“Thought you might want to know,” Rob said. He stood up and worked his shoulders again.

Angie started to turn away again when he said, “Caroline isn’t going, though.”

She paused for a moment, one hand on the door, and then stepped backward into the room. When she turned around, Rob was looking at her with great seriousness.

“What are you trying to say?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know anything more than what I just told you. John is going to New York to work in the archives for a week, and Caroline is staying here. No other change in plans that I know of.”

“None of this,” Angie said, trying to get hold of her temper and not quite succeeding, “is any of my business.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Rob said, unflustered. He glanced out the window.

Angie thought of what it would mean to challenge that maybe: the discussion that would follow, the history that would be dredged up, again.

“Pardon me,” Angie said. “I had better go find Tony before he disappears.”

“Too late,” said Rob. “There he goes.”

“Oh, shit.” Angie flopped down in the desk chair. “This week isn’t starting well.”

“Relax a little,” Rob said, touching her shoulder as he went to the door. “This is the South, darlin’. Things don’t move so fast down here.”

Contrary to expectations after such a questionable start, the week went very well. It may have had something to do with the fact that John was away or that Patty-Cake had been brought to heel, but mostly Angie was thankful to Miss Zula, who took a liking to Tony Russo, and laid claim to him and his time.

Hoboken and Manhattan were crowded with women who had tried and failed to tie Tony down, but Miss Zula had some advantages. The first was her age; the second was the fact that while she appreciated his dry and usually sarcastic humor, she would not be distracted by it.

It was Tony Miss Zula called in the evenings to discuss how much time she was willing to spend with them the next day, and to what end. As a result, Tony’s nighttime wanderings slowed down, which was a relief to Angie, but gave Rivera the idea that Miss Zula was orchestrating Harriet Darling’s social life behind the scenes.

If that was true, Angie could only be thankful. For the first time since the fax machine had whirred to life those few weeks ago, she began to relax and remember why she liked what she did.