"It's exhibit A if Doreen raises a fuss. And trust me, she will."

"Should we call the health department?" Alyce asked.

"No," Josie said. "This place will be closed before Christmas. Between the picketers, Doreen, and that surly child behind the counter, there won't be any customers."

"Josie, I'm no prude, but those ornaments are disgusting. How can anyone defile Christmas? It's a children's holiday."

"You missed the edible crotchless panties marked A SPECIAL TREAT FOR SANTA. The panties were peppermint flavored. The spearmint of Christmas."

"No, please," Alyce said. "No jokes. This is sad."

"I agree," Josie said, "and I'm burned out on Christmas. I've looked at holiday decorations since Labor Day. I'll have to give this store low marks and take the flack when it closes."

"You're joking. People will cheer when that store closes."

"Not Mike," Josie said. "He's an investor."

"Your Mike? The plumber? He's too cla.s.sy for that," Alyce said.

"He sank twenty thousand dollars into that loser to help Doreen."

"Do you really think it will hurt your relationship?" Alyce asked.

"Mike will try to take the high road. But he invested in this store so Doreen could make enough to send their daughter to college. When it closes, it will hurt him-and us."

"Can you tell Mike now and prepare him?"

"I'm not allowed to discuss a.s.signments with people who have a financial interest in them. I tried to get out of mystery-shopping this store, but Harry the Horrible said I had to do it-or lose my job."

"Mike will understand," Alyce said.

"I hope so," Josie said, but she'd never felt more hopeless. "I need a favor from your husband, Jake."

"Anything," Alyce said. "He owes you. We both owe you."

"Nate reappeared suddenly. My ex. He wants custody of Amelia, and I need an expert in international family law."

"Jake will find you someone, Josie, but your problem has no easy answer. International law is tricky when it comes to child custody. Nate could just take Amelia and run."

"I know that. He has enough money to disappear anywhere. I can't believe I loved him," Josie said. "What was wrong with me?"

"Nothing. You were twenty years old. We all fall for at least one jerk. If we're lucky, we don't marry him. You made the right decision to break up with Nate."

"But now he's back. Too bad I didn't get the custody issue worked out first, while he was in jail." Josie couldn't believe she was having this surreal conversation.

"Josie, he could still have come back and stolen Amelia, no matter what he signed. At least this way you have some warning. If you're really worried, bring Amelia and stay with us until Nate goes home to Canada."

"If he goes home. Alyce, he's changed so much, it's like he's another man. The only things I recognize from the Nate I knew are his recklessness and his stubbornness. I don't know when he became an alcoholic. He wasn't a drunk when I dated him."

"People change," Alyce said. "Adults rarely change for the better. I had a crush on a guy in high school that was so bad I thought I'd die of love. He was the funniest boy in our cla.s.s. A friend married him and then divorced him three years later. She got tired of his jokes and his irresponsibility. Whenever she suggested he grow up and go to work, he ran home to his mother, who spoiled him. He was still the same boy I loved, but my priorities changed. Yours did, too."

Josie was carefully navigating the traffic lanes around the construction at the turnoff for her house. "I can't believe Highway 40 is going to be closed for another year."

"The work is long overdue," Alyce said. "It will be good for the city. People who work downtown will move into those wonderful new loft apartments along Washington Avenue."

"I know. I shouldn't whine," Josie said. "But St. Louis has always been such a convenient city."

"Josie, it still is. What St. Louisans call 'traffic' makes people in other cities laugh."

"But I got used to the easy living." Josie pulled her car into Phelan Street. Her two-family flat looked handsome in the fall light. Her mother had planted ornamental purple cabbages in the garden and set pots of yellow mums on the porch.

"Mom better take in those mums tonight," Josie said. "There's supposed to be serious ice by morning."

Mrs. Mueller was raking the last fall leaves on her lawn. She wore a red jacket and an old-fashioned house-dress. Her hair was so firmly sprayed into place, it could have repelled bullets.

"Oh, heck," Josie said. "Look at that red car."

"What's wrong with it?"

"I think that's Nate's rental. I bet Amelia let him in against my orders-while her grandmother was at church."

"You shouldn't confront him alone, Josie. Not if he's drinking. I'll go in with you," Alyce said.

The two women marched up the front walk in battle mode. Mrs. Mueller leaned on her rake, watching them. The old bat knows there's going to be trouble, Josie thought. She can smell it.

Josie opened her door and found Nate lounging on her couch, talking to Amelia. Josie's daughter had a big, happy smile. It died when she saw her mother.

"We're catching up," Nate announced.

Josie glared at her daughter.

"I want to take my little girl skating at Steinberg Rink in Forest Park," Nate said. "It's a St. Louis tradition."

"Please, Mom," Amelia said.

Josie was reluctant to let her daughter go out with Nate, especially since he drank.

"Go to your room, Amelia, while I talk to your father."

"All right," Amelia said, dragging the words out. She flounced out of the room and slammed her door. Josie wondered if she'd have to listen to slamming doors until her child went off to college.

Nate patted the seat cushion beside him. "Sit down, Josie, and let's talk."

"I can't," Josie said. "I have to work. I want to talk to you, Nate, but you can't keep dropping in like this. Please give me a call and we can make an appointment to discuss things."

"Our daughter is not a thing," Nate said loftily. Josie thought she caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath. Alyce stood uncomfortably by the door, looking like she wanted to bolt outside.

Nate give Alyce a flirtatious smile. She gave him a stony look. "Is this the famous Alyce my little girl was telling me about? You've got a pretty face, darlin', but you need to do something about that fat a.s.s."

Josie boiled with fury. How dare he insult a friend in her home? And talk about fat a.s.ses-Nate had a beer gut and a wide bottom.

"I'll take care of it now," Josie said. "Out!"

Nate looked around the room, as if she were ordering someone else to leave.

"I mean you, Nate," Josie said.

"But I only said the truth. Your friend does have a pretty face but a fat-"

Before Nate could finish, Josie grabbed him by his jacket collar and nearly ripped it off. He stood up, looking confused. Josie pushed him hard toward the door, using both hands.

"Out," she said. "Out of my home this minute."

She threw open the door and shoved Nate outside. He stumbled and fell on the porch, landing on all fours.

"I'll get my daughter," Nate cried, slowly standing up.

"If it's the last thing I do."

"Keep this up and it will be," Josie shouted through the locked door.

Mrs. Mueller stared openmouthed at the spectacle. This show was better than she'd hoped. Josie's mother would be mortified that her daughter was once more the topic of neighborhood gossip.

Josie slammed her door and locked it.

"Josie, honey, let me in," Nate said. "I'm sorry."

"You're d.a.m.n right you're sorry," Josie shouted through the door. "You're going to be sorrier. Go away or I'll call the cops."

Nate went quietly. Soon Josie heard the sound of a car starting. Nate drove off in a squeal of tires.

"Amazing how quickly you can get rid of a fat a.s.s," Josie said.

Chapter 11.

Nate's red rental car was still squealing down the street when Josie's phone rang. Alyce whispered, "You're busy. I'd better go."

Josie waved good-bye as Alyce let herself out the front door, then turned her attention to the phone.

"Ms. Marcus?" a woman asked. "I'm calling about your Visa account."

"On a Sunday?" Josie said, and swallowed hard.

"There's been some unusual activity and we wanted to alert you. You are more than two thousand dollars over your credit limit."

"I'm what?" Josie shrieked into the phone. "I haven't charged anything recently."

"You didn't order a new RAZR phone, a laptop, and a sixty-dollar hooded sweatshirt?"

"No!" Josie said. "When did this happen?"

"About an hour ago," the company said. "The purchases were made from your home phone. Are you in possession of your card?"

"Yes. No. Let me check."

Josie usually left her credit card on her dresser when she went mystery-shopping. She ran into her bedroom and saw the card still sitting there. If I fingerprint this card, Josie wondered, whose prints will I find on it?

"I have the card, but I didn't make those purchases," Josie said. "I wasn't home at the time."

"Someone may have obtained your account information illegally. Would you like us to prosecute?"

"No," Josie said. "I'll handle the situation."

Josie marched to Amelia's bedroom and opened the door, careful not to slam it into the broken plaster wall. She'd have to fix that hole later.

Amelia was sitting on her bed, sulking. Her closet door was open, and Josie could see her daughter's childhood games stacked on the upper shelves-Chutes and Ladders, Go Fish, and Candy Land. How many games of Candy Land had they played at the kitchen table? The sweet days of the Candy Cane Forest and Gum Drop Mountain were gone. Now Josie was mired in a mola.s.ses swamp, with no way out.

"Amelia Marcus, did you order a new laptop, a hoodie, and a RAZR cell phone and charge them to my credit card?" Josie asked.

"No!" Amelia's eyes shifted left, then right. Josie could watch the struggle on her daughter's face. Amelia would never make a good poker player. The kid practically had a flashing sign on her forehead that said, "I'm lying!"

"Then your father did," Josie said. "The calls were made from this phone with my card, so it had to be one of you. If it's him, I'll have him arrested for theft."

Amelia took a deep breath. "Daddy didn't do anything," she said. "But he wanted me to have the gifts you're returning. He said he'd give me money for them before the credit-card bill arrived."

"No, he won't," Josie said. "They're being returned the minute they arrive at this house."

"You can't. They're mine," Amelia said.

"They're mine," Josie said. "Unless you want to pay for them with your own money."

Amelia had three hundred and six dollars squirreled away from gifts from her grandmother-more money than Josie had managed to save this year. But the kid would never touch her precious cash stash, not even for the coveted hoodie.

Amelia's face took on the same stubborn look her grandmother Jane had perfected. "I'm going to run away and live with my father," Amelia said. "You don't want me here. You just want Mike."

Josie wondered if aliens had taken control of her daughter. Amelia had always been well-behaved-before her father showed up. Now she didn't recognize her own child.

"You're grounded for a month, young lady," Josie said. "No visits to Emma, no computer except for school a.s.signments, no IM-ing your friends. On the way to school, I choose the radio station."

Josie wasn't sure that last punishment would have any effect. The Barrington girls talked about what they heard on The Point on the way to school, but they got their music these days from their computers. In high school, Josie's station had been The River, and she'd listened to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and that great St. Louis band, the Urge. But she suspected the Internet had ruined radio's influence.

Amelia reacted as if she'd been severely punished. "You're mean. You're mean and a liar and I hate you. I want to live with Daddy and never see you again."