Free Antiques Swap by Barbara Allan Page B

rate a standing ovation, but Mother got a standing reservation.
    Along with Mother and me, the group included Alice Hetzler, a former middle school English teacher, who still treated me like her eighth-grade student; Cora Van Camp, a retired court secretary, who knew everybody in town’s legal business; Frannie Phillips, a part-time nurse at the Serenity Hospital, who specialized in giving the worst shots; and Norma Crumley, a socialite and world-class gossip.
    Norma was at least ten years younger than the rest (myself not included), and was a newbie to the group. Shortly after the rumormonger’s addition, I questioned Mother about it. I mean, with Vivian Borne in the group, who needed another gossip?
    â€œDear,” she told me, “after Norma’s husband divorced her, all the poor woman’s married friends crawled back into the woodwork.”
    â€œThen they weren’t really her friends, were they?”
    â€œNo. They were his friends. They only put up with the unpleasant woman because of him.”
    â€œThen why do you want to put up with her?”
    â€œBecause dear, she’s a font of information.”
    â€œEven after her married friends abandoned her?”
    â€œPlenty of widows and divorcées around, and Norma has social-circle connections to which I’m not privy. Or is that to whom?”
    Had Mother purposely chosen these friends in their unrelated fields, so that she could tap their knowledge in solving her cases?
    Absolutely. And I had to admire the deviousness and forethought.
    The ladies were studying their menus; while the restaurant had a delicious Sunday brunch buffet, no one in the little group but me ever took it.
    As Norma had once sniffed, “If I want to fetch my own dinner, I’ll stay at home.”
    A waitress appeared and took our orders, and I excused myself to head to the buffet to beat the long line that would soon be formed by other churchgoers now filing into the restaurant.
    At the food bar, I filled my plate with breakfast items, only to reach hot lunch dishes at the end that made me question my selections. This was a lesson I seemed incapable of learning, like so many Sunday morning lessons. And the only Button Factory restraint I burdened myself with was limiting the buffet trips to one.
    By the time I returned to our table, the others had been served their first course of salad and/or soup, so I didn’t feel bad about digging in.
    Cora, petite retired court secretary prone to bird-like head movements, said, “I have it on good authority that Vanessa recently consulted an out-of-town lawyer about how to break that nasty prenuptial agreement Wes imposed upon her.”
    I asked, “ How nasty?”
    â€œI hear it states that she got not a centavo unless they had a child.”
    â€œThat seems pretty medieval.”
    â€œWell, it’s a Sinclair family thing. Family business.”
    Mother was silent; her modus operandi here was to sit back and listen, and benefit from her friends’ chattiness . . . and my natural curiosity.
    Frannie, slender, part-time nurse with short, wiry gray hair, chimed in, “And I happen to know from someone in OBGYN—I won’t say who —that Vanessa could never conceive due to . . .” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “. . . a botched abortion she had in college.”
    Norma, overweight socialite wearing too much makeup, commented, “Their former cleaning lady now works for me, and let me tell you . . .” No whispers for Norma. “. . . she said they had wiiiild parties at that mansion of theirs.”
    I asked, “What kind of wild parties?”
    Norma blinked at me indignantly. “Well, I wasn’t about to pry! ”
    Only Alice, retired English teacher with dyed brown hair showing an inch of white outgrowth, had nothing to offer.
    Maybe Mother should consider replacing her.
    Mother, satisfied that she’d gathered everything