"Every room probably needs something," Rose said sighing.

The third floor could be reached only by the back stairs- another result, Rose said, of the original owners firing everyone who had any design sense.

This level was laid out like a college dorm, a long center hallway with four low-ceiling bedrooms on either side. Some had private baths; the others shared one with the adjacent room. This is how the house managed to have twelve bedrooms; eight of them were a little like a Holiday Inn Express.

"The family who built the place had two nannies," Rose told me, "and all their friends traveled with at least one. One way to throw your weight around is to insist that your nanny not only have her own room, but a private bath as well."

Those folks weren't going to be able to visit me. "Do people get p.i.s.sed off when you put them up here instead of on the second floor?"

"You have no idea," Rose answered. "If I had any sense, I'd just have people draw straws when they walked in. Now let's make up Finney's bed and then leave the sheets out for everyone else to do their own."

We counted out sheets and checked the bathrooms for towels and toilet paper. Rose searched for missing pillowcases while I went to the pantry to get lightbulbs. Jill Allyn was apparently in the kitchen because as soon as I started making noise, she came to the pantry door.

"Lightbulbs," I said, lifting a package to explain what I was doing.

"No one likes her anymore."

I stopped. "I beg your pardon?"

"Rose. No one likes her anymore."

It takes a lot before I am speechless, but I was now. How could she possibly think that this was an appropriate thing to say?

"She used to be interesting. She was the first person I ever let read any of my ma.n.u.scripts. But once Finney was born, she changed. She became a different person. For years that's all she could think about-Finney this, Finney that. It's really boring. I'm the only one who still sticks by her."

If this was "sticking by her," Rose probably would have been better off being abandoned. "Don't you have children?" I asked.

"Yes, Jean-Paul. But I didn't stop working when he was born."

And Rose hadn't stopped working when Cami and Annie had been born. I had met dozens and dozens of women with special-needs children, and the only ones I judged negatively were the ones who hadn't changed, the ones who went on as if their lives were still the same.

"And now she's gotten so grand-dame-ish just because she has a big house in the Hamptons." Jill Allyn turned to go, then paused. "Oh, by the way, Jean-Paul is getting in late this evening. You're going back upstairs, aren't you? Will you be sure Rose knows that that's when he's coming?"

I doubted that Rose knew Jean-Paul was coming at all. His name had never come up when we had been sorting out sheets. Was this a hotel where people could invite their own families if they felt like it? It was a good thing that Mike hadn't known about that, or we would have been struggling to figure out where to house his chain-smoking mother.

"So will you tell her?" Jill Allyn repeated.

Jill Allyn had obviously labeled me as an easy mark. She had gotten me to clean up her dirty dishes, move her car, and give up the good room. But advanced-practice nurses are not easy marks. On the whole, we are pretty tough cookies. "No," I said. "You need to tell her that yourself."

"She must know," Jill Allyn said as if excusing herself from that duty. "I mean, she has to have figured it out. I'm here, where else would he be?"

Six.

A.

s we hunted for something to plant the mums in, I did tell Rose that Jill Allyn's son was joining us. As I suspected, this was the first she had heard of it. Having dropped out of college, Jean-Paul lived in Montreal, and that he wanted to be with his mother for each and every holiday was not an inevitable conclusion.

The Wednesday-afternoon transportation schedule was so complex and ever-changing that keeping track of it should have, Rose said, qualified as a thesis for an advanced degree in event planning. But by dinner that evening twelve of us were gathered around the table-the five Zander-Browns, the four of us Van Aikens, Claudia, Dad, and Jill Allyn. Jill Allyn's son didn't make it. He had missed his plane and, instead of rebooking himself, had gone back home.

"I bet he didn't even go to the airport in the first place," I overheard Annie say to Cami. "He hates his mom."

"You shouldn't say things like that," Cami reproved.

"But it's true."

Despite my covered wagon full of food, I had not brought a hostess gift. Claudia had. From a large flat box Rose lifted a table runner that was shimmering with amber, rust, and bottle green. There were twelve matching placemats and napkins. Claudia had made them. "Cami told me that you use white dishes here," she said.

"We do. These will look beautiful." Rose examined the items with a flattering interest. "It's nice to have something out here that isn't so desperately bland."

Claudia explained that although she had quilted the table runner and twelve placemats with gold metallic thread and although the amber layer was silk organza, everything was still machine washable. The pattern for the quilting lines was derived from a- This was as extreme as my making my own ketchup. Was Rose a prize that Claudia and I were competing for? Did the winner get an invitation to stay in one of the four good bedrooms?

If so, I had a head start. I was already in one of those rooms- the worst of the four, it's true, but Claudia wasn't even in the house.

Yet.

For our Wednesday-night meal, a nearby Italian restaurant, carefully schooled in Finney's allergies, delivered a ma.s.sive amount of food. Determined to compensate for being deprived of my pie opportunities, I had brought a pumpkin roll for dessert-it was a light spongy cakelike thing that I had baked in a jelly-roll pan and then filled with sweetened cream cheese.

Claudia might be able to quilt with metallic thread, but I could bake without corn products . . . and more people appreciated baking than metallic-thread quilting. I cut the pumpkin roll into twelve slices, and Cami pa.s.sed around the plates.

"There's something terribly wrong with this," Guy said after his first bite.

I looked at him in surprise.

"You only made one. What were you thinking?"

Indeed, Finney had already finished his slice and was eyeing his mother's. "No," she said to him. "I love you with all my heart, but this is mine."

"Don't look at me," Guy added. "I'd take a bullet for you, my boy, but I'm not giving you my dessert."

I was about to slide my plate across the table to Finney, but my father had beaten me to it.

We had used paper plates so the cleanup went quickly. Claudia was loading the gla.s.ses and utensils into the dishwasher, and- no surprise-she was one of those people who washes the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. We had a babysitter like that once. The girl would load the dishes after serving the kids macaroni and cheese, and in the morning I would start unloading the machine thinking that the dishes were clean, and only after I was halfway through would I realize that the machine hadn't been run, and I'd have to try to fish stuff back out of the cabinets.

See, I have servant problems too.

The adults were now standing around trying to decide whether to make another pot of coffee; the kids were talking about what DVDs they had brought. There was a home theater in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and they were all going down to watch a movie.

I didn't like that idea. I wanted us all to do something together.

I had no idea what the Zander-Browns' definition of quality family time was-for all I knew, they memorized Shakespeare's sonnets together. For me, if I couldn't convince people that cleaning the garage would be a happy, meaningful activity, I wanted to play games, preferably active, noisy, chaotic games.

And this garage was already way too clean. I thought for a moment. There had been a big Costco pack of flashlights in the pantry, and the weather wasn't at all that cold-at least it wouldn't be once we started moving. "Okay," I said, "who's up for flashlight tag?"

"Flashlight tag?" Jeremy sat up. "We haven't played that in ages. We used to love it, didn't we? Come on, Cami," he said, "you, me, and Finney are going to kick some major b.u.t.t."

"Have you forgotten what Mom's like when she plays?" Zack said loyally. "She's ruthless."

"And I taught her everything she knows," my dad said.

"So who's in?" I said. "And no one is allowed to say that it's too cold."

Hands went up. At first Annie didn't raise her hand, but after Cami's "oh, come on, it will be fun," she said she would play.

Jill Allyn had stood up, but not because she wanted to partic.i.p.ate. "I'm going back to work."

That was fine with me. She didn't seem much of a team player.

"And I'm afraid that I don't have the right shoes," Claudia apologized, gesturing down toward her feet.

I hadn't noticed her shoes before. If Rose wore shoes that I wasn't willing to pay for, then Claudia wore ones that I wasn't willing to walk in. Hers were narrow and pointy with stiletto heels and a little bow.

"Maybe we can find you a pair," Guy said to her. "Annie?"

"I wear a six, Cami a seven, and Mom an eight." Annie was apparently the one who knew everyone's sizes. "And I think Jill Allyn wears an eight and a half or a nine. We're bound to have something to fit you."

"No, I'm fine here, but thank you," Claudia said politely.

Mike had been standing up. He would have the right shoes. Never wanting to miss a chance to play a sport, he always had golf clubs, tennis and squash rackets, a small gym bag, and various athletic shoes in the trunk of his car.

But he sat back down. He felt obligated to stay inside with Claudia.

This was the first time I'd been conscious of them as a couple. They hadn't sat next to each other at dinner. I hadn't seen them touch each other or exchange a private conversation.

They were a couple. I knew that. But I wasn't going to think about it now, not when I had a game of flashlight tag to lead.

Jeremy and Zack wrestled the flashlights from their stiff plastic packaging while the rest of us got our coats. We trooped outside, leaving Rose to be polite with Claudia and Mike. It was a clear night, and we called to Rose to switch off the outdoor lights. Without streetlights, which were apparently not allowed on these once country roads, or the neon glare from businesses, the sky was like a children's picture book-inky black and filled with stars.

Dad, Zack, Annie, and I played against Cami, Jeremy, Finney, and Guy. Even though we were cutting Finney a lot of slack, I liked our team's chances. Annie didn't have much stamina, less even than my father, but she was quick and sly, good attributes in flashlight tag.

We had a great time. We started with one set of rules, switched to another, then modified those. Finney was not the only one who was confused.

Rose came out to watch for a moment. Dad and I tried to get her onto our team. "No, I should go back in."

Oh, screw them, I wanted to say. I know what you want. You'd rather be out here with us. But then Zack shouted at me to come help him rescue Annie.

We finally went in, tired, happy, full of talk about who had done what to whom. I was careful not to look at Mike. He would have loved playing as much as I did. It must have killed him to stay inside.

Guy and Rose took Finney up to bed. "So, Darcy," Guy said when they came back down, "is this what it means to be one of the *fun moms'? That's what we learned about you at the engagement party. Jeremy's friends said that you were one of the fun moms."

"But not," Zack pointed out, "one of the *cool moms.' No one called her a *cool mom.' A fun mom, yes; a cool mom, no."

"What's the difference?" Guy asked. "And make it good. I like linguistic distinctions."

"The cool moms let you drink in their houses and the really cool ones buy the booze for you."

"And the really really cool ones," I put in, my Ritalin having long worn off, "have s.e.x with your friends."

"Mom!" Zack was revolted. "We don't want to hear about that."

"And I don't have anything to say because I'm not even one of the ordinary cool moms."

"Ivan Coren's mom went down on Tim Beauchamp," Annie said evenly.

Everyone looked at her, shocked. "Annie, do not repeat things like that." Rose was firm.

Annie shrugged her pretty little shoulders. "Everyone knows it."

"We're getting off track here," Guy said. "This was a discussion of our language's lexicon. Darcy, you are our authority on this. What's involved in being a fun mom?"

"I have absolutely no idea. If I was a fun mom, it was by accident."

"That's probably it," Cami said. "The cool moms are the ones trying to be your friends, the fun moms are just fun by nature."

"So the cool moms are trying to hold on to their youth?" Guy asked.

"And we fun moms," I announced, "have never lost ours."

"So, Mom," Annie challenged, turning to Rose, "what kind of mom are you?"

"A food-allergy mom," she replied instantly, something she wouldn't have said if Finney had been in the room. "After that I am a submarine mom. You've heard of helicopter moms who hover all the time. I am a submarine mom. I see all, I know all, I'm always there . . . you just don't know exactly where."

Annie grimaced. "I was afraid of something like that."

Early in this conversation, Claudia-being no type of mom at all-had started collecting the stray gla.s.ses and other debris. When she was finished, she glanced at her watch and did not sit back down. Mike understood the signal. He got up and turned to Zack and my dad. "Do either of you want a lift back to the inn, or were you going to catch a ride with Darcy?"

Zack spoke without thinking. "Oh, no, we're staying here. Mom is too."

There was a pause, an awkwardness, as Claudia and Mike realized that they were the only ones not staying at the house.

Claudia knew that the house had twelve bedrooms, and she could count. She knew that there was room for Mike and her. Now it was her turn not to have been invited. Was she going to put that on her Web site?

Rose had told me that the house had a strong wireless signal, so I had brought my laptop, putting it on the bleached-pine desk that sat between two of the dormers in my room. When I got up there at the end of the evening, I checked to see if nursemom23 could get online. She could.

The only new things in my inbox were ads. I sent a quick message to my brother, saying that Dad and I had arrived safely, something that would not have occurred to him to worry about. I went to weather.com and checked on tomorrow's forecast. I couldn't think of any recipes I needed.

Oh, stop pretending. You don't care about the weather.

I typed in the URL for Claudia's Web site and went to the Projects page. Placemats, napkins, or a table runner, I learned, always make a lovely hostess gift. She had elected to make all three for an "upcoming Thanksgiving visit to the Hamptons." She had dyed silk organza amber and was layering it and quilting it over . . . I stopped reading and skipped ahead.

She wrote that white dishes were to be used at dinner so she had also chosen a fabric that had . . . I skipped that paragraph too.

The final picture was of a table set with all twelve placemats and napkins. A color-coordinated flower arrangement sat in the middle of the table runner. The plates were white, but they weren't ribbed, and the table in the picture was darker than the one in the Zander-Browns' house. Claudia had ordered flowers, set her own table with the placemats that she was giving to Rose, taken a picture, and posted it on the Internet, two days before she had given the placemats to Rose.