"I Approve"

Diane was sixty-one, draped in navy peau-de-soie silk with a double strand of Akoya pearls, her jaw set like an iron gate. Her heels clicked like rifle hammers against the parquet as she cleared her chair:

CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.

"Who allowed that child near the pedestal?!" Diane gasped, her voice carrying across the silent hall. "Where is her mother?! That cake was imported from Providence!"