From Here to Paternity

the same family. That way you could get in touch with some third or fourth cousin you didn’t even know about and compare notes on the whole family.“
    The waiter arrived with their orders: a tuna salad sandwich for Shelley that gave new meaning to the concept of tuna, and a chicken Caesar salad for Jane that was large enough to feed a family of four. They ate for a few minutes in blissful silence. Jane finally took the edge off her hunger well enough to pause and say, “So if you need to look up something—a will, for instance—in some little county in Oregon or some place, you don’t have to actually go there and search for it. You can just order a film of the records?“
    “That’s how I understand it,“ Shelley said. “The instructor kept emphasizing that not all records for any given place have been filmed, but hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been. If you live near Salt Lake City, you can just go into the main library and search without waiting for the film to be delivered. So if you needed something in a hurry, or if you didn’t know enough about court jurisdictions to know exactly where to look, you could hire a genealogist there to look it up for you.“
    “This really is astonishing,“ Jane said, applying herself to her salad again. “This main library must be a stupendous size. And think of the organization required to keep it operating smoothly. So what else did you learn about?“
    “Mainly not to take spelling seriously. Like Lucky was saying this morning, spelling has been pretty haphazard until quite recently. My own guess would be that it didn’t get to be awfully important in this country until Social Security. Did you know that most states didn’t even have such things as birth certificates until this century? And some didn’t require them until the 1930s or so.“
    “Well, I suppose there were still a lot of people outside cities having babies at home until then. Look over there, Shelley.“
    Doris Schmidtheiser had moved to another table and was talking with overbearing animation to an older couple. The woman sitting there was frantically signaling for their bill so they could escape if they got a chance, and the man was leaning back in his chair looking stunned by the sheer force of Doris’s insistence.
    “Poor things. Makes you feel we ought to rescue them, doesn’t it?“ Shelley said.
    “No. Nobody rescued me. Least of all my best friend—who had the nerve to laugh at me when I took cover.“
    “She’s probably trying to get people to come to her debate,“ Shelley said, ignoring Jane’s accusation. “I do sort of feel sorry for her. Maybe I’ll go. Just sit in on it long enough to swell the crowd a bit.“
    “What do you anticipate in the way of a crowd? Two or three misguided martyrs?“
    “Oh, she might get a good turnout. After all, this whole Tsar thing is of interest to the people attending the convention. The Holnagradians, or whatever you’d call them.“
    “I think it’s a swell idea for you to offer yourself up that way.“
    “You’re not curious?“
    “Not in the least,“ Jane said. “With my three kids, I’ve heard very nearly every subject on earth debated at some time or another. Though I’ll bet this crowd won’t sprinkle their arguments with terms like ‘butt breath’. That’s very popular just now.“
    Shelley laughed. “Might liven things up a bit if they did. So what are you going to do instead?“
    “First I’m going to find the girls. They were supposed to check in with me—“
    “Oh, I forgot. They came by the front desk while you were cravenly hiding in that oversized closet. They said they were going to take ski lessons this afternoon. Here on the bunny slope. And the little boys are still in the game room. They probably won’t come out until it’s time to go home.“
    “In that case, the first thing I’m going to do is take a nice, long nap. It’s the only thing I’m going to do, matter of fact. I haven’t had a serious nap in about two years. I mean a ‘significant’ put-on-jammies, get-under-covers nap.“
    Shelley signed the tab and Jane took care of the tip.
    “Enjoy yourself,“ Shelley said as they parted ways in the lobby.
    “I am,“ Jane said. “I really am.“

    Jane wasn’t used to naps and woke up at four feeling stupid and disconcerted, as if she had a bad case of jet lag or had suffered a spell of amnesia and lost half a day. But by the time she’d showered and dressed, she was