“It’s Terri,” she said in fear, as though the worst possible thing had happened. The next second she had thrown William’s arm off her shoulders and she was standin
g upright, frantically trying to straighten the room. It seemed that everywhere were signs of William’s cohabitation. She had to remove all trace of him!
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, not having moved from the couch.
“That’s Terri,” she said, as though those words explained everything. William’s house slippers were on the floor by the big chair. His shirt with a torn pocket was draped across her sewing basket; she’d promised to repair it for him when her hand healed. There were three magazines with his name on the subscription labels on the coffee table. His coat hung on the peg by the door.
Frantically she tried to gather up every trace of him, and when her arms were full, she looked about for some place to hide everything. What if Terri had some reason to look inside the coat closet? What if she wanted to look in the pantry? Jackie headed toward the bedroom, then stopped. That was the last place she should hide William’s things.
Calmly William came forward and took the things from her arms. “I’ll take care of them,” he said softly.
There was something in his tone that she didn’t want to hear. No doubt she had hurt his feelings, but she couldn’t think of that now. She’d have to worry about soothing him later. “Terri can’t see that I have a man living here with me,” she said, trying to cover her actions with a lie. But one quick glance at William’s eyes told her that he didn’t believe her. He knew that she was embarrassed because the male things in her living room belonged to an “inappropriate” man, a younger man, and therefore not a man she wanted to introduce to her friends with pride.
As Jackie scurried about, looking for any other evidence of William’s presence, she tried not to think about what she was doing. Later she’d make William—and herself—believe that she was only trying to protect their reputations.
She looked up at him, standing there with an armload of things that were clearly his. “Maybe you…” she began.
“Sure,” he said, then turned on his heel and went toward the stairs.
She started to call after him but caught herself just as there was an urgent knock on the door. She turned and went to answer it.
“What in the world were you doing?” Terri asked. “I must have knocked four times. I just heard about your accident this morning. Why didn’t you call me? Maybe I could have come out here and taken care of you.”
“How kind of you to offer, but I was fine. Really.”
“That’s not what I heard.” Terri walked past Jackie and looked around the room. There weren’t many clues to the presence of another person but, even to Jackie’s eyes, the room was different: less messy, more perfectly ordered, too tidy.
“Something is going on,” Terri said as she turned and looked hard at her friend. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Jackie answered, but she had to clear her throat in the middle of the word. Even to herself she sounded as though she were lying.
“Mmmm,” Terri said, obviously not satisfied. “So what have you been doing with yourself this week?” As though she felt extremely tired, which she did, Terri plopped down on a big down-cushioned chair. Her husband had lost another job this week, and they’d had a blazing fight. “A job isn’t like a set of keys,” she’d yelled at him. “You can’t just lose it for no reason. What did you do?” It was better not to remember what had happened after that. Only because Jackie had been injured was Terri allowed out of the house today.
But she didn’t want to talk about her life. She didn’t want to talk about it or think about it. Jackie had the exciting life; Jackie had everything that was good in life, everything a person could have.
Easing her weight off her bruised hip, Terri put her hand behind the cushion of the chair, and like Little Jack Horner, she pulled out a plum in the form of a man’s sock.
Holding it up, at first she looked puzzled. Then, when she saw the redness of Jackie’s face and when Jackie snatched the sock from her hand, Terri began to laugh. “You have a man,” she said, smiling. “That’s why it took you so long to answer the door. Oh, do tell me who he is.” It seemed that even a bad marriage could not cure a woman of hopefulness about romance. Even though her own man was no good, Terri honestly believed that somewhere out there was a knight in shining armor who was made for her.
At the look of embarrassment on Jackie’s face, Terri began to push. “Who is he? I can’t believe that something is going on and you told me nothing. I haven’t heard a whisper of anything in town, so you’re doing a great job of hiding it. You must tell me who he is.”
“No one,” Jackie said tightly. “You want some tea?”
“Sure, but I want information more.”
It was all Jackie could do to keep from snapping that what was going on in her life was none of Terri’s business. But Terri was an innocent, and so Jackie tried hard not to lose her patience no matter how many awkward, probing, embarrassing questions Terri asked.
“What kind of tea do you want?” Jackie asked finally, her hand gripping the tea canister so hard her knuckles were white.
“Whatever he drinks,” Terri said smugly, making Jackie grimace.
“Looking for something?” William asked Terri’s son. At first glance, the “boy” didn’t seem to be doing anything wrong, just walking around the airplane parked in the hangar, but William knew everyone in Chandler. The Pelman men were worthless, lazy, stupid, and hostile. William didn’t trust this overgrown lout even to go to church without an ulterior motive.
“What are you doin’ here?” the big kid asked, his thick black brows pulled into a scowl. He was handsome in a brutish way, with thick lips and deep-set eyes, but he had that air of defensiveness that stupidity and arrogance often gave people. Whether he meant to or not, he seemed to be daring anyone to contradict him, daring anyone to hint that he wasn’t as smart as the rest of the world.
Abruptly his face brightened and he looked pleased with himself—rather the way a monkey might look when it figured out the problem some scientist had set for it. “You’re after her, ain’t ya?”
“I beg your pardon?” William asked stiffly. He wasn’t sure, but he thought this Pelman was about eighteen years old and named Larry.