“Life was so much easier when they could be thrilled with a Big Wheel or a huge new box of crayons and half a dozen coloring books. Easier and cheaper. Mike sent me a list of computer programs and games he wanted. I went and priced them and reeled back out of the store looking like a woman who'd been hit in the head with a shovel.”

Shelley abandoned the topic. "So what were your other complaints? Something about the neighbors?"

“Oh, that's right. You and Paul were out of town when they moved in."

“I've been meaning to get over there and meet them," Shelley said. "What's wrong with them?"

“Nothing, I guess, if you'd grown up in Possum Hollow and were married to your half-brother."

“Hicks?"

“Oh, way beyond hickdom, Shelley. Way beyond. You should have seen the furniture going in. Stuff I'd be embarrassed to put out for the trash. A hideous rainbow plaid sofa that made my eyes water. Dining room chairs with fake gold legs and plastic covers on the seats. I hate being a snob—"

“I can see why," Shelley commented, glancing at Jane's hair.

“But the wife wears housedresses — the kind our grandmothers wore in the Depression — and I saw her once at the grocery store with her hair in pin curls. I haven't seen anyone do that for at least twenty years."

“Have you met them, or just gawked at them?"

“We've met, briefly. I took a tuna casserole and a salad over to them for dinner the first night they were here. The husband — Billy Something, Jones or Johnson, I can't remember which — wears cowboy boots, a deer-hunting hat. He made us come in the house and meet his wife."

“Us?"

“Suzie Williams was with me. She brought a dessert. He very nearly drooled on her.”

Jane and Shelley's friend Suzie, who lived a couple houses down the block, was a big, voluptuous platinum blond. A Mae West — looking woman, but much prettier and just as vulgar.