“Tradition!” Mr. Pomfret fumed. “Bill Frick wouldn’t know a tradition if it bit him in the rear end. Why, at the start it was always horseshoes. Then Ab Bennett came back from the minors with his tail between his legs, and Bill Frick Senior got up a baseball game to make him look good. But Ab doesn’t even play anymore! He’s too old. He runs the lemonade stand.”

Delia had no interest in Bay Day. She planned to spend the morning on errands and give the square a wide berth. But first she found everything closed, and then the peculiar weather (a fog as dense as oatmeal and almost palpably soft) lured her to keep walking, and by the time she reached the crowd she felt so safe in her cloak of mist that she joined in.

The four streets surrounding the square were blocked off and spread with picnic blankets. Food booths lined the sidewalks, and strolling vendors hawked pennants and balloons. Even this much, though, Delia had trouble making out, because of the fog. People approaching seemed to be materializing, their features assembling themselves at the very last instant. The effect was especially unsettling in the case of young boys on skateboards. Elated by the closed streets, they careened through the crowd recklessly, looming up entire and then dissolving. All sounds were muffled, cotton-padded, and yet eerily distinct. Even smells were more distinct: the scent of bergamot hung tentlike over two old ladies pouring tea from a thermos.

“Delia!” someone said.

Delia turned to see Belle Flint unfolding a striped canvas sand chair. She was wearing a vivid pink romper and an armload of bangle bracelets that jingled when she sat down. Delia hadn’t been sure till now that Belle remembered her name; so she reacted out of surprise. “Why, hello, Belle,” she said, and Belle said, “Do you know Vanessa?”

The woman she waved a hand toward was the young mother from the square. She was seated just beyond Belle on a bedspread the same color as the fog, with her toddler between her knees. “Have some of my spread,” she told Delia.

“Oh, thanks, but-” Delia said. And then she said, “Yes, maybe I will,” and she went over to sit next to her.

“Get a load of the picnic lunches,” Belle told Delia. “It’s some kind of contest; they ought to give prizes. What did you bring?”

“Well, nothing,” Delia said.

“A woman after my own heart,” Belle said, and then she leaned closer to whisper, “Selma Frick’s brought assorted hors d’oeuvres in stacked bamboo baskets. Polly Pomfret’s brought whole fresh artichokes on a bed of curried crayfish.”

“Me, I’m with the teenagers,” Vanessa said, handing her son an animal cracker. “I grab something from a booth whenever I get hungry.”

She reminded Delia of those girl-next-door movie stars from the 1940s, slim and dark and pretty in a white blouse and flared red shorts, with shoulder-length black hair and bright-red lipstick. Her son was overdressed, Delia thought-typical for a first child. In his corduroys and long-sleeved shirt, he looked cross and squirmy, and for good reason; Delia could feel the heat of the pavement rising through the bedspread.

“How old is your little boy?” she asked Vanessa.

“Eighteen months last Wednesday.”

Eighteen months! Delia could have said. Why, she remembered that age. When Ramsay was eighteen months, he used to… and Susie, that was when Susie learned to…

Such a temptation, it was, to prove her claims to membership-the labor pains, the teething, the time when she too could have told her baby’s age to the day. But she resisted. She merely smiled at the child’s shimmer of blond hair and said, “I suppose he gets his coloring from his father.”

“Most likely,” Vanessa said carelessly.

“Vanessa’s a single parent,” Belle told Delia.

“Oh!”

“I have no idea who Greggie’s father might be,” Vanessa said, wiping her son’s mouth with a tissue. “Or rather, I have a few ideas, but I could never narrow it down to just one.”

“Oh, I see,” Delia said, and she turned quickly toward the ball game.

Not that there was much to look at, in the fog. Apparently home plate lay in the southeast corner. It was from there she heard the plock! of a hit. But all she could discern was second base, which was marked by a park bench. While she watched, a runner loped up to settle on the bench, and the player already seated there rose and caught a ball out of nowhere and threw it back into the mist. Then he sat down again. The runner leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared intently toward home plate, although how he hoped to see that far Delia couldn’t imagine.

“Derek Ames,” Belle informed her. “One of our best hitters.”

Delia said, “I would think the statue would get in the way.”

“Oh, George plays shortstop,” Belle said, giggling. “No, seriously: there’s a rule. Bean the statue and you walk to first. It used to count as an automatic run till Rick Rackley moved here. But you know professional athletes: they excel at any sport. It got so every time Rick came to bat, he laid old Georgie low.”

“Rick Rackley’s a professional athlete?”

“Or was, till his knee went. Where’ve you been living-Mars? Of course, his game was football, but believe me, the Blues are lucky to have him on their side. That’s who we’re watching, in case you didn’t know: the Blues versus the Grays. Blues are the new folks in town; Grays have been here all along. Whoops! That sounds to me like a homer.”

Another plock! had broken through from the southeast corner. Delia gazed upward but saw only opaque white flannel. In the outfield, such as it was (a triangle of grass behind second base), one player called to another, “Where’s it headed?”

“Damned if I know,” the second player said. Then, with a startled grunt, he caught the ball as it arrived in front of him. “Got it,” he called to the first man.

“You see it?”

“I caught it.”

“It came down already?”

“Right.”

“Bobby caught that!” the first man shouted toward home plate.

“What say?”

“He caught it,” someone relayed. “Batter’s out.”

“He’s what?”

“He’s out!”

“Where is the batter?”

“Who is the batter?”

Vanessa fed her son another animal cracker. “Fog on Bay Day is kind of a rule here,” she told Delia. “I don’t believe anyone’s ever once got a good look at that game. So! Delia. How do you like working for Zeke Pomfret?”

“Well… he’s okay,” Delia said. She supposed she should have expected that her job would be common knowledge.

“He’s a real fine lawyer, you know. If you decide to go ahead with your divorce, you could do worse than hire Zeke.”

Delia blinked.

“Yes, he did just great with my ex-boyfriend’s,” Belle told her. “And he got Vanessa here’s brother Jip out of jail, when Jip hit a spell of bad luck once.”

“I haven’t given much thought to, um, divorce,” Delia said.

“Well, sure! No hurry! And anyhow, my ex-boyfriend’s case was totally different from yours.”

What did they imagine Delia’s case was? She decided not to ask.

Belle was rummaging through her big purse. She pulled forth a pale-green bottle and a stack of paper cups. “Wine?” she asked the others. “It’s a screw top. Don’t tell Polly Pomfret. Yes, Norton’s case was so straightforward, for one thing. He’d only been married a year. In fact, we met on his first anniversary. Met at a Gamblers’ Weekend Special in Atlantic City, where he’d brought his wife to celebrate. He and I just sort of… gravitated, you know?” She passed Delia a cup of white wine. “It helped that his wife was one of those people who end up soldered to their slot machines. So one-two-three I move to Bay Borough, and we rent a little apartment together, and Zeke Pomfret goes to work on Norton’s divorce.”

The wine had a metallic aftertaste, like tinned grapefruit juice. Delia cradled the cup in both hands. She said, “I’m not really planning anything that definite just yet.”