Which is how I happened to be in the living room early the next morning when the pounding on the door started. I hadn’t wanted to disturb Haley, but the dream had left me wide awake. I took a glass of milk and one of Sister’s magazines listing 250 ways to satisfy a man in bed, and lay down on the sofa. The twentieth way was to massage his feet with oil. While I was thinking about what a mess this would make on the sheets, and how much Shout you would have to use before you washed them, let alone how he would break his neck if he so much as walked into the bathroom, I went back to sleep. Consequently, I was the one that the pounding woke up.

In lieu of a sheet, which I had been too lazy to get from the linen closet during the night, I had spread my robe over me.

“Wait a minute,” I grumbled inaudibly to the person beating on the door. I pulled my robe on. “Wait a minute.”

I shuffled barefooted down the entrance hall and was almost hit in the head with Fairchild’s upraised fist when I opened the door. “God!” I said, jumping back.

“Sorry!” He lowered his hand and his arms hung loosely by his side. “Is Millicent here, Patricia Anne?”

“What?” I asked, still half asleep. “What time is it?”

“About six.” Fairchild shuffled from one foot to the other. “Have you seen Millicent?”

“This morning? Of course not.”

“She didn’t come home last night.”

“Where could she be?”

“I don’t have any idea. I was hoping she might be here.”

“Why would she be here?”

“I was just hoping she was.”

I realized we were getting nowhere fast and I was feeling a desperate urge to brush my teeth and comb my hair. “Come in, Fairchild,” I said. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

“What’s the matter?” Mary Alice asked behind me. A glance told me she had not only combed her hair and brushed her teeth, but was also wearing a flimsy pink peignoir.

Fairchild rubbed his hands across his eyes, overcome by worry over Millicent or the sight of Mary Alice’s pink peignoir. Maybe a little of both. “Millicent didn’t come home last night,” he repeated.

“Oh, you poor darling.” Mary Alice brushed me aside and took Fairchild by the arm, guiding him in. “You just come right in and tell us all about it. Fix us some coffee, Mouse.”

“You fix it,” I said cheerfully, heading for the bathroom.

“What’s going on?” Haley murmured as I fumbled in my suitcase a few minutes later for some shorts and a top.

“Nothing,” I said. “Go back to sleep. It’s just Fairchild visiting.”

“What time is it?”

“Early.” I slipped on my clothes and went back into the living room where Mary Alice and Fairchild were ensconced on the couch.