Free For the Love of Pete by Julia Harper Page A

never missed a day of work. One sometimes had to make compromises, Pratima had found, when one owned a restaurant.
    And they must’ve made a good choice in hiring Abdul, for despite the late hour, he had greeted them with a toothless smile when they’d knocked on his door. At the moment he sat in a rather tattered stuffed green chair watching and nodding as the ladies attempted to diaper the babies. Fortunately, he’d turned off the blaring TV when they’d entered.
    Pratima smiled kindly down at the dark-haired baby girl, who was presently trying her best to crawl away. “If you know so much about diapering babies, Savita-di, perhaps you should diaper the child yourself.”
    “My hands are full, Pratima, as you can plainly see,” Savita-di gasped as the blond baby boy drew breath to blast both ladies again. “This boy is admirably strong.”
    “But not as pretty as the girl,” Pratima retorted. Savita-di had always been partial to boy children, a deplorably old-fashioned prejudice that should have been lost long before the ladies had come to the US of A.
    The baby girl suddenly stilled, her eyes caught by the necklace about Pratima’s neck. Pratima took advantage of her calm to fasten the sticky tapes of the disposable diaper around the little girl’s round tummy. The baby grinned and reached up to tangle her fingers in the delicate gold necklace.
    “Ah, ah!” Pratima chided. “Mustn’t break auntie’s beautiful necklace.”
    “Hurry, Pratima,” Savita-di said breathlessly. “This boy is very strong. And his bottom—pee-yew!”
    It was unfortunate that both babies had chosen to dirty their diapers at the same time, but fortunate that they had done so
after
the Gupta ladies had thought to buy a parcel of disposable diapers.
    “I am working as fast as I can,” Pratima panted as she wrestled a T-shirt onto the wiggling baby. The little girl’s clothes needed to be washed after her diaper change, and the T-shirt was the best available clothing for her, though it draped her like a tent.
    Abdul said something in his native language.
    Savita-di smiled widely at the man. “Yes! Yes!” She leaned to Pratima and whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “What do you think he is saying?”
    “How should I know, Savita-di?” Pratima shrugged. “I do not speak Farsi or whatever language he employs. Perhaps he is saying that we have had a nice visit but now it is time for us to leave.”
    “We cannot leave, as well you know, Pratima. That Terrible Man was at the restaurant. If I had not warned you to drive away in time—”
    “Pardon me, Savita-di, but was it not me who had the idea to change the so-large and very visible yellow Humvee for our nephew’s purple minivan?”
    “Yes—”
    “Then I believe I deserve equal share in the praise for eluding That Terrible Man.”
    “Humph,” was all Savita-di said, so Pratima knew that her sister-in-law had taken the point.
    Pratima smiled as Savita-di knelt to diaper the boy.
    Twenty minutes later, both ladies sat back on Abdul’s worn settee and contemplated the babies. The children crawled about the floor like miniature explorers, the boy hauling himself up the leg of the wooden table to stand swaying, the girl gnawing on a metal teaspoon she held in one hand as she crawled.
    “What are we to do with them, Savita-di?” Pratima asked wearily.
    Babies were very pretty, but such work! One forgot how terribly exhausting one baby was, let alone two. They were a job for younger women. Both sisters-in-law had reached the age when they should only have to play with babies on their knees, then hand them back to their frazzled mothers when the babies became stinky.
    “We cannot take them back to That Terrible Man,” Savita-di said with certainty.
    “No, no,” Pratima agreed. “These sweet innocents in the hands of such a man is an awful thought. But perhaps we can take them to a police station?”
    “And have the police arrest us at first sight?” Savita-di