Andrea finishes her wine and places the gla.s.s on a windowsill. "There they all are." She nods to their left.

Lucy sees a group of men; somewhere inside those men nearing forty are the boys who used to follow Lucy down the hallways.

"None of them ever looked at me twice," Andrea says. "I would have agreed to a lobotomy if they only had. Well, most of them look like s.h.i.t now," she adds, signaling to a waiter for another gla.s.s of wine.

"Is that poetic justice?"

"Only if you care," Lucy says.

"Did you come back because of Evan?" Andrea asks. "Because he's involved with some kindergarten teacher. My parents have seen them together."

Lucy lets that pa.s.s, the way she always let things pa.s.s when they were forced to live together. She used to double-lock her door, she used to ignore Andrea completely when they walked by each other in the hall.

"Sorry," Andrea says. "It's an old habit. Gossip served me very well.

I knew the name of everyone we went to school with, and every ugly little secret, and believe me, there were plenty of them."

Andrea is watching the dancers on the floor; she holds her gla.s.s of wine against her cheek.

Lucy reaches into her purse and takes out the photograph.

Do you know her?"

"She didn't go to school with us," Andrea says."She looks too young.

"Then maybe you've seen her in town. Last year or the year before?

She was a friend of mine in Florida and she just took off."

"Kind of like you did." Andrea shrugs and hands the photograph back to Lucy. "I've never seen her before. Although it's interesting that you actually have a friend."

"Meaning?" Lucy says coldly.

"Let's not fight," Andrea says.

"You always said that after you started a fight," Lucy says. "And you know it."

From behind them, in the doorway leading to the patio, a man's voice says, "Lucy."

Lucy recognizes Randy immediately. He was one of those boys Andrea would have been lobotomized for, and he's just as handsome as he was back then. Lucy slips the photograph back into her purse so she can take Randy's outstretched hand.

"No wedding ring." He grins. "Isn't that a nice surprise."

"You remember my cousin," Lucy says, since Andrea is watching them grimly, "Andrea Friedman.

Randy turns and looks blankiy at Andrea.

"I gave you a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b after Teddy Schiff's bar mitzvah," Andrea says.

Randy turns pale, but Lucy laughs, completely shocked. It is the most human thing she has ever heard Andrea say.

"Call my parents," Andrea says as she walks toward the bar.

"Who was that?" Randy says, still fl.u.s.tered.

"Well?" Lucy says. "Is it true?"

Randy has a slow, sweet smile. "I'll take the fifth," he says.

"Seriously, I thought you were married. I keep track of what happened to all the beautiful girls."

"Evan and I got divorced," Lucy says.

"Same here," Randy says. "Last October. That's why I think this is fate."

"Just a statistical probability," Lucy says. But she's flattered in spite of herself. She remembers now that she'd actually considered dating Randy, but he seemed too handsome, too full of himself, to ever be true.

"I always thought we'd be good together," Randy says.He moves closer to Lucy, and although she should back away, she doesn't. She remembers the odd rush of triumph she had each time the phone rang; she used to enjoy looking in the mirror and seeing the girl they all thought she was.

"Back then, I could never be with one girl. I wasn't ready for that,"

Randy tells her. "But I've changed."

"Really?" she says. "You're still flirting with me.

That hasn't changed."

People have begun to look at them, and Lucy realizes that if she doesn't move away from him soon they will be a piece of gossip. By tomorrow, their names will be linked no matter what happens.

"I never got to dance with you at the prom because Evan was always around."

He has already circled her waist with his arm.

Lucy remembers that he had a way of looking at you that made you feel there were no other people in the room. She remembers that Andrea used to write his name on her loose-leaf notebook. There is a slow song playing, and Lucy lets him lead her out to the dance floor, past Heidi Kaplan, past the cla.s.smates whose names she no longer recalls.

That one dance turns into half a dozen. He's had a lot of practice at this, he knows what to whisper in your ear and how to Wove his fingers up your spine. Sometime after midnight, when Evan approaches them, Lucy finds that she isn't ready to leave. She doesn't have to think about anything when she dances with Randy, she doesn't even have to make a decision, since he offers to take her home.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Evan says, after Randy's gone off to get Lucy another margarita.

"Why? Will I be in danger? Is he a terrible driver?"

"You know what I mean," Evan says. "He was the kind of guy who got whatever he wanted."

"You're worried," Lucy says brightly.

"I used to worry about him," Evan admits. "I thought he'd try to steal you away from me."

"I'll be fine," Lucy says.

And she is, until it's time to leave and they go out into the parking lot and she realizes she's had too much to drink. The stars in the sky seem to be moving too quickly; the ground is a little too shaky.

"Where do you want me to take you?" Randy says. He's got his hand on her bare back and he ignores several people who say good night as they walk to their parked cars. Randy has a Porsche, the same color as the one he had in high school, but a more expensive model.

"I'm staying with Evan," Lucy says. When Randy raises an eyebrow sheadds, "Not in that way.

We're really divorced."

"You could stay at my place," Randy says.

He's taken her purse out of her hands and placed it on the hood of his car. She was attracted to him in high school; everyone was. What might have happened if Randy had been invited to Andrea's sweet sixteen party, if he had been the one she'd wandered out to the pool house with that night?

What would happen now if they spent just one night together?

"This isn't high school," Lucy tells him.

"Thank G.o.d," Randy says. "Come on," he urges her. "Let's go to my house."

If she had married him instead of Evan, they might still be together, their child might be home in bed right now, sleeping peacefully, under a hand-sewn quilt. He was the kind of man she was supposed to have married, so why is it that she finds herself wishing that the asphalt in the parking lot would turn to red dust beneath her feet?

Why is it she thinks about the white moths and blue shadows and the merlins that guard their trees so well they refuse to migrate in April?

"Not tonight," Lucy says.

"When?" Randy says. "Tomorrow?"

"This is silly," Lucy says. "I don't even live here anymore.

"Sunday night?" Randy insists.

"I might be gone by Sunday. I'm going back to Florida."

"Palm Beach?" Randy asks.

"Someplace you've never heard of," Lucy tells him.

"Try me," Randy says. He's got that smile the girls could never resist.

"Verity," Lucy says.

"You're right." Randy laughs. "That's a new one.

He leans toward her and kisses her. Lucy quickly takes a step back.

"Really," she says. "No."

"Then let me take you out to dinner. No strings," Randy says. "Sunday night."

"All right," Lucy finds herself saying.

Randy grins and opens the pa.s.senger door for her. "I believe in fate,"he says. "I believe we both came to this reunion for a reason."

But Lucy is no longer listening to him. She can feel the knot in her stomach, and her throat is dry as dust. If she isn't completely mistaken, that is her car parked at the edge of the lot. It's right there, beside a magnolia thick with creamcolored flowers.

"I don't know what I was thinking," Lucy says.

"I've got my car."

The night suddenly seems much darker; the green sloping hills behind the country club are really nothing more than man-made mounds of earth, built to amuse golfers. Someone once told Lucy that years ago the country club mail-ordered fireflies and let them out of their big cardboard boxes in June, 50 when you looked out through the French doors you'd see them in the bushes and above the greens, just as if they belonged there.

"You won't forget?" Randy says, because she's already turned from him.

"Sunday night," Lucy says. "Maybe. We'll see."

As she walks across the empty parking lot in her white dress, she's aware of how much her feet ache from dancing in tight shoes. She's aware of the crickets singing in the gra.s.s and the sound of her own heartbeat. Her car is parked at an angle, with all the windows rolled down. The radio is playing, and although Lucy doesn't recognize the song, she finds herself running the rest of the way, faster than it would seem possible in her new shoes.

SEVEN.

The meanest boy in Verity knows the price you pay when you hesitate. He's known it for a long time. An opportunity presents itself to you, you take it, whether it's a wallet left unguarded, a record store clerk looking in the opposite direction, or a dark, empty road, which leads in two directions. Stop to think and the momentum fades away, imagine a baby waking in the morning after you're gone and searching the house for you, imagine a dog slowly starving to death in the heat, and you'll wind up trotting back the way you've come instead of heading for the Interstate, the way you'd planned. All that night the boy stayed awake wondering why he didn't run when he had the chance, after Julian had disappeared down the driveway, and in the morning, while he ate his oatmeal with raisins, he was still kicking himself for the chance not taken.

He doesn't plan to miss his chance again, he's not about to stick around until someone figures he's guilty of murder or kidnapping or even petty theft. Yes, he brings the breakfast dishes to the sink for Miss Giles and he fills up the little wading pool for the baby and holds her hand so she won t slip while she's hopping around in the tepid water, but that doesn't mean he's staying. The baby loves to play in the water, he remembers that from Long Boat Street, how she'd sit on the steps of the pool beside her mother with a plastic watering can and a pink plastic sieve while he and Laddy splashed each other and held each other's heads underwater for as long as they dared. This little girl is never going to hold someone's head underwater in a swimming pool; the boy can tell that already. She's thoughtful andcautious; when the boy lets go of her hand, to sneak a cigarette behind the woodpile, the baby sounds like she's about to cry, and he has to come right back and watch her as she sits down carefully in the water and wiggles her toes.

He doesn't have to be responsible for her and he's not going to be. He doesn't have to notice that she looks up at him, quickly, each time he moves, just to make certain he's still there. So what if she steps out of the pool as soon as he nods to her and picks up her towel when Miss Giles calls them in to lunch; that doesn't mean he owes her anything.

No one could guess what the boy was really thinking or planning. He eats his franks and beans, even though they turn his stomach. He lies down beside the baby till she falls asleep at nap time. He even hangs the laundry on the line for Miss Giles without being asked. He doesn't care about anyone and n.o.body can make him.

He doesn't care as he sits at the kitchen table and watches Miss Giles stir her batter for icebox cookies, he doesn't give a d.a.m.n about anything any of Oprah's guests have to say, he couldn't care less that his mother hasn't even bothered to try to find him.

"You've got a funny look to you today," Miss Giles says to him after the baby has woken from her nap and reattached herself to the boy's leg.

The boy makes his face go all innocent and confused, but he can tell Miss Giles isn't so easily fooled. Little by little, she's been getting the baby to like her, and now the baby will leave the boy's side long enough to go out to the yard with Miss Giles and feed bits of lettuce to the rabbits. She even let Miss Giles wash her old, muddy stuffed bunny, though she sat right out on the porch with it until it dried. Miss Giles may be smart, but if she thinks the boy's got a funny look to him she doesn't have to worry. It's the last one she'll ever see on his face. If people are stupid enough to trust him they deserve whatever they get. Actually, he'd bet good money that Julian Cash would have done the same exact thing when he was his age. He would have gotten the h.e.l.l out of there as soon as he could; he probably would have traveled a hundred miles on the Interstate by now.

It's not easy to sit through the rest of the afternoon, and then through supper and a plate of the icebox cookies Miss Giles baked. The baby lets Miss Giles put her to bed tonight, a first, since she's always made a big fuss if the boy isn't the one who tucks her in and gives her the stuffed bunny rabbit to sleep with. It's just as well, it's better this way, it doesn't really matter one d.a.m.ned bit. He'd have to be nuts to be jealous, since he's not about to have this baby hanging on to him for the rest of his life. He watches the big clock in the kitchen, waiting for the sky to fill with orange light, then begin to darken. At a little before nine, when the baby's asleep, Miss Giles looks up from her day-old issue of the Sun Herald and says, "Don't you have a ch.o.r.e to do?"

Like he'd ever forget, like he hasn't been waiting all day just for this. The boy nods politely and swings open the back door, and then he's free. By now the sky has turned dark purple, the color of the quilt his mother and father used to keep on their bed. It is not so difficult to make a left rather than a right when he reaches the end of the driveway, and so instead of heading to Julian's place, the boytakes off running in the opposite direction. He runs along the edge of the road, through the damp, purple night, his heart beating fast. He figures it won't take him long to hitch a ride north once he gets to the Interstate, so he lets himself slow down. He fishes a wrinkled cigarette he stole from Julian's kitchen out of his jeans pocket and lights it with a wooden match, then inhales greedily. The sky above him settles into blackness and the white moths appear, as if out of thin air. All he has to do is clear his mind and keep walking, and before he knows it, he I be home.

Up ahead of him, on the back steps of the Holein-One, Shannon is waiting for a sign that will tell her what to do with the rest of her life. Today at noon, as she sat beneath the gumbo-limbo tree, she began to wonder what it would be like to be rooted in one place forever. She thought of all the things the tree had to endure, gas fumes and woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, termites and hurricanes, and as she rested her head against the peeling bark, she began to weep. She has to choose, otherwise the future will just happen to her; she I sit beneath this tree for what will seem like only hours, but when she finally rises from the ground, she'll discover she's an old woman, with long gray hair that twines down into the gra.s.s. If she goes north this summer, it will change her whole life.

She'll come back for her senior year, and after that for Easter and Christmas vacations, but she won't be the same person anymore, and she's not sure how anyone is ever ready for that.

Tonight, as she stands outside her mother's shop, it is just as possible that she'll spend the rest of her life in Verity as it is that she'll be on a plane headed north for the summer session at Mount Holyoke. She looks up, but there aren't any stars. She can hear her mother joking with Maury and Fred as they get ready to d I se up, late, the way they always do on Fridays. Her mother's been working here since the summer she turned eighteen, not very much older than Shannon is now. n.o.body offered her any fellowships or plane rides. Shannon can't even remember her mother taking a vacation, except for the time she took Shannon up to Disney World a few years back.

They went on every single ride-Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride-and they kept a log so they wouldn't miss anything, since they both knew they probably would never come back. People thought they were sisters, but instead of being flattered Janey was downright annoyed. "I paid my dues," she told Shannon.