Toxic Bachelors

“He says he wants to get married, but I don't think he ever will,” Gray said philosophically. They both agreed that Adam was another story. Bitter about Rachel, angry at his mother, all he wanted was bimbos and girls who were young enough to be his daughters. It sounded like an empty life to her. “He's a great guy, once you get to know him,” Gray said loyally about his friend. Sylvia was not as convinced. It was easy to see the merit and quality in Charlie. Adam was the kind of man who never failed to annoy her. Smart, confident, cocky, successful, with no real use for women, except as sex objects and decorations. He would never have dreamed of going out with a woman his own age. She didn't say it to Gray, but she had a profound disrespect for men like him. As far as she was concerned, he needed therapy, a good swift kick in the ass, and a powerful lesson. She hoped that one of these days, some smart young thing would deliver it to him. From what she could see, he had it coming. Gray didn't see it that way. He thought he was a great guy, who'd had his heart broken when Rachel left him.

“That doesn't justify using people, or disrespecting women.” Sylvia had had her heart broken too, more than once, but it hadn't made her use men as disposable objects. Far from it. It had made her retreat and lick her wounds, and think about how and why it had happened, before venturing out into the world again. But then again, she was a woman. Women functioned differently than men, and came to different conclusions. Most women who had been badly burned retreated to nurse their wounds, whereas most men who had been wounded ran headlong into the world, wreaking vengeance on others. She was sure, as Gray said, that Adam was nice to the women he went out with. The problem was that he had no respect for them, and would never have understood what she and Gray were sharing. He would never have let it happen, or dared to trust it. Which made her realize once again what a miracle it was that she and Gray had found each other.

She cuddled up next to him in bed that night, feeling safe and warm and lucky. And if, in the end, he went away again, at least they would have had this magical moment. She knew now that she could survive whatever happened. Gray loved that about her. She was a survivor, and he had proven over a lifetime that he was as well. If anything, their disappointments had made them kinder, wiser, and more patient. They had no desire to hurt each other or anyone else. And whatever else happened, or didn't, between them, along with the dreams, the hope, the romance, and the sex, best of all, they had become friends and were learning to love each other.

8

“I'M BACK. ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” CHARLIE CALLED Gray at his studio on a Monday, and sounded concerned. “I haven't heard from you in weeks. I called you a few times after I got back, but your phone is always on the machine, at whatever hour,” Charlie complained, as Gray realized he'd probably been at Sylvia's when Charlie called, but Gray said nothing to him. It had been a blissful weekend for Sylvia and Gray, and Charlie had no idea what had happened since Gray's return to New York. Charlie had realized while at friends' in the Hamptons over the weekend that he hadn't heard a word from Gray since shortly after he got home. Charlie had a couple of e-mails from him in early September while he was still on the boat, but nothing since. Usually, if all was well in his world, Gray eventually checked in, and this time he hadn't.

“I'm fine,” Gray said happily. “I've just been working.” He said nothing about Sylvia yet, but they had both agreed over the weekend that it was time to say something to his two friends. She wanted to wait to tell her children. He and Sylvia had been seeing each other for nearly a month, and from what both of them could discern, it was real. She was faintly worried that Charlie and Adam would be jealous, or even resentful. With a serious relationship in his life, Gray would be less available to them, and she had a feeling it wouldn't sit well with them. Gray had insisted that wasn't the case, but Sylvia was not convinced.

He told Charlie about his new gallery then, and Charlie whistled. “How did that happen? I can't believe you finally got off your duff and found a gallery to sell your work. It's about goddamn time.” Charlie was delighted for him.

“Yeah, I thought so too.” He didn't give Sylvia credit for it yet, but he intended to the next time he and Charlie met. He didn't want to talk about it over the phone.

“How about lunch one of these days? I haven't seen you since the boat,” Charlie said. He was going to a concert with Adam later that week. It was harder to get together with Gray. He tended to get involved in his work, and isolate himself for weeks on end. But he sounded in good spirits these days, and if he had signed up with a major gallery, things were obviously going well for him.

“I'd love to have lunch with you,” Gray said quickly. “When?” It was rare for him to be that anxious or enthusiastic about getting together. Most of the time, he had to be pried from his lair and dragged from his easel. Charlie didn't comment. He assumed that Gray was ebullient about the deal he'd made.

Charlie quickly consulted his book. He was swamped with meetings for the foundation, many of which included lunch. But he had an opening at lunchtime the following day. “How's tomorrow?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“The Yacht Club?” It was Charlie's favorite venue for lunch, either that or one of his other clubs. Gray found the Yacht Club painfully stuffy at times, as did Adam, but they humored him anyway.

“That sounds fine,” Gray said, sounding pensive.

“See you at one,” Charlie confirmed, and both men went back to work.

Gray told Sylvia the following morning that he and Charlie were having lunch, and she looked at him over the stack of pancakes he had just made.

“Is that good or bad?” she asked, looking nervous.

“Good, of course.” He sat down across the table from her with a plate of pancakes of his own. He loved cooking for her. He was becoming the breakfast chef, and she cooked for him at night, or they went out. Everything was falling into place, and they had settled into an easy routine. He left in the morning to go to his studio, where he no longer slept. She went to the gallery, and they met back at her place around six, when they both got home. He usually brought a bottle of wine, or a bag of groceries. He had bought lobsters for them over the weekend, which reminded them both of the golden days on the boat. He hadn't officially moved in with her, but he was sleeping there every night.

“Are you going to tell him about us?” she inquired cautiously.

“I thought I would. Is that still okay with you?” Knowing how independent she was, he tried not to step on her toes.

“It's okay with me,” she said easily. “I'm just not so sure it will be okay with him. It might be a bit of a shock, you know. He might have liked me fine as a passing face in Portofino, but he may be a little less enthused at the thought of this becoming a full-time deal,” which clearly it had become in the four weeks since Gray got home. And it was more than fine with them. Very, very fine.

“Don't be silly. He'll be happy for me. He's always been interested in the women I've been with.”

Sylvia laughed as she poured him a cup of coffee. “Yeah, because they were no threat to him. He probably figured they'd wind up in jail or an institution before they could cause a lot of trouble between the two of you.”

“Are you planning to cause trouble?” Gray asked with interest, looking slightly amused.

“No, of course not. But Charlie could perceive it that way. The three of you have been inseparable for ten years.”

“Yeah. And I'm still planning to see them. There's no reason why they can't see me with you.”

“Well, see what Charlie says. Maybe we should have him over for dinner. I've actually thought of that a couple of times recently. And Adam too, if you want,” although she liked him a great deal less. “I'm just not too crazy about having dinner with women the same age as my kids. Or younger, in Adam's case. But I'll do whatever you think is a good idea.” To Sylvia, it seemed like the diplomatic thing to do.

“Why don't we have Charlie over on his own first,” Gray suggested amiably. He knew she didn't approve of Adam, and he didn't want to push it. At least not quite so soon. But he liked the idea of including her with his two friends. They were an important part of his life, and so was she.

Both of them knew that including friends in their private world was going to be important to the health of the relationship in the long run. They couldn't sit there alone forever, holding hands, watching movies on TV, and spending their weekends in bed, although they both loved it, and it was certainly fun. But they needed more people in their life than that. Adding friends to the mix was yet another step toward achieving some kind of stability between them. Sylvia always felt as though there was some kind of rule book somewhere about relationships, and others knew its contents better than she. First you slept together, then he spent the night, eventually with increasing frequency. At some point, he needed to have a closet and some drawer space, they hadn't gotten there yet, and his clothes were hung all over her laundry room. She knew she was going to have to do something about that one of these days. After that he'd get a key, once you were sure that you didn't want to date anyone else, in order to avoid awkward moments, if he arrived at the wrong time. She had already given him one, there was no one else in her life, and sometimes he came home from the studio before she got back from the gallery. There was no point having him sit on the front stoop, waiting for her. She wasn't sure what came after that. Buying groceries, he had done that. Dividing up the bills. Answering the phone. She was definitely not there yet, in case she got calls from her kids, who knew nothing about Gray. Asking him to live with her, changing his address, putting his name on the mailbox and bell. Friends were a part of all that. It was going to be important that they like at least some of the same people. And in time, her kids. She wanted Gray to meet them too. She knew he was uneasy about that. He had said as much to her. She knew that was the easy part. Her kids were great, and she was sure he would love them too. All Emily and Gilbert wanted was for her to be happy. If they saw that he was kind to her, and they loved each other, then Gray would be welcomed into the family. She knew her kids.

They still had a long way to go, but they were on their way. Some of the hurdles ahead still frightened her, and she wasn't ready for them yet, and neither was he. But she knew that telling Adam and Charlie was a big one for him. She had no idea how they'd react to the news that she and Gray were as serious as they were. She hoped that Charlie wouldn't discourage him, or frighten him about her kids. She knew that that was Gray's one big Achilles' heel. He was phobic about kids, not only about having his own but about relating to someone else's. It didn't seem to matter to him that hers were adults and no longer children. He was panicked about getting attached to anyone to that degree. For a man who had spent a lifetime nurturing some of the most dysfunctional women on the planet, the one thing that terrified him was meeting, dealing with, or relating to their kids. To Sylvia, it appeared to be a completely irrational fear. But to Gray, it was real.

Gray helped her clean up the breakfast dishes, and he left for the studio first. She had some calls to make before she left for work. She wanted to call Emily and Gilbert. With the time difference, it was usually too late to call them when she got home from work. She hadn't said anything to them about Gray yet. Neither of them was coming home till Christmas. Sylvia thought there was plenty of time between now and then, three months in fact, to see how things were going with Gray, before she said anything to them. Both were out when she called that day, and she left loving messages on their answering machines. She stayed in close touch with her kids.

By the time Sylvia left for the gallery that day, Gray was already at the Yacht Club with Charlie. They were seated at his favorite table. It was an enormous elegant dining room, with vaulted ceilings, portraits of previous commodores, and ship models under glass around the room. Gray thought Charlie looked terrific, tan, fit, and rested.

“So how was the end of the trip?” Gray asked conversationally, after they both ordered chef's salads.

“It was fine. We didn't really go anywhere after you left. I had work to do, and the crew started doing some repairs. It was just nice to be on the boat, instead of here in the apartment.” He had been finding it lonely and depressing of late, and he was feeling restless. “So tell me about the gallery you signed with. Wechsler-Hinkley, isn't it?” It was an impressive name in the art world. “How did that happen? Did they just find you?” Charlie was happy for him. No one deserved it more than Gray. He had an enormous talent. “Or did you find them?” Charlie was smiling broadly in anticipation of the story.

“Actually, a friend gave me an introduction,” he said cautiously. Sylvia had made him nervous about Charlie's reaction, which he knew was silly. But now he felt anxious, and he looked it.

“What kind of friend?” Charlie asked with interest. He didn't know what or why, but there was something smoky about the story.

“A friend friend …you know… actually…a woman,” Gray said, feeling like a schoolboy reporting to his father.

“Now there's a twist,” Charlie said, looking amused. “What kind of woman? Do I know her? Is there a new wounded bird in your nest these days? One who works at a gallery, with good connections? If so, how clever of you,” Charlie praised him. But it wasn't what he thought. Gray wasn't dating some secretary who had asked her boss to see him. There was no wounded bird in Gray's nest, but rather a dynamo who had taken him under her wing, and flown like an eagle.

“Actually, I don't think it was clever. More like lucky.”

“There's no luck involved in this, and you know it,” Charlie said, echoing Sylvia's words to him. “You've got a major talent. If anyone got lucky, my friend, they did. But you're not answering my question.” Charlie's eyes met Gray's and held them. “Who's the woman? Or is she a secret?” Maybe she was married. That had happened to him before too, runaway wives who claimed they were separated, and weren't, or had an “arrangement.” And then their husbands showed up and tried to kill him. He had played out every disastrous scenario possible in the years of his eternal bachelorhood. Occasionally, Charlie worried about him. One of these days, an abusive ex-boyfriend of one of his nutcases was going to shoot him. “You're not in a mess again, I hope, are you?” Charlie looked worried, and Gray laughed ruefully as he shook his head.

“No, I'm not. But I've got a hell of a reputation, don't I? I guess I deserve it. I've dated some lulus.” He sighed and shook his head again, and decided to brave it. “But not this time. And yes, I'm seeing someone. But this one is different.” He said it proudly.

“Who is she? Do I know her?” Charlie was curious who the woman of the hour was. But whoever she was, Gray looked happy, Charlie had noticed. He looked relaxed, and pleased with life, very content, almost complacent. He looked as though he were on tranquilizers, or happy pills, but Charlie knew he wasn't. But there was an almost euphoric air about him.

“You've met her,” Gray said cryptically, still stalling, thinking of Sylvia's warnings.

“And? Do we need a drumroll?” Charlie teased him.

“You met her in Portofino.” He finally spat it out, but still looked nervous.

“I did? When?” Charlie's mind suddenly went blank. He couldn't remember anyone that Gray had dated on the trip. The only one who had scored on the trip was Adam in St. Tropez, Corsica, and Capri. Neither he nor Gray had dated anyone, as he recalled.

“Sylvia Reynolds,” Gray said calmly. “She was part of that whole group we met up with in Portofino and Sardinia.”

“Sylvia Reynolds? The art dealer?” Charlie looked stunned. He remembered Gray liking her and Adam teasing him about it, saying she wasn't his type, that she wasn't crazy enough, or in fact at all. Charlie remembered her perfectly. He had liked her. And apparently so did Gray. It was hard to believe that they had gotten into mischief somewhere along the way. “When did that happen?” he asked, still looking somewhat astounded. He had suspected on the trip that they liked each other, but not necessarily enough to see each other after.

“It happened when I got back. We've been seeing each other for nearly a month. She's a lovely woman. She introduced me to Wechsler-Hinkley, and two other galleries, as soon as she saw my work. The next thing I knew, I'd been signed. She doesn't let much grass grow under her feet,” he said admiringly, smiling at his friend.

“Well, you certainly look happy,” Charlie said, adjusting to the concept. Gray had never spoken of any woman as he had now. “I hate to admit it, but I agreed with Adam. I didn't think she was your type.”

“She's not,” Gray laughed ruefully again. “I guess that's a good thing. I'm not used to being around a woman who can take care of herself, and really doesn't need me for anything except a good time and a roll in the hay.”

“Is that what it is?” Charlie asked with a look of interest. He was going to have a lot to report to Adam when he saw him the following night.

“No, it's not. Actually, it's a lot more than that. I've been staying with her every night.”

Charlie looked shocked. “You've been seeing her for a month, and you moved in? Isn't that a little hasty?” It sounded to Charlie as though Gray had traded places with the little birds with broken wings.

“I didn't move in,” Gray said quietly. “I said I'm sleeping there.”

“Every night?” Gray felt like a naughty schoolboy again. Charlie did not look pleased. “Don't you think things are moving a little too quickly here? You're not giving up your studio, are you?” Charlie sounded panicked.

“Of course not. I'm just having a good time with a wonderful woman, and enjoying her company. She's a hell of a woman. Smart, capable, normal, decent, funny, giving, loving. I don't know where she's been all these years, but in three and a half weeks, my whole life has changed.”

“Is that what you want?” Charlie asked him pointedly. “From the sound of it, you're in it up to your neck. That can be a dangerous thing. She could get ideas.”

“About what? Like she'd want to move into my shit-hole of an apartment? Or steal my thirty-year-old luggage maybe? She has better art books than I do. I guess she could always steal my paints. My couch is pretty well shot, and hers looks pretty good to me. My plants died while I was in Europe. And I don't have a decent towel to my name. I own two frying pans, six forks, and four plates. I'm not sure what you think she could get out of me, but whatever it is, I'd actually be happy to give it to her. Relationships can be difficult, but believe me, Charlie, this is the first woman I've ever gone out with who doesn't look dangerous to me. The others definitely were.”

“I don't mean she's after your money. But you know how women get. They have a lot of illusions, and construe things differently. You ask them out to dinner, and the next thing you know, they're trying on a wedding dress, and registering at Tiffany. I just don't want to see you get dragged into anything.”

“I promise you, Charlie, I'm not being dragged anywhere. Wherever this thing is going, I'm a willing passenger on the train.”

“Good Lord, are you going to marry her?” Charlie stared at Gray, his eyes huge in his face.

“I don't know,” he said honestly. “I haven't thought about marriage in years. I don't think she wants to. She's been married, and it doesn't sound like it was a great experience for her. Her husband walked out on her with a nineteen-year-old girl, after twenty years of marriage. She has kids, she says she's too old to want more. Her gallery is a huge success. She has a hell of a lot more money than I ever will. She doesn't need me for that. And I have no desire to take advantage of her. We can each support ourselves, although she better than I. She has a terrific loft in SoHo, a career she loves. She's only had one man in her life since her divorce, and he committed suicide three years ago. I'm the first man she's been involved with since. I don't think either of us wants more than we have right now. Would I ever marry her, one day down the road? Probably. If she was willing, which I doubt, I'd be nuts if I didn't give it a shot. But right now, our biggest decision is where to have dinner every night, or who's going to cook breakfast. I haven't even met her kids,” he said calmly. Charlie was staring at him wide-eyed. It was quite a speech. He hadn't seen Gray in slightly over three weeks, and he was not only living with a woman, but talking about possibly marrying her one day. Charlie looked as if he'd been shot. And for a fraction of a second, seeing the look on his face, Gray realized that there was a distinct possibility that Sylvia had been right. Charlie was very obviously not pleased with the recent turn of events in Gray's life.

“You don't even like kids,” Charlie reminded him, “of any age. What makes you think that hers are any different?”

“Maybe they're not. Maybe that will be the deal-breaker for me. Maybe she'll get tired of me first. They live three thousand miles away, they're both grown up. And maybe at that distance, I can even stand her kids. All I can do is give it a shot. That's the best I can do. Maybe it'll work. Maybe not. All I know is that it's working now, and we're having a great time together. Beyond that, who the hell knows? I could be dead by next week. In the meantime, I'm having a hell of a good time. The best in my life.”

“Hopefully not,” Charlie said somberly, referring to his comment about being dead in a week. “But you may wish you were, if she turns out to be different than you think she is, and by then you'll be trapped.” He sounded ominous, and Gray smiled at him. Charlie was looking panicked, and Gray wasn't sure if it was for himself or on Gray's behalf. Either way, it was unnecessary. He was feeling anything but trapped. At the moment, he was a more than willing love slave in Sylvia's elegant loft.

“I'm not trapped,” Gray said quietly. “I'm not even living there. I'm just staying there. We're trying it out. And if it doesn't work for either of us, I'll go back to my studio, and that's that.”

“It never works that way,” Charlie said knowingly. “Some women cling, they hang on, they accuse, berate, they get hysterical, they call lawyers. They claim you made promises you never made. Somehow they get their claws into you, and the next thing you know they think they own you.” Charlie looked utterly terrified for him as he said it. He'd seen it happen to other men over the years, and didn't want something like that to happen to Gray. He knew how innocent he was at times.

“Trust me, neither Sylvia nor I want to be owned. We're too old for that. And she's a lot healthier than you give her credit for. If she walked away from her husband of twenty years without a backward glance, she's not going to be hanging around my neck like an albatross, trying to get her claws into me. If anyone walks, she's a lot more likely to do it first.”

“Is she commitment phobic? If she is, you could get seriously hurt.”

“And I haven't been hurt before? Charlie, be serious, life is about getting hurt. We get hurt every day when people we scarcely know won't take our calls. I've probably had more women walk out on me than any guy in New York. I survived it. I will again, if that happens. And yes, she probably is commitment phobic, so am I. Christ, I don't even want to meet her kids. I'm scared to death to get hurt or too attached, but this is the first time I've actually felt that the upside of the ride just might be worth a little pain, or even a lot of risk. No one's made any promises. No one's talking about marriage. All we're saying to each other right now is, where do you want to have dinner tonight? For the moment, we're both still safe.”

“You're never safe once you get involved,” Charlie said with a worried frown. “I just don't want you to get hurt.” But he had tipped his hand about how he felt about relationships. It wasn't just about the fatal flaws he found in his debutantes, it was about the pain he had been trying to avoid ever since his entire family died. Charlie was terrified to take a risk. Gray no longer was. It was a major milestone for him. And the fact that he was doing so was a huge threat to Charlie. It was as though an alarm bell had gone off somewhere. One of the members of the Bachelors' Army had defected. Gray saw everything in Charlie's eyes that Sylvia had feared, not only distrust and disapproval, but total panic. She was smarter than Gray knew, about people anyway, and she had Charlie pegged. Maybe Adam too. What Gray didn't like about it was that Charlie's reaction to his situation with Sylvia made him feel not only disloyal to him, but as though he was a total fool for feeling as he did. It was an unpleasant feeling, and put a pall on things, as Charlie signed the check. From Gray's perspective, it hadn't been an easy lunch, to say the least.

“Sylvia and I were hoping that you would come down to the loft for dinner one night.” Charlie put the pen down and stared at him.

“Do you realize what you sound like?” Charlie said with a grim look, as Gray shook his head. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear. “A married man, for God's sake. And don't forget you're not.”

“Is that the worst thing that could happen to me?” Gray finally snapped back. He was disappointed by Charlie's reaction. Severely so, in fact. He hadn't wanted Sylvia to be right. And she was. Dead on. “Somehow, I think colon cancer would be worse.”

“Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference,” Charlie said cynically. “Committing yourself to that extent can be a very insidious thing. You have to give up who you are to do it, and become someone no sane man would ever want to be.” He said it with total conviction, as Gray sighed and looked at him. Who had they become in all these years? How high a price had they paid for the freedom they were hanging on to so desperately? Maybe too high a price. In the end, after defending their independence for a lifetime, they were all going to wind up alone. And suddenly since he'd met Sylvia, it had occurred to Gray that that might not be such a worthy goal. He had said it to her only days before. He had finally realized that one day, when it came to that, he didn't want to die alone. One day the crazy, needy women, and the debutantes and Adam's bimbos, would stop hanging on, or even coming around. They would be at home with someone else. The paradise of freedom wasn't looking quite so good to Gray as it had till then.

“Do you really want to spend your old age with me?” Gray asked Charlie, looking him dead in the eye. “Is that what you want? Or would you like a better-looking pair of legs than mine across the table from you when you're floating around on the Blue Moon? Because if you don't think about that one of these days, I'm what you're going to wind up with. I love you a lot, you're my best friend, but when I get old and sick and tired and lonely one day, much as I'd like to see your face across the lunch table, it could just be that I'll want to crawl into bed with someone else who'll hold my hand. And unless you want to end up with Adam or me, maybe you'd better start thinking about it too.”

“What's happening to you? What's she feeding you? Ecstasy? Why the hell are you worrying about your old age now? You're fifty years old. You don't have to worry about that for another thirty years, and God knows what'll happen to us between now and then.”

“Maybe that is the point. I'm fifty years old. You're forty-six. Maybe it's time for us to grow up one of these days. Adam can still get away with it, he's a lot younger than we are. I just don't know if I want to live my life this way anymore. How many more women can I rescue? How many more restraining orders can I help them get? How many more boob jobs does Adam want to pay for? And how many more debutantes do you want to find something wrong with? If they're not good enough for you, Charlie, then to hell with them. But maybe it's time for you to find someone who is.”

“Spoken like a true traitor,” Charlie said, toasting him with the last of his wine. He emptied the glass and set it down. “I don't know about you, but I find this a very depressing conversation. You may be feeling Father Time nipping at your heels, which seems ridiculous to me, if you want to know what I think. But I'm not. And I'm not about to settle for some half-assed relationship with just any woman, because I'm afraid to die alone. I'd rather kill myself tonight. I'm not settling down, or even thinking about it, until I find the right one.”

“You never will,” Gray said sadly. The conversation had depressed him too. He had hoped that Charlie would share his joy, but instead he acted as though Gray had betrayed the cause. And in Charlie's eyes, he had.

“Why would you say a thing like that?” Charlie asked him, sounding annoyed.

“Because you don't want to. And as long as you don't, no one will ever measure up. You won't let them. You don't want to find the right one. Neither did I. And then suddenly Sylvia walked into my life and everything got turned around.”

“Sounds to me like your head got turned around. Maybe you should be on antidepressants and take another look at the relationship then.”

“Sylvia is the best antidepressant I've ever had. The woman is a total dynamo, and a joy to be around.”

“I'm happy for you if that's the case, and I hope it lasts. But until you figure that out, at least don't try to convert the rest of us, till you know if the theory works. I'm not convinced it does.”

“I'll let you know,” Gray said quietly as they both stood up. Gray followed Charlie out of the Yacht Club, and they stood looking at each other on the sidewalk for a long moment. It had been a tough lunch for both of them, and a disappointing one for Gray. He had wanted more from his friend—celebration, support, excitement. Anything but the cynicism and harsh comments they had traded over lunch.

“Take care of yourself,” Charlie said, patting him on the shoulder, as he hailed a cab with his other hand. He couldn't wait to get away. “I'll call you … and congratulations on the gallery!” he shouted as he got into the cab.

Gray stood on the sidewalk, watching him, waved, put his head down, and walked away. He had decided to walk back to his apartment. He needed some air, and time to think. He had never heard Charlie be as blunt and cynical as that, and he knew he was right in his own assessment of his friend's situation. Charlie didn't want to find “the right one.” Gray had never seen it quite that way before. But it was clear to him now. And contrary to what Charlie believed, Sylvia hadn't brainwashed him, she had opened his mind and filled his life with sunlight. Standing next to her, he could see what he had always wanted, and never dared to find. She made him brave enough to be the man he wanted to be, but had been too frightened to be before. Charlie was still afraid, and had been for a long time. Ever since Ellen and his parents died. No matter how much therapy he had had, and Gray knew he'd had a lot of it, Charlie was still terrified. And he was still running. Maybe he always would. It saddened Gray to think that that could happen. It seemed like a terrible waste to him. He had only known Sylvia for six weeks, but now that he knew her, and was opening his heart to her, his whole life had changed. It had cut him to the quick when, instead of celebrating with him, Charlie had called him a traitor. Gray had felt it like a physical blow, and the words were echoing in his head when his cell phone rang.

“Hi. How did it go?” It was Sylvia, sounding cheerful and bright, calling him from the office. She had finally convinced herself that Gray knew Charlie better than she did, and her assessment of his reaction to their romance was probably all wrong. She told herself Gray was right, and she was just being paranoid. “Did you tell him? What did he say?”

“It was terrible,” he said honestly. “It sucked. Among other things, he called me a traitor. The poor guy is scared shitless of any kind of commitment or relationship. I never saw it quite that clearly before. I hate to say it, but you were right. It was a very depressing lunch.”

“Shit. I'm sorry. You finally convinced me I was wrong.”

“You weren't.” He was learning that she seldom was. She had a good sense about people and their reactions, and she was remarkably tolerant of their quirks.

“I'm sorry. That must have been really upsetting for you. You're not a traitor, Gray. I know you still love them. There's no reason why you can't have a relationship, and them in your life too.” She wasn't trying to pull him away from them. But he had a strong sense that Charlie would, if Gray allowed him to.

“If they'll still let me play. I was pretty candid about what I said.”

“About us?”

“About him, too. I told him he's wasting his life, and he's going to die alone.”

“You could be right,” she said gently, “but he has to figure that out for himself. And maybe that's what he wants. He has that right. From what you've said, he's had some pretty major abandonment issues since his family died. That's hard to get over. Everyone he ever loved as a kid died. It's hard to convince someone like that that the next person he loves won't abandon him and die too. So he dumps them first.”

“That's pretty much what I said.” They both knew it was true. And beyond all his defenses, Charlie did too. He just wasn't prepared to admit it, even to his best friend. It was a lot easier to say that there was something wrong with the women in his life, to justify his rejecting them.

“I don't suppose he enjoyed hearing it much.”

“It didn't look that way,” he said, sounding sad. “But I didn't like what he said about us.”

“Hopefully, he'll get over it. If he'll come, we'll have him to dinner sometime. Let him simmer down for a while. You gave him a lot to swallow at one gulp. Us. And a lot of honesty about him.”

“Yeah, I did. I think he was pretty shocked about us. The last time he saw me, on the boat, I was a member in good standing of the Boys Club, and as soon as he was out of sight, I jumped ship. At least that's how he sees it.”

“How do you see it?” she asked, sounding worried.

“Like I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I told him that too. I don't think he believed me. He thinks you've got me on drugs.” At that, Gray laughed. “If you do, don't detox me now. I'm loving it.” He sounded happier again.

“Me too.” She smiled, thinking about him, and he could hear it in her voice. She had a client waiting for her then, and told him she'd see him at the apartment after work. “Try not to worry about it too much,” she told him again. “He loves you. He'll calm down.” Gray wasn't as sure. He thought about it long and hard as he walked to his apartment. Their lunch had come as a shock not only to Charlie, but to Gray as well. … “Spoken like a true traitor.” … he could still hear Charlie's words ringing in his head, block after block, after block.…

Charlie was thinking of everything Gray had said all the way uptown. He had plenty of time to think about it. His appointment was at the children's center they had just funded, in the heart of Harlem. He still couldn't believe all that Gray had said. And more of it than he wanted to admit had hit its mark. He had had the same concerns as Gray recently, about dying alone. But he wasn't prepared to discuss terrors like that with anyone but his therapist. He knew Adam was too young to get it, but Gray did. At forty-one, Adam was still building his career, and playing hard. Charlie and Gray had already reached the top of their game, and were making their way down the other side of the mountain. And Charlie was no longer as sure as he once had been that he was willing to go it alone. In the end, he might have no other choice. He envied Gray more than he wanted to admit that he had found someone he wanted to make the final leg of the journey with. But who knew if it would last? Probably not. Nothing ever did.

He was thinking about it with a sorrowful look, and remembering bits and pieces of the conversation to share with his therapist, when the cab stopped at the address he'd given.

“Are you going to be okay here?” the driver asked with a look of concern. Charlie looked as though he should have been stopping somewhere on Fifth Avenue rather than in the heart of Harlem. He was wearing a Hermès tie, a gold watch, and an expensive suit. But he didn't like going to the Yacht Club looking like a slob.

“I'll be fine.” He thanked the driver with a smile, and handed him a handsome tip.

“Do you want me to wait? Or come back?” He hated to leave him there.

“Don't worry about it, but thanks a lot.” He smiled again, and tried to force his conversation with Gray from his head, as he looked up at the building. It was in serious need of repair. Their million dollars could do a lot, and he hoped it would.

In spite of himself, he was still thinking about Gray as he walked to the front door. The worst of it was that he felt as though he was losing him to Sylvia. He hated to admit to himself that he was jealous of her, but in his heart of hearts, he knew he was. He didn't want to lose his best friend, to some pushy dynamo of a woman, as Gray described her—the dynamo, not the pushy part— just because she had the connections to find a gallery for him. She was obviously sucking up to him, and wanted something from him. And if she was manipulative enough, which he hoped she wasn't, she could blow their friendship right out of the water, and banish Charlie forever. The worst fear he had was of losing his friend. Death by marriage, or cohabitation, or spending the night, or whatever the hell Gray said it was. Charlie didn't trust her. Gray already seemed as though he'd been possessed. She was brainwashing him, and the worst of it was that some of what he had said made sense. Too much, in fact. Especially about Charlie. It had to come from her. Gray would never have spoken to him that way on his own. Never. She had turned him inside out and upside down. And Charlie didn't like it one bit.

He stood at the door of the Children's Center for a long time after ringing the bell. Finally a young man with a beard, in jeans and a T-shirt, came to open it for him. He was African American, and had a wide white smile and velvet chocolate-colored eyes. When he spoke, it was with the lilt of the Caribbean in his voice.

“Hello. Can I help you?” He looked at Charlie as though he had been dropped from another planet. They never saw people come to the center dressed as he was. The young man managed to conceal his amusement and led him in.

“I have an appointment with Carole Parker,” Charlie explained. She was the director of the center. All Charlie knew about her was that she was a social worker, and her credentials were excellent. She had gone to Princeton as an undergraduate, got her MSW at Columbia, and was working toward her doctorate. Her specialty and area of expertise was abused kids.

This was a safe house for abused children and their mothers, but unlike other similar establishments, the main focus was on the children, more than their mothers. An abused woman without a child, or one whose children hadn't been abused, could not stay there. Charlie knew that they were doing a research study, in conjunction with NYU, on preventing child abuse, rather than just putting balm on the end result. There were ten full-time staff working there, six part-time employees, who mostly worked nights and were, for the most part, graduate students, two psychiatrists who worked closely with them, and a flock of volunteers, many of whom were inner-city teenagers who had themselves been abused. It was a new concept to use survivors of child abuse to help younger kids who were enduring the same thing. Charlie liked everything he'd read about it. Parker had started it herself three years before, when she got her master's degree. She was planning to become a psychologist, specializing in urban problems, and inner-city kids. She was running the place on a shoestring. She herself had raised over a million dollars to buy the house and start it, and his foundation had matched the funds she'd been able to raise on her own. From what he'd read of her, she was an impressive young woman, and the only other thing he knew about her was that she was thirty-four years old. He had no idea what she looked like, and had only spoken to her on the phone. She had been professional and businesslike, but had sounded kind and warm. She had invited him to come and see the place, and had promised to give him a tour herself. Everything on paper had checked out so far, including the director herself. She was young, but allegedly capable. The references she'd supplied to the foundation board had been extremely impressive. Some of them were from the most important people in New York. No matter how well trained and capable she was, she also had some powerful connections. The mayor himself had written a reference for her. She had met a lot of important people, and impressed them favorably, while putting the center together.

The young man led Charlie to a small, battered waiting room, and offered him a cup of coffee as soon as he sat down, which Charlie declined. He'd had enough to drink with Gray over lunch, and most of what had happened there was still sticking in his throat, but as he waited for her, he forced it from his mind.

He glanced at the people walking by the open door of the waiting room. There were women, young children, teenagers wearing T-shirts that identified them as volunteers. There was an informal basketball game going on in a courtyard outside, and he noticed a sign inviting neighborhood women to come to a group twice a week, to talk about preventing child abuse. He wasn't sure what their impact on the community had been so far, but at least they were doing what they said. As he watched the kids throw basketballs through the hoop, a door opened, and a tall blond woman stood looking down at him. She was wearing jeans, running shoes, and one of their T-shirts herself. He realized as he stood up to shake hands with her that she was nearly as tall as he was. She was statuesque, six feet tall, with a patrician face. She looked as though she should have been a model not a social worker. She smiled when she greeted him, but her manner was official and somewhat cool. They needed the funds the foundation had given them, but it went against the grain with her to grovel or kiss his feet, although she knew it would help. She still had trouble doing that on command, and she wasn't sure what he expected of her. She seemed slightly suspicious and on the defensive as she invited him into her office.

There were posters on the walls everywhere, and schedules, memos, announcements, federal warnings to staff. Suicide hotlines, poison control, a diagram showing how to do the Heimlich. There was a bookcase full of reference books, at least half of which had spilled onto the floor. Her desk was buried, her in-box was full, and she had framed photographs of children on her desk, all of whom had come through the center at some point. It was definitely a working office. Charlie knew that she ran all the community and children's groups herself. The only one she didn't run was the one for abused mothers. There was a woman from the community who had been trained and came to do that. Carole Parker did just about everything else herself, except scrub the floors and cook. Her bio had said that in a pinch she was willing to do that too, and had. She was one of those women who were interesting to read about, but were sometimes daunting to meet. Charlie hadn't decided yet if she was. She was certainly striking, but when she sat down at her desk, she smiled at him and her eyes got warm. She had piercing, big blue eyes, like a doll.

“So, Mr. Harrington, you've come to check us out.”

But even she had to admit that for a million dollars, he had the right to do so. The foundation had actually given them exactly $975,000, which was precisely what she'd asked for. She hadn't had the guts to ask for a full million. Instead, she'd asked him to match what she had raised herself over the past three years. She had been stunned when she was notified by the foundation that their grant request had been approved. She had applied to at least a dozen other foundations at the same time, and all of the others had turned her down. They said they wanted to follow the center's progress for the next year, before they committed funds to her project. So she was grateful to him, but she always felt like a dancing monkey when money people came to look around. She was in the business of saving lives and repairing damaged kids. That was all that interested her. Raising money to do it was a necessary evil, but not one she enjoyed. She hated having to charm people in order to get money out of them. The acute need of the people she served had always been convincing enough for her. She hated having to convince others, who led golden lives. What did they know about a five-year-old who had had bleach poured in her eyes and would be blind for the rest of her life, or a boy who had had his mother's hot iron put on the side of his face, or the twelve-year-old who had been raped by her father all her life and had cigarettes stubbed out on her chest? Just how much did it take to convince people that these kids needed help? Charlie didn't know what she was going to say to him, but he could see her passion in her eyes, and a certain degree of disapproval, as she glanced at his well-tailored suit, expensive tie, and gold watch. Whatever he had spent on them, she knew she could have put to better use. He instantly read her thoughts, and felt foolish for coming there looking like that.

“I'm sorry not to be dressed more appropriately. I had a business lunch downtown.” It wasn't true, but he couldn't have gone to the Yacht Club dressed as she was, in T-shirt, Nikes, and jeans. As he said it to her, he took his suit jacket off, unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves, took off his tie, and stuffed it in his pocket. It wasn't much of an improvement, but he'd made an effort at least, and she smiled.

“Sorry,” she said apologetically. “PR isn't my strong suit. I love what we do here. I'm not so great at rolling out the red carpet for VIPs. For one thing, we don't have one, and even if we did, I wouldn't have time to roll it out.” Her hair was long, and she was wearing it in a thick braid down her back. She looked almost like a Viking as she sat there, with her long legs stretched out under the desk. She looked like anything but a social worker, but her credentials said she was. And then he remembered that she had gone to Princeton, and he said it was his alma mater too, hoping to break the ice.

“I liked Columbia better,” she said easily, visibly unimpressed that they had gone to the same school. “It was more honest. Princeton was a little too full of itself for my taste. Everyone is so wrapped up in the history of the place. It seemed to me that it was a lot more about the past than the future.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Charlie said cautiously, but nonetheless was impressed by her remarks. In some ways, she was as daunting and earnest as he had feared, in others not at all. “Were you in an eating club?” he asked, still hoping to score points with her, or find a common bond.

“Yes,” she said, looking embarrassed, “I was. I was in Cottage.” She paused for a beat and then smiled knowingly at him. She knew his type. Aristocratic men like him attended Princeton in abundance. “And you were in Ivy.” It didn't accept women even while she was there. She had hated the boys who belonged to it. Now it just seemed sophomoric and foolish. She smiled when he nodded.

“I won't say something stupid like 'How did you guess?' ” It was obvious that she knew the type, but she knew no more than that about him. “Is there a possibility you'd forgive me?”

“Yes,” she laughed at him, and suddenly looked younger than she was. She wore no makeup, and never bothered to when she was at the center. She was too busy to care about vanity or details. “Nine hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars from your foundation says I can forgive you just about anything, as long as you don't abuse your children.”

“I don't have any. So at least I'm not guilty on that one.” He sensed that she didn't like him, which quickly became a challenge to him to turn it around. She was a very pretty woman after all, no matter how many degrees she had. And few women were able to resist Charlie's charm, when he chose to turn it on. He wasn't sure yet if Carole Parker was worth the effort. In some ways, she seemed like a hardened case. She was politically correct to her core, and sensed that he wasn't. She was surprised to hear that he didn't have kids, and then vaguely remembered hearing that he wasn't married. She wondered if he was gay. If Charlie had known that, he would have been crushed. She didn't care what his sexual preferences were. All she wanted was his money, for her kids at the center.

“Would you like to take a look around?” she offered politely, standing up again, and looking him right in the eye. In high heels, she would have been exactly as tall as he was. Charlie was six foot four, and their eyes were the same color. Their hair was equally blond. For a shocking instant, he realized that she looked like his sister, and then he did everything he could to forget it. It was too unsettling.

She didn't see the look on his face as he followed her out her office door, and for the next hour she took him into every room, every office, dragged him down every hallway. She showed him the garden that the children had planted on the roof, introduced him to many of the children. She introduced him to Gabby with her Seeing Eye dog, and told him his foundation had paid for it. They were both currently in training. Gabby had named the big black Lab they'd given her Zorro. Charlie stopped and patted it, with his head bent, so Carole wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. The stories she told him, when the children weren't around, were heartbreaking. For a few minutes, they watched a group in progress, and he was vastly impressed as he listened. Carole normally led the group, but she had taken the afternoon off from her duties to meet him, which she usually thought was a waste of time. She felt that her time was better spent with their clients.

She introduced him to their volunteers, working hard at occupational therapy with the younger kids, and a reading program for those who had reached high school without being able to read or write. He remembered reading about the program in her brochure, and also that she had won a national award for the results they had achieved so far. Every one of their clients was literate by the time they left the outpatient services of the center after a year. And the kids' parents were welcome to join the adult reading program too. They also offered counseling and therapy for kids and adults alike.

She took him from top to bottom, introduced him to everyone, and finally to her assistant, Tygue, the young man who had opened the door for him. Carole told Charlie that he was on loan from a doctoral program from Yale. She had pulled in some incredible people to work with her, many of whom she had known before, and some of whom she had found along the way. She explained that she and Tygue had gotten their master of social work degrees together. She had started the center after that, and he had gone to Yale to continue his studies. He was originally from Jamaica, and Charlie loved listening to him speak. After they had chatted with him for a few minutes, she walked Charlie back into her office. He looked drained.

“I don't know what to say to you,” he said, sounding humble as he looked at her. “This is quite a place. You've done an amazing job. How did you put this together?” He was in awe of what she'd done, and however ornery she'd been with him at first, and contemptuous about his eating club, it was obvious to him that she was quite an extraordinary human being. A lot more so than he, he felt. At thirty-four, she had created a place that literally turned people's lives around, and made a difference for a number of human beings, old and young.

He had been so busy listening to every word she said, once they started the tour, that he had completely forgotten to charm her. Instead, she had knocked him right off his feet, not with her charm, or her striking good looks, but with her tireless work and achievement. The center she had created, however dilapidated it still looked, was an amazing place.

“This was my dream since I was a kid,” she said simply. “I saved every penny I ever got from the time I was fifteen. When I was in my teens, I waited on tables, mowed lawns, sold magazines, coached swimming. I did everything I could to make this place happen, and I finally did. I saved about three hundred thousand dollars of my own, including some money I made in the stock market later on. The rest I shook out of people, until I finally had enough to put a down payment on the building and get started. It was pretty touch and go at first. But it won't be anymore,” she said honestly, and gratefully at last, “thanks to your foundation. I'm sorry I wasn't more welcoming at first. I hate having to justify what we're doing. I know we're doing great work, but sometimes people who come here don't see it, or don't understand the value of what we're doing. When I saw the suit and the watch,” she said sheepishly, “I figured you wouldn't get it. It was stupid of me. I think I have a prejudice against people who went to Princeton, including myself. We're all so privileged, and don't know it. What I see here is the real deal. The rest just isn't, or at least not to me.” He nodded. Charlie didn't know what to say to her, she was an awe-inspiring woman, and he was in fact in awe of her. Not daunted or cowed, but in awe. He was suddenly embarrassed about the suit and gold watch too.

He pointed to the watch apologetically. “I promise I'll throw it out the window on the way home.”

“You won't have to.” She laughed openly. “One of our neighbors will probably take it off your arm. I'll have Tygue walk you out. You'll never make it to the curb.”

“I'm tougher than I look,” he said, smiling at her, and she had warmed up to him considerably. After all, whatever his eating club had been, he had given them nearly a million dollars, and she was grateful to him for that. She wondered if she had been a little tough on him at first, and knew she had. She just hated guys like him, who had never seen the other side of life. On the other hand, he ran a foundation that supported some impressive causes, so he couldn't be all bad, no matter how spoiled he was. She would have gagged on the spot if she had known he had a 240-foot yacht, but he didn't tell her that.

“I'm tougher than I look too,” she said honestly, “but you still have to be careful in this neighborhood. If you come back, wear your sweats and running shoes.” She had noticed his expensive John Lobb shoes, custom made for him at Hermès.

“I will,” he promised, and meant it. If only to avoid irritating her. He liked it a lot better when she looked as though she approved of him, as she did now. The look in her eyes when he walked in had been more than a little chilly. Now things were going a lot better, and he liked the idea of coming back to visit the center again. He said as much to her as she and Tygue walked him to the front door.

“Come back anytime,” she said with a warm smile. And just as she did, Gabby came confidently down the stairs with Zorro. She was holding fast to his harness, and recognized Tygue and Carole's voices.

“What are you doing down here?” Carole said with a look of surprise. The children usually didn't come downstairs, except to eat or play in the garden. The offices were all on the ground floor, which made more sense. Particularly if abusive parents showed up to look for their kids, or assault them again, when they had been mandated to Carole's care by the courts, as was Gabby's case. They were safer out of sight upstairs.

“I came down to see the man with the nice voice. Zorro wanted to say good-bye.” This time even Carole saw the tears in Charlie's eyes. Fortunately, Gabby didn't, as Carole gently touched his arm. The child was impossible to resist, and she ripped out his heart, as she approached them with a broad smile.

“Good-bye, Zorro,” Charlie said, first patting the dog, and then gently touching the child's hair. He looked down at her, but his smile was wasted on her. And nothing he could do for her now would ever change what had happened to her, neither the memory, nor the result. All he had been able to do was indirectly pay for her dog. It seemed so much less than enough, which was what Carole always felt about what she did. “Take good care of him, Gabby. He's a handsome dog.”

“I know,” she said, with a sightless grin, bending down to kiss Zorro's snout. “Will you come back and see us again? You're nice.”

“Thank you, Gabby. You're nice too, and very beautiful. And I will come back to see you again. I promise.” He looked right at Carole as he said it, and she nodded. In spite of her initial prejudices about him, she liked him. He was probably a decent human being, just very fortunate and very spoiled. She had been fleeing from men like him all her life. But at least this one cared about making a difference. A million dollars' worth of difference. It said something about him. And he had cared enough to come up and see the place. Even more than that, she liked the way he talked to the little girl. It seemed too bad that he didn't have kids himself.

Tygue had found a cab for him by then, and came back inside to tell him it was waiting outside.

“Put your helmet on,” Carole teased, “and hide the watch.”

“I think I can make it from here to the cab.” He smiled at her again, and thanked her for the tour. It had made not only his day, but possibly his year. He said good-bye to Gabby again, and turned one last time on his way out the door to look at her and the dog. He shook hands with Tygue, and carrying his jacket over his shoulder, with his sleeves still rolled up, he slipped into the cab and gave the driver his address. He sat in silence, thinking of all he had seen that afternoon, feeling a lump in his throat every time he thought of Gabby and her dog.

Charlie walked through his front door and picked up the phone when he got home. He called Gray on his cell phone. A lot of things had come clear to him that afternoon, about what mattered and what didn't.

Gray answered his cell phone on the second ring. He and Sylvia were cooking dinner, and he was surprised to hear it was Charlie. He had been telling her about the lunch again, and how upset he still was by Charlie's reaction to his announcement that he and Sylvia were dating.

“I'm sorry I was such an asshole at lunch today,” Charlie said without preamble. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually think I was jealous.” Gray's mouth was hanging open as he listened and Sylvia watched him. She had no idea who it was or what they were saying, but Gray looked dumbstruck.

“I don't want to lose you, pal. I think it scared me, thinking that things were different. But what the hell, if you love her, I guess I can get used to her too.” There were tears in his eyes again as he said it. It had been an emotional afternoon, and the last thing he wanted was to lose a friend like Gray. They loved each other like brothers.

“You're not going to lose me,” Gray said in a choked voice. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was the friend he had always known Charlie was. In the end, Sylvia was wrong.

“I know,” Charlie said, sounding like himself again. “I figured it out this afternoon. And then I fell in love.”

“No shit,” Gray said with a grin. “With who?”

“A six-year-old blind girl with a black Lab Seeing Eye dog named Zorro. She's the cutest kid I've ever seen. Her mother poured bleach in her eyes, and she's never going to see again. Apparently we bought her the dog.” The two men were silent for a moment, as tears ran down Charlie's cheeks. He couldn't get the memory of her out of his head, and knew he never would. Whenever he thought about the Children's Center, he knew he would always think of Gabby and Zorro, long after she was gone.

“You're a good man, Charlie Harrington,” Gray said, overcome with emotion. All afternoon he had thought he was losing his friend. Charlie had sounded so angry, and so bitter, especially when he'd called Gray a traitor. But he seemed to have forgiven him. It had only taken a few hours.

“You're a good man too,” Charlie said, looking around his empty apartment, which suddenly seemed emptier than ever. And as he did, he couldn't help thinking about Sylvia and Gray. “Invite me to dinner sometime. I hope she cooks better than you do. The last dinner you cooked for me damn near killed me. Whatever you do, don't make her your secret goulash.”

“As a matter of fact, it's bubbling away on the stove at this very moment. I was teaching her how to do it.”

“Take my advice, flush it now, or the romance will be over. I nearly had to get my stomach pumped. Call in for Chinese takeout.”

“O ye of little faith… she's already had it. She loves it.”

“She's lying. Believe me, no one in the world could love your goulash. Either she's crazy or she loves you.”

“Maybe both. I'm kind of hoping that's the case.”

“It's not in my best interest,” Charlie admitted cautiously, “but for your sake, so am I. You deserve a good one for a change. I guess maybe so do I. If I ever find one.” He hesitated, and then went on. “Some of what you said today is true. I'm not sure what I want, or if, or who. My life is a lot simpler like this.” Simpler, but lonely. He had been more aware of it recently than ever in his life, ever since he had come back to New York.

“You'll find one, if you want to. You'll know when it's right, Charlie. I did. One day it just walks into your life and hits you on the head.”

“I hope so.” They talked for a few more minutes and hung up. Gray said the goulash was burning, which Charlie commented was a blessing.

After he hung up, he sat in the silence of his apartment, thinking of the tour he'd taken of the Children's Center. All he could think of at first was Gabby and Zorro… then Tygue, the doctoral student from Jamaica, by way of Yale… and then Carole Parker. They were an amazing group of people. He found himself staring into space then, thinking of the way she had looked at him when they first met. She had absolutely hated him, and had nothing but contempt for him as she took in his suit and watch. And in spite of that, he liked her. He liked what she had done, what she believed in, how hard she had worked to set it up. She was an impressive woman, with an extraordinarily bright mind and a lot of guts. He had no idea how or why or when, but he knew he wanted to see her again. He had a lot to learn from her, not only about what she was doing with his money at the center, but about life. And he hoped that one day, with luck, in spite of the suit and gold watch, they could be friends.

9

ADAM PICKED CHARLIE UP IN A RIDICULOUSLY LONG limousine on his way to the concert. One of his most important clients was singing. The whole concert tour had been an agony for him, and the contracts relating to it a nightmare to negotiate, but now that the big night had come, he was in great spirits. The star herself was one of the most important artists in the country, if not the world. Vana. A single word. A singular woman. They had booked her into Madison Square Garden, and every screaming teenager would be there, along with every groupie, weirdo, and adult rock-and-roll fan in New York. It wasn't the kind of event Charlie went to often, but Adam had convinced him it would be fun and said he had to go.

Scalpers were selling seats at four and five thousand dollars a ticket. People had stood on line for two or three days to buy them when the box office opened. It was the hottest show of the year, and Adam had warned Charlie to wear jeans. He didn't want him showing up in a suit, and getting the shit kicked out of him. He had enough to worry about that night, without worrying about him. And of course, Adam not only had backstage passes but front-row seats. It was a night no one would forget. He just hoped everything would go smoothly. All three of his cell phones kept going off all at once as they rode to Madison Square Garden. He couldn't even talk to Charlie until they were halfway there. He had gesticulated hello to him, and poured himself a drink in the limo, as they stopped at a red light.

“Jesus, and my doctor wonders why my blood pressure is so high,” he finally said, grinning at Charlie, who was vastly amused by his antics. Listening to Adam scream at everyone who called him was half the fun. “This business is going to kill me. What's happening with Gray? Is he okay? He never calls me.” But then again, with the insanity of Vana coming to town and performing at the Garden, he hadn't had time to call him either. Adam said he was up to his ears in concert shit.

“He's fine,” Charlie said cryptically, and then decided to tell him. “Actually, he's in love.”

“Yeah, sure. I'll bet he is. Where'd he find her? Coming out of rehab or an institution?” Adam laughed as he finished his drink, and Charlie grinned.

“Portofino,” Charlie said, looking smug, and ever more amused. Adam was never going to believe it, and at first neither had he. He was still getting used to the idea himself.

“What, Portofino?” He was looking stressed beyond belief and totally distracted. One of his assistants had just called him to say that Vana's hairdresser hadn't shown up with her wigs, and she was having a fit. They were rushing someone to her hotel to pick them up, but they might have to start late. It was all he needed. The unions would go nuts if they ran late, although they always did. He wasn't producing the show, but if she violated her contract, there would be endless lawsuits. He was there to protect her from herself. Vana was famous for walking right off the stage.

“Gray met her in Portofino,” Charlie said quietly, as Adam stared at him.

“Met who in Portofino?” He looked blank, and Charlie laughed at him. This was no time to be discussing Gray's love life, but it was something to talk about, as they sat in traffic and Adam fumed. He wanted to get to Vana before she did something illegal, insane, or quit.

“The woman Gray's in love with,” Charlie continued. “He says he's staying with her, not living with her, staying with her. I gather that's not the same thing.”

“Of course it isn't,” Adam said, sounding irritable. “Staying with her means he's too tired to get out of bed after he makes love to her, which is probably just due to laziness and age. Living with her is a commitment he'd be a fool to make. He can get just as much out of her, and have a better sex life, if he just stays with her. Once he lives with her, it's all over. He'll be taking the garbage out, picking her dry cleaning up, and cooking for her.”

“I don't know about the dry cleaning and the garbage, but he's cooking for her.”

“He's insane. If he's only staying with her, he doesn't have a closet or a key. And he can't answer the phone. Does he have a key?”

“I forgot to ask.” Charlie was laughing by then. Adam looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown while they waited for the light to change. Talking about Gray at least distracted him. And Charlie was fascinated to hear the rules, according to Adam. There seemed to be a whole list of things that translated to what one's status was. Charlie had never qualified for most of them, though once he'd had a key.

“Who the hell is she?”

“Sylvia Reynolds, the art dealer we met in Portofino. Apparently, Gray got closer to her than we realized, while you were chasing her niece.”

“Oh Jesus, the girl with the face of an angel and the brain like Albert Einstein. You can never get girls like that into bed, they talk you to death and you die of old age trying to get into their knickers. She had great legs, as I recall,” Adam said regretfully. He always missed the ones that got away. The ones that didn't faded for him in a day.

“The niece had great legs?” Charlie asked, trying to remember. All he could recall now was her face.

“No, Sylvia. The art dealer. What the hell is she doing with Gray?”

“She could do a lot worse,” Charlie said loyally, and Adam agreed. “He's crazy about her, I hope she's as crazy about him as he thinks she is. But if she's eating his goulash, maybe she is.” He didn't tell Adam how upset he'd been when Gray first told him about it over lunch at the Yacht Club. It had been a momentary lapse that still embarrassed him, remembering his own lack of grace. Gray seemed to have gotten over it, and hearing that Gray was “staying” with Sylvia didn't seem to bother Adam a bit. He had other, more important things on his mind that night, like Vana walking off the stage if they didn't find her wigs. The lawsuits that would generate, given the size and importance of the concert, would keep him busy for the next ten years.

“It won't last long,” Adam commented about Gray's new romance. “She's too normal. He'll be tired of her in a week.”

“He doesn't seem to think so. He says that's why he likes her, and he doesn't want to die alone.”

“Is he sick?” At that, Adam looked genuinely worried, and Charlie shook his head.

“Just thinking about his life, I guess. He leads a pretty solitary life, when he's painting. She got him into a terrific gallery, so I guess this isn't entirely a bad thing.”

“Maybe it's more serious than we think, if she's doing things like that for him. I'd better call him. We don't want him going off the deep end over a great pair of legs.” Adam started to look worried again, as Charlie shook his head.

“From the sound of it, he already did. We'll have to watch how this one plays out,” Charlie said cautiously, as they pulled up to Madison Square Garden in the long black limousine. Charlie couldn't believe the crowds. It took them nearly twenty minutes to push their way in, with the help of the police. There were two plainclothes cops waiting to take them to their seats.

Adam disappeared to check on things backstage, as soon as they found their seats. Charlie said he'd be fine, and sat watching the crowds swirling around him. And as he did, he noticed a pretty blond girl in the shortest skirt he'd ever seen. Her hair was long and teased. She was wearing high-heeled black leather boots, and a bright red leather jacket. She was wearing a lot of makeup and looked about seventeen. She asked him politely if there was anyone sitting in the empty seat, and he said there was. With that, she disappeared. He saw her again a few minutes later, speaking to someone else. He had the feeling she was cruising the theater, looking for a place to sit, and eventually she came back to him.

“Are you sure there's someone sitting there?” she asked somewhat doggedly. He could see that she was older than he had first estimated, but not much, she was a striking-looking girl, and she had an incredible figure, most of which seemed to be straining at the seams of a black see-through blouse that gave him a generous view of her voluptuous curves. She would have looked like a hooker if there hadn't been something so innocent about her face.

“Yes, I'm sure,” Charlie assured her again that the seat was occupied. “My friend just went backstage.”

“Oh my God!” she said with an incredulous look. “Does your friend know Vana?” She said it as though asking if he knew God, and Charlie smiled at her and nodded.

“He works for her. More or less.”

“Do you mind if I sit down until he gets back?” she asked, and he wondered if she was cruising him, but he didn't think so. She was far more interested in meeting Adam, once she knew he was backstage. “My ticket is in the back row, and I can't see anything. I just thought I'd see if there were any empty seats up here, but I guess not. I waited on line for mine for two days. I brought a sleeping bag and camped out. My friend and I took turns.” He nodded, looking slightly dumbfounded as she sat down next to him. She looked no worse than the rest of the crowd, although she would have stood out like a sore thumb almost anywhere else. She looked like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman before Richard Gere transformed her on Rodeo Drive, and she had the same kind of breathtaking good looks. The outfit she was wearing was pretty breathtaking too, especially the boots, which had six-inch heels, and went well over her knees. Her skirt was barely decent, and the blouse would have blown from here to kingdom come if she sneezed. It was quite a look. But it seemed to work for her.

Charlie couldn't help wondering what she looked like without the makeup, with her hair pulled back, in a clean pair of jeans. Probably even more striking than she did. He wondered if she was some kind of model, or an aspiring actress, but he was cautious about talking to her. He didn't want to encourage her to stay. She was perched on the edge of Adam's seat, and he looked stunned when he returned. He thought Charlie had picked her up, and he was impressed. He didn't think he had it in him to pursue a girl like her, in five minutes or less.

“They found her wigs. Her hairdresser was drunk off her ass in the hotel. But they got her someone else. Whoever got her saved the day,” Adam explained, and looked with interest and confusion at the girl sitting in his seat. “Is there some reason why you're sitting here?” he asked her bluntly. “Have we met?” He couldn't help looking straight into her blouse, and then up at the perfect face. She was a knockout-looking girl, and just his type, on a lucky day.

“Not yet.” She smiled at him. “My seat sucks. I was just talking to your friend. He says you work for Vana. I bet that's cool.” She was all goo-goo eyes and hero worship as she smiled at him.

“Sometimes it's cool. Tonight it wasn't so cool.” Vana had been threatening to walk out when he got backstage. And then she calmed down when they found her wigs and someone else's hairdresser, but he didn't bother to try and explain it to this girl. He wasn't sure she would have understood. He assumed her IQ was questionable, but he thought her tits were great. IQ was never a huge issue for him. He preferred tits to brains, ever since Rachel. “Look, I hate to bother you, and I'd love to sit here and talk to you, but she's going to start in about five minutes, after they do her hair. You'd better go back to your seat.” The girl in the denim miniskirt and black patent-leather boots looked like she was going to burst into tears. Adam looked exasperated, but there was nothing he could do for her. There were no empty seats, and then he had an idea. He had no clue as to why he was helping her, and he figured he'd probably regret it, but he grabbed her arm, pulled her out of the seat, and beckoned her to come with him. “If you promise to behave yourself, I can get you a seat on the stage.” They always saved a few in case someone unexpected turned up.

“Are you serious?” She was awestruck, as he led her quickly toward the stage, and showed his pass to one of the guards keeping the riffraff out. They instantly let him through. The girl knew he was completely serious by then. She hadn't had a stroke of luck like that in years. Her friend had told her she was crazy to head for the front row, but it had paid off big-time for her that night, as Adam helped her up the steps in her short skirt and high-heeled boots. He got a fabulous view of her bottom while she did, and had no qualms about checking it out. He figured that if she wore a skirt like that, she probably expected him to.

“What's your name, by the way?” he asked for no particular reason, as he led her to a row of folding chairs tucked in at the back of the stage. They had to step over wires, and sound equipment, but she was going to get a fabulous view of the show, and she looked up at him as though she'd had a religious vision, and he was it.

“Maggie O'Malley.”

“Where are you from?” He looked down at her with a smile, as she took her seat and crossed her legs. From where he stood, he had a totally unobstructed view down her shirt. He wondered if she was as racy as she looked, or had just dressed the part for the concert. Being more experienced than Charlie with women who looked like that, he pegged her at about twenty-two.

“I was born in Queens, but I live in the city now. On the West Side. I work at Pier 92.” It was a bar that catered to a rough crowd sometimes. It was essentially a restaurant and pickup bar, and the waitresses all looked like her. The prettier ones danced on the bar at hourly intervals and set the tone for sex and booze. Adam guessed correctly that she made a lot in tips. Sometimes the girls who worked there were young actresses out of work, and desperate for money.

“Are you an actress?” he asked with interest.

“No, I'm a waitress. But I dance a little. I used to tap-dance and take ballet as a kid, more or less.” She didn't tell him that what she'd learned, she'd picked up from TV. There'd been no formal dance lessons in her neighborhood. She had been born in the poorest, toughest part of Queens, and got out as soon as she could. Where she lived now on the Upper West Side, in a building that was barely more than a tenement, was a palace compared to where she'd grown up. And then she looked at Adam breathlessly with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for my seat. If I can ever do anything for you, look me up at Pier 92. I'll buy you a drink.” It was all she had to offer him, although there were other things he would have preferred to get from her. But she looked so innocent, despite the outrageous outfit, that he felt guilty for his thoughts. She seemed like a sweet girl, despite her sexy clothes.

“Don't worry about it. Happy to do it. Maggie, was it?”

“Mary Margaret actually,” she said, looking wide-eyed, and he could easily imagine her in a parochial school uniform. Mary Margaret O'Malley. He couldn't help wondering how she had come to dress the way she did. She had the face of an angel, and the body of a stripper, and her outfit needed to be burned. She would have looked incredible with the right hairdo and decent clothes, but life dealt the hands it did. And she had done all right for tonight, for a poor girl from Queens who worked at Pier 92. She was sitting on the stage at Vana's show, in a special seat.

“I'll come find you after the show,” he promised her, and meant it for a minute, and then suddenly she bounced up from the seat and gave him a hug like a little kid. There were tears in her eyes.

“Thank you for what you did for me. It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done.” The look in her eyes made him feel guilty for his earlier lascivious thoughts. Putting her on the stage had been easy for him.

“Don't worry about it,” he said as he turned to leave, and then she grabbed his arm.

“What's your name?” She wanted to know who her benefactor was, and he looked startled. They weren't likely to meet again.

“Adam Weiss,” he said, and then ran back to his own seat. The lights were being dimmed. Two minutes later, as he sat next to Charlie, the show began. Charlie leaned toward him briefly just before Vana came out.

“Did you find her a seat?” He had been mesmerized by her. Charlie had never seen anyone quite like her up close. Girls who looked like that were definitely not his thing.

“I did,” Adam whispered. “She said she wants to go out with you,” he said with a mock-serious look, and Charlie laughed.

“Not likely. Did you get her phone number, blood type, and address?”

“No, just her bra size. It's a lot bigger than her IQ,” Adam said with a wicked grin.

“Don't be mean,” Charlie scolded him. “She was sweet.”

“Yeah, I know. Maybe we'll take her to the party with us, after the show.” Charlie gave him a grim look. He thought the concert would be enough for him. This was not his scene, although he had always liked Vana's music. And he did that night too.

The show was fabulous, and Vana played seven encores. She had never looked or sounded better. Maggie came back to visit them during intermission, to thank Adam again. He put an arm around her shoulders and invited her to the party then. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him again, while Adam felt the impact of her breasts on his chest. Hers were real, and so was her nose. Everything she had had been God's gift, not store-bought. He hadn't seen a girl like her in years.

“You shouldn't do that,” Charlie said quietly after she went back to her seat, before the second act began.

“Do what?” Adam asked innocently. He could still feel her breasts on his chest. He had liked it a lot. He always did. He knew a million women like her, but none of them were real.

“Take advantage of young girls. She may dress like a hooker, but you can see she's a sweet kid. Don't be a shitheel, Adam. It'll come back to haunt you one day. You wouldn't want someone doing that to your kid.”

“If my kid dressed like that, I'd kill her, and so would her mother.” He had wanted to bring both his kids to the show, but Rachel wouldn't let him. She said it was a school night, and she didn't want their kids in an atmosphere like that. She said they were too young. He had nice, wholesome kids.

“Maybe Maggie doesn't have anyone to tell her not to dress like that.” She looked like she'd gone to a lot of trouble to put her outfit together that night, but somewhere along the way, in her enthusiasm, it had gone wrong. But there wasn't much you could do too wrong to a face and body like hers. She'd been blessed. And maybe one day, when she grew up, she'd learn to tone it down, rather than up.

“I guess not,” Adam commented drily, “if she works at Pier 92.” He had been there once and couldn't believe how bad it was. Every sleazeball on Broadway came in to paw the girls while they ate and drank. The waitresses weren't topless or naked, but they might as well have been, given how little they wore. They wore dresses that looked like mini–tennis skirts, and underneath them thongs, and on top cheesy satin bras that they were forced to wear several sizes too small. The place was a dump. “Stop feeling sorry for her, Charlie. There are worse things, like being born in Calcutta, or the little blind kid you told me about the other day at the place you visited in Harlem. That girl is gorgeous, and she'll figure it out one day. For all you know, she'll be discovered by some shithead agent and wind up a big star.”

“I doubt it,” Charlie said sadly, thinking about her. Girls like that were a dime a dozen, and most of them never got out of the hell where they lived, particularly with guys like Adam chasing after them and taking advantage of them. It made him sad for her. And then the second act began.

When it was over, the crowd went wild. Groupies, fans, photographers, and practically half the audience tried to crawl up on the stage. It took a dozen cops to get Vana off in one piece, and Adam couldn't even get backstage. He used his cell phone to call the stage manager, who told him that Vana was okay, and thrilled at how it had gone. He said to tell her he would see her at the party, and when he turned around to talk to Charlie, Maggie was there. She had nearly lost her blouse and jacket trying to get off the stage, but she had managed to get back to them, and thanked Adam profusely again. She had no idea what had happened to her friend. It would have been next to impossible to find anyone in that mob.

“Do you want to come to the party?” Adam asked her. She looked fine for that crowd. He wasn't embarrassed to take her with him, although Charlie would have been. But Charlie wanted to go home anyway. The concert had been more than enough for him, although he had thoroughly enjoyed it. He just didn't need any more stimulation that night. Adam always did. He loved the seamy side of that life, and Maggie would fit right in. She was thrilled to go.

It took the three of them half an hour to get back out to the sidewalk, and another twenty minutes to find the limousine, but they finally did, and the three of them crawled in. They were heading to the East Side to a private club that had been rented for the party. Charlie knew there would be lots of women, booze, and drugs. Not his scene. Adam didn't do drugs either, but he had nothing against women and drink. And lots of both. Maggie sat on the banquette opposite them with a look of ecstasy on her face, as Adam casually glanced up her skirt. Her legs were even better than he had realized at first. She had an absolutely unbelievable body. Charlie had noticed it too, but rather than look up her skirt, he had glanced out the window. And then she crossed her legs.

“Where are we going?” she asked excitedly in a childlike voice, with a slight New York accent. It wasn't excessive, but it was recognizable. Adam seemed not to notice.

“We're going to drop Charlie off first. Maybe we'll stop for a drink somewhere, and then I'll take you to the party.” And afterward, hopefully he'd take her home with him, if she was willing. He never forced anyone to do anything. He didn't have to. There were enough women in his life to keep him happy at all times. But she looked as though she'd go home with him, he didn't think there would be a problem. He had picked up plenty of girls like her, and they were so excited to be taken along, particularly on a night like this, that they almost always wound up in his bed. It was a rarity when they didn't. He was sure Maggie would. So was Charlie.

Charlie said goodnight to her politely when they dropped him off. He said he hoped he'd see her again sometime, which he knew was unlikely. But what else could he say? Have a nice night in bed with Adam? For an odd moment, he hoped she wouldn't. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and he wanted her to be better than that, or at least have a fair chance. She was much too impressed with where Adam was taking her, and the seat he'd gotten her on the stage. Charlie wanted to tell her to have more self-respect than that. But there were some things one couldn't change. And it was Adam's life, and hers. It was up to them what happened after he left, not up to him. He almost wanted to protect her from Adam, and herself, but there was no way he could do that. He rode up in the elevator, looking thoughtful, and when he let himself into his apartment, he stood looking out at the park in the dark. It had been a fun night, and he'd had a good time. He was tired, and a few minutes later he went to bed.

Adam took Maggie to a bar, as he had promised, and she had a glass of wine. He had a margarita, followed by a mojito, and let her take a sip. She liked it, but said she didn't drink hard liquor, which surprised him. He was even more surprised when she said she was twenty-six. He had figured her for younger than that. She said she modeled at trade shows sometimes, and had done some catalog work, but mostly she just worked at Pier 92, and said she made a fortune on tips. It was easy to see why. She had a body that just wouldn't quit.

They got to the party by one o'clock, and it was just starting. Adam knew there were a lot of drugs around. Cocaine, Ecstasy, heroin, crack, crystal meth. The crowd was wilder than usual, and it didn't take him long to figure out it was not a good scene to be in. It happened that way sometimes after concerts. He danced with Maggie for a few minutes, and then got her out, and back into the limousine. He invited her back to his place then for a nightcap, and she looked at him and shook her head.

“I'd better not. It's pretty late. I have to be at work tomorrow, but thanks anyway.” He made no comment, and gave the driver her address. He was horrified when he saw where she lived. It was one of the most dangerous streets he'd ever seen. It was hard to imagine a girl who looked like her living there. Her life had to be a fight for survival every day, and he felt sorry for her, but he was also mildly annoyed that she hadn't spent the night with him.

“I hope you don't mind that I didn't go to your apartment, Adam,” she said apologetically, particularly after all he'd done for her. “I don't do things like that on the first date.” He stood staring at her, wondering if she actually thought there would be a second one. She had written down her number for him, and he had shoved it in his pocket. He was going to throw it away when he got home. She was fun for a night, on a lark, or would have been, but there was no reason to ever see her again. He could have a hundred like her anytime he wanted to. He didn't need a waitress from Pier 92, no matter how pretty she was, or how good her legs were. It wouldn't have been any different if she'd gone home with him. It just would have been fun.

“No, I understand. Why don't I walk you upstairs?” The building looked as though she could get murdered just trying to get home, but she was used to it, and shook her head.

“That's okay,” she said easily, smiling at him. “I have three roommates. Two of them sleep in the living room, it would be too weird if you came in. By now, they're all asleep.” He couldn't even imagine living that way, and had no desire to. He just wanted to leave her there, and forget that people led lives like hers. She wasn't his problem, and he didn't want her to be. All he wanted now was to go home.

“Thank you, Miss Mary Margaret O'Malley, it was a pleasure meeting you. See you again sometime,” he said politely.

“I hope so,” she said honestly, but even she knew it was unlikely. He led a charmed life. He knew people like Vana, had backstage passes, rode in limousines, and lived in a different world. She was innocent, but not as stupid as he wanted her to be. Instead of good-night, he might as well have said “Have a nice life.” But he knew that more than likely, she wouldn't. How could she? What could life possibly have in store for a girl like her, no matter how beautiful she was? What way out did she have? He knew the answer. None.

“Take care of yourself,” he said as she let herself into the building with a key, and turned to look at him for the last time.

“You too. And thanks, I had a fantastic time. Thanks again for my great seat.” He smiled at her, wishing he was in bed with her. It would have been a lot more fun than standing in the stench of her neighborhood and freezing on the street while he watched her go in. She waved then and was gone. He wondered if she felt like Cinderella as she walked into the building where she lived. The ball was over, and the limousine and driver were going to turn into a pumpkin and six mice by the time she got upstairs.

He got into the car again, and could smell her perfume. It was cheap, but it suited her and had a nice scent. He had noticed it when he danced with her, and he was startled to realize, as he drove back to his apartment in the East Seventies, that he was depressed. It was depressing to see people live like that, and know they had no way out. Maggie O'Malley would live in buildings like that forever, unless she got lucky, married some slob with a beer belly, and moved back to Queens again, where she could reminisce about the tenement she'd lived in in Manhattan, or the terrible job she'd had where drunken idiots reached up her skirt every night. And he was just as bad. He would have gone to bed with her, if she'd been willing to. And the next day he would have forgotten her. For the first time in years, he felt like a total cad as he rode home. It made him question his own morality. Charlie was right. What if some guy treated Amanda like that one day? It could happen to anyone. But in this case it was happening to a girl called Maggie, whom he didn't know and never would. He drank a shot of tequila when he got home, thinking about her. He walked out on the terrace of his penthouse, and wondered what it would have been like if she'd been there. Exciting probably. For a minute or two, an hour, or a night. That's all she was to him, and would have been. A bit of fluff and some fun. He took his clothes off then, and dropped them on the floor next to his bed. He slipped into bed in his jockey shorts, as he always did, and forgot about her. For him, Maggie was gone. She had to go back to her own life, whatever it was.

10

IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT CHARLIE TOLD HIMSELF there was no reason to, he went back to the Children's Center to look around again. He brought doughnuts and ice cream for the children, a little teddy bear for Gabby, and treats for her dog. He had been haunted by them since he'd been there. But it wasn't Gabby who had drawn him back there, and he knew it the moment he walked in. It was Carole who had haunted him, as much as Gabby and her dog. In fact, even more. He knew it was a crazy thing to do, but he couldn't stop himself. She had been on his mind all week.

“What brings you back here?” she asked with a look of curiosity when she saw him. He had come in jeans and an old sweater this time, and a pair of running shoes. He'd been standing in the courtyard, talking to Tygue quietly when she came out of group and saw him.

“Just taking another look.” He had come without warning, and for a minute she thought he was checking up on them, and thought it was rude. And then Tygue told her about the ice cream he'd brought for the kids, and Gabby showed her the little bear and told her about the treats for Zorro.

“They get under your skin, don't they?” she said to him, as she led him back to her office, and offered him a cup of coffee.

“No, thanks, I'm fine. I know you're busy. I won't stay long.” He couldn't tell her he'd been in the neighborhood, because the only thing in it was the Children's Center and a lot of people in tenements, while dealers sold drugs in doorways. The only thing he could have done in the neighborhood was buy heroin or crack.

“It was nice of you to bring things for the children. They love it when people visit. I wish we could do more for them, but we never have enough money. I have to save what we've got for the important stuff like salaries, heat, and medication. They'd much rather have ice cream,” she said, smiling at Charlie. And as she did, he was suddenly glad he'd come.

He had wanted to see her again, but now that he had, he couldn't think of a reason to justify it. He told himself he admired the work she did, which was true, but there was more to it than that. He enjoyed talking to her and wanted to know her better. But he couldn't explain it to himself. She was a social worker, and he ran the foundation. Now that they had given her the money she needed, other than financial reports, there was no real excuse for further contact. Their lives were too different for there to be an excuse for social contact between them. He already knew that she had nothing but contempt for the life he led, and the world he came from. She was a woman who was sacrificing herself for a bunch of kids who were fighting for survival. He was a man who lived a life of luxury and self-indulgence.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked him helpfully, as he shook his head. He couldn't think of a single excuse to linger, although he would have liked to.

“No, I'll come back and see the kids again, if you don't mind. I'd like to check on Gabby.”

“She's doing fine, now that she has Zorro. She's going to start at a special school next month. We think she's ready.”

“Will she leave here then?” he asked, worried about the child, as he looked at Carole.

“Not for a while. Eventually, we'll try to get her into foster care, and feed her back into the system. But a special-needs kid like her isn't easy to place, for obvious reasons. People who provide foster homes aren't ready to deal with a blind kid and a Seeing Eye dog.”

“Then what?” He had never thought about it before, but for a child like Gabby, life was going to be hard, harder than most. Probably forever.

“If we can't find foster parents for her, then we'll put her in a group home. There are a lot of them in upstate New York. She'll be fine.”

“No, she won't,” he said, looking distraught. It was as though he had discovered a whole other world full of people with problems no one could solve. In this case, all of them were kids. And none of what had happened to them had been their fault.

“She'll be as fine as any of them are,” Carole said carefully. “Maybe better, thanks to your gift. Zorro is going to be a big plus in her life.”

“Don't you wonder what happens to all of them, after they leave here?” The plight of the children she tended to tugged at his heart.

“Of course I do. But we can only do so much, Mr. Harrington,” she said coolly, guarded again.

“Charlie, please,” he interrupted her.

“We can only do what we can. It's like emptying the ocean with a thimble sometimes. But there are success stories too. Kids who find great foster homes with good people and thrive. Others who get adopted by people who love them. Kids we get operations for, who wouldn't have otherwise. Gabby and her dog. Some of their problems we can solve, some we can't. You just have to accept where the limits are, otherwise it breaks your heart.” He had never seen as closely where their money went, or who it was going to. He had never looked into faces like theirs, or met a woman like her, who was devoting her life to changing the world for a handful of souls on a backstreet in Harlem. Since he'd come there the first time, only days before, it had turned his life upside down, and his heart. “They told us in school that you have to be professional, keep a distance, and not get too involved. But sometimes you just can't. Sometimes I go home at night, and I just lie in bed and cry.” It was easy for him to imagine now. He had done the same himself.

“You must need to take a breather sometimes,” he said thoughtfully, wanting to suggest lunch or dinner to her, but he didn't have the guts.

“I do.” She smiled innocently at him. “I go to the gym, swim, or play squash, if I'm not too tired.”

“So do I,” he said, smiling at her. “Play squash, I mean. Maybe we should play sometime.” She looked surprised. She had no idea why they would. As he looked at her, her eyes were blank. As far as Carole knew, he was the head of the foundation that had just given them a million dollars, and not much else. She couldn't imagine being friends with him. Her only contact with him was what it was now. Professional and courteous. And all she owed him was financial reports. She had no idea that he was trying to be friends. It never occurred to her that he would.

She walked him out a few minutes later, before she went into another group. When she left him, he was still chatting with Tygue, and said he'd come back soon. A few minutes later, Charlie left, and took a cab downtown. He was having dinner with Gray and Sylvia that night. Carole forgot about him as soon as he walked out.

When he got to Sylvia's apartment, Gray was in the kitchen, and she opened the door for him. She was wearing a pretty embroidered black peasant skirt, and a soft white blouse. She had set the table beautifully for him, with tall white candles and a big basket of tulips in the center. She had wanted everything to be just right for him, because she knew how much he meant to Gray, and she had liked him when they first met. She wanted Gray's friendship with him to remain solid. She didn't want to disrupt Charlie's life. She felt she had no right to. And she didn't want him disrupting theirs. There was room for both of them in Gray's life, and she wanted to prove that to Charlie, by welcoming him into their lives. As she looked at him, her eyes were warm. She knew how suspicious he had been of her, once Gray told him that he was involved with her. And she suspected correctly that it wasn't personal. He had liked her when they met in Portofino, he was just worried about what their relationship would mean to him, and how it would impact him. Like a child facing a new nanny, or a man his mother was going out with. What did it mean for him? Charlie and Gray were like brothers, and any weight added to the balance could change everything for them. She wanted to reassure both of them now that although her weight had been added to the scale, they were still safe in their private world. She felt like Wendy in Peter Pan sitting down to dinner with the Lost Boys, as they all sat down at the table, and Gray opened a bottle of wine.

Charlie had looked around the apartment before he sat down, and was impressed by how elegant it was, how many interesting treasures she had, and how well she'd put it all together. She had a great eye, and a light touch in conversation. She wisely stayed mostly in the background that night, and they were well into their second bottle of wine when Charlie mentioned Carole, and described his visit to the center in Harlem.

“She's an amazing woman,” he said, in a tone of deep admiration.

He told them about Gabby and her dog, the others he'd met, and the stories she'd told him. He had known of incidents of child abuse before, but none as ugly or as disheartening as the ones she'd told him. She didn't pull any punches. He realized now that other organizations had dressed it up for them. But Carole went straight to the bone of what she was dealing with and why she needed his money. She made no apology for wanting a lot from him, and had alluded to wanting more. Her dream for the center was a big one. For the moment she had no choice but to keep the center small, but one day she wanted to open an even bigger place deep in the heart of Harlem. There were few places that needed her more, and she had been quick to point out to him that child abuse was not just a disease of the inner city. It existed in homes on Park Avenue, right in the lap of luxury. In fact in middle-class homes, it was a lot harder to uncover. She assured him that people were committing hideous acts against children in every town, in every state, in every country, and at every socioeconomic level. Where she was, in some ways, it was easier to deal with. She had sworn a war against poverty, child abuse, neglect, hypocrisy, indifference. She had taken a big bite into the woes of the world, and she had no time or patience for the kind of world he lived in, where people turned a blind eye, ignored what was going on around them, and got dressed up and went to parties. She had no time herself to waste on things like that, and no desire to pursue them. What she wanted was to help her fellow man, and save their children. Charlie's eyes lit up like a bonfire as he spoke of her, and Sylvia and Gray watched him. She had set his mind and heart ablaze with what she'd showed him.

“So when are you taking her out to dinner?” Gray teased, as he sat with an arm around Sylvia's shoulder. Charlie had enjoyed his evening with them, the food had been edible for once, and the conversation lively. He was surprised to find he liked Sylvia even better than he had in Portofino. She seemed softer now, and gentler, and he had to admit that she was wonderful to his friend. She had even been kind and welcoming to him.

“How about never?” Charlie said with a rueful grin. “She hates everything I stand for. When I met her, she looked at me like dirt under her shoes because I was wearing a suit.” Not to mention the gold watch.

“She sounds a little tough to me. You gave her a million bucks, for chrissake. What did she expect you to do? Show up in shorts and flip-flops?” Gray said, looking annoyed on his behalf.

“Maybe,” Charlie said, willing to forgive her for being tough on him. What she was doing, hand to hand, was more important, he thought, than anything he'd done in his entire lifetime. All he did was sign checks and give away money. She was in the trenches with those kids every day, fighting for their lives. “She has no patience with the way we all live, the things we do. She's practically a saint, Gray.” Charlie sounded convinced of it, and Gray looked suspicious.

“I thought you said she went to Princeton. She's probably from some fancy family, trying to atone for their collective sins.”

“I don't think so. My guess is that she went there on a scholarship. There were a lot of people like her when I was there, and more lately. It's not as elitist as it used to be. And that's a good thing. Besides, she said she hated Princeton.” Although the eating club she'd been in had been a good one. But there were many ways to get in. Even Princeton was no longer the good old boys' club it used to be. The world had changed, and people like Carole had changed it. He was a throwback to another era, living off the glory of his aristocratic family. Carole was a whole new breed.

“Why don't you ask her out?” Gray encouraged him, and Sylvia agreed. “Or is she a dog?” That hadn't occurred to him, given the way Charlie was raving about her. Somehow he had assumed that she was attractive. He couldn't imagine Charlie getting excited about an ugly woman, although maybe in this case he had. He described her like Mother Teresa.

“No, she's very beautiful, although I don't think she gives a damn about that either. She doesn't have patience for much in her life, except the real thing.” And in her eyes, he knew, he wasn't it, although he knew she hadn't really given him a fair chance, and probably never would. He was nothing more than the head of the foundation to her.

“What does she look like?” Sylvia asked with interest.

“She's about six feet tall, blond, pretty face, blue eyes, good figure, no makeup. She says she swims and plays squash when she has time. She's thirty-four years old.”

“Not married?” Sylvia inquired.

“I don't think so. She wasn't wearing a ring, and I didn't get that impression, though I doubt that she's alone.” A woman who looked like her couldn't be, he told himself, which made it even more ridiculous to invite her to dinner. Although he could pretend it was for foundation business, and learn more about her then. It was a ruse that appealed to him somewhat, although he felt dishonest hiding behind the foundation to get to know her better. But maybe Sylvia and Gray were right, and it was worth a shot.

“You never know with women like that,” Sylvia said wisely. “Sometimes they give up a lot to support their causes. If she puts that much time and energy and passion into what she does, it may be all she's got.”

“Find out,” Gray said, encouraging him again. “Why not? You've got nothing to lose. Check it out.” Charlie felt weird talking about her, and sharing it with them. He felt vulnerable discussing her with them, and more than a little foolish.

By the time Gray brought out a bottle of Château d'Yquem Sylvia had bought for them, they almost had Charlie convinced, but as soon as he got home that night, he knew how foolish it was to think of inviting Carole to dinner. He was too old for her, too rich, too conservative, too established. And whatever her background was, it was obvious that she had no interest in guys like him. She had even laughed at him about his watch. He couldn't even imagine telling her he had a yacht, although most people in his world had heard about the Blue Moon. But yachting magazines were about as far from her field of interest as it got. He laughed to himself thinking about it as he got into bed that night. Gray and Sylvia's intentions were good, but they just couldn't fathom how different and what a zealot she was. It was written all over her, and her scathing comments about eating clubs at Princeton hadn't fallen on deaf ears. He had heard her loud and clear.

He called Gray the next morning to thank them for dinner, and tell him what a nice time he'd had. He had no idea where their relationship was going, or if it would last, he doubted it, but for now it seemed like a nice thing for both of them. And he was relieved to see that Sylvia wasn't trying to interfere or shut him out. He said as much to Gray, who was happy to hear Charlie so relaxed about Sylvia, and promised to have him over again soon.

“Your cooking has even improved,” Charlie teased, and Gray laughed.

“She helped,” he confessed, as Charlie chuckled.

“Thank God.”

“Don't forget to call Mother Teresa and invite her out to dinner,” Gray reminded him, and Charlie paused for a minute, and then laughed hollowly this time.

“I think we all had a lot to drink last night. It sounded good, but it doesn't sound like such a hot idea in the bright light of day.”

“Just ask her. What's the worst that could happen?” Gray said, sounding like an older brother, as Charlie shook his head at the other end.

“She could call me an asshole and hang up. Besides, it would be awkward when I see her again.” He didn't want to expose himself, although he had nothing else to do at the moment. There was no other woman in his life, and hadn't been for months. He was tired these days, and imperceptibly slowing down. The chase was not quite as much fun. It was easier going to dinner parties and social events alone. Or spending an evening with good friends, like Gray and Sylvia last night. He enjoyed that more than the effort he had to put into dating, and courting someone to wind up in bed with them. He'd done it all before too many times.

“So what?” Gray commented about Carole possibly hanging up on him. “You've lived through worse. You never know, this could be the right one.”

“Yeah, sure. I could sell the Blue Moon and build her dream center in Harlem, and maybe then she'd agree to go out with me on a date.”

“Hell,” Gray laughed at him, “no sacrifice is too great for love.”

“Don't give me that. What did you give up to be with Sylvia? The cockroaches in your apartment? Give me a break.”

“Give her a call.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, to get Gray off his back, and a few minutes later, they promised to talk again soon, and hung up.

Charlie was determined not to call her, but the thought of her haunted him all afternoon. He went to his office at the foundation, then to his club, had a massage, played squash with a friend, and called Adam to thank him for the concert, but he was in a meeting. Charlie left his thanks on voice mail, and wondered what had happened between Adam and Maggie that night. The usual, probably, Adam had dazzled her with his fancy footwork, poured a gallon of champagne into her, and she wound up in his bed. He still felt sorry for her when he thought of her. Despite her outfit, there was something sweet and innocent about her. There were times when Adam's behavior with women, and lack of conscience about it, made his skin crawl. But as Adam always pointed out, if they were willing, they were all fair game. He hadn't knocked anyone unconscious and raped them yet. They lay down at his feet adoringly, and what happened after that was between two consenting adults. Charlie just wasn't so sure that Maggie had been quite as adult as she looked, or as practiced at his game. She wasn't looking for implants or a nose job. All she had wanted was a better seat at the concert. Charlie couldn't help wondering what she'd had to give up in exchange. He thought about it as he left his club after the squash game, took a cab home, and told himself he was getting old. Adam's morality, or lack of it, and the way he treated women, had never bothered him before. And as Adam always reminded him, anything was fair in the pursuit of sex and fun. Or was it? Somehow it no longer sounded quite as amusing anymore.

It was nearly six o'clock when he walked into his apartment, listened to his messages, and stood staring at the phone. He wondered if she'd still be in her office, or in group, or maybe she'd gone home. He remembered that he had her card in his wallet, took it out, looked at it for a long moment, and then called her, feeling nervous and foolish. She was the first woman he'd ever met who made him feel as though he was doing something wrong. He wanted to apologize to her for his indulgences and privilege, and yet that same privilege had allowed him to give her a million dollars so she could continue saving the world. He felt like an anxious schoolboy as he heard the phone ring at the other end. He was suddenly praying she wouldn't be there, and was about to hang up, when she answered, sounding out of breath.

“Hello?” She forgot to say who she was, but he knew her voice immediately. He had called on her private line.

“Carole?”

“Yes.” She didn't recognize his voice.

“It's Charlie Harrington. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Not at all,” she lied, rubbing her shin. She had just rammed it, dashing for the phone. “I just got out of group. I ran down the stairs when I heard the phone.”

“Sorry. How's my little friend?” He was referring to Gabby, as Carole knew immediately. She smiled and said she was fine. He asked how things were going at the center, if there were any new developments, and Carole found herself wondering if he was going to be checking on them constantly for the next year. It was a little unusual to hear from the heads of foundations who gave them grants. She wondered why he'd called. “I don't want to make any promises we can't live up to, or raise false hopes, but you mentioned that there were other programs you wanted to implement, and other grant proposals you might want to explore. I wondered if you'd like to do that over lunch or dinner with me sometime.” He had taken the coward's way out, he knew, hiding behind the foundation, but at least he'd called. There was a long pause.

“To be honest, we're not ready to make any more grant requests. We don't have the staff to man the programs I want, or even to write the proposals right now, but yes, actually, I wouldn't mind picking your brain to see what you think of our plans.” She didn't want to head in directions the foundation wasn't open to, and waste a lot of energy and time.

“I'd be happy to listen and give you an honest assessment of where our interests lie. For a later date of course.” It would be tough asking the foundation board to give her more money, when they had just granted her a million dollars. But talk was cheap. “We couldn't really do a lot for you until next year. But it's a good thing for you to think of now, so you can plan your attack accordingly, at the beginning of our next fiscal year.”

“Whose side are you on?” She laughed at him, and he laughed as he answered her, more honestly than she knew.

“Yours, I think. You're doing a great thing.” He had fallen in love with her child abuse center, and if he wasn't careful, he knew he'd be falling in love with her. For a week or two anyway, or if they were lucky, maybe more. Love never lasted long with him. Fear was a more powerful emotion for Charlie than love had ever been.

“Thank you.” She was touched by the kindness of his words. He sounded sincere to her. She let her guard down slowly as she listened to him, and he was a good connection to have.

“When would you like to get together?” he asked her casually, pleased with the way the conversation was going. He had given her the option of lunch or dinner, so she didn't feel pressured by him. That was usually a good first move. And maybe the last one in this case. There was nothing in her voice to suggest that she was interested in him. She probably wasn't, but he'd get a better sense of it when they met and talked over a meal. If she had no interest whatsoever, he wasn't going to stick his neck out and make a fool of himself with her. But so far so good.

“I can't really get away at lunchtime. I always stay here and eat a banana at my desk, if I get that far. Most of the time, in the middle of the day, I'm in group. And I meet with clients one-on-one in the afternoon.” She had taken a big chunk out of her day for him when he had come to take the tour, but she didn't want to make a habit of it, even for him.

“What about dinner, then?” He held his breath. “Tomorrow maybe?” He was going to a deadly dinner party and would gladly cancel it to be with her.

“Sure,” she said hesitantly. She sounded a little confused. “I'm not sure I'll have all my ducks in order by then. I have a list of programs I want to start, it's in rough form, and it's around here somewhere. But I can tell you what I have in mind.” That was all he wanted from her, and not about the programs she was starting, but she had no idea. He sounded as offhand as she.

“We'll just talk about it, and see what we come up with, talking it through. That works better for me sometimes, doing it free form. A brainstorming session with food. Which reminds me, where do you like to eat?”

She laughed at the question. She rarely went out to dinner. By the time she got home at night, she was exhausted. Most nights she didn't even have the energy to go to the gym, which she liked to do too. “Let's see. My usual haunts? Mo's hamburgers on 168th Street and Amsterdam… Sally's spareribs on 125th, near the subway stop on my way home… Izzy's deli on West 99th Street and Columbus …I only go to the best places. I don't think I've been to a decent restaurant in years.” Charlie wanted to change that, and other things in her life, but not all in one night. He wanted to go easy with her, until he knew the lay of the land.

“I'm not sure I can compete with Mo and Izzy's. Where do you live, by the way?”

She hesitated for a minute, and he wondered suddenly if she was living with someone. She sounded as though she was afraid Charlie wanted to drop by. “On the Upper East Side, in the Nineties.” It was a respectable neighborhood, and he got the feeling she was embarrassed to admit it. He wondered suddenly if Gray was right, and her background was more traditional than her ideologies would suggest. She was very dogmatic about what she believed. He had expected her to say that she lived somewhere on the Upper West Side, not on the East Side, but he didn't question it, or push. He could sense her skittishness. Charlie knew women well, he'd been doing this for a long time. A lot longer than Carole, who didn't have the faintest idea how experienced he was, or what he had in mind. Given even a hint of encouragement, which she hadn't given him so far, he wanted to change her life.

“I know a nice quiet Italian place on East Eighty-ninth. How does that sound?” he offered.

“Perfect. What's it called?”

“Stella Di Notte. It's not quite as romantic as it sounds. It means Night Star in Italian, but actually it's a play on words. Stella is the owner, she does all the cooking, and she weighs about three hundred pounds. I don't think they'd ever get her more than an inch or two off the ground, but the pasta is fantastic. She makes it all herself.”

“It sounds great. I'll meet you there.” Charlie was a little startled by her suggestion. He hadn't expected her to say that, and more than ever, he now suspected that there was a man living at her place. He was determined to find out.

“Wouldn't you rather I pick you up?”

“No,” she said honestly. “I'd rather walk. I'm cooped up here all day, and I live on Ninety-first. I need the exercise, even for a few blocks. It clears my head after work.” A likely story, he said to himself. There was probably a handsome thirty-five-year-old, lying on the couch, watching TV with the remote in his hand.

“See you there then. Seven-thirty? Does that give you enough time after work?”

“That's fine. My last group is at four-thirty tomorrow, so I can be home by six-thirty. I assume it's not fancy or anything?” she asked, suddenly sounding nervous. She almost never went out, and never dressed. She wondered if he expected her to wear a little black dress and pearls. She didn't own either, nor did she want to. He looked the type, but this was work. She wasn't going to get dressed up for him. She'd rather have gone to Mo's in that case. She wasn't about to change her lifestyle for him, no matter how much money the foundation had to give them. There were some things she no longer did, and never would again. Dressing up was one of them.

“It's not fancy,” he reassured her. “You can even wear jeans if you want.” Although he hoped she wouldn't. He would have loved to see her in a dress.

“If you don't mind, I will. I won't have time to dress. I never do anyway. What you see is what you get.” Apparently. Jeans and Nikes. Oh, well. So much for the dress.

“I'll do the same,” he said quietly.

“At least you can wear your watch in that neighborhood,” she chuckled at him, and he laughed.

“That's too bad. I pawned it yesterday.”

“What'd you get for it?” She liked teasing him. He seemed like a nice guy. In spite of herself, she was looking forward to dinner with him. She hadn't been out to dinner with a man in nearly four years. And that wasn't about to change, except for one business dinner with him. Just one, she told herself.

“Twenty-five bucks,” he answered her question about the watch.

“Not bad. See you tomorrow night,” she said, and hung up a moment later. And suddenly, after she did, a bolt of lightning ran through him that terrified him. What if he really was insane? Maybe the jeans and running shoes were about something else? What if the gorgeous six-foot Viking with the heart of Mother Teresa didn't have a man living with her? What if he was even more obtuse? What if she was gay? It hadn't even occurred to him till then. But anything was possible. She was clearly no ordinary girl.

“Oh, great,” he said to himself as he put the card back in his wallet, and called the restaurant to make a reservation. Whatever she was, he would know more tomorrow. And until then, all he could do was guess and wait.

11

CHARLIE GOT TO THE RESTAURANT BEFORE CAROLE did. He had told no one he was meeting her, not even Sylvia and Gray. There was nothing to tell them yet, except that he was having an informal foundation dinner with her, since he had used a ruse to get her there. It wasn't a date. He had walked to the restaurant himself. It was a longer walk for him, but like her, he needed the air. He'd been anxious about it all day. And by then, he really was convinced she was gay. It was probably why he'd gotten no reaction from her. Usually, women responded to him in some way. Carole hadn't. She was all business, and had been, both times they met. Professional to her fingertips, although she seemed warm with everyone else, especially the kids. And then he remembered how friendly and congenial she and Tygue had been. Maybe there was a man in her life, and it was him. All he knew by the time he got to the restaurant was that there was a knot in his stomach, which was unfamiliar to him, and she was a complete mystery, and maybe still would be after they had dinner together that night. He wasn't at all sure that she was going to open up to him. She had seemed sealed tight, like a shell, which only seemed more challenging, along with her very impressive brain.

She was totally different from the socialites he pursued normally. They dressed, they danced, they smiled, they went everywhere with him, they played tennis and sailed, and for the most part they bored him to extinction, which was why he was having dinner with Carole Parker that night, who appeared to have absolutely no interest whatsoever in him, and he didn't even know if she was gay or straight. And he had lied to get her there. The whole thing was absurd.

Carole arrived five minutes after he did, and joined Charlie at the corner table Stella had given them. She looked smiling and relaxed as she walked in, in a pair of white jeans and sandals and a crisp white shirt. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and she had woven it quickly in a braid. She wore no makeup or nail polish. Her nails were short, and everything about her looked crisp and clean. She had a pale blue sweater draped over her shoulders, and it occurred to him that with what she wore, she would have looked perfect on the Blue Moon. She looked like a sailor or a tennis player, she was a long, lean, athletic-looking woman, and her eyes were a clear bright blue, the same color as her sweater. She looked like a Ralph Lauren ad, although she would probably have hated him if he said it. In her heart, she was more Che Guevara than anything as prosaic and fashionable as a Ralph Lauren model. She smiled at Charlie as soon as she saw him.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” she apologized, and sat down, as he stood up to greet her. It was only five minutes, and it had allowed him to compose himself as he waited for her. He didn't want to order wine until she got there, and they figured out what they were eating.

“No problem. I didn't notice since I no longer have a watch anyway. I thought I'd spend the twenty-five bucks I got for it on dinner,” he said, smiling at her, and she laughed at him. He had a nice sense of humor. She hadn't bothered to bring a handbag with her, she had her key in her pocket, and she didn't need to carry a lipstick since she didn't wear any. And surely not for him. “How was your day?”

“Busy. Crazy. The usual. What about you?” she asked, looking interested. That was new for him too. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had asked him how he was, and actually seemed as though she gave a damn about it. This one did.

“Interesting. I was at the foundation all day. We're trying to figure out how much we want to spend internationally. There are some very good programs in dire need in developing countries, but they have a hell of a time implementing them once they get the money. I had a conference call with Jimmy Carter today, on that subject. They do a lot of really great work in Africa, and he gave me some good advice about how to get through the red tape.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, smiling at him. “Projects like that make me realize how small our scope is here. Mine, anyway. I'm dealing with kids in a radius of forty blocks of me, sometimes less. It's pathetic when you think of it.” She sighed as she sat back in her chair.

“Not pathetic. You're doing great work. We don't give a million dollars to people who aren't doing impressive work.”

“How much does the foundation give away every year?” She'd been wondering about that since she met him. His foundation was greatly respected in philanthropic circles, and it was all she knew about him.

“About ten million. You kicked us up to eleven, but you're worth it.” He smiled at her, and then pointed to the specials. “You must be starving if all you eat is a banana for lunch.” He remembered what she'd said. They both ordered the gnocchi because Charlie told her it was fabulous and Stella's specialty. She was serving it that night with fresh tomatoes and basil, and in the lingering warm weather of Indian summer, it sounded perfect to Carole too. He ordered a bottle of inexpensive white wine, and once it was served, she took a sip.

The food was as delicious as he had promised, and they talked about her ideas for the center until dessert. She had some big dreams and hard work ahead of her, but after what she'd accomplished so far, he knew she was capable of achieving all she set out to do. Especially with help from foundations like his. He assured her that others would be equally impressed, and she'd have no trouble getting money from him or anyone else the following year. He was vastly impressed by all she did, and how carefully she was already planning for the future.

“That's quite a dream you have, Ms. Parker. You really are going to change the world one day.” He believed in her 1,000 percent. She was a remarkable young woman. At thirty-four, she had accomplished more than some people in a lifetime, and most of it by herself, with no one's help. It was clear that the center was her baby, which once again made him curious about her.

“What about you? What else do you do with your spare time? I say that jokingly, believe me. It's no wonder you have no time to eat. You mustn't sleep much either.”

“I don't,” she reassured him. “It seems like such a waste of time to me.” She laughed as she said it. “That's all I do. Work and kids. Groups. Most of the time I hang out at the center on the weekends, although officially I'm not working. But being there and keeping an eye on things makes a difference.”

“I feel that way about the foundation,” he admitted, “but you still have to make time for other things, and have some fun sometimes. What does fun mean for you?”

“Work is fun for me. I've never been happier than since we opened the center. I don't need other things in my life.” She said it honestly, and he could see she meant it, which worried him a little. Something was wrong with this picture, or at least the one she presented. Other than work, much was missing.

“No men, no babies, no ticking clock telling you to get married? That's unusual at your age.” He knew she was thirty-four, and had gone to Princeton and Columbia, but he knew nothing else about her, even after dinner. All they had talked about was the center and the foundation. His work and hers. Their respective missions.

“Nope. No men. No babies. No biological clock. I threw mine away several years ago. I've been happy ever since.”

“What does that mean?” he pressed her a little, but she didn't seem to mind it. He sensed that whatever she didn't want to answer, she wouldn't.

“The kids at the center are my children.” She seemed comfortable as she said it.

“You say that now, but maybe one day you'll regret it. Women aren't lucky that way. They have decisions to make at a certain age. A man can always make a fool of himself and have a family when he's sixty or seventy or eighty.”

“Maybe I'll adopt when I'm eighty.” She smiled at him, and for the first time he smelled tragedy in there somewhere. He knew women well, and something bad had happened to this one. He didn't know why or how he knew it, but he suddenly sensed it. She was too pat in her answers, too firm in her decisions. No one was that sure of anything in life, unless heartbreak got them there. He had been there himself.

“I don't buy it, Carole,” he said cautiously. He didn't want to scare her, or make her back off completely. “You're a woman who loves children. And there has to be a man in your life somewhere.” After listening to her all evening, she didn't seem gay to him. Nothing she had said to him suggested it, although he could be wrong, he knew, and had been once or twice. But she didn't seem gay to him. Just hidden.

“Nope. No man,” she said simply. “No time. No interest. Been there, done that. There hasn't been anyone in my life in four years.” A year before she'd opened the center, as he figured it. He wondered if some heartbreak in her life had turned her in another direction, to heal her own wounds as well as others'.

“That's a long time at your age,” he said gently, and she smiled at him.

“You keep talking about my age as though I'm twenty. I'm not that young. I'm thirty-four. That seems pretty old to me.”

He laughed at her. “Well, not to me. I'm forty-six.”

“Right.” She turned the tables on him quickly, to get the focus off herself. “And you're not married and have no kids either. So what's the big deal? What about you? Why isn't your clock ticking if you're twelve years older than I am?” Although he didn't look it. Charlie didn't look a day over thirty-six, although he felt it. Lately, he felt every moment of his forty-six years, and then some. But at least he didn't look it. Nor did she. She looked somewhere in her mid-twenties. And they looked handsome together, and were very similar in type, almost like brother and sister, as he himself had noticed when he had first observed that she looked a lot like his sister, Ellen, and his mother.

“My clock is ticking,” he confessed to her. “I just haven't found the right woman yet, but I hope I will one day.”

“That's bullshit,” she said simply, looking him dead in the eye. “Guys who've been single forever always say they haven't met the right woman. You can't tell me that at forty-six, you've never met the right one. There are a lot of them out there, and if you haven't found one, I think you don't want to. Not finding the right woman is really a poor excuse. Find something else,” she said matter-of-factly, and took a sip of her wine as Charlie stared at her. She had cut right to the quick, and worse yet, she was right, and he knew it. So did she. She looked convinced of what she'd said.

“Okay. I concede. A few of them might have been right, if I'd wanted to compromise. I've been looking for perfection.”

“You won't find it. No one's perfect. You know that. So what's the deal?”

“Scared shitless,” he said honestly, for the first time in his life, and nearly fell off his chair when he heard himself say it.

“That's better. Why?” She was good at what she did, although he didn't realize it till later. Getting into peo-ple's hearts and heads was her business, and what she loved doing. But he sensed instinctively that she wasn't going to hurt him. He felt safe with her.

“My parents died when I was sixteen, my sister took care of me, and then she died of a brain tumor when I was twenty-one. That was it. End of family. I guess I've figured all my life that if you love someone they either die, or leave, or disappear, or abandon you. I'd rather be the first one out the door.”

“That makes sense,” she said quietly, listening to him, and watching him closely. She knew he had told her the truth. “And people do die and leave and disappear. It happens that way sometimes. But if you're the first one out the door, you wind up alone for sure. You don't mind that?”

“I didn't.” Past tense. Lately he was minding it a lot, but he didn't want to say that to her. Yet.

“You pay a big price in life for being scared,” she said quietly, and then added, “scared to love. I'm not so good at that myself.” She decided to tell him then. Just as he did with her, she felt safe with him. She hadn't told the story in a long time, and kept it short. “I got married at twenty-four. He was a friend of my father's, the head of a major company, a brilliant man. He had been a research scientist, and started a drug company we all know. And he was totally nuts. He was twenty years older than I was, and an extraordinary man. He still is. But narcissistic, crazy, brilliant, successful, charming, and alcoholic, dangerous, sadistic, abusive. They were the worst six years of my life. He was a total sociopath, and everyone kept telling me how lucky I was to be married to him. Because none of them knew what went on behind closed doors. I had a car accident, because I wanted to, I think. All I wanted to do was die. He kept torturing me, and I'd leave him for a day or two, and then he'd bring me back, or charm me back. Abusers never lose sight of their prey. When I was in the hospital after the car accident, I got sane. I never went back again. I hid out in California for a year, met a lot of good people, and figured out what I wanted to do. I opened the center when I got home, and never looked back.”

“What happened to him? Where is he now?”

“Still here. Torturing someone else. He's in his fifties now. He married some pathetic debutante last year, poor kid. He's about as charming as it gets, and as sick. He still calls me sometimes, and wrote me a letter telling me she meant nothing to him, and he still loves me. I never answered him, and I won't. I screen my calls, and I never return his. It's over for me. But I haven't had any inclination to try again. I guess you could reasonably say that I'm commitment phobic,” she said, smiling at Charlie, “or relationship phobic, and I intend to stay that way. I have no desire whatsoever to have the shit kicked out of me again. I never saw it coming. No one did. They just thought he was handsome and charming and rich. He comes from a so-called 'good family,' and my own family thought I was nuts for a long time. They probably still do, but they're too polite to say it. They just think I'm weird. But I'm alive, and sane, which looked questionable for a while until I ran my car into the back of a truck on the Long Island Expressway, and scared the hell out of myself. Believe me, running into a truck was a lot less painful and dangerous than my life with him. He was a total sociopath, and still is. So, I threw my biological clock out the window, and my high heels and makeup with it, all my little black cocktail dresses, my engagement and wedding rings. The good news is that I never had kids with him. I probably would have stayed with him if I did. And now instead of one kid or two, I have forty of them, a whole neighborhood, and Gabby and Zorro. And I'm a whole lot happier than I was.” She sat and looked at him and the sorrow and pain in her eyes was unveiled. He could see that she had been to hell and back, which was why she cared so much about the children she worked with. She had been there herself, although in a different way. He had felt cold chills run up his spine at the story she told him. She had made it sound simple and quick, but he could see that it wasn't. She had lived a nightmare, and finally woken up. But it had taken her six years to do so, and she must have suffered incredibly during those six years. He was sorry that it had happened to her. Sorrier than she knew. But she was still alive to tell the tale, and doing wonderful work. She could have been sitting in a chair somewhere, drooling, or on drugs or drunk out of her mind, or dead. Instead, she had made a good life for herself. But she had given up so much.

“I'm sorry, Carole. Some awful stuff happens to all of us at some point, I guess. Life is about what you do afterward, how many pieces you can fish out of the garbage and glue back together.” He knew there were still some big pieces missing in himself. “You have a lot of guts.”

“So do you. For a kid to lose his whole family at the age you were is a crippling blow. You never totally get over it, but you may get brave enough not to hit the door one day. I hope you do,” she said gently.

“I hope you do too,” he said softly as he looked at her, grateful for the honesty they had shared.

“I'd rather put my money on you.” She smiled at him. “I like the way my life is now. It's simple and easy and uncomplicated.”

“And lonely,” he supplied bluntly as she stopped talking. “Don't tell me it's not. You'd be lying and you know it. I'm lonely too. We all are. If you choose to be alone, you may not get hurt by anyone, but you pay a big price for it. It's a big-ticket item, and you know that. So you may not have any obvious bumps and bruises this way, no fresh scars. But when you go home at night, you hear the same thing I do, silence, and the house is dark. No one asks you how you are, and no one gives a damn. Maybe your friends do, but we both know that's not the same thing.”

“No, it's not,” she said honestly. “But the alternative is scarier than shit.”

“Maybe one day the silence will be scarier yet. It gets to me at times.” Particularly lately. And time wasn't on his side. Or even hers for much longer.

“And then what do you do?” She was curious about that.

“I run away. I go out. I travel. See friends. Go to parties. Take women out. There are lots of ways to fill that void, most of them artificial, and wherever you go in the world, you take yourself, and all your ghosts. I've been there too.” He had never been as honest with anyone in his life, other than his therapist, but he was tired of artifice, and pretending that everything was all right. Sometimes it just wasn't.

“Yeah, I know,” she said softly. “I just work till I drop, and tell myself I owe it to my clients. But it's not always about them. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's about me. And if there's anything left when I go home, I swim or play squash or go to the gym.”

“At least it looks good on you.” He smiled at her. “We're a mess, aren't we? Two commitment phobics having dinner and sharing trade secrets.”

“There are worse things.” She looked at him cautiously then, wondering why he had asked her out. She was no longer sure it was entirely about her plans for the center, and she was right about that. “Let's be friends,” she said gently, wanting to make a deal with him, to set the ground rules early on, and the boundaries that she was so good at. He looked at her for a long, hard time before he answered. This time, he wanted to be honest with her. Last time, when he had invited her to dinner, he hadn't been. But he wanted to be before too late.

“I won't make you that promise,” he said as their equally blue eyes met and held. “I don't break promises, and I'm not sure I can keep that one.”

“I won't go out to dinner with you unless I know we're just friends.”

“Then I guess you'll have to start having lunch with me. I'll bring you a banana or we can meet at Sally's and get spareribs all over our faces. I'm not telling you we can't be friends, or that we won't be. But I like you better than that. Even commitment phobics have romances occasionally, or go out on dates.”

“Is that what this was?” She looked at him, startled. It had never occurred to her when he invited her to dinner. She genuinely thought it was foundation business, but she liked him better than that now, enough to want to be friends.

“I don't know,” he said vaguely, not ready to admit that he had lied to her, or used a ruse to get her to have dinner with him. All was fair in sex and fun, as Adam said. Or something along those lines. This had been fun, and interesting even more than fun, but there was no sex yet, and Charlie guessed there wouldn't be for a long time, if ever. “I'm not sure what it was, other than two intelligent people with similar interests getting to know each other. But next time I'd like it to be a date.”

She sat there miserably for a minute, without answering him, wanting to run away, and then she looked at him with anguish on her face. “I don't date.”

“That was yesterday. This is today. You can figure out tomorrow when it happens, and see what you feel like doing then. You don't have to make any big decisions yet. I'm just talking about dinner, not open-heart surgery,” he said simply. He made sense, even to her.

“And which one of us do you think would be out the door first?”

“I'll toss you for it, but I warn you, I'm not in as good shape as I used to be. I don't sprint quite as fast as I once did. You might get there first.”

“Are you using me to prove your abandonment theory, Charlie? That all women leave you sooner or later? I don't want to be used to confirm your neurotic script,” she said, and he smiled as he listened.

“I'll try not to do that, but I can't promise that either. Remember, just dinner. Not a lifetime commitment.” Not yet at least. He warned himself silently to beware of what he wished for. Stranger things had happened. Although he couldn't imagine anything better than spending time with her, for however long it lasted, and whoever hit the door first.

“If you're looking for the 'right woman,' having dinner with a confirmed commitment phobic should not be high on that list.”

“I'll try to keep that in mind. You don't have to be my therapist, Carole. I have one. Just be my friend.”

“I think I am.” They didn't know about the rest yet, but they didn't need to. The future was up for grabs, if she was willing.

He paid the check then, and walked her back to her house. She lived in a small elegant brownstone, which surprised him, and she didn't invite him in. He didn't expect her to. He thought things had gone better than well for a first date.

She told him that she lived in a small studio apartment, at the back of the building, that she rented from the owners. She also mentioned that it was incredibly cheap, and she'd been lucky to find it. He wondered if she had gotten any kind of settlement out of her marriage, since she had mentioned that her husband was rich. He hoped so, for her sake, she should have gotten something out of it instead of only grief.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said politely, and then more firmly, “It wasn't a date.”

“I know that. Thank you for the reminder,” he said with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at her. He was wearing a blue shirt, with no tie, jeans, and a sweater the same color as hers, with brown alligator loafers and no socks. He looked very handsome, and she looked beautiful as she said goodnight to him. “How about dinner next week?”

“I'll think about it,” she said, as she fitted her key into the front door, waved, and disappeared.

“Goodnight,” he whispered to himself with a small smile, as he walked up the block with his head down, thinking of her, and all the information they'd shared. He didn't look back, and never saw her watching him from an upstairs window. She wondered what he was thinking, just as he did about her. Charlie was pleased. Carole was scared.

12

TWO DAYS AFTER CHARLIE'S DINNER WITH CAROLE, Adam pulled up in front of his parents' house on Long Island in his new Ferrari. He already knew he was in for trouble. They expected him to go to services with them, and he had been planning to, as he did every year. But one of his star athletes had just called him in a panic. His wife had been arrested for shoplifting, and he admitted that his sixteen-year-old son was dealing cocaine. It may have been Yom Kippur for him and his parents, but a football player from Minnesota didn't know shit about Yom Kippur and needed Adam's help. He was always there for them, and this time was no different.

They were sending the kid to Hazelden in the morning, and luckily Adam knew the assistant DA on the wife's shoplifting case. They had made a deal for a hundred hours of community service, and the DA had agreed to keep it out of the papers. The quarterback he represented said he owed him his life forever. And at six-thirty Adam was on his way. It took him an hour to get to his parents' house on Long Island. He had missed the services at the synagogue entirely, but at least he had made it in time for dinner. He knew his mother would be furious, and he was disappointed himself. It was the one day of the year he actually liked to go to synagogue to atone for his sins of the past year and remember the dead. The rest of the time, his religion meant little to him. But he loved the tradition of high holidays, and was grateful that Rachel observed all the traditions with his kids. Jacob had been bar mitzvahed the previous summer, and the service where his son had read from the Torah in Hebrew had reduced him to tears. He had never been so proud in his life. He could remember his own father crying at his.

But tonight he knew there would be no such tender moments. His mother would be livid that he hadn't made it in time to go to synagogue with them. It was always something with her. His taking care of his clients in a crisis meant nothing to her. She had been furious with her younger son ever since his divorce. She was closer to Rachel, even now, than she had ever been to him, and Adam always felt his mother liked her better than her own son.

They were all sitting in the living room, just back from synagogue, when Adam walked in. He was wearing a tie and a beautifully cut dark blue Brioni suit, a custom-made white shirt, and perfectly polished shoes. Any other mother would have melted when she saw him. He was well built and good looking, in an exotic, ethnic way. On rare good days, when he was younger, she had said he looked like a young Israeli freedom fighter, and had occasionally been willing to let on that she was proud of him. These days all she ever said was that he had sold his soul to live in Sodom and Gomorrah, and his life was a disgrace. She disapproved of everything he did, from the women she knew he went out with, to the clients he represented, the trips he took to Las Vegas on business, either to see title fights for his boxers, or to see his rappers do concert tours. She even disapproved of Charlie and Gray, and said they were a couple of losers who had never been married and never would be, and hung out with a bunch of loose women. And every time she saw pictures of Adam in the tabloids with one of the women he was dating, standing behind Vana or one of his other clients, she called him to tell him that he was a complete disgrace. He was sure tonight wasn't going to be much better.

Missing services on Yom Kippur was about as bad as it got, as far as she was concerned. He hadn't come home for Rosh Hashanah either. He'd been in Atlantic City cleaning up a contract dispute that had erupted when one of his biggest musical artists had shown up drunk, and passed out onstage. High Jewish holidays meant nothing to his clients, but they meant a lot to his mother. Her face looked like granite when he let himself into the house and walked into the living room. He was so stressed and anxious, he was pale. Coming home always made him feel like a kid again, which was not a happy memory for him. He had been made to feel like an intruder and a disappointment to them since birth.

“Hi, Mom, I'm sorry I'm so late,” he said as he walked toward her, bent to kiss her, and she turned her face away. His father was sitting on the couch staring at his feet. Although he had heard Adam come in, he never looked up to see him. He never did. Adam kissed the top of his mother's head, and moved away. “I'm sorry, everybody, I couldn't help it. I had a crisis with a client. His kid's selling drugs, and his wife was about to go to jail.” His excuse meant nothing to her, it was just more cannon fodder for her.

“Lovely people you work for,” she said, with an edge to her voice that could have sliced through a side of beef. “You must be very proud.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice, as Adam saw his sister glance at her husband, and his brother frowned and turned away. He could tell it was going to be one of those great evenings that left his stomach aching for days.

“It feeds my kids,” Adam said, trying to sound lighthearted, as he went to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. A stiff one. Straight vodka over ice.

“You can't even wait to sit down before you have a drink? You can't go to synagogue on Yom Kippur, or say a decent hello to your family, and you're already drinking? One of these days, Adam, you're going to wind up at AA.” There was little he could say. He would have made a joke of it with Charlie and Gray, but nothing that happened in his family was ever a joke. They looked like they were sitting shivah, as they waited for the maid to tell them that dinner was served. She was the same African American woman who had worked for them for thirty years, though Adam could never figure out why she did. His mother still referred to her as “the schwartze” in front of her, although she spoke more Yiddish than he did by now. She was the only person Adam enjoyed seeing on his rare visits home. Her name was Mae. His mother always said with a look of disapproval, what kind of name was Mae?

“How was synagogue?” he asked politely, trying to strike up conversation while his sister Sharon spoke in hushed tones to their sister-in-law Barbara, and his brother Ben talked golf to their brother-in-law, whose name was Gideon, but no one liked him, so they pretended he had no name. In his family, if you didn't make the cut, everyone pretended you had no name. Ben was a doctor, and Gideon only sold insurance. The fact that Adam had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School was canceled out by the fact that he was divorced because his wife had left him, a fact for which, in his mother's opinion, he was almost certainly to blame. If he were a decent guy, why would a girl like Rachel leave him? And look what he'd been dating ever since. The mantras were endless, and he knew them all by then. It was a game you could never win. He still tried, but never knew why he did.

Mae finally came to call them in to dinner, and as they sat down at their usual places, Adam saw his mother stare down the length of the table at him. It was a look that would have wilted concrete. His father was at the opposite end, with both couples lined up on either side. Their children were still being fed in the kitchen, and Adam hadn't seen them yet. They'd been shooting basketball hoops and secretly smoking cigarettes outside. His own children never came. His mother saw them alone with Rachel, on her own time. Adam's place was between his father and sister, like someone they had made room for at the last minute. He always got the table leg between his knees. He didn't really mind it, but it always seemed like a sign from God to him that there wasn't room for him in this family, even more so in recent years. Ever since his divorce from Rachel, and his partnership in his law firm shortly before that, he had been treated like a pariah, and a source of grief and shame to his mother in particular. His accomplishments, which were considerable in the real world, meant absolutely nothing here. He was treated like a creature from outer space, and sat there sometimes feeling like ET, growing paler by the minute, and desperate to go home. The worst part of it for him was that this was home, hard as that was for him to believe. They all felt like strangers and enemies to him, and treated him that way.

“So, where have you been lately?” his mother asked in the first silence, so that everyone could hear him list off places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City, where there were gambling and prostitutes and roving bands of loose women, all of whom had been summoned there for Adam's use.

“Oh, here and there,” Adam said vaguely. He knew the drill. It was tough to avoid the potholes and pitfalls, but he usually gave it a good try. “I was in Italy and France in August,” he reminded her, he had spoken to her since.

There was no point telling her he'd been in Atlantic City the week before, dealing with another crisis. Mercifully, she had no idea where he'd been on Rosh Hashanah and didn't expect him to come home. He only made the effort on Yom Kippur. He glanced at his sister then, and she smiled at him. For an instant, in a momentary hallucination, he saw her hair get tall with white streaks in it, and fangs come out. He always thought of her as the Bride of Frankenstein. She had two kids, whom he rarely saw, who were just like Gideon and her. He went to everyone's bar and bat mitzvahs, but other than that, he never saw them. His nephews and nieces were all strangers to him, and he admitted to Charlie and Gray that he preferred it that way. He insisted that everyone in his family were freaks, which was precisely what they thought of him.

“How was Lake Mohonk?” he asked his mother. He had no idea why she still went there. His father had made a fortune in the stock market forty years before, and they could have afforded to go anywhere in the world. His mother liked to pretend they were still poor. And she hated planes, so they never ventured far.

“It was very nice,” she said, foraging for something else to spear him with. She usually used whatever he told her to clobber him. The trick was not to give her any information, other than what she read in the tabloids, which she purchased religiously, or what she saw on TV. Generally, she sent him clippings of the ugliest pictures of him, standing behind one of his clients being handcuffed and taken to jail. She always wrote little notes on what she sent, “In case you missed this …” When they were particularly bad, she sent them in triplicate, mailed separately, with little notes on them that began, “Did I forget to send you …”

“How're you feeling, Dad?” was usually Adam's next attempt at conversation, which always had the same response. He had been convinced as a boy that his father had been replaced by a robot left there by creatures from outer space. The robot they had left had a piece of defective machinery that made it difficult for it to speak. It was capable of it, but you had to kick the robot into action first, and then you realized the battery was dead. His father's standard answer to the question eventually was “pretty good,” as he stared into his plate, never looked at you, and continued to eat. Removing himself mentally entirely, and refusing to enter into the conversation, had been the only way his father had survived fifty-seven years of marriage to his mother. Adam's brother Ben was turning fifty-five that winter, Sharon had just turned fifty, and Adam had been an accident nine years later, apparently one that was neither worth discussing, nor addressing, except when he did something wrong.

He couldn't remember his mother ever telling him she loved him, or wasting a kind word on him since he was born. He was, and had been even as a child, an embarrassment and an annoyance. The kindest thing they had ever done for him was ignore him. The worst was scold him, shun him, berate him, and spank him, all of which had been his mother's job when he was growing up, and she was still doing it now that he was in his forties. All she had eliminated over the years was the spankings.

“So who are you dating now, Adam?” his mother asked as Mae brought in the salad. He assumed that because he hadn't gone to synagogue, and had to be punished for it, she had brought the big guns out early this time. As a rule, she waited to level that one at him till after dessert, with coffee. He had learned long since that there was no correct answer. Telling her the truth, on that or any subject, would have brought the house down.

“No one. I've been busy,” he said vaguely.

“Apparently,” his mother said, as she walked swift and erect to the sideboard. She was slim and spare and in remarkably good shape although she was seventy-nine years old. His father was eighty, but going strong, physically at least.

She took a copy of the Enquirer out of the sideboard then, and passed it down the table, so everyone could see it. She hadn't sent him the clippings of that one yet. She'd apparently been saving it for the high holidays, so everyone could enjoy it, not just Adam. He saw that it was a photograph taken of him at Vana's concert. There was a girl standing next to him with her mouth wide open and her eyes closed, in a leather jacket, and her breasts exploding out of a black blouse. Her skirt was so short it looked like she had none on. “Who is that?” his mother asked in a tone that suggested he was holding out on them. He stared at it for a minute, and had absolutely no recollection, and then he remembered. Maggie. The girl he'd gotten a seat on the stage for, and whom he had taken home to the tenement she lived in. He was tempted to tell his mother not to worry about it, since he hadn't slept with her, so obviously she didn't count.

“Just a girl I was standing next to at the concert,” he said vaguely.

“She wasn't your date?” She was torn between relief and disappointment. She'd have to choose another weapon.

“No. I went with Charlie.”

“Who?” She always pretended she didn't remember. To Adam, forgetting the names of his friends was just another form of rejection.

“Charles Harrington.” The one you always pretend you don't remember.

“Oh. That one. He must be gay. He's never been married.” Her point on that one. She was in control now. If you said he wasn't gay, she'd want to know how you knew, which could be incriminating. And if you threw caution to the winds and agreed with her, just to get the hot potato out of your lap, it would inevitably come back to haunt you later. He had tried it with other topics. It was best to say nothing. He smiled at Mae instead as she passed the rolls again, and she winked at him. She was his only ally, and always had been.

He felt like he'd been in hell for several hours by the time they got up from the table after dinner. The knot in his stomach was the size of his fist by then, as he watched them settle into the same chairs where they always sat, and had been sitting before dinner. He looked around the room then, and he realized he just couldn't do it. He went to stand close to his mother, in case she had an urge to hug him. It didn't happen often.

“I'm sorry, Mom. I have an incredible headache. It feels like a migraine. It's a long drive, I think I'd better go.” All he wanted to do was bolt for the door and run for his life.

She looked at him for a long moment with her lips pursed, and nodded. She had punished him adequately for not going to synagogue with them. He was free to go. He had done his duty, as whipping boy and scapegoat. It was a role she had assigned him for his entire life, since he had had the audacity to arrive in her life at a time when she thought she was finished having children. He had been an unexpected and unwelcome assault on her tea parties and bridge games, and had been soundly punished for it. Always. And still was. He had been a major inconvenience to her, and never a source of joy. The others took their cues from her. At fourteen, Ben had been mortified to have his mother pregnant again. At nine, Sharon had been outraged by the intrusion on her life. His father had been playing golf, and unavailable for comment. And as their final revenge, he had been brought up by a nanny, and never saw them. As it turned out, the punishment that had been meted out to him had been a blessing. The woman who had taken care of him until he was ten had been loving and kind and good and the only decent person in his childhood. Until his tenth birthday, when she was summarily fired and not allowed to say good-bye. He still wondered sometimes what had happened to her, but as she hadn't been young then, he assumed that she was dead by now. For years, he had felt guilty for not trying to find her, or at least write her, to thank her for her kindness.

“If you didn't drink so much and go out with such loose women,” his mother pronounced, “you wouldn't get migraines.” He wasn't sure what the loose women had to do with it, but he didn't ask her. He took her word for it, it was simpler.

“Thanks for a great dinner.” He had no idea what he'd eaten. Probably roast beef. He never looked at what he was eating in their house. He just got through it.

“Call me sometime,” she said sternly. He nodded and resisted the urge to ask her why. It was another question no one could have answered. Why would he want to call her? He didn't, but called anyway, out of respect and habit, every week or so, and prayed that she'd be out so he could leave a message, preferably with his father, who barely managed to squeeze three words in between hello and good-bye, which were almost always “I'll tell her.”

Adam said good-bye to each of them, then said good-bye to Mae in the kitchen, let himself out the front door, and slipped into the Ferrari with an enormous sigh.

“Holy fucking shit!” he said out loud. “I hate those people.” After he said it out loud he felt better, and gunned the car. He was on the Long Island Expressway ten minutes later going well over the speed limit, but his stomach already felt better. He tried to call Charlie, just so he could hear the voice of a normal human being, but he was out, and he left an inane message on the machine. And as he drove home, he found himself thinking of Maggie. The picture of her in the Enquirer was awful. He remembered her looking better than that. In her own way, she was a cute girl. He thought about her for a few minutes and wondered if he should call her. Probably not, but he knew he needed to do something that night to restore his battered guts and ego. There were plenty of others he could call, and when he got home, he called them. Everyone was out. It was a Friday night, and all the women he knew would be out on dates with someone. All he needed was a little human touch, someone to smile at, talk to him, and hold him. He didn't even need to have sex with them, he just wanted someone to recognize the fact that he was a human being. Seeing his family took all the air out of him, it was like having his blood sucked out of him by vampires. Now he needed a transfusion.

Sitting in his apartment, Adam ran through his address book. He called seven women. All he got were their answering machines, and then he thought of Maggie. He figured she was probably working, but just for the hell of it, he decided to call her. It was after midnight by then, and maybe she was home. He fished into the leather jacket he'd worn that night, at Vana's concert, looking for the little scrap of paper where he'd written her number. He went through all the pockets, and then he found it. Maggie O'Malley. He dialed the number. He knew it was ridiculous to reach out to her, but he had to talk to someone. His mother drove him crazy. He hated his sister. He didn't even hate her. He disliked her, nearly as much as she disliked him. She had never done anything with her life except get married and have two children. He would have been happy talking to Gray or Charlie. But he knew Gray was with Sylvia, and it was too late to call. And he remembered that Charlie was gone for the weekend. So he called Maggie. He felt a rising wave of panic, as he always did when he went home, and now he really was getting a migraine. Somehow, just being with them, brought back the worst memories of his childhood. He let the phone ring a dozen times, and no one answered. A message machine finally came on with several girls' names on it, and he left his name and number for Maggie, wondering why he'd bothered. Like everyone else he knew, Maggie was out that night, and as soon as he set the receiver down, he knew it was stupid to have called her. She was a total stranger. He couldn't explain to her what seeing his family did to him, or how much pain his mother always caused him. Maggie was some silly girl he had dragged around with him that night, for lack of someone better. She was just a waitress. Seeing her in the clipping his mother had used to torture him had reminded him of her, and he was relieved now that she hadn't answered. He hadn't even slept with her, and the only reason he had kept her number was because he had forgotten to take it out of his jacket and toss it.

In spite of his mother's dire warnings about potential alcoholism, and telling him that even migraine headaches could result, he poured himself a drink before he went to bed, and lay there after he did, trying to recover from the strain of the evening on Long Island. He hated going home and seeing them. It was an exquisite form of torture. It always took him days to recover from it. What was the point of having him, if they were going to treat him like an outcast all his life? He lay in bed, thinking of them, as the headache his mother had warned him about began to pound. It took him nearly an hour after that to fall asleep.

An hour later, he was in a deep sleep when the telephone rang. He dreamed that it was monsters from outer space, trying to eat him alive, and making strange buzzing sounds while they did. And all the while, his mother stood laughing at him, waving newspapers in his face. He put the covers over his head, and dreamed that he was running screaming from them, until he realized it was the phone. He put the receiver to his ear, and was still more than half asleep when he answered.

“…llo…”

“Adam?” He didn't recognize the voice, and realized as he woke up that the headache was even worse than it had been when he went to bed.

“Who is this?” He didn't know, and no longer cared, as he rolled over in bed and started to go back to sleep.

“It's Maggie. You left a message on my machine.”

“Maggie who?” He was still too out of it to understand.

“Maggie O'Malley. You called me. Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah. You did.” His mind was a little clearer then, as he glanced at the alarm clock next to his bed. It was just after two. “Why are you calling me at this hour?” As his head cleared, the headache did too. But he knew that if he talked to her, he would have trouble going back to sleep.

“I thought it was important. You called me at midnight. I just got home from work. I thought you'd still be up.”

“I'm not,” he said, lying in bed and thinking about her. His call to her must have sounded like a booty call to her at that hour. But calling him back at two A.M. was hardly any better. In fact, slightly worse. And now it was too late to see her anyway. He was half asleep.

“What were you calling me about?” She sounded curious, and somewhat ill at ease. She had liked meeting him, and was grateful for the seat he'd gotten her. But she was disappointed he hadn't called her afterward. When she mentioned it to them, her friends at the restaurant where she worked didn't think he would. They thought the fact that she hadn't slept with him might make him less interested. Maybe if she had, he might have felt some bond to her. Although the maître d' insisted it was just the reverse.

“I was just wondering if you were busy,” Adam said sleepily.

“At midnight?” She sounded shocked, and as he woke up and turned on the light, he was faintly embarrassed. Most of the women he knew would have hung up on him at that point, except those who were truly desperate. Maggie wasn't, and sounded insulted by his explanation. “What was that, a booty call?” She had called it. Except in his case, it had been an antidote to the venom of his mother. Her particular brand was singularly potent, and he'd been hoping some sympathetic soul would provide the antivenom he needed. And if sexual favors were involved, that wouldn't hurt either. It was just slightly more awkward in Maggie's case, because he really didn't know her.

“No, it wasn't a booty call, I was just lonely. And I had a headache.” Even to his own ears, he sounded pathetic.

“You called me because you had a headache?”

“Yeah, sort of,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I had a shit evening with my parents on Long Island. It's Yom Kippur.” He guessed correctly that with a name like O'Malley, she wouldn't know beans about Yom Kippur. Most of his dates didn't.

“Well, Happy Yom Kippur,” she said a little tartly.

“Not exactly. It's the Day of Atonement,” he informed her.

“How come you didn't call me before this?” She was justifiably suspicious.

“I've been busy.” He was growing sorrier by the minute. The last thing he needed was to deal with this girl he had planned never to call, at two o'clock in the morning. It served him right, he realized, for calling her in the first place. So much for booty calls to strangers at midnight.

“Yeah, I've been busy too,” she said in her distinctly New York accent. “Thanks for the seat anyway, and a nice evening. You weren't going to call me again, were you?” She sounded sad when she said it.

“Apparently I was, since I did call you. Two hours ago in fact,” he said, sounding irritated. He didn't owe her any explanations, and now his headache was coming back with a vengeance. Evenings on Long Island always did that. And Maggie wasn't helping, contrary to what he'd intended.

“No, you weren't going to call me. My girlfriends said you wouldn't.”

“You discussed this with them?” It was embarrassing to think about. Maybe the entire neighborhood had been polled about whether or not he'd call her.

“I just asked what they thought. Would you have called me if I slept with you?” she asked, curious, as Adam groaned, closed his eyes again, and rolled over.

“For God's sake, what do I know? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Depends if we liked each other.”

“To be honest, I'm not sure I like you. I thought I did the night I met you. Now I think you were just playing with me. Maybe you and Charlie thought I was funny.” She sounded insulted. With his limousine and the places he'd taken her to, it was obvious that he had money. Guys like him took advantage of girls like her all the time, and afterward they never called them. That's what her friends had said, and when he didn't call, she decided they were right. She was even happier now that she hadn't slept with him, although she'd thought about it and decided against it. She didn't know him. And she wasn't willing to trade a seat on the stage for her body.

“Charlie thought you were very nice,” Adam lied to her. He had no idea what Charlie had thought. He couldn't remember. Neither of them had ever mentioned her again. She was just someone who had quickly crossed their radar screen one night, and vanished, never to be seen again. She was right. He wasn't going to call her. Until the nightmare on Long Island, and no one else answered. He'd been desperate for human contact. And now he was getting more than he wanted.

“And what about you, Adam? Did you think I was nice too?” She was pushing. He opened his eyes again, and stared at the ceiling, wondering why he was talking to her. It was all his mother's fault. He had had just enough to drink to believe that most things in his life were his mother's fault. The rest were Rachel's.

“Look, why are we doing this? I don't know you. You don't know me. We're strangers. I have a headache, a big one, my stomach hurts. My mother thinks I'm an alcoholic. Maybe I am. I don't think so. But whatever I am, I feel like shit. I was born into the family from hell, and I just spent an evening with them. That's nothing to mess around with. I'm pissed off. I hate my parents, and they don't like me either. I don't know why I called you, but I did. You weren't home. Why don't we just let it go at that? Just pretend you never got the message. Maybe it was a booty call. I don't know why the hell I called you, except that I feel like shit. And I always feel like shit after I see my mother.” He was getting seriously worked up over it, as Maggie listened quietly at her end.

“I'm sorry, Adam. I didn't have such great parents either. My father died when I was three. And my mother was an alcoholic. I haven't seen her since I was seven.”

“So who did you grow up with?” He had no idea why he was pursuing the conversation, but he was curious about her.

“I grew up with an aunt until I was fourteen. Then she died, and I was in foster care till I graduated from high school. Actually, I didn't really graduate. I got my GED at sixteen. I've been on my own ever since.” She said it matter-of-factly, and seemed to have no need for pity.

“Jesus. That sounds like a bunch of bad breaks.” But a lot of the women he knew had histories like that. The kind of women he went out with had rarely had easy lives, most of them had been molested by male relatives, left home at sixteen, and had gone to work as actresses and models. There were few women he knew who had had normal lives, or were debutantes like the ones who went out with Charlie. Maggie was no different. She just sounded more philosophical about it, and she didn't sound as though she expected him to do anything about it. She didn't expect him to pay for implants for her, in order to make up for the fact that her mother had been a hooker, or she'd been molested by her father. Whatever had happened to her, she sounded as though she'd made her peace with it. If anything, she sounded sympathetic to Adam.

“Do you have any family at all?” He was intrigued.

“Nope. It kind of sucks on holidays, but I see my foster parents once in a while.”

“Believe me,” Adam said cynically, “not having a family is a blessing. You wouldn't have wanted to have one like mine.” Maggie wasn't sure she agreed with him, but she wasn't about to debate it with him at two-thirty in the morning. They had been chatting aimlessly for half an hour. And she still believed his call to her had been a booty call, which she thought was just plain rude and downright insulting. She wondered how many other women he had called, and if he would have bothered to call her at all, if one of the others had come to his aid. Apparently, they hadn't, since he was obviously alone, and had been sleeping soundly when she called him.

“Most of the time, I think I'd like to have a family, even a bad one.” And then she thought of something. She was wide awake, despite the hour, and by now so was he. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Maggie, could we talk about this some other time? I'll call you tomorrow. I'll give you my entire family history. I promise.” And with that, she heard a crashing sound, he groaned, and shouted a single word: “Shit!” He sounded like he'd gotten hurt.

“What happened?” She sounded worried.

“I just got out of bed and stubbed my toe on the night table, and the alarm clock fell on my foot. Now I'm not only tired and upset, I'm injured.” He sounded like a five-year-old about to burst into tears, and she repressed a giggle.

“You're a mess. Maybe you should go back to sleep.”

“No kidding. I've been suggesting that for the past half hour.”

“Don't be rude,” she chided him. “You know, sometimes you're very rude.”

“Now you sound like my mother. She always says things like that to me. Just how polite is it to send me tabloid clippings of me looking like shit, or when my clients go to jail? How rude is it to call me an alcoholic and tell how much she loves my ex-wife, although she cheated on me and dumped me, and then married someone else?” He was getting worked up again, as he got back in bed, and Maggie listened.

“That's not rude. It's mean. She says stuff like that to you?” Maggie sounded surprised, and sympathetic yet again. Although he was nearly yelling at her, he realized she was a sweet person. He had realized it the night they met. He just didn't have room in his life for someone like her. He wanted sex, glamour, and excitement. She was none of the above, although her figure was fantastic. But since she hadn't been willing to share her body with him, he had no way of knowing just how much fun it was. She had made him some silly speech about not doing things like that on a first date. And if so, with Adam, there would be no second. And now she was talking to him at nearly three A.M., and listening to him complain about his mother. She didn't even seem to mind, although his call to her had clearly been a booty call. She disapproved of that, and told him so, but she still hadn't hung up. “You shouldn't let her say things like that to you, Adam,” she said gently. Her mother had been mean to her too, and then one night, without saying good-bye, she was gone.

“Why do you think I have a headache?” Adam said, almost shouting again. “Because I bottle it all up inside.” He realized he sounded like a nutcase, and felt like one. This was phone therapy, without sex. It was the weirdest conversation he'd ever had. He was almost sorry he'd answered the phone, and yet not. He liked talking to Maggie.

“You shouldn't bottle up your feelings. Maybe you should talk to her sometime, and just tell her how you feel.” Adam lay in bed and rolled his eyes. She was a little simplistic in her point of view, but she was not without compassion. But she also didn't know his mother. Lucky for her. “What did you take for your headache?”

“Vodka and red wine at my mother's house. And a shot of tequila when I got home.”

“That's really bad for you. Did you take aspirin?”

“Of course not, and believe me, brandy and champagne are worse.”

“I think you should take aspirin or a Tylenol or something.”

“I don't have any,” he said, lying in bed and feeling sorry for himself. But in a weird way, it was nice talking to her. She really was a nice person. If she weren't, she wouldn't have been listening to him complain about his parents, and tell her all his woes.

“How come you don't have Tylenol in the house?” And then she thought of something. “Are you a Christian Scientist?” She had known one once. He never took any medicine, or went to the doctor. He just prayed. It seemed strange to her, but it worked for him.

“No, of course not. Remember. Tonight is Yom Kippur. I'm Jewish. That's what started this whole mess. That's why I had dinner with my parents. Yom Kippur. And I don't have aspirin in the house because I'm not married. Married people have things like that. Wives buy all that stuff. My secretary buys me aspirin at the office. I always forget to buy any for here.”

“You should go out and buy some tomorrow, before you forget again.” She had a childlike voice, but it was soothing to listen to. In the end, she had given him just what he needed. Sympathy, and someone to talk to.

“I should get some sleep,” he reminded her. “And so should you. I'll call you tomorrow. And this time I really will.” If nothing else, to thank her.

“No, you won't,” she said sadly. “I'm not fancy enough for you, Adam. I saw the kind of places you went that night. You probably go out with some pretty jazzy women.” And she was only a waitress from Pier 92. It had been an accident of fate that they had met atall, and yet another that he had left a message on her machine that night. Accident number three: she had called him back, and woken him up.

“You're sounding like my mother again. That's the kind of thing she says. She doesn't approve. She thinks I should have found another nice Jewish girl years ago, and remarried. And now that you mention it, the women I go out with are no fancier than you.” Their clothes were a little more expensive maybe, but whenever that was the case, they had been paid for by someone else. In many ways, although his mother wouldn't have agreed with him, Maggie was more respectable than they were.

“Then how come you never remarried?”

“I don't want to. I got burned once, badly in fact. My ex-wife turned out to be just like my mother. And I have no desire to try the experiment again.”

“Do you have kids?” She had never asked him the night they met, there had been too much going on. She hadn't had time.

“Yes. Amanda and Jacob, respectively fourteen and thirteen.” He smiled as he said it, and Maggie could hear it in his voice.

“Where did you go to college?”

“I can't believe this,” he said, amazed at himself that he was continuing to answer her questions. It was addictive. “Harvard. Undergraduate and law school. I graduated from law school magna cum laude.” It was a pompous thing to say to her, but what the hell, he couldn't see her anyway, and anything they said on the phone was fair game.

“I knew it,” she said, sounding excited. “I just knew it. I knew you'd gone to Harvard! And you're a genius!” For once, the appropriate reaction. He lay in bed and grinned. “That's amazing!”

“No, it's not,” he said more modestly this time. “A lot of people do it. In fact, much as I hate to admit it to you, Rachel the Horrible graduated summa cum laude and passed the bar on the first try. I didn't.” He was confessing all his weaknesses and sins.

“Who cares, if she was a bitch?”

“That's a nice thing to say.” He sounded pleased. Without even intending to, he had found an ally.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that about your children's mother.”

“Yes, you should. I say it all the time. She is. I hate her. Well,” he corrected himself, “I don't hate her, I dislike her strongly.” It was a religious holiday after all. But Maggie was Catholic presumably. She could say it. “You're Catholic, aren't you, by the way?”

“I used to be. I'm not much of anything these days. I go to church and light candles sometimes, but that's about it. I guess I'm nothing. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a nun.”

“That would have been a terrible waste of a beautiful face and a great body. Thank God you didn't.” He sounded as though he meant it.

“Thank you, Adam. That was a nice thing to say. I really think you should go to bed now, or you're going to have a worse headache tomorrow.” He hadn't thought about it for the past half hour, while talking to her, but he realized suddenly, as he glanced at the clock, that his headache had gone away. It was four A.M.

“What about breakfast tomorrow? What time do you get up?”

“Usually around nine o'clock. Tomorrow I was going to sleep in. I have the day off from work.”

“Me too. On both counts. I'll pick you up at noon. I'll take you somewhere nice for brunch.”

“How nice?” She sounded worried. Most of what she wore belonged to her roommates. None of what she had had on the night they met had belonged to her, which was why the blouse was so tight. She had the biggest boobs in the house, but she said none of that to Adam. And he had guessed what she was worried about. A lot of the girls he went out with were in the same boat.

“How about blue jeans nice, or denim skirt nice? Or shorts nice?” He was trying to give her options.

“Denim skirt nice sounds good.” She sounded relieved.

“Perfect. I'll wear one too.” They both laughed, and he jotted down her address again, on the pad he kept next to his bed. Usually, when he wrote something down in the middle of the night, it was because one of his clients had been arrested. This had been a lot more fun. “Thanks, Maggie. I had a nice time tonight.” Nicer possibly than if he'd seen her. This way he had actually talked to her, it hadn't been about trying to seduce her, and he wasn't at all sure that brunch the next day would be about seducing her either. Maybe they would just wind up friends. They were off to a good start.

“I had a nice time, too. I'm glad you called me, even if it was a booty call,” she teased him.

“It was not a booty call,” he insisted, but she wasn't convinced, and neither was he. It had been a booty call, but came to a much better end. And his headache was gone too.

“Yeah, right.” Maggie hooted at him. “It was too. Anything after ten o'clock is a booty call, and you know it.”

“Who made up those rules?”

“I did,” she said, laughing into the phone.

“Get some sleep. If you don't, you'll look like hell tomorrow. No, I guess you won't. You're too young to look like hell, but I will.”

“No, you won't,” she said practically. “I think you're very handsome.”

“Goodnight, Maggie,” he said quietly. “You'll recognize me by the fat head I'll still have tomorrow.” Between her comments about Harvard and his good looks, he had begun to really like her. She made him feel like a million dollars, with or without a headache. It had been a nice end to a terrible evening. She had made it up to him for all the abuse he always endured on Long Island. “See you tomorrow.”

“Night night,” she said softly, and hung up. And as she got into bed and crawled under the blanket, she wondered if he'd actually show up. Guys did things like that. They made promises and then broke them. She decided to get dressed and wait for him anyway, just in case. But even if he didn't show up the next day, it had been nice talking to him. He really was a nice guy, and she liked him.

13

MAGGIE WAS SITTING ON THE COUCH IN THE LIVING room waiting for him the next day. It was nearly noon, and it was a gorgeous day. The first Saturday in October. She was wearing a denim miniskirt, a tight pink T-shirt she had borrowed from one of her roommates, and gold sandals. She had pulled her long hair straight back this time, and had tied a pink scarf around it in a long ponytail that made her look even younger than she was. This time, she had worn very little makeup. She had gotten the feeling that he thought she was wearing too much the night they met.

The next time she looked at her watch, it was five after twelve and he hadn't shown up yet. Everyone else in the apartment had gone out, and she was beginning to wonder if he really was going to come. Maybe not. She decided to give it till one, and if he didn't, she was going to go for a walk in the park. There was no point being depressed if it didn't happen. She hadn't told anyone, so no one was going to laugh at her if he stood her up. She was thinking about it when the phone rang. It was Adam, and she smiled the minute she heard his voice. Then just as quickly, she wondered if he was calling to cancel. It seemed weird that he was calling her, and not downstairs ringing the bell.

“Hi, how are you?” She tried to sound casual, so he wouldn't think she was too disappointed. “How's your headache?”

“What headache? I forgot, what number is your apartment?”

“Where are you?” She was stunned. He was coming after all. Better late than never, and it was only twelve-ten.

“I'm downstairs.” He was calling from his cell phone. “Come on down. I made a reservation for lunch.”

“I'll be right down.” She hung up and bounded down the stairs, before he could disappear or change his mind. It was rare in her life, and always had been, for people to actually do what they said. And he had.

She walked out her front door, and he was sitting there looking like a movie star in his brand-new red Ferrari. It was the one he had driven to Long Island the night before, which his entire family had politely ignored. His parents drove matching Mercedes, as did his sister-in-law and brother, his brother-in-law drove a BMW, and his sister didn't drive at all. She expected other people to turn their lives upside down, stop whatever they were doing, and drive her. As far as they were concerned, a Ferrari was so beyond the pale and so vulgar as to not even be worth discussing. But Adam loved it.

“Oh my God! Look at that car!” Maggie was standing there, looking at him, and jumping up and down on the sidewalk. Adam grinned while he watched her, and then opened the door and told her to get in. She had never seen anything like it, except in movies, and she was riding in it with him. She couldn't believe it. She wished that someone she knew could see them driving by. “Is this yours?” she asked him excitedly.

“No. I stole it.” He laughed at her. “Of course it's mine. Hell, let's face it, I went to Harvard.” They both laughed, and then she handed him a small package. “What's that?”

“A present for you. I went to the grocery store and got it for you this morning.” She had bought him a bottle of Tylenol in case he got another headache.

“That was nice of you,” he said, smiling at her. “I'll save it for the next time I see my mother.”

Adam drove through Central Park. It was a beautiful afternoon. He stopped on Third Avenue at a restaurant that had a sidewalk café and a garden. He ordered eggs Benedict for both of them, after she assured him that she liked them. She had never had them before, but they sounded good to her when he described them. Afterward, they sat at their table in the garden and drank wine, and when they finally left the restaurant, they went for a walk. She loved looking in the shop windows with him, and talking about the people he represented. He talked about his children, the demise of his marriage, and what an agony it had been for him, and then he talked about his two best friends, Charlie and Gray. By the end of the afternoon, she felt as though she knew everything about him, and she had cautiously told him some things about herself.

Maggie was more reserved than he was, and she seemed to prefer talking about him. She told him little anecdotes about her childhood, her foster parents, the people where she worked. But it was obvious to both of them, and always had been, that her life was a lot less exciting than his. Most of the time, all she did was eat, sleep, go to movies, and work. She didn't seem to have a lot of friends. She said she didn't have time to spend with them. She worked long hours at Pier 92, and she was vague when he asked what else she did with her time. She smiled and said, “Just work.” He was surprised at how easy it was being with her. She was nice to talk to, and although she'd led a simple life, she seemed wise in the ways of the world. She'd seen a lot, some of it none too pleasant, for a woman of twenty-six. She looked younger than she was, but she was a lot older in her head. Older even than Adam in some ways.

They got back in his car at six o'clock, and she was thinking to herself that she hated to see the day end. It was almost as though he read her mind. He turned to her with a hopeful expression. “How about if I barbecue some steaks for us on my terrace? How does that sound to you, Maggie?”