"And maybe a third time?"

He shrugged.

I said, "You managed to keep Mom up-to-date."

"I was right there," my mother said. "He probably thought I was going to give you the message, and I thought he was."

I said I was shocked. My own parents. Richard Nixon was one thing, but I never thought I'd see- "Don't get on your high horse because of a secretarial slipup," my mother said.

"You lied! You purposely withheld information from me, and G.o.d only knows how many pieces of mail you intercepted."

"We don't like them," my father growled. "We don't like the parents and we don't like the sons."

"Eddie, please," said my mother, taking over. "Natalie, you too. Look, there's no harm done. You didn't get the messages. When your friend didn't hear from you, he wrote."

I flopped onto the couch and said, "I should have known I was too old to live at home."

"Old?" my father railed. "Old? I lived at home until I got married."

"So did I," my mother said.

I said what we didn't say in my house-"Yeah, until you had to get married."

"Natalie!" my father cried.

I said, "I'm moving out."

"Don't scratch," my mother said. "Your palms are going to be raw."

"Where will you go?" my father asked.

"I'll rent a room."

"When?"

"As soon as I find one."

"And pay for it how?" my mother asked.

"You paid for it. Audrey Marx Properties financed it. I saved every cent for a rainy day." I found my wallet, stuck the postcard in among the dollar bills, and walked to the front door.

"It's cold out there," my mother said.

I said I'd live; I'd be warm enough in the phone booth.

"Do you want the real estate page?" my mother asked.

I said, "You really think that? After all this, you think that's who I'm going to call?"

They didn't argue and they didn't say good-bye. I tugged my parka off its hanger and walked out the door.

"She can't call from here?" I heard my father say.

I could see lights on in every kitchen window on Irving Circle, and Mrs. Iacovello squinting into the dark on her neighborhood watch. When I reached my destination I remembered: It was from this spot by Purity Supreme's Goodwill collection box that I had phoned the fearsome Ingrid Berry on a cold winter's night twelve years before, without permission, coins clanging, mouth dry.

I dialed the number. When she answered, I asked for Kris.

"Is this Natalie?"

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Berry."

"We were just talking about you today."

I waited, expecting what I got-a reference that was neither interesting nor flattering.

"Gretel and I were talking about that cake you made Kris for his birthday. Is that from one of our cookbooks?"

I said no, it was my recipe.

She asked if I shared recipes.

I said, "Look up any recipe for a chocolate ganache, and make a b.u.t.ter-cream frosting with a ripe banana mixed in."

"Ganache?" she repeated.

I spelled it, then asked if Kris was there.

She said, "I don't believe he is."

I waited a beat and asked how Nelson was doing.

"Nelson's in Rhode Island," his mother said. "He went back to school the Monday after New Year's."

I said I hoped he was doing okay. Please give him my regards. In the meantime, I was returning Kris's calls. Was there a better time to reach him?

Ingrid said it was hard to say. Tonight he was out with a friend. Tomorrow ... something about an outing.

"Will you tell him I called?"

She didn't answer. I asked if she was still there.

"I probably shouldn't say anything," she began, but stopped. Her voice thawed slightly. "I don't want him getting hurt. That's all I wanted to say. I don't need another heartbroken child on my hands."

I must have answered, but all I've retained is a mental snapshot of that moment-me, stunned, at Purity Supreme, wondering if I had just heard Ingrid Berry asking a Marx for mercy.

SIXTEEN.

I took the long route home and, in the manner of distressed daughters, went directly and noisily to my room. In minutes, there was a repentant knock on my door, my mother asking if we could talk.

I said, facedown on top of my taffeta comforter, I knew what she was going to say: " 'Your father and I want what's best for you. If we acted like Watergate conspirators-' "

"Natty, I never said you should live at home until you're married," she answered, conveniently off the mark. "That's what my generation did. You're not the kind of girl who wants to work in her mother's office all day and go home to her parents' house at night."

I got up and opened the door to find her holding a plate with a fried-egg sandwich on it. The egg had cooked up with lacy gold edges, and my mother had put it on toasted pumpernickel. As she pushed it toward me, chest-high, I could smell the white pepper.

I said, "You think this is all it takes? Room service?"

She asked what I was planning to do.

I said I didn't know yet, but there had been a serious infraction, the kind that caused permanent ruptures in a family. I said, "Not that I have anything like this in mind, but remember Linda Donabedian?"

My mother nodded.

"She eloped with that marine her father tried to run over."

My mother said that was true, but Linda Donabedian was a tart and a meshugene. I'd never run away with a boy I hardly knew.

I said I would have liked to have talked to Kris; that's all. Things were left awkward after the funeral, after he had been my chief ally at the Inn, and a very sweet one at that. I should have called him, because I was the one who left without saying a real good-bye. Had they considered his feelings for one second? Call after call after call into a void?

Still, she didn't take up the subject. Instead she asked, "What about an apartment? Do you want my help?"

I said, No, I'd find my own.

"Would you let Pammy help?"

I said, No, no Audrey Marx a.s.sociate.

She took a step inside and closed the door. "What if I had a perfect listing?"

I sat down at my childhood desk and ate half the sandwich without comment.

"Does it need salt?"

I said, "No ... what listing?"

"It's not a legal apartment-"

"Oh, great."

"That's the landlord's problem, not the tenant's. It's the third floor of a Victorian in Newton Highlands. It's only illegal because it doesn't have a separate exit, which is no big deal-you come down a back staircase and out through a back door. I don't even advertise it. Strictly word-of-mouth."

"How much?"

She whispered, "A hundred seventy-five a month, utilities included. Brand-new appliances."

I said I couldn't hear her.

She c.o.c.ked her head in the direction of the door.

"Dad cares if you list illegal apartments?"

She shook her head.

"Dad doesn't want you aiding and abetting me?"

She said, "He thinks it'll take a good long while to find you something in your price range."

"So I'd give up and stay here?"

My mother smiled. "He'll adjust."

"What about the landlord?"

"Saul Zinler."

"A good guy?"

"It won't matter. He's never there. They're off," she said, flipping her hand toward my window and the wider world.

"Who's 'they'?"

"Saul and his girlfriend."

"Girlfriend? How old is this guy?"

"Late sixties, retired."

"And what's her story?"

"She's got money. And grown kids."

I chewed and swallowed the last bite of sandwich. "Sounds too good to be true."

My mother beamed. "I was saving it for the right tenant."

"You mean me?"

"I knew when you found a job, you'd want to be on your own. Besides, with you coming in late and Daddy leaving at the crack of dawn, no one here would get any sleep."

I opened my desk drawer and took out my savings pa.s.sbook. Even if Chez Simone didn't open on schedule, I'd get by on my graduation checks and real estate wages. I asked how soon I could get into the place.