Pearl Cleage

Social worker Joyce Mitchell was widowed far too young and has stayed busy the last 5 years by running the group she founded to provide services like day care and job counseling to young women. She goes to dinner at her best friend's house and meets the new vice principal at the high school. This isn't a romance, although by the end Joyce is in a relationship with the V.P. It's a story of community and how people (women & women, men & women, men & men, mothers & children, you get the picture) interact and relate. The red dress in the title has to do with what's going on in Joyce's life, heart and head. I wish this book hadn't been abridged b/c I wanted to know these people better. A good read. Available from HarperCollins & HarperCollins Audio. Read by the author. NFM