Grime and Punishment

blackmailed?’ didn’t work, as her conversation with Suzie had proved. She had to figure this out fast; Joyce was looking for her car keys.
    “I’ve got to run,“ she said, standing. ‘Edith is off sick today and I have a substitute. I want to keep an eye on what she’s doing....”
    Did she mean how well she was cleaning, or was there a concealed worry that this one would snoop around and find out something too?
    “Joyce, wait a sec. There’s something I want to talk to you about.“
    “I don’t think this is the time—“ Shelley said, shaking her head in warning. “Don’t you have to pick Todd up from school?“
    “I don’t drive this afternoon,“ Jane said. “Joyce, I think there’s something I should tell you. I know why Edith is blackmailing you.”
    Joyce’s eyes opened even wider, and she sat back down with a thump. “Oh...”
    Ah-hah, it’s true, then, Jane thought.
    Joyce’s tiny chin was trembling, just like a child trying not to cry. “Oh, Jane. I didn’t want anybody to know. Ever.”
    How am I going to get her to tell what it was while acting like I already know? I should have worked this out better, Jane thought in a panic. She kept her voice calm. “We’re your friends. You can talk about it to us.”
    Now the tears came. “You’re a saint, Jane. Have you known all this time and never said anything?”
    Jane nodded sympathetically. Joyce took out a tissue and blew her nose. Shelley looked across the table at Jane, her eyes wild with questions. Jane sketched a tiny shrug. Shelley rolled her eyes and suppressed a groan.
    “I’ve been living in absolute terror all these months that you’d find out somehow.“ Joyce blew her nose again. Her pretty face was streaked with tears, and her mascara was running. “That terrible Edith came on the wrong day the second time I had her and caught us, otherwise nobody would have ever known...”
    Us? Caught doing what?
    “It’s all right,“ Shelley said soothingly.
    “All right? Oh, no. Of course it’s not. It was horrible. I can see that now. It would have been the worst mistake anybody ever made. Stupid and cruel. I’ve come to hate myself for even thinking of it.”
    What was she talking about? Planning a bank robbery? Did Edith find the gang sitting around the living room with floor plans and blueprints?
    Joyce reached out and took Jane’s hand. “I can’t imagine why you didn’t just kill me. I thought at first you knew, and then when you didn’t say anything, I started thinking that maybe you didn’t. I never knew just what happened, you see—”
    Jane’s fingers tensed.
    “—and the newspaper reports didn’t say which way the vehicles were headed when it happened, and I thought maybe he hadn’t even been home yet to tell you—”
    A lump the size of a frozen basketball was forming in Jane’s stomach.
    “—and I couldn’t really ask, could I? Jane, it was all my fault. Really, it was. It was just a fling in his eyes. At least at first. He’d have come back to you. I’m certain of it. My life would have been ruined, but it would have been just what I deserved. Actually, in an awful way, I didn’t mind paying the blackmail. It was the only way I could pay for my sin—”
    Jane pulled her hand away slowly and got up. Looking as stricken as Jane felt, Shelley was on her feet instantly, but Jane put out her hand in a mute gesture to hold her off. “Oh, Jane!“ she said, her voice breaking. “I’m so sorry!”
    Joyce looked from Jane to Shelley and back again. Comprehension began to dawn. “What—what is happening? Oh, God! You didn’t know!“ She put her head on the table and began to sob. “My g-g-goddamn big m-m-mouth! Now I’ve m-m-made it worse!”
    Picking up her purse, Jane went to the door to the garage like a sleepwalker.
    “Wait, I’ll come with you!“ Shelley cried. “No! Thank you, but I’d rather just have a little time to myself,“ Jane said. Part of her recognized and complimented herself on how calm and well behaved she was being.
    She pulled up the garage door, got in the car, buckled her seat belt, checked the rearview mirror, and backed out carefully. She drove away, leaving Joyce Greenway crying at her kitchen table.
    Eighteen ;;·· The shopping center was two miles from Jane’s house. When she and Steve had first moved into their home, the spot was an open field. A few years later the land had been cleared, graded, and “improved“ by the building of a gigantic