The only message I received back was a text answering none of my questions.
Vivienne: Got your message. Can't wait to see you at dinner.
She couldn't wait to see me? I’d left her messages nearly every day with sporadic responses. In the past month, I heard nothing. Vivienne's text made even less sense than her enthusiastic welcome when I walked through the door of her parents' extravagant home.
The three-story mansion of cream stone sat imposingly in a wide clearing at the end of a long drive. The road to the house wound its way back from a gated guard station through a thicket of heavy-limbed oaks and maples. I took note of the Morans' small concession to water conservation—the large fountain ensconced in the circular driveway was reduced to a low trickle until later in the fall.
Vivi
