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up the buttons of Leslie’s coat, I realized abruptly that her ruddy glow was not due to health.
    Dr. Taylor was drunk.
    I was too shocked to react immediately. I just stood there, watching her fumble with the buttons, as the dark, oaky smell of whiskey wafted around us. The arrival of an inebriated parent wasn’t a wholly novel experience for me, but this had been so unexpected that I was speechless.
    Without so much as an acknowledgment of my presence, she finished the buttons, stood, turned and ushered Leslie toward the door.
    “Dr. Taylor?”
    She was at the door but paused to look back at me.
    I didn’t know quite what to say next, and the pause grew overlong. She turned away again and went on out.
    “Dr. Taylor, are you alone?”
    She was into the hallway.
    “Wait,” I said and went after her. “Dr. Taylor? Wait a minute.”
    No response.
    She was a tall woman with a long stride, and I had to skip to get in front of her. “Dr. Taylor, stop.”
    “What do you want?”
    “Are you driving?”
    She pushed around me.
    I quickly reached for Leslie’s free hand. Both of them came to an abrupt halt. Leslie whimpered.
    “I could drive you home,” I said.
    “No. Thank you,” she replied and reached down, deftly disengaging my fingers from Leslie’s hand. The smell of whiskey as she leaned forward was strong enough to make me step back.
    She shoved Leslie ahead of her and approached the stairwell.
    “Dr. Taylor, please.”
    No response.
    I could negotiate the stairs faster. Stepping forward, I grabbed hold of the collar of Leslie’s coat.
    This brought a ferocious glare from Dr. Taylor. She was still a step above me, so she towered over me physically. In fact, she felt about eight feet tall at that precise moment. I moved a little to the side.
    “I don’t need your help, thank you,” she said through gritted teeth. Her tone left nothing to the imagination.
    I kept hold of Leslie’s coat. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be driving.”
    Her eyes widened into an expression of utter incredulity. It made me feel small, to be stared at like that, as if I’d said something so dumb as to beggar belief. But I kept my fingers around Leslie’s collar.
    “Leslie is my responsibility at this point,” I said. “And I don’t think I’d feel comfortable if she went with you.”
    Dr. Taylor said nothing but continued to fix me with that stare. She really was a remarkably beautiful woman. It was unsettling to me, because I couldn’t keep from noticing it, even at a moment like this, when she made obvious the old adage about beauty being only skin deep. But ignoring her appearance was like trying to ignore a drastic deformity.
    And she wasn’t giving in. She had eyes like a reptile’s. They didn’t blink.
    “Please, let’s be sensible about this,” I said.
    “Let go.”
    “Please? Come on now, Dr. Taylor. Be reasonable.”
    “I said, let go .”
    “Let me drive Leslie then. You go as you want, but let me take Leslie.”
    “Can’t you hear me?” she asked.
    “Come on now.”
    “Let go ,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
    “Please?”
    Her eyes narrowed, and in a very calculated manner, she reached her hand toward mine. Ruefully, I uncurled my fingers from Leslie’s coat collar and let go before Dr. Taylor’s hand touched me.
    The moment I did, Dr. Taylor and her daughter disappeared down the stairwell and were gone.
    Carolyn laughed. She threw back her head and really howled. We were the only two in the whirlpool, but I slid down into the water until it was up around my neck so that the people over by the swimming pool couldn’t see me.
    “It’s not that funny, Carolyn.”
    “She really laid it on you, didn’t she? Well, it serves you right. It does , Torey,” she said and leaned forward. “You think because you’re new here, you’re classless. You think you can mess with small-town politics.”
    “I wasn’t messing with politics. The woman was stone