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  The waiter brought the drinks and muffins, and Dennie smiled around him at Victoria, exuding honesty and charm as fast and as hard as she could so Victoria would be bowled over by her openness.

  “You’re like Alec,” Victoria said when the waiter had gone, and Dennie thought for a minute that she might be still doing her vague act. “He charms the socks off people, too, and then they wonder why they trusted him. It’s because he does the fake openness so well. Everything about him says, ‘Trust me on this,’ and the whole time he has an agenda.”

  “I just said I had an agenda,” Dennie protested.

  Victoria picked up a muffin and split it with her knife. “Yes, but you said it with such charm, you knew I’d be disarmed.” She buttered it calmly and then took a bite. “I’m not. You’re up to something. What do you want?”

  Dennie picked up a muffin to buy time. Blueberry, she noticed when she split it open. She hated blueberry. Bad omen. “I’m a reporter,” she said. Might as well get the bad news over with first.

  “That’s a relief,” Victoria said. “Until you insulted Brian Bond at the dinner table last night, we thought you were a thief.” She polished off the first half of her muffin with a great deal of zest. “I’m fairly sure there are about three hundred fat grams in each of these. I plan on having at least one more.”

  “You thought I was a thief?” Dennie said. “You thought I was working with Bondman?”

  Victoria poked through the muffin basket. “There must be another blueberry in here.”

  Dennie handed her plate over. “Alec thought I was a thief?”

  “Thank you,” Victoria said, taking the plate. “He hated it. I’ve never seen him more reluctant to arrest anybody.”

  “The son of a bitch,” Dennie said conversationally. “At one point, I actually considered sleeping with him.”

  Victoria shoved the muffin basket at her. “Well, consider it again. He’s very sweet, and he seems quite taken with you.”

  “You want me to sleep with somebody who’s going to put me in jail?” Dennie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll tell him not to now.” Victoria polished off the last of her first muffin and started on Dennie’s. “So you’re a reporter. What does that have to do with me?”

  Dennie shoved Alec aside for the moment and went back to Plan Z, the one Victoria had forced on her, honesty. “I want you to get me an interview with Janice Meredith,” Dennie said, and Victoria said, “No,” without missing a beat.

  “See, this is why I do the charming bit,” Dennie said, exasperated. “When I stick to charming, people say yes. If I tell the truth, people say no.”

  Victoria frowned, obviously considering the situation, and Dennie went back to the muffin basket. Orange-coconut. Much better. She reached over and swiped Victoria’s empty plate and began to butter.

  “Why should I?” Victoria said. “She’s my friend. She’s going through a terrible time. Why should I turn you loose on her?”

  “Because she’s going to have to do an interview sooner or later,” Dennie said, trying to be reasonable. Victoria should be able to figure this stuff out for herself. “And I’m on her side. I admire her. I’m changing my whole life because of what she said in the restaurant. I really do want to help her.” Victoria looked unconvinced, so Dennie moved on to logic. “That fool Tallie Gamble will be talking to every rag in the country. All Janice needs to do is give one preemptive interview and she’ll spike Tallie’s guns good. If she’d talk to me right away, she could even be the one to announce the divorce. It just makes sense.”

  “Not to somebody who’s supposed to be an expert on marriage.” Victoria stopped inhaling muffins and sipped her coffee, slower now, more thoughtful. “This is a large helping of crow, and you want her to serve it to herself?”

  “She’s an expert on relationships,” Dennie said. “Sometimes those end. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to her about. I found this wonderful quote from Margaret Mead. Somebody asked her how she explained the failure of her marriages, and she said, ‘What failure? I had three marriages and none of them were failures.’ Think what Janice could do with that.”

  Victoria looked intrigued but not convinced so Dennie plowed on. “Besides, she’s the one going around talking about risking and then hiding behind the cops. If she really believes in risking, I’m her best bet. I believe in her.”

  Victoria pushed her plate away. “What cops?”

  “She’s threatened to have me arrested for stalking,” Dennie said. “That’s why I needed Alec to get to you, and you to get to her. So I wouldn’t be stalking her.”

  “So you were using Alec to get Janice, while Alec was using you to get Bond.” Victoria grinned. “I like that. It’s tidy.”

  “Victoria, concentrate,” Dennie said, and Victoria said, “Eat your muffin and listen to me.”

  Dennie sighed, and prepared to be patient while she chewed.

  “Janice has built her entire career on understanding how marriage works.” Victoria spoke carefully, as if she were arguing with herself, presenting points. “Charles isn’t just leaving her for a younger woman, he’s taking her career with him. Women like Janice and me have given up a great deal for our careers, and we don’t regret it.” She stopped, as if she were a little surprised. “I don’t, you know. I fulfilled any maternal needs I had taking care of Alec and Andy in the summers. I don’t regret one minute of my life.”

  Dennie nodded, still chewing, not sure how Victoria’s summers had gotten into her interview, but too far in to back out now.

  “But even without regrets, we aren’t willing to see that kind of power taken away from us.” Victoria straightened a little. “It’s taken us forty years to get where we are today. That’s something neither one of us is going to give up without a fight.”

  “Why?” Dennie said.

  Victoria blinked at her. “Did you hear anything I said?”

  “Everything.” Dennie put the rest of her muffin down, the better to do battle. “Did you listen to yourself? You said the two of you have worked really hard to get where you are. Well, I know that. Everybody knows that. It’s documented. You’re published, people already know, you don’t have to prove it anymore. In fact, proving it is redundant.”

  “That’s not the point—” Victoria began, and Dennie cut her off.

  “That’s exactly the point. You’ve arrived. You’ve done that. What are you going to do now, just sit where you are and congratulate yourselves on having made the trip?” Dennie leaned closer, saying all the things to Victoria she meant to say later to Janice. “This is her chance to move on, to grow more instead of just resting where she is, digging herself in. She said it herself, if she’s not risking, she’s not growing.”

  Victoria swallowed. “Easy to say.”

  “I don’t see that she has any choice, really.” Dennie sat back. “She can try to pretend that nothing’s changed and live the rest of her life blind and alone, or she can realize she’s got a brand-new life ahead of her and embrace it no matter how rocky it is at first. And since she’s a smart, tough woman who’s come a long way in her life, I don’t see her choosing to be blind for long. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t been feeling uneasy long before this.”

  “You’re right,” Victoria said, a faraway look in her eye. “I have been.”

  Dennie blinked and kept going, sweeping Victoria along with her. “Stephen Sondheim said, ‘If you know where you’re going, you’ve gone. Move on.’ Seems to me Janice Meredith has known where she’s been going for too long. I bet her husband sensed it. I bet he bailed before she could.”

  “What did you do, memorize Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations before breakfast?” Victoria asked a little more tartly than the conversation called for.

  “I’ve been researching for this interview like crazy,” Dennie said. “I am prepared to get the greatest interview of all time. This is going to make my career, and it’s not entirely selfish. This could be a