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was three-quarters done and was going to really, really work on it after the holidays. She remembered thinking the same thing last Christmas. But at least she was two hundred pages farther along now than then.
    “I know how to load programs, Mrs. Jeffrey. I just hope you have enough RAM.”
    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