“Your secrets are safe with me,” Steven would promise as he laughed at their nervousness after each time that he had caught them discussing someone or something in the neighborhood. To him it seemed as if they knew everything about everyone.

“You guys should go and work at the TV news station. You’re totally wasting your gifts here,” he would say with as straight a face as he could muster.

“I’m very happy where I am,” Florence, the cook would declare with her ...