“And so I says to him, ‘Sure ya do,’ and then he says to me, ‘You’d better believe it,’ and so I says to him—Hiya, Viv!” Ruth interrupted her story to greet Vivian and offer her usual friendly wave.

Vivian paused and tensed, wondering if Ruth had interrupted her story because she’d been talking about her. Was there something exaggerated in Ruth’s greeting? Did her fingers flutter just a bit too much in that wave?

“You’d better get a move-on, cutie-pie,” Laura Eagan teased, with a quick swat at Vivian’s backside as she passed her.

Vivian jumped, and then forced a twitchy smile, moving toward the cloakroom. Laura was about ten years younger than Vivian. She was still unmarried, and probably thought being cutesy and baby-talking was the way to get herself hitched. Vivian had made that mistake once. She’d tested out the baby talk with Edward on their second date. He’d cocked an eyebrow at her like she was sitting there on the park bench in diapers, sucking on a teething ring. From that point on, he sang nursery rhymes to her to remind her how ridiculous the baby talk was, and to make her laugh at herself. But Laura Eagan hadn’t had the benefit of a second date with Edward Dalton. Lucky her.

Laura was newer to Bell, and Vivian wouldn’t say she knew her all that well. She wondered if that’d been a sneaky, knowing look in Laura’s eye, or if it was just the usual flash of bitterness that sometimes escaped when she was trying to be flirty and cute. I’ll give her a cutie-pie.

“You just gave up your break,” Dorothy said in a low tone, with her hand covering her mouthpiece. She nodded at her watch as Vivian pulled out the rolling chair beside her.

Vivian couldn’t tell if Dorothy seemed angrier than usual about how late she was because she was wearing the brown eyebrow pencil today. Vivian was on time, most of the time, but when she wasn’t, Dorothy was the first to let her know. But was her reaction more than just annoyance about the time? Or did she know something, and had she already passed judgment on Vivian? Her face felt flushed and her heartbeat was stuttering a rapid SOS.

She lowered herself into the chair and self-consciously pulled herself up to the counter. Her hands shook as she pulled the headset over her hair. The lights flickered in front of her, and the resentment rose in her like bile, overtaking the anxiety. Staring at those blinking betrayals, remembering each and every word of the overheard conversation the night before, she felt the resentment boiling back into the fury.

“Vivian!” Dorothy hissed, and motioned to the blinking light on the board.

Vivian picked up the rear jack and jammed it into the board so hard that the whole thing shuddered. She ignored the stunned faces of the other girls and answered the call as if it were just another day. Her diction was just a little sharper, and her tone just a little more forceful than usual.