The following week was relatively uneventful. There was no news from my parents in Florida, and I assumed that no news was good news. Although with Daddy, that’s always a risky assumption.

On the home front, work was deadly. My only job was a brochure for one of my regular clients, the Ackerman Awning Company ( Just a Shade Better). Needless to say, I didn’t hear a word from Andrew Ferguson, not after the Great Pantyhose Episode.

Oh, well. Maybe if I played my cards right, I’d land a job with one of the PMS Club’s wealthy members. If I couldn’t work for the Union National Tattler, maybe I could turn out a Yummy News bulletin for Marybeth.

The only true spark of excitement that week happened at—of all places—the Shalom Retirement Home. Once a week I teach a class there called “Writing Your Life Memoirs.”

There’s not really much teaching involved. It’s mostly listening. Each week my elderly students come to class with their memories scratched out on lined paper. Some of them are written well. Some of them are stiff and awkward. But all are written from the heart, and I consider it a privilege to hear them.

The only fly in the Shalom ointment is Abe Goldman, the lone man in the group. Mr. Goldman is the kind of student every teacher dreads: loud, yakky, and opinionated. Worst of all, the old fart actually has a crush on me, constantly flashing me his Polygrip grin and asking me to go for moonlight strolls in the parking lot.

The night after my PMS meeting, I drove over to Shalom, and Mr. Goldman, as he always did, nabbed the seat next to mine at the head of the rec room conference table.

“Hi, cookie!” he grinned. “Look what I brought you!”

He reached into his pants pocket and took out a none too clean hanky.

Just what I wanted. Dried snot.

“Now where the heck is that thing?” he said, rummaging around his copious pants pocket. “Oh, here it is.”

He pulled out a battered Puddin’ Cup.

“I’ve been saving this for you all week. It’s double fudge chocolate. I know how much you love chocolate.”

It’s true, I’m a confirmed chocoholic, but even I—a woman who almost named her cat Mallomar—was vaguely nauseated at the thought of eating a Puddin’ Cup that had shared space with Mr. Goldman’s dirty hanky all week.

“I brought you a spoon, too,” he said, reaching into his pocket for a germ-ridden plastic spoon.

“Thanks,” I gulped, as he shoved it toward me.

“So, cookie,” he said. “How about it? You want to be my date for Mambo Mania?”