Charlotte was sitting at the head of a table decorated with white satin wedding bells and roses, an empty chair next to her. Lyle stopped in the doorway and gaped at his wife of twenty-five years. The long brown hair, always worn high on her head in a French twist, was gone. Through the wonders of modern cosmetology it had been lightened to a golden cap cut in a fluffy feathered style. Lyle blinked, then started to grin. It looked pretty damn good. She was wearing a bright pink jersey dress with a short skirt and it clung to her in all the right places. Charlotte’s figure had always been good, but she’d been going to exercise classes for the past six months and there was definitely something to be said for all the toning and tightening. Lyle felt like he’d just been presented with a brand-new wife.

“Hello, darling! You’re just in time.” Charlotte had spotted him in the doorway and Lyle crossed the room to kiss her. Jayne Peters and Johnny Day were playing show tunes at the piano and Lyle notice that Johnny was pale beneath his tan, a telltale sign to anyone who knew him well. Johnny had been gambling again and things hadn’t gone well for him.

“Let’s do our song, Jayne.” Johnny switched on the microphone and they both started to croon.

Darling, when you’re old and decrepit
And liver spots make you look like a leopard,
I’ll stick with you through stormy or sunny
’Cause you’re the one with all the money.

Charlotte giggled and pulled Lyle down into his chair. “That’s awful! You must have written it, Jayne.”

“Don’t shoot. I confess.” Jayne raised her hands in mock surrender. A petite woman in her late thirties with high cheekbones, her jet black hair was pulled back into two long braids. She was wearing a white satin cowboy shirt embroidered with red roses, white jeans studded with rhinestones, and red high-heeled cowboy boots. Since Jayne wrote strictly country-western songs, her agent had insisted on the cowgirl image. Public admission that her family name was Petrono-vitch and her parents had emigrated from Russia could be disastrous.

“Good afternoon, Lyle.” Jayne’s husband and Paradise Developments architect, Paul Lindstrom, stood up and extended his hand. A quiet man whom Jayne called her “textbook Norseman,” Paul spoke slowly and precisely. As always, he was impeccably dressed in a snowy white shirt and dress slacks. At slightly over six feet tall and in his early forties, Paul was slim and fashionable, the only discordant note being his unruly halo of sandy hair. It reminded Lyle of pictures of Einstein and gave Paul the look of a sleepy lion.