At that moment a teenage boy padded into the kitchen on bare feet grubby with street grime. Like his mother, Randy Chapman was tall and slender. He had shaggy blonde hair that hung in his eyes and over his ears. As was his custom, he was dressed in nothing but a pair of too-short, too-tight jean cutoffs. Kathy had watched him skateboard past her house hundreds of times over the years and knew him well on sight.

"What are you doing home in the middle of the day?" the boy asked his mother. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic pitcher of orange juice.

"Randolph," Lois Chapman said, "this is our new housekeeper, Mrs. Finn. She will be coming over daily from now on to straighten things up. By the way, you need a haircut and a bath."

"Sure," the boy said. He gulped juice straight from the pitcher, spilling some down his bobbing throat and tanned chest.

"Randolph," Lois said, "how many times have I told you to drink out of a glass like a civilized human being?"

The boy dropped the empty plastic pitcher on the counter and wiped his mouth. He scratched his muscled belly and glanced at Kathy with blue eyes that made her quiver inside. The boy exuded adolescent male sexuality. His cutoffs bulged at the grain as if they'd been stuffed with a slow-pitch softball. Kathy could smell him.

"Be seeing you guys," the boy said, and seconds later he was slamming the front door and skateboarding down the sidewalk outside.

"Both Fred and I leave for work before seven in the morning," Lois said, as if Randy had never interrupted. "And neither of us is home before seven in the evening. Often, I leave even earlier in the morning and sometimes I don't get home until after nine or ten at night. I work hard. I'm not ashamed to admit that my career means everything to me, nor am I ashamed to admit that I earn a larger income than my husband." She glanced at her watch. "I must be off."