"You'l be able to retire earlier," Rayanne said. "And get a bigger pension. You're almost fifty-I can see why you've got to go. And it's only an hour and a half away."

"Thirty-eight is not almost fifty," Shannon, thirty-six, protested, as if defending Dawn from attack.

Rayanne said, "I can rent you my little guest cottage when you come to town to see us. I'l give you a good break."

"Geeze, Ray, listen to yourself," Yolanda said. "If you come back to visit, Dawn, you're staying in my guest room."

"Or in my cabin? I could go stay with my dad," Shannon offered, staring at Dawn as if wil ing her to stay and share her bed.

Dawn interrupted. "Sometimes you'l want to come to the city, won't you?"

"Shopping," Rayanne exclaimed. "We can do Steeplegate Mal ."

Yolanda opened another ale and glugged down a good portion of it. Jefferson knew how that went-Dawn's plans were another excuse to drink more.

No one knew better than she did that removing the femme from the equation would ruin everything. She could see that the four of them had a tender balance, house-sitting for one another, hosting round-robin weeding parties, meeting at Dawn's as a kind of anchor to their weeks. She'd learned, too, that Shannon cleaned gutters for Rayanne, who was afraid of heights, and had been roped into cleaning al the others' too. Yolanda hauled everyone's trash in the pickup, Rayanne did their taxes, Dawn did basic house repair.

For herself, the thought of starting out again on her own, even as a real-estate sel er, stil scared the socks off her. Zoloft or no, she needed these new friends and didn't want to see the foursome melt away. Then, too, there was the strange tug on her heart Dawn's announcement had brought. But look at her, the funny little tomboy. Dawn reached down to pul up her soccer socks and brushed wood chips off her knee. She wore what she'd said were her brother's old red soccer shorts and a huge tie-dyed T-shirt in swirls of primary colors. Dawn clearly wasn't interested in projecting femme al ure to this group, but d.a.m.n, Jefferson thought, feeling a spark of her old self, she looked inexplicably good in that getup.

Yolanda walked a stump over and sat, blowing into the neck of her bottle to make a deep, mournful sound.

"I can't deal with this subject," said Rayanne. "Did you hear Spain is making gay weddings legal?"

Yolanda sputtered. "Spain? They've got more Catholics than Ma.s.sachusetts."

Dawn was clearly glad to get on to another subject. "Does that make the U.S. the most knee-jerk country on the globe?"

"Who cares!" Shannon wailed. "Is this world al about couples? The four of us get along fine single."

Yolanda drank and played a new note. "Personal y, I am pretty fried with al this gay-marriage publicity. They ought to leave it alone before some straight starts kil ing honeymooners in P-town."

"I don't think I could find a marriage that's better than what we have," Rayanne said.

"Had," Yolanda pointed out.

"Check it out: it's not over til it's over," Shannon cried, echoing Jefferson's words.

Dawn looked as if she'd known it would be bad, but hadn't expected this. She walked to the refrigerator and poured some iced tea. "Come on, guys,"

Dawn said. "Tel me how I can turn my back on this job."

"Watch this!" Yolanda said, standing and turning until her back was to them. "Piece of cake."

"You jerk," Dawn said, laughing.

Yolanda sat down on her stump again. "Seriously, if I give you a mil ion dol ars, wil you stay?"

She laughed again. "Make it two mil ion and you're on."

"Hey," Rayanne said. "If that's what happens when you threaten to leave, I'm leaving too."

"Marry me." Shannon dropped to one skinny knee. "I'l support you. You'l never have to work again."

"Watch out, Dawn," Yolanda warned, "she's serious."

"No, she's not," Rayanne said. "Shannon's tired of living in her cabin. She wants to move in with you so she doesn't have to get a real job."

Dawn smiled fondly at Shannon, as if she knew the woman was serious. "Get up." She raised her chin upward. She didn't seem to mind having three butch admirers, but she also seemed real clear that she wasn't stringing them along. "Sorry, Shannon. There's nothing I'd like better than someone to marry-except being single." Was that true? Dawn didn't move her eyes from her carving.

"What are you asking Dawn to marry you for?" Yolanda asked with an affronted tone. "She's already married. To us."

"Oh, right," Rayanne said. "The world is going to love it when we demand equal rights for group gay marriages. Wouldn't some of those bigamist religions be pleased."

"I'm real y serious this time," said Yolanda. "This is as good as it gets for me. We don't fight, don't get in one another's faces, can leave at the end of the day, but we know we're here for each other. That's like al the good stuff and none of the bad."

Shannon asked, her voice wistful, "Isn't there something missing?"

Rayanne laughed. "You may have a point. Romance? s.e.x? Are they worth it?"

"And if we were married, you wouldn't leave us. Either we'd al go," Yolanda argued, "or we'd al stay."

"Or we'd divorce," Dawn suggested.

"That's what it feels like," Shannon said. "It feels like you told us you're getting a divorce."

Yolanda opened another ale. Shannon wrung her hands. Rayanne stared at the woman across the street. The neighbor was rol ing out a rumbling, overflowing weed-fil ed trash can. Jefferson had pul ed almost as many weeds early that morning while it was stil cool. Her laundry was done. Before quitting and checking in at the office, she'd groomed the kittens, who had acted like she was trying to kil them. That had helped defrost her beat-up old heart.

"What about Snickers?" she asked.

Dawn answered. "Look at him in the window watching for signs that I'm coming in to feed him his cat food." She sighed. "I'l have to find an apartment that al ows pets. I won't buy anything until this house sel s and I know the job's for me."

Shannon said, "I'l keep the house up. If things don't work out you can come back." Shannon didn't have a steady job. She cleaned pools in the summer and washed dishes at the inn weekends and holidays year-round. She rented a smal , unheated cottage out of town and seemed to survive the cold-weather months with a s.p.a.ce heater and an incredible number of layers.

"Oh, right," Rayanne said. "Like she can afford to buy in Concord if she keeps this place."

"I can't picture you in Concord," Yolanda said. "Where are you going to carve? I can't see you in an apartment building, with no yard work and no gang to hang out with."

"I'l check Out In the Mountains, that gay paper, for a hiking group."

"They folded," Rayanne said. "I used to advertise there."

"Anyone want iced tea?" Dawn asked, going back to the garage.

Shannon fol owed her inside and grabbed a mug she kept over the laundry tub. "Did you already accept the job?" Jefferson heard her ask Dawn in a low voice.

"They gave me to the weekend to decide."

"Come to my place for dinner."

"Are you asking the others?"

"No!" Shannon said.

Jefferson shook her head. Suddenly, shy Shannon was making her move. She was cute in a desperate kind of way. When Jefferson looked around, she saw that the others were listening too.

"Better to stop her now," Rayanne whispered, "than to build up her hopes."

"I don't think so, Shannon," they heard from the garage.

Shannon sounded like her next word hurt coming out. "Why?"

"I like things the way they are."

"I wasn't going to-"

"We won't tempt fate, okay?"

"It's because you're not over Bonnie yet, isn't it. That was four years ago!"

Drew had fil ed Jefferson in about the woman Dawn was with when she bought this house. Tal , sports-crazy, fickle Bonnie was what he'd cal ed her.

Drew had said that he stil couldn't believe Dawn hadn't known what Bonnie was doing behind her back. That shame, he'd said, was part of what kept her from trying again.

Had Ginger felt shame when she caught Jefferson fooling around? Why hadn't she seen what harm she was doing? It was so clear to her now.

Shannon strode from the garage and asked the others, "What good is getting the okay to marry when n.o.body wants me?"

Dawn had already turned her back. She seemed not to hear Shannon.

"We've decided," Rayanne said when Shannon sat again.

"Decided what?"

"You're not going," Yolanda told her.

"Of course I'm going. Don't you guys want the best for me?"

Rayanne laughed. For al her sharp words, she had a laugh like tickled wind. Dawn smiled despite herself as Rayanne said, "Not without us!"

"We're going to tie you up and keep you here, that's al there is to it," said Yolanda, taking Dawn's hands in her own and swaying face-to-face with her.

"Flatten your tires, put sugar in your Subaru's tank, cal Concord and tel them what a mistake they'd be making."

"Yeah," Rayanne added, "tel them you're queer."

"These days, that would probably make a library hire me so they didn't get in trouble for discriminating."

"But seriously," Rayanne said, "you are plain nuts to leave the lake. Everybody wants to live here, you know that. And to have a job here? We are living every sucker's dream. How can you think about giving it up?"

"You want to meet someone, don't you." Yolanda's voice had a new edge to it and sounded accusatory. "The lake lezzies aren't good enough for you."

Shannon was quick to say, "That's her right."

"At least," Yolanda said, "there's a couple of bars there."

Rayanne asked, "Wil you stil go to Women Outdoors with us?"

"Not if she has a girlfriend," Yolanda declared.

"Wait a minute," said Rayanne. "This is the best place to attract a girlfriend. Who wouldn't want to move to the lake?"

"Do I get to say anything?" Dawn asked. "I don't want to leave the lake."

"So why go?" Yolanda asked.

Jefferson could hear a robin in the tree in Dawn's backyard. Rayanne looked puzzled, Shannon looked anxious, and Yolanda said, "Maybe it's because I know my brother and I are going to inherit the shop, but I can't get al that excited about career moves that rip me away from everything I love.

This is your home, Dawn."

Rayanne said, "Maybe you're ambitious. There's nothing wrong with that. It's the American way."

"You should know," said Yolanda.

"I'm not ambitious," Rayanne said. "I like money."

"Who doesn't?" asked Yolanda.

Rayanne answered, "Shannon."

Shannon grinned. "I guess I'm not very ambitious."

Dawn sighed. "Al right. You find me the woman I'm looking for around here and I'l stay."

"I told you it was about meeting someone, didn't I?" Yolanda declared.

Dawn sat and began to whittle again. She had smal but sensitive-looking hands, very dexterous. It was amazing that she could both whittle and keep her manicure. There was nothing as lovely as a femme's touch. Femmes somehow managed to make touch as gentle as dandelion fluff, yet exciting beyond imagination. Her voice was as light as her touch, clear, but quiet, like gra.s.ses rustling in the lake.

She was so different from Ginger-and from al the women she'd been with. There was none of the New York jangle, rushing, or ego about her.

Jefferson couldn't imagine Dawn contained inside crowded buildings. She belonged to the lake and the country air. Her friends were right; she was as much a part of this place as the native trees and birds. Dawn would have fit in before the settlers arrived, when it was al lake and forest. She drifted into a dream of colonial days and walking across a vil age green with Dawn, courting her in a gentlemanly way.

But Dawn was tel ing them about her dream partner, looking at her knife and wooden bird. "She'd be on the tal side, with thick hair I'd want to run my hands through-maybe brown, but some gray would be fine. She'd be st.u.r.dily built, but not fleshy, strong-looking. Probably late forties and survived some tough times, or maybe in her fifties already. She might not sound like a New Englander, but she'd fit into this upscale resort town somehow, like she was bred to money. It would be the woman's hands that would be most striking, though. On the large side, long-fingered, younger than her face, with prominent veins that made them look stronger. And experienced. She'd have to be very experienced."

Jefferson ran through the smal inventory of d.y.k.es she'd met on the lake, but couldn't think of one that fit the description. That's when she realized the women were looking at her hands. A trickle of excitement moved through her. Would her hands be considered big, her fingers seem long? Hadn't others remarked on their strength?