Queen Esther & the Second Graders of Doom. Allie Pleiter

him—it was purely God’s grace that he was able to land a job so easily after they decided to join her brother out here to help with her aging parents. Sure, he’d never once griped about moving to San Fran, but that didn’t mean he was enjoying it. Doug wasn’t the kind of man who complained. Essie wanted to whack herself on the forehead for being so self-centered.

      “Office a little geeky this week?” She’d never even thought to ask before now. Nice wifely behavior. Way to be that strong support system, Essie.

      Doug’s sigh told far more than his words. “A bit. I’m fitting in.” After a long pause he added, “Slowly.”

      “We did the right thing, didn’t we? Made a good choice?”

      Doug turned immediately and caught her hand on the armrest next to his. “Yes. Essie, I don’t doubt it for a second. You know I agreed to this fully, of my own geeky free will. My parents in Nevada aren’t so far away now—we’re nearer to both our parents.”

      “Why isn’t it easier?” Essie was amazed at how much the words caught in her throat. Josh stared at her, his wide gray eyes beaming love out from their perch on Doug’s shoulder. He made a gurgling sound and waved a tiny fist in the air. She caught it, and reveled anew in how his minute grasp fit perfectly around her finger. She’d wanted to be a mother since forever. No book or magazine, though, did justice to how just plain hard it was. She’d never felt further out of her element than she did this past month.

      “Let’s see,” said Doug, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “New job, new city, new baby, new home, new weather—well, okay, that’s more of a fringe benefit. There’s a hunk of adjustments in that list. I think we’re doing pretty good. Most of my programs don’t even adapt this well—and I design relocation software, remember?”

      “Can you design a—what do you call it? An integration program—for one small family? Make a button for me, Doug. One I can push and make all the uncertainty go away.”

      Doug chuckled. “I did, sort of.”

      “No kidding? Where is it?”

      Doug held up the cordless phone he’d evidently brought onto the deck with him. “Pepperoni pizza, really thin, New York-style. Coming up.”

      “I’m liking this.”

      “A guy at work—one of the less geekier ones—recommended a place. His uncle moved here from Manhattan, and called it his ‘relocation coping mechanism.’ I’ve been saving its implementation for just such a moment.”

      “Doug Walker, I love you.”

      He winked. “Nah, that’s just the pepperoni talking. Is this a ‘medium,’ or a ‘large’ kind of day?”

      Essie smiled, too. For the first time since she came home. “Do they make an extra large?”

      Chapter 2

      Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man…

      She wasn’t supposed to be this nice.

      When Essie first spied Celia Covington—and even more so when someone called her “Cece”—she was supposed to fall easily into the well-to-do-nitwit category. The twinset was a dead giveaway. Essie was always suspicious of women who wore twinsets. Those bearing sweaters in pastel colors, and most especially when adorned with a string of tasteful pearls, were to be avoided at all costs.

      Essie had her own personal classification system for the branches of womanhood. There were “the ponytails,” which had a subset containing the unpretentious and practical, and another subset of the entirely-too-perky. This could usually be distinguished by height. Not of the woman, but of the ponytail. High ponytails signaled high-level perkiness. Low ones generally denoted practicality.

      On another branch of the tree of womanhood sat “the headbands.” There was a certain kind of woman, Essie surmised, who wore headbands. Personality was then telegraphed by the type of headband selected—fabric, tortoiseshell plastic, wide, thin, etc. But it was the well-off, well-bred, well-dressed woman who generally opted for the headband as hair accessory. Or, on rare occasions, the headband became the tool of choice when the practical woman wanted to dress up.

      Put a headband and a twinset together, and a smart gal runs quickly in the other direction.

      Celia Covington, however, didn’t fit the twinset mold. She passed by the precise corner of pastel-sandaled women who flanked the far end of the table and plunked herself down in the middle, with a heavyset, friendly Japanese woman on her left, and an Hispanic grandmother-type on her right. This placed Celia directly opposite Essie across the rectangular table. Essie had opted for the middle of the table as well, seated next to Mark. As in her brother Mark-o, or as everyone called him, Pastor Taylor.

      “You’ve got to be Mrs. Walker,” Celia said, smiling. “David went on and on about you the other day. You’ve made quite an impression on my little monster, and that’s no small feat.” She had an authentic, squint-up-the-corners-of-your-eyes smile that lit up her face. Essie tried not to like her—on account of the headband and all—and failed.

      “Please, call me Esther. Actually, call me Essie. Everyone else does.”

      “I’m Celia—Cece, actually. David, the little tornado in your class, he’s my youngest. He’s a handful, especially after he’s sat through a Sunday service. There’s only so much patience a roll of Life Savers can buy.”

      Well, it was a small headband, after all. And coral isn’t really a pastel. “He’s a good kid. Very creative. I think he really enjoys drawing, and he seems to be rather good at it. I could tell right away that his gray blob on Noah’s ark was a rhinoceros. Most of the other blobs were undistinguishable. And no one else thought to put rhinos on the ark.”

      Celia laughed. “That’s David. Always thinking out of the box. My oldest, Samantha? She’s in the nursery with her nose in a book, ready and waiting should your little one get too squirmy.”

      Nice lady with babysitter daughter. No, coral is definitely not in the pastel family. “Thanks, but I think Josh is out for the count. You never know, though.”

      “Don’t worry. Sam would consider it a treat to tuck a little cutie like that into her arms. Want some coffee?”

      Essie sighed. “Oh, you wouldn’t think Josh was so cute if you’d seen him screaming his adorable little head off at two-thirty this morning. Sugar, please.”

      “Teething?” Celia called over her shoulder as she walked to the sideboard.

      “Like a pro.”

      “Have you tried a grapefruit spoon?”

      A what? Why would you hand spiky silverware to your newborn? Who actually had one of those? “Uh, no.”

      Celia laughed at Essie’s apparent shock. “I know it sounds barbaric,” she said, bringing back the coffee, “but the metal stays cool, and as long as the serrated edges aren’t really sharp, it helps the tooth break through the gum. It’s all that straining against the gum that makes babies crazy. Once the full surface of the tooth breaks through, they settle right down.”

      “Really?”

      “I’ve got four sets of healthy gums marching their way to the orthodontist to prove it.”

      Lean, lovely Celia Covington was way too toned to have birthed four children. Not if Essie’s own lumpy belly was any indication. Still, she had returned from the sideboard with java and cookies, not the spiffy-label bottled water that seemed to be the beverage of choice over in the corner. Those women looked like they’d not touched a cheese-burger since high school. “I’ll take your word for it. But I don’t own one. I don’t even know where you’d get one.”

      “Well, you could go to TableSets and pay a ridiculous amount of money for some, or you could stop by Darkson’s restaurant supply just down the block and pick up a half-dozen for peanuts. If Josh is crying as you walk