"Call her at Freed"s and tell her to come back."

"I have to cut aspirin in half and give her a half aspirin," Francie whispered. "I called my doctor."

"Would you like me to come there to be with you?"

Francie waited a minute before answering. "I"d like it, but that would be silly."

"I"m coming. It"s only an hour"s drive."

Another hesitation. "Are you sure you want to?"

"I want to. I don"t have anything I have to do here."

Going down the driveway, Perry felt elated. It was the right time, and he knew what he was going to say to Francie. The realization of it, the weight of it, came as inevitably as pressure builds around a diver.

Francie was talking on the phone to Delores" mother. She was a.s.suring her that Meagan"s voice was odd only because she was coming down with a cold, and lied that Delores was out but would be back soon.

Francie hung up and greeted him with "Wait"ll you hear this: Freed and Delores have decided to go away and live together. Carl went to the house and threw firecrackers at the windows, apparently, and scared them to death. Then Carl drove off and they got some things into suitcases. He"s just left his job a week before the term ends and he"s going south, he says, to live with Delores. I hinted that I didn"t want them to come here just now, but they"re coming anyway. I think Delores is cracking up. She was crying and laughing on the phone."

"Let"s lock the door and turn out all the lights," he said.

"No, I"m just going to tell them that they can spend the night, but that I"m not going to put up with any s.h.i.t. And if Carl follows them down here and makes a scene, I"m going to call the police."

She was too preoccupied for him to ask her to go to bed. He looked at her and looked away. There was a smudge of yellow paint on her cheek she did not know was there.

"Why don"t we take Meagan and get out of here?" he said.

"Delores would arrest us for kidnapping."

"If she could remember where she left her," he said.

She followed him to the living room. It was June, and too warm for a fire, but Francie loved the wood burning, and when the evenings were a little cold, she lit a fire. The fire was dying in the fireplace. He sat on the sofa and patted the cushion for her to sit beside him. There was a big box on the sofa, addressed to T.W. c/o Francie.

"What"s that?" he said.

"Worms. Honest to G.o.d. He"s going to start raising worms for profit."

"What are you doing with the worms?"

"He had them delivered here because I"m usually home in the day and he"s out of town so often."

He put the box of worms on the floor. In this context, how could he talk about going to bed with her?

"You shouldn"t put up with it," he said.

"You know what T.W. said that time about my other set of friends? It was just a joking remark, but he was right: I don"t have any other friends. I know a few other people, but I don"t care anything about them. Sometimes when all of us are together we have good times. I don"t want to make them all go away."

"What if you were just with me? What if we did what Freed and Delores are doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if we went away?"

"Where would we go?"

He had not thought about where they would go. "You could come live in my house in Vermont."

"What would I do with my house?" she said.

He sat by the fire, staring into the peaks of flames, and looked at her. He saw that she did not want to live with him. She shifted on the sofa and looked somewhere else, embarra.s.sed.

"You told me before that I was your best friend," he said.

"You are. We don"t have to live together because of that, do we?"

"You don"t even have to speak to me. You can entertain yourself with T.W. and his worms, or you can hold down the fortress while Carl rockets firecrackers at your windows, or you can have a big party and study the Rorschach blots of wine on your rug. You could do most any of those things."

"I"m sorry I hurt your feelings," she said.

"I"m your best friend, Francie. Say something kinder to me."

"I don"t know how to talk," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I"m either alone and it"s silent here all day, or my friends are around, and I don"t really talk to them."

"You can talk to me."

"I"ve already hurt your feelings. I don"t want to do anything worse."

"Well, what are you holding out that might really do me in? How little do you think of me?"

Francie drew up her knees and clasped her hands around them. "I want to be a painter," she said.

"You are a painter."

"I want to be an important painter."

He stared at her, waiting for more.

"I don"t know what I want," Francie said. "When Anita had her baby I wanted to be a mother. I want to be left alone, but I need to have people around."

"When I was a kid my parents made me take dancing lessons, and the boys had to go up to the girls and ask them to dance. I asked, and the girl stomped my foot."

"That didn"t really happen."

"If I wanted to make you feel sorry for me, I could have thought of something more dramatic."

"You mean just live with you in the house?" Francie said.

"No," he said.

Francie heaved out a sigh. "Was that horrible to ask?"

"No. It"s okay that you asked."

"But I mean-do you understand?" Her voice was softer than the crackling fire.

"No," he said.

She let her legs hang down and stroked the top of the box with one foot, looking away from him.

"I just don"t think of us that way," she said.

"Would you think about it for a while?" he said.

Francie got off the sofa and went to sit by him. "Have I not understood all along?" she said.

"I love mattresses thrown in attics, Francie."

"I"m sorry," she said.

"I"m sorry I said anything. I can"t keep sitting here being embarra.s.sed."

Perry got up. He was tired and hungry, and he knew that he had made a mistake. He went into the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator to see if there was a beer. One of her canvases of herself was propped up in the kitchen, and he looked away from it and went back to the living room with nothing to drink.

"Forget I said it," he said. "Are you willing to forget it?"

She smiled at him. "Sure," she said.

"It"s none of my business," he said, "but who do you sleep with?"

"n.o.body," she said.

That came as a harder blow than the little-girl"s shoe on the top of his foot.

"I don"t want to talk about it," she said. "Don"t embarra.s.s me."

She looked terrible, as if she was about to cry.

"Get rid of the worms," he said. "Let"s get rid of the worms."

"What are you talking about?"

"Yes. Come on. I"m dumping them."

He took the box and went outside. It was just starting to get dark. The sky was deep-purple at the horizon. He pried open the box while Francie watched. The worms were packed in something that looked like straw, but darker brown. When he lifted that out of the big box, Francie stepped back, wincing. You could see the worms squirming in the packing. He pulled it apart into about five gobs and threw them into the bushes. Then he went inside and ripped up the box and threw it into the fire.

They sat in front of the fire for a long time, neither of them saying anything, until the car came into the drive. They both got up and went to the window and looked out. Delores got out of the car first and came weaving toward the house without waiting for Freed. Perry almost grabbed Francie and stopped her from going to the door.

"How"s my baby?" he heard Delores say. There was something wrong with her voice. He heard Freed"s voice. The three of them came into the living room. Freed shook his head. "I thought you were in Vermont," he said. He came over to where Perry stood by the window. Freed was sweating.

"What do you think I found?" Delores said. Perry looked at her, forcing a smile. Delores was stoned; her eyes were red, and she wasn"t focusing.

"I found my table," Delores said. "I thought it was lost, and Freed had it all the time. It was there in his living room."

"I thought all this time that I"d gotten the table from Anita," Freed said. Then he looked self-conscious because obviously n.o.body cared how he got the table.

"Meagan"s sleeping," Francie said. "She has a cold."

"Does she have the hiccups again?"

"What?" Francie said. "I said she has a cold."

"Where"s my poor baby?" Delores said and walked out of the living room toward the bedroom.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Perry said to Freed.

"I don"t know," Freed said and hung his head. "Either I"ve always loved Del or I never have."

Francie looked disgusted when he said that and walked out of the room to find Delores.

"What"s the matter?" Freed said. "Why does everybody look so funny?"

"Freed, you can"t take them out of here like this. Delores is stoned and probably has no idea of what"s going on."

"I"m not stoned," Freed said. "I can"t help it if she got herself smashed." His clothes smelled of gra.s.s, and he kept tugging at his shirt hanging out of his pants but not tucking it in. "Listen," he said. "This is the end."

"The end of what?"

"It"s just the end! We"re taking Meagan to her grandparents and we"re going to try to have a life. She knows what she"s doing. Don"t insult me by saying she"s just going with me because she"s not in her right mind."

"Okay," Perry said. "You do what you want."

"Well, I want to be friends," Freed said, dipping his hand toward Perry"s. "Aren"t you going to be my friend?"

"I didn"t say I wasn"t your friend, Freed. You do what you want."

"Then shake my hand," Freed said. "You shake it."

He shook Freed"s hand firmly.

"Jesus Christ!" Freed said. "What happens when a handshake doesn"t mean anything?"

"I shook your f.u.c.king hand, Freed."

"You like me! Cut it out, Perry. You drove me to f.u.c.king Alexandria to get my Pontiac."