Mary had been hired as a CF claims representative in May, when Jewel Cavaletto retired. She'd been assigned the desk Vera had occupied before her promotion to the glass-enclosed office up front. Mary was smart but inexperienced, a young twenty-four, with the kind of face just pretty enough to net her second runner-up in a regional beauty contest. I gave her credit for the fact that she had flagged the Diaz claim. She had a good eye and if she could hang in long enough, she'd be a real asset to the company. She'd been married for three months to a salesman for the local Nissan dealership and was taking an avid interest in Vera's wedding plans. One of Mary's own wedding invitations (gauzy pink background depicting daisies blowing in a field) had been framed in brass and propped up on her desk. Where Vera had always tucked the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine under the stacks of claim folders on her desk, Mary read Brides, whose influence apparently extended from the engagement through the first year of marriage. Mary had once appealed to me for my recipe for chicken divan until Vera set her straight. Now she tended to regard me with the pity of the newly married for those of us determined to stay single.