Three of those waiting calls would turn out to be from Tad Worth here. He now said, “You need a martini is what you need, girl, and then you need to go get your address book over there out from under those cheap paperback mysteries. I assume that Gutenbergy Bible-y humongous-looking thing is your address book? And then we need to compare the names on this list with the names in yonder tome-ette, and then you need to get your excellent sinewy ass in gear, girl. I hear you don’t even answer your phone no mo’. You’ve already quit coming to the door. I know what that means, Mary Ellen. I’ve been there, gir’friend, and I’m telling you, get with the program. And while you’re up, I could use a martini too. But, look, just show the gin a vermouth bottle, just scare it by maybe whispering the word ‘Vermont’—that’s vermouth enough—and then you need to come back here and focus on something past the tip of your fine Hollingsworth nose. I don’t reckon you have any ‘snack items’ or cheese or anything around, do you? Not that my Gothick saddlebags need it, Heaven presarve ’em.” I stared at him as if he were speaking Serbo-Croat. I finally said, “Does the phrase ‘over the top’ mean anything to you, young man?”

“Mean anything? It’s my goddamn credo!”

So, before Tad would even consider leaving, he made me, after two goodly drinks, no more, telephone three girls I’d known at Saint Catherine’s. One of them was married, as it happened, to the longtime mayor of Little Washington. If I had ever known that, I’d forgotten. Everybody in Washington, NC, will tell you their town is years older than our nation’s copycat capital, and therefore should be called “the Original Washington.” That’s where Sandover, the Meade-Ulrich mansion, was located, a 20-room late-Georgian palace about to be done away with—so that public servants at City Hall would have better parking opportunities each morning. I ask you! Tad left me with this list and other homework, plus he scheduled a return appointment, said he’d come back in three days, no later. To see how I’d done. I believe three days has certain precedents as an ideal resurrection time. He knew I’d need that long to get out of a green chenille—yes, chenille—robe I’d taken to sulking around in. (I still don’t know how that got into my closet or where it’s got to since.)