The Rumor

by Elin Hilderbrand

Madeline had given up on envy long ago. It was fruitless.

She didn’t know how any woman anywhere conducted an affair without having the ear of a best friend.

“You know who invented the twist, right?” asked the man next to him. “It was John D. Rockefeller. He was a germophobe, and citrus was a natural disinfectant, so Rockefeller always asked his bartenders to run a lemon peel around the rim of his glass.”

Eloise had brought him a potted snapdragon from Bartlett’s Farm, saying he needed something to brighten up his desk. When he asked if he was going to have to water or deadhead it, she said she would take responsibility for the plant’s care and maintenance.

She knows!

There was nothing in the world, she decided, that wounded like silence.

Amen