gratitude and resentment in about equal measure. Marina counted two twenty-dollar bills and three five-dollar bills out of her wallet, and added a ten-dollar bill, excited by her own generosity; on a fresh napkin she carefully printed her name and address- Marina Troy R.R. #3, Box 139 Damascus Crossing, PA 18361 Self-consciously as if she feared she was being watched, Lorene accepted the bills from Marina, without counting them; the napkin she folded neatly, as if it were precious, placing it with the bills in a pocket of her suede jacket. Almost inaudibly she murmured, "Thanks!"

Marina said, "But where will you spend the night, Lorene? If the bus doesn't leave until morning?"

There was that to consider. Lorene's gaze went blank.

"I need to try that number again," Lorene said with sudden animation.

"Like I said."

You could stay with me, Lorene.

I know you won't. But you could stay with me.

Their eyes met. Lorene looked away, fiercely blushing. Again things became confused. Lorene was eager to get to the phone, but slid out of the booth as if reluctantly, her small eyes very dark, glassily dark as marbles, and an odor of perfumy perspiration lifting from her skin. On her feet, hovering over Marina, impulsively she leaned down, murmured, "Thanks, Marina!" and kissed Marina wetly on the corner of the mouth. Then she was gone.

Marina sat unmoving, as if she'd been struck.

Her mind was a flurry of wings. Moths' wings. The kiss burned at the corner of her mouth.

I *, recalling that disjointed, confusing evening in her life Marina would think calmly Of course. Why was I surprised? But at the time, to her chagrin, she had no thought of the girl who'd called herself Lorene walking out of the East Hills Diner and leaving her forever. In fact she was keenly alert waiting for Lorene to return; watching in the mirror for the big-boned streaked-blond girl in the suede jacket to loom up behind her.

Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Marina began to suspect that something

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might be wrong. On the table top, across from Marina, were spilled sugar and a shredded cigarette and a crumpled napkin smeared with maroon lipstick.

Marina went to look for Lorene by the public phone at the front of the diner, but Lorene wasn't there. No one was using the phone. Nor was Lorene in the women's rest room. In a haze of alarm and mounting worry, Marina walked quickly through the crowded restaurant, looking for Lorene. She saw several girls who resembled Lorene, or the girl who'd identified herself to Marina as "Lorene," but she did not find the girl she sought.

Anxiously Marina asked their waitress if she'd seen Lorene leave the diner and the waitress said, "Your friend? I guess so. She left with some guy. Maybe ten minutes ago."

Marina swallowed hard. Some guy!

In dread she asked what this guy looked like.

The waitress shrugged. "Just a guy."

"Did he have a moustache? A beard? A crimson jacket?"

The noise level in this part of the diner was so high, the waitress had to cup her hand to her ear. "A what-color jacket?"

"Crimson. Red."

"Yeah, ma'am. He sure did."

The folly. The shame! And worse to come.

The adventure didn't end in the East Hills Diner but in the parking lot.

Where I discovered that all four tires on the Jeep had been expertly slashed. And the windshield cracked like a crazed star where he'd slammed a baseball bat, probably, against it. Bitch! Cunt! Dyke! Almost, I could hear him. Fortunately the windshield wasn't shattered so I could drive back to Damascus Crossing that night, late that night, after the tires were replaced. ( For almost six hundred dollars.) Just laugh at me, don't pity me!

Let's just say Marina Troy got what she deserved.

I * of December, at the turn of the year, that the warm furred creature came in stealth to settle upon her chest. That smothering weight. Heavy, and heavier. Can't breathe. Help me! In the night the dark-furred thing with a snout that smelled of blood, pushing wetly Middle Age: A Romance

against Marina's mouth. Nudging, kissing. The heavy warm dark-furred smothering thing with teeth, claws. Thwaite, Thwaite! came the muffled guttural cry. In desperation Marina recoiled in her sleep, threw the thing off herself, woke nauseated and repelled. "What is happening to me! I can't bear this." She was going mad. Thwaite was madness, and Night was madness. She climbed out of her messy bed as you might climb out of a shallow messy grave.

Barefoot and shivering she went to the studio at the rear of the drafty house. The things, Adam's things, were waiting for her. She switched on the light, exposing them in crude glaring light lacking the mitigating filmy shadows of romance. She saw them for what they were: ugly aborted "sculptures" she'd been laboring at, with such hope, for months. The vanity of her effort swept over her like a wave of dirty water. The futility. The delusion. Almost she wanted to laugh, she'd failed utterly. The fragmentary artworks Adam Berendt had left behind in this house haven't been completed by Marina Troy, but sabotaged. Clearly Marina Troy knew nothing of Adam Berendt, the man was finally a stranger; Marina had no access to his vision, as she'd had no access to his heart. She was only herself.

O M W: T T*

E verything in the universe is a coincidence! Adam Berendt once said.

Or nothing is.

Yet it couldn't be merely coincidence that the day Lionel Hoffmann at last confessed his secret to his wife, Camille, was the eve of the day Shadow entered Camille's life.

"C, I something to tell you."

I have something to tell you. These words. Dread-words. Chill-words.

Words no middle-aged wife wishes to hear uttered numbly, yet with a ghastly hopeful smile, by her middle-aged husband.

I have something to tell you. Lionel Hoffmann spoke awkwardly, guiltily.

He was not a man to speak falteringly yet he spoke falteringly now. How absurd that his eyes should water, and his sinuses ache, as if he were having an allergy reaction . . . Though he'd prepared this scene for weeks.

Since the terrible night of Adam Berendt's cremation he'd prepared this scene. He'd murmured these words to himself countless times, like stones in his mouth they were, clumsy, distasteful. Yet they must be uttered, at last.

"Camille? You are listening-aren't you?"

He did not say Camille darling, Camille dear. Not even to soften the

Middle Age: A Romance

blow he did not say Camille darling, Camille dear. Never again Camille darling, Camille dear. The horror of that realization swept upon her like the taste of impending death.

Yes, Camille was listening. No! Loudly Camille was humming to herself, squatting in a corner of the kitchen as Lionel stood in the doorway behind her. This, too, was a TV scene, a movie scene, yet raw, original, painful as a dentist's drill without novocaine for the participants. I had no idea. Not a hint. No! We were so happy in that house. With dampened paper towels Camille was vigorously cleaning the tile floor. It was an expensive tile meant to suggest the hard wood of an eighteenth-century kitchen floor with knot-holes, blemishes, and cracks. Camille Hoffmann had long been the wife of the beautifully restored Colonial on Old Mill Way; and Lionel Hoffmann had long been the husband of the house. Joint owners the Hoffmanns were of a property estimated at $. million. We will never sell! Never. It was rare for the husband and wife to see each other so vividly, let alone embark upon a dramatic scene; since their children were grown and gone, drama had largely departed from their lives. No, I never guessed. How could I, when we were so happy! Yet now the household air quivered like the air before an electric storm.

Camille was wiping the floor clean in wide, guilty swipes. For Apollo had made a mess, eating. And Lionel wasn't supposed to know that, in his absence, the dog was often fed indoors and not outdoors as Camille had eagerly promised he'd be fed; Lionel wasn't supposed to know (of course, Lionel knew: his allergies could hardly fail to alert him) that during the week, when he was in Manhattan, Apollo had become Camille's constant companion, and was given his meals in a corner of the kitchen where Camille laid down newspaper to set his dishes on; but so ravenous was the lean husky-shepherd, so anxious and edgy since his master's disappearance from his life, that Apollo ate nervously, messily, scattering food beyond the margins of the New York Times.

(Oh, Camille scolded Apollo. Camille tried to discipline him as Adam had gently but firmly disciplined him. "Mind your manners, Apollo, please!" Camille begged. "Be a good dog, please!" So Lionel overheard when Camille didn't realize he was within earshot. And how offended he was, hearing his wife begging a dog to behave . . . Those interminable weekends in Salthill, Lionel had to endure shut up in the house with Camille, living their blind cave-existence, while his mistress, Siri, long milky-pale limbs and dark eyes brimming with both hurt and passion, was

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miles away in her flat in the East Village, leading her mysterious life as distant to him as if she were in Tangier . . . Siri, darling! Think of me, as I think of you. Lionel would not have wished to acknowledge that he, too, was begging. While in the house on Old Mill Way Camille tried gamely to eradicate all signs of Apollo, as an adulterous wife might try to eradicate all signs of her lover, naively hoping to deceive her husband. Camille didn't even trust Lina, their cleaning woman, to rid the house of dog hairs, dog dander, that unmistakable doggy odor that so offended Lionel's sensitive nostrils, there she was vacuuming, mopping, opening windows herself, and gently scolding Apollo, who was a lonely creature, and rather demanding. Lionel, overhearing Camille with Apollo, gritted his teeth.

Camille's manner with the dog was pleading and reproachful, frantic and seductive. "Apollo, please. You must learn to obey. For Adam's sake if not for mine." Lionel might have banished the damned dog permanently except he didn't want to cause a scene; he didn't want to be cruel to either the dog or his emotional wife; he didn't want to be crueller than he would have to be; he wasn't a cruel person, but a gentleman. Lionel wanted to be known among the Salthill circle as a gentleman. I love it that you so respect your wife, Siri murmured, in his arms, but have you no respect for me?

"Camille? Can you look up here?"

Lionel's grave guilty voice. God damn, what was wrong with Camille?

"The floor is clean, Camille. I don't mind-much-that you've been feeding the dog in the house. But I"-and here Lionel hesitated, like a man easing out onto cracking ice-"have something to tell you."

"Oh, Lionel! I didn't realize you were here."

Camille smiled. Blinking as if a bright light were shining in her face.

And her softly flaccid girl's face shone like the floor she'd been wiping. For here was a woman who clearly suspected nothing; a woman of childlike innocence. She was dressed somewhat oddly in a gardener's denim coverall, over a salmon-colored turtleneck; squatting, she bulged alarmingly at the thighs. Her graying brown hair was brushed back and fastened with a clip. She wore no makeup, she seemed to have no eyelashes. Surely, Lionel thought, annoyed, Camille had had eyelashes at one time? Her smiling mouth had a rubbery resilience that made her husband think of a doll's mouth which a man would never, never wish to kiss.

He could not recall when he'd kissed that mouth last. The thought filled him with guilty revulsion. Oh, Siri!

"Camille? Why don't you stand up, please. It's difficult to talk to you like this."

Middle Age: A Romance *

Camille laughed lightly, and straightened; she swayed as if the sight of Lionel made her dizzy, and this, too, made her laugh, nervously. Lionel had to resist the impulse to steady her as one might an elderly or infirm person.

"Lionel! You're home early. This is-Thursday? Or no: Friday."

It was Friday. The end of the week. On Friday evenings, Lionel sometimes returned on the :8 .. Amtrak to Salthill, and sometimes he returned on the : .. Amtrak. He was a man of routine like all the Hoffmann men. But tonight, with Siri's encouragement, he'd returned early, on the 6:8 ..

You must tell her. You have promised me!

"Camille, I'm sorry to startle you. I thought you'd heard me drive in."

(Of course she'd heard. Why otherwise had she been desperately cleaning the kitchen floor? Why otherwise had Apollo been hastily sent out of the house, barking and whining forlornly in the backyard?) "I'm afraid-I have something to tell you."

Those words. Such weak, hollow, unoriginal words! Lionel felt a thrill of disgust. He was a six-foot puppet through whose hole of a mouth someone, or something, spoke words of such clumsy banality he could not believe they might be mistaken as his.

Yet Camille, that good woman, managed to smile as if to encourage him. Her lashless eyes were damp with terror.

"Lionel, dear? What? "

S * the new car, the white Acura. Beside her in the passenger's seat was Apollo, panting and eager. This was no dream for it was morning, and a new day. She turned off Salthill Road, north onto West Axe Boulevard. She had not slept the previous night and was grateful for dawn and now she was driving, as if nothing were wrong, as if her life had not been rent in two as with the terrible stroke of an axe, to the farmer's market in West Nyack. Her swollen eyes stared. On the grassy median a dog cringed in terror as traffic streamed past on both sides. Had the poor creature been abandoned? So cruelly abandoned? Was it lost?

Camille slowed her car to watch in horror as, hesitating, the dog ventured off the median, leapt back up onto it, then ventured off again, gathering its courage to run blindly across the right-hand lane. It was instantaneously struck by a speeding minivan, the small dark-furred body lifted and flung twenty feet along the edge of the road like a bundle of rags.

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"Oh, God! Oh, God!" At once Camille braked her car, heedless of horns behind her and of her own safety as she left her car to run to the stricken dog, which dragged itself off the pavement and into weeds, a trail of bright-glistening blood in its wake. The dog, a small-bodied mongrel with Labrador retriever blood and no tags, was whimpering in pain and terror.

Beside Camille, Apollo barked excitedly.

This was no dream. Traffic sped past on the notoriously busy boule-vard. The minivan had vanished. No one else would stop. It was a Saturday morning in October, the first morning of Lionel Hoffmann's departure from the house on Old Mill Way, the first morning of Camille Hoffmann's left-behind life. She pressed the heel of her hand against her broken heart and wept for the injured dog. "You, too! You, too!" She knelt in blood-splattered weeds daring to put out her trembling hand to the writhing dog whose mouth frothed with saliva. Sunlight glittered on her beautiful useless rings.

Words once uttered, that can never be revoked.

How could you, when we were so happy!

Guilt darkened Lionel's face like blood seeping into a translucent sac.

His hoarse voice was unrecognizable, his throat felt as if he'd swallowed thorns.

He stammered, "Camille, I'm-sorry."

"I'm sorry!"

Gamely Camille was trying to keep the mood light. Though the floor tilted drunkenly beneath her. Though her mouth ached with smiling.

"Camille, I had to tell you. It was-time."

"Yes?"

"We couldn't continue, obviously-as we were."

"We couldn't?"

Was Camille in shock? Stunned? Smiling in that bright-blind way of hers. Lionel wasn't smiling for this was hardly a smiling matter. This was hardly an occasion for levity. His sinuses were impacted as if with cement.

That damned dog! Almost, Lionel was furious with his friend Adam Berendt for dying so carelessly and leaving the animal in their care. For after all that was what Apollo was: an animal. When the children were young it was explained that Daddy had allergies, Daddy couldn't live with animals, not dogs, not cats, not even parrots, and perhaps that was true; or Middle Age: A Romance

true to some degree. And now it was certainly true. Lionel's eyes were watering with pain, misery, excitement. He said, urgently, as if to involve Camille in his drama, "You know that, Camille, don't you? I think-all along you must have known."

" 'Must have known'-?"

Camille smiled, leaning against the kitchen table to keep her balance.