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giving her a minimum of lip, breaking rules only occasionally and then nothing serious.
    In the bathroom, she picked up the towels—neatly folded over the edge of the tub—and wiped down the fixtures which didn’t have the slightest water spotting. After replacing the towels, she ran the stick vacuum over the area rugs and hardwood floors.
    Back in the hall, she dropped the laundry bag with the towels down the laundry chute which ended up in the utility room on the first floor. She replaced two bottles of water and several boxes of juice in the small refrigerator on the landing outside the door. As a matter of principle, she didn’t make soft drinks available to children. If the parents allowed them, that was their business.
    On the second floor, she decided not to clean the room which the two men had occupied. Likely Bradley would send Rosabel or Parnell to go over it. Maybe he’d even come himself. But at the end of the hall, she let herself into the front room where Tiny had stayed the night before. Tangled bed covers and a towel on the floor by the bed made her cheeks flame. Not having any pajamas, he’d probably slept au naturel . Travis, her ex-husband, had plenty of pajamas which he never wore, and she expected nothing had changed since he’d hooked up with Shana Bayliss, the town’s ex-librarian who was Bradley’s age and had been, in fact, Bradley’s girlfriend until his father put the moves on her.
    The pillow bore the imprint of Tiny’s head. A few drops of blood had seeped from beneath the bandage. She changed the pillowcase, then made the bed and cleaned the bathroom.
    Would he be back? Why did she even care? Maybe I should go uptown and get him a package of underwear and some pajamas. I could say I was buying them for Daddy, but the clerk would know better. He’s a lot smaller than Tiny. Maybe I could call Mary Lynn and…no, that wouldn’t do. Mary Lynn doesn’t need to know about Tiny, at least not just yet. I can just hear her. She’d blow up like Vesuvius. ‘You let a stranger spend the night after he hit on you? A biker? You could’ve been dead in your bed! Honestly, Pen!’
    Penelope headed downstairs. Well, that leaves Daddy, I guess. He’ll know what to get. Travis did his own shopping, and so did Bradley after he turned thirteen. Back in the kitchen, she emptied and refilled the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, and then sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and her menu notebook. Maybe I’ll get out the clown waffle iron and make those sweet little boys a really special breakfast tomorrow. I’ll tell them it’s because they were quiet as mice and good as gold.
    She reflected on how much Bradley liked her breakfast treats when he was growing up. Even when she worked the night shift at the hospital in Little Rock, she was always home in time to fix his breakfast before he went to school. And she was always up again by the time he came home.
    Jake whistled himself through the back door, breaking into her thoughts. She watched him pull a can of soda from the refrigerator, toss it from hand to hand in a sort of triumphant display, and whistle some more.
    “Daddy, what have you done?”
    He sat down across from her. “Just had a nice visit with my grandson, that’s all.”
    “That’s not all, and you know it.”
    He grinned as he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small hand-held recorder which he placed on the table between them. “I happened to think about this before I left. Remember that college student who was researching the history of Amaryllis? He used it when he interviewed me about the Garden Market.”
    “He left it behind?”
    “Well, I gave him the tapes.”
    “And kept the recorder.”
    Jake nodded. “Told him I sort of liked it, and he said I could have it. He could afford it, Nellie. He was one of those Gaults from over at Fayetteville.” He opened the can of soda with a flourish. So I just took it with me and ran the little microphone