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said, gulped, and went on, "how nice to meet you.”
    She was looking at Mike as she spoke. He was smiling blandly.
    “If you're talking about food," he said, "Kipsy and I are going to a Thai restaurant this evening where she works part-time. She was buying plants for the owner to decorate the place. They're in my truck. We're taking them over now. Be back late probably.”
    Jane sat thunderstruck as Mike whisked Kipsy out of the house.
    “Wow!" Katie said.
    “Is that a good wow or a bad one?" Jane asked.
    “Mom," Katie said critically, "you can't go on judging people by how they look. That's so frumpy and it's bigoted besides."
    “I certainly
can
judge people when they make an effort to look like freaks," Jane said. "That says something about their personality.”
    Katie couldn't answer this, so she just sniffed with contempt and said, "I thought she looked cool. I might do that to my hair."
    “Over my dead body," Jane said. "Or yours. I'll let you drive us to the grocery store on your learner's permit if you promise not to scare me."
    “I think Mike has gone over the edge," Jane said to Shelley later. "You should have
seen
this girl."
    “I did," Shelley said. "Through my kitchen window as they came in your house. I wanted to go find my Denise and lock her in a closet until she's twenty-five. Maybe thirty. Where did Mike find her?"
    “At the nursery where he's working. She was buying plants for the restaurant where she works. The owner must have taste as bad as hers to turn her loose to make decorating decisions, considering how she's decorated herself."
    “Don't worry. Mike's a bright kid. He won't fall for her," Shelley said.
    “What if you're wrong?" Jane whined. "Can you imagine having a daughter-in-law like that? Think of the wedding. Probably held in a Thai restaurant with bridesmaids in underwear or saris. Or under some bridge downtown next door to a body-piercing emporium."
    “Maybe he just dragged her in to show you a novelty," Shelley said.
    “Dear God, I hope so."
    “Jane, you're the one going over the edge. He apparently just met her. Don't go worrying about a wedding. You'll see that he doesn't marry until he finishes college.”
    Seven
    Jane
puttered around in the kitchen awkwardly, trying to think what would be easiest to cook for dinner. A roast maybe. Just put it in a bag and drag it out later. But that would take two hands. Could she balance herself well enough without at least one crutch to do that? Hamburgers on the grill? Nope, too many steps down to the patio.
    As she cruised the fridge, there was a banging on her kitchen door and Ursula Appledorn walked in. Jane wished she weren't so careless about locking up and that non-family members or close friends would not assume an unlocked door meant you didn't have to knock. But she put on a welcoming smile because that was how she'd been raised.
    “You need good food and I've brought it to you. Hold the screen door for me," Ursula said, going back to an even more disreputable station wagon than Jane's.
    In a moment she was back with a large paper carton that she started unloading on Jane's kitchen counter.
    “Hominy," she said of a covered dish she slapped down. "Lots of nutrients. Some dandelion greens from my own yard, barely cooked so the vitamins are still in them. Be sure to drink the juice. Tons of calcium and potassium. Good for broken bones."
    “Uh… Ursula, I'm planning to have hamburgers for dinner."
    “Meat?" Ursula was stunned. "I didn't think anyone actually ate meat these days. The government demands that so many cancer-causing chemicals are in it."
    “I think you might have that backwards. The government tries to make the farmers take out the chemicals," Jane said, examining the dandelion greens, which seemed to have a good many foreign objects that looked like insects cooked up with the greens. She hoped they were just flowers that had wilted to that stage.
    “No, dear. The government is responsible for poisoning us. At