Wooster was her town, and he’d humiliated her in her town. Everyone, from Vivian’s parents to her aunts and uncles to her kindergarten teacher to her doctor, her dentist, the checkout clerks at Buehler’s to the college girls who worked at Beulah Bechtel’s to her coworkers at Bell, and everyone else she’d ever come into contact with in that town, now knew that her husband was a bigamist, their marriage hadn’t been legitimate, and she’d been a fool.

That was the word she’d felt hanging over her head on her second wedding day. “Fool.” Not “bride” or “wife” like on the first one. Vivian Dalton, fool, pleased to meet you. Vivian’s second wedding day was busier than the first had been. In addition to getting married (again) in the morning, she knew she had to do the cleaning and the washing she usually did on Saturdays, later on. She was sure there’d never been a less romantic wedding. Not only did she not wear a beautiful white dress with a floor-length lace veil, she didn’t even try to get a flower corsage to match her eyes this time. But you could bet your ass she wore her best dress and put her face on before setting foot outside the house that morning.

Vivian refused to look at Edward during the “ceremony,” if you could call it that. She, instead, directed all her polite attention to Reverend Alsop, who kept pulling at his collar, shifting his eyes nervously back and forth between Vivian and Edward, and repeatedly clearing his throat. Charlotte, their illegitimate daughter, was not there. She’d asked to stay at the house, and before she left Vivian had pulled her close, Charlotte’s head tucked under her chin.

After the newspapers had been delivered that morning, with the story about the Daltons, the switchboard at Bell had gone crazy, and the ladies who were working didn’t get a moment’s peace. The switchboard itself looked like a fireworks display with all the lights, and cords and arms were flying left and right as the operators plugged and unplugged, flipped up and flipped down. They hardly had time to listen in on any of the calls, but when they did they all heard, “Dalton!”

Dalton! Dalton! Vivian Dalton! Edward Dalton! Did you hear about the Daltons? There were people in Wooster who’d never heard of either Vivian or Edward Dalton before that Daily Record story, but after Saturday they sure had.

Vivian McGinty’s older sister Vera had once said that she was “perpetually craving attention,” and Vivian had eventually looked up “perpetually.”

Perpetual:

1a: continuing forever: everlasting perpetual motion b (1): valid for all time, a perpetual right (2): holding something (such as an office) for life or for an unlimited time

2: occurring continually: indefinitely long-continued perpetual problems

perpetually adverb

Perpetual was how she saw the horror of this godforsaken day. It would never end. The telephone would keep ringing and ringing and she’d have to keep explaining and explaining. Vivian would’ve grudgingly admitted that she did like attention, compliments on her Beulah Bechtel hat, that kind of thing. Not this kind of thing. She did not want any of this. She did not want to have to get remarried to the man she’d thought was her husband for almost sixteen years. She did not want the entire town of Wooster, her hometown, where she’d been born and raised, to know about her shameful, embarrassing dirty laundry. And she did not want to have to explain everything to her family on the telephone that day. She had to make several attempts at a couple of the calls, because the switchboards were so backed up.