The Mayor searched his brain. Embroidered and elaborated grains of truth rang truer than fact. But so did lies. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on. “It’s much too kind of you,” she was saying again. “It’s just too much. Thank you, but I can’t.” Claire studied Johnny’s face for traces of change. Still he watched her with that mocking, amused, unblinking, infuriating look. No one in the family knew exactly what to do. “Excuse me,” murmered Claire and she left the table. It didn’t surprise her that they were all whispering. Uh-oh, the Mayor thought, and he followed her out. She was standing, hunched and listening, behind the door.
“Don’t worry. Claire’s just a dumb girl.” Michaelaen, the little traitor, was comforting Johnny. Michaelaen’s sense of protective guardianship only extended to the offended at hand.
“Three things my mother told me about life,” Stan’s voice rang out suddenly. “‘Never,’ she said, ‘eat meat loaf out.’ That was the first thing. Two was: ‘Never loan money you can’t afford to give away.’ And the third was, ‘Never, but never think you might be smarter than the stupidest woman.’”
CHAPTER 9
“That’s it,” Claire said out loud. “That’s the last of them. They’ve all gone out.”
The Mayor came to attention at once. He hadn’t realized she’d been speaking to him. Had he been dozing? He blinked reassuringly at Claire. She was standing at the window. “The yard is full of crows,” she said. “I can’t understand what the sun is doing shining. I’ve never known crows to creep around the backyard unless it was to rain.” She looked at him and he looked at her. He wished there was something he could do. She was so obviously in a bog. He used to be very good at that sort of thing: lightening people’s loads. All he’d had to do was wraggle around undulating his charming little rear and they’d literally melt. That kind of frivolity wouldn’t do nowadays. It wasn’t seemly for the stout to try to be too cute. Not past a certain age. And then there was that ever-humbling reminder of one’s limitations: arthritis. The mind went on and the body just disintegrated. The way of the world, he supposed. Ah, well. One placed too much importance on one’s own capabilities. More often than not, what was needed was a simple ear to listen. With Claire this was especially true. Because she’d go on and on whether you were there or not. There were those who would think this odd. He, a democrat, did not.