CAHPTER 15

Charlotte Withhold stretched one elongated foot over the edge of the bedroom divan, waved her Tahiti-sunset toenails in a beam of sun from the Venetian blinds.  “Well, you know what they say,” she droned into her white Princess phone.  “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.  So, Elizabeth Amanda, be a doll and go set up that meeting room before Reverend Bentworth and all the old biddies get there.”  

Charlotte waved her toes in the air again.  “Yeah, that’s right, set up the tables in a triangle with us sitting at the point opposite the door.”  She glanced into the mirror on her dressing table and ran her tongue over her front teeth.  “Yeah, E. A., we’ll put the pressure on.”   

Elizabeth Amanda Schuster hung up the wall phone and sat back down at the counter to finish her coffee.  She stared at the dirty dishes and tried to think about what to wear so that she could move all that furniture and still look spiffy.  Now Elizabeth Amanda, she thought Charlotte is such a fine, upstanding woman; you’re lucky to have her for a friend.  And if she ALWAYS leaves the dirty work for you, that’s no reason to hold her in ridicule.  Judge not.