Grasping her warm mug, she studied her closet's offerings, hoping to find a suitable ensemble for the new position. Tracy wore jeans to teach, but Evie dismissed her denim options in favor of something more professional. She glanced over at her old work clothes. The pantsuits by this point had made their way over to the far edges of her closet, pinned so tightly up against the wall that Evie nearly threw out her back trying to pry a tailored black-and-white-pinstriped one free. Evie slipped it on over an innocuous white blouse.

To her surprise, the waist was loose. The last time she had worn the suit was on a flight to Florence. Foreign travel was one of the carrots Baker Smith dangled in their recruiting manuals. Evie realized fast it was more of a stick; business trips to Europe meant trading in one office tower for another and submitting to painful jet lag. She distinctly remembered the snug waist from this particular suit preventing her from catching even a nap on the eight-hour flight to Italy. Evie didn't really need to lose weight, but she struggled with the last five pounds like almost every other woman she knew. After a satisfactory glance in the mirror she parted her window sheers, tucking them behind the metal rings, which were already securing last year's Christmas bonus splurge: purple silk curtains with crystal detail. The sky was cloudless and Evie noted the few pa.s.sersby were all dressed for a sunny fall day.

From her closet, she chose a pair of open-toe black patent leather slingbacks. They were date shoes-wearing anything resembling a sandal was tacitly forbidden at Baker Smith. Slipping her feet into the marginally s.e.xy shoes, Evie felt brazen. She was free from the shackles of the closed-toe pumps she was forced to wear on even the hottest of summer days at the law firm. Pools of sweat would collect under her arches. Baker Smith management apparently preferred foot odor to toe cleavage.

She glanced at her microwave clock and dashed outside, shivering from an unexpected chill. The sun promised by the weatherman on last night's eleven o'clock news was missing in action. Evie realized it was practically the beginning of October. Soon jack-o'-lanterns would be on display in her building's lobby and Starbucks would begin promoting its Pumpkin Spice latte. Facebook was a month away from the deluge of children in superhero and princess costumes, not to mention the grown-ups h.e.l.l-bent on dressing up as s.l.u.tty versions of every decent profession.

After a torturous wait, her doorman finally succeeded in getting her a taxi, whose interior bore the heavy scent of lamb vindaloo. Now she would arrive at school smelling like she popped out of a tandoor. The traffic was abysmal. Evie observed in horror that they still had fifteen blocks to travel up delivery truck-packed Madison Avenue. Thane told her to be at work at 8:00 A.M., and the taxi TV clock read 7:53. f.u.c.k it, she thought, and reached into her wallet to dig out a twenty.

"Keep the change," she said breathlessly and started hoofing it down the street. In a cruel twist of nature, it started to rain-first a few drops, then in sheets. The once blue sky was now a menacing gray, like a children's book ill.u.s.tration, and she soon was drenched. Her once-s.e.xy, now cursed heels were wedging themselves into every sidewalk crack. Were she not acutely aware of the debris and other better-left-unsaid substances that came into contact with the New York City streets, she would have run barefoot.

After what felt like an interminable power walk, she reached the grand entrance of the school and flew up the marble steps, arriving along with the throng of students dropped off just before the first bell.

She studied the crowd quickly before reporting for duty. They were a rowdy bunch, sounding not that different from the kids she'd happened upon two blocks north of school, this bunch distinguishable only by peaches-and-cream complexions and trust funds. Aesthetically, the Brighton ma.s.ses were a distant cry from the dowdy lawyers to whom she'd grown accustomed. Highlights ranging from creamy b.u.t.ter to roasted chestnut glistened. Chanel bags rested carelessly on delicate shoulders. Noses worthy of architectural awards pointed toward the ceiling. And that was just the girls.

The boys. They wore snug, but not too-tight, Lacoste shirts in a rainbow of colors. Their hair was equally if not better coiffed than their female counterparts, mussed to gently wind-blown perfection. It was like they had managed to get to school in a different weather pattern than Evie. They stared down at their smartphones as intensely as Evie once had but miraculously sailed through the hallway without collision, as though each of them had a personal trolley track just for them to glide on.

All faces showed the fading signs of restful summers spent soaking up the rays in luxurious surroundings. Brighton certainly wasn't the orange- and brown-tiled tribute to the 1950s high school that Evie attended in suburbia, where Gap flannel shirts reigned. She was scared. Particularly so when she looked down at her wet pantsuit. Earlier this morning she thought it gave her an air of gravitas, but now it seemed impossibly dorky, like something a middle-aged science teacher would pluck from the bargain bin.

She found her way to the administrative quarters and was shown to her office by Keli, the twenty-something feline lover who conducted her interview. It was a cubicle much like the one Marianne occupied at Baker Smith, with a desktop computer, a phone, and a few file cabinets. How far she'd fallen from the cushy private office with the killer view. She plopped her tote bag onto a simple metal chair, comprehending how much she had taken her last professional resting place-a lumbar-support recliner with adjustable cushions-for granted. Her new s.p.a.ce was like a fishbowl, no more than ten feet from the headmaster's leathery den. Discreetly combing the Restoration Hardware two-inch-wide sourcebook would be impossible.

"I'm going to prepare some of your tax doc.u.ments now to get you set up with payroll," Keli said. "Why don't you walk around the school a bit in the meantime? The faculty lounge is on the second floor and the cafeteria is on the lower level."

"Thanks. I think I'll visit Tracy Loo's cla.s.sroom."

Evie huffed and puffed up the three flights of stairs to her friend's room, wondering how Tracy could continue to do this five days a week, given her cervical or placental or whatever-they-were problems.

She entered in the midst of a cla.s.sroom discussion. Seeing the kids up close, Evie noticed the gawkiness beneath the veneer of sophistication. They were still teenagers, pimples and all.

"Emma? Did I see your hand up before?" Tracy called from behind a worn metal desk, with plastic-framed gla.s.ses on the tip of her nose and a fuzzy cardigan thrown over her shoulders. She looks so grown-up, Evie thought. My friends and I aren't the students anymore.

"Yes, Mrs. Loo," a chipper brunette in the front row responded. "I thought, like, that maybe Survivor was based on Lord of the Flies? Did you ever think that?"

Tracy pushed her gla.s.ses up the bridge of her nose. "Well, yes, I suppose they both deal with groups that are stranded. But I was hoping you might have something to say about civilization versus savagery. Which impulse do you think Golding is trying to say comes more naturally?"

"Oh," Emma said. "I'm not sure."

"Anyone else?" Tracy asked, hopeful, probably pining for her third-graders in New Orleans. She looked over at Evie apologetically.

"Jamie? What do you think?"

There was no response.

After Tracy called out "Jamie?" twice more, Evie heard a smug "yep" from a student seated in the back row.

"Please try to stay with the cla.s.s conversation, next time," Tracy admonished, letting him off a bit too easily in Evie's estimation.

"Will do," Jamie responded, and locked eyes with Evie. She felt vulnerable in his gaze, like her fly was unzipped, even though he was the one being reprimanded. Then he looked down, shoulders clenched and brow furrowed, clearly distressed by some diversion on the ground. She began to notice his arms twitching back and forth. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was texting under his desk!

"Cla.s.s, I'd like to take a moment to introduce my best friend from college. She's going to be working at Brighton temporarily," Tracy said, gesturing at Evie. "If you all work hard and stop texting during cla.s.s, some of you could have a chance of going to Yale and making great friends like I did."

So Tracy was aware of the cla.s.sroom shenanigans. Evie gave a friendly wave to the cla.s.s.

"Stay for a bit. We're working on the first book from the summer reading list." Evie nodded her acceptance.

The students, despite Tracy's ample preparation and fluid Socratic style, just looked glazed over. Maybe it was the atmosphere. The only adornment on the faded yellow walls was a Heimlich maneuver poster and a caged school bell. It wasn't a preschool, but Evie thought much could be done to liven up the place. She'd love to spruce up the room as a surprise for Tracy while she was on maternity leave. Blowing up the covers of the books on the syllabus to decorate the walls would go a long way. She could a.s.semble a crown molding out of famous quotes from the English canon. Soon her creative juices were bubbling over like a shaken soda can and she could barely wait to get started. Tracy would flip. After Teach for America, she'd often remark how grateful she was just to have four walls and a ceiling in her cla.s.sroom.

With a head c.o.c.k, Evie indicated to Tracy that she was going back downstairs. At her desk, she saw Keli had placed numerous forms that needed filling out and doc.u.ments that the headmaster wanted her to read, including the school's charter, operating agreement, and financial statements from the last three years. She immersed herself in reading and making notes, back in lawyer mode as though she'd never left, and before she knew it, it was time for lunch, and the administrative office cleared out like there was a fire drill. She didn't know where to go but filed out alongside her coworkers.

Outside, her cell phone buzzed, indicating a new voicemail from a number she didn't recognize. She was surprised to hear a message from Rick. "Hey Evie, Stasia and I are just checking in to see how you're doing. Give a call if you need anything."

How silly Evie had been to worry about entering his phone number into her contacts. Instead she kept it scrawled on a loose receipt for milk she'd found at the bottom of her pocketbook. She liked to think that if she were the married one, she'd have no problem with a friend calling her husband for advice or a favor. Just as long as that friend was two dress sizes bigger than she was and had a husband of her own. But Stasia was more secure. How could you not be when your hair resembled gold silk and your legs were shaped like number two pencils, even down to the skinny ankles that looked like freshly sharpened points?

Evie picked up a sandwich at the deli across from Brighton, her mind fixated on Rick, Stasia, and their baby once again. It must be that Stasia was feeling so ill that she'd delegated her friendship duties to Rick while she remained out of commission. As she was gobbling her Havarti and hummus wrap on the sidewalk, Evie noticed a figure emerging from a chauffeured black Escalade with tinted windows about twenty yards down the street. The man who stepped out, dressed in a dark suit and tie, looked remarkably like Dr. Gold. It couldn't possibly be him, since she knew he was on vacation and would have no reason to be driven around in a rap mobile uptown, but still she squinted while his doppelgnger walked down the block trailed by a string bean of a woman in a sheath dress and red-soled heels, the kind that added another zero to the price of otherwise ordinary shoes.

Even if it was for Bette's surgery, Evie realized how much she was looking forward to seeing the real Dr. Gold again soon. She must have had a smile on her face thinking about him because as Tracy's student Jamie pa.s.sed her entering the building he said with a smirk, "Someone's having a good day."

After work, Evie decided to make the thirty-block trek to see Bette, even though her first day at Brighton had been draining. The acclimation to her new surroundings was not unlike her first day of sleepaway camp. Were the coffee mugs shared or had each person already laid claim to one? Was taking a cell phone call in the office a no-no? Every office had its unwritten rules, and she had no one to turn to for the oral handbook. Actually she'd never been employed anywhere but Baker Smith, other than a million years ago at Rising Star, hawking bat mitzvah dresses to Baltimore's Jewish tweens. Remembering the code to the locked file cabinets, the directions to the faculty lounge, and even the names of her new coworkers at Brighton was exhausting.

Still Evie needed to see Bette.

Evie shuddered when she saw the apartment her grandmother was staying in. Bette absolutely refused to be a burden to Fran and Winston in Greenwich and wouldn't entertain staying with Evie in her "tiny little place." Instead, she'd taken up residence in an apartment fortuitously located less than a block away from Sloan Kettering. It belonged to her friend Esther from Boca, who had inherited the place when her mother pa.s.sed away fifteen years ago at age one hundred. It was a studio with peeling wallpaper, patchy wooden floors aching to give out splinters, and the ugliest mustard-colored drapery Evie had ever seen. Bette, who stretched a tea bag until her last cup of the day was nothing but faintly tinted water, would never do anything to fix up the place during her stay.

Evie found her grandmother seated on the tattered sofa with the phone to her ear, mid-yenta.

"He's a little on ze short side, but from vhat I remember yours isn't so tall either. Listen, she's thirty-nine, she can't be so picky. I'll give him her number later on today. I gotta go, my granddaughter just valked in." Bette motioned Evie toward a chair next to the sofa.

"Vhat's that?" Bette lowered her voice. "Oh, Evie. No, n.o.body right now." She moved the phone to her other ear-the one farther from where Evie was hovering. "Almost thirty-five . . . I know . . . I know." Then she hung up and looked up innocently at Evie.

"Who was that?" Evie demanded. "And I'm not almost thirty-five. I just turned thirty-four." Hadn't she? It was only September. Her birthday was at the end of May.

"Carol Goldenberg, from Sunny Isles. I'm trying to find someone for her granddaughter."

The child in Evie wanted to cry out, "What about me?"

"Her daughter is an aspiring puppeteer living in San Diego," Bette continued. "As if anyone can aspire to zat. She vorks as a vaitress to support herself. Who knows vith zese kids? Anyvay, I may know someone living out zere for her."

Evie's pulse slowed. Carol Goldenberg's granddaughter was in California. And she was pursuing the art of marionetting. She and Evie were not in the market for the same sort of guy.

"I can't believe you're even fixing people up at a time like this. You should be focusing on yourself."

"Vy not? Doesn't hurt me to try to make other people happy," Bette said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Have you spoken to Dr. Gold?"

"He has a family, Grandma. I saw a picture of his freaking daughter when I met him."

"Vhat are you getting so angry for? I'm not trying to make a shidduch. I vas just asking if you spoke to him. Maybe you have questions about my care, zat's all."

Evie softened, regretting being so mercurial. "I'm sorry. I'm just so used to you trying to marry me off. Anyway, I really don't understand why you're waiting for Dr. Gold to operate anyway. I'm sure Sloan has many capable doctors."

"I'll be fine." Bette sighed. "I'm used to vaiting for things." She looked down at her lap and began twisting her sixty-year-old engagement ring around her finger.

Evie was speechless. Who compares having cancer to having a single granddaughter?

"Bette drives me completely crazy, Mom," Evie whined to her mother over coffee at a cafe near the hospital. "Totally, utterly crazy." She noticed Fran was wearing a messenger-style purse across her chest, in the style of the tourists who believed Manhattan was a den of pickpockets. Evie did the same thing when she first started law school. Now she walked around with her bag unzipped, usually dangling precariously open from the crook of her elbow. But she had achieved the gait of a confident New Yorker, which in her mind was all the deterrent she needed to ward off thieves.

"I know how much it bothers her that I'm single. But honestly, I have enough problems with my career and with my floundering love life-the last thing I need to worry about is how my being unmarried affects those around me. I swear I could win a n.o.bel Prize and all Grandma would say is that I have no one to accompany me to Sweden."

Fran quietly stirred her coffee, her expression undecipherable.

"Mom, are you listening? Don't tell me you agree with Grandma? You also hate that I'm single?" Evie slumped into her chair. "I would expect more from you. Bette is trapped in a time warp."

Fran looked at Evie. Her eyes, tender and surrounded by the beginnings of sagging eyelids, were repositories of compa.s.sion and wisdom. Evie peered into them and saw her own reflection. It made sense. Fran thought of Evie above everything else.

"Evie, it's not me that it bothers. It's you. If I believed you were okay with being single, I wouldn't care one bit. And neither would your grandmother." Her gaze fluttered down to her pocketbook, where she started digging around for something. "No, she would still care. But I really wouldn't," she added softly.

Evie didn't know whether to believe her mother, truly a woman of the gla.s.s-half-full varietal. The meltdown she'd been holding in since visiting Bette threatened to erupt. She lifted her chin, unsuccessfully willing the tears back.

"Honey, I'm not trying to upset you. I just want to have a candid conversation with you. I feel like you being single is this taboo subject between us. And it shouldn't be. I know Bette is more outspoken about these things. But I'm afraid to broach the topic most of the time."

Evie didn't know what to say. At Brighton a few hours ago, she had felt like she had a shot at regaining so much of what she'd lost when she left her old job-responsibility, self-reliance, and respect. Now at coffee with Fran, she felt adolescent.

"I want you to be happy. And yes, I'll admit, I want you to get married. Because I believe that will make you more secure. You have so much going for you, Evie. You're beautiful, smart, successful, outgoing. The list goes on and on. But the fact that you're single makes you forget all of your fabulous attributes. When I look at you, I see insecurity. It kills me. I want to shake you and remind you of all you have accomplished."

Evie continued to listen, even though she felt like she couldn't bear another moment of this honesty session. At least the coffee shop was empty.

"But to tell the truth, I don't really blame you. The world is designed for couples. Practically every movie and song on the radio opines on love. Valentine's Day. Anniversaries. Even restaurants. Not many tables for one or three, are there?"

Evie thought of Jack's restaurants. No small tables for singles. He used to complain about people making reservations for odd-numbered parties.

"It totally wastes a seat that could go to a paying customer," he'd say to her when they were up late gossiping about the evening's patrons and he was tallying the receipts. "And it just looks bad. The asymmetry is very off-putting."

Evie would respond callously, "Singles should just order in." Maybe that's why he ended up getting married, Evie thought now bitterly. He wanted to lead his customers by example. And she'd egged him on.

Evie nodded at her mother to show she was at least open to hearing more.

"And this is not some antifeminist rant you'd expect to hear from Bette. Men too feel lonely. Winston was burned by his divorce. He couldn't wait to remarry. When you were young, you were so precocious. You used to say to me, 'I don't need to get married. I'm going to get straight As, go to Harvard, and become a millionaire.' You were seven years old. Do you remember saying those things?"

Evie essentially did-not from the time she actually said them, but they'd been repeated to her so often that she could picture herself at seven years old, pigtailed and chubby, walking arrogantly around their yellow-and-blue Provence-by-way-of-Baltimore tiled kitchen telling her parents about her future. She gave Fran another shallow nod.

"Your father and I would just look at each other and think how much you had to learn about the world. I've never admitted this out loud-never. But when your father died, one of my first thoughts was that I would have to go to the Lichts' anniversary party alone. Can you imagine? That I worried about that after losing the love of my life? It's shameful, but it's human nature."

Evie jumped out of her seat and came within an inch of her mother's face. The hostess looked up from her People magazine to see what the commotion was about.

"Are you trying to make me feel worse? I agree with you. I don't want to be alone, but it's not like I can walk the streets from nine to five with a 'husband wanted' sign on my back. And pressure from you and Grandma doesn't help." Evie settled back into her chair and folded her arms across her chest, ready for Fran's reb.u.t.tal.

Instead Fran swiveled in her seat to face the counter, turning her back on Evie.

"Excuse me, could we get our check please?"

Evie simmered. Like her father and Bette, Evie had to see any argument or discussion through to a peaceful conclusion. Her mother could just stop a fight midsentence, leaving the other person unnerved and the matter unresolved. Closure was not Fran's biggest priority, while Evie desperately sought it in all things.

"Mom, please talk to me about this. I'm sure you agree that looking for a spouse can't be my full-time occupation. I'm a bit overeducated."

Acting as though it was a big sacrifice, Fran waved the waitress away when she started coming toward their table. But then her face unexpectedly softened and she reached for Evie's hand. The warm touch made Evie shiver.

"Of course I agree. I just think, and don't bite my head off, that you chose to dive into your career to avoid rejection. Even though you complained about the work, you volunteered whenever there was an opportunity to take on additional a.s.signments. Think about Jack, even. Your longest relationship was with a man who didn't believe in marriage. There had to be something there-subconsciously, to make you fall for someone who refused to commit. Thank G.o.d you finally broke that off. I swear, I worried you would date him into your forties before you finally grasped that he'd never propose."

Obviously Evie still hadn't told Fran that Jack was married. She didn't want her mother to pity her, or worse, to question what she had been doing wrong all that time to scare Jack off. The Baker Smith debacle had been embarra.s.sing enough. But this was her opportunity to show her mother that she wasn't at fault for her single status. At best, she was the victim of bad luck. At worst, simply undesirable.

"Actually, Mom, Jack got-"

"Hi, everyone, I come bearing chocolates," Winston announced cheerily, his figure appearing unexpectedly in the doorframe of the cafe. Winston handed Evie a box of G.o.diva truffles with one hand and loosened his tie with the other. He gave Fran a quick peck on the cheek. Evie smiled back, relieved to put off a conversation about Jack and Mrs. Jack.

"I told Winston we'd be here," Evie's mother said, and then turned to her husband. "How was work?"

"Busy," he said, flagging over the waitress. "You have anything stronger than coffee here?"

The waitress shook her head.

"Okay, then just black coffee please. And a BLT."

"I'm going to head home. The first day wiped me out," Evie said. "Just going to take a chocolate for the road." She unwrapped the gold foil, feeling she deserved at least one truffle after the tongue-lashing from Fran. Plus her pants had been loose that morning.

When she turned to leave with a raspberry cordial in hand, she heard her mother gasp.

"Evie, your behind is sticking out of your pants. I can see your underwear! How can you walk around like that? And at a school!" Fran's shrill voice rang through the restaurant, which of course had gone from empty to semifull in the last three minutes.

"What are you talking about?" Evie asked, reaching her hand back. She palmed the smooth silk blend until the tip of her pointer finger found its way to a hole. Right in the crack.

"Oh my G.o.d! How bad is it?" Evie sank back into her chair to hide her exposed derriere. The morning's events ran through her mind in streaming video. Feeling surprised that her pants were loose when she got dressed . . . Walking around the main office to fill her coffee cup . . . Visiting Tracy's cla.s.sroom and bending over to give her a hug. What if one of the students had recorded her peep show and posted it on YouTube?

She couldn't bear to face Fran and Winston, so she used the jacket she was carrying in her right arm to bury her face.

Her jacket! She had definitely been wearing it at work and had only taken it off when she got to the restaurant to have coffee with her mom.

"I was wearing my jacket!" Evie exclaimed, and she awkwardly slipped into it from a seated position. Rising, she rotated slowly like a lamb on a spit.

"It covers your behind," Fran said, less than impressed.

"Thank G.o.d," she gushed. "Now I'm officially leaving." Evie waved sheepishly at Winston and Fran. The truffle stayed behind.

As she pivoted her front foot toward the exit, she heard Fran whisper to Winston: "She complains about being single but a first step would be some decent clothes."