But he still lost the war. I hoped that that was a good omen for me.

"Claudia, I want to go over the rehearsal-dinner plans with Darcy," Mike said. "The files are in here, aren't they?" He gestured toward a satchel made from some interesting Oriental fabric.

Claudia was on her feet instantly. She didn't even look at her watch. "Let me get them. I was waiting to show them to everyone." Clearly she didn't like the idea of Mike and me in the corner going over her files and her plans.

They had chosen a restaurant on the other side of East Hampton, selecting it because of its beautiful garden. "I've done a mock-up of the invitation," Claudia said. "And as you can see, I wanted to keep the soft, vintage look of the wedding invitations, but still do something different."

I would have loved to hate Claudia's invitation, but unfortunately it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I felt as if I were being handed a pa.s.sport to travel on the Orient Express. The background was a very subtle, very muted 1920s roadster-type map of the Hamptons. A vellum pocket was sewn onto the map and the lettering was superimposed on the vellum. "Michael Van Aiken, Claudia Postlewaite, Darcey Van Aiken request the honor . . ." The directions and other travel information were on a manila luggage tag inside the pocket.

"It's not a theme party," Claudia a.s.sured us. "The table cards may be similar to this, but that's it. We won't have mini-steamer trunks in the centerpieces."

Oh. Mini-steamer trunks sounded cute, but what did I know?

We were pa.s.sing around the invitation. Annie looked at it longer than the rest of us. "Is that how you spell your name, Darcy? Finney would love it if you had an e before your y, but you don't, do you?"

I peered over her shoulder. "You're right. That is a typo."

"It's only a mock-up," Claudia a.s.sured me. "I'll fix it."

Then we talked about her dresses with their unifying diagonals. She had sketches for everyone's dresses. Mine looked pretty plain, which was just fine with me.

"These are for the dinner on Friday night," Claudia said. "But what about the wedding itself? How are you doing on your mother-of-the-bride dress?"

Obviously she was speaking only to Rose.

"Didn't you tell her, Mom?" Annie said. "We found a dress."

"Really? That's great," Claudia said. "I've been waiting until you got yours before even thinking about mine. Do you have it here? Can we see it?"

Once again I felt as if I didn't exist.

"Of course. Annie, will you run upstairs and get it? This isn't the actual dress. They only had my size in a print, but they can order it in a solid color. I wanted Cami to see it before I did the special-order."

Annie came down with a pistachio-colored vinyl garment bag, unzipped the bag, and extracted the dress.

"Oh, yes." Claudia said instantly. "This neckline wrap is going to be great on you."

She had taken out the hanger and was examining the dress. All I could see was the fabric. It was a print, but very soft and impressionistic, swirls of violets and mauves.

"What's wrong with that fabric?" I asked. "I think it's very pretty."

"I don't wear many prints," Rose said. "Do you ever see mothers of the bride in a print?"

"Not usually, but you know . . ." Claudia was thinking. "Maybe we should wear prints-you, me, and, oh, yes, you too. Darcy."

"I could do that," I said, thinking of the scarlet and magenta poppies that I hadn't bought for the engagement party. I wondered if there was any chance that that dress was still at the store.

"It can't be just any print," Claudia said. "We'll use this one as the model. Soft colors, low contrast, an even balance between figure and ground, soft outlines. If we do that, then Cami and the bridesmaids will really pop in the pictures."

I couldn't think of anything about my scarlet and magenta poppies that would fit Claudia's criteria . . . except maybe the "even balance between figure and ground." I had to exclude that because I had no idea what it meant.

"I'll do my best," I said bravely. "But you'll need to write all that down."

W.

e spent most of December 31 on wedding plans. All the vendors were in place, but an infinite number of decisions still had to be made about exactly which table linens and dishes the caterer should use, how many blossoms should be in each bridesmaid's bouquet, etc. Everything was going to be beautiful. The florist had urged Rose to hire a landscape designer to install a curving flagstone walk that would serve as the aisle. For the ceremony, the chairs would be arrayed in gentle arcs rather than straight lines. The whole s.p.a.ce would be turned into a fantasy of cottage garden with vine-covered trellises and archways. The flowers would have a slightly old-fashioned air, camellias and roses, hollyhocks, lilies, and daises.

Pamela, the florist who was not a florist, mind you, but a floral designer, was causing one problem. She did not want to use Queen Anne's lace in the bouquets.

For generations the women in Rose's family had been named after flowers-Lily, Rose, Camellia, Daisy, Violet, Primrose, Holly. There had even been a pair of great-aunts named Iris and Pansy. But by the time Annie had been born, they had run out of names. Rather than name her Petunia, Guy and Rose had decided to name her Anne, after Guy's mother.

Of course, when she turned four, Annie started to want a flower of her own, so her parents had declared that Queen Anne's lace was her flower. That's why Guy sometimes called her Queenie or Miss Queenie. Rose's parents had joined in. They'd stopped mowing a dry corner of the Adirondacks property, and within two years the Queen Anne's lace had taken over.

So Cami wanted the bouquets to be camellias, roses, and Queen Anne's lace. Pamela-the-floral-designer objected. Queen Anne's lace-aka wild carrot-was a noxious weed. Other blossoms could provide a similar feathery texture.

Pamela was, she told us, extremely active in the local gardening societies, and one of the oldest organizations had recently presented a program on noxious weeds, including Queen Anne's lace. So, as a commitment to the botanical integrity of the local communities, the use of such plants in any way was being strongly discouraged.

"We don't intend to cultivate them," Rose said evenly. "We want them in the bouquets, that's all."

Oh, no. Rose needed to understand. Truly. Pamela was offering only a little advice, the littlest bit. This would get Rose off to such a disadvantageous start if people knew that she was insisting on this. Things were done a certain way out here, and of course Rose couldn't be expected . . . not at first, but- Even I, as inept as I was at the nuances of girl fighting, could see what was happening. Pamela-the-floral-designer was trying to lord it over Rose, make Rose feel like an upstart arriviste.

It wasn't working.

"I'm sorry to say this." Rose began gathering up Pamela's various brochures and sketches. "This is a deal breaker. If you want this job, you are using Queen Anne's lace."

Pamela fluttered, her hands fluttered, her eyelids fluttered, her brain probably fluttered. Oh, this wasn't a job to her. It was a creative opportunity.

I knew, Rose knew, and Pamela knew that she had already invested hours and hours, if not days, in this wedding. She had gotten Rose and Guy to hire her favorite landscape designer and her favorite lighting designer.

Rose stood up. "I've appreciated your time. I'm sorry we weren't able to agree."

Oh no no no. Rose sat back down, and we listened to another ten minutes of gushing and fluttering while Pamela justified why she was deigning to work with a family so deeply unconcerned with botanical integrity.

On New Year's Day, Guy and Rose had invitations to three open-houses that they felt obligated to attend, at least briefly. All the hosts had said that houseguests were welcome, but I had no interest in going. I couldn't imagine wanting to go to a crowded stand-up event where I knew no one. Mike would enjoy such events even less than I, but when he came downstairs in the morning, he was wearing gray slacks and a good sweater. I shouldn't have been surprised. Of course, Claudia would want to go to these open houses. She wouldn't know anyone either, but she could write about them on her blog.

I thought she was overdressed. She had on one of those straight knee-length Jackie Kennedyatype dresses with a little jacket over it. The jacket and dress were woven with twists of her sand-tan-beige colors. When she leaned forward, the lining of her jacket was a jolt of vivid coral. Her shoes were the same coral; the heels were high and narrow, the sides low cut.

But what did I know? I was wearing a fleece pullover that the boys had given me for Christmas.

At the last minute Guy took off the sweater he had had on under his blazer, draping it over the back of one of the sofas. As they were leaving the house, I asked Rose if she wanted me to take it back upstairs. She thanked me.

I had never been in the master suite before. It turned out to be a very large s.p.a.ce with a seating area and doors leading to closets or dressing rooms. But it was nearly empty. The king-size bed was made with an ivory comforter and white pillowcases that didn't quite match. The bed itself had no headboard or footboard. The nightstands didn't match, nor did the two reading lamps. The parquet floor wasn't carpeted, and although there was a loveseat in the seating area, it sat there by itself: there were no tables or lamps to make it usable. The walls were off-white, and there was nothing on them.

For the first time, I wondered about Rose and Guy's relationship. Except for the occasional jokes about what an extrovert he was or how he spent too much money on gifts for her and the girls, I'd never heard her criticize him, and he spoke of her only with respect. I'd never heard them disagree or even bicker.

But I'd also never seen them touch each other.

Nine.

I.

t was a relief to get home after New Year's. The women at the engagement party were right: I didn't want to spend the rest of my life celebrating my holidays at my son's in-laws'. It was a bore to get up there, I wasn't in love with the house's cold formality, and I couldn't stand all the nonsense a.s.sociated with who got what room when.

Above all, I hadn't liked staying under the same roof as Mike and Claudia. They had been staying in the center front room that my father had been in, and all weekend long Claudia kept talking about "our" room. She never said, I need to get a sweater. It was always, I need to go up to our room to get a sweater. Unlike at Thanksgiving, she frequently touched Mike. When he'd been reading the paper at the table, she'd rested her hand on his shoulder and leaned over him, her breast brushing close to his hair. When he'd been sitting on one of the leather sofas, she'd sat down next to him and lifted his arm so that it was around her shoulders. On New Year's Day, when they were waiting for Rose and Guy so that they could all go off to the open houses as two happy little couples on a happy little double date, Claudia had straightened the collar of Mike's shirt and then kissed his cheek.

We all know you're a couple, I had wanted to shriek. Yes, you're having s.e.x. We get that.

But there was no point in talking to a Bobo doll. It would never stop bouncing back, never stop smiling.

W.

e'd gone directly from Colorado to the Hamptons. Zack and I had been away from home for a week and a half. So much mail had acc.u.mulated beneath the mail slot that Zack had to give the front door a good shove to get it open. Dropping his suitcase, blocking my path into the house, he squatted and started shuffling through the junk mail, catalogs, and holiday letters, looking for a big envelope with green printing. It was near the bottom of the heap; it must have arrived right after we had left. It was his acceptance at Stone-Chase.

He ripped open the envelope. A fierce joy flashed across his face as he read the letter. He handed it to me.

That he would be admitted was never in doubt. His record was better than their published averages, and, more important, this was the right school for him and he was the right student for the school. What he found so darkly satisfying was the amount of "merit money" he would get. I peered over his shoulder to read the letter. Stone-Chase College would discount his tuition to the extent that his education would cost less than if he went to one of Virginia's state universities. The more money Stone-Chase gave him, the less he would have to take from his dad.

Zack must have e-mailed Jeremy his news, and Cami must have told her parents, because a few days later Guy called me in the middle of the day. "Tell me about this college Zack is so excited about."

Annie was a junior at Berkeley Carroll, a private school in her neighborhood, and apparently her high-school record was even worse than Zack's. The Zander-Browns were hiring a private college counselor to work with her. The counselor had encouraged them to have Annie start visiting colleges. Perhaps being able to envision herself on a college campus would motivate her to apply herself more.

"Stone-Chase may not be a great fit," I said. Its students were earnest, middle-cla.s.s, even slightly provincial. Annie was trendy and urban. "But it will be an easy place for her to visit alone."

S.

ince Zack's offer from Stone-Chase was "early action" and not "early decision," he didn't have to make up his mind until he heard from the other schools in April. That was one thing Mike was pleased about. Since Stone-Chase wasn't asking for an answer, Zack could wait and see.

But Zack desperately wanted the process to be over. Stone-Chase was his first choice. Why shouldn't he accept its offer? He didn't want to go to those other schools. Why should he give them a chance to turn him down?

Of course, he wasn't going to admit to Mike that he was afraid of the other schools rejecting him. So the two of them fought every time they saw each other. It got to the point that I was almost relieved whenever Claudia was joining them. They didn't fight in front of her.

When I worked the night shift, Zack left for school before I got home. One morning in early February I came home from work and found a note on the kitchen table: "Dad said it was okay if I withdrew my other aps so I did."

I called Mike at his office. "Zack said you and he worked this out. I know it was hard for you to give in, but really this is the best thing for him."

"What are you talking about?" His voice was sharp. "Zack and I didn't work anything out. If anything, last night was the worst ever."

I reached across the kitchen counter to get Zack's note. I read it to Mike.

"I never said any such thing," he snapped. "Where did he get that idea?"

"Isn't it possible that you said, *do whatever you want,' or something like that?" When Mike was really angry, he got sarcastic, saying things that he obviously didn't mean. I'd always hated that. How could I fight back?

"If I did say it, I didn't mean it," he said. "And he should have known that."

"But if you're going to say something you don't mean, why shouldn't he act on something he doesn't believe?" I wasn't sure that came out right, but my point was simple: If you're going to act like a big baby, why shouldn't he?

When Zack walked in the door that afternoon, he was tense and defensive. He confirmed my sense of what had happened. "Dad told me to go ahead and do it. That I could shoot myself in the foot if I wanted."

"You know he didn't mean it."

"It's too late now. I mailed the letters already, stopped at the Palisades post office on the way to school."

This was a kid who would wait until January 23 to write his grandfather a thank-you note for a very generous Christmas gift and then leave the note sitting on his desk until mid-March when I would finally address the envelope. But last night he had come home, written and printed seven letters, addressed seven envelopes, and found seven stamps. He was serious.

"Do you send in your acceptance to Stone-Chase?"

"Well, I did sort of not do anything about the U.Va. ap. But I'm not going to school with a bunch of preppies."

Did sort of not do anything. It took me a moment to figure that out. He hadn't withdrawn his University of Virginia application. His defiance of his father had not been complete. In fact, it had been pretty toothless.

The University of Virginia was known as a "public Ivy"-one of the state-supported inst.i.tutions that aspired to provide an educational environment comparable to those at the Ivy League schools. It had the highest admission standards of all the Virginia state schools, but Zack and I were now Virginia residents. Because of that, the college counselor had said that Zack had a chance at U.Va., not a great one, but if all the stars lined up right, he might get admitted or at least be put on the wait list.

I called Mike again. "He left U.Va. in."

"So he's not such an idiot."

"Mike! Do not talk about him that way. You're being a bigger idiot than he is."

"I know, I know." He sighed. "I just never expected to feel so powerless, to have so little influence."

Three years-no, almost three and a half years-and Mike was finally appreciating how much had changed, how much he had lost, when he decided to move out.

V.

ery challenging for the perfectionist, I learned from Claudia's Web site, is attempting something new. If you can't be perfect immediately, you may want to give up. But the person who Manages her Perfectionism should be willing to risk a low, slow learning curve.

So Claudia was going to learn to play golf, one of "Michael's" favorite sports.

Golf? I say that I will do anything physical, but I can't stand golf. I don't mind going to the driving range and whacking away, but all the fiddliness involved in really learning how to play drives me nuts. If you're using a cart, you get no exercise, and a round takes way too long for me.

T.

ime seemed to be moving quickly. Cami and Jeremy had gotten into Vanderbilt's medical school. It was a fine school, but not their first choice. They didn't particularly want to live in Nashville. But just as they were getting reconciled to the idea, the University of Pennsylvania accepted them both. Penn is one of the very best medical schools in the country, and they far preferred Philadelphia to Nashville. I was glad to have them back on the East Coast, and Guy and Rose had to feel the same.

But Jeremy was surprisingly subdued on the phone. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"It's Cami and this wedding," he said. "She keeps saying that planning it ought to be fun, but that it feels like a huge burden for both her and her mom."

I wasn't sure what to say. The caterers were now urging Guy and Rose to cut a door into the back wall of the garage to facilitate the movement of the waiters. "How do you feel about everything?"

"Fine. Fine. Everything's fine . . . except, Mom, doesn't it seem strange not to be getting married in a church? Isn't a wedding ceremony supposed to be religious?"