The floor was gleaming when she left the house, but she was running late. Not that she was thinking about that. No, she was only thinking bright and beautiful thoughts today, she told herself, pausing a moment to take in the clear blue sky and the clump of purple asters and yellow goldenrod blooming by the mailbox. No, she refused to think about that sham of a meeting last night, when the hazing allegations were swept under the rug. And she wasn’t thinking about whether Toby and Molly would be able to buy the house they wanted, and she wasn’t thinking about the upcoming quarterly tax payment, or how Sara was coping with high school and cheerleading, or if Elizabeth was safe and sound in Boston, or even about Mimi’s murder and the mysterious homeless man. No, she was looking for more goldenrod which was why she didn’t notice Chris Cashman’s Ford Expedition shooting out of Prudence Path right into her left fender.

“Ohmigod! Are you all right?” yelled Chris, from her perch in the SUV, high above Lucy’s Subaru.

To tell the truth, Lucy wasn’t sure. She was definitely shaken up and thoughts of whiplash and hairline fractures were chasing away all the lovely goldenrod dreams. She took a few deep breaths, to calm herself, and decided to try getting out of the car and on her feet. Moving slowly and carefully, she unlatched the door and pushed it open about twelve inches, stopping when she heard the protesting screech of metal on metal.

“Well,” she said, squeezing through the opening and surveying the damage, “I seem to be okay but my car’s not.”

“I’ll call the police,” said Chris, flourishing her tiny little cell phone.

“Good idea,” said Lucy, observing that although her car seemed to have major front end damage, Chris’s enormous SUV seemed unscathed.

“Oh, look at that!” exclaimed Chris, joining her and examining the front of her SUV. “My paint is scratched.”

“You went through a stop sign,” said Lucy, who didn’t appreciate Chris’s attitude.

“I know,” admitted Chris, who was rather haphazardly dressed in a pair of ratty sweatpants and an ancient Wellesley T-shirt. “It was my fault. I was in a hurry because I ran out of all-natural yogurt for the girls’ breakfast and I needed to get to the store and back before Brad left for work and then there was the stock market fiasco—you know the Dow is down nearly two hundred points?—and how am I going to tell my poor widows they don’t have the money they thought they did and…”

“I understand,” said Lucy. “It could happen to anybody. You do have insurance, right? Why don’t we exchange information, while we wait for the cops?”