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Awakened by the welcome sound of the children pattering down the hall, Mae was confused at first, wondering why she felt so drained. Then her fight with Jamie came back, and the weight of regret slammed down on her. How could she have been so harsh with him? He was sick, and she’d ignored it except as a safety risk driving and as further proof that he couldn’t think logically.
As soon as she examined her guilt, though, she got angry again, turning onto her back and tossing the covers off. Who left an illness untreated that long? Don had said it could be cured with antibiotics, and Jamie had just driven around getting sicker instead.
Worry chased her anger. His death wish was still with him. She’d seen it before in the way he rode his bike without a helmet, dodging recklessly through traffic, and in his history of rock climbing accidents and other disasters that left him too damaged to climb anymore. While he fretted to excess about things that couldn’t hurt him, he slung his life around as if daring something to kill him. Him and her children.
Despite another wave of fury, Mae’s concern for him deepened. If he was depressed as well as sick, after their fight he would only sink lower.
How in the world was he going cope with Sierra for four days?
Walking home the previous night, Mae had encountered her with Yeshi coming out of the heavy, carved gate of the main Pelican Spa’s courtyard, apparently heading back to the Red Pelican after a late-night soak. While a dog at the house next door to the spa barked its objections to pedestrians, Sierra had stared at Mae, demanding, “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“What? Jamie didn’t tell us that.”
“He didn’t have to.” Mae moved on, too distressed to talk about Jamie.
Lying in bed, she had an urge to call him, but a glance at the clock told her he would be leading the morning chants now. Leaving a message would be too awkward. She would have to find him later and sort things out. If things could be sorted out.
She put on her robe and joined the girls in the kitchen. Brook was standing on a chair to get cereal out of a cabinet. Stream had used another chair to climb onto the counter, where she knelt, getting dishes out. They didn’t like to ask for help any more than Jamie did, but trying to prove you were grown-up was part of being a kid.
“Y’all can wake me up,” Mae said. “It’s okay.”
“We like getting our own breakfast.” Stream put bowls on the counter and jumped down from it. “Jamie let us go to the motel breakfasts by ourselves. We brought him coffee and stuff.”
Mae didn’t trust herself to discuss Jamie yet. She got milk and eggs and green chile salsa from the refrigerator. “You want scrambled eggs?”
Brook clambered down from her perch and carried the cereal to the table. “Yes, Mama. Thank you. Without that green stuff, though.”
While they ate, Mae told them about the day’s plans. She had never cut classes before, but today she had no choice. Not only was she too tired to drive to the college or to function if she got there, but she needed to get her girls settled in. “I have to bring a bunch of paperwork for getting you registered, so I set up a meeting with your teacher and a tour of the school. That way, you’ll know him and know your way around when you start classes Monday.”
“Why not today?” Brook asked with her mouth full. “I like school.”
The teacher had been concerned about the fears most kids had entering a new classroom midyear. Mae smiled. Her fearless girls. Their best and worst trait. “The school has to process the paperwork. And please swallow before you talk, sweetie. Jamie didn’t make you mind your manners, did he?”
“Nope.” Brook imitated his snort-laugh. “And we didn’t make him mind his, either.”
“Well, it’s time to start minding them again. Jamie hasn’t had any practice taking care of children, so he let you do things I wouldn’t.”
Stream asked, “Will he be okay, Mama?”
“Of course he will. He just has to go to his doctor.”
“Can we visit him after we do our school stuff?”
“He’s working. And remember, he’s not feeling well. We may need to let him rest tonight.”
The twins scowled, poking at their food, then Stream said, “But we can go take care of him. We can bring him something to make him feel better.”
“That’s thoughtful of you. I’ll call him later and see if he’s up for a visit.”
How would the girls react if they knew Mae and Jamie had fought? Hubert and Jen were fighting. That was why he’d wanted the girls to continue to New Mexico. They needed peace and stability. Mae and Jamie would have to work out a truce.
*****
“I’m not sure I can handle two hours of spirituality before breakfast,” Kate complained as she and Bernadette emerged into the courtyard of the Red Pelican.
“Pretend you can.” Bernadette gave her an understanding smile and locked their suite’s green door. In the soft early light, it glowed against the background of a purple stucco wall. Somehow, Kate thought, the colors blended rather than clashed with the red wall to their left, where slender statues that looked like Eastern deities stood between the turquoise doors to the guest rooms.
The two women headed toward the Loft with its whimsical display of surfboards on the opposite side of the courtyard. Bernadette paused and studied the temple-like structure that dominated the center of the space, four poles supporting a three-tiered pagoda roof of weathered metal with spaces between each tier open to the sky. Underneath it sheltered a massive rock, a laughing Buddha statue perched on its crest. Four benches framed the rock, inviting guests to sit and contemplate it in the company of four small goddesses.
“This is a great setting for a retreat with Tibetan healing,” Bernadette said. “I wonder what sort of place Sierra and Yeshi plan to build.”
“We’re not going to learn about their plans from chanting and meditation. Are you sure we needed to get up this early?”
“We have to act sincere about being here. And we might learn something about Yeshi. Just be observant. We’ll each notice different things, talk to different people.”
“I know,” Kate said. They resumed their progress toward the Loft and the array of Fu dog statues with red tongues that seemed to guard it. “I’m just grouchy without coffee. I am curious to see if Yeshi is as sane and normal as he seemed, or if he’s actually out in left field with Sierra.”
“I want to keep an eye out for how they persuade people. How they win them over.”
“They won’t recognize you, will they?”
“They shouldn’t. I don’t have my picture on my column. And the name won’t ring a bell.” Don had registered her as Bernice Star Eagle. Bernadette opened the door. “Remind Jamie about it, if you get a chance.”
Kate agreed she would, and she and Lobo preceded Bernadette inside.
The one-story spa had no actual loft, but the large open room resembled a loft apartment, with a kitchen area, bar and stools at one end, two large wardrobes against the walls, a couch, chairs and coffee table in the middle, and two beds. On all sides hung a collection of eclectic modern art. The sliding glass doors beyond the second bed were open, admitting a cool breeze that stirred a curtain made from crimson and orange kimonos.
Most of the dozen or so participants sat on chairs and the couch, while others sat on cushions on the floor. Bernadette lowered herself to the last empty cushion and Kate parked her chair beside the sofa. Jamie, sitting on a meditation zafu, held his posture erect, but his abnormal stillness suggested low energy. Sierra and Yeshi were side by side, cross-legged on the nearest of the two beds. If they’d been in it, Kate might have thought it was a John-and-Yoko peace-and-love reference, but their perch on it kept them apart and elevated. Enthroned.
Yeshi bowed to the group, spoke a few words in his language, and nodded to Jamie.
Before singing, Jamie took a moment of silence, his eyes closed, one hand on his belly. Though he’d seemed half-asleep, Kate recognized his effort to calm anxiety.
As he chanted the Tibetan words, the vibration of his clear tenor voice touched something in Kate, as if a faucet of cool water had opened inside her. When he finished, the faucet shut off. Jamie looked weary again, and Yeshi began to speak.
“In my training, the most important lesson was the meditation of the Medicine Buddha. This teaches the Tibetan doctor to see from the farthest mountain into the essence of all things.”
Kate wished Bernadette spoke ASL so she could sign to her: Is this bullshit or authentic? With her expertise on alternative medicine, she might be the only person in the room who would know.
His eyes bright and warm, Yeshi regarded each member of his audience in turn as he spoke. “The Medicine Buddha sees the illusory nature of material life. Sees that all things are impermanent and made up of changes. All bodies. All illnesses. He penetrates to the essence and can, through his seeing and his power, begin to alter the course of illness.”
Sierra clasped his hand. Her speech took on an airy, hypnotic quality. “The Bodhisattva sees the sufferings of all beings and says, ‘I am ill because all beings are ill. I will not be healed until all beings are healed.’ The Bodhisattva takes on the sufferings of others and transforms them. The bodhisattva has chosen the path of the healer through many lives.”
She sounded as if she was quoting ancient Tibetan scripture, but to Kate any words that came from Sierra’s mouth were suspect, and she looked around to check reactions.
Bernadette was scribbling in a small notebook. Posey, her face glowing, scooted sideways on the couch to get closer to a big, brown-eyed, bearded man. Rex, no doubt. Leon and Magda, seated in chairs, nodded when Sierra spoke. Dr. Don Gross, on a cushion at their feet, was watching Jamie, whose intense gaze moved from person to person as if he were following the progress of some invisible being around the room. The other participants kept their attention on Sierra and Yeshi, some with expressions of fascination, others with bleary-eyed bewilderment.
The couple on the bed wound up their lecture, and then Yeshi said Jamie would lead a group chant, to be followed by guided meditation and Tibetan yoga. So far, nothing seemed corrupt or crazy. If Kate hadn’t been to the support group or talked with Posey, she would have assumed everything was normal.
After the meditation, she informed Sierra that she would be going out to exercise Lobo. “I can’t imagine I’ll be doing yoga.”
“That,” Sierra said, “is the problem. Why don’t you stay and dare to imagine doing yoga?”
Finally. The wackiness. Kate forced an approximation of humility. “Of course. You’re right.”
Several members of the group helped Yeshi to move the furniture and cushions aside while Sierra brought yoga mats from behind the second bed. Yeshi then slipped out the door. Sierra distributed the mats in a circle and stood in the center. “These five practices, done fifty times every morning, will keep you young forever.”
Jamie’s eyes widened. “You say fifty?”
A couple in their sixties, a thin, wrinkled woman with faded blonde hair, and a trim, pink-cheeked man with a white beard, smiled at each other. The man, who was next to Jamie, clapped him on the shoulder. “Didn’t you know that’s our secret? Daphne and I have been doing Tibetan yoga.”
Jamie snort-laughed, the first sign of normal Jamie-ness Kate had seen.
Sierra gave him a petulant look and began to spin like a dervish. Posey and Magda followed along and Leon tried, though with hesitations and pauses. A few other people spun briefly and stopped, obviously dizzy.
Sierra descended to her mat for a series of flowing movements that reminded Kate of pictures she’d seen of Pilates mat work but also of some yoga poses. Another thing to check with Bernadette, or maybe Mae. Was this some fitness workout? Why didn’t Yeshi teach it, if it was really Tibetan yoga? To keep Sierra busy? Make her feel important?
Sierra gave vague cues and never once looked at the participants. Only Bernadette followed her with any skill. After attempting a few moves, the couple who seemed to know Jamie lay back and held hands. Jamie moved through a few slow, seated yoga poses. Don and several others also did their own yoga sequences, while still others followed the older couple’s lead and lay down. Her eyes closed much of the time, Sierra was oblivious. Jamie watched everyone the way he had during the lecture, with an expression Kate read as both confusion and concentration. What was he thinking?
She slipped her phone out and took a video, capturing Sierra with most of her class ignoring her.
When the session was over, a caterer set up what the retreat program had labeled as a simple vegetarian breakfast on the bar. The participants gathered near the food, chatting. Sierra skipped the socializing and approached Kate. “What were you doing, taking video?” Apparently, it was the one thing going on around her that Sierra had noticed.
“It was to help myself visualize doing what you did.”
Frowning as if she didn’t quite believe she’d made a convert, Sierra regarded Kate for a moment, then looked around as Yeshi returned, full of good cheer, and joined the group gathering at the bar.
He announced, “I have everything ready for massage and consultations in the conference room. It is the last door in the red wall, near the front exit from the courtyard. If you are scheduled for today, eat light before massage.”
Sierra added, “While Yeshi does his private sessions, I’ll be here reading your Akashic records.”
Posey clung to Rex’s arm. “I hope you’ll have your Akashic records read. Did you bring your garbage?”
He froze in the middle of scooping fruit salad onto his plate. “Today? I could go home and get it, but ...”
Sierra whispered, “We’re not doing that here, Posey.” She spoke more loudly again. “The soul group will stay and meet after my readings, which I hope will confirm that the final missing members have found us through this retreat.”
Leon and Magda embraced, then began a quiet but excited conversation. They had to be wondering the same thing Kate was: who had Sierra pegged as the additional members of her soul group, and why?
Kate joined the line for breakfast. The food was on the bar, out of reach. Without saying anything, Jamie handed her a cup of coffee and served her a plate. Then he sat on a stool and sucked noisily on a dribbling slice of melon. His table manners were as flawed as ever, but it was strange to see him eat so little. Maybe he was on a diet. But that didn’t explain his demeanor. Aside from his brief exchange with the pink-cheeked man, he’d been catatonic, not yakking, fidgeting, and bouncing. The absence of his usual annoying behaviors troubled Kate.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Mmm.” Jamie’s shoulders wriggled. “Not much sleep, y’know?” He dropped the sucked-bare melon rind into a trash can, wiped his chin on a napkin, and then wiped his hands on his pants. “’Scuse me, need coffee.”
He filled a cup, slurped from it, refilled it, and sat on the stool again, then changed to a chair, lower and closer to eye level with Kate. But he didn’t meet her eyes, taking his phone from his pocket, turning it on and checking messages. Something he heard made him tense up and turn away from her.
“Sorry.” Jamie put his phone away. “So ...uh ... how are you doing with your dolphin karma?”
She managed to restrain her laughter and took a few sips of coffee. He’d asked it so straight-faced. “I’m not sure yet. Bernice ...” She paused, hoping the reminder sank in. “Bernice is curious about that story. Maybe we’ll learn something this weekend.”
“Think I will, too. Soul group meeting.” He bit his thumb knuckle, eyes narrowed. “Jeezus.”
“Can you handle the meeting? Act like—” Kate had almost forgotten that Jamie was half-convinced. “Do you think you might actually be in her soul group?”
“Dunno.” He rubbed his neck and then drew his hand away abruptly, shaking his hair with a shudder. “Reckon it’s possible.”
Kate glanced around to see if other members of this supposed group might overhear if she tried to dissuade him. Magda and Leon had settled on the couch, fully absorbed in their discussion. Yeshi leaned on the breakfast bar, conversing with several participants. Across the room, Sierra was standing in a cluster with Posey, Don, and Rex, who was enthusing loudly about the investments that had helped him retire early. None of the believers was paying attention to Kate and Jamie. She was safe prodding him to question Sierra. “What did you think of her yoga class?”
“Wouldn’t call that a class. She wasn’t teaching.”
No kidding. “You looked interested in what everyone else was doing. Could you have taught it better?”
“Me? Nah, been practicing for less than year. Never seen that kind of yoga before, either. I was looking at something else.”
Of course. He’d been scanning the group during the lecture, also. “What was it?”
He chewed on his knuckle again. “I have this,” he looked into her eyes and said in an undertone, “guide. It was ... I could see it.”
Kate knew Jamie had studied with the shaman Gaia Greene, so his seeing a spirit guide didn’t particularly surprise her. It seemed to have surprised him more. “Did you mean to call it in?”
“Nah. Just shows up. Been coming around since that workshop where we met Sierra.” A pained look crossed his face, and he took a breath. “Sorry. Fight with Mae. Just saying ‘we’ ... thinking of us ...” He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. The guide. I only felt it before. It’s my late cat, William. He’d touch me, y’know? But this morning, dunno if it’s because of all the chanting, that it kind of changed my boundaries or something, I could see him. He was walking around checking people out.”
“Are you sure he’s a guide? Not your personal ghost?”
“Yeah. He’s been trying to tell me something. If he was my pet ghost, he’d have been around since he died. I was seeing spirits all the time back then, so I’d have seen him if he was there.”
“So, your guide was walking around ... trying to tell you what?”
“Dunno. He skipped Sierra and Bern—Bernice and Posey, but he sniffed everyone else or rubbed on them a little. He really liked Chuck Brady.”
“Who?”
“Bloke I was talking with. Older guy in the tie-dyed shirt.” Jamie’s phone emitted a burble of classical music. He answered, then said after a pause, “Thanks so much for calling back ... No, please, I’d rather hear it from you. Jeezus. You make better eye contact over the phone than she does in person.” He nodded to Kate, muttered his excuses, and hastened outside.
Kate found Bernadette in the group gathered around Yeshi and asked her for a private talk.
They moved out to the courtyard. Jamie was huddled on the bench below the laughing Buddha, his phone pressed to his ear. His free hand gripping the opposite shoulder so tightly his elbows crossed, he rocked as he listened, head bowed. Kate didn’t have to hear a word to know something was wrong.
She exchanged glances with Bernadette. They needed to talk about him, but first, they should talk to him. Jamie ended his call, and Kate let Bernadette take the lead. Nurturing was not Kate’s strong point. Bernadette sat beside him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Do you need to talk?”
“Don.” Jamie hugged himself, eyes closed, still rocking. “Need Dr. Don.”
––––––––
In a grassy riverside park with a gazebo-style bandstand in the center, Kate lengthened Lobo’s lead so he could explore. Across the river was the mountain with the turtle shape on its crest, the image from her crystal ball. Posey had floated as Ophelia in this stretch of river. Kate didn’t like to share clients’ readings, so she said nothing to Bernadette, but the recognition gave her a sense of dread. Something bad was going to happen to that silly woman. And something bad had already happened to Jamie. His quietness, his lack of appetite, and then this phone call.
“I wish Jamie had talked with you,” Kate said. “I’m afraid he’s falling under Sierra’s spell. I think he’s sick or depressed. He had a fight with Mae, so it could be both, and Sierra could take advantage of that. We wanted him to be the eyes and ears in that soul group meeting, but now he might get pulled under instead.”
“Don should be able to help him. I hope.” Bernadette had fetched Don from the Loft, and the doctor had invited Jamie to his room to talk. “I’m glad Jamie trusts him. Something was definitely, seriously wrong.”
“If it’s his health, that could be why he’s starting to think he’s in that soul group.”
“I can’t see Jamie accepting Sierra’s ideas. He’s been all over Asia when he was a kid, with his father’s research into shamanism. He should be able to tell the difference between a real seer and a fraud.”
“But she’s not doing shamanic work. And he’s in a weird place emotionally. I don’t like him going to that meeting and getting drawn further in. We need a strategy that bypasses him if we have to, to find out what’s going on.”
“Maybe Don is one of the newfound soul group members. Or that couple who are Mae and Jamie’s friends. The Bradys. I know I won’t be, if they all have chronic illnesses. Or if she chooses people with money.”
“And if that doesn’t work out?” Kate stopped while Lobo sniffed his way into the weeds and bushes on the riverbank. “We’ll have to think of some way to keep Jamie from that meeting, for his sake.”
“Maybe it will be far-fetched enough that he’ll see through it. And that would kill two birds with one stone. He’d be more convinced if he changed his own mind.”
“That’s what he’s already done. Talked himself into believing her. We should keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s all right. Aren’t you worried about him?”
“Of course I am. But I think he’s in good hands with Don.” Bernadette shaded her eyes from the sun, looking at the river rather than at Kate. “I always got the impression you didn’t like Jamie.”
“I don’t. He drives me up a wall. And I can’t stand Posey, that little flowery blonde woman. She’s an idiot. But Sierra’s got her hooked into what’s practically a cult. I like to think Jamie’s too smart for that, but those other people, Leon and Magda, they seem intelligent and they’re in it. Smart, successful people who hate modern medicine.”
“Modern medicine. I forgot. That means Don won’t be in the soul group.”
Kate called Lobo back as he ventured to the edge of the water. He returned to her side and they resumed their progress along the path. Kate briefly wondered if other people had brought dogs, Sierra and Yeshi’s ferocious Mitzi or Posey’s hysterical Baby. The courtyard had been quiet, which neither dog was. “What’s our plan B if Jamie won’t squeal on Sierra?”
“Squeal?”
“I can’t think what else to call it. Spy on her. The soul group has to be the center of her scam. We might need Mae to do some psychic work to find out the truth.”
“We could learn a lot that way, but it wouldn’t fly in an article. No one would think I’d used a reliable source. We need a witness. Let’s see who the two final members are, and if they seem likely to believe her teachings or to feel like you did. And like Jamie used to.”
*****
When Mae and the twins arrived at the Red Pelican at five thirty, the sound of Jamie’s didgeridoo droned and pulsed from within the courtyard walls. She’d taken a guess that he would come out the back door into the alley between the Red Pelican and the A&B Drive-In Diner, since it was closer to his suite than the Main Street exit.
Brook carried a get well card she and Stream had made, and Stream carried a gift bag of organic, vegan cookies from the health food store on Broadway. Mae wished she could sneak the girls in to see the performance, but that would be rude to the people who had paid for the retreat, and anyway the sight of her was bound to upset Jamie. She had left a message that she was bringing the twins to see him, but he hadn’t answered. He changed instruments, drumming quietly while singing. His voice was light, the notes as perfect and clear as ever, but some of his power was missing.
Dreams, hopes, dark notes
Emptiness overflowing ...
New healing music. She’d heard his early albums in this style before she met him and had expected someone transcendent and wise. His chaotic personality had startled her. And yet, this other quality was in him, too. He was a healer.
“His voice is so beautiful,” Stream whispered. “I want to learn to sing.”
Mae stroked her stepdaughter’s hair. Would this be a passing interest, like trying to be psychic, or would it stick, like her passions for cars and bugs?
The song ended, and a round of applause followed. Conversations began to buzz. A man spoke over the others with an accent Mae guessed was Tibetan. “That ends today’s programs. Rest well. Early to bed. Tomorrow the same start and then basics of Tibetan medicine. If you had massage, drink extra water. Thank you, Jangarrai, very nice. Very healing.”
Mae opened the courtyard door, not wanting to ambush Jamie. He was approaching with Kate by his side.
“Hey.” Mae felt suddenly awkward. With this man she loved and had been so close to, she now was at a loss. She managed a smile. “You get my message?”
He shook his head, looking down at the girls then back at Mae with a kind of veil over his usual vulnerability, his eyes unreadable.
Kate said to him, “I can talk to you later, if you need time with Mae and the kids.”
“Nah, everybody come with me. I’ll have a fucking entourage.”
“Twenty-five cents.” Brook held out her hand.
Jamie squeezed it, and his face softened. “I’ll owe ya.”
Stream took his other hand and they walked ahead with him, while Mae, Kate, and Lobo trailed more slowly as Kate negotiated the rough dirt and gravel. The alley smelled of fried food from the diner on their left and spices from the Asian restaurant up ahead on Pershing Street.
“How’s it going?” Mae asked.
Kate steered around a pothole. “Sierra brought Rex and Posey into her soul group.”
“What? I thought Posey wasn’t in it.”
“Apparently they merged and became co-souls sharing a co-life which makes her a member, whatever in hell that means. I was hoping Jamie could catch me up on it. Bernadette had a massage and a consultation with Yeshi, so she should be able to tell if he’s as qualified as he seems. I’ll see her later and find out.”
They turned right, into the Pelican Apartment Motel parking lot. Jamie and the girls were sitting on a bright blue bench on the green walkway that fronted the purplish-pink motel. He was wearing a silky orange long-sleeved T-shirt, and the girls were clad in their preferred blends of hot pink, turquoise, and purple. Mae wanted to take a picture—and then she didn’t. What if Jamie was on his way out of her life?
He was reading the card with the children cuddled on either side of him.
“We’re sorry we made you take care of us while you were sick,” Stream said.
“No worries.” He put the card on his lap and gave her a side-hug. “I’m not that sick. And you were good company.”
Mae had given them a talk about running away. In the future, they were to tell Hubert everything that bothered them rather than acting out, even if they thought he wouldn’t like what they said, because he loved them so much he would understand. She hadn’t told them to apologize to Jamie. That had to have been Stream’s idea.
“You should eat the cookies,” Brook said. “They’re healthy cookies.”
“I will. Thanks, darl.” Normally, Jamie would have eaten them immediately. Mae had never seen him able to resist cookies, but now he got up to put the bag inside his suite then sat back down between the girls. He regarded Mae and Kate. “Having a conference, are we?”
“I wanted to know about the soul group,” Kate said.
“Sorry. Private.”
“What? You have to be kidding.”
“It is. You’d’ve been invited if it wasn’t, right?”
Kate let out a hissing breath and her hands landed on the arms of her chair, gripping hard.
Mae moved closer to Jamie, standing near Stream. She didn’t want him getting into an argument with Kate right now. “And I need a few minutes to talk with you.”
“Bloody hell, again?”
“You owe us another—” Brook cut herself off, a wounded look on her face. “Are you mad at Mama?”
“Sorry. Yeah, I am. Guess I should talk with her, shouldn’t I?”
Brook nodded.
To spare the twins hearing a difficult discussion, Mae suggested they go into his suite while she and Jamie stayed outside, but Brook protested, “We’d rather stay out here with Kate. You can go in.”
“She can teach us sign language.” Stream jumped to her feet before Kate could say yes or no. “Couldn’t you, Kate?”
“I could.” Kate met Mae’s eyes. “And Lobo could use some time off from work to run around and play with a couple of kids.” She began to unbuckle his harness. “As soon as he’s out of his work clothes, he knows he can get goofy.”
The girls converged on Kate. Mae thanked her and went in with Jamie.