Programmed for Peril

can’t make her do it. The police would take forever. That leaves you as my last resort.”
    “Trish, Trish.” He took her hands in between his, made their favorite hand sandwich, and nibbled her fingers. “Listen to me. You’re overdramatizing. ‘Last resort.’ Come now!”
    “Sunday you criticized me for keeping my problems to myself, not sharing them with you,” she said. “Well, I’m not only sharing now, I’m asking for your help.” She freed her hands and put one on each of his narrow shoulders. “Do you think I like asking you to talk to Lois Smith-Patton? Do you think I like sending my love into the enemy camp?”
    “There’s no danger—”
    “I trust you. I know you love me, Foster. Just the same, it’s not a super-smart thing for me to do. I have ample proof that she’s emotionally very dangerous to our engagement, even without her acts of sabotage. But I’m willing to take the risk of having you two interact. Maybe your understanding that will make you see how desperate I am, and you’ll agree to talk to her.” She looked deeply into his eyes. “Will you?” He fussed and fretted then. She let him get it out. She listened to all his reasons why paying Lois a visit wasn’t a good idea. As he talked, the issue hanging in the balance, she Wondered not for the first time how mentally tough he was. Did he have the right stuff when it came to facing down the assertive, excitable woman whose snares were still set for him? Or had a lifetime spent on the firm foundation of many dollars taken the spunk out of him? Should he do as Trish asked, it might prove a positive sign in terms of their future life together.
    At the end of nearly two hours he agreed to pay Lois a visit. His reasons weren’t Trish’s, though. They were very much his own. “I’m going to come back with proof that neither Lois nor her brother has anything to do with what’s happening to you!”
    “You do that,” she said. She laughed at the outrageousness of his idea. “If she’s innocent, then I’ll really have a problem!”
    He wasn’t smiling. “Won’t you?” he said.
    Trish rushed home, motherly guilt weighting her gas-pedal foot. She had arranged for Melody to play with her best friend, Pamela Beestock. She had phoned the girl’s mother, Jill, before visiting Foster, asking if she could keep Melody a while longer. “No problem!” Jill said.
    Jill Beestock was a “no problem” woman, and at times Trish envied her. If people were cars, Jill would be a Golf—simple, efficient, reliable. She was basic, no neuroses, three kids, an insurance company manager husband. For diversions she talked on the phone, quilted, and was active in her church, one of the newer evangelical ones in which the congregation sang and shouted. Mostly she was a professional mom. When she or others encountered life’s problems her philosophy was to “suck it up and keep going.” For that reason she was sometimes impatient and a little intolerant of those fallen far into the creepers and quicksand of the human condition.
    Jill was a stocky, fast-moving brunette. She wore her hair in a practical ponytail held in place by a thick rubber band that had once clutched a bunch of fresh broccoli. She owned twenty pairs of pants and three dresses. She didn’t use makeup. Her only facial decoration was a thick pair of glasses often sliding halfway down her nose. She was short on glamour, long on straight thinking.
    On several occasions since their friendship had begun Trish had confided in Jill. When she had complained several years ago of the problem of being both a professional woman and single mother, Jill offered two-word advice: “Get married.”
    That evening Jill served lemonade and ham sandwiches in the screened gazebo by the pool. Shrieking, Pamela and Melody went in and out of the water faster than seals. Sprawled on a chaise, Trish realized how tired she was. The near loss of her business records, the message threatening worse, and convincing Foster to help her nip Lois’s conniving in the bud had about drained her strength. Though it was still light, this being one of the longest days of the year, she nearly fell asleep as soon as she had food in her stomach.
    “You have a great girl there, Trish,” Jill said. “Rock solid. Polite and good-natured, too. She’s a good model for mine. Pam still has a lot of rough edges.” She laughed. “One thing you oughta do—make Melody cut down on the junk food. She gulped a