you my card.” Daphne rifled through her purse, which was also quilted. She was wearing jeans and a pair of suede Jack Rogers sandals. She looked great, but this was just plain old deception. Daphne pulled out a business card and handed it to Claire. It was white, with Daphne’s name and various phone numbers printed in navy. Claire had never known anyone to have a business card just for herself, as a person. It was unusual, right, an affectation of the wealthy? The card should read Daphne Dixon, Crazy Person or Daphne Dixon, Mental Patient so that you would know never to dial the numbers. Even if you did see Isabelle French grabbing Lock Dixon by the necktie and planting a kiss on his lips.
“Okay,” Claire said. “Will do.”
“I mean it, Claire,” Daphne Dixon said. She tucked her very dark hair behind one red ear. Why was her ear so red? Agitation? She was standing so close to Claire that Claire could see the delicate purple veins of Daphne’s ear. “I want you to call me if you see anything, if you suspect anything. When I say ‘viper,’ I mean viper. She kissed another woman’s husband in front of everyone on the dance floor of the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom last spring. And it is a well-known fact that Isabelle French wants to fuck my husband.”
Claire laughed. She did not find that statement funny at all, but there was no point in further engaging the woman. Agree—Yes, Daphne, you bet! I’ll let you know!—and extricate yourself from the conversation. Get the hell out of there!
“You bet,” Claire said. She pushed her cart all the way to the ham, bacon, smoked sausages, pickles, and sauerkraut. She could feel Daphne Dixon behind her, but she was afraid to check. She stopped, feigning interest in sauerkraut, thinking that rather than have Daphne Dixon shadow her through the store, she would let Daphne pass her. She fingered a package of sauerkraut—Claire liked it, but no one else in the house did—and then she studied a jar of kosher dills.
“Pickles?” Daphne Dixon said. Claire was so spooked, she nearly dropped the jar. Daphne was right up against her back. “You’re not pregnant again, are you, Claire?”
Again, Claire laughed. “No,” she said.
“You’re sure? That was one of the things I said to Lock. The problem with asking you to cochair is that you’re always getting pregnant.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“At least you’re having sex,” Daphne said. “Which is more than we can say about yours truly. And if you’re having orgasms, then you’re really one up on me.”
Claire was annoyed to find her interest piqued by these statements. Lock and Daphne didn’t sleep together? So did Lock have a thing for Isabelle French? Was Claire stepping right into the middle of a messy situation? Friend from college, divorced . . . what if it had been Isabelle at the cozy meeting the week before, and not Claire? Would something have happened between them? But Claire had to cut bait here. Daphne was like an unsightly piece of toilet paper that Claire had dragged out of the ladies’ room on her high heel.
“Do you ever shower?” Daphne said. She sniffed in Claire’s general direction, and Claire looked down at her clothes: yoga pants, ratty sneakers, a white T-shirt that had turned pale gray and had a juice stain on the sleeve that looked like a gunshot wound. She had done some yoga positions that morning, she had attempted the sketch of the chandelier, she had had twenty phone conversations about Liam’s arm—what the doctor had said, the impending surgery—but she had not showered. Should she explain to Daphne about Liam, Siobhan, Children’s Hospital, the roast chicken? She didn’t smell like flowers, certainly, but did she stink? It was true that you couldn’t smell yourself. Maybe she did stink. But Daphne stank, too—like vinegar.
“I do shower,” Claire said, “though I haven’t yet today. I haven’t had a chance.”
“That’s the other thing about Lock asking you to chair the gala. Everyone knows you’re stretched out like old gum. Four kids, one of them a baby, and you let your career go down the tubes . . .”
“My career didn’t go down the tubes,” Claire said.
“Lock and I love your glass. But now it’s gone.” Daphne snapped her fingers. “Dust. Vapor.” She took a deep, dramatic breath. “We need the gala to succeed, Claire. We need someone who can give it a dedicated effort.”
Claire felt tears prick her eyelids. And that was the