An Indecent Marriage by Doreen Owens Malek

wouldn’t worry about it. Jack could never be serious about Daphne.”
    “Why not? She’s pretty and very friendly. You remember her, don’t you?”
    “I remember that she was an airhead, and I have reason to believe that she still is.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Jessica, she’s our age and she’s been married three times. Doesn’t that suggest to you a certain...flightiness?”
    “Maybe she’s had back luck.” Jessica, herself the recipient of some major doses of ill fortune, found it difficult to assign blame for a checkered past.
    “And bad judgment. I heard she married some guy she’d known only two days because she liked his car, for heaven’s sake.”
    “And where did you hear that?”
    “Mary Beth Canfield,” Maddy replied, grinning.
    “Now there’s a reliable source,” Jessica said.
    “Mary Beth’s mother goes to church with Daphne’s aunt, and she said—”
    “Please,” Jessica interposed, holding up her hand to stem the flow. “Spare me. I’m sorry I ever brought up the subject.”
    “You brought it up because you’re afraid Jack has something going on with Daphne,” Maddy said. “And I’m telling you I’d bet money he doesn’t. Nothing of consequence, anyway. Jack has better taste.”
    “I wish I was as certain about him as you are,” Jessica said quietly. “He’s changed so much.”
    “He’d have to have a lobotomy in order to fall for Daphne Lewis,” Maddy observed with finality. Then she smiled roguishly. “Remember that Christmas pageant when we got stuck in the row behind her on the choir stand? And she was wearing that awful perfume that was making you sick?”
    Jessica groaned. The memory came rushing back at her: the stifling heat of the choral gown, with its heavy folds and starched, tight collar, the press of many bodies grouped together on the rise of the bleachers and the cloying, overwhelming scent of Daphne’s jasmine perfume, filling her nostrils and choking off her air. The memory of the dizziness and churning stomach was so vivid she almost felt it again.
    “I saw a bottle of the stuff in her locker later,” Jessica said dryly. “It was called Winds of Nature. Waves of Nausea was more like it. The pageant came very close to a surprise performance from me that night.”
    Maddy was toying with her spinach leaves. “I just thought of something. You were pregnant then and didn’t know it. That’s why the smell was bothering you so much.”
    Jessica met her eyes, then looked away, realizing that what Maddy said was true. It was the last thing on earth that would have occurred to either one of them at the time. Had they really ever been that young?
    “So tell me about your job,” Maddy said brightly, shifting lanes with alacrity. “What exactly do you do over there?”
    “Well, I represent an Italian leather manufacturer who deals almost exclusively with American retail buyers. They place orders for shoes and handbags and such, and then my company fills the orders and ships the merchandise directly to the States. I’m bilingual, so I’m sort of the go-between, translating for both parties.”
    “I guess all the language lessons at those fancy schools finally paid off, huh?”
    Jessica nodded. “That’s how I got started. When I was divorced I took a job at the New York office of the importer, and when they found out I could speak Italian I got involved in the overseas traffic very fast. One thing led to another and here I am.”
    “It should happen to me,” Maddy said, sighing. “The closest I’ll ever get to Italy is a travel folder.”
    “Want to trade?” Jessica inquired quietly, and Maddy met her gaze, sobered.
    “Things are pretty bad, aren’t they?” she asked flatly.
    Jessica didn’t answer.
    “Are you on vacation now, or what?” Maddy went on. “When do you have to get back?”
    “Officially I’m on a leave of absence, but it can’t go on indefinitely. I have a feeling if I don’t call soon and say I’m on my way, my