A Quiche Before Dying

wouldn’t have it.“
    “What’s her sister like?“ Shelley asked Missy. “I don’t know. .I haven’t met her yet.“
    “Shelly, you know her,“ Jane said. “Remember the block party last fall? She’s the one who made all those fantastic pastries. We all got the recipe for them in Christmas cards.“
    “Oh, yes. Fiftyish, real frail-looking?“
    “Right. Is there anyone else in the class?“ Jane asked Missy.
    “A couple others, but I’ll let them introduce themselves in their writing,“ she said, patting the stack of folders. “I’ve got to run. See you tomorrow night.”
    Shelley had been flipping through Mrs. General’s book. She waved good-bye to Missy and said, “What a loathsome woman Mrs. Pryce is! This whole chapter is about how she raised her children. Listen to this: ‘I knew that their childish resentment of my firmness, though painful for a loving mother to behold, was temporary and that they would grow up to honor and venerate those high principles I was endeavoring to instill in them from their earliest days.’ “
    “Ugh!“ Jane said. “Imagine having a mother who thought that way. They must despise her, and they probably need a live-in shrink. Maybe we ought to loan our daughters to her for a little while—they might learn to appreciate us.“
    “Daughters!“ Shelley said, leaping up. “I’d forgotten for a minute. I should be home offering platitudes and having them flung back in my face. See you at seven-thirty.“ She started around the side of the house and stopped in her tracks, looking down. “Jane, I’m sorry to tell you this, but I think your cats have blundered into a chipmunk nest.“
    “ Oh, no!“
     

2
     
    Jane rescued one chipmunk and buried another, then she took the cats inside over their yowling protestations. “This is sheer bloodlust and very unbecoming in house cats. We aren’t in the jungle, you know,“ she told them as she dumped them on the kitchen floor. They raced back to the door, pressing their little triangular noses to the crack. She told herself not to be so upset; it was the nature of cats to catch and torture small, cute animals. But then, it was Jane’s nature to try to stop them.
    She set the pile of folders and the two copies of Mrs. General Pryce’s book on the kitchen table and yelled up at her daughter, “Katie, are you up? You’ve got to be at work at noon!“
    “I know that, Mother!“ Katie screamed down the steps. “I’ve got tons of time.”
    Jane refilled her coffee cup and sat down at the kitchen table to start sorting through the class materials. The chapters were in pairs, one each for her and her mother. She set her mother’s chapters and Mrs. Pryce’s book on the counter and started pawing through her own. Even though she didn’t intend to write anything, she wanted to give her full attention to critiquing the others.
    Missy had enclosed a sheet of instructions on violent yellow paper that couldn’t be missed. It said, “We will discuss these on the last night of class. I suggest that you take notes as you are reading. Remember, writing is a process of tearing off little bits of one’s soul and putting them on paper. Writing an autobiography is even more personal. In this class we will not make criticisms of the CONTENT of the material. We will only make very kind, constructive comments on the MANNER in which it is presented. You should consider such things as grammar, style (word choice), and organization (overall and sentence structure).”
    Jane wondered if Missy had written this warning before or after reading Mrs. Pryce’s book. Considering what Jane already knew of the lady and that little bit that Shelley had read, it seemed the logical comment on Pryce’s work would be, “Change your life while there’s still time.“ But there might not be time. People said Mrs. Pryce was not only the meanest, but probably the oldest, person around.
    Jane was about to read her mother’s piece first, but forced herself to put it aside and skim the others. Reading Cecily’s first might upset her. Cecily was, even as Jane was sitting at the table, in the air someplace on her way for a visit. No point in starting the visit without her. Not that Jane wasn’t looking forward to seeing her mother, but she wasn’t sure what she would find in her mother’s manuscript.
    One of the manuscripts was presented on light pink paper and typed with script type. The name at the top of the page was Desiree Loftus. Jane