Jill Churchill - The Merchant of Menace

For some reason, Pet's behavior made Jane want to be a child for her. Show her how it was done. She nearly said, "Ram, schram, bippity barn" with a girlish laugh, but forced herself to reply only, "I don't know, Pet. Can you tell when you turn it on?"

“Is it an old computer?" Pet asked.

“No, only about two or three years old.”

Pet allowed herself a slight smile. "That's very old for a computer."

“Then you may use my laptop. It's only a few months old. It's downstairs, too.”

Pet and Todd went down the basement stairs and Jane quietly closed the door behind them. "Oh, dear. Poor little thing," Jane said to Shelley. "At least she forgot about brushing her teeth. I guess there's hope for her."

“You never know," Shelley said. "She could get a figure and contacts and take down her hair someday and turn into a blues singer in a slinky purple-sequined dress.”

Jane shook her head. "No, I think she's going to get stronger glasses and go around in a lab coat with a pocket protector."

“Pocket protector! Oh, I know who she is now," Shelley said. "There was a Sam Dwyer sitting in the hall with me waiting to see the teacher at the same time I was last week. A real, live grown-up geek of the first order. Not really too bad-looking, but the tidiest man I've ever met. Real short hair, glasses as thick as Pet's, and a very narrow tie that he must have been babying along since the seventies. I tried to make conversation with him, but it was heavy going. He simply didn't want to talk to me."

“Imagine!" Jane said, grinning.

“I was irritated," Shelley admitted. "I was just curious about him and he wouldn't tell me anything about himself."

“Sounds like both of them need to hang out with a blues singer in a slinky purple-sequined dress.”

Shelley took another cookie. "These things are addictive," she complained. "It's a shame they're so ugly. Now that I think about it and have met little Pet, I'm even more curious."

“You're as nosy as Lance King," Jane said.

Shelley drew herself up indignantly. "But my motives are pure, unlike his. I don't want to wreck people's lives, just know about them. And maybe be helpful. There aren't that many single men in the neighborhood and I thought maybe Suzie Williams—”

Jane yelped with laughter. "Suzie Williams? He doesn't exactly sound like Suzie's type!" She was the one who'd accompanied Jane to meet the Johnsons, and she made no bones about wanting to get out of selling lingerie at the local department store via marriage to a man who could support her in style.

Shelley said, "Suzie's 'type' of man is anyone with decent table manners and a balanced checkbook with lots of lovely money in it. Or so she claims."

“I think it's all a facade. I think Suzie wants to be in love," Jane said. "You'll see. Someday she'll fall head over heels with a dashing but unemployed race-car driver with long hair and a dazzling come-hither smile. Sort of like that sexy World War One guy in the pizza ad."

“You don't think she's the one to bring the Dwyers, father and daughter, into the human race?" Shelley asked.

“I think she'd scare them to death. I imagine you scare them."

“I only scare people when I need to," Shelley said smugly.

Jane opened the basement door, listened for a moment, nodded approval of what she heard. "Want more coffee?" she asked Shelley.

“I wouldn't object violently. Where do you stand on the Lance King thing?"

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Julie called this morning and said she'd uninvited him and he took it like a man.”

They were both silent for a moment while Jane refreshed the coffee cups. "I don't believe it," Shelley said when Jane sat back down.

“I believe he said it," Jane said, frowning. "But I don't believe he meant it. I'll bet he's down at city hall or the newspaper files or someplace else trying to dig up something to ruin me with. He's not going to find anything. I've got plenty of sins on my soul, but I don't believe any of them are public record.”

Jane's son Mike came home from college that evening. He wasn't due to come home until the next day, but cheerfully explained that he'd come sooner so he could set up the electric train. Jane opened her mouth to object, but remembering the classes she'd cut in college for far less valid reasons, said nothing.

“What's happened to the house next door?" Mike asked when he'd dragged his belongings into the house and dumped them in the living room.

“New neighbors," Jane said. "They're really into decorating for the holidays in a big way. Be sure and take your things upstairs right now. We have to keep the house really clean for a couple days. There's a neighborhood caroling party tomorrow night and everybody's coming here afterwards. And the next afternoon I'm having a cookie party. Then we can slob out until Christmas Eve when your grandmother's coming to dinner."

“A cookie party. That's great. I remember you used to go to those parties when I was a little kid," Mike said. "We ended up with all kinds of good stuff. Remember those stained-glass cookie things? Let's make some of those."

“Pick up some Life Savers and gingerbread mix next time you're out and we will."

“How about tonight? I haven't had dinner and want to go pick up a hamburger," Mike said. "Where are Todd and Katie? I'll take them along.”

Jane bellowed up the steps for the other kids and watched the reunion of the siblings. The younger two were of ages that couldn't openly show affection for a big brother, but they were obviously glad to see him.

Katie gave him an air kiss.

“Hey!" Todd said when Mike gripped him in a bear hug. "What's with the mushy stuff? You were just here at Thanksgiving."

“Yeah, but I didn't have presents with me then. Help me take my junk upstairs.”

Katie trailed along after them, pretending that she was going that direction anyway. Jane caught a snatch of the conversation and called after them, "Katie, quit asking about Mike's friends. You are not in the dating market for college boys."

“Oh, Mother!”

Jane stood in the middle of her still-clean kitchen. Lance King didn't matter, the scratchy blare of a reggae version of "We Three Kings" blasting from next door was of no consequence. The fact that she had to feed at least thirty people this time tomorrow wasn't even much of a concern. She had her kids home and they were pretty neat kids.

Life didn't get much better. SixBut life could — and did — get considerably worse the next day.

It started with the anonymous note stuck into the front storm door. Jane noticed it as she came in from getting the morning paper. Handwritten and copied on bright pink paper, the note was signed A Group of Concerned Neighbors.

In Jane's experience a "group" with no name attached usually meant one disgruntled, cowardly individual.

The gist of the note was that the Johnsons' Christmas display was a detriment to the neighborhood. It created noise and light pollution. "Light pollution?" Jane snorted out loud. Furthermore, the Concerned Neighbor went on, it would create a traffic problem as word spread and more and more people came to look at it, thus endangering the welfare of the children who might not be used to so many cars on the street and possibly drawing the attention of a lot of "less than desirable" outsiders. Moreover, the Group of Concerned Neighbors said, going overboard on political correctness, the display was largely Christian in intent and was offensive to Jewish, Moslem, and atheist residents. It might, the Group said, even violate the constitutional right to separation of church and state.

Jane stared at the note and muttered angrily, "Get a life!" as she headed for the phone. When Shelley answered, Jane said, "Have you opened your front door yet? No? Do so. I'll wait.”