I told her we’d just take a typical day in their lives together and go through it—say last Thursday. What time they had gotten up, what they had for breakfast, what she did with herself. What time her husband got home from work. I heard all the dreary details of a life without focus, the hours at the tennis club, at the beauty parlor, at the Edens Plaza Shopping Center, before I got the information I’d come for. Clayton hadn’t gotten home that night until nine. She remembered because she’d cooked a roast and finally she and the girls ate it without waiting for him. She couldn’t remember if he seemed upset or tired or if his clothes were covered with grease.

“Covered with grease?” she echoed, astonished. “Why would your research firm want to know a thing like that?”

I’d forgotten who I was supposed to be for a minute. “I wondered if you do your own laundry, or sent it out, or have a maid do it.”

“We send it out. We can’t afford a maid.” She gave a sour smile. “Not yet, anyway. Maybe next year.”

“Well, thank you for your time, Mrs. Phillips. We’ll mail you a copy of the report when we complete it. We’ll be bringing it out later this summer.”

She took me back through the house. The furniture was expensive but not very attractive. Someone with more money than taste had picked it out—she, or Phillips, or the two of them together. As I said good-bye I idly asked who lived in the big brick place up the road, the one with the tennis courts.

An expression combining awe and envy crossed her well-made-up face. “That’s the Grafalks. You ought to talk to her. Her husband owns one of the biggest first in town, ships. They have maids and a chauffeur—the works.”

“Do you spend much time with them?”

“Oh well, they lead their lives, we lead ours. They sponsored us in the Maritime Club and Niels takes Paul and Clayton sailing with him sometimes. But she’s pretty standoffish. If you don’t belong to the Symphony Board you aren’t worth much to her.” She seemed to feel she might have said too much, for she hastily changed the subject and said good-bye.