“This used to be a nice apartment, believe it or not.” He looked back and forth among them. “I thought Kathleen was the only woman under the age of sixty who liked to knit, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Shows how much you know,” Kathleen said. “Tons of girls our age knit. It's very hip.”

“Really?” Sam said. “Why? Sweaters are cheap these days- you can't possibly save any money knitting your own. And it takes forever, doesn't it?”

“You don't do it to save money,” Lucy said. “This yarn cost me more than five sweaters at the Gap. But that's not the point. It's therapy.”

Sam shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I don't get it. It would drive me nuts to do something like that-just sitting there, playing with yarn for hours.”

“It keeps our hands busy while we talk,” Kathleen said. “We talk a lot.”

“Then I really can't stay,” Sam said. “I can only imagine what three pretty young women talk about while they knit. No, actually I can't. And don't want to. Goodbye, girls.”

“I’ll be up later to read the paper,” Kathleen said.

“Of course you will,” he said and left, cutting through the living room to the front door.

“So that's the famous Sam Kaplan,” Lucy said once the door had closed behind him.

“Is he famous?” Kathleen resumed her place on the airbed.

“I had no idea.”

“You know what I mean. Strange guy.”

“No shit.”

“So you two just run in and out of each other's apartments, huh?”

“Sometimes.”

Lucy looked at Sari. “That's sort of an unusual arrangement, don't you think? Do you run in and out of your neighbors’ apartments, Sari?”

“Hardly. Sometimes we run into each other at the trash chute.”

“I’ve never even met my neighbors,” Lucy said. “Kathleen, what's going on here?”

“Nothing,” Kathleen said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Why not?” Kathleen said. “When have you ever known me to be coy about my love life?”

“She makes an excellent point,” Sari said.

“Well, good,” Lucy said. “He looks old enough to be your father.”

“So?” Kathleen said. “I’ve gone out with guys that much older than me before.”

“I’m sure you have,” Lucy said. “Is there any age you haven't covered?”

“I try to stay away from the under-five crowd. They have this whole breast fixation thing I find very disturbing.”

“Plus they never pick up a check,” Lucy said.

Sari laughed. “Speaking of babies-” She held up the blanket. “I’m just about done with this. Where do you guys stand on fringe? For or against?”

“It would be pretty,” Kathleen said, but Lucy shook her head. “You can't put fringe on a baby blanket. They could choke on it.”

“No, they couldn't,” Kathleen said. “That's impossible.”

“How would you know?”

“How would you?

“Let's face it,” Sari said. “None of us knows anything about babies. But I’ll skip the fringe, just to be safe. Do you-” She was interrupted by a loud ring tone of the first few bars of Gwen Stefani's “Rich Girl.” Kathleen shifted over and peered down at her cell phone, which was lying face-up on the floor.

“One of my sisters,” she said, settling back. “I’ll let it go to voice mail.”

“What's going on with them, anyway?” Sari said. “Are they still mad at you for moving out?”

“Not really,” Kathleen said. “I mean, how mad can you be that someone has stopped freeloading on you?”

“They didn't seem to want you to go, though.”

“I know. And they want me to come back. Especially my mom-Christa and Kelly don't get along when I’m not around.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. It's a triplet thing.”

“You have the weirdest family dynamic of anyone I know,” Lucy said.

Sari raised her right hand. “Uh… excuse me?” she said. “I’m at least in the running on that one.”

“Actually,” Lucy said, “you're in a league of your own.”

IV

When Kevin arrived at Kathleen's apartment to pick her up for dinner that night, he told her that he had run into Sam Kaplan in the lobby, and they had agreed it would be fun to all have dinner together. Kathleen wasn't sure who the “all” referred to but soon discovered that it meant that Sam's ex-wife, Patricia, was with him.

It had never occurred to Kathleen before how much of the time she'd previously spent with Sam Kaplan had been one-on-one, just the two of them alone in his apartment. Tonight they were with other people, and she almost didn't recognize her sharp-tongued and occasionally brutal upstairs neighbor in the sociable and relaxed guy who sat across the table from her, his arm casually resting across the back of his ex-wife's chair. If it hadn't been for the way he rubbed all his flatware clean with his napkin and occasionally rolled his eyes at things she said, she might have suspected that he, like her sisters, had an identical twin.

The wine was good, and the waiter and Sam and Kevin all kept refilling Kathleen's glass as soon as it was half empty, so she had probably had a lot more than she even realized by the time the conversation turned to Jackson Porter.

“It was wonderful seeing him and your mother at the benefit,” Sam said to Kevin. “It's been a while.”

“They just don't go out as much as they used to,” Kevin said. “Much as I hate to admit it, they're getting older and starting to slow down.”

“They may not go out together as much,” Kathleen said, “but your father certainly manages to get around.”

“Excuse me?” Kevin said.

“Oh, you know,” she said with a slightly inebriated wink.

“Those daily lunches with attractive young women in private hotel rooms.”

“Ah,” he said. “You've been listening to gossip.” He turned to Sam and Patricia with a smile. “Every once in a while, the office rumor mill comes up with an exciting double life for my father. I guess it's one of the ways people keep themselves entertained during a long day at work.”

“Offices can get boring,” Sam said. His eyes moved quickly back and forth between Kevin and Kathleen, assessing the situation without giving any of his own thoughts away. “And everyone enjoys a good scandal, even a fictional one.”

“But in this case it's true,” Kathleen said. She didn't really care that Jackson cheated on his wife, but she found it incredibly annoying that Kevin was making it sound like she was some kind of gullible stooge. “Half the office could tell you which hotel he uses. Which room.”

Kevin looked at her, his brows drawn together. He drew his breath in.

“Kevin,” Patricia said suddenly, “do your parents still have that house on the beach in Santa Barbara? Or was it Montecito? We went out there once and it was just lovely.”

Kevin answered in the affirmative, and the talk shifted to beach houses and whether the Southern California real estate bubble was likely to burst anytime in the near future.

They all walked back to the apartment building together. Kevin stuck with Sam, talking shop with him, while the two women strolled ahead. He hadn't really looked at Kathleen since she had said that stuff about his father, and now she wondered if he was furious with her. The thought intrigued her. She had never seen him angry.

Patricia said, “It's a beautiful night, isn't it? I love the fall. I loved it more on the East Coast, but even here there's something special about a cool autumn night.”

“Are you from the East Coast originally?” Kathleen asked.

They were walking in rhythm together, their high heels clicking in sync on the paved sidewalk.

Patricia nodded. “I grew up on Long Island and met Sam in college. I never thought I’d end up a Californian, but we came here after we were married and never left. And as long as Joanna's at UCLA, I suppose I’ll stay. But if she settles down somewhere else, I’ll probably move. Even after all these years, it still doesn't feel like home to me.”