Jeannie’s and Margie’s voices were carried by the wind blowing from the south, and although she hadn’t intended to listen, Charlotte could hear the conversation as clearly as if she had been having it with them. They’d been talking about Ned Buss and Patty McGrath, and Jeannie had wanted to know who called who first, but Margie had ended that topic with a shrug and a “Who cares?” before changing the subject to the new Eddie Fisher record she was going to buy.

For once, Charlotte already had the latest Eddie Fisher record. On Saturday afternoon (the wedding day) her dad had taken her to the record shop right after Amster’s, where he’d bought her new saddle shoes and a nice new pair of winter ankle boots for her mom.

“How about these?” He’d held up the first pair he’d seen on the stand, looking as awkward and out-of-place in the women’s shoe section as a dairy cow on roller skates.

Charlotte had scrunched up her nose and shaken her head at that pair, and the next one, but the third pair had been very pretty and fur-lined, and from across the store she’d given him a thumbs-up.

She’d stood next to him at the cash register, holding the box with her saddle shoes, as he took bills from his beaten-up wallet and handed them to the saleslady.

“I’m sorry about all this, honey,” he said quietly as he placed a hand on her shoulder. “I really screwed things up for us.”

Charlotte had shifted from left foot to right, uncomfortable with her dad’s uncharacteristic sheepishness, and aware of the saleslady’s sideways glance at them as she punched the keys in the register.

“It’s fine, Dad,” Charlotte mumbled, not wanting to talk about it in the middle of the shoe store, in front of the powdered, coiffed saleslady. Maybe not wanting to talk about it at all, really.

Charlotte’s thoughts zoomed back to the present as Howie Becker roared past in his hot rod, honking the horn loudly either at Margie or Jeannie or just because Howie liked to honk his horn. Because of all the noise, she hadn’t heard what Margie said to Jeannie just then.

“My face would be a Russian flag,” she heard Jeannie respond as the roar of the motor faded down the street. “The rumor was bad enough, but then the article in the newspaper, ugh. I would die of embarrassment.”

Charlotte slowed her pace, suddenly wishing she had stayed at school to work on her history paper in the library. She knew they weren’t talking about Ned or Patty anymore, and a flush crept over her face.

“I know,” Margie agreed. “If something like that happened to my family, I’d shit a brick.”

Charlotte gasped as shit a brick hovered invisibly in the air above Jeannie’s and Margie’s heads. She glanced at the back of Margie’s beautiful fur-trimmed coat, half expecting to see a brick drop to the ground. The gasp had alerted the girls that someone was behind them, and to cover for the fact that she had been eavesdropping Charlotte quickly upended the stack of books she was carrying, spilling them out into the stiff snowbank.