“What does your mother think?”

“I haven’t told anyone except you. The thing is, my mother probably wouldn’t give a shit. My father would be amused.”

“It’s actually kind of hip.”

“Hip to the outside world. To me, it’s my fucking life. And don’t worry, Sally,” she added, addressing my secret thoughts, “I’m not attracted to you. You’re not my type.”

“That’s a relief.”

“I like more meat on the bone.”

“Okay, okay.” I thought about telling her about Lillith, what there was to tell, but I didn’t. I felt lonely in a way I hadn’t before.

“I can see you’re ready to rock at Alicia’s.” Alicia, whose party we were invited to, was actually more Fran’s friend than mine—they’d attended elementary school together.

I had on the hibiscus dress. “Yeah. What do you think?”

“Foxy. And that’s just as well. I heard Carey might be there.” Fran had always liked my husband.

“Oh, great.”

“He has a new girlfriend.”

“I know.”

“I think he’s still carrying a torch for you though.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “I got Alicia a bottle of Merlot. Do you think we should bring flowers too?”

“Relax, Sal. Wine will be fine.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a nervous wreck. This is my first social event since I’ve been back.”

I had never been to Alicia’s apartment, which was on Beekman Place. In the old-fashioned wood-paneled lobby, a liveried doorman phoned up to announce us. He said, “Miss Fischel and Miss Wang.” Fran tapped her toe on the slick marble floor. She looked like she belonged; I didn’t. I’d had no idea how rich Alicia was until once when I was at the dentist I’d picked up a copy of Town & Country and found her name on the list of the most eligible heiresses in the United States.

Alicia herself answered the door wearing a fuchsia minidress and decadently high stiletto heels, in the style of the Latinas in my neighborhood. Why did all the women I know have such terrific legs? Her hair, which was almost as dark and straight as mine, was cut in a severe angled pageboy. Diamond drops fell casually from her ears. As she gave kisses to Fran and me, I saw that the love seat in the foyer was strewn with expensive-looking women’s purses. One that particularly caught my eye was a clutch made of colored straw in the shape of a watermelon.

I wanted to turn around and go home.

But Alicia was already pulling us in and saying gaily, “Forgive the decor of this place, it’s actually my stepmother’s, she’s really into this froufrou stuff.”

I saw what she meant. The place had kind of a European clutter to it, valances fringed in gold, photographs in ornate silver frames scattered on tables and shelves, lots of small eccentrically shaped chairs and ottomans that I couldn’t identify but knew were extremely valuable. In what seemed to be the main room stood a ring of people holding glasses, talking and laughing very loudly.

I offered my wine. “Oh, good,” Alicia said, examining the label, and Fran and I followed her to the kitchen, where I felt safer. A kitchen was a room in which the agenda was obvious. You could always find something to do in a kitchen. It was also where the bar was. Fran and I mixed ourselves gin and tonics, using tall glasses that had levels marked off with pictures of different animals. The top picture was a monkey, and the bottom was a jackass. I made my drink strong, and after a couple of swigs I was able to follow Fran into the living room.

How many gatherings like this had I attended, where the point was to blend in, not to call attention to myself because I stood out too much? My father would have loved this, me at the party of Alicia Houghton, with all the sons and daughters of the establishment. He would have said that I had made it.

Fran waded right in, addressing a brawny man wearing shorts printed with coconuts and clusters of grapes, paired with a formal red linen suit jacket. She introduced him to me as Alicia’s cousin, and to my relief he seemed to be the conversational type, probably due to the fact that the glass in his hand was nearly down to jackass level. I concentrated on smiling in what I thought were the correct places, and soon we were having a perfectly civilized conversation about a recent exhibition of Persian miniatures at the Met. The cousin actually looked interested in what I had to say, although it might have been just a facade. There was something so fatal about that WASP politeness—you never knew where you stood—although I had had enough practice with my in-laws to have begun to be able to decipher it. I was suddenly and sadly reminded of those vacations with Fran in the city when we’d gone out with those boys who consistently froze me out. The cousin might have been one, for all I knew, because I didn’t remember any of their faces. He tilted his glass and drained it heartily. I watched the action of that white Adam’s apple and thought, He has no idea how ridiculous that getup he’s wearing is, how few places in the world would find it even remotely acceptable.

Fran got collared by a couple in matching white duck trousers, who both turned out to be lawyers and wanted to know what Harvard was like these days. I studied my friend as she stood poised there in her blue and green abstract-patterned cocktail dress, hair conservatively pulled back in barrettes. There was nothing the least bit dykey about Fran, unless you counted her intensity, or the way she walked into a room as if she owned it.

“So, can I get you another drink?” the cousin was asking me. Then, seeing that I wasn’t quite finished—“Or freshen that one?” I handed him my glass.

“Thanks.”

This was what I dreaded most, being alone at a party, it was the stuff of nightmares. Although I wasn’t drunk yet, that familiar unsteadiness came over me. I imagined, not for the first time, that what I’d been feeling since I’d gotten back from St. Pete must be like the malaise people go through when they move to a new country, that continuing seasickness of immigrants. The sickness that, according to Aunty Mabel, my father had never gotten over. Longing for a cigarette, I sat down on the pink-and-white-striped window seat. There was a little marble-topped table in front of me displaying a collection of Limoges boxes shaped liked different kinds of fruit. Fruit was certainly the theme of the afternoon. I picked up a tiny clump of raspberries to examine it.

Alicia’s breathy voice was in my ear: “Aren’t they beautiful? That was my grandmother’s collection. I gave her those raspberries the Christmas before she died.”

I thought of Nai-nai’s Limoges gathering dust in my mother’s attic.

“Here’s Charlie with a drink for someone. Oh, for you, Sally. I’m glad you two are getting to know each other.”

“So you knew Lish at prep school.” The cousin plunked himself down next to me. I marveled at the way he’d managed to make my drink—lime, ice, and all—with the level exactly at the monkey line. Obviously an expert.

Before I could answer there was a commotion at the door. Alicia excused herself and went over. I saw the copper flash of Fran’s hair as she turned from her conversation with the lawyers to look toward the foyer. The new guest was a woman alone, an ice-blonde in an orange sheath. She looked vaguely familiar. Fran raised her eyebrows at me, tilting her head to the kitchen.

“What’s up?” I asked her a few minutes later.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That woman who just came in. It’s Carey’s new girlfriend.”

I felt sick. “Is Carey here?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

I said: “I think I need another drink.”

“Sally. What a surprise.”

“Carey.” It was much, much later in the party. I didn’t know where Charlie had gotten himself to, he was probably off with someone more his speed, someone who could hold their liquor. Astonishingly, Carey looked exactly the same, substantial, like a husband. He was wearing a tropical-print shirt and the khaki trousers we’d shopped for together at Brooks Brothers. He was so familiar I could almost believe that we were still married, that we would leave this party together and go back to our apartment on Riverside Drive. He had new glasses, I noticed, wire-framed instead of hornrimmed.