Back in the house, she’d just joined Bill on the couch in the family room when the phone rang. A minute or two later Sara brought her the cordless handset. “It’s for you.”

“Me?” Lucy was surprised. These days the phone always seemed to be for the girls.

But when she answered she learned there was no doubt the call was for her. “Lucy Stone? This is your neighbor, Fred Stanton.”

“Hi, Fred,” said Lucy. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ll tell you what you can do,” he shouted. “You can leave my son alone, that’s what.”

“I think there’s a misunderstanding here,” she said. “I just gave him something to drink.”

“Yeah, and then you started telling him his coach doesn’t know what he’s doing and asking a lot of questions. Well, listen here. I won’t have it. Mind your own business.”

“But I didn’t…” began Lucy, but she was cut off when Fred slammed the phone down. She looked at Bill with a puzzled expression.

“Forget it,” said Bill, drawing her close. “This is the good part, where Bruce Willis sets off the explosion.”

Chapter 6

Lucy was all alone in the Pennysaver office the next morning when the bell on the door jangled and Sue breezed in with a covered dish in her hands.

“Hi, stranger,” Lucy said. “What brings you to these parts?”

“I brought the rest of my Better-than-Sex Brownies for Ted,” she said, pouting. “At least he appreciates them.”

“Everybody loved your brownies. I think they voted against them because they’re expensive to make. Butter’s three dollars a pound these days, and chocolate and nuts are expensive, too.”

“I didn’t get the impression that anybody was concerned about cost,” said Sue, with a little sniff. “They were just sucking up to Chris. The minute she said she didn’t like them they all fell right into line. She’s really something. I never met anybody so intimidating.”

Sometimes Lucy thought Sue was a tad intimidating, too, but she bit her tongue. “I think she’s frustrated, staying at home with Pear and Apple. She used to be a big executive and now all she’s got to manage is a one-year-old and a three-year-old. Sara babysits for her and she says she’s got the kids’ days organized down to the last minute. Sara got in trouble for giving them their healthful, one-hundred-percent organic snack ten minutes early.”

“And then there’s that prissy Bonnie. I mean, ‘Better-than-Sex’ is just a name, it’s not like I’m advocating fornication or anything.” Sue examined her manicure. “Though I always wonder about those goody-two-shoes types. I suspect all sorts of weird, deviant stuff goes on in their bedrooms.”

“I doubt it. Her husband’s quite a bit older than she is.”