibly a spotlight on auto theft and strong-arm robbery—the lines of work for which most Luther High kids were destined. Then to Peter’s surprise, Ray had done an apparent about-face and suggested that his sister-in-law would be willing to speak.

Peter watched the kids who, from their intent expressions, all appeared to be contemplating a career in journalism. Of course, Edie Robinson—with her sleek toffee-colored hair and photogenic smile—was no doubt part of the appeal.

“What do I like best about my job?” she’d just asked in response to a question thrown out by a girl in the front row. “Everything. The excitement, the variety. I think people often become unhappy because they’re just dissatisfied with the way things are in the place where they live. That doesn’t happen to me. I’m always going somewhere else. If I don’t like my current circumstance…oh well, tomorrow I’ll get on a plane and be on the other side of the world. New situation, new country, new experiences. I live in hotels. I eat in restaurants. I leave my laundry in a plastic bag in the hall outside my door. Almost all my friends are other journalists. My life is exclusively travel and work. And that’s exactly the way I like it.”

“Or to put it another way,” Ray Jenkins muttered in Peter’s ear, “Edith never has to think about anyone but herself. Which she never did anyway, even before she got to be a hotshot journalist. Kind of explains why she’s forty and never been married. You wanna hear about the stuff she’s not telling you, ask me. I used to go with her before I came to my senses and married her sister.”

Apart from mild surprise that the assistant principal might have anything at all in common with the woman at the podium, Peter had no interest in Ray Jenkins’s personal life, so he ignored the remark and made his way over to the stage just as Edie, having wrapped up her talk, was stepping down. He motioned for her to stay put and addressed the students himself, inviting them to show their appreciation for the interesting and informative talk. They complied with great enthusiasm, punctuating their applause with a few whoops and whistles.

He followed Edie off the stage, where she was now regarding him with very faint amusement in her light, amber-colored eyes. Her face and throat were lightly tanned and she wore an off-white trouser suit in a thin material that draped gracefully on her tall, angular figure. There was a cool confidence about her that made it quite easy for him to imagine her calmly reading in a bathtub as mortar shells flew around. The image intrigued him.

“Riveting talk. The students were captivated and, trust me, they’re a tough audience.”

She eyed him for a moment. “North of London, but not as far north as, say, Birmingham. Lived in the States for…oh, ten years or so. Long enough to have lost a little of the accent.”

He laughed, taken aback. “Very good. Malvern, actually. And I’ve been here twelve years. You’ve spent time in England, have you?”

“Five years in the London bureau, some time ago, though. I used to be a whiz at identifying regional accents. I thought I might have lost my touch.”

“Clearly, you haven’t.”

“I’m sure there’s an interesting story about how a man from Malvern, England, came to be a high-school principal in Little Hills, Missouri, but—” she glanced around “—I see a line forming to talk to you, so I’ll just…invent my own version of the facts.”

“Or you could call me,” he said, surprising himself. “And we could exchange life stories over dinner.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But I think I’ll stick with my invented version.”

“Pity,” he said. And then as he was about to let her go, he said, “I’ve noticed that your brother-in-law calls you Edith. Is it Edith, or Edie?” he asked.

“Edie,” she said. “Only my family calls me Edith…and I tolerate that very poorly.” A moment passed. “I’ve noticed that my brother-in-law calls you Pete. Is it Peter, or Pete?”

“Peter.” He grimaced slightly. “I suppose it sounds terribly formal, doesn’t it?”

“It sounds fine,” she said.

ZOWEE, Edie thought as she walked back across the campus to Maude’s car. Zowee. Zowee. Zowee. In the car, she pulled off her jacket, tossed it in the back seat, kicked off her heels, which had elevated her exactly to the level of Peter Darling’s gray-green eyes, threw them in the back, too, and sat grinning idiotically at the cracked, green vinyl–covered dashboard. Zowee. Shaking her head, she pulled down the driving mirror to look at her face: flushed scarlet. The car, she noted belatedly, was a furnace. She rolled down the driver’s window, still seeing Peter Darling’s face. Zowee. If every female in that school wasn’t having indecent dreams about him, she’d…eat her press pass.

THE OLD BLACK DIAL PHONE in the hallway was ringing when Edie let herself into Maude’s house some thirty minutes later. Her mother, Edie thought as she picked up the heavy receiver, should at least have a portable that she could carry around the house, but Maude wasn’t about to go easy into the digital age. The old one suited her just fine, thank you very much. Edie dragged the phone to the stairs and sat on the bottom step, listening to Vivian describe the pot roast she’d just put in the oven for dinner that night. Edie should bring Maude over at about six, Viv said.

Edie leaned back against the stairs and stifled a groan. Family gatherings ranked low on her list of ways to spend a pleasant evening. Viv would outdo herself with the food, then complain of being exhausted. Ray would be smarmy and insinuating. She’d lost touch completely with her nephews. And Maude would spend the whole time telling everyone that she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve the way her youngest daughter was always snapping at her.

Home sweet home. Thank God it was only for a month. Looking on the bright side, Viv would probably continue her rant about Peter Darling. Funny how much more interesting that prospect was, now that she’d met him.

“Mom doesn’t feed herself properly,” Viv was saying now. “And I’m sure you’ve probably forgotten all you never learned about cooking. I’ll do the roast and then I’ll wrap up what’s left and you can take it back to Mom’s. That way, you’ll both have something decent to eat.”

From the stairs, where she remained after hanging up the phone, Edie could see Maude at her chair by the window. “She spends hours there,” Viv had complained on the ride from the airport. “Just staring out at the street. That’s why she needs to get out of that house and into a place where she can be with other people her own age.”

Elbows on her knees, Edie sat for a while watching her mother from the dim and musty hallway. Maude, at her lace-curtained window post, in a fusty room crammed with knickknacks, crocheted mats, knitted cushions, cuckoo clocks and all the detritus accumulated over a lifetime, seemed so organic to the house that Edie found herself wondering whether uprooting her might cause Maude to just wither and die sooner than she might if she were left to live out her life at home.

But when she mentioned the thought to Vivian that night, her sister looked impatient.

“Edie, trust me, I spend a lot more time with Mom than you do. She needs to get rid of that house.”

Edie, sprawled on the massive off-white leather couch in Viv and Ray’s cavernous family room, channel surfing on their massive TV because Vivian had laughed incredulously at her offer to help out, conceded that Viv was probably right. Still, she would sound Maude out anyway, just to be certain in her own mind. “Are you sure I can’t do anything to help?” she called to Viv, who hadn’t left the kitchen for the past hour.

Vivian laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks, Eed. I can manage better without your help. Trust me. Just relax.”

So she tried. She channel surfed some more, but found herself critiquing the correspondent’s performance on every new station. It was hard to forget her vocation, even when she wasn’t working. Finally, she let her thoughts drift. She thought for a bit about her sister in the kitchen, whom she normally thought very little about. Coming home always brought the old memories flooding back. Viv. Poor Viv, the pretty but asthmatic child. She could still hear Maude scolding, “Oh Edith, don’t be so selfish. Let Viv have the doll.” Or the candy, or the book or whatever else it was that Viv might want. “You’re such a lucky girl, you have your health. Look at poor Viv.” And Edie would look at Viv and feel not sympathy but envy because Viv had Maude’s attention and she didn’t.

All that old, bitter stuff that she hardly ever thought about now. But, deep inside, she still felt it, that same need for her mother’s approval and acceptance. Love me. Need me. Ben, she reflected, had failed badly in that regard. Don’t look for commitment from me, he’d said. Pretty much the last significant thing he’d said, as a matter of fact. If other events that night hadn’t overshadowed everything else, those words would have plunged her into a dark void of gloom. Instead, she’d developed a sort of emotional amnesia. Ben would escape or be released; she knew that much for sure. After that, who knew? Her thumb on the button of the remote, she gazed at the flickering images. A perfume ad with heartbreakingly beautiful people locked in dreamy embraces. Happy women folding diapers, mopping floors, sending happy kids off to school.

“So you really like the house?” Viv called from the kitchen. “We love it, but sometimes I get freaked at how much we had to go into debt… Want a glass of wine?”

“Maybe later.” Edie called back. Viv and Ray had bought the house two months ago. It was a sprawling mock Tudor that sat amidst similar houses on the edge of what Edie remembered had once been bean fields. It had struck her, as she’d trailed Viv around earlier, dutifully oohing and aahing, that everything about the house—from the sweeping driveway and mirrored guest bathroom with its elaborate gold-plated fixtures, to the cream-and-gold master bedroom—seemed new, immense and designed to impress. Fleetingly, she’d wondered what assistant principals made these days, but it wasn’t a question to ask. “What’s not to like about the house?” she answered rhetorically as televised images flickered hypnotically across her line of vision.

“We like to entertain,” Viv, still in the kitchen, was saying now. “It’s something Ray and I both enjoy.”

“Well, you’ve got a great place to do it in.” A cartoon bird gave way to an anchorwoman’s face and Edie’s thumb paused on the remote. “…and the search continues,” the announcer said, “for American freelance journalist Ben Morris, captured last month on assignment in Iraq. Morris and three other journalists came under fire when the jeep they were riding in was ambushed by gunmen…”

CHAPTER TWO

EDIE STARED transfixed, but the announcer’s dry recap of that nightmarish ride told her nothing she hadn’t relived endlessly ever since. “Hold on to your hat, Eed,” Ben had said. “We’re going to outrun them.” She remembered the way his teeth had gleamed in the dark night. The roar as he’d gunned the jeep, the terrifying careen up the dark mountainside with no headlights on. He loves this, she remembered thinking. It’s his essence. I’m an idiot to even think about commitment… And then the jeep had flipped.

“Carrot sticks, cauliflower and a no-fat dip.” Vivian set a tray on the chrome-and-glass coffee table and flopped down on the couch beside Edie. “I’m not real sure about the carrot sticks, they have a bunch of carbs and I’m on this low-carb diet. Doesn’t it seem weird to think of carrots as a no-no? I mean, carrots and cottage cheese used to be what you’d eat when you were trying to drop a few pounds, but supposedly now they’re off limits. Too high carb. If you want some wine, let me know. It’s not on the diet…beaucoup carbs, although gin’s okay. Want some gin?”

Edie blinked, staring at Viv as though she’d been roused from a dream that still seemed real. Viv smiled. Kitchen warmth had flushed her face and her shoulder-length hair, hardly faded from the strawberry blond it had been in high school, fell into a smooth bob. “Vivian’s the pretty one,” Maude would say. “But you’re smart, Edie.”

Edie rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. I’m miles away. Where’s Mom? I thought she was out in the kitchen with you.”

“Ray ran her down to the IGA to get denture cleaner. I didn’t want to tell you, but she’d worked herself up into quite a tizzy about it and—”

“I took her to the IGA this morning,” Edie said. “We got denture cleaner. I remember taking it off the shelf.”

Viv reached over to pat Edie’s knee. “It was the wrong kind, sweetie,” she said maternally. “Don’t blame yourself. How would you know that? I’ve got beer too. Beer, wine, gin, you name it. I’m not drinking, though. If I don’t get this extra weight off I’m going to kill myself. What do you think about these jeans?” She jumped up, turned to present a rear view. “Do they make my hips look kind of wide? Tell me, I won’t be mad, honestly.”

“You look fine, Viv.” Edie said, her mind still on Maude’s shopping trip. “So why didn’t Mom say something?”

Viv sat down again. “She’s scared of you, sweetie,” she said softly as though there was a chance Maude might overhear. “She says you snap at her. You know, I might cheat a little and have some wine. Want some?”

“I’m fine.” Edie shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’m furious. God, it kills me. I tried to be so patient with her. I was patient. For me, anyway. And I didn’t snap at her in the first place. Maybe I overreacted slightly when she told me for the fourth time that she needed toilet paper, but—”

“Hey, Eed.” Viv reached for a carrot stick. “Can we not talk about Mom for a minute? You’re going to be here for a while, we’ll have plenty of time to discuss her. Trust me. Come on, eat something.”

Edie took a carrot stick. “Will the boys be here for dinner?”

“Absolutely,” Viv said. “They’re always talking about their glamorous Aunt Edie.”

Edie gave her sister a skeptical look.

“Really. One of them—I think it was Eric—was asking something about you just the other day,” Viv said. “Frankly though, Edie, you haven’t exactly been a big part of their lives.” She dunked her carrot stick in dip, twirling it for a second. “Back to Mom, though. She’s a novelty to you, but—”

“She’s my mother, Viv. And trust me, I don’t find her much of a novelty.”

“Well, you know what I mean. In a couple of weeks, you’ll be flying off to Boogawongabooboo, or wherever, but I’ll be right here listening to Mom tell me about the little sore up her nose. Eat something, Edie.” She reached for a cauliflower floret. “You’re making me feel like a pig. How come you stay skinny when everyone else balloons up as soon as they hit thirty?”

“Clean living,” Edie said.

“Yeah, sure.” Vivian eyed her for a moment. “Frankly though, and please don’t take this wrong, I think having a little fat actually makes a woman look younger. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be too skinny. It gives you this drawn, dried-up look.”

Edie smiled politely. “You think so?”

“Ray thinks so too. Scrawny chickens, he calls them.” She reached for a napkin and dabbed at a spot of dip on the glass coffee table. “I mean in general, of course.”

“Of course,” Edie said. “What little sore?”

“Little sore?” Vivian looked momentarily confused. “Oh, Mom’s little sore. She’s always got one up her nose. I swear to God, the minute I sit down to breakfast, the phone rings and it’s Mom going on about how the little sore bleeds every time she blows her nose. I can’t even look at strawberry jam these days.”

Edie laughed. Despite everything, she wanted, suddenly, to embrace her sister. The perfunctory little hug at the airport had been disappointing. On some level, she realized now, she’d been looking to Viv for the same thing she sought in Maude. Love me, need me. Tell me not to leave again. Ironic, this need, when she would battle to the death anyone who tried to wrest away her shield of independence and self-sufficiency. Odd, too, that the need only seemed to trouble her when she returned home.

“You know what?” Vivian said. “I am going to have some wine. How often does my little sister honor us with her presence? Be right back.”

When she returned a moment later, she had two glasses and a bottle of wine. Blush, Edie observed with a surreptitious glance at the label. Snob, she scolded herself. Ben had once used a UN transport plane to ship two cases of Italian wine to Sarajevo. “Nearly broke my back carrying it to the car,” he’d said as he’d poured her a glass. “But it beats the hell out of the local plonk.”

Edie watched Viv fill two balloon-shaped glasses with pale pink wine. “So,” she said. “Shall we make a toast?”

Vivian hooted. “Shall we make a toast? Shall? Jeez, Edie, when did you start using words like shall? You sound like Peter Darling. That’s one of the things Ray hates about him, one of many things. Apart from the fact he’s younger than Ray and gorgeous.” She downed half her wine and refilled the glass. “Talk like everyone else, for God’s sake. This is Little Hills not Buckingham Palace.” She paused for a moment. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get started, it’s just that I hear enough about Peter Darling from Ray.” She touched her glass to Edie’s. “To my little sister with her hoity-toity voice being home again. Joking, Eed.” She patted Edie’s knee. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s great to have you here. Really.”

“It’s great to be here,” Edie said, averting her eyes.

Vivian glanced over her shoulder and moved fractionally closer. “I’m in a quandary, Edie. A real quandary. Remember Beth Herman?”

Edie thought. “Beth Herman from high school?”

Viv nodded. “She works at Luther now. Peter Darling hired her to run this new teen mother program—which Ray says is a complete waste of money. All it does is encourage kids to have sex, but anyway, she’s in love with him.”

“Ray?”

Viv smacked Edie’s knee. “Peter Darling, doofus. I mean, she’s gaga over him and she keeps coming to me for advice. I’m happy for her, of course—I mean, Beth’s such a sweet girl, she deserves to find someone—but I’m torn. I hear Ray going on about what an idiot the guy is and Beth telling me how he’s so wonderful and I don’t know whether I should be encouraging her or what.”

“Hmm.” Edie took a carrot stick and tried to think of something to say. “Well, he seems very nice,” she said neutrally. “Interesting. Attractive.”

“Attractive.” Viv hooted. “Did you see him? He’s gorgeous. I mean, drop-dead gorgeous. He’s like a cross between Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Day-Lewis and…who was that poet I had to study in high school? Myron, or something?”

“Byron?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know what Byron looks like, but that’s what Beth says. I tell you…” She sighed loudly. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Any idea what I should do?”

“Well, Viv, it’s not really your problem, is it? Peter and Beth are adults.” A thought occurred to her. “Is it mutual?”

“Who knows? Beth isn’t sure, but she’s so sweet and nice and they’re both in education. How could it not be? And she’d be a wonderful mother to his little girls. I mean, how many women would want to take on four kids?”

“Certainly not me,” Edie said. Although, having met Peter Darling, she felt quite sure he’d have no shortage of candidates. “Sounds like a nightmare.”

“Well, you’ve never had the maternal streak.” Viv poured more wine. “Anyway, enough of that. I’m worried about Ray. Here he’s been knocking himself out for years, nothing he wouldn’t do for those kids. And everyone just knew he was a shoe-in for principal once Frank Brown retired, but then what happens? The school board brings in this Peter Darling, who’s probably five years younger than Ray—which, trust me, doesn’t help things—and so damn pie-in-the-sky you wouldn’t believe it.”

Edie stifled a yawn. Except for the Beth Herman element, they’d been over essentially the same ground on the ride home from the airport. She hadn’t been particularly interested then and, despite the new principal’s considerable appeal, time hadn’t increased her thirst to know more. What she wanted to do was collect Maude, drive back to her mother’s house and then sink into oblivion. Selfish, selfish, Maude’s voice scolded deep in her brain. You’ve always been selfish, Edith. She drank some wine and tried not to grimace at the flowery sweet taste.

“What exactly do you mean by pie-in-the sky?” she asked in a tone that made her think she should have a pen in one hand and a notebook on her knee.

“Oh…” Viv reached for the wine again. “You know what? The hell with this rabbit food, I need salt and fat.” She jumped up again and returned a moment later. “Actually, it’s some sort of artificial fat,” she said as she dumped a bag of chips into a yellow bowl. “Don’t ask me how, but they say your body doesn’t recognize it, so it passes right through you. God, that sounds gross, huh? Come on—don’t make me feel like a pig. Try one. Have some more wine.” She reached to refill Edie’s glass, and then the front door slammed.

“Shh.” Viv flashed Edie a warning look and drained the last of her wine. “Here’s Ray. Don’t mention Peter Darling’s name or the whole evening will be ruined.”

“Hey, Edith,” Ray said with a glance at the wine bottle. “Been leading my wife astray? Nothing changes, huh?”

“Now, Ray, be nice.” Vivian gathered up the wine and glasses. “Poor Edie’s been with Mom all day, she needed a little drinky. She was just telling me about her job. God, you’d better be glad you’ve got me. Listen, babe, you stay and talk to Edie while I go into the living room and make Mom pretty. Her hair needs a trim,” she said to Edie, “And, naturally, she won’t let anyone but me work on it.” She winked at Edie. “Now, be good, you two. I’ll be back in a jiff to finish dinner.”

“Let me give you a hand.” Edie extracted herself from the billowing contours of the couch. “What can I do?”

Ray hooted. “You mean you’ve learned to cook, Edith? What you going to feed us, stewed yak or something?”

“Ray.” Viv who had disappeared into the kitchen, reappeared in the doorway, grinning widely as she shook her head at her husband. “I told you to be nice. Ignore him, sweetie,” she told Edie. “He’s just showing off. Could you maybe make a salad?”

“I’ll give it a try,” Edie said, biting back a sarcastic response. In the kitchen, she eyed the wineglasses Viv had set in the sink. Her own was still full. Perhaps she’d just hold her breath and gulp it down; anesthesia against the rest of the evening. And then Ray was behind her, his arms around her waist. She removed his hands and turned to look at him. “Lettuce,” she said, increasing the distance between them. “You wouldn’t know if Viv has any tomatoes, I guess.” She pulled open the refrigerator’s stainless-steel door. Cold air hit her face. “Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce,” she said. “Bottom drawer. Crisper. God, I’ve never seen a refrigerator this big. You could chill a…yak. Okay, lettuce.”

“So how long has it been since I saw you last?” Ray asked. “Five years?”

“Six.” She pulled out the lettuce and closed the door. Ray leaned against the sink, arms folded across his chest. She’d taken his measure, too; he had lines around his eyes now, the thick blond hair had faded and thinned, and the smile that had made her knees weak in high school struck her as goofy now. Her face colored, anyway. “When I came back for the high-school reunion, you and Viv were on vacation. Before that it was Mom’s heart attack. That was the last time.”

He nodded. “Sorry I couldn’t be at the airport to meet you. School board meeting. New principal’s big on everyone attending. What do you think of him? Kind of out of place with Luther kids, isn’t he?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She took the lettuce to the sink and began separating leaves. “He seemed fine to me. What do you see as the problem?”

“Aagh.” Ray shrugged. “Don’t even get me started. He won’t last long, that’s all I know. I could have had the job if I’d wanted it. School board practically begged me, but I wasn’t interested—too much work. I’ve got a family. The boys. More important things in life than chaining yourself to a desk.” He laughed. “’Course, I’m probably telling that to the wrong person, right, Eed?”

Edie felt the knot in her shoulders ratchet up another notch. Salad. Could she possibly do a Caesar? She’d once spent half a day putting together a Caesar salad for Ben. Finding the necessary ingredients in a shattered Belgrade marketplace had been a challenge, but he’d confessed to a nostalgic yearning for the kind of Caesar salad he’d enjoyed at a certain Los Angeles restaurant. He’d been unimpressed, less by the salad than by what the effort said about her priorities. “Don’t go getting domestic on me, Edie,” he’d warned. “It’s not what I need or want.”

She took a couple of eggs from the fridge and set them in a pan of water to simmer. Back at the fridge, she dug around for anything resembling Parmesan. She could feel Ray’s eyes on her back.

“So what time will the boys be here?” She thought again about the nephews she’d watched grow, mostly through pictures sent by Vivian, from cute, wide-eyed babies to strapping, athletic teenagers and felt a stab of remorse. “I will get to see them, right?”

“Oh sure,” Ray said vaguely. “Hey, Eed, remember that day after school when we were goofing around in your mom’s kitchen and I squeezed Thousand Island dressing into your mouth?”

Edie watched his face for a moment. “Not a day goes by that I don’t relive that experience, Ray. It haunts my dreams.”

Ray’s forehead creased. “You being sarcastic?”

“Bingo.”

“You ever try not being sarcastic for more than five minutes?”

“Once. I was bored.”

Ray shook his head. Clearly, there was no hope for her. He took a beer from the fridge, popped the top, and stood with his back against the granite countertop watching her move around the kitchen.

“You were pretty hot back then,” he said.

“Thank you, Ray. So were you. Back then.”

“You ever think about the way things might have turned out if we’d stayed together?”

“No, Ray.” She looked directly at him. “I don’t. I’m happy with my life. And it looks like you’re doing well too. This house, by the way,” she said with a sweeping gesture at the kitchen, “is amazing.”

“You like it? Viv give you the grand tour?”

“She did.” Behind the jars of mayonnaise and bottles of ketchup and mustard, Edie found a green tub of grated Romano cheese. “It’s huge. You guys must get lost going from one room to another.” She set the cheese down on the center island. Out in the living room, she could see the top of Maude’s white head. Her mother had all but disappeared amidst the massive pillowy cushions of the couch. The coffee table on which Maude’s feet rested was several feet of mirrored glass atop a low chrome cylinder. “Very elegant,” Edie said. “Impressive.”

Ray gave her a look that seemed to calculate her sincerity. “But it isn’t what you’d buy, right?”

“What does that matter? It’s your house.”

Ray smiled. “But you’d buy something down in the Historic District, wouldn’t you?” he persisted. “If you ever settled down and came back home, I mean. Every time Viv and I go down Roosevelt, we see this old Victorian place that’s been for sale forever and she always says, ‘That’s what Edie would go for.’”

Edie shrugged, thinking of the astronomically priced bungalow off Sunset Boulevard she’d once been tempted to buy, mostly because it reminded her of some of the older homes in Little Hills. For what it cost, she could have bought two of them and had change to spare.

“It’s a moot point, Ray, because I’m not about to settle down and come back home. Married to my work,” she said. “Kind of like your new principal.”

“Goddamn butterfly collector.” His expression darkened. “Thanks for mentioning him again, Edie. Now you’ve ruined my mood altogether. Head stuck up in the clouds. Hasn’t figured out that we’re dealing with a bunch of loser kids. They’re not going to be Rhodes scholars, for God’s sake. Get ’em in, get ’em out, that’s the best you can do with them.”

“So what?” She asked and then, too late, remembered Vivian’s admonition. She pushed on, anyway. “He thinks some of them might have potential or something?”

Ray narrowed his eyes at her. “You haven’t changed a whole lot, have you?”

“I guess not,” she said. “Neither have you.”

“See, that’s what I mean. With you, everything has to turn into some goddamn battle. You really don’t give a damn whether I’m right or wrong about this guy. You just want an argument. Well, I’ll tell you. Give Peter Darling six months around some of those kids at Luther and I bet you a six-pack he won’t be collecting butterflies for long.”

“God, Edie,” Vivian said from the doorway. “I told you not to get Ray fired up. Now you’ve ruined the whole evening.”

“THE LAST THING I want to do is interfere in your life,” Peter’s sister, Sophia, said as they sat on a park bench watching the children play. “But it’s nearly two years now and, quite honestly, as much as I adore the girls, I do have a life back in England. This popping back and forth for extended visits is getting a bit much.”

“Has George complained?” George was Sophia’s longtime companion, but Peter gathered that the relationship was problematic. So much so that when Sophia first volunteered to come and look after the girls, she’d intimated that it would be a relief to put some distance between herself and George. In the last few weeks though, George had been calling quite frequently.

“He’s grumbling a bit, but it’s not that, really. I don’t quite trust anyone to handle the nursery as well as I can. It’s silly of me—I’m sure Trudy does a perfectly competent job—but I envision the assistants selling half-dead flowers and not offering the kind of variety people have come to expect.”

“I don’t expect you to stay forever, Sophia. The girls know that, too.”

He stretched his legs out. His oldest daughter, Natalie, was pushing the twins on side-by-side swings. Natalie was eight; Abbie and Kate were four. Delphina, the seven year-old, sat off to one side, her expression wistful. A quiet and solitary child, she seemed always in the shadows of her sisters’ play. He worried about Delphina. He worried about them all. Natalie was saddled with too much responsibility for a child of her age; the twins still sucked their thumbs. Last night, Abbie had wet the bed—the third time in a week.

“Peter—” Sophia knocked on his temple “—are you in there somewhere?”

“Thinking,” he said.

“Not about a sudden sighting of the swallow-tailed thingamajig, I hope.”

“Painted swallowtail.” He grinned. “Actually it was rather unusual to spot one so far north this late in the year…but no, I was thinking about what you were saying. You’ve been an incredible help with the girls, but I do understand that you need to go home.”

“What will you do?”

“Look around for a live-in nanny, I suppose. I’d planned to do that after Deborah died…”

Sophia rubbed his arm.

“I’m fine.”

“Still miss her?”

“Of course.”

“Life goes on, though.”

“Please spare me the homilies, Sophia. I’ll work things out in my own way.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Deborah was always very pragmatic and unsentimental,” he said. “As soon as we knew how ill she was we discussed what would happen with the girls. She was convinced I’d be married within the year. Quite adamant really that I should be married, that it would be better for us all.”

“I always did admire Deborah’s intelligence,” Sophia said. “Pity that her husband is less gifted in that regard.”

Peter shot her a sideways glance.

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Peter. Look at that Amelia woman you were so besotted with. The girls didn’t have the foggiest idea what to make of her. And she was obviously quite bewildered by them. Honestly, sometimes I want to grab your shoulders and shake you very, very hard. How could you not have seen that this woman was all wrong for you? It was apparent to me the moment you introduced her.”

“Perhaps you should have warned me.”

“I did.”

“Oh.” He grinned. “Perhaps I should have listened.”

“Why won’t you find a nice woman?”

“Amelia was nice.”

“Amelia was an actress.”

“Actresses can’t be nice?”

“I wouldn’t know firsthand, Peter, my life being considerably less exotic than yours, but Amelia struck me as…a tart.”

“Sophia,” Peter said, “Amelia wasn’t a tart. Perhaps not a candidate for marriage, but not a tart.”

“Well, that’s as may be,” Sophia said darkly. “But why are you drawn only to unsuitable women?”

“Because,” Peter said honestly, “as much as I’d like to meet a woman who could love the girls and create the sort of home Deborah and I had, I want more than a mother replacement. I want to be in love.”

“Of course you do,” Sophia said. “And?”

“And I’ve discovered that I’m not particularly attracted to nice women who want to settle down and have children.”

“Rubbish.” Sophia dismissed the comment with a flap of her hand. “You simply have to put your mind to it. What we need,” she said briskly, “is a plan. Now, wipe that stupid grin off your face and think very carefully. Not about the kind of woman to whom you’ve typically been attracted… We’re looking for wife material. Start naming names. We’re thinking sweet, potentially maternal and absolutely not flighty. Come on, there must be someone at school. Think hard.”

“Betty Jean Battaglio,” he said after five minutes of not very hard thinking.

“Good.” Sophia smiled. “Tell me about her.”

“She’s my secretary,” he said.

Sophia looked dubious. “Hmm. Not always advisable to dip the pen into the company inkwell, as it were, but if you’re discreet… What does she look like?”

“Dark hair, blue eyes. Pictures of cats all over her desk.”

“Loves animals.” Sophia nodded. “Sounds promising. What else?”

“Won a gold medal at the Little Hills fair for her cherry cobbler.”

“Enjoys cooking. Perfect,” Sophia said. “And she’s single?”

“Widowed.”

“Widowed?” Sophia arched an eyebrow. “How old is she?”

“Sixty-five,” Peter said. “We’re in the process of planning her retirement party.”

Sophia gave a snort of disgust. “You’re just not taking this seriously.”

“Yes, I am,” Peter said and, just to prove it, the following morning he called Edie Robinson to invite her to the theater.

CHAPTER THREE

“THE THEATER?” When the phone rang, Edie had braced herself for another sisterly self-improvement lecture. Now she sat on the floor in the hallway of her mother’s house talking to Peter Darling. “Let me guess. Madame Butterfly.”

Peter laughed. “No, unfortunately. I don’t think it’s playing anywhere. But will you join me, anyway?” he asked. “Saturday night.”

She shifted the phone to her other ear. Peter’s voice was almost inaudible. “You know what, Peter? I can hardly hear you. Are you whispering or something?”

“Just speaking softly. I’m over at the teen mother center and—”

“Is that where Beth works? Is she there?”

“She’s talking to a student.”

“Can she hear what you’re saying?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why of course not?”

“Because I don’t as a rule broadcast details of my private life. What does my asking you to the theater have to do with Beth, anyway?”

She’s in love with you, Edie thought. Besotted, infatuated, head over heels—at least according to my sister, who also thinks you’re gorgeous and could, of course, be doing a little projecting. God, it was so much easier to fly in and out of trouble spots. Perhaps she should drop a hint to Peter about Beth’s feelings for him. Maybe Beth wouldn’t appreciate it, though. She herself would definitely not appreciate someone intervening on her behalf, especially with a co-worker. Better to say nothing.

“Edie?” Peter said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, sorry, I was thinking.”

“And what’s the verdict?”

“No, I’m sorry, Peter. Thank you for asking, but I really can’t.”

“A jealous boyfriend in a safari suit?”

“Safari suit?” She laughed. “You’ve seen too many movies.”

“But a jealous boyfriend nevertheless?”

“Essentially.”

“Perhaps we could take your mother as a chaperon,” he said. “I’ll buy another ticket.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but no. Here’s an idea, though. Beth absolutely loves the theater.”

“Does she?” Peter asked with no discernible enthusiasm. “Hmm.”

Don’t tell me I’ve never done anything to make a difference in someone’s life, Edie thought as she replaced the receiver. And give me some credit for generous self-sacrifice. A night at the theater with Peter Darling has a whole lot of appeal. A whole lot of appeal.

PETER HAD JUST HUNG UP and was nursing his rejection, when Beth Herman dropped by his office with a picture of a butterfly. Beth wanted him to identify the butterfly before she hung the picture in her classroom.

“Hmm.” He lowered his head to peer closely. “It looks rather like Heliconius charithonius. Note the long narrow black-and-yellow stripes on the wing. Although, of course,” he added solemnly, “the charithonius is not exactly indigenous to the state of Missouri.”

“I just assumed they were painted ladies,” Beth said. “But then that’s pretty much the only butterfly I know of.” She turned and retrieved a paper-wrapped package from her tote bag. “A little gift for you.” Her face colored as she handed it to him. “Nothing much. I just saw it and thought of you.”

“How kind.” He smiled at her. Beth had curly brown hair flecked with gray and wore a long gauzy skirt and the sort of knobby woolen cardigan his aunt Beatrice used to knit. Actually, she rather reminded him of his aunt Beatrice—same gentle demeanor and low, patient voice. A thought hit him like a thwack to the side of the head. He took a closer look at Beth. Although not his type, which he supposed was the good news, Beth was really rather…sweetly attractive. He realized he was staring.

Beth, blushing wildly, smiled at him. “Open it,” she said.

He tore through several layers of paper and tissue. Shortly after he’d accepted the position at Luther, the school district had sent over a press-information person to interview him for the newsletter. Foolishly, he’d mentioned his avocation. Now a day didn’t go by in which someone didn’t present him with a butterfly knickknack. His classroom shelves were, embarrassingly, full of the sort of cups, plates and assorted trinkets that had once collected dust in his grandmother’s parlor. What he couldn’t bring himself to mention was that while he derived a great deal of pleasure from observing the insect in its natural habitat, he had no interest at all in painted depictions. Still, he felt quite certain that Sophia would approve of Beth.

As he removed yet another layer of paper, he glanced up briefly to see that Beth had been joined by a couple of other teachers, three students and the school security guard. All were grinning expectantly.

“Ah.” He removed a mug emblazoned with spring blooms and, of course, a dozen or so garishly colored butterflies, none of which bore the faintest resemblance to anything he’d ever seen in nature. “Ah,” he said again.

“What kind are they, Mr. Darling?” one of the students asked.

“Not absolutely certain.” He turned the mug this way and that and frowned as though in deep thought. “Possibly something indigenous to Hong Kong. Intriguing design. Thank you, Beth. You’re very kind.” Perhaps we should have dinner, he thought. With everyone milling around though, it struck him as a less-than-opportune moment to extend an invitation.

“Well…” She smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Absolutely.” He tried to picture Beth with the girls. Perhaps she would draw Delphina out of her shell. He thought she might. “Well,” he said. “Thank you. Again.”

She left then and he relegated his marriage quest to the far recesses of his brain. He spent an hour monitoring the performance of a newly hired English teacher, then headed back to administration. On the way, he encountered several people requiring his attention. A student who assured him she would literally die if she couldn’t get her schedule changed, a math teacher who wanted to explain the failing grade she’d been forced to give, a parent alleging her son was being unfairly singled out for discipline just because he’d dyed his hair blue. Peter listened and nodded and made assurances that he would look into the matter, even as part of his mind was formulating a program to completely redesign the school grounds and provide entry-level job training in landscape design and horticulture for a group of particularly hard-core senior boys.

Throwaways. That was the term often used to describe Luther students—children who, for one reason or another, failed to thrive in their regular high school and transferred to Luther to accrue the credits needed to graduate. The view of Luther High, more commonly known as Loser High, as little more than a way station on the road to a life of drug dealing, petty crime and welfare was surprisingly entrenched. He intended to change all that.

“Mr. Darling. Mr. Darling.”

In the reception area of the administration building, a girl with a swinging ponytail and silver hoops at her ears waylaid him.

“Mr. Darling, I need to talk to you.” Her eyes widened. “It’s real important.”

“Mr. Darling.” The security guard had also found him. “Just so you know, the hinge on room 220 is still broken.”

“Peter,” a counselor called from the copier machine. “Got a problem I need to discuss with you.”

“Hey, Pete.” Ray Jenkins, the assistant principal, clasped Peter’s arm. “We’re still on to meet at two?”

Peter nodded. He didn’t often instinctively dislike someone, but just the sound of Ray Jenkins’s plaintive nasal twang irritated him. Equally irritating were Jenkins’s overly chummy insistence on addressing him as Pete, his habit of parking the bloody great monster of a truck he drove in a way that took up half of Peter’s own space, and the assistant principal’s stunning familiarity with, seemingly, every section of the Missouri Educational Code.

In his office, Peter sat down behind his desk, folded his hands and regarded the girl with the silver earrings who had followed him in. Melissa Fowler wore the unofficial Luther girls’ uniform. Jeans that, threadbare knees aside, might have been sprayed on, a minuscule pink shirt and enormous clunky black shoes.

“How are you, Melissa?”

“Good.”

He met her eyes for a moment and her face went red.

“Well, my Mom got fired, so it’s been kind of crazy. I have to baby-sit my little sisters—”

“They’re how old?”

“Two and three. And my brother’s four. My mom had this really cool bartending job. She was making a ton of money, but then I guess she got into this thing with her boss—he’s this huge jerk—and now she’s looking for another job.” Her face worked and she twisted one leg behind the other one. “See, the thing is, I know I didn’t do so good last semester…”

“Well,” Peter corrected.

“Well, I didn’t.” Melissa said. “But now I’m doing really good, right? And now, like, I really want to graduate from my old school, Stephen’s High, with my friends.” She hesitated. “I want to be like that lady who came to talk to us yesterday. The reporter? She was really interesting. I’m thinking that’s what I want to do. I feel really, like, inspired.”

“Good.” Peter sat back in his chair. “Very glad to hear it. You’ve seen the error of your ways, as it were, and are eager to diligently apply yourself.”

She grinned. “I guess.”

Peter swiveled his chair to face the computer, tapped in her name and brought up her record. Melissa was luckier than most of the students at Luther. No father in the picture, but a mother who at least cared enough to attend the teacher-parent nights. Which did little to alter the reality that Melissa was essentially a fourteen-year-old substitute mother who, between meal preparation, child care and other domestic responsibilities, had precious little time left for schoolwork.

As her record came up, Peter reminded himself, as he did on a daily basis, of the parting advice the former principal had offered. “These kids can get you right here.” He’d tapped his chest. “You can care deeply. You have to care. But at the same time, you must keep an emotional distance. If you don’t, you’ll destroy yourself. And you won’t do the children much good, either.”

“Right, then,” Peter said. “You need one hundred and twenty credits to graduate. So far, you only have fifty. Shall we talk about what we need to do?”

Fifteen minutes later, Melissa was gone and Ray Jenkins was sitting in the chair she had occupied. Ray was, Peter guessed, at least five years his senior and had thinning fair hair, faded blue eyes and a pallor that suggested most of his waking hours were spent indoors. Peter had seen framed pictures on Ray’s office wall of his two sons in football uniforms. Both had the tall, blond, athletic looks that Peter imagined Ray had once possessed. And, something else about Ray, a weary sort of bitterness about the assistant principal made Peter suspect that not being promoted probably wasn’t the first disappointment in his life.

“She’s basically a goof-off,” Ray said after Peter described the course he’d laid out for Melissa. “Don’t let her con you. The real reason she’s so hot to go back to Stephen’s is she started hanging around my son again.”

“She has a boyfriend, doesn’t she?” Peter thought for a moment. “Yes, I know she does. Marcus Adams. I managed to get him into an auto-shop program and he was absolutely rhapsodizing about her. No driver’s license yet, but he rides his bicycle over to her house and helps her baby-sit.”

Ray’s lips curled slightly. “That’s this week. All I know is she’s always calling the house to talk to Brad. He said he felt sorry for her once and took her to a movie. Now he can’t get rid of her.”

“Yes, well,” Peter said. “I’m sure we all dimly remember what fourteen was like.” He got up from the desk and wandered to the window, where out on the quad, a vigorous game of basketball was under way. After a moment, he turned to look at the assistant principal. “Melissa is a bright, resourceful girl and I personally have a great deal of confidence in her.”

Ray smirked. “Well, good for you. I guess I’ve just been around these kids a lot longer than you have.”

Peter said nothing, and they moved on to other matters. Twenty minutes later, Ray stood as though to leave. Hands in pockets, he hesitated at the door.

“So what d’you think of my sister-in-law, the hotshot foreign correspondent? Ms. Been-Everywhere-Done-Everything?” His tone invited criticism, but when it wasn’t forthcoming he smiled. “Still, the kids seemed interested. She knows her job, I’ll give her that.”

Peter allowed the remark to drift into a vacuum of silence, broken after a while by the sound of Ray jingling change in his pockets. As he filed away a couple of folders, Peter recalled the assistant principal’s whispered remark after Edie’s speech, and decided that it was unlikely that the relationship had ended in the way Ray had described. What he found remarkable was that it had ever gotten off the ground in the first place. It would be interesting to know the real story, he thought, picturing Edie again. “I’ve had four students express an interest in a journalism career since her talk,” he told Ray. “In fact, I’m turning over the idea of starting a campus newsletter—”

“Won’t work,” Ray said. “Waste of time and money, I’m telling you right now.”

Peter eyed the assistant principal. Pity it was so damn difficult to fire state employees, he mused.

“GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT,” Vivian said when she dropped by Maude’s around six that evening. “Pitchers of margaritas, waiters in tight black pants. Move it, Edie. Drag yourself off the couch. You’re turning into an old woman. Speaking of which…”

“She’s upstairs resting.” Edie pushed her glasses over the top of her nose and looked at Viv, all dressed up in snazzy designer jeans and a leather bomber jacket. “Count me out,” she said. “I’m exhausted. A bubble bath, a glass of wine and a book in bed strikes me as the perfect way to spend the evening. Old woman or not.”

“Oh, come on, Eed. How often do we see you? Come on, go upstairs and fix yourself up. It’ll be fun. You might meet Mr. Right, fall in love and have half a dozen children in quick succession.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that scenario does nothing for me.”

“Get up.” Viv pulled at her fingers. “Make yourself pretty, and when you’re done I’ll tell you Peter’s latest crazy idea. Ray just got through ranting about it. Anyway, I want you to get together with Beth. We can all drink margaritas and reminisce about the days when we were all young and sexy. There’s going to be a whole bunch of us…”

As Vivian began to name names, Edie tried to think of a convincing reason not to go. She hated girlie gabfests, mostly because they invariably involved too much self-revelation, something she considered an unwise indulgence. What was the point of sitting around talking about your fears and insecurities? She’d never yet heard of anyone’s life changing as the result of one of these sessions. Mostly you drank too much, got maudlin, and then toddled on home to behave the same way you always had.

Anyway, she’d spent too many years creating her self-protective coloring. If she started yammering about how she really felt inside, in no time others would see her that way too. Once at a conference, she’d had drinks in a hotel bar with a colleague whom she had always seen as supremely confident but a little cool and aloof. After a third glass of wine, the woman had confessed to being scared to death much of the time; the cool exterior really masked a basic shyness. Edie never saw her the same way again and, she hated to admit, she had lost confidence in the woman’s decision-making skills.

But she dragged herself up off the couch, anyway.

“Sue Ellen Barnes?” Edie asked several hours later as she dipped a tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa and glanced from Viv to Beth. They were in Casa Julio’s, perched on stools pulled up to tall tables. Vivian had ordered a pitcher of strawberry margaritas that sat, nearly empty now, in the middle of the table. The others had left and it was just herself, Viv and Beth. “Who did she marry? That guy with the red hair? What was his name?”

“John Yardley,” Beth and Vivian shouted in unison.

“Now she’s Sue Ellen Barnes-Yardley.” Edie giggled. She’d eaten nothing but bar snacks for hours, and the margaritas were making her feel slightly buzzed. “What about Helen Anderson?”

“She’s on her second husband, I think,” Beth said. “And so is Frana Van Bergen.”

“You know who else just got married again?” Elbows on the counter, Vivian looked at Edie. “That really stuck-up girl who transferred from Ladue, Karen something-or-other.”

They all shook their heads, baffled that snotty Karen could even snare one husband, let alone two. Earlier, the focus had been shoptalk—problem students, mostly. All the women except for herself and Viv worked at Luther; Edie had just tuned out. Every so often, a fragment of chatter from the dressed-for-success crowd had risen above the ambient noise, drifting over to where she sat. “A hundred grand in five years, that’s my goal.” “You gotta be focused. If you’re not, there’s someone right behind you who is.” “Nah, she’s lost her edge.”

She’d tuned back in to hear Beth, her face impassioned, say, “But the whole goal of the program is to help the next generation of students get off to a healthy start.”

Around the table, heads had nodded in agreement. “…difficult for anyone who isn’t in this field to really appreciate how fantastic it is just knowing that you’ve truly made a difference in the course of a student’s life,” one of the teachers had said with a glance at Edie. And then, “You must be bored, huh? Bunch of teachers sitting around talking shop.”

And then Vivian, apparently sensing a need to draw Edie more fully into the conversation, had said, “Almost anything would seem boring compared to what Edie does. She’s the family success story. I married her reject and stayed home and had babies. Edie went off to live a glamorous life in New York.”

And Edie had protested that it wasn’t all that glamorous, but all the women had been looking at her and, she knew damn well, imagining a life that bore little resemblance to their own reality. She’d felt fraudulent, envious of these women who could talk so passionately about changing lives. Suddenly, feeling profoundly alone, she’d excused herself and found the rest room. Two women had stood at a bank of mirrors, laughing and talking as they applied lipstick.

She had a glimpse of loose blond hair and red lips as she’d slipped past them and into a cubicle. They were at least a decade younger and she’d thought, I hate them. I hate them because the tarnish and weariness haven’t set in. They don’t know yet that they won’t always be beautiful; that they won’t conquer the world, marry the man, have the babies. Make a difference. She’d draped the toilet seat with a paper cover and sat until she heard them leave. Stood then and leaned her forehead against the cool metal surface of the door. I need, she’d thought. I need, I need, I need. But what?

“Earth to Edie,” Viv was saying now. “She’s in a foxhole,” she said with a wink at Beth. “Shoulder to shoulder to a hunky marine.”

“Right,” Edie said, rallying. “And I haven’t showered for a week and neither has he.” She drained the margarita, tasting the gritty strawberry seeds, the sweet, fruity ice. “So, Beth,” she said. “How come you haven’t joined the married-with-children club?”

Beth smiled sadly. “I don’t know, really. One minute it seemed as though I had all the time in the world, and I just knew I’d have children and a husband, the whole thing. And then I woke up and I was forty and there was no one even on the horizon.”

Vivian gave a small, conspiratorial smile and leaned slightly toward Beth. “Except for Peter,” she whispered.

“Oh, Peter.” Beth’s expression turned dreamy. “Be still my heart. Today, he told me about his little girl’s dance recital. Delphina, the quiet one he always calls her. I’ve met them all. Delphina’s this solemn little thing with huge dark eyes. The twins, Kate and Abbie, are adorable blond angels, and Natalie is an absolute sweetheart. She’s the little mother.”

Vivian arched an eyebrow at Edie. “Kind of sounds like Beth might be more in love with the girls than she is with Peter, doesn’t it?”

“I just love children,” Beth said. “And Peter’s so sweet when he talks about them. He came in this morning with this big stain on his shirt pocket where Natalie had put a sandwich. Some men would have been embarrassed to walk around all day like that. He’s the principal, after all. But Peter’s much more focused on the idea that his little girl made him lunch.” Her face colored. “I just think he’s really a sweet, sweet man… I just want good things to happen for him.”

“You’d be a good thing,” Vivian said.

Beth smiled. “Edie, if you haven’t noticed, your sister is trying to set me up with Peter. She thinks we’d be perfect together. And your sister, in case you haven’t noticed that, either, happens to be very determined when she sets her mind to anything.”

Viv hooted. “Me, determined? You don’t know determined until you know Edie. Once she makes her mind up on something, nothing’s going to change it.”

“A family trait,” Edie said, thinking of Maude. “So, are you interested in Peter?” she asked Beth. “Personally.”

“Of course she is,” Viv said. “How could she not be?”

Edie looked at Beth, waiting for her to answer. With her nondescript brown hair pulled into a straggling ponytail, no makeup and an unflattering orange knit sweater, Beth looked like the before picture of a makeover candidate. Not without potential, but at the moment, clearly untapped.

An assessment Beth confirmed a moment later. “I don’t think I’m exactly Peter’s type,” she said. “A few weeks ago I was in administration and this tall gorgeous woman came in. Everyone was looking at her. The security guard’s jaw just about dropped. She asked for Peter, and Betty Jean let her into his office. Apparently, she’s this actress he was dating.”

“But he’s not dating her now,” Viv said. “Ray heard Peter telling her not to bother him anymore.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Beth said. “Clearly, that’s the type of woman he’s interested in.”

“Beth.” Elbows on the table, Viv looked at her friend. “He needs a mother for those children. Betty Jean told Ray. He’s not looking to marry an actress. You just need to work at it, let him see you’re interested.”

“But I don’t know if I am,” Beth said. “I think I might feel…inadequate.”

“No, no.” Viv shook her head. “You and Peter would be perfect together. Men are just sometimes slower to catch up. Although,” she said with a little smile, “sometimes you do get that gut feeling. I remember with Ray. Everyone said, ‘Oh he’s still in love with Edie, he’s just marrying you on the rebound,’ but I knew.”

Edie clasped her hands. A pain that had started at the top of her scalp was gathering strength. “The thing is,” she said. “It’s sometimes difficult to know what guys are thinking. You know how you can kind of read things into situations? See what you want to see?” Edie really wanted to go home and stick her head under the covers. “All I’m saying is, Beth, a friend of mine told me years later that she really wished someone had told her right from the start that this guy was never in love with her. It was just a difficult call, though.”

“Excuse me,” Beth said as she hurried from the room.

“What the hell is with you?” Vivian glared at Edie. “Beth has been glowing all evening and it’s like you just poured a bucket of cold water over her. Why don’t you keep your damn cynical opinions to yourself and quit spoiling things for everyone else?”

“I honestly didn’t mean to rain on her parade,” Edie said. “I was just telling her—”

“Next time, try telling yourself to butt out,” Viv snapped.

Edie returned home to find a message from Maude scrawled on a note under the phone.

Gone to bed. A man called I told him he had the wrong number but he kept calling back and asking for Fred so I wrote down his number just to get some peace and quiet you better call him we need more toilet paper and don’t get that thin stuff again my fingers go right through it. Love Mom.

CHAPTER FOUR

WITH A SMILE, Edie folded the note and put it in her pocket. The infrequent letters Maude sent her were written the same way; long, garbled, stream-of-consciousness missives without a hint of punctuation. She dialed the number she knew by heart and reached a colleague and friend she’d known since their days in the Times London bureau. A grizzled bearlike man approaching retirement, Fred Mazare had probably reported from every country in the world during his forty-odd years in journalism. A gold mine of information on anything from overseas press clubs—he knew them all—to public transport in Bangkok—he recommended tuk tuks—Fred was mentor, father figure, confidant and friend all rolled into one untidy, overweight, cigar-smoking curmudgeon. He picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, “And who was that old bat who answered the phone?”

“Out with the girls,” she said, grinning because it felt so damn good to hear his voice. “And watch how you talk about my mother.”

“How’re things going?”

“Oh…” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m home. Does that tell you anything?”

“Yep. It tells me you’re about as out of place as a nun in a brothel.”

She laughed. “Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one.” Her back against the wall, the phone cord wrapped around her wrist, she slid down to the floor. “Why do I feel so…weird whenever I come home, Fred?”

“One, you don’t belong there anymore. Two, you’re trying to convince yourself into believing that you do.”

“I am?”

“Sure you are. Probably hooked up with an old boyfriend and he’s trying to talk you into settling down—”

“Wrong.”

“Okay. Your biological clock’s ticking.”

She groaned. “Oh please, if you can’t come up with something more original…”

“Okay, Edie. Tell Uncle Freddy the problem as you see it.”

“I just…have this empty feeling inside.”

“You going soft on me?”

“No.” She swiped the back of her hand across her nose. “Maybe I’ve had my fill of moving around. Maybe I need to settle, put down some roots.” She swallowed. “Maybe you’re not really so far off the mark about the biological clock.”

“Highly possible,” he agreed.

“But I’d hate to settle down in a place like Little Hills.” She thought of Viv and her off-white leather couches and her endless chattering about Ray and the boys. She thought of Peter with his little girls. Beth all shiny-eyed as she’d called them angels. “I have nothing in common with these people.”

“My guess is that you would if you decided Little Hills is what you’re looking for,” he said. “Ready for some news about Ben?”

She leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

“State Department’s arranged for his release. Could be any day now.”

She breathed a sigh. “Thank God.”

“I spoke to his wife.”

“Ex-wife.”

“Tell her that.”

“He told me that.”

Fred laughed. “Ever strike you funny how people can be so cynical and hardheaded about things they want to believe and so damn gullible and stupid about other things?”

“Not so much funny as pitiful,” she said. You’re not breaking up my marriage, Edie, Ben had told her. It was broken long, long before I met you.

“Hey, Edie.” Fred was saying, “Cut out the whiny broad stuff.”

“I’m not whining.”

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Bull.” Tears burned her nose. “I’m fine. Terrific.”

“You’ve always had Ben’s number…”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Yeah well…listen, here’s something that’ll put a smile on your face. I heard your name mentioned the other day. How does Edie Robinson, Asia bureau chief, strike you?”

“ASIA? Wow, Edie, how exciting,” Vivian enthused the next morning when Edie told her about the bureau chief job. “You know what, though? I don’t envy you one bit. I tell you, when Ray and I got back from New York after our tenth anniversary, I was never so glad to be home.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Edie stuck the phone between her ear and shoulder and, as Viv rattled on, searched the refrigerator shelves for breakfast material. Another trip to the IGA seemed likely. She wanted to get off the phone with Viv, who was seriously beginning to get on her nerves. Irritation, like a small yappy dog kept on a tight rein ever since she’d hauled her bags into the back of Vivian’s gleaming new SUV, was tugging hard at the leash. She bit experimentally into a withered apple, decided it was too far gone and dumped it into the trash.

Maude, upstairs clomping around, would be down any minute and they were out of coffee creamer, which would inevitably get the day off to a shaky start. I don’t want to be here, Edie thought. I don’t want to hear my mother tell me she needs prunes and I don’t want to listen to my sister bitching to me about her hot flashes and her gourmet club. I am cold, unlovable and I vant to be alone.

“I know Little Hills seems boring to you,” Viv was saying now. “But as far as we’re concerned, there isn’t a better place to raise kids. And that sort of thing matters to me and Ray,” she said. “We’re very serious about our kids.”

“I know you are, Viv.” Edie stuck her head in the fridge. The gas oven was also an option. Why didn’t the prospect of a bureau chief job strike her with quite the sense of elation she’d thought it might? She’d stayed awake half the night trying to figure that one out. That and Ben’s release—which she’d never had any doubt about—and the three years she’d wasted with him. “Don’t expect commitment from me,” he’d always say. Something she’d have understood much more readily had he also mentioned a wife back in the States.

Her mood didn’t improve much that day and it wasn’t much better the next, when someone from Maple Grove Residential Living called to inquire whether Maude was still interested in having her name added to the waiting list for residential apartments.

Edie, pacing the hallway with the black receiver lodged between her ear and shoulder, moved too far in one direction and the phone clattered to the floor, knocking over the spindly table it had been standing on. “Damn it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” Edie stood the table up again and replaced the heavy black phone on its crocheted doily. “I was talking to the phone.”

“Of course.” The administrator cleared her throat. “When your sister and mother paid us a visit recently, they were both very impressed. Your sister did say that there were other places they wanted to investigate, but we were under the impression that they were definitely leaning toward Maple Grove.”

Literally or figuratively? Edie wanted to ask. “I don’t think my mother’s made a decision yet,” Edie said. “In fact, I’m sure she hasn’t, but let me check with my sister.”

“That would be Vivian Jenkins?” the administrator asked.

“That would be,” Edie said, irked by the woman’s officious tone. In the mood she was in, Mother Teresa would have irked her.

“I was under the impression, from Mrs. Jenkins, that the decision had been made. Mrs. Jenkins is concerned that your mother is no longer capable of living alone. Your mother was so taken with Maple Grove, she wanted to move in on the spot.”

“Well, that may be,” Edie said. “As I said, I’ll check with my sister.”

“We have very few vacancies,” the woman said. “In fact, that’s why we were forced to create a waiting list. I would hate to see your mother lose out. She was so impressed—”

“I’ll call you,” Edie said and slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle. Tinkerbell, the most persistent of Maude’s three cats, watched her balefully, his eyes the color of grapes. “I hate salespeople,” she told him. “Actually, this morning, I hate everyone.”

The cat mewed and moved to snake its long orange body along Edie’s bare calf.

“That will get you nowhere, trust me.” On tiptoe, Edie reached for a jar of Ovaltine, thinking for a minute it might be coffee. Maude appeared to be out of coffee, which wasn’t helping matters. She took down the jar, unscrewed the lid and peered inside at the dried-up cake of brown powder. “Yuk.”

“Meow.” The cat rubbed its ear against Edie’s leg.

Edie nudged it gently with her toe. “Look, if you want to get into my good books, run down to the corner and get me a double latte, okay? Maybe a bagel, too.”

Still musing on the phone call, a niggling sense that she’d somehow been shut out of an important decision prompted her to dial her sister’s number. As usual, Vivian sounded harried.

“I’m trying to do a million things,” she said, “and the phone keeps ringing off the hook. Brad spilled root beer all over the family-room carpet and I’ve got someone coming in to clean it. Ray’s in a permanent funk. By the way, I’m sorry I jumped at you the other night about Beth. You know I didn’t mean it, right? I swear when I’m on a carb diet, I get the worse sugar withdrawal and—”

“Viv, some woman called from Maple Grove—”

“Oh right.” A pause. “I meant to tell you about that… Look, if the carpet cleaners don’t take too long, how about I drop by right after and we’ll talk. Where is Mom, by the way?”

“A woman from church dropped by to pick her up. They were going to a potluck, or something. Mom was up before me this morning, making macaroni and cheese.”

“Damn.” Vivian exhaled loudly. “Dixie Mueller, right? Little tiny thing with white hair? Well, they’re all little tiny things with white hair, but Dixie’s…first of all she shouldn’t be driving, so every time she takes Mom out, I have to worry about whether they’ll get into an accident. And then Mom goes to these potlucks and eats too much and ends up calling me in the middle of the night convinced she’s having a heart attack…”

Edie held the phone away from her ear as Vivian railed. I am completely out of my element, she thought. This is my mother, but I have no idea what’s really in her best interests. “I’m sorry,” she said after Vivian finally wound down. “Mom seemed really jazzed to be going out and I didn’t know about—”

“It’s not your fault, Edie. Don’t blame yourself. It’s just that I’m with Mom and you’re not. And that’s why she needs to be in a place like Maple Grove. She can’t look after herself and I’m honestly worn out with looking after her.”

“But there are other options besides a residential facility,” Edie said. “She could have someone come in to help her. A live-in assistant, maybe. That way she could stay in the house—”

Vivian laughed. “Edie, Edie. You have no idea, do you? Live-in assistants cost money—”

“So do residential facilities,” she pointed out. “I might not be with Mom on a day-to-day basis, but I’m not entirely out of touch with the real world.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that you were,” Viv said. “It’s just that…well, I hate to keep saying the same thing over and over, but I’m here, Edie, and you’re not.”

A theme that was beginning to sound so familiar, Edie thought, she could almost predict the moment Vivian would say it. Almost as predictable as Vivian’s breathless complaints that she had a million things to do and really didn’t have time to talk about this right now.

“…And I’m going out of my mind,” Viv was saying now. “Do you have any idea at all how much food two teenage boys can consume?”

“Of course I don’t,” Edie said. “I don’t have children.”

A moment of silence from the other end of the line. “Are you being sarcastic?” Vivian wanted to know. “Because if you are—”

“I was just stating a fact,” Edie said. “You have kids and I don’t.”

“I know, but you get that snippy tone in your voice… Anyway, I really don’t have time to argue. I don’t want to argue, let’s put it that way. I don’t see you often enough to spend time when you are here bickering with you.”

Having established the moral high ground, Viv then went on to complain about the paintwork in her newly finished upstairs bathroom, her neighbor’s obnoxious dog who barked half the night and the ridiculous price of the boneless pork roast she’d bought for tomorrow’s dinner with some friends who probably wouldn’t be impressed, anyway.

As she listened, Edie wondered whether it would seem insufferably self-righteous if she attempted to lend some perspective to her sister’s problems by describing the young girl she’d seen in Sarajevo—all dressed up in high heels and full makeup as she picked her way through the rubble from a recent mortar attack because, war or no war, life goes on. Or the women who sent their children to school during shell fire with the reassurances that they were probably safer at school than at home. Yeah, it would be insufferable, she decided, not to mention hypocritical. You’ve never dwelled endlessly on your own petty problems?

“By the way,” Viv said, “I really am sorry for jumping on you lately. You must think I’m a total bitch. When I’m on a low-carb diet, I swear I get sugar withdrawal. Anyway, look, bottom line is we both have Mom’s best interests at heart.”

“Exactly,” Edie agreed, “Which—”

“I’m sure it isn’t easy for you to be back here, feeling that you’re doing everything wrong, but face it, Eed, that’s reality. You made your choice to go off and lead…your kind of life.”

“But—”

“And I have no problem at all with looking after Mom. I mean, I told Ray, I said I don’t even know why Edie’s coming back, as busy as she is…but look, sweetie, I know you’re concerned. Tell you what, how about we take Mom out to Maple Grove tomorrow and you can see the place for yourself?”

Meanwhile, Edie decided as she hung up the phone, she would have a little talk with Maude when she got back from her visit with Dixie—just the two of them. She might never know or understand Maude the way Viv did, but she could at least try to get to know her a little better.

Tomorrow, she would take Maude to lunch.

PETER’S PHONE RANG during the middle of a parent conference. Since he’d told Betty Jean to hold all calls other than emergencies, his first thought as he excused himself to pick up the receiver was that it was one of the girls. “Your sister,” Betty Jean said. “She insisted that I put her through immediately.”

Peter exhaled. “Yes, Sophia?”

“I’m calling for a progress report.”

He frowned. “On what?”

“The wife search. What else?”

“Oh, that,” Peter said, irritated. “Do you honestly think that I have nothing else… Listen, I’m in a meeting—”

“I just thought you might have given it a little thought.”

“I have,” Peter said without thinking first.

“And?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“A teacher?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“A foreign correspondent.”

“A foreign… Oh, Peter, that’s ridiculous. They’re gone all the time. You read about their lifestyles. How can that possibly work?”

“Not quite sure.” Especially since she’s now declined two invitations, he thought as he hung up on Sophia.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Mrs. Black…Patricia’s academic progress would be enhanced considerably if she attended school more than two days a week. Let’s talk a little about what we can do to ensure she gets up in time to catch the school bus in the mornings. An alarm clock would be an obvious first step…”

Sophia’s second call came just as he was leaving his office to head across campus. “Please forget about the foreign correspondent,” she said. “It would be an enormous mistake. As soon as the girls begin to trust her, she’ll be whisked off to Timbuktu, or somewhere, only to be shot at and God knows what else. Please tell me you weren’t serious.”

EDIE HAD ENVISIONED somewhere a little more celebratory for her getting-reacquainted lunch with Maude, but her mother had insisted on Mrs. Brown’s Burger Bar: pumpkin-colored vinyl booths and anthropomorphic dancing pies painted on the windows. Maude liked Mrs. Brown’s early-bird dinners. Edie glanced at the menu. A little insert offered a free slice of apple, chocolate or cherry pie with any order over six dollars.

“I don’t want anything spicy,” Maude was saying. “What are you having?”

“Salad.” Edie set the menu down and looked at Maude. So far today things had gone quite smoothly. She hadn’t slapped her forehead in exasperation, or sworn or wanted to shake Maude silly. I am becoming a better person, she decided. If not a paragon of saintly virtue, more patient and understanding. Compassionate, even. Earlier, as they had been getting into the car, she’d taken a second look at her mother’s headgear and refrained from asking why Maude had chosen to go out wearing a tea cozy.

And last night, after her mother returned from the visit with Dixie Mueller, Edie had listened with a degree of patience she had no idea she possessed to Maude explain that she only ate eggs on Tuesdays except if it rained and then sometimes she’d have a banana, not because she was hungry, mind you, but because of the potassium, but if you stopped to think about it, she’d lived this long so if she wanted to eat eggs on Wednesdays, too, how could it hurt?

“This was nice, Edie,” Maude had said when just before midnight she’d announced she was ready for bed. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a talk like this.” And actually, Edie thought as she’d drifted off to sleep, it had been kind of nice. Not exactly the heart-to-heart, mother-daughter chat she’d once dreamed about, but peculiarly contenting, anyway. Of course, she’d had a couple of glasses of wine.

“What can I get you ladies?” The waiter, a tall gawky kid who appeared to be about twelve, thirteen max, looked from Edie to Maude, then reeled off a list of specials.

“I didn’t get that,” Maude told him. “Can you read them again?”

“Mom, what difference does it make?” Edie asked. Vivian had already warned her that Maude, when dining out, would eat nothing but fish and chips. “You’re going to have fish and chips, anyway.”

“Where’s the chicken potpie?” Maude had picked up the menu again. “How much is it?”

“We don’t have chicken potpie,” the kid said.

“Chicken potpie,” Maude said. “And a cup of coffee.”

“They don’t have chicken potpie,” Edie told Maude. “Why don’t you just have fish and chips like you always do?”

Maude eyed Edie, a tad suspiciously. “What are you having?”

Edie felt her hand move almost involuntarily to her head. She restrained it. “I’m having salad, Mom. I already told you.”

Maude screwed up her face as if she’d just learned that her daughter was going to dine on stewed yak. “Salad?”

“Salad.”

“I don’t want salad. I’ll have chicken potpie.”

Edie slapped her head. “Mom! Look at me. They don’t have chicken potpie.”

“Don’t shout at me.” Maude raised her eyes to the waiter. “See how my daughter talks to me?”

“Want me to come back in a few minutes?” he said.

“No,” Edie said. “She’ll have fish and chips.”

“I don’t know though.” Maude was browsing the menu again. “The last time I had chicken potpie here it had bits of green pepper in it. I think I’ll just have the fish and chips. Edie, that man across the street keeps looking at you.”

Edie looked beyond the dancing pies to see Peter Darling leaving the hardware shop, smiling broadly. She realized with irritation, now back and in plentiful supply, that her hair was lank and unwashed, she had on no makeup and that she was wearing tatty elephant-colored sweats. She drank some water and slouched down in the booth as Peter approached. The life of the foreign correspondent wasn’t always glamorous and exotic.

CHAPTER FIVE

AS HE APPROACHED the booth where Edie sat opposite an elderly woman in a natty white knitted hat, Peter acknowledged, reluctantly, that Edie did not appear overjoyed to see him. By contrast, her companion was all smiles as she patted the booth beside her.

“Didn’t recognize you from across the road,” she said. “You’re that assistant principal at my son-in-law’s school. Saw you when my other daughter took me there so she could drop off Ray’s lunch. He’s on a low-sodium diet. You met Edie? She’s a foreign correspondent, got shot at last year. I’m having the fish and chips. Edie’s having the chicken potpie.”

“Mmm.” He met Edie’s eyes across the table. As he remembered, they were amber, only slightly lighter than her hair. “I wasn’t really hungry, but I quite like chicken potpie.”

“They don’t have chicken potpie.” Edie looked as if she might have a headache. “I’m having a salad.”

“If you don’t mind the green peppers, the chicken potpie is good,” Maude said.

“I think I’m going to sit here and go quietly insane,” Edie said. “Hi, Peter. This is my mother, Maude Robinson, in case you weren’t previously introduced. Mom—” she leaned across the table to Maude “—you remember Peter Darling?” She looked at Peter again. “School day over already?”

“No,” he said. “I just came for the chicken potpie.”

“Don’t do this,” she said.

“You ever seen Edith slap her head?” Maude asked. “That’s what she did just before you got here. I said I wanted fish and chips and she slaps her head. She shouted at me, too.”

“I should be locked away,” Edie said. “What are you doing here?”

“I placed two students at the hardware shop across the street,” he said. “It’s a great arrangement. The school district partially subsidizes the shop owner. He gets a couple of assistants and the students get some real work experience while earning credits toward graduation.”

She eyed him for a moment. “That must be gratifying.”

He looked straight back at her. “It is. Very.”

“I meant it sincerely,” she said. “I wasn’t being facetious.”

“I didn’t suspect for a moment that you were,” he lied. Edie disquieted him. It was nothing overt; an enigmatic smile, the faint whiff of cynicism about her. He imagined that she saw him as painfully earnest, which he supposed he was. Well, earnest—not painfully, he hoped. Perhaps he should cultivate a new persona. Cavalier and brutish. Take that insolent smirk off your face, wench, and get thee to the bedchamber.

“My daughters both think I’m a senile old woman who doesn’t have a clue in the world what’s going on right in front of her eyes,” Maude said. “They’re trying to put me in a home.”

Edie set down her water glass. The air went still. Peter tried to think of something to say. At his side, the old woman was sipping water, seemingly unaware that she’d just sparked a match to the conversational tinderbox.

“Edith hasn’t been back here for donkey’s years,” the elderly woman said. “Too busy with her high-powered job. Now she decides it’s time for poor old mom to be put away, so she comes out here to drag me around to these fancy high-priced places that are nothing more than storage rooms where you sit around and wait to die.”

“Are you living in your own home at the moment?” Peter asked, trying only to defuse the tension. He didn’t look at Edie, but he could feel her presence, glowering across the table. Beside him, Maude fiddled with her ear.

“Sorry. It’s not that I’m deaf. I only wear my hearing aid when there’s something I want to hear. Do I rent? No, I own my home. My husband and I bought it when our oldest daughter, Vivian, was born. Both the girls were raised in that house and now they’re trying to make me move out—”

“Mom, that’s absolutely not true,” Edie said. “That’s what we’ve been talking about. That’s why I’m back. Viv said you want to move—”

“I didn’t until she started showing me all these fancy brochures and then you come back and…” She looked at Peter. “Now they’re both on at me. I never said stick me in a warehouse though, did I?” She glared at Edie. “I didn’t say come out here and turn my life upside down—”

“Ah, food,” Edie announced as the kid waiter approached. “Too bad I’m suddenly not hungry.”

HALF AN HOUR, still shaking with anger, Edie helped Maude back into the car. As she walked around to the driver’s side, Peter caught her arm. He’d gamely sat through the meal, engaging Maude in small talk about roses and gardening and preventing an incendiary situation from erupting into a wildfire. As they were leaving the restaurant, Maude had invited him and his daughters to dinner. Edie had been too furious to even listen for his reply. She looked at him for a moment, not trusting herself to speak.

“So.” She forced a bright smile. “Here you have the real truth. Heartless daughters evict poor old mother…no, daughter. Singular. As Maude would have told you if you’d waited a little longer, Viv would never be so cruel. But then Viv didn’t kill her father. Funny how Mom’s never quite forgiven me for that.” She stopped, appalled at what she’d just said. She could see confusion in Peter’s face and something else, something tender and soft that made her want to run. “Sorry for that little outburst,” she said. “Could we please rewind the tape?”

“Consider it done.” His hand was on the top of the car now. He hadn’t taken his eyes from her face. “It would be an understatement to say you’ve got a tricky situation, and I don’t want to interfere in a family matter. But, if you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean that.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a card and scribbled something on the back. “That’s my number at home.” He handed the card to Edie. “You’re likely to get one of my daughters, and if it’s Delphina, she’ll want very much to read you a poem. She’s quite talented. Of course, she’ll be too shy to tell you that…but with a little coaching, you can draw her out.”

“Thank you,” she said again. She would never call, she knew that, but it was a sweet gesture. “I appreciate it.”

“I mean it sincerely. The offer. I’m a very good listener. I also used to have an elderly mother…”

She smiled.

“I don’t know why Ray doesn’t like him,” Maude said as they drove away. “Seems very nice to me. ’Course, you can never tell.”

PETER HAD FELT some misgivings as he watched Edie drive away with Maude in the car. Perhaps he should have done more to calm her down. He could imagine the headlines in tomorrow’s Little Hills Union. Noted Foreign Correspondent Throttles Elderly Mother. He’d felt the tension radiating off her.

He stood in the quad now, almost an hour later, watching a troupe of young actors, all dressed in black, perform for the assembled students. Perhaps he would ring her this evening, just to make sure everything was all right. He remembered that he’d meant to tell her how inspired the students had been by her talk. She’d like to hear that, he was sure.

Sophia might be right about the unsuitability of a foreign correspondent as a wife, but it would be very agreeable to get to know Edie as a friend. That said, how could it hurt to call? He did wonder, though, at the remark about killing her father. What was that all about? Bit of melodrama, maybe. One would hope.

On a stage across the quad, an antidrug message was being conveyed through mime, dance and ear-splittingly loud rap. His temples throbbing, he snaked a hand down over the shoulder of a boy in the back row and plucked a bag of sunflower seeds, forbidden on campus because of the mess they created, from the surprised boy’s grasp. He wondered if, at forty-one, he was too old for this sort of thing.

And then Beth Herman tapped him on the arm. He shot her a quick sideways glance and did a double take. Normally, he didn’t pay a great deal of attention to women’s clothes—a shortcoming of which Amelia had frequently complained—but Beth’s blouse was really quite extraordinary, patterned with brilliant butterflies that danced over her entire upper body. Another surreptitious glance revealed small black script identifying the various species. By then, mercifully, the music had stopped and he turned to take an even closer look, realizing as he did so that he was ogling her left breast.

“Sorry,” he said, although Beth did not seem at all offended. “Very nice blouse.” The students were now ambling off to their classrooms and Beth was smiling and it seemed necessary somehow to say something else. Would you like to be a mother to my children? seemed a bit peremptory. “Very nice cupcakes, too,” he said instead.

“Cupcakes?”

“The cakes you brought in this morning with the little silver balls. Quite delicious.”

“Oh,” she said. “They weren’t mine. One of my aides brought them in. I’ll thank her on your behalf,” she said. “Actually though, I do love to cook.”

“And I’m sure you do it very well,” he said, trying to imagine Amelia’s response if he were to suggest she bake cakes. Probably about the same as if he were to suggest they marry and raise a dozen children together. Edie would react similarly, he suspected. But he must stop thinking about unsuitable women. Which reminded him of Edie again—or, rather, her mother. “I have a proposal,” he said.

“A proposal?” Beth’s face reddened and the pile of papers she’d been carrying like a baby slipped from her arms and fell to the ground. “Sorry.”

Peter joined Beth on the grass to help retrieve some papers that had been scattered by a sudden breeze. For a moment or so they were both on their hands and knees, and he glanced up to find Beth’s nose inches from his own.

“A proposal?” she said again.

“A proposal.” Peter held out his hand to help her up. “You seem a little…flustered.”

“Flustered?” She raked her brown curls. “Oh no, no. I’m fine. I mean, this is the way I always am. Sorry. Um, what can I do for you?” She laughed. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right—”

“Beth, you’ve just apologized for the third time in as many minutes,” Peter said. “Stop it. You’re making me feel like an ogre.”

“An ogre? Oh no, I’m sorry I…”

Peter shook his head. She’d caught her lapse and was looking at him with such dismay that he couldn’t help laughing. “I’m sorry…” He grinned. “God, you’ve got me doing it. Look, all I wanted to suggest—”

“Would you like some tea? I could make some if you’d like to walk back to the center. Peppermint? Apple? Chamomile?”

“Oh no, thank you.” He loathed tea, particularly the herbal variety, but people were always offering him cups of it. “About my proposal, though. You do know Edie Robinson? I met her mother today and I rather had the sense that time hangs heavy on occasion and she becomes depressed. I know you’re always short of volunteers and—”

“Perfect.” Beth beamed. “The girls would love having a surrogate grandmother to help with the babies, and if Mrs. Robinson is anything like my mother, there’s nothing she’d enjoy more than being surrounded by babies and young people.”

“Good. I’ll ring Edie today,” he said, quick to grasp at any excuse. Perhaps he could determine whether there really was a safari-suited boyfriend, or if that was just a polite excuse, in which case… He realized that Beth was watching him as though she had something more to say. He smiled and she glanced down at her feet, then up at him.

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