Probation world ran on coffee and donuts.

In my office, I dialed the phone as I crammed a brownie in my mouth. Early lunch.

"Was Lulu really mad at me?" I asked when I heard Drew's voice.

"She was p.i.s.sed, but it's not terminal."

"What'd she do with the box?"

I heard him taking his measured Nebraska breaths.

"Come on, I can take it. Did she slam it? Throw it? Hide it under the bed?"

"She took it to work."

"Took it to work?" I tried to imagine this, my sister putting the box in her briefcase and carrying it to the car. Why? To hold her stethoscope?

"I think she just wanted it out of the house and didn't know what else to do. You know Lulu, out of sight, et cetera. Got to go. I have a project I need to finish before the girls come home."

"Wait," I said. "Are you still mad at Lulu?"

"I guess maybe that's none of your business. Do you want to know if I'm still mad at you?"

"What did I do?"

"Talked me into trying once more," he said.

I picked up yesterday's coffee, which looked okay enough to drink, and took a sip of the cold, bitter stuff. "It's not like I held a gun to your head. It's about your kids, right?"

"No. I think it's about you two. You just keep convincing me otherwise. Let me know how the date goes. Act nice."

"What kind of doctor is he? I forgot."

His sigh was loud enough to cover the midwestern plains. "An ophthalmologist. I told you."

"I forgot. Sue me."

I hung up thinking I'd take the d.a.m.n box back and put it right in the middle of my d.a.m.n coffee table, forcing my sister to see it every d.a.m.n time she came up the d.a.m.n stairs. Then I'd give Drew and Lulu a trip to a therapist for their anniversary. A headache sprouted up, and I popped two Advil, washing them down with the dregs of yesterday's coffee.

"Ms. Zach?" Jesse poked his head in the door, tapping the oversize gold watch on his scrawny wrist to indicate how on time he was. "Surprised?"

He dropped into the chair in front of my desk. At five nine, wiry thin with square black gla.s.ses and a child star grin, Jesse wasn't a young man you pictured leaving someone beaten half to death. In this case, the victim had slept with Jesse's girlfriend, and Jesse, smack in the middle of a vodka-aided rage, saw no way out other than obliterating the compet.i.tion.

"Yo, aren't you going to give me a big pat on the back?" His eyebrows went up in a gesture of huh, huh, ya love me, huh?

"Yo? Have I entered the realm of homeboy for you?" I asked. "Kudos on being on time."

"Kudos?"

I picked up his folder, hmming and umming as I read a sheaf of pages. "Looks like you missed an entire week of AA."

"My moms was sick."

I frowned over the folder. "Your mother was sick last month."

"So she's sick again."

I picked up the report from his anger management counselor.

"How come you're not partic.i.p.ating in cla.s.ses?" I asked. "Your reports from DanGerUs No More"-G.o.d, I hated that name-"look not so good."

"Aw, they don't know nothing."

"Little partic.i.p.ation. Late. Seems uninvested," I read. "What's up?"

"I'm supposed to be invested in some a.s.sholes making us act out skits? d.a.m.n, Ms. Zach, how can I talk to a bunch of white guys pretending to be my boys?"

"It's called role-playing. It's meant to help you learn how to gain control over situations."

"I know that. You think I don't? Anyway, I have control over the situation, oh, yes I do." Jesse placed his hand on his hip as though to signify a gun.

"What? Are you trying to intimidate me, Jesse?" I put the folder down and laid my hands flat on the desk. "We've put in a lot of time. If you want to throw it all out, just say the word."

Jesse leaned back and stuck his legs out, pouting now like Ruby or Ca.s.sandra. "I hate them. They're always making us talk stupid s.h.i.t."

"What kind of stupid stuff?"

"Our mothers. Our fathers. Come at me correct. You think those people know what the h.e.l.l they're doing?"

"h.e.l.l?" I asked.

"You think they know what the heck they're doing?"

He took a pen off my desk and clicked it on and off. I grabbed it from him. "Jesse, you're ordered to the program-what I do or don't think about them doesn't mean anything. What matters is the judge seeing you do what you're supposed to do. What matters is staying sober. What matters most of all is getting your GED. None of which I see happening, do I?"

Jesse scuffed his untied sneakers on the floor.

"Tie your sneakers. When you come here, you look respectful. New probation rule-sneakers tied at all time. I see you walking anywhere around here with untied sneakers, you're going in front of Judge Jackson."

I breathed out my frustration while waiting for my next client. Frigging jerky kid, smart, funny, talented. His written work, the homework DanGerUs No More had sent, showed brilliant raw writing. He could go to college after he finished his GED, and then G.o.d knows what.

Most of all, I'd like to thank my probation officer, Ms. Zachariah. Without her, I'd be rotting in jail. This Oscar for best screenplay is as much for her as it is for me.

Finally home, getting ready for my date, I outlined my eyes with thick blue liner. Maybe it wasn't the most subtle choice, but I felt hot seeing cobalt r.i.m.m.i.n.g my dark eyes. I loved looking in the mirror. I could kiss myself when I looked this good.

Women aren't supposed to do that. We're supposed to be all oh, I'm too fat and no, really, look, my eyes are much too close together, but my looks were my only reliable source of comfort. I worried I'd already held on to them way past their sell-by date, worrying at my skin, my hair, my profile, poking at them like a kid with a half-shredded teddy bear. I'd end up one of those raddled old women walking around with licorice-colored hair and strawberry blush caked in my wrinkled cheeks.

The bell rang. The ophthalmologist. I picked up the gla.s.s of wine I'd balanced on the bathroom sink and finished the last sip. I shrugged a silky tank top over my head, carefully checked the neckline, and then pulled on my jeans. I turned sideways, looking to see if I could still get away without a bra.

Screw it. Why not let the ophthalmologist get a good look?

Between my house and the restaurant he'd chosen, I learned that Michael Epstein, Eye Doc, had an American flag plastered on the b.u.mper of his car, wore what appeared to be a ten-thousand-dollar suit, and probably believed invading anywhere would be justified in the name of protecting America and providing oil for his gas-guzzling Mercedes. Maybe he spoke to Drew's latent red-state values.

"After you," he said, holding the door open.

I gave a closemouthed smile, and he led me by the arm into the restaurant. A steak house; it seemed Michael was a Capital Grille man, Chestnut Hill branch-not even Newbury Street. G.o.d forbid you didn't eat your steak in a suburb. If I ever wrote The Dating Habits of American Men, I'd warn women that men who brought you to opulent steak houses on the first date had small p.e.n.i.ses, voted Republican, or both.

I enjoyed looking across the table and seeing Michael, however. Sometimes I craved a compact, tight body like his, although, being really a male version of mine, it made me slightly suspicious of myself when it turned me on. I preferred to think I liked that it was the opposite of Quinn's type. Opposite was a good thing; it would keep me from thinking about him. G.o.d willing, I'd be less likely to allow him those periodic visits, which began with exhilaration and ended with depression. Our last date, less a date than a double screw, had been months ago.

"So," Michael said, after the waiter had taken our order, "tell me about Merry Zachariah."

"Quick overview? I like walks on the beach, running with the wolves, and singing soprano at church suppers."

"That's funny, since your sister is Jewish." He looked me straight in the eye, and I noticed his were a kind brown. "Decided against me already?"

"Sorry." I lifted my shoulders in what I hoped was a cute gesture. I didn't want him going back and telling Drew and Lulu I'd been a b.i.t.c.h. I could hear my sister now. You don't even try. "My work makes me too sure of myself."

"Are you ever wrong?"

"Ask if I'm ever right." The waiter interrupted with our drinks, a martini for the doctor and wine for me. "Thanks." I picked up the gla.s.s and twirled the delicate stem, watching the burgundy liquid slosh. Then I saw my bitten-to-the-nub fingernails contrasted against the sparkling crystal and folded my fingers inward.

"The wine has nice legs." Michael nodded at my gla.s.s with a chuckle, though I didn't get the joke.

"Wine legs are funny?"

He took a sip of his martini and let out a long sigh of appreciation. "Ah. Perfect. So dry you could fold it."

I knew he thought the line clever and had used it before. A dating line. I had my own.

"Legs," he said. "The supposed mythical indicator of wine quality. You can tell someone is a wannabe when they try to evaluate wine that way, but it's just physics, the wine's surface tension and alcohol content. It's called the Marangoni effect, the fact that alcohol evaporates faster than water, but it's not about quality because . . ."

Because I don't give a f.u.c.k.

"I'm going on and on, right?"

I lifted my eyebrows.

He reached across the table and put a hand on my wrist. "Drew didn't tell me how lovely you are. You and Lulu don't even look like sisters. Not that your sister isn't attractive, it's just, well, you're so, you're sure both parents are the same, right? Oh, G.o.d, I'm so sorry."

He got a stricken look on his face, telling me Drew had told him the sad story of our car-wrecked parents. Poor little orphans. Men hardened just thinking about how they could rescue us.

"My sister is beautiful."

"Oh, she is, she is."

Liar, you don't think that at all.

"It's just that you're so, um, well, you're a knockout. Lulu's more PTA pretty."

I shook my head. Why did men think they'd impress me by making me a winner of some compet.i.tion they'd just announced? "Tell me about you," I said.

I woke with the Eye Doc's scent on my skin, a sweetened musk. I turned to the right to see the clock. Three A.M. He snored softly, lying on his back with his arms open to the world. Apparently, he didn't need to curl up in a fetal ball to sleep.

I put a soft finger on his shoulder. No response. I pressed in and wiggled back and forth.

"Mmm?" he mumbled.

"Michael?"

"Mmm?"

"Time to go."

He turned his head and looked at me, blinking, maybe trying to discover in whose bed he slept. Ah, yes, Drew Winterson's easy sister-in-law. The one he's probably trying to p.a.w.n off so she'll move out. Right. "You want me to leave?"

"Sort of."

"Are you kidding?"

Sure, I woke you up in the middle of the night to tell you to leave as a joke. "I can't sleep with someone I don't know."

"But you can have s.e.x with him?" He rolled onto his side, leaning his head in his left hand. He ran a finger down my bare arm and lifted the camisole strap, which had slipped off my shoulder. "I like you."

"You don't even know me." I sat up, tucking the sheet under my arms.

He reached out and touched the top of my scar, peeking out from my lacy top. I pulled away.

"How'd you get the mark?"

How many ways could you get a scar circling halfway around your breast? A scar that looked like someone had tried to lop your breast off.

"Knife fight as a kid."

"No kidding? Poor baby."

"The residential home we stayed in was pretty rough." Listen, Lulu had said when she invented this story for me, it could have happened. Think of what did happen to us in Duffy-Parkman. Yes, I could easily have gotten into a knife fight at Duffy.

"Why were you in a residential home?"

How much had Drew told him? Men didn't trade secrets between handball volleys. Especially silent Drew. Lulu? Probably not much. They were just co-workers. Doctors. They didn't share life stories between giving Pap smears and checking for macular degeneration.

"After our grandmother died, no one was left to care for us." I had it down to one cold, juiceless sentence.

"Wow. That must have been awful." He ran a hand over my hip, drawn hot and ready to my tragedy. If Lulu ever let me give out the real story, I'd have men lined up for blocks.

"It wasn't so bad. We only lived at Duffy a few years before we got foster parents. Our foster father was a doctor."

"Wow. That was lucky."