“Don’t think so.”

Vivian had shrugged and thought, So, the trash ran away with the spoon. That had been something unexpected. It was Wooster’s own version of Bonnie and Clyde, and don’t think Vivian didn’t find it suspicious that Bonnie’s last name had also been Parker. There was a lot more significance to names than most people bothered to notice.

Vivian had thought Flora and Bill Parker were one of those annoying happy couples, what with all the arm-in-arm walking around town and staring into each other’s eyes she saw them doing. They were as swoony as a couple of lovebirds. But who knew what was really going on behind their closed doors? Vivian took her “knowing people” seriously, and especially since there was such a scandal around Gilbert and Flora, she was hard on herself for not having spotted the signs sooner (or at all).

She consoled herself with the thought that, although she saw Flora Parker every once in a while, she’d only actually spoken to her once, a few years before the robbery. It’d been in line at Buehler’s, and it’d just been small talk.

“The cashiers are sure chatty today, aren’t they?”

“Yes. It is slowing the line a bit.”

Flora Parker had then found something interesting inside her handbag, and Vivian guessed she wasn’t in the mood for conversation, although she could’ve gone on for a while about those cashiers. The few words between them really hadn’t been enough for Vivian to figure Flora properly.

She had noticed the can of vegetable shortening in Flora’s shopping cart, and that was something. If Flora’d been a good housewife, she’d have been cooking with lard or butter, but Vivian wasn’t going to pass judgment on her over something like that. She’d also been preoccupied with her own thoughts that afternoon. It was her and Edward’s ten-year anniversary, and Vivian was buying his favorite Amish Baby Swiss cheese, trying to plan the rest of their dinner in her head, and wondering what awful tin thing he was going to give her for a gift. Ten years was tin. Whatever it was, he was probably making it on his workbench in the basement. It better not be another goddamned watering can. She’d gotten one of those for a birthday gift one year.

Dorothy cleared her throat, bringing Vivian back to the present moment, where several lights were blinking in front of her on the switchboard. When she let herself drift off like that it took a nudge to get her back. With a snort of air through her nostrils, she plugged in the cord.

“Number, please,” she said, and quickly connected the call before answering the next one. Maybe that one would be the call with the Communist spies.

“Number, please.”

“Viv, is that you?”

“Yes, dear.”

Edward never surprised Vivian anymore, after fifteen and a half years of marriage, but she was almost surprised her husband recognized her voice on the other end of the line. He had some hearing loss, or at least claimed he did. It seemed to come and go. It was at its most powerful, the loss was, when she was reminding him to trim his nose hairs or put his dirty socks in the warsh basket. But the moment she and Charlotte were talking about shopping for a new dress, or something else not exactly practical, boy, did his hearing improve. She was sure he’d be able to hear a dog whistle if the whistle was talking about spending any of his money.