Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,60

no! He is devoted to Lou. But he's not blind, either." Mary Maude looked at her watch. "Oh, girl! I have to get back."

We tossed our litter into a can and walked out still talking. Well, Mary Maude was talking, and I was listening, but I was agreeable to listening. And when I dropped her off at Makepeace Furniture, I gave her a quick hug.

I couldn't think of anywhere to go but back to my parents' house.

I walked right into yet another crisis. The couples dinner in honor of Varena and Dill, which had been rescheduled at least twice, was once again endangered. The high school senior who had been booked to baby-sit Krista, her little brother Luke, and Anna had caught the flu.

According to Varena, who was sitting at the kitchen table with the tiny Bartley phone book open before her, she and Lou had called every adolescent known to baby-sit in Bartley, and all of them were either flu victims or already attending a teen Christmas party the Methodist church was giving.

This seemed to be a crisis I had no part in other than to look sympathetic. Then a solution to a couple of problems occurred to me, and I knew what I had to do.

Jack would owe me permanently, as far as I was concerned.

I tapped Varena on the shoulder. "I'll do it," I told her.

"What?" She'd been in the middle of a semihysterical outburst to my mother.

"I'll do it," I repeated.

"You'll... baby-sit?"

"That's what I said." I was feeling touchy at the sheer incredulity in my sister's voice.

"Have you ever kept kids before?"

"Do you need a baby-sitter or don't you?"

"Yes, it would be wonderful, but... are you sure you wouldn't mind? You've never been ... I mean, you've always said that children weren't your ... special thing."

"I can do it."

"Well! That would be - just great," Varena said stoutly, obviously realizing she had to show no reservations, no matter what she felt.

Actually, I had kept the four Althaus kids one afternoon and evening when Jay Althaus had been in a car wreck and Carol had had to go to the hospital. Both sets of grandparents had been out of town. Carol had been a frantic, panicked, pathetic mother and wife by the time I answered her phone call.

So I knew how to change diapers and bathe a baby, and the oldest Althaus boy had showed me how to heat up a bottle. I might not be Mary Poppins, but all the children would be alive and fed and clean by the time the parents got home.

Varena was on the phone with Lou O'Shea, giving her the good news.

"She's glad to do it," Varena was saying, still trying not to sound amazed. "So Lily should be there about, what? Six? Will the kids have eaten? Oh, OK. And there'll be Anna, Krista, your little boy... oh, really? Oh, gosh. Let me ask her."

Varena covered the receiver. She was making a big effort to look cheerful and unconcerned. "Lily, Lou says they've agreed to keep the Osborn kids, too. At the time, they thought Shelley was coming with her boyfriend." Shelley was the flu-ridden teenager.

I took a deep, cleansing breath, like I did in karate class before I began my kata. "No problem," I said.

"You're sure?"

I confined myself to a nod.

"That's not a problem, she says," Varena said chirpily into the phone. "Right, it'll only last three hours at the most, two more likely, and we'll be just a few blocks away."

Sounded like Lou was a little concerned at the prospect of my baby-sitting such a mob.

The doorbell rang, and my mother hustled into the living room to answer it. I heard her say, "Hello, again!" with a kind of supercharged enthusiasm that alerted me. Sure enough, she led Jack into the kitchen with a pleased, proud air, as though she'd snagged him just when he was about to get away.

I found myself on my feet and going to him before I even knew I was moving. His arms slid around me and he gave me a kiss, but a kiss that said my parents were looking at him over my shoulder.

"Well, young man, it's nice to see you again. We'd begun to think we wouldn't get to lay eyes on you before you left town." My father was being bluff and hearty.

Jack was wearing a blue-and-green-plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans, and his thick hair was brushed smoothly back, gathered at the nape of his neck with an