“Julie,” Susan said patiently, “would you remove the cheese?”
“Pardon?”
“Remove,” Susan repeated succinctly, “the cheese.”
“I thought you liked sharp cheddar-Susan? For heaven’s sake…” Julie’s chair scraped the linoleum as she vaulted out of it. Susan’s eyes were closed, her lips were whispering over and over, “You will not be sick, you will not be sick…” Julie hastily removed the strong-smelling cheese.
It helped. Susan’s stomach had been flip-flopping down a deep well, but it suddenly began to lose momentum, and she knew that in just one more minute she would be fine.
“Susan…” Julie’s hand touched her shoulder.
Lanna was suddenly standing in the doorway, with a look Susan had seen twice before in the past two weeks. “We’ll get you upstairs to my apartment,” she said firmly.
“There is nothing wrong with me,” Susan grumbled. “I didn’t eat any breakfast. I’ve known ever since I was six years old that I feel sick if I don’t have breakfast.”
“Susan…” Lanna started.
“Should I call a doctor?” Julie asked worriedly.
Susan promptly forced her spine straight, belted her arms tightly around her stomach and glared at both of them. “All I did was move a little too fast on an empty stomach. Let’s not make some kind of federal case out of it.”
“We won’t,” Lanna agreed. “You can just go to lunch with Julie. Immediately.” The two women exchanged glances.
“Exactly why I came here in the first place,” Julie announced.
Susan stood up then. Her knees felt skittery, but otherwise that green sensation had faded. The thing was, she reminded herself of her aunt. On her mother’s side. She’d had frequent exposure to her aunt’s hypochondria as a child, and it had caused her to develop an almost phobic loathing for illness.
“You’re not going to get a raise for the next eleven years,” she told Lanna.
“You gave me two last year. They’ll last for a while.” Lanna had her coat all ready.
Susan snatched it from her. “I’m fine. Please just leave me alone.”
The waspish tone was so out of character for Susan that both women smiled brilliantly at her. Julie didn’t stop the insane kid-gloves treatment until they were seated in a restaurant, eating homemade minestrone and wedges of warm French bread. Susan was keeping up with Julie spoonful for spoonful.
“You really were just hungry, weren’t you?” Julie conceded finally.
“I told you that.”
“You scared the devil out of your assistant.”
“Lanna’s desperate for someone to mother. She’s had the roles all wrong ever since I hired her, but I didn’t seem to realize it until the last few weeks.” Susan smiled with honest affection, feeling like herself again. “I’ve got to get her married off. She goes for the stray lambs every time. It wouldn’t be so bad if she collected children, but her strays are always over six feet tall with big blue eyes.”
Julie chuckled. Lanna’s doings always evoked her indulgent amusement. Her smile hovered a moment longer and then faded, and suddenly all her attention was riveted on the spoon in her hand. “I really did come to have lunch with you. To talk about the kids.”
“The kids?” Susan echoed in surprise.
“Come on, Susan. I’ve known my niece and my two nephews a long time. You think the problem wasn’t obvious to me when the clan came to dinner at my place last Sunday? My brother never used to be stupid.”
Susan, used to Julie’s sisterly concern for her, sighed. “Go ahead,” she said dryly. “But try to remember that I’m a big girl, Julie. The kids and I are doing just fine.”
Julie’s eyes met hers, big, blue and much more shrewd than her wine-and-cheese-shop profits would lead one to suspect. “They’re eating you up, Susan. Why haven’t you told Griff? Surely you know what Sheila’s like. She gave them nothing, so naturally, they saw you coming and held out their hands. It’s called taking advantage, darling.” She said the last two words very clearly, as if to emphasize the message to her sister-in-law.
Susan sighed and leaned back, absently regarding the busy comings and goings of the lunch crowd in the cheerful little restaurant. “Whether you can understand it or not, I happen to have a bad case of attachment to those three. I sometimes have a mad urge to glue little signs on their foreheads-Mine. And they’re not really giving me a hard time, Julie, not nearly as bad as I expected. Oh, Barbara sometimes goes a little too far. That I’ll admit. But then, she’s going through a period when she needs to test me.”
“As in every time Griff’s back is turned,” Julie interjected demurely. “She learned those tricks from a master, you must realize that.”
“Don’t,” Susan scolded bluntly. “Do you think this has been easy for Barbara? She must feel as if she’s turning her back on her mother to come and live with us-and Sheila isn’t an ogre, you know. I’m not her judge, and neither are you.”
“Don’t you forget that the judge didn’t just look into my brother’s winsome eyes and suddenly decide to give him custody. He talked plenty to those kids and to their mother. Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for Sheila, Susan. Maybe this is her chance to get her life together. Finally. At any rate, those kids weren’t forced to live with you-they had their say. They must care for you. And as far as I’m concerned, that means you should have the right to slam them against a wall occasionally when they get really out of line.”
“You’ve always had this terrible problem expressing yourself,” Susan said with mock compassion. “You never speak your own mind, never come out and say what you’re thinking.”
Julie burst out laughing. “You’re the one who got me started-at least on this subject. Telling me about that book.”
“What book?”
“Tough Love. Wasn’t that the title? Something about kids testing you because they want you to set limits on their behavior, because it’s a natural human need to establish rules. Well, if that’s true, then you’ve got the right to say no to them, Susan. That won’t stop them from loving you.”
“So wise,” Susan marveled. “Remind me of this conversation if we ever get you married off and you have your own children, will you?” Susan gathered up her purse and coat and snatched the bill from the table. “I’ve got to get back. I’ve got a thousand things to do this afternoon…”
Julie stood up reluctantly, casting Susan a rueful look as they made their way to the front of the restaurant. “Tell Griff the kids are bugging you,” she murmured as they walked outside.
“You were a perfect darling to invite me to lunch,” Susan said warmly. “Normally, I would have holed up in the back room with peanut butter and stale bread.”
“Tell Griff,” Julie repeated ominously.
“This has been a perfectly delightful conversation,” Susan assured her.