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you understand what I’m saying?”
    “All I understand is I’m going to call my attorney if you people don’t get over here and get me out of this. Every minute I’m losing business!”
    Trish pressed her free palm to her face, took a deep breath. “Mr. O’Day, we’re a hardware maintenance and repair company. Systems aren’t our responsibility. It’s really up to you to do what’s needed to guarantee smooth operation. Things like regularly making backups. If you look at the contract you signed with us, you’ll see—”
    “You brought in the machine with the virus!”
    “You just think we did. There’s no proof. And I can’t imagine why someone here would want to sneak a virus into your system. If indeed there is one. Which I doubt.”
    “Let’s cut the crap, both of us, Ms. Morley!” Lester O’Day shouted. “The bottom line is you got me into this, you get me out. Or I sue!” Down went the receiver.
    Never mind that this was the electronic age, Trish thought. People to the end of time would be ruled by emotions. She, too, felt some specific emotions—dealing with where Lester O’Day and Pristine Cleaners could go and what they could do there. But the professional Trish knew she would have to act for the sake of continued business and PC-Pros’ reputation. She explained the situation to Fred Purdom, her poker-faced seventeen-year-old technician. “I want you to go over there and do what you can to straighten them out. Run some virus-killer software. Use his last backup, tell him all the data after that date is gonzo. And don’t take any of his BS. Got it?”
    “Yeah, I got it.” Fred’s face as usual betrayed nothing. His voice, though, revealed his concern. “If this is a virus Sltuation, I can’t figure how it got on his machine.”
    “Neither can I.”
    After Fred had left for Pristine Cleaners Trish lamented the use of her limited resources to placate “Lowlife” Lester, as Fred called him. For a large company a day of a technician’s time was no big deal. But PC-Pros’ staff was spread thin. The business simply couldn’t absorb these kinds of emergencies. She hoped it was an isolated accident of some sort.
    She absolutely refused to dwell at that moment on Rocco De Vita.
     

4
     
    Melody’s looming vacation meant Trish had to assemble the mosaic of the child’s summer days with all the care of a Byzantine artist. So many days she would spend with Grandma, so many at play groups, half-day summer camps, organized sports and swimming, so many with Mom at PC-Pros, at theme parks, water slides, and varied musical performances. Trish had to write it all out, then go ahead and make arrangements as far ahead as was practical. After the first of June her daughter’s appointments and other demands increasingly infiltrated those of the business. She wrote everything down in her Franklin Day Planner, Supermom’s secret weapon.
    Leave it to her mother to remind her that she was so caught up in Melody’s summer that she continued to neglect her own wedding. “You’ve arranged things backward as usual, Patricia,” Marylou said. “The correct order is supposed to be marriage then children, not vice versa.”
    “Very funny. I don’t hear you broadcasting those words of wisdom at your card parties, Mother. In the engagement announcement you had them say “It will be the bride’s second marriage”.
    “Well, of course! We needn’t make fools of ourselves, need we?” Marylou’s right brow rose. Over the years a skeptical crease had formed there. Other, thinner creases had etched their way into her upper lip. The rest of her face remain undisturbed, appealingly youthful. Her gray eyes were still sharp and clear, as was her wit—which she turned too often on her daughter. In her mid-sixties she still possessed the southern charm of her youth to which age had added northern assurance. Trish wondered why she hadn’t found a more lively companion than Stoneman Gore. Stoneman followed