No Offense - Meg Cabot Page 0,24

wished again that she hadn’t had quite so much wine, or had at least drunk more water. Was this something a dog owner wanted to hear?

Apparently it was, as Mrs. Tifton looked delighted, as did her dining partner—whom Molly only then recognized as her mentor and (now retired) boss, Phyllis. Phyllis was also dressed in yoga wear.

Inwardly, Molly wanted to die. Naturally her (ex-)boss was in the same yoga class, and apparently, she lunched regularly with the library’s most generous donor.

Mrs. Tifton gave the panting Daisy a squeeze and said, “Oh, Daisy! I always knew you were a very smart dog!” To Molly and Meschelle she said, “She is, you know. She’s very perceptive. When I’m feeling down, she crawls onto my lap and licks my face. So I’m not surprised she did the same to that girl. You’re just as brave, you know.” This was to Molly. “I understand you sat with her until the ambulance came. You simply must let me make it up to you.”

“Oh,” Molly said, laughing nervously. What was the delightfully eccentric widow going to do, offer her a cash reward? Not that Molly would mind, but as a public servant, she couldn’t possibly accept. “That’s quite all right, Mrs. Tifton, it’s part of my—”

“I know,” Mrs. Tifton interrupted, snapping her fingers. “You must come with me this weekend as my date to the Red Cross Ball.”

To Molly this was nearly as mortifying as being offered a cash reward. Not that she didn’t want to go to the ball—she did. She’d heard all about it from Joanne, who had never been (“It’s three hundred and fifty dollars a ticket!”) but knew people who had, and described it as “the most glamorous party on Little Bridge, black tie with an all-you-can-eat buffet that includes locally caught stone crab claws, champagne, and of course a chocolate fountain.”

It wasn’t that Molly wasn’t grateful. She simply didn’t want the widow to pay for her ticket. It wouldn’t be ethical.

“Oh, Molly,” Meschelle said, cutting Molly off before she could even draw breath to protest. “You have to go. It’s the best party of the year. I’m going, to cover it for the paper.”

Molly felt her resolve wavering.

“I already bought twelve tickets,” Mrs. Tifton said. “I’m taking the entire yoga class, aren’t I, Phyl?”

Phyllis—whom Molly would never in a thousand years consider calling Phyl—said, in her calm, throaty voice, “She is. We’re all going.”

“See?” Mrs. Tifton threw Molly a triumphant look. “You have to come. Especially since we have so much to celebrate.”

Molly was puzzled. “We do?” She didn’t see what there was to feel happy about. Their library had been vandalized, apparently by kids who were, according to Meschelle, unstoppable. What was so good about that?

“The girl!” Mrs. Tifton cried. “She’s in the ICU, but she should do just fine. I called the hospital, and they told me so.”

“Really?” Meschelle’s eyebrows were raised to their limits. “They usually only give information about patients to family members.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Tifton said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They know me there.”

Of course they do, Molly thought, wryly.

“And do you know what else they said?” Mrs. Tifton asked, and went on without waiting for a reply. “They said that she’s Baby Aphrodite’s mother!”

Molly wasn’t a bit surprised, given what she’d seen in the media room, but Meschelle snatched up her phone and quickly hit record.

“Really, Mrs. Tifton?” she asked. “May I quote you on that for an article I’m writing about the abandoned baby for the Gazette?”

“Why, yes, you may!” Mrs. Tifton cried. “You can say that Dorothy Tifton has it on good authority that the poor girl found in the children’s media room of the new library today is the mother of Baby Aphrodite.”

Molly was beginning to get a very bad feeling about all of this.

“Oh, Mrs. Tifton,” she said, sliding from her booth. “I don’t think that’s the kind of news we should be sharing right now. It might hamper the sheriff’s investigation.”

Mrs. Tifton instantly looked stricken. “Oh, dear! I wouldn’t want to do that.”

“It’s fine,” Meschelle said, giving Molly a dirty look. “It’s just the local paper, not the New York Times. I’ll tie it in to the story I interviewed you for, Molly—which, by the way, I’m going to need photos for.”

Molly froze. “Photos?”

“Yes. You know, of you by the bathroom stall where you found the baby, and all of that.”

Molly thought, fleetingly, of both how unflattering the florescent light in the girls’ bathroom was and how disapproving