Added to this at 8:38 was the rumble of Jane's car pulling into the driveway. "It's only a little hole in the muffler, Mom," Mike had assured her. Jane thought it sounded like a Concorde taking off every time she accelerated.

Jane Jeffrey came in the outside kitchen door a moment later. Normally an attractive (though she didn't really think so) and well-groomed woman in her late thirties, this morning Jane was a wreck. Most of her blond hair was stuffed under a stocking cap that did more to emphasize than conceal its uncombed condition. She wore an antique and very tatty so-called minkshe'd picked up at a garage sale several years earlier. Jane didn't really approve of wearing fur—her economics as well as ethics were offended by it—but this one looked like it came from an animal that ought to be extinct. The coat was a disgrace, and she knew it, but it was incredibly warm, just what she needed for driving winter morning car pools. With this unstylish garment, she wore jeans, a sweatshirt that said, "This is no ordinary housewife you're dealing with," and sheepskin slippers that she removed and shook the snow from into the sink—after hoisting Max out.

She leaned on the counter for a moment, looking around the kitchen with disgust. "This looks like white trash lives here, and it's your fault!" she told the car. Then she bellowed at the dog, "Willard! I'll bring that poodle in here to beat you up if you don't stop barking this instant!”

There was a knock at the kitchen door, and Jane opened it to find her friend and next-door neighbor Shelley Nowack. A few snowflakes spangled Shelley's neat cap of dark hair and the velvet trim on her coat. In honor of the approaching holidays, she had a sequined Christmas tree brooch pinned to her lapel. Even in her distracted state, Jane noticed that Shelley's high-heeled boots were of exactly the same shade as her gloves and her purse. "How dare you look that good already."