He smiled at her. "You're a good girl, Vix. Always were. I told Frankie, *Vix is dependable. She'll come if you need her.' "

Vix swallowed hard.

"How's Caitlin? You see her lately?"

She shook her head. "Not lately."

"Too bad. Got to keep in touch with your old friends. Old friends know you best."

She nodded.

"You call Tawny?"

"Yes."

"How'd she take it?"

"She hopes you get better soon. She sends her love."

"Love, huh? That's a good one." He laughed. And Vix laughed with him.

Vix was grocery shopping at Kaune's, stocking up on heart healthy foods for him, when she wheeled her cart into the fresh produce aisle and found Phoebe, selecting avocados. "I'm thinking of a chicken and guacamole salad," Phoebe said, as if she and Vix were in the middle of a conversation. "What do you think?"

"High in cholesterol. Avocados, that is." Vix tried to remember the last time she'd seen Phoebe, but couldn't. Phoebe looked fantastic. She could have pa.s.sed for Caitlin's big sister. Vix wondered if she had staples in her scalp.

"I suppose you know Caitlin's on the Vineyard," Phoebe said.

Vix dropped the honeydew melon she was holding. It split open, spilling its runny guts all over the floor.

Phoebe went right on talking, as if she hadn't even noticed. "She says she needs to get back to basics. She's going to raise sheep and spin wool and live a simple life. She thinks she's Rumpelstiltskin," Phoebe said. "Or maybe it's Rapunzel. I always confuse the two."

"Rapunzel's the one with the hair," Vix heard herself saying, as a guy with a mop appeared and began to clean up the mess.

Phoebe sniffed a box of strawberries. "Mmm a sweet. Want some?"

"My father's allergic to strawberries."

"Too bad. How's he doing?"

"Pretty well, considering."

"Send him my best."

"I will."

As she began to push her cart away Phoebe turned. "Vix a give Caitlin a call."

Phoebe SHE HADN'T MEANT to take Vix by surprise. That look on her face. The way she'd dropped the melon. Gads! She was sure Vix would have known. After all, the two of them were inseparable, weren't they? She couldn't begin to guess what game Caity was playing this time. Not that Caity tells her anything. Never has. Not really. She's missed that part of the mother-daughter relationship. She has the feeling Vix has, too. Ah well a maybe they'll do a better job with their daughters. The idea of Caity having a daughter makes her laugh, until she realizes that would make her a grandmother! Now there's an experience she can do without for another ten years, at least.

"I'M TRYING TO give my life meaning," Caitlin said when Vix called. "Does that make any sense to you?" When Vix didn't answer right away Caitlin added, "Why am I asking you? Your life has always had meaning."

"You sure you're not confusing meaning with struggle?"

"How do I know? Do you think by trying not to be ordinary I've become neurotic?"

"Are you seeing a shrink a is that what this is about?"

"Of course I'm seeing a shrink. Do you know anyone who isn't a besides you?"

"I can't afford therapy."

"I'm sure Abby would help."

"Is that a jab?"

"Does it feel like one?"

"Yes." After a long pause Vix said, "I'm sorry about your friend."

"Friends."

"Both of them?"

"I'd rather not discuss it. My shrink is helping me understand that my involvement was inappropriate. In my quest for family I mistook them for a Oh, what's the difference? Remember when John Lennon was killed? Remember how Lamb fell apart?"

"Not really."

"Well, he did. Flying me in from New Mexico so I could keep the midnight vigil with him. Also inappropriate, in case you're wondering."

"Are you sure your shrink is a qualified?"

"Can anyone ever be sure? It depends on the results, doesn't it?"

"I guess a" Another long pause then Vix said, "I thought you were in Mexico, at a monastery. Why didn't you let me know you were on the Vineyard?"

"You sound angry. Are you angry?"

"Why would I be angry?"

"You tell me. I mean, last I heard you had no interest in living on the Vineyard."

"Neither did you a you haven't set foot on it since you were a"

"Seventeen," Caitlin said.

Vix couldn't ask any of the questions running through her head. Have you seen him? Is he going with anyone? Does he ask about me? "So a have you seen Von?"

Caitlin laughed. She knew d.a.m.n well what Vix was really asking. "Of course. Von and his ridiculous wife. And Bru and Trisha and everyone else. I haven't turned into a hermit. I'm just taking a break a a reality check kind of thing." She paused, then said, "I'm sorry about your father."

"He should be okay."

"I'm glad."

"He's got a a friend," Vix told her. "Frankie. She calls him Chick Pea."

"Oh G.o.d a" They both laughed. "I miss you, Vix."

"I miss you, too. Come to New York for a weekend."

"You come up here."

"I don't think so. Not now."

"Maybe over the summer?"

"Maybe."

41.

THE NEXT TIME they talked it was late June. Caitlin called Vix at the office. "You have to come up." She was using her breathy princess voice, the one she'd picked up in Europe, halfway between Jackie O's and Princess Di's. "I'm getting married at Lamb's house."

"Married?"

"Yes. And you have to be my Maid of Honor. It's only appropriate, don't you think?"

"I guess that depends on who you're marrying."

"Bru," Caitlin answered, and suddenly she sounded like herself again. "I'm marrying Bru. I thought you knew."

Vix forced herself to swallow, to breathe, but she felt clammy and weak anyway. She grabbed the cold can of diet c.o.ke from the corner of her desk and held it against her forehead, then moved it to her neck, as she jotted down the date and time of the wedding. She doodled all around it while Caitlin chatted, until the whole page was filled with arrows, crescent moons, and triangles, as if she were back in sixth grade.

"Vix?" Caitlin said. "Are you still there? Do we have a bad connection or what?"

"No, it's okay."

"So you'll come?"

"Yes." The second she hung up she made a mad dash for the women's room where she puked her guts out in the stall. She had to call Caitlin back, tell her there was no way she could do this. What could Caitlin be thinking? What was she thinking when she agreed?

When she came out her boss, Angela, was leaning over the sink taking out her contacts. Vix splashed her face with cold water and rinsed out her mouth. "Victoria a" Angela began, squinting at her. "You look terrible. You're not coming down with that bug, are you?"

"I don't know a maybe."

"Go home," Angela said, "before you infect the whole office."

She staggered home in the record heat. Her Bag Lady was singing, I am woman, hear me roar a She stuck her paper cup in Vix's face but Vix brushed it away and the coins scattered on the sidewalk. "b.i.t.c.h a" she called after Vix.

"I give you money every day," Vix shouted, "so watch who you're calling a b.i.t.c.h!" The Bag Lady gave her the finger as someone else stopped to help retrieve her coins.

Hours later, Maia and Paisley found Vix sitting on the floor of the apartment. She was surrounded by photo alb.u.ms and piles of loose pictures, wearing only a tank top and Calvin briefs. The fan was turned to high but it pointed away from her to keep the photos from blowing. Pat Benatar was singing on the CD. Heartbreaker a love taker a "What?" Maia asked.

"She's marrying Bru," Vix said.

"Who's marrying Bru?"

"Caitlin."

"Jesus!"

"She wants me to be her Maid of Honor."

Paisley and Maia looked at one another. "She can't be serious," Maia said.

"She's serious," Vix told them.

Paisley said, "I think I'll send out for Thai." She searched for the phone, finding it in the basket where they ripened their bananas.

When the food arrived they sat around the coffee table, all three of them stripped down to their underwear with their hair pinned up. "Can I speak frankly?" Maia asked, munching on a spring roll.

"Please a" Paisley said.

But Maia was waiting to hear from Vix. "Go ahead," Vix told her, knowing what was coming.

"It's time for you to get over him, Victoria. Once and for all."

"I thought I was supposed to get over her."

"Him, her a get over the whole mess."

Vix dug her chopsticks into the pad Thai.

Maia took this as permission to continue. "And for G.o.d's sake, call her up and tell her you're not coming to the wedding. You have other plans. You're a I don't know a going to Hawaii with some gorgeous guy. And the next time she decides to get married and wants you for her Maid of Honor she should give you more notice."

Vix kept on eating, sampling the curried vegetables, then the pineapple shrimp.

"You're not thirteen anymore," Maia said, growing frustrated. "She has no power over you. And I just don't see the point in all a this." She pointed to the alb.u.ms, the loose photos. "In surrounding yourself with these a memories."

Paisley touched Maia's arm. "Look a" she said, "being a member of the wedding party could be therapeutic for Victoria. It could offer closure a you know?"

"What closure?" Maia asked. "It'll just mean more photo ops, more heartache." She shook her head at Vix.