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imagine where she got that dress. Her mother’s closet, perhaps?”
    Another direct hit. I’d bought this dress especially for this party. It cost considerably more than I could afford, but I wanted to make an impression. Apparently I had. But not the impression I was hoping for. The dress was new, but the clerk in the store told me the vintage look was back in style. It was pale yellow, with a square-cut neckline, close-fitting bodice, tightly cinched patent leather black belt above aflaring skirt, and a stiff petticoat that ended sharply at the knees. The shoes were also new, of the same color and material as the belt, and turning out to have been a mistake. My aching feet were reminding me that I should stick to ballet flats and sports sandals.
    “Diane, you’re creating a scene.” Mr. Uppiton, the chair of the library board, took the woman’s arm.
    She shook him off. She took a hefty swig of her wine. “No, Jonathan, you’re the one who made a scene. You think the whole town isn’t talking about you? About how this place, this library, is more important to you than our marriage of thirty years?”
    All around us the buzz of polite conversation died as people turned to look. Diane Uppiton’s face was turning as red as her hair and nails. Her eyes filled with water that threatened to spill over and ruin her heavily applied makeup.
    In the sudden silence, I could hear a ghost screaming from the depths of a castle dungeon. Or it might have been Charles the cat, expressing his opinion at being locked in the closet.
    “Our marriage,” Mr. Uppiton said, with a sniff, “was a mistake from the beginning. I finally came to realize that. I decided to take the blame for its demise myself, to allow you to leave with some medium of dignity. Dignity that you, my dear, clearly have forsaken.”
    Stuck-up jerk. He was speaking louder than he needed to, and although he was trying to look concerned, the corners of his mouth were in danger of curling upward. He, I realized, was playing to the audience, and thoroughly enjoying every minute ofit. My sympathy shifted and I felt very sorry for Mrs. Uppiton.
    “Our marriage”—the tears began to flow—“was my world. I gave you my youth, my beauty. My life. But you, nothing mattered to you more than this cursed library. Nothing.”
    “In a library, at least, one can have silence,” Mr. Uppiton said, with the exaggerated sigh of a martyr. A few people tittered, more in embarrassment than in enjoyment of the joke. But Mr. Uppiton looked pleased with himself indeed.
    “Come along, honey.” Bertie plucked the wineglass from Mrs. Uppiton’s fingers and passed it to the closest person. Me.
    Unfortunately that had the result of turning Mrs. Uppiton’s attention back to me. “You.” She stabbed one of those potentially lethal nails in my direction. “Stay away from my husband.”
    “That’s soon-to-be-ex-husband, I’ll remind you,” he sniffed.
    She ignored him. “Do you hear me? I know your kind.”
    I refrained from mentioning that about the last person I’d ever want to get close to (shudder) was Mr. Uppiton. The crotchety old jerk, he’d made it plain to everyone who’d listen—and many who didn’t want to—that he didn’t like me and didn’t want me in the job. I was, according to him, a flighty debutante. I figured he meant “dilettante,” but wasn’t about to point out the difference.
    “And you,” she said, spraying spittle all over her husband’s face, “you’ll get what’s coming to you. See if you don’t. I’ll dance on your grave yet.”
    “Come along now,” Bertie cooed. “Let’s dry those tears.”
    “Really, my dear,” Mr. Uppiton sniffed as his sobbing wife was escorted to the ladies’ room. “Credit me with a medium of taste.” I suspect he meant “modicum.” Again, I declined to correct him.
    Since starting work here, I’d come to realize that Bertie had eyes in the back of her head. As she led Diane away, without even