He groaned hugely, stabbing her again. "Janice, give me a break."

The groan broke her. Give him a break? "All you get is breaks. You're never around. You're always out with that tart. The least you can do is give your son five minutes of your precious time." It was out of the bag. She retreated a step, shocked that she'd said it.

"Where did you get that idea? There's no tart in my life." He turned to look at her for the first time, shocked to hear her talk like that.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. You call that ugly bitch your associate. You're out with her every night. You come home at three, four in the morning. Do you think I'm stupid?" Once her deepest fear was out in the open, Janice kept screaming.

"We call that work, Janice," he said angrily, his face mottled with the blood rushing to the surface, showing it all.

"Right. Give me that kind of work," she said bitterly.

"You're crazy." He turned his back on her a third time, pulled on a pair of shorts, then the Loro Piana navy blue nail-head cashmere trousers of a Bergdorf Goodman suit. He grabbed a shirt from a hanger, not even looking at it first. He was in a big hurry.

The deep blush, the nail-head suit, and the great big hurry were more than Janice could bear. She had a headache and a hangover. She swerved to the subject most likely to move him.

"Bill, I can't take all the responsibility of David myself. I've done all the parenting here. You have to participate. This is his junior year. His whole college career, maybe his whole life, depends on his knuckling under now."

"Knuckling is an incorrect image. You don't want him to knuckle under, you want him to settle down and work."

"Fine. You're his father, you talk to him."

"What do you suggest that I say?"

"Well, he's breaking the house rules again," she said, furious at both of them. Bill also was breaking the house rules, but one thing at a time. "Tell him you know about it. You're going to dock him his allowance and ground him if he doesn't knuckle under and live up to his potential."

Bill finished tying a new tie, a stunning Ferragamo with lovebirds on it so vivid you could almost hear them coo. Janice had never seen it before.

"Where did you get that?" she demanded.

"Do you like it? Peggy gave it to me."

Janice paled. Peggy was giving him inappropriate gifts now? Lovebirds? "I think it sucks a big one," she said.

Bill came out of the closet with a small tight smile on his smug face. He was gleaming all over-face pink and healthy, newly scrubbed and shaved, fancy suit, lovely new tie. He brushed by his wife, who was still holding the coffee cup, her thickening body showing clearly through the nightgown.

He marched into his son's room. David's head was under the covers.

"Good morning, David. Say hello to your father."

"You two are fighting again. You woke me up," came the angry response.

"David. Your mother and I love you very much. We're both very proud of you. Now listen to me. I want you to come home after school and get on the stick, you hear me? You're a wonderful, bright, brave boy, and you deserve all the good things life has to offer. We're proud of your efforts and we want you to try harder. Not for us, for yourself."

He turned back to his wife with an expression that said, There, I spoke with him. Satisfied?

No, she wasn't. There was one thing he hadn't mentioned. "And keep out of the park," she added. "I don't want you in that park. It's not safe. Your breakfast will be ready in four minutes. Meet me in the kitchen." Without looking at Bill she went back into the bathroom for her turn in the shower. She knew he'd be gone by the time she came out.

In the bedroom David was muttering, "Fuck you both."

Thirty-seven

Cheryl Fabman awoke feeling human for the first time since her surgery. She shoved her feet into satin mules and gently moved herself from her green satin bed to her white carpeted floor, then into the bathroom to pee and take her first good look at herself. All the bathroom surfaces were marble except for the large mirrored inserts in the walls. All her mirrors told her she didn't look bad at all. A nice side effect to the week in bed was that all signs of fatigue and irritation over her present predicament were gone from her eyes.

Cheryl could not help admiring her lips, which were very impressive now despite a bit of swelling that would probably not completely disappear for another week or two. The inside of her mouth felt funny, but so what? She hiked up her nightgown to her waist and twirled in front of the mirror a few times, taking in from several angles her still Lycra-encased hips and thighs. She had been thin before. With nearly two pounds of pure fat removed from vital spots she was even thinner. But she was most proud of the lips; they definitely looked movie-star plump.

As Cheryl studied herself, she reconsidered the skills of her doctor. At the time of the consult, Morris Strong had suggested a few other little things she might do. Botox shots for the vertical frown-lines between her eyebrows were out of the question because it contained active botulism and paralyzed the nerves or something.

He'd also suggested she do her eyes, of course. She was forty-three. She thought she'd wait on the eyes to see how the lips went.

Dr. Strong had informed her that in California they were doing full face-lifts at forty-two and it was better to start young. She pulled at the creases just beginning to tug at the corners of her mouth. He'd told her she could look twenty if she wanted to. But why bother? The Bastard, Seymour, was forty-two, a year younger than her and fat as a pig. Aston was fifty and looked sixty, another fat pig. She was forty-three and looked maybe twenty-eight. She was still a stunning woman. She could probably do better than either of them without any more work done.

She twirled some more. Nice butt. Really. Despite the Vicodin she'd taken last night, her eyes were clear. She saw that her hair needed freshening up, though. The yellow was too strong, maybe she'd go a little less brassy for the fall. She finished her assessment and padded into her daughter's room.

Brandy was still asleep. The air conditioner was humming away. It was freezing in her room and Brandy was buried deep under the covers. Cheryl checked the clock. Seven-thirty.

"Bran, honey. Wake up. Did you sleep through your alarm?"

There was no movement under the covers.

"Hey, kid, wake up and smell the flowers. Today's a school day."

Cheryl didn't want to lose her good feeling. She was through being an invalid. Where did it get her, anyway? No one cared how she felt. She'd be up and out of there today, ready to start a new life with new hips and new lips. Brandy had a mirror on her bedroom door. Cheryl looked pretty good in that one, too. She primped a little, fluffing her hair.

"Brandy, are you okay? Don't you want to see how good I turned out?" Cheryl frowned at her daughter's mess.

"Uh-huh."

Cheryl didn't like the mess, or the way that uh-huh sounded. "Honey, what's the matter? You don't sound very enthusiastic. Don't you know what time it is?"

"Uh-huh."

"You've got to get going or you'll be late for school. You promised me you'd take your studies seriously this year."

"Uh-huh."

A third uh-huh. What was going on? "Brandy, I'm losing my patience. Get up and clean this mess up. It stinks in here. And get ready for school. Where were you last night, anyway? I waited for you for hours."

This got her talking.

"With Dad. I got home at ten. You were out cold." The covers moved, but Brandy's head did not appear.