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Deborah let the irl’s brazen attitude netted her a black ranted, offering no explanation of why they’d couest room, but he and Shelly declined They preferred to sleep in the bus, which they parked out behind the garage

The vehicle was little more than a shell They’d removed all the seats and outfitted the interior with beds, a low table and chairs, and a cah Shelly never lifted a hand when it caoods and had cardboard boxes for everything else Shawn slept on a tatty futon behind the driver’s seat while Greg and Shelly occupied a double-bedbetween the two beds for privacy The bus was left close enough to the pool house that the three could use the toilet and shower out there, not that any of them ever bathed as far as Deborah could tell

They hadn’t been in the house five minutes before the little boy had peeled off his clothes and was running around naked Deborah knew better than to raise an objection because Shelly was already warbling on about how our bodies were so precious and nothing to be ashae, clean-cut and polite, and here he was back again, pro this trashy little upstart whose values were equivalent to a slap in the face

At the first opportunity, Deborah excused herself, went up to the eles He was a sportswear h Friday afternoon at his plant in Downey She didn’t dare let hi on He listened to her description of Shelly, patient and beht she was exaggerating

"Don’t say I didn’t warn you," she sang

Patrick’s reaction to Shelly was just as swift as hers He was more analytical than Deborah, less intuitive, but just as quick to recoil At forty-eight, he had wiry hair, layered gray and white, cut short, wavy over his ears where the hair was slightly longer His eyes were brown, his eyebroashed-out gray He was color-blind, so Deborah selected his clothes His everyday attire was chinos and sport coats that she kept in a range of pale browns and grays His shirts were a crisp white, open at the collar since he refused to wear ties except on thefive-mile runs when he was hoer, a honey-blond wash concealing the natural gray Like Patrick, she was brown-eyed and slender The twoThey played golf together on weekends and the occasional tennis doubles match at the country club

Patrick tolerated "the bus people," as he referred to the the announced that Shelly was five ust, and they needed a place to stay For one fleetingthe truth Shelly was petite, so slight and bony it was hard to picture her giving birth to a full-term infant Deborah studied her discreetly She looked thick through the middle, but that was the sole indication that she ith child Neither of them seeetting married

Shelly used the occasion to air her views about childbirth She didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals Childbirth was a natural process and didn’t require the services of Western oal was to undermine a woman’s trust in her body and the freedoht, Patrick and Deborah had the first quarrel they’d had in years

Deborah said, "We can’t ask the They don’t have anyplace else to stay"

"I don’t give a shit He got hiet hiirl’s an idiot and I won’t put up with her, pregnant or not Is he out of his estured to hi, Shelly, and the boy had retired to the bus "You knoe kick her out, he’ll go, too"

"Good The sooner the better"

"She’ll have that baby in a cornfield"

"If that’s what she wants, let her do it She’s in for a rude awakening Wait ’til she goes into labor and then let’s hear about the joys of natural childbirth"