"Makes sense to me — so far," Jane said warily.

"Here comes the hideous part. I sent out invitations to everybody. I had an old roster of the club that I'd kept updated…"

"Of. course you had," Jane said. She couldn't even find her current address book half the time, let alone keep old rosters updated, but she and Shelley were cut from a different cloth. Jane's was usually unraveling at the edges.

"I told them we should meet early," Shelley went on. "The reunion actually starts on Friday. It's a three-

day deal. And I said we should meet on Wednesday and Thursday before everyone else gets here—"

"We're talking about Wednesday and Thursday of next week, right?"

"Yes. Well, Jane, I thought there'd only be two or three of them available. On our tenth reunion there were only a couple from the club. So—" she drew a deep breath and plunged forward, "so I invited them to stay at my house."

Jane looked at her, perplexed. "And?"

"And I called the class president, Trey Moffat, this morning to see how many beds I need to make up and the son of a bitch casually mentioned that seven of my club members have agreed to come. Seven, Jane! That's an absolute swarm of women! I only sent them all a note as a courtesy and asked them to make suggestions by mail in advance if they wanted. Doesn't anybody these days know an insincere invitation when they see one? What's the world coming to?"

"Seven? Where will you put them all? Oh — you need extra space and you want me to bed some of them down in rows in my basement. By the way, you have a cat on your lap."

"I what? Oh, ick!" Shelley said, dislodging Meow as though he carried a fatal virus. "No, I don't want you to keep them. That crossed my mind, but between us we don't have room for seven and it isn't fair to invite people to your house then make them rough it that way. I've made other arrangements." She was frantically brushing orange fur off her black slacks.