“Vivy, love.” He looked into the blue eyes that matched his own. “You shouldn’t be listening in on your sister and your cousins, you hear me?”

Vivian’s lip quivered as she nodded at the index finger pointing at her.

“You just need to make sure to keep those secrets to yourself. And next time you won’t get caught.”

He finished his lecture with a scrunch of his red nose, reached out and gave hers a quick tug with his fingers, and then lost his balance, tipping over sideways onto the braided rug and spilling the rest of his drink.

Her mother heard the glass drop and came stomping into the living room, hands on her hips.

“Christ, Patrick,” she hiss-whispered at him. “Vivy, you go on upstairs now. Shame on you.”

Vivian wasn’t sure if the “shame on you” was for her or Pawpy, but she did what she was told and slid down from the sofa, pulling again at her skirt as she stepped over the spilled glass and across the braided rug. She then climbed the stairs to her room.

Later, Pawpy came to tuck her and Violet in. He steadied himself on the iron bed frame and leaned over and gave her a whiskey-smelling kiss on the forehead.

“You remember what I told you, love,” he said in a low voice, tapping her on the end of her nose with his forefinger. “Just don’t get caught.”

With that tipsy endorsement Vivian’s eavesdropping career had officially begun. She smiled and pulled the covers up under her chin, wriggling her toes under the blankets and hoping her dreams would be filled with secret conversations about high school girls getting married and scads of Irish claddagh rings. Instead, she dreamed that a fried fish with great big waggly eyebrows was chasing her around a huge water glass, and she’d forgotten how to swim.

Chapter 4

Betty Miller placed the telephone receiver back in its cradle and eased slowly back in the gold velvet chair, settling into the cushion like a satisfied cat. Her arms crossed over her bosom, her fingers with the shiny, scarlet lacquered nails tapping thoughtfully over her other arm. This was something new, now, wasn’t it? It wasn’t the everyday gossip they were used to in Wooster. No, this was better. More scandalous.

Betty didn’t spend a great deal of time being introspective, as she disliked the feeling it gave her deep in her stomach, and she didn’t know why she was so fascinated with the personal business of other people in town, but she also didn’t question it. Wooster was a small town. It was natural. Some of her detractors, and even some of her friends, might have said it was the opportunity for comparison. Comparison always reassured her that she was setting the grandest example for the people of Wooster, with her sophistication and carefully cultivated way of life. She supposed she just preferred that things operate the way she wanted them to, without disruption. You wanted Betty Miller to approve of you, and you wouldn’t want to get on her bad side, that was simply how it was.