"No problem," said Linette, taking the empty chair between Nelson and his mother. "Good morning," she said to him. "Sleep okay?"

"Off and on," he said.

I sat down between Kris and Mr. Berry, and touched Kris's knee underneath the table, which elicited only a blink.

Linette consulted the chalkboard, then asked Ingrid if everything was cooked on the same grill.

Ingrid said, "I don't understand."

"Like, eggs and home fries and pancakes with the bacon?"

"Oh," said Ingrid. "I see what you mean."

"Yes," I said. "They are."

"You can make a special request," said Ingrid. "Or you could ask for your eggs poached or boiled in the sh.e.l.l."

"We're very accommodating," added Kris, still unsmiling.

I a.s.sumed Ingrid had asked who had slept where and that Kris had refused to sugarcoat his answer. We drank coffee and worked at our grapefruit halves; didn't speak, except to note that eight inches of snow had fallen on Mount Mansfield-too bad the trails around Gilbert got only rain.

My eggs, ordered over-easy, arrived with hard yolks and a scoop of cottage potatoes. "They can redo the eggs," Kris offered, but I demurred.

"Is everything okay?" Linette finally asked the silent table.

The boys looked to the issuer of the gag order.

"Mother," said Mr. Berry. "Don't you think we can talk freely in front of these girls?"

Ingrid, furious, bounced a triangle of toast back to her plate, the worst display of temper I had seen since she caught me in the kitchen about to kiss her son. She shot up, knocking her chair back on one leg, which Nelson caught and righted, but not before his mother rushed away.

Guests looked over, then away. Mr. Berry said softly to me and Linette, "It's not your visit. Please believe me. She has a lot on her mind."

Nelson finally spoke, impatiently, and with an economy of style no doubt polished in parent-teacher conferences.

"Gretel's pregnant," he said.

I looked to Kris for confirmation. He nodded.

"She'll be getting married, of course," said Mr. Berry.

"When?" I asked.

"As soon as possible," said Kris. "The baby's due in September."

"How old is Gretel?" Linette asked.

"Twenty," I said.

"Nineteen," said Nelson.

"Nineteen can work out," I said. "My mother was nineteen."

"It's going to be a small affair," said Mr. Berry, "but even so ..."

"Who's the father?" asked Linette.

"A nice boy," allowed Mr. Berry. "From a good family."

"He's a jerk," Kris burst out. "A zero."

"Why do you say that?" asked Mr. Berry.

"It's Chip Fife," said Nelson.

I told Linette the whole distasteful story-the midnight rendezvous at the end of my bed, the Grecian G.o.ddess getup, the fact that I had offended Gretel when I'd asked if she was using birth control. I was secretly delighted that she'd been caught in her solace-and-companionship lie, but couldn't voice my satisfaction in front of the family. The news depressed Kris for several reasons, beginning with his antipathy for the groom-apparently lean, tall Chip had been the worst guest tormentor during Kris's fat phase-and ending, simply, with Gretel, who for all her failings and airs, was still his baby sister.

Nelson was also dismayed, but for a reason more internal than brotherly: The Fifes would forever be the grandparents of his niece or nephew, hovering on the edges of his life.

"Mekhutonim after all," Kris confirmed joylessly.

"Why so glum?" Linette asked the boys. We had the meeting room to ourselves, along with a bottle of scotch that Kris had smuggled from the bar. Linette was marching in place and doing jumping jacks, her daily routine, in a raggedy warm-up outfit. "Sounds to me like Gretel got exactly what she wanted."

Oh yeah? they said. Chip Fife? That upstanding citizen? Like she knows how many girls he tried to screw in our boathouse?

"Don't all guys do that?" asked Linette. "Didn't you guys?"

"Here?" said Nelson.

"Us?" said Kris.

"They're being protective," I explained to Linette. "We don't know about this because we don't have brothers."

"I can't handle the Fifes," said Nelson. "Especially here, for a wedding."

"Maybe they'll elope," said Linette.

"Gretel?" Kris said. "Who still plays with her bride dolls?"

"He's right," said Nelson. "She'll want an extravaganza. And don't forget our mother will be taking great pains to disguise the fact that it's a shotgun wedding."

"Look," Linette said, now rubbing energetically between Nelson's shoulder blades. "You don't have to go to their stupid wedding and see the Fifes sobbing. Gretel's got another brother. Kris will go, right? And be an usher. And if anyone asks, he'll say, 'Well, you understand. This is a little rough on Nelson.' "

I couldn't help myself. I added, " 'He's very sensitive about mourners f.u.c.king in the back of the church during a funeral.' "

Linette looked at me, bit her lip. We all looked at Nelson. There was a shine to his eyes that could have gone either way, and some indecipherable emotion pulled at the corners of his mouth.

We stared, poised to do what we had to do. One choked note escaped.

"Go ahead, Jack," Kris said gently. "Laugh."

Linette and I went down to the water alone and sat on the bird-stained dock in bleached canvas chairs. The morning rain had stopped, but a mist had settled between the mountains and us, obscuring views of anything except the sh.o.r.e. Linette said she was leaving; she didn't think it was right to stay at a once-restricted hotel and break bread with the chief offender, no matter what our being there said about her change in policy.

I asked, "What difference would leaving make? She'll never draw the inference that your leaving is a protest."

"She'll draw the inference just fine if I spell it out for her."

I told her I'd been coming here ever since I knew it existed, first in my imagination and eventually in the flesh. I said, "I guess I'm of the temperament that it's better to muscle my way to the lunch counter than stage a silent walkout."

"You're of the temperament," she countered, "to forgive and forget."

I said, "I walked out once before, and it was a mistake."

"Because of Kris, you mean."

"I mean, what counts is between me and Kris, not me and Ingrid, not me and my parents."

"That's not true," she said. "It never was. And if you think it is ..." She shook her head-pity for my woeful misapprehension of history.

I waited a few beats; found moth-eaten mittens in Kris's borrowed parka and put them on. I moved my chair an inch closer to her and said, "Okay, hypothetically-and don't bulls.h.i.t me: Let's say you weren't engaged to Joel, or to anyone, but were a free woman. You're twenty-six years old. You meet a wonderful man and fall in love. He isn't Jewish. You keep it a secret as long as you can and then you tell your parents. What happens, after the obvious?"

"What happens? They go nuts. They wail, they call the rebbe. My father says he'll never be able to see me again; they'll have to cover the mirrors, tear their clothes, sit shiva, which must be why G.o.d gave him four daughters-so he'd have three left after I rip out his heart and spit into the chest cavity. Et cetera. My mother would drop dead, literally. She'd have nitroglycerine under her tongue right now if she knew what you were selling."

I asked what she thought I was selling besides freedom of a.s.sociation.

"A romance with your boyfriend's brother."

"Is that so far-fetched?"

"Has he said anything to you?"

"Nelson has the same response that you have to all of my theories: 'We're just friends.' "

"We are friends," she said softly. "That really is true."

I asked, after a careful silence, "How ill is your mother?"

"Very."

"And she wants to see you settled."

"What she wants," said Linette, "is to have one more production-one more champagne fountain and one more night with Peter Duchin's orchestra."

"Is that what you want?"

"I'm trying to decide."

I stood up and said, "I have to get something. Save my seat." I cut across the lawn to the kitchen entrance, retrieved the house keys from my room-still undisturbed by a chambermaid-and returned to the dock. The larger silver one, I explained, is for Mr. Zinler's back door and the bra.s.s one unlocks the room at the top of the stairs.

"What for?"

"More time. Another night."

Without the argument I expected, she took the keys. She stared straight ahead at the fogged-in sh.o.r.e, releasing and reclamping her largest barrette. "Single or double?" I heard her murmur.

"Double. A Murphy bed. There's clean sheets in a cardboard box somewhere."

She continued to stare in what I thought was uncharacteristic, dreamy fashion, until she asked, "Any off-street parking?"

I knew it was as near as she would come to confiding in me, so I said only, "Yes, plenty," swallowing my urge to advise that Providence, at sunup, would only take an hour.

"I'll probably rent a car after Nelson drops me off."

I added, "It's not just selfishness on my part. I'd be rooting for the rabbi if I thought you loved him."

Linette put the keys in her coat pocket. "You'll tell me how to get there," she said.

Before Nelson and Linette left, they walked over to the little white house to say good-bye. Still red-eyed from breakfast, Ingrid delivered something like a speech, which Linette thought had the sons' fingerprints all over it. "I hope you know that I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings," Ingrid began.

"Do you mean me in particular," Linette cut in, "or Jews in general? Because you didn't hurt my feelings. On the other hand, I can't speak for all the Cohens and Goldbergs you turned away."

Ingrid appealed to Nelson, a look that said, There's no delicacy left in this world. What purpose has this served other than to humiliate me once again? Now you fix it.

When he only stared back, she said rotely, "I appreciate your being such a good friend to Nelson. You're always welcome at the Inn. All of my children's friends are. Anyone who wants to stay here is."

"Just like you're always welcome at our little kokh-aleyn in the mountains"-Linette threw back without translation.

"Things will work out for Gretel," Linette continued cheerfully. "She obviously loves this guy, right? Even if he is a jerk. And a baby is good for a hotel."

Nelson picked up their suitcases and led the way gingerly to the door.

"You'll be back for the wedding," his mother said.

"Don't ask me to," he replied.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Because it was Mr. Berry and not Ingrid who introduced me in the kitchen as Kris's little friend who had some ideas about pepping up the menu, Mrs. Crowley barely looked up. She went about her business, grating cheese for the next day's Welsh rarebit and reconst.i.tuting various powders into liquids. "Ever make cakes from scratch?" I asked, as if it were a new trend I'd read about. "Ever try mixing a good oil and a nice vinegar for a salad dressing? I could whisk up a couple of quarts and leave them with you."

Kris pa.s.sed through the kitchen every few minutes as he unpacked a liquor delivery, and asked if we two chefs were having a nice time.