Relentless

evening, I had received calls from my publisher, my audio publisher, my film agent, and three friends, regarding the Waxx review. All of them said in various ways the same thing that Penny had advised:
Let it go
.
    When Vivian Norby, Milo’s baby-sitter, arrived, she said as she stepped into the foyer, “Saw the review, Cubby. He’s an ignorant egg-sucker. Don’t pay him any mind.”
    “I’ve already let it go,” I assured her.
    “If you want me to sit down with him and have a talk, I will.”
    That was an intriguing concept. “What would you say to him?”
    “Same thing I say to every kid too big for his britches. I’d lay out the rules of polite society and make it clear that I know how to enforce them.”
    Vivian was fiftyish, solid but not fat, steely-eyed but warm-hearted, as confident as a grizzly bear but feminine. Her husband, a former marine and homicide detective—now deceased—had never won an arm-wrestling contest with her.
    As usual, she wore pink: pink sneakers with yellow laces, a pink skirt, and a pink-and-cream sweater. Her dangling earrings featured silver kittens climbing silver chains.
    “I’m sure you could make him properly contrite,” I said.
    “You just give me his address.”
    “I would—except I’m not dwelling on what he said. I’ve already let it go.”
    “If you change your mind, just call.”
    After closing the door behind her, she took my arm as if this were her house and she were welcoming a guest, and she escorted me outof the foyer, into the living room, almost lifting me onto my toes as we went. Shoulders back, formidable bosom raised, Vivian moved as forcefully as an icebreaker cracking through arctic seas.
    Three years previous, she had been sitting for the Jameson kids on Lamplighter Way when two masked thugs attempted a home-invasion robbery. The first intruder—who turned out to be a disgruntled former employee of Bob Jameson’s—wound up with a broken nose, split lips, four cracked teeth, two crushed fingers, a fractured knee, and a puncture in his right buttock.
    Vivian suffered a broken fingernail.
    The second thug, who fared worse than the first, developed such a disabling fear of fifty-something women who wore pink that in court, when the prosecutor showed up one day wearing a neck scarf of that fateful color, the accused began to sob uncontrollably and had to be carried out of the courthouse on a stretcher, by paramedics.
    In the living room, Vivian let go of me and put her cloth carryall beside the armchair in which she would spend the evening.
    “Your book is wonderful, Cubby.” She had read an advance copy. “I may not be as educated as a certain hoity-toity critic, but I know truth when I see it. Your book is full of truth.”
    “Thank you, Vivian.”
    “Now where is Prince Milo?”
    “In his room, building some kind of radio to communicate with extraterrestrials.”
    “The time machine didn’t work out?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Is Lassie with him?”
    “She’s never anywhere else,” I said.
    “I’ll go give him a tickle.”
    “Penny and I are having dinner at Roxie’s. If Milo makes contact with space aliens, it’s okay to call us.”
    I followed Vivian out of the living room and watched as she ascended the stairs with a majesty only slightly less awesome than the looming presence of the mother ship in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
.
    When I entered the kitchen, Penny was fixing a Post-it to the refrigerator door, providing heating instructions for the lasagna that would be Milo’s dinner.
    “Vivian,” I reported, “has assumed command of the premises.” Penny said, “Thank God we found her. I never worry about Milo when Vivian’s here.”
    “Me neither. But I’m worried about
her
. Milo’s tinkering again.”
    “Vivian will be fine. Milo only blew something up that once, and it was an accident.”
    “He could accidentally blow something up again.” She frowned at me, a disapproving expression with which I was familiar. Even then she looked scrumptious enough that I would have eaten her alive had we been in a country that mandated compassionate tolerance for cannibals.
    “Never,” she said. “Milo learns from his mistakes.” As I followed her through the connecting door between the kitchen and the garage, I said, “Is that a slighting remark about my experiences with fireworks?”
    “How many times have you burned off your eyebrows?”
    “Once. The other three times, I just singed them.” Regarding me