"That is our backyard!" Caroline was saying as they all entered the kitchen. "Three different surveyors were here, and they all agreed on the property line. So help me, if she pulls up one more stake, I'm going to stick it up her ..."
Caroline stopped short at the newcomers' arrival. Then everyone seemed to stare at Lance, who looked wrinkled and worn. Julia knew how exhausted she was, and thought that he must be about to collapse, too; he certainly looked like it.
"Julia, welcome back," her mother said at last. "Aren't you going to introduce your friend?"
Friend. Not sweetheart or parasite or stalker. Friend. She could handle that.
"Lance Collins, this is my mother, Madelyn, and my sister, Caroline. You met Steve and Nina. Everyone, you probably know about Lance."
The grins on the women's faces said that yes, they knew all about Lance. Steve's vacant expression said that he was wondering what would happen to the 248b deduction when Congress met next session. For the first time ever, Julia wished the rest of her family was more like Steve.
"Sweetheart," Steve said to Caroline. "Did I hear something break?"
"Oh, Steve, I'm fine," Caroline told him.
"But what broke?" he persisted.
"It was a pickle jar, Steve," Madelyn said, obviously understanding what her son-in-law was getting at. "And don't worry, it was empty. No precious pickles went to waste."
Steve seemed to visibly relax.
"Lance, won't you come over here and sit down?" Madelyn gestured to one of the barstools surrounding Caroline's granite-covered island. "You must be exhausted. Did you have a nice trip?"
"He had a fine trip, Mother," Julia said, but Madelyn cut her a look that mothers never lose, no matter how many years removed from the womb their children are.
"I was talking to Lance, Julia Marie. I was speaking to your guest."
"Hey, don't jump on me. Caroline's the one premeditating murder," Julia said, quietly relieved that there was a major crisis on the table, something—anything—to take the focus off her and the stray that she'd brought home.
Caroline sighed and screamed into a dishrag. "When she came up for air, she explained: "Crazy Myrtle is about to be the death of me."
"Caroline," Madelyn interceded, "don't you think you're being a little harsh?"
"She goes through our trash," Caroline said with the finality of someone laying down a trump card.
"No way does she actually do that." Nina laughed.
"Oh yes she does," Caroline said defiantly. "She goes out there in her bathrobe before the garbage men come. She'll dig around, and if she finds something she likes, she'll take it." Before anyone could protest this bold revelation, Caroline raised her right hand and said, "I swear."
"Well, what do you do about it?" Nina asked.
"The first time we ignored it, but after a month, Steve went over there, and the crazy bat laughed and slammed the door in his face." Caroline took a bottle of kitchen cleaner and sprayed her already spotless counter, then picked up the rag and began scrubbing with a vengeance.
"Now"—Caroline sighed—"she's complaining about the property line. She's probably out there pulling up markers even as we speak. Forty-seven empty houses in this place, and the only other occupied one is next to us. Is it a nice young family with kids the same age as ours? No. It's the crazy mother of the crazy contractor who went bankrupt and is now trying to drive me completely crazy." She turned to her husband. "I swear, if she so much as crosses a toe over our property line during Cassie's party, I'll—"
"Call the police!" Steve supplied.
"No, Steve, our daughter is not going to be the only child in preschool to have the cops bust up her birthday party. "
Madelyn tossed her hands into the air. "Lance, don't look at us," she said. "Turn away. This is not a proud moment for the James family. I am so ashamed." She turned and went through the French doors and out onto the patio.
Julia watched her mother leave, and then she wondered where her normally docile sister had gone. Caroline must have read Julia's mind, because she held her hands out to her side and said, "Myrtle makes me crazy."
"I hope my being here didn't embarrass your mother too much," Lance said.
"Don't worry about it. There's dip out there. That's all she really needs," Caroline said and threw the rag into the sink.
"Where are the munchkins?" Julia asked, looking around for her niece and nephew.
"Oh, no," Caroline said. "You need a shower and a nap first. Trust me." She pushed Julia toward the stairs. "Steve, get Nina's keys and bring Julia's bags in. Lance's, too. They've got to clean up. And then I want you to go get the spray paint in the garage and mark the ground between the stakes so that we'll know where the line is when the fence people show up."
"But, honey—" Steve started. One look at Caroline changed his tune to "Yes, dear," and the Hello Kitty hat was out the door.
"There you are, sleepyhead," Julia's father said.
"Hi Daddy," Julia said, and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. After a long shower and a quick nap, the only thing she needed to feel completely renewed was the sight of her father sitting in the formal living room, reading the newspaper, his bifocals low on his nose. "It's good to see you, honey."
"You, too," she said, taking a seat on the edge of the table in front of him.
He folded his paper and said, "You almost missed the party."
Julia grinned. "Isn't that what you're doing?" He smiled and adjusted his grip on the paper and said, "If I lay quiet enough, they'll forget about me, and I might just get ii done."
She watched her father shift in the tasteful furniture, and she could tell that even here, in his youngest daughter's enormous house, he felt fenced in. Bill James was a man for whom ax thousand square feet would never be enough room. And as Julia sat there, studying him, she realized that the older, the more she became her father's daughter.
"Have we had any rain?" she asked him.
He nodded his head and said, "Enough."