"Of course!"

"In a long-distance kind of way?"

"That can't be helped."

"How often do you talk to him?"

"Often," she murmured.

I asked, "Did you have a boyfriend before Joel, in college?"

"Sure."

"Not Nelson, though."

She'd been losing interest, glancing at pink phone slips on her desk, but I had brought her back. "You know what this is all about? You're anxious about Nelson-maybe about his making the drive, or about his state of mind-and you're displacing that anxiety by asking me weird questions. But coming here is just what he needs-to have a little ... well, fun is too strong a word after what he's been through; maybe change of scenery. That's all-a little swim, a little shvitz, a little bingo. We'll wine him and dine him and maybe even get him on the dance floor by Sat.u.r.day night-why shouldn't he?-and he'll fall into bed exhausted."

"Maybe," I said.

"He used to love to dance."

I asked if rabbis danced.

"Some do. Some even dance with women." She shimmied her chair forward, so that her rib cage was pressed against the edge of her desk, and asked me solemnly, "Are your parents frum?"

"Are they from where?"

"Frum. Religious."

"Oh," I said. "In their own way. Why?"

"You're seeing Kris."

I tried to reconstruct his graceful answer of the night before. "On one hand, they did what they could to derail things," I said. "On the other hand, they don't even know about him."

"Would your parents disown you if you ended up together?" she asked, another of what I was coming to recognize as her trademark intense yet premature questions.

I said, "This is the nineteen seventies. Priests marry nuns. Heiresses marry their tutors. My sister married Danny O'Connor."

"Did he convert?"

"Hardly. They were married in the biggest Catholic church in Newton."

"Wow," she said. "Did your parents go?"

I cheated, editing out the months of railing. "They went, and they walked her down the aisle."

"Wow," she said again. She picked up the phone suddenly and dialed three numbers. "I'm calling our captain," she confided, as if we'd never strayed from the subject of my cooking career. "Would you like the tour now?"

I said, "Sure."

"Kris too?"

"Maybe. He was playing Pong in the game room last time I saw him."

A voice crackled on the line. "Arn? Linette. I'm sending a guest for a tour"-she winked at me-"the insider's tour. She's a chef in Boston ... thanks ... as soon as she can walk from here to there." She hung up and said, "It's huge, two floors, a butcher shop, a bakery. We bake all our own bread and pastries."

I said, "Great. Will I see you later?"

Linette began collecting the pink telephone slips again, effectively dismissing me. "We have Shabbat dinner at home. I'd invite Nelson to join us, but I think he'd be more comfortable with you and Kris. And my father would ask him a thousand questions."

"Which is the last thing he needs," I said.

"I'll sneak over at some point, just to say h.e.l.lo." And repeating the morning's watchword: "We'll ease him in."

Kris wasn't playing bingo or billiards, pinball or Pong; nor was he swimming in the indoor pool. I called the room and our line was busy, so I went upstairs. He was off the phone by the time I got there, looking preoccupied, as if he would pace the room if only there were floor s.p.a.ce. He had been trying to reach Nelson at school, he said, but had missed him. The secretary told Kris that his brother had cut out after sixth period-with full permission, of course. Any time Mr. Berry needed off was fine with the office, she told him. They were very, very fond of him and they all felt just sick about his fiancee.

"Why were you trying to reach Nelson?" I asked.

He went into the bathroom, shut the door, peed, flushed. "It'll be fine, don't you think?" he called over running water.

"What will?"

He opened the door. "The weekend."

"Why were you calling him at school?"

He answered, sounding surprised that it wasn't obvious: "Linette."

"What about her?"

Kris said, "Maybe, when she invited him, Nelson got the idea that her situation was different than it is."

"Do you know for a fact that she didn't tell him she was engaged?"

"I know for a fact," he said.

We met him on the front steps, where we had begun our vigil at six P.M. Kris greeted Nelson as soon as the car door opened by saying, "Velcome to the Ketskills."

Nelson, in a tweed jacket and khakis, put his arm around Kris's neck, feigning brotherly love, but dragging him down to perform a hard noogy. Kris's m.u.f.fled cry of "It's Shabbat, a.s.shole" got him released.

"Hi, Natalie," said Nelson, kissing me on the cheek. "You and my brother back on speaking terms?"

I said, "We're the mascots of the Halseeyon. Everybody clucks when we walk by."

"Dinner's in, like, sixty seconds," Kris said, taking his brother's garment bag.

"Let me check in," said Nelson.

The subst.i.tute Sabbath clerk, a Mr. Spinney, greeted us solemnly. He said, all modulated tones, "Mr. Berry will be staying in Sunset Cottage."

"Where's that?" Kris asked.

"It's one of our outbuildings."

"The barracks," I explained.

"As a guest of the family," said the clerk.

"Is Miss Feldman around?" Nelson asked him.

"Not Friday evenings," he said. "It's their Sabbath."

"Did she leave me a message?"

The clerk made a cursory check of a few spots where a rare message might be left for an occupant of the barracks.

I volunteered that Linette had to eat with her parents, apparently in private.

Kris said, "Aren't there any rooms in the main building?"

The clerk said blandly, "Miss Feldman left instructions for Sunset Cottage."

"Is it even open this time of year?" I asked.

He smiled superciliously. "We have keys."

"Is it heated?"

"Of course. And there's an underground pa.s.sageway so Mr. Berry can get there without going outdoors."

Nelson said, "Never mind. I'm sure it's fine." And to Kris, "Can't be any worse than the bunks at home."

Nelson smiled as he accepted the key being dangled in front of him. "I stayed there once, years ago," he told the clerk.

"Enjoy your stay," said the clerk.

"I think I might," said Nelson.

TWENTY-ONE.

The Mizitskys and the Seidlers had been replaced by two pious brothers in matching eyegla.s.ses, Avi and Ira Lupow, who seemed mortified to have an unmarried woman and two sheygetses without yarmulkes at their Shabbat table.

"What brings you to the mountains?" Kris asked the brothers, who were low over their soup and not noting our arrival.

A minute later, Nelson tried, "Good soup?"

They looked up, puzzled.

Kris asked, "Do you speak English?"

One of them said, "Yuh."

Kris asked where they were from and was told, "West Hartford."

"I'm from Vermont," said Kris. "My brother teaches in Rhode Island, and Miss Marx here is from outside Boston."

Nelson whipped his napkin into place, picked up his soup spoon, and said, "You guys can clear something up for me, which is essentially this: If you live in Connecticut, what team do you follow-the Sox or the Mets?"

The brothers recoiled. "We're Yankee fans," they sputtered, spoons abandoned at the bottom of their bowls. "New York Yankees."

"Both of you?" Nelson asked.

The brothers nodded vehemently.

"And is that because you think they're a better team than, say, the Sox? With better pitching?"

We were off and running, through the fish course, the fowl course, the brisket-and-potato course, the honey-cake-and-compote course, and blessings over each. My role was limited conversationally by the Lupow brothers' pretending I wasn't there. I addressed my baseball remarks, such as they were, to Kris or Nelson.

A good hour later, over tea, Nelson returned to his opening gambit: "What brought you two to the mountains in March?"

"A reunion," they said.

"Really!" said Nelson. "Of what?"

"Our summer camp."

"On Shabbat?" I asked.

Ira and Avi both regarded me as glumly as they could without making eye contact. One tore a piece of challah from the centerpiece and chewed it with what looked like disgust.

"Not everyone attending is as observant as you are," I interpreted, "but you wanted to come anyway, and it was okay because it's a kosher resort so you knew you could keep the Sabbath?"

"Yes," one of them hissed.

Kris asked, "So, are you two kosher and all that, like, all the time?"

Nelson said, "I think we can a.s.sume so."

"What's on tap, reunion-wise?" Kris asked.