"And he likes her?"

"Sure." He smiled, which I took to mean, I know that's how you women view these things, that Nelson should be a little bit in love before he finds solace in Linette Feldman. My own reading brought on a new, troubling thought: that Nelson, under the easy-Jewish-girl doctrine, was going to the Catskills for a nonbinding fling.

I asked, "Is he ready to start dating again?"

"It's crossed my mind."

"Do you think it's crossed his?"

Kris said, "He'd never talk about another woman right now. We didn't discuss it in any detail except to say, 'I'll try to get Natalie to come. You and Linette can catch up.' "

"And that felt okay to him?"

"Guys don't discuss things," Kris said.

From Mr. Zinler's phone I called Hilda Simone to reschedule, and the Halcyon for particulars. "I'll give you Reservations," said the hotel operator. A new voice said, "This is Honey. May I help you?" Absolutely, she crowed. Rooms galore. When was I thinking of?

"Tonight."

"We have a three-day March Doldrums Weekend package."

I said, "Can we take it one night at a time?"

"You can't not love it here," she said. "I guarantee you'll be signing up for more."

I asked what their rates were.

"Forty-two to fifty-nine dollars a person, double occupancy."

I asked, "Do any rooms have two beds?"

"You name it, we've got it!"

I said, All right, we'd do that, the forty-two-dollar room, please. What did that include?

"Three delicious meals," said Honey. "Name?"

"Marx."

Kris had drifted back from studying my landlord's microwave oven, first on the block, and was paying careful attention.

"Mr. and Mrs.?" asked Honey.

Kris nodded to my raised eyebrows, not knowing what the question was. "Sure," I said.

"Have you been here before?"

I said no, and asked for directions from Boston, which she rattled off as if she commuted daily.

I put my hand over the receiver and said, "It takes four to four and a half hours."

Kris shrugged.

"We dress for dinner," Honey advised.

"Ties and jackets?"

"It's what we ask for, but truthfully? The maitre d' can give your husband a tie. It happens all the time."

"He might need one," I said. "Thanks. We'll see you soon."

"You're all set, darling," said Honey. "You won't be sorry."

I packed a black dress, a purple dress, and a red flannel nightgown for sleeping one bed away from a man I'd still not kissed. Kris watched me from the Murphy bed, which he had pulled down, pushed back, and pulled down again as if a.n.a.lyzing its physics; watched me fold my nightgown, my chin anchoring it to my chest. When I looked up from the task, he was smiling.

"What?" I asked.

"Your nightgown. Good and st.u.r.dy."

"I froze at your hotel," I said. I packed my brown terry-cloth robe, a bulky sweater, a skirt, jeans, two turtleneck jerseys, and a half-dozen pairs of underwear in my overnight bag, having vowed during my Christmas vigil to overpack for all future trips.

"Toothbrush, toothpaste, all that stuff?" he asked.

"Got it. What about you?"

"Shaving kit's in the car."

He lifted my bulging bag like the experienced bellboy he was and asked if I could manage the rest. I said this was it, more or less. Just a pocketbook-I didn't say it was valise-size, with sh.e.l.ls glued on straw, a gift I'd never used from my Florida grandmother; I'd be right behind him in a sec. When he was out the door, I looked around and tried to conjure up the sorriest hours in my Lake Devine garret. I added a paperback novel, my tube of ointment, a can of sour drops, my only lace bikini underpants, my purse-size vial of Je Reviens, and a pair of rag-wool socks.

Kris was gunning the blue VW Lake Devine bus. I walked to the pa.s.senger door and climbed in, squashing my straw bag to fit around my feet.

"Got everything?" he asked wryly.

I said, "We'll find out," adding, "Can't be too different from the Inn at Lake Devine, right?"

He glanced over, then returned his eyes to the rearview mirror. "Was that a trick question?"

I said, "More like a joke."

"The joke being?"

"The joke is that nothing could be further from the Inn at Lake Devine than a place in the Catskills owned by the Feldman family."

He made a strangled sound. "Do you think there are any other subjects two people can discuss besides you're Jewish and I'm not?"

I said, "Apparently not."

"And why is that?"

I said, after searching for a weighty enough phrase, "Because of your family's civil rights record."

He finally backed down the driveway and braked at the end. "Oh yeah?" he replied, smiling. "Would you care to be more specific?"

I said, "The one outlined in a 1962 letter, signed by Ingrid Berry, saying, 'Gentiles only.' "

He turned, startled.

I said, "I didn't think you knew."

"Your parents told you this?"

I said I had seen the letter with my own eyes, and it was unmistakable-the green sketch on the pebbly white stationery. I asked him the question I had asked myself several times over Christmas with each kind and enfolding act performed by a Berry son. "Even if you had seen that letter, would it have meant anything? As a kid, would you have known what Gentile meant?"

He stared straight ahead and said, almost inaudibly, "I don't know."

I said, "C'mon. You wouldn't have known. Let's get going."

He said, "You came with the Fifes, even after getting a letter like that?"

"I had to see it for myself."

He backed the bus into the street, now swearing softly.

I asked after a few blocks, "Did you ever see the movie t.i.tanic?"

Kris said no.

"Clifton Webb plays this rich guy who can't get a ticket because they're booked solid. He goes over to a line of immigrants waiting to board, flashes his wallet, and offers one guy a fortune to take his place in steerage. The guy says to his wife in broken English, 'I take another boat. I meet you in America.' As soon as they're on open water, Clifton Webb comes upstairs, easy as you please. A steward says, 'You're not allowed up here,' and Clifton Webb, in these beautiful clothes, says regally, 'I'll try to behave myself,' and walks right past him."

"Did he get caught?" Kris asked.

"Of course not. He was this upper-crust guy married to Barbara Stanwyck and she had a stateroom, so he was all set."

"Until they hit the iceberg."

"True. But the part that stayed with me was his gliding up the stairs and past the rope barrier, and how cool he was."

Kris said, "So?"

"I wanted to see what went on at a place that didn't let Jews in." I motioned go; the light had turned green.

He drove absentmindedly, creeping, then speeding. I asked if he wanted me to drive, and he said, "No. Sorry. Am I doing that badly?"

I read the next three steps from Honey's directions in Honey's voice, concluding with, "You're all set, dawling."

Kris smiled gratefully. Thinking we had moved on, he said, "We should be there by five-thirty."

Another minute went by before I asked, "In all these years, you never noticed there weren't any Jews at your hotel?"

Kris said, "I didn't! I'm sorry, but I didn't know. Unlike you, I don't know what religion people are from fifty yards away. I'll take full responsibility for the letter, okay? You can sue me as soon as we get to the Catskills."

"I don't blame you," I said. "I don't even blame your father. He was unbelievably kind to me when I was there."

"Just my mother."

"She sent the letter. I'm a.s.suming she wrote it and meant it."

Kris said, "She never talked about it."

"You never heard your mother say anything anti-Semitic?"

"Look," said Kris. "I've heard stuff from people that would make you sick, stuff they say when they a.s.sume there're no Jews around. Which happens to be the case pretty much of the time in Gilbert, Vermont. My mother has said a lot of things that I wouldn't care to repeat, not all of them anti-Semitic."

I tried to cajole some offensive phrases out of him, but he wouldn't budge. He turned on the radio and drummed on the steering wheel to tune me out. After a few minutes I said, "Ma.s.s Pike coming up."

"You haven't changed your mind about this weekend? Even though we've been fighting since the second I arrived?"

"Fighting?" I said. "This isn't fighting. This is a stimulating discussion."

He swore softly, and for a moment I thought it was road-related-trouble merging into the right-hand lane. I checked over my right shoulder, and heard him ask, "Then why do I feel like son of Hitler?"

"Hardly," I scoffed, Miss Magnanimous. "I told you I'm not blaming you for what your mother says or does. I can differentiate."

He made the turn off Route 128, then said, " 'Not blaming you' is like a million miles from what I was hoping to accomplish by coming down here, Natalie. I wasn't looking for clearance on being a bigot."

It was, I knew, another declaration. As we pulled up to the tollbooth I put my rashy left hand on his. He must have been waiting for the first sign of affection or conciliation, because it was then, with the window open and the turnpike employee holding out our ticket, that Kris said, "Natalie, what if I'm in love with you?"

"With me?" I said. "Really?"

The car behind us honked. I barked, "Boston driver!"

"Ticket," said the toll taker.

"I'm waiting for directions," Kris told him, taking the ticket, and to me: "Something concrete. Something that would rea.s.sure a guy in agony."

I said, "Go. It's okay. I mean, how can I think with this racket behind us?"

The bus bucked and almost stalled coming out of neutral, but it recovered and we were off.

EIGHTEEN.