She e-mailed him back: I'm too pissed off to answer tonight anyhow. Let her worry for a change.

"Rosemary is so condescending it gives me heartburn," she said to Emily. "She addresses me as if I'm an idiot."

"It's just her manner. She talks to me the same way, and we're not even related."

"She never talks like that to men. She doesn't talk that way to Dick or Rich."

"How many women talk to women and men the same way? Get real." Emily was riding high because, standing in line at registration, she had met a guy she had a good time with, in and out of bed. She had seen him twice already. Besides, she liked the gang he hung out with better than her old group from the year before. "You hear me on the phone with Mitch. Do I sound like an idiot, or what? I hear my voice going up into baby treble and I hear myself giggling the way I never do, right?"

"I know I talk to Blake just the same as I do with you, Em."

"Yes, honey, yes, baby, yes, sugar. You don't yes me all the time that way. We're all a little tainted when we're with a guy we need to impress with how soft and sweet and sexy we are."

"Anyhow, I'm ripshit with her. She has no respect for me."

"She's your mother. Mothers have no respect. They just have rules." Emily had got a car finally from her parents, a five-year-old Honda-not what she wanted, but it had wheels and an engine. Last Sunday the girls had gone for a drive, Em and her and Fern and Fern's new almost-girlfriend, Tammy, from the Ultimate Frisbee team, to the state park and back.

"At least they gave you a car. I couldn't even get a motorcycle out of Rosemary."

"This car is just about embarrassing."

"Yeah, but Em, it goes. We have wheels finally."

"Training wheels. Even tricycles have wheels."

"We could trade parents."

Emily snorted. "No thanks. I may be fed up with mine, but yours are worse. If my mother wrote me the kind of letter Rosemary just sent you, I'd file for divorce. At least my parents don't ride me. I'm beginning to think that's cool."

That evening, Blake wanted to show her the stuff he had been working on, proof, he called it, that King Richard had played fast and loose with campaign finances. Dick was using money he had raised for campaigns to pay for his attempts to get close to powerful members of the Senate. "That's illegal. That could cause something of a stink."

"Really? It just seems a technicality. I mean, who could get excited about that? So he's friendly with guys he sees at work. Big deal."

"The media. The Senate. They care about technicalities. Paying attention to technicalities keeps them away from the real corruption, the buying of legislation through contributions. That's legal, but taking money out of the till for any use that could be construed as personal, that's dirty pool."

"So what are you going to do with this?" She perched on a chair. She knew better than to pick up anything on his desk. He went ballistic if she touched his computer or his discs or his peripherals. It was one of the least endearing things about him.

"Get it to Roger via Phil. We'll establish a relationship so we can feed him things."

She felt a little queasy about what he was planning to do, but frankly it all seemed too esoteric to matter. Besides, her parents had been nasty. They'd arrived without warning, without a polite little phone call saying, Here we come, ready or not. Instead they'd barged in and then Rosemary was furious that she actually had a life. They had been rude to Blake. In fact, they had been rude to her. "You're going to set things up so you can give information directly to Roger eventually-cutting Phil out of the loop."

"It'd be simpler that way, unless Phil starts coming up with goodies he dug up on his own. He's been useful-but you don't find him easy to get along with."

"I don't. You've met his father? Roger?"

Blake nodded. "But we need to establish our reliability first." He put the materials together and tucked them into his backpack. "We should meet Phil tonight and pass on this stuff."

"You can give it to him."

"Are you nervous about it? Cold feet?" He took her chin in his hand.

"This is a long way from trying to influence my father, isn't it? Giving stuff to some reporter who has it in for my dad."

"This should come from both of us. And this does move you into a position of power-when the time comes, he'll be more likely to listen. A spot of tiny blackmail. Besides, I thought you were pissed at them."

It could help her to stir up a tiny fuss, to pull Rosemary's scrutiny away from her and Blake. Her mother went into a dither whenever Dick was criticized. Rosemary would be mounting a countercampaign and too busy to bother with her. It would prove only a passing nuisance, but her parents' attention would be elsewhere. Plus she was really angry with them. Phrases from Rosemary's message kept bobbing up to jab her.

By the next day, she felt she had mulled over her response quite enough. She was not going to wait for Blake to compose an answer. Rosemary was her problem, so she should crank up her courage and deal with her.

I thought one of the purposes of going away to college was to meet different kinds of people and broaden my horizons. If the sins of the fathers are to be visited on their sons and daughters, I'd be quite the outcast here, wouldn't I? At least half the kids on campus wouldn't speak to me. And don't tell me I shouldn't speak to them. Our home environment is quite controlled enough. It's time I learned there are other kinds of people and other opinions. Isn't that part of growing up?

As for Blake, I like him. I have been seeing him since I got back to school. I find him pleasant, not pushy or aggressive, but intelligent and thoughtful. I think judging him by his father or grandfather or uncle is silly. It's him, not his family, that I go to the movies with. Eat lunch with occasionally. Are you going to vet everyone in my classes whom I decide to see now and then? Some of them are probably Democrats!

She was pleased by her reply. She read it to Emily, and then she sent it, before she lost her moment's courage to stand up to Rosemary. She had never been good at fighting back. She wasn't being that courageous. Describing Blake as if he were a casual date was a calumny on their love. It belittled him. But it was a beginning. If she wrote honestly that she loved him, was deeply involved with him, wanted eventually to marry him, then her mother would be up in Middletown tomorrow to drag her out of school and take her home, she was sure of that.

Out of idle curiosity, she told herself, she went online and checked Connecticut's laws on marriage. She was old enough to marry without parental consent. Not that she was really about to run off with Blake and get hitched, but it made her feel stronger to know that legally she could, that her parents couldn't stop her. It was a little fantasy she could use to prop up her courage and keep in the back of her mind as a secret weapon against them. Yes, she would wear her blue Tencel dress, her favorite. Or she could wear the bridesmaid's dress she had dyed black last summer. She'd never had an occasion to wear it since. They were bathed in golden light and a tall, distinguished-looking...what? Would Blake want a rabbi? She had never been to a Jewish wedding. Emily had. She'd ask her what they were like. Blake would be utterly handsome.

She and her parents were engaged in war, and the prize was her identity, her life as she wanted to live it. Merilee was back at George Washington law school for her last year, and Rosemary was again monitoring her social life. Merilee had given in and gone up to Maine. Melissa had not. She was stronger than her golden picture-perfect sister. She suspected that Merilee too wanted more autonomy and that was why she had taken the summer job in New York. Now she was back, and Melissa did not think her older sister would ever truly break free. But she would. No matter what the cost, she would be her own person and free.

A reply from Rosemary was waiting on her e-mail when she got back from class: I think you are making a foolish mistake. I explained to you previously that the people you mix with in college, whether friends or simply acquaintances, form others' judgment of you as well as your own accomplishments or lack of them. The young man you were dining with in our kitchen is obviously not of your kind. People seeing him with you would always notice, not favorably, and wonder why you had resorted to someone so different from yourself.

I ask you to reconsider your contact with this young man. No matter how innocuous he may appear to you, he may not appear so to others. A person may appeal because they are exotic, the very reason that a companion may prove to be completely unsuitable. I want you to know that your father has expressed his concern over your associations at Wesleyan. We both feel this connection could be quite damaging. He is extremely busy this week, or he would communicate with you himself-he is that concerned. However, he asked me to convey to you his desire that you stop seeing this young man at once. Any connection with Simon Ackerman is unacceptable to him-and to me-and should be to any loyal daughter.

Furious, she erased the message, hoping she had been quick enough so that Blake would not read it. It was so insulting, so condescending, so bigoted, she felt smeared with shame as if it were a sticky substance plastering her. How could Rosemary presume to judge Blake at first glance? How superficial could her mother be? It wasn't superficiality: it was racism, blunt, pervasive and unashamed.

She asked Blake that evening as they were standing in line to see a Czech film, "Did Roger get the material on Dick's use of contributions?"

"He liked it, but he's checking into it. I hope he's preparing an expose."

"I hope so," she said bitterly. "I hope so more than anything else!"

"You've been having it out with your mother?"

"I can't stand them!"

"At least they're up front about their racism. Maybe that's easier to deal with than someone who talks the talk and then does what he pleases. You know what you're dealing with."

Blake never talked during movies, so it was not until afterward when they stopped for ice cream in the student center that she could ask him, "Have you had fallout from your folks?"

"Not much. They trust me more than your people trust you. And I'm a guy. Parents tend to meddle less with guys."

"Because you can't get pregnant?"

"Maybe that's at the core. Or just that men are expected to see a certain number of females when they're younger. Si and Nadine are more laid-back with us kids. They've always given us a lot of rope. If my grades dipped, they'd sit up, but I have close to a four-point average."

"Because you're brilliant."

"Long as you think so, I've got it made." He stretched. Her fingers traced his biceps through his black tee. He liked to wear black, and he looked good in it. It brought out the warmth, the hidden sun in his skin.

ROGER'S FIRST ARTICLE appeared within a week. She did not hear from Rosemary with any pointed exhortations to dump Blake that week, and the Friday e-mail was marked by brevity: The enemies of your father are up in arms against him. We will prevail, of course, and the dirt they are throwing at him will rebound on them. Still, it is a difficult time for all of us. I know your prayers are with us. I will let you know how the battle is going.

Melissa went online and checked the Philadelphia Inquirer web site. There was Roger's piece with the information they had fed him through Phil and more besides he must have found himself. We did that, she thought, and felt a quiver of triumph. It was a strange new sensation. She was playing a chess game against Rosemary and, for once, she was winning. It was an extraordinary rush. This must be what power felt like, Rosemary and Dick's true high, their vice. She had never understood it. What she had wanted was love, to be held in a shimmer of affection. She had that now, but not from them. Having love, for the first time she tasted power. She had the capacity to rivet their attention on something. She had the capacity to hurt them, as they had so often hurt her. She felt large and strong. She was becoming herself, not the weak, wobbly, sorry little girl she had been. She was turning into someone to be reckoned with. If she had to proceed in secrecy, well, Rosemary always worked behind the scenes. That was how things got done. But she was actually making things happen, and that was a new sensation, one she rather liked.

"You'll never guess where we're going this weekend," Blake said over lunch, a private lunch for once outside on the grass. Now that they were sophomores, they could eat sometimes out of Mocon, could use one of the fast-food places in the student center.

"To New York?"

"Not nearly that far."

"What's closer than New York? Boston!"

"Not that far, and that's the wrong direction."

"Hartford? Why would we want to go to Hartford?"

"We wouldn't. Ever."

"New Haven? Like, Yale?"

"Nothing like Yale. Not New Haven."

"Providence?" She had never been there, but she knew Brown was there.

"Wrong, again. You're never going to win a prize this way. But you get one anyhow."

"So where are we going?" She loved him teasing her, she loved the mystery. This was the kind of day they had first hooked up last year, a bright blue day when the sun made everything shimmer as if lit from within, the golden trees, the red vines. They had been together for a year and they were tighter than ever. She tossed her hair, feeling special, feeling attractive and joined. Maybe he meant he was taking her up to the ledge where they'd first made it.

"To Foxwoods."

"The gambling place? What for?" Disappointment swamped her.

"We're gambling that the guy we're meeting will give us some good documentation."

"But why there?"

"Hard to find a more anonymous place. Nobody is surprised when you go there. We'll be among crowds of people who don't know each other, aren't interested in each other, never will see each other again. He suggested it."

"Who is he?"

He took her face between his hands and smiled into her eyes, very pleased with himself. "A disgruntled ex-staffer of King Richard's. Through some old connection, Karen told me about him-"

"When did you talk with Karen?"

"We talk maybe every couple weeks. I told you, I like her. She has good politics."

She should be happy that Karen and Blake liked each other, but she felt left out. That was oftener than she talked with her aunt. "So what's with this guy?"

"Might have information. We talked and finally set up a meet."

"Why can't we just go see him?"

"He's afraid of your father. He doesn't want any link to us or to Roger. He doesn't know who you are, so don't tip him. That would scare him off."

"But maybe I know him."

Blake shrugged, a graceful shiver of his shoulders. "I doubt it. He never met the family, far as I can tell, except for Rosemary. He doesn't want trouble, but I suspect he wants payback."

"And we're his tool?" That made her feel queasy. She did not like the idea of being anybody's shortcut to revenge against her father.

"He has information, and we want to understand Dick. So Saturday, we go on a date to a casino. Don't say I never take you anyplace." He squeezed her shoulder. "Maybe we'll like it and become addicted gamblers and waste our lives."

"I so don't think that!"

"Me neither. We're serious types, Lissa mine." He radiated a beam of pure joy that made her happy against her will. But she still felt dubious about this ex-staffer who might actually recognize her. What kind of devious turd would turn against someone they worked for? She did not like that. It felt unclean. But then she quizzed herself. If any dirt on the place she worked last summer had come into her hands, would she have felt loyalty to them? Not likely. This guy had probably held down some menial job in her father's organization. Someone incompetent who had a grudge because he didn't feel his talents had been sufficiently recognized or recompensed. Rosemary and Dick were clever at using people, and their staff members were passionately loyal. Probably he had been far down the hierarchy and thus bereft of that eye-beam of approval that so enchanted most underlings. Loyalty was important to her parents, and generally they commanded it successfully. She did not look forward to meeting this little worm who had turned, but it would be fun to go off with Blake. She was still furious with Rosemary. Anything that happened served them right.

"Do you believe in loyalty to an employer?" she asked Fern and Emily over breakfast. They were sharing a table in Mocon, where the roar around them even this early would cover their conversation. Even though Melissa did not intend to tip anything about what she and Blake were doing, she felt safer if no one else listened.

"No!" Fern said immediately. "When I think of all the crappy jobs my mother has held down or that have held her down, I'd like to throttle her bosses. The restaurant she works in now, the guy is always juggling their hours and cutting back on help so she has to work more tables and then gets less tips because she can't give as good service. It's backbreaking work."

Melissa was glad Tammy wasn't along. She often skipped breakfast, providing Melissa an opportunity to see Fern without her. Melissa felt as if Tammy disapproved of her in some undefined way. She was a big girl, as tall as Fern but blockier, pretty features or maybe she should say handsome. When Tammy was around, Fern was paying attention to her and not to Melissa.

Emily, whose parents didn't believe in her wasting time on menial jobs, just nodded at Fern. "My parents' receptionists come and go every year. It isn't like a relationship. It's just a convenience on both sides."

"But if you believed in what they were doing," Melissa said tentatively.

Both of them looked at her blankly. "You mean, like believe in Italian food? I don't get it, I hereby swear allegiance to overcooked lasagna." Fern had more confidence these days. She stood straighter and her voice was firmer. She and Tammy had quickly moved into a relationship.

"I mean, I believe in chiropractic, if like your back is out," Em said. "My parents get into fads, like this month it's heat and next month it's cold, and all sorts of extracts of bark and weird herbs, but if you're in pain, they can help you, for sure. I don't get where you're going with this? Does this have something to do with Rosemary dumping on you?"

"Indirectly," Melissa said. "Forget it. I wasn't going anywhere with it." But she was. To Foxwoods on Saturday. Even Emily felt some loyalty to her parents. As the day approached, she was increasingly nervous about what they were doing. It felt like a silly game, the way she used to play with Billy. It was all unreal, she told herself, but she remembered how real that article on the internet Inquirer site had felt. She no longer felt powerful; she felt out of her depth. She wished she could just tell Blake to cool it and forget about her parents. She wished she could just run away with him and come back in five years with two kids, say, and her parents would have to accept them. Somehow everything was tied into knots and she felt coerced and tangled. My bad, she thought, my bad and things are just getting worse.

* CHAPTER NINETEEN *.

Now Melissa had a leather jacket she'd bought to break the wind as she clung to him on his Honda. The trip was along back roads. The leaves were beginning to turn. By the bank of a creek, aspens rustled golden, leaves like bright pirates' coins. One lone red maple stood in a field of stubbled corn. The poison ivy and Virginia creeper twined scarlet. Big puffy clouds scudded over them. He braked abruptly as a flock of red-winged blackbirds stormed just a few feet above the road, thousands of them passing for two minutes going south. She was happy, a high plateau she had never before visited. They belonged together. They were a conspiracy, a good family of two. Her cheek rested against his shoulder, the engine roared into her, the sun beat on her head and arm in the cool whoosh of the wind of their riding. The machine thrummed up into her body. She did not really care where they were going and whether the mysterious contact was worth the bother. It was going off together that mattered, not their arrival anyplace. She had the sense as she clung to him that never again in her entire life would she, could she, be as happy. It was an uncanny nostalgia for something still occurring, as if she were in the moment and yet high above it, looking down and back and already missing the intensity and the joy. That pumped a vein of melancholy through the joy, making it even more intense.

She had seen the ads for the casino on TV-who in New England hadn't?-but she considered that image an artist's sketch. The reality was as much a fantasy as the ads, mammoth structures rising out of a forest. However, they did not go directly to the casino. "We're not meeting our contact till four," he said, chaining the bike.

"So why are we here at one? Like, you don't expect me to gamble. Do you gamble?" She wondered suddenly if he had a secret vice. Ever since he had suggested going to Foxwoods, she had been a little apprehensive.

"This is the museum. Come on. State-of-the-art archeology."