"No, ma"am," he said, smiling. "I don"t know how to do that."

"Easy to learn," I said. I gave him my best smile and walked out to the parking lot, where the heat rising from the asphalt made me feel like my feet were sliding over a well-oiled griddle. The key was in the car. It didn"t look like the old Mustang at all. The red was very bright and a little unpleasant, at least on such a hot day. The top was already down. I turned the key and saw that the car had less than five hundred miles on it. The seat was comfortable enough. I adjusted the mirror, pulled on my seat belt, and drove to the exit, with no desire to turn on the radio. "That"s a beauty," the man in the kiosk said, inspecting the folder and handing it back.

"Just got it on impulse," I said.

"That"s the best way," he said. He gave a half salute as I drove off.

And then it hit me: the grim reality that I had to talk sense to her, I had to do whatever it took, including insulting her great good friend Drake, so he wouldn"t clean her out financially, devastate her emotionally, take advantage, dominate her-who knew what he had in mind? He"d avoided me on purpose-he didn"t want to hear what I"d say. What did he think? That her busy daughter would conveniently disappear on schedule, or that she might be such a liberal that their plans sounded intriguing? Or maybe he thought she was a pushover, like her mother. Who knew what men like that thought.

The cop who pulled me over for speeding turned on the siren when I didn"t come screeching to a halt. He was frowning deeply, I saw in the rearview mirror, as he approached the car.

"My mother"s dying," I said.

"License and registration," he said, looking at me with those reflective sungla.s.ses cops love so much. I could see a little tiny me, like a smudge on the lens. I had been speeding, overcome with worry. After all, it was a terrible situation. The easiest way to express it had been to say that my mother was dying. Replace lost her mind lost her mind with with dying. dying.

"Mustang convertible," the cop said. "Funny car to rent if your mother"s dying."

"I used to have a Mustang," I said, choking back tears. I was telling the truth, too. When I moved from Vermont, I"d left it behind in a friend"s barn, and over the winter the roof had fallen in. There was extensive damage, though the frame had rusted out anyway. "My father bought it for me in 1968, as a bribe to stay in college."

The cop worked his lips until he came up with an entirely different expression. I saw myself reflected, wavering slightly. The cop touched his sungla.s.ses. He snorted. "Okay," he said, stepping back. "I"m going to give you a warning and let you go, urging you to respect your life and the life of others by driving at the posted speed. driving at the posted speed."

"Thank you," I said sincerely.

He touched the sungla.s.ses again. Handed me the warning. How lucky I was. How very, very lucky.

It was not until he returned to his car and sped away that I looked at the piece of paper. He had not checked any of the boxes. Instead, he had written his phone number. Well, I thought, if I kill Drake, the number might come in handy.

I also played a little game of my own: replace Richard Klingham Richard Klingham with with Jim Brown. Jim Brown.

He was probably twenty-five, maybe thirty years younger than me. Which would be as reprehensible, almost, as Richard"s picking up the teenager.

Back over the bridge, taking the first Venice exit, driving past the always closed House of Orchids, dismayed at the ever-lengthening strip mall.

My mother, again in the lawn chair, reading the newspaper, but now not bothering to look up as cars pa.s.sed. I could remember her face vividly from years before, when my father and I had turned in to our driveway in Washington in an aqua Mustang convertible. She had been so shocked. Just shocked. She must have been thinking of the expense. Maybe also of the danger.

My mother seemed less timid now. Obviously, she, too, could be quite impulsive. I was just about to tap the horn when my mother stood and took a minute to steady herself before heading toward the house. Why was she bent over, walking so slowly? Had she been pretending to be spry earlier, or had I just not noticed? Then the door opened, and a man-it was Drake, that was who it was-stood on the threshold, extending a hand and waiting, not going down the steps, just waiting. He stood ramrod straight, but, even driving slowly, I got only a glimpse of him: this man who was not my father, with his big hand extended, and my mother lifting her hand like a lady ascending an elegant, carpeted staircase, instead of three concrete steps.

There was nothing I could say. It had all been decided. There was not a word I could say that would stop either one of them.

I turned left just before the street dead-ended, not wanting to risk pa.s.sing by a second time. I realized that there was someone waiting to hear from me: possibly two people-the kid and and the cop-if not three (my mother, who was probably hoping for an apology for my dire warnings about Drake). I could have made a phone call, had the evening go another way entirely, but everyone will understand why I decided otherwise. the cop-if not three (my mother, who was probably hoping for an apology for my dire warnings about Drake). I could have made a phone call, had the evening go another way entirely, but everyone will understand why I decided otherwise.

You can"t help understanding. First, because it is the truth, and second, because everyone knows the way things change. They always do, even in a very short time. Back in Fort Myers, the transaction was all business: another shift was at work at the rental agency, and there was only the perfunctory question as I opened the door and got out about whether everything was all right with the car.

The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation

My mother does not remember being invited to my first wedding. This comes up in conversation when I pick her up from the lab, where blood has been drawn to see how she"s doing on her medication. She"s sitting in an orange plastic chair, giving the man next to her advice I"m not sure he asked for about how to fill out forms on a clipboard. Apparently, before I arrived, she told him that she had not been invited to either of my weddings.

"I don"t know why you sent me to have my blood drawn," she says.

"The doctor asked me to make an appointment. I did not send you."

"Well, you were late. I sat there waiting and waiting."

"You showed up an hour before your appointment, Ma. That"s why you were there so long. I arrived fifteen minutes after the nurse called me." It"s my authoritative but cajoling voice. One tone negates the other and nothing much gets communicated.

"You sound like Perry Mason," she says.

"Ma, there"s a person trying to get around you."

"Well, I"m very sorry if I"m holding anyone up. They can just honk and get into the other lane."

A woman hurries around my mother in the hospital corridor, narrowly missing an oncoming wheelchair brigade: four chairs, taking up most of the hallway.

"She drives a sports car, that one," my mother says. "You can always tell. But look at the size of her. How does she fit in the car?"

I decide to ignore her. She has on dangling hoop earrings, and there"s a scratch on her forehead and a Band-Aid on her cheekbone. Her face looks a little like an obstacle course. "Who is going to get our car for us?" she asks.

"Who do you think? Sit in the lobby, and I"ll turn in to the driveway."

"A car makes you think about the future all the time, doesn"t it?" she says. "You have to do all that imagining: how you"ll get out of the garage and into your lane and how you"ll deal with all the traffic, and then one time, remember, just as you got to the driveway a man and a woman stood smack in the center, arguing, and they wouldn"t move so you could pull in."

"My life is a delight," I say.

"I don"t think your new job agrees with you. You"re such a beautiful seamstress-a real, old-fashioned talent-and what do you do but work on computers and leave that lovely house in the country and drive into this... this c.r.a.p five days a week."

"Thank you, Ma, for expressing even more eloquently than I-"

"Did you finish those swordfish costumes?"

"Starfish. I was tired, and I watched TV last night. Now, if you sit in that chair over there you"ll see me pull in. It"s windy. I don"t want you standing outside."

"You always have some reason why I can"t be outside. You"re afraid of the bees, aren"t you? After that bee stung your toe when you were raking, you got desperate about yellow jackets-that"s what they"re called. You shouldn"t have had on sandals when you were raking. Wear your hiking boots when you rake leaves, if you can"t find another husband to do it for you."

"Please stop lecturing me and-"

"Get your car! What"s the worst that can happen? I have to stand up for a few minutes? It"s not like I"m one of those guards outside Buckingham Palace who has to look straight ahead until he loses consciousness."

"Okay. You can stand here and I"ll pull in."

"What car do you have?"

"The same car I always have."

"If I don"t come out, come in for me."

"Well, of course, Ma. But why wouldn"t you come out?"

"SUVs can block your view. They drive right up, like they own the curb. They"ve got those tinted windows like Liz Taylor might be inside, or a gangster. That lovely man from Brunei-why did I say that? I must have been thinking of the Sultan of Brunei. Anyway, that man I was talking to said that in New York City he was getting out of a cab at a hotel at the same exact moment that Elizabeth Taylor got out of a limousine. He said she just kept handing little dogs out the door to everybody. The doorman. The bellhop. Her hairdresser had one under each arm. But they weren"t hers-they were his own dogs! He didn"t have a free hand to help Elizabeth Taylor. So that desperate man-"

"Ma, we"ve got to get going."

"I"ll come with you."

"You hate elevators. The last time we tried that, you wouldn"t walk-"

"Well, the stairs didn"t kill me, did they?"

"I wasn"t parked five flights up. Look, just stand by the window and-"

"I know what"s happening. You"re telling me over and over!"

I raise my hands and drop them. "See you soon," I say.

"Is it the green car? The black car that I always think is green?"

"Yes, Ma. My only car."

"Well, you don"t have to say it like that. I hope you never know what it"s like to have small confusions about things. I understand that your car is black. It"s when it"s in strong sun that it looks a little green."

"Back in five," I say, and enter the revolving door. A man ahead of me, with both arms in casts, pushes on the gla.s.s with his forehead. We"re out in a few seconds. Then he turns and looks at me, his face crimson.

"I didn"t know if I pushed, whether it might make the door go too fast," I say.

"I figured there was an explanation," he says dully, and walks away.

The fat woman who pa.s.sed us in the hallway is waiting on the sidewalk for the light to change, chatting on her cell phone. When the light blinks green, she moves forward with her head turned to the side, as if the phone clamped to her ear were leading her. She has on an ill-fitting blazer and one of those long skirts that everybody wears, with sensible shoes and a teeny purse dangling over her shoulder. "Right behind you," my mother says distinctly, catching up with me halfway to the opposite curb.

"Ma, there"s an elevator."

"You do enough things for your mother! It"s desperate of you to do this on your lunch hour. Does picking me up mean you won"t get any food? Now that you can see I"m fine, you could send me home in a cab."

"No, no, it"s no problem. But last night you asked me to drop you at the hairdresser. Wasn"t that where you wanted to go?"

"Oh, I don"t think that"s today."

"Yes. The appointment is in fifteen minutes. With Eloise."

"I wouldn"t want to be named for somebody who caused a commotion at the Plaza. Would you?"

"No. Ma, why don"t you wait by the ticket booth, and when I drive-"

"You"re full of ideas! Why won"t you just let me go to the car with you?"

"In an elevator? You"re going to get in an elevator? All right. Fine with me."

"It isn"t one of those gla.s.s ones, is it?"

"It does have one gla.s.s wall."

"I"ll be like those other women, then. The ones who"ve hit the gla.s.s ceiling."

"Here we are."

"It has a funny smell. I"ll sit in a chair and wait for you."

"Ma, that"s back across the street. You"re here now. I can introduce you to the guy over there in the booth, who collects the money. Or you can just take a deep breath and ride up with me. Okay?"

A man inside the elevator, wearing a suit, holds the door open. "Thank you," I say. "Ma?"

"I like your suggestion about going to that chapel," she says. "Pick me up there."

The man continues to hold the door with his shoulder, his eyes cast down.

"Not a chapel, a booth. Right there? That"s where you"ll be?"

"Yes. Over there with that man."

"You see the man-" I step off the elevator and the doors close behind me.

"I did see him. He said that his son was getting married in Las Vegas. And I said, "I never got to go to my daughter"s weddings." And he said, "How many weddings did she have?" and of course I answered honestly. So he said, "How did that make you feel?" and I said that a dog was at one of them."

"That was the wedding you came to. My first wedding. You don"t remember putting a bow on Ebeneezer"s neck? It was your idea." I take her arm and guide her toward the elevator.

"Yes, I took it off a beautiful floral display that was meant to be inside the church, but you and that man wouldn"t go inside. There was no flat place to stand. If you were a woman wearing heels, there was no place to stand anywhere, and it was going to rain."

"It was a sunny day."

"I don"t remember that. Did Grandma make your dress?"

"No. She offered, but I wore a dress we bought in London."

"That was just desperate. It must have broken her heart."

"Her arthritis was so bad she could hardly hold a pen, let alone a needle."

"You must have broken her heart."

"Well, Ma, this isn"t getting us to the car. What"s the plan?"

"The Marshall Plan."

"What?"

"The Marshall Plan. People of my generation don"t scoff at that."