Julia blinked up at her. Dierdre generally avoided personal discussions of the Bloom family. Julia had learned a year ago that Dierdre and her father had been lovers-or, as Susie had so tactfully phrased it in her employee profile, the "store" had become Dierdre's passion. Julia had never confronted Dierdre with her discovery, nor had she mentioned it to her mother. Why stir up trouble and open old wounds? Her father was dead. Whatever might have existed between him and his right-hand woman had been buried with him.

But still, Julia wasn't sure she wanted to discuss her mother's love life with her late father's mistress. She wasn't that modern.

Dierdre was waiting for her to say something, though. "Where did you hear that?" she asked, her smile growing numb and stiff, as if her mouth had been shot full of Novocaine.

"From your mother."

"Really?" The imaginary Novocaine began to wear off, weaving threads of pain through her jaw and lips. She was definitely not modern enough for this conversation.

"I think it's good for your mother," Dierdre added. "Dating, I mean."

Julia peered up at the tall, thin woman. Dierdre's hair was a dull red, with strands of brown and gray mixed in, and she had a profound overbite. When Julia had figured out that her father's relationship with Dierdre had extended beyond the purely professional, she'd acknowledged that his attraction to his assistant hadn't been based on her alluring beauty. Sondra Bloom was prettier-and she probably would have been prettier even if her parents hadn't given her a nose job for her sweet-sixteen birthday present.

What Ben Bloom had fallen for was Dierdre's competence and dedication, and her downright sensibility. Now here she was, sensibly discussing Julia's mother's love life. "You think dating is good for her?" Julia asked.

"He's been dead two years," Dierdre said, not having to identify whom she was referring to. "Your mother needs a life." Dierdre had lost her man just as Sondra had, but apparently she didn't need a life. Her life was Bloom's. Julia's mother tried to pretend her life was Bloom's, but her life really was her children. Julia and Susie were all in favor of their mother getting a life, just so they wouldn't have to be her life anymore. Julia was sure that if she raised the subject with Adam, he'd feel the same way.

So it was good for Sondra to be dating. The only problem was whom she was dating. "What exactly did my mother tell you?"

"He took her to Tavern on the Green last Saturday, and when she said she didn't want any dessert he forced her to order the dark-chocolate cake."

"He forced her?" That didn't sound too good to Julia. No man should force anything on a woman, even if it was dark-chocolate cake.

"Her words. I suspect he didn't have to push too hard." Dierdre sounded just the slightest bit catty. "He told her she looked terrific and women shouldn't be so hung up about the size of their rear ends. So she ordered the cake."

"She told you all this?" Julia wasn't sure what shocked her more, Ron's father lavishing cake on her mother and commenting on her rear end or her mother confiding in Dierdre. And to think that just minutes ago, her greatest concern was ridding the Bloom's Bulletin of Susie's joke about recipes for horse meat.

"We're friends, your mother and I," Dierdre said with a toothy smile before she pivoted on one stiltlike heel and sauntered out of the office.

Julia's jaw continued to ache, and she realized her mouth was hanging open. She snapped it shut and stared at the empty doorway through which Dierdre had vanished. Friends? She frowned. Did their friendship include gossip about her father? Or only gossip about her future father-in-law?

She reached for her phone and punched the speed-dial for Ron's office. After two rings, he answered: "Joffe."

"It's me. Your father discussed my mother's rear end with her."

"What?"

"During their date last Saturday. She told Dierdre and Dierdre told me."

Ron hesitated before responding. "Don't you have a deli to run?"

"How can I run it when your father has been intimate with my mother?"

"Intimate?" At last, he seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. "How do you know they've been intimate? Did Dierdre tell you that, too?"

"I don't mean intimate intimate. But discussing my mother's rear end-"

"Forgive me, but your mother's rear end is hard to overlook." Before Julia could chew him out for insulting her mother, he continued. "Listen, sweetheart. Unlike you, I am not my own boss. I've got a dragon-lady editor and for some reason she wants me to get my column written and submitted by deadline. So can you maybe throw a fit about your mother's rear end later?"

Asshole. "Sorry to bother you," Julia snapped, then slammed down the phone in time to see Uncle Jay lurking in her open doorway. Clad in crisp slacks and a polo shirt in a shade of green that existed only in the wardrobes of golfers, he gave her an unnervingly charming smile. He was probably on his way out to the private club on Long Island where he golfed. The morning was bright and sunny, and Uncle Jay would never let something as trivial as his job come between him and a perfect day for golf. "Just wanted to let you know I got a call from Ricky last night," he informed her. "He says this movie is going to be a masterpiece."

"It's supposed to be an infomercial," Julia pointed out.

"Think big, Julia. Expect the unexpected. That boy's got more talent in his whole body than you've got in your little pinkie."

That didn't sound right, but Julia let it go because her uncle was already swaggering down the hall, whistling some tune that was probably a secret jingle for golfers.

She swiveled away from the open door, and her gaze settled on the stack of papers Dierdre had left for her. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted the top whine from the pile. Before she could read past the letterhead, her brother, Adam, materialized in her door. "Hey, you got a minute?" he asked.

She watched him stride into the office. He didn't look like a math geek these days. His complexion was summer tan, his floppy hair brushed back from his face and the veins and muscles in his forearms bulged slightly, presumably a result of all the lifting and carrying his job entailed. He had on a standard-issue Bloom's apron over his T-shirt and jeans, and the steel-toed shoes she'd made him buy when she'd hired him so he wouldn't break his toes if he dropped a crate of canned sardines on his foot. His hesitant smile was the only feature that reminded her of the old Adam, her tentative kid brother, who liked to escape from the world by spinning some funky music, firing up a joint and fantasizing about number theory.

He was a welcome sight, at least compared with Dierdre and her neat pile of important, boring papers or Uncle Jay and his golf togs. He was definitely more welcome than her chocolate-cake-devouring mother or nomadic sister would have been. "What's up?" she asked.

He lowered himself onto the old leather couch. A lock of dark hair slid forward onto his brow and he pushed it back. He'd turned out pretty damn handsome, she realized, experiencing a burst of pride that was almost maternal. Slight in build-like all the Blooms-but definitely handsome, with eyes the color of black coffee, nicely contoured cheeks and a distinguished nose, the nose their mother might have wound up with if a plastic surgeon hadn't intervened. On a woman, Julia supposed, that nose might overpower her face. But on Adam it looked terrific.

"I was wondering if I could ask a favor." His smile, still shy, grew ingratiating.

"You can ask," she said. "I can always say no if I don't like it."

"Can I use your apartment?"

That was a pretty big favor. "I'm not married yet," she noted. "I still consider that apartment my home."

"I didn't mean to use it forever, like to take over your lease or anything." Adam shifted on the soft leather cushion. Julia realized he was nervous. "I just want to borrow it. Like for a couple of hours, some evening when you're at Joffe's or something. You know, like the Grateful Dead song, only I don't need a chateau."

She had no idea which Grateful Dead song he was referring to, and decided that was just as well, especially since her apartment resembled a chateau the way a bruised grape resembled a case of vintage Bordeaux. "What do you want to borrow it for?" she asked.

"Well..." He shifted again, his nerves seeming to bubble over. "See, there's this ballet dancer."

"Elyse," Julia recalled. Adam had dragged the girl through Julia's god-awful dinner party a few weeks ago.

"Right. Elyse."

That was all he said. His gaze darted around the office. He jiggled one foot, his knee bouncing. In the silence, Julia was able to fill in the blanks. "You want to have sex with her?"

Avoiding her gaze, Adam nodded.

Okay. That didn't seem particularly nefarious. It was actually rather healthy. And although she hadn't even officially met Elyse, Julia was willing to bet the woman was an improvement over Tash.

"So, can I borrow your apartment?" he asked.

Julia couldn't think of a good reason to turn him down. But that weird maternalism made her pause before saying yes. This was Adam, after all. Her baby brother. The kid who'd humiliated her in front of her friends when they'd been building a volcano out of papier-mache for a school science project and he'd come into the kitchen, where they were constructing Krakatoa on the counter, and used a drinking straw to spit chocolate milk at them. This was the kid who, a few years later, had brought a group of his friends home and they'd spent the entire afternoon experimenting with a whoopee cushion, testing its entire repertory of flatulation noises and critiquing each variation. This was the kid who had just graduated from Cornell University with honors.

Julia supposed he wasn't a kid anymore. "Will you be careful?" she asked.

"I won't break anything."

"That's not what I'm asking." Her maternalism was in overdrive now. "I mean, you have to use birth control."

"Oh. Duh." He no longer had a problem looking at her. His smile took on a brash quality.

"Well, that's my rule," she said primly, his change in attitude annoying her. She preferred him humble and supplicating. "I don't want anything conceived in my apartment. Or caught, or spread. I don't even know this girl. You only just met her."

"Well, we've gotten to know each other."

"She's a ballet dancer?"

"She's studying at Juilliard."

"You hate ballet," Julia reminded him.

"We aren't going to be dancing at your apartment."

"Like hell you aren't." She sighed. "When do you want to borrow it?"

His smile transformed again, this time brimming with gratitude, lacking even a hint of swagger. "I have to talk to her. I didn't want to raise the subject with her until I talked to you first. Thanks a lot, Julia. I mean it."

"I'm sure you do," she said, pursing her lips and wishing she felt a little less squeamish about the whole thing. Adam was old enough, after all. And it wasn't as if Julia had anything against premarital sex, in theory. Or even in practice. If it weren't for premarital sex...well, she and Ron would surely have eloped by now, so their sex wouldn't be premarital. But her baby brother, trysting with that skinny blond girl with the ramrod posture in Julia's bed...She'd have to make sure he changed the sheets afterward.

"Oh, by the way," he said, pushing himself to his feet, "how do you like the new computer network I set up to track inventory?"

"It's excellent," she said tightly. She considered him brilliant for having set it up, but she was too distracted by thoughts of him engaging in sex to talk about it.

"I've got some other ideas," he added. "I think the stock could be organized more efficiently downstairs. Not in the store-Susie's got her design ideas going, and I don't want to mess with that. I have no experience with retail. I'm just thinking..." He measured her with a glance, as if to make sure she was paying attention. She determinedly emptied all thoughts of carnality from her mind and nodded at him to continue. "Like, you've got lighter-weight goods like crackers, cereals, pastas and stuff closer to the chute and the canned and bottled items farther away. They're heavier. Shouldn't the heavier stuff be closer to the chute so it doesn't have to be carried so far?"

"I never thought about it," she admitted. To be sure, she rarely even went into the basement. She assumed the stock managers knew what they were doing.

They probably did. But Adam knew what he was doing, too. He wasn't a fool. Purdue had accepted him as a graduate student in mathematics, hadn't it? And they hadn't accepted him for his discernment in whoopee-cushion sounds. They'd accepted him because he was a math genius.

"Talk it over with Larry Glickman," she said. Larry was one of the stock managers she knew best. "See what he says."

"Can I talk it over with Berkowitz, instead?" Adam asked, naming another manager. "Glickman always sprays saliva when he talks."

"Then talk it over with Berkowitz. Or else put on a raincoat and talk it over with Glickman. I don't micromanage how things are done downstairs."

"Okay." Adam moved toward the door, his heavy shoes leaving tread marks in the worn carpet. "Cool."

She watched him leave, then sank deeper into her chair. Her head was swimming with sharklike thoughts. They circled menacingly, as if eager to devour her. The theme from Jaws drummed in her ears.

Her mother and Norman Joffe. Adam and the ballet dancer. Adam and the ballet dancer in her bed, moaning into her pillows.

She lifted her phone and speed-dialed Ron's office. "Joffe," he answered after one ring.

"My brother wants to use my apartment for sex."

Ron sighed audibly. "Are you having a bad day?"

"Yes. And it's not even ten-thirty."

"I haven't finished my column yet. In fact, I haven't finished the first paragraph. What do you want me to do?"

It was her turn to sigh. "Finish the first paragraph. I'll talk to you later. I love you," she said before hanging up, to atone for the rude way she'd hung up on him last time.

She lifted the top sheet from the pile Dierdre had left on her desk, but before the print came into focus she heard a tap on her door. Thank God, she thought, drawing in a deep breath to collect herself. Her family would never knock on her door before barging in. Nor would Dierdre or Myron. Whoever wished to see her was someone a few steps removed from the Bloom inner circle. Relief washed through her.

She rotated her chair to discover Casey Gordon filling her doorway. Like Adam, he wore a Bloom's apron over his civilian clothes, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail in keeping with health-code restrictions for food workers. Always lean, he looked almost gaunt today. Had he not been eating? Was he that heartsick over Susie?

Were all her thoughts ending in question marks again?

The hell with that. She couldn't bear the thought of Casey not eating. He was such a nice guy, and he spent his life surrounded by gourmet bagels. Susie might be weepier than usual these days, but Julia was sure she was eating. Nothing, not even a broken heart, could keep Susie from consuming great quantities of food.

"Have you got a minute?" Casey asked, smiling diffidently.

To discuss Susie? No, she didn't have a minute for that. She didn't have even a second to devote to any of her family's mishegas. She had a pile of important, boring letters to go through, and an eleven-thirty meeting with some people from the Fulton Fish Market, and they were going to smell fishy, and she wouldn't dare phone Ron again, because if he didn't finish his first paragraph he would be a grouch all night, which would mean she'd be better off staying at her own place, which in turn would mean Adam couldn't have sex with his ballet dancer.

Her day was kaput. It couldn't go any further downhill because it was already at the bottom of the slope. She beckoned Casey inside with a wave of her hand.

He closed the door behind him, alarming her slightly, and dragged a chair over to her desk so he could sit facing her.

"How are you?" she asked carefully.

"I'm fine."

Not gaunt, but haunted, she decided. His eyes had the glassy look of someone who hadn't slept well since the vernal equinox. He gave off an interesting fragrance, some faintly spicy aftershave overlaid with a yeasty baking scent. His hands were clean, no residue of flour on them. She loved thinking of such a solid, grounded man creating the bagels her store sold-and she hated thinking Susie might have done anything that would cause him suffering. Of course, her loyalties lay with Susie.

"Susie's in Boston now," she said when he remained silent. "Outside Boston, actually, in a town named Revere. I think it was named after Paul Revere, but I'm not positive. She and Rick are filming in Boston, but I guess it's cheaper for them to stay outside the city. She sent me an e-mail with the latest Bloom's Bulletin and she said they were going to film in Haymarket Square, which is a produce market in downtown Boston." Casey said nothing, so Julia added, "I don't know why they're filming there. I don't know what Haymarket Square has to do with Bloom's. I don't know anything at all." She realized she was babbling, so she shut up.

Casey stared at her. Haunted-and sad. He looked so sad.

"Susie misses you," she said, then wondered whether telling him such a thing was disloyal. No, it wasn't. He and Susie were being idiots, refusing to acknowledge what they were throwing away. Someone had to speak the truth. "I think she misses you a lot."

"I didn't come here to talk about Susie," he said in a low, controlled voice.

Oh. She'd just yammered for five minutes about Susie, her darling sister, who was grieving over this man, and he hadn't come here to talk about her. Wonderful.

"I have a business proposition," he said. He sat so calmly, his gaze so direct. He was the exact opposite of Adam-but then, he hadn't invaded her office to request her assistance in seducing a ballet dancer.

"A business proposition?"

"I'm planning to open my own store," he told her. "A specialty bread bakery. Gourmet breads, rolls and bagels."

"Your own store?" How would he find time to do that? He worked long hours at Bloom's. He usually left by midafternoon, but that was because he arrived early, putting the first batches of bagels through their final baking so they'd be fresh for sale when Bloom's opened for business.

"What I'd like to do is be a contract supplier of bagels," he told her. "Your baking facilities can barely accommodate the number of bagels we're selling. If you contracted out to me, I could keep Bloom's supplied with bagels-the same variety of flavors I'm making for you here, same quality, same everything-and I could do it more efficiently, because I wouldn't have to work down in that crowded basement kitchen where the Heat'n'Eat entrees and the salads are being prepared."

Julia didn't immediately understand what he was saying. Gradually, his words settled into place inside her brain. As they did, her bad day got infinitely worse, as if an army of storm clouds had marched in, ready to carpet-bomb her with hail. "You're leaving Bloom's?" she guessed, her voice cracking over the word leaving.

"I want to open my own place," he said. "What I'm proposing is a deal where I can continue to be your bagel maker."