There was no one she could talk to. Not about this. She’d have liked to confide in one of her coworkers, but her friendships with the women at Bell were kind of, what was the word . . . superficial. Oh, sure, she’d told Pearl about having all of her teeth yanked by the dentist just so she could have a full set of dentures that were straight and even and looked nice, like Joan Crawford’s, even though she felt a little silly about it. And, yes, she’d told Dorothy about her botched hysterectomy (after Charlotte there’d be no more Dalton babies), but that doctor with a butcher’s license took everything out and then just tossed it back in willy-nilly. It’d been a disaster. She’d been left without a proper belly button, but what did she need a belly button for anyway? Dorothy’d been kind about that. “Who’s going to know, Vivy? Don’t give it another thought.”

And Ruth. Good old Ruth. Always one for gossip, you couldn’t tell her any secrets, but Ruth was great if you wanted a casual snipe and gripe about married life. Ruth’s husband made Edward seem like a regular Rhett Butler. But only Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler from the movie, not the one from the book. Charlotte had told her the movie was also a book. Sometimes Charlotte showed off like that, and it got on Vivian’s last nerve.

Those social confessionals with Pearl, Dorothy, and Ruth were never more than surface skimming, through all the years she’d known them working at Bell. Nothing too deep and nothing too dramatic. Vivian couldn’t have any of her friends or acquaintances thinking her life was anything other than just fine, because the people with problems were the ones who got talked about. Don’t wiggle around like a whore, don’t embarrass yourself. This was one storm she was going to have to weather on her own. And it was a downpour. A grab your slicker and galoshes, cats and dogs, gushing rainspouts and flooded cellars downpour.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, your husband is snoring . . .

But, had the storm already hit Ohio Bell on East Liberty Street? Had Betty Miller leaked the gossip from her no-good, mealy mouth? It’d only been about twelve hours. Nothing moved that quickly in Wooster.

Although it would’ve been plain impossible for the rumor to have made its way out of Mrs. Betty Miller’s mouth yet (it was probably still just percolating in her brain), Vivian still felt like people might’ve heard. Her fear had eaten her common sense like it was a casserole. Her heart pounded in her throat and her skin prickled as she crossed the threshold of the switchboard room. It was a different kind of nervousness than she’d felt when she’d first returned to work at Bell, after Edward had finally quit that horrible job at the prison and they’d moved back to Wooster with little Charlotte. She’d only been away a couple of years, and Leona was still there, and most of the operators she’d started with were still there, Pearl, Dorothy, Ruth, and they were glad to see her. But she’d still felt a little like the new girl, and that made her a little anxious about her first day. That anxiety was nothing compared to the paralysis she was feeling now.