Thelma Jeffry had insisted on trying to treat it as a maudlin occasion, but Shelley and Jane had both been so relentlessly cheerful that she couldn't carry it off. "Just wait until tomorrow if you think she was bad tonight," Jane said. "Mike is the first grandchild to graduate from high school. She'll pull out all the stops."

“I told you to lie about the date," Shelley said.

Jane laughed. "I couldn't talk the printer into faking a separate announcement."

“There's probably a black market. You just didn't try hard enough.”

When they got home, Katie reported curtly that Mel VanDyne had called and left a message that he'd like to come by later in the evening if it was convenient. Mel was what Katie referred to archly as Jane's "significant other" since she felt it was undignified for her mother to have a "boyfriend." Especially since she didn't have a boyfriend of her own.

Mel was also a police detective, and Katie's version of his message sounded official. "Wonder what he wants?" Jane asked. "He was supposed to be on duty tonight so he can help me chaperone the all-night high school party tomorrow."

“What a fun date you are," Shelley said. "Coffee?" Jane asked.

“Oh, maybe half a cup. Was that an expression of disapproval?" she added, gesturing toward the door Katie'd gone through.

Jane nodded. "It comes and goes. She likes Mel. She doesn't like me and Mel. She was still Daddy's little girl when Steve died, and she goes through spells of idolizing him and thinking, like Thelma does, that I should have gone into permanent mourning."

“It's just her hormones," Shelley said. "If it weren't that, it would be something else. Denise has decided that I willfully and deliberately passed on my straight-hair genes to her."

“She's right, isn't she?" Jane said, grinning as she plugged in the coffeemaker.

“Of course she is. And wait till she sees what happens to her thighs when she turns thirty if she thinks straight hair is bad.”