CHAPTER 16

Elizabeth Amanda Schuster knew that her place in Society stemmed from generations of important, if little known, people; a linkage from some obscure place in Western Europe to Jerkwater, Montana.  She felt it was her duty to uphold the honor of her mysterious heritage.

As part of this ancestral legacy, Elizabeth Amanda felt compelled to encourage members of her immediate entourage to pursue the finer aspects of literature, music, and dance.  When instructing her eighth-grade dance class, she supported the reading of The Saturday Evening Post as opposed to True Romances. But now she despaired that it was all over, that her refined and respected role in the community was coming to an end.

It wasn’t just that Elizabeth Amanda’s new husband, Clive, had squandered all their savings on a scheme to buy land in Australia and then sell it to the Japanese; it wasn’t even that Elizabeth Amanda was going to have everything, her house and all her fine linens, china, and silver sold off at public auction; what compounded things for Elizabeth Amanda was that all the women at the JCBC were going to be talking about it.

This was desperate.  She only had one friend she could count on and if Charlotte Withhold turned her back, Elizabeth Amanda would be set adrift.  Alone in a rolling wave of  pastele afternoon-dresses.