Voice Mail Murder by Patricia Rockwell

said Pamela softly, not wishing to disturb her reverie, “how are you?”
    “Oh, Pamela,” replied Joan, sitting up quickly and setting the framed picture back on her desk. “I’m having trouble getting motivated.”
    Pamela entered Joan’s office. The cheery room belied Joan’s present state. Joan had bedecked her small space with numerous live plants (or real plants as Pamela called them because she far preferred the artificial variety that required no tending). Although Joan had stacks of papers, articles, and computer print-outs from her various research studies piled around the room, there was a definite order to the chaos. Joan had sticky notes on the tops of each of the various piles, indicating their nature. Her office reflected her life—a cheery blend of disciplined work in progress.
    “That doesn’t sound like you,” chided Pamela gently.
    “No,” agreed Joan, “but it’s hard to function at work, when my life at home is in such disarray.”
    “You mean with Jack?”
    “Of course,” agreed Joan. “Oh, Pamela, why did I ever suggest to the boy that he should move back home? He’s just driving me crazy!”
    “Is this because he hasn’t found a job?”
    “Not hasn’t found—won’t look for one.”
    “I know how hard it is to . . .”
    “He’s not looking!” Joan exclaimed. “He could find something if he would just go out there and look. You know as well as I do, Pamela, that job hunting is a full-time job! Jack assumes that an employer is just going to call him with an offer if he’ll just wait long enough!”
    “And the two of you aren’t getting along?” Joan’s face bore the truth of her constant bouts with her youngest and most volatile son.
    “He’s an adult!” she screamed, then tempered her voice as she realized that students in the hallway might overhear her voice. “But he acts like a teenager. He expects me to be his . . . mother!”
    “Ungrateful wretch,” said Pamela, smiling.
    “I mean he expects me to be his slave, his butler, his maid, his psychiatrist, his chef, his tailor, his personal shopper, his mechanic, his secretary, his matchmaker, his entertainment coordinator . . . you get the picture.”
    “I do,” agreed Pamela, sitting in Joan’s leather chair in front of her desk. “I, of course, have never had any similar experience . . .”
    “But, Pamela,” whispered Joan, leaning forward, “just imagine how much more awful it would be if Angela were out on her own and you thought your days of being a Mommy were through and then . . . she returned home to live!”
    “Horrible, I agree.”
    “You seem rather chipper today,” said Joan. Her usual calm had partially returned and she sat up straighter, turning down the corner of the collar of her crisp peplum blouse that had rolled up in an unsightly display of irregularity.
    “I’m happy to report that my off-spring is living in sin and out of my house and I couldn’t be happier!”
    “Bravo!” said Joan. “I’m all for living in sin.” She gave Pamela one of her customary rolling eyed glares.
    “There’s your problem,” said Pamela, pointing a finger in Joan’s direction.
    “What?”
    “Jack cramps your style,” she explained. “Your swinging single lifestyle. I assume it’s pretty hard to be the wild party woman that I know you to be when your twenty-eight-year old son is sleeping down the hallway from you.”
    “That too,” scowled Joan. “That three.”
    Joan had been a widow for many years. Although Neville had been the love of her life, Joan was not one to sit at home and knit. She enjoyed partying—and other things. She was discreet, of course—with carefully selected gentlemen from time to time.
    “I might suggest that you need a night on the town with the gals,” offered Pamela. “I realize that it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as one of your outings to that local ballroom dancing place, but it would do you good to get out.”
    “Yes,” said Joan. “It would. Why