During the days that followed our visit to the Petersen home I became suspicious. Laura was spending more time on the telephone than usual. It was finals week and I had one or two exams each day. As I worked at my desk each night I could hear her voice, muffled by the closed bedroom door. It was not uncommon for her to speak with Nadine for an hour but this was different. These telephone conversations were longer.
On Wednesday evening my exams were over. Sylvia, Laura and I were in the kitchen preparing the turkey and a variety of pies for the oven when the phone rang.
"Hi Randy, is Laura there?"
"It's Rosita," I said, offering Laura the phone.
"I know," she said as she headed to the bedroom, motioning for me to hang up the kitchen phone after she answered.
Sylvia and I worked together, making as many advanced preparations for Thanksgiving dinner as possible. She had everything organized. I could tell that she was curious about the phone call and the closed bedroom door but, I avoided the subject, simply saying it was a friend Laura was consoling.
In truth I did not know why Rosita was calling so often or what they were talking about. I assumed they were sympathizing with each other.
I gave Sylvia a brief rundown on everyone who had accepted our invitations for dinner the following day. In keeping with Laura's wishes, I avoided telling Sylvia the occupation of the four girls from the brothel or how we were acquainted.
For the past several days Laura had enumerated the pitfalls that she foresaw and how she hoped to avert them. I could tell she was nervous that the girls would let their vocabulary slip, that special way of talking whores use to express themselves. She enlisted my services to keep them from getting into fights and ruining our day.
Only four of the girls from the brothel had accepted our invitation. Laura suggested that they dress conservatively. She also instructed them not to mention their work and she especially warned them to call her Laura instead of Tess. I was to go after them the next morning and review Laura's instructions on the way to our house.
I named the four girls, Kelley, Ruby Mae, Tanya and Rachel, saying they were from Laura's work. Sylvia wanted to know more about the girls so she would be able to remember which was which.
"Kelley's only 18 or 19, Ruby Mae is tall, Tanya is cute and Rachel is the oldest."
"Isn't Kelley cute?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
I could see her point. Sylvia would be able to remember Ruby Mae because she was tall and Rachel because she was older than the others but I had described both Tanya and Kelley as being cute.
It would have been easy to give a distinguishing feature to describe Kelley. "Kelley's the one with the big mouth," I came close to saying but instead, "Tanya is probably 30."
The four guys from school who worked part time for us had promised to come with huge appetites. Paul was the tallest. He and Ken were the first part-timers we had hired. Wally was small and wiry and Ben was built like a bear.
Invitations to the four college guys had been extended to keep them from going home for Thanksgiving. We needed all hands to start the demolition of the old house where Judge Waite's Home for Women was going to be built. The promise of a huge meal was enough enticement to get them to come. I hadn't told them about the four girls from the brothel.
Charles and Nadine were coming. Sylvia knew Charles of course and remembered Nadine from the hospital where she and Laura had shared a room.
Sylvia also knew Lacy and she had met Eric when he was painting our additions.
"That makes fifteen," Sylvia said, showing that she had been keeping count.
"Charles and Nadine will probably bring their kids and Davie is coming."
"Davie?"
"Sure, you remember Davie. He helped paint the additions."
She froze, her hands clutching cut-up apple slices above a pie pan filled with dough. Her brow wrinkled and I saw a confident nod as she released the apple slices into the pan.
"How old is he? Is he…?"
"Davie?" I asked nonchalantly. I loved to tease her.
She picked up the rolling pin and raised it menacingly.
"Davie's about 30 and yes, he's single."
She lowered the rolling pin and went back to filling the pie. Laura came out of the bedroom and wanted to know what she had missed.
"What did we miss?" Sylvia said in good humored retort.
That night in bed Laura told me parts of her conversation with Rosita. "She wants to give me a good deal on a car. She said if we come by the lot on Saturday night she will sell us any car on the lot at cost."
"Ollie's cars are all big American crates. Do you think there will be something that will suit you?"
"I know," Laura said, running her hand over my chest, "I told her we'll drop by and look. She's just trying to make amends. It can't do any harm, can it?"
I agreed that it would do no harm to look, wondering why Rosita had made such a generous offer. It was clear to me that she and Laura were becoming friends. I wondered if it was their mutual aversion of Ollie that drew them together.
