She found the remaining items on her grocery list in record time, sailed through checkout with only a brief mention of the weather to Marjorie at the register (yes, Marjorie, it’s still cold), and then stalked quickly through the snowy parking lot to her car, her boots keeping time with the rhyme in her head (jiggity-jig, jiggity-jig) as Roger struggled to keep up behind her with the grocery bags. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

The feather duster fluttered hastily over the tops of the curtains as Vivian stood on the sofa in her stockinged feet, stretching up to reach along the crease where the wall met the ceiling and into the corner above Edward’s chair. The cobwebs hadn’t quite had the chance to settle, although it’d been nearly a month since she had last dusted.

Vivian did clean the house every Saturday afternoon, but dusting seemed obsessive. Like something Betty Miller had her maid do every other day. She used a broom on the linoleum in the kitchen, and then spent about twenty minutes pushing the carpet sweeper around in the upstairs bedrooms and then the living and dining rooms. Other than that, it would take an explosive liquid disaster before she’d do any detailed scrubbing, like the time she’d been carrying the boiling pot of jam from the stove to the sink and one of the hot pads slipped and made a sticky strawberry spread of the kitchen floor, or the time when Charlotte had the flu and she hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time. Christ, had that been a mess.

But tonight was important. She poked the broom’s edge along the baseboards in the kitchen, and stabbed at a dust cluster in the corner, saying to herself, Get into the corners, find every little bit. She repeated this to herself as she pushed the carpet sweeper under side tables and pulled the chairs and sofas away from the wall. Every little bit. That was when it hit her. Do the same thing with the rumor. Get into it, get under it, poke around in the corners. Find every little bit.

She’d have to wait until tomorrow, but the idea gave her a new burst of energy for cleaning, and an agitated excitement for the dinner party. She smirked as she fluffed the pillows on the sofa and the wing chairs, and sneered as she polished the silver, an inherited wedding gift from Edward’s mother, holding it up to the light and then checking her reflection in the shining surface.

“Charlotte, have you finished yet?” she called out to the kitchen, where Charlotte was ironing the tablecloth and napkins.

“Almost,” came the reply. “Who is coming for dinner, Mother, and why are you making it such a secret?”

“Oh, don’t you bother about it,” Vivian said. “Just some very nice friends. Now, make sure you wear the coral dress, and pull your hair back from your face. I want everyone to look their best.”

Edward wasn’t yet home from work, but Vivian had carefully laid out the outfit she expected him to wear across the foot of the bed. He was used to this, when they celebrated special occasions, or on Sundays, when they went to church. Vivian knew she wouldn’t be feeling too much like going to church this Sunday, and maybe Edward could pick out his own stupid clothes. With their work schedules the way they were, she’d only been face-to-face with him twice since Monday night. Since the Betty Miller telephone conversation. She wondered if it even occurred to him that something was wrong; he barely looked up from his newspaper or his plate long enough to notice that there was someone else there with him.