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being sober after dinner is a breach of etiquette.”
    “Who are we to insult the hostess?” Cassady asked, snatching a bottle from the tray of a passing waitress.
    So it was left to Lisbet to come up with the memorable breach of etiquette. While the postdinner partying had been proceeding along at a civilized pace, the champagne had pushed the fast-forward button. Lisbet had now slid a champagne flute down the front of her dress, which was quite easy to do, given that the dress didn’t really have a neckline so much as it had an open pathway to her sternum. There were so many women at this party on the verge of flashing their breasts, it was like being at a David Letterman taping.
    Somewhere under the few pieces of fabric that did attempt to keep Lisbet clothed, there was apparently sufficient underwiring to press her breasts together firmly enough to keep the glass in place. It was this marvel of engineering, perhaps previously modeled in an ad by Veronica, which had caught the full attention of quite a few men and several women in the center of the room. Then Lisbet started charging the glass with the bottle that dangled from her hand and challenging each to figure out the best way to drink from the glass while spilling the least champagne.
    “Oh, look,” Cassady hissed. “Dinner and a show.”
    Richard and Rebecca stood next to Tricia’s parents, Rebecca with an unmistakable pucker of disapproval on her face. Could she be seriously trying to reform? Had losing Richard shaken her up sufficiently to make her want to
change? Why else would she be sneering at Lisbet and cozying up to her mother-in-law, whispering quietly into her ear? Six months ago, she would have been encouraging men to line up for their shot, passing out numbers and offering tips for success.
    For the moment, Jake was the only one taking a shot. He and Lisbet were grinding against each other with NC-17 fervor and both had seemed to forget the objective was to empty the champagne glass. I hoped for an objection from Lara, but she was filming the whole thing, occasionally calling out in Portuguese either instructions or curses, I couldn’t be sure which.
    The group of friends standing around them laughed and clapped in encouragement, but you could feel the tension mounting in the rest of the room. Mr. Vincent took a step forward, but Mrs. Vincent put her hand on his arm and he stopped. Did Mrs. Vincent want Lisbet to embarrass herself, assuming that was possible, or was she concerned that a more painful scene would ensue if Mr. Vincent stepped in?
    “Where’s Davey?” Tricia asked, scanning the crowd anxiously. “This is no way to start the weekend.”
    “Want me to look for him?” I volunteered. There were a number of people in the room growing increasingly uncomfortable with the floor show, but everyone was deferring to Mr. and Mrs. Vincent about interceding. David would be able to call a halt to the proceedings with the least amount of political repercussions.
    “Davey or Aunt Cynthia,” Tricia agreed. She started for the door, making urgent little circles with her hands to indicate that Cassady and I should walk with her.
    We weren’t more than a dozen steps along when Aunt Cynthia and David entered of their own accord. Well, Aunt Cynthia did, anyway. She had David by the elbow, the instinctive
pincer hold women use when they’re guiding a small child or an unwilling man.
    “Wonder where they’ve been?” Tricia murmured.
    “Behind the woodshed, from the looks of him,” Cassady suggested.
    David did have a bit of the whipped dog about him. Whatever conversation he’d been having with his aunt, it hadn’t been nearly as entertaining as the one we’d had with her. And his expression just got harder and colder when he stepped into the great room and saw Lisbet and her dance team. Especially since two of Jake’s compatriots were now trying to hoist Lisbet up in the air upside down, so the champagne would pour into Jake’s eagerly