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mushroom caps for the rest of my life.”
    “You can thank Stark for the fact that there are still mushrooms to be stuffed.” Desdemona's eyes met his over the top of her cup. “Right Touch is going to make it through another tax quarter because he was chivalrous enough to pay the tab for his canceled reception this afternoon.”
    For some reason, Stark was embarrassed. “Forget it.”
    “Abandoned at the altar.” Juliet was momentarily distracted from her own trials. “Incredible. I've never actually met anyone who was left standing at the altar. Sorry I had to miss it. I had rehearsal.”
    “I wish I'd missed it, myself,” Stark muttered.
    “Kirsten and I were handling the champagne,” Henry told Juliet. “We saw the whole thing. A very heavy scene. Audience of two hundred.”
    “No kidding?” Juliet's eyes widened as she gazed at Stark. “Two hundred people saw you get dumped?”
    “A full house,” Stark admitted.
    Henry hunched over his espresso cup and peered intently at him. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
    “Depends,” Stark said.
    “What was it like when you realized she'd ditched you? I mean, what was the first thing that went through your head?”
    “The same thing that probably went through the fly's head a second before the swatter got him in Fly on a Wall ,” Stark said.
    Kirsten grinned. “You mean you experienced a sense of being on the verge of a cathartic sexual release?”
    “Not exactly.” Stark glanced at Desdemona. “As I recall, it was more along the lines of ‘What am I doing here when I could be having a nice day at the office.’”
    Desdemona's soft mouth curved with wry sympathy. “That thought was no doubt soon followed by the realization that he was going to be stuck paying for a wedding even though he hadn't gotten married.”
    “The fiancée flamed out and left you with the whole tab, huh?” Henry shook his head. “Bummer.”
    “That's one way of putting it,” Stark agreed.
    “We're all very glad you paid the bill, though,” Juliet said. “Desdemona had to buy a lot of the supplies on credit for that gig. If you hadn't come through with the cash, she'd have been left high and dry.”
    “Which would have been bad news for us Wainwrights,” Henry added. “We depend on her to keep us employed when we're ‘resting between engagements,’ as my father likes to say.”
    “Desdemona's the first member of the family in three generations to have a steady job,” Juliet said. “To tell you the truth, the older generation of Wainwrights finds it a little embarrassing.”
    Desdemona hoisted her cup in a mock salute. “A blot on the Wainwright family escutcheon.”
    “But a useful blot,” Kirsten said. She looked at Stark. “Actually, I'm hoping to follow in her footsteps.”
    “You're going to get a steady job?” Stark asked.
    “I'm going to start a small business, just like Desdemona did.”
    Stark sipped his espresso. “Catering?”
    “Not exactly.” Kirsten's eyes lit with the excitement of the incipient entrepreneur. “I'm going to open an upscale, very classy boutique right here in Pioneer Square.”
    Stark eyed the long, purple, tunic-length sweater that she wore over a pair of tight purple pants. “Let me guess. Designer clothing?”
    “No way,” Kirsten assured him. “There's a zillion clothing boutiques here in Seattle. I'm going to open a very special kind of shop. A place that will cater to women's sexual fantasies and consumer needs.”
    Stark wondered if he'd missed a conversational cue somewhere along the line. It happened all the time. “Sexual fantasies.”
    “You know, attractively colored condoms, for example. Women buy a lot of the condoms sold in this country, did you know that?”
    “Uh, no. No, I didn't,” Stark admitted.
    “Some pretty lingerie. Maybe some light leather, vibrators, instructional videos, erotica written by women, for women, that kind of thing.”
    “I see,” Stark said.
    “But all sold in a tasteful