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March. And you know as well as I do that nothing ever happens in Lake Eden in March.”
    “Well, this year is an exception to the rule,” Hannah stated, sharing a smile with Lisa. And then she proceeded to tell Andrea why Ronni Ward was going to wish she’d stayed home in Lake Eden instead of flying off to Miami with Bill.
    PEANUT BUTTER AND JAM COOKIES (PBJs)
    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position
    1 cup melted butter (2 sticks, ½ pound)
    2 cups brown sugar (firmly packed)
    ½ cup white (granulated) sugar
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1½ teaspoons baking soda
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    ½ teaspoon salt
    1 cup peanut butter
    2 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork)
    ½ cup chopped salted peanuts (measure AFTER chopping)
    3 cups flour (no need to sift)
    approximately ½ cup fruit jam (your choice of fruit)
    Microwave the butter in a microwave safe mixing bowl for approximately 90 seconds on HIGH to melt it. Mix in the brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir until they’re thoroughly blended.
    Measure out the peanut butter. (I spray the inside of my measuring cup with Pam so it won’t stick.) Add it to the bowl and mix it in. Pour in the beaten eggs and stir it all up. Add the chopped salted peanuts and mix until they’re incorporated.
    Add the flour in one-cup increments, mixing it in until all the ingredients are thoroughly blended.
    Form the dough into walnut-sized balls with your hands and arrange them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. (If the dough is too sticky to form into balls, chill it for an hour or so, and then try again.)
    Make an indentation in the center of the dough ball with your thumb. Spoon in a bit of jam, making sure it doesn’t run over the sides of the cookie.
    Bake at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the tops are just beginning to turn golden. Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.
    Yield: approximately 7 dozen cookies, depending on cookie size.
    Hannah’s Note: If you happen to run out of fruit jam and you have cookies left to fill, put a few chocolate chips in the indentation. You’ll have to call those cookies PBCs, but they’re wonderful!
    Tracey likes her PBJs with strawberry jam, Andrea prefers apricot, Bill’s wild about blueberry, and Mother loves them with peach. I prefer to eat one of each, just to test them of course.

Chapter Four
    The next two weeks passed much too slowly, as winter weeks often do, but at last the big day arrived. Everyone who wasn’t engaged in business of the utmost necessity turned out to watch as the movie crew rolled into town. Lisa and Hannah were no exception. The Cookie Jar wasn’t open. It was never open on Sunday, but both partners and their extended families sat at tables in front of the window, watching the cars, motor homes, tractor trailers, and smaller cube trucks turn the corner by the lumber yard at First and Main, and drive down Main Street to Sixth, where an area had been set aside for them to park.
    “That’s the wardrobe truck,” Michelle explained, as a truck pulling a long, narrow trailer came down the street. “The inside looks just like a closet with two long poles and hangers that lock so they don’t jiggle off the poles.”
    Hannah smiled at her youngest sister. Michelle had arrived the previous night on the bus, and this morning she was holding court at a table with Delores, Carrie, Andrea, and Lisa. Norman, Mike, and Herb were at a separate table and they were wearing almost identical I couldn’t care less expressions designed to convince everyone else that they weren’t at all interested in spotting the actors and actresses as they drove by the plate glass window.
    Hannah, herself, was perched on a stool between the two tables, watching the clock over the counter. In a few minutes, she’d head out to the community center to help Edna Ferguson with the brunch Mayor Bascomb had arranged