"She's an old friend."

"So I've heard. She has many old friends. The town bang." "Don't be a bitch, Eva," Michael said, his voice low so that the young people at the next table couldn't overhear him.

"Andreas is an old friend, too," Eva said sweetly. "Did you know that?"

"I don't believe you."

"Ask him," Eva said. "I imagine it is a pleasant memory for him. It was his last old friend. He had already announced he could no longer sleep with me. His disease must have already hit him, although we didn't know it at the time. The lady was not the sort that I would have thought attracted him, but as I said, it's a small town and the choices are limited. And perhaps he wanted to prove something that he no longer could prove to me. That for one last time he could tell himself he was potent. In a way, I don't blame the poor man." Michael remembered the two nights, one with the physiotherapist he had met at The Golden Hoop and the other with the old, nice girl, when he, too, had tried to prove something and had failed, and pitied his friend Andreas Heggener and hated Andreas Heggener's wife for knowing so much about men.

"Let's not talk about it, if you don't mind," he said. "I'm not interested in what went on here before I came on the scene."

"And what are you interested in now, may I ask?" Eva said, crunching healthily into her sandwich.

"Your husband," he said. "At the risk of boring you or making you angry at me, I think I must tell you once more that I think you're wrong in insisting that Andreas go into the hospital."

"I hope you haven't told him that."

"I haven't. But he looks so well-and he skis like a boy of twenty." "Michael," Eva said sharply, "you don't know the harm you're doing."

"Harm?" he said incredulously. "He's getting stronger every day."

"He thinks he's getting stronger. And you're encouraging him. He's beginning to hope again."

"What's wrong with that?"

"The hope is false," Eva said dogmatically. "When he has a relapse, which can be any time now, it will shatter him. And you'll be responsible."

"What do you want me to do-tell a man who's just beginning to reach out to life again that he's living a dream, that he must just sit wrapped up in blankets and wait to die?"

"Obviously," Eva said ironically, "you know better than all the doctors."

"Maybe I do," Michael said stubbornly.

"If you won't do it for him, do it for me."

She was exasperating him with her tenaciousness, her serene belief that only she could possibly be in the right.

"We have a certain arrangement," Michael said, brutally. "I ski with you for pay and make love to you for pleasure. There's nothing else in the contract."

"You know," she said thoughtfully, refusing to be insulted, "I believe you have an ulterior motive."

"What ulterior motive?"

"You're deliberately trying to shorten his life."

"Oh, my God! Why would I want to do that?"

"To reap the rewards," she said calmly.

"What rewards?"

"Me," she said. "The rich widow, who is passionately attached to you, or at least to your useful body, and who would, after a decent interval, be delighted to marry you."

"Is that what you think?" he asked, controlling his fury.

"I think that it is a possibility," she said flatly. "If not a probability."

He stood up. "The fun is over for the day. Come. I'll drive you home."

"No need," she said. "I'm enjoying the afternoon. I'll continue skiing. Don't worry about me, I'll find somebody to drive me home." He strode out of the room. Demented, he thought, demented. The man is right. I should leave this town right now. But the thought of never having that soft, practiced Viennese body in his arms again was intolerable and he knew he would not leave. I was happier when I was impotent, he thought and laughed bitterly, aloud, as he hurled his poles and gloves into the back of the Porsche.

ooooo The Saturday of the race was raw and windy, but the visibility was good and the course in perfect condition. Andreas Heggener was there to see the race, although, as he told Michael as they drove to the bottom of the course, Eva had objected strenuously, on the grounds that standing around for an hour or so in the cold would be bad for him. But he was bundled up in his black mink-collared coat and had on a fur hat and a long wool scarf and fleece-lined after-ski boots and warm gloves. "The little girl-Rita," he said, "was so excited about it yesterday evening and about singing tonight, I had to tell her I was coming to cheer her on in both events. And I gave her a little Austrian locket on a gold chain that used to belong to my mother and she's going to wear it around her neck as a good luck charm."

"She'll calm down once she gets going in the race," Michael said. "She should be able to handle that course easily. Cully told me he wasn't going to make it too demanding and they've been working on it and flattening the bumps."

There was quite a crowd of gaily dressed onlookers, the ones, like Michael and Heggener, who were not on skis, at the finish line, and people on skis lining the course. Michael kept looking up at the scudding clouds. He was entered in the hang-gliding exhibition that afternoon and the wind would make it dicey, if it didn't have to be canceled completely.

The forerunner came down, a young ski instructor, moving easily through the gates and there was a hush of expectation and then shouts of encouragement from up the hill as the first racer started down.

Michael looked at the mimeographed program. Rita was listed as the tenth racer to start, a good position, with the course just nicely marked by the preceding skiers and not too rutted, as it would be for the thirty-five skiers behind her.

"She told me," Heggener said, "that she had forbidden any of her family to watch the race, she was nervous enough as it is. By the way, Michael, how good were you when you raced?"

"I never raced seriously," Michael said, "just town things like this.

And I never came in better than fifth. These kids are born with skis on their feet. I started when I was twelve and already that's too late. Or maybe," he laughed, "that's the excuse I gave myself for my lack of talent." He watched intently as the girls came down. "She's going to have to take some chances to beat at least three of the first seven," he said and he began to worry, then was amused with himself that he was taking it so seriously.

The ninth girl finished in very good time and smiled happily when it was announced over the loud speaker system. Then there were the shouts and cheers as Rita started from the top of the hill, which could not be seen from where Michael and Heggener were standing.

She burst into view, skiing very well, her time, Michael guessed, among the best for that particular point. She looked graceful and sure of herself and gave an incongruous impression of strength, with her long slender legs and flat skinny torso. Michael found himself coaching her under his breath. Then, at the next to the last gate, she caught her ski on the outside pole and flipped and rolled and landed in an explosion of snow, one of her skis coming off, at the feet of the spectators on the side of the course. She shook off the people who tried to help her up, to indicate that she wasn't hurt, and picked up the ski that had come off and came down on one ski to where Michael and Heggener were standing. As she approached, Michael saw that she was crying.

"There, there," he said and put his arms around her, so that she could hide her tears against his shoulder. "There never has been a racer who hasn't fallen from time to time."

"I'm so clumsyshe sobbed. "Eliot was right. He said I'd make a fool of myself."

"It's only the first time. And you didn't make a fool of yourself."

"My first and last time," the girl said. She pulled away from him and brushed the tears from her eyes. She tried to smile bravely at Heggener. "I'm sorry, Mr. Heggener. I didn't bring much honor to your locket."

"You were doing very well until you . . ." Heggener said.

"Until I did very badly," Rita said. "If you see Antoine, Michael, tell him I'm not going to sing tonight, either."

"Nonsense," Michael said sharply.

"Everybody'll laugh when I stand up at the piano. They'll wait for me to fall on my bottom there, too."

"Listen, Rita," Michael said seriously, "you can't quit anything at the age of sixteen. And Antoine is sure you're going to be wonderful," he lied, "and you will be."

"He told you that?" she said doubtfully.

"Absolutely. And he's a real pro."

"Mr. Swanson said I'd do great in the race, too," Rita said, "and he's a real pro, also."

"There are no gates at The Chimney Corner," Michael said.

Rita giggled. "I guess you're right. I can't go all my life being a' scaredy little baby. My mother says, Just pretend you're in church and you'll have no trouble."

"I guess," Heggener said, "the locket does not really work out in the open, Rita. But it is magic in bars."

"We'll see how magic it is," Rita said. "I hate to disappoint people who've been so nice to me. If I flop tonight too I want to die."

"You won't flop and you don't want to die," Michael said. "Don't talk like that."

Just then, at the same gate at which Rita had fallen, the fifteenth girl fell ingloriously.

"Ah," Rita said, with satisfaction, "that makes me feel better." "Spoken like a true sportswoman," Heggener said.

She giggled again and said, "Aren't I terrible?"

"Michael," Heggener said, "I am beginning to feel a little cold. Would you mind driving me home?"

"Of course not." He blew a kiss to Rita, who was taking off her other ski, and went to the car with Heggener.

After lunch, Michael drove to the hang-gliding school in the valley. The wind was still bad but had abated somewhat, and Michael decided it was manageable. There were about twelve young men, all very much of the same mold and manner as Jerry Williams, the proprietor of the school, and all of them, aside from Michael, with their own gliders. There were about a hundred people milling around as Michael stepped out of his car.

"Hi, Mike," Jerry Williams said as Michael came up to the shed. "I was afraid you weren't coming, either."

"What do you mean, either?"

"There were supposed to be twelve more fellas, but they dropped out. Too much wind, they said. And these guys here just took a vote and they decided nine to three not to go up. There goes my big event," he said bitterly. "It'll take me all season to pay off what I owe around town. How about you?"

Michael looked up at the sky again. "I've come down in worse. If the other three guys will come up, too, I'll go first."

"You're a pal, Mike," Williams said gratefully and went to talk to the others as Michael got into his jump boots.

"Okay," Williams said, when he came back. "You got three customers. I got the kite for you tuned like a watch." He was lending Michael his own machine. They put it in its bag in the back of the pickup truck, and with two caravan trucks following them with hang-gliders strapped to the roofs, they started up the steep, bumpy road to the plateau on top of the hill from which they would have to take off. The wind was whistling up there, first from one direction, then changing abruptly to another, and the other men moved around nervously and one of them said loudly, "We're crazy to take off in this." Michael helped Williams assemble the glider, then methodically got into the harness, felt the controls, and without hesitating made his run off. There was the old wonderful, weightless sensation, and he grinned as he felt the air buoy him up, but then the turbulence began and he side-slipped, recovered, felt himself being dragged down fast, fought it, saw the ground coming up at him with alarming speed, side-slipped again and saw he was going into a stand of bare-limbed trees. Oh, Christ, he thought, what luck Tracy isn't here to see this. He crashed into the tree to the sound of metal being crushed and the tearing of fabric. When he came to, he found that he was hanging on a gnarled branch. He moved his arms and legs cautiously. No broken bones. But his face was wet and warm and he knew it was blood. Under him he saw Williams making a loop in a long rope. Williams threw him the rope and Michael secured it around the branch. Then he freed himself from the wreckage and slid to the ground.

"You owe me for one kite," Williams said.

"Worth it," Michael said. "It was a nice ride."

"You are a cool son of a bitch," Williams said. "But the show's over for the day. Everybody else is driving down."

oooo When he looked at his face before getting dressed for dinner, he saw that the encounter with the tree had not improved his appearance.

There were scratches all over his face and a big disreputable lump over his right eye. Nothing serious, but he looked as though he had been in a battle with a crazed cat and there was no question of his being able to shave.

The phone rang and he picked it up. It was Eva. She had invited him to have dinner at the house that evening with her and Heggener, but Andreas had gotten a chill and was running a fever and she had put him to bed. "So much for the medical opinions of both of you," she said tartly and hung up.

He decided to go without dinner himself and gave himself a drink instead and lay down for a little nap before going off to attend Rita's debut as a public singer. Every muscle in his body felt as though he had been beaten by a baseball bat and movement of any kind had to be considered carefully before he made it.

He had invited Rita's parents and her brother Eliot and he made sure to get to The Chimney Comer before they did and secure a table not too close to where she would be standing, so she wouldn't be distracted by their presence as she performed.

The family all came in together, carefully dressed for the occasion, the two men with jackets and ties and Rita's mother in a neat navy blue dress.

Rita had on a white dress that Michael guessed she had worn at her graduation from high school the June before. She looked pretty and happy, but nervous, and if she hadn't been with her family, Michael would have smuggled her one tot of mm in a cup of tea to calm her down. Grandly, he ordered a bottle of champagne for them all when Jimmy Davis came over to the table to welcome them. Rita didn't touch her glass, but her mother drank her wine with appreciation and nodded her head approvingly along with Antoine's music, which was now soft and unobtrusive, as the room filled up. Michael explained that the Heggeners hadn't come because Mr. Heggener wasn't feeling up to snuff and Mrs. Heggener was taking care of him.

"I been watching you and that man," Rita's father said, "the last week or so, Mike, and I got to give you credit. Beginning of the season I would have laid odds he wouldn't see the first buds of spring, the way he looked. Yesterday, he looked twenty years younger. Maybe you ought to take me skiing a few mornings a week, too." He laughed jovially, then took the untouched glass of champagne that was standing in front of Rita and drank it. "Might as well use this stuff since nobody else is," he said to his wife, who had glared at him. "I hear Rita didn't do all that good this morning in the race," he said to Michael.

"She was doing fine," Michael said. "I figured she was in the first five when she hit the gate."

"Good for her," Jones said. "Lesson in humility. She can use it. Her teachers're always telling her how smart she is and all, if we didn't put her down now and then, she'd be putting on all sorts of airs. I believe in occasional defeats. At least for the young. You had a little comeuppance yourself today, too, from the way your face looks. If it was harvest time I'd say you got caught in a reaper." He laughed heartily. He was used to accidents and didn't take them too seriously. "When I was a kid I got stung by a hive full of bees and I didn't look much worse than you do tonight. I know all about the ills that the flesh is heir to, but I don't go looking for them, like some folks."

"He was trying to help Jerry Williams, Daddy," Rita said, defending Michael. "Everyone else was finking out on him."

"Jerry Williams better get onto the idea that if folks want to fly they ought to buy a ticket on TWA," Jones said.

"Hush, Harold," Mrs. Jones said authoritatively, "the man is going to make an announcement."

Antoine had played three thunderous chords on the piano and the room fell quiet. "Ladies and gentlemen," Antoine said loudly, "we have a special treat in store for us tonight-one of our own homegrown beauties, the lovely Rita Jones, chanteuse extraordinaire, has, by special arrangement with our beloved boniface, Jimmy Davis, consented to sing for us. Rita Jones . . ." He nodded toward the table and waved to the girl to come toward the piano.

Rita stood, with an erratic smile on her face, looking, Michael thought, about ten years old, and walked, on very high heels, rather unsteadily, toward the piano, where Antoine took her hand and kissed it, to a burst of applause.

"What's that man say about the girl?" Jones asked suspiciously.

"That she's an extraordinary singer," Mrs. Jones said. "In French. Hush, Harold."

The room fell silent as Antoine vamped for a few bars, then nodded to Rita as he started into "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," and Rita began to sing. She wasn't stiff and wasn't shy, as Antoine had predicted she would be, but sure and true and loud and her voice was full of gaiety and celebration and filled the room with confident youthful melody. When she had finished, there was a roar of applause, led loudly by Harold Jones. She sang three more songs, all old favorites, shrewdly picked by Antoine to show off her variety and all familiar to the listeners, so that there was nothing new or strange for them to puzzle over.

At the end, the applause was deafening and there were cries for more, but Antoine shook his head, intelligently, Michael thought, getting Rita off on a triumphant note for her first time out. Rita came over to the table, grinning, saying, "Ain't this something?" and her mother kissed her and said, "You did real well, honey," and Harold Jones kept on applauding, beaming, until all the other applause finally died out and even Eliot looked pleased.

Jimmy Davis came over with a bottle of champagne and said, "For the first star ever to be bom in Green Hollow." He did the pouring with a flourish, filling Rita's glass first. Michael saw Mr. Jones begin to frown as Rita started excitedly to pick up her glass. "Honey," he said, "there's a law against drinking for minors in Vermont," but Mrs. Jones said, "Hush," to her husband, "just this once," and they all lifted their glasses in honor of the singer.

"You didn't miss a gate tonight," Michael said and Rita laughed uncontrollably, as though he had told the greatest of jokes.

It was almost midnight before the party broke up, the Joneses going off together in an old station wagon and Michael driving off under a clearing sky, with a bit of moon dipping in and out of racing clouds and the mountains outlined in the distance.

When he reached the cottage, it was dark, but when he went in and turned on a lamp he saw Eva sitting on the sofa, wearing her lynx coat.

"Good evening," he said. "Why didn't you turn on the light?"

"I wanted to give you a happy surprise," Eva said. She did not sound happy. "How did it go?"

"Beautifully. It was a wonderful evening. How was it at the house?"

"Not wonderful. Not wonderful at all. His fever is up to nearly a hundred and two." She said it accusingly. "But he's asleep now. It will be a miracle if he's well enough to go to the hospital without hiring an ambulance." *