They insisted that Kris sit down and have dinner. For the past several years she’d spent holidays with Devon and his family when she was in town; this year, however, she decided against it. The all-American family—the family that could have been hers—was not going to help her spirits rebound from the L.A. disaster. The disaster that, after a week and a half of hoping, had culminated when she awoke early this morning to find her period flooding the bed, staining the sheets with the bloody remnants of a dead dream.

Her first reaction had been to return to New York and isolate herself in her penthouse until her next book idea was firmly in place and the damn holiday was over. Then she could take off on a research trip and leave the entire mess behind.

But somewhere over the Mississippi, Kris thought about Abigail and her plea for Kris to hurry home. Self-centered or not, Abigail had tried to be supportive of Kris. The least Kris could do in return was not desert Abigail the way Maddie had deserted her.

Introductions were made: the boy next to Abigail’s “able assistant” had read all her books and seen all the films. Kris acknowledged his praises with what she hoped was aplomb, though she’d have been more comfortable if a fan had not been among them. She was not in the mood for being on stage; she was not in the mood for being her celebrity self.

“You see, Harriet?” said the elderly, bushy-browed man who’d been introduced as “L.C.” “The pretty ones find me wherever I am.”

The matronly Harriet guffawed, her five-strand pearl choker jiggling among the many folds of her neck. “I’ll be certain to announce that at my next club meeting.”

Edmund set another chair between Larry and Abigail; Louisa quickly appeared with a place setting.

Kris waved off the first two courses that she’d already missed. “Don’t want to ruin my girlish figure,” she said, and ignored the stuttering wink from the man called L.C.

When all were resettled Louisa appeared again, this time bearing an enormous turkey on what must have been an heirloom silver platter.

“Before you came in we were talking about Abigail’s new venture,” Larry commented.

Kris glanced at Abigail, who wore an expression that was a cross between fright and flight. “Oh really?” Kris asked. “Something new on the horizon?”

Clearing her throat, Abigail quickly—too quickly—replied: “I’ve signed a deal with Rupert’s Department Stores to handle the licensing for a line of kitchen things.”

Her staccato answer hung in the air.

Kris grinned. “How interesting. What kind of kitchen things?” She watched her friend line up the silverware with her plate, though it already looked perfectly straight to Kris.

“Dinnerware. Linens. That sort of thing.” Her eyes studied the table, not meeting Kris’s.

Larry laughed. “You make it sound so mundane! Honestly, Kris, wait until you see. Exclusive designs expressly with the Abigail Hardy name. They’re going to reinvent every woman’s concept of what today’s kitchen should be.”

“Hey,” Sondra said, “the marketing is my department, remember?”

“Well, well,” Kris said, trying to cover her sarcasm with surprise and trying not to laugh out loud. “Sounds like quite an undertaking.”

From beneath the table Kris felt a sharp kick against her ankle. “I’m sure Kris didn’t come all the way from Los Angeles to listen to business,” Abigail said.

“L.A.?” Grady, the fan, asked as his eyebrows shot up. “My very favorite, to-die-for place. Did you see anyone famous?”

“No one more famous than our hostess.”

Abigail cleared her throat again and slid forward to the edge of her seat. “How long can you stay, Kris? The weekend?”

Something, Kris knew, was up. Something was definitely up. “Perhaps I will,” she replied, passing her plate down to Edmund to be served. “I just happen to have my bags in the rental car.”

More than anything Maddie had wanted to slip into her long, comfortable skirt today—the one with the shapeless, draping vest. But it was really too big for her now, and anyway she wanted to show off the “new” her when Parker brought the boys home tonight. It didn’t even matter if Sharlene was with him; Maddie knew she would make an impression on Parker, and hopefully make him think twice about what he had lost.

Maybe he’d even wonder if Maddie were seeing another man. Abigail had said it could only work in her favor; that there was nothing more enticing to a man than to have someone else trying to take over his turf.

Maddie flinched at the thought and wondered how enticed Parker would be if he learned that his “rival” was only twenty-eight, that she was too chicken to call Cody, and that she was still too much in love with her ex-husband to ever consider sleeping with anyone else anyway. Anyhow.

She glanced at her watch. Six-thirty. They had left at two o’clock, so she shouldn’t have long to wait.

“You certainly look festive tonight,” Sophie said as Maddie came into the kitchen, dressed in an apple-green satin shirt and black velvet stirrup pants, which Abigail had said helped her legs look longer and her thighs thinner.

“Postmenopausal zest,” Maddie retorted, and helped herself to a glass of raspberry-flavored sparkling water. She glanced around the room: Sophie had set the table, which, because it was tucked into the corner, didn’t look as lonely as Thanksgiving for two might appear. The dining room would have been unbearable, not to mention impossible, for two years ago they had converted it into a computer/media room for the twins, and the old table and china closet had been relegated to the garage where they had remained ever since.

Sophie sighed and opened the oven door. The aroma of roasting turkey drifted from within. “Don’t be so afraid of the menopause, Madeline. It’s part of life.”

Maddie tried not to bristle at the way her mother said “the” menopause, as though it were a noun, an object, a thing, instead of merely a disease of dysfunction, like arthritis, or lupus, or … dementia.

“Besides,” Sophie continued, “you still get your period.”

Maddie shrugged. “On and off, Mother. And don’t tell me I’m not menopausal. The other day I forgot my last name.”

“You must distract yourself.” Her mother tightened the apron around her incredibly unfleshy middle and slipped on oven mitts. “Let it happen naturally and you’ll breeze through it The way I did.”

There was no need to remind Sophie that she’d been an uncharacteristic bitch on wheels for six years, from age forty-eight to fifty-four.

“Now help me flip the bird,” Sophie said with a chuckle.

Maddie would have laughed, too, but it was a remark Sophie made every year. She was the only person Maddie knew who cooked a turkey upside down—“to seal in the juices,” Sophie insisted—and whether or not she was aware of the inference of her remark, Maddie had never decided.

“I really wish you hadn’t gone to all this trouble for just the two of us,” Maddie said, reaching for two potholders from the counter. “Thanksgiving is just another day.” She leaned into the oven to hold the roasting pan. Then, suddenly, everything blurred out of focus. Whether it was from the heat, the steam, or the menopause she hadn’t even begun, suddenly her head grew light; the oven, the turkey, everything swirled before her.

Maddie grabbed for the counter.

The potholder slipped from her hand.

The last thing she remembered as she dropped to the floor was the searing pain as the flesh of her palm grazed the hot oven door.

“Maddie? can you hear me?”

A pungent smell knifed through the masculine voice.

“Maddie?”

Maddie blinked. She realized she was on the floor, that a hand was in front of her face, and that a bottle of … a bottle of Windex was under her nose. And then, dear God, she realized the voice belonged to Parker.

“Parker?” she murmured, then blinked again.

“She’s okay, Sophie,” Parker said, then braced Maddie’s back with his arm. “You fainted, Maddie. You’re okay now.”

She felt the strength of his arm behind her. Parker. He was holding her again—just as she’d dreamed. He was there, inches from her face, so close she could feel his breath. She wanted to reach up and touch his beard; she wanted him to draw her closer; she wanted his lips to meet hers. She closed her eyes.

“Can you sit up?” he asked.

Sit up? Could he kiss her better if she were sitting up?

“Madeline?” Sophie’s voice came now. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

She opened her eyes. Parker slowly pulled her to a sitting position. She looked down at her apple-green shirt, now covered with grease. Beside her lay the culprit turkey, now a mass of legs and wings strewn across the tile. Then Parker let go of her and backed away. He was not going to hold her. He was not going to kiss her.

“Geez, Mom,” Bobby said, stepping into view. “We walked in the door and you were sprawled on the floor. You scared the crap out of us.”

She wanted to correct him for saying “crap” but figured right now it wasn’t important. Behind Bobby, clinging to the doorway, stood Timmy, a look of fear on his face that was very, very real. Suddenly Maddie realized how ridiculous she must look.

“Would someone please tell me what the Windex is for?” she asked.

“Ammonia,” Sophie said, with a look as distressed as Timmy’s. “Windex has ammonia. I haven’t had smelling salts in the house for forty years.”

Maddie tried to make sense of that, then decided against it. “What happened?”

“You tell us,” Parker said. “You’re the one on the floor.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything got fuzzy. Everything went black.” Then she felt the pain in her palm again. “Ouch. I think I took off a few layers of skin.”

“I’ll get some ointment,” Sophie said, then added, “Come on boys, your father can take care of this.”

They went from the kitchen, leaving Maddie alone with Parker. Alone in the same room, for the first time since the divorce. It occurred to Maddie that perhaps she should have fainted sooner. Like half a dozen years ago.

“Well,” she said, trying to straighten the mess on her shirt. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, settling into a cross-legged position on the floor in front of her in his gray flannel pants and light blue shirt—the light blue she’d always liked him to wear because it brought out the depths of his eyes. His eyes, however, looked older and his hair had more gray than was visible in the black-and-white photo stacks hidden in her studio.

“I’m fine. Honest. It’s just female stuff.”

He nodded. “You sure scared the boys.”

The boys? she wanted to ask. What about you? Did I scare you, too? Instead, she said, “I don’t expect it did much for Mother, either.”

“Lucky we came along when we did.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

The smells of turkey and ammonia, and hundreds of words unspoken, hung in the space between them.

“Well,” Parker said, rising from the floor and stepping close to her again, “can I give you a hand? I’d like to be sure you can stand up before I go.”

She took his hand the way she had a thousand times … when they crossed Fifth Avenue in the rain, when they walked through Greenwich Village on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when they stood in line at Madison Square Garden, waiting for the Elton John concert. It was dry and warm and safe. It was a hand that belonged to the man who loved her. Loved her, when she’d thought no man would. No man could. Because she was not pretty or graceful or rich. Because she was just … Maddie.

He helped her up, then awkwardly—with hesitation—let go of her hand.

“No permanent damage, I presume.”

She shook her head. If only he would put his arms around her. If only he would hold her and hug her and tell her how wrong he’d been, how much he loved her still.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, grabbing his jacket from the stool where he’d apparently tossed it.

“Must you?” she heard her voice ask. She still felt weak. She still felt …

“Sharlene’s in the car,” he said, putting on his coat.

“Oh,” Maddie answered.

And then he was gone.

“What is going on?” Kris demanded of Abigail once the guests had left and they were alone in the sitting room of the west wing—the guest wing—of the manor. She had pulled her long legs up beneath her on the sofa and stared at Abigail, who paced the oval, brocade-papered room. “A new venture? Going to be a little difficult to run if you’re living in Madrid.”

Abigail lit a cigarette. “I never said I planned to go to Madrid. And it’s nothing, really.”

“Have you had a change of heart?”

“About leaving? No. Never. Especially not after what’s happened.” She smoked hurriedly, as if she were sneaking a butt in the girls’ room at Arbor Brook, the way they had done so many times when they were twelve.

“Are you going to tell me?”

She stopped in front of a marble-topped oak chest and ran her hand across its smooth, cool surface. “It’s funny, Kris. You know I’ve been miserable. But until now I’ve never felt quite so … disparate.”

“Disparate,” Kris said. “That’s such a good word. It’s so close to ‘desperate’.”

“I am desperate.” She told Kris about the conversation between Larry and Sondra that she’d overheard. “All these years the son-of-a-bitch has despised me. Now he’s conspiring to take his cut of the Rupert’s deal and leave me high and dry,” She uttered a laugh that was laced with contempt.

“Excuse me,” Kris interrupted, “but you all seemed rather like one happy family tonight.”

“Oh, he has no idea that I know. Which only makes my revenge more pleasant. I was going to kill the Rupert’s deal. But I decided it would be more effective to let him think he’s getting his hands on the money. Once I disappear the deal will be dead, but my guess is he’ll have already spent the money before it reaches his pocket.”

“So you’ll ruin him.”

“An eye for an eye.”

“And Sondra?”

Abigail shrugged. “If she buys into his scheme, I’m afraid she’ll learn a lesson or two. But Edmund will take care of her.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “I’ve got to get out, Kris. Now more than ever. Now that you’re back …” She hesitated, then moved toward the sofa. “Oh, God, I’m such an ass, going on and on about me. What about you? You’re not pregnant …”

Kris shrugged. “UCLA wasn’t up to the challenge.”

“Are you giving up?”

It was Kris’s turn to grow somber. “I thought it would be easy. Shit. Everything has always been easy for me. You want a bestseller?” She snapped her fingers; “You get it. You want fame and fortune? Its yours. I sure didn’t think I’d get hung up having some stranger’s sperm inside me.” She laughed. “God knows, that part was nothing new.”

Abigail stubbed out her cigarette.

“Besides,” Kris continued, “maybe I really am too old.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

Smoothing the front of her cashmere dress, Kris paused before she replied. “They shot me up with some stuff guaranteed to make me produce more eggs. Improbably had a whole henhouse inside me, and the rooster wasn’t interested.”

Abigail sat beside her. “What are you going to do?”

Kris was unsure if Abigail was more concerned about her or about the vow not to leave until the birthday wishes came true. “I can’t speak for Maddie,” she said, “but as for me, you’re off the hook. There’s no point in you keeping your life on hold until I get pregnant. It may never happen.”

Lighting another cigarette, Abigail smiled. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Now let’s spend the weekend getting your shit together so you can get out of here.”

Damn. It just wasn’t fair. Maddie sat on her bed in the darkness—the same bed, in the same slant-roof room where she’d spent her childhood, where she’d passed so many nights looking out at the stars and wondering if she would ever be like Kris or Abigail … or even Betty Ann.

She thought about her old Mousketeer T-shirt, a long-ago treasure, then dust rag, then trash. Still, there were so many times she felt like that awkward, unhappy girl trying so hard to pretend that all was well, trying so hard to act as if she were having fun, trying so hard to make others like her. Things hadn’t changed. Aside from her mother and the twins—well, Timmy, anyway—there was no one who really cared.

Maybe life would have been easier if her father hadn’t died when she was so young. Other than Parker, Harvey Kavner was the only man who had ever held her hand, who had ever truly cared. At night, after dinner, they would go for walks—just Maddie and her father, hand-in-hand when she was small, then simply side-by-side. They rarely spoke much on their ritual jaunts; they just enjoyed being together, enjoyed being father and daughter, at peace with one another.

It had been so long now since he’d died that she barely remembered him, barely remembered his face, the sound of his voice, the touch of his fingers linked through hers.

She thought about the day of his memorial service. Climbing the steps of the synagogue, thirteen-year-old Maddie had linked her arm through her mother’s.

“What are we going to do without him, Mommy?”

“We’re going to be fine,” Sophie commented, patting her daughter’s hand. “We’re going to miss him like hell, but we’re going to be fine.”

It was the first time Maddie had heard her mother swear, and it implied to Maddie that they were not going to be fine at all—that the one man who loved them had abandoned them, that there was no chance of him coming back.

Three decades later another man had abandoned her, too. The two men in her life had packed up and left: one in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes; one in a satin-lined box. Of the two, she knew she could have counted more on her father. Yet he was the one she couldn’t win back.

When her father died, he had been her best friend. Well, there had been Abigail and Kris and Betty Ann, too. Then again, she thought now, maybe the girls would not have remained friends if he hadn’t died, if they hadn’t felt sorry for her.

Her thoughts drifted to them: she’d not spoken to Kris since coming back on the red-eye; Abigail hadn’t called to see how her date went. Years ago Maddie would have been on the phone to them both, pursuing the friendship without ever realizing that maybe it wasn’t what they wanted. That maybe they only tolerated her the way they tolerated Betty Ann, simply because she was there.

Despair, she’d read somewhere, was the fabric of self-pity.

Yet Maddie could not stop the warm tears from rolling down her cheeks. Even in the darkness, even with her new look, she knew what she was. She was the daughter of an introspective college professor, a matronly frump, nothing more. No one, certainly, at whom Parker would ever cast a side glance again.

Besides, Parker had had his chance tonight. But he’d put on his jacket and gone out the door, laughing at her perhaps, perhaps shaking his head, then getting into the car next to his young, gorgeous, blonde wife and secretly applauding himself for having had the sense to get out.

Menopause, Madeline. It’s part of life. Sophie’s words reverberated in her mind. Maddie took as deep a breath as she could and tried to determine how long menopause would last. She’d heard five years. She’d heard ten.

In five years Cody would be thirty-three. In ten, thirty-eight.

She sat up on the bed and pulled her torn chenille robe around her. Damn, she thought, why am I thinking of him?

“You are thinking of him because he makes you feel good,” she said to the darkness. Then she admitted that he did make her feel good. Like the new haircut. Like dropping the weight. Like looking like something other than a tearsheet from a decades-old Montgomery Ward catalog, or a poster child from Woodstock.

And maybe Abigail was right, that surely Parker would notice if she were with a younger man.

Quickly Maddie hauled herself from the bed and fumbled in the bag that was slung over the doorknob. From the bottom of the bag she dug out the crumpled napkin from Hilliard’s. Then she went over to the phone on the nightstand.

Crazy or not, she was going to do this. She didn’t care what anyone thought. Besides, Sophie had told her to distract herself. And Maddie had always tried to do what she was told.

She lifted the receiver before she could change her menopausally altered mind.

Abigail snapped off the reading lamp, pulled the thick comforter up under her chin, closed her eyes, and prepared to pretend she was asleep. From her bed she could hear Edmund using the steam room; though they hadn’t shared the same bed, the same room even, for many years, she did not want to encourage one of his infrequent conjugal visits tonight. The sex might be good—and then where would she be? Confused as hell and riddled with guilt and at risk of changing her mind.

No. There would be no sex, and she would not change her mind. She was going to be free. Free to be the Abigail Hardy she had never known—or whatever her new name would be.

Seattle. The name kept creeping back to her mind. It wasn’t as exotic as Madrid or Marseilles, but she’d had a lifetime of exotic, a lifetime of being where and doing what was expected. Seattle seemed so less … confrontational. A place where the people spoke English, where the money was in dollars, and where she could vanish among the lumber-jacks and other western pioneers—pioneers, like Great-Grandfather Hardy had once been, on a different coast, in a different time.

She’d heard Seattle was dreary—cold and rainy. But for some reason the image of rain on the roof of a log cabin and giant pines creaking outside in the darkness while Abigail was tucked inside beside a blazing fireplace, all snug and cozy and blessedly alone, seemed blissfully safe and very alluring.

Maybe she would even get a dog.

A big, furry dog who would curl up at her feet and keep her toes warm.

An island, she thought. An island off the coastline across from Seattle. She could have her solitude; she could have a city nearby in case she craved people. And in the meantime she would have nothing hut time to become who she was. A smile of peace inched over her lips.

“Honey? Are you awake?”

She forced away the smile. She squeezed her eyes. Go away, Edmund, she wanted to scream. Instead she did not answer. It didn’t matter. The sound of his footsteps moved closer to the bed.

“I just wanted to say it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. An excellent dinner.” The weight of his body sank onto the edge of the mattress.

The log cabin, the big, furry dog, and the island vanished, his words popping the bubble of her dreams.

“Thank Louisa for dinner,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I didn’t make it.” She wondered why everyone always thanked the hostess for dinner, when all the hostess did was pay the cook.

He shifted his weight on the mattress. “Everyone seemed to have a nice time, too.”

“Yes. I guess.”

“It was a wonderful idea to surprise everyone with your news.”

She opened her eyes.

“Even I didn’t know you’d made your decision.”

“I didn’t keep it from you on purpose,” she replied. “I didn’t think it much mattered to you.”

He began to fondle the edge of the comforter. “I’m sorry about our argument the other day. What you do does matter to me.”

Go away.

“Edmund,” she said, “I’m tired. Please go to bed.”

“I was hoping I’d be invited to sleep here.”

She closed her eyes again, pulled an arm from beneath the covers, and patted his hand. “Please understand. I’m really tired. And Kris is staying the weekend, so I’m sure we’ll be busy.”

He remained for a moment, not speaking, just breathing. Breathing the breath of a husband who didn’t know quite what to make of his wife. Finally he rose from the bed, his footsteps crossing the carpet and disappearing down the hall.