Leave it to Julia to use impeccable grammar at a time like this. "Casey," Susie said, then leaned forward and rested her chin in her hands, feeling terribly sorry for herself.

"Casey wants to marry you?"

Susie nodded.

"And you said no?"

"I just can't see it, Julia. I'm only twenty-six. When you were twenty-six you were working as a lawyer and dating that creepy Wasp guy who ate sushi all the time. I'm twenty-six and I don't know where my life is going, either."

"Don't compare yourself with me," Julia advised her. "We're very different."

"Yeah. You've got your act together. I'm not even sure what act I'm in." Susie dug her chin into her palms and issued a sigh deep enough to empty her lungs. Self-pity could be fun in its own perverse way. If she was going to indulge in it, she might as well enjoy it. "Ever since Casey popped the question, I've been having nightmares about picket fences and preschools and routines. Routines, Julia. You know what I mean?"

"I know what a routine is."

"I dream that an alarm clock wakes me up at the same time every morning, and I'm always where I'm supposed to be, and Mom talks me into getting laser surgery to remove my tattoo." She gestured toward her ankles, bare above her leather sandals. The butterfly tattooed to her left ankle seemed appropriate to her now, but what if she were married? Did wives have tattoos?

"Mom would be so thrilled if you got married, she'd probably never mention your tattoo again," Julia pointed out.

Susie didn't believe that. Until the day she died, Sondra Bloom would hate Susie's tattoo-which was one reason she'd had it done. "I have nightmares of waking up one morning and realizing I have absolutely nothing to say to Casey, because we've said everything we could possibly say to each other already," she lamented. "I have nightmares about..." She hesitated, then forced out the words. "Doing laundry. Once a week. The same day every week. And using bleach in the white load."

Julia grimaced.

"You have laundry nightmares, too, don't you," Susie guessed. "You dream about dryer sheets and wake up in a cold sweat."

Julia shook her head. "Actually, no."

"You don't have laundry nightmares?"

"I don't have any nightmares at all."

Susie cursed. Why couldn't her sister have nightmares? Why did she have to be so damn perfect? "I bet your dinner party was a nightmare," Susie grumbled.

"I was awake for that," Julia argued. "It doesn't count."

"How did it go?" Susie asked. Even if the dinner Julia had hosted at their mother's apartment didn't count, it might have been calamitous enough to undermine Julia's perfect life, at least a little. Not that Susie wished her sister ill-of course not-but having a sister who was perfect all the time was awfully hard. A bad dinner party would go a long way toward restoring Susie's ego.

Julia slouched back in the sofa and sighed. "The food was excellent. Lyndon and his friend Howard prepared a feast. Adam invited this girl over."

"He invited a girl to your dinner party?"

"They weren't part of the party," Julia explained. "He just invited her over, and they ate leftovers in his bedroom."

"In his bedroom?" Susie smiled for the first time in days. "Adam had a girl in his bedroom? In Mom's apartment?"

"The door was open. They watched TV."

"Even so...What about Tash?"

"Tash is in Seattle. Adam's in New York." Julia gazed toward the window as if a vision of Adam's dinner companion had appeared on the other side of the glass. "I have no idea who this girl was, whether he met her at Cornell, what. She was really thin and her feet pointed out. What's that called? Duck-toed? She had great posture. She held her chin up, like this." She demonstrated, angling her chin toward the philodendron sprouting from a plastic pot on the sill.

"She sounds like a freak," Susie said. "Does she shave her legs, at least?"

"I don't know. She was wearing jeans, and I wasn't about to ask. I had my hands full as it was."

"Full of what?"

"Grandma Ida decided to join us for dinner. She was a grouch. I thought she'd back me up when I said Bloom's should cater our wedding, but she didn't. She spent the whole evening being critical. She told Ron he chewed too slowly. She told his mother that yellow wasn't her color-she was right about that, but still. She told Ron's father he shouldn't have brought flowers because they might attract bugs into the house. She told Lyndon he should have made flanken."

"She sounds like quite the belle of the ball," Susie muttered.

Julia wasn't done. "Joffe's mother's a kvetch. She had nothing nice to say. Joffe's father said nothing at all."

"How about Mom?"

"She's not talking to me."

"Julia?" Their mother's voice reached them through the door.

"She's talking to you now," Susie whispered.

Julia groaned, shoved herself to her feet and crossed the office to the door. She opened it and Sondra Bloom charged in, her hair flying about her face and her eyes a touch too bright. "You'll never guess who just phoned me."

"Eleanor Roosevelt," Susie called from the couch.

Her mother leaned sideways to peer around Julia. "Susie! What are you doing?"

"I'm always here on Mondays. I have to write the Bloom's Bulletin. I'm the creative director, remember?"

Sondra planted herself across the coffee table from Susie and scrutinized her. "You look terrible," she said.

"Thanks." Terrible was an improvement over like shit.

"Is something wrong?"

"No," Julia and Susie said together. Just one reason that Susie loved her sister so much: she protected Susie from their mother's nosiness. "Who phoned you?" Julia asked. "It wasn't Eleanor Roosevelt, was it?"

"Of course not. Eleanor Roosevelt's dead," Sondra said. Then her cheeks flushed and she smiled almost bashfully. "Norman Joffe."

"Ron's father? Why? Is there a problem?"

"No problem." Sondra's gaze widened to encompass both daughters. She touched her disheveled hair absently. "He asked me if I'd like to go out for coffee with him."

"Coffee?" Susie blurted out. Either Joffe Senior was cheap or he was out of practice. A man interested in a woman would ask her out for a real drink, not coffee.

A man interested in a woman? Wait a minute. This was their mother they were talking about. Their mother and Ron's father.

"You're kidding," Julia said, going very pale.

"Why would I kid about something like this?" Sondra sounded almost giddy. She touched her hair again, then clasped her hands in front of her. "What should I wear?"

"What do you usually wear when you drink coffee?" Susie asked.

"Did he ask you out on a date?" Julia's face was rapidly losing its last traces of color.

"He asked me out for a cup of coffee. It's not a date." But the way Sondra preened and fluttered, she clearly thought a cup of coffee was more than a cup of coffee.

"When?"

"Saturday morning at ten."

"That sounds like a date," Susie said.

"It's not a date," Sondra insisted, her voice rising into coloratura range.

"It's a date," Julia said glumly.

"It's coffee. We'll drink coffee and discuss the wedding. That's all." She turned to Susie. "Norman was so generous about wanting to contribute to the cost of the wedding. Of course, there are things the groom's side is supposed to pay for-the liquor, the flowers, the rehearsal dinner..." She ticked items off on her fingers and stared at the ceiling, trying to conjure a list. "What else, Julia? The band? I don't remember. And presents for the ushers, of course."

"How many ushers is Joffe planning to have?" Susie asked.

Julia scowled. "Who the hell knows? His brother will be the best man. Other than that, he doesn't tell me anything."

"Well, just as long as the ushers like Bloom's food," Susie said, her spirits more buoyant than they'd been in days. She was a rotten human being, allowing her sister's obvious angst to cheer her up. But there it was.

"The menu hasn't been settled yet," Sondra said firmly. "Well, I've got a few days to figure out what to wear. Nothing fancy, of course. It's just coffee."

"You might order a croissant," Susie pointed out. "Then it would be more than just coffee."

"No croissants," her mother responded. "They're too fattening. Do you think I could lose five pounds by Saturday?"

"No," Susie and her sister chorused. "Don't even think about it," Julia added. "Quickie diets are dangerous. And as you said, it's just coffee."

"Right. Black coffee. No cream, no sugar, no calories. Susie, I'm worried about you. You really look lousy. Who's cutting your hair these days?"

"The same guy at Racine who cut it when you said you loved it," Susie told her. "I've got my period, that's all." She didn't, and even if she did, it wouldn't affect her appearance. But she wanted to end her mother's interrogation before it gained momentum.

"Mom, Susie and I have to go over the material for this week's bulletin," Julia said. "I'm thrilled beyond words that Norman wants to discuss the wedding with you over coffee. But I've got to get these details worked out with Susie."

"Fine." Sondra seemed too elated to mind that Julia was blowing her off. She leaned over the couch and gave Susie a bruising hug, then hugged Julia, then pranced out of the office.

Julia followed her as far as the door, shut it and leaned against it, her eyes closed and her cheeks the color of library paste. "Oh, God. I can't believe this."

"What?"

Julia's eyes snapped open. She stared at Susie, apparently appalled that Susie wasn't as appalled as she was. "Mom and Ron's father? I'm going to be sick." Instead of vomiting, however, she stalked to her desk, lifted the phone receiver and punched in a number. Susie figured that if Julia had wanted privacy for the call she'd have asked for it, so she kicked her feet up on the coffee table and settled in to eavesdrop.

"Ron? It's me," Julia barked into the phone. "We have a disaster.... I'm aware that you're working. I'm working, too. Do you think I'd call you if it wasn't a disaster?...Okay, in this particular instance, I'm calling because we have a disaster. Your father asked my mother out for coffee." She held the receiver away from her ear; Susie heard Joffe's muffled voice through the plastic. She couldn't make out the words, but she could guess they were pungent.

"Well, she's a widow and he's divorced," Julia said into the phone. "And neither of them is in possession of a single cell of functional gray matter.... So talk to him. Tell him coming on to your future mother-in-law is not a wise idea.... No, you talk to him. He's your father.... Why? Who the hell knows why? She hasn't been on a date since my father died. That's two years. And then your father shows up with that damn bouquet of flowers. The woman is obviously having a midlife crisis."

Julia listened a bit more, then exhaled wearily. "Okay. We'll strategize tonight. I've got to go now. My sister is here. I've got to solve her crisis, too.... Right. Bye." She hung up.

"You don't have to solve my crisis," Susie said indignantly, although deep down she'd be overjoyed if Julia would do that.

"I don't even know what your crisis is," Julia said, collapsing into her desk chair. It had been bought for their father, who, while not a huge man, had been nearly half a foot taller than Julia. The chair dwarfed her. Her feet didn't quite touch the floor.

"I don't have a crisis," Susie fibbed.

"You phoned me Friday and said you're leaving town."

"That's not a crisis. That's an opportunity."

"And you're having nightmares about picket fences and alarm clocks. I think you should go into therapy."

Susie couldn't tell if Julia was joking. She decided she didn't care. Why should she waste time confiding in a therapist when she had Julia? "I like Casey. I probably even love him. I just don't want to marry him. Is that a crime?"

"So don't marry him."

"He gave me an ultimatum. Either we go forward or we quit."

"So quit."

"But I like him."

"And you probably even love him." Julia shook her head. "Days like today, I miss working at the law firm. I only had sixty-hour workweeks then, doing tons of tedious research and being grossly underpaid and underappreciated. It was a piece of cake compared with this." She moved her arm in an arc that encompassed her office. Her hand landed on a folder on her desk. "Here are the sale items for this week's bulletin. Are you planning to quit that, too?"

"The Bloom's Bulletin? And give up my fancy title, all that power, all the perks? No. I can do the bulletin on a laptop and e-mail it to you."

"How long will you be away?"

"I'm not sure. It depends on Rick's production schedule."

"Rick." Julia mouthed a curse and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Another disaster. What kind of production schedule does he need? He's making an infomercial."

"He'll still need a schedule."

"He's planning something elaborate, isn't he?" Julia frowned. "Something with explosions and simulated sex."

"It's about food," Susie promised. "I don't think there's any sex in it."

"Does he have a script?"

"He has...an idea."

"Shit." Julia shook her head. "I never used to curse this much. Running Bloom's has given me a bad case of potty-mouth."

"Maybe Joffe did that," Susie said.