“You're right. Either way, I'm mad at him. Ughhh! This coffee is awful."

“That's possibly Steve's fault, too," Shelley said with a grin.

Jane smiled back. "As a matter of fact, it is. I buy it because it was his favorite brand. He's been gone nearly a year, and I'm still drinking his disgusting coffee. What's the matter with me?"

“Nothing that time won't take care of. Just think. You can use some of his lovely insurance money to buy all sorts of expensive gourmet brands to try out. Now, go get dressed and put on a face, and I'll tidy up the kitchen."

“Don't even think about it! I don't want you to look in my cabinets and know what a slob I really am.”

Shelley put a well-manicured hand on Jane's wrist and said, "Can I be honest?"

“Why stop at honest? Go straight to cruel."

“I don't have to look into cabinets to know your secret. Get dressed, unless you plan to meet your old friend looking this way."

“I don't think Phyllis would care. Knowing Phyllis, it's questionable whether she'd notice, but I'd hate to risk seeing a look of raw pity in her eyes. I'll have to feed Willard; he'd be terrified to eat anything someone else's hands had touched. The whole world is out to poison him, he says, but the cat food is under the sink in the guest bathroom."

“There must be a reason for that," Shelley said mildly, having long since accepted most of the vagaries of Jane's peculiar housekeeping system.

“It's my emergency supply, for when I've run out and they start attacking my ankles." Jane disappeared down the basement steps, peeling her sweatshirt off over her head as she went.

She came back up a few minutes later wearing a denim skirt and blue-and-white striped blouse. "There's noting like getting dressed right out of the dryer. So toasty and warm." She sat down on a kitchen chair and struggled into a pair of panty hose. The cats were sitting on opposite sides of their dish, staring at each other, each afraid to eat first for fear of getting smacked on the head by the other. Willard kept sticking his big wet nose into the back of Jane's knees. "Yes, yes. Just a minute," she told him.