“Rodwell Archibald Godfrey, otherwise known as Rag to us underlings, called me into his office and told me he wants more product. I can’t make it happen if it isn’t out there. All the A-list papers seem to get the stories first. I think this is just another way of saying he is not happy with my work. I applied to the other tabloids, but they’re full up and not taking on anyone new. I’m doing my best. I just manage to make my mortgage payment every month and have enough left over to buy dog food. No, you cannot help me, Mom. I’m going to make it on my own, so let’s not go down that road. My break is coming, I can feel it. By the way, I brought a stack of future issues for you to read. I have stuff in all of them.”

“I can’t get used to the idea that you people make all that stuff up, then it happens. And you print weeks in advance of what’s happening,” Toots said.

Abby laughed. “It’s not quite that way, but you’re close. Well, we’re home, and you have guests. You really know how to throw a funeral, Mom.”

“Event, dear. Funeral is such a dreary word. It conjures up all kinds of dismal thinking.”

Abby laughed as she climbed out of the limo and marched up the steps to the wide veranda of her mother’s house.

Both women raced upstairs to change into dry clothing before they had to meet with the guests who would be coming by to pay their last respects.

Toots looked at herself in the long mirror in her room. Yes, she did look bedraggled, but wasn’t a widow supposed to look a little bedraggled? “Black is not my best color,” she muttered to herself as she tossed her mourning outfit into a heap on the floor in the bathroom. She donned another black dress, added a string of pearls, brushed out her hair, sprayed on some perfume, and felt refreshed enough to go downstairs and socialize for an hour or so.

Burying the dead was so time-consuming. Even the aftermath took an eternity. All she wanted to do was retire to her sitting room to read the pile of tabloids Abby had brought with her. Not for the world would Toots ever admit that she was addicted to tabloid gossip. But for now, she had a duty to perform, and perform it she would. She had all evening to read her treasured tabloids and guzzle a little wine while doing so. She’d drink to Leland, and that would be the end of this chapter in her life.

Time to move on. Something she was very good at.

Chapter 2