A Farewell to Yarns

It’s the only way I have any idea what my children are up to. Phyllis, I’ve got to get going. Help yourself to anything you want if you’re hungry. I’m fixing spaghetti for dinner. You aren’t allergic or anything, are you?“
    “Not to anything and I love spaghetti. Say, Jane—George Whitman said Chet’s son John has been trying to get hold of me. Something about the business, I think. Not that I know anything about it. But would you mind if I invited him to come over here to talk to me? Not for dinner, of course—“
    “I wouldn’t mind a bit,“ Jane said mendaciously. Just so long as he doesn’t bring along a volleyball, she was tempted to add. “There are some cookies in that jar you can give him. I’ll only be forty minutes or so.”
    Shelley was just coming in her driveway as Jane got ready to go. Jane went over to Shelley’s car window. “Is there anything I can do to make up to you for this morning? Kiss your feet? Give you my firstborn?“
    “You give me one more kid and I will get even. After I lined the little darlings up to be weighed, I had to be the reading lady for the third graders. The usual volunteer was sick. Sick, my eye! The canny bitch was just smarter than me. They were climbing me like a jungle gym. Why don’t they all have nervous breakdowns before Christmas? More to the point, why don’t we? Think it over, Jane. It’s not a bad idea. We could stage some sort of seizure in the front yard. Foam at the mouth and chew sticks. They’d take us off to a nice sanitarium where somebody else has to wrap the gifts and stuff the clammy turkey and get hives taking the vile tree down when it’s over.”
    Jane considered. “Doesn’t sound bad. Do we get to wear our jammies all day?“
    “Sure. If we play our cards right, we might even talk somebody out of wheelchairs, and we wouldn’t even have to walk anyplace.“
    “Would our families be able to visit us?“
    “I certainly hope not!“
    “It wouldn’t work for me. My mother-in-law, Thelma, would take over my kids.“
    “So let her. It would serve her right.“
    “Yeah, but she’d convince them of her theory—that I was really a pathetic slut their father married out of pity.“
    “Well?”
    Jane laughed. “Gotta go. Anything I can do for you while I’m out?“
    “Nothing. Oh, yes. I’m trying to fix that gingerbread house that got the corner smashed. I’m out of powdered sugar.“
    “I’ve got some. Just help yourself.“
    “And go in your house? With your company? Have you lost your mind?“
    “Bobby’s gone. Only Phyllis is there.“ At the sight of Shelley’s raised eyebrows, she added, “I’ll buy you sugar. Say, Shelley, do you know John and Joannie Wagner?“
    “You already asked me that this morning. I’ve been thinking about it. I know a Joanne Wagner. She and I are putting on the P.T.A. tea next week. You know her, too. She’s the one who made all those grapevine wreaths for the bazaar. Hard-working, lovely voice, and very pleasant but dumpy, defeated looking.”
    Jane understood this to apply to Joannie, not the wreaths. Now that she’d been reminded of who she was, she thought about Joannie Wagner as she headed toward the junior high. Jane knew her very slightly and had never made the connection between her and Phyllis or even between her and the aggressive volleyball player she was married to. Poor Joannie Wagner was a beaten-down sort of woman. Her hair was always curled, but badly. Her makeup was never quite right somehow. She wore expensive, but ill-fitting clothing and gave the general impression of a scared rabbit. Of course, she was a rabbit. What else could you be if you were married to John Wagner? You’d have to have the stamina of an Amazon and the temperament of a wolverine to assert yourself around a man like that.
    She hoped Phyllis wouldn’t be able to find him to invite him over. The last thing Jane needed was John Wagner in her house. If only she could go back to when she stupidly made that halfhearted invitation to Phyllis to visit. But as she pulled into the school parking lot she realized that, even knowing what was in store, she’d have probably done the same thing. Phyllis and Company might be not be any fun, but Phyllis needed a friend and considered Jane to be one.
     

Ten
     
    It was a rare and treasured morning that Jane didn’t have to drive at least one school car pool. Even when her schedule wasn’t thrown off by something like the electricity going out,