The House of Seven Mabels

gather around to comfort her?“
    “I’d forgotten that one. The one I liked best was the time you were supposed to go to Nashville— or was it Savannah?—to help her pick out a dress for a banquet.“
    “Savannah, I think. I suspect she thought I’d pay for the dress, and naturally pay for my plane fare as well. The worst ones are when she’s getting divorced, and her money’s tied up in court, and she wants huge loans. I can always say the kids have some sort of program at school and I can’t go anywhere when she wants me to fly halfway across the country, but it’s harder to turn her down on money.“
    “I think that would be easier. Just tell her you don’t have any.“
    “She knows better than to believe that. Even my parents won’t do it. I don’t know why she continues to ask them.“
    “Never?“
    “Not unless she has a really good story. Then they wire her a couple hundred dollars and do the same for me.“
    Shelley reached for a second fruit-and-granola bar. “These aren’t as bad as I expected. I want to talk to you about Thomasina. But do you want to call your sister back first?“
    “Neither of those options would be my first choice. I think I’d rather have a week in Bermuda. Sprawled on a beach with a good book, thinking about my sins.“
    “Then let’s talk about Thomasina first. I know what Mel said about her, how tough and nasty she is. But he’s a cop and lots of people don’t like talking to cops.“
    “You have a point there,“ Jane admitted. “Especially when they fear they’re being investigated as a possible suspect.“
    “But you and I aren’t cops. We’ll just chat with her about some innocuous subject such as how many electrical outlets she plans for those rooms they’re working on now. Pretend we’re thinking about furniture and lamp placement. And then ease with enormous sympathy into what went wrong with the wiring.“
    “And also pretend to understand?“
    “Of course.“
    “Since you think this sounds sensible, I think I’ll play the role of the nodding sidekick, if you don’t mind. I don’t even want to understand wiring.“
    “That’s okay by me. Let’s go over to the House of Seven Mabels and see if she’s around.“
    Jane didn’t understand why this pun tickled Shelley so much. Shelley usually didn’t even understand puns.
    “And that Mel isn’t there,“ Jane said. “That’s understood, isn’t it?“
    “Did Mel happen to mention whether the house is open to us yet when you were with him last night?“
    “Are you insane?“ Jane said, hoping she wasn’t blushing. “We didn’t talk about that at all.“
    “Guess we’re going to have to go over there, then,“ Shelley said with an expression that on a less refined woman would have been called a smirk.
    They took a few minutes to put on their jeans and boots so they’d fit in with the workers. Shelley was getting used to being seen in public in jeans, as long as they were freshly pressed. They were greeted at the locked front door by Bitsy, who looked as if she hadn’t slept for a couple of days. “I want you two to meet Joe Budley. He’s now our contractor.“
    She led them to the old dining room, where new, sturdy plywood was being installed by a group of men they’d never seen. Strong young men, most of whom sported goatees, which Jane thought was one of the most unattractive facial attributes a man could choose deliberately.
    Bitsy introduced them to Joe Budley, who was an enormous, burly-looking man with violently red hair and matching eyebrows that nearly met in the middle of his face. He, too, wore jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt, but had on a sport coat as well that strained at the armholes and across his burly shoulders.
    He shook their hands with a paralyzing grip and said, in an accent straight from Oklahoma, “Glad tuh meetcha, ladies.“
    “Jane and Shelley are our decorators. Or they will be when I can get around to preparing their contract for their agreement.“
    “Women are good at that,“ he said. This was apparently a dismissal of women being good at other things, or so it seemed to Jane. Then she realized, to her horror, that she was thinking like Sandra. That any man who spoke about women was automatically deriding them. Immediately upon the thought, Joe blew her theory.
    “Well, you girls get along with what you were doing while Bitsy here and I talk over things.“
    Shelley looked around with apparent surprise. “What girls are you talking to?