"It is sort of funny," the caterer says. "She told you all those people were invited and-"

I nod, cutting her off.

"Funny if it"s not you, I mean," she says.

I take another sip of my drink. I look at the caterer. She is a thin young woman. It doesn"t seem she could have any particular interest in food herself. She is actually quite pretty, in a plain way.

We sit in silence for a while. I can hear squeals from next door, and am sure she hears them too. From where I sit, I can see out the window. The lightning bugs make brief pinpoints of light. From where she sits, the caterer can only see me. She looks at me, at her drink, and back at me.

"I don"t mean that this should matter very much to you," she says, "but I think it"s good for me to see that things aren"t necessarily what they seem. I mean, maybe this town is an okay place to be. I mean, as complicated as any other town. Maybe I just have it unfairly stereotyped." She takes another drink. "I didn"t really want to leave Colorado," she says. "I was a ski instructor there. The man I live with-he"s not really my husband-he and I were going to start a restaurant here, but it fell through. He"s got a lot of friends in this area, and his son, so here we are. His son lives here with his mother-my friend"s ex. I hardly know anybody."

I get the bottle and pour her another gla.s.s of wine. I take a last sip of my drink, rattle the ice cubes, and fill my own gla.s.s with wine. I put the bottle on the floor.

"I"m sorry I stumbled in on this. My being here must embarra.s.s you," she says.

"Not true," I say, half meaning it. "I"m glad to see somebody."

She turns and looks over her shoulder. "Do you think your wife is going to come back?" she says.

"Can"t say," I say.

She nods. "It"s funny to be in a situation where you know something about somebody and they don"t know anything about you, isn"t it?"

"What do you mean? You just told me about Colorado, and the restaurant you were going to open."

"Yeah," she says, "but that"s nothing personal. You know what I mean."

"Then go ahead and tell me something personal."

She blushes. "Oh, I didn"t mean that."

"Why not?" I say. "This is a strange enough night already, isn"t it? What if you tell me something personal?"

She gnaws at her cuticle. She might be younger than I thought. She has long, shiny hair. I try to picture her in a nylon jacket, on a ski slope. That makes the night seem hotter suddenly. It makes me realize that in a few months, though, we will be wearing down-filled jackets. Last November there was a big snow.

"The guy I live with is an ill.u.s.trator," she says. "You"ve probably seen some of his stuff. He doesn"t need money, he just wants to have it all. To draw. To have a restaurant. He"s grabby. He usually figures it out to have what he wants, though." She takes a drink. "I feel funny saying this," she says. "I don"t know why I started to tell you about us." Then she stops talking, smiling apologetically.

Instead of coaxing her, I get up and put some things on two plates, put one plate on a table by my chair, and hand the other plate to her. I pour her another gla.s.s of wine.

"He has a studio next to the ceramics factory," she says. "That big building with the black shutters. In the afternoon he calls me, and I take over a picnic basket and we eat lunch and make love."

I break a cracker in half with my thumb and first finger and eat it.

"That"s not it, though," she says. "The thing is, it"s always something like Wonder bread. It"s real kinky. I trim off the crust and make bologna sandwiches with a lot of mayonnaise. Or I"ll make Cheez Whiz sandwiches with Ritz crackers, or peanut-b.u.t.ter-and-marshmallow sandwiches. And we drink Kool-Aid or root beer or something like that. One time I cooked hot dogs and sliced them to go on crackers and squirted cheese around the circles. We had that and Dr Pepper. The thing is, the lunch has to be really disgusting."

"I got that," I say. "I guess I got it."

"Oh," she says, dropping her eyes. "I mean, I guess it"s obvious. Of course you figured it out."

I wait to see if she"s going to ask me to reveal something. But instead she gets up and pours the last of the wine into her gla.s.s and stands with her back to me, looking out the window.

I know that ceramics factory. It"s not in a good part of town. There"s a bar just down the street from it, and one night when I was coming out of the bar a kid jumped me. I remember how fast he came at me on his bike, and the screech of tires, as if the bike were a big car. Then he was all over me, half punching and half squeezing, as if my wallet would pop out of hiding like a clown"s head spinning out of a jack-in-the-box. "It"s in my back pocket," I said, and when I said that he jammed his hand into the pocket and then slugged me in the side, hard. "Stay down!" he said in sort of a whisper, and I lay there, curled on my side, putting my hand over my face so that if he thought about it later he wouldn"t come back and make more trouble because I"d gotten a good look at him. My nose was bleeding. I only had about twenty bucks in my wallet, and I"d left my credit cards at home. Finally I got up and tried to walk. There was a light on in the ceramics factory, but I could tell from the stillness that n.o.body was there-it was just a light that had been left on. I put my hand on the building and tried to stand up straighter. There was a point when a terrible pain shot through me-such a sharp pain that I went down again. I took a few breaths, and it pa.s.sed. Through the big gla.s.s window I saw ceramic shepherds and animals-figures that would be placed in creches. They were unpainted-they hadn"t been fired yet-and because they were all white and just about the same size, the donkeys and the Wise Men looked a lot alike. It was a week or so before Christmas, and I thought, Why aren"t they finished? They"re playing it too close; if they don"t get at it and start painting, it"s going to be too late. "Marie, Marie," I whispered, knowing I was in trouble. Then I walked as well as I could, got to my car, and went home to my wife.

Horatio"s Trick

A few days before Christmas, the UPS truck stopped in front of Charlotte"s house. Charlotte"s ex-husband, Edward, had sent a package to her and a larger package to their son, Nicholas, who was nineteen. She opened hers immediately. It was the same present she had been sent the year before: a pound of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, wrapped in silver striped paper, with a card that read "Merry Christmas from Edward Anderson and family." This time, Edward"s wife had written the card; it wasn"t his handwriting. Charlotte dumped the contents out onto the kitchen floor and played a game of marbles, pinging one nut into another and watching them roll in different directions. She"d had a few bourbons, not too many, while Nicholas was off at the gas station getting an oil change. Before she began the game of chocolate marbles, she pulled the kitchen door closed; otherwise, Horatio, the dog, would come running in at full tilt, as he always did when he heard any sound in the kitchen. Horatio was a newcomer to the house-a holiday visitor. He belonged to Nicholas"s girlfriend, Andrea, who had flown to Florida for a Christmas visit with her parents, and since Nicholas was going to drive here for few days before Christmas, the UPS truck stopped in front of Charlotte"s house. Charlotte"s ex-husband, Edward, had sent a package to her and a larger package to their son, Nicholas, who was nineteen. She opened hers immediately. It was the same present she had been sent the year before: a pound of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, wrapped in silver striped paper, with a card that read "Merry Christmas from Edward Anderson and family." This time, Edward"s wife had written the card; it wasn"t his handwriting. Charlotte dumped the contents out onto the kitchen floor and played a game of marbles, pinging one nut into another and watching them roll in different directions. She"d had a few bourbons, not too many, while Nicholas was off at the gas station getting an oil change. Before she began the game of chocolate marbles, she pulled the kitchen door closed; otherwise, Horatio, the dog, would come running in at full tilt, as he always did when he heard any sound in the kitchen. Horatio was a newcomer to the house-a holiday visitor. He belonged to Nicholas"s girlfriend, Andrea, who had flown to Florida for a Christmas visit with her parents, and since Nicholas was going to drive here for his his Christmas, he had brought Horatio along, too. Christmas, he had brought Horatio along, too.

Nicholas was a junior at Notre Dame. He had his father"s wavy hair-Edward hated that kind of hair, which he called kinky-but not his blue eyes. Charlotte had always been sad about that. Nicholas had her eyes: ordinary brown eyes that she loved to look at, although she could not say why she found them so interesting. She had to remember not to look at him too long. Only that morning he had said at breakfast, "Charlotte, it"s a little unnerving to roll out of bed and be stared at." He often called her Charlotte now. She had moved to Charlottesville six years ago, and although it was a very sociable town and she had met quite a few people (she had finally reached the point with most of them where they had stopped making jokes about a Charlotte coming to live in Charlottesville), she did not know anyone with a son Nicholas"s age. Oddly enough, she knew two women about her age who were having babies. One of them seemed slightly abashed; the other was ecstatic. It was a scandal (people parodied themselves in Charlottesville by calling scandals-which they did not believe in-"scandales") that the ecstatic forty-one-year-old mother-to-be, a recent graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, was not married. Other gossip had it that she was forty-three.

Charlotte worked as a legal secretary for an old and prestigious law firm in town. She had left New York after she and Edward separated a dozen years ago, and had moved to Washington, where she enrolled in American University to resume her B.A. studies in preparation for entering law school. Nicholas went to Lafayette School, and was taken care of on the weekends by her parents, who lived in the Cleveland Park area, while Charlotte sequestered herself and studied almost around the clock. But there were problems: Nicholas had a hard time making friends in his new school; also, the bitterness between Charlotte and Edward seemed to escalate when there was actual distance between them, so Charlotte was constantly distracted by Edward"s accusatory phone calls and his total lack of faith in her ability to get a degree. It had all been too much, and finally she decided to abandon her plans of becoming a lawyer and became a legal secretary instead. Edward began to make visits, taking the Metroliner from New York to Washington; one day he turned up with a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman who wore a bit too much jewelry. Soon after that they were married. The "and family" part of the gift card referred to her daughter from a previous marriage. Charlotte had never met the child.

Charlotte looked out the back window. Horatio was in the yard, sniffing the wind. Nicholas had stopped on the way south and bought a stake and a chain to keep Horatio under control during the visit. Actually, the dog seemed happy enough, and wasn"t very interested in the birds or the occasional cat that turned up in Charlotte"s yard. Right now, Nicholas was upstairs, talking to Andrea on the phone. Someone throwing a life ring to a drowning child could not have been more energetic and more dedicated than Nicholas was to the girl.

Charlotte poured another bourbon, into which she plopped three ice cubes, and sat on the stool facing the counter, where she kept the telephone and pads of paper and bills to be paid and whatever odd b.u.t.ton needed to be sewn back on. There were also two batteries there that were either dead or unused (she couldn"t remember anymore) and paper clips (although she could not remember the last time she used a paper clip at home), a few corks, a little bottle of Visine, some loose aspirins, and a broken bracelet. There was a little implement called a lemon zester that she had bought from a door-to-door salesman. She suddenly picked it up and pretended to be conducting, because Nicholas had just put on Handel upstairs. He always played music to drown out his phone conversations.

"For the Lord G.o.d omni-potent..." She had forgotten to get back to the Tazewells about Father Curnan"s birthday party. She had promised that she would find out whether Nicholas would come, and then call back. She had meant to ask Nicholas at breakfast but had forgotten. Now she suddenly saw that Horatio might be her salvation. Whenever he came indoors he ran through the house in an excited fashion, and if that happened to get Nicholas off the phone, who would blame her? She went outdoors and, shivering, quickly unhitched the dog and led him in. His fur was soft and cold. He was glad to see her, as usual. The minute they were inside, he bounded up the stairs. She stood at the bottom, listening to Horatio"s panting outside Nicholas"s door, and then, sure enough, the door banged open. Nicholas was at the top of the stairs, staring down. He did look as if he had been rescuing a drowning child: disheveled, with not an extra second to spare. "What"s he doing inside?" he asked.

"It"s cold out," she said. "Nicky, the Tazewells are having a dinner for Father Curnan"s birthday tonight. Will you go with me?"

The sopranos soared in unison. She must have looked alarmed-surely he noticed that she had suddenly put both hands on the banister railing-and perhaps that was why he quickly nodded yes and turned away.

Back in the kitchen, with her boots off, Charlotte stroked the dog with one stockinged foot, and in response he shot up and went into his little routine, his famous trick. Almost complacently, he sat and extended his right paw. Then he rubbed his snout down that leg, put the paw back on the floor, and lifted and rubbed the left paw in the same fashion. He sneezed, turned twice in a circle to his left, and then came over to be patted. The trick meant nothing, of course, but it never failed as a crowd-pleaser. Sometimes Charlotte had even come into a room and found him doing it all by himself. "Okay, you"re wonderful," she whispered to Horatio now, scratching his ears.

She heard Nicholas"s footsteps on the stairs and called, "Where are you going?" It dismayed her that he kept to himself so much. He stayed upstairs most of the day studying, or he talked on the telephone. He already had on his coat and scarf. Instead of hanging them in the hall closet, he kept them up in his room. He kept everything there, as if he were forever on the point of packing up for some quick journey.

"Back to the garage," he said. "Don"t get upset. It"s no big thing. I asked them yesterday if they had time to line the rear brakes, and they said they could fit me in this afternoon."

"Why would that upset me?" she said.

"Because you"d think the car was unsafe. You"ve always got your images of disaster."

"What are you talking about?" she said. She was addressing Christmas cards, trying to convince herself that there might be some truth to Better late than never.

"When I had the broken thumb, you carried on as if I was a quadriplegic."

He was talking about the year before-a bicycling injury, when he"d skidded on some icy pavement. She shouldn"t have flown out to Indiana, but she missed him and she hated the idea of his being hurt. College was the first time he had ever lived away from her. She hadn"t made a scene-she had just gone there and called from a motel. (It was in the back of her mind, she had to admit now, that the trip might also be a chance for her to meet Andrea, the off-campus student who had begun to turn up in Nicholas"s letters.) Nicholas was horrified that she"d come all that distance. He was fine, of course-he had a cast on his left hand was all-and he had said almost angrily that he couldn"t tell her anything without eliciting a huge overreaction.

"You didn"t forget the dinner, did you?" she said now.

He turned and looked at her. "We already talked about that," he said. "Seven o"clock-is that right?"

"Right," she said. She began to address another envelope, trying to pa.s.s it off.

"It will take approximately one hour at the garage," he said.

Then he left-the way his father so often had left-without saying good-bye.

She wrote a few more cards, then called the florist"s to see whether they had been able to locate bird-of-paradise flowers in New York. She wanted to send them to Martine, her oldest friend, who had just returned from a vacation in Key West to the cold winds of the Upper East Side. Charlotte was happy to hear that someone had them, and that a dozen had gone out. "I thought we"d have good luck," the woman at the florist"s said. "If we couldn"t locate some paradise in New York, I don"t know where paradise could could be tracked down." She had a young voice-and after Charlotte hung up it occurred to her that she might have been the VanZells" daughter, who had just been hired by a florist in town after having been suspended from college because of some trouble with drugs. Charlotte clasped her hands and touched them to her lips, in one of her silent prayers to the Virgin: No drugs for Nicholas, ever. Protect my Nicholas from harm. be tracked down." She had a young voice-and after Charlotte hung up it occurred to her that she might have been the VanZells" daughter, who had just been hired by a florist in town after having been suspended from college because of some trouble with drugs. Charlotte clasped her hands and touched them to her lips, in one of her silent prayers to the Virgin: No drugs for Nicholas, ever. Protect my Nicholas from harm.

The Tazewells" sunken dining room was done in Chinese red, and against the far wall there was an enormous gla.s.s china press edged in bra.s.s, illuminated from within in a way that flooded the cut gla.s.s with light. The shelves were also gla.s.s, and their edges sparkled and gleamed with a prism-bright clarity. Charlotte was not surprised to see that Martin Smith, who ran the Jefferson Dreams catering service, was there himself to oversee things. People in Charlottesville followed through-even fun wasn"t left totally to chance-and Charlotte liked that. Edith Stanton, the host"s cousin, almost Charlotte"s first friend when she had moved here to Charlottesville (she could remember their first lunch together, and Edith"s considering gaze above the seafood salad: was this nice-looking new single woman who was working down at Burwell, McKee going to fit in fit in?), was talking with Father Curnan. Charlotte looked hard at his face-the round, open face of an adolescent, except that there were deep lines around his eyes-and saw on it the look she called Bemused Monsignor. He could nod and smile and murmur his "not to be believed believed" as Edith went on in her breathless way (surely she was telling him again about her session in a bodybuilding shop for women out in Santa Barbara last summer), but his interest was feigned. Edith was not a Catholic, and she could not know the sort of complicated, surprising man Philip Curnan really was. He had told Charlotte once that after working his way through Cornell (his father had an auto-repair garage in upstate New York somewhere), he had ridden across the country on a Harley-Davidson, while searching his soul about his desire to enter the priesthood. Charlotte smiled now, remembering the confidence. Just last week he had told her that there were still times when he longed to get back on a motorcycle; his helmet was still on the top shelf in his bedroom closet.

A server pa.s.sed by, and Charlotte finally got a drink. Surveying the room, she was pleased to see that Nicholas was talking to the McKays" daughter, Angela, home from Choate for Christmas. Charlotte thought of the day, a month before, when Angela"s mother, Janet, had consulted with the head of Burwell, McKee about filing for legal separation from Chaz, her husband. Chaz, a lawyer himself, stood with his arm around his wife"s waist, talking to a couple Charlotte didn"t know. Perhaps Chaz still did not know that she had made inquiries about getting a divorce. M.L., the hostess, pa.s.sed in her peach-colored gown, and Charlotte touched her shoulder and whispered, "It"s wonderful. Thank you for having us." M.L. gave her a hug and said, "I must be somewhere else else if I didn"t even say h.e.l.lo." As she moved away, Charlotte smelled her perfume-at night, M.L. always wore Joy-and heard the rustle of silk. if I didn"t even say h.e.l.lo." As she moved away, Charlotte smelled her perfume-at night, M.L. always wore Joy-and heard the rustle of silk.

Martin VanZell came up to Charlotte and began talking to her about his arthritic knee. He tapped a bottle in his breast pocket. "All doctors dote on Advil," he said. "Ask any of them. Their eyes light up. You"d think it was Lourdes in a bottle. Pull off the top, take out the cotton, and worship. I"m not kidding you." He noticed that he seemed to have caught Father Curnan"s attention. "Meaning no disrespect," he said.

"Who was being slighted?" Father Curnan said. "The pharmaceutical company?" His eyes met Charlotte"s for a second, and he winked before he looked away. He speared a shrimp and ate it, waving away the napkin a server extended in her other hand.

Frankie Melkins suddenly swooped in front of Charlotte, kissing the air above her cheek. Frankie had been in a bad car accident last New Year"s, and had returned to the Church after Father Curnan"s hospital visits. That had been much talked about, as well as the fact that the case was settled out of court, which led people to believe that Frankie had got a lot of money. As Frankie and Martin began to compare painkiller stories, Charlotte drifted away and went to the side door, where someone had been knocking for quite some time. Oren and Billy! Oren could be such a devil. He gave drums to his nephews for Christmas and once threw rice during a party that wasn"t at all like a wedding. The minute she opened the door, he gave her a bear hug.

"What on earth!" M.L. said, staring out the door after the two men had come in. "Why, I"ll bet Frankie has left the cabdriver out there waiting." She began to wave her arms wildly, whistling to him. She turned to Charlotte. "Can you believe it?" she said. She looked beyond Charlotte to Frankie. "Frankie!" she called. "Were you going to leave your cabdriver out in the driveway all night? There"s plenty of food. Tell him to come in and have something to eat."

Father Curnan stood talking to the host, Dan Tazewell. They were looking at the mantel, discussing a small drawing of a nude that was framed and propped there. She overheard Father Curnan lamenting the fact that the artist had recently left the art department at the university and gone back to New York to live. Charlotte accepted another drink from a server, then looked back at Father Curnan. He was scrutinizing the drawing. On her way to the bathroom, Charlotte heard Nicholas telling Angela McKay details about hand surgery, spreading his thumb and first finger wide. Angela looked at the s.p.a.ce between his fingers as though staring at some fascinating thing squirming beneath a microscope. His hand? Had Nicholas had hand surgery?

One of the servers was coming out of the bathroom as Charlotte got to the door. She was glad it was empty, because she had had two drinks before she left the house and another at the party. She put her gla.s.s on the back of the sink before she used the toilet. What if she left the drink there? Would anybody notice and think things?

The bathroom was tiny, and the little cas.e.m.e.nt window had been flipped open. Still, Charlotte could smell cigarette smoke. She reached up and pulled the window closed, hooked it, and rubbed her hand down her new black shirt. "Wheet," "Wheet," she said, imitating the sound the silk made. "Someone"s in there," she heard a voice say. She took a sip of her drink, then unhooked the window and pushed it out again. The sky was black-no stars visible across the small part of the sky she could see. There was a huge wind out there, like an animal loose in the trees. She turned and began to wash her hands. The spigot reminded her of a fountain she had seen years ago in Rome, when she was first married. It had bothered her that so many things there were exaggerated but not full-form: ma.s.sive marble heads-lions and gargoyles, rippling manes, mythic beasts spewing water-but whole bodies were usually to be found only on the angels and cherubs. She dried her hands. That couldn"t be true-that couldn"t have been what all the fountains looked like. What am I doing thinking about fountains in Rome, she thought. she said, imitating the sound the silk made. "Someone"s in there," she heard a voice say. She took a sip of her drink, then unhooked the window and pushed it out again. The sky was black-no stars visible across the small part of the sky she could see. There was a huge wind out there, like an animal loose in the trees. She turned and began to wash her hands. The spigot reminded her of a fountain she had seen years ago in Rome, when she was first married. It had bothered her that so many things there were exaggerated but not full-form: ma.s.sive marble heads-lions and gargoyles, rippling manes, mythic beasts spewing water-but whole bodies were usually to be found only on the angels and cherubs. She dried her hands. That couldn"t be true-that couldn"t have been what all the fountains looked like. What am I doing thinking about fountains in Rome, she thought.

When she opened the door, she saw Martin VanZell in the dim hallway, his white face a ghostly contrast to his dark pin-striped suit. "Great party, huh?" he said. She had stopped outside the door, dead center. It took her a minute to realize that she was staring, and blocking his way. "It is every year," she heard herself saying, and then he pa.s.sed by and she turned toward the noise of the party. A man whose wife ran one of the nurseries on Route 29 came over as she walked down the two steps into the room. "Charlotte, you just missed my wife here, losing track again. She was telling Father Curnan-hey, he"s gone off again-she thought Chern.o.byl was this year. It was last last year. It happened in the spring." year. It happened in the spring."

"Well, I believe you," his wife said, with a false smile. "Why were you bringing it up, Arthur?"

Nicholas came up to Charlotte just as the host rang a bell and everyone fell silent.

"It"s not Santa. It"s the annual ringing out of one year for Father Curnan and a ringing in of the new," the host said cheerfully. He rang the bell again. "Because today he"s our birthday boy again, and if he"s going to keep getting older we"re going to keep noticing it."

Father Curnan raised his gla.s.s, blushing. "Thank you all-" he began, but the host clanged the bell again, drowning him out. "Oh, no, you don"t. You don"t make us take time out from the party to hear a speech," the host said. "Time for that on Sunday, Philip, when you"ve got your captive audience. But happy birthday, Father Phil, and on with the ball!" People laughed and cheered.

Charlotte saw that someone"s gla.s.s had made a white ring on the tabletop between two mats that had been put there. Janet"s husband came up and started to talk about the cost of malpractice insurance, and then Charlotte felt Nicholas"s hand on her elbow. "It"s late," he said. "We should go." She started to introduce him to Janet"s husband, but Nicholas steered them away and into a bedroom where two temporary clothes racks stood bulging with coats and furs. More coats made a great mound on the bed. Then suddenly she and Nicholas were standing with M.L. at the courtyard door, saying goodbye as they struggled into their coats and scarves. It was not until the door closed that Charlotte realized that she had not said a single word to Father Curnan. She turned and looked back at the house.

"Come on," Nicholas said. "He didn"t even notice."

"Did you speak to him?" Charlotte said.

"No," Nicholas said. "I have nothing to say to him." He was walking toward their car, at the foot of the drive. She looked up.

"I only asked," she said.

He was too far ahead of her to hear. He held open the car door, and she got inside. He crossed in front of the car, and she realized that for some reason he was upset.

"All right," he said, getting in and slamming his door. "You"re wronged. You"re always wronged. Would you like it if I left the engine running and we both went back in and said good night to Father Curnan? Because that would be entirely proper. I could bow and you could curtsy."

Charlotte wouldn"t have thought that at that moment there was an emotion she could feel stronger than frustration. Wouldn"t have thought it until she realized that what was smothering her was sadness. "No," she said quietly. "You"re entirely right. He didn"t even notice that we left."

The telephone rang twice, interrupting their Christmas Eve ceremony of tea and presents. Nicholas had been nice to her all day-even taking her out to lunch and trying to make her laugh by telling her stories about a professor of his who delivered all his lectures in the interrogative-because he knew he had jumped on her the night before, leaving the party. Each time the phone rang, Charlotte hoped it wasn"t Andrea, because then he would drift away and be gone for ages. The first call was from Martine in New York, overjoyed by the flowers; the next was from M.L., to wish them a good Christmas and to say that she was sorry she had not really got to talk to them amid the confusion of the party.

Nicholas gave her a cashmere scarf and light-blue leather gloves. She gave him subscriptions to Granta Granta and and Manhattan, inc. Manhattan, inc., a heavy sweater with a hood, and a hundred-dollar check to get whatever else he wanted. His father gave him a paperweight that had belonged to his grandfather, and a wrist.w.a.tch that would apparently function even when launched from a rocket pad. When Nicholas went into the kitchen to boil up more water, she slid over on the couch and glanced at the gift card. It said, "Love, Dad," in Edward"s nearly illegible script. Nicholas returned and opened his last present, which was from Melissa, his stepsister. It was a cheap ballpoint pen with a picture of a woman inside. When you turned the pen upside down her clothes disappeared.

"How old is Melissa?" Charlotte asked.

"Twelve or thirteen," he said.

"Does she look like her mother?"

"Not much," Nicholas said. "But she"s really her sister"s kid, and I never saw her sister."

"Her sister"s child?" Charlotte took a sip of her tea, which was laced with bourbon. She held it in her mouth a second before swallowing.

"Melissa"s mother killed herself when Melissa was just a baby. I guess her father didn"t want her. Anyway, he gave her up."

"Her sister killed herself ?" Charlotte said. She could feel her eyes widening. Suddenly she remembered the night before, the open window in the bathroom, the black sky, wind smacking her in the face.

"Awful, huh?" Nicholas said, lifting the tea bag out of the mug and lowering it to the saucer. "Hey, did I shock you? How come you didn"t know that? I thought you were the one with a sense for disaster."

"What do you mean? I don"t expect disaster. I don"t know anything at all about Melissa. Naturally-"

"I know you don"t know anything about her," he said, cutting her off. "Look-don"t get mad at me, but I"m going to say this, because I think you aren"t aware of what you do. You don"t ask anything, because you"re afraid of what every answer might be. It makes people reluctant to talk to you. n.o.body wants to tell you things."

She took another sip of tea, which had gone tepid. Specks of loose tea leaves had floated to the top. "People talk to me," she said.

"I know they do," he said. "I"m not criticizing you. I"m just telling you that if you give off those vibes people are going to back off."

"Who backs off ?" she said.

"Charlotte, I don"t know everything about your life. I"m just telling you that you"ve never asked one thing about Dad"s family in-what is it? Eleven years. You don"t even mention my stepmother by name, ever. Her name is Joan. You don"t want to know things, that"s all."

He kicked a ball of wrapping paper away from his foot. "Let"s drop it," he said. "What I"m saying is that you"re always worried. You always think something"s going to happen."

She started to speak, but took another drink instead. Maybe all mothers seemed oppressive when their children were teenagers. Didn"t everyone say that parents could hardly do anything right during those years? That was what Father Curnan said-that although we may always try to do our best, we can"t always expect to succeed. She wished Father Curnan were here right now. The whole evening would be different.

"Don"t start sulking," Nicholas said. "You"ve been p.i.s.sed off at me since last night, because I wouldn"t go over and glad-hand Father Curnan. I hardly know him. I went to the party with you because you wanted me to. I don"t practice anymore. I"m not a Catholic anymore. I don"t believe what Father Curnan believes. Just because twenty years ago he had some doubt in his life and sorted it out, you think he"s a hero. I don"t think he"s a hero. I don"t care what he decided. That"s fine for him, but it doesn"t have anything to do with me."

"I never mention your loss of faith," she said. "Never. We don"t discuss it."

"You don"t have to say anything. What"s awful is that you let me know that I"ve scared you. It"s like I deliberately did something to you."

"What would you have me do?" she said. "How good an actress do you think I can be? I do do worry. You don"t give me credit for trying." worry. You don"t give me credit for trying."

"You don"t give me me credit," he said. "I don"t get credit for putting up with Dad"s c.r.a.p because I came to Virginia to be with you instead of going to his house. If I go to a stupid party for some priest who condescends to me by letter and says he"ll pray for my soul, I don"t get credit from you for going because you wanted me there. It never occurs to you. Instead I get told that I didn"t shake his hand on the way out. If I had told you that the car was driving funny before I got it fixed, you would have bitten your nails some more and refused to ride in it. I wish you"d stop being scared. I wish you"d just stop." credit," he said. "I don"t get credit for putting up with Dad"s c.r.a.p because I came to Virginia to be with you instead of going to his house. If I go to a stupid party for some priest who condescends to me by letter and says he"ll pray for my soul, I don"t get credit from you for going because you wanted me there. It never occurs to you. Instead I get told that I didn"t shake his hand on the way out. If I had told you that the car was driving funny before I got it fixed, you would have bitten your nails some more and refused to ride in it. I wish you"d stop being scared. I wish you"d just stop."

She put the mug on the table and looked at him. He"s a grown man, she thought. Taller than his father. Nicholas shook his head and walked out of the room. She heard him stomp upstairs. In a few minutes, the music began. He was playing rock, not Christmas music, and her heart seemed to pick up the relentless beat of the ba.s.s. Nicholas had scored his point. She was just sitting there, scared to death.

The sound jolted through her dream: once, twice, again. And then it awakened her. When she opened her eyes, it took her a minute to realize that she was in the living room in a chair, not in bed, and that she had been dreaming. The loud music had become part of her dream. She was squinting. Light flooded part of the living room-a painful brightness as constant as the noise. Out of the area of light she saw the shapes of crumpled gift wrappings by the tree. She pa.s.sed one hand over her forehead, attempting to soothe the pain. The dog looked up from across the room. He yawned and walked over to the footstool beside her, wagging his tail.

The noise continued. It was from outside. A high-pitched squeal resonated in her chest. It had been snowing earlier. It must have gone on snowing. Someone"s car was stuck out there.