After the waiter had gone and left them alone again, Jack eyed Laurie. She had her head down while busily repositioning her flatware that was already perfectly well positioned. Jack sensed that she was tense. After several more minutes went by, what had started out as a mere pause in the conversation seemed to Jack to become an awkward lull. He adjusted himself on the hard seat, and after a glance around the room to make sure they were being appropriately ignored, he broke the silence: "When would you like to talk about your important 'whatever' that involves you and me and no one else? Is it an appetizer subject, an entree subject, or a dessert subject?"

Laurie looked up. Jack tried to read her blue-green eyes, but he couldn't tell if she was angry or anguished. His speculation about what she was going to say ran the full gamut from her wanting to patch things up, as Lou had suggested, to telling him she was tying the knot with her French-sounding boyfriend. The fact that she was dragging the mystery out was starting to wear thin.

"If it's not too much to ask, I would like you to kindly avoid any attempts at sarcastic humor. I'm sure it is obvious I'm having a hard time with this, and you could at least show some respect."

Jack took a deep breath. It was a tall order for him to abandon his most potent psychological defense in a situation when he feared he needed it the most. "I'll try," he offered, "but I'm all over the map trying to figure what this is all about."

"First, let me say that I learned yesterday that I have the marker for BRCA1."

Jack stared at his former lover while myriad thoughts reverberated inside his head. Along with a rush of sympathy and concern was what he considered a less noble sense of relief. Selfishly, he knew he could personally deal with the BRCA1 problem a lot better than he could with the idea that she was getting married.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Laurie asked after a pause.

"I'm sorry! The news has just caught me unawares. I'm truly sorry to hear that you have the marker. On the positive side, I still think it is better that you know than if you didn't know."

"At the moment, I'm not convinced."

"I am. There's not a shred of doubt in my mind. For now, it will merely mean you'll have to be that much more vigilant, perhaps with mammograms or MRIs on a yearly basis. Remember that although the marker means you have an increased risk of developing cancer before the age of eighty, your mother, whose mutation you undoubtedly share, didn't develop the problem until she was in her eighties."

"That's true," Laurie said, recognizing that Jack had a point. Her face visibly brightened. "And my maternal grandmother who'd had breast cancer didn't develop it until her eighties, either. And my aunts who are all in their latter seventies haven't gotten it-at least not yet."

"Well, there you go," Jack said. "It seems reasonably clear to me that your particular family mutation determines an octogenarian illness."

"Maybe," Laurie said, retracting some of her optimism. "But there's no test for such an assertion, and it doesn't take into account the increased risk of ovarian cancer."

"Has anyone in your family on either side ever had ovarian cancer?"

"Not that I know of."

"It seems to me that is all very positive information."

"I suppose," Laurie said, going back to tinkering with her flatware.

Jack took another gulp of his cold beer. He felt hot and wondered vaguely if his face reflected it. He stuck a finger into his collar and pulled it away from his perspiring neck. He was dying to take off his tie, but he didn't dare, with the chic way Laurie was dressed. What was bothering him was the way Laurie had introduced the BRCA1 issue. She'd said "first," which made Jack worry there was a "second."

At that moment, the salad and calamari arrived. The waiter served the food and then busily rearranged the table and scooped up the breadcrumbs before disappearing. He'd not pestered them about their entree order, which reminded Jack of one of the reasons he liked to eat at Elios. He'd never felt victimized by the inevitable bum's rush in an effort to turn the table, as he had at so many other "in" restaurants.

After taking a few bites of his calamari and another sip of beer, Jack cleared his throat. Superstitiously, he didn't want to ask the question, but the suspense was killing him: "Was there anything else you wanted to tell me tonight, or was it just this BRCA1 issue?"

Laurie put down her fork and locked eyes with Jack. "There is something else. I wanted to tell you that I am pregnant."

Jack swallowed, tipped his head slightly to the side as if something had just caromed off his scalp, and put his beer back on the table. He kept his eyes glued on Laurie's. Laurie being pregnant was perhaps the last thing he expected to hear, and his mind was a jumble of complicated thoughts. He cleared his throat again.

"Who's the father?" Jack questioned.

Laurie's face clouded over like a sudden summer storm, and she leaped up so fast that her chair tipped over backward. The crash brought general conversation in the restaurant to a sudden standstill. She threw her cloth napkin down onto the top of her salad and started for the front of the room. Jack, who had initially recoiled from the unexpected flurry, regained his senses enough to reach out and catch Laurie by the forearm. She tugged back, but Jack held on tightly and wouldn't let her go. She glared down at him with nostrils flared.

"I'm sorry!" Jack blurted and then hastily added, "Don't run off! Obviously, we need to talk, and perhaps that wasn't the most diplomatic first question."

Laurie gave another tug to free her arm, but it was with less force than the first.

"Please sit down!" Jack said in as calm and reassuring a voice as he could muster.

As if suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings, Laurie's eyes swept around the room, and she saw that the restaurant had been seemingly caught in a freeze-frame, with all eyes directed at her. She looked down at Jack, nodded, and took a step back around the table. As if on cue, the waiter materialized, righted her chair, and took away both the napkin and plate of salad. Laurie sat down, and as soon as she did so, the conversation in the restaurant recommenced as if nothing had happened. New Yorkers were accustomed to the unexpected and took it in stride.

"How long have you known?" Jack asked.

"I suspected it yesterday but didn't get confirmation until this morning."

"Are you upset about it?"

"Of course I'm upset. Aren't you?"

Jack nodded and paused for a moment while he thought. "What are you going to do?"

"Do you mean whether or not I'm going to have the baby? Is that what you're asking with your damn question?"

"Laurie, we are having a discussion. You don't have to act angry."

"Your first question, as you called it, struck the wrong chord."

"That was apparent, but considering that you have been having what seems from the outside as an intense affair, my question isn't so inappropriate."

"It struck me as inordinately insensitive, since I have not had sex with Roger Rousseau."

"How am I supposed to know? Over the last few weeks, I've tried on a number of occasions to call you in the evening. One night I continued the effort until rather late, which lead me to believe you were not there."

"I have stayed at Roger's on a few occasions," Laurie admitted. "But there was no sex involved."

"That sounds like a rather suspect distinction, but let's move on."

The waiter reappeared with a fresh napkin and salad for Laurie. Sensitively, he quickly withdrew.

"How pregnant are you?" Jack asked.

"Six weeks, although the OB office would call it seven weeks. There is no doubt in my mind that it occurred that last night we spent together. It's rather ironic, wouldn't you say?"