"Bitsy's past that stage," Shelley said, airily waving this recollection aside. "Her kids are grown. She divorced that overbearing stockbroker husband and must have taken him to the cleaners. And there's gossip that she also got a huge inheritance from a childless oil baron great-uncle."

"Wow. No wonder Bitsy's moving into real estate. Why don't things like that happen to us?"

"Luck of the draw, I suppose," Shelley said.

"But even if she has wads of money, what the devil does she know about renovating a wreck of a house?"

Shelley shrugged. "I suppose with enough cash, you can buy very good advice."

"I guess I wish her well."

"Perk up, Jane. She wants to talk to us over lunch tomorrow."

"Why? She's a dangerous person to talk to. Every time I let her bend my ear, I ended up making two hundred strings of paper garlands or baking fifty-five highly decorated cupcakes."

"Because she wants to hire us."

"To make garlands?"

"Jane, get a grip and forget about garlands. And quit lolling about with your elbows on the table and make us a big pot of coffee. Use the good kind. Bitsy wants us to be her decorators. A paying job that requires a lot of shopping."

Jane's eyes lit up for a moment. "Paid to go shopping? Who would have thought life had such a thing in store for us, so to speak? But what do we know about decorating that everyone else doesn't know more about?"

"I guess she thinks we have good taste," Shelley said.

"She thinks we're patsies," Jane said, turning the tables on Shelley, who was usually the more cynical one. "I tell you, Shelley, this is going to involve something we really don't want to do. She'd be doing it herself if it were a desirable thing for her to spend time on."

"You really are grouchy today, aren't you?"

"I'm bored," Jane admitted. "I'm so seldom bored that it makes me cranky."