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Endeara came into the room bearing a tray of champagne glasses and a small bowl of strawberries. Behind her trailed Amelia, holding a large bottle of chilled champagne.
    “You’d better bring me tea, Endeara. On top of everything else, I’m pregnant.” Endeara nearly dropped the tray of crystal and managed to set it down on the tea table in front of Myrna just in the nick of time. Amelia hung on to the champagnebottle by its neck and covered her open mouth with the other hand.
    “Gracious,” Myrna said. “I didn’t ask the right questions after all. Jim, would you be so kind as to open the bottle for Amelia? And Endeara, tea for my niece?”
    When they left the room again, Myrna said to June, “I hope you don’t intend for them to keep it secret? It’s impossible, I assure you.”
    “Don’t worry, Auntie. Thanks to my father, the whole town knows. And I only told him last week.” The cork made a loud pop as it came out. “I was just getting around to telling you when Jim appeared. I hadn’t expected him to arrive so soon.”
    “It seems a good thing he has appeared. Tell me something, dearest. How have you kept him secret so well?”
    “Well, Auntie, I haven’t seen as much of him as I would have liked, as he’s been working out of state. I knew he’d be retiring in a few months and then I planned to spring him on the family and the town. In the meantime, though, I guess I just didn’t want to share.”
    Jim poured champagne into two of the glasses. “And I didn’t want to be shared,” he said.
    “I don’t know how you did it,” Myrna said, lifting one of the glasses. “Not with the hours you keep and the way people keep letting themselves into your house when they want to see a doctor. Well, here’s to you, June. The master of deceit.” She took a little sip. “And a baby, too?”
    “We had so little time together, I can’t imagine how that happened,” June said, genuinely perplexed. “But I’ll make a confession. Had I known this was going to happen, I’d have introduced Jim around a while ago. It must look to everyone like I jumped into bed with him the second we met. It wasn’t quite that way,” she said. But it was close.
    “I have something for you,” Myrna said. “Just the thing. Sit still.”
    She dashed out of the room excitedly, as quickly as an eighty-four-year-old woman can dash, leaving Jim and June to stare at each other. June whispered, “How are you holding up?”
    “I think I’ll survive. Your aunt is a kick. Hell, your town is a kick. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be bored.”
    “You have anything to keep you busy, like knitting?” She was answered with a frown. “There’s a lot I need to learn about you.” Endeara brought her tea on a tray with a basket of tiny crackers.
    Jim patted her knee. “Fortunately there’s plenty of time,” he said. June sipped her tea. “And I’m not holding anything back,” he whispered.
    The tea wasn’t hot and it had a funny taste. The twins didn’t usually screw up tea, which made her very suspect of the ingredients. She didn’t hear exactly what Jim said, but the combination of his warm breath in her ear and tea that tasted strangely like dishwater made her stomach turn over. She set the cup down on the cocktail table and grew pale.
    “Are you all right?” Jim asked.
    “I’m not sure. A wave of… The worst… Funny, you’d think I’d get used to this.”
    “What?”
    Her hand went to her stomach. “The totally unpredictable lurching of my stomach.” She grimaced. “Out of the blue, for no reason at all, I’ll be just overcome with…” She made a face and swallowed convulsively.
    “The fact that I’ve been whispering in your ear that you can get to know as much of me as you like hasn’t made you sick to your stomach, has it?” he asked, half joking.
    “Of course not,” she said, but she spoke with difficulty. This had happened to her a number of times, this queer and sudden sickness, but if