Alicia herself answered the door wearing a fuchsia minidress and decadently high stiletto heels, in the style of the Latinas in my neighborhood. Why did all the women I know have such terrific legs? Her hair, which was almost as dark and straight as mine, was cut in a severe angled pageboy. Diamond drops fell casually from her ears. As she gave kisses to Fran and me, I saw that the love seat in the foyer was strewn with expensive-looking women's purses. One that particularly caught my eye was a clutch made of colored straw in the shape of a watermelon.

I wanted to turn around and go home.

But Alicia was already pulling us in and saying gaily, "Forgive the decor of this place, it's actually my stepmother's, she's really into this froufrou stuff."

I saw what she meant. The place had kind of a European clutter to it, valances fringed in gold, photographs in ornate silver frames scattered on tables and shelves, lots of small eccentrically shaped chairs and ottomans that I couldn't identify but knew were extremely valuable. In what seemed to be the main room stood a ring of people holding glasses, talking and laughing very loudly.

I offered my wine. "Oh, good," Alicia said, examining the label, and Fran and I followed her to the kitchen, where I felt safer. A kitchen was a room in which the agenda was obvious. You could always find something to do in a kitchen. It was also where the bar was. Fran and I mixed ourselves gin and tonics, using tall glasses that had levels marked off with pictures of different animals. The top picture was a monkey, and the bottom was a jackass. I made my drink strong, and after a couple of swigs I was able to follow Fran into the living room.

How many gatherings like this had I attended, where the point was to blend in, not to call attention to myself because I stood out too much? My father would have loved this, me at the party of Alicia Houghton, with all the sons and daughters of the establishment. He would have said that I had made it.

Fran waded right in, addressing a brawny man wearing shorts printed with coconuts and clusters of grapes, paired with a formal red linen suit jacket. She introduced him to me as Alicia's cousin, and to my relief he seemed to be the conversational type, probably due to the fact that the glass in his hand was nearly down to jackass level. I concentrated on smiling in what I thought were the correct places, and soon we were having a perfectly civilized conversation about a recent exhibition of Persian miniatures at the Met. The cousin actually looked interested in what I had to say, although it might have been just a facade. There was something so fatal about that WASP politenessa"you never knew where you stooda"although I had had enough practice with my in-laws to have begun to be able to decipher it. I was suddenly and sadly reminded of those vacations with Fran in the city when we'd gone out with those boys who consistently froze me out. The cousin might have been one, for all I knew, because I didn't remember any of their faces. He tilted his glass and drained it heartily. I watched the action of that white Adam's apple and thought, He has no idea how ridiculous that getup he's wearing is, how few places in the world would find it even remotely acceptable.

Fran got collared by a couple in matching white duck trousers, who both turned out to be lawyers and wanted to know what Harvard was like these days. I studied my friend as she stood poised there in her blue and green abstract-patterned cocktail dress, hair conservatively pulled back in barrettes. There was nothing the least bit dykey about Fran, unless you counted her intensity, or the way she walked into a room as if she owned it.

"So, can I get you another drink?" the cousin was asking me. Then, seeing that I wasn't quite finisheda""Or freshen that one?" I handed him my glass.

"Thanks."

This was what I dreaded most, being alone at a party, it was the stuff of nightmares. Although I wasn't drunk yet, that familiar unsteadiness came over me. I imagined, not for the first time, that what I'd been feeling since I'd gotten back from St. Pete must be like the malaise people go through when they move to a new country, that continuing seasickness of immigrants. The sickness that, according to Aunty Mabel, my father had never gotten over. Longing for a cigarette, I sat down on the pink-and-white-striped window seat. There was a little marble-topped table in front of me displaying a collection of Limoges boxes shaped liked different kinds of fruit. Fruit was certainly the theme of the afternoon. I picked up a tiny clump of raspberries to examine it.

Alicia's breathy voice was in my ear: "Aren't they beautiful? That was my grandmother's collection. I gave her those raspberries the Christmas before she died."

I thought of Nai-nai's Limoges gathering dust in my mother's attic.

"Here's Charlie with a drink for someone. Oh, for you, Sally. I'm glad you two are getting to know each other."

"So you knew Lish at prep school." The cousin plunked himself down next to me. I marveled at the way he'd managed to make my drinka"lime, ice, and alla"with the level exactly at the monkey line. Obviously an expert.

Before I could answer there was a commotion at the door. Alicia excused herself and went over. I saw the copper flash of Fran's hair as she turned from her conversation with the lawyers to look toward the foyer. The new guest was a woman alone, an ice-blonde in an orange sheath. She looked vaguely familiar. Fran raised her eyebrows at me, tilting her head to the kitchen.

"What's up?" I asked her a few minutes later.

"I just wanted to make sure you knew."

"Knew what?"

"That woman who just came in. It's Carey's new girlfriend."

I felt sick. "Is Carey here?"

"I haven't seen him."

I said: "I think I need another drink."

"Sally. What a surprise."

"Carey." It was much, much later in the party. I didn't know where Charlie had gotten himself to, he was probably off with someone more his speed, someone who could hold their liquor. Astonishingly, Carey looked exactly the same, substantial, like a husband. He was wearing a tropical-print shirt and the khaki trousers we'd shopped for together at Brooks Brothers. He was so familiar I could almost believe that we were still married, that we would leave this party together and go back to our apartment on Riverside Drive. He had new glasses, I noticed, wire-framed instead of hornrimmed.

"You look terrific," he said.

"So do you." Had my husband always had that pretentious accent?

"You here alone?"

"No," I said, trying not to slur my words, "I'm with Fran." I reached up and touched his shoulder in what I thought was a friendly way. "Where'd you get that shirt? I don't remember it. Is it from Hawaii or something?"

There was something in his look I couldn't read. He bent toward me and said into my ear, "Listen, I think it's time for you to go home. I'll take you if you want. We can get a cabdownstairs. Let me just tell Sukey."

"Sukey? What kind of name is that?"

"Go wait in the foyer, Sally. I'll be right there."

"No," I said. "You're not my husband anymore."

He straightened up and squared his shoulders. "Where is Fran?"

"I don't know."

"I see her. Over there." Carey took me by the elbow and steered me through the crowd. I didn't resist. The room was swimming.

In the elevator the two of them discussed how lucky it was that the Memorial Day parade had been over hours earlier, so we wouldn't have any problems with traffic. Carey had his arm around me and I thought this wasn't appropriate but didn't say anything. Out on the street he hailed a taxi and kissed me on the cheek. "You take care of yourself." By then I was concentrating on not throwing up. At about Twenty-third Street I thought I was going to lose the battle. Fran reached across me and rolled down the window but it turned out to be a false alarm.

"Franny, I'm sorry," I said. "I've never done this before." It was true. I never let myself get too drunk or stoned, even during our summer on the Cape. I was too afraid of losing control.

"Forget about it," she said.

Miraculously, we managed to get into my apartment before I puked. In the bathroom I kept saying, "I'm sorry I'm so fucked up. I'm sorry you have to take care of me."

"I'm not mad at you, Sally," Fran said. "Why do you keep on acting like I'm mad at you?"

"I did this once for my sister. When she was twelve."

"That figures."

"Do you think Alicia will ever talk to me again?"

"You got sick here, not in her apartment. Besides, I happen to know that old Charlie was blowing lunch before we left. Sorry about that." Her hand stayed on my nape as I aimed my head over the toilet again.

The phone was ringing. I knew it was early from the angle of sun through the half-opened curtain, and I was afraid to get up to answer it, afraid to alter the equilibrium of my body. It couldn't be Fran, she'd left only a few hours ago, arranging the fans so they were blowing a cross-draft over me, a wastebasket by my head. The machine clicked on.

"Sa, pick up, pick up, I know you're there."

I slid out of bed, dragging the wastebasket with me, and practically crawled to the kitchen, where the phone was. "Marty?" I said into the receiver.

"You sound awful," my sister said cheerfully.

"Where are you calling from?" I closed my eyes and managed to slide my body down into a sitting position on the floor, my back resting against the under-the-sink cabinet.

"Home. Listen, Sa"a"lowering her voicea""I have to ask you a favor."

"Would you please speak up?"

"I'll try, but Ma's out in the hall and I don't want her to hear."

"Okay, okay, what."

"Can you lend me some money?"

"How much?"

"A thousand."

"No way."

"Please, Sa. It's just to help me put down a security deposit and the first month's rent. I'll pay you back by the end of this year, I promise."

"What happened to Dennis?"

"Are you going to lend me the money or not?"

"I can't think now, Mar, I'm sick. Could you please call back later?"

"When?"

"I don't know. Just later." I hung up, opened the refrigerator, and got out a bottle of club soda, which I finished off in one gulp. My stomach roiled. I forced myself to my feet and hung over the sink, waiting. Nothing. Finally I went back to bed.

My sister had never hit me up like that before, she must be desperate. Maybe I'd give her five hundred. It was all I could spare, and not even that really. Why hadn't she asked Ma for a loan? I'd call her tomorrow, when I felt human.

I lay back and shut my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. I remembered Carey's arm around me. Fran rubbing my back in the bathroom. Valeric doing the same in the emergency room.

This was my dream: I was skiing with Carey, or rather, he was doing the skiing, and I was following behind him, no poles, my arms wrapped around his waist, as if we were on a motorcycle. My ex-husband's body shielded me from the wind and snow. There were no decisions to make, nothing to do but follow. After a while I realized that we were going to crash and I tried to extricate myself, but it was as if my arms were glued in place. Don't, I tried to say, but I couldn't speak, and we kept going, down, down. Then the dream changed. I was a little girl in Monterey, walking around the grass in the backyard. I kept falling. Every time I did, someone would pick me up by the shoulders, setting me back on my feet. All around us was the smell of jasmine.

25.

The fallout from the party was not as bad as I'd expected. Fran called that evening from Boston to make sure I was okay, and told me that Charlie had asked Alicia for my phone number. Later in the week I got a message from Carey saying it had been good to see me, why didn't we meet for drinks at the Brown Club sometime. I thought this was a good idea. There was a lot we needed to talk about.

My hangover lasted for two days. There are lots of things you can't do well when you have a hangover, but painting isn't one of them. Artist friends of mine tell me they sometimes do their best work when physically compromiseda"with a fever, for instance. It's like the defenses are down. On the second day I got up and opened all my redsa"cadmium, crimson, scarlet, rose madder, burgundy, geranium, ruby. I flipped through my sketchbook and studied the automatic drawings I had done in the hospital and St. Pete, and then I started to work.

Like my drawing at Willowbridge it came out fast and completely abstract. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. The background a silver-gray wash and on top of that incomprehensible graffiti that spelled out nothing, not even letters, most of the strokes slashing diagonally down, so that your heart would go the same direction when you looked. I'd been taught to be careful with red. The color called attention to itself, eclipsed all others, so that you had to use it sparingly. I wasn't sparing. I tacked up a second canvas and tried again, without the background, for the shock of it on bright cool white.

I would have used my own blood if it weren't for the limited supply and the fact that it did not dry true to color.

By the end of the day my studio looked like a massacre had taken place. I had to turn the canvases to the wall so that I could sleep.

"Aunty Winnie says she looks forward to see you at wedding," my mother said on the phone.

"I don't know if I'm going."

"How come you don't go? Such an old childhood friend."

"Look, I'll think about it, okay?"

And I did. Sitting on the floor of my studio with the sun pouring in, I decided, what the hell. But first I had to get back into my life. Slowly, Sally, I told myself.

"Why do you think she keeps calling you?" Valerie asked.

"Control, of course. She wants to keep tabs on me now."

"Why now?"

"Before I wasn't dangerous. Now she knows I could hurt her. I could tell everyone the truth about my father."

"And?"

"If I tell the truth about Monkey King, I tell the truth about her."

"And what truth is that?"

"She let it happen."

"Yes. She let it happen." Valerie leaned forward, her chin in her hands.

"She was a failure," I said.

"As what?"

"As a mother."

"What else?"

"I don't understand."

"What else was she a failure at?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"Wasn't she a failure as a wife?"

"Oh."

"Think about it."

Why was everyone always telling me to think about things? "I guess so," I said. "But why did she stay with him then?"