Jilly-Bean (Jilly-Bean Series # 1) by Celia Vogel Read Free Book Online Page B

sponge?”
    Jillian's father was sitting next to him and absently patted his hand a few times and replied, “Not sponge, Dad!”
    “You're not talking about sponges?”
    The guests darted anxious glances his way, very much as one would look at a small child who had spoken out of turn.
    “Not sponge, ginseng! Gin-seng, Dad,” added Aunt Jean in a painstaking voice, emphasizing each syllable as though her father were slow-witted.
    Granddad Crossland fell back into smiling silence, disengaged from the chatter around him. Moments later he rose, passing arthritic fingers across his forehead. His steps were a bit unsteady. He was panting and murmuring words too low to be heard, and his face was contorted in pain. His back looked rounded and bent as he leaned the weight of his body on a cane that he often used to help him walk. The cane thumped softly on the carpeted floor as he steadily made his way. He then raised his voice, speaking loudly over the murmur of the guests: “I need some water from the fridge.”
    Aunt Jean and Uncle Phil exchanged a meaningful glance, and without a word, Uncle Phil got up to help his father-in-law find his way.
    “Oh, I just love what you've done with your garden, Jean,” interjected Mrs. Paradis.
    “It's nothing, really. I pick up odds and ends here and there.”
    “Here we go again!” cried Adam: “Another one of Aunt Jean's yard-sale discoveries.”
    “Take for instance the gazebo near the pond. Believe it or not, I picked it up at a flea market in Gravenhurst last year. The gnomes I picked up at a yard sale and the garden furniture at a country auction. Now,” she added with dramatic flair, “have you ever seen another garden like it?”
    Everyone agreed they had not.
    The buzz and the murmur of the guests continued. Jillian tried to keep focused on the chatter, but a weight of tiredness settled on her, and she yawned. The train ride from Kingston had left her exhausted. Her mind was in a whirl. Too many faces and too many voices.
    “ Jillian, wake up! ”
    She looked up.
    “What— are— you— studying— at— school?”
    She murmured vaguely, “I'm planning to go into medicine at Queen's University.”
    “Ah, a girl in medicine!” said the voice, which sounded too loud and had managed to turn a few heads in their direction. The man was leaning back in his chair; his fetus-like belly floating high above his body as if suspended in air and disconnected from the rest of him; his long legs were kicking vaguely at the coffee table in front of him as he regarded her comically. “In the Middle Ages women healers were branded as witches by the church and state. Did you know that?”
    Jillian was gazing at the man in disbelief. “I'm sorry, what is your name?”
    He extended his hand, “John Mueller, and my wife over there is Joyce.”
    “Well, Mr. Mueller, we've come a long way from the Middle Ages. I'm planning to specialize in orthopaedics.”
    “Nonsense. Medicine.” he replied, “You'll be exposing yourself to all sorts of germs and infectious diseases. Now, law; that's the ticket!” She guessed correctly that Mr. Mueller was a lawyer. “Why don't you go into corporate law?”
    Mr. Sparks, who had been quiet for most of the evening, spoke up. “My dear man, don't be a fool. Why would this young lady, an innocent, want to dirty her hands in the corporate world and defend corporate criminals? You know the expression: 'Lawyers are liars',” he announced with a grin. “Stick with medicine.”
    “I protest!” exclaimed Adam. “I'm no liar.”
    “Jillian has a good head on her shoulders,” her mother intervened. “She'll do well in whatever she chooses in life. Girls are a lot different today than in our generation. She's a Libra.”
    Adam, who was stuffing his mouth with soft bread and paste, put on the look of someone confronting an enigma. “What does her month of birth have to do with it?” he asked in a garbled-sounding voice.
    “It has everything to do