I dug out the packet of materials Wally had given me and thumbed through the medical forms that listed the medications each tour member had taken with him. When I reached Jane Hanson, I stopped. Good Lord, she'd brought the whole pharmacy with her. Everything from Aspercreme to Zantac. Maybe a druggist's motto was like that of a Boy Scout. Be prepared. Looked like Jane was prepared to treat any malady from athlete's foot to brain tumors.

I scanned her list of pain relievers, called the front desk to find her room number, and hiked up to the third floor. I rapped on her door and practically did handstands when she answered.

"Emily. What a nice surprise. What can I do for you?" She was dressed this morning in a navy-and-white gingham blouse, gray polyester pants with an elastic waistband, and penny loafers. Probably a good thing she wore a lab coat at work. Poor Jane needed to spend less time leafing through Hoard's Dairyman and more time leafing through a Spiegel catalog.

"The dental work I had done yesterday. My tooth is killing me. Do you have something I can take for the pain?"

"You bet. Come on in. I'll see what I have for you. That sweatshirt is so cute! Did you buy it in Windsor City or did you order it out of a catalog?"

"It's Nana's." I guess that said it all. Her room was huge. Of course, it would have to be huge to accommodate a four-poster bed, armoire, chaise lounge, and three upholstered armchairs. She even had a window dressed with the same kind of posh velvet drapes I imagined Mammy had used to sew that gown for Scarlett O'Hara after the war. "Wow. Nice room." I could handle a room like this. "Is this a prestige suite?"

"It sure is. I didn't know when I'd ever get back to Switzerland again, so I wanted to do it right the first time."

I smiled a secret smile. "I don't have a nice room yet, but I have sources who are working on it."

"I would have preferred a room with a balcony, but the weather's been so bad, I'd probably never get to use it anyway, so why complain?"

Good philosophy. Jane Hanson might not have the best taste in clothing, but her attitude certainly gave me something to emulate.

"Let's see what I have to offer you, Emily."

She'd set up a mock pharmacy on her desk along with her Apple iBook computer in a muted tangerine color.

"Nana has an iBook just like that," I said, "only in blueberry."

"I can't be far from my computer," Jane stated as she scanned her array of medications. "I have to stay on top of the FDA alerts on recalled drugs. You know how it is. One day a drug is working just fine and the next day it's shown to have killed thirty people. That happened a few weeks ago with one of the popular cholesterol medications. I had to phone both Helen and Bernice to tell them to stop taking it." She plucked a bottle from her stockpile and read the label. "My first choice for you would be Motrin. I'd recommend twenty-four hundred milligrams a day, and if that doesn't help, we can increase the dosage to thirty-two hundred. Do you have nasal polyps?"