1.

When she heard the doorbell ring on that smoky blue evening in the Fall of ’66, in the house she shared with her many girlfriends, Evelyn had been ready to fall in love with whoever might be standing on the other side of it. A bone-deep readiness bordering on boredom: she was bored, she could admit it; after Bordeaux, Jean-Claude, those miserable weeks staying in hostels without Jean-Claude, the weeks after those weeks back in her parents’ house not knowing why she was there, how she could’ve given up the world for the slow drip-trickle of church, relatives, everyone tiptoeing around her broken engagement like she’d die if it was mentioned; yes, bored. She was bored of those girls she lived with — Joan, Linda, Marilyn, Mary-Kay — and the little house they’d taken such pains to beautify. Bored of how she acted around those girls, like a pinwheel desperate to spin faster, brighter than the rest; sharing stories of lanterns along the Pont de Pierre, recipes for Crêpes Suzette, spurning cosmetics and prim shift dresses to go about fresh-faced, in flouncy gypsy skirts. She’d even mastered talking about Jean-Claude without getting upset, and if anyone dared to ask what they were all wondering, why?, could summon the perfect tone of worldly resignation: ‘Honestly? The better my French got, the less interesting he was.’ Yet this didn’t change the fact that she was bored by the sound of her own voice; that her life, for all its grand intentions, had never seemed so trivial. It was enough to make her want to — well, maybe not kill herself, but join the Peace Corps maybe, spend a year on the Ivory Coast, or maybe, just maybe, fall in love again.

So she was the first to jump at the sound of the bell, to abandon the canapés they were fussing with, to wipe her hands and chime, ‘I’ll get it.’ The canapés were her idea, but already it was clear they’d overdone it; some grad students had cancelled last minute and, to make up the numbers, Joan and Mary-Kay had spent the afternoon inviting random cute boys while the rest of them cleaned and shopped. Yet so far, the only guests to show up were Linda’s cousin Judy and Cronkite, a neighborhood cat whose visits coincided with the evening news.

There was a wine glass in her hand. A barrette in her hair; over the summer, she’d decisively grown out the chic French-girl bob she’d worn since sophomore year. Sipping her wine, tucking her hair; feeling the glitter of wine in her eyes, the warmth on her cheeks. That’s how she was when she opened to the smoky blue evening, the beautiful blue-eyed boy whose name she didn’t yet know was Lenny Lynden.

‘You’re here.’ Evelyn beamed at him. ‘I’m so glad.’