“At the community center. We’re closing the shop at three and I’ll be there early to help Edna in the kitchen.”

“Better tell him it’s snowing here,” Norman reminded her.

“I heard that,” Kurt responded before Hannah could tell him. “Maybe I’ll leave a little earlier than I planned, just to be on the safe side. See you tonight, Hannah.”

Hannah was smiling when she hung up the phone and turned to Norman. “Do you have time to run back to Granny’s Attic for a second before you go back to the dental clinic?”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“It’s only fair to tell all the contributors that our editor is coming to the party. But I really don’t have time to call everyone.”

“So you want the mothers to call for you?”

“All they have to do is make one call. They’re part of the Lake Eden gossip hotline. It’s like a telephone tree. If they call one person, that person calls another couple of people. And then those people call other people and before you know it, the whole town knows. I figure that if you get to Mother and Carrie by one, everyone in Lake Eden will know before one-thirty at the latest.”

<5>

“So how do I look?” Hannah asked, turning around for the benefit of her I-couldn’t-look-less-interested-if-I-tried roommate, who was perched n the back of the couch.

Moishe glanced her way for a moment, but then he went back to staring at the television. Since Hannah had tuned it to one of the animal channels and they occasionally showed documentaries about flightless birds and small furry rodents, she guessed she couldn’t blame him. Basic instinct was compelling. It was the reason why Moishe was hoping for easy prey, even if it turned out to be pheasant behind glass screen.

Hannah had also relied on basic instinct when she’d dressed for the party tonight. She was wearing the most alluring outfit she owned, a brand new cobalt-blue knit dress with a flared skirt that emphasized her figure plusses, all one of them, and minimized her figures minuses, all four of them, not counting the biceps she’d developed from lifting fifty-pound bags of flour and sugar. As usual, Claire Rodgers at Beau Monde Fashions had urged her to try on the dress, and, as usual, Claire had chosen well. One look in the mirror, and Hannah said she’d take it without even asking the price, something that would be risky in a shop where she didn’t get a hefty discount for owning the business next door.

“I’m so glad you approve,” Hannah said, realizing full well the folly of asking her resident feline a fashion question … or any question at all other than, Are you hungry?” or “Would you like another kitty treat?”

“Your food bowl’s full and you’ve had your vitamins. I’ll be leaving now, if that’s okay with you.” Hannah shrugged into the black coat that acted like a magnet for orange and white cat hairs, and picked up the ridiculously small purse Claire had insisted she buy to go with the dress. She grabbed her gloves and the bag containing Mike’s pâté, tossed several more salmon-flavored treats shaped like little fish toward the couch, and informed the cat, who still wasn’t interested in anything except the television screen, “I may be late. You don’t have to wait up.”