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+{"text":"\n\nISBN-13: 978-1-62205-003-1\n\nSWEET, SWEET POISON\n\nCopyright \u00a92012 InfinityBox Press\n\nAll rights reserved. Except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means in any manner without the written permission of the publisher.\n\nAll characters, groups, places, and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious.\n\nCover: Richard Wilhelm\n\nInfinityBox Press\n\n7060 North Borthwick Avenue\n\nPortland, OR 97217\n\nwww.infinityboxpress.com\n\nwww.facebook.com\/InfinityBoxPress\n\nwww.facebook.com\/kate.wilhelm.52\n\nFor Geoffrey Simmons, with gratitude.\n\nThere are debts that cannot be repaid, but only acknowledged.\nSweet, Sweet poison\n\nKate Wilhelm\nCHAPTER 1\n\nAL ZUKAL DROVE INTO the driveway of the new house with caution. You never knew out here in the country, he thought; things happen, dead animals, trees down, sinkholes... .\n\n\"They ain't got here yet,\" Sylvie muttered. And, in fact, no one else was in sight.\n\nThere was the gravel drive close pressed by evergreen trees at the county road and dense undergrowth that neither recognized, with grass that already needed cutting and probably would need it on a weekly basis. The driveway curved a few times, and at those places neither the county road nor the house was visible; it was like being in a wilderness, they both thought uneasily. The yard had not been maintained for many years. Untrimmed roses sprawled with dead lower branches; lilacs grew as high as trees and made a thicket with too many spindly new sprouts. Spent blossoms hung in brown clusters. Sumac had crept in and threatened to claim the entire acreage but was contested by many young trees\u2014maples, pines, a few oaks\u2014all too crowded and weak-looking. There were fourteen acres altogether, reverting back to a natural state where nature would do the thinning.\n\nBut no moving van was in sight. Al pulled in behind the house, where he stopped and turned off the motor. There was a two-car garage, unusable until tons of junk were cleaned out. He looked at Sylvie.\n\nShe had been a red-haired girl when they married, thirty years ago, and she would die red-haired at the end, no matter how long-delayed it was. He was used to her red hair and liked it. He liked her pear-shape, too, and would have admitted readily that they made a good couple, each pear-shaped, with her rounder end down, and his up. It made for better sleeping that way, he liked to think.\n\n\"What if they don't make it today?\" she demanded, not yet moving to open her door and get out.\n\n\"They'll make it. They want to get paid, they get here. Simple arithmetic. Come on, gives us time to make sure where we want the bed.\"\n\nActually the only thing they were moving of any consequence from their Bronx apartment was the bed. \"That was my mother's bed!\" Sylvie had said early on, as if that settled that. And it had. Just about everything else in the van that had not yet arrived was new. The new station wagon had boxes of bedding, two feather beds, also inherited from her mother, God bless her soul, and a mishmash of dishes, no four alike. But Sylvie knew when and how they had acquired each and every one of them, and when the missing pieces had vanished, or had been broken. \"I want them all,\" she had said through tight lips, and there they were in the wagon waiting to be lugged inside. There were also boxes of new clothes; at least she hadn't insisted on keeping every rag they ever owned.\n\nHe said, \"Well, why don't you get on out and let's get at it?\"\n\nActually he said, \"why doncha,\" and when she responded she said, \"Well, aincha the impatient one!\" But they didn't hear it like that and presently they were both standing before their new home. It was a two-story building, the lower half finished with river stone, the upper section white clapboard. It had an attic that would sleep many grandchildren, and a basement that would probably hold more junk than they could accumulate in the years remaining to them\u2014they were both in their fifties. The house was large, five bedrooms, a den and breakfast room besides the kitchen, a big dining room, and even bigger living room. The biggest apartment they had ever lived in had had three bedrooms, and one of them was really a dining room or a parlor or something. But with four girls growing up in the house they had needed bed space more than eating space or sitting space. Now they looked at their new home with silent awe.\n\nLooming over the many trees behind the house the mill rose, and that was theirs also. The mill had been built in 1848 and operated until World War I, or thereabouts, and used as a school at one time, and a bootlegger's production site at another, but for the past twenty years it had not been used for anything.\n\nSylvie cleared her throat and said, \"Listen.\" It came out as a whisper.\n\n\"I don't hear nothing.\"\n\n\"That's what I mean.\"\n\nBefore, when they had come out to their house, they had been with the real estate man, and then with their daughter Flora and her husband Bobby and their two kids, and there had been noise. But now there was a breeze shaking the trees a little, and off beyond the mill the rustle of water, and a faint sound of the falls, not much, not enough.\n\n\"I don't know, Al,\" Sylvie said softly.\n\n\"Jaysus Crackers! Now you don't know! Come on, grab that first box and let's get at it. Wait and see. When Flora and Bobby are here, and the kids yelling, the radio and stereo blasting, it'll be just like home.\"\n\nThey began to carry the boxes inside and stack them on counters in the kitchen, and soon the movers came, and the sight of the four-poster with the pineapple knobs comforted Sylvie. She began to relax. She fussed at Al for getting in the way, and he cursed the movers for bumping the bed against the stair rails, and everything was normal again.\n\nThe movers also brought in a new sofa, new chairs and tables, dining table, kitchen table... a new stove, a Jenn Aire that had a grill and six burners, and a refrigerator with two doors. Al had stared at it in the store. \"Jaysus Crackers! You know what I grew up with? A little box this big, with a chunk of ice delivered every Monday, and by God it had to last until the next Monday.\"\n\nAfter the movers had finished, Al nudged Sylvie with his elbow. \"Well, watcha think?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"We need more furniture than I thought we would. It's a big house, Al.\"\n\n\"You don't have to fill it, you know.\"\n\nShe was surveying the living room with narrowed eyes and did not answer. The spanking-new and factory-clean furniture looked barren somehow, and that was because there was no clutter, no piles of newspapers and magazines, no sneakers in corners, no beer cans on the tables, no pretzel bags, nothing to make it look like home. It even smelled strange, Al realized, not liking the untouched, un-lived-in look and smell. Sylvie would fill it, he knew, and after the kids got here, they would help, and for now, well, there was work to do.\n\nA while later she was stashing things in cabinets in the kitchen when he decided to do the shopping they had agreed on ahead of time. \"You coming?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Too dirty. I thought they just had this many cabinets in them fancy magazines with houses that no one really ever lives in.\"\n\nShe'd fill the cabinets, too, he thought gloomily and left her there. Spender's Ferry was less than three miles away, one hour and twenty minutes out of New York City, with a commuter train station and everything. Goddamn suburbanites, he thought in surprise. That's what they had suddenly become. Al's father had come over from Czechoslovakia to strike gold and had set himself up in a butcher shop, which Al inherited in due time. Then the Bronx caught on fire. That was how he thought of it. The shop vanished, and Al got a job butchering for a supermarket. At least, he often thought when things got tough, they always had meat on their table. Stolen meat, meat carried home in pockets, in his lunch box, meat sometimes slipped to Sylvie when she came in to shop. When things got really bad Sylvie worked too, cleaning offices in the middle of the night. Somehow they had made out okay. Not great, but okay. Then, almost a year ago, Al Zukal had spent five dollars on the lottery and had won big. Just like his father always said, he thought: work hard all your life and you'll make it. Guaranteed income of two hundred twenty-five thou a year, he thought, as he had very, very often over the intervening months. Goddamn suburbanites!\n\nJill Ferris was leading the way across a swinging bridge below the mill at that moment. \"Dad's always maintained the bridge, just because he likes it,\" she said over her shoulder to a tall man behind her. Jill was thirty, a bit underweight, with long pale hair, no longer really blond, although she had been very blond as a child. Now it was the color of darkening golden oak; it gleamed with red highlights when she moved into sunlight. The man following her was Sebastian Pitkin, a few years older than Jill; he had a solemn expression, lank hair darker than hers, and large blue eyes that bulged a little. The bridge swayed and he clutched the handrail involuntarily; she seemed not to notice.\n\nJill stopped near the end of the bridge and pointed. \"Pretty, isn't it?\" Below them was Spender's Lake, seven acres in all, with a short strip of beach at the upper-right end. That was on the side of her father's land, several hundred acres, mostly woods, with an orchard that was invisible from here. On the other side of the lake was the university experimental farm. The narrow bridge, twenty feet across, swung a few inches above the dam; the waterfall had a drop of eight feet. The stream that wound away through a gorge was only two feet wide below the dam, although farther on it widened again to become Spender's Creek. The setting was incredibly beautiful, untouched-looking. The trees were massive in the forest, the lake shockingly blue, grasses edged the water in places, and even the picturesque swinging bridge was like an illustration in a book from the turn of the century.\n\n\"See, that's state forest land,\" Jill said, pointing again. \"Dad's land borders it on this end and the creek and mill property make up the boundary here. The experimental farm is on the other side of the mill property. No one will ever be able to encroach in any way. Perfect, isn't it?\"\n\nSebastian was nodding thoughtfully, eyeing the mill that towered over them. The waterwheel looked intact, although some of the buckets probably would need replacing. Hard to tell, though; there was too much moss on the lower portion.... No water flowed through the diversion trough, but of course it wouldn't, not with the mill shut down. \"You say the mill's in good shape?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. They built it out of cypress, cedar, and oak, and they built it to last forever. The upper floors would be great for dormitories and the entire lower part could be classrooms, mess hall, kitchens, meeting rooms. Wait until you see.\" She started to walk again; the bridge began to swing again. He caught the handrail and followed cautiously.\n\nThere were mammoth double doors that had admitted horse-drawn wagons loaded with grain at one time, but no longer opened. Weeds grew thick at the base of the doors, all around the mill. White Queen Anne's lace, blue forget-me-nots, pink and yellow sweet peas trailing everywhere. Almost too pretty, too planned. Jill led the way around to a normal-sized door that opened at her touch. The interior was dim; makeshift partitions had been added at one time or another, obviously temporary additions that never had been torn down again.\n\n\"See,\" Jill said, in the center of one of the small rooms, \"a private meditation room, or a sleeping cell, or even a meeting place for a group of four or five.\" The room was about eight by ten, stifling, bake-oven hot. The single window appeared to be painted shut.\n\nThey left the room and were in the central, open space where the mechanism for the grinding of the corn and wheat was all there, gears and wheels and chains and pulleys, but the stone grinding wheels had been removed. This section was pleasantly cool. They went up very sturdy stairs and looked around, came down a different staircase, and roamed the back part of the lower floor.\n\nThey were emerging from around one of the partitions when Jill gasped at the sight of a figure in the open doorway.\n\n\"Who are you? This is private property,\" Jill said, louder than she intended, startled.\n\n\"I could say the same,\" the woman snapped back at her. \"It's private property, all right, my private property, me and my husband's. What are you doing in here?\"\n\nJill could only stare at this awful woman, with her awful, thick Bronx accent and voice that sounded like a demented duck quacking. She was dressed in awful dirty, baggy pants, with a dirty shirt, and she had awful red-dyed frizzy hair poking out from under a grass-green kerchief.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Sebastian said. \"We certainly didn't mean to invade your privacy. I thought the property was for sale. Mrs. Ferris was showing it to me. Please forgive us.\" He smiled gently. \"This is Mrs. Ferris, and I'm Sebastian.\"\n\nFor a moment, with his light blue eyes fixed, his gaze on her so directly, she felt confusion. A kind man, she thought, understanding, but then the girl made a noise and Sylvie looked at her, the moment broken, gone, leaving a bewildering set of contradictions in its place. Sylvie crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. \"Right. Well, the mill and the house ain't for sale, not no more. Me and Al bought it all last week and we're moving in right now.\"\n\n\"Come along,\" Sebastian said to Jill then. \"It's a mistake, after all. No harm done.\"\n\nSylvie watched them narrowly as they left the mill and stepped onto the bridge. She waited until they had vanished among the trees on the other side before she went back to the house, muttering to herself. A politician, or a preacher, she thought. She shook her head. Preacher. Not just because no politician would ever own up to a name like Sebastian, but the way he looked at her. Making up to her, she thought with surprise. The kind who got on Sunday television and looked at you like that, like he'd be all over you in a flash if he could, like if he could just lay on a hand, you'd say yes no matter what he asked. Making up to her, at her age, she muttered angrily. Sylvie didn't trust religion that relied on sorrowful blue eyes and the laying on of hands, and the intimate little smiles that suggested he knew your secrets. Religion should be cooler than that, she thought, more dignified. And that skinny girl. Putty in the hands of a man like that. Her lips tightened at the thought of the girl. Who are you? Like she owned the world. Well, she showed them, Mr. Sebastian-let-me-save-your-soul, and Mrs. I-own-the-world Ferris.\n\nShe was still grumbling under her breath when David Levy turned up at the kitchen door of the house. He was a stick of a boy, way over six feet, with a great big pumpkin grin, and wanting a haircut, like always. Ever since she knew him, he had needed a haircut. Must get it done sometime, she thought, but it never showed. Great mop of black hair. Rosa, their youngest daughter, had told David they were looking for a place in the country, and David had told them about this, and now here he was to lend a hand. A good boy. And Rosa didn't know good when she saw it, off in California on a scholarship, studying to be some kind of ocean scientist, and some other girl would see David Levy and not be so blind... .\n\n\"What can I do?\" David asked. \"I wanted to come earlier but we've been pretty busy at the farm. Anyway, here I am.\" He had a backpack slung over his shoulder. He put it on the table and she began directing him exactly the same way she directed Al and the girls and their husbands and children.\n\nPretty soon Al came back with the station wagon loaded with groceries, and they got to work carrying them inside. \"I told my boss about you,\" David said, putting a box down on the table. \"I hope it's okay if she comes by to meet you.\"\n\n\"Grand Central,\" Sylvie muttered. \"Fine, David, fine. Al, put that on the table until I have a chance to see what all you've got. Did you buy some hot dogs like I told you?\"\n\n\"Sure, sure. And buns, what you didn't tell me. And catsup. And beer. And I'm for a beer right now. David?\"\n\nHe shook his head. Al opened two cans and handed one to Sylvie. David rummaged in his backpack and brought out a thermos. \"Lemonade,\" he said, and drank.\n\nHe put the thermos down and went to the door then. \"Here she comes,\" he said. In just a moment a woman appeared and he opened the door for her.\n\n\"Dr. Wharton, these are my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Zukal.\"\n\nShe was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers. She had the kind of sturdy little body that would let her wear clothes like that for many more years. Her hair was short and straight, dark with streaks of gray at the temples. When she smiled, a dimple appeared in her cheek and her eyes smiled along with her mouth.\n\nSylvie nodded. \"You want a beer?\" she asked. And then, \"You're a doctor?\"\n\n\"Just a professor. And call me Lois,\" she said. \"I'd love a beer.\" She was looking around at the furniture, at the boxes, and cartons with undisguised interest. \"This has been a hell of a day.\"\n\nAl Zukal popped another can and handed it over to her and she drank thirstily. \"For us, too,\" he said. \"Moving's a bitch.\"\n\n\"I was really surprised when David said you had bought the place,\" Lois said. \"Not you, but anyone. This property has been on the market for years.\"\n\n\"Two looks,\" Al said. \"All it took. Two trips and me and Sylvie, we seen it was exactly what we're after. Believe you me, we looked at a lot of dumps, real dumps, and a lot of mansions, too.\"\n\nSylvie began to talk about some of the other places they had inspected, and Al was still talking, now about the realtors who would sell a doghouse and call it a palace. Lois finished her beer and caught the look of affection and amusement on David's face. She grinned again and although both Al and Sylvie were talking, she did, too.\n\n\"Anyway, welcome, and thanks for the beer. I have to go and scrub. I'm all over muck. Why don't you join us for a cookout? David, you know the way up the trail, don't you? You can be guide. Seven or thereabouts.\"\n\nSylvie and Al exchanged glances; hers said sure, why not, and he nodded.\n\n\"Good. No one should have to cook on moving day, and restaurants are just too much trouble if you've been working hard. Don't dress up or anything. It's a real cookout, first of the season, and with the weather cooling off the way it does as soon as the sun goes down, it's not likely to be a late-night affair.\" She reached out to put down her empty can, and somehow her arm brushed David's thermos and it teetered, then fell with the unmistakable sound of breaking glass.\n\n\"Goddamn it,\" Lois said with a sigh. \"David, I'm sorry. As I said, it's been that kind of day. I'll replace it, of course.\" She bent over to pick it up, but he was there first.\n\n\"It's all right,\" he said hurriedly. ^'Really. Don't worry about it.\"\n\nBut she would get him a new one, Sylvie thought. Lois left then, and Sylvie turned to the bags and boxes on the table. \"Now, let's see what you got and try to figure out where it should go.\"\n\nAl was looking thoughtfully out the door. \"David, she said up the trail, walk to her place. Where? There ain't no place out there that I know about.\"\n\nDavid squirmed uncomfortably. \"I didn't know she'd invite us all over,\" he said, not looking happy. \"I mean, she's my boss, a professor, Dr. Wharton, and all, but she's also Mrs. Wollander. She lives in the big house at the other side of the lake.\"\n\nAs Lois walked away she continued to hear Sylvie's raucous voice, and Al's equally raucous voice in some kind of weird harmony. She was still grinning.\n\n\"What's so funny?\"\n\nShe looked up, startled, but not really surprised to see her husband Warren approaching with both hands outstretched.\n\n\"Hi! Didn't see you there. Sun in my eyes maybe.\"\n\nHe drew her close and kissed her. Warren Wollander was six feet tall and large through the shoulders and chest, strong-looking at sixty-two. \"I didn't intend you should see me,\" he said, softly. \"That's just about where I was standing the first time I saw you. Remember? I like watching you when you don't know I'm there.\"\n\n\"Who could forget?\" she said, and put her arm about his waist. His arm was across her shoulders as they started up the trail.\n\nHe had taken the walk that day even though there was still snow in every shadowed cranny, thick on the north slopes, piled up behind stone walls. And across the lake he had seen a person who, he thought, was spiking the experimental trees. A short, shapeless figure in a down jacket, heavy pants, boots, with a red stocking cap that had a long tail that swung back and forth as she applied a drill to a tree, braced for purchase, and started to drill.\n\n\"I thought you were a yeti,\" she said gravely, and they both laughed. Actually, she had been drilling out core samples to measure for growth. He tightened his arm around her shoulders. \"I was smiling at our new neighbors,\" she said. \"Mr. and Mrs. Zukal. I invited them to the cookout. And David, too. It's time you met David, I think.\"\n\nThe pressure of his hand on her shoulder tightened, just for a moment, and perhaps not in response to what she had said, she thought. She did not look up at him, but watched the trail. It was well-groomed, with dense mayapple colonies on both sides.\n\n\"Well, well, the place finally got sold? That will surprise Jill, I suspect.\"\n\n\"I guess so,\" she agreed, and suddenly felt tired, and unhappy about the invitation that she had issued without thought. \"Do you mind that I asked them over?\"\n\nThis time she knew his hand tightened, but it was a reassuring pressure, and reassurance was in his voice when he replied. \"Lois, this is your house, not Jill's. Remember? You're the lady of the house. You want company, invite them. Tell me about our new neighbors.\"\n\nShe began to talk and presently he was chuckling, and then laughed louder. \"God, it will certainly surprise Jill.\"\n\nShe laughed, too, but she was bothered about his daughter Jill. What if Jill came on in one of her bitchy moods? She could do that. And this man, this guru, whatever he was, what if he was impossible? She knew that Jill's husband Stanley would be all right, and Warren would treat the Zukals exactly the same way he treated everyone. With a politeness that would be excessive if he didn't like them, and with warmth and humor if he did. She sighed and wished she could take back the spontaneous invitation. And even with the thought, she found herself denying it.\n\nNo, by God, she thought firmly; this was her house, she was the lady of the house, and Jill had to be reminded now and then. Jill had arrived for a visit three weeks ago and Lois was beginning to think of her as the Woman Who Came to Dinner. Yesterday Jill had announced plans for a cookout, even though the late April weather could be as fickle as any poet ever suggested. She had invited a stranger, Sebastian, and had taken it for granted that it would be fine with everyone else. Well, it was, only the party had suddenly increased by three.\n\nSometimes she wondered if Warren was fully aware of the cautious maneuvers she and Jill used with each other, and usually she knew the answer was that he was fully aware. She suspected that he knew exactly why she had invited their new neighbors, and she suddenly felt ashamed of herself, and immensely grateful for his support. His position was not enviable either, she knew. He was deeply in love with her, no doubt about that, and he loved his daughter without reservation, even though she could be... difficult was the kindest word Lois could think of. She gave his waist a little squeeze when they had to separate to walk single file. She appreciated these short periods together more than he could realize; she knew he was the wisest man she had ever met, and if he thought it would all work out, that made her think so too. Most of the time anyway.\nCHAPTER 2\n\nTHIS WAS ONE OF THE worst evenings of his life, David Levy thought as he and the Zukals approached the big house. They had come up the trail, as Dr. Wharton had suggested, and Mrs. Zukal had been watching for animals or snakes or bugs the entire way. Now they emerged onto a meticulously maintained lawn that stretched out forever. Already, some people on the patio behind the house had turned to watch them. David felt like a pinned butterfly. He swallowed hard and deliberately looked past the group of people to study the house.\n\nThe original structure had been tall and narrow, three stories up with a peaked roof, but wings had been added, and now it sprawled and the central part looked almost like a ship's mast to which the lower sections were tethered. The patio was flagstone; a long trellis covered with the first extravagant flush of red and white roses screened what lay beyond.\n\nAlthough he intended to keep focusing on the house, his gaze was drawn to Lois as she came to meet them. She was dressed in chino pants and a gray silk shirt that made Sylvie's blue polyester pantsuit look tawdry. She got between Sylvie and Al to take their arms and steer them to her husband. Her greeting was warm and cheerful; she made it seem natural for the three newcomers to be part of the group, and to David's surprise no one else seemed to think it strange either. He mumbled something to Mr. Wollander, and then to his daughter Jill who looked like a movie star in skintight jeans and a scoop-neck sweater that accentuated her sharp collarbones. He nodded to the other man whose name was simply Sebastian.\n\n\"You've certainly come to a beautiful setting,\" Sebastian said to Al as they shook hands. \"We were just marveling over the lake.\"\n\nIt was about twenty feet lower than the lawn where they were standing, and in the evening sunlight it gleamed like a sapphire without a ripple to mar it.\n\n\"Yeah, it's pretty, all right,\" Al said, and Sylvie said something at the same time; behind them David suppressed a groan. But Sylvie shut up and the moment passed.\n\n\"I have pictures of the mill that go back sixty years or more,\" Warren said then. \"I bet you'd like to see them.\"\n\nBefore they could respond, Jill said to Sylvie, \"This afternoon I acted like an idiot. You gave me such a start. We used to play in the mill, you know how children will get into a place like that. We told ghost stories and there you were suddenly, just like out of one of the stories. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"You started me, too,\" Sylvie said. \"I thought you was squatters or something. No harm done.\"\n\n\"She was absolutely forbidden to go there, just as I was,\" Warren said, laughing. \"We did the same thing when I was a boy. Come on, let's look at those pictures.\"\n\nAs he led them inside, Lois began to relax and she wondered why she had been tense at all. Jill had behaved like a perfect lady, and had taken the news of the addition to her party with such good grace that Lois had felt ashamed. She went to one of the long tables where drinks had been prepared.\n\n\"David, Sebastian? What would you like?\"\n\nThey both took juice and she had gin and tonic. Jill helped herself to white wine. Sebastian was still regarding the lake.\n\n\"I had no idea this was back here in the hills,\" he said after a moment. \"I'm surprised that people aren't swarming to it. Isolation and peace are priceless commodities these days.\"\n\n\"Too small and too out of the way,\" Lois said. \"And hiking's better on the other side of the village, up into the mountains. But when hunting season opens, they swarm.\" She stood at his side and also gazed at the unlikely blue of the water. \"You realize that color comes from the fact that the lake is dead?\"\n\nSebastian looked at her with disapproval, she thought, surprised at his expression. \"Acid rains did it in,\" she explained. \"Unfit for fish or plant life. It's doing the same to the experimental farm,\" she added, and heard the bitterness in her voice.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Sebastian said in his gentle voice, \"we are seeing a warning sign that must be acknowledged. A lake here, a farm there. The earth is speaking to us. But who is listening? Perhaps there has been too much experimenting already.\"\n\nLois felt a surge of anger that caused a trembling in her fingers. \"Not just a lake here and a farm there,\" she snapped. \"Whole forests are dying. In Bavaria, the whole damn Fichtelgebirge forest is at risk. More than fifty percent of the mature trees are dead. And it's happening in Vermont, on the West Coast. Not just a little patch here and there, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"I understand the peril,\" he said gravely, \"and what I suggest is that if we can restore the harmony of humans and nature, of living with nature instead of pitting ourselves against it over and over, perhaps even this peril can be overcome.\"\n\nHe believed it, she realized, when she turned to study his face, to see if he was mocking. He looked as if he wanted to touch her, to soothe her, calm her; he looked as if he ached because of her pain and anger. Suddenly she remembered a high school teacher, more than twenty years ago, who had looked at her pityingly and said, \"Do you really believe we can pollute all the oceans of the world?\" Then, as a girl, she had been comforted by such knowledge, such serene wisdom, such absolute faith. This man, Sebastian, with his understanding, his sympathy, his empathy, his firm convictions could be just as soothing, just as comforting. He would dispense faith, trust, harmony with a word, a gentle smile. And meanwhile the trees were dying from causes so complex that few people even attempted to define them, and those who studied them walked in fear. Looking at him, she had the wild impression that he was following her thoughts, that he was telling her she did not have to live in fear, that she could recapture the same kind of tranquillity that softened his face. The tranquillity of ignorance, she said to herself sharply, and lifted her glass and forced herself to look away from him.\n\nShe drank, and then remembered that she had not yet asked David about his weekend plans. She turned toward him. \"Are you free this weekend? I thought we might start the lime before another rain comes.\"\n\nToo late she realized that Jill had been talking in a low voice with David; she bit her lip in exasperation. \"Sorry. I can't leave my work behind, it seems.\" But David had left Jill with an embarrassing swiftness and was already at her side.\n\n\"I wasn't going anywhere. The lime shipment came this afternoon. And a couple of the hands will be around.\"\n\nShe shook her head, and waved him away. \"No. No more work today, no more talk about lime or trees or acid rain.\" Then, as if to prove her point about no more work talk, she returned to the table with the decanters, and asked over her shoulder, \"Sebastian, can you leave your work when the day is over?\"\n\n\"I'm going to the village to pick up Stanley,\" Jill said, and walked stiffly off the patio to vanish into the house.\n\nLois sighed and refilled her glass.\n\n\"But how does one say a day ends?\" Sebastian asked as if bemused. \"One day flows into another, and then another endlessly. And my work... That, too, is endless. I am never not working, if that is even the right word.\"\n\nLois glanced toward the house, wishing Warren would come back and bring Al and Sylvie with him, let them do the talking. She said to David, \"Sebastian is a... what, counselor, preacher, teacher? What do you call yourself?\"\n\nFor a moment, when he had come to her side to talk about lime, David had looked almost at ease, now he looked wretched again. But Sebastian paid no attention to him, he kept his gaze fixed on Lois.\n\nHe smiled. \"None of the above, I think. A guide at times, when I have found a piece of the path myself. But most of the time I think I am a student, a searcher, and the few stretches of path that have opened to me have revealed that the path is as endless as the day, as my work... .\" He stopped speaking and regarded her for a moment. \"You have a headache?\"\n\nAfter a brief hesitation she said yes. \"Tension, I know. Stiff neck, stiff shoulders. Working too hard, racing the clock most of the time. It will pass.\"\n\n\"Let me demonstrate one of the techniques I found along the way,\" he said. \"It will help very fast, or not at all. But first you have to sit down.\"\n\nIt was a challenge, she thought, one she did not have to accept. But his expression was guileless and kindly, and with reluctance she seated herself at the table. At the other side of the table David swirled his ice cubes around and around in his glass.\n\nA few minutes later when Warren returned, laughing with Al and Sylvie, she was still seated at the table. \"Warren, let Sebastian show you how to get rid of a headache. It works like magic!\"\n\nSebastian demonstrated on them all. Sylvie was stiff all over as he approached her, confirming her worst suspicions, that he was a laying-on-of-hands minister, and Al was wishing they could go back inside and look at more pictures. What a house, he thought. Made theirs look like kid's stuff. David was wishing he had never been born. He had known this would be the worst evening of his life, but he had not known just how bad it would get. Seeing Dr. Wharton\u2014Lois\u2014with her husband, and then with Sebastian's hands on her neck and shoulders... . He had thought he was braced, but that was before he had realized just how bad it could get. Women were fussing with another long table and that gave him hope that they would eat soon, and the evening would end.\n\n\"See,\" Sebastian was saying to Sylvie. \"You are stiff with apprehension, and that causes the muscles to contract, and that is the source of pain.\"\n\n\"I ain't even got a headache,\" she said.\n\n\"But you are not relaxed, either.\" His voice was soothing and kind, and when he felt her neck, his fingers were gentle at first; they became probing, and hurting. He pressed at the base of her skull, and then at the top of her shoulders, and it seemed to her that she did loosen up a little. But there wasn't no miracle cure, she added. He went on to Al who steeled himself as if getting ready for hand-to-hand combat. Sebastian laughed.\n\nSoon after that Jill returned with Stanley. His arm was around her waist, her hand over his on her hip, as if to keep it anchored there, not let it roam. His face was round and smooth, his eyes pale blue. Like a little doll, Sylvie thought. A bright and smiling little doll. She guessed that Jill had told him about the company for supper; he acted like a proper little gentleman with Sebastian, didn't look him up and down or anything, just shook hands, and then turned to her and Al. At first, she expected him to cold-shoulder them; he looked like one of the magazine ads for the type who made a million before thirty and had no use, thank you, for anyone who didn't. But instead, he was like a school kid with her and Al.\n\n\"Wow! You guys won the big one! Hey, that's great! Do you have a financial advisor yet?\"\n\nWarren burst out laughing. \"He can turn carrot juice into oil fields, folks. If he gives out advice, listen.\"\n\nAl surveyed Stanley thoughtfully. \"Financial advisor? What's he do?\"\n\n\"You don't, do you? Oh, God! Let's take a little walk.\" When Al started to move toward the side of the patio where the trellises were heavy with roses, Stanley took his arm and drew him instead out onto the lawn. \"No flowers. Allergic. Mostly to bees, but it's been my experience that if you avoid flowers, you're more likely to avoid the little bastards. Now look, you need someone who makes it a career thinking about money, someone who really likes to see it grow, see....\"\n\nIt wasn't that he had snubbed Sebastian, Lois thought, but he had shown no enthusiasm either. She listened absently as Jill explained to Sebastian that with Stanley money was a vocation, and a hobby, which made him a happy man since there was so much of it to work and play with. And Sebastian murmured something to the effect that Stanley might be very good for Al and Sylvie. With a start Lois understood that Jill had been apologizing for her husband and that Sebastian had accepted the apology. Lois wondered if Jill had planned this whole cookout simply to bring Sebastian and Stanley together in a friendly manner, and she decided she simply did not care.\n\nDavid didn't know exactly how it happened, but Warren Wollander asked him a simple question or two, and the next thing he knew he was talking about the need to introduce new foods that would grow in marginal lands, the need to supply complete proteins in crops that could be maintained by peasants everywhere. The need to develop fast-growing trees that would supply fuel and food and fodder and hold the soil, restore the balance of atmospheric gases... .\n\n\"You can't do it,\" Jill said flatly when he paused for a breath. \"You can't keep up with human fertility through food. You have to educate people, reduce fertility first, and then maybe you will accomplish something.\"\n\n\"But you can't just let them starve if they're already here,\" Sylvie said.\n\nAl and Stanley returned, apparently having reached an agreement of some sort. Al looked at Sylvie fondly and said, \"First thing, we get that check, and first thing, ten percent right off the top, to charity. Her idea.\"\n\nStanley groaned.\n\n\"And where do you stand in this perennial problem of distributing the world's largess, Sebastian?\" Warren asked. Lois felt herself become very still at the tone of his voice, too polite.\n\n\"When enough people find the path, realize the human potential, experience the wholeness that is available to all, then there will be no problem,\" Sebastian said softly. \"It doesn't take everyone, just enough to lead the way. We all find different ways to help bring this about, some through the green revolutions that arise, some through other means.\"\n\n\"Well, the means I intend to apply this minute are at hand at the grill,\" Warren said. \"Steaks in five minutes.\"\n\nIt turned out that neither David nor Sebastian would eat meat; Lois felt, with a twinge of irritation, that she should have known, and she went inside to advise Mrs. Carlysle, the housekeeper, that they would also need a lot of cheese. Her headache had come back.\n\nThe steaks were superb. Al asked for the name of the butcher, the grocery, wherever they got them. The supermarket he had worked in never had meat like that. Mrs. Carlysle had found smoked salmon that David accepted although Sebastian did not. \"To hell with it,\" Lois said distinctly under her breath. Sebastian was not her problem. Let Jill see to his diet. Warren talked to Sylvie about growing up here, how he and his brother, who was killed in Iwo Jima, had played up and down the hills, in the mill. Stanley talked to Al about money matters and to Jill about the hideous mess the painters were making in their New York City condo that was being redecorated. Jill shrugged. \"I told you to move into a hotel until they're finished. You keep telling me how awful it is, but you don't do anything about it. You knew it would be a mess.\" She was quiet for most of the meal, her smile forced and mechanical. Sylvie caught her glancing from David back to Lois, and saw the little glint in her eyes as she reached some kind of conclusion. \"You swim every morning, don't you?\" Jill asked David, who blushed and nodded. Jill shivered. \"I couldn't stand the idea of leaving a warm bed and plunging into that cold water before breakfast even.\" It was innocent, Lois told herself. It was. David looked agonized and averted his gaze to his plate. Sebastian and Stanley launched into a tortured philosophical discussion about the ethics of feeding the poor. Sebastian's voice was melodious, his accent softened by a touch of the south. Now that Lois had disengaged herself from trying to entertain him, she listened to the rhythms of his voice instead of the actual words. It was almost as if his first language had been French perhaps, or Spanish, and he had learned English from a southerner who had lived many years in the north. Lois smiled to herself over her own tortured path in trying to identify his origins, and she wondered what Warren had seen in the man to cause his distrust. Aside from the fact that he was some kind of guru, she added.\n\n\"But don't you think it would be cruel to give them vitamins and adequate food for a limited time, knowing that tomorrow they will be starving again?\" Sebastian asked. His voice had become sorrowful.\n\n\"You have to work with it one day at a time,\" David said, sounding nearly desperate but unable not to join the discussion, his words too fast and sharp. His New York sound, Lois thought.\n\nSylvie had grown increasingly restless, certain that none of them was talking about real people, just ideas. \"What you're saying is just like don't go to the doctor today because maybe you'll get sick again or get hit by a truck tomorrow. Well, maybe if your belly's full and you're healthy tomorrow you can face whatever's around the corner better.\" Her voice rose in indignation. \"It's crazy to just give up. Might as well not be born in the first place. Or have a bat ready to bash every baby's head the minute it shows up. Is that what you mean?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Sebastian said. \"But I think people should accept what happens. Endless, futile struggling destroys whatever peace is available, and peace of the soul is more important than a full stomach.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but peace is easier with a full stomach than an empty one,\" Sylvie muttered. \"You don't know that, you ain't talked to the right people.\"\n\nWarren laughed. \"She's got you, I'm afraid.\"\n\nIt was the signal that that conversation had drifted too far into unpleasant matters to continue at the dinner table, Lois knew. Apparently Stanley understood the message also.\n\n\"Speaking of vitamins and such,\" Stanley said, \"I read that if you take bee pollen in increasing doses, you can build up a tolerance to stings.\"\n\nJill toyed with her food and looked terminally bored.\n\nDavid began to talk about the health food and vitamin catalog that he ordered his vitamins from and Sebastian promised to send him a price list from the company he used, less expensive, he said, than David's supplier. Stanley asked if they carried bee pollen, and Sebastian said coolly that anyone with the right thoughts, the right attitude, reverence for all living creatures never got stung to begin with.\n\n\"Right,\" Al Zukal said with a satisfied grunt. He pushed his plate back, finished. \"And them people can whistle snakes up out of baskets and climb ropes that ain't hooked on nothing, and their shit smells sweet. Yeah.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, broken when Warren rose from his chair. \"I'll see if coffee's about ready,\" he said, his voice strained.\n\nBelatedly Lois realized that he was nearly choking to keep from laughing. \"I'll help,\" she said and followed him inside where they collapsed holding each other in the hallway to the kitchen, laughing out of control.\n\nThat night in bed, Al said, \"Well, watcha think?\" And Sylvie said, \"Doncher get ideas.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"We're not their kind and they know it and so do we.\"\n\n\"Stanley's all right.\"\n\nStanley had insisted on driving them home, to Sylvie's great relief. She had been terrified of the dark trail, and the probable dangers it held.\n\n\"Sure he is. They all are. But don't get ideas. Listen. What's that?\" They both listened, and she said, \"Wolves.\"\n\n\"You crazy or something. There's no wolves anymore. Except on TV. Dogs.\"\n\nThey lay in rigid silence listening to howling that sounded more like wolves than dogs.\n\n\"Stanley gave me some good advice already,\" Al said after a moment. \"And he's coming over Sunday to talk before he goes back to town.\"\n\n\"What advice?\"\n\n\"He said... Well, not all that much, I guess.\"\n\n\"Spit it out,\" Sylvie said. \"You won't go to sleep and neither will I until you do.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Well, he said I should first thing, next check next month, take out insurance, a big policy.\"\n\nShe was silent for a long time, then said, \"You already got insurance.\"\n\n\"I mean big. Really big. You know that lottery ticket was mine, and if I kick, that's all she wrote.\"\n\nSylvie drew closer to him. Out here in the country it was cold at night, not like back home, she thought. \"Well, don't kick,\" she said finally. \"Why should you? You're as healthy as a horse. Listen. What's that?\"\n\nAfter a moment he said, \"Frogs or something. Crickets maybe.\"\n\nAfter another minute or two, she got up and stood at the window looking out. The blackness seemed to start right at the end of her nose. \"I can't see a thing, not a light, nothing. Black as a coal bin out there. I want a dog.\"\n\nShe groped her way to the bathroom where she switched on the light, and then returned to bed, leaving the door open a few inches. Now the dimly lighted bedroom seemed more natural, like the bedroom in their old apartment where streetlights had filtered in no matter what she did.\n\n\"Dog's a good idea,\" Al said, as they adjusted themselves to fit each other again. Her feet were like ice. \"Yeah, real good idea. Tomorrow, you and Flora should do that, go out and get a watch dog.\"\n\nThey both began to think about the visit of their daughter Flora and her husband Bobby and their two children, and the noise they would bring with them, and they thought that somehow light would come with them, too. Finally they could drift off to sleep.\n\nThe dog was a golden retriever, two years old, female. They named her Sadie. Al regarded her with great distrust. They had never owned a dog before\u2014who wants to clean up dog shit on the streets? Or take it out for a walk in the rain? But out here it seemed the dog took care of herself. And she slept on the porch so no one had to take her out. But his distrust was focused on the fact that she acted like a kid, just like Flora's two kids, running, romping, having a good time. Not like a watchdog should act, he decided. Mikey held her while Janie went off to hide, and Sadie tore out after her when he let go and found her in two shakes. They tossed a stick and she brought that back. She played Frisbee like a pro. So, Al brooded, good-time Sadie, what good was a dog like that, one that loved everybody? And she did, it seemed, love everybody. She laughed at the kids and smiled at Flora and Bobby, and treated Sylvie like she was a Marine sergeant and Sadie a recruit in love with being a Marine.\n\nOn Monday morning when Lois appeared on the swinging bridge Sadie stiffened and growled, although she couldn't see that far, or hear either, Al was sure. He and Sylvie went with the dog to the edge of the property where Lois was just about to step onto their land, and Sadie was shivering, growling. She began to bark and Lois stopped in her tracks. It was the first time Al had heard the dog bark, he realized with approval. Not that she should bark at Lois, but it was a good sign.\n\nSylvie had to introduce Sadie to Lois, real polite and formal like; the dog sniffed Lois all over, and then wagged her rear end in approval. It was embarrassing to Al the way Sadie stuck her nose in Lois's crotch, but she seemed to have to do that; she had done it to everyone she was introduced to so far.\n\n\"She's beautiful!\" Lois said when the inspection ended, and she had been accepted. \"Has she been in swimming yet? Retrievers usually love the water.\"\n\nAl hadn't even thought of letting the dog in the lake. But that afternoon he and Sylvie went down and he tossed in a stick, and Sadie tore out after it as if she were half fish. By then he was sold on her, anyway, but it was another good sign. If one of the kids ever fell in, or anything like that happened... he thought vaguely, not quite ready to admit aloud that he sort of liked the silly animal for herself. She had set up a hell of a ruckus when the carpenters came to work on the mill, and after they left she went over every inch of the ground they had walked on, everything they had touched. She repeated this the next morning, and the next; they had not introduced her to the carpenters whom she continued to treat as trespassers. But she met Lois at the bridge and smiled, waving her plumy tail, and escorted her to the break in the fence that separated this property from the experimental farmlands. She did not step through with Lois and she refused to go on the swinging bridge unless under direct order by Sylvie.\n\nNow, when Al and Sylvie went to bed, they didn't lie in rigid silence, holding their breath, listening. Sadie was on the job.\n\nOn Saturday Flora, Bobby, and the kids came back, and the kids wore themselves and Sadie out again, as they had done before. When the kids had gone on to bed, Al shook his head at the dog, lying in exhaustion on the porch. \"That's how it's gonna be,\" he said. She raised her head and smiled at him. She thumped her tail on the porch once, sighed, and made no further attempt to be polite.\n\nAl was the first one up the next morning. He went to the kitchen to start coffee, and glanced out for Sadie. She would take food from him now, and he liked to feed her, but she wasn't on the porch. He walked out and whistled, expecting her to come bounding in from the fringe of woods, or up from the mill, overjoyed to see one of her people, the way she was every morning. He had disturbed the early birds, silenced them; gradually their twitterings resumed, and there was a slight breeze in the treetops, but no other sound. He walked a few feet from the house and whistled once more, a little louder; when she did not appear, he started to walk toward the mill and the water, vaguely concerned that she might have fallen in, even though he had seen her swimming like a fish before.\n\nA lot of trees had grown up between the house and mill, not as thick as the real woods, but enough so that he could not see the mill until he stepped out from the thicket, and then he came to a full stop.\n\n\"Sadie? Sadie!\" He ran to the dog, lying on her side in high grasses. \"Jaysus!\" he whispered hoarsely and knelt on the ground near her, not close enough to touch her. \"Oh, Jaysus,\" he said again, and it sounded like a whimper.\nCHAPTER 3\n\nTHE PROBLEM WAS THAT when she was gone the house changed, Charlie Meiklejohn brooded, sitting at the kitchen table, scowling at the rain that continued without letup. It had rained yesterday, too. Too damn much. It was a comfortable house, if a bit untidy at the moment because he believed in carrying out papers and stuff only when they began to get in the way, and that point hadn't been reached yet. This was Wednesday, and Sunday's paper was still there; soon it would be time. But this little bit of clutter wasn't the real difference, he knew, even though when she was home, clutter seemed to disappear without anyone's doing anything about it. When she was around, he would see something and think vaguely that next time through he would pick it up, but next time through, more often than not, it was gone.\n\nFor one thing, he thought then, pursuing the cause of the difference in the house, it felt too big and too empty, and when she was home it never occurred to him that the house might be too big. Three rooms upstairs, one of them her office with her computer now nicely covered, everything in place, awaiting her return. Their bedroom, and their grown daughter's bedroom that was now their official guest room. His office on the first floor was a jumble of miscellaneous stuff. He kept the door closed, he said to keep the cats out. There was the living room where they spent most of their evenings, a dining room, and a tiny room that they never could figure out what to call. They had put the television in there. Earlier that day he had made a tour of the house wondering that he never had noticed before that there was too much room. And that was when the mystery had started. When she was home the house was exactly the right size, and with her gone, it was ten times too big.\n\nThere were dishes in the sink from last night, and from that morning, and eventually he would rouse himself and cram them all into the dishwasher, but not yet. There was this mystery to solve: What was it that vanished with her gone? How could her presence fill an entire house no matter where she was physically within it? The house was the same. The yard beyond the sliding glass door, with flowers in bloom, the patio awash at the moment, but not changed, everything tangible exactly the same as usual, but everything different anyway.\n\nEven the cats were different. Brutus was not speaking to him at all, disdainful of any attempt at friendliness, accepting food grudgingly, without appreciation, and spending far too much time simply staring at Charlie through slitted eyes that could turn into devil's eyes altogether too easily. That cat was too damn smart for his own good, Charlie brooded. He had come to them in New York, nearly full grown, and street smart; he had looked them over, looked over their apartment, examined the two other cats and found them , acceptable, and moved in. But he had never fully forgiven them for retiring out to the country, not yet, probably never would. And he blamed Charlie; that was obvious in the way he stared at him through devil eyes. Ashcan, the cowardly gray-suited one, kept prowling about, as if Constance might be found under the sofa, or behind the drapes. And Candy, the big-mouth, had gone into her invalid act. She did it very well, dragged herself from room to room, lay without motion for hours at a time, and looked at him with her butterscotch eyes in a way that suggested death was near, and it was his fault.\n\nIt wasn't perfume, he knew, returning to the mystery; she seldom wore any. But she had a fragrance that came from her shampoo, her own physical body, whatever. That was part of it. Not enough. Her soft steps throughout the house, the sound of the sliding door opening and closing, her low murmurs to the cats. Another part of it. Not enough yet. A few days ago Mrs. Grayson had come to do her weekly cleaning and she had talked to the cats, and had even elicited a response from them, and that hadn't been enough to fill the void. So it wasn't just another person, another voice that was lacking.\n\nHe missed her in bed, of course, the warmth of her body next to his, the rhythm of her breathing, a sigh now and then, and that wasn't enough either. After all, he didn't spend all day every day in bed with her. Not any more anyway. A grin softened his face, smoothed out deep lines, as he thought of the various times they had tried to do just that. Stop, he told himself. That made it worse.\n\nCharlie had been a New York City fireman, an inspector, a city detective, altogether more than twenty-five years, and he had seen enough, had done enough to put those lines on his face. It was as if, when Constance was home, a curtain was drawn somewhere in him that screened out all those lines, those many years, and with her gone, the curtain was removed, his past was written clearly on the landscape of his face. Although he had taken an early retirement, it became evident when he was alone that it had not been too early. He was not generally introspective, and never gazed on his own face except during the act of shaving; he had no way of realizing the change he was fretting about was internal, and he continued to try to find a cause for the palpable difference in the surroundings of the house.\n\nWhen the phone finally rang he scooped it up before the first peal ended. \"Do you believe in auras?\" he asked.\n\n\"Sometimes. Charlie, are you drunk?\"\n\n\"Nope. How is she? How's your dad? How are you?\"\n\n\"She's coming along fine. We get to spring her on Friday. Dad's going crazy. And I'm lonely. How are you?\"\n\n\"Swinging from the chandelier. The Mitchums are so concerned they've taken to sending the boys over to keep an eye on me.\"\n\nShe chuckled. Now that the crisis with her mother was over\u2014gall bladder surgery that had gone sour\u2014she could laugh again, but for several days the strain in her voice had made him feel as if he were choking. Another mystery. They chatted; he read her a letter from an associate of hers who wanted permission to reprint one of her papers in psychology; she reported on her father's eccentricities in restaurants\u2014nothing with sauce because you never knew what they were trying to hide\u2014and they both laughed. When he hung up, the house felt emptier than ever.\n\nCandy was regarding him with tragic eyes. \"All right,\" he snarled at her. \"She didn't ask to speak to you. So there.\"\n\nHe started to load the dishwasher then and was still at it when Pete Mitchum tapped on the back door. With him was another boy. Young man, Charlie corrected himself, as he crossed the kitchen to admit them. Pete was about twenty and his friend looked a year or so older. Dressed in dripping ponchos with hoods, rubber boots, they looked like Christopher Robin twice.\n\n\"Hi, Mr. Meiklejohn. This is David Levy, the guy I told you about.\"\n\nCharlie motioned toward a chair under the wide overhang out of the rain, and they deposited their wet gear and then came on inside.\n\nDavid Levy was very tall and angular, with a lot of thick black hair, and blue eyes. \"Thanks for seeing me, sir,\" he said as they shook hands. His grip was surprisingly strong.\n\nSir, Charlie thought with a feeling of resignation. He asked if they wanted a beer, a Coke, coffee, which he was at that very moment going to make, and motioned them toward the table. They both refused his hospitality, and he abandoned the coffee project and joined them.\n\n\"Before I ask you anything,\" David said awkwardly, \"I should find out your consultation fees, I guess.\"\n\nPete looked mortified and Charlie said seriously, \"Advice is cheap, so cheap that it's held to have no value, and no one takes it anyway. For advice, no fees.\"\n\nPete had already told him a long story about how he had met David, through a network of mutual college friends that seemed to stretch out over the country. His friend, he had said, needed some professional advice, would it be okay to bring him over? Since at the time Charlie had been at the Mitchums' dining room table eating chicken and dumplings it would have been churlish to refuse. Now he regarded the young man patiently and waited.\n\n\"What I need to know is how do you go about proving that someone poisoned a dog. I mean, if it's something you really know happened, then what?\"\n\n\"Your dog?\"\n\n\"No sir. -You see, I work at the university experimental farm over at Spender's Ferry, about forty-five minutes from here, I guess. And my friend Rosa's parents won the lottery last year and they were looking for a place in the country and I told them about the old mill over there...\"He took a deep breath.\n\n\"Take it easy,\" Charlie said. \"There's no rush. Rosa's folks won the lottery. She's your girlfriend?\"\n\nDavid blushed. \"That's what my dad asked. It's not like that, sir. I mean, she's female and she's my friend. I think men and women are friends more than they used to be maybe. Anyway, her parents won the lottery. And they decided to move out of the city. They've always lived in the Bronx, I guess. And because I'm doing graduate work at the farm, I knew about the mill. They were looking for a big place. Anyway, they liked it and bought it, and Mrs. Zukal bought this dog, a beautiful golden retriever, because she was afraid out in the country. And someone poisoned the dog. We all know it was poisoned. But now what?\"\n\n\"Did they send you? Mrs. Zukal and her husband? Why didn't they come themselves?\"\n\nDavid shook his head. \"No one sent me. They don't even know I came here. I guess I feel sort of responsible because I found the place and suggested they look at it, and all.\"\n\nCharlie grunted and stood up. \"I'm going to make that coffee. You guys sure you don't want something? Cold drinks are in the fridge. Help yourselves.\"\n\nPete helped himself. \"He just drinks juice or herb teas,\" he said, opening a can of Coke.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Charlie said. When she was home there was always freshly squeezed juice, but he never thought of it. He busied himself with coffee and then returned to the table. \"Okay,\" he said. \"There is a problem with proof. Dogs get into things. You said a mill. Maybe rat poison, something like that. Maybe a neighbor put out something that he ate and died from. Did a vet look at him?\"\n\nDavid shook his head. \"Her,\" he said. \"Her name was Sadie. They found her the next morning, I guess. She was good and dead. No point in the vet. Mr. Zukal buried her.\"\n\n\"Then you don't really know what she died from.\"\n\nDavid shook his head even harder, a stubborn look settling in on his face. \"One day she was playing, chasing a ball, in great shape, the next morning she's dead. We know. And the mill hasn't been used in half a century maybe. There aren't any rats there. Sadie was trained in a special school to be a watchdog. She wouldn't go chasing around the neighborhood. She had to be poisoned on her own property by someone. I just don't know what to do about it. How to go about finding out anything.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Charlie said briskly. \"You haven't ruled out accident, you know. She could have caught a diseased animal, or a poisoned animal. A squirrel or a rabbit, even a rat. They're everywhere even if you don't see them. And no doubt dogs are susceptible to a host of things you also don't know anything about. So the first thing you'd have to do is find out what killed her. That means exhumation. You would take her remains to a veterinary pathologist and have tests run. Then you have something to start with. Right now all you have is suspicion. Is there any one person you suspect?\"\n\nDavid had turned very pale at the word exhumation. Charlie pretended not to notice.\n\n\"I can't think of anyone, or a reason,\" David said faintly.\n\n\"Right. So, after you learn the actual cause of death, if it was poison, you would call the county animal control office and ask if other poisonings have been reported. If there have been, they might take over at that point. If not, you're still on your own. But the first step, in any event, is to find out the cause of death.\"\n\n\"If I find out that she was really poisoned, will the sheriff investigate? Or the animal control office? Will anyone?\"\n\nCharlie felt a stab of pity for this earnest young man burdened with his load of guilt and responsibility. \"Maybe,\" he said slowly. \"But, David, I won't kid you, unless there have been other cases, and unless livestock gets involved, probably not much. Someone might ask the Zukals a few questions. But it's almost impossible to prove something like this unless you actually catch the person in the act, and even then, chances are good they'll get off with a slap on the wrist. And the animal pathologist will charge, you know. It will be expensive, and you'll run up against indifference. Just the way it goes.\"\n\n\"That's really shitty!\" Pete protested.\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\nDavid stood up then and held out his hand. \"Thanks, Mr. Meiklejohn. I appreciate your talking to me about this.\"\n\nCharlie wanted to pat him on the head, but he knew that would not be welcome, and besides, he would have had to get on a chair. Instead, he shook hands with David, and then stood in the doorway watching the boys walk across the backyard in the rain. So young they probably would splash in every puddle they came to, getting a sampling of how truly shitty the world could be. They would climb the fence, walk through the pasture that separated the Mitchum house from his house, and that would be that, he thought, almost wishing he had told Pete no, not to bring his young friend around. The advice he had given had left a bad taste in his mouth.\n\nSaturday morning Lois was surveying the greenhouse that held her cloned trees. Some of them were outgrowing the bench already and would have to be moved onto a lower one, and that was going to be a mess, she knew. It would take several hours to do them all, and meanwhile she had the metabolism studies to work on, and the measurements... She glanced at her watch again. At ten-thirty she walked outside and started for David's apartment, but then she saw Tom Hopewell emerging from his corn rows, and she slowed down.\n\nHe waved at her and she waved back, glanced toward the apartments, and waved again.\n\n\"Are you busy right now?\" she called.\n\n\"Sure. But I can stop. Why?\"\n\nSometimes she felt a bit of confusion with Tom, but she had no idea of what caused it. He was a year or two younger than she was, and he dressed like a ragged child, and like a child he could grin so disarmingly that people often forgot that he was a truly fine botanist with a Ph.D. There was something unfathomable about him, about the way he looked at her, the way he could stop what he was doing just like that. He looked and acted like a child playing at being a scientist, his hair too long, knees out of his jeans, dirty hands.\n\n\"It's probably nothing,\" she said, as he drew near. \"David's so late, and I need him. I was going to go wake him up, but it might embarrass him if I walk in. Would you mind?\"\n\n\"Oh, it might embarrass him indeed,\" he said gravely, but his eyes were dancing with amusement, and she didn't know what he found funny.\n\nThey walked on to the apartments together, and she knocked on the door. There was no response from inside. Tom entered and continued on through to the bedroom; Lois stood in the doorway uncomfortably, keeping her gaze averted.\n\n\"Oh my God!\" Tom said in a voice that was low but carried to where she was standing. \"Lois, there's been an accident or something.\"\n\nShe ran into the apartment, into the bedroom where he was standing ashen-faced, staring at the bed, at the figure that had covers drawn up to his chin. She reached past Tom and touched David's cheek, then jerked her hand back. She heard a moaning sound and did not realize she was making it until she found herself standing at the sink, hanging onto it as if to keep from falling, and behind her she could hear Tom on the telephone.\n\nThe day before, Friday, Charlie had gone to the city to give a deposition in an arson case he had worked on, and he got talked into a poker game that lasted too long, but made him feel filthy rich afterward. And because on Monday Constance was due, he stayed in town to meet her at Kennedy, and then they celebrated by staying the rest of the week and seeing two Broadway shows. By the time they returned home, the weather had changed dramatically, into summertime, and the house was filled with her presence and once more was exactly the right size.\n\nHe had forgotten David Levy and his problem and never would have thought of him again, except in a passing moment, if Constance had not come looking for him in the basement a few days later.\n\n\"Charlie, there's a man to see you. A Mr. Levy. He's pretty upset.\"\n\n\"David?\" Charlie put down the spinning reel he was trying to fix. It kept snarling the line, and for the life of him, he thought moodily, he couldn't see why. He wiped his hands and followed Constance back upstairs. It was a pleasure to watch her move. She was long and lithe and moved like a dancer. When they emerged from the dimness of the stairs into the sunlight in the kitchen, he got another jolt of pleasure in seeing her hair gleam when she moved through the brilliant light. Only God knew how much of that color was the original color, how much was because the original color had started to turn into spun platinum. His own black crinkly hair was unmistakably turning gray, but she was keeping her secrets.\n\nShe preceded him into the living room where a tall, gangly man stood. \"This is Mr. Levy,\" Constance said.\n\nCharlie felt bewilderment. Not David. He started to extend his hand, but the other man stepped backward, swaying. He looked very ill, cadaverous almost, with sunken eyes and a pallor that suggested confinement, hospital, sickbed. Deathbed.\n\n\"My boy came to you for help,\" Levy said heavily. \"He did what you told him and they killed him. I just wanted to look at you. See you. What kind of a man are you to turn him away like that? Send a boy off to get killed.\"\nCHAPTER 4\n\nCHARLIE WATCHED IN ICY shock while Constance took Mr. Levy by the arm and maneuvered him to the kitchen table with a cup of coffee before him. She said little as she managed him, and what she said made no difference; Levy allowed himself to be led and now he picked up the cup and sipped from it.\n\n\"Tell us what happened,\" Constance said gently, when he put the cup down again.\n\nIn his mind's eye Charlie was seeing the lanky boy unfold himself from that same chair; he remembered his own impulse to pat him on the head, remembered watching the two boys trudge out into the rain toward the Mitchum house.\n\n\"They called me,\" Levy said. \"They said there's been an accident. They said they had to do an autopsy. They released him to me and I took him home and buried him. Today they said the investigation is over, accidental death. They said he used drugs and overdosed.\"\n\nHe looked into Charlie's face across the table from him and shook his head. \"My boy didn't do drugs,\" he said with finality.\n\n\"No, he didn't,\" Charlie said. \"Mr. Levy, do you know why he came to see me? Did he tell you?\"\n\nConstance would have taken it slower, he knew; she would have gentled Levy some more, got him to relax some more, but Constance hadn't met that string bean of a boy. Maybe she didn't realize that Levy was a dying man. Constance didn't have the icy rage that filled Charlie at that moment.\n\n\"He told me in a letter,\" Levy said after a hesitation. He pushed his cup back.\n\n\"Hold it a minute, Mr. Levy,\" Charlie said, his voice suddenly harsh. \"Just hold it a minute. He came here for advice and I gave it to him. Did he tell you if he followed up on it, what he learned?\"\n\nLevy faced Constance, directed his words at her. \"He couldn't get anyone to help him, the sheriff, the animal agency, no one. Your husband. I told the sheriff about the dog, what Davy was doing, and he said Mr. Meiklejohn was high-priced and wouldn't get involved with a dead dog, that no one in his right mind would get involved with it. He said Davy took the drugs himself and that's that. He didn't even read the letters. Pretended to, that's all. He already had his mind fixed on what he thought he knew.\"\n\nConstance was totally bewildered by all this information. Charlie had not told her about David Levy or a dead dog. And this poor man, she thought, had not fully accepted the death of his son, no matter if there had been a funeral; he still had hope behind the desperation in his eyes. And he was so very ill. The skin was drawn tight over the bones of his face; his eyes were bloodshot, sunken, the rims red. There was a tremor in his hands.\n\n\"Mr. Levy,\" she said, \"did your son find out who killed the dog? Did he tell you?\"\n\nHe sighed deeply and shook his head. \"I think he knew, but he didn't say who it was in the letter. I'd better be going. It's a long drive.\"\n\nHis pain was so wrenching that Constance wanted to hold him and soothe him, and she knew that would be absolutely wrong. Not now. \"Mr. Levy,\" she said, and Charlie heard her professional voice, the crisp manner and tone of a trained psychologist, \"you made an accusation about Charlie that we have to air. When did your son die?\"\n\n\"Saturday, the twentieth, in the morning. Today they said the investigation was over. I came to get the stuff they were holding and to show them his letters. No use.\"\n\nCharlie's eyes were narrowed in thought. He shook his head. \"He couldn't have followed my advice already. Listen, let me tell you what we talked about the day he was here. That was on Wednesday, late afternoon. He said the Zukals' dog had been poisoned and I said he would need to exhume it and have tissue examination tests to find the cause of death. There's no way on earth he could have done that and got the results in two or three days, by Saturday.\"\n\n\"Just like the sheriff,\" Levy said with weary bitterness. \"You're all alike.\" He started to get up.\n\n\"Just sit still, will you?\" Charlie snapped at him. \"Maybe there's a connection and maybe not. I sure as hell don't know at this point and apparently neither do you. But, Mr. Levy, neither do I believe your son took drugs of any kind. Now let's talk about it.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Levy asked. \"I can't afford to pay you anything.\"\n\n\"For crying out loud! Do you have a buck? Just haul it out and put it on the table.\"\n\nLevy looked from him to Constance, and then withdrew a shabby wallet and fished out a dollar bill.\n\n\"You're paid in full. Now, just answer a few questions, will you? Honey, is there more coffee?\"\n\nTwo hours later they walked to his car with him, a twelve-year-old Ford. Home for him was a veterans' hospital in New Jersey, a long drive.\n\nAt the car he hesitated briefly, then held out his hand to Charlie. \"Let me know what you find out,\" he said, and got in and started the engine; he looked almost surprised when it turned over. \"All he wanted to do was help feed the world,\" he said softly, looking straight ahead, his cavernous face twisted. He shook himself and engaged the gears and left without speaking to either of them again.\n\n\"We'd better find out something pretty damn fast or he won't be around to hear it,\" Charlie said, as the old car backed out to the road. \"Let's go read those letters.\"\n\nIn the kitchen once more, Constance gazed at the dollar bill that had been pushed aside to make room for the letters that Levy had produced. He was dying, he had said candidly; he and his son had pretended that death could be put off until David was through with school. And now he could go ahead and die, Constance thought, but she knew that he would try to hold on until he knew the truth.\n\nShe began to arrange the letters chronologically. David had been a faithful correspondent, had written at least once a week; there were a lot of letters to go through. Levy had also left a box of personal effects that the sheriff had released to him\u2014snapshots, a few magazines, a calendar, catalogs, a grocery list, bills, a checkbook, and several bank statements. It was a pitiful assortment.\n\n\"Look at this,\" Charlie said a few minutes later in a grumpy voice. \"Three pages about the party at Wollander's place, a blow-by-blow account of a cookout! And half a page with one line about the goddamn dog, the last letter he wrote.\"\n\nConstance nodded.\n\nCharlie read it in disgust: Remember Sadie, the dog that got killed, I think I'm onto something about that. More next time.\n\nHe tossed the letter down on top of the others and stood up. \"Want to go for a ride in the country?\"\n\n\"Where to?\" she asked. \"Spender's Ferry?\"\n\nHe grinned at her. \"Why ask anything ever? Just say the answers. Works just the same.\"\n\n\"Charlie.\" She began to gather up the letters. Watching her hands, she said, \"If a boy came through that door right now and asked what to do about a possible dog murder, you'd tell him just about what you told David Levy, and you know it.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"I know that. Somehow it doesn't seem to help much. And, like the sheriff said, maybe there's no connection.\"\n\n\"The sheriff must be Greg Dolman,\" Constance said a few minutes later in the Volvo, drawing up a memory of the sheriff. Middle-aged, paunchy, amiable, good politician, and he did not want trouble. That was how he put it, he didn't want trouble, kept a clean county. At one time, it was said, he also had run a speed trap that had netted someone a lot of money that never seemed to show up on the books. The next election his vote had been bigger than ever; his constituents understood the value of free enterprise and approved. But someone had put a stop to that, without publicity, without scandal; it just stopped.\n\nHaving sorted him out in her mind, Constance began to regard the passing scenery with great pleasure. God must have been having a very fine day when he invented June, she thought. Today the sun was warm, without the cruel heat that could come later in the season; the leaves were at their brightest, most tender stage, flowers abounded, and even the traffic seemed manageable, civilized and polite.\n\nThey drove through Spender's Ferry slowly. Like most New York villages, it had been discovered by tourists, and it played up its picturesque appearance. A grocery store with a boardwalk in front, and a mammoth parking lot behind it; three antique shops, one with a sign that said: CUSTOM-MADE ANTIQUES. A gift shop. A church with a white steeple and a golden bell. Red-brick elementary school, a restaurant that probably was very good, housed in a beautifully maintained Victorian three-story house\u2014it had a sign that said only HAZELTINE'S.\n\n\"Hokey,\" Charlie said.\n\n\"But nice.\"\n\n\"You betcha. Pays to look nice.\"\n\nShe sighed as the fleeting romanticism disappeared. Beyond the village, working farms stretched out on the right, fields and fields of satiny corn six inches high, and on the left the experimental university farm began. It looked very little different from all the other farms they had passed. Then Charlie turned into the driveway of the Zukals' house.\n\n\"Now, this is nice,\" Charlie murmured when he drew up to the house and stopped. He opened his door and got out as Constance got out on her side, and they both stood very still.\n\nA woman's raucous voice was screeching; a man's equally raucous voice was yelling at the same time. Just then Sylvie and Al appeared from the trees behind the house. She had a green kerchief tied on her head; wisps of red hair had escaped and clung to her sweaty brow. She was dressed in baggy pants and a man's shirt. He was in jeans that rode too low on his ample belly, and sneakers with shoelaces flying. He had a fringe of pale hair and a bright red scalp.\n\n\"You want they should nail you to the floor? Why doncher just leave them to their work?\"\n\n\"You hear anyone saying I'm in the way? You hear that? I don't hear nothing like\u2014\"\n\nThey broke it off when they saw Charlie and Constance, and now the sound of hammering could be heard, and a loud radio.\n\n\"You another lousy inspector? Go inspect already! Watcha waiting for? Go inspect until your eyes fall out!\"\n\n\"Mr. Zukal? Mrs. Zukal?\"\n\n\"Yeah, who you think, Queen of Sheba or something? It's over there!\" Sylvie began to stamp toward the house, muttering over her shoulder to Al. \"And stay out of their way! They don't need help!\"\n\nMy God, Charlie realized suddenly, with amazement, he had missed this! He had known people like this all his life and he had missed them. Constance had come to his side; he took her hand and walked forward.\n\n\"Hold it, Mrs. Zukal. I want to talk to you about your dog.\"\n\nWell, he thought, satisfied, as they both froze, he had their attention. The stillness was short-lived, and one of them was demanding to know what for, and the other who did he think he was, and either or both, what did he know about their dog, and other things that got lost in the tumult. He held his hand up, shaking his head.\n\n\"Let's sit down and talk,\" he said firmly. \"I'm Charlie Meiklejohn, and this is my wife Constance, and we are not inspectors of any sort. We are private investigators. Can we talk?\"\n\nSylvie looked them both up and down, and then nodded toward the house. \"But don't you go to the living room,\" she snapped at Al. \"All that sawdust!\"\n\nThey went inside the house and stopped at the kitchen. \"This is fine,\" Charlie said; he pulled out a chair for Constance, another for himself, and sat down at the kitchen table.\n\nThe Zukals sat down after hesitating briefly, and Al demanded, \"Now, you. Who sent you and what you want here? And what do you know about our dog?\"\n\n\"Not enough by half,\" Charlie said, and went on to describe David's visit again. \"Today his father hired us to look into David's death,\" he finished. \"His father doesn't think he ever took drugs in his life.\"\n\n\"See!\" Sylvie cried. \"See! I told you! That David, he wouldn't even drink beer!\"\n\nBut Al was scowling fiercely at Charlie. \"You sure as hell didn't do David no good.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" Charlie said quietly. \"That's why I'm here now. Will you answer a few questions?\"\n\nSylvie yanked the kerchief from her head and ran her fingers through her red hair until it looked like the hair of the bride of Frankenstein. \"You axe, then we see,\" she said.\n\n\"Yeah, just axe. No promises,\" Al said.\n\n\"Right. First. Did David actually dig up the dog?\"\n\n\"Nope. Didn't even know he was thinking about it. Never said a word.\"\n\nSylvie contradicted him instantly. \"He nearly cried when I told him. He would go stand by the grave and just look. You knew what he was thinking, all right. It hurt him. He was such a good boy. Rosa should have seen it, that he was such a good boy.\"\n\nCharlie asked where the dog had come from, and was rewarded with an avalanche of information. He let them both talk without interruption.\n\n\"Brenda Ryan's kennels over by Albany. Me and Flora, she's our girl, me and Flora and the kids took the wagon and went over. I thought it might need lots of room in the car, you know, chains and stuff like that, but she was like a puppy, after Brenda introduced us, I mean. Introduced us like she was a person. Sadie, this is Sylvie, and this is Flora, and this is Mike and this is Janie. Just like that, and the dog smelled us, and then began to wag her whole rear end.\"\n\n\"And when they got her home, we had to take her all around the place and let her pee now and then, and smell the trees,\" Al chimed in. \"She had to do that, you know, to find out where she lived. And if we wanted her to be nice to people we had to do like Brenda done and go Sadie this is David, or Sadie this is Lois. Don't do no good to put it any other way. I mean, you can't just go meet the gang or nothing.\"\n\n\"Brenda Ryan weighs three hundred and forty pounds,\" Sylvie said suddenly, in awe.\n\n\"Jaysus Crackers! What difference does that make? You told me that a hundred times already. Who cares?\"\n\nSylvie turned to Constance. \"I just axed her right out. That's the way. People don't care if you just go ahead and axe instead of beating the bush like. She said lady dogs are even better than boy dogs to guard things. They take their responsibility seriouser or something. I thought it would be one of those great big ugly black dogs like on television all the time, you know, all big teeth and hair like painted on. But Sadie was real pretty, and she liked to play\u2014\"\n\n\"Sylvie, who cares if she was pretty! Let the man axe his questions, will you?\"\n\nConstance glanced at Charlie who looked absolutely at ease and relaxed, as well he might, she thought. This was going to take the rest of the day.\n\nSlowly he drew the story out of them. Sylvie had brought the dog home and for the next few days they had felt secure, well guarded, and then the dog died. They had it one week.\n\n\"But dogs don't just die any more than people do,\" Charlie murmured at that point. \"They die of something.\"\n\nAl and Sylvie exchanged uneasy glances.\n\n\"Who did you introduce the dog to during those days?\"\n\n\"David, of course. He was in and out all the time, just like he was at home like. And Lois. Mrs. Wollander. She cuts through the property walking to work and home.\"\n\n\"So on Sunday morning you found the dog dead?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Stiff already. Puked a lot first, then kicked.\"\n\n\"Were you here Saturday night?\"\n\n\"Sure. And Bobby and Flora and the kids. They come on weekends, but as soon as school's out, they're moving in with us. Anyways, they was here. Kids played with Sadie right up to bedtime. Crazy about her. Real smart, she was. They'd hide things and she'd go find them. Real smart.\"\n\n\"Where did Sadie sleep?\"\n\n\"On the porch most nights. But she'd be up prowling around all hours. Investigating noises, I guess.\"\n\n\"And did she eat outside, too?\"\n\n\"Yeah. On the porch...\" Al's voice faded out and Sylvie said, \"But we found her dish way over by the mill. Remember, Al?\"\n\n\"Yeah, just thinking about that. But the kids was hiding it on her. They must have left it there.\" The certainty that had been in his voice was gone, however.\n\nCharlie was feeling more and more unhappy as they talked, and when Al asked if he wanted a beer he nodded gratefully. Al brought one for Constance, too, and, bless her, Charlie thought with appreciation, she pretended she wanted it.\n\n\"We'll have to exhume the dog's remains,\" Charlie said a few minutes later. \"Can you tell me anything about David? He didn't tell you he was coming to see me, I know. I asked. But something made him decide to poke around himself. Any idea what it was?\"\n\nAl began to pick at the beer can as if the painted-on label might be peeled off, and Sylvie began to pat her hair down, suddenly aware that it was unkempt.\n\nCharlie waited. If there was anything people like the Zukals could not stand, he knew very well, it was silence.\n\n\"It was the insurance,\" Sylvie muttered. \"Set him right off.\"\n\n\"I'll be damned if it was. It was them letters. You had to go show him, didn't you?\"\n\nFrom then on Charlie listened. The Zukals had met David when he and their daughter had attended a special science-oriented high school in the Bronx. The kids had become good friends and David had spent a lot of time at their apartment. His father was ill even then, in and out of the hospital, and David was lonely. They had treated him like a son, and maybe that was the problem with him and Rosa, Sylvie added thoughtfully. Anyway, they didn't try to hide things from him. When they were broke he knew it, and when they struck gold, he knew that, and when the letters came, it had seemed natural for Sylvie to show him. Gently Charlie drew her back to the letters.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Sylvie said heavily. \"They don't want our kind here, you know. Don't much blame them, but here we are. And here we stay, like it or not. Anyways, Monday, after Sadie died a letter came, nasty like. Go back where you belong. That's all. Looked like a kid must have wrote it. And the next Monday another one came. What does it take? A bullet? Would that penetrate your thick skulls? David seen that one and I told him about the first one.\"\n\n\"And two days later he came to see me,\" Charlie said. \"Did you keep the letters?\" They both shook their heads. \"Have there been any more?\" They shook their heads again. \"Okay. What about insurance?\"\n\n\"Nothing to it,\" Al said. \"Sylvie got spooked, is all. See, Stanley, Wollander's son-in-law, he tells me I should get more insurance just as soon as the next check comes, seventh of July. He's talking a big policy, something no load, or front load, or something like that. I can borrow on it even, and Sylvie tells David, and he goes maybe it's not so safe out here for us. But, hell, wouldn't do nobody around here no good if I kicked.\"\n\n\"Someone might think Sylvie wouldn't hang around out here if you were gone,\" Charlie mused.\n\n\"Well, someone's got another think coming,\" Sylvie screeched.\n\nAnd now Al told in great detail how his two sons-in-law were geniuses. \"See, we get the big check and first thing Sylvie tops it right off, ten percent by Jaysus, to a school for girls.\"\n\n\"Well, there's boys' camps everywhere, homes for troubling boys, special schools, and girls get the short stick every time. Sure I did, and next time another ten percent.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. We been all over that. Okay by me. See, we got these four girls\u2014\"\n\n\"And whose fault is that, Mister? You got the special doohickey that makes a boy baby, not me. Rosa told me all about that,\" she explained to Constance. \"She's a scientist. Or will be some day. Real smart, Rosa.\"\n\n\"Jaysus! Will you let me finish! Anyways, we was going to spread the dough around, you know, let the girls and their husbands have some, and they all got together and talked it over, and they go, not the way to do it. If we really want to help, we'd help Bobby and Harmon start a business, this year and next, and then help Les and Nola get a bait shop they been wanting, and like that. Seeds, they call it. So Bobby and Harmon\u2014Bobby can make things out of wood, really good stuff, chairs and tables, stuff like that, and Harmon can do business, sell stuff. They make a good pair. They're going to have the mill for a shop. Handmade furniture. Won't make a fortune right off, but it'll grow. Bobby comes out and looks it over and he goes, you know, Pop, that mill can make electricity, all we'll ever need, and more, and the electric company has to buy all the leftovers. We'll break even right off the bat, and that means profits faster than anyone thought at first.\" Al looked puzzled, then shrugged. \"You can have leftover electricity? I don't know about that. But...\"\n\nNow Sylvie chimed in and her voice overrode his. \"That's what we mean, you get it? We bought this place, and they can send inspectors and zoners and whatnot, but we're here. And we're here for good.\"\n\nCharlie asked a few more questions and got more answer than he wanted each time. They had not seen David after his visit to Charlie's house. What with the kids all over the place Saturday and Lois working David's butt off over at the farm, Al said, it hadn't struck them as unusual not to see him. And she's working her butt off, too, remember, Sylvie put in, and they went on from there.\n\nThey hadn't even known anything was wrong until Lois had come to tell them. When David didn't show up on time, even though it was Saturday, she had gone to his place looking for him, and she had found him dead. She was real shook up by it, Al said soberly. It hurt her real bad.\n\n\"So she came to tell you?\"\n\n\"Yeah. She thought it wasn't right for us to find out in the village, or something like that.\"\n\n\"Did you believe he overdosed himself?\"\n\nAl and Sylvie looked at each other, and she said in a low voice, so low it was hard to catch her words. \"You know, we're from the Bronx. We wanted out, want to get our kids and our grandkids out of there. Sure, we know it's not everyone shooting up, snorting, messing themselves up, but who's to say who is and who ain't anymore? I didn't believe it about David but I don't know. We seen too much. Been fooled too many times. You know what I mean?\"\n\nCharlie nodded. He knew.\n\nHe asked Al to show him where they had found the food dish, and where the dog was buried, and for permission to dig it up for tests. And when Al asked him with incredulity if he was going to dig it up himself, Charlie shuddered. He said he would send someone. They all went out to walk over the grounds, down to the bridge, around the mill, to the mound that was Sadie's grave, to the spot where Al had found her dead. Al and Sylvie talked over the noise of the carpenters in the mill with their radio turned on at maximum volume. Lois was going to help choose which trees had to come out. Al was going to put in a little beach at this end of the lake. Here was the place in the fence that Lois used every day to go to work. They planned to put in a real gate and fence off the bridge, because of the kids... .\n\nCharlie paused at the break in the fence and looked back at the mill, several hundred yards away; the loud music was dimmed by distance but still too clearly audible. A path led from this point, skirted the lake side of the mill and continued to the swinging bridge. No comparable path led to the house through the tangle that many years of neglect had produced. Beyond the break in the fence the path was even more sharply defined, three stone steps down, then a hard-packed trail.\n\nHe glanced at Constance and nodded toward the path. \"Let's see a bit more of it.\"\n\n\"It's like a sidewalk,\" Al said behind them as they started down.\n\nAnd it was, almost. It led them through a few feet of brambles and low sumac and suddenly they were in a grove. The ground still sloped, but more gently here, hardly noticeable as they walked slowly. On the left the trees were all about twenty-five feet tall, straight up to a canopy, but on the right the trees had been allowed to keep their lower branches and they made a thicket that would be all but impenetrable. They had been planted precisely, meticulously, and looked totally artificial in almost military ranks. Every tree was tagged.\n\nConstance looked at the experimental trees with a sense of unease. No grasses, no vines, nothing grew under them, but more, the trees themselves looked alien, foreign to her. Not like oaks or maples or conifers, these had smooth, pale tan trunks, leaves too shiny and thick, and many small round nuts no bigger yet than peas, and they also looked alien. Orchards were always arranged carefully, she reminded herself; she had planted their apple trees according to the book, so many feet from one to another, but every one was different from the next, gnarly, unique, with the differences more apparent year by year. And these were all the same.\n\nThey came to a different section, smaller trees, obviously younger, identical... . Abruptly Charlie stopped, shaking his head. The path continued but it wound here and there and the end was not in sight. Neither was the lake. Stippled sunlight, rows and rows of identical trees, and finally silence; they had gone far enough to lose the rock music.\n\n\"How far to the farm?\" he asked Al over his shoulder.\n\n\"Three, four hundred more feet of trees and the buildings start. It's all like this, all the way. Up at the fence you coulda turned toward the lake, and that's different, right down to the water, but let me tell you, I sure don't like this way.\"\n\n\"Yeah. See your point,\" Charlie said, and turned back. \"Is this the way David came, through the trees?\"\n\nAl nodded. \"Closest this way. Lois uses the path every day. Lots of people seem to, why it's all packed down.\"\n\nThey returned to the mill property and the noise of hammering and music. They walked to the bridge and surveyed it and the dam.\n\n\"That dog, Sadie? She wouldn't set foot on the bridge,\" Al said. \"Can't blame her none. Bridges ain't supposed to move when you do, way I see it.\"\n\nSilently Charlie agreed. Finally, he and Constance got in their car to leave and he felt that he had missed whatever it was he had been looking for.\n\n\"You think the dog was poisoned, don't you? Deliberately,\" Constance said as he backed and turned around, headed out to the road. \"But, Charlie, a dog trained the way that one apparently was wouldn't take food from a stranger, would it? And how could anyone have gone in that far? The dish was at least three hundred yards from the edge of the property.\"\n\nHe grunted. \"On my list,\" he said. \"Both items. Tomorrow we ask Brenda Ryan a thing or two. And not how much she weighs.\"\n\nAfter a moment, Constance murmured, \"Lois Wharton Wollander is the only one outside the family who was introduced to the dog, apparently. And David, of course. And David worked for her.\"\n\n\"It'll be a busy day tomorrow,\" Charlie said, slowing down at Spender's Ferry. \"Brenda Ryan, Lois W. W., Sheriff Greg Dolman. A busy day. Let's check out Hazeltine's.\" He drew up before the Victorian mansion that housed the restaurant and turned off the engine. \"You know who Wollander is?\"\n\n\"Vaguely familiar name. Tell me.\"\n\n\"What Al would call a crowner. A kingmaker. A man who knows which closets hold skeletons, and how to unlock the doors to get at them, and where every body is buried.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Constance said. \"Al said all those inspectors, zoning people.\"\n\n\"Yep. Someone must have sicced them onto him.\"\nCHAPTER 5\n\nTHAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER in the Wollander house, Warren Wollander said, \"Jill, would you mind if we all go to the study for a little talk?\"\n\nLois felt her muscles tighten at his tone of voice. Carefully she placed her napkin on the table and just as carefully she did not look across the table at Jill.\n\n\"Let's talk here,\" Jill said. \"What now? I feel like I'm twelve years old again.\"\n\n\"You're not a child,\" Warren said evenly, \"and that's part of the problem. People are talking in the village about your... involvement with Sebastian and his group.\"\n\n\"What I do is my own business,\" Jill said coldly. \"I don't give a damn what they're saying in the village. And you never used to.\"\n\n\"Now I do. Mrs. Carlysle tells me you've ordered a special diet for yourself and tonight you barely touched your dinner. Is that at Sebastian's suggestion?\"\n\nJill flung down her napkin and started to jump up, then decided not to, looking intently at her father. She took a deep breath. \"Yes. He understands nutrition thoroughly. I am to eat meat sparingly, drink a lot of milk and juice, no alcohol in any form, make sure I have plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits, many of them raw. I am to watch my weight and not gain more than sixteen pounds, and get plenty of exercise.\"\n\n\"My God,\" Lois said softly. \"Jill! That's wonderful!\"\n\nWarren looked confused for a moment, then a wide smile spread over his face and he blinked rapidly. He jumped to his feet and took Jill's hands, drew her from her chair, and wrapped his arms around her, held her hard against him. After a moment he pulled back and examined her face; his eyes were bright. \"Are you sure? I thought you couldn't... Your mother said\u2014\"\n\n\"She was wrong,\" Jill said. \"That's what the meditation has been all about, why I've practiced and practiced. And it worked. I had to learn to relax, to center myself, become receptive. It worked! That's what Sebastian was trying to explain out here: If you can master yourself, you can do anything.\"\n\n\"Let them talk,\" her father said then, and laughed and hugged her fiercely again. \"Let the bastards talk all they want. When? How are you? Have you seen a doctor yet? Will you stay here until it's time, afterward if you want?\" He looked at her closely again. \"Stanley doesn't know yet, does he?\"\n\nJill turned helplessly to Lois and shrugged. \"I wasn't going to tell anyone for a couple more weeks. It's too soon. But I know. Next weekend, when Stanley comes up, I'll tell him, now that it's out anyway. But let me be the one. Promise. Not a word yet.\"\n\nLois nodded, smiling. And Warren said, \"We should have a toast in champagne. A tiny preliminary celebration.\"\n\nJill shook her head. \"No alcohol, remember? Don't tempt me. You two go ahead. I want to walk a little bit and then read, and then sleep. I should get as much sleep as I can, too.\"\n\nShe kissed Warren's cheek, nodded to Lois, and started to leave the dining room. At the door she paused, her hand on the knob, her head bowed. She looked like a too-thin adolescent in her long pale skirt and tank top. Her arms were nearly fleshless, her hands sharply boned. She turned to look at them and said softly, \"Dad, I'm really sorry. The things I said when Mother died. I'm sorry. I was a little bit crazy. And, Lois, I'm sorry. You've been wonderful to me, and I've been a bitch. I know. I know. I'm sorry. Can we all start over, now, tonight?\"\n\nWarren started to move toward her; she waved him back again and smiled slightly. \"No emotional upsets, either. Let's just pretend this is day one and go on from here. Okay?\" She gazed at him steadily, then at Lois, and nodded. \"Thanks.\" Then she opened the door and left.\n\nLois tried to convince herself that the glint in Jill's eyes had been happiness, not triumph.\n\n\"Well, let's take a walk, too,\" Warren said then to Lois. He was beaming, his eyes glistening.\n\nThey walked slowly down to the lake, and then along the tiny beach to where there was an immense log. All around them the night sounds were like music not quite in harmony, stopping and starting, speeding and slowing. Cicadas, crickets, tree frogs, the whir of wings\u2014a night hawk or an owl. Overhead, the sky was clear, midnight dark with myriad pinpricks of stars. The air was warm, but cooling fast. It rarely stayed warm throughout the night, not until late July, or even August.\n\nThey sat on the log, his arm around her, her cheek on his shoulder. \"I'm so happy for her,\" Lois said. \"And for you.\"\n\nHe squeezed her slightly. \"She surprised the hell out of me. The last thing I expected her to say. She made me forget altogether the other matter I wanted to bring up with both of you.\"\n\nLois started to pull away a bit, but he held her firmly.\n\n\"I've been in the spotlight for more years than you've lived,\" he said after a moment. \"I've made enemies. And some damn good friends. But there are enemies. And some of them are nothing but slime.\"\n\nLois shivered, whether at the falling temperature or the harshness of his voice she could not have said. The chill entered her and stayed.\n\n\"I want you to promise me something,\" he went on.\n\n\"You know I will.\"\n\n\"Maybe you will and maybe you won't. We'll see. Promise me that if you get any poison-pen letters, you'll bring them to me. Will you promise that?\"\n\nShe jerked away from him with a suddenness he could not counter. She leaped up and backed away from him. \"You've had letters like that? About me? Someone's found out, hasn't he? I told you it would happen!\"\n\nHe stood up and caught her hands and held them tightly. \"Not about that. That's what I'm afraid of, that someone will send such a letter to you. I've had filth like this before in the past. Slime can't face a man directly, they act like this, underhanded, mean, nasty, hurting. Today I got a letter about Jill and Sebastian. Last week one about you. Both lies. Meant to destroy, to kill something fine and wonderful.\"\n\n\"About me? What about me?\" Her mouth had gone dry, and she was shivering uncontrollably.\n\n\"It doesn't matter what it said. Believe me, I know how this kind strikes out. They don't want to hurt you, just me. And they know the way to do it is through the two people on earth that I love. They always know how. If he doesn't see a reaction from these first two, I'm afraid he might send you a letter. If he does, will you just hand it to me?\" He pulled her to him and held her, and she stared, unresponsive, dry-eyed at the lake. Starlight reflected from its surface in an unquiet shimmer that appeared and vanished with the motion of a breeze. Dead lake, she thought, and felt as dead as she knew the waters were.\n\n\"It must be Coughlin,\" she said finally. \"He must have found out what you're doing.\"\n\n\"Shh. No jumping to conclusions. It could be a number of people for a number of reasons. Let's leave it at that for now.\"\n\nShe might not have heard. \"If it's Coughlin, he won't stop. He'll dig and dig until our grandparents' private lives are on the line.\"\n\nWarren sighed. \"Darling, this has no payoff. You can speculate all night, all week, for nothing. You'll just lose sleep. Either this slime will keep it up or he won't. Either he'll make demands or he won't. Either he'll send you a letter or he won't. I just wanted to prepare you, in case. Now we leave it alone.\" He released her and stretched. \"Speaking about grandparents, how about Jill? My God, I'll be a grandfather! And you a grandmother!\"\n\nThey began to stroll and he talked about his strategy for keeping his daughter here, at home, during the pregnancy. \"Can't pressure her,\" he admitted, thinking out loud. \"Through Stanley. He'll see that it's for her own good, fresh air, rest, no stress of the city, no muggers. That's the ticket. A little chat with Stanley. No pressure.\"\n\nShe said the appropriate things at the appropriate times, but her thoughts were on Bill Coughlin, who had told Warren to keep out of his way because he had every intention of becoming governor first, and then president when the time was ripe. Over my dead body, Warren had murmured, and Coughlin had nodded. If it takes that, he had said. Two weeks later Warren had started writing his memoirs. But no one could have learned what he was doing, she told herself firmly. No one knew yet except her, and his secretary, and, no doubt, Jill. His secretary, Carla Mercer, had been with Warren for over twenty years; she knew more of his secrets than he could remember, he sometimes said. When Warren began to chuckle, she realized she had heard nothing for a long time, and she realized that her thoughts and worries were spinning in all directions and had become too chaotic to track.\n\nLater that night, unable to sleep for thinking about his grandchild, grandson, he corrected firmly, Warren stood at his darkened window gazing at the land his grandfather had bought so many years ago. A moon sliver shed enough light to see the oak tree that he had built a treehouse in, and had fallen out of. But even without the moon, he knew every inch, where every shrub lay, every rise and fall of his land. And now another generation to maintain it, preserve it, love it.\n\nHe always had known that Jill would come home, he thought then. She had spent her first eight years right here, and after those good years, at least half her time had been spent here, absorbing the countryside even if she had not realized it then. She knew this piece of land as well as he did, it had reached out to claim her exactly the way it had claimed him, and her son would know and love it, too.\n\nSuddenly he stiffened. A figure was hurrying up the driveway toward the county road, a woman dressed in a long black coat with a hood, a raincoat from the downstairs closet, he knew. She was out of sight almost instantly, behind the clump of birch trees.\n\nHe felt leaden as he turned from the window. His room was too dark to see anything, but he crossed to the door, out into the hallway where dim lights were always on. Moving like a stone man he walked through the hall to the wide stairs. Halfway down he realized that he had no slippers on, but he kept going, to the first floor, to the den which was dark. Without turning on a light he went to the bar and poured a drink from a decanter there; he knew it contained scotch. He added no water. He took the glass across the room and sat in his favorite chair, his father's favorite chair before him, and he drank deeply.\n\nAt first he had thought to await her return, confront her, accuse her? Even that, he admitted to himself. Accuse her. Drive her away? Possibly, he admitted, and got up for another drink. The first half hour passed, then a second half hour. He was certain he had not dozed, certain he would hear the door open, would hear steps eventually, but the deep silence persisted. Another half hour. Then he cursed himself under his breath. She could have entered through the back door, or the side door. He wasn't even sure which door she had left by. He went to the front hall and looked inside the closet. The black coat was there, as usual. Heavily he returned to his room where he stood for a long time regarding the border of light outlining the connecting door to Lois's bedroom. He did not touch it.\n\nBehind the door Lois lay with her face pressed into her pillow. Trapped, she kept thinking. This was what it meant to be trapped. She couldn't stay, and neither could she leave. She was not weeping although her eyes felt afire with unshed tears. And the word, trapped, repeated like a drumbeat in her temples. She had told Warren in the beginning that it wouldn't work, and he had assumed she meant the difference in their ages. No, no, no! she had cried and had told him about her first husband. They had been in Hazeltine's, a corner table, she remembered distinctly. The vase had two irises in it, a velvety deep blue one, and one that was only faintly touched with blue.\n\n\"He got in trouble at school,\" she had said that night, speaking of her first marriage. \"He was my advisor, and then we married, and my name was on the paper along with his. We both were in trouble. He... he fudged some results and it was discovered. He was ruined, and I dropped out and went to California to start the degree process all over, using my maiden name, Wharton. When I applied here, in New York, I had to tell the committee, of course, but no one else knows. Not my colleagues at the farm, no one. The name on the paper was L. Malik, his name; L. Malik is dead and buried, and she has to stay dead and buried. She could ruin both of us if anyone ever makes the connection.\"\n\nWarren had looked blank. \"History,\" he said. \"What does it have to do with us now?\"\n\n\"You don't understand how serious something like that can be. If anyone brought it out, smeared me with it, I would have to go away. But you could be hurt, too.\"\n\nHe reached across the table and put his finger on her lips. \"One question,\" he said softly. \"Did you do anything wrong?\"\n\nHis finger pressed against her lips. She shook her head.\n\n\"I thought not. Will you marry me?\"\n\nLois turned over in the bed and stared at the ceiling. She should have known, she thought wearily. She had known. Secrets always surface again. Nothing stays buried. But now that Jill was pregnant, Warren would have his grandchild, his heir... She bit her lip. Six months ago she had brought home a new prescription for birth-control pills, had filled her little silver box, and then had stood holding it tightly for a long time, and finally had put it away without taking a pill. She had prayed, if only she could give him the heir he so desperately wanted. She had not told him, afraid that if nothing happened he would be too disappointed, and now she was relieved that she hadn't mentioned it, hadn't talked about it. And she realized that she had better start them again.\n\nShe did not move yet, but continued to stare straight up at the ceiling. And the pulse in her temple beat trapped, trapped over and over. When she finally rose to take a birth-control pill, she could not find the container, the little silver one-a-day dispenser that she had bought the day after Warren's proposal and her acceptance. She was so tired she could not remember where she had put it, when she had last seen it even. It was three in the morning and she was too tired to think anything. She dragged herself back to bed.\n\nThen, in that state of not yet sleep, but not awake either, she realized that Warren must have taken the pills. In her mind's eye his face shaped itself, smiling at her, coming closer and closer, and she smiled back and held out both hands to him, and they laughed together and made love.\n\n\"What they needed was a good watchdog, and a good dog for kids, and good around water. Sadie all the way,\" Brenda Ryan told Charlie and Constance the next morning. She was probably more than three hundred forty pounds and she was enraged. Her face was red-splotched, her jowls shook as she talked. She wore a tentlike garment with great pink blossoms of some improbable flower, and the garment shivered and rustled and shook also, as if her rage had communicated itself to her clothing. Only her hair, a mass of tight golden curls, did not move. They were in her office outside Albany.\n\nVery mildly Charlie said, \"You're sure the dog wouldn't have taken food from a stranger?\"\n\nBrenda snorted and everything about her shook harder. \"Look, I train those dogs myself. You don't want a dog that'll take poisoned meat from a burglar, now do you? I see to it they don't. We see those caper movies just like the burglars do, and we take care of that. Mr. and Mrs. Zukal, they could feed her, that's it. And I'm not too sure about him. Her, I know. I trained her, too. Mrs. Zukal, I mean. If she doesn't handle the dish, handle the food, Sadie doesn't eat. It's like that. I tell her, Mrs. Zukal, I mean, it's good to have a backup or two. I mean, she gets sick or something, dog doesn't eat from strangers, dog dies. I never saw it happen, but it could, that's how they're trained.\"\n\n\"You never even met Mr. Zukal, did you?\"\n\n\"No. I told her how to teach Sadie to take from him, too. They both handle it for a few days, and then he can do it alone. Not until two, three days. One of them kids could have dropped a steak under her nose and she'd leave it there. That's how they're trained. Poisoned? God, I don't see how.\"\n\nShe talked on about the dog, wanted to show them the kennels, demonstrate how she trained them, but Charlie and Constance declined, and left in morose silence.\n\nHe slouched in the passenger seat and she drove. \"Maybe Sadie wasn't poisoned,\" she said.\n\n\"Maybe. Maybe Sylvie did it herself.\"\n\n\"Hah!\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nMiles later she said, \"Maybe Al did it.\"\n\nThis time he said, \"Hah!\"\n\nIt was midmorning when she pulled to a stop in front of the administration building of the experimental farm. If there hadn't been a sign on the door they might have mistaken it for a farmhouse. There was a wide porch and a nice lawn out front with well-trimmed hedges and specimen shrubs but nothing to suggest that it was a university facility.\n\nCharlie had the feeling that if he rang the bell a plump little housewife in a starched apron would appear and the fragrance of apple pie would fill the air. He ignored the bell and tried the doorknob instead. The door opened onto a long hall. On one side there was a narrow table with metal in-and-out baskets, some of them nearly overflowing with mail, others empty. Above each basket was a hand-lettered nameplate'. He looked them over and spotted one that said Dr. Wharton; the basket below it was empty. There were several closed doors on both sides of the hall and a staircase. No carpeting, no other furniture, no other person.\n\nSomewhere a typewriter was going and there was the sound of an air conditioner that apparently was in serious trouble. A door closed somewhere out of sight. Charlie shrugged at Constance and they moved on down the hall looking for a person, anyone. A door opened and a young woman in jeans and a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt stepped out carrying papers. She regarded them uncertainly.\n\n\"Are you looking for someone?\" she asked.\n\nCharlie turned to Constance. \"See? I told you we weren't the last man and woman on earth.\" To the bewildered young woman he said, \"Dr. Wharton.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Her relief was evident, she even smiled. \"Out back. You can go through here.\"\n\nShe indicated the hallway, possibly to a second door to the outside.\n\n\"And after we are in the open air again, then where?\" Charlie asked gravely. They all looked at the stairs as a man began to descend, speaking to someone still out of sight on the second floor.\n\n\"Just tell them if they can't be in and out again within two weeks we'll have to get someone else.\" He saw Charlie and Constance then. \"Hi. Can I help you?\"\n\n\"We're looking for Dr. Wharton.\"\n\n\"I'm going that way. Come along. I'm Tom Hopewell.\"\n\nCharlie regarded him with interest. One of the hand-lettered nameplates had been Dr. Hopewell, but this man looked more like a rag picker than a doctor of anything. His worn shirt was a faded, red-tinged mud color, and both elbows were out. His jeans were shabby, one knee out, never hemmed, and now ragged at the bottoms. He had what looked like a two-day-old stubble. Thirty-five at the most, slender with narrow shoulders, and very dirty hands.\n\n\"Lois is back in the tree section,\" Tom Hopewell said, setting a brisk pace through the hall, out to the back of the building. The appearance of a family farm stopped abruptly here. Rows of tomato plants came to the door almost, and they seemed to be all tagged. Beyond them were rows of immature corn that looked bedraggled and stunted. Some of the plants had plastic tents over them. Some had plastic bags over portions of them only. Small boxes spotted the ground here and there. Tom Hopewell ignored it all and maintained his fast pace. Suddenly he stopped and pointed. \"There she is. I've got to go.\" Although his words indicated a need to hurry, his body seemed of two minds about it. The lower part started to turn, the feet started to move in the other direction but his head did not move immediately as he gazed another moment at the woman he had pointed out. Then, abruptly, he turned all the way and trotted off.\n\nThe woman had just emerged from a greenhouse near the start of the tree plantings; she stood in the doorway talking over her shoulder to someone still inside. She nodded and walked toward a quonset hut. Another farmhand, Charlie thought, another worker dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. Doctors were not what they used to be, he added to himself, as he and Constance went forward to meet Lois Wharton Wollander.\n\nThey caught up with her outside the quonset hut. \"Dr. Wharton,\" Charlie said, \"can we have a few minutes?\" At first she had appeared to be as young as the woman in the building\u2014thirty maybe, with very attractive gray streaks in her dark hair that were dramatic enough to have been added at a salon\u2014but close up it was obvious that she was a bit older than that. She wore no makeup and was very good-looking in a careless sort of way, as if she hadn't thought about other ways to fix her hair, or how beautiful her wide eyes actually were.\n\nShe glanced from him to Constance and back. \"Why?\"\n\nHe introduced himself and Constance. \"We've been hired to investigate the death of your student, David Levy.\"\n\nOne moment her expression had suggested preoccupation, a bit of impatience, and not a lot of interest in them, but now she simply looked startled and puzzled. \"But why? I thought... The sheriff said he overdosed.\"\n\n\"Yes. But his father isn't convinced, and, frankly, Dr. Wharton, neither am I. Can we talk?\"\n\nShe hesitated, then nodded. \"I have an office in the admin building. I guess we could go there.\"\n\n\"Where did David live?\" Constance asked suddenly. \"One of the units over there?\" Off behind the greenhouse, only partially visible, was a long, low building that looked like a motel of the fifties.\n\nLois looked at her more sharply and nodded again.\n\n\"I stayed in a place just like that years ago, a summer at Indiana State,\" Constance said. \"I bet they used the same plans. Can we talk in there?\"\n\nReluctantly Lois said the units were open and they started to walk. \"Is the whole operation here organic?\" Constance asked, and this time Charlie looked at her sharply. \"The bees,\" she said. \"All those little boxes. Hired bees. You can't bring in bees if you're using sprays. Well, some sprays, I guess, but not most.\"\n\n\"It's all organic,\" Lois said. \"That's why we're understaffed and overworked and underfunded. We have a continuing grant for the next four years. We're six years into this project.\"\n\nThe apartments they were approaching were very ugly, institutional ugly, with aluminum windows and doors, no porches or even stoops. There were eight doors.\n\n\"No one's staying in them now,\" Lois said, leading the way to the end door. \"They're all due for painting, refurbishing. Thorough cleaning. The usual summer maintenance. This one was David's.\"\n\nShe opened the door and they walked into a cramped, L-shaped living room with a kitchenette; one door to the right opened to a bath, and another straight ahead to the bedroom. There was only one narrow bed, but the room had been designed for two; two chests of drawers, two chairs, two desks were crowded into the space. Constance nodded. Exactly like the one she had shared with another student many years ago. By the end of summer they had been ready to throttle each other.\n\n\"Of course, nothing of David's is still here,\" Lois said, standing near the door as Charlie and Constance looked over the apartment. The spartan rooms were stripped to such essentials they looked uninhabitable. The apartment felt loveless and gray.\n\nThey returned to the living room where they all sat down on plastic-covered chairs with very little padding. Charlie regarded Lois steadily and asked, \"Do you believe David took drugs? That he took an overdose?\"\n\nMiserably she looked down at her hands. \"I don't know. I didn't. Then the sheriff said he must have done it. I just don't know.\"\n\n\"Okay. Tell us something about him. Good student?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Good, but not brilliant. He was idealistic. His plan was to get his degree and then go to some third-world country and teach. He could have done that.\"\n\n\"Why don't you just talk about him. How he got along with the others here. Who his friends were. Anything that comes to mind.\"\n\nThe picture she painted of David Levy in halting words, with pauses and hesitations, was that of a shy young man with few friends among the other graduate students. He was not asocial but he didn't do the same kinds of things they did, and he was an outsider. He didn't dance, or like rock music, or drink anything alcoholic, or do drugs. He was a strict vegetarian, a health food advocate. He got along with everyone, as far as she had been able to tell but he wasn't intimate with anyone. When the school year ended only two other graduate students remained and they lived in an apartment in the village. They both had been away that weekend.\n\n\"So he was over here by himself?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How did he appear to you the last few days before he died?\" Charlie asked.\n\nLois shrugged helplessly. \"I didn't notice anything out of ordinary. We were working very hard, seven days a week usually, and he was as busy as I was. It isn't as if we had much time for socializing.\"\n\n\"Okay. What about the day he died. You found him?\"\n\nShe took a breath and nodded. \"We have two hundred cloned trees that need daily tending. Saturday, Sunday, it doesn't matter. It was David's job to see to them early every morning, and that Saturday he didn't show up. Over the weekends it was just for a few hours, but it had to be done, and I had other work to do myself, and after a while, about ten or ten-thirty, I was becoming angry that he wasn't there, I'm afraid. I assumed it was the usual kind of thing; you know, the clock didn't go off, or too late a night, something of that sort. Anyway, I started to come over here.\" She paused. Her face was pinched looking, strained. Now she looked nearer forty than the thirty she had seemed at first glance. \"I saw one of the scientists here, Tom Hopewell. I asked him to come with me. It occurred to me that if David was in bed, it would be embarrassing for him if I showed up.\"\n\nCharlie nodded encouragingly at her.\n\n\"We both came to the door. I knocked, and called David, and tried the knob. It turned, and I opened the door, but Tom actually entered. I stood in the doorway and he went on into the bedroom and found David.\"\n\n\"Did you go into the bedroom at all?\"\n\n\"Yes. I couldn't believe... I thought... I don't know what I thought. I just ran across the room and to the bed. I... He was dead.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Charlie studied her for a moment; she was pale and strained, too tight, but in control. Too controlled? \"Dr. Wharton,\" he said then, \"was anything out of the ordinary that you could tell?\"\n\n\"I don't know what would be ordinary,\" she said, shaking her head. \"I never had been in here before. It was very neat. David was fastidious, nothing out of order, nothing out of place. I didn't see a glass or a bottle or anything like that. The sheriff asked.\"\n\n\"What happened next? You saw him. Was he covered by the blanket or anything?\"\n\n\"Yes. I touched his cheek. Then...\" She paused again. \"I'm really not sure. I was standing at the sink, holding onto it while Tom was on the phone to the police. I kept thinking, he intended to make an omelette. I remember thinking that he wouldn't have his omelette. I was crying,\" she added in a low voice, her eyes downcast.\n\n\"What made you think of omelette?\" Charlie asked. \"What did you see at the sink?\"\n\nShe shook her head helplessly. \"I don't know. I was crying, and holding on, and hearing Tom on the phone saying he was dead. I must have been in shock for a minute or two.\"\n\nCharlie caught a signal from Constance, nothing she said, nothing she did, no motion she made, nothing that would have been discernible to anyone else on earth, he knew, but there it was, almost like a hand on his back, fingers digging slightly into his spine. He held the next question. Constance stood up and went to Lois, took her arm.\n\n\"Let's go to the sink, the way you were then,\" she said.\n\nFor a moment Lois resisted the pressure, but then she got to her feet and walked slowly across the room to stand stiffly at the sink. It was dull metal with little dents here and there. Water had discolored a trail to the drain. A few inches of the same dull metal made up drain boards on both sides. A three-burner stove was to the right, a tiny refrigerator to the left.\n\n\"I think,\" Constance said, \"you should move closer, hold it the way you did that morning.\"\n\nWith obvious reluctance Lois moved closer and grasped the edges of the sink and bowed her head.\n\n\"Now, close your eyes and see what you saw that morning,\" Constance said, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.\n\nLois obeyed, and after a second or two she said, \"There was a yellow rubber dish drainer on that side, with a small pot in it. Two eggs were on the other side, and a piece of cheese. And a glass. His vitamins were on that side, too. Several containers of vitamins.\" She lifted her head and looked startled. \"I smelled orange juice,\" she said. \"I forgot that before, and the eggs. I forgot them. There was an omelette pan on the burner.\" Her startlement increased. \"Dear God, there was a towel, wet.\" She spun around and looked at the room. \"A chair was right here,\" she said indicating the place in the tiny kitchenette. \"There was a towel draped over it. He must have been swimming. He swam every morning before breakfast. We had to walk around the chair to get to the bedroom.\"\n\nThey waited, but there was nothing else. She had not seen bathing trunks, but she had not gone into the bathroom. After Tom Hopewell called the sheriff's office they had gone outside to wait.\n\nWhen they were finished in the apartment, Charlie stood just outside the door looking around. The units had been placed close to the boundary of the grounds. Behind the structure the experimental trees started. From the door nothing of the greenhouses or the quonset hut was visible. Trees were in the way, and the trees continued down to the lake. He studied the layout unhappily. David's apartment could be entered without anyone on the farm seeing a thing. For these few seconds that he looked over the grounds, Lois stood silently also.\n\n\"It just won't work, will it?\" Lois said in a very quiet voice that seemed almost resigned. \"He wouldn't have gone swimming, had his juice, and then take anything like quaaludes. He wouldn't have taken phenobarbital before his chores were done.\"\n\n\"No,\" Charlie agreed. \"It won't work.\"\nCHAPTER 6\n\nTOM HOPEWELL GOT TO his feet and brushed dirt off his knees when Charlie and Constance approached him at the edge of one of the corn patches. A few feet beyond him there was a twelve-foot-high fence made of posts with netting. Beans were starting to spiral up the lines. Hopewell was just as ragged-looking as Charlie remembered.\n\n\"Dr. Hopewell,\" Charlie said, \"would you mind answering a couple of questions?\" He introduced himself and Constance, who was eyeing the bean trellis thoughtfully.\n\n\"About David Levy?\"\n\nCharlie raised his eyebrows.\n\n\"Well, what else?\" Tom Hopewell said with a shrug. \"First Lois, now me. I thought that whole matter was handled a bit fast.\"\n\n\"How will you pick them?\" Constance asked then, still studying the trellis.\n\nHopewell glanced at it, then back to her, and grinned. \"We hire very tall workers.\" When she grinned back, he said, \"Actually we want the biomass more than the beans. For compost. And we need the windbreak. Those are scarlet runner beans, not even a true bean. They'll cover the netting, with any luck, and pollen from the corn down past the peas won't blow this far and mess up this stand.\" He shrugged and added, \"We're working with very limited space here, I'm afraid.\"\n\nCharlie waited patiently as Constance asked another question or two about the farm, but when it appeared that Tom Hopewell intended to take her away on a tour, Charlie cleared his throat quite loudly. Constance smiled at him.\n\n\"Another time,\" Hopewell said to her. Then to Charlie he said, \"And you want to know about that morning, I guess.\"\n\n\"Yep. But first, how well did you know David?\"\n\n\"Hardly at all. I was down in Peru all summer, their summer that is, and came back in April with seeds. Corn seeds. I was on a collecting trip. We're looking for better strains, more resistant, hardier, faster to yield, more yield. And perennial strains, of course.\" He was like a little boy who wanted to show off a new kite. When Charlie cleared his throat again, he looked apologetic. \"Yes, David. Anyway, I met him in April, and we worked together a little, not as much as you might think, though. Lois had him pretty well tied up. Properly so, I might add.\" He grinned suddenly. His grin was infectious and made him look too young to be off in Peru collecting seeds, too young to be a doctor of anything. \"We're always trying to snare each other's grad students, of course. Free labor, and God knows we can all use more help than we have. Early on I tried to lure David, to get him to put in a few extra hours. No dice. That was probably the only time I ever really talked to him, more than passing the time of day, I mean. Anyway. I hardly knew him.\"\n\n\"Who's actually in charge here? Who was around that weekend? Besides you, I mean.\"\n\n\"In charge,\" Hopewell said. \"That's Dr. Clarence Bosch, the head of the farm here, our boss. His daughter got married that weekend. He took off on Friday and got back Monday. There were the hired helpers, locals for the most part, but not that early on Saturday. A couple of them were due at ten, for half a day. They were mine. The other two grad students were off for the weekend. All the rest had already left for the year. School's out, off they scoot, credits in their grimy little fists.\"\n\n\"Okay. So that morning, what happened?\"\n\nHis expression became sober. \"That morning. I got here after eight or eight-thirty, I guess. I don't wear a watch, you see, and I didn't check the time anywhere. After I'd been busy for a bit, Lois called me, and I met her near the apartments. She was sore and didn't want to go in herself.\" He glanced from Charlie to Constance and said ruefully, \"Levy had a crush on her, although I don't think she knew that. But I did, and I didn't blame her for not wanting to go in and catch him in his underwear or anything like that. Anyway, she knocked and tried the door, but I went in first. She followed me inside, but just inside the doorway. I found him in bed. Then she came on into the bedroom. We went back to the other room where I called the sheriff's office. Then we waited outside for them to get there.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"Let's back up a step. When you went into the bedroom, she was standing at the door. Was she still there when you called her?\"\n\nHopewell's face tightened. \"The sheriff asked me if she could have removed anything, and I told him no. The way the apartment is set up, it's a straight line from the door through the kitchen space and into the bedroom. I saw him, and looked back at her instantly. She hadn't moved. I said some dumb thing, like there's been an accident. Something in my voice made her run into the apartment, straight through to join me by the bed. She reached down and touched his face, that's all. Then I took her arm and moved her to the sink. Frankly, I was afraid she might upchuck or even pass out. She went dead white, and she was crying. I kept an eye on her while I made the call. She just stood there hanging onto the edge of the sink. Then I took her outside. I was watching her every second.\"\n\nHe had not seen a container for the pills, had not seen anything out of the ordinary, accepting that he had no way of knowing what was ordinary. \"I never had been in his apartment,\" he said. \"Like I said, I hardly knew him.\"\n\n\"So you have no way of knowing if he did drugs,\" Charlie said.\n\n\"Exactly. But I'd guess not. He just wasn't the type. Now, my grad student Preston Heywood, that's different. But he left in mid-May. And he was in Peru with me, so he knew Levy even less than I did, I guess.\"\n\n\"Maybe he could have sold something to Levy,\" Charlie suggested hopefully. \"You don't have to be bosom pals to deal.\"\n\n\"Not unless it was coke. I said he was in Peru with me.\"\n\nHe had started to fidget restlessly, and glanced at two workmen who were standing several hundred feet away under a tree, apparently waiting for him.\n\n\"One more thing,\" Charlie said, dissatisfied. \"Do you know the Zukals?\"\n\nHopewell looked surprised. \"Sure. To be neighbors with them is to know them. So?\"\n\n\"You ever go up to their place?\"\n\n\"What the devil does that have to do\u2014? As a matter of fact, when they bought that mill, they closed down one of the favorite lovers' lanes hereabout. But I haven't been up there for a spell, not since last summer, at least.\"\n\n\"They came down here?\"\n\n\"No. I saw them by the lake. Look, I really do have work to do.\" His impatience was turning into real irritation. He waved to the waiting men and started to edge away.\n\nCharlie might not have noticed his growing restlessness. \"Did they have the dog with them?\"\n\nHopewell looked at him angrily. \"No. I've got to go now.\"\n\nThey watched him take a couple of steps. Then Charlie called after him. \"What did you do when you found out that your student had smuggled coke into the country?\"\n\nHopewell was caught in midstride. He wheeled about, palefaced. \"I didn't say he did.\"\n\n\"What did you do?\" Charlie repeated softly.\n\n\"I fired him. Are you through now?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. See you around, Dr. Hopewell.\"\n\nThey watched him stride away quickly. He looked stiff.\n\n\"Well,\" Constance said. \"If you wanted to get his goat, you succeeded.\"\n\n\"I did, didn't I?\" He took her arm. \"Let's go see the sheriff.\"\n\nSheriff Greg Dolman was grayer than Constance remembered, and a bit stouter, but his smile was just as wide, just as false as it ever had been. His eyes did not know the rest of his face was smiling.\n\n\"Charlie! You're looking great. And, Constance, prettier than ever. Come on in and sit down. How are you? How's the little plantation? What can I do you for?\"\n\nHe ushered them into his private office in the county courthouse and stood beaming at them until they were seated in the two wooden chairs. Then he went around his desk and took his own seat.\n\n\"It's about David Levy, Greg,\" Charlie said. \"His father came to see us.\"\n\n\"Poor guy,\" Dolman said, shaking his head in sorrow. \"Walking dead man. Only son. You know how that goes.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. Fill us in, will you? About the boy.\"\n\n\"Nothing there, Charlie. Like I told the old man. Just nothing there. Kid takes an overdose. What're you going to do? Can't supervise them all their lives.\"\n\n\"I'd like to see the reports,\" Charlie said, just as amiable as the sheriff, his eyes just as hard.\n\n\"Charlie, the case is closed. Did the old man hire you? What with? He doesn't have two dimes to rub together.\"\n\n\"The reports, Greg. Medical examiner's report, you know. He hired me. Got to earn my keep. You know how it goes.\"\n\nDolman regarded him flatly for a moment, then smiled his expansive smile again. \"Sure, Charlie. But I can wrap it all up in a couple of sentences. The kid took methaqualone and phenobarbital together. A real bad combination. Real bad. Took them with orange juice, on an empty stomach, the worst way. Took all he had. We did an analysis on everything in that dump, vitamins, aspirins, juice. Not a trace of anything. He took them all, probably flushed the paper they were in. Then he went back to bed. Just not a good morning for him, I guess.\" He smiled again. \"Frankly, Charlie, between you, me, and the woodwork, I don't give a shit if the dopeheads go out that way.\"\n\n\"That sounds exactly like what we've been hearing,\" Constance said. \"Poor Mr. Levy. It won't take more than a couple of minutes, I think, to make copies of the various reports. Then we can write our report for his father. Poor man.\"\n\nDolman looked at her suspiciously before his smile returned, but she was as innocent as dawn. \"Yeah,\" he said finally. \"Why not? There's just nothing there.\"\n\nFifteen minutes later they were back in their Volvo, Charlie driving. \"Pretty slick,\" he said. \"I take it you wanted out of there.\"\n\n\"Damn right,\" she said. \"He's worse than ever.\"\n\nCharlie chuckled and rested his hand on her thigh. \"Let's go home and do some reading.\"\n\nYears before, when they bought the house in the country, long before they could spend much time in it, Charlie had said in a burst of exuberance, \"When we retire, it's fifty-fifty, kiddo. We take turns with chores, okay?\"\n\n\"Like what chores? I say we hire some things done, like snow plowing.\"\n\n\"Maybe. I meant in the kitchen. You cook, I cook, tit for tat.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" she said, laughing. \"And, Charlie, I won't forget, you know.\"\n\nAnd she hadn't. If either of them was really crushed for time, that was different, but generally it was tit for tat. But with a new case on their hands, Charlie was thinking at the kitchen table, maybe they could discuss it again.\n\nConstance broke into his thoughts. \"Charlie, I'm glad we worked things out in advance, cooking, things like that. It could be awkward on a day-by-day basis, couldn't it?\"\n\nHe examined her carefully; her clear, pale blue eyes were guileless, her expression serene. He sighed. \"Fish on the grill,\" he said. \"Later.\"\n\n\"Wonderful, darling,\" she murmured. \"Look, here's the list of the stuff they examined in David's apartment. He was a real health-food addict.\" She continued to read as the orange cat, Candy, sidled up to her nonchalantly and sneaked onto her lap, as if hoping she would not be noticed and sent off to Siberia. Constance adjusted to the cat and stroked her absently. Candy began to purr. Constance was reading over the shopping list they had found, more of the same: tofu, yogurt, black beans, lemons, herb tea... .\n\nHe sat opposite her at the table and started on the medical examiner's report. For a long time neither spoke. Candy got bored and flowed out of Constance's lap like a sluggish mass of syrup. Brutus stalked in and glared at them, stalked out again twitching his tail. Constance was skimming the early letters from David Levy to his father. When she got to April she began to make a few notes. Charlie was making notes too.\n\nThey would both read it all, and then discuss everything. But Constance was having a harder and harder time with the boy's letters to his dying father.\n\nFinally she put one facedown and stared out the screen door to the backyard. The early bulbs were all finished and now irises were making a show, and baby's breath had come into bloom, making the irises appear to rise from white clouds. Yellow, orange, bronze marigolds, calendulas in lemony colors, some almost white. A cardinal flitted past, then two chickadees. All too pretty to introduce such ugliness into, she was thinking. Peaceful, bucolic even, the air alive with buzzes and hummings, the twitter of birds, a song now and then\u2014\n\n\"Tough going?\" Charlie asked. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.\n\n\"He didn't kill himself,\" she said quietly. \"He didn't do drugs in any form. He was murdered.\"\n\n\"I know. And we'll find out who and why. I'm going to start the grill.\"\n\nShe set the table on the patio, and now the three cats prowled between her and Charlie, who was cursing softly. The grill never seemed to work exactly right without starter fluid, and he was opposed to using a chemical in his food, not even one that had long since burned off. He danced around the cats and cursed fluently and finally had a bed of coals, not ready yet, but coming along. When he backed away from the grill with a satisfied nod, she put a glass into his hand. He tasted and nodded more vigorously. Gin and tonic.\n\nThe fish was delicious, the salad superb, the wine chilled just right, potatoes crisp and brown and tender. They sat with coffee as the first stars began to appear in the postcard-blue sky.\n\n\"Okay,\" Charlie said then. \"Okay.\" He leaned back in his chair. \"'Star light, star bright, first star...' You do that when you were a kid? Make a wish on the first star?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. '... I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.'\" She closed her eyes a moment and when she opened them it was to see him regarding her with a soft expression.\n\n\"Bet I know what you wished,\" he said.\n\nAfter a second she nodded. \"I think you do.\"\n\n\"Enough of the mushy stuff,\" he said. Then very briskly he went on. \"The way I read it, David Levy got up at six that morning and went down to the lake for his swim. He went back to the apartment and had orange juice and his vitamins. He got the eggs and cheese out but he wanted a shower before breakfast. He showered, shaved, shampooed, and dried off and put on his shorts, but by then he was feeling sleepy, or dopey, or something and he crawled back into bed and fell asleep and died. Death between eight and nine at the very latest.\"\n\nConstance poured more coffee. The tiger cat Brutus was stalking the grill, planning his attack. Charlie had given them fish already, but with cats enough was a meaningless word. \"I can see why Greg had a problem,\" she said after a minute.\n\n\"Yep. They opened the vitamins, all what they said they were\u2014A, B complex, E, C, mineral supplements, there's a long list. Not many of any one of them, but all okay. Containers okay, no trace of anything other than the legitimate contents, all as they should be. The juice was okay. All the food okay. Nothing in the aspirins but aspirin. One missing from a container of twenty-five, expiration date last summer. The kid just didn't take things. Period. And unless Lois Wharton Wollander or Tom Hopewell removed something, there was no container for any other drugs. But they had to come from somewhere. And if he did unwrap them and flush the paper, that means he did it himself. And there's no way we can prove or disprove a thing.\"\n\n\"He could have had company,\" Constance said after a moment. \"Someone else could have made the juice and fixed a glass for him with the dope in it, and then washed it out again.\"\n\n\"I really hate that a lot,\" Charlie said, frowning. \"It's the damn time element. That junk had to be in his system by six-thirty. He comes in from swimming and someone says, here's your juice, and he drinks it and goes to shower and comes back out in his shorts. That someone must have been a good friend, and he didn't have good friends at the farm. Okay, he could have had a robe on, and could have taken it off again to go to bed. He wasn't expecting company for breakfast\u2014two eggs only. I just hate that a bunch.\"\n\n\"Were any of the vitamin containers empty?\" she asked after another minute or so.\n\n\"Nope. Our friendly sheriff is an asshole, granted, but he's thorough. He thought of that, too. A few of this, a few of that, and so on, but something in each of them, and no container in the trash. He was running low, but the new supply must not have arrived yet. He ordered them from a mail-order company.\" He sighed. \"Your turn.\"\n\n\"Not much we don't already know, I guess. It's pathetic, how he wrote to his father pretending nothing was wrong, that his father wasn't a dying man. He must have told his dad everything there is to know about the work he was doing. There's a lot about Lois Wharton. He really did have a crush on her. He mentioned Tom Hopewell's arrival and Hopewell's fight with the other student, and he told his father when the bees were delivered. He told him about cloning the trees, and a fight they all had over space and priorities. Apparently they are really strained for space. He referred to a time when they all thought Lois might approach her husband to buy the mill and the grounds there for her work with the trees. The other scientists begrudge her the space that trees take. He didn't refer to it again. I guess it was a just a wish on their part. I haven't got much further. The Zukals are due, that's when I stopped reading.\"\n\n\"That damn cat,\" Charlie muttered, and then yelled wildly. Brutus was on his hind legs, straining to see the top of the grill. He dropped to all four feet and streaked away. Ashcan slunk off into the bed of irises, and Candy crouched near the door, her eyes enormous, her hair standing up like a razorback hog's, her ears flattened. Charlie went to the grill and closed the lid; when he turned toward the door, Candy bellied away from him. \"Let's get back to that stuff,\" Charlie said cheerfully. Any time he had all three cats buffaloed at once, he thought, he had earned his Brownie points for the day.\n\n\"You'll give them all traumas,\" Constance said.\n\n\"Good. I'll take the coffee, you bring the cups.\"\n\nIt was nine-thirty when Lois got home that night, so tired that she felt numb. Until she had a replacement for David it would be like this she had told Warren. The metabolism tests had to be done within a limited time period or they would be meaningless. Even a week made such a difference...\n\n\"He said you knew,\" Mrs. Carlysle said helplessly when Lois asked where Warren was. \"One of those committee meetings.\"\n\nMrs. Carlysle was a kindly woman in her sixties, white-haired and a bit overweight. She had been with Warren for twenty-eight years. Now she said, \"I'll make you something to eat. You must be starving.\"\n\nA few minutes ago Lois would have agreed that she was starving, but now she felt only her fatigue. \"Just a sandwich,\" she said. \"I can do it.\" She started to walk through the hall toward the kitchen, Mrs. Carlysle close behind her.\n\n\"We have ham, and there's some tunafish, of course. Cheese. You just tell me what you want and I'll make it. You look so tired.\"\n\nLois stopped at the wide staircase and felt her shoulders droop. \"Tunafish would be fine,\" she said. \"And milk. I'll go up and soak in the tub for a few minutes. Thanks.\"\n\nWhen she called to tell him she would be late, he had not mentioned a meeting, she felt certain. She would remember that. But she had forgotten that tonight was Jill's night to go to Sebastian's meeting. Every Wednesday night they did chants or something. She tried to relax in the warm water, tried to remember what Warren had said, but nothing came. Nothing. He hadn't said anything. All this week she had been taking her car to work because she no longer had time for the leisurely stroll over to the farm, and then back again. And this morning she had left before Warren was up. Had he been too abrupt on the phone? Or had she? It had been a short conversation. \"I'm sorry, but I'll be late. Go ahead without me and I'll have something when I get home.\" Had she said more than that? She shook her head irritably. What difference did it make? He had a meeting, and he had forgotten to mention it.\n\nBut something was wrong, she thought. Something was slipping away and she didn't even know what it was, or how it was happening. The poison-pen letter he had received had something to do with it. He had refused to tell her exactly what it said. Lies, all lies, was all he would say about it. And then he forgot to mention a meeting. Or she forgot that he was going out. Wearily she climbed out of the tub and toweled herself dry, put on her gown and robe and went to the bedroom, where Mrs. Carlysle had left a tray. A sandwich, salad, milk, coffee. Even a bowl of strawberries. Lois found that she could eat little of it. All she wanted was to lie down and stretch as far as she could and close her eyes.\n\nShe would hear him when he came upstairs, she thought. She always heard him in the next room, moving around, opening a drawer, opening his closet, his bathroom door. Water running. He would come in to tell her goodnight, kiss her goodnight. She turned onto her stomach.\n\nThree years ago when she tried to explain why they should not marry, she had said, \"I have this work to do. I don't mean that it's something I just would like to do if it's convenient. I have to do it. I can't explain it any other way.\"\n\n\"And you don't have to explain it any way at all. That's one of the things I love about you, your determination, your unswerving march to your own goal. I promise I'll never get in your way. I won't ever try to get between you and your work. I love you very much, Lois. More than I know how to tell you.\"\n\n\"People will say I married you for your money. Your own daughter will think that.\"\n\n\"Now you listen to my secrets,\" Warren had said soberly. \"Two years ago I had a heart attack. Not serious, just a warning, the doctors told me. Jill doesn't know. She was in Paris with her mother. I went on a cruise to think and rest, and I decided that all my life was a lie. I lied to myself and to the world, pretending I was doing public service. Public disservice is more like it. You've read how a person changes when death comes too close? Believe it. I changed. When I came back, I began to sever ties, to disengage myself. It's been slower than I'd like, but I'm still working on it. I don't know what I'll do with the rest of my life, but not what I've been doing. People who look up to me look up to an illusion, nothing more. You think I care what they say about you, about us? Jill's mother married me for money and it killed her. Addicted to everything that money can buy, she died of money. She was respected because she was from a good family, and she sold herself like a common whore. You would do me great honor if you will marry me. I know I'm rushing you, but I'm afraid of time. Maybe I see salvation through you. Don't say anything else now. Maybe we've both said too much for one evening. I'll take you home.\"\n\nLois rolled to her side and breathed deeply, remembering. Salvation. But now with a grandchild on the way, with reconciliation between him and Jill, everything had changed. It was like looking into a kaleidoscope that had been still for so long that she had forgotten how swiftly the pattern could change.\n\nThis was ridiculous, she told herself as she slipped into sleep. He would come in to kiss her goodnight. She would remember that he had mentioned a meeting. She would get a replacement for David and not have to work such long hours. And they would walk hand in hand in the garden again.\n\nThis way! This way! he called, and she ran toward the sound of his voice, up there, past a gate, running without effort. Then she stopped in terror. All around were ghost trees, pale and stripped of leaves, rising from drifting sand. The sand made a whispering sound as wind stirred it; nothing else moved. The trees had been denuded of smaller limbs, and those that remained were stiletto-like, gleaming in a light without a source. She backed away, but was mired in sand; when she dragged one foot loose, the sand whispered. This way! His call again. All the trees were gray, silver, unmoving, the trunks too thin to hide anyone, but she could not see him, could only try to follow the sound of his voice. Her legs ached with the effort and when she would have fallen, she found herself unable to touch one of the ghost trees for support, staggered instead to her knees, and had to work desperately to stand up once more.\n\nNow the sand started a slide, and she was caught in it, dragged along downward, twisting and turning to avoid the sharpened tree branches, breathless with fear. Below was the sapphire lake, unreal, painted-looking, but then churning with motion. Alive, she cried out in her dream, laughing and crying at once, eager to finish the slow-motion slide. As she watched the boiling water, a figure emerged, upright. David! His hair swirled about his face, then was plastered to his cheeks, across his open, staring eyes. He rose as far as his shoulders, and began to sink again as she gazed with horror.\n\nThis way! No! She tried to scream, and the sound was no more than a moan as her slide toward the lake continued. The water was subsiding, becoming still again, unreal again.\n\nStanding in the open doorway between the bedrooms Warren watched her toss and twist. The sounds she made were unintelligible; her thrashing and her moans reached a crescendo and for a moment he thought she would surely wake up, but instead she sighed deeply and then became still. In the dim light he could see a sheen of sweat on her forehead, her cheeks. Silently he backed into his own room and closed the door.\n\nWhen she woke up it was six in the morning.\nCHAPTER 7\n\n\"OKAY,\" CHARLIE SAID ON Friday afternoon. \"We're stymied until we get the report on the dog. Right?\" Constance nodded. They had learned so much in the past few days, she thought, mildly surprised again by how much of everyone's lives had been recorded, filed away, remembered by unlikely people. Clarence Bosch, in charge of the experimental farm, world-famous for his introductions of various vegetables, bigger and better tomatoes, better peppers, earlier melons... Jill Wollander, a wild girl in years gone by, now respectable, married to a millionaire... Lois Wharton, brilliant in silviculture circles, introducing a new tree that would grow twenty feet in a season in the north... Warren Wollander, power behind the visible power. The reason no one could construct any of them, Constance knew, was because there were great gaps in all of their lives. Jill had flitted back and forth between mother and father for many years. What had she done in those years in Europe with her mother, who apparently had been in and out of sanatoriums for the last ten years of her life, addicted to alcohol, drugs, who knew what all? Even Clarence Bosch. He had sued Warren Wollander for a million dollars fifteen years ago, charging malicious slander. It had been dropped, but the mystery persisted. What had that been about? Lois Wharton. She had appeared with a Ph.D. in hand and had been hired on at the farm out of nowhere. Six years of her life a blank. Nothing on record for those years. And Sebastian. Con man? Preacher? Enlightened? Just suddenly there in the picture, looking into buying the mill for a school, or possibly a temple. Or something. They had found nothing yet about Sebastian.\n\nThere was no point in calling Wilbur Palmer, the pathologist who had dug up the dog Sadie. He would simply snap at them and hang up until he was ready. There was little they could do until they had his report. There might be little they could do even after they had the report.\n\nCharlie's thoughts were equally gloomy. This was the kind of case he had hated back when he was a New York City detective. Pointless deaths. No direction to strike out in. No direction for questions except the obvious one: Did you kill that boy? He had dumped out the contents of the box Mr. Levy had left with them, and morosely moved stuff around. Such a pitiful little pile of stuff. A few bills, a checkbook, postcards.... He had lived on practically nothing, had no extravagant habits, damn little to show for having lived at all. He put it all back inside the box.\n\n\"When David came to talk to you,\" Constance said then, \"he didn't know who killed the dog. So, if there's a connection, something must have happened in the next day or two to make him suspect he knew. Or maybe he did know by then. But, Charlie, no one would commit murder to keep something like that hidden.\"\n\n\"A nut might.\"\n\nShe rolled her eyes. He had more faith in crazy people behaving in crazy ways than she did, he knew, but nuts did nutty things all the time; they earned the title. And killing David Levy seemed to be in the category of nuttiness.\n\n\"So, let's make a case,\" he said, tapping his fingers on the table. \"Someone wanted to buy the mill property, but the Zukals got there first.\" She made a noise; not an interruption, she never did that, but still.... He paused, waiting.\n\n\"Maybe it wasn't that someone wanted to buy it, just that someone didn't want the Zukals there,\" she said. \"For a lot of reasons. Starting a furniture factory, trucks maybe, traffic, noise. All those grandchildren at play, Sylvie and Al themselves yelling. Or maybe for a reason we can't even guess\u2014a treasure buried on the grounds.\" She spread her hands. \"There's so much we can't even guess about.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"I know, but let's assume a scenario, that someone wants them out, for whatever the reason. So someone decides to drive them away. First the dog. Give them a scare. Then David catches on, and he has to go.\" He looked at her and shrugged. \"Won't play in Baltimore, will it?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't buy it.\"\n\n\"Me neither. Let's go to Sebastian's service tomorrow.\"\n\nSebastian had private, invitation-only meetings every day for one thing and another, they had learned, but on Saturday he had open services.\n\n\"We'll have to sit on the floor,\" Constance said. Charlie made a face.\n\nLois watched Jill and Warren climb the bank from the lake that Friday evening. For days she had been unwilling to go near the brilliant water; even glancing at it filled her with dread. Jill and her father were talking and laughing. All this time, Lois was thinking, how she had wished they would be close again, father and daughter, friends, loving, confiding in each other. The kind of relationship she had yearned for with her own father, who had died too soon for it ever to happen. Warren's first wife Shelley, and then Jill, had hurt him so much; Lois had ached for him, and now he had his daughter back. She knew she should be rejoicing, but her stomach felt leaden and her head throbbed with a persistent pain. She sipped her wine and forced a smile when they drew near.\n\n\"Al Zukal has come up with a fantastic scheme!\" Jill said. \"He's going to put in a beach at his end of the lake. Limestone. He's planning to ship it in from Tennessee or Kentucky. It'll look like snow!\"\n\nLois looked past Jill and Warren. From up here she could see only the upper end of the lake, but now Al and Clarence came into sight. They were strolling back in the direction of the mill, their heads lowered. Limestone? She felt a rising excitement as she considered it. Every rain, every snow would dissolve some of it. How much would it take? Maybe if they did their beach over.... She looked at Warren; he averted his gaze.\n\n\"I've got to change and meet Stanley's train,\" Jill said as she hurried to the house. \"I made a reservation for us at Hazeltine's, but we won't be out very late.\"\n\nAs soon as she was gone, Lois said, \"Warren, what's wrong? What's happened?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I'm just a little tired. I'll lie down before dinner.\"\n\nHer hands were shaking. Carefully she put down her wineglass and took a step in his direction. \"Something's happened, hasn't it? Warren, what is it?\" Her voice rose and she stopped abruptly as he walked past her.\n\n\"We have to talk about it,\" she said, controlling her voice so much that it sounded strange to her own ears. \"Whatever it is, we have to talk about it or this weekend will be hell for all of us.\"\n\nHe paused and turned finally to regard her. \"I'll be here when you want to tell me what you're hiding.\" He entered the house then.\n\nShe sank into one of the lawn chairs and stared blindly at nothing. For a long time she could not track any single thought from start to finish; they merged and blended, and disconnected things joined one another haphazardly. Last night Warren had pressed Jill for an explanation of exactly what it was that Sebastian taught, exactly what she meant by enlightenment, by the rapture of nothingness.\n\n\"Nothingness,\" Jill had said hesitantly, \"has to be by choice. But if you choose, you are actively involved, and that can't be real nothingness. But it can't be simple mind-wipe fatigue, because that's negative, and it has to be positive.\" She had thrown up both hands. \"I can't explain. You have to ask Sebastian.\"\n\n\"It sounds exactly like my problems with algebra back in the good old high school days,\" Warren had said, smiling. \"I followed the teacher's explanations, watched the steps on the blackboard, and each time I thought I had it finally. It was so clear, so simple, logical. Then I would tackle the homework and it was all gone again.\"\n\nJill had set her mouth stubbornly. \"It's not like that.\"\n\nLois had left them to return to her quonset hut and the metabolism studies she was trying to finish. Now, thinking about that conversation, about nothingness, she felt that she had come back from nothingness herself, and it had not been enlightening or rapturous. The shadows had lengthened perceptibly and the only thoughts she could recall had to do with nothingness. Tired, she rose and walked into the house. She told Mrs. Carlysle she would not be home for dinner, collected her purse from her room, and left.\n\nMuch later she was still staining one slide after another, studying it under the microscope, making the cell count, and recording it. Her eyes burned and her headache was like the surf\u2014pounding, receding, pounding.\n\n\"I taught you well, didn't I?\"\n\nShe dropped the slide she was holding and spun her chair around. \"What are you doing here? Get out!\"\n\n\"Just wanted to see for myself.\" Earl Malik was slender, wiry, with black hair untouched by gray. His eyes were very dark, and bloodshot at the moment. His eyebrows nearly met and were bushy, much too heavy for his thin face; they gave him a made-up look, like a performer inept with the tools of his trade. He leaned against the door frame, looking about the lab with contempt. \"They're going cheapo, all right,\" he said.\n\nThere was her workbench with the microscope, the tray of slides, notebooks, a computer with figures in columns on the monitor. Behind her station were two more workbenches, sinks, shelves of flasks, burners... . Many high schools were better equipped.\n\nLois stood up and pushed her chair aside. \"Get out of here, Earl. Now. I don't have any more money. I don't have anything at all for you. Warren suspects you're around, and if he finds out for sure, he'll make a lot of trouble for you. Just get out and leave me alone.\"\n\n\"But, Lois, I'm your collaborator, remember? I taught you everything you know, and that's my work you're messing around with. Let's be reasonable. I don't want your money. I want us to work together like we used to.\"\n\n\"You've been drinking,\" she said with disgust. \"How did you get out here?\"\n\n\"Took a little walk, not that far, couple of miles. I waited for you last night, and the night before, and tonight I said to myself, old friend, she's not coming, so you'd better get your ass over there and see why not. So here I am.\"\n\n\"Earl, listen to me. I don't have any money left. I don't have access to his money, and even if I did, I wouldn't give any to you.\"\n\nHe shoved himself clear of the door frame and stood swaying. \"We'll work together, Lois. Like before. So you won't mess up again. I'll check things out this time.\"\n\nShe went to the computer and saved what was on the screen, turned it off, and began to stow away her materials on the workbench.\n\n\"Too early to stop now,\" he said. \"Couple more hours, finish up here. My work, Lois. Remember that, it's my work.\"\n\n\"It isn't!\" she cried, suddenly furious with him, with her self for not knowing how to get him out again, furious with the whole bloody mess, she thought. \"You botched it once, remember? You botched it. I started over from scratch, and this is my own work and it's damn good work. Now get out of here!\" She was screaming at him, trembling all over. She drew in a deep breath. \"If he does find out, I'll tell him you're blackmailing me, Earl. I will! He'll put you in jail!\" He smiled and took a step toward her and she rushed at him and shoved him backward, back through the open door to the outside. He staggered, caught himself, then fell into the hydrangea bush, cursing hoarsely. She grabbed her purse, flipped the light switch off, and pulled the door closed and locked it. He was scrabbling in the bushes, still cursing, when she ran to her car and got in and locked the door. Gravel flew as the wheels dug in and spun before the car jerked away and she raced up the drive to the road.\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\" Al Zukal demanded Saturday morning. Sylvie was bustling around the kitchen as if preparing a holiday dinner, and it was just eight-thirty.\n\n\"Apple kuchen,\" she said with a withering look. Any idiot could tell that much if he just took the trouble to look.\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, I seen that. What for?\"\n\n\"Stanley might like a bite of something. You ever seen anyone turn down hot apple kuchen?\"\n\n\"He ain't coming for no breakfast. This is a business meeting, like I told you.\"\n\n\"He don't eat none, the kids'll polish it all off later. Won't go to waste.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah.\" Flora was due with the children by noon. This weekend Bobby was tied up at his job. With only two more weeks there he was trying to clean up things, not leave his boss in a lurch. Good guy, Bobby. Considerate like. Al looked at the table and groaned.\n\nHe had spread brochures and folders all over the kitchen table, but he knew he was out of his depth here. Stanley had sent the stuff ahead of time to give him a chance to look over the various proposals, and Stanley would be here before nine to review them with Al, but so far none of the stuff had made any sense at all. Insurance come-ons, certificates of deposit, trust deeds, treasury notes, equity loans. He understood none of it. Sylvie put two pans in the oven and a strong whiff of cinnamon drifted across the kitchen. He'd end up doing whatever Stanley thought best, Al had already decided. It was like a game with Stanley, Monopoly or something. See how much money you could make with money, watching it every second, keeping track, knowing when to move, when to sit still. And it was a headache bigger than the house for Al.\n\nWhen he heard a car in the drive, he went to the door to watch Jill come to a stop near the turnaround at the garage. The new station wagon was still parked outside the garage, but maybe this week he'd get to work hauling the junk out, hauling it away. Stanley got out of the car and crossed in front of it to stop at Jill's side. He leaned in and kissed her and then stood watching until she made the turn, headed out, and disappeared at the first curve in the driveway. When he turned so that Al could see his face, he was grinning like a kid with his own strawberry jam pot.\n\nHe started to walk toward the house, then veered in the direction of the station wagon and went to it instead. Mystified, Al watched him pull open the back and then scream hoarsely and throw both hands up over his face, backing up, screaming.\n\n\"Jaysus!\" Al ran out of the house, crossed the yard and came to a stop. Stanley had fallen down and was rolling over and over, and clustered all over him were bees, hundreds of bees. Stanley convulsed suddenly, his back arched; he shrieked and went limp.\nCHAPTER 8\n\nELLIS STREET WAS LINED with venerable maples that met overhead and made a tunnel with diffused lighting. Parked along the street that morning were two Cadillacs, one Continental, one Saab, several Volvos, and half a dozen other cars far less remarkable. Charlie found a parking space and pulled in. When he got out he noticed that their three-year-old Volvo needed a good washing. He took Constance's arm and they strolled back to number 1242, a neat, well-kept two-story frame house with a postage stamp-sized lawn closely sheared. On the porch they were greeted by a pretty, slender woman in white pants, a white silk shirt, and a blue sash at her waist.\n\n\"Welcome,\" she said softly and opened the door for them. They entered to find a closed door on one side of a foyer, and open double doors on the other. Many shoes were lined up in the foyer. They added theirs and went into the meeting room where a dozen other people had already assembled.\n\nAn assortment of cushions was at the end wall. They selected one each and looked around for a place to settle. The others in the room were in many attitudes, some lotus position, but not many. One woman was kneeling. Most of them were cross-legged or had their legs sprawled out. Charlie felt a touch of relief at that. He knew damn well that he could not sit cross-legged for more than a few minutes, and as for lotus, forget it. He indicated a place that would allow him to see the double doors, as well as a single door in the back of the room, and they sat on their cushions and waited.\n\nAt the far end of the room was the only furniture\u2014a tier of long tables covered with white cloths held many arrangements of flowers. Like a funeral, Charlie thought gloomily. On the floor in front of this was a red cushion on a white rug. A pagan funeral, he added. The windows were covered with white drapes that admitted light. On each side wall were two pairs of gold sconces with tapered lamps in them. The floor was covered with straw mats. Very simple, very soft sitar music drifted in from somewhere; there was no other sound except for the occasional rustling movement of one of the other attendees.\n\nAlready present, and seated, were eight women, four men. Most of them were simply dressed, in white or pastels. Most of them were waiting with their eyes closed, breathing evenly, some so deeply that it appeared they were in a trance state. Charlie recognized Jill from many newspaper photos when she entered. She was in white, a jumpsuit of some sort with a scarlet sash. She sat down cross-legged, bowed her head, cradled one hand in the other, and did not move again.\n\nSebastian's entrance was so underplayed that it would have been easy to miss it. He glided into the room and took up a lotus position on the red pillow; the sitar music ended abruptly. Most of those gathered bowed, some touched the floor with their foreheads, and then they resumed their silent, unmoving positions.\n\n\"The student came to the master and said, In my village is a very powerful man, a very rich landowner who tells me I must finish my studies quickly in order to return home and enlighten my fellow villagers and thus lead them to a happier life more quickly.'\" Sebastian's voice was pleasant, low-pitched, and conversational. He seemed to be making no effort whatever, but his voice carried throughout the room. He looked totally relaxed, his expression both serene and eager as he gazed at his listeners, first here, then there, including everyone in a very personal way that was engaging. He was dressed entirely in white, even his sash.\n\nWhen his gaze lingered on Charlie, the effect was strangely unsettling. He had the gift, Charlie thought then, the same gift that carried politicians into high office, that made evangelists draw thousands to their television sets, to stadiums where they preached. Myopic, Charlie told himself, that accounted for the peculiar staring quality of the man's eyes, but he knew it was more than that. Sebastian liked him personally; he liked everyone in that room personally. They all felt it and responded. That was the gift he possessed, the ability to project such warmth, such acceptance, liking, even loving the other, the stranger. Uh-huh, Charlie thought, and watched as Sebastian turned his myopic blue eyes here, then there.\n\n\"'What should I tell this powerful landowner?' the student asked. The master laughed delightedly and raised his staff and whacked the student across the head. 'Just this,' he cried. 'No more, no less.'\"\n\nSebastian smiled widely, as if he shared the master's delight. \"What a beautiful story,\" he said. \"What a beautiful man was this master, how fortunate this student. But let us examine this student. A student is one who is receptive, who comes empty, yearning to be filled, who comes with no thought of what he has left behind, but only of what is before him. The student must sever his ties to the past, because the past shackles him to his ignorance, to his preconceptions, his false thoughts... .\"\n\nCharlie's legs were going to sleep. He glanced at Constance who had taken her aikido position of sitting back on her heels, her hands loosely joined before her. She looked as comfortable as Sebastian; she looked as if she could stay that way for hours. He had tried that position once, only to find that after ten minutes he could not straighten his legs at all. He had hobbled for an hour, he remembered bitterly. He knew she was thinking, I told you we'd have to sit on the floor. He refused to look at her again, but began to ease one leg inward, thinking if he could just bend that knee a little, then work the other leg in a little. He caught a glance from one of the women, and stopped moving temporarily.\n\n\"... can have but one master. A student can have no thoughts for those he left in his village, whether family, friends, lovers, whoever... \"\n\nHe had not even got to the rich man yet, Charlie thought, and began to ease his leg again. Across the room a woman went from lotus to simple cross-legged. When he realized that no one gave her a glance, he drew in his right leg. Several people looked at him, their concentration broken.\n\n\"How long had this student been harboring this burdensome problem that he evidently brought with him to the ashram? Lost time, every second of it gone, never to be recaptured, and he would have to start...\"\n\nJill had not yet moved. How could she do that? Her head was turned so that he could see only the tip of her ear, a bit of her chin. Too thin, much too thin. Anorectic, like most young women, he decided, especially most rich young women. Why did the ones who could afford to eat anything so often choose to eat practically nothing?\n\n\"... did not say young man, or old man, a wise man or a fool, a good man or an evil man. No, he defined him in the simplest terms available, and the most untrustworthy: a powerful rich man and a landowner...\"\n\nCharlie looked at Sebastian with awe. He was still going on about the student. But it seemed he intended to slop over to the landowner any day now, any month now...\n\nAnd he, Charlie, was going to die right here, gangrene would set in, both legs would fall off.\n\nSuddenly Warren Wollander stood in the doorway looking at the group. Charlie recognized him, too. There was a flutter of stirred air, as if his presence affected the charge, and molecules were rushing back and forth in a dither searching for equilibrium again. Warren spotted Jill and went to her quietly, whispered into her ear, took her arm, drew her to her feet and took her away.\n\nSebastian's voice faltered less than a second, then he resumed his analysis, although most heads had turned to watch the exit of father and daughter.\n\nCharlie jumped to his feet as soon as Warren led Jill out of the room, but one of his legs really had fallen asleep, and he would have plunged headlong into his nearest neighbor if Constance had not caught and steadied him. Leaning on her heavily, he hopped from the room, dragging his useless leg.\n\nThey reached the porch in time to see Warren depositing his daughter in the passenger seat of a Buick that he then entered and sped away in.\n\n\"I'll be damned,\" Charlie grunted. \"Now what?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Wait here and I'll get the car. Flex that leg to get the blood running again. Be right back.\"\n\n\"I can make it,\" he protested.\n\nShe was already moving. \"You hold onto that rail and exercise. I'd rather get it alone than carry you down the street.\"\n\nShe hurried away and he bent his knee, straightened the leg, bent it again. He was now getting pins-and-needles, and they were all red-hot.\n\nShe drove to the curb moments later and he walked to the car, determined not to limp or hobble. \"Fine,\" she said, grinning. \"Where to?\"\n\n\"Let's just drive past the Wollander house, and Al's place. See if anything's stirring.\"\n\nActually they didn't get farther than Al Zukal's house, and it was clear that whatever had happened, had taken place there. The sheriff's men were on the road, waving traffic on, and a medic unit was pulling out when Constance drew near.\n\n\"Make a U-turn, back to the farm,\" Charlie said, craning to see something besides the traffic cops. The medic unit had left without its siren blaring, meaning no one inside it would benefit by being rushed to a hospital.\n\nHe slouched down in the seat. First the poor dumb mutt, then the boy next door, and now what? Al? Sylvie? He remembered Al's words: \"You sure didn't do him no good.\" Christ, he thought then, there was another possibility they had left unexamined: What if Al or Sylvie was really the target of the murderer? But who out here could want either of them dead? He scrunched down in the seat scowling.\n\nConstance made a turn and headed back. She pulled into the driveway of the farm, and there was another police car with an officer leaning against the door.\n\nThis officer's instructions had been simple: keep those people at the farm until the sheriff got through up at the mill. Nothing about keeping anyone out, or stopping anyone from talking to anyone else. He didn't interfere when Constance parked and she and Charlie got out of the Volvo and entered the building.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Charlie asked Tom Hopewell, who had opened a door to peer out when he heard them enter.\n\n\"Come on in,\" Hopewell said, and swung the door open farther to admit them. \"Clarence, Mr. and Mrs. Meiklejohn. Private investigators. Dr. Bosch,\" he finished, and closed the door again.\n\nThey were in a small office cluttered with too much furniture and too many file cabinets. There were also three computers and monitors, all working with blinking lights and ever-changing columns of figures. Clarence Bosch was standing at the window when they entered, a slender, pale man in his sixties, with thin gray hair that did not quite cover his scalp, and oversized glasses with dark frames. He seemed confused by their presence.\n\n\"What are you investigating?\"\n\n\"David Levy's murder,\" Charlie said.\n\nClarence Bosch sank into a chair behind the desk, staring at him. \"Good God!\"\n\n\"What's going on up at the mill?\" Charlie demanded. \"Why are the cops here?\"\n\nBosch shook his head helplessly and Tom Hopewell said, \"I was hoping you could tell us. All I know is that Lois went tearing out about forty-five minutes ago, and soon after that the cop outside arrived and said we should hang around and wait for the sheriff.\" He spread his hands and shrugged, then sat down at one of the computers and gnawed on his finger, watching the numbers scrolling past.\n\n\"Come on,\" Charlie said to Constance.\n\n\"But we're supposed to wait,\" Bosch said.\n\n\"Wait then. See you later.\"\n\nThey went through the hall, out the back, past the rows of tagged and tented vegetables and on to the quonset hut. Charlie stopped and looked at the gravel scattered on the path, on the single step that led inside.\n\n\"He said she left in a hurry,\" Constance said.\n\n\"Twice. Come on.\"\n\nThey continued to the path among the tagged trees, and a few minutes later they emerged onto the mill property. They had almost reached the house before one of the deputies spotted them and escorted them to Sheriff Greg Dolman, which was where Charlie wanted to be at the moment.\n\n\"How the hell did you get in here?\" Greg snapped.\n\n\"Just out walking in the woods and came to call. What's up?\"\n\nThey were near the driveway where the station wagon was parked at the side of the garage. Half a dozen deputies were standing well back from the station wagon. Squinting, Charlie could just make out the box inside the wagon. And bees seemed to be everywhere, zooming back and forth purposefully.\n\n\"We're waiting for the guy who owns the hives,\" Dolman said. \"He knows how to get that hive out of there. We're not about to touch it.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"Who opened the back?\" he asked grimly.\n\nDolman gave him a quick look and nodded. \"You read it right,\" he said with a sigh. \"Stanley Ferris. Dead. And old man Wollander's after someone's scalp for this.\"\n\nIt took several seconds for the name to register. Ferris, Jill's husband, Wollander's son-in-law. He exhaled softly. \"Boy oh boy, Greg. You've got a hot one this time.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Punk kids did it, trying to tie a can to Zukal's tail, get him out of here. Pothead friends of that Levy, I bet. Got high, thought, what a gag it'd be. And now Ferris is dead. I'll get them, Charlie. You better believe.\"\n\n\"How are the Zukals?\"\n\n\"Real shook up. Pretty bad. She told me about those letters. Guess they're getting a message all right. Goddamn punk potheads!\"\n\n\"I'll go see how they are,\" Constance said in a low voice.\n\nCharlie squeezed her arm slightly and she left them standing near each other regarding the hurrying bees. She went to the kitchen door and peered through the screen to see Al and Sylvie at the table, both voices going.\n\n\"Damn it, it's getting in my eyes.\"\n\n\"I can't help it. You're hot as a firecracker. Ice melts soon as it touches you. Hold still.\"\n\n\"Let me have that.\"\n\nConstance entered. Al had been stung too. His face was puffed on one side, and both hands were blotchy with red welts. Another one was on his neck.\n\n\"Did someone take the stingers out?\" she asked over their voices.\n\n\"Miz... Miz...\"\n\n\"Just Constance. Did the medics treat him?\"\n\n\"Yeah. They used tweezers and got the stings, and they said to keep ice on them, but he won't sit still.\"\n\n\"I'm sitting still, but it's running down my neck and in my eyes. Damn it, Sylvie, watch it.\"\n\nShe had turned to speak to Constance and was jabbing a cloth with ice cubes wrapped in it against his ear.\n\n\"What my mother used to do,\" Constance said, \"was use baking soda. You have any?\"\n\nSylvie nodded toward the cabinet, and presently Constance had a paste made and began to dab it on the stings. \"How about some vodka?\" she asked.\n\n\"You want a drink?\" Sylvie asked in wonder.\n\n\"No. Just another trick from the old country.\"\n\nSylvie went out and returned with a bottle of vodka. Constance put ice cubes in two glasses and added an inch of vodka to them and swirled them around a few seconds, then took them both to the table and handed one to Sylvie, one to Al. \"Aspirins?\" Al lifted his glass and downed the vodka in a gulp, and after a second Sylvie drank hers.\n\n\"Aspirin in the bathroom, down that hallway.\" She kept smearing the baking soda paste on Al.\n\nConstance found the bathroom, and aspirins in the cabinet, along with cotton balls, and brought both back to the kitchen. \"Another thing she did,\" she said, mashing a dozen of the tablets in another glass. \"The paste dries out and falls off. Makes a real mess, I'm afraid. But when it did, she would swab off the sting with this solution, clean it, and then put more paste on.\" She poured vodka on top of the aspirin granules and stirred it. \"Helped us. How are you doing?\" she asked Al kindly.\n\n\"I'll live,\" he muttered. Some of the paste on one of his hands was already flaking off. Constance dipped a cotton ball in the vodka-and-aspirin solution and cleaned the sting, and then reapplied the soda paste. Al's wrists were very hairy.\n\nOne of the deputies appeared at the door, wanting keys for the station wagon. The bee man had moved the hive, he reported, but he wanted to move the wagon away from the area because the bees kept going back inside it.\n\nA few minutes after that Charlie appeared at the door. \"I'm going down to the farm with Dolman. Won't be long. How are you, Al?\"\n\n\"Not bad. Not bad. Constance knows a trick or two them medicine men could use.\"\n\n\"I bet she does,\" Charlie said, grinning, and trotted off.\n\nSylvie cleared all the brochures and pamphlets from the table and brought the apple kuchen over along with the coffee.\n\n\"See,\" Al said, as she moved back and forth arranging things, \"Stanley, he was a genius with money, and he was coming to be my advisor. What he said, my advisor. Early, before the kids get here making a whoop and holler all over the place.\"\n\n\"They're coming pretty soon,\" Sylvie muttered. \"I don't know, Al. This just about does it for me. You know what I mean?\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. I know. So he's coming over, like I said, and Jill drives up and turns around, and he gets out and smooches her real big through the window and off she goes. And I'm thinking now he's coming on in, but he turns to the station wagon and pulls the back open and the bees are all over him. Just like that. He's yelling and throwing his hands over his face trying to get them off, and he falls down, and by then I'm going out there, and I'm trying to get them off him and pull him away. I tried artificial resitation. I took a class once, but it don't do no good. He's a goner even before I reach him. Bees on his face, even his eye, all over his arms.\"\n\n\"And I'm right behind Al and I seen him fall down and I run back in and call that emergency number wrote down on the phone book and the bitch goes you gotta stay on the line and I go, no way, I gotta call Wollander, and he shows up about the same time them near doctors get here in their truck and when he sees that Stanley is a goner, he goes tearing out for Jill.\"\n\nSylvie dabbed more paste on Al's cheek, and they all ate kuchen and drank coffee and Sylvie and Al talked about staying here, or going back to the city, or getting a hotel room for a few days, and about installing a real professional security system on Monday, and maybe trying another dog. And finally Charlie came back with Greg Dolman.\n\nThe sheriff's tone was solicitous. \"You doing better now?\" His eyes were as hard as ever. Al nodded, and he said, \"Look, if you get any more letters, give me a call, will you? And if you decide to go somewhere else for the next few days, let me know where I can find you. Wouldn't blame you for leaving for awhile. But we'll get them kids. We'll get them.\"\n\nHe started to leave, then paused. \"My guys have been holding the reporters off, but when the word gets out that it was Stanley Ferris, they'll be thicker than fleas out here. I'll leave someone to hold them off while I go talk to Wollander. Another hour, hour and a half.\" He nodded to them and went out the door.\n\nWordlessly Sylvie got up and poured coffee for Charlie. She examined the paste on Al's stings and cleaned off a couple of them. \"What'll we do, Al?\" she asked then, subdued. \"That sheriff ain't going to do us no good.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I don't know. Maybe we'd better just take off.\"\n\n\"Al,\" Charlie said gravely, \"your station wagon still has some bees hanging out in it. The beekeeper plans to come back after dark, after they're all back in the hive, and take the hive back down to the farm. Meanwhile some of the bees seem confused and keep homing in on the wagon.\"\n\nAl shuddered and Sylvie made a moaning sound so deep in her throat it sounded inhuman.\n\n\"Our car is down at the farm,\" Constance said. \"After your daughter comes and you send her back home, you can go down through the trees and take our car. You can go to our house and wait for us. Do you mind cats?\"\n\nCharlie blinked at her, then nodded slightly.\n\n\"Cats?\" Sylvie asked uncertainly. \"Your house? Where's that?\"\n\n\"We'll give you a map,\" Constance said. \"Three cats. They'll hate having you show up in our car, and they may even just take off and sulk. Don't worry about them. You can relax and try to decide what you want to do without any reporters bugging you. We'll wait until the beekeeper comes back and clears them all out and then join you.\"\n\nAl and Sylvie looked at each other, then looked more closely at Constance and Charlie, and in the end they nodded and began to talk about what they would take with them. \"Not too much to lug through them woods,\" Al said, and she said, \"Three, four days of clothes. Is the suitcase in the attic or the basement?\" When they began to talk together, Charlie leaned back in his chair and grinned faintly at Constance.\n\n\"Well?\" Constance asked later, when she and Charlie were alone in the house. The daughter and grandchildren had come and gone, the Zukals had left. The reporters had not landed yet.\n\n\"No one knows when the hive was taken. It could be one that was put under the trees in April when the trees were blooming. They're checking now. You can move a hive at night, no problem. Probably it was done overnight. The sun heated up the wagon and the bees got mad when they couldn't get out and tend to business. And that's about all. No fingerprints on the hive, or the wagon.\"\n\n\"It's so ugly,\" she said after a moment. \"What if one of those children had opened the station wagon first?\"\n\n\"Everyone's thought of that,\" he said quietly.\n\nShe told him the story Al had told her. He didn't know why Stanley Ferris had opened the station wagon. There wasn't any reason for him to go near it that Al knew. He and Sylvie had used it yesterday and there wasn't anything in it, nothing that should have been of any interest to Stanley.\n\n\"They know it was meant for them,\" she said matter-of-factly. \"They're taking it a lot better than I would be doing.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. He knew he would be out with a gun looking for someone to shoot along about now.\n\nThe reporters came to the porch and Charlie got rid of them. He didn't know where the Zukals had gone, he was house sitting for them, he didn't know anything about anything. That was the station wagon, and it still had bees in it; if they wanted to go get pictures, fine. They left. Constance straightened up the table and put the baking soda away again, put dishes in the dishwasher, and stood looking at a can of dog food left in one of the cabinets. Sylvie's green kerchief was on the counter, and the stack of brochures that Stanley had sent them. She sighed and turned to the door as someone knocked. More reporters, she thought.\n\nBut it was Lois Wharton Wollander. She was very pale and had been weeping; her eyes were inflamed and puffy.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said uncertainly when Charlie opened the door for her. \"I came to see how Al is.\"\n\n\"He'll survive,\" Charlie said. \"Come in. How's Mrs. Ferris?\"\n\nLois shook her head. \"It hit her pretty hard. She... she miscarried. The doctor has her sedated now.\"\n\n\"Hospital?\"\n\n\"No. She was only a few weeks pregnant, he said that physically it shouldn't be too serious. She just needed calming down for now.\" Lois sank down into one of the kitchen chairs. \"Have Sylvie and Al left for good?\"\n\n\"Probably not. They're tough, and once they get over the shock, they'll be ready to fight back.\" Charlie studied her thoughtfully, then asked, \"Were you interested in buying this property?\"\n\nStartled, she shook her head. \"What for?\"\n\n\"Your work, maybe. For the school, maybe. I don't know.\"\n\n\"That's a crazy idea. It never occurred to me.\"\n\n\"What's the cause of the hard feelings between Clarence Bosch and your husband?\"\n\nShe flushed. \"I don't know that there are hard feelings.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Wollander,\" Charlie said, drawing out a chair and sitting down, \"murder has been done here twice now. A lot of questions are going to be asked, and if they aren't answered, a lot of digging will be done anyway. There aren't many secrets that will stay under wraps from here on out. If there's something between Bosch and your husband, it'll come out.\"\n\n\"Ask them,\" she said sharply then. \"Why are you asking me things like that? Ask them.\"\n\n\"I will. And I'm asking you because you're here. There's been a death in the family, your stepdaughter's had a miscarriage, your husband must be devastated by such tragedies, and you're inquiring about a neighbor you just met recently. I'm surprised you're not over at your own house holding someone's hand, or making tea, or answering the phone. You know, rallying around.\"\n\nShe rose stiffly. \"I was on my way to lock up the lab. I won't be in it for days, of course. I just stopped in to see if Al was all right. I'll be going now.\" She went to door and paused. \"The sheriff is calling Stanley's death accidental. Some boys were playing a prank on Al Zukal and it got out of hand.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"I know what the sheriff is saying, but I'm still investigating murder, Mrs. Wollander.\"\n\nShe walked out, and he watched her return through the yard toward the break in the fence. She had just reached the area where trees and unruly undergrowth would hide her when Tom Hopewell and Clarence Bosch emerged from the tangle. The three scientists stood together talking for a few minutes. Lois turned and headed toward the mill and the swinging bridge. Hopewell watched her go out of sight, then he and Bosch continued to the house.\n\n\"Reporters,\" Tom Hopewell said with disgust when they entered. \"They're getting a human-interest story from some of the workers. We decided to duck out until they're done.\"\n\n\"Did Al and Sylvie get out before they arrived?\" Constance asked, ushering them both into the living room. The furniture was very good in here\u2014two sofas, comfortable chairs, and pleasant lamps; all subdued colors, ivories and tans with green and blue accents. One of Sylvie's scarfs was on the sofa, a beer can was on an end table, a child's toy vacuum cleaner stood in the corner. A window seat at a bow window was completely covered with children's coloring books and crayons.\n\nTom Hopewell nodded. He seemed about to say something, but held it back. All the friendliness that he had shown them earlier was gone now. He looked angry and upset.\n\n\"Al said you would be up here until dark, and I thought this would be a good time. I wanted a word with you,\" Bosch said. \"You made a serious statement earlier. You said David Levy was murdered. Why, Mr. Meiklejohn? On what basis?\"\n\nCharlie shook his head. \"Let's just say it's what I believe. Why were you feuding with Wollander?\"\n\nBosch groaned. \"This is what I was afraid of,\" he said. He was perspiring and took off his coat. He had on a short-sleeved shirt, open at the throat. His arms were tanned up to the edge of the shirt sleeves, and when he moved, the white above the sleeve appeared and vanished. \"Questions. The past dug out and aired all over again. That's old history. It has nothing to do with the present.\"\n\n\"If anyone knows, I'm bound to find out,\" Charlie said reasonably. \"Why not let me have the real story?\"\n\nWhen Bosch hesitated, Constance said, \"I can see the tabloid headlines now: attack of the killer bees, old feuds settled at last.\" She looked at him kindly. \"You know that's how it will be treated.\"\n\n\"I know. It's just a silly thing, sordid and unpleasant, but not relevant. And I know you're right, it will come out again. Back in the seventies, you remember all the turmoil on campuses, everywhere. It was here, too. Wild kids, rebellious, experimenting with LSD, magic mushrooms, whatever came down the road. They got out of hand here, too. I threatened them with expulsion\u2014there were eleven graduate students, supposedly young adults, too old to require supervision. Anyway, there were parties, and people from around here were upset because some of the local kids got involved. I had my students in and warned them that at the next party I'd call the sheriff and round them all up. And I did. One of the locals who got hauled in was Jill Wollander. A kid, fifteen, sixteen. And Warren threatened to have my head. He said things he shouldn't have said and in self-defense I got an attorney and slapped him with a suit. To shut him up, stop his threats. It worked, and he hasn't spoken to me since.\"\n\n\"What kind of threats?\"\n\n\"What you might expect. He would close down the farm here, or have me removed, things like that. Called me incompetent, said I provided the atmosphere, and maybe even the drugs, let things get out of hand. It was ugly.\"\n\nHe looked grim, his mouth set in a tight line. His soft, slender appearance had been deceptive; now with his coat off, his arms revealed wiry muscles when he moved, and his expression was obstinate. He would take on Wollander again if he had to, Charlie thought. A tough old bird who would fight city hall and all the king's men, whoever got in his way.\n\n\"And now your bees kill his son-in-law. Oh yes, it will be aired again, I'm afraid.\" Charlie regarded him with commiseration. \"Tell me something about the bees. Could anyone have gone in there and just picked up a hive and walked out again?\"\n\n\"Walked out, maybe. But our night watchman says no one drove in or out after Lois left at ten-thirty. The sheriff practically accused him of lying about it, falling asleep on the job, or something, but I believe him. He's a good man, and he's been with us ever since I've been there, twenty-one years. There's no reason for him to lie.\"\n\n\"How heavy are the hives?\"\n\nBosch glanced at Hopewell and shrugged. \"Seven, eight pounds. They're lightweight, meant to be carried out to fields or berry patches. And if it was the one left under the trees, it didn't have to be carried far.\"\n\n\"If you don't think it was neighborhood kids, who do you suspect?\" Charlie asked softly then.\n\n\"I didn't say that,\" Bosch protested. \"I'm just saying they didn't drive in with a truck and collect a hive. And if the hive was up in the trees, they wouldn't have had to drive in. Maybe they spotted it earlier and knew it was just a few feet from the fence. That fence is down here and there, has been for years. Harry wouldn't have seen them necessarily if they had gone in that way, through the trees, but he would have seen a truck. There wasn't one. That's all I'm saying.\"\n\n\"What happened to Jill after the cops collected her?\"\n\nBosch shook his head. \"I don't know. I think Warren packed her off to live with her mother. Maybe they put her in a convent. Where she belonged in those days. With a high fence topped with barbed wire. The next time I saw her, four, five years later, things were different here. That crazy phase had ended.\"\n\n\"Does she speak to you?\" Charlie asked.\n\n\"Sure. She's been over a time or two to bring Lois mail that the rural delivery woman leaves over at the house. Jill is as friendly as a pup. But Warren will never forgive or forget.\"\n\nTom Hopewell was getting restless, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, crossing and recrossing his legs. Charlie glanced at him. \"Anything you can add?\"\n\n\"Nope. I agree with Clarence about the truck. Actually, what I suggested we do is inspect the fence line and see just where the breaks are, and if there are traces someone might have left. And we decided that we shouldn't do it ourselves, alone, I mean. We thought maybe you would come along.\" He stood up and began to move about the room.\n\n\"You really don't want the sheriff to pursue the truck idea, do you?\" Charlie murmured. \"Afraid of a blot on the reputation of your watchman? What is it?\"\n\nBosch looked more obstinate, more irritated than before. \"That's partly it, of course. We don't want a blot, not now. I'm due to retire the month after our grant runs out, three years, six months, nine days. And I don't want to get into another fight with Warren. He could start a lot of trouble, talking about dangerous, uncontrolled bees, that sort of thing. He couldn't shut us down, but it would be a nuisance that I frankly just don't have time for. But more than that. You said that David Levy was murdered. Presumably you have your reasons. Lois said the dog was poisoned. I assume she has her reasons for believing that. And now, the bees. Someone obviously has launched a campaign of terror directed at the Zukals with the possible intention of driving them away. And it's just a matter of time until the rumors start flying that one of us at the farm may be behind it.\" His voice had gone very dry, his words precise and clipped. \"It is no secret that I tried to get our board to buy this property on two different occasions. The second time it seemed a possibility, but then funds vanished and there simply wasn't enough money to make it feasible. But that's the sort of thing people will be saying if this doesn't get cleared up quickly. And if the sheriff is off searching for an illusory truck, it won't be cleared up quickly or any other way. I told him about the fence being down and he sent an incompetent to have a look, but that was the extent of his interest. I thought you might be more interested, if you are seriously looking for a killer.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"I think we should go look at that fence. How I heard it was that when Lois Wharton married Wollander, it was assumed that she would add the mill property to the farm.\"\n\nBosch shook his head vehemently. \"Rubbish. Warren would be just as likely to cut off his arm and present it as a gift. Let's go inspect the fence.\"\n\nTom Hopewell had been standing at the bow window gazing out; abruptly he swung around. \"Wait a minute,\" he said. \"You know where rumors like that lead. If it wasn't bad kids playing bad jokes, it must have been an outsider, someone who tried to move in on the old families by marrying one of the big shots. They sure don't need you to suggest any such thing, Meiklejohn. They'll think of it all by themselves. Come on.\" He strode from the room, out of the house, and led them to the break in the fence. \"I found it on one of my rambles years ago,\" he said. \"There's another section down nearer the road, and of course the one at the lake end. Everyone knows about all of them.\"\n\n\"We talked about fixing it at a board meeting,\" Bosch said dryly. \"But it's mill property, not ours, and there's just no money for anything extra.\"\n\nOn the mill side of the fence there were fine old maple trees with a thicket of straggly new shoots that competed for light and room. Closer to the fence there were sumacs and a few blackberry brambles. The break wouldn't be noticeable to anyone not aware of it. Then the ground was too rocky to support even that underbrush, and here the fence had been bent over. The break could have been used recently, or not; it was impossible to say.\n\n\"Deer do it getting down to the lake,\" Bosch said, surveying it. \"Snow piles up, they walk over it. Comes a thaw, it's low enough they still walk over it, or maybe jump over it. Two, three seasons and it's all the way down.\"\n\nThey stepped over the fence and kept to the rocky ground for fifteen or twenty feet where more sparse undergrowth struggled, and then they were among the experimental trees.\n\n\"Where was the hive?\" Charlie asked.\n\n\"I don't know. Lois's chart will show where it was placed. But you can see that I was right, no one had to drive in. No one had to carry the hive more than a couple hundred feet.\"\n\nCharlie nodded slowly, and said even more slowly, \"I see. And you're right, it would have been easy for anyone who knew the hive was up in the trees here, and who knew there was a broken section of fence, and who knew his way around in the dark, and who didn't mind leaving a car or truck parked somewhere and walking in nearly half a mile. Doesn't sound a hell of a lot like your typical teenagers. How I hear it is that they won't walk to the mailbox if they can help it. And probably not your typical transient from Toledo.\"\n\nBosch returned his skeptical gaze steadily. \"Warren probably knew all those things. He's a good walker, and he knows every inch of all this area, dark or light.\"\nCHAPTER 9\n\n\"WHAT DO YOU THINK?\" Charlie asked a few minutes later. He and Constance were walking at the edge of the lake on the farm grounds. Across the lake the woods had ended at a grassy slope; the upper part of the Wollander house was visible, as if rising from an emerald carpet.\n\n\"I think that if our culprits are neighbor kids, the sheriff is in a much better position to find them than we are.\"\n\n\"Granted. What about Bosch?\"\n\nShe knew that Charlie had a lot more faith in instant analysis than she did, and that he believed implicitly that she had the ability to peer through all layers of masking to see to the core. She had disputed this too many times to try yet again. Instead, she said slowly, \"He's driven to complete his work, of course. I plant half a dozen vegetable varieties that he developed and introduced. Tomatoes, peas, some peppers. He's done very important work in horticulture. I can imagine the fights he's had just to get where he is, spending the last ten years of his professional life doing exactly what he wants. The bureaucracy probably put up roadblocks all the way, but he won. I wonder what really lies behind his hatred for Warren Wollander.\"\n\n\"You don't believe the story about the bust, about Jill being caught in the net?\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly. But I suspect he knew ahead of time that she would be. Maybe that's why he called the police,\" she added thoughtfully. \"It really isn't how the system works. You have to see the university as a clan; those who wear the tartan keep the problems at home, keep the family secrets hidden away, they don't call in the police and get their own into that kind of trouble. They just handle it in house, the way Tom Hopewell handled his student. Nothing on the record, no police, no bust, matter ended. And Clarence Bosch has been a clansman his entire life, as a student, then a teacher; it's the only world he's ever lived in. He wouldn't have done that unless there was something else behind it. And it seems to me that Warren must have overreacted to the incident if Jill just happened to be one of several. But if she was a target, then fifteen years of hostility isn't so excessive, is it?\"\n\nCharlie nodded, and gripped her hand tighter. That hadn't occurred to him, and he believed every word of it. See? he wanted to tell her. See what you can do without any effort at all. He said nothing like that because they had had that debate too many times, and it was one he couldn't prove or win. But he knew. He nodded toward the general view before them.\n\n\"Pretty, isn't it?\"\n\nOn this side the ground sloped gently to the lake, with knee-high grasses, waist-high in spots, and wildflowers in bloom. Butterflies and bees were everywhere, but here they seemed benign, a piece with the setting. On the other side the grass was clipped, and the slope was steeper and higher. They had drawn even with the small beach, a length of golden sand twenty feet wide, fifty or sixty feet long. It looked as artificial as it was, but it, too, was pretty, uncluttered and clean. How much value did Warren Wollander place on this serenity, this privacy, this quiet? Charlie tried to imagine the lake filled with loud-mouthed youngsters, and Sylvie and Al's voices raised in warnings, and radios blaring, bonfires blazing, hotdogs burning. Paradise lost? Maybe, he decided. Maybe.\n\nYet the thought was swiftly followed by another; he preferred the chaotic imaginary scenes he had conjured. Knowing the lake was beautiful and dead, that the water flowing into it brought only more death tainted the beauty; unbidden, unseen, unidentified evil had insinuated itself into the pristine valley and now owned the dead waters. Silver wind ripples played on the surface, a mockery. He forced his gaze from the lake.\n\n\"What I'd like to do is walk to the end, see how hard it might be to cross the stream up yonder. Game?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I suspect what you'd really like to do is walk across the water and beard the lion in the den,\" she murmured, her expression calm, her eyes busy taking in the landscape.\n\nHe grunted, and they walked on toward the end of the lake.\n\nIt would be hard, he had to admit a few minutes later. The lake narrowed until it became a swift stream that ran ten to twelve feet down a rocky gorge. Not wadable, he decided, unless you didn't mind rock climbing, and getting soaked, and then what was the point? You might just as well swim across the lake itself.\n\n\"You know,\" he said, \"there might not be a connection, and that's why we can't see it. Like the little man on the stair.\"\n\n\"Three murders\u2014if you count Sadie, and I do\u2014and no connection? How likely do you suppose that is?\"\n\n\"Not very, but possible,\" he said grumpily. \"And I'll be damned if I can link them. A dog that's trained not to take food from anyone but the owner, poisoned. A boy who doesn't do drugs, overdosed. The wrong schmuck opens the car door, dead of bee venom.\"\n\n\"You agreed to look into the death of David Levy,\" she reminded him. \"Just that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. But the other two tag along like kids from the first marriage. What does David's death have to do with forcing the Zukals out of here? Why on earth would anyone here want to kill the Zukals? What kind of nut would kill someone just because he saw him toss bad hamburger to a dog?\"\n\n\"Maybe someone whose reputation is extremely important to him,\" she said after a moment.\n\n\"And we don't have anyone around here like that,\" he grumbled. \"Just a few world-famous scientists, a presidential advisor, and a guru.\"\n\nShe laughed softly. \"You're just hungry. Al and Sylvie will eat our food, we eat theirs. Let's go see what kind of food they provide.\"\n\nWhen they reached the break in the fence that Lois always used, they saw a woman waiting for them. She was middle-aged, with gray hair, wearing a simple skirt and blouse, and sandals; the sort of woman, Charlie thought, whom you saw in supermarkets and discount stores clutching coupons and comparing prices, and whom you forgot instantly.\n\n\"Mrs. Meiklejohn? Mr. Meiklejohn? I'm Carla Mercer, Mr. Wollander's secretary. He would like to talk to you this afternoon, if it's convenient.\"\n\nShe did not offer to shake hands, and got no closer than ten feet. Charlie imagined that she could type up a storm. He nodded. \"Fine. We were hoping to get to talk with him, too. When?\"\n\n\"He suggested three.\"\n\n\"We'll be there. Up through the woods okay? The station wagon has been invaded by bees and we're on foot.\"\n\n\"It's the best way,\" she said seriously. \"I'll tell him.\"\n\nThey watched her cross the swinging bridge, staying well in the middle, not looking down at the water at all. Holding her breath, Charlie thought; when she reached the other side, he heard Constance exhale softly. He chuckled and took her elbow. \"Food. And I don't care what it is as long as it's soon.\"\n\nLois sat in a small room they called the flower room, a solarium, sun-drenched in the winter, filled with greenery and blooming plants that got carried out to the patio at the start of summer each year. The room was white, with tall windows, and window seats; although it looked stark now without the greenery, in winter it was a cheerful haven from the often-bitter cold, and it was her favorite room. She held a book in her lap but she had not read any of it since entering the room; it was a shield, to be used only if someone came in. She did not expect anyone to come in.\n\nNow and then she heard herself say under her breath, \"Poor Jill.\" But it was mechanical, as if someone else were saying it. Dissociated, she thought, remembering an article she had read. One of the stages of schizophrenia was dissociation, in which the person saw herself as if she were an actress in a play. And that was exactly right. She kept seeing herself at different stages of her life, herself as a child, as Earl's bride, as a student, facing her committee. Warren's bride. It was strange that the figure she saw was so identifiable and yet so distant.\n\nHer mother screaming at her father: \"Don't you see that she doesn't want you pawing her like that?\" Her father drunk, trying to draw her close, his arm around her shoulders, swaying and leaning on her more and more heavily. \"You love the old man, don't you, sweetheart? You know I don't blame you, don't you?\" Until then she hadn't even considered that he might blame her for anything; until then she had loved him, although she tried to avoid him when he was drinking because at those times she was afraid of him. The fear was too general to have a real basis, she knew, but it was there, strong, pounding, making her shrink away from him then. At that moment she had realized that she was to blame for his failure; if she had not been born, then maybe he would have become the scientist he yearned to be, not the junior high school teacher he actually was. Her fault, she accepted, and she shrank away from him because he might have to punish her for destroying his life, and finally the fear of his drunkenness had a cause.\n\nTen years later, her father long since dead, her mother insurance-rich, she had been confronted by the ghost of the past. Earl, drunk, weaving back and forth, lurching against a door frame, clutching the table for support, cursing the committee that was persecuting him. And she shrank away from him because she was afraid of him. She could say nothing, because anything she did say would provoke a tirade aimed at her; he would lash out, once he even swiped at her and fell heavily onto the couch when he lost balance. And the next day he would forget, or pretend to forget, all of it.\n\nNow the ghost was walking again, had entered her life again, and it brought the same fear as before, the same helplessness. She could see the twelve-year-old child pleading with God to make it not happen, to make it stop. \"I'm sorry,\" the child whispered into her pillow. \"I'm sorry.\" She could see herself at twenty-two: \"I'm sorry. I should have checked everything closer. I should have double-checked. I shouldn't have been so trusting, so confident. So stupid.\" That time she whispered into the dark in their bedroom while Earl crashed around in the living room beyond the locked door.\n\nLast night, when he crashed into the bushes outside the quonset hut, her fear and helplessness had been exactly the same as the child's many years earlier. Nothing had changed.\n\nShe stared out the window at an oak tree unmoving in the sunlight and wished for a storm, a hurricane, a volcano to erupt, a tornado to wipe everything away, a flood, anything. Exactly the way a child wishes for a catastrophe, she thought wryly, and turned to see Warren standing in the doorway. How long he had been there she didn't know, but she had the feeling that he had been watching her.\n\n\"I have to tell you something,\" she said then, surprised at the steadiness in her voice. \"Earl Malik is hanging around. I tried to pay him to go away again, but I don't think he will.\"\n\nWarren shook his head, as if trying to recall who Earl Malik was, or why she was bringing this up now. She felt a wrench at the sight of him; for the first time she realized that at sixty-two he was starting to look old.\n\nBefore he could say anything she went on, \"I wasn't going to tell you. You were right, of course; I did have a secret. I didn't want to worry you with my old problems, but with so much other trouble now, there can't be anything like this getting between us. I'll handle him some way, Warren. I don't want you to get involved with him.\"\n\n\"Maybe he's behind all this trouble,\" Warren said. \"That would explain it.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Not Earl. He wouldn't do anything like that. He just wants money, and recognition, and... I don't know what all he wants, but he wouldn't deliberately harm anyone. He isn't dangerous that way.\"\n\n\"You're still protecting him,\" Warren said harshly, sending a shock through her. \"Why, Lois? What's that man to you now?\"\n\nShe put down the book she was holding and very carefully walked across the room, trying to quiet her shaking hands, trying to control her breathing. She felt as if there wasn't enough air to go around, that he could breathe, or she could, but not both of them. He moved aside as she drew near the door.\n\n\"I was trying to protect you,\" she said finally. \"And maybe myself. I don't care if Earl Malik is alive or dead.\" She walked past him stiffly, out into the broad hallway, and stood still, no longer knowing where she could go in this house, where she could feel safe, not like an intruder, an unwelcome guest who had lingered beyond decency.\n\nHalf an hour later she was pacing in her room, back and forth, to the window to gaze at the wide expanse of lawn that looked painted, back to the door where the wood grain revealed a multitude of faces, some in profile, some full view, one grinning, one leering, back to the window again. She watched Carla Mercer scurry up from the woods and cross the lawn, and envied her. A break from her work, then back to mind-numbing details. She yearned for her own work, her tiny laboratory and the endless slides to examine and catalog. She was at the window when Warren tapped on the connecting door between their rooms.\n\n\"It's open,\" she said, not turning around.\n\n\"Lois, I'm sorry.\"\n\nShe looked at him then. He did not move into the room. She waited.\n\n\"Too many shocks, too fast,\" he said hesitantly. \"And I'm a fool.\"\n\nSlowly she crossed to him and then reached out her hands. He took them and drew her to his chest and held her. After a moment he said, \"My first reaction was to call the sheriff and tell him to look for Malik. An easy out, I thought. But I didn't. Then I called Diedrick and asked him what he knows about Meiklejohn, and he called back to say we can trust him. He's discreet and he's thorough. I sent for him. We don't have to tell anyone else. Let him find some answers. If Malik isn't involved, that's that. And if he is... We'll go on from there. But, at least, there won't be publicity.\"\n\nIt didn't occur to her to wonder when he had found time to call Diedrick, his attorney, when Diedrick had found time to learn anything about the private detectives, when he could have sent for them. She felt only a great relief as she stood sheltered in his arms, secure again, safe. Not until they were in the study with Charlie and Constance did she realize that this must be why Warren had been searching for her in the solarium, to tell her that he was bringing in private investigators. And by then she had already told them about Earl Malik.\n\nThey were in Warren's study, with its good old cherry furniture, green-leather upholstered chairs and sofa, floor to ceiling shelves with neatly arranged books. Very nice, all of it. Charlie had glanced around with obvious approval, then said bluntly, \"Why us, Mr. Wollander?\" Wollander's retainer check was on the desk; Charlie had not touched it yet.\n\nWarren Wollander was equally blunt. \"I don't want anyone to make any connection between those unfortunate occurrences and this house. My... resources... would surely establish an interest on my part. I want someone to be very discreet. Since you are already on the scene asking questions, you seem the obvious choice.\"\n\n\"What is the link you want to keep under wraps?\" Charlie asked. His voice was bland, his eyes as hard as obsidian chips.\n\nWarren studied him for a moment, glanced at Lois, then said, \"My wife's former husband has been hanging around\u2014a stranger in these parts. And we all know a stranger is the likeliest suspect if there's trouble. I want that to stay unpublicized. Unless, of course, he is actually involved. But we doubt that he is.\"\n\nCharlie looked at Lois, who now had two patches of high color on her pale cheeks, as if rouge had been applied hastily; it gave her a look of vulnerability. She held her head up and sat with her back straight; only her hands, clutching one another, betrayed her nervousness.\n\nBriefly she told them about Earl Malik. When she was finished, Charlie shook his head at her. \"You know we want more than just stripped facts. Is he the one who knocked over bushes outside the quonset hut last night?\"\n\nThe color left her cheeks and her hands clutched spasmodically. She nodded. \"He came there and I ran out. I drove around a while to calm down and then came home. But he wouldn't have moved the bees. He couldn't have known anything about them or the station wagon, or anything else up there. Besides,\" she finished in a very low voice, as if she had cause to feel shame, \"he was very drunk. He wouldn't have been able to carry out anything. I... he used to go to sleep and not wake up for ten or twelve hours when he was that drunk.\"\n\nShe didn't know, she said, what time she had left him; after ten was as close as she could come. She didn't know what time she had arrived home; she had driven around to calm down, and had stopped at a diner somewhere for a sandwich first. This morning she had not seen him and the lock had not been disturbed on the quonset hut. When she finished, she leaned back, visibly relieved.\n\n\"What does he expect of you?\" Charlie asked. \"Did he mention buying the Zukal property, having you buy it?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" she snapped. \"That's a ridiculous idea.\"\n\n\"I agree,\" Charlie said, nodding. \"But so is blackmail when you come down to it. You've paid that man over twenty thousand dollars, you say, just to get him away from here, and yet he hasn't gone. How much more does he want? How much more are you willing to pay? Is it going to be a monthly annuity for him? For how long? You say he showed up in April. Before anyone knew the Zukals were interested in the mill. Why not consider that he might have wanted it for his work, his and yours? You see, the problem is that you don't usually pay blackmail to someone simply because you don't like him. In that case, you sic the dog on him, or call the cops, or tell your husband, who takes steps. When did you tell your husband, Mrs. Wollander?\"\n\nAt that moment everything fell apart again, and the pieces shattered into dust, and the dust was in her mouth. She realized that Warren had sent for Charlie before she had confessed that Earl was in the area. With a startled look she turned to Warren, who was gazing out the window as if none of this concerned him, and she knew that the security she had felt in his arms, the safety she had found there was an illusion, that this large, important, self-assured man whom she had thought so wise was a stranger.\n\nShe swallowed painfully, and said in a steady voice, keeping her gaze fixed on Charlie Meiklejohn, \"I didn't tell him until today. I knew he would do something, just not what. And I knew that Earl would go to the press and betray me. If Clarence learns that I have been involved with Earl in the past, he will let me go. He made Tom fire his student a month or two ago. He won't keep me either if I become a liability. It's his project; he pushed it through the administration, through the committees, he wrote the grants and got the money. It's all his, and he has the power to hire or fire. He saw to that. No tinge of scandal is to be allowed, or the entire operation might be suspect, and it's important work. I don't blame him. I might do the same in his place. It is very important work.\"\n\nWhen Charlie spoke again his voice was gentle. \"The trouble with paying blackmail is that sooner or later you run out of money. Have you considered what you would do then?\"\n\nTiredly she shook her head. \"I told him I don't have any money, not the kind of money he's talking about. I have my salary. I gave most of it to him already. I told him that Warren and I signed a prenuptial agreement that I had insisted upon. I can't touch Warren's money. Earl chose not to believe me. And then, I don't know what I will do. My salary, as long as that satisfies him. I don't know. I haven't thought ahead that far.\"\n\nIt was interesting, Charlie was thinking, how at the beginning of this conversation she had glanced again and again at her husband, as if for reassurance, support, something. And now she was apparently oblivious of him. As she might as well be; he was as remote-looking as the sphinx.\n\n\"Why did you confess this now if you don't think there's a connection with the trouble at the Zukals' property?\" he asked then.\n\nShe felt her muscles go stiff in her effort not to look at Warren. \"There were some letters,\" she said, \"sent to Warren. One about me. I don't know what was in it, but obviously someone must have seen me with Earl, or something. And if someone knows, no doubt, there will be talk now. The sheriff may learn about it. I thought if there are questions, we should both be prepared.\"\n\nCharlie turned to Warren Wollander. \"May I see the letters?\"\n\n\"I burned them.\" He continued his fascinated study of the great outdoors.\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" Charlie got up from his comfortable chair and crossed the room to the desk, where he lifted the check made out to him. \"Mr. Wollander, presumably you want an investigator who won't ask embarrassing questions, and to whom you can lie. I'm not that man, sir. Sorry.\"\n\n\"What the devil are you talking about?\" Wollander swung around. \"I mean, what's the point of hiring me and lying to me? There are letters. There were other letters that the Zukals received. There are links and cross-links all through this crazy case, and you burned the letters you got. Fat chance, Mr. Wollander. I rather think you handed copies of them over to your lawyer, or those other resources you mentioned earlier, and at this very minute someone is trying to find the author. Or has someone already found the author? You think you can hand out a smidgeon of information here, another smidgeon there, another to the sheriff, and when we all bring in our crumbs you can piece them together and make a cake?\" He looked at the check regretfully and then tore it in half and let the pieces fall to the desk. \"I'm already hired, you know. So I'll just keep on asking questions here and there and do the best I can.\"\n\nWell, he thought, he hadn't whacked him over the head, but he might as well have. He certainly had Wollander's attention. Suddenly that attention was diverted and Wollander was on his feet, deep concern etching his handsome face.\n\n\"Jill! What are you doing up? You should be resting.\"\n\nShe entered the study to stand by the door. \"I called Sebastian,\" she said. \"He said he came and they stopped him at the gate. I want to see him. Call them and tell them to let him in.\"\n\n\"Jill, baby, you need to rest. I told Duane I'd call him when you woke up. He's standing by.\"\n\nShe shook her head. She was very pale, with the waxy unnatural look of a gardenia; the long dressing gown she was wearing was pastel green, so little tinged with color that as she moved it went from a suggestion of green to silver. The green reflected from her skin eerily. Her hair was mussed as if she had been tossing and turning quite a while. \"No more of your cronies. No more of the good old boys. No Duane or Richard or Herman. I wouldn't let Richard touch me with his fat pink fingers and I don't want Duane talking about his fat pink God. No more. His God took my mother and my baby and my husband. No more. I want to talk to Sebastian. Call them.\"\n\n\"Honey, you're hysterical. Just lie down and rest\u2014\" He moved to her side and she flinched away from him, shaking her head. Her eyes were wide and too bright, the pupils pinpricks.\n\n\"I wouldn't let him touch me but I took his pills and I dreamed. I was showering Mother with money, tons of money. Crisp, green, like lettuce leaves, so pretty in the sunlight. Up to her knees, her hips, and she was spinning around with her hands out, laughing, trying to catch some of it. Then I woke up. I know what it means. I have money now. More money than I ever dreamed of. I can go anywhere, stay anywhere. You can't stop me. I would give it to her if she were alive. God, to see her happy like that! I could do it. And I can see Sebastian. Here or at his place in town. You can't stop me, Father! Call them at the gate!\"\n\n\"For God's sake, Jill. This is shock, hysteria. You don't need company.\" His voice had become peremptory, harsh. \"I'm going to hire a nurse. You need nursing care, bed rest.\"\n\nNow Constance got up and went to Jill. \"She isn't hysterical,\" she said briskly. \"But she's doped to the eyes. I think you should call and tell them to admit Sebastian. She certainly can't go out this way.\"\n\nJill looked at her gratefully, and when Constance took her hand, she did not resist. Neither did she allow herself to be drawn from the room. She watched Warren Wollander, who finally went back to his desk and lifted the phone; he spoke to his security people. When he replaced the receiver, Jill turned and walked out with Constance.\n\n\"I'll stay with her until Sebastian arrives,\" Constance said over her shoulder.\n\nFor a time no one in the study moved. Lois looked frozen in her chair, and Warren stared at the open door blankly. Charlie had not left the desk. When he stirred, Warren glanced at him and then seemed to remember where they were, what they had been saying and doing.\n\n\"Sit down,\" he said. His voice was flat, tired. \"The letters are in my safe-deposit box. I'll get them on Monday. No, Tuesday. Funeral's on Monday. In Bridgeport.\"\n\nCharlie nodded and sat down. \"And the report on Sebastian.\"\n\nLois looked surprised, but Warren merely nodded, almost absently. \"That, too. I couldn't leave it around here because Jill would have found it and been angry.\" Again he seemed to make an effort to collect himself, and more briskly he opened the desk drawer and withdrew his checkbook.\n\nCharlie got the address where Earl Malik was staying. He asked a few more questions, but nothing of consequence, and when Warren pushed a new check across the desk, he took it without comment. \"I'd like to walk around the house and grounds a little,\" he said. \"And when Constance comes back, we'll leave. I'll see you on Tuesday, around two.\"\n\nWarren Wollander nodded, and now Lois was watching him with concern. Charlie was anxious to get out of the room, out of the house where it felt as if an impossibly heavy weight had descended. And Warren looked like a man shell-shocked, he thought, as he began his stroll. He corrected himself. Warren Wollander looked like a man who had only this minute realized how passionately his beloved daughter hated him.\n\nJill's room was spacious and all over the same pastel green that she was wearing, and gold and white. A white, fluffy rug was mashed down in a regular pattern, from window to bed to bathroom, as if she had paced miles around and around. The bed was a heap of sheets and a satin spread, a pillow on the floor. Jill stood in the center of the room and seemed to shrink, to become a child in front of Constance's eyes.\n\n\"He always does that,\" Jill said. \"Says do this, do that, stop doing this, stop doing that...\" She felt her hair, glanced down at her gown. \"Excuse me.\" She went into the bathroom and closed the door.\n\nOn a white-and-gold table flanked by two white and gold chairs there were magazines, fashions and decorating, one of them French, and a number of pamphlets and booklets, all spiritual material. One of them had a smiling Buddha on the cover. A large music system lined one wall; another had a portrait of a beautiful woman. Constance studied it. Jill's mother, she decided, dressed almost exactly the way Jill was dressed now, in a flowing gown of silvered green, a large emerald on one finger, her eyes almost as green as the gem.\n\nJill returned and stood at her side. \"Isn't she beautiful? How could he treat her the way he did? She loved light and gaiety, dancing, music, everything alive, and he wouldn't leave this mausoleum. Never. He treated her like a hired prostitute, made her sign an agreement never to leave him, never to even ask for a divorce, never to demand anything more than their contract allowed.\" Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she gazed at the portrait of her mother; she seemed unaware of them. She continued to talk rapidly about her mother, life here, life in France and Switzerland, as if all these words had been stored in a container too tight for them and, now that it had been opened, the words were not to be denied.\n\nConstance moved away from Jill and went to the bathroom where she wet a washcloth and wrung it out. She glanced swiftly over the counter at twin gold basins, hastily opened both cabinets and looked inside, then returned to Jill, who had not moved and was still talking in that out-of-control staccato. Constance didn't miss a word, and when she gently wiped the girl's cheeks with the cool cloth, Jill seemed as oblivious of her as of the tears.\n\nJill was talking about the parties, about the house they had had outside Paris. \"And she was so ill, so much of the time, but she never let anyone know. She was so brave. When she was too sick to stay home, I came back here and she went to a rest home in the country. And then she got better and called me and I flew back. I hardly even needed an airplane. She could have had any man in Europe, but he wouldn't release her, and she had nothing. Nothing. And so sick so much of the time. And she had to take care of me. I tried to make her leave him anyway, and she was afraid. What would become of us? Of me? Always it came back to that\u2014what would become of me?\"\n\nSuddenly she stopped talking and snatched the washcloth from Constance. \"Oh, God, look at me!\"\n\nShe dashed into the bathroom and turned on the water.\n\n\"Let me brush your hair,\" Constance said, following her. The brush was gold and very heavy. She began to pull it through Jill's hair. \"Are you bleeding very heavily? Perhaps you really should see a doctor.\"\n\nJill drew in a shuddering breath and held the washcloth to her eyes. \"It isn't that bad,\" she said dully. \"Lois talked to her gynecologist. He told us what to watch for, made an appointment for me, in a few weeks, I forget when. I'm all right.\"\n\nConstance finished with her hair; it was silky, with a slight wave. \"Well, come sit down for now, and keep the cloth on your eyes.\"\n\nA minute or two later, when there was a tap on the door, Jill was composed. Constance opened the door to see the housekeeper and Sebastian. He ignored her and went straight in, and before the door closed, she saw him kneeling at Jill's chair, taking both her hands in his.\nCHAPTER 10\n\nAS SOON AS THEY LEFT the lawn and walked behind enough trees to hide them from the Wollander house, Charlie stopped and caught Constance up in his arms. He nuzzled her hair, and kissed her, and then kissed her a second time.\n\n\"Well,\" she said. \"Well.\"\n\n\"Touching base with reality,\" he said, grinning, and took her arm, steered her toward the path back to the mill. \"What happened?\"\n\nDreamily she said, \"I think that could catch on. Sharing reality. Your reality or mine, baby? What do you think?\"\n\nHe pinched her bottom.\n\n\"Oh well,\" she said. \"Beautifully furnished room, lots of white and gold and pale green. If she sat still in that dressing gown she would melt right into it and be invisible. No books. A few magazines, some religious material, booklets. One on meditation, one titled Unwinding the Universe. Stanley was a hypochondriac, lots of prescription medications, more over-the-counter do-it-yourself nostrums. Stomach, bowels, muscle tone, hair loss, you name it, he was probably treating himself for it. Plus heavy-duty sleeping pills, chloral hydrate, a prescription. And high blood pressure medicine. And allergy medications, ointments, pills, Caladryl lotion and tablets, and a sting kit still sealed.\"\n\n\"Good Lord,\" Charlie said when she paused. \"You were gone ten minutes.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said regretfully. \"If she hadn't talked so much I probably would have had time to snoop around a little. Let's see, what else did I intend to mention? Oh yes. A portrait of her mother. Remember that scene in Tales of Hoffmann where Beverly Sills plays the girl who sings a duet with her dead mother? I always forget the names of the various women, but you know the one I mean. The father either is or has been dealing with the devil, and it's time to pay up. Anyway, it reminded me of that. Jill looks very much like her mother, and of course the mother is highly idealized in the portrait, great tragic eyes, honey silk hair, boneless hand draped beautifully over her pale arm. Dressed in a pale green satiny thing with lots of highlights. I guess it's too late for me to have a portrait done, isn't it?\"\n\nCharlie dug in his heels on the path and brought her to a stop for a second time. \"The biggest mistake I ever made was in packing you off to learn self-defense. Otherwise I would threaten to toss you over the hill into the lake. What did she say?\"\n\n\"I was just getting to that,\" Constance explained. \"It was all about her mother. That's why I prefaced it with the portrait, you see, just so you would have a basis for underst...\"\n\nShe broke it off to say warningly, \"Now, Charlie. It seems that her father kept her mother on a very short leash for a very long time. He had her sign a prenuptial agreement, and if she insisted on it, Jill didn't mention that. The agreement stated that if she left him, divorced him, she would take only what she had brought to the marriage, an inheritance of ten or fifteen thousand. He would pay for the education of any children and their maintenance, but not a penny alimony. If he broke it off and got a divorce, an arbitrator would settle the financial terms. He had an obsession, Jill said, about no divorce, the need to keep a good public image of an intact family, just in case he decided to run for office himself instead of pulling wires from behind the screen. So they all lived here when she was a young child, and then the first Mrs. Wollander split for France and never came back. In and out of hospitals, boyfriends, drugs, alcohol, the whole Fellini bit. When she was too disabled, she sent Jill home, but she never stayed more than a few months at a time, and then back into the party with Mother. She died a little over four years ago, and Jill married Stanley a few months later.\"\n\n\"Wow. And Wollander has a clean image, electable by a landslide.\"\n\n\"I'd say so. It's quite an in thing to admit to dependency treatments, attempts at cures. And he stood by her through thick and thin.\" Her voice had become detached and too thoughtful, too professional, as if she had Warren Wollander on a slide and was interested the way a doctor might be interested in a bacterium. \"I wonder if the current Mrs. Wollander really believes the idea of a prenuptial agreement was altogether her own.\" She paused, then added, \"Something came up today that shook her. Remember? It had to do with when she told him that her ex was in the neighborhood. She changed completely after that.\"\n\nHe remembered clearly. Now they had reached the place in the path where they had to walk single file, and he stood aside for her to go first. He liked to watch her move, liked the way the low sun was filtered through the trees to touch her hair again and again, the way her hair changed from brilliant to pale. The path was a pleasant walk, never steep, and, except for this one stretch, comfortably wide. Here the trees had funneled the trail to a scant two feet, and even that was nice, the fact that they had let the trees have their way. She looked very nice here among the trees in the soft dappled sunlight. When they emerged from this section, the lake was visible again. Constance turned to reach for his hand, and paused at the look in his eyes.\n\n\"Another reality check?\" she murmured.\n\n\"You're a wicked woman. And it's not too late to have a portrait. By God, it's not!\"\n\nThis time she kissed him.\n\nThe beekeeper came and Charlie watched closely, but there was little to see. The man looked inside the station wagon and nodded in satisfaction. It was not altogether dark, but the bees had had it for the day, apparently. He simply picked up the box by handles on each side and put it on his truck, and that was the end of that. \"Italian strain,\" he said. \"They're real peaceful if you treat them right.\" He got in the truck and drove away.\n\nWhen they got home, after winding through several unfamiliar roads to make certain they were going home alone, they found Al and Sylvie in the television room playing gin. The television was turned on too loud, and they were arguing, and Al was holding Brutus in his lap. Brutus barely acknowledged Charlie and Constance.\n\n\"I'll be damned,\" Charlie muttered. \"Perverse beast.\" Brutus hated strangers, had always hated strangers, and wasn't too crazy about people he knew.\n\n\"This one's a pussy cat,\" Al said, stroking the cat. \"Aincha, tiger? The others ain't showed up.\"\n\n\"He thinks he's back prowling city streets,\" Charlie said, and Sylvie said at the same time, \"Betcha you're starving, aincha? Me and Al, we snacked some but we ain't ate. Thought it'd be polite like if we waited. We got Polish sausages and potato salad and a couple other things. We seen this little store on the way over here and stopped and we got plenty lost when we come out again, got real turned around, but then we got on the right track again.\"\n\nAl's stings were all but gone now, no welts, not even an itch, he said proudly. \"Some tricks,\" he said to Constance. \"What we thought,\" he said then, \"was that while Sylvie's finishing up supper, I'd show you the stuff we wrote down today. Everything we can think of that happened with David after Sadie kicked. Ain't much, but who knows?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Sylvie said. \"Who knows?\"\n\nThey all went to the kitchen to keep her company and Charlie looked over the notes they had made while Constance set the kitchen table.\n\nSylvie talked disparagingly about her cooking, and Al talked about the security system he had in mind, the kind where if someone moves without you doing nothing the lights come on and an alarm, and she said that they would just shoot out the lights, and he said that would be a signal too, they could fix it like that.\n\nCharlie found it hard to read what they had written down. Sylvie capitalized every noun, and Al capitalized nothing at all. Neither seemed to have much use for periods.\n\nSylvie was a superb cook and dinner was too good to talk through; it was late by then and they were all very hungry. Sausages and potato salad with a sweet-and-sour creamy dressing like none that Charlie had ever had before, with bits of green onions and olives chopped up in it. She had made a green bean casserole with mushrooms, and a tossed salad that had shredded raw beets and carrots and even pine nuts. He sighed his contentment when he finally pushed his plate back half an inch, his signal that another bite would do him in.\n\nConstance made coffee and Charlie brought in brandy; they all cleared the table and sat down again, and this time Charlie actually read some of the items they had written down.\n\n\"Them with checks,\" Al said, \"that means we both seen him together.\"\n\nCharlie went to the beginning of Al's paper. David had come to the mill to see how things were going on Monday;\n\nAl began to talk about the work being done in the mill, and with great concentration Charlie managed to blank out his voice and read on. Thursday of that week David had dropped in briefly to visit with Al while Sylvie was shopping. Now she talked about Betsy, the lady with the new antiques, whose son made them and made them look old by torturing the wood. They don't torture it, Al said, they just torment it a little, make holes in it with a drill. They worry it, that's what they do. Charlie looked up helplessly and found Constance following their talk with very bright eyes and not a trace of a grin. Betsy might even show some of the furniture Bobby made, Sylvie continued, pointedly ignoring Al, but not pretend it was antique, and Bobby sure wouldn't think of torturing good wood.\n\nCharlie gritted his teeth. On Friday David had brought their mail in; that was confirmed by both of them. He stayed for a glass of milk and a couple of cookies. Sylvie talked about how thin he always had been. That night they agreed they had him for supper.\n\nSunday he brought her head scarf, found it on the beach or somewhere. Filthy. Past washing. She had got used to wearing them when she cleaned offices in the city. No one had any idea of how filthy some doctors and lawyers could be. Maybe out here in the country she would get out of the habit, but her head felt naked...\n\nMonday, Sylvie told David about the poison-pen letters, and he had got real upset, she said soberly. Al nodded. Thursday, the day after he had talked to Charlie, although they didn't know nothing about that, but it was just like him, anyways, he had asked Al exactly where the dog died, where they had found her. Sylvie said he stood at the grave and looked real troubled, and he walked around the mill, troubled real bad. Al nodded again.\n\n\"We figured that maybe he was trying to come up with his own answers,\" Al said. \"And maybe he did.\"\n\n\"Next day,\" Sylvie said, \"we both seen him tossing sticks in the water. He looked just like the little Robin boy with his teddy bear. You know how they stood on the bridge and threw sticks in the water? Only he wasn't playing no games. He looked worried and bothered, and then he walked down the side of the lake and we didn't see him no more.\"\n\n\"Sticks?\" Charlie said faintly, and put down the papers in defeat. He would read them tomorrow.\n\n\"Little sticks. Twigs, like.\" Al measured about three or four inches with his hands, then adjusted them a bit. \"Little sticks. Charlie,\" he said, leaning forward, \"something that we both seen. Everything bad that happened was always on a Saturday. You see that? Sadie dies. Then David dies, and now Stanley dies. Always on Saturday.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"I noticed.\"\n\nAl looked disappointed, then brightened again. He and Sylvie exchanged a meaningful glance and she nodded. Al said, \"Something else, Charlie. Me and Sylvie, we think you want to be more careful. I mean, if there's a high school kid out there with ants in his pants, that's one thing, but if there's a nut out there, you want to be careful. You're too trusting, Charlie.\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"Well, like you let us come here and we coulda robbed you blind. You don't know if I'm a nut or a thief or what have you. See what I mean?\"\n\n\"It goes both ways, Al. We could have robbed your house.\"\n\n\"She wouldn'ta.\" Al nodded toward Constance, who nodded back emphatically.\n\n\"Well, she's the one who invited you to come here, if you'll recall.\" And she, he thought, a bit disgruntled, didn't pipe up to say he wouldn'ta, either.\n\n\"You wouldn'ta axed us?\"\n\n\"Not on my own, probably.\"\n\nAl nodded in satisfaction. \"That's okay then.\"\n\n\"I told you,\" Sylvie said.\n\n\"Something you might be able to tell us,\" Charlie said then. \"How did David get over here to see me that day? Do you know?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Al said, and Sylvie said at the same time, \"In Lois's car. He borrowed it.\"\n\n\"Then probably everyone at the farm knew he was going somewhere, even if not where. And maybe at Lois's house, too. She could have mentioned it, I guess.\"\n\n\"Gonna buy us a gun or two,\" Al said suddenly, making an abrupt right turn in the conversation without warning.\n\nCharlie groaned. \"Do you know anything about guns? Ever do any shooting?\"\n\n\"Nope, but all them punk kids in California know, and just about everybody on television. Even the president's wife had a gun, you know? Can't be that much to learn, even if she did say it was just a little tiny one.\"\n\n\"You'll kill yourself, or Sylvie,\" Charlie muttered unhappily.\n\n\"You think we should go back there without no protection at all?\"\n\n\"Why don't you take a little trip? Just a few days, a week. Go to Atlantic City and play the slots or something for a few days.\"\n\nSylvie screeched something and Al said something, and altogether it added up to no. They weren't going to be driven out of their house after all these years. Sylvie began to talk about her grandparents who had come from Poland, and Al talked about his father setting up a butcher shop, only to be burned out, and now they were trying the same with him and Sylvie... .\n\n\"Okay, okay,\" Charlie said, shouting over both of them. \"Let me go over the security system when it's in place, will you? Before you go back, I mean.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Al said agreeably.\n\n\"My grandmother had a stove like that,\" Sylvie said, pointing to the wood-burning stove that wouldn't be used again until fall. \"And one of the places we seen, they had a stove like that. Remember, Al? The place with the horses?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Horses. Never get them stables smelling like roses in a million years. You know horses, Charlie?\" he asked with a thoughtful look. \"Big. Real big.\"\n\nHelplessly Charlie nodded. \"Yes, Al. I know.\"\n\n\"We gotta go now,\" Sylvie said, standing up. \"We called a hotel we seen on our way here, and if you'll just point us in the right direction, maybe we can find it again.\" She sounded as if she doubted it. \"It sure is dark in the country, you ever notice?\" she asked Constance. \"Real dark. You'd think they could put in a street light or two, for appearances or something.\"\n\nThey both talked and Charlie went out with them and pointed directions and then rejoined Constance inside. \"Well,\" he said, \"watcha think?\"\n\n\"I think they're swell,\" she said judiciously. \"And I think we had better catch that nut who's keeping them from enjoying their new fortune.\"\n\nWhile Constance finished straightening up in the kitchen, Charlie went through the house turning off lights. He was carrying one of Sylvie's headscarfs when he came back; she had left it in the television room. All three cats were prowling around the kitchen now to see if any interesting tidbits had fallen, and Candy was complaining bitterly, her hoarse voice very like Sylvie's. Charlie watched the cats approach to investigate the scarf, which he had draped over a chair-back to be returned the next day. He was thinking of Sylvie cleaning offices, Al butchering for a supermarket, four girls growing up in a small apartment, all four of them getting educated, and he agreed with Constance. They should be allowed to enjoy their place in the sunshine, their place in the country. Candy kept getting closer to the scarf, then backing off suspiciously, and she kept complaining. He felt certain her raucous words were very obscene.\n\nConstance flicked off the light at the sink; he put his arm around her waist, and they went upstairs, leaving the cats to decide if the green scarf was friend or foe.\nCHAPTER 11\n\nSUNDAY WAS A BUST, Charlie decided in mid afternoon. They had read all of David's letters, and the papers Al and Sylvie had left with them. They had gone over David's other belongings and there was nothing new. He had been pitifully poor, saving for three months to buy a new pair of running shoes, doing without a new watch when his old one quit, making do. Just making do with what he could afford, and writing letters week after week to his father. His checking account had bottomed out each month while he waited for his scholarship money, but he never was overdrawn. He had done without instead of bouncing checks. It all made Charlie grouchy and on edge.\n\nConstance brought in peas and asparagus from the garden and he prowled around the house and yard, making the cats uneasy. They kept starting at noises he couldn't hear, and staring at objects he couldn't see, and casting swift, frightened glances over their shoulders at nothing at all. After dinner Charlie announced that he wanted to see a movie.\n\n\"What movie?\"\n\n\"Any movie. Preferably a western, with lots of shooting and frantic riding around on the prairies and deserts.\"\n\n\"Oh, that kind of movie.\" She found the weekly local newspaper and scanned the two ads for coming attractions. It really didn't matter which movie he saw when he was in this state, but if she had to sit through something with him, and if there was a decent choice, she preferred to make it herself. When Charlie said any movie, he meant it. He might see it, or maybe not, or maybe some of it. It was as if at times he had to have something taking place before his eyes in order to let his brain get on with its own business of making sense when no sense was apparent. Later, he might walk endlessly. Other times he might play solitaire, but now it was a movie that he needed.\n\nShe drove to the theater in Woodbury, ten miles away, and they entered to find a Woody Allen movie already started, full of New York scenes done in sepia. Charlie settled down contentedly with a bag of popcorn, and she watched the movie. When it was over, she had to nudge him with her elbow.\n\nThey went out and walked the half block to the Volvo and she got behind the wheel again. Halfway home, he grunted, and said, \"Where are the damn vitamins?\"\n\n\"Didn't the police lab destroy them when they were looking for drugs?\"\n\n\"I mean the new package,\" he said softly.\n\nShe thought, recalling David's belongings, and then said, \"Oh! Of course.\"\n\nIn just a few minutes they were back inside their house, with David's personal effects once again spread on the table. Charlie found the police report and the list of vitamins they had destroyed: A, E, B-complex, C... Constance found the other list of what the sheriff's men had taken, and later had returned to David's father. No new package of vitamins. She picked up the catalog that David had ordered from and began to look for a price list, an order form. It had been torn out. But there had been a check made out to the company, she remembered, and now looked for that in the register.\n\n\"He ordered a three-month supply on May twelfth,\" she said a few minutes later. \"And before that, back in February. Orders spaced just over three months, one hundred of this and that. It's an in-state company, wouldn't take more than a few days for the order to be processed and delivered.\"\n\nCharlie made a noise that wasn't really a response. He was comparing the catalog to the list from the sheriff's office of destroyed vitamins. \"Four of this and five of that,\" he murmured. \"You'd think with one-a-day type vitamins, the numbers would be the same. And he was almost out of them. As close as he was with money, if the new supply hadn't been delivered before he died, they should have been in the next week while the police were collecting his mail.\"\n\n\"Four of some, five of others? But, Charlie, if the drugs had been in vitamins, there'd be some trace, wouldn't there? I mean, Greg Dolman uses a good lab technician, surely. And who could count on David's taking the drugged ones? That's just too chancy.\"\n\nHe nodded. Then abruptly he read down the list again. \"I'll be damned,\" he muttered. \"The fives are all capsules, the fours tablets.\"\n\nConstance waited, trying to reason it out, drawing a blank.\n\n\"Try this,\" Charlie said at last. \"You see that there are a lot of small containers, each one with five vitamins, and you take away the ones with capsules. You replace them with identical containers of capsules that have been tampered with. It doesn't matter which ones he takes of the capsules, they're all poison, but they'd look normal, and still have the right smell. Then, after he's taken the doped capsules, you return the containers with the harmless vitamins, and there are still five in each of them, but only four in each container that held tablets. Tablets are too hard to duplicate, but capsules are a snap to empty and refill. No trace of drugs would be found, obviously, since none of these ever had drugs in them.\"\n\nSlowly Constance nodded. \"Someone could have taken the new package, his new supply, and tampered with them, thrown away everything afterward.\" She began to study the catalog list again. \"Some of those capsules would have been awfully big\u2014a thousand milligrams of C, with rose hips, for instance, in a time-release form. That means hundreds, even thousands of little individual bits, like beads, to dissolve over eight hours or so. That begins to get pretty large for a single dose. Some of these are in the mega-vitamin category, really big, but would there have been enough of the capsules? Enough space for a lethal dose?\"\n\n\"I don't know. We'll have to get some and see.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she said then. \"Look, he ordered cod-liver oil. A lot of drugs could have been dissolved in it, and the taste and smell would hide just about anything.\"\n\nCharlie looked over the list of things the sheriff had tested; no cod liver oil was there.\n\n\"Maybe he was just going to start it,\" Constance said.\n\n\"We'll sit on it for now,\" Charlie said. \"I want to get the damn pathology report on the dog. But I think we've got this link. And it sounds a lot more plausible than a six-in-the-morning visitor.\"\n\n\"Just one more thing,\" Constance said then. \"This other price list. Did you notice it? I thought at first it was more of the same, but look.\" She held up a list and pointed to the top margin, where words had been scrawled: The list I promised. S.\n\nCharlie looked from it to her and shook his head. \"So?\"\n\n\"It's a different company altogether,\" she said. \"And he could have saved nine dollars by ordering from this one. And who do you suppose S is? And why didn't David order from this company instead of the higher-priced one? They seem to be offering nearly identical items.\"\n\n\"S,\" Charlie said then. \"Sebastian? Remember David's letter about the party at Wollander's? They talked about bees and about vitamins.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" Charlie said then. \"Interesting, isn't it? No matter where we toss our net, the same fish keep swimming into it. I told you I wanted to see a western movie.\"\n\nShe suppressed a groan and he started to put everything back into the box.\n\nEarly Monday they found the address Lois had provided for Earl Malik; it turned out to be a trailer court, Hunt Acres. The manager's name was Petey Wilson, and he looked like a wrestler, with great bulging muscles and a neck that was the same diameter as his head. His head was shaved and it was deeply tanned, as was the rest of him. He was wearing an undershirt, cut off jeans, and sandals. Even his toes appeared muscular. His eyes were bright blue and clear.\n\n\"Earl? Sure. Third trailer from the end, left. But he's not here.\"\n\n\"Say when he'd be back?\" Charlie asked.\n\n\"Man, he hasn't said anything for days. Haven't seen him in nearly a week. His tough luck. He's paid up in advance; I should worry. If he isn't back by the end of the week, I'll clean out his junk and rent the unit to someone else. I could care less.\"\n\nCharlie nodded and surveyed the trailer park. Ten trailers were visible and probably there were others beyond them in a grove of trees. A gravel drive wound around them all. At the moment the whole complex seemed almost empty, but in hunting season, he suspected, it filled to overflowing. A blond woman in pink short shorts was sweeping her two steps endlessly, watching them. She was heavily made up, as if for a performance.\n\n\"You live out here, too?\" Charlie asked Petey Wilson.\n\n\"Yep.\" Petey pointed toward the road and the first trailer in the place.\n\n\"So anyone coming or going would have to pass right by your place.\"\n\nPetey looked somewhat disgusted and shrugged. \"If they come in this way they do. There's a back entrance in from Huntaker Lane. Lots of them use that one. Closer to Spender's Ferry that way.\"\n\nCharlie was eyeing the third trailer from the end, not yet moving toward it, but evidently intending to do so. Constance said, \"Haven't I seen you on television? Wrestling? Or was it football?\"\n\nPetey peered at her suspiciously, then nodded. \"It's been a long time.\"\n\n\"But you've kept in such good shape! You look as if you're ready to go back to it right now, this minute, if you wanted to.\"\n\nHe flexed his biceps. \"Could. Pays to keep in shape. You watch wrestling?\"\n\n\"Pretty often in the past. It's not the same now, for some reason. I knew the minute I saw you that you were familiar. Did you ever get hurt much? It always looks so cruel.\"\n\n\"Naw. We learn to take it, that's all. Nobody watches it much anymore. All fake now. Not like it used to be.\"\n\nShe nodded sympathetically, then turned to Charlie. \"Why don't you take that stuff to Earl's unit? I'll wait for you here.\" Then she looked at Petey again. \"Mr. Wilson, is it really true that those matches are all decided in advance?\"\n\nPetey glanced from her to Charlie and back, then he shrugged slightly. \"Now maybe, but not in my day.\" Charlie left them talking.\n\nThe door was locked, but even a kid on his first solo burglary could have opened it. Charlie slipped his plastic card in and opened the door. The trailer was hot, and smelled foul\u2014too many spilled drinks, too many fried onions and hamburgers, too many cigarettes, never enough air. It was dirty and messy, with clothes scattered about and magazines and newspapers everywhere, and a thick coating of greasy dirt on the window frames and the back of the stove. There were many books, science books, biographies, books about trees, plants... The refrigerator smelled even worse than the apartment, but there were steaks and apples, milk, butter, eggs. A broken egg had dried on the bottom of the refrigerator. On the only table was a notebook opened to a page of numbers and cryptic notes. It looked like the same sort of thing that had been scrolling on the computer monitor back at the farm. A stack of computer printouts with more of the same was by the side of the notebook. Earl Malik was keeping up, apparently.\n\nThere were two unopened bottles of bourbon, one of gin, three bottles of beer, some Collins mix, and a trash can filled with empties. Charlie was hurrying, trying to get a picture of the man, and the picture was too uneven. A pig, but a smart pig was the best he could do. A tiny chest of drawers held a few shirts and socks; two drawers were empty, and a pair of slacks and a jacket were in a small closet. All the pockets were empty. He ran his hand under the mattress on the sagging bed, and he looked under the cushions on the sad-looking sofa. Nothing. He picked up a crumpled map near the table and opened it. Then he folded it and tucked it inside his pocket and stood surveying the place for another second before he left. A real search by experts might turn up something, he thought morosely, but he doubted it.\n\nConstance was still in an intent conversation with Petey when he rejoined them. The woman in the short shorts had stopped pretending to sweep; she was simply watching them now. Constance looked at Charlie brightly. \"You wouldn't believe some of the tricks they use now to fool the audience!\"\n\n\"I'd believe,\" he said. They all looked toward the road as a siren blared nearer and nearer, then passed. Medical rescue unit, Charlie thought distantly. The road was hidden by trees.\n\n\"Well\u2014\" Petey started; he stopped again as another siren wailed, approaching.\n\n\"Let's go see,\" Charlie said, taking Constance by the arm. \"When Earl comes, tell him we'll be back. Just say Charlie. Okay?\"\n\nPetey nodded, following the sound of the sirens. A third one was approaching.\n\nCharlie drove back up the gravel driveway to the county road, and waited there for a sheriff's deputy to pass with the siren screaming. His face was without expression as he watched it go by. He listened briefly, then pulled out after it.\n\n\"The farm!\" Constance exclaimed a few minutes later.\n\nThey were waved off the driveway to the front parking lot, but no one stopped them when they entered the admin building and hurried through and out the back door. Charlie was nearly trotting as he led the way past the rows of plants to a group of people near the quonset hut. They were farm workers and a few others that Charlie had not seen before. Tom Hopewell was with them, his hands jammed into his pockets, his shoulders hunched. Everyone was watching the activity at the apartment units, although deputies were keeping them all well back.\n\nTom Hopewell started, then nodded to Charlie and Constance when they reached him; a deep frown lined his face, aging him many years. \"My God,\" he said. \"My God!\"\n\nCharlie looked past him. Several of the apartment doors were wide open, one unit had windows broken out. Greg Dolman was near it, but no one, as far as Charlie could tell, had entered.\n\n\"What the hell?\" he muttered, and then he got a whiff of gas. He gave Constance's arm a slight squeeze. \"Wait here,\" he said, and strode toward Greg Dolman.\n\nA deputy moved toward him, to intercept him probably; he ignored the man. \"Greg, what the hell is going on?\" he called.\n\nDolman scowled at him and motioned the deputy away. \"Gas,\" he said unnecessarily. \"Place was full of it when the painters opened the door. Thank God, no one tossed a cigarette or match in.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. \"Someone's in there?\"\n\nDolman's expression turned suspicious, and Charlie said irritably, \"For Christ's sake! What are the medics waiting for if there isn't someone in there?\"\n\n\"Just to haul him away,\" Dolman muttered. \"He's been in there a long time apparently. Too long. Bosch took one of my guys up to the main building to try to find a fan. But that sucker in there, won't matter to him.\"\n\nCharlie's hands bunched up into fists, and he stared at the apartment, every muscle taut now. Another one, he kept thinking. Another body.\n\nThe fan was produced; someone had to go find an extension cord, and finally it was working to air out the apartment. Bosch was the color of wet newspaper, and said not a word. He stood near Charlie watching the apartment as if he expected to see fireworks. He looked as tightly wound as Charlie was.\n\nWhen Dolman approached the apartment, Charlie followed. No one seemed to notice. He entered, sniffing first just to make sure, and then stood well out of the way, keeping his arms tightly crossed, observing. A dead man with dark hair, dressed in jeans and short-sleeved shirt, running shoes. On his side in the kitchen area. Bedroom door closed, bathroom door closed. The technicians\u2014death technicians, he thought bleakly\u2014did the usual things; some took pictures, then more pictures, while others dusted for prints here and there. Dolman prowled around purposefully, and finally they turned the man over and there was blood-soaked hair matted on that side. Charlie left.\n\nBosch had joined Constance and Tom Hopewell. \"Who is it?\" Bosch asked. A little color had returned to his face, but he still looked bad. A tic jerked one eye again and again.\n\nCharlie shrugged. \"They didn't find any ID. It may take a while to identify him. I never saw him before.\" He looked at Tom Hopewell, included him in his question, \"What happened?\"\n\nBosch said quickly, \"I was in the admin building when I heard people yelling, running for a telephone.\"\n\nTom Hopewell was looking everywhere, and likely seeing nothing. His gaze flitted here, there, somewhere else too fast for anything to be registering. Charlie touched his arm and he jumped. Very quickly he said, \"I was in the field. One of the painters opened the door, and, thank God, he had enough sense to yell for me to turn off the gas. I looked in through the window, and saw that someone was in there. That's why we broke the windows. I covered my face with my shirt and went in, but there wasn't any point to it. So we waited for the sheriff to get here.\"\n\n\"Did you touch anything?\"\n\n\"No! Just the body, and only enough to make sure he was dead.\" He looked like a man who had only this minute finally come to believe in the irreversible fact of death. And he looked like a man lying in his teeth. Charlie wondered if he had become this pale, this ancient when he found David's body, if he had looked this guilty then. Would finding a third body finish him off entirely?\n\nGreg Dolman came to the small group. \"Why don't you folks go back to the main building. I'll want a statement when we're through here, and a list of everyone who's been around the last few days. You could get it together while we're finishing up.\"\n\nCharlie lingered as Bosch and Hopewell started toward the building. After a glance at him, Constance followed the two scientists. Tom Hopewell was moving so fast she would have had to run to keep up.\n\n\"Any ID?\" Charlie asked Dolman then.\n\n\"Nothing. Transient. I think this wraps it all up, Charlie.\"\n\n\"Is that how you're going to play it, Greg?\"\n\n\"That's how it is,\" Greg Dolman said flatly. \"A bum moved the bees. Who knows why? Then he went out in an accident. Finis.\"\n\n\"Was there a bottle in there? I didn't see any.\"\n\n\"No. Why?\"\n\n\"Wondered, that's all.\"\n\n\"Well, stop wondering. I don't give a shit about a bottle. I say it's complete as it is.\"\n\nCharlie shook his head. \"It won't work, and you damn well know it won't.\"\n\n\"Butt out, Charlie. Just butt the hell out.\" He turned away abruptly and strode back to his men still working in the apartment.\n\nWhen they reached the admin building, Clarence Bosch sent Tom Hopewell to talk to the rest of the staff, and get the list of employees. \"If those two people show up for interviews, tell Wanda to keep them in the front office. I'll get to them as soon as I can.\" He busied himself with making coffee. \"Something about coffee,\" he said absently. \"I think it's just something to do, keep the hands busy, that's why we always think of it.\"\n\nConstance agreed; she studied the room they were in. Apparently this had been the original kitchen of the house that had been turned into the administration building. There was a sink, some cabinets painted brown with the paint flaking off, and a refrigerator, but there were also file cabinets, a computer and work station, and an array of test tubes and flasks on two of the counters, also a coffee maker. A box of latex gloves was on the table, and a metric scale.\n\n\"Ever since the Zukals came,\" he said, stopping in the middle of measuring the grounds into the basket. \"It's as if they brought a bad wind with them. Nothing but trouble.\"\n\n\"That piece of ground is so small, just fourteen acres. It's hard to believe anyone could want it so desperately as to cause all this trouble.\"\n\n\"No one wanted it for more than ten years,\" he said, and finished measuring the coffee, plugged in the machine. \"Frankly, I was glad to see someone buy it, maybe put an end to the lovers' lane reputation it had. Ever since I can remember, since I was a boy, it's been that, a place to rendezvous.\"\n\n\"You grew up here?\"\n\n\"I, my wife, Warren, his first wife... all kids together.\" His gaze was distant, as if he were looking into the past. \"We used the mill, too, in those days,\" he said with a faint smile that was so fleeting it might not have appeared at all. \"Things were different, though. No drugs, a little beer, maybe; now and then a little booze. Then we all grew up and went our own ways. Warren to Harvard, I to Penn State. Warren got Shelley, and after a few years I got Barbara. And we were all grown up.\"\n\n\"I understand that Jill's mother was very beautiful.\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Every one of us wooed the beautiful Shelley, and Warren won. Or lost. Who's to say anymore?\"\n\nHe turned his back on her and began fishing around in cabinets, pulling out a cup here, another there. Constance knew she was pushing it, but she kept up the questions as if she simply wanted to pass the time with him, distract him from the gruesome business at the apartment units.\n\n\"Was she really as wild as rumor has it?\"\n\nHe laughed harshly. \"Rumor can't even touch the reality,\" he said, and counted the cups he had assembled, went back to rummage for more.\n\n\"And was Jill like that?\"\n\nHe stiffened and stood motionless for a second or two, then turned to regard her carefully. \"I've been rather naive, I'm afraid,\" he said. \"You're working, aren't you? I forgot.\"\n\n\"I'm working,\" she admitted. \"Dr. Bosch, the present doesn't exist independently of the past. The gun that was loaded thirty years ago sometimes is fired in the present, but the question remains: Why was it loaded at all?\" She had heard Charlie enter the building, but he was not coming into this room yet. She sensed that he was on the other side of the closed door, listening, letting her carry it for the time being.\n\n\"Our past has nothing to do with the troubles going on now,\" Bosch said almost primly. \"Believe me, it doesn't.\"\n\n\"Probably you're right, but there are such big blanks. You called the police and turned in Jill Wollander when she was an adolescent. There are many ways to interpret that action. Revenge. Hatred for the Wollanders. Hatred for Warren in particular, striking at him where he was most vulnerable.\" Clarence Bosch's face looked frozen, his eyes unfocused. Very gently Constance said, \"And another way to interpret it is to wonder if maybe you were trying to save Jill. You knew what her mother had been like, and you could have seen a chance to prevent the daughter's following that path.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes for a moment and shook himself slightly. He looked down at the cups on the table and moved one, then another aimlessly, keeping his gaze on them. \"I... loved Shelley very much. Most men did. And she taunted me when she became engaged to Warren. She said he would do anything she demanded, and that he had money and position, things I didn't have. I was going to be a teacher, a poor teacher. She laughed at me. And suddenly I hated her. Just like that. Later, I pitied her, I think. And then Jill was slipping across the lake at night, meeting the students in the mill, in the apartments. I don't know. She was so young, so ignorant. I told my wife, and she tried to talk to Warren, but he... he wouldn't hear a word against Jill. I called the police, knowing he would have to pay attention, be aware. I knew the price I would pay, that we all would pay, but she was so like Shelley in those days. Barbara, my wife, agreed with me, that we should at least try to help her, even if it meant scandal and hostility and an end to our relationship with Warren.\" He looked up finally and shrugged. \"As you see, it has nothing to do with what's been happening around here.\"\n\nConstance nodded. \"I think your wife must be a very fine person.\"\n\nHe blinked in surprise. \"Of course. The coffee smells done, don't you think?\"\n\nHe was pouring coffee when Charlie entered the kitchen. Constance watched Charlie make a swift survey of the room, and she knew that later, if necessary, he would be able to list proportions, contents, windows, everything about it. Training, he said; she called it magic.\n\nBosch looked at Charlie with an expression that was almost pleading. Charlie shook his head. \"The sheriff will be along in a couple of minutes. We'll take off before he gets in. Just a question or two first, if you don't mind.\"\n\nBosch ran his hand through his thin hair. \"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"Right. When will Dr. Wharton return to work?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow.\"\n\n\"And you're interviewing her applicants for her? Will you hire them, or one of them?\"\n\n\"No, of course not. I told Lois I would simply determine if they are qualified. It would have been best to contact them both and put off the interview until tomorrow, but with the weekend, and they were already on the way...\"\n\n\"I understand. Dr. Bosch, when this project is finished, you'll retire, won't you? And Tom Hopewell? What will he do?\"\n\n\"You'll have to ask him. I imagine he'll cast about for another position where organic methods will be approved. It's far enough in the future that we haven't really discussed it.\"\n\n\"And Dr. Wharton, she would have to start a job hunt, too?\"\n\nThis time Clarence Bosch shifted uncomfortably. He sipped the coffee he had been holding and paying no attention to. \"I really don't know. Her situation is different, of course. A commitment to trees is a commitment to time itself. A lifetime is really too short.\"\n\n\"You haven't discussed it with her?\"\n\nHis discomfort increased and a flush of color tinged his pale cheeks. \"We talked about it,\" he said. \"She said at the time that she didn't know what she would do.\"\n\n\"Did she discuss the possibility of continuing her work without the sponsorship of the university?\"\n\n\"She didn't, but I did. Not on the mill property, not on fourteen acres. But damn it!\" he said with his first show of real passion, \"Warren owns over four hundred acres, much of it in pasture, there's a big apple orchard, open land. Good land. I suggested that she could work at home, and she was adamant about not doing that. That was the end of the discussion.\"\n\n\"Do you know that the organic project will end at the ten-year mark?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. They'd like to phase us out now, if they could. The high-tech bioengineering people can't wait to get in here. That's already in the planning stage.\"\n\nCharlie cocked his head, listening, then said quickly, \"Just one more thing, Dr. Bosch. Who would know if a liquor bottle was found anywhere on the grounds over the past couple of days?\"\n\n\"I'd know,\" Bosch said, looking bewildered. \"The grounds keeper reports to me. If anything unusual had turned up after the bees were taken, I'd know. Believe me, everyone's on full alert, a bit late maybe, but they are now.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Charlie said. \"You've really helped, Dr. Bosch. We'll be on our way.\" He took Constance's arm and hurried her through the hallway out the front of the building as Greg Dolman entered the back.\n\n\"Are we on the lam?\" Constance asked, seated in the Volvo, with Charlie behind the wheel.\n\n\"Not yet,\" he said, engaging gears. He waved to the deputy, who waved back, and drove out the gravel driveway to the county road.\n\n\"Was it Earl Malik's body?\" she asked after a moment.\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\n\"And did you mention that to Greg?\"\n\n\"It didn't come up.\"\n\nShe nodded slowly. \"Eventually he'll find out that you suspected it was Earl Malik and that you deliberately withheld the information. How long do you suppose it will be before we are on the lam?\"\n\nCharlie chuckled and patted her thigh, and then let his hand rest there.\nCHAPTER 12\n\nTODAY NO CARS WERE parked along Ellis Street. The postage stamp-sized lawn was just as immaculate as it had been on Saturday, but when Charlie knocked on the door, the young woman who answered was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.\n\n\"We would like to see Sebastian,\" Charlie said.\n\n\"I'm sorry, do you have an appointment?\" She looked sorry to the point of tragedy. She was a pretty young woman with very long dark hair held off her face by a blue ribbon, no makeup, no jewelry. Her eyes were a lovely clear brown. She looked as if her sorrow might lead to tears momentarily.\n\n\"Just tell Sebastian that I am a private investigator employed by Mr. Wollander, and I would like to talk to him.\"\n\nHer eyes widened and her mouth made a little O; she withdrew and closed the door. Charlie glanced at Constance and winked.\n\n\"Ten seconds,\" she said gravely.\n\nIt was no longer than that before the door opened again, and this time Sebastian appeared. He motioned for them to enter.\n\n\"You were at the lecture Saturday,\" he said.\n\n\"Indeed we were,\" Charlie said agreeably. He introduced himself and Constance. \"This won't take long. I know you must be a very busy man, what with services and lectures and private counseling and house-hunting, and all.\"\n\nSebastian smiled and shrugged. \"My office,\" he said, and opened a door in the foyer. The office was small and had no desk. It was painted white, with a soft gold carpet, and soft gold draperies. There was a rack of books and pamphlets on one wall; Constance recognized titles that she had seen in Jill's room. There were many cushions piled along the opposite wall, and between the two walls were several upholstered chairs. Still smiling, Sebastian motioned them to chairs.\n\n\"I noticed that you found the seating arrangement not altogether satisfactory the last time,\" he said.\n\n\"Very observant,\" Charlie said, as he and Constance sat down in chairs. Sebastian stood near the window. \"Are you still looking for a place to buy?\"\n\n\"I have not looked at all for a place to buy, much less still.\" His eyes bulged slightly, and his lank hair fell continually into his face. He used both hands to push it back again and again. The slight smile did not waver.\n\n\"Ah. I understood that Mrs. Ferris was showing you the mill property a few weeks ago.\"\n\n\"Many people show me many things, Mr. Meiklejohn.\"\n\n\"I bet they do,\" Charlie murmured. \"Mr. Pitkin, there have been several deaths in and around the mill, as you well know. We can play games, or you can level with me and I'll go away.\"\n\n\"Please, just Sebastian. And believe me, I want very much to help in your investigation. I'm afraid I have a small problem, however. I don't quite understand exactly what it is you are investigating.\"\n\n\"The murder of David Levy. And the death of Stanley Ferris.\"\n\nHe sobered at the words, and now looked sorrowful. \"Murder? David? Surely not. I met him only one time, I'm afraid, so I have no knowledge of his usage of drugs, but I assume that when the authorities decide a death by self-administered drugs is accidental, they have sufficient grounds to make that assessment.\"\n\n\"Murder, Mr. Pitkin. You gave him a list of vitamins. When was that?\"\n\n\"Vitamins? Oh, yes. I remember. We talked about vitamins at that cookout. Weeks ago, the same day Jill escorted me through the mill. He was paying far too much. That company is without a conscience, I'm afraid. I did tell him he could buy less expensively through the company I recommend to my own people, and a day or two later I gave the list to Jill to pass along to him. She said she would give it to her stepmother who would actually give it to David. I heard nothing more of the matter.\"\n\nHe looked so self-satisfied, so superior, Charlie thought, that he wanted to give him a swift kick. \"And you said that evening that a person with the right attitude wouldn't get stung by bees, didn't you?\"\n\nSebastian shrugged, and his hair fell into his face; he pushed it back. \"It's possible I said that, of course, because it is true. But I confess that I don't recall saying it.\"\n\n\"Is it also true that if you have the right attitude you won't get bitten by a dog?\"\n\n\"Of course. You see, Mr. Meiklejohn, you are the bee, and you are the dog, and the tiger, and the snake.\" The cadence of the words, the rhythm suggested thinly disguised mockery. \"Naturally there are many quite self-destructive people who haven't grasped that yet, and they are at risk, but with understanding and acceptance, there is no longer any danger with anything of nature.\"\n\nConstance had been watching him intently, but now she left her chair, as if bored, or perhaps simply restless. She moved about the room and came to a stop at the books and pamphlets. At first Sebastian watched her movements with annoyance as she strolled farther and farther from Charlie, forcing Sebastian to turn his head from side to side to include both of them in his sweeping gazes. When she began to examine the various books, he seemed to give up and concentrated on Charlie, only now and then glancing at her as she browsed in the reading material as if unconcerned with the questions and answers.\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" Charlie said, ignoring Constance. \"If you aren't looking for property to buy, what were you doing at the mill with Jill Ferris?\"\n\n\"Looking.\" He held up his hand and shook his head. \"Don't be angry, Mr. Meiklejohn. Your questions are difficult because they carry so many presuppositions, so many assumptions. Why is it, I wonder, that you ask only questions that you already believe you have answers for? Anyway, at one of our discussion meetings here, the matter of a school came up. I did not bring it up myself, but it was the subject of discussion once it did arise. It was suggested by one of our people that if we had a school, a large enough building to accommodate sleeping space and lecture rooms, that then some people could use it for a retreat, immerse themselves more fully in study and meditation without the interference of pressures of the outside world. A cloistered retreat seemed idyllic to many of us, I admit. But I have no money and I did not pursue the idea. Since then, several people here have offered to show various properties that they had reason to believe might be suitable. Jill made such an offer and I accepted. Not with any intention of buying, however, because I can buy nothing.\"\n\nCharlie regarded him for a moment, and then said, \"And if one of your people takes you on a tour and you find the ideal place, and if that person then says, 'Hey, don't sweat it, I'll buy it for you,' then you're in like Flynn. Neat.\"\n\n\"There are many paths to enlightenment, Mr. Meiklejohn. That may well be one that one of our people will follow.\"\n\n\"How long has Jill Ferris been coming here?\"\n\nNow Sebastian shook his head, in sorrow as deep as his receptionist's had been. \"You know I won't talk about any of my people, Mr. Meiklejohn. I came here in March this year, and I met Jill Ferris soon after that. She never offered to buy a building for me, or to help me financially to purchase one, and that's all I intend to say on the subject.\"\n\n\"I see. Was she driving all the way out from the city, just to attend your meetings? When did she become a regular?\"\n\nSebastian shook his head again, harder, sending his hair flying out both sides. \"You will have to ask her.\"\n\n\"Oh, I will. Do any of your... what do you call them? Parishioners? Disciples? Students? Do any of them ever stay here in this house?\"\n\nSebastian folded his hands before him. \"Exactly what are you implying now, Mr. Meiklejohn?\"\n\n\"Just curious. You got here in March. Jill turned up for her prolonged visit in April, I understand, and yet she's become quite an adept in meditation. Makes me wonder how she had time to advance so fast.\"\n\n\"Some people are ready to progress rapidly. Others never are able to see beyond their own noses. I really must go now, Mr. Meiklejohn. Is there anything else?\"\n\n\"One thing,\" Charlie said, rising lazily. \"Why did you agree to see us at all? You had no intention of telling us anything, did you? And did you notice that I asked not a single question about where you're from, how you got into the soul business, your qualifications to counsel troubled people. Nary a question. No doubt, that sort of thing will be neatly wrapped up in Wollander's report on you. If I see that I need more, I'll come back.\"\n\nSebastian did not move, but his stance changed subtly, his hands became tighter in their grasp, one of the other. \"What report are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Did you really think you could set up camp in his backyard and not be investigated? Now that is really naive. Especially where his daughter is concerned. I haven't asked you about your movements over the past couple of weeks, last Friday night particularly, or if you've been over to the farm, communing with the bees, your alter egos. We'll see how much of your time is already accounted for.\"\n\n\"I have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear from any investigation,\" Sebastian said with tight lips. He strode across the room and yanked the door open, then stood aside for them.\n\n\"Thanks for your time,\" Charlie said good-humoredly as they went through the foyer to the front door. \"Be seeing you around, Mr. Pitkin.\"\n\nSebastian's lips tightened even more, and his eyes looked strange, more bulging than before, as if suppressed rage was pushing on them from behind. A high flush was on his cheeks now. He said nothing.\n\nCharlie opened the door and let Constance go out first, then pulled the door closed hard. He did not let go, however, and did not allow it to latch. Silently, with an amused expression, he counted to seven and then pushed the door open an inch or two in time to hear Sebastian's voice:\n\n\"Goddamn son of a bitch! If they come back tell them I'm in Poughkeepsie! That bastard Wollander!\"\n\nSilently Charlie pulled the door closed again, this time releasing the knob. Grinning, he took Constance by the hand and they went down the front steps.\n\n\"Made you mad, did he?\" Constance said softly.\n\n\"Damn right. But I made him madder. What was that with the books?\"\n\nThey reached the car and got inside. He turned the key and then waited for her answer.\n\n\"All his own work. I was just curious. Jill's reading matter seemed a bit odd\u2014high-fashion magazines and spiritual material. I guess he hands out the pamphlets and articles, or sells them, to his people.\"\n\n\"His people,\" Charlie snorted. He started the car, began to drive. \"I'm in the wrong racket. Nobody ever bought me a school or a church, or even a house.\"\n\n\"You could grow a beard and wear a serape, or a ruana, or even a simple blanket\u2014go barefoot, of course\u2014and talk about taking the right road, scorning the wrong road, not being distracted by enticing signs, like luncheonettes, or anything that... . Where are we going?\"\n\n\"You know damn well we're going to have lunch and mull things over.\"\n\nShe smiled slightly.\n\n\"What I want,\" Charlie said in the Spender's Ferry Coffee Shop ten minutes later, \"is a roast beef sandwich with lots of gravy.\" Constance cleared her throat, and he added, \"But what I'll have is the tuna salad with tomatoes and dressing on the side.\" He looked at her balefully. \"Okay?\"\n\n\"Very good,\" she said, and ordered the same. \"And coffee right away.\"\n\n\"We need a spy,\" he said, and fell silent until the waitress poured coffee for both of them. As soon as she was gone, he continued, \"I want to know the minute that crew gets home over at the Wollander house.\"\n\n\"Charlie,\" she said, a little shocked, \"they're at a funeral!\"\n\n\"I know. Jill can hightail it to her room if she wants. But you can count on it that Greg Dolman won't waste any time in telling them the whole thing's settled. They've got their bum, in the best possible condition as far as Greg's concerned. He sure as hell isn't going to deny anything. So, case closed with even better speed than he managed when he closed the case of David Levy. The county's clean and all's well with the world. I want to get there first, that's all.\"\n\nShe nodded thoughtfully. Not the Zukals, she decided. They were probably still at the hotel. Not anyone at the farm, too many unknowns concerning all of them. Not anyone. \"I could hang out at the mill. I wonder if you can see enough from there?\"\n\n\"No way. Not you.\"\n\nShe looked searchingly at him then. No trace of amusement was visible on his face.\n\n\"Honey, there's a real killer loose in that neck of the woods. Someone as opportunistic as hell and pretty damn smart. And desperate by now, I expect.\"\n\n\"Can Greg make a case for Earl Malik? Will it stick?\"\n\n\"Not if I can help it. They'll find a high alcohol level in the blood, no doubt, and Greg will think that cinches it, but he can't have it both ways. If Malik was drunk enough to fall down and bash in his head, he was too drunk to be lurching around the woods carrying a beehive. They didn't find a bottle, remember. He didn't sober up and then start drinking again. And there weren't any prints on the stove. Whatever was on the doorknob was messed up by Hopewell when he opened the door. No prints. So Malik goes in the apartment and turns on the gas, and wipes off his prints, and then obligingly falls down and knocks himself out. Won't work.\"\n\n\"Then he must have seen whoever got the bees, and that's the motive for killing him.\"\n\nCharlie nodded. Their salads arrived and neither said any more for the next several minutes. \"What they'll do,\" Charlie said then, \"is mill about for a while after the funeral, more than likely. Say they start for home again around three. Be back by seven. I guess our best bet is simply to be on hand and wait for them.\"\n\n\"We'd better go through the mill property,\" she said. \"The security people probably won't let us in the front gate.\"\n\n\"Right. So we go home and brood about that damn dog, and light a fire under Wilbur Palmer if he hasn't got his report ready yet.\"\n\n\"You brood. I intend to freeze peas and speak encouragingly to the tomatoes.\" She had left most of her tomato on the plate. It was picture-pretty and tasted like plastic.\n\nWhen Charlie called the animal pathologist that afternoon the report was ready. \"One of the organophosphates,\" Wilbur said. \"More than a dozen trade names for the stuff\u2014insect sprays, dusts, that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"A smart dog would eat something like that?\"\n\n\"Charlie, the word smart is relative, right? So the dog's smarter than a possum, what's that mean? You mix this stuff with some canned dog food, and watch.\"\n\n\"But if it was insect spray, she could have got into it accidentally.\"\n\n\"If there's a store of it around. There was a lot in the body. Still is. I doubt that even a pretty dumb dog would lap up that much unless it was mixed with something. Oh, maybe some fruit got sprayed heavily, but dogs sure don't eat many apples or pears, now do they?\"\n\nCharlie thanked him and hung up and then stood at the patio door watching Constance move about in the garden. She picked a pea pod and ate it and continued with the chore of picking enough for the freezer. Hers was an organic garden, no poisons. You could go out there and eat whatever struck your fancy, he thought, and shuddered at the idea of the meal that had been fed to that poor dumb dog. \"But how?\" he muttered to himself. How had anyone managed to get her to eat it?\n\nSomeone out there was an opportunistic and smart killer, he thought again. Too smart. Taking advantage of every opening to get whatever the hell he was after. Or she, he corrected himself. First the dog Sadie, feeding her poison when she was trained never to take food from anyone but her owners. Then David Levy with drugs when it was known that he did not do drugs. Then the attack on the Zukals with the bees. If Al were allergic, he would be as dead as Stanley. One of the grandchildren, both of them could have been killed. And now the man he was certain was Earl Malik. Each one killed, using materials at hand, leaving no trail, hitting and vanishing in good terrorist form. Kill and run. If Greg announced the end of the mystery, the closing of the case, then whoever was responsible could strike again, and again, until... until what? he thought bleakly. Who next?\n\nThe phone rang in the kitchen as he stood watching Constance. He took the call before the answering machine got its act together. It was Al Zukal. The sheriff had called, he said, and they could go back home. The crazy killer was dead.\nCHAPTER 13\n\nLOIS FELT LIKE AN INTERLOPER, an intrusive guest who was always in the way, no matter what she did. Coming home from Stanley's funeral, Warren had held Jill as if she were a small child, her face against his chest, his arm protectively around her shoulders. One of the security men, Robert something, had driven the Buick, and Lois had been superfluous. The Ferris family had virtually ignored her, and again she was superfluous. That family's grief was so consuming, so overwhelming that even Warren and Jill had felt excluded somewhat; no one had suggested they linger after the funeral services, after the obligatory wake that had been cut short when Mrs. Ferris left the room on the arm of her husband. \"We'll go home now,\" Warren had said, and they got in the Buick and Robert drove them home. No one had uttered a word during the drive.\n\nWorst of all, Lois thought, gazing at the landscape without recognition, she had gone blank. She tried to think of work and nothing came. Two people to be interviewed, she reminded herself, and forgot them again. Where had she stopped the metabolism studies Friday night? No answer came. Had she put everything away on Saturday? No answer. Would Clarence think to check the moisture level of the cloned trees in their pots in the greenhouse? Would Tom? When the Buick stopped at the front of the Wollander house, she seemed to come up from a trance state that left no memory.\n\nMrs. Carlysle admitted them to the house and Jill started up the stairs silently. She was deathly pale, and looked as if she had lost five pounds in the last day or two. Should she be made to see a doctor, be examined? When Lois had asked hesitantly if she was bleeding heavily, if she needed anything, Jill had simply shrugged. \"I'm all right.\" Lois saw again how she had looked Saturday in the brilliant white jumpsuit, with the blood-red sash, and blood running down the legs. Jill had looked mortally wounded. At the stricken look on Warren's face, she knew he was seeing that same image again. She wanted to take his hand, but their new awkwardness permitted no such intimacy now.\n\n\"Mr. Wollander,\" Mrs. Carlysle said in a soft voice that was almost fearful, \"there is a message from Mr. Meiklejohn.\"\n\n\"For God's sake! Not now!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir. He said to tell you it's extremely urgent, that it can't wait. He left a number to call.\" She held out a slip of paper, but Warren pushed past her and went into the study. Lois took the message, and Mrs. Carlysle looked relieved and grateful. \"Thank you,\" she whispered, with a frightened glance toward the study. \"He said it's vital and even told me what to write down, or I wouldn't have brought it up now.\"\n\nLois watched her hurry away down the broad hall toward the kitchen, and then opened the folded paper. I have to talk to you both immediately. It's about Dr. Wharton's former colleague. There was a telephone number.\n\nShe watched the paper start to shake, and realized that she was trembling all over. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, and then went into the study.\n\nShe offered the note to Warren, who was standing at the window looking out toward the front of the property. He ignored the slip of paper.\n\n\"I'm going to call him,\" she said.\n\n\"Leave it alone until tomorrow. My God, that man knows we've just come from the funeral!\"\n\n\"I know he does. That's what makes it frightening.\" She went to the desk and dialed the number, watching Warren's back all the while. He was suffering, she knew, losing his son-in-law, his grandchild, maybe his daughter... being brought face to face with his own mortality again. Charlie's voice sounded in her ear.\n\n\"I got your message,\" she said. \"Can't it wait until tomorrow?\"\n\n\"No. Tell your security people to let us through. We're at the mill property. We'll be there in five minutes.\"\n\n\"But what's hap...\"\n\n\"Five minutes.\" He hung up.\n\n\"They're coming from the mill.\"\n\nWarren's shoulders seemed to hunch as if he were bracing against a cold wind.\n\n\"I'll go meet them,\" she said. She started to leave, but stopped again and said pleadingly, \"Warren...\"He didn't move. She left the room after a moment to wait on the patio.\n\nThey never had needed security before, she was thinking distantly. She had felt as secure as a child in her parents' home, protected, safe from the world and everything it might threaten her with. And now there were men on duty to keep out reporters, sightseers, curiosity seekers. Killers? Maybe even that. And the more security they hired, the less secure she felt. She felt as if the threat existed at her elbow, not out there at all. She started to walk across the expanse of manicured lawn, feeling more exposed with every step.\n\nShe waved away one of the guards when Charlie and Constance emerged from the woods. They were an odd couple, she thought, still with the distance that seemed to be her self-protective armor. He was so dark and bearlike, she so tall and slender and fair. Lois liked the way they looked at each other. One plus one made a bigger one, she thought then, and thought of them that way, bigger than one, but still one. She felt a rush of envy, and she had an impulse to warn them that the cleaver could fall, even on them. They wouldn't believe her, any more than she would have believed such a warning just a few weeks ago.\n\n\"What's happened?\" she asked, as soon as they were in range.\n\n\"Let's save it for you and your husband,\" Charlie said. The crinkles at the sides of his face were gone, and deeper lines etched his features now.\n\nHer fear returned, redoubled; she nodded and led them inside the house. They went straight through to the study where Warren was now seated in his favorite chair, with a drink in hand, an invisible wall all around him. It started at his eyes; they were cold and hard. He nodded curtly at Charlie, and ignored Constance altogether.\n\n\"This shouldn't take very long,\" Charlie said. \"Today another body was found in the apartments at the farm. The sheriff will be around either this evening or in the morning. I wanted to get here first.\"\n\nLois went paper-white and sank down into a chair, her eyes wide and staring. \"My God,\" she whispered. \"Who?\"\n\n\"Unidentified at the moment.\"\n\n\"Earl?\" she whispered. \"Was it Earl?\"\n\n\"I never met him or saw a picture of him. Hard to say for sure. But I think so.\"\n\nWarren's eyes had narrowed and he looked different; he looked dangerous. This must be his political face, Charlie thought. Briefly and succinctly he told them what he knew about the body in the apartment, watching them both closely. Neither moved until he finished.\n\nCharlie caught a motion from the corner of his eye and glanced at Constance who was moving toward the study door. She opened it. Jill stood there.\n\n\"Come on in,\" Charlie said. \"You heard enough to know what's happening, I take it.\" No name had been mentioned, he knew; Lois's whisper Earl could not have carried to Jill. What she had heard would be broadcast news, and it made no difference. The interesting part was that she had learned it this way, by eavesdropping.\n\nShe had changed her clothes and was wearing jeans, a black shirt, and sandals. She looked childish and ill. She went to the sideboard and poured gin, added tonic and ice cubes, and sat down without a word. She looked too young to be drinking anything but a Coke or juice.\n\nLois stirred finally and said, \"I'm sorry. Do you want a drink? Sit down please.\" She looked at Charlie and Constance in turn, but without real invitation behind the words.\n\n\"You were right to tell us first,\" Warren Wollander said then. \"A man without ID. Died the same night that the bees were taken. He probably did it himself, then. They may never find out who he was.\" He looked steadily at Charlie as he spoke in a very deliberate voice.\n\n\"They'll find out,\" Charlie said just as deliberately.\n\n\"Meiklejohn, I hired you to do a job for me. I find now that I made a mistake. Keep the retainer, but you're no longer in my employ. I think that's all we need say. Our business is concluded as of this moment.\" He lifted his glass and drank, and set it down on the table by the side of his chair.\n\n\"Dr. Wharton,\" Constance said then, \"we have to talk, you know.\"\n\n\"My wife is under no obligation to talk to either of you,\" Warren said coldly.\n\n\"Mrs. Wollander may be protected by your name and your position and your wealth, but Dr. Wharton is at grave risk,\" Constance said.\n\nLois was watching her, pale down to her lips now. She glanced at Warren, who returned her look, stony-faced. Suddenly Jill jumped up, knocking over her glass that she had put on the arm of her chair. Everyone ignored it.\n\n\"Look at you!\" she cried, facing Lois. \"Mrs. Wollander will obey! I always envied you, did you know that? I did! Your degrees, your brains, your work, your freedom. Your freedom! You could tell the world to fuck off if you wanted to. But you're just like the rest of us! One look from him and you're just like the rest of us. I thought someone finally would say no. That's all, just no!\" Tears were streaming down her face by now. She wiped at them with the back of her hand. \"Shit! I'm going down to the lake.\" She ran from the room and a moment later a door slammed, the sound muffled by distance.\n\n\"What do you want to know?\" Lois asked. Her voice was harsh, grating.\n\nOf them all, Charlie thought at that moment, only Constance appeared unruffled by the scene Jill had made. And Constance had a thoughtful expression\u2014her professional expression, was how he thought of it. And since it was her show now, he waited for her to go where she was heading.\n\nConstance nodded to Lois, but turned to Warren and asked, \"Why didn't you ever run for office?\"\n\nHe started at her question. Jill's outburst had affected him deeply, it was apparent; he looked very tired, and very old. After a second he said, \"I don't even know her. She's like a stranger over and over.\" He took a breath. \"I'll get you both a drink. Lois?\"\n\nHe busied himself at the sideboard, handed out gin and tonics, and then said to Constance, \"I thought I could be of more service in the background.\" He stood at the sideboard watching her.\n\nConstance sipped her drink, then put it down again. \"Thank you,\" she said. It wasn't clear if she was thanking him for the gin and tonic, or for responding. \"And in the background there would be no public scrutiny, no inquisitive press hounding your every movement.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"That too, but I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear.\"\n\n\"Maybe not personally. But what about the first Mrs. Wollander? What would have come up about her?\"\n\nHis jaw muscles tightened noticeably, but he controlled his voice so much that it was flat, expressionless. \"It was never an issue.\"\n\n\"I want to tell you something about your daughter, Mr. Wollander, but first you must tell me something. Why didn't you divorce your first wife? What was her hold?\"\n\nCharlie tensed, then made himself relax again. Wollander looked murderous, but he was not moving, not threatening. And if he did, Charlie thought, Constance would flatten him like a pancake. He waited.\n\nWhen Wollander remained silent, Constance said gently, \"She was a lovely young woman, much sought-after. She could have had her pick, and she accepted you. She made demands that you were happy to concede to. And the demands were binding long after the time when you would have divorced her if there hadn't been a hold. Isn't that right, Mr. Wollander?\"\n\nHe was regarding her with disbelief. \"Who told you any of that?\" He rubbed his eyes suddenly and left the sideboard where he had been standing, took his chair again, and looked at nothing in particular. \"You have it pretty much as it was. I agreed to sign over the property here to her, in the event that I ever divorced her. I agreed that no illegitimate child could inherit the estate. We were drinking champagne, celebrating her acceptance, laughing, joking. I thought we were joking, playing a game. I agreed in advance to a divorce settlement that seemed as remote as Mars. Divorce was the last thing on my mind then. I was deeply in love with her, crazy in love, I think the expression was in those days. I doubt that she could have suggested anything I would have balked at.\"\n\n\"I thought it must have been something of that sort,\" Constance said, still gentle and thoughtful. \"You see, Mr. Wollander, your daughter believes that your prenuptial agreement bound your first wife financially in such a way that if she sued for divorce she would be penniless. Did Jill have any money of her own?\"\n\nHe shook his head, looking baffled now. \"Just an allowance. But that's a preposterous idea.\" His expression changed, became harder. \"Shelley did it deliberately, to turn her against me. She had an instinct for that, finding the sore spot, knowing how to turn people against people. She told Jill a half-truth; if she sued for divorce, she would have been comfortably fixed, but without power over me. She wanted me to start the proceedings and I wouldn't. That explains so much. I knew she lied to me about Jill, I just never considered that she also lied to her about me. I didn't think of that.\" He turned to Lois. \"That's what she meant, that she was envious of you. It didn't make sense. But if she thinks I held her mother in bondage\u2014\"\n\n\"And now me,\" Lois said. She looked at Constance in dismay. \"We had a talk with her and Stanley, before we announced .our engagement. We told her about our agreement, and I tried to make it clear that I wasn't interested in the money or the property, that I didn't want to get between father and daughter in any way. I thought it was important for her to hear that from me. And she must have assumed that we were repeating what she thought she knew about her mother and her father.\" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. \"We'll have to talk to her again.\"\n\n\"It won't be easy to overcome a lifetime of believing something else,\" Constance said. \"You may need help.\"\n\nAnd now she was finished, Charlie realized, and could not have said how he knew that.\n\n\"I have copies of everything,\" Warren said. \"She'll have to believe.\"\n\nConstance shrugged and did not reply. She glanced at Charlie.\n\nHe turned to Lois. \"How drunk was Malik Friday night? Staggering, falling down, incoherent?\"\n\nLois started, and then closed her eyes hard for a moment, as if she had to clear out the present revelations in order to think back to Friday night. \"Coherent,\" she said then, faintly, \"but weaving back and forth. Unstable.\"\n\n\"How did you push him? Stand up, show me. I'm Malik and you're coming out.\"\n\nShe hesitated, and he said impatiently, \"Stand up and show me.\"\n\nWith reluctance she stood up, still uncertain. Charlie motioned. \"Here's the door. I'm blocking it, is that right?\"\n\nShe nodded, and now picked up her purse and put it over her shoulder. She glanced around, at Constance, at Warren, and took a step forward toward Charlie. When he did not move, she reached out with both hands and shoved him in the chest. He took a step backward and sat in a chair. \"He fell like this, straight back? Into the bush?\"\n\nShe moistened her lips, nodded.\n\n\"Then what?\"\n\n\"I ran to my car, it was only a few steps away, and got in and drove off.\"\n\n\"Did he get up?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I didn't look at him again.\"\n\n\"How did you pay him off? Cash?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"I met him on the road, at the entrance of the trailer court. He got in my car and I drove about half a mile to a turnoff. I parked there a few minutes and he took the money. Then I drove back.\"\n\n\"Where did he live?\"\n\n\"I don't know. He said in the city, that's all.\"\n\n\"Was he using his own name?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Probably.\"\n\n\"Did you ever enter the trailer court?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did you give a vitamin list to David Levy?\"\n\nShe looked bewildered and shook her head.\n\n\"Did you give work printouts, computer printouts to Malik?\"\n\n\"Yes. He insisted on knowing what we were doing.\"\n\n\"Did you find David Levy's thermos at the farm?\"\n\n\"I don't know what this is all about! What difference does it make? No. He kept it in his backpack.\"\n\n\"Could Malik have moved a hive of bees in his condition?\"\n\n\"No. I don't know. He was staggering. Maybe if he slept a while and sobered up. But he didn't know anything about the bees or the mill property, or the Zukals. He didn't even know where I lived. He thought this house was miles away, that the only way to get here was by car. He came by train and stayed a couple of days and then left again. Then he came back. But he knew nothing about this area. No.\"\n\n\"Was he ever fingerprinted? In the service? Arrested?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I don't know. Not that I'm aware of.\"\n\n\"Did he have a family, close ties who would start a search if he stayed missing?\"\n\n\"No, not that I know.\" She looked exhausted. She bit her lower lip when it began to tremble visibly.\n\nCharlie looked at Warren Wollander, and without moderating his tone, he said, \"Did you have Malik investigated?\"\n\n\"I think I've had just about enough of this,\" Warren said coldly.\n\n\"It hasn't even started,\" Charlie said, in a voice even colder and harder. \"You had him investigated and that fact will come out. This is going to blow up in your faces and you know it. When did you have it started?\"\n\n\"Last week,\" Warren said finally. \"But my men don't talk about private work.\"\n\n\"Last week?\" Lois asked in a faint voice. \"You told me you didn't believe the letter.\"\n\n\"I didn't believe it,\" he said harshly. \"My God, I thought you were faithful! It never occurred to me to believe it until I saw you leave that night. The night Jill told us she was pregnant. I couldn't sleep for thinking of it and I saw you, someone, going up the driveway. I came down to wait, to speak to you, someone, I don't know what I intended, but no one came back in. When I went upstairs again, your lights were still on. What was I supposed to think? The next day I called Myers and had him look into it.\"\n\n\"And a few days later Malik is dead,\" Charlie said softly. \"Mr. Wollander, you know this isn't going to stay a secret.\"\n\nLois was staring at her husband with incomprehension. \"I didn't go out that night, or any other night, not to meet him, or anyone else.\"\n\nHe looked at her with a penetrating gaze and finally rubbed his eyes. \"It wouldn't have been Jill,\" he said slowly. \"Why would she sneak out in a black raincoat like that? She was with that man Sebastian for hours every day, no need to meet him like that. Who else? Mrs. Carlysle?\"\n\n\"Show me,\" Charlie said then. \"You were where?\"\n\nWarren went to the window and pointed. \"She vanished behind the copse of birch trees. I didn't see her again. I thought I'd hear her when she came back in but I didn't.\"\n\nCharlie dismissed it. \"Okay. Is it possible Sebastian believed that Jill had enough money of her own to buy the mill? Did she have money of her own?\"\n\n\"No, of course not. Stanley was more than generous, but it was his money. Now it's hers, of course. What Sebastian believed, who knows?\"\n\nLois seemed to have shrunk into herself; she sat huddled in a tight mass, her arms hard about her body. She looked from Constance to Charlie, and she asked quietly, \"You think they will find out that dead man is Earl, don't you? No matter what we do or say, they'll learn that?\"\n\n\"Routine police work usually uncovers an identity,\" Charlie said. \"It may take a little time. Maybe fairly soon. What will you do if they bring around a picture and ask if you know this man?\"\n\nBefore she could speak, Warren said, \"I'm sending my daughter and my wife away for a rest. My daughter has had two terrible shocks and needs complete rest, and she needs a companion.\"\n\n\"No,\" Lois said, still not looking at him, keeping her gaze on Charlie. \"I have my work to do. That won't help. Running away never helps.\" She moistened her lips. \"Tell us what to expect.\"\n\n\"Right. I expect the sheriff already knows I'm in here with you, and that's enough to make him come calling this evening. He'll be polite and insist that the case is neatly tied up, the killer is dead of gas inhalation, accidental death, and that's that. But the routine will take place anyway. They like names to attach to corpses, after all. And he'll find out. That will bring him back here with more questions. And he'll find out that you've withdrawn large sums of money from your bank account. He'll find out that Mr. Wollander has had a private investigation of Malik. He already knows about the campaign to get rid of the Zukals. Probably there will come a time when he'll say to himself what if this Malik character and Dr. Wharton decided they wanted the property themselves in order to continue the work they started together so many years ago? And he'll come back with even more questions. Somewhere along the line, they'll connect material found on Malik's clothing with the bushes outside the quonset hut, and someone will remember the stones that were thrown up by tires, and someone will remember two sets of skid marks, two fast departures. Someone will suggest a scuffle between Malik and his former wife, on the night the bees were moved. Now Greg Dolman doesn't like trouble, but the way this is shaping up, the Wollanders are really out of it. This is between a flat-land foreigner who is now dead, and a lady scientist who doesn't really belong here anyway. That will reassure him and he'll keep coming back with more and more questions.\"\n\nAbruptly Warren snapped, \"Stop this! This is nothing but speculation! It won't get that far!\"\n\nLois regarded him very steadily, as if he were a stranger. \"Why not?\" she asked quietly. \"You know me better than anyone else here, and you were ready to believe the worst. You still believe the worst.\" She turned to Constance. \"I was naive. But now I understand what you meant. High-priced lawyers may be able to save Mrs. Wollander, but Dr. Wharton is doomed, isn't she? Dr. Wharton cannot survive another scandal, especially of this magnitude. Suspicion, innuendo, accusations, even if it never gets as far as an arrest.\"\n\nThere was a soft knock on the door and Warren strode over to open it. \"What is it? We're busy in here.\"\n\nMrs. Carlysle nodded. \"Yes sir, but it's the sheriff. He says he has to see you.\"\n\n\"Our cue,\" Charlie said, when Warren looked over his shoulder into the room again. \"We'll leave by the back door.\"\n\n\"I'll show you,\" Lois said, rising. \"I doubt that he'll want to see me at this stage.\" She led them out without another glance at Warren.\n\nThey went through the wide hallway, into a narrower one. Good, old-money comfort, Charlie was thinking, glancing around with approval, not new-money chic; there wasn't a trace of an interior decorator more recent than the turn of the century. Good woods, cherry and walnut, chestnut paneling, stained-glass windows here and there. Very nice.\n\nThey came to a side door and Lois paused after opening it. This was the side of the building; a short brick path led to the wide lawn; beyond the lawn was the trail through the woods. The sun had set; violet, shadowless twilight yielded to darkness under the trees.\n\n\"Thank you for... for preparing us,\" Lois said formally then. \"Mr. Meiklejohn, you think that all this is connected, don't you? David's death, the bees, Earl.\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Starting with Sadie.\"\n\n\"Sadie?\" Momentarily she lost the tight control. She closed her eyes and drew in a long breath, and then said, \"Thank you. I'd better go back in now.\"\n\nCharlie and Constance walked across the lawn in silence. At the edge of the woods he stopped to look at the driveway that curved around the birch trees and vanished. The woods were close on the other side of it. It was a wonder Wollander had been able to see anyone moving there, he decided, and took Constance by the hand and entered the woods. It was getting dark fast and under the trees it was almost too dark already. Still, the trail was easy to follow.\n\n\"Charlie,\" she said in a low voice, \"that scenario you outlined, I think Greg Dolman would buy it in a second if things get that far.\"\n\n\"Oh, so do I.\"\n\n\"And it will come out that she was friendly with Sadie. She's the only one beside the Zukals who was.\"\n\n\"Yep. I know.\"\n\n\"And she certainly had access to David's apartment.\"\n\nCharlie took out a penlight and they walked single file, and then they were out of the woods at the end of the swinging bridge. They had taken only a step or two on it when bright lights came on at the corners of the mill. Charlie grunted. Al's new security system was up and running.\n\n\"If our killer decides to strike again,\" he muttered unhappily, \"those lights won't mean diddly.\"\nCHAPTER 14\n\nTHEY TURNED DOWN THE offer of dinner from Sylvie and inspected Al's security system for a second time. Smart lights that came on when anyone got within twenty-five feet, dead-bolts, sensors on doors and windows. All very good stuff, Charlie admitted, and knew that none of it would matter in this particular case with this particular opportunistic killer. He did not tell Al and Sylvie this. Instead, he merely cautioned them to be alert and not to put too much faith in the sheriff's pronouncement that the case was over and done with. Then he and Constance drove to El Gordo's where they ordered Mexican pizza with green chilies and authentic white cheese that was very like Feta, and a seafood platter for two, Vera Cruz-style.\n\n\"With a pitcher of margaritas,\" Charlie said firmly. \"Soon.\"\n\n\"A whole pitcher?\" Her protest was mild, without conviction. He pretended not to hear.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said, as soon as the waiter Rene appeared with the pitcher that was so cold it looked frosted. \"All right!\" He poured for them both. \"You were saying?\"\n\n\"Not a thing.\" She sipped, then took a real drink. \"Charlie, what about the thermos? Why bring that up with Lois Wollander?\"\n\n\"Funny that it's missing, that's all. Not listed among his things. Just wondered.\"\n\nShe drank again and settled back against the leather seat. The furnishings in El Gordo's were authentic\u2014massive black tables and chairs with dark leather. The service pieces were heavy pewter that retained heat no matter how long the diners lingered. A nice place, she thought contentedly, and the margarita was not the only reason, although it helped.\n\n\"So,\" she said after a moment, \"he used the thermos for tea or lemonade. Not the sort of thing you would leave in it overnight, especially if the next day you planned to work only a few hours, with a late starting time. I think he was out of lemons, at least none were mentioned in the inventory, and he had them on his grocery order. You especially wouldn't leave tea overnight,\" she added with a grimace. \"The dishes were all washed and put away. The thermos should have been put away too, or at least on the counter ready for use. Then what?\"\n\nThe way she did this, voiced the thread that was running through his mind, sometimes bothered him, sometimes amused him, most of the time startled him no matter how used to it he pretended to be. Once or twice, many years ago, he had asked her to explain how she did that, and she had looked puzzled and said simply, \"I don't have an idea in the world what you're blithering on about.\" The one time the question had taken the form of a demand, she had turned her pale blue eyes on him in a way that reduced him to a thieving boy caught dead to rights in the act. His demands had been very infrequent over the years.\n\nTonight he followed her reasoning with a grin and nodded when she finished. \"Then what, indeed,\" he said. \"I wish I knew. And who took a late-night walk in a black raincoat on a warm night without rain? Why? As Warren Wollander said, Jill spent hours every day with Sebastian, no need to meet him like that. And as Lois said, Earl Malik never went to the house. I guess he didn't. I found a map with the farm marked on it, but not the house. Remember, he was on foot. That's a long walk by road, seven or eight miles from the trailer court. Just over two miles to the farm from there. That road curves and recurves before it passes by the Wollander place.\"\n\nThe pizza arrived and they became silent as they ate the spicy food that was piquant just to the point of pain, and drank the tangy margaritas. A couple they knew, the Martinsons, passed by their table and stopped briefly to chat. Rene brought the seafood platter and lifted the pitcher in invitation. Charlie shook his head regretfully. Rene shrugged with artistry and went away.\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" Charlie said, \"I want to mosey over to the county board of zoning commissioners and bat the breeze a little. And I think I'd like a chat with the real-estate company that handled that piece of property. Routine stuff. No point in dragging you through it.\" Routine that he disliked, he thought, but did not add that. She already knew. This was the sort of thing he used to have underlings take care of. Sometimes he missed that privilege, of giving orders that would be followed without question, more or less the way he expected them to be.\n\n\"You know, your Aunt Maud's birthday is coming up fairly soon,\" she said thoughtfully. \"And there's an anniversary present for my parents to shop for. Maybe I'll browse the antique stores in Spender's Ferry.\"\n\n\"Aunt Maud is an Aries,\" he said coldly. \"And your parents aren't entitled to celebrate more than once a year, just like the rest of us. We sent them something back in March.\"\n\n\"But shopping takes so much time,\" she said. \"Never too early to begin.\"\n\n\"Christ,\" he muttered. \"Tell me something. Do you think any of those people are crazy?\" She rolled her eyes and sighed. \"All right, not crazy, just demented, psychotic.\"\n\n\"I see. But not crazy. Clarence Bosch is determined to try to keep the project up and running for the duration of his grant. How far would he go to do that? Pretty far. Lois Wharton Wollander is determined to continue her work; she is driven by her need to accomplish good work. How far would she go to get rid of anything in her way? Pretty far. Warren is determined to protect his daughter, his property, and his wife. Same question, same answer. Pretty far. The Zukals are determined to keep that land. And so on. Crazy people? Of course not, but obsessional people, yes.\"\n\n\"You left out a couple,\" he said after a moment.\n\n\"I know. Sebastian. Charlatan, simpleton, or believer? A bit of all, I suspect. Did Jill make him a promise to buy that land and the mill? How far would he go to get it? I think the answer depends on the strength of his faith in what he's doing, and I can't judge. I haven't seen enough of him to have an opinion. Do you think he's a complete charlatan?\"\n\nHe hesitated, then shook his head. Not really, he had to admit. He wanted to believe in Sebastian as one hundred percent charlatan, but not yet. He had that particular gift, and in Charlie's experience people with it usually came to believe in what they preached, to some extent, anyway. \"Jill?\"\n\nConstance looked remote. \"She's been twisted out of shape by too much hatred. Shelley must have been extremely clever, also twisted out of shape. I think Jill is going through a terrible time. Coming of age shouldn't be this hard, but she's waited a long time to start the process. I wouldn't like to be Warren.\"\n\n\"What about when he tells her the truth about the pre-nuptial agreement? What will that do to her?\"\n\nConstance shrugged. \"Probably not what he wants. She may take it as an attempt to whitewash him, and to turn her against her mother, whom she obviously loved. She could become even more furious with him for not telling her years ago, for allowing her to live the lie of her mother's invention. She could simply start running and never stop until she's back in Paris or wherever she lived with her mother. It takes a certain amount of readiness to begin the reconciliation process and I don't think Jill is ready just yet.\"\n\nCharlie thought about this for a time, and then asked softly, \"And what about Tom Hopewell?\" It pleased him that she looked surprised.\n\n\"You've noticed?\"\n\n\"Come on,\" he said. \"Think I'm that blind?\"\n\n\"I don't think he's even aware of it himself.\"\n\n\"Let me have a go at him,\" Charlie said. \"He sees Lois as a brilliant, very attractive woman, exactly as I see her. Well, maybe not exactly as I see her, but anyway, as a colleague that he respects and admires, and he thinks that she's wasted on an old man like Wollander.\"\n\n\"I doubt that he's thought through any of that.\"\n\n\"Yet.\"\n\n\"But what could he hope to accomplish by driving the Zukals away?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe he thinks that Lois could have bought the property and they could have worked on it together.\"\n\nConstance shook her head. \"He's into corn, not trees.\"\n\n\"Right. But two other men who looked at Lois with lust in their hearts are dead, remember. Speaking of lust, let's hit the trail. I have this little proposition I've been meaning to bring up practically all day.\"\n\n\"The game plan,\" he said the next morning, slowing down in Spender's Ferry, \"is that we meet at Al's place.\n\nYou wait there if you're done first, or I wait. You're sure you want to hike out?\"\n\n\"It's only two miles or so,\" she said. \"Of course.\"\n\n\"And, honey, watch your step. I think that crazy or not, there's someone hanging around who is sure deadly.\"\n\n\"I do, too,\" she said.\n\nHe stopped at a corner and she opened her door, then leaned across the seat and kissed him. \"I wouldn't be Lois Wharton Wollander for anything,\" she murmured, withdrawing. \"See you later.\"\n\nWhat the devil was that all about, he wondered, as he pulled away, and watched her in the rearview mirror. She waved, smiling softly. And he thought he knew. He began to hum under his breath. And the people she grilled today wouldn't even suspect a fire had been lighted under them.\n\nIn the first antique shop Constance compared a milk-glass bowl to a depression-glass vase, and priced a set of iron sconces. She asked a few questions and listened, and asked a few more questions. In the next shop she examined a wicker chair and end table, and listened. And so it went for over an hour. She dropped in at the bank to cash a check and met the sister of Carla Mercer, who was Warren Wollander's secretary. She remarked on the resemblance and listened some more, and moved on. Midway down the street she saw the blond woman who had been at the trailer court; today the woman had on yellow slacks and a yellow tank top. The dark roots of her hair made her look like a sunflower.\n\nConstance nodded to her as they neared one another; the other woman paused, then stopped.\n\n\"You were out at the court, weren't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, that's where we met!\" Constance said in apparent relief.\n\n\"You're new around here, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I'm just waiting for my husband. He has some business to take care of and I'm burning up. I was thinking of a nice cool drink. Iced coffee, maybe. Is there a place around here for something like that?\"\n\n\"Sure. Coffee shop up in the next block.\"\n\n\"Want to keep me company? Have a coffee with me. Charlie said fifteen minutes but he's been hours already. And my feet hurt.\"\n\n\"Husbands!\" the blond woman said eloquently. \"Up this way.\"\n\nHer name was Ellen Thurmond and her husband was canvassing the county for a national survey company. He had said it would be fun for her to come along for the ride, but then he parked her in the trailer court and took off every morning. Husbands!\n\nIt was cool and dim in the coffee shop. They sat in a booth and Constance sighed. \"This feels good. That looked like a pretty nice trailer court, I thought. And that Petey! He's something else, isn't he?\"\n\n\"But what? That's the question. It's a good thing your husband got there yesterday. Would have been too late by now, I guess. That Earl, he's something else, too. Flits back and forth to New York like a commuter flight or something.\"\n\n\"I never got to know him, but Charlie seems to think he's pretty weird.\"\n\n\"Weird! That's putting it mildly. A nut is more like it. Your husband a process server?\"\n\nConstance looked around, then said conspiratorially. \"Something like that, why?\"\n\n\"Thought so. It figures. See, Earl comes to the court and he's there alone, without a car, and I'm there all day alone without a car, and I think, well he's someone to talk to, at least. Can't talk to Petey. All he wants to talk about is Petey. So I go over to Earl's place and look in, and the place is a mess. I mean a real mess. And there's all these computer printouts everywhere. And he acts like it's national security time suddenly.\" She fell silent as the waitress brought their coffee. Then she leaned forward and said in a harsh whisper, \"I think he's one of those hackers who breaks into the big computer systems and does them dirt or something.\" She sat back, satisfied with herself, and began to sip her coffee.\n\n\"Oh dear,\" Constance said. \"I wonder if Charlie suspects anything like that. Go on.\"\n\n\"Well, the way he goes back and forth into New York City, I mean, why doesn't he just stay there if it's that important? Anyway, this morning a guy comes and says he's Earl's buddy and he's supposed to pick up his stuff for him. He has a letter from Earl and some extra rent money for the inconvenience. He says he wants to keep renting the place for another couple of months, and even pay extra just to hold it, in case Earl decides to come back and finish his work. And he even signs the register for Earl.\" She glanced swiftly about the coffee shop, exactly as Constance had done, as if checking for eavesdroppers, and then added, \"But he spelled the name wrong. Earl Marker. That's how he signed it.\"\n\n\"But that's awful! I don't even know his last name. What is it?\"\n\n\"I don't remember. But not Marker. Maxwell, something like that. But it's Marker now.\"\n\n\"It really sounds as if there's something funny going on,\" Constance said with a frown.\n\n\"Yeah. Let me tell you. You know how when you want to make a phone call, you put in your money and get the other person, and you talk. Right? Not Earl. He puts in his money and says a word or two, and hangs up. Then in a couple of minutes the phone rings, and he's right there, and this time he talks. We don't even have phones in those dumps. Petey's afraid we're going to run out without paying up, I guess. It's a pay phone out by his apartment. In clear view from my place. I saw him with my own eyes, twice. Like in the movies or something.\" She finished her coffee. \"Anyways, I think he got wind that the process server was closing in or something like that. And he's skipped.\"\n\n\"I guess you're right,\" Constance said. \"But that's how it goes.\" She listened to Ellen go on for a little while longer, but when it became apparent that nothing of interest would be added, she looked at her watch and then asked, \"Would you like more coffee?\"\n\n\"No, thanks. I've got to get over the store before it gets much hotter. It's a long walk home. And he'll come in wanting supper on the table like always. I tell him it's a long walk, but he's out in the air-conditioned car all day, what does he care about that?\"\n\nA few minutes later they stood on the sidewalk and Constance waited to see in which direction Ellen was headed, and then walked the opposite way. She dropped in at the drugstore, and looked over the racks of magazines and books, then chatted with the pharmacist while she mulled over the numbers on the sunscreen lotions and finally chose a number twenty. He approved. Skin as fair as hers needed protecting, he said. Finally she decided she was ready to start the long walk to Al and Sylvie's house. She felt her morning had been well used.\n\nShe wished she had paused to make some notes, but that would have been too conspicuous; now, since she hadn't done that, she began to review the facts. Just the facts, Ma'am, she told herself, rubbing sunscreen on her nose as she walked, sometimes in the sunlight, then in a shady area. The trailer court was only half a mile from town, not at all the long walk that Ellen had complained about. She passed it. The houses were far apart now, farmhouses mostly. The road was narrow and curvy, bordered by fields of corn, a truck garden, a small apple orchard, and some abandoned cherry trees that were gnarly and beautiful, and alive with birds eating their fill and making a raucous, joyous cacophony.\n\nThe experimental farm started, fields of corn that were planted in blocks, not like the uninterrupted fields of commercial farmers. Although from the car the farm looked like the others, on foot it was easy enough to tell the difference; there were many labels here, rope dividers, and interplanted with the corn were other crops\u2014a block of amaranth with furry, red flowers already; squash vines sprawled; blocks of what looked vaguely like bush beans... .\n\nWhen she reached the entrance to the farm, she turned in. She walked around the admin building, nodded to workers here and there, and kept walking toward the quonset hut where Lois worked. When she drew near the second greenhouse, a plump young woman in shorts came out carrying a clipboard. She looked as if she had fallen asleep in the sun. Her nose was bright red; her cheeks, her forearms, and thighs all glowed.\n\n\"You looking for Dr. Wharton?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"In there,\" she said, pointing to the greenhouse she had just left. She hurried on to the next one and went inside.\n\n\"Thanks,\" Constance said after her, and stood in the open doorway peering in. Toward the far end she could see Lois Wharton and another young woman. Lois was watching this woman do something with an instrument that from here looked like a complicated hybrid of thermometer and syringe.\n\n\"Hi,\" Constance called.\n\nLois looked up, spoke to the other woman, and came toward Constance. She looked haggard, in jeans and a tank top and sneakers, her face moist, her hair stuck to her forehead here and there. There was a smudge of dirt on one cheek.\n\n\"It all comes back to me,\" Constance said with a smile when Lois got near. \"The reason I chose psychology instead of one of the hard sciences. Actually there are several reasons, I'm sure. I never could remember to keep both eyes open when I used a microscope, for instance. I always felt that if they wanted you to use both eyes, there should be two eyepieces.\"\n\n\"Mostly there are these days,\" Lois said. She was smiling slightly now. \"When your husband introduced you, he said Leidl, but I didn't make any connection with the name, I'm afraid. One of the grad students is awed, though. He's studied some of your work, he says. I'm not very good with people, associating names, remembering things that are important to others.\" There was hardly a hint of apology in her tone even now when it was clear that she intended to be apologizing.\n\n\"That's a strange relationship, isn't it?\" Constance said. \"Student and teacher, I mean. I've had students act as if they really believed I was born with a Ph.D. They sometimes seem to want to deny that we put in the hours, did the classwork, were disciples of teachers who were as difficult taskmasters as the ones they face in us. TA's, waiting for the acceptance notification, summer workshops, never quite enough money, the orals, they seem to think we skipped all that. Especially the women students,\" she added. Neither of them mentioned Jill.\n\nLois was nodding emphatically. If she noticed that Constance had started them strolling toward the trees that screened this part of the farm from the opposite side of the lake, she gave no indication. \"What I was always so terrible with was the politics in academia,\" Lois said, her gaze on the ground before her. \"Somehow I kept forgetting that everything ended up being political, no matter where or how it got started. I still do. I guess, coming out of psychology, you were better at that part.\"\n\nConstance laughed with a touch of bitterness. \"What I seemed to be good at in those days was butting my head against walls. Idealistic and all that.\"\n\nLois glanced at her with understanding. \"Me, too.\"\n\nThey had reached the trees where the shade and the breeze coming off the lake were both welcome. Constance lifted her face and breathed in deeply. \"I was pretty hot,\" she said. Before Lois could respond, she went on, \"I was thinking of you last night, the patience it must take to work with trees. I had a friend once who was going through a difficult time with a physical problem that was quite undecided. She planted half a dozen trees on their property during the period when she was stewing over the outcome of tests. I thought it was an act of supreme faith. The trees are very lovely now.\"\n\n\"And your friend?\"\n\n\"She succumbed after five or six years but she nourished the trees to the end. She said they were her legacy. A butternut for the squirrels; a red twig dogwood for beauty in winter and for the birds; a noble fir for protection of wild things when the weather was brutal; a sugar maple... . Each one was chosen for a particular purpose. It was, I think, a great act of love, to leave this legacy.\"\n\nFor a time they were both silent as they gazed at the lake that was such an unnatural, sapphire blue. The wind played on the surface in random patterns. It riffled a section that smoothed out again, then another, and another.\n\nSuddenly Lois sat on the ground and hugged her knees tightly. Constance sat down near her. They both kept watching the unending patterns rise and fade on the surface of the blue water.\n\nWhen Lois spoke again, Constance was taken aback by the harshness of her voice. \"It isn't patience,\" she said, \"it's desperation. So few people understand the situation we're in, how fast it could become critical. Tom Hopewell, Clarence, a few others. Earl knew at one time. You build a generating plant back in the Midwest, Gary, Indiana, or Chicago, somewhere, and the vapors rise and years later come down as poison, rains so acidic that lakes die, trees die, plants twist and writhe in their own brand of agony. Fish, frogs, aquatic plants, algae, all gone. And the lake looks like a reflection of heaven. Isn't that ironic, that it should be so beautiful and so deadly?\"\n\n\"But can't it be countered?\"\n\nLois continued to stare at the lake stirring in the soft breeze. In her mind's eye she saw the ghost trees, saw the figure rising from the waters, David's blind eyes wide open... . She shuddered. \"A seedling puts down a deep tap root,\" she said, almost as if lecturing. \"A zone of undifferentiated cells forms where the rootlet and soil merge, and then the acid releases the aluminum in the soil and that means the tree is doomed. The tree no longer absorbs the potassium it needs, the calcium, magnesium, manganese, whatever nutrients it relied on before; aluminum replaces them or seals the cells that would take them in. Desperately the tree puts out surface roots and they take up the nitrates that also rain down from the heavens. In this form, in this amount, more poison. Or else drought comes along and the shallow roots wither. Our need for electricity, heat, light, our need for crops, fertilizers, they doom the forests. Can we undo it? No one knows. No one.\"\n\nThe breeze that had felt so welcome only moments ago now was chilling; the lake that had been so incredibly beautiful now seemed a mockery. Constance hugged her arms about her. \"Why are you telling me this now?\"\n\n\"You said patience. But that's not it,\" Lois said, following her own line of thoughts, paying little attention to Constance. \"Patience is benign, maybe even saintly. Sebastian has patience. People with too much patience are dangerous. They're the ones the world listens to, wants to hear, wants to follow. Not us, the doomsayers. Do you have any idea what kind of hours we're putting in here at the farm? Clarence, Tom, I? We're not driven by patience!\"\n\n\"Yet you were willing to drop your work and come chat with me,\" Constance said. \"Why?\"\n\nLois pressed her forehead hard against her knees. Her voice became muffled and thick. \"You, your husband, you have to leave all this alone. It's over with. The sheriff's satisfied, everyone else is. I have to get back to my work. We all do, yet as long as you're still asking questions, saying it's still open, no one can.\"\n\n\"Why do you drive to the farm now? I thought you enjoyed the walk?\"\n\nLois looked up then and said sharply, \"It's late when I stop work, too late to walk home. I'm too tired.\"\n\n\"Or afraid to walk through the woods in the dark suddenly?\"\n\n\"That's absurd.\"\n\n\"I think it's very sensible not to be alone in the dark around here,\" Constance murmured.\n\nLois took a deep breath, started to say something, and turned to look at the poisoned lake instead. Very quietly she said, \"There's nothing in this for your husband. Warren paid him; he won't stop payment or anything. Just leave, let us all get on with the work we have to do.\"\n\n\"Your husband thinks he can delete Earl Malik from living memory?\" Constance asked.\n\n\"Last night,\" Lois said, speaking to the wind, the water, the air, \"Warren and I talked a long time. There's something he has to do, something very important to him that he must do. He had a heart attack a few years ago, before we were married. Coming that close made him reexamine his life, everything he's ever done, and he realized that the most important thing is... what he has to do now. Anyway, we have to get all this... this trouble behind us so we can both get on with these other things. We simply have to.\" Her words rushed out suddenly, and she was almost whispering. \"He knows how to manage things, make things work out. He always has known how to do that. For him there's no mystery to politics, how to make people do what he wants them to do. It will be weeks before Jill can touch Stanley's money, but he will lend her some so that she can go back to Paris where she wants to live. She has friends there. That poor girl never was here long enough to make any real friends, always back and forth, back and forth. He told me last night that she never quite finished high school. She went to a private school in France, and another one in Switzerland, another one in England, but altogether she never actually graduated, never went on to college. That explains her outburst about me, her jealousy of my work. She never had a chance.\"\n\n\"And Charlie's warning last night, that an identification will be made eventually? What about that?\"\n\n\"You don't understand!\" Lois said, her voice rising. \"Warren can manage all that. He can manage Charlie, too, if he has to. I believe him. He's always been able to manage things. Except for Shelley. How shrewd she must have been to get that agreement signed early. She understood him thoroughly. She used to taunt him about inheriting the land here, about selling it piecemeal, plowing up the lawn to put in tract houses or something. She was a devil! She taunted him about Jill, how the line had run out, how there'd be no heirs to keep the property in the family. She made him believe Jill could never bear a child, that the land would go to strangers and be destroyed. I knew how important it was to him, to leave the property to his own blood. I even stopped taking birth-control pills last year, thinking that maybe I would be the one to provide the heir.\" She laughed bitterly. \"I was so convinced of the Tightness of providing him with a child that I actually lost the pills, misplaced them beyond finding again. Is that a Freudian slip or something?\" She put her forehead on her arms again. Her words became nearly inaudible. \"I know the order of things now. I guess I always did but I let myself pretend to be stupid. His daughter, his grandchild, his land, and then me. That's the order of things. And it's all right. Jill is young enough. She'll marry again and present him with grandchildren. I have my work. He has his memoirs to complete. And we have to get on with it. We have to!\" When she raised her face, it was tear-streaked. She ignored the tears that were still flowing. \"We'll do it Warren's way. He'll take care of everything. Father knows best and all of that.\"\n\nConstance regarded her for several seconds, then turned to look at the lake again. \"When did your father die?\" she asked. \"You loved him very much, didn't you?\"\n\nLois scrambled to her feet. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, you married your mentor years ago, and you let him take you into dangerous if not illegal waters. Although he finally betrayed you, when he turned up again, you paid him handsomely, out of pity, out of remorse, out of fear. Only you know why. And now you are willing to let another father figure plan your future for you, take you into dangerous waters, perhaps betray you. And this time, through enough love, enough patience, enough forgiveness perhaps you can atone. Children feel such guilt, such betrayal when parents die prematurely that occasionally they spend a lifetime trying to rewrite that particular past. It never works, you know. Actually, it's one of the most egotistical fantasies of childhood, that you as a child could bring about the death of your parent through wishing. The more sinned against you feel, the more forgiveness you must offer.\"\n\nConstance had been gazing at the blue lake, but now glanced at Lois, who stood rigidly before her as if paralyzed. \"You and I both know that Clarence Bosch is well aware of your past. As director of this project he would have been informed. That's how the system works, and we know it. He values your work and your honesty or you wouldn't be here, and you know that, too. He'll keep you until the grant runs out, unless you are arrested. He has nothing to lose by it\u2014not at his age, with retirement coming. And he has much to gain through your work.\" She shrugged slightly, stood up, and began to brush traces of leaf mold from her slacks. \"No, you're not going along with this just for yourself and your work. But why? To protect your husband? I wonder why you think he needs your protection. A deep-seated psychological need of your own, or a concern of greater immediacy?\"\n\nLois turned ashen and swayed. She held onto a tree for a moment, then pushed herself off and ran staggeringly. She bumped into another tree a second later, steadied herself, and continued to run toward the quonset hut. Constance watched.\n\nWhen Lois was out of sight, Constance started up the path that led to the Zukal house. She was startled when Charlie stepped out from behind a tree and held out his hands to her. Wordlessly he drew her close and held her, stroking her back.\n\nWhen she pulled away after several minutes, she studied his face. \"You were watching?\"\n\n\"For a while. I got here first and decided to walk around the farm a bit. I didn't want to interrupt you. Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she said wryly. \"Doctor's fine, patient is a mess.\" They started to walk together, his arm around her shoulders, and she told him what Lois had said, that Warren would arrange things. \"Manage things, is how she put it,\" Constance said. \"Including you. He could be a very difficult enemy, Charlie. He has a lot of power around here.\"\n\nCharlie tightened his grasp of her shoulders and did not reply.\nCHAPTER 15\n\nWHEN THEY WERE WITHIN sight of the mill, Charlie stopped and said, \"Anything interesting in town?\" He was watching men stack lumber torn down from the interior of the mill; the little rooms were all gone now to make way for the large work space Bobby would need. Next week, he thought distantly, Bobby and Flora and their two children were due to move out from the city.\n\n\"It's a fascinating little village,\" Constance said. \"I think if a grasshopper sneezed in that town word would be out to everyone within ten minutes. And anything to do with the Wollanders or the farm is prime news, of course. And the people who work out here for the most part either live in town or have relatives who do. Every sneeze is reported.\"\n\n\"So tell me,\" he said in a growly sort of way.\n\n\"I am,\" she said in her equable sort of way. \"First, Clarence Bosch didn't drive to his daughter's wedding the weekend that David died, after all. His wife drove over to Long Island on Monday of that week and he flew out of Albany at noon on Saturday. They drove home together, arrived Sunday night late.\"\n\nCharlie grunted. \"What on earth made you go after that tidbit?\"\n\n\"Curiosity. Usually the wedding is in the hometown of the bride. I just wondered why not this time. It's because the groom is in the navy and had a very short shore leave, and his parents live on Long Island and could swing the affair, and he had to report for duty again on Sunday at noon. They all decided that on the whole it could be managed better without extra traveling for the bride and groom. And Clarence Bosch didn't have to leave home until after ten-thirty on Saturday to make his flight.\"\n\n\"Check. Next.\"\n\nShe told him about Ellen from the trailer court, and about someone's cleaning out Earl Malik's possessions. This time he cursed softly.\n\n\"That's Warren Wollander's doing. He's managing things, the bastard. Go on.\"\n\n\"Warren's secretary's sister is a teller in the bank where Lois banks.\" She said this rather flatly, not liking the implications. \"Everyone in town could have known that she was withdrawing large sums of money. On the other hand, Jill has charge accounts everywhere and Stanley wrote the checks. He was very generous, they say. She lost a rather expensive gold bracelet a few weeks ago and he just bought her a new one. And you never know where you're going to see her flashing past in that little foreign car of hers.\"\n\nHe chuckled as her voice took on the tones of disapproval she had registered when listening to the townspeople. She was a good mimic.\n\n\"And the mill was a regular den for years and years, but recently it's been quiet, for the last ten years anyway. It's because those kids don't have to sneak around to do things now the way they used to. They just live together openly and don't care who knows it.\" Again she was mimicking one of the people she had talked to that morning. It didn't matter which one, Charlie knew; if he ever talked to that person, he would recognize that voice instantly.\n\nConstance gave him a complete summary of her talk with Lois and they were both silent after this for several moments.\n\n\"You know,\" he said at last, \"the case I made for her being It could even work. She certainly had reason to kill Malik.\"\n\n\"And David?\"\n\n\"He could have tumbled to the fact that her ex was hanging out, that she was seeing him.\"\n\n\"And Sadie? And the campaign against the Zukals? I believe Clarence Bosch, that this little parcel of ground would be meaningless for the work she does.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"I know. But maybe Malik knew more than she told us about the setup here, the bees and all. Maybe he actually did it the way Greg thinks he did, and then she had to kill him, to keep him from striking again.\"\n\n\"Good heavens!\" she cried. \"What for? Malik, I mean?\"\n\n\"David because he caught on to his being here. Sadie because he hated dogs. The bees because he wanted to worry Warren to death so Lois would inherit the plantation and he could step in and run it.\"\n\nGravely Constance nodded. \"And then Lois told him about her prenuptial agreement, that she won't inherit, after all, and he hit himself in the head, turned on the gas, lay down and died out of remorse. I'd buy that.\"\n\nCharlie scowled. \"What else did you hear?\"\n\nShe told him a few more things she had heard in town, mostly confirming what they both had already known. Wollander had this county in his pocket; it was hinted that he owned the sheriff, that he was the one who had made Greg Dolman stop operating a speed trap years ago, but that he had allowed it to go on until Greg had made a killing first.\n\n\"Your turn,\" Constance said finally.\n\n\"Not as much as you turned up,\" he said. \"An anonymous phone call to the zoning commission started the whole investigation from that department. Everything's in apple-pie order. No one knows if it was a male or female who called. Period. And no one even looked at this place for the past four years until the Zukals showed up. There was a little interest earlier, but nothing serious.\"\n\n\"That reminds me,\" Constance said. \"Apparently Sebastian has at least half a dozen rather wealthy patrons showing him real estate all over the county.\"\n\nCharlie grimaced. \"And one of them will buy a place for him, want to bet?\"\n\n\"No way. You know very well that I never bet.\"\n\nHe laughed outright and took her hand. \"Let's pay our respects to the Zukals and be on our way.\"\n\n\"You're not going to Wollander's house?\"\n\n\"Nope. If what Lois said is right, there's no point. Let him stew about it. Next time we talk, let him come to me.\"\n\nSylvie had one of her green kerchiefs tied on her red hair. She had on baggy pants and an orange-and-blue plaid shirt with the shirttails out. She was standing with her fists on her hips, glaring at Al on the porch, when Charlie and Constance reached the house.\n\n\"Charlie, tell him what they do when you shoot a deer out of season. Just tell Mr. Thick Skull, will you?\"\n\n\"Dear God,\" Constance breathed. \"Did you buy a gun, Al?\"\n\n\"What's this, a third degree, all of a sudden? I ain't got a right to have a gun?\"\n\n\"Did the deer keep you up all night?\" Constance asked him.\n\nAl gave her a suspicious look. \"Yeah. Lights go on, lights go off, on, off, all night. And you look out and it's like they're getting ready for Christmas or something, getting ready for the long ride.\" He looked at Sylvie with a scowl. \"I told you, I ain't going to shoot at them, just shoot and make a noise, scare the bejaysus out of them so they'll go have a meeting somewheres else. What's the crime? A man can't shoot a gun?\"\n\n\"All night,\" Sylvie said. \"You wouldn't believe it. All night. The lights go on and you look out and it's this monster with horns like this.\" She spread her arms wide. \"Just looking back at you. Red eyes. Like the devil in the movies, you know what I mean? Real red eyes. And just standing looking back. Like they own the world or something.\" She frowned in puzzlement. \"I thought deers was supposed to be scared of people.\"\n\nWhile Constance talked to Sylvie about deer and the hypnotizing effects of light, Charlie went with Al to inspect the gun, which turned out to be a twelve-gauge shotgun. He gave Al the name and address of an expert who would teach him to load it and how to shoot it, and extracted a promise that Al would not even try until he had instruction.\n\n\"Well,\" Constance said in the car, driving home again. \"If he does try to shoot that thing, it will buck and he'll think he's broken his shoulder. A shotgun!\" She glanced over at Charlie who was scowling at nothing in particular. \"Don't you have any ideas? This is giving me the willies.\"\n\nHis scowl deepened and he didn't even bother to answer.\n\nIn his dream Charlie was hiding bitter pills in bleu cheese and feeding them to Brutus, who gulped them down as fast as Charlie could prepare them. He woke up enough to hear rain and reluctantly got up to take care of the windows. He closed the bedroom door without a sound and dodged all three cats as he made his way through the house, checking windows. The cats always became manic if anyone got up at night or if anything unusual took place before breakfast. Ashcan wove in and out between his feet, and Brutus sniffed his ankles, his knees, and swatted Candy, and made a nuisance of himself. Then Candy and Ashcan raced after each other, and Brutus ambushed them both at the door to the dining room, and all of them wanted to go outside. If he was up, they forgot about their own swinging door that he had installed to end the doorman's job he had inherited somewhere along the line. Doorman to a bunch of dumb cats, was how he had put it then, and he repeated the phrase now as he stood with the door open, and they sniffed the air suspiciously, and then cursed him for making it rain.\n\nHe poured himself a bit of bourbon, added water, and went to the refrigerator for a piece of cheese, and Brutus was back inside at his feet magically, watching for a dropped crumb. He could move faster than thought if cheese fell, and he could hear the refrigerator door from anywhere in the yard, especially in the middle of the night. He could hear the can opener from the next county, Charlie thought sourly, dancing around the cat. Cues, Constance had said. He had learned all those cues and they were indelible in his brain, new synapses had been formed, and probably never would be erased again. At least, not without extensive counter-training.\n\nCharlie sat at the table and found that he was no longer thinking of the insatiable cat, but of Sadie, who also had learned cues. The trainer had transferred the cue to Sylvie, he was thinking. A word, maybe, or something in the introduction that let the dog know it was all right to take food from her new mistress. And in turn Sylvie could transfer a cue to Al. He remembered what she had said, they both had to handle the dish and food for a few days, and then Al could do it alone. Scent, Charlie decided. That cue was scent. Sylvie's scent had to be on the dish while the dog was learning to accept Al, too.\n\nHe nodded to himself. The rain stopped and the sky was lightening, not in a proper dawn because there was still too much overcast; he realized he did not really want the bourbon. He got up to make coffee instead. A moment later he caught a flash of movement as Brutus jumped on his chair and snapped up the pieces of cheese Charlie had left on the table. The cat streaked away as Charlie watched in resignation.\n\nA little after seven Constance stood in the doorway as Charlie moved about the kitchen muttering. Muttering in their house could mean either that the person speaking needed reminding that what was being said was unintelligible, and at those times it was okay to interrupt, to join in, to ask questions. The other muttering was different: it was not to be interrupted. Muttering at seven in the morning, alone in the kitchen, was definitely the other kind. He was making pancakes, his voice a soft rumble; the aroma of coffee was rich and irresistible. She entered the kitchen without a sound, and he looked at her with an almost blank expression and said, \"But why?\"\n\n\"I give. Why? What why?\"\n\n\"I think I know how someone got rid of Sadie, but Jesus, why? What was the point?\" He glanced at the clock on the stove. At seven-thirty he would call Brenda Ryan, and it was taking hours for the time to creep to that number. Several hours had passed since the last time he looked at the clock, two minutes ago.\n\nConstance blinked, and he grinned at her. \"I'll bring coffee, you sit.\" He poured a cup for her and brought it to the table where she was yawning. \"I'll pretend you're awake. Ready?\"\n\n\"In a second.\" She drank some of the coffee first, then nodded.\n\nAt nine-thirty they drove up to the Ryan Kennels. The sun had broken through the clouds and the morning was brilliant and pleasantly cool, fresh-smelling, sparkling with water droplets everywhere. The trembling drops looked as pure, sweet and life-giving as they were meant to be.\n\nBrenda Ryan was waiting for them. This morning she was wearing a bright-pink-and-white print dress, and pink earrings that looked like bracelets. Three hundred eighty pounds, Charlie thought, shaking her hand, no matter what she had told Sylvie. She had a very firm grip. A large black Labrador retriever was at her side. Brenda's fingers brushed the dog's head, and it began to wag its tail languidly, as if out of duty rather than interest.\n\n\"This is Duchess,\" Brenda said. \"And if you can get her to eat, I better go into another line of work.\"\n\n\"You held back part of her food this morning, so she'll have an appetite?\" Charlie asked, suddenly not quite as certain as he had been only moments ago. He was carrying a shopping bag.\n\n\"Sure did, but it wouldn't make any difference. I mean, most dogs will eat whenever food's available, hungry or not, unless they're really overfed. And I don't overfeed my dogs.\"\n\nFor a moment she looked as if she dared him to comment on that, but he pretended no automatic comment had come to mind, and he and Constance moved into the office, which instantly became very crowded.\n\nBrenda watched as he began to rummage in the bag. First he pulled out a plastic-wrapped package of latex gloves. He pulled on the thin rubber gloves without a word and felt inside the bag again. This time he took out a package that held a scarf. He handed it to her unopened.\n\n\"Would you mind taking out the scarf and tying it on your head a couple of minutes?\"\n\nShe hesitated, watching him through narrowed eyes, then shrugged, sending her patterned dress into a flurry of motion. Her hair was bouffant, curled, sprayed, dyed, with smells Duchess would recognize instantly, Charlie thought, hoped. He watched her put the scarf over her hair and tie it loosely. Next he took out a can of dog food, and finally a can opener.\n\nHe held up the can for her inspection. \"Gourmet dog food,\" he said, unnecessarily; she was already nodding at it. \"Just tell me this,\" he said, opening the can. \"Is there anything in particular that you do or say when you feed her?\"\n\n\"Nope. She's trained to stand back and wait, and then eat. Don't have to do anything more than put it down for her.\"\n\n\"Good. I was afraid there might be something else.\" The top came off, stuck to the magnetized opener. He put it on the desk. \"If it's going to work, that's probably time enough for the scarf,\" he said. \"Let's finish. I'll take it now.\"\n\nHis uncertainty was increasing by the second. Duchess had not shown so much as a flicker of interest at the sound of the can opener, or the malodorous contents of the can. Brutus would be climbing his head by now, Charlie thought gloomily. Brenda handed him the scarf and he spread it out on the desk and began to spoon dog food onto it. He put a few spoonfuls down and cast a doubtful look at the beast who sat there looking as inscrutable as a damn Buddha. Sighing, he wrapped the food enough to move it, and lowered it to the floor, and stepped away from it.\n\n\"Now, I guess we just wait,\" he said. \"You didn't give her a signal to sit still or anything, did you?\"\n\nBrenda was looking very interested now. She shook her head. \"She's waiting to see if I'm going to give her a signal. See her look at me?\"\n\nCharlie didn't see the dog move a muscle.\n\n\"If this works,\" Brenda said soberly, \"I'll have to change my methods, take it into account.\" She became silent now as Duchess began to shift.\n\nThe dog stood up, still apparently waiting for a sign, and when none was forthcoming, she ambled over to the food on the scarf and sniffed it with interest, then sniffed all around it, and back to the scarf again. Then she gulped it down in two bites. She licked her chops and sat down again.\n\n\"Goddamn it!\" Brenda muttered. \"I never thought of that. Of course, you'd have to have an in, get something that belonged to the owner, but even so, it's gotta be trained out. Goddamn it!\"\n\nCharlie looked at Constance who was smiling, more at his relief than at his victory. \"So now we know how,\" she said. \"But why?\"\n\nShe drove back. He talked.\n\n\"We made such a fundamental mistake,\" he said. \"The dish was found at the mill and we assumed that food had been put in it over there. Let's rethink the whole thing. Someone doctored the dog food and put it at the edge of the property. Sadie wouldn't have barked unless someone actually stepped over the line, and that wasn't necessary, after all. Just reach in and lay down the scarf with the food on it, then stand back and wait. You saw how that mutt wolfed down the food. Two bites and done. Then the poisoner reached in and grabbed the scarf back and was finished. David found the scarf and returned it to Sylvie. I'd guess he didn't realize until later what it meant. There could have been traces of the food on it as well as grease, or he could have seen someone with it earlier. He saw something, that's for sure. So he was next.\"\n\nHe became silent, brooding about it. Finally Constance said, \"Charlie, it doesn't make much sense, does it?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Well, killing David because of the dog poisoning, and then killing Earl Malik because of the bees. It just doesn't make sense. Neither of those things, killing a dog, or moving bees to the station wagon was a capital offense; a reprimand, a fine, that's all either warranted. Murder to prevent discovery is just too much. In each case the response to being found out was too great. It keeps getting muddled in my head. I mean, it seems to be what happened, but it's so senseless.\"\n\nShe was a good driver; when she needed to pay close attention she focused on the road and other traffic, then her thoughts were tightly contained. After the road was clear again, the other thoughts took precedence. It was an automatic process that she didn't question. Now traffic thickened a little and she passed a Grand Union truck, and a Honda, and a few minutes later she glanced at Charlie and started to speak. He was slouched in the passenger seat, his chin tucked in, a scowl on his face.\n\nShe held the words and looked straight ahead again. Beside her, Charlie stirred, and the words were in his head just as if they had been uttered. He grunted again, considering. They had made a second, more serious fundamental mistake.\n\nWarren Wollander was going over the several days' stack of accumulated mail with his secretary, Carla Mercer. Pleas for money; would he put in an appearance at a dinner for Representative Lorenzo; two committee meetings were coming up, an agenda was needed... a policy meeting in Washington... . Tiredly he rubbed his eyes when the phone rang. He motioned for her to take it, and he leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed.\n\n\"I'll ask,\" she said. \"It's Richard at the gate. He says Sebastian is out there and is asking permission to come in.\"\n\nWith a jerk Warren sat upright. \"Let him come in. And you can get started on that stuff. We'll continue this afternoon with the rest of it.\"\n\nShe spoke softly into the phone and hung up. She gathered up papers, checked around the desk, and left for her own office down the wide corridor, toward the rear of the house. Warren went to the window to watch for Sebastian.\n\nSebastian's car, a powder-blue Cadillac, came into sight at the exact spot where someone had vanished the night Jill had announced her pregnancy. He rubbed his eyes again, harder this time, as if to erase the memory that was filled with pain, and he walked through the study, through the hallway to the main house entrance, and admitted Sebastian before he had a chance to ring the bell.\n\n\"I would like to see Mrs. Ferris,\" Sebastian said.\n\n\"Come in. This way.\" Warren pushed the door shut and started back to the study. When Sebastian hesitated, he motioned with his hand. \"Come along.\"\n\nAt the study, he waited until Sebastian was inside, and then closed that door and stood at it. \"Sit down, if you'd like. This won't take long, but you may as well be comfortable.\"\n\n\"Mr. Wollander, I have no wish to take up your time. I really would like to see Jill.\" He remained standing in the middle of the room.\n\n\"I know. I'll call her in a minute.\" He studied Sebastian for another moment, then started walking slowly toward his desk. When he spoke again, his voice was machinelike, completely expressionless, as if he were reading from cue cards. \"Sebastian Pitkin. Boy evangelist. Petty thief. Trick knee that keeps you out of the army but permits you to sit in lotus. Married twice, divorced twice. One son, sixteen years old now. Expensive tastes and the ability to indulge them without any taxable income. Out of the country for seven years, never accounted for.\"\n\nNot a flicker of expression crossed Sebastian's face. He listened almost gravely, as if checking off the items against a list in his mind. When Warren stopped, Sebastian said, \"I would like to see Jill, if you please.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Warren had come to a stop at his desk. He moved around it and reached for the phone and paused once more with his hand on it. \"I have very little influence outside this state, but for various reasons a good deal inside it. Did you know that many IRS investigations arise from information gathered first at the state level?\" He picked up the phone and touched a button. The wait was brief. \"Jill, Sebastian is here, in my study. Will you come down, please?\"\n\nSebastian's expression continued imperturbable. Warren sat down and leaned back in his chair and neither said anything more until Jill entered.\n\n\"I came to see how you are,\" Sebastian said, studying her face intently. \"I was concerned about you.\"\n\n\"Well, as you see, I'm fine. In mourning, but okay.\"\n\n\"Are you doing your meditations? Are they helping?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Not really. That served its purpose, and I appreciate all you did for me, but I think I'm through with that now.\"\n\n\"Jill, you are the best student I've ever had. You have enormous promise. Don't let it slip away because of this tragedy. Let this experience strengthen you; find its meaning and grow from it.\"\n\n\"See it as opportunity?\" she said bitterly. \"Look, Sebastian, for a time I believed I could follow your path, but no longer. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"I have the name of a camp, up in the hills about an hour's drive, they tell me. It's a private camp that has come on the market. Go there with me, Jill. A ride up into the hills, a walk under the trees. We won't even have to talk if you prefer silence during this healing period. Silence brings its own power to heal the soul if you let it. And, yes, see it as opportunity to learn, to grow, to contemplate the absolute in a way that has never been available to you before, because you were not prepared before to face it.\"\n\nShe was moving restlessly about the room. She looked irritable and impatient when she took a breath and said, \"Leave me alone, Sebastian. I wish everyone would just leave me the hell alone.\"\n\n\"I know he had me investigated, and that he told you things that he learned, but, Jill, I already talked about those things in our group meetings. Think back. You know I already talked about those things. Each one, every mistake filled with pain and regret became an opportunity to grow. And we grow or we cease to exist. We all have things in our pasts that are better left behind. We talked about that, too, Jill. Remember?\"\n\nShe whirled around to face him. \"What are you saying?\"\n\n\"Only the truth.\"\n\n\"Well, listen to me, Sebastian! I don't have anything in my past that can hurt me now. Nothing! And I have no intention of helping you finance a school, or a church, or a camp, or even a barbecue! Now leave me alone!\" She ran from the room and slammed the door after her.\n\n\"You'd better go,\" Warren said in a flat voice.\n\nSebastian looked at him, then looked past him out the window. \"There is an image in my mind,\" he said softly, \"of a puppet master whose fingers drip venom that runs down the wires that control the puppets, and the puppets absorb the poison, more and more until they are sickened and die of it.\"\n\nHe turned and walked from the room. Warren swiveled in his chair to watch out the window until the blue Cadillac curved around the birch trees and disappeared. He felt chilled and there was a tightness in his chest that he hadn't felt since his heart attack five years ago. His hands were clenching the arms of his chair so hard that when he forced them away, they hurt.\n\nGradually the noises of the house and yard returned. The sound of a riding mower swelled and receded; he could hear the rustle of Mrs. Carlysle in the hall, and a door closing somewhere in the back of the house. Outside, birdsong that had been silenced by Sebastian's departure now resumed. Slowly he arose and walked out through the side hall, out into the yard where the overnight rain had refreshed everything. Two gardeners were at work in the flowerbeds where majestic delphiniums made a deep blue backdrop for golden irises, and masses of pink sweet Williams and carnations were intermingled with clouds of baby's breath. The lawn glistened with raindrops in the shade where it had not yet evaporated. So much beauty, he thought. So much beauty. He found himself standing under the oak tree that he thought of as his tree and he touched the bark almost tenderly. He wanted to wrap his arms around it as far as they would reach, press his cheek into the trunk, and weep.\nCHAPTER 16\n\nWHEN CONSTANCE CAME within sight of their house, she slowed down. A pale-blue Cadillac was in the drive and leaning against it was Sebastian.\n\n\"Well, well,\" Charlie murmured. \"Well, well.\"\n\nShe pulled into the driveway and stopped a short distance from the Caddy; Sebastian straightened up. He looked grim and very angry. \"Hi,\" she called pleasantly, getting out of the Volvo; she headed for the front door with her key in her hand.\n\n\"I want to talk to you,\" Sebastian said to Charlie.\n\n\"How'd you even find me?\" Charlie asked, following Constance.\n\n\"Jill said you lived around here somewhere. I asked at a gas station down the road. I said I want to talk to you. Do you mind?\"\n\n\"Well, of course not. Come on in.\" He looked at Sebastian with disbelief. \"You don't mean out here, do you?\"\n\n\"It will take just a second.\"\n\n\"In the house,\" Charlie said firmly and entered without glancing back again.\n\nConstance had gone on through to the sliding door to the patio which she opened, and then continued to the kitchen, moving around cats without paying any attention at all to them. Candy was complaining in a loud voice and Brutus was looking his slitty-eyed meanest. As soon as they saw a stranger, Candy streaked away, back through the cat door to make her escape, and Ashcan pretended he was a rug.\n\n\"Well, sit down,\" Charlie said to Sebastian, motioning toward a chair at the dinette table. \"Honey, you going to make coffee, or you want me to?\"\n\n\"I'm doing it. Or would you rather have tea, Sebastian?\"\n\n\"Neither one,\" he said. He did not sit down, but glared at Charlie, who did. \"I have a message for you to deliver to your boss, Wollander. Just tell him that if he, or anyone else, harasses me in any way, I have enough information to make life uncomfortable for him, and I'll not keep it to myself.\"\n\n\"You mean about that woman? What's-her-name?\" Constance asked from the kitchen end of the long room.\n\n\"That's what I mean. I'm sure he would prefer not to have everyone in the county looking at him with raised eyebrows the next time he presides at a committee meeting. Especially the one on ethics in government that he's so fond of.\"\n\n\"Gave you the bum's rush, did he?\" Charlie asked with interest. \"But Jill's still on your side, isn't she? I mean, she's of age and all.\"\n\nAbruptly Sebastian pulled out a chair and sat down. He looked uncomfortable, and for a moment Charlie wondered if he should offer him a cushion for the floor instead.\n\n\"Jill's completely dominated by him,\" Sebastian said. \"I didn't believe she would fall into that kind of trap again but he's controlling her; she's like a doll that he moves around here and there.\"\n\nThe fragrance of brewing coffee began to float around the room. Constance brought cups and saucers to the table, then cream and sugar. She talked as she moved about, almost as if absently, \"Of course, we can tell him that, but I don't see what difference it would make, do you, Charlie?\" Her back was turned when she paused, not really long enough for him to answer. She picked up the carafe and came back to the table with it. \"I mean if everyone already knows...\"\n\n\"Well, everyone doesn't know that he had a motive for killing David Levy,\" Sebastian said harshly. \"I can rake that over a few times and see how he likes it.\"\n\n\"Oh, really,\" Constance murmured, and now she sat down and poured coffee for them all. \"Do you take sugar? Cream?\"\n\nHe looked down at the cup before him in surprise, then back to her. She was smiling easily.\n\n\"Why don't you tell us about it?\" she said. She looked at Charlie with raised eyebrows and he nodded almost imperceptibly. \"You see, Sebastian, we aren't working for Mr. Wollander anymore. He fired us, I'm afraid. But we are working for Mr. Levy; we are investigating the death of David Levy.\"\n\nSebastian set his mouth in a tight line. He pushed back his coffee cup and seemed ready to leave.\n\n\"The sheriff is convinced that David's death was accidental overdose,\" Charlie said evenly. \"I'm convinced that it was murder. But the sheriff may have the last word. Again, I just don't see why Wollander would give a damn about what you think.\"\n\n\"The sheriff will say what the puppet master tells him to say. Wollander would go to any length necessary to prevent a word of scandal from touching his wife, and David had more than just a word. He had a whole history to talk about. That's motive enough.\" Now he stood up.\n\n\"Sit down,\" Charlie said sharply. \"Are you really so naive that you think you can get away with blackmail, especially with someone as powerful as Wollander?\" Sebastian didn't move. Charlie waved toward the chair, the coffee on the table. \"You'd better sit down,\" he said tiredly, \"and hear me out. You see, the natural response to your little blackmail threat is to say that you had even more motive. You wanted the property for yourself\u2014\"\n\n\"I didn't. I told you, Jill didn't have a cent. I wasn't expecting to get that property at any time.\"\n\n\"I know quite well what you told me. Now I tell you things. I said sit down, damn it! I'm getting a crick in my neck.\"\n\nSebastian's eyes were bulging more than ever, but he sat down, his face flushed, his hands clenched.\n\n\"Use your own method and relax,\" Charlie muttered. \"My God, you'd think I had a gun to your head. Relax, damn it. See, this is how Wollander could play it. David sees you and Jill together, maybe he even hears her telling you there's nothing she won't give you if you can help her get pregnant. And that means the mill property. Then the Zukals arrive and they have to be driven out again. First the dog, then David.\" He paused, then looked at Sebastian with a hopeful expression. \"By the way, you haven't come across a stray thermos, have you? David was missing one.\"\n\n\"No, I haven't. And you're stringing a line of BS and you know it.\"\n\n\"Oh well,\" Charlie said blandly, and continued. \"Anyway, the Zukals dig in, get their backs up, and another dirty little trick is called for, this time the bees in the station wagon. And this time a transient sees what's happening, and he has to get it, too. But now Jill has inherited a mint, and, no doubt, the Zukals will clear out, and the mill will be up for grabs again, but suddenly Jill's giving you the cold shoulder, telling you to get lost, and you want to retaliate by spreading dirt on the old man. That's how he'll play it, Sebastian. Believe me, I've seen the type many times, and that scenario will hold up. Yes indeed, it would work just fine. If anyone has to leave a tidbit here, another there to clinch it, I'd guess tidbits will be strewn around.\" He sighed and drank his coffee. \"And as you said, the sheriff will buy whatever he has to sell.\"\n\nSebastian's head began to shake from side to side, as if he had nothing to do with it, was not even aware of it. His lank hair swayed back and forth. His gaze remained fixed on Charlie, who had to turn away because it was too damn eerie, he decided.\n\n\"It wasn't like that,\" Sebastian said finally. \"It wasn't. She never even mentioned pregnancy until after Stanley was dead. I had no idea. She never promised me anything for anything. I was in the role of guide to meditation, nothing more than that. And she was a good student. That day at the mill was the only time we were ever alone together for more than a counseling session a few times at the house, where there were always others about. I have witnesses. He can't stick me with anything like that. I have too many witnesses.\"\n\n\"She seems to have found plenty of time to blab to you about the family, about David. Not in front of all those witnesses, I'd bet.\"\n\n\"No. Of course not. We had private counseling sessions. She was very disturbed in the beginning, very. She seemed to derive comfort, serenity even, from our sessions\u2014for a time, at least. She never had anyone to talk to before, not even her mother, certainly not her father or stepmother. She needed to talk to someone and I filled that role for her. She talked a lot about her father, how much she hated him, and the reasons. Good reasons, I can see now, but the emotion of hatred was harming her, truly harming her.\" He looked very earnest, very sincere. \"That emotion, hatred that fierce, does far more damage to the hater than to the one who is hated. I was teaching her that lesson.\"\n\nConstance got up and took away his coffee, which had become cold. She refilled the cup and brought it back and this time he lifted it and sipped.\n\n\"So Wollander found out that David knew something about Lois and might tell it out of turn,\" Charlie said. \"Is that it then? Just that? Will you keep adding more details as needed?\"\n\n\"What more?\" Sebastian took a deep breath. \"From what Jill has said about her father, that was more than enough, Mr. Meiklejohn.\"\n\n\"Just Charlie,\" he said, then added with a grin, \"Doesn't have quite the same ring as when you say 'Just Sebastian,' but it's the best I can do. And, no, that isn't enough, not even for a man like Wollander. What's the rest of it?\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" Sebastian said. \"I'll tell him myself.\"\n\n\"I doubt it. You had a chance and blew it. Don't be an ass now. You wanted us to do your dirty work for you. Pass the word that you're talking to people, no matter about what, just talking. He would then go to Jill and ask what you could possibly know that gives you any clout, and she would stew and steam over it, and maybe even come up with an item or two, and then the high and mighty Mr. Wollander would treat you with respect. Or at least leave you alone. But, you see, Sebastian, you're playing in a new league here, a new game, new players, and you don't know the rules they play by. You don't even know the name of the game. It's Put the Bugger in His Place.\" He stood up lazily and stretched. \"I'm afraid, Sebastian, old buddy, that you've been used, and now you're being sent packing. Just the way it goes.\" He smiled kindly at him. \"And you know very well that I won't help you in a blackmail or extortion scheme, now don't you?\"\n\nSebastian glared at him and pushed himself up from the table. \"Try this one, then,\" he said harshly. \"Who was the man Lois Wollander was keeping on the side in the trailer court? Does the whole world know about that little affair?\" He stalked from the room, with Charlie close behind. Constance began to clear the table.\n\n\"I wonder just how much about that he actually knows,\" she said when Charlie returned, grinning.\n\n\"Remember that question we asked about Sebastian back in the beginning?\" he said. \"I've got my answer. How about you?\"\n\nShe tilted her head, considering, and then said, \"I think we probably agree. Poor man,\" she murmured. \"He's trying so hard to keep his toe in the door. You really shook his tree for him, and you offered no comfort at all to soften it.\"\n\n\"Hah! That's my mission for today, shake trees, see which nuts come tumbling out. And as for him, he tried to put the bite on the wrong woman, that's his problem. And Daddy came to the rescue. I'll give Pete Mitchum a call now.\"\n\nThree times Charlie had had to tell Pete, nothing yet, still working on it. The boy's disappointment had been hard to take each time. Mr. Levy's disappointment had been much harder on the two occasions that Charlie had returned calls from him. Soon, he thought, soon.\n\n\"Nothing definite yet,\" Charlie said to Pete when he appeared a few minutes later. \"I could use some help, though.\"\n\nPete nodded with enthusiasm. \"Whatever I can do, Mr. Meiklejohn.\" Although he had been disappointed, his faith was undiminished.\n\nConstance brought a plate of cookies and a can of soda. Now and then she made Scandinavian delicacies that her grandmother had spoiled her and her sisters with, and she always gave most of them to the Mitchum boys. Too much butter, too much cholesterol for Charlie, who could stand to lose a few pounds, she thought, but she didn't nag about it. Instead, she made the special cookies that he loved and let him have a few, and gave the rest away. And the reason, she knew, was the way the boy was looking at Charlie at that moment. Charlie pretended not to notice that the Mitchum boys had a serious case of hero worship, and he harrumphed if she hinted at it, but there it was. Fortunately he had never said anything like give me a hand, will you, or one of them might well have run for a saw.\n\n\"What I want is four or five guys about your size,\" Charlie was saying, opening the map he had found in Malik's trailer. Pete Mitchum stood five inches taller than Charlie, and his brothers were just as tall and broad. He nodded with a serious expression now that they had got down to business.\n\n\"Here's Spender's Ferry, out the county road here to the farm,\" Charlie said, pointing. \"And the mill property. Now, as soon as you cross this bridge, all the land on the left is state forest.\" He traced the curvy road, and then stopped. \"And this is the Wollander driveway, in about ten feet from the fence here. State forest on the other side of the fence.\" He pulled out a felt-tip pen and drew a wavy line on the map, the boundary, and then drew in the Wollander driveway. \"Along about here, I think, is a clump of birch trees that will be your guide. The driveway turns just past the trees and goes on to the house. I want you guys to start at the county road, on the state forest side, and search the woods from the fence on in for about three hundred feet, from the county road on past the birch trees another thirty feet. It's a lot of ground to cover.\"\n\n\"Naw, it's not that much,\" Pete said. \"What are we hunting for, Mr. Meiklejohn?\"\n\nCharlie glanced at Constance. \"I'm looking for a thermos,\" he said. \"And you might not find anything at all, but I want a good show of a bunch of guys searching. Carry big bags, wear gloves, pick up anything and everything that doesn't belong in the woods, even beer cans. Now, someone will probably come over to see what you're up to, and just tell them you're working for me, and you're searching for a thermos. You might even find a thermos, but I don't want you to fix your mind on that. Chances are you won't find it. If you do find one, don't open it, just chuck it in the bag and keep on searching until you cover the area. Got it?\"\n\n\"Yes sir!\" He looked like a horse at the starting gate.\n\nCharlie thought for a second. \"It could be that the sheriff or a deputy will come along and order you to leave. Don't argue. Just tell them you're working for me, and that you're on state land and have a right to be there. Tell them where I am, at the Zukal place, if they want to talk about it. If they insist that you leave, do it. Bring your loot over to the Zukal place. I'll be there.\"\n\n\"What if they try to take the bags away from us?\"\n\n\"Well, don't let them,\" Charlie said mildly. \"One of the things you'll have to have is a whistle. Use it if they want to steal your loot. I'll come running. But I doubt it will come to that.\"\n\nPete looked ecstatic. \"They won't get it away from us, Mr. Meiklejohn. Don't worry about that.\"\n\n\"Okay, I won't. Now, about time. It will take you a while to gather your forces, round up the bags, the whistle, gloves. Do you think you can have it ail together by four?\"\n\n\"Yes sir!\"\n\n\"Good. When you finish, come over to the Zukals' and leave the bags, and you're done.\"\n\nCharlie watched Pete cross the yard at a run. When he reached the fence this time he didn't bother to climb it; he put one hand on top and vaulted over as easily as a deer.\n\n\"One more little chore, and then lunch, and then off to the wilderness to shake a few more trees.\" He grinned at Constance, who looked up from cutting dense wheat bread. She already had roast beef out, and lettuce, and other good things, he saw with approval.\n\nHe dialed the Wollander house. Carla Mercer, Wollander's secretary, answered on the second ring.\n\n\"Charlie Meiklejohn,\" he said. \"I'd like to speak with Mrs. Carlysle, please.\"\n\nThere was a pause on the other end, and then she said, just a moment; he nodded in satisfaction when he heard a click on the line. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and silently formed the words: \"They're taping it.\"\n\nHe waited almost two minutes before Mrs. Carlysle's tentative voice said hello.\n\n\"Mrs. Carlysle, this is Meiklejohn,\" he said in a brisk voice. \"I need some information that I think you can help me with. Would it be convenient if I drop over at about one, or one-thirty?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I couldn't. I mean, I'm working. What is it?\"\n\n\"Not over the phone, please. It won't take more than a minute or two, I assure you. And it has nothing to do with you personally.\" She made a throat-clearing kind of sound which he ignored. \"I don't want to bother the family anymore and I believe you can tell me what I need to know. About one, then. I'll come around to the kitchen.\" He hung up, and looked over at Constance. \"Is it lunch yet?\"\n\nAt one-twenty-five he and Constance walked from the woods onto the Wollander lawn. Since he had planned to make them wait until almost one-thirty, he was satisfied with his timing. He was humming under his breath.\n\n\"I think we have a reception committee,\" Constance said softly.\n\n\"Pretend you don't notice.\"\n\nWarren Wollander and Lois were on the patio watching them all the way. Warren moved stiffly to the edge of the flagstones as they drew near.\n\n\"I want to talk to you,\" he said.\n\nIt sounded to Charlie much more like an order than an invitation. \"I have some business with your housekeeper, and then I'll be on my way,\" he said pleasantly.\n\n\"I don't think you have any business with anyone in this house. And I don't want to broadcast what I have to say. Will you come up here, please.\"\n\nStill not a real invitation, Charlie thought with regret. He shrugged, and he and Constance changed course and headed for the patio. \"All I really want to know is who hauls your trash away, and to where,\" he said, still on the lawn a few feet away. \"I thought the housekeeper was the logical one to tell me.\"\n\nLois was staring at him in bewilderment. \"Why?\" She looked as if she had not slept enough for a month, and the effects were ravaging. There were hollows under her eyes and she was very pale.\n\nWarren gave her a sharp look and she sat down abruptly in a chaise. Charlie could imagine the scene that must have taken place a short time ago: Warren in his good, gruff, masculine voice saying, \"I'll handle this. You just keep still.\"\n\n\"I'm still on the trail of that missing thermos,\" Charlie said with a shrug. \"The way I figure it, David had to take the pills somehow, and it could be that he dissolved them in lemonade and did it that way. But then, where is the thermos? See? If it turns up in a landfill somewhere with traces of quaalude and barbiturates, then we'll know, won't we?\"\n\n\"You're still harping on that?\" Warren said in disbelief. \"My God, everyone else is satisfied that it was an accidental overdose. What I want to tell you, Meiklejohn, is that I am convinced, as is the sheriff, that the culprit was that transient in the apartment. We're both satisfied that nothing more is to be done except get on with life now. I don't want you nosing around here any more. You are no longer in my employ, and if you enter this property again, you will be treated as a common trespasser. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Wollander,\" Charlie said, looking past Wollander, \"was that thermos you bought a regular, glass-lined one, or stainless steel?\"\n\n\"Just a regular one, glass lining, I guess.\" Her voice rose. \"Are you going to search the landfill? For a thermos?\"\n\n\"If it comes to that. First the woods. I thought of the lake, but an empty thermos would float, you see, so I gave that up. I thought that if David took it with him when he swam that morning, he could have left it at the edge of the water, but someone would have spotted it, either there, or floating around.\" He was pointedly ignoring Warren Wollander, who was livid with fury now. Charlie gazed across the lake. \"I'm hiring a few of the workers to put in some overtime, after-hours, to search the farm. Eventually I may have to tackle the landfill.\"\n\n\"There could be a dozen such thermos bottles in the landfill!\" Warren Wollander said harshly. \"You're wasting your time, and right now you're wasting mine. Get out, Meiklejohn.\"\n\n\"I know there could be others,\" Charlie said. \"And we'll haul every damn one in for laboratory examination. You realize how hard it is to hide something if people make a determined effort to find it? Very hard, Mr. Wollander. Very hard.\"\n\nLois had risen, and was gazing at the lake also. Hesitantly she said, \"It could be in there. At the bottom. If he didn't put the cap back on, it would fill with water and sink.\" She looked at her husband. \"I think we should call in someone to make a search of the lake. If they find it in there, that will pretty much settle it. Then we'll know.\"\n\n\"I already have someone lined up,\" Charlie said. \"But that's good reasoning. I don't think you leave the cap off myself, because you might lose it, but it's possible. If nothing turns up at the farm, or in the woods, bright and early tomorrow morning you'll see people in the lake. Even if it's in the water, filled with water, there probably will still be traces of the drugs. It doesn't take much to show up in a good lab with good technicians. I have them lined up, too.\"\n\n\"I won't tolerate this,\" Warren said. \"I won't have people here in the lake.\"\n\n\"But the Zukals will,\" Charlie said easily. \"I looked it up in the county records. They have as much right to the lake and what goes on with it as you do. And my people will enter through their property, not yours. Are you going to give me the name of your trash collector, or do I have to do that the hard way, too?\"\n\n\"Get out of here!\" Warren turned and stamped back inside the house. After a moment, Lois followed him.\n\n\"She looks dreadful,\" Constance said in a low voice as they retraced their steps across the lawn.\n\nCharlie shrugged. His face was set in hard lines, his eyes were flinty, like chips of coal. \"Let's go see Bosch,\" he said.\n\nConstance felt chilled. This was how he had become just before they both retired: hard, merciless, finally showing as little sympathy for the victim as for the criminal. The fact that he had become like this was what had made her declare an ultimatum: He had to quit the force, or she would leave him. It came back over him from time to time, that unswerving, unpitying coldness that once had threatened their marriage, threatened everything in her life that she cared about. When he turned into this kind of iceman, the chill extended out from him to enwrap her.\n\nIn fact, Charlie was not thinking of Lois at that moment, nor of Constance, either. That order, \"Get out of here!\" reverberated in his head. All his years on the force, as a fireman, an arson investigator, a city detective, he had been subordinate to men with power just like that, power to decide when to prosecute, when to plea bargain, when to persist, when to call off everything. The power to order, \"Get out of here!\" and never have to look back to see that they were obeyed. You stay with it long enough, something rubbed off on you, he had come to understand finally. Something that couldn't be washed away. Not as simple as hatred, or contempt, not necessarily corruption. But something rubbed off that lingered, that made you see them all as pieces moving in an insane game\u2014the politicians, prosecutors, judges, cops, those who lashed out and those who were lashed, victimizers, victims, all players in the same hellish game. Each and every one of them willing to do whatever it took to survive the game. Even him, Charlie knew, and the knowledge filled him with icy fury, because he wanted, needed, a world built on sanity and reason and law, and they, the ones who made the game rules, had destroyed it, and had forced him to participate in the destruction. By the time you were smart enough to realize that something had rubbed off, you were a bona fide member of the wrecking crew, and the stain, the something, had penetrated right down to the bone marrow.\n\nWith those few words, Get out of here! Wollander had established his place in the game, Charlie's place, Lois's, everyone's. Those few words had caused to surface a deeper bitterness than Charlie had experienced for a long time.\n\nHe felt Constance take his hand, and then squeeze it hard, and he looked at her with surprise.\n\n\"Nothing,\" she said. \"Onward. Let's go shake Clarence Bosch's tree.\"\n\nCharlie grinned at her, but it was superficial. It did not touch his eyes. His eyes looked like dull chips of stone.\n\n\"Look, Dr. Bosch,\" Charlie said a few minutes later, \"I don't give a shit if you like it or not. I want to hire your people. If I can't, then I'll bring in outsiders. I'll get a court order if I have to, but I want the search made today.\"\n\nThey were standing outside the admin building. Bosch was grayer than ever, more troubled than ever. \"Do you have any idea of what all this nonsense is doing to us? Do you? We're weeks behind schedule. Weeks! I told you my caretaker here found nothing. Nothing!\"\n\nFrom the corner of his eye Charlie could see Tom Hopewell approaching, not in a big rush, but covering the ground. \"Did you get a look at that man in the apartment?\"\n\nBosch shook his head. \"No. I looked in the window, but he was just a man on the floor.\"\n\n\"How long have you known about Lois Wharton, who she is?\"\n\nBosch looked startled. He glanced at Tom who was only a dozen yards away, and motioned him not to come closer. In a low voice he said, \"I won't have you dragging any of that into this mess, Meiklejohn! That's uncalled for. It has nothing to do with anything here and now. Lois Wharton is a brilliant scientist, doing brilliant work, and that's all I intend to say on that matter.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you mention that you left town for your daughter's wedding late the morning that David died?\"\n\n\"Oh, my God, what are you driving at? I didn't conceal it. It simply never came up.\"\n\n\"I bet.\" Charlie waved to Tom Hopewell to join them. Brusquely he said, \"I'm hiring some of your workers here to search this end of the farm when they knock off for the day. Any objections?\"\n\n\"What the hell for?\" Tom Hopewell demanded.\n\nWhy didn't he buy some new jeans? Charlie thought irritably. He was tired of these worn-out clothes, worn like a badge of merit, a symbol of his dedication to work, his un-awareness of the amenities.\n\n\"If David took pills dissolved in lemonade, he might have left his thermos at the edge of the lake, or he might have dropped it on his way back to his apartment. I want a thorough search made of the grass at the lakefront on this side, and through the undergrowth from the lake to the apartment units. Understood?''\n\nTom Hopewell blinked, and Clarence Bosch raised his eyes beseechingly toward the sky. Bosch said, \"You know how much area you're talking about? The whole side of the lake?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Do you know precisely where he went in, where he came out? Do you know precisely where he might have sat down to take a drink? Or the exact path he followed back to his place? The whole damn side!\" Grimly he added, \"If we don't find it today, I'm sending in divers tomorrow to search the whole damn lake bottom!\"\n\n\"Jesus God,\" Bosch whispered in despair. \"Let's get them started and get it over with. For God's sake!\" He looked at Tom Hopewell. \"Tell Henry, let them do it now, for God's sake.\" He reentered the admin building.\n\nTom Hopewell looked at Charlie, then at Constance bitterly. \"This is a damn fucking mess. Come on, meet Henry Tremont.\"\n\nWhen they returned to the Zukals' house, Al and Sylvie were both yelling at a strange man, who was dressed in olive-drab shirt and trousers. A red slash insignia was on his shirt pocket. \"I don't care! I don't want no deers looking me in the eyes all night. You can't fix them lights so no deers set them off, what good are they?\" Sylvie was screaming. Al was saying, an octave lower, but more menacingly, \"I think youse guys loused it up so we'd buy more of your fancy systems. Systems! Systems to get dough!\"\n\n\"You're from Frederick's Security?\" Charlie asked the man who was very red in the face.\n\n\"What's the matter with these people? They nuts or something?\"\n\n\"Al, I've been thinking about your problem,\" Charlie said soothingly. \"Let me talk to the man, okay? I'm Meiklejohn,\" he said. \"You?\"\n\n\"Bergman. Carl.\"\n\nCharlie took his arm and steered him toward the mill.\n\nAl hesitated, started to follow, hesitated again. \"Leave them alone!\" Sylvie said. \"Let Charlie take care of it, like he said. You deaf or something?\"\n\n\"Sylvie, could I have a drink of water?\" Constance asked then.\n\n\"Water? Hell, we can do better than that for you,\" Al said in evident relief that he had an excuse for not following Charlie. \"A beer? Vodka? Even coffee. I say a beer would go all right. Come on in.\"\n\nA few minutes later, when Charlie joined them in the kitchen, Constance was pouring freshly brewed coffee over a tall glass of ice cubes. \"And that's all there is to it,\" she was saying. \"Once when I ordered iced coffee the waiter brought me a steaming cup of coffee with a single ice cube melting away in it.\"\n\nThey all looked at Charlie. \"Al, Sylvie, I guarantee that no deer will keep you awake tonight,\" he said. \"And, Al, if you have another beer, that sure would go down just right.\"\nCHAPTER 17\n\nA FEW MINUTES AFTER four Greg Dolman arrived. Charlie watched him leave his sheriff's car and walk toward the Zukal house, stiff with anger. The trouble with Greg, Charlie thought, was that he looked like a bookkeeper, not a lawman. Or even a preacher, he decided; Greg would look at home at the pulpit. Not a fire-and-brimstone type, but the soft-spoken, even mournful type who suffered over the sins of his congregation, and frequently told them so.\n\nCharlie leaned against the porch railing, his arms crossed, a slight smile on his face as he imagined Greg sadly exhorting the sinners to sin no more. \"Afternoon,\" he said.\n\n\"What the hell are you up to?\"\n\n\"Just leaning against a porch rail, taking life easy.\"\n\n\"You're messing with the wrong people, Meiklejohn. I told you\u2014\"\n\n\"Is that the sheriff?\" Sylvie yelled from inside the house. She, Al, and Constance trailed out to the porch. \"I want to know what's the good of having a sheriff who don't do no sheriffing,\" Sylvie said. And Al said, \"We think, Mr. Sheriff, you don't look too hard when it don't suit you. Charlie here, me, and Sylvie, we don't think that tramp carried no bees nowhere.\"\n\n\"I don't give a damn what Charlie thinks,\" Greg snapped.\n\nCharlie lifted an eyebrow and glanced at Constance. \"I think we should take a little walk, Greg. Constance, you want to come along?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"This won't take too long,\" Charlie said to Al and Sylvie. \"Greg? Let's wander down this way a bit.\"\n\nThey walked toward the mill. The sound of workmen had diminished, and the numbers were down now, but there were still several of them coming and going. Today, a Con Ed truck was parked near the mill between a van and a pickup.\n\n\"What the devil are they doing now?\" Greg muttered.\n\n\"Looking it over to see if the waterwheel is in good shape, looking over the dam, the sluice gate, things like that,\" Charlie said. \"This is going to be a working establishment very soon now, it seems.\"\n\nWhen they were past the mill, on the edge of the property overlooking the lake\u2014which appeared bluer than ever\u2014Charlie stopped. Briefly he wondered if the acid content of the recent rain had already affected the lake. How blue could it get? He glanced at the sheriff and said, \"Greg, there's a murderer running around doing murderous things, and I intend to get him. I take it the boys have shown up by now in the woods, and that Wollander sent you over to give me a warning. Right?\"\n\n\"Charlie, do you have a shred of proof? Do you have anything better than the scenario I have? If you do, unload it, and then let's talk.\"\n\nCharlie shook his head. \"The problem as I see it,\" he said in a meditative way, \"is that I'm not real sure who you're working for. I mean, is it the Zukals? Then why didn't you find out who killed their dog, and who's been making life hell for them? Is it the public at large? Then why didn't you go after David Levy's killer? Is it Wollander? If it is, then anything I say will end up on his table, and that would put a crimp in my plans.\"\n\nA vein throbbed in Greg Dolman's temple, and his face became redder. \"If you have information, it's your duty to tell me,\" he grated. \"And if you don't cooperate, I'll go after your license. And you know I can take it if you're playing games with me.\"\n\n\"And you haven't answered my question,\" Charlie murmured. \"You see, what I thought I might do is contact Captain See at the state police detective bureau. I've known him for more than twenty years; we used to work together back in the city now and then. Good man, See.\"\n\n\"You're trying to blackmail me!\" Greg Dolman cried in disbelief.\n\n\"Gentle persuasion,\" Charlie protested. \"I've had a lot of role models around here these past few days. Wollander's washed up, Greg. Did you know that?\"\n\nThe sheriff snorted and jammed his hands down into his pockets.\n\n\"Oh, he probably would deny it himself, but that's the way it is. He's bowing out voluntarily, he thinks, but actually I think his days are numbered by forces even bigger than he is. Writing his memoirs, I hear.\"\n\nA new intentness stilled Greg. He glanced from Charlie to Constance.\n\nShe said, \"You remember when Eisenhower retired, Greg? He gave this impassioned warning about the industrial-military complex. Rather like biting the hand, don't you think? And Admiral Rickover? He did about the same kind of thing when he retired, a dire warning about the dangers of nuclear submarines, nuclear weapons of all sorts. This seems so common, doesn't it? The insider who gets out so often has an overwhelming desire to tell all. Educators do it, preachers do it, politicians. Even actors.\"\n\nShe gazed thoughtfully at the quiet lake. \"Funny, isn't it? When they start to tell about whatever it is they are leaving, they don't seem to stop. They go all the way.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you. He wouldn't bow out, no matter what. The game he's playing is the only game he knows.\"\n\n\"But he's tired of it,\" Charlie said quietly. \"Too many upstarts. The New Age politicians probably turn him off. Managerial types with their clipboards, spin-control specialists, four-second sound bites. It's not his game any longer, and he knows it. And he knows a lot of other things, too. He's been around a long time.\"\n\nVery softly Constance said, \"Think about the little remarks you must have heard in the past few years, the never-confirmed rumors you must have heard. Probably you didn't want to have to think too much about them, but I suspect they're floating around. Aren't they?\"\n\nHe looked at her sourly. \"There are always rumors.\" He turned to Charlie. \"For Christ's sake, what are you after? Give me something.\"\n\n\"A killer. I told Wollander the same thing. I simply want him to leave me alone to do my work. If I ask his wife a question I don't want his answer. Or the housekeeper, or the daughter. And I want to know that if I tell you anything, it stays with you. I don't want him second-guessing my every movement. And I sure as hell don't want you getting his permission every step along the way.\"\n\nGreg Dolman looked meaner than ever, his eyes little more than slits. \"Not enough, Charlie. He says you're after a thermos, guys searching the woods over there, people searching the farm on this side. Hell, it's all over town, that you're after a thermos. Why the thermos? Tell me something I don't know about the thermos.\"\n\n\"It's the key to the mystery,\" Charlie said, and if Greg Dolman heard the undercurrent of mockery in his voice, he gave no sign of it. \"If we find it in the right place, it'll mean David Levy probably took the drugs himself. If it turns up in the wrong place, it'll prove murder. See what I mean? The key.\"\n\nGreg Dolman's indecision was painful to watch. He glared at Charlie with an expression of near-hatred. Abruptly he faced away. \"Beat it, both of you. I have to think.\"\n\n\"But not too long, Greg. It's going to be you or Danny See. I want an official lawman around if the thermos turns up. Wouldn't like to be accused of rigging the sails the wrong way. Know what I mean? We'll be up at the house.\" Charlie took Constance's hand, and they left Sheriff Greg Dolman standing near the swinging bridge staring out at nothing in particular.\n\n\"Charlie,\" Constance said as they walked back, \"did you ever really work with Danny See?\"\n\n\"We need definitions,\" he began.\n\n\"I thought not.\"\n\n\"Dolman doesn't know one way or the other and the very thought of bringing in the state police makes him ache in a place he can't reach with ointment. But Danny did come to town a couple of times, you know. He took some workshops in investigating arson. It just happens that I conducted a couple of them. So there.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I wonder if Greg fully realizes that he's between the rock and the hard place.\"\n\n\"He does now. Bet he'll be back in half an hour, and then he'll hang around like an attached shadow. Bet?\"\n\n\"You know I won't. Besides, why do you suggest a bet only when you know you'll win?\"\n\n\"Because I hate to lose,\" he said with complete honesty.\n\nConstance looked through picture albums with Sylvie and made all the right comments about the pretty daughters and beautiful grandchildren. Her comments were true, it was a handsome family. And Al and Charlie played the \"Did you know X?\" game. It had turned out that Charlie was on a special investigative force during the period that the Bronx was burning most fiercely, the time that the butcher shop Al's father had started was burned out.\n\n\"Did you know Mort Wurstman? Over on Trinity?\" Al asked.\n\n\"Yep, and the son Dooley.\"\n\n\"A bad one, Charlie. Real bad. Got sent up.\"\n\n\"I know. I was part of the crew that sent him.\"\n\n\"Really? Good job, but it shoulda been done years before. Did you know Sal Maldane?\"\n\n\"The hock shop? Sure. He's okay.\"\n\n\"Yeah, for a hock-shop guy. He got burned out, too.\"\n\n\"Prettiest case of arson you could ever hope to see.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Thought you said he was okay.\"\n\n\"Doesn't mean he can't light a fire, now does it? He is okay.\"\n\nThen the sheriff came back, still glowering, but his mind made up. \"You hanging out here these days?\" he asked Charlie meanly.\n\n\"Until the boys get through and bring the stuff over. And the people at the farm check in. Want some dinner after that?\"\n\n\"Yeah. And talk. Especially talk.\"\n\nTom Hopewell arrived first with Henry Tremont, who looked a bit like a tree himself, brown and tough. No sign of a thermos on the farm grounds, he said truculently, and he'd swear to that.\n\nCharlie thanked him nicely, and asked Tom, \"Will people be around at the farm for a while?\"\n\n\"Are you kidding?\" Hopewell said fiercely. \"Most of the night is more like it. I tell you, we are running a little bit behind, like three weeks behind by my figuring.\"\n\nHenry Tremont seemed to plant his feet even more firmly, and cleared his throat. \"Dr. Bosch,\" he said deliberately, \"he don't like the idea of people coming and going all night, taking bees, getting in the apartments, and such. We're putting on a couple of extras at night for the next week or so.\" He said this as if it implied a warning to Charlie, who nodded gravely.\n\nThen several cars pulled into the driveway; Tom Hopewell and Henry Tremont stalked away, and Pete Mitchum and his friends spilled out of the cars and expanded like foam monsters released from too-small boxes. Pete shook his head in regret, no thermos, and Charlie said that was all right. He said hi to Pete's two brothers and was introduced to the three boys he did not know. He introduced them all around, and it was obvious that they didn't want to leave, but he thanked them nicely, too, and sent them away. They had deposited four plastic garbage bags on the lawn before the front porch.\n\n\"We had witnesses to it all,\" Pete said before he left. \"Sheriff deputies stayed right with us the whole time.\"\n\nCharlie grinned. \"I thought they might.\"\n\nPete grinned even broader. \"I thought that's what you thought,\" he said in triumph. He swung around and returned jauntily to his old Ford that he kept looking spiffy.\n\nCharlie regarded the bags, and shrugged. \"Might as well have a look,\" he said. \"I bummed a tarp from the carpenters.\" He spread the clear plastic tarp on the ground. Al helped position it and weight it down with rocks, and then Charlie emptied the first bag. About what he had expected: mostly beer cans, a few soda-pop cans, a few bottles. A beret. A leather glove that had started to mildew. Sodden newspapers. He used a stick to push stuff to one side as he went through it all. Nothing of interest. Greg Dolman held the garbage bag open and Charlie and Al lifted the tarp and dumped the stuff back in and tied it. The next bag had a syringe with a rusty needle, partly dirt-filled, and a broken Swiss Army knife in addition to miscellany much like that in the first bag. There were many spent shells; hunters made use of that land in season. The third bag was more of the same. Two condoms, and a string of dime-store beads, and a little silver-colored pillbox were among the junk. Charlie pushed the pillbox to one side with the stick, and Constance picked it up carefully by the edges, using a tissue. The fourth bag had nothing to interest Charlie.\n\n\"What's that?\" Greg motioned toward the silver box that Constance had put on the porch rail.\n\nCharlie was through and all the trash was again packaged up. He looked at the pillbox without touching it. \"You have any gear in your car?\" he asked. \"Might as well check for prints. Probably aren't any, but let's give it a go.\"\n\nGreg went to his car and returned with a fingerprint kit. There were only smudges, worthless. Charlie picked up the box then and turned it over thoughtfully. \"Real silver,\" he said. \"It's just beginning to tarnish.\"\n\n\"That's too small to hold dope,\" Greg said.\n\n\"I know.\" The box was only an inch and a half on the side, and about a quarter-inch deep. Charlie opened it, empty, and then slipped it into his pocket. \"It's a pretty little thing.\" He stretched. \"Let's leave these people in peace for now,\" he said. \"Al, Sylvie, thanks for the use of your place. See you later.\"\n\nGreg Dolman followed Charlie and Constance to the Volvo. \"Now where are you going? Is that it for today?\"\n\n\"Dinner,\" Charlie said firmly. \"Remember? We take you to dinner? I suggest you follow in the police car, or do you want to ride with us?\"\n\n\"I'll follow,\" he said. \"Where?\"\n\n\"I spotted a roadhouse about ten miles out of Spender's Ferry. Don't know a thing about it, but that's where we're headed.\"\n\n\"Now,\" Greg Dolman said in the roadhouse. They were seated in a booth with drinks before them.\n\n\"Now,\" Charlie agreed, studying Greg thoughtfully. He knew Constance didn't trust the sheriff any more than he did, but she had said sensibly, \"What choice does he have but to go along with it?\" Charlie wished he knew.\n\n\"First,\" he said finally, \"I'll want you to stick closer than a tick the rest of the night. Deal?\"\n\nGreg flushed a deep red, but nodded.\n\n\"I don't want any alarms going off, or any of those private security people nosing around. You, as a representative of the law, can handle them if they do turn up. Okay?\" Again the sullen nod. \"Okay. I've been all over the place today baiting a trap, and I'm pretty sure that it will be sprung tonight. Late tonight. I'll want you, or someone, to be there.\"\n\n\"Tell me what you're up to, Charlie. No games; no puzzles, just what you're up to.\" Greg took a swallow of his bourbon, straight up, and added, \"You know I cut loose today, damn you. Wollander suggested I talk to you and let him know what you were doing. Well, I haven't gone back since. So, I guess you could say I'm committed.\" He sounded very depressed.\n\n\"Right. All day I've been broadcasting my belief that David Levy was drugged by the contents of his thermos. And the thermos is missing. That you already know. Everyone in the damn county must know it by now. I made it plain that if the thermos doesn't turn up in the lake, or on the edge of it, or on his route back to his apartment, it will prove beyond a doubt that he was murdered, and the investigation will go forward. But if it does turn up, I'll have to accept that he probably did it to himself. I think everyone concerned with this mess wants it over with, wants me to accept that David killed himself accidentally.\"\n\nGreg scowled. \"Goddamn it, Charlie, what if the damn thermos is in the lake? Then what?\"\n\n\"It isn't. Not yet anyway. I think someone will make an attempt tonight to put it there.\"\n\n\"Oh shit,\" Greg said in a low voice, disgusted and discouraged. \"You're fishing. You don't have anything, do you? You've been around, Charlie. You know there's people you don't play mind games with.\"\n\nHe was not even questioning his own acceptance of the game rules, Charlie knew, and Charlie understood without a doubt the process Greg Dolman was going through; looking inward, searching for his own way out of this predicament, probably examining the words he would recite to Wollander. Brusquely Charlie said, \"When I walked away from NYPD, I walked away from those people who like to tell you what to do and when. I'm calling the plays tonight, Greg, and, by God, you're in! Shut your face and stop the bellyaching!\"\n\nHe couldn't stop Greg, if the sheriff decided to take a walk, Charlie knew, not short of pulling a gun anyway; and he didn't have a gun along. The moment hung there while Greg made up his mind. Finally he lifted his drink and finished it.\n\n\"He didn't take the thermos to the lake for a morning swim,\" Charlie said, exactly as if neither of them knew what had gone on during that brief interlude. \"He had a routine. Up early, a swimming workout, back to the apartment for breakfast, and then to work. You don't take a thermos for a workout when you're a minute away from home. No, the killer took it. Maybe to plant it on someone else, maybe to lace lemonade with dope to make it look like that's how he took the stuff, maybe for some other reason altogether. But the accidental death was accepted so easily there wasn't any real need to do anything with it. It's been stashed away somewhere all this time. If it was tossed, then our killer probably has a new one in hand. I'm betting on it.\"\n\n\"You're planning to stake out a whole damn lake in the middle of the night?\" Greg shook his head.\n\n\"Part of it, Greg. Just part of it.\" Charlie pulled out a notebook and began to sketch rapidly. \"Here's the lake.\" It looked like a teardrop. \"Over here, the farm, with extra guards patrolling, and lights on. Not a good way to approach. Next, the Zukal place. Security lights everywhere. Even worse. On around the state forest land, and to the Wollander property. Again, guards everywhere. On past, and there's the orchard. Dirt roads back among the trees. Short walk to the lake from there. So, just this end, near the Wollander beach. It's the best place, after all. Toss the thermos as far as possible. It lodges among the rocks on the bottom and looks like it rolled in when David swam that morning.\" He took a gadget out of his pocket and placed it on the table. It looked very much like an infrared television control. He pushed it across the table to Greg. \"I had the Frederick's Security Company put in a light, a portable unit. This controls it. It'll light up most of the lake. We'll catch our killer in the act of getting rid of the thermos, and then the real work can begin, the nitty-gritty detail work that cinches things. First you have to have a direction, then you can run with it. You know that's how it goes. I know it, too.\"\n\n\"You've got someone in mind?\" Greg asked, a new intentness making his face taut, his eyes narrowed.\n\n\"Oh yes. And a lot of little things to corroborate it, but we need something big now.\"\n\nTheir dinners were brought then and they were silent until the waiter had left again. They all had ordered steak because they didn't trust anything else in the menu. The steaks turned out to be very good.\n\n\"Start at the beginning,\" Greg said. \"Give.\"\n\n\"You won't like it,\" Charlie said; he stopped chewing to speak. \"You see, it starts with the dog Sadie.\" Greg made a low groaning sound and Charlie said, \"Sorry about that*, but that's the way it goes.\" He looked thoughtful then and said in a wondering sort of way, \"I just remembered Captain Bertlesman. For God's sake, good old Cap Bertlesman. He used to come in to deliver lectures when I was a green-as-grass rookie, back when the dinosaurs roamed. He used to say, 'Get the who and the how, and let the shrinks take care of the why.'\" Charlie looked apologetically at Constance who had made a noise that was not quite a snort. \"Didn't say he was a nice man,\" Charlie murmured. \"Anyway, that's what I have for you, Greg. But only the how for the time being. If there aren't any slip-ups, you'll get the who in a couple of hours. Why will take care of itself.\"\n\nFor a moment Greg Dolman simply looked puzzled, but then a dull flush spread across his face. \"You son of a bitch!\"\n\nCharlie nodded. If there were any slip-ups, he knew he needed that card in the hole; he might have to persuade Greg to tag along another time. Greg looked as if he wanted to reach across the table and choke him, and that was all right, as long as he didn't move in that direction. Charlie waited.\n\n\"Go on,\" Greg finally muttered.\n\nCharlie described how he and Constance had demonstrated how to get a trained dog to take food from a stranger. \"So, no problem,\" he said. \"The killer dosed dog food with insect spray and killed Sadie. But then David came across the head scarf. Maybe the killer saw him with it, or they even talked about it. Anyway, David had to be next.\"\n\nGreg was attacking his steak ferociously, as if this might be his last meal. Indigestion in the making, Charlie thought sadly.\n\n\"So, everyone knew about David and his vitamins, and his morning swim.\" When Greg made a growly sound, Charlie explained about the cookout and the meticulous report David had written to his father. \"So, as I said, everyone knew. Everyone involved in this mess, in any event. No one was questioning the death of the dog, and now if David's death could be made to look accidental, so much the better. And the vitamins showed up. Heaven sent,\" he added drily.\n\nGreg shook his head. \"How you going to prove that, Charlie? No way.\"\n\n\"Wrong, Greg. Two facts. One, the company David ordered his vitamins from shipped them on the fourteenth, from Rochester. They would have been delivered by the sixteenth, but they aren't listed among his effects. Two, examine the autopsy report, the contents of the stomach. You see, a few of those vitamins were time-release doses, the vitamin C, for example. No vitamin C is listed, and it would have been there in granular form for many hours, only gradually dissolving, being absorbed. Our killer entered the apartment, swiped the new shipment of vitamins, doped some of the capsules, and substituted them for the ones on the counter. Then, when David was dying, or even after he was dead, the killer returned and took away the doped containers, replaced the untouched ones, and it was done. There was one too many of each one that was in capsule form, but who would notice? Who did notice?\"\n\n\"And the thermos?\"\n\nCharlie shrugged. \"An ace in the hole, probably, but one that wasn't needed, not until right now, anyway.\" He looked with regret at his plate; his steak was nearly gone and he had no real recollection of eating it.\n\n\"So,\" he said. \"Two down. No hubbub. No real investigation. On to the next item, moving the bees. And the tramp. You know, Greg, if you had found a bottle, that would have been much harder; much, much harder. But either the guy was so drunk that he turned on the gas and forgot about it and then fell down and bashed his head in, or he was sober enough to walk through the woods carrying a hive of bees. But not both. Let's say he was sleeping off a drunk under a tree and he hears someone messing around with the hive, and he follows out of curiosity, or even calls out. Our killer has to act fast now. A witness is the last thing on earth needed at this moment. Probably he said something like, 'Let's duck inside one of the apartments and talk. The watchman will spot us out here.' Something like that. And he picks up a rock. Inside the apartment, a quick bash on the head, turn on the gas, close up the place, and get back to the work at hand. There must have been a wallet, and he lifts that, just to muddy the waters. You could see the outline in the hip pocket,\" he added. A distant, thoughtful look crossed his face. \"It might even turn up,\" he said. \"And the rock, of course, gets tossed into the lake, one among five million others.\"\n\n\"And not an iota of proof,\" Greg Dolman muttered. \"Not a single print anywhere.\"\n\n\"But that's proof,\" Charlie said. \"Why would the tramp wipe his prints from the gas stove? Now that wouldn't have made any sense at all.\"\n\nThe waiter cleared the table and they sat in silence until he returned with coffee, and then left again.\n\n\"I don't like it,\" Greg said. \"We need more people. Three's not enough. Too much territory to cover.\"\n\n\"Too many people and you start tripping over each other.\"\n\n\"How you plan to go in? Your car's a dead giveaway and so's mine.\"\n\n\"We'll park in the Zukals' driveway, about a third of the way to the house, where it curves, out of sight of the road and the house.\"\n\n\"And those damn lights they installed blast you. You said yourself, that's out.\"\n\n\"Urn. The lights won't come on after ten tonight. I fixed that with the security guy today. He's the only one who knows,\" he added. \"Not even the Zukals are in on it.\"\n\nGreg thought some more, and they ordered more coffee. \"Have you considered that the damn thermos might have been ditched someplace not accessible now?\" Greg asked finally.\n\nCharlie looked at him in surprise. Constance had asked the same question. \"Sure. But I think a thermos will end up in the lake tonight, if it gets that far. One's pretty much like another, and who would pipe up and say it's not the same one? And I'd put up money that it will have measurable amounts of methaqualone and a barbiturate,\" he added grimly.\n\nGreg was not happy about any of it, Charlie knew, and he also knew there wasn't a thing he could do about that. It was chancy; the killer might not have the thermos, or any thermos. He might be throwing a party that no one would show up for. Maybe the damn thermos was already in the lake. Maybe David had lost it himself days before his death. He understood that Greg was going along with it for now, this one night, and if it didn't work out, he'd be back in Wollander's pocket tomorrow. Case closed, again.\n\nWhat if he was wrong? He didn't believe it, but it was a possibility he began to consider. What if they had read all the signs wrong? What if... ? He felt Constance's hand on his thigh under the table and looked at her. She knew, he realized, and she was saying, it's okay. He felt some of the tension seep from him, and he covered her hand with his.\n\nConstance now said to Greg, \"We both have dark raincoats in the car. Do you have something to put on? That shirt will be like a beacon.\"\n\nIt was going on nine-thirty. Right or wrong, Charlie thought, it was time.\nCHAPTER 18\n\nCHARLIE HAD POSITIONED both Greg and Constance, and he no longer could see either of them. Greg had complained. \"Hey, it's been a long time since I pulled an all-nighter.\"\n\n\"So go to sleep. You'll wake up when the lights come on.\"\n\n\"If.\"\n\n\"When. But, Greg, if you start snoring, I'll come over and kick you in the butt.\"\n\nConstance was invisible, merging with a clump of bushes until not even a nighthawk would have been alerted to her presence. Charlie admired, and even envied, her ability to go into a meditative state\u2014alpha state, she called it\u2014effortlessly. She would be wide awake and alert and totally relaxed for as long as it took. That had been part of her aikido training and she had mastered the skill, but he had not been willing to learn it himself and he could not say why. She had explained it, rather too airily, he thought. \"You aren't willing to give up any control, even to yourself.\" Maybe that was it, maybe not, and now, he was wishing he did not have a cramp in one leg, wishing that time would pass faster, wishing this was over.\n\nGreg was against the bluff at the edge of the beach, his back against the rise, no doubt. And no doubt he was asleep. Now and then Charlie had heard his rustlings, but not for some time. Charlie was farther down where the bluff was not so high and he could see over the edge if he tried. Some large round rocks were on the top here, and he hoped his head appeared to be just another such rock when he stood up to look.\n\nAt first, he was thinking now, you didn't hear anything. Or only those noises that were expected, insects, cicadas, crickets, distant traffic sounds, a whippoorwill and a faraway echo of an answer. Then other sounds became noticeable\u2014a bird flapping its wings, a bat's high screech, a small animal moving in the grass. No fish jumping, he thought with regret; no frogs yelling here I am. Two does and a buck had come down to drink and had stood outlined against the sky briefly, but they were not fooled by human immobility; they had left fast, the sounds of their feet loud, and with a snorting sound almost horselike.\n\nNo new stars had appeared in a long time. At first, he had been able to pick out a section of sky and study it, count the stars in it, close his eyes for a count of ten, and when he looked again the number of stars in the sector had doubled, tripled, quadrupled. But the slow swing of the heavens was impossible to see without a reference point; he tried to align certain stars with a tree branch, only to lose them when he closed his eyes again. Too many of them now.\n\nHe cupped his hand over his watch face; it was twelve-forty. He had not expected any action until after twelve, after one even, but time was being contrary; it had slowed to an unbelievable crawl. He stood up to scan the area again, and now that his eyes had adapted so well to the night, he could make out individual trees, individual bushes. He hoped Constance was stretching from time to time, and he knew that Greg had done that earlier, but not for too long a time. He inched away from his position and eased himself to where Greg was propped up, sound asleep.\n\nHe shook him lightly, and put his fingers over Greg's lips. \"Get up and move back and forth a couple of minutes,\" he said softly. \"I'll keep an eye out.\"\n\nGreg made a mumbling noise and pulled himself upright jerkily. He had become stiff already. He bent and stretched a few times and then walked down the beach and back, then again.\n\n\"Okay,\" he whispered. \"Thanks.\"\n\n\"Yeah. It's nearly one. Thought you'd want to know.\"\n\nCharlie carefully made his way back to his position and studied the landscape again. Nothing. He wanted to go check on Constance but he couldn't do that. He would be silhouetted if anyone happened to be watching. But, he told himself, he had put her where he did because he knew he could trust her not to fall asleep and not to stiffen up, and he had put Greg where he did because he knew Greg would do both.\n\nThe doubts that had troubled him earlier kept swimming back into his mind. What if nothing happened? What if he was overestimating the lure of the bait he had spread around altogether too thick all day? He personally would suspect a trap, he told himself, and then told himself to shut up. If it didn't work, well, he'd think of something else. But the other part of his mind, the part that resisted the idea of achieving a meditative state, and that now was arguing with him over the futility of this night watch, that part would not shut up. Instead, it was saying, if it doesn't work there probably won't be another day for you, asshole. He would lose Greg's cooperation, and did he really think he had enough evidence to stir up any interest with the state cops? Dummy.\n\nHe shifted his weight. Now he was keeping a close watch over the top of the rise, but even this, that other voice was saying derisively, how long could he keep this up? He was damned uncomfortable. His was the worst possible position he could have claimed; nowhere to rest his weight, no way to lean against a tree for relief, just stand upright and watch, or sink back down on this side and be blind. He was cursing himself silently when a figure appeared.\n\nHis hand closed over the infrared control in his pocket and drew it out. The person had vanished again, blended into the shadows of trees and shrubs. He didn't move, barely breathed, and presently he heard a sound that was new, then another. Footsteps on grass, hardly audible but there, coming closer, apparently hurrying.\n\nCharlie caught an eclipse of a cluster of stars as the figure started down the slope to the lake, and now he counted silently, one, two, three, four. He pressed the button on the infrared control, and was blinded momentarily by the brilliance even though he had been expecting it.\n\nHe already had started to run the dozen steps to the woman in the black raincoat, when she lifted her face and screamed. Constance had materialized at her side, one hand on the thermos held in the air ready to be thrown, the other on the woman's wrist.\n\n\"Hello, Jill,\" Charlie said and took her other arm. Greg was right behind him.\n\nCharlie had to admit that Greg behaved admirably during those first few seconds. He blinked a lot, but that could have been from the blinding lights. He looked at Charlie with large questions in his eyes, and when Charlie nodded firmly, he managed a nod also.\n\nTwo security men were racing toward the beach, one with a gun drawn, both with flashlights that were no longer needed. The portable spotlight array had turned the entire end of the beach into noontime glare.\n\n\"Mrs. Ferris,\" Greg said soberly, \"I'll have to ask you a few questions. Let's go inside.\" He swallowed hard, and then recited her rights in a swift monotone.\n\nCharlie gave Constance a quick look; she nodded, very somber, tired. She carried the thermos; it was filled, the top on loosely, ready to slide off any second. Charlie kept a grasp of Jill's arm; the sheriff waved the private security men out of the way, and they all walked toward the Wollander house where lights were coming on upstairs and down.\n\nBy the time they reached the patio Warren was hurrying toward them, tying his robe belt. \"What the devil is going on?\"\n\n\"I couldn't sleep,\" Jill said shrilly. \"I was taking a walk by the lake and found the thermos in the water and then they all jumped me.\"\n\n\"Take your hands off her!\"\n\n\"Inside,\" Charlie said. \"Come on, inside.\"\n\nWollander grabbed at the thermos, and Constance easily fended off his hand and kept moving with Charlie and Jill. Warren looked past them and yelled at his security men, \"Get these people out of here! Right now!\"\n\n\"Mr. Wollander,\" Charlie said patiently, \"it's over. Now, let's just go inside and talk. The sheriff will have to use your phone to call his deputies, and while we're waiting, we can talk things over.\"\n\n\"You heard what my daughter said. She found that damn thermos.\"\n\n\"Filled with tap water. I heard. Greg, do you want to just go straight in with her? Constance can bring a car around if that's the only way to handle this.\"\n\nAt the door to the house Lois said, \"Come in.\" She held the door open as they all passed her, and then pulled it closed again. She was in a long gray robe and slippers, her hair disheveled.\n\nWarren glared at Greg. \"Do you know what you're doing?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'm afraid so.\"\n\nLois led the way to the study and when they were inside closed that door also. \"What happened?\" she asked then.\n\nCharlie released Jill's arm. \"You'd better sit down,\" he said, not too unkindly. She sank down into one of the leather chairs and drew up her feet into it. She looked childish, like a sick little girl. He felt in his pocket for the silver pill box and handed it to Lois. \"Do you recognize this?\"\n\nShe turned it over and over, then looked at him sharply. \"Where did you find it? That's mine. Or just like mine.\"\n\n\"I think it's yours.\"\n\nWarren walked stiffly to his desk and sat down. He picked up the phone and began to punch numbers. \"I'm calling my attorney.\"\n\nCharlie shrugged and spoke to Jill. \"When they arrest you,\" he said, \"the first thing they do is search you thoroughly, and there will be a medical examination. By a gynecologist.\" He heard the phone clatter back to the receiver but did not turn to look at Warren. \"I'm not a doctor,\" he went on, \"but I have it on good authority that there are certain physical symptoms that are present in the event of pregnancy; even if a pregnancy has recently terminated in any way, the signs are still there. Will they find the right symptoms, Jill? The right hormones, the right physiological changes?\"\n\nShe was staring at him speechlessly, the color gone from her face, her lips.\n\n\"When they send the thermos to the lab, will they find tap water? And maybe methaqualone and phenobarbital? You know the sheriff will have to search your rooms here. You must have had access to those drugs recently if you put them in the thermos. Are they still up in your room? Will they find them?\"\n\n\"There's medicine,\" she said, keeping her gaze on him as if hypnotized. \"My medicine. Stanley's. Maybe what you're talking about\u2014\"\n\n\"Jill, for God's sake! Just shut up! You don't have to answer his questions. Just shut up until an attorney is here to advise you.\" Warren's hand was on the phone but he did not lift it again.\n\nShe turned her wide, staring gaze to him, and began to shake her head. \"Just shut up. Be still. Be good. Do what Daddy tells you. If I'm not good, you'll send me to Mother, and if she gets tired of me, she'll send me back to you. Back and forth. Back and forth. I saw the letter she wrote to you. She showed it to me, laughing and laughing. We both laughed. See another doctor. Get more opinions, and more, and more. Remember? It can't be true. I don't believe it. See this man, he's good. Remember? She dragged me to one doctor after another in their prissy white coats, with their prissy fat fingers, and they kept telling her the same thing, didn't they? All of them. Over and over. Then a new letter from you would come: Try this one, that one, this treatment, that treatment. And she wrote to you again and again, and still, try this, try that.\"\n\nWhen she became quiet, Charlie said in a low voice, \"You're barren, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she whispered.\n\n\"And he's known that for many years, hasn't he?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Did you take your stepmother's birth-control pills and use them?\"\n\nShe nodded again.\n\n\"To make it appear that you had had a miscarriage?\"\n\n\"Yes! Why are you asking me all this? You already know the answers! Yes! Yes! Yes! To everything.\"\n\n\"And the only victim you ever really had in mind was your husband, Stanley.\"\n\n\"Yes. Of course. Yes!\"\n\nBehind him Charlie heard Warren Wollander make a choking, sobbing sound. He did not look at him. He was gazing instead at Lois, who was pasty, and looked as if she might faint. The fury in his low intense voice was startling when he said to Lois, \"He's known from the start about the fake miscarriage, about the fake pregnancy, about the killings. He was going to throw you to the wolves if necessary to save her skin.\"\n\nBehind him he could hear Warren Wollander using the phone. His voice was toneless. \"Get over here,\" Warren said. \"We have desperate trouble. Come now.\"\n\nGreg called his deputies then, and asked Warren if he would need a search warrant. Warren said yes, but Jill said no. Greg spoke into the phone again, ordered a search warrant drawn up, and began to say what it should include when Charlie interrupted him again. \"Tell the judge you're also looking for a solid gold bracelet carved with flowers.\" Greg looked mystified, but included the bracelet.\n\n\"We'll have to wait,\" he said uncomfortably when he was done.\n\n\"I'll make coffee,\" Lois said. She left without a glance at Warren.\n\nCharlie looked at Constance, almost expecting her to go after Lois, but she moved her head fractionally and did not get up from her chair.\n\nIn a very low voice Warren said, \"Greg, you don't have to do this. We go back a long ways.\"\n\nGreg Dolman looked more uncomfortable but Charlie noticed that Constance tightened her grasp on the thermos. Son of a bitch, he thought, she still didn't trust Greg Dolman worth a damn.\n\n\"Jill,\" Charlie said softly, \"one question. Why did you take the thermos?\"\n\n\"You mean there's something you don't already know?\" she asked bitterly. \"When I went to the apartment to switch the vitamins, I found that I had left the cod-liver oil here, and I couldn't replace it. I panicked. I was afraid someone might connect it to the dope, and I thought that I could mix the drugs in the thermos if anyone questioned anything.\"\n\nThe deputies finally arrived and they all watched as the thermos was decanted into a sterile jar that was sealed and labeled, and then the thermos was put into a bag and sealed and labeled. The attorney Warren had called turned up, looking mean and sleepy. Charlie and Constance began to edge toward the door. Greg followed them.\n\n\"I'll want more,\" he said tiredly. \"Tomorrow, sometime. What's that about a bracelet?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" Charlie said, just as tired as Greg. \"I told Sylvie and Al we'd drop in around one. And before that, our phone will be off the hook and the doors sealed tight.\"\n\nGreg didn't argue. He nodded, called one of the deputies to drive them over to collect their car, and turned back to the routine that awaited him inside.\n\nCharlie looked past him for just a moment; the lawyer was in a chair drawn up close to Jill's. His face was inches from hers and she was still huddled with her feet under her, still looked like a sick little girl. He took Constance's arm and they left.\n\nWhen they were once again in their own car, heading for their own house, Charlie said with a groan, \"I am wiped out from here to Thursday and I ache from top to bottom.\"\n\n\"When we get home, soak first and then I'll give you a Swedish massage.\"\n\nHe squeezed her thigh. \"You're good.\"\n\n\"And after I do you, you can give me one,\" she added. He squeezed her thigh again and she covered his hand with hers.\nCHAPTER 19\n\nCHARLIE WOKE UP GRINNING, and was still grinning broadly when he entered the kitchen to find Constance making waffles. Fresh strawberries were marinating on the counter. She eyed him suspiciously.\n\n\"So you ate the canary, after all?\"\n\nHe laughed out loud. \"Dreaming. I was dreaming that I was married to Sylvie and I kept trying to dump her in the lake so I could run away with you. See, even in my dreams, I'm chasing you like a fourteen-year-old with two bucks running after the only whore in town.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows and looked like a schoolteacher with a recalcitrant eight-year-old. \"You're just after my body. I always suspected that.\"\n\n\"Damn right,\" he said, nuzzling her neck. \"And I would dump Sylvie in the lake, or run Sophia off a cliff, or ditch Elizabeth in a second to get at you.\"\n\nShe reached behind her and gave him an indecent tweak that was just short of vicious. He howled and danced away, tripped over Brutus and Candy, and ended up at the table, laughing and cursing.\n\n\"Are you ready for breakfast, by any chance?\" she asked demurely.\n\n\"If they only knew,\" he said as soon as he could speak. \"Oh, if only they knew, all those people who are ready to canonize you. Saint Constance. Hah!\"\n\nShe brought him a steaming waffle covered with strawberries, and a pitcher of cream on the side. \"You realize that this is your ration of high-caloric food for the day,\" she said severely. \"Steamed fish for dinner. Fruit and carrot sticks for lunch.\"\n\nHe caught her wrist and kissed the palm of her hand. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head.\n\nAl Zukal met them in his driveway. He had a look of total disbelief on his face. \"Charlie! Lois said Jill's the one! That skinny girl? What for?\"\n\n\"Is Lois here?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Syivie said you said she should call Lois and get her over here. She's been crying real bad, Charlie.\"\n\nThey turned to see the sheriff's car coming in the driveway.\n\n\"I didn't know we was going to have a party,\" Al muttered.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Charlie said. \"I thought this would be the best way to wrap things up. You and Syivie will want to hear where you stand now. And Lois needs to know a few things. Okay?\"\n\n\"And if it ain't? Yeah, yeah. Come on in.\"\n\nThey sat at the kitchen table where Syivie had coffee ready, and two kuchens, one apple, one cinnamon. Constance shook her head firmly at Charlie. Greg Dolman, he noticed, aggrieved, had a very large piece of both coffee cakes.\n\nLois was in jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers. Her working clothes. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She did not speak when they came in, but ducked her head and moved her cup around and around in the saucer.\n\n\"This won't take very long,\" Charlie said briskly. \"Constance and I came to the same conclusion at the same moment, I think. We had been misdirected royally, and as soon as we admitted that, the rest began falling into place. Actually, Constance is the one who said it must be Jill.\"\n\n\"Everything pointed to her,\" Constance said, \"but we were all so busy looking the other way we couldn't see her as a suspect.\"\n\nLois looked at her in bewilderment. \"Nothing seemed to point to her. I thought she was pregnant and I lived in the same house with her.\"\n\n\"I know. But when I went to her room there wasn't a single book about pregnancy, no books on babies, no books on how to achieve pregnancy. None of the things you'd expect an anxious mother-to-be to have around. The drugstore in town has a nice selection, so it wasn't that they aren't available locally. She simply wasn't interested. And I kept wondering why she was here. It's obvious that she is not fond of her father, and she has no friends here, so why was she here?\"\n\n\"They were redecorating their condo in the city,\" Lois said. \"The place was completely torn up.\"\n\nConstance shook her head. \"She could have gone on a trip, or to an apartment, or to a hotel, or to visit friends, a number of things. But she came here, and stayed. Anyway, once we decided we had made a fundamental mistake, we backtracked, and it kept coming around to Jill when we asked: What if Stanley had been the intended victim from the start? After that it was obvious.\" She lifted her coffee then and Charlie knew the rest would be up to him.\n\n\"We backtracked all the way back to the day you and Sylvie came here,\" Charlie said, nodding to Al. \"And that made us realize that Jill already had a plan in mind by then. I'll just take it step by step. She has no money of her own and is jealous of Lois because she is independent. She saw her mother as a kept woman all her life, and resented it, and she saw herself repeating the pattern with her husband. Out here he could be with her only on the weekends and it gave her time to think and make her plans. It's really very hard to arrange an accidental death in the city, without drawing suspicion, you know. But out here? She learned about the bees, no doubt, when they arrived.\" Lois looked up, startled, and nodded slightly. Charlie went on. \"Stanley was allergic to bees. It could be made to look accidental if he got multiple stings, and no suspicion would be attached to her, especially if she was a grieving widow who also had lost her child. But how to get him to where the bees would attack? That must have presented itself as a massive problem, until she found Sebastian. I think she brought Sebastian out only to verify that she had gone into the mill, into some of the little rooms with him. She had no hope of buying any property, or anything else. Stanley gave her gifts, and paid her charge accounts, but you can't buy a piece of property like this on your Visa card. So, why take Sebastian into the mill, unless she had a different purpose altogether? She claimed to have lost a heavy gold bracelet, remember?\" He glanced at Greg who nodded.\n\n\"We found it in her room.\"\n\n\"I thought you might. Anyway, she said it was lost, and Stanley filed an insurance claim, and got her a new one. But if she could get the bees into one of those little rooms, and close the door on them, and then tell Stanley that she remembered that she had worn it the day she showed the mill to Sebastian, she could get him to open the door to go look for it. The rooms would have heated up just fine by midmorning; the bees would have been swarming around in a rage, just as they were later. It would have worked. The mill used to have a reputation as a hangout; kids could have moved the bees as a prank, and poor Stanley. She would have turned her big eyes on you and said she had no idea why he went in there, just as she did later about the station wagon.\"\n\nHe turned to Sylvie, \"But you showed up. And then a dog arrived. And carpenters began taking the mill apart. Everything she had planned was going to hell all at once.\"\n\n\"She killed Sadie?\" Sylvie cried. \"But how? Sadie didn't even like her. And why?\"\n\nCharlie detailed how Sadie could have been poisoned. Then he asked, \"Sylvie, when David found one of your scarves and returned it, was there anything funny about it?\"\n\n\"Filthy. It was filthy and I threw it away. I didn't even want to wash it.\"\n\n\"Mud? Grass stains? Filthy how?\"\n\n\"All that and greasy.\" Her eyes widened.\n\n\"Greasy,\" Charlie said. \"David found it and later on he must have made the connection. How he connected it to Jill I don't know, but he did, and she had to get rid of him, too.\" He shrugged. \"As for why she killed Sadie, that's pretty obvious now. She still needed to be able to cross the bridge to collect the bees, and she needed a place to put the bees so she could send Stanley to them. Not on the Wollander property, too suspicious. If not the mill, then this house, or the station wagon, but not if a watchdog was barking its head off at her. It must have come to her, there was the perfect smokescreen; she could arrange things so that it looked like an attempt to get the newcomers out of the neighborhood; kids could take the blame.\"\n\nHis face tightened. \"But David saw something and found the scarf. Maybe he saw her toss it. Maybe he even asked her about it, accused her of killing the dog.\"\n\n\"I don't understand what the fuss was over the thermos,\" Lois said. \"What were you doing?\"\n\n\"Well, it was missing. So the killer must have taken it. I was sure she had tampered with the vitamins, but why take the thermos? And I thought, if she had taken it, she would see this as a chance to sew things up good and tight. Let someone find it in the lake and be done with it.\n\n\"So now everything is in place for Stanley's death. She has announced her pregnancy, everyone is jubilant, even though Warren Wollander actually knew she was barren. He kidded himself at first about believing her, I imagine. She had taken the birth-control pills in order to plan exactly when she would start bleeding, and, to a certain extent, how much.\"\n\nAl looked uncomfortable and shifted in his chair, and Sylvie's mouth pursed; Charlie was talking about things men didn't talk about, their attitudes clearly said.\n\nHe went on. \"That night Warren saw her walk on the driveway to the place where it comes very close to the state forest. Why the midnight walk? Why the raincoat? Not to meet Sebastian. The raincoat was to hide under. A shadow moving out among shadows. Lights were still on, people still awake and she didn't want to be seen. And the reason could have been to throw something away. Not in the house trash because she already had said she had lost a bracelet and people might be sifting through trash more carefully. She had enough pills for her purposes, the rest could be flushed down the John, but there was the silver pillbox, and she had to get rid of it. She could have returned it to your bathroom, but if you knew it was missing before, that would raise questions, and she didn't want any questions about birth control or pregnancy to come up.\"\n\n\"You were looking for that?\" Lois exclaimed.\n\n\"Not really. For something. I didn't know what she had tossed, or even if she had tossed anything, and it could have been the thermos, although I didn't think so. But that's what they found.\n\n\"So everything was ready, at last. Stanley came up for the weekend. He had a medicine cabinet full of medications, including some heavy-duty sleeping pills. If he didn't take one himself, she could see that he got it. And in the night she went over to move the bees to the station wagon. Then a witness showed up, a transient. He was drunk, but he saw what she was doing, and must have started to make a ruckus. She got him to enter the apartment and hit him on the head, turned on the gas, and left to complete her real mission of murdering her husband.\"\n\nAl made a grunting sound and Sylvie shifted in her chair, but no one spoke. Lois didn't move at all.\n\n\"Saturday morning Stanley has an appointment with Al, here, and she has her regular class, service, whatever it is, with Sebastian. What's more natural than that she would drive? Stanley doesn't like wandering in the woods; allergies, you know. She pulls up in the driveway to turn around, where she can see in the wagon, make sure the bees are still there. She says, 'Oh, I think I lost my bracelet in the station wagon. Seeing it has just reminded me. Be a darling and get it for me, will you? It's in the back. Do it before you start talking to Al, or you'll forget.'\"\n\nLois made a deep throaty sound and closed her eyes.\n\n\"Right. So now it's done. I suspect that she stopped in the driveway, out of sight, long enough to hear the yelling, and then went on to Sebastian's meeting. Daddy shows up and rushes her home, she gags herself in the bathroom, takes out the tampon, and becomes an ashen-faced widow who has just lost a baby. But she won't let a doctor near her. There's only one more thing she has to do and that's get Sebastian over and tell him she was pregnant. She said he knew, that he was already advising her, and she has to make sure that he actually knows, just in case someone mentions it. She makes a big scene about seeing her spiritual advisor, and finally she can relax, wait for her inheritance to work through the legalities, and take off for France.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, broken finally by Lois. \"And last night, it was all planned? All just a trap for her?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Sure. There was no proof yet. I was pretty sure that if a scene started with her father present, taking over, giving orders, she would confess.\" Get out of here! She had killed three men to escape those orders. Charlie had not simply been pretty sure; he had known beyond doubt that when she saw that trap closing yet again, she would escape in the only way remaining. He said no more now, but watched Lois, and wondered if she saw escape as a possibility.\n\nLois sat unmoving for several seconds, then she shook her head hard. \"He must have known, but he was so desperate to believe,\" she said, nearly inaudibly. \"And he was as happy as a child. She lied about her pregnancy exactly the same way that her mother lied, to hurt him, to make him know he had to choose.\" She closed her eyes very tightly for a moment. \"No man should be forced into that lifeboat with his wife and child,\" she whispered. Abruptly she turned to Greg Dolman. \"Sheriff, I'd like a word with you alone.\"\n\nConstance stood up. \"We should be on our way, too. Dr. Wharton, is Jill under a doctor's care now?\"\n\n\"Yes. They took her to jail and did the usual, I suppose, but then the lawyer got a psychiatrist in to talk to her. He will attend her. Why?\"\n\n\"I just thought that if that is the case, we may never hear any more details, when she did this or that, or how, or who that man was in the apartment.\" Her gaze was very steady as she regarded Lois. \"Between a doctor and a lawyer, she may never have a chance to make another statement. This is what she feared and dreaded most, isn't it? Never to be free, to be independent. She really is to be pitied, and so is her father. And you, of course. But you have your work. You may be the most fortunate of the three.\"\n\nLois moistened her lips and slowly she nodded.\n\n\"We can step outside, if that's all right with you,\" Greg Dolman said then, rising, pushing back his chair.\n\n\"It's nothing,\" Lois said, her voice low, but decisive. \"I should be getting back.\" She held out her hand to Charlie and then to Constance. \"Thank you both.\" She walked away, back toward the mill, toward the swinging bridge.\n\nGreg Dolman shrugged. \"We'll be tying up loose ends for the next few months, more than likely. We found the bracelet and the drugs, and the water in the thermos is tap water with something in it. They're analyzing it now. We'll have the doctor's report on Mrs. Ferris in a few days. I'll be in touch.\" He also held out his hand. Lois's hand had been like ice, his was sweaty.\n\n\"And I have to pick up that portable light unit and return it,\" Charlie said. \"And youse guys don't have to worry none about being drove outta here, get it?\"\n\n\"It don't work, Charlie,\" Al said. \"The words are okay, maybe, but the tune's wrong, know what I mean?\" And Sylvie said, \"Watcha acting like that for, Mr. Wiseguy? Aincha got no manners? He don't mean nothing by it, Charlie.\"\n\nIn a few minutes Charlie and Constance were walking hand in hand toward the farm lakefront where the portable spotlights had been set up.\n\n\"One more little thing to see to,\" Charlie said, and gave her hand a squeeze.\n\nShe tried to think of what they had omitted; nothing came to mind. When they emerged from the tree sections, Charlie turned toward the row crops and began to peer up the paths. He waved when Tom Hopewell showed up between two rows.\n\n\"I'd like a word,\" Charlie called.\n\nTom came to them, his hands covered with moist dirt. \"I heard,\" he said. \"Everyone's heard. It's really over?\"\n\n\"Yep. I suspect Lois Wharton will be back at work in a few days and gradually things will return to normal. There are a few missing pieces, but nothing we can't live with.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Tom said doubtfully, and eyed the corn row he had just left.\n\nCharlie helped him look down the row. \"You know, if I had gone into that apartment first, I would have been overcome with curiosity about the identity of the dead man. Especially since I rather like Lois Wharton and wouldn't want to see her injured in any way. But then, if I snitched a man's wallet, I might not know what to do with it, might even be tempted to keep it around, and I would resist that temptation the way Adam should have resisted the apple.\" Tom Hopewell's face turned crimson. Charlie patted him on the arm. \"Since I didn't find any such thing I'm not going to worry about it. Just wanted to say so long. And pick up those lights. See you around.\"\n\nAfter they retrieved the lights and were in their car again, Constance said, \"I can't believe you told him to get rid of that wallet.\"\n\n\"You've got a nerve! After you told Lois to clam up? And right in front of the sheriff, too.\"\n\n\"Well, that's different.\"\n\nCharlie began to chuckle and after a moment he was laughing out loud. His laughter died when he turned south to start the drive to New Jersey. In the back of the Volvo was the box containing David Levy's few possessions. They had to be delivered in person; this report had to be made in person. Constance rested her hand on his thigh as he drove.\n\nJust before Christmas that year Lois paid them a visit. At first she was awkward. \"I really just wanted to tell you,\" she said, \"Warren is very ill, did you know? Last week he had his lawyer in and destroyed our agreement and changed his will. He set up a trust fund to care for Jill as long as she lives. But she may never be able to leave the institution. Anyway, he also transferred the property, the whole parcel of ground over to me, to use as an experimental farm.\"\n\nConstance took her arm and led her to the kitchen and saw her seated, then began to make coffee. Lois looked almost dazed.\n\n\"There will be enough money to run it. I intend to hire Clarence when he retires, as a consultant. And Tom, if he ever stops chasing corn in Peru.\" She looked up at Constance and said in a tone of wonder, \"I told Warren the story about your friend who planted trees as an act of faith. Last summer when I was planning to leave him, I told him that, and he asked me to stay and help him through this crisis. He needed someone.\" She shook her head. \"No. He needed me. I am grateful that he's lived long enough to know I forgive him. We are at peace. I wanted to tell you.\" Before Constance could say anything, she went on, \"We're already working very hard to get things ready. Al Zukal put in his limestone beach and it looks exactly like snow. Maybe it isn't too late.\"\n\nShe didn't stay long. At the door, ready to leave, she hugged Constance hard, and kissed her cheek. \"Thank you,\" she whispered and was gone.\n\nThey watched her back out of the drive and then looked at each other. \"He'll stop chasing corn in Peru when Warren kicks,\" Charlie said. He glanced at the sky; it had started to snow. He closed the door.\n\nAnd won't she be surprised at what he'll have to say!\n\nCharlie didn't know if she had said the words, or if he had, or if either of them had uttered a sound. He cast a suspicious glance at Constance and then sighed. She was smiling that certain smile she sometimes had, and it didn't matter.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nSundown,  \nYellow  \nMoon\nCONTENTS\n\nTitle Page\n\nDedication\n\nEpigraph\n\nSundown, Yellow Moon\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nA Reader's Guide: Sundown, Yellow Moon\n\nA Conversation with Larry Watson\n\nQuestions and Topics for Discussion\n\nAbout the Author\n\nAlso by Larry Watson\n\nCopyright\n\nTo Susan\n\nSundown, yellow moon, I replay the past  \nI know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast\n\n\u2014BOB DYLAN, \"If You See Her, Say Hello\"\nSundown,  \nYellow  \nMoon\n\nAlthough I have devoted much of my life to writing stories, they are all, I have come to realize, part of a single story that has shifted and swelled over time but never strayed far from my core. I will call its beginning the January day when I was sixteen years old and walking home from school with my best friend, Gene Stoddard. We heard sirens, but we couldn't see where they were coming from. Their combined howl, however, was so close that we believed police cars or fire trucks, and an ambulance, had to be nearby. We ran toward the sound, hoping to catch a glimpse of the vehicles and perhaps discern their destination.\n\nWhen we came to the Will-Moore Elementary School playground, its new snow packed and rutted to bare ground in places from the boots of hundreds of children, we saw a police cruiser and an ambulance speeding up Fourth Street. Those were the last vehicles in the procession.\n\nIt was obvious we'd get no closer to them and their mystery, so we stopped, our heaving, slowing breaths fogging the frigid air. Gene and I both lived a few blocks away on Keogh Street. (Our street was in a fairly new section of Bismarck, North Dakota, and the developer's wife, a student of history, had arranged to have some of the street names in that part of town named for the officers\u2014Keogh, Yates, Cooke, Reno\u2014in Custer's command when Custer and the Seventh Cavalry left Fort Abraham Lincoln, just west of Bismarck, on their ill-fated campaign that ended at Little Bighorn.) For all of our school years Gene and I had walked to and from school in each other's company. Recently, however, that had begun to change. We had a couple friends with cars, and one of them usually picked Gene and me up in the morning. They were both on the basketball team, however, and practices meant they stayed later at school. Also, Gene had started going steady with a sophomore girl, Marie Ryan, and he was often with her after school, but on that day she was in rehearsal for a choir concert. So we were walking together again, and we'd planned to go to his house or mine. We had to memorize the dagger speech from _Macbeth_ for Miss Cordell's English class, and we needed to work on our recitations. For a moment we were tempted to take a detour in an attempt to find where all those sirens were going. Their wailing seemed to have stopped, and not far away. Could they be at one of the stores at the shopping center on Third Street? At the state capitol, only a few blocks north of us on Fourth Street? Or could they have been going to a private home on one of the residential streets or avenues that surrounded us?\n\nPerhaps if we had not had that homework assignment, or if it had not been so cold\u2014the snow underfoot squeaked when we shifted our weight\u2014or if one of us had been allowed the use of the family car, we might have followed the trail of undulating sound that still hung in the crystalline winter air. But we did not. We turned up the collars of our wool overcoats (although this fashion would reverse itself before the decade was out, in 1961 teenagers imitated the attire of adults), pulled our stocking caps down to our eyebrows, hunched our shoulders to our necks, and moved on. Would it have mattered if we had not trudged immediately homeward? It would not. Sirens sound when deeds are done.\n\nWe went to Gene's home because it was closer, by four houses, and when we entered, we were surprised to find Gene's father home. He was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, and wearing his hat and overcoat. Is it only hindsight that makes me want to say he looked gray, drawn? Cold of course leaches color from as many cheeks as it fills.\n\n\"Where's your mother?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm pretty sure she works at the church library on Wednesdays.\"\n\nGene's father\u2014Raymond\u2014nodded gravely. \"Wednesday. That's right. It's Wednesday.\"\n\nMy discomfort grew. Raymond Stoddard was a somber, reserved man by nature, but he wasn't usually tensely grim, as he appeared to be at that moment. That he wasn't aware of Mrs. Stoddard's schedule, something that the women in the other houses up and down the block would certainly know, struck me as unusual, but no more so than the fact that a seemingly healthy male was home before five o'clock. He hadn't taken off his hat and coat, and he hadn't greeted me in any way. And I knew from hearing my parents talk that Mr. Stoddard had once lost a job because of his drinking. I'd be willing to concede that my entire sense of unease might not have been true of the moment but was added only with the aid of hindsight, except for this fact: I didn't remain at the Stoddards' that day. Before I removed my own cap and coat, I made up an excuse and told Gene I couldn't stay. Later that evening, we decided, we'd get together and practice the dagger speech on each other.\n\nAt our house nothing suggested anything but the ordinary. My mother was in the kitchen moving from refrigerator to sink to cupboard to stove, preparing the evening meal and pausing only to take a drag from the Viceroy burning in the ashtray on the kitchen table. My sister, younger than me by eight years, sat on the living room floor watching cartoons and eating some kind of sweet that had already made her heavy for her age and that would lead to lifelong unhappiness over her weight. All was as it should be. The furnace was running, its constant exhalation heating the house until the insides of the windows perspired and the kitchen's cooking smells drifted all the way to the bedrooms and back again. Warmth, food, family\u2014it was a scene of reassuring comfort, and although I might have felt it as such, nothing about it registered itself as rare, and that I took it for granted only testifies to how few interiors I knew well.\n\n\"Do you know what those sirens were about?\" I asked my mother.\n\n\"I was going to ask you the same thing.\"\n\n\"Gene and I saw an ambulance and a cop car going up Fourth Street, but there had to be more than just those two.\"\n\n\"Police car,\" she corrected. \"And two went past on Divide, too.\"\n\n\"Going east?\"\n\n\"Going east.\"\n\n\"There wasn't anything on the radio?\" My mother had a radio on in the kitchen from early morning until night.\n\n\"Haven't heard a thing.\"\n\n\"Well, if you hear anything from my room, it's me. We have to memorize this Shakespeare speech for English, and the only way I can get it is to keep saying it out loud.\"\n\n\"Let me know if you want me to test you.\"\n\nI went off to my room and behind its closed door paced back and forth and recited Macbeth's words:\n\nArt thou not, fatal vision, sensible  \nTo feeling as to sight? or art thou but  \nA dagger of the mind, a false creation,  \nProceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?  \nI see thee yet, in form as palpable  \nAs this which now I draw.\n\nTo this day I remember the soliloquy, although I've had no occasion to repeat those lines. That they're sealed in my memory makes me believe that disaster has the power to cast not only every attendant fact in the sharpest relief but collateral details as well.\n\nOver the sound of my own voice I soon heard sirens again, though faintly at first. Because of what we had witnessed earlier, I stopped speaking and listened carefully. Their wail traveled so easily to my ears it seemed as though I could map their movement in the air\u2014up Fourth Street again, west on Divide Avenue, closer, closer, until they were right _there._\n\nI jumped to my window in time to see one police car and then another slide around the corner and career down our street. Their lights sliced through the early evening dusk and tinged the snowbanks and the houses on the block a pale, pulsing red. That same light found its way into our home, its presence a violation. In other parts of the city did they hear the sirens and calculate that they came from our block? I ran to the living room, from whose windows I could see farther down the street.\n\nI didn't have to look far. Both cruisers pulled awkwardly to the curb in front of . . . the Stoddards'? Was that possible? Even more improbable was the car already parked there. In the driveway, right behind Raymond Stoddard's dark blue Ford Galaxie was an emerald-green Nash Rambler. If anyone in town owned a Nash in that same color other than my father, I didn't know about it.\n\nSurely there had been other moments in my life when I had been immobilized by conflicting impulses, but that was the first time I was aware of it. I was caught between the desire to flee back into the interior of our house, back to where those lights couldn't touch me or those sirens reach me, and a wish to run in the other direction\u2014out of the house, across the drifted lawns and the snow-packed street, and down the block to where the real invasion was taking place, to my best friend's house. But perhaps it was confusion that truly paralyzed me. _Dad's car?_\n\nIn recalling the events of that and subsequent days, I'm sometimes unsure about chronology, about what occurred before or after. In part, that uncertainty is a consequence of how I've learned about the events\u2014often in fragments\u2014and my own version of what happened is a patchwork (although no less accurate for that). Scenes and realizations have been stitched together, sometimes overlapping one another, as I have made, and occasionally revised, my discoveries over time. About the order of days and hours I'm generally confident, but occasionally the seconds or minutes jump ahead or behind one another. For example, I have the impression that my mother came to the window too, and as she was looking over my shoulder, I asked her why Dad's car was there, but before she could answer me, the phone rang and she ran to pick it up. After a brief conversation, she came back to the window and said, \"That was your father. He said neither you nor your sister is to go outside. Do you hear? You're to stay in the house.\" But in truth, the phone had already rung, and my mother had talked to my father for a few minutes, long enough for him to give her a brief account of why he was at the Stoddards' and why the police would be there soon. True, he told my mother to keep my sister and me in the house, but his real concern was that neither of us go anywhere near the Stoddards', no matter how hard the obligations of friendship or the temptations of curiosity tried to move us out the door. He had instructed my mother to stay home as well, or at least until he phoned again or until she saw Mrs. Stoddard return home, and then she was to come running.\n\nI could continue to withhold information, revealing it only in slivers and shards, and in that way try to duplicate in these pages the suspense that I lived through that night, and in the process induce in you the apprehension and uncertainty that I felt, but while that might be effective narrative strategy, it would not be entirely true to the situation. I don't recall exactly how or when I came to know what had happened in our city and our neighborhood, because to this day I am still augmenting the story, though more now with human understanding than with factual details.\n\nNevertheless, when I finally went to bed, it was with sufficient knowledge\u2014sufficient but incomplete\u2014to allow me to fall asleep without being totally bedeviled by questions. This much I knew:\n\nTrue to one of Gene and my guesses, those sirens had been heading toward the state capitol, only a few blocks from our homes on Keogh Street. I had been in and out of the capitol building so often over the years\u2014on my own or with school groups, with relatives and friends who came to visit\u2014that I knew its architecture and floor plan almost as well as I knew my school's, the public library's, or the civic auditorium's. I had no difficulty picturing the setting for the afternoon's incident.\n\nIn the capitol, both the senate and the house were in the legislative wing, an impressive high-ceilinged, wood-paneled, art-deco-inspired hall. Right outside the legislative chambers were upholstered banquettes, intended no doubt as places where the senators and representatives could meet, during session breaks, with lobbyists and constituents. In January 1961, the legislature was in session (worth noting because to this day North Dakota's senate and house convene only every other year), and during a recess Monty Burnham, a popular, charismatic senator from Wembley, in Cleave County in the north central part of the state, sat on one of those padded benches in the hall. At Senator Burnham's side was John Ritterbush, a Fargo attorney.\n\nWhile the two men conferred, a lean, swarthy man approached them, reached into his overcoat pocket, and brought out a pistol. Without discussion or warning, he fired at Senator Burnham. The bullet struck the senator in the chest. Burnham tried to rise from the bench, but failed and slid to the marble floor. While he lay there, the gunman shot him again. This bullet went through Monty Burnham's throat. Ritterbush was not a target, but he was injured slightly when a fragment of either lead or stone struck him in the cheek.\n\nThe senator's wounds were mortal, and while he lay dying on the floor of the capitol's Great Hall, the gunman calmly walked away, exiting the building through a revolving door on the south side of the building. The fact that a weapon was in his possession may have kept anyone from trying to detain him.\n\nThere were many witnesses to the shooting and its immediate aftermath, and in spite of the inevitable confusion and panic, it was not long before someone volunteered an identification of the man in the overcoat. He was recognized as an employee of the North Dakota Department of Accounts and Purchases, whose offices were on the sixth floor of the capitol. His name was Raymond Stoddard.\n\nConsidering the span between the time when the shooting occurred and when Gene and I saw his father, Mr. Stoddard must have driven directly home after leaving the capitol.\n\nAnd it couldn't have been long after I left my friend's house that Mr. Stoddard went out into the garage, secured a length of clothesline rope around a two-by-four beam, balanced himself on a stack of tires, and hanged himself. To this day I don't know what propelled Gene to the garage, where he discovered his father swinging from the rafter, but once he did, he went right back into the house and tried to telephone his sister, hoping she might know what he should do before their mother returned. The call was long distance since Marcia Stoddard was a student at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. When she didn't answer, Gene called the office of a Bismarck attorney, the only other person he could think of who might know what should be done. That person was my father.\n\nMy father arrived at the Stoddard residence shortly before the police, in just enough time to try to calm Gene and to get as much information from him as possible. There wasn't enough time for my father to cut down Raymond Stoddard's body or to open the envelope lying on the kitchen table, both of which he had intended to do. When the police opened the envelope, they found inside a note typed with these words: \"I murdered Senator Monty Burnham. I acted alone.\" Mr. Stoddard signed the note, and since it was on Accounts and Purchases letterhead, the assumption was that he had typed it in his office before going down to the legislative wing to commit his crime.\n\nAnd that was that. About who did the deed there was to be no doubt. But in spite of the popularity of mystery novels, is _who_ the question we really want answered? Isn't _why_ what we truly want to know? A name, an identity, won't fully satisfy us; in order to understand his motive we want to see inside the mind and heart of the murderer, the lover, the coward, or the hero. Barring that, we want to be presented with enough evidence that we can construct a reasonable explanation of what occurred and why. And in fairness I have to say, if you are one of those readers who must have all your questions answered, you must set this narrative aside immediately. If I could have warned you earlier, I would have, but you've spent only as much of your time as it takes to read a little more than ten pages. It can't have been more than minutes. All I can promise you, if you choose to continue reading, is enough information that you might be able to look into your own heart and mind and find an answer there for why humans behave as they do, even in moments most extreme. And although it's not likely to console you, your investment of time will be nothing compared to mine, almost a lifetime by some standards of measurement.\n\nI said I knew enough to allow me to fall asleep that night, but of course many questions still troubled me, some of them of the obvious, profound variety that unsettled everyone, and some close to trivial, if indeed anything related to those events could be regarded as insignificant.\n\nFor example, I was curious about the murder weapon. I had never seen firearms of any sort in the Stoddard household, so I wondered if Mr. Stoddard had had the gun well hidden somewhere or if he had recently acquired it in order to shoot Senator Burnham. And why had he hanged himself\u2014a method of suicide that struck me as torturous and uncertain\u2014rather than shot himself?\n\nThe mystery of the gun was eventually solved, and in a way that illustrated how information was added to the basic narrative over time, just as it is for readers of any mystery. Raymond Stoddard couldn't have driven home and killed himself with the same pistol with which he shot Senator Burnham because he no longer had it. When he walked out of the capitol building, he threw the gun away. A groundskeeper found it months later when temperatures rose, snow melted, and the drift the gun had landed in gave up its secret. The event was a literal example of an expression my mother often used. _Det som g\u00f6 i sn\u00f6 kommer fram i t\u00f6._ She learned it from her mother, who came to this country from Sweden. _That which is hidden in the snow reappears in the thaw._ One of the witnesses to the crime had said he believed the murder weapon was an Army issue .45 automatic, and the groundskeeper's discovery verified the accuracy of the witness's observation.\n\nA fact I had long been in possession of also troubled me, and troubled me especially because I had no way of determining its importance. Did it mean anything that Raymond and Alma Stoddard and Monty Burnham all came from Wembley, North Dakota, a small town 150 miles northeast of Bismarck? I hesitated to make too much of it because my father and I were from Wembley as well. Both of us were born there, but our family moved to Bismarck when I was five years old. Was that common place of origin nothing more than coincidence, a detail that teases us with its suggestion of significance when it possesses none beyond itself?\n\nThroughout the evening, neighbors knocked on our door, sometimes with casseroles and questions about whether they could be of any help. The Stoddards were closer, in physical distance and perhaps in friendship, to other neighbors, but these people came to our house. I flattered myself that my friendship with Gene had given us special status, but of course they were there because of my father. The news of Monty Burnham's murder had been officially made public, but somehow the unofficial reports of my father's involvement had gotten around as well.\n\nAnd that no doubt was why the police and the press also visited our home that night. They wanted what the neighbors wanted, but the reporter from _The Bismarck Tribune_ and the two detectives came right out and said they were seeking information and flipped open their notebooks.\n\nMy mother did her best to keep up with the number and variety of visitors. She brewed pots of coffee, she put out plates of cookies and cups of nuts, she emptied ashtrays, and she kept adjusting the thermostat to make up for the heat the house lost with the door so often open. Strangers crossed the threshold, lights burned that were seldom turned on, snowy shoes and galoshes melted puddles on carpets that were usually kept dry, yet my mother remained a model of smiling courtesy, equanimity, and efficiency. Which is to say that in crisis, she was who she always was.\n\nMy father, on the other hand, seemed utterly transformed by the day's events. He was, in ordinary circumstances, sociable, if somewhat aloof, a calm, capable man who gave the impression of being in control of everything in his life from his gutters and eaves to his emotions. He was devoted to his family, his profession, and his community, and in return for his steadfastness, respect and admiration flowed his way.\n\nBut on that evening, my father seemed on the verge of tipping into rage. Scowling and tight-lipped, he answered questions posed to him with answers so terse I wondered if the police had cautioned him not to speak of what he had seen and heard at the Stoddard home. He tried to assist my mother with her duties as host, but his heart was plainly not in it. People barely put down their coffee cups before my father swept them up and carried them back to the kitchen. And on one occasion he was openly rude. When he walked into the living room and saw Pastor Lundgren speaking to Dolores Lemke, my father said to the minister, \"Don't you think you could do more good at the house down the street?\" When he finally sent my sister and me to our rooms, it was with a command that made us seem no different from the curiosity seekers who had been in and out of the house all evening. \"All right,\" he said to us, \"off to bed. Show's over.\"\n\nWhere had his anger come from? That question may have perturbed me more than any other. Granted, what he had confronted when he'd stepped into the Stoddard garage must have been shocking, disturbing, sickening. He knew both of the day's dead men, although his relationship with the senator was little more than a superficial acquaintance. Those circumstances, however, should have left my father shaken, grief-stricken, bewildered (the emotion most in evidence that evening). But rage? Had it always been inside him, waiting for the tiniest crack to come bursting forth? Or did he know something that the sad, puzzled rest of us didn't?\n\nMy bedroom was in the northwest corner of the house, the corner that took the brunt of the season's arctic winds. Built in the city's housing boom of the 1950s, our home was not especially well insulated, and during the coldest months, frost formed on the wall next to my bed. As I lay there thinking about what had happened in our city, our neighborhood, our block, I reached out and scraped my fingernails through the rime. Because the world's calamities had come so close, our home no longer felt like a refuge, and its walls seemed as insubstantial as that thin layer of ice. Nowhere were we protected, and only fools believed otherwise.\n\nI didn't speak to or see Gene until the following evening when he and his mother came to our house for dinner. To say I was nervous about being in his presence would have been an understatement. Could I have come up with something appropriate to say to a friend whose father had just died? Perhaps. But to a friend whose father was a murderer and a suicide? Impossible. As it was, I reacted with something close to joy when my mother woke me that morning with the news that Gene wouldn't be attending school that day. _Today?_ I thought. He shouldn't go back to school _ever again._ I might have pretended that a wish to save him from the stares, whispers, silences, and insults he would have to endure brought on that thought, but my own discomfort was my first concern.\n\nEvening inevitably fell, however, and with the dark came Gene and his mother, treading carefully up the block as if the real alteration to life on Keogh Street was the dusting of snow that had fallen that day.\n\nWhen I saw them approach, I grabbed the newspaper with the intention of hiding it and its \"Senator Slain!\" headline and the accompanying photograph of the capitol's bloodstained marble floor. But as soon as I picked it up, I realized how futile it was to believe the surviving Stoddards could be spared anything. _The_ _Bismarck Tribune_ was delivered to their house, too. And what if it were not? Almost every newspaper in the land and many of its magazines were likely to carry stories about Monty Burnham's assassination, and even if those media could be kept out of their home, the news could still enter through the airwaves. They would have to keep their television and radio turned off as well. And if they ventured outside their door, they would have to see themselves reflected in others' eyes. Even if they remained behind the walls of their own home, they would still have to look at each other. They were Stoddards and forever after would carry the burden of that name. I was sixteen years old, and I hadn't yet learned of time's astonishing ability to diminish or erase almost anything, so it wasn't long before the iron logic of hopelessness led me to the conclusion that the only relief from their circumstances would be to do with their lives what Raymond Stoddard had done with his. I gave up and put the paper back down on the coffee table. In the black-and-white photograph it was next to impossible to tell whether a swirl on the capitol floor was from blood or variegation in the stone.\n\nAnd then they were in our home. Because we couldn't do anything else, Gene and I said hi, and just like that a realization overturned all the morbid conclusions I had reached. Nothing needed to be kept from him. The television reporters could say the worst things imaginable about Raymond Stoddard, and the gossips could spread the most malicious rumors about the family. The newspapers could publish the most lurid photographs they could find. Gene had been inoculated against their pain. He would never be exposed to anything worse than what he had seen when he'd opened that door leading to the garage.\n\nIt was difficult to determine what physical toll the events had taken on Alma Stoddard because she had frequently looked weary and slightly frail. She and my mother were the same age and both were pretty women, but placing these brunettes side by side only emphasized my mother's vitality. Mrs. Stoddard was pale and thin, while my mother was ruddy-cheeked and robust. Even in the best of times Mrs. Stoddard didn't smile often, but when my mother helped her with her coat and in the process squeezed Mrs. Stoddard's narrow shoulders, she gave my mother a quick small smile that carried a world's worth of gratitude.\n\nMy father, mother, and Mrs. Stoddard ate at the dining room table, while Gene, my sister, and I were allowed to eat on TV trays in the living room. The arrangement worked well for me. Gene and I didn't have to speak much\u2014that night's episode of _My Three Sons_ did that work for us\u2014and I was near enough to the three adults that I could listen in on their conversations.\n\nThrough the meal and dessert and the clearing of dishes, through coffee and cigarettes, I waited in vain. Would no one ever speak about what had to be on everyone's mind: _Why would_ _Raymond do such a thing?_ Instead the talk was of practical matters. The funeral would have to be in Bismarck. If Raymond had died under . . . other circumstances, the service could have been held in Wembley, and he would have been buried there, in the family plot next to the graves of his parents and a sister who had died in infancy. But Wembley was reserved for Monty Burnham. According to the newspaper's biography, he was the hometown boy who'd made good\u2014a three-sport letterman in high school, a decorated World War II veteran, a successful businessman (he owned Ford auto and John Deere farm implement dealerships), and a prominent Republican legislator. And martyr, though to what cause no one knew. His funeral would be a public occasion in Wembley, and his murderer would be welcome nowhere near the community, even in the local cemetery.\n\nOf the three local funeral parlors, Mrs. Stoddard had picked Metzger's\u2014did my father and mother think she had made the right choice? I was looking into the kitchen as she asked the question, and she leaned across the table as if she were desperate to hear that in this matter she had chosen wisely.\n\nMy mother reached out and patted Mrs. Stoddard's hand, while my father nodded sagely and said, \"Sam Metzger is a good man. And if you don't mind me putting in my two cents' worth: Services sooner would be better than later.\"\n\nAs if in relief, Mrs. Stoddard began to weep, and just at that moment Gene asked, \"Can I get the homework for English and history? I'm going to school tomorrow.\" Perhaps he asked just to stop me from staring at his crying mother. If so, his strategy worked. The two of us went to my bedroom and my schoolbooks.\n\nWhile I copied down the assignments for Gene, he said, \"Do you want a ride tomorrow morning? I'm going to have the car. In fact, from now on I'll have the car a lot.\"\n\nHe didn't say this ruefully or ironically but expressionlessly, and my initial reaction was, My God, what a monstrously self-interested thing to say! Then, in the next beat, I reminded myself that none of the usual standards of human behavior applied to my friend.\n\n\"Sure,\" I said. \"Do you want to pick me up or should I come down?\"\n\n\"I'll pick you up. By the way, don't try to call. My mom unplugged the phone.\"\n\nWhen we returned, Gene's mother was still weeping. And confessing, if it's possible to confess to ignorance.\n\n\"I don't know. I _just don't know._ \" Her sobs twisted her face. \"He never said anything to me. _Never._ \"\n\nMy mother was up out of her chair and standing behind Mrs. Stoddard, patting her back and comforting the sobbing woman as best she could. My father, meanwhile, remained seated, and his expression\u2014stern, still on the edge of anger\u2014made me wonder if it had been his questioning that had brought on Mrs. Stoddard's state.\n\n\"You think you know someone,\" Mrs. Stoddard said, \"and then . . . then something like this happens. I've racked my brain . . . for an explanation. A clue. I've looked _everywhere._ \"\n\nNow I saw what might have been an additional emotion cross my father's face. Was that skepticism? Did he know a place\u2014a hidden area, a dark corner\u2014where Mrs. Stoddard hadn't looked?\n\n\"Don't blame yourself,\" my mother said. \"Please, Alma. Don't.\"\n\nMy sister ran into the room, and at her entrance the three adults tried to give an impression of normalcy. My father reached for his cigarettes. My mother asked if anyone needed more coffee. Alma Stoddard sat up straight and wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands.\n\nI turned away too, but Gene was right there, ready to answer the question I would never ask. \"I don't know why he did it either,\" he said. He could not have been more straightforward and unapologetic in delivering that line if he were in Mr. Bollinger's algebra class admitting that he could not solve an equation. Gene had never been a particularly effusive boy. Neither of us were, but growing up I had always envied his placidity. I might have affected the same demeanor (ours was an especially chilly Midwestern version of cool), but I knew I was faking it. Inwardly I was often nervous\u2014about grades, girls, sports, the proper clothes, the correct companions. That night, however, as I confronted Gene's eerie serenity, I felt myself permanently cured of some of my anxiety. I couldn't imagine a life less enviable than his.\n\nAs if the real reason for coming to our house had been to make the announcement that Raymond Stoddard's behavior mystified them as much as anyone, having discharged that duty, Gene and his mother soon left.\n\nIn their absence we were, of course, as bewildered as ever, and almost immediately after their departure, my father went to the telephone. \"I'm calling Burt. Find out what they're saying about this up there.\"\n\nMy father and his younger brother, Burt, left Wembley for college\u2014my father to the University of North Dakota and law school and Burt to the University of Minnesota and pharmacy school\u2014and after graduation both returned to their hometown to start their careers. But while my father eventually moved on, Burt remained, working in the drugstore that their father owned. After my grandfather's death, Burt took over the family business, and he continued to live alone in the house the boys grew up in.\n\nMy mother and I waited in the living room while the brothers talked. Their conversation lasted long enough that we knew something of substance was being discussed, and Burt was obviously doing most of the talking. My father sat at the kitchen table and smoked, nodding in understanding or affirmation, and only interrupting to inject an occasional question. When he hung up, he remained in the kitchen, untangling the twisted telephone cord. It was not in his nature to torment us deliberately, so I can only imagine he was wondering how he would convey the information he had gleaned from his brother.\n\nWhen he finally came into the living room, he said, \"Well, that was Burt.\" He looked at me and then to my mother. I understood his hesitation. He wasn't sure how much he should say in front of me.\n\n\"Go ahead,\" my mother said. \"He needs to hear. Gene is his friend.\" With those words she conferred upon me a new status. Did I want it? I believed I did. It meant I would no longer have to eavesdrop or conjecture. But I also knew the time might come when I'd wish I could step back down in rank.\n\n\"Was Burt drunk, by the way?\" my mother asked. She would never have asked that in my presence before, though her question merely acknowledged what was generally known about her brother-in-law.\n\n\"Not yet, but he's getting there.\"\n\nMy mother moved over on the sofa, inviting my father to join us. \"So what did Burt have to say?\"\n\nMy father sat down between us and for the first time that day loosened his tie. \"Well, he said something that Alma didn't see fit to mention.\"\n\nOnce again, he cast a glance in my direction, but with nothing more than a hand touched lightly to his shoulder, my mother urged him on. My father cleared his throat and began. \"It seems Alma and Senator Burnham used to go together. Were you aware of that?\"\n\nShock crossed her face, and she pushed back against the sofa's cushions. \"When was this?\"\n\n\"High school. Or thereabouts.\"\n\n\"Oh. Well. Teenagers.\" Her dismissive tone wounded me.\n\n\"I'm simply reporting what Burt said. Do you want to hear it or not?\"\n\n\"Go ahead. But I'll keep in mind where this is coming from, too.\"\n\nI knew what that meant, or thought I did. Uncle Burt was not an admirer of Monty Burnham or his politics. Burt was a Democrat, a fact that put him in the minority in conservative North Dakota (although we had just elected a Democratic governor), while Monty Burnham was not just a Republican but a leader in the party and someone who had often been talked about as a possible candidate for higher office: governor, United States representative, or senator. But as my father talked\u2014that night, and in the days, weeks, months, and even years to come\u2014I learned of other reasons for Burt's antipathy.\n\nIn most respects, however, Burt was a good source to consult. He was intelligent and observant, he had a good memory, and, unlike his older brother, he was not averse to gossip. Burt was a Wembley resident past and present, and he was from the same high school graduating class as Monty Burnham, Raymond Stoddard, and Alma Shumate. (Betty Donfils, Monty Burnham's wife, now widow, graduated two years behind them.) My father, six or seven years older than these people, was never their peer, and he knew them as little more than the children of Wembley families and the younger siblings of friends. The Shumates were poor, and Alma grew up one of six children in what today would be known as a single-parent home. When she was a child, her father died in a farm accident; he fell into a grain silo and suffocated. The Stoddards, on the other hand, were comfortably middle class, thanks to Raymond's father's job with the Soo Line Railroad. My ancestors were among Wembley's first settlers, and while they were a prominent, respected, and well-established family in the community, they never enjoyed the power or prosperity that the Burnhams had. Monty's father served two terms as town mayor, and his uncle was state's attorney. Over the years the Burnhams owned a real estate company, various downtown buildings, and the two successful dealerships that Monty eventually took over. \"Generations of glad-handers and wheeler-dealers,\" my father said, perhaps repeating his brother's phrase. Neither brother would have been intending the remark as a compliment.\n\nMonty Burnham and Raymond Stoddard were both World War II veterans, having served together in the Pacific theater. Senator Burnham left the military as a decorated Army tank commander. During the battle for one of the Mariana Islands, according to one of the obituaries, Monty Burnham \"resolutely carried on even when his tank was cut off from the rest of the platoon and battalion, and by taking the fight to the Japanese, he carried the day for the Allied Forces.\" Mr. Stoddard never rose above the rank of private, and as far as Burt knew, neither man came through the war with anything worse than Raymond's case of malaria. (My father, also an officer, fought in Europe, while Uncle Burt was in the Navy but saw no combat.) After the war, Raymond Stoddard worked for a county agency in Wembley for a few years before he and Alma moved to Bismarck. Monty Burnham capitalized on his distinguished war record as well as his family name to rise to prominence in Wembley and eventually the state.\n\n\"Maybe there's something in those war years,\" my mother suggested. \"Could Monty Burnham have been Ray's commanding officer? Maybe there was something unfair about Monty Burnham's promotion or\u2014\"\n\nShe hadn't finished before my father began shaking his head. \"Didn't work that way. Anger, jealousy, resentment\u2014sure, there was bad blood among the men. No shortage of it. But by the time we mustered out, we were ready to put it all behind us. Wartime grudges don't have any staying power, in my experience.\"\n\n\"Did you and Ray talk about the war?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Never? That's hard to believe.\"\n\nNot for me. Many of my friends had fathers who had been in the war, and some of them never got over it. Or wouldn't let themselves. My friend Stan Gronlund, for example, never stopped talking about his father's experiences as an Air Force bombardier, but in that, Stan was simply imitating his father, who was amazingly adept at relating almost everything to his years in the military. Jim Kieper's father had what amounted to a World War II shrine in his basement, consisting mostly of German military artifacts\u2014helmets; medals; binoculars; bayonets; a disarmed grenade; even a singed, bullet-punctured swastika flag. But my father and Raymond Stoddard brought home no souvenirs, and they passed no war stories on to their sons.\n\n\"Don't believe it, then,\" my father said. \"But it was so.\"\n\nMy mother shrugged. \"What about the job that Ray drank himself out of? Was that in Wembley? Or here?\"\n\n\"That was here. And to tell you the truth, I'm inclined to give Ray a pass on that one. When they first moved to Bismarck, he was doing construction work, and then during the winter when things were slow he took a job as night clerk at the Frontier. Construction picked up, but he didn't want to let go of the extra money. Anyway, he was burning the candle at both ends, and one night they had some sort of small scale emergency at the hotel\u2014a small fire back in the kitchen or something\u2014and Ray wasn't at the desk, where he was supposed to be. He was off catching forty winks somewhere. When the manager of the Frontier caught wind of it, he fired Ray.\"\n\n\"What did his drinking have to do with it?\"\n\nNow it was my father's turn to shrug. \"The manager smelled liquor on Ray's breath, and the bartender said that Ray had been in the bar that night, so the manager put one and one together and got three. He assumed Ray was drunk and sleeping it off.\"\n\n\"But Ray was drinking then?\"\n\nMy father leaned forward and with the heel of his hand rubbed the coffee table's glass top. If he had seen a smudge there, it wouldn't last long, not in my mother's home. \"What makes us think he ever quit? Maybe he just got it under control.\"\n\n\"I suppose I just assumed . . .\"\n\nMy father looked at me, the first time I had been included as more than a listener. \"Well? Did you see any evidence that Mr. Stoddard was still drinking?\"\n\n\"He might have been. I once saw a couple empties in their garbage can.\"\n\n\"Bourbon?\" my father asked.\n\nI didn't want to appear too knowledgeable. \"Old Crow? It was a brown bottle. A little one.\"\n\n\"Bourbon,\" my father concluded. \"Raymond once said he was too fond of bourbon.\"\n\n\"When was this?\" my mother asked.\n\n\"I can't remember exactly,\" I answered. \"Last summer, maybe? We were just goofing around and the garbage can tipped over.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" she said, nodding in my father's direction. \"I mean, when did Ray confess this fondness for bourbon?\"\n\nMy father sat back again. \"A summer evening a few years back. We'd both been mowing our lawns, and Ray just wandered up the street. This was a driveway conversation, nothing more.\"\n\n\"But how did it come out, about the bourbon?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Hot weather? Wouldn't a beer hit the spot? And Ray said bourbon had always been his drink of choice. You call it a confession. It was nothing like that. Small talk is what it was.\"\n\n\"Did Burt say anything about why Ray and Alma came to Bismarck in the first place?\"\n\n\"Burt didn't. But I have the answer to that one. He came to build houses. Alma's brother was a foreman with the construction company Ray went to work for. He still is, for that matter. Harbring Construction has Len Harbring's name over the door, but Alma's brother runs the outfit. I'm not sure why Ray quit them. I suppose because working for the state is steadier.\"\n\n\"But if he was still drinking. . . .\"\n\n\"Alcohol doesn't explain murder. A man in trouble with the bottle might take his own life, but not another's.\" He clapped his hands on his thighs and rocked back and forth. \"None of it makes any sense.\"\n\n\"Burt didn't have anything else to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing comes to mind. What he kept coming back to was the business about Alma once going out with Monty Burnham.\" He looked at my mother. \"Is that something you could ask her about?\"\n\n\"Alma and I don't have that kind of relationship.\" My mother's tone was icy. \"We never have.\"\n\n\"Could you ask Iris?\" The Friedrichs lived next door to the Stoddards, and Iris Friedrich was Alma Stoddard's closest friend. \"See if Alma ever said anything to her about Monty Burnham?\"\n\n\"And what would that make me?\" My mother answered her own question. \"A snoop and a gossip.\" There were no worse labels that could be hung on her.\n\n\"Then we're stuck,\" my father said. He reached for his cigarettes\u2014then stopped, balled up his fist, and pounded it into his other open hand. \"God _damn_ it! I keep thinking I should go down there and grab Ray by the shoulders and shake him and talk some sense into the man!\"\n\nMy mother reached out and, as if she were playing rock, scissors, paper with my father, covered his fist with her hand before he could strike his palm again. Her gesture told me that she had long known what I had just learned\u2014that in my father grief and rage could wrap themselves as tightly together as those fingers that were seeking something to punch.\n\n\"You don't have to take this on yourself, you know,\" she said gently. \"This isn't a mystery you have to solve.\" Only my mother could have spoken to him in this way and have her words calm rather than anger him further.\n\nIn our home the living room draperies were seldom drawn, but since the traffic on Keogh Street, usually limited to its few residents, had increased significantly in the past twenty-four hours, my mother had closed the curtains just after Gene and his mother came over. Cars traveled slowly up and down the street as they would have a few weeks earlier when Bismarck residents patrolled the city's neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights and decorations. Now, of course, they were searching for the Stoddard residence, hoping perhaps that its blank rectangles of glass, stucco, and wood might give off a unique and lurid glow.\n\nBut even if our curtains had been open, they would have revealed at that moment a tableau so ordinary that not even the most curious would look twice. Under a framed reproduction of a Constable landscape, father, mother, and son sat together on a sofa covered in a gray-green fabric. The three of them might have gathered to have a talk about the dangers of smoking\u2014even as the parents lit their own cigarettes\u2014or about the son's slipping grades in geometry. Perhaps they were asking him if he understood how important it was that he apply himself to his studies. On the television across the room Jack Paar spoke and gestured with a flamboyance rare among Midwestern men. Nothing\u2014nothing whatsoever\u2014in the scene revealed that a bomb had exploded on the block or that these people would henceforth have to live in its wreckage. If their faces were uncontorted by anguish, it was only because they had all learned the consoling power of the prayer of selfishness _\u2014Thank God it's not us, thank God it's_ _not us, thank God it's not us._\n\nThere was something in my parents' conversation that night that I found especially puzzling. I couldn't understand why they\u2014why my mother, really\u2014had passed so swiftly over the fact that Monty Burnham and Alma Stoddard had once dated. In my view, nothing of greater significance had, to that point, been revealed that could approach a motive for Raymond Stoddard. Yet my mother seemed to think that because they had both been teenagers at the time, the relationship couldn't have been of consequence. Had she been standing where I had been only a few weeks earlier, next to the pool tables at Midway Bowling Lanes, and had she seen and heard Russell Batt, a classmate of mine, she might have realized how easily a ruined adolescent romance can turn someone's thoughts to murder.\n\nRussell Batt and Jennifer Oslund had been a couple since junior high school, but then suddenly\u2014no one quite knew what the exact sequence of events was\u2014just after Thanksgiving she dropped Russell and began to date Curt Forney. Since Russell still loved Jennifer, he blamed Curt for the breakup, and that night at the bowling alley Russell was waiting for Curt to walk through the door. When he did, Russell said, he'd kill him.\n\nA tall, raw-boned, rope-muscled kid, Russell Batt had grown up on a farm and had moved to Bismarck as a sixth grader. He was quick-tempered and belligerent, and almost from the moment he arrived in town, he had been getting into fistfights. But it wasn't just his history and pugnacious nature that convinced those of us who listened to him that night that his rants were more than talk.\n\nHe had opened his jacket to reveal, tucked into the waistband of his jeans, a stag-handled hunting knife. Lest anyone think it was just a prop, he pulled it from its leather sheath, allowing its curved blade to glint in the overhead light meant to illuminate the green felt of the billiard tables. \"I'm going to slip this between his ribs,\" Russell said, \"before he can say a goddamn thing. I don't give a shit what his side of it is.\" Russell was drunk, but to those of us gathered around him, that only enhanced his credibility.\n\nCurt Forney, however, didn't enter Midway Bowling Lanes that night, and whether that was because someone warned him in advance or headed him off in the parking lot, I never knew. Besides, there was no reason to believe that Russell's vow had any temporal boundaries. If he didn't kill Curt then, he'd do it another time.\n\nIf Curt Forney had appeared, would we\u2014those of us clustered around Russell Batt and basking in his menace\u2014have tried to intercede on Curt's behalf? I like to think we would have, although Russell's jealousy, anger, and murderous determination shrunk all of us; we were boys listening to a man's threats.\n\nWe were spared that awful responsibility not just by Curt's nonappearance but by an intercession. Also at the Midway lanes was the former Janice Robichaud. A coarsely pretty woman in her early twenties, Janice was married to Russell's older brother, Morris, but that night she was bowling with her girlfriends. Someone who had overheard Russell sought out Janice and told her what Russell was threatening to do. The bowling lanes and the pool tables were some distance from each other, but when Janice learned of her brother-in-law's agitated state, she headed toward him at a dead run.\n\nShe made no attempt to calm Russell with compassion or soft words. Neither did she try to mount a moral appeal. Instead, she lit furiously into him as soon as she was within shouting distance.\n\n\"You're talking about throwing your life away for what\u2014that two-timing little twat? And you think that will bring her back to you? She'll hate your fucking guts. Now get the hell out of here, and if I hear about any more of this bullshit, I'm telling your brother, and he'll kick your ass from here to Fargo.\"\n\nHer tirade awed and terrified us, and it obviously made an impression on Russell as well. No harm befell Curt Forney on that night or any other, but neither did his relationship with Jennifer Oslund last. Before the end of the school year she was dating Chuck Vogel, and after Chuck, Wes Lahr, and after Wes, someone else, but never again Russell Batt. Or Curt Forney. When Jennifer left for college, she seemed to leave Bismarck for good, while Russell married Nancy Lawler, and the two of them settled on the city's south side to raise their family.\n\nBut what if\u2014what if Raymond Stoddard were made of the same combustible material as Russell Batt, although of the slower-burning sort? What if the passion that almost instantly burst into flame in Russell smoldered for years in Raymond Stoddard until he too was ready to kill the one who . . . who . . . Here, of course, my speculations bumped against reality. If there were once a competition for Alma Shumate, Raymond Stoddard was the winner, not Monty Burnham. But because I was reluctant to admit, even to myself, that I had nothing to offer from my limited store of observations and experiences that could explain Raymond Stoddard, I tried to invent a set of circumstances that would still involve a romantic triangle.\n\n_Yes, Raymond and Alma ended up together, but Ray worried_ _that Monty Burnham remained Alma's real love, so when_ _Ray had an opportunity to leave Wembley, he jumped at it. The_ _Stoddards moved to Bismarck not for Ray's higher-paying job_ _but because Ray wanted to remove his wife from the town_ _where her former boyfriend was a constant presence. Ray's_ _strategy worked. Or so he believed, though he couldn't keep_ _from worrying that his former rival might someday reappear_ _and win Alma back. Ray's concerns increased when Monty_ _Burnham was elected to the state senate, which meant that as a_ _legislator he would come to Bismarck every other year when_ _congress convened._\n\n_And, finally, exactly what Ray feared came to pass. On a_ _blustery winter day, Alma Stoddard took the bus downtown._ _Her destination was Schreiber's Fabric Shop, where she hoped_ _to find some material with which to re-cover a chair. When she_ _left the store, the wind was gusting so hard\u2014little clouds of_ _fine-grained snow billowed down the street and even the traffic_ _light posts were swaying\u2014that she decided to duck into the_ _Coffee Cup Caf\u00e9 for a few minutes of warmth. Meanwhile,_ _Monty Burnham was also in downtown Bismarck. He was supposed_ _to meet with an oil abstractor, but since he was early, he_ _decided to wait across the street in the caf\u00e9 with the frosted_ _windows and the neon sign of a cup and saucer. When Monty,_ _now Senator, walked in, he spotted Alma\u2014he recognized her_ _immediately\u2014and without invitation sat down at her table._\n\n_Alma was not only shy but uncomfortable. No other customers_ _were in the establishment, and there they were\u2014sitting_ _together at a table in the corner. It might have looked as though_ _this had been an arranged meeting! Or maybe her discomfort_ _came not entirely from her concern over what other people_ _might think but from her own feelings. Over the years, she had_ _thought often of Monty Burnham and had wondered what her_ _life would have been if she had stayed with him. Which was_ _harder to imagine\u2014being married to a wealthy well-known_ _man or being married to a charming ebullient man who seemed_ _to smile his way through every day? Monty Burnham was both_ _of those._\n\n_Alma shrank back from Monty Burnham's presence, which_ _only made him strive harder to wrest a smile or laugh from her._ _Nostalgia was the tactic he chose. \"Remember the night of the_ _holiday party that ended with us marching through the streets_ _of Wembley at two o'clock in the morning singing Christmas_ _carols? Remember when we put sugar in the gas tank of old Mr._ _Pettinger's Reo? Remember when we drove to Devils Lake for_ _the county fair, and on the way back my car broke down and it_ _was close to dawn when we finally pulled up in front of your_ _house and your mother came striding down the driveway and_ _didn't say a word but damned near dragged you back inside?_ _Remember the night you told me you feared we were becoming_ _too serious and that we should stop seeing each other? That_ _practically destroyed me, and the very next day I left Wembley_ _and drove into Canada. I took a job on a cattle ranch outside_ _Calgary, and when I returned, you were engaged to Ray Stoddard._ _. . .\" No, no. On that day, their first reunion in years,_ _Monty Burnham would keep the tone light. \"I bent over in Mrs._ _Schmidt's class and split the seat of my pants\u2014remember?\" Finally,_ _finally, he got a smile from Alma, and once he did, successful_ _car salesman and skillful politician that he was, Monty_ _Burnham knew he was home free._\n\n_They arranged to meet again, but Alma didn't want it to be_ _in a place so public. When he suggested that he come to her_ _home, Alma could think of nothing but all the windows up and_ _down Keogh Street, and in each one she imagined a woman_ _peering out and wondering, who could that be entering the_ _Stoddard home? He looks like that politician. . . ._\n\n_\"What about my place,\" Monty Burnham suggested. \"During_ _the legislative session I rent a little basement apartment over_ _on Avenue B. You can park in the alley and enter through the_ _side door. . . .\"_\n\nThis plot required adjustment. Their renewed relationship moved too quickly. Perhaps they met in just this way, but years ago, and they never saw each other in the two years between legislative sessions. _But gradually over time, Alma Stoddard and_ _Monty Burnham fell in love again. They not only met clandestinely,_ _they also exchanged letters, and while Raymond Stoddard_ _was searching for . . . for a needle, yes, a needle\u2014he had a_ _sliver that could be extracted only with a needle\u2014he opened his_ _wife's sewing kit. He accidentally lifted the box's top tray, the_ _one containing all the spools of colorful thread_ (I was of course picturing my mother's sewing kit), _and when he did, he found_ _the letters Monty Burnham had been sending Alma. None of the_ _envelopes had a return address\u2014in case Alma's husband would_ _be the one to pick up the mail one day\u2014but as soon as Ray saw_ _the signature\u2014\"Monty\"\u2014he knew. In fact, he didn't have to_ _read more than that name and the closing that preceded it\u2014_ _\"Love\"\u2014to realize the worst: He had lost his wife._\n\n_But read on he did. He learned that the correspondence had_ _flowed in more than one direction; Alma wrote as often to_ _Monty Burnham as he wrote to her. Ray couldn't see the texts_ _of any of her letters or how she signed them, but he didn't have_ _to. It was obvious that she felt for Monty what he felt for her,_ _and their rekindled relationship blazed hotter than before because_ _now it was fed not only by the incendiary passions left_ _over from youth but also by the slower-burning fuel of adult_ _love. Ray deduced too that they had done more than adore each_ _other from a distance. Plainly, they had been physically intimate,_ _as Monty wrote that \"I live for the time when once again_ _I can hold your naked body in my arms, when I can. . . .\"_\n\nAs you can see, I was already practicing the craft of the novelist I would someday be, though less with language than with imagination\u2014speculating on what lives other than my own were like, and on what forces underlay people's behavior. But in spite of what educators would have us believe about the creative powers of the young, reality hems in their minds more than it does adults'. At sixteen I couldn't imagine what I could at twenty-six, thirty-six, forty-six, fifty-six . . . so I couldn't really envision a world in which Alma Stoddard, clothed or otherwise, would lie in anyone's arms or a world in which anyone would want her to. The problem was not just that she was the mother of my best friend. I could, after all, summon up a few lascivious thoughts about Mrs. Crisp, the flaxen-haired, tanned, curvaceous mother of my friend Jeff, whereas Alma Stoddard had the appearance of a woman who tried to de-emphasize not only her beauty but her entire physical being. She didn't wear much makeup. She wore her hair in a tightly bobby-pinned, unflattering, unvarying style. Her clothes were dark, shapeless, and severe. A time would come when I would realize that ardor and austerity can coexist, but I couldn't get there when I was sixteen, not with Alma Stoddard.\n\nNevertheless, though I had nothing in the way of evidence to support it, I wasn't about to relinquish the idea that the relationship that had existed in the past between Monty Burnham and Alma Stoddard must have had something to do with the present, and I couldn't figure out why my mother brushed aside the possibility so quickly. Who knows\u2014maybe if I had gone on to serve in the military someday I would have been similarly vexed by my father's unwillingness to consider Raymond Stoddard and Monty Burnham's war experiences as the early stimulus for Raymond's murderous deed.\n\nYears later, however, it was my mother's behavior that I mentioned to my sister. The occasion was Christmas, and in the past she had always traveled to Bismarck for the holiday. Our mother, however, had died months earlier, and since my unmarried sister had no other family, she spent the holiday with my wife, daughters, and me in Montana.\n\nIt was late on Christmas Eve, and she and I were the only ones awake in the house. We were sitting in the living room, in front of a fire's dying embers, and we each had a glass of calvados, her Christmas gift to me, purchased on a summer trip to Normandy. We were reminiscing, as brothers and sisters do, but unlike other siblings, we were working from a script. No one who lived in 1961 within the radius of that small circle that took in the capitol building on its eastern edge and Keogh Street on the western margin could talk about the past without eventually, inevitably, discussing the Stoddard-Burnham tragedy.\n\nI had just expressed my long-ago puzzlement about why our mother had found the onetime relationship between Alma Stoddard and Monty Burnham to be of so little interest, and before I finished the thought, my sister began to laugh softly.\n\nDidn't I know? Our mother was engaged to be married when she was still a teenager, and not to the man who would be our father. All I could do was shake my head.\n\nOur mother grew up in a small town in western Minnesota, not far from Fargo, North Dakota, and her boyfriend, a year older, lived on a farm. They dated throughout high school, and on the day of his graduation he asked her to marry him the following year when she received her diploma. Our mother certainly had opportunities aplenty to observe the harsh realities of farm life, but the notion of an isolated, rural existence held a kind of romantic, bucolic appeal for her. And she loved the young man.\n\n\"Well, what happened?\" I asked. \"What made us a lawyer's kids and not a farmer's?\"\n\n\"He was helping out on someone's farm, and he was in an accident. A tractor flipped over on him. His legs were crushed, and he couldn't stand the thought of being a cripple, so he broke off the engagement. Or tried to. Mom, being Mom, said that his condition didn't matter to her, that they'd find some way to make a life together. She could keep her job at the drugstore where she'd been working since she was fourteen. She'd support them.\"\n\n\"Sounds like love, all right.\"\n\n\"On Mom's part. But he ended up marrying another girl, a girl who lived on that farm where he'd been working when he had his accident. So I guess their relationship was a variant of the farmer's daughter joke. And since she was pregnant, apparently he wasn't completely disabled. But Mom really took it hard. She said she wasn't sure how she'd be able to go on.\"\n\nI'm sure my sister believes to this day that I set down my drink and walked from the room because I was upset by the news that our mother had once had a youthful romance that fractured her heart.\n\nBut that was not it, not at all.\n\nAkira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert one's gaze, advice I've tried to take to heart as a writer and as someone who wants to understand the human mysteries. Even without knowing any specifics, I had readily acknowledged that my parents had lives before they became spouses and parents, and I never held them to any standard that lay beyond the obligations of those roles. Besides, I once lived on Keogh Street\u2014where was there a better school to learn the lesson that the life of every man and woman was so much more than it appeared to be?\n\nNo, disclosures about my mother's and father's pasts weren't likely to distress me. The real reason I couldn't remain in my sister's company wasn't the story she told, but what in hearing it I learned about myself. How could I have been such a fool as to think that our mother dismissed the relationship between Alma Stoddard and Monty Burnham because it was a product of their teen years? She rushed past it _because_ she knew how deep and durable a long-ago love could be.\n\nThe next day\u2014Christmas day\u2014I told my sister I was sorry I'd walked out on her, and I let her think that the subject had simply been more than I could handle.\n\nShe waved away my apology. \"I knew you hadn't heard the story.\"\n\n\"Did Dad know about it?\"\n\n\"He knew she once went with a boy she was serious about. He didn't know they were engaged.\"\n\nI wanted to defend my father, to say that knowledge of his wife's past wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference in his life, but I couldn't, not with complete confidence. The events of January 1961 kept me from that certainty as well. \"So that was a secret best kept from the males in the family?\"\n\nMy sister shrugged. Every sibling wants to believe that he or she is favored in some way, and what could confer that status better than to be taken into a parent's confidence? Maybe my sister held on to that story because our mother had asked her to tell it to no one. Or perhaps my sister hoarded it for a small measure of revenge because years before I had been included in some of our parents' conversations while she was excluded. Whatever the reason, I was willing to let my sister have her satisfaction. Moreover, though what I learned about my mother forced a revision of who I had always believed she was, it did nothing to any theory I held about why Raymond Stoddard did what he did.\n\nI was worried about riding to school with Gene on that first day when he would be permitted to drive the family car, and my worry was quite specific. I feared that if people saw us getting out of the same car, it would only contribute to their confusion about us.\n\nBecause we grew up together on Keogh Street and were so often in each other's company and because we were similar in so many respects, Gene and I were frequently mistaken for the other. We were both brown-haired, slender, and slightly taller than average. For the second consecutive winter we dressed in identical dark green overcoats. We were both serious about our studies, reasonably well behaved, and responsible. We were both shy and comfortable with silence. We were among the youngest of our class, our birthdays one month apart to the day\u2014his October 2 and mine November 2. Indeed, if the world were intent on telling us apart, it had little to go on. Eye color\u2014his brown, mine blue and peering out from behind glasses. He played the clarinet; I ran on the cross-country team. He had a girlfriend; I did not. I had tonsils; he did not. I had a father; he did not.\n\nAs a teenager I was, like many adolescents, frustrated by my anonymity. I wanted, I thought, to be known, to have a reputation, an identity. I wasn't a hood, a rebel, a varsity athlete, a class officer; I wasn't popular with girls or watched by the police. I wasn't tough or talented. But suddenly I saw that fame\u2014or notoriety\u2014could attach itself to you and yet have nothing to do with you. Gene Stoddard had been, like me, simply one of the indistinguishable mass of nice guys until, overnight, he became Bismarck's most famous teenager. And he would have given anything to be obscure again. Or, put another way, to be mistaken for me. If I could have, I would have worn a sign around my neck: I AM NOT GENE STODDARD.\n\nAs it turned out, Gene didn't drive to school, not that morning. Overnight the temperature dropped to almost thirty below, cold even by North Dakota standards. The Stoddards, no doubt because they couldn't bring themselves to enter their garage, had left their Ford parked outside, and in the morning it wouldn't start. My father ended up taking Gene and me to school, and for some reason it seemed to me a sufficient differentiation of our identities that we climbed from a car belonging to our family.\n\nAfter delivering us to school, my father returned to Keogh Street and used his jumper cables to get the Stoddards' car running again. Then he told Alma Stoddard that while he could understand why she might have difficulty going into the garage, if that was the case, then she should consider having a headbolt heater installed in the Ford and plugging it in on winter nights.\n\nI'm not sure if it was precisely _during_ Raymond Stoddard's funeral that I fell in love with Marie Ryan, but by the end of the day it was a fait accompli.\n\nThe process began when she telephoned me the night before. No, no, it started before that. It started with her looks. Marie Ryan was a beautiful girl, and if her beauty occasionally passed unnoticed, it was because she herself paid so little attention to it. She had large, almond-shaped green eyes with a slight oriental tilt, high cheekbones, a strong jaw, creamy skin, deep dimples, and perfectly formed lips. Without the aid of orthodontia, her teeth were flawlessly straight. Although she was only fifteen, she had a woman's lush body on her compact frame. To save her from classical beauty's boring predictability, she had a chicken pox scar on her forehead, and her nose was a little wide, causing a series of diagonal wrinkles to break out along the bridge when she laughed. Consistent with her lack of vanity, she dressed plainly, almost carelessly, and wore her long lustrous reddish-brown hair in the simplest of styles.\n\nBut no amount of physical description\u2014at least none within my powers to offer\u2014will do justice to what Marie Ryan was. Today the term is \"hot.\" Then, she was a babe, a honey, sexy, stacked. In 1961 we may not have known about pheromones, but we still trailed helplessly after someone who secreted them.\n\nAs incomparable as Marie Ryan was in appearance, she was also unique in character. She was intelligent, outspoken, and unconventional. Indeed, it was this last quality that enabled her to pick up the telephone and dial my number. In 1961 teenage girls simply did not call boys. Furthermore, the reason for Marie Ryan's call was another example of her ungovernable nature. Her parents had forbidden her to attend Raymond Stoddard's funeral, and she wanted to know if she could go with me. Without hesitation I said yes, and as evidence of how pleased I was at the prospect of being in her company, I even allowed myself to think, fleetingly, pathetically, inappropriately, that it was almost as if she and I would be on a date.\n\nOn the day of the funeral my parents needed to arrive early at First Lutheran Church. My mother, with a few of the women who belonged to the same Women's League as Alma Stoddard, would be serving coffee, sandwiches, and cookies in the church basement after the funeral, so she had to begin preparations an hour before the service. My father wanted to get to the church early because Alma Stoddard had asked him to be a pallbearer, and he had agreed. I dropped my parents off at First Lutheran, so when it was time to go to the actual services, I had the car to myself, and, according to our arrangements, I picked Marie Ryan up on a street corner between the high school and the church.\n\nWhen she climbed into the car, I asked her if she had been excused from school.\n\nShe shook her head. \"I just left.\"\n\n\"So your afternoon classes\u2014those will be unexcused absences?\"\n\nMarie shrugged. \"I'll tell Mr. Fedder where I was. He'll understand.\" Vernon Fedder was the school's vice principal and in charge of attendance and discipline.\n\n\"What if they call your house?\"\n\n\"They almost never call if you miss in the afternoon,\" she said, and then turned to look at me. \"Don't you want me to go with you? Is that what this is all about? Because if you don't, you can let me out and I'll walk. But I'm going to that funeral. I told Gene I'd be there, and I will be.\" And she was loyal. How could I have forgotten to mention that? Loving and loyal.\n\n\"I just don't want you to get into trouble.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about it.\"\n\nI couldn't figure out why she didn't share my concerns about the possible consequences of her attending the funeral, especially since in doing so she was defying her parents and breaking school rules. (No one could be excused from school without a written note from a parent, and few parents, and certainly not Marie's, wanted their children at a service for a murderer.) Once we arrived at the church, however, I understood.\n\nTogether Marie and I walked up the steps and entered the church, but then she left my side and hurried up the aisle to where Gene sat with his mother and his sister. Marie slid into the pew right behind the Stoddards, leaned forward, and rested her hand on Gene's shoulder.\n\nI trailed after Marie and seated myself next to her. My mother, coming up from the basement, soon appeared at the side door at the front of the church, and she also entered our pew. Before my mother sat down next to Marie, she bent over Alma Stoddard, whispered something to her and, through the net of Alma's veil, kissed the new widow on the cheek. My father sat a few rows back with the other pallbearers.\n\nThe service was sparsely attended. I could count the mourners\u2014no more than twenty\u2014and most of them I could identify as well from our neighborhood. Mrs. Holan and Mrs. Gustafson (but without their husbands); Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks from the newer brick house on Divide Avenue across from us; Judy Neville, Marcia Stoddard's best friend in junior high and high school. There was also a tall balding man with a bulbous nose whom I took to be Raymond Stoddard's coworker or perhaps even his boss; Earl Shumate, Alma's brother, and her sister. Raymond Stoddard also had a brother and a sister but neither was present. Among the few faces I wasn't sure of were two men I believed had been at our house on the evening of the day of the murder. One I thought was a newspaper reporter, the other a police officer or sheriff's deputy, and unless they were both going to act as pallbearers, it looked as though Raymond Stoddard would come up short of the traditional six.\n\nThe police or the press couldn't have been present for any reason but to satisfy their own curiosity. There was no crime that required further investigation, and the media had quickly run out of things to write and say after the facts had been reported and Monty Burnham's life had been celebrated.\n\nIndeed, the assassination seemed especially troublesome to journalists. They wanted to continue to write and report on the incident\u2014interest remained high, people couldn't stop talking about it, and, best or worst of all, depending on your point of view, the murder had brought attention to Bismarck and North Dakota. But what were the media supposed to _say_? They had chronicled Burnham's life, emphasizing the small-town-boy-rises-to-prominence story line; offered testimonials from friends, colleagues, and constituents; and played over and over the film clip (or displayed an accompanying still photograph) of Senator Burnham heartily welcoming presidential hopeful Richard Nixon to the state in the campaign summer of 1960. Burnham personally placed a Sioux headdress on Nixon's head and handed the candidate a bag of dried buffalo chips \"so he'd have something to fling at the Democrats when they started throwing their bull . . . manure his way.\" Nixon was a good sport, but you could tell he wanted to shed the headdress at the earliest opportunity. Another media favorite was a photograph of Monty Burnham in midair. As a high school senior he took first place in the broad jump in the state track meet, and the picture caught him during one of his prize-winning leaps, arms and legs akimbo, and his mouth wide open as if he were shouting the commentary to accompany his own feat.\n\nWhat seemed to frustrate the media was that they could not close off Monty Burnham's life with a theme. If only they could have written or said that Monty Burnham had died for a cause, but that plainly wasn't so, and it wasn't possible to make someone a martyr to senselessness or enigmatic violence. (In their efforts to make Monty Burnham one of North Dakota's distinctive citizens, they might have pointed out how rare he truly was: In 1960 there had been only six murder victims out of the state's population of 640,000. I looked up that statistic quite recently.) Journalists were no different from the people for whom they printed their newspapers and magazines, or broadcast their reports and features. What else was to be done about an event obviously momentous but to which the response ultimately seemed to be little more than a throwing up of hands?\n\nRaymond Stoddard's life and behavior might have presented a potentially greater problem, but since he wasn't famous, it was much easier to summarize him with relatively few words. In this regard, Pastor Lundgren had the advantage. He could follow the standard funeral service, take refuge in the platitudes of religion and scripture, and never refer to Raymond Stoddard in any but the most general outlines. And I don't mean to mock what the minister said. Alma, Marcia, and Gene Stoddard and most of those in attendance probably took comfort in his words. I know I did. It would be a few years before I lost my religion, and I was relieved to hear that Raymond Stoddard, no matter that he had committed murder, was not disqualified from entry into heaven.\n\nYet it was as a murderer that I kept trying to think of him. Since we were confined to those hard pews for an hour, and assigned, so to speak, to reflect on Raymond Stoddard's life, I scavenged my memories for anything that, with the benefit of hindsight, I could now point to and say, yes, there it was, murder's earliest sign. Raymond Stoddard was a murderer for only an hour of his time on earth, but that deed's stain immediately seeped backward throughout his existence. He would be defined forever after as a murderer, but that identity must have shown up before his final day.\n\nYet for the life of me, I couldn't see him as anything but one of the standard fathers of my boyhood, less outgoing than some, more generous than others, a father who took his turn giving us rides to the movies or picking us up after the basketball games; who gave his son money to buy ice cream at the Dairy-O or a hamburger at Jack Lyon's; who taught Gene how to throw a spiral or oil his baseball glove; who borrowed money to send his daughter to college; who mowed his grass in summer, shoveled his walk in winter, put up his storm windows in autumn, and turned over his garden's soil in spring. I couldn't think of a single example of behavior tinged with cruelty, much less evil, or any instance of a violently insane act.\n\nThe best I could come up with was an incident that occurred a couple years earlier. For much of August, Mrs. Stoddard had been out of town, gone to Fargo to help an elderly aunt recovering from surgery. In her absence Mr. Stoddard was in charge of preparing the meals for himself and Gene, and for Marcia on the few occasions when she was home. One evening Gene invited me to join them for supper, and I accepted.\n\nOn the menu were tomatoes and corn on the cob, both products of the Stoddard garden, pork and beans, and fish\u2014walleye caught in a Canadian lake and given to Mr. Stoddard by a coworker. If the fare wasn't particularly notable, the method of preparation was.\n\nAt the edge of their lawn, Mr. Stoddard dug a shallow pit and bordered it with stones. From the garage he brought out scrap wood, a small stack of lath, and blocks of two-by-four. He arranged those in the pit with some newspaper for kindling and squirted on a little lighter fluid. He lit the pile, and over the blaze placed a wire rack. The Stoddards, like everyone else in the neighborhood, had a conventional charcoal grill for cooking outdoors, but Mr. Stoddard insisted on this open fire. It was, he said, exactly how his father used to fry freshly caught fish when the family spent their summers in a cabin on the bank of Lake Liana.\n\nMr. Stoddard seemed uncharacteristically lighthearted as he built the fire and fixed the meal, his mood perhaps attributable to what was in the glass he sipped from as he worked. He made a special effort to show us the steps of preparing the fish. He dipped the long white filets in egg and milk, and then dredged them with a mixture of crushed soda crackers, corn flakes, and bread crumbs. He had placed an iron skillet with a half inch of oil on the rack over the fire, and when the oil was heated to bubbling, he dropped in the slabs of walleye. While he cooked and moved back and forth from the kitchen to the makeshift grill, he kept up an almost steady stream of talk, behavior as unusual as his mood. He chattered about how his father used to time himself\u2014with his railroad watch\u2014to see how quickly he could have the freshly caught fish transferred from the lake to the frying pan, and how the entire Stoddard family would get in on the game\u2014calling out the time when their father pulled his boat up to the dock and then continuing to shout out the elapsed minutes.\n\nNext door to the Stoddards lived Bill and Mary McCutcheon and their three children, a family fairly new to Keogh Street. While we were watching the fish fry, Mr. McCutcheon walked over from his yard to the Stoddards'.\n\n\"Your grill rust through or something?\" Bill McCutcheon asked. \"I would've loaned you ours.\"\n\nFrom the way he glowered at the fire and hesitated before answering, it was apparent Mr. Stoddard didn't welcome the question or the offer. \"Just thought I'd try an open fire,\" he said.\n\n\"Using a frying pan isn't exactly the same, is it?\"\n\nMr. Stoddard poked at the fish but said nothing. The smoke from the fire and the frying fish mingled in a blue-gray cloud, and when the wind blew it in Mr. McCutcheon's direction, he waved it away with an exaggerated motion.\n\n\"That fish come with some guarantee of freshness?\" Mr. McCutcheon asked. \"Because I have to tell you, you can smell it up and down the block, and it sure as hell ain't doing anything for my appetite.\"\n\nAt this remark, Mr. Stoddard rose from his crouch next to the cooking fire and walked away without saying anything about where he was going or why. He soon came back with the spade he had used to dig the fire pit.\n\nStill without explanation, he scooped up a shovelful of the loose dark loam from the pile next to the fire, and he dumped the dirt on fish, pan, grill, and fire. The oil ceased its spattering with a final choking hiss, and the smoke plumed out to the sides. Raymond Stoddard kept shoveling dirt onto the fire until it was extinguished and only the frying pan's handle stuck up from the tiny burial mound.\n\n\"Jesus Christ, Ray,\" Bill McCutcheon said, but I'm not sure Mr. Stoddard heard. When he finished shoveling, he flung the spade into the garden and marched toward the house. Gene and I followed him, and once we were all in the kitchen, Mr. Stoddard, his usual dark and doleful demeanor returned, announced that he would boil wieners for our supper.\n\nTo his son's stricken face, Mr. Stoddard said, \"Don't worry. They're the skinless kind you like.\"\n\nThis was the episode I thought back to while Pastor Lundgren intoned his vague and uncertain eulogy. It was, however, exceedingly difficult for me to dwell on Raymond Stoddard's soul when the body of Marie Ryan was so solidly beside me.\n\nShe was sitting close enough\u2014the cotton sleeve of her white blouse brushed the wool sleeve of my suit coat\u2014that I could feel her heat and smell her hair spray and hear her sniffling attempts not to cry too loudly. Ah, but not a single sensual detail\u2014or a page full of them\u2014can adequately convey what it felt like to have her near me! I could only hope that if anyone noticed how I kept trying to take in great gulps of air, they would merely think that I was trying to compose myself. Like the speaker of Robert Frost's great poem \"To Earthward,\" when I was young it didn't take much to stimulate me, and for the span of Raymond Stoddard's funeral, it seemed as though I too \"lived on air \/ That crossed me from sweet things . . .\" That day I would have said that to breathe in the warm essence of Marie Ryan was enough. Forever. That's what I would have said that day. But read the poem for yourself.\n\nIn the car on the way to the cemetery we replicated the seating arrangement from the church. I drove, Marie sat next to me, and my mother sat by the door. My father rode in the hearse, two vehicles ahead of us in our abbreviated procession through the city.\n\nDuring the ride, my mother asked how Gene was holding up. Although her question may have been meant for both of us, Marie and I shared the assumption that Marie was the one who should answer.\n\n\"He hardly talks at all,\" Marie said. \"He just goes around with this look like he's not really there.\"\n\n\"Pastor Lundgren asked me if I thought he should call Gene in for a talk.\"\n\n\"I don't think that would do much.\"\n\n\"A psychologist? I wonder if it might not be better if Gene visited someone like that.\"\n\nMarie shook her head so vigorously that I could feel the movement.\n\n\"I _know_ he wouldn't like that,\" Marie said. \"Mr. Wallich\"\u2014he was a guidance counselor at our high school\u2014\"suggested Gene come see him, and Gene got mad. He said, 'I'm not the crazy one in the family. That was my dad, not me.' \"\n\nI wondered if Gene had said that only to Marie or to Mr. Wallich as well.\n\n\"Is that what he believes,\" my mother asked, \"that his father was insane?\"\n\nMarie turned toward my mother and asked, a note of incredulity in her voice, \"Doesn't _everyone_ think that?\"\n\nOut of the small group of mourners at the church, fewer still made the trip to the cemetery. North Dakotans will sometimes say that \"it's too cold to snow,\" but the day that Raymond Stoddard was buried provided one more example of the falsity of that belief. The sky had been clear that morning but soon turned leaden, and while we stood clenched and shivering around the grave, a light snow began to fall. The flakes were so dry they hardly had weight to find their way to the ground, but a few caught in Marie's hair and remained there until the end of the ceremony.\n\nHardly had Pastor Lundgren finished his final words regarding the certainty of resurrection when Marie fairly ran to Gene and threw her arms around him. When she tilted her head back to look up into his red-rimmed eyes, those same snowflakes that I had watched gather tumbled from her hair.\n\nJust as quickly as she had raced into the embrace, Marie broke free and walked away from the small gathering.\n\nI had never been to a graveside service before, and its sudden conclusion\u2014as well as Marie's departure\u2014caught me off guard. I was still dwelling on other matters of weight and weightlessness\u2014weren't we going to witness Raymond Stoddard's coffin lowered into the earth?\n\nBut I soon collected myself and ran after Marie.\n\n\"Where are you off to? Aren't you coming back to the church?\"\n\nShe shook her head and swiped the tears from her cheeks. \"I have to get home.\"\n\n\"I'll give you a ride.\"\n\n\"I don't mind walking.\"\n\n\"It's a long way. Just wait a minute. I'll tell my mother, and she can ride with someone else.\"\n\n\"I _want_ to walk.\" Her jaw was set determinedly. \"Thanks for bringing me today.\" And with that she was off.\n\nIt didn't take me long to decide what to do. I ran back to my mother, gave her the keys to our car, and told her I was going to walk Marie Ryan home. \"Wait,\" she said. \"How far is it? You're not dressed warm enough. . . .\"\n\nBut I was already on the move and making my own heat, sprinting after Marie.\n\nI caught up to her as she was exiting the cemetery gates, and she seemed unsurprised to see me. When I paused to catch my breath, she didn't stop but only slowed and, walking backward, said, as if we had been discussing this matter all along, \"Did you know Mrs. Stoddard had to pay extra to have the ground thawed?\"\n\nMy puzzlement must have shown.\n\n\"To bury him,\" Marie said. \"When the ground's frozen, it has to be thawed. Otherwise they store the body until spring. So of course people will pay. No one likes to think of their loved one stuck in a freezer.\"\n\n\"Is that what it is\u2014a freezer?\"\n\n\"I assume. I mean, it has to be someplace cold.\"\n\n\"You'd think it would be storage you'd pay extra for.\"\n\n\"Maybe you do. They probably charge you more no matter what. They're such crooks. Anything to get their money . . .\" Marie was walking so quickly I had to lengthen my stride to keep up. \"Did Gene tell you about the coffin they ended up buying?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"He was excited about it because it's almost the same color as their Ford. My God, if I hear another word about that car, I swear I'll scream. Gene keeps talking about how he's sure he'll get the car anytime he wants now.\"\n\n\"Yeah. He said the same thing to me.\"\n\n\"Did he? I mean, I know he's having a hard time, and he's just trying to find something good in all this, but if he says that around the wrong people, they're liable to misunderstand and think he's happy his dad died.\"\n\nHer remark pleased me because she apparently thought she and I belonged in the same category\u2014people who understood, and although I knew it was concern for Gene that was truly supposed to unite us, I didn't care. I would welcome anything\u2014a funeral, a friend\u2014that brought Marie Ryan and me closer.\n\nMy mother was right. I wasn't dressed warmly enough, and Marie's house was miles away. I could hardly complain, however, since Marie's winter coat was thinner than mine, and under it she had only a cotton blouse, while I had the additional layer of a suit coat.\n\nWe walked mostly in silence, and not only because I was tongue-tied in Marie's presence or because funerals push everyone deeper into their own thoughts. Theories abound on the reasons for Midwestern taciturnity, but anyone who has spent time outdoors on a sub-zero day knows that at some point speech becomes physically difficult. The hinges of the jaw stiffen, the nose becomes clotted with mucus, and real effort is required to form words and propel them toward another person. Even then every utterance comes out cloaked in its little cloud of steam, a visual reminder of how difficult clear communication can be.\n\nNevertheless, some signal must have been transmitted between us because when Marie and I came within a block of her home, we both began to run.\n\nWe entered through a garage door and then into the house, but I didn't get far. A short flight of stairs led up to the kitchen, but Marie stopped on the first step, turned, and in a whisper thanked me again. It was all so abrupt that I knew I was not being invited to stay, something I certainly wanted, not only because it would have given me more time with Marie but also because it would have afforded me a chance to warm up before the walk home, still another mile.\n\n\"Anytime,\" I said breezily. \"Feel free to call whenever there's a funeral you don't want to miss.\"\n\nShe scowled and put a finger to her lips. I had forgotten that her parents had forbidden her to attend the funeral.\n\nI turned to go, but Marie put her hand on my shoulder to stay me for a moment. \"Don't ask Gene what he saw when he went into their garage. Don't ever ask him. Trust me\u2014you don't want to know.\" She didn't say so, but her warning made it clear: Gene had told her what he saw.\n\nShe released me, and I left the darkened entryway for the dim garage and then the barely brighter day.\n\nI walked a long way before the sensation of being cold replaced the tingling in my shoulder where Marie had touched me. She had touched Gene's shoulder in the church . . . and when she stood on the step above me, she had been standing, I knew, right where Gene often kissed her good night. He was willing to tell me about every increment in the physicality of their relationship\u2014kisses, their variance in number and kind, where and when he touched her and for how long\u2014and he had said that Marie especially favored kissing just inside her door, where that step made them nearly equal in height. . . . I didn't want to be Gene Stoddard, I didn't\u2014no matter that she had put her hand on his shoulder and mine, had stood on that step. . . . But I wore glasses and he did not; I had tonsils and he did not; while he stood at his father's grave, I was walking at his girlfriend's side. His girlfriend. _His._\n\nIn time, I would be invited inside Marie's home, and I would learn that the reason she was reluctant to allow me\u2014to allow anyone\u2014inside was that her mother was an alcoholic. When Marie entered the house on the day of the funeral, she immediately recognized the signs\u2014no lamps burning on an overcast day, dolorous piano music coming from the living room\u2014and knew her mother was drunk.\n\nAnd eventually I would see for myself the process by which the earth was thawed for winter interment. When I, like so many other Americans, took up jogging, one of my preferred routes was through a cemetery in the city I lived in at the time. Oak Lawn Memorial Gardens had flat paved paths, little or no traffic, and enough shade to be slightly cooler in summer than the surrounding city streets. And when I ran there in winter, I occasionally saw placed on the ground a fire-blackened metal hood, shaped like a large coffin lid, and inside a hole on one end of the dome, something like a large blowtorch was inserted, its flame heating the ground until the backhoe could dig it to grave depth. Later still I had a friend who dug wells for a living, and he informed me that in some snowless winters the frost line can go so deep that every burial must wait for spring\u2014ice's triumph over fire.\n\nBoth my parents asked to be cremated, and I often wondered if their decisions originated on that January day when the earth had to be heated to receive Raymond Stoddard.\n\nAs I walked home from Marie's, I passed the Stoddards' and saw their Ford, lightly sprinkled with snow, in the driveway. Were the day's rituals now complete, and all the Stoddards returned to Keogh Street? Or had Gene or Marcia left early and returned home? I didn't speculate for long on why the car was there, because its color commanded my attention. Yes, I supposed its dark blue, a shade just short of black, was the same color as the coffin. And without question, Raymond Stoddard had loved that vehicle. How often I had seen him in the driveway, carefully washing, drying, and waxing the car, jobs that other fathers often entrusted to sons and daughters. You probably remember as well as I the media reports of a man who was buried in his beloved car. Raymond Stoddard was ahead of his time. I never rode in that Ford again without thinking, I'm climbing into the coffinmobile.\n\nThen I crossed the street and soon was in front of my own home with its warmth and normalcy. Yet in spite of the fact that I was so cold I could barely feel my toes, and my shoulders were hunched so tightly to my neck they felt as though they might never come down, I would have turned around gladly and walked back to Marie's and, risking frostbite, circled her block endlessly if I had thought there was a chance she might see me and ask me in. It's tempting to say that that's what it is to live in love\u2014the willingness to sacrifice even physical comfort just to be near the object of one's love\u2014but I was probably experiencing an even more accurate definition: Love is the willingness to turn away from one's home.\n\nMonty Burnham's funeral was held the next day, and according to my uncle, it was an event as grand as any in Wembley's history.\n\nThe town's florist could not handle all the orders that came in, and the hotel and two motels didn't have enough rooms for all those who traveled to Wembley to pay their last respects. Schools and businesses were closed on the afternoon of the funeral, and Good Shepherd Methodist Church was literally filled to overflowing. Once there was no longer any place to sit in the pews or even to stand in the back or along the side, folding chairs were set up in the church basement, and the service was piped down there over loudspeakers.\n\nAmong the congregants were three members of the United States House of Representatives, a U.S. senator, the under secretary of agriculture, and two former governors of North Dakota. Roger Maris, a Fargo native and the New York Yankee who would break Babe Ruth's single-season home-run record before the year was out, sent condolences, a brief message that the minister read during the service along with the announcement that a Wembley grade school would be renamed. Washington Elementary School would become Monty Burnham Elementary. A scholarship would be established in his name for a student majoring in political science at one of the state's universities, and if the funding came through for a new gym for the high school, it was agreed it would bear Monty Burnham's name.\n\nIf the dead could be embarrassed by excessive displays of veneration and grief, Uncle Burt said, almost any corpse would have blushed over how Wembley turned itself inside out over Monty Burnham. Then again, Monty might have been the only man who, could he have witnessed his own funeral, would have thought the whole affair fell a little short of what he deserved. Uncle Burt also advanced the theory that if Raymond Stoddard had not disrupted the natural course of things, Monty Burnham might have eventually revealed his true self, got caught in some political scandal, and died in disgrace. And Wembley children could have kept walking through the doors of Washington Elementary School.\n\nAll of this my father reported again to my mother and me after the nightly phone call with his brother, and I guess I had been brought in on enough of those conversations that I finally felt I could ask a question of my own.\n\n\"Did you dislike Senator Burnham as much as Uncle Burt did?\"\n\nMy father seemed willing to repeat all his brother's remarks, no matter how tasteless or mordant, but now that he had been asked to offer his own view, his characteristic caution returned. \"I had very few dealings with the man. Not back in Wembley and not in the years since.\"\n\n\"But did you _hate_ him?\"\n\n\"He wasn't our kind of people, let me just say that.\"\n\n_Our?_ Did that pronoun refer to him and his brother? Were my mother and I included? Could it have meant my father's and Raymond Stoddard's?\n\n\"Why not? What kind was he?\" I have often thought that I would have gotten much further had I asked, _whose_ kind was he?\n\nAs I recall, my father once again subjected me to a long gaze of assessment. He was uncertain about my ability to understand, yes, but I believe he was also unsure about whether he could truly articulate his thoughts and feelings about Monty Burnham.\n\n\"He was dishonest.\"\n\n\"You mean like a crook?\" It didn't take long for my imagination to fashion a fantasy\u2014yes, yes, Monty Burnham was a crooked politician; he was stealing money that should have gone to schools or hospitals or to the poor. Raymond Stoddard somehow discovered what Burnham was doing, yet he couldn't get the authorities to believe him, and the only way to stop the senator was to\u2014\n\n\"A crook?\" My father shook his head. \"I don't believe Monty Burnham was a crook. The man had all the money he needed and then some. He had no reason to steal. Besides, money wasn't what mattered to him. Fame\u2014that's what he was out for. No, that's not the sort of dishonesty I'm talking about. I mean, he was the kind of man who had no regard for the world as it is. He had his way of seeing the world, and he had no doubt about the rightness of his view. Monty Burnham, like most politicians, wasn't burdened with doubt. So he went right ahead and said, in so many words, 'This is the way things are.' \"\n\n\"So he was a phony?\" If there is anything teenagers understand, it's hypocrisy, and no failing is greater.\n\n\"A phony?\" My father ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. \"Not exactly. I mean, maybe that's part of it. But only a small part of it. Men like Monty Burnham\u2014if they have their way, we'll never get at the truth of things in this world. And they won't mind one damn bit.\"\n\nBy now I thought I understood what my father was talking about. \"He was a liar?\"\n\nBut that remark only brought home to my father how wide the gulf was between what he said and what his son comprehended. He shook his head and winced. It was a characteristic expression for him\u2014my father felt frustration as pain\u2014and I've seen that same look\u2014you have too\u2014on Humphrey Bogart's face in movies, and just as with my father, it was usually accompanied by a death-deep drag on a cigarette.\n\n\"I'm not explaining this very well. He wasn't necessarily lying. He just didn't give a damn that what he said might not be true. He probably believed that as long as his heart was in the right place, it would be okay.\"\n\n\"And his heart\u2014\"\n\nBy this time my mother took pity on both of us, but her interruption was also in the interest of keeping the record straight. \"We might not have cared for Monty Burnham's type, dear, but that doesn't mean we wished him ill. Besides\"\u2014now she addressed my father\u2014\"if you still lived in Wembley, you probably would have voted for him, wouldn't you?\"\n\nMy father might have disapproved of Monty Burnham's character, but that didn't mean he could bring himself to vote for a Democrat. \"Probably,\" he said, and walked from the room.\n\nMarie didn't warn me not to ask my father about what _he_ saw when he opened the door to the Stoddards' garage, but she didn't have to. I loved my father and he loved me, but nothing in our relationship furnished the kind of intimacy that would have to exist before I could ask, What did Raymond Stoddard look like when he was hanging from the crossbeam? I don't doubt that there are sons in the world who could pose such a question and fathers who could answer, but we weren't of that breed.\n\nNevertheless, my father did eventually volunteer information about Raymond Stoddard's appearance in death, though strictly speaking, my father told us\u2014my mother and me\u2014about something he _didn't_ see.\n\nPeople who hang themselves usually die slowly\u2014they choke to death\u2014and they have time to reconsider their action and attempt to undo it. Almost always their hands exhibit the signs of their self-doubt, the palms and fingers raw with friction burns from grasping at the rope, cord, string, line, or wire that is cutting off their oxygen supply. Raymond Stoddard's hands were unmarked, evidence of a mind undeterred from its purpose and able to overpower the self-preserving impulses of the body.\n\nMy father came into possession of this arcanum of the self-destructive through his friendship with the Bismarck police detective who had been at the funeral (my guess had been right) and at our house the night of the murder-suicide. Soon, in fact, this new friend, Lee Mauer, was a regular visitor in our home, and even without knowing that some men were our kind while others were not, I knew that Mr. Mauer was not. He was a big, beefy, barrel-chested man, vulgar, loud, and profane and about as unlike my father as another man could be. They had curiosity in common, however, and each believed the other might possess some information that could solve the mystery of Raymond Stoddard's motive.\n\nInitially, Lee Mauer came to our house mostly by invitation. My parents felt sorry for him because he lived alone\u2014he was divorced and his wife and two children lived in Casper, Wyoming\u2014and my mother believed that what was most lacking in his life was home cooking. He came often for Sunday dinner, our most formal, elaborate meal of the week, and he ate so heartily my mother had to increase significantly the size of portions to accommodate Mr. Mauer's appetite. Furthermore, she had to counsel her children to overlook Mr. Mauer's poor table manners and his inappropriate talk. Her warnings were futile; almost everything Lee Mauer said\u2014and how he said it\u2014I found fascinating.\n\nHe had difficulty getting through a sentence without a profanity, something he was aware of, because he told my sister and me that we should be careful that we didn't develop the \"bad speech habits\" that he couldn't rid himself of. Worse, in my mother's view, was his willingness to bring up topics unfit for the dinner table or for children. For that matter, some subjects were probably matters of police confidentiality and shouldn't have been discussed in anyone's presence.\n\nHe said, for example, that he suspected a Bismarck politician of driving down to South Dakota in order to visit prostitutes, and although he didn't give the man's name, Lee Mauer implied that he was hoarding the man's identity for possible future use. A name he _was_ willing to mention was a local doctor's, a man Lee Mauer said was nothing better than a drug pusher. Lee Mauer's ex-wife and her friends had become virtual drug addicts, hooked on the sedatives and painkillers that the doctor prescribed. Lee Mauer told us that the police were keeping their eye on a well-known local athlete, a recent graduate of Bismarck High School, because they suspected him of stealing cars. Before any of my friends knew that the son of a sheriff's deputy had been arrested for selling liquor to minors, I acquired that information courtesy of Lee Mauer.\n\nHis gossip favored the lurid, the gruesome, the dangerous, and the scandalous, and all those qualities were enhanced by his side-of-the-mouth confidential style. One could easily imagine him passing on a bit of intelligence about the hands of a hanged man. In fact, if there were ever any doubt about his willingness to discuss any disaster in detail, it was dispelled completely when he told about the death of two young people in a motorcycle accident the previous summer. It happened in Bismarck's Riverside Park, and Lee Mauer happened to be in the park that evening and so hurried to the crash scene to see if he could be of help. \"Split in two that young fellow was,\" Lee Mauer said, \"from crotch to neck. Like he was a goddamn wishbone for a couple of giants. I've never seen anything like it.\"\n\nTales like that, coupled with Mr. Mauer's general crudeness, finally alienated my mother completely, and she stopped inviting him for meals.\n\nBut he kept coming, usually in the late evening. No doubt he came out of loneliness, but since he couldn't admit that, he always had an excuse for stopping by. He was investigating the report of a break-in nearby or he had to check out a suspicious vehicle parked on a neighborhood street. Even when he said he had been driving past, saw a light, and decided to stop, he made it sound as though that too was official business. Because he had learned that we didn't have much in the way of liquor in the house, he often brought with him a six-pack of Grain Belt Premium beer or a pint of schnapps or blackberry brandy. My father would occasionally drink a beer, but he seldom indulged in anything stronger, and certainly none of Lee Mauer's sweet liquors.\n\nThrough Lee Mauer I first learned the lesson\u2014the one I had to learn and relearn over the years and which I still haven't mastered\u2014that even (or perhaps especially) the motives of others are often understood by reference back to the self.\n\nLee Mauer grumbled constantly about politicians, \"those greedy sonsabitches,\" with their unconcern for everything but their own advancement. \"They don't give a good goddamn who they step on.\" And Lee Mauer could voice those sentiments over and over and each time act as though the emotions were newly minted. His voice would rise to a brassy pitch that rang with anger. His features would bunch and his face would redden. He'd pound the table with his big square fist. There, one couldn't keep from thinking, was the kind of rage that would drive a man to murder.\n\nFurthermore, Lee Mauer fixed his political anger on an issue, and there, he believed, his emotions and Raymond Stoddard's coincided. The 1961 North Dakota legislature, as one of its first orders of business, voted itself both a raise and a cost of living increase, yet a 4 percent wage increase proposed for the state's classified and unclassified employees was voted down. This inequity was worsened, in some people's view, by public statements by legislators, such as Monty Burnham, who cheerfully professed not to have known that their salary hike had been attached to a particular bill. Lee Mauer had no trouble imagining that a disgruntled state worker\u2014like Raymond Stoddard\u2014could take out his anger and resentment on a legislator\u2014like Monty Burnham\u2014who had enriched himself while denying the clerks, secretaries, bureaucrats, and administrators their share of the state's resources.\n\nMy father didn't argue with Lee Mauer, but he didn't buy the policeman's theory and instead saw it stemming from Lee Mauer's own job dissatisfaction. Lee Mauer held the rank of lieutenant with the Bismarck police department, yet he felt continually slighted in the workplace and complained constantly of the \"ass-kissers and brownnosers\" who surpassed him in rank, salary, or privilege. My father knew all this, but merely shook his head and to my mother and me said, \"Lee just doesn't get it. It's exactly his griping that makes trouble for him. The police department is like any organization. They want the good team players, not someone who's poisoning the well.\"\n\nThis judgment my father expressed with more than a touch of disapproval. In his view men and women were supposed to work hard and keep their complaints to themselves. It's worth noting, however, that he always practiced law alone, in spite of offers to work for various firms, companies, and institutions. He must have known his nature well enough to realize that he would be a saner, if poorer, man if he kept to a minimum the number of people with power and authority over him. My father's son, I earn my living as a novelist, an occupation as solitary as any.\n\nBut you must decide for yourself. Have you had experiences that would lead you to believe a man's perceptions of injustice in the workplace could move him to murder? In 1961 the term \"going postal\" wasn't part of our cultural vocabulary, but language often lags behind deeds.\n\nWhen I recall my father and Lee Mauer sitting in our darkened kitchen nightly, their white shirts the only brightness in the room, a brimming ashtray between them, each man's hand curled lightly around a can of beer, it seems as if they turned the room into their private enclave, taking up almost all the space in the room and forcing anyone who wanted to enter to wedge themselves in and then slide along the walls. Perhaps I have that impression because my mother assiduously avoided the kitchen when the men were in there, or perhaps it comes from Lee Mauer sometimes obviously and deliberately falling silent when someone came in. But I hung around the edges as often as I could, and on one of those occasions I overheard a Lee Mauer remark that was so unsettling it haunted me for years. I finally exorcised its effect with a narrative of my own.\n\n_In December 1942, when she was nineteen years old, Alma_ _Stoddard had a series of experiences that made her feel as_ _though she were living in a world turned upside down. She left_ _Wembley, North Dakota, her little town near the top of the_ _country, for a visit to a city on the bottom\u2014Killeen, Texas\u2014and_ _when she left North Dakota in December the weather was uncharacteristically_ _mild. Temperatures were in the fifties, and_ _there was no snow. Texas, she expected, would be hot. After all,_ _the letters she received from her husband were often filled with_ _complaints about the heat, yet when she stepped off the bus in_ _Killeen, a good three inches of wet snow covered the ground,_ _and a cold northwest wind blew so hard that tears sprang to her_ _eyes. As it turned out, the weather was the least puzzling feature_ _of her visit._\n\n_She had traveled to Texas to see her husband, Raymond,_ _who was stationed at Camp Hood. He would soon be sent overseas,_ _and since they were both realistic people who were not automatically_ _given to optimistic assumptions about the future,_ _they knew they might not have another chance to be together_ _again for a long time, perhaps ever again. As it was, they had already_ _scaled back on their plans. For a while they had discussed_ _the possibility of Alma moving to Texas but had finally decided_ _that would be impractical. By the time she found a place to live_ _and work, Raymond might be relocated, and then Alma would_ _have given up her job at Hudson's Pharmacy back in Wembley_ _and her rent-free home with her mother._\n\n_There had been other compromises. For a time it seemed_ _possible that Raymond would be able to come home to North_ _Dakota for an extended leave. But then all furloughs in his unit_ _were canceled, and the best the Stoddards could arrange was a_ _three-day weekend in a Texas hotel whose lobby was decorated_ _with a dried-out pine tree sparsely decorated with a few glass_ _bulbs._\n\n_Alma was sitting on an overstuffed chair near that tree when_ _she saw something more surprising\u2014and more unsettling\u2014than_ _Texas snow. She was waiting for Raymond to meet her, but the_ _first man in uniform to walk through the glass door was not her_ _husband but Monty Burnham, a young man she had dated in_ _high school._\n\n_Then, as if to demonstrate that human relationships had_ _been turned as upside down as the country's climate, Monty_ _Burnham greeted her with the words \"Alma! There's my girl!\"_ _And he said this within earshot of the man who came through_ _the revolving door right behind him\u2014her husband._\n\n_She had known, from Raymond's letters, that Monty Burnham_ _was also stationed at Camp Hood, but she didn't think the_ _men spent much time in each other's company. Her husband_ _hadn't said anything more than that he \"saw Monty and Dusty_ _Boyd, and a few other guys from back home, around the_ _camp.\"_\n\n_The men took turns hugging her, and because she had spent_ _more time in Monty Burnham's arms over the years than in_ _Raymond's, both embraces felt familiar. Alma had been Monty's_ _steady girlfriend from the age of fifteen to the age of seventeen._ _She and Raymond had been together\u2014dating, engagement, and_ _marriage combined\u2014for only a little more than a year. Both_ _men smelled of tobacco, damp wool, and hair tonic, but she_ _gasped when she felt how thin and bony Raymond seemed. She_ _hoped that he would think her response came only from emotion._ _And perhaps her shock was merely a consequence, now as_ _in the past, of having first had her arms around Monty's more_ _substantial girth._\n\n_Even though Monty Burnham was standing right there,_ _Alma asked her husband, \"Do you want to see the room?\" In_ _one of their late-night telephone conversations Raymond had_ _been unashamedly, even shockingly, specific about what they_ _would do when they were together once again._\n\n_Now, however, Raymond said, \"Later's fine.\" Then he_ _asked, \"Did you have to show your marriage license?\"_\n\n_Raymond had repeatedly told her to bring it with her, that_ _she might need it to check into the hotel, but she had still forgotten_ _it at home. Fortunately, she had not been asked for it._ _She shook her head._\n\n_\"Because you look so respectable,\" Monty said. She_ _couldn't tell if there was any irony in his remark. \"No one_ _would ever expect anything untoward of a woman who looks_ _like you.\"_\n\n_Raymond said, \"Monty's going to join us tonight. He knows_ _his way around town, and he can keep us moving in the right_ _direction.\" He said this without enthusiasm, and for the first_ _time Alma considered the possibility that Monty Burnham had_ _somehow forced his company upon Raymond. She knew little_ _about Army rank, its designations and privileges, but the differences_ _between Monty's uniform and Raymond's were obvious._ _Perhaps Monty was there as the result of a military command_ _that Raymond had to obey. Her husband's sullen remoteness_ _could certainly be explained as the behavior of a man who had_ _been forced into his circumstances. Alma wondered if she_ _should say she wasn't feeling well enough to go out; perhaps_ _that would send Monty on his way and allow her and Raymond_ _to be alone. She kept quiet, however, because she felt there was_ _a chance that Raymond might then choose to spend the evening_ _out on the town with his comrade._\n\n_\"Monty's got a girl who's going to meet us later.\"_\n\n_To Alma, Monty explained, \"She's working now.\"_\n\n_Alma brightened at this news. \"Oh, where does she work?\"_\n\n_\"At a laundry. She's off at five, but she has to clean up and_ _change clothes. She works up such a sweat she has to sit under a_ _cold shower for damn near an hour to cool off.\"_\n\n_She wanted to encourage Monty to talk about his girl._ _\"Does this young woman have a name?\"_\n\n_\"Dinah. And she's older than us.\"_\n\n_\"That's a pretty name. Do I see signs you might be serious_ _about Dinah?\"_\n\n_Monty laughed. \"Not likely! She's what soldiers call a diversion.\"_\n\n_Whatever term soldiers had for a woman like Dinah, she_ _knew it wasn't \"diversion.\" For that matter, she was surprised_ _that the word was part of Monty Burnham's vocabulary. Perhaps_ _Raymond would tell her later what Dinah was more likely_ _to be called._\n\n_\"Anyway, you'll meet her later,\" Monty said. \"But don't get_ _your hopes up.\"_\n\n_\"Monty Burnham! What kind of thing is that to say?\"_\n\n_He merely shrugged._\n\n_Alma turned to Raymond for support, but he was busy_ _looking his wife up and down, an examination Alma thought_ _more appropriate for a stranger\u2014and a rude one at that\u2014to be_ _conducting than a husband. She knew he hadn't seen the dress_ _before; it was a royal-blue cotton print, and she'd bought it at_ _Whitestone's right after Thanksgiving, when it had been on sale_ _because it belonged to a different season. Perfect for Texas in_ _December, Alma had thought, and had justified the purchase on_ _that basis. It clung to her in a way that she thought was just this_ _side of immodest._\n\n_To cover her discomfort under his stare she stepped back_ _and tried to make a joke. \"Well, soldier, do I pass inspection?\"_\n\n_\"I just wondered if you were ready to go, or if you wanted_ _to change.\"_\n\n_\"Isn't this appropriate for . . . where we're going?\"_\n\n_Apparently Monty took it upon himself to answer because_ _he would be their guide for the evening. \"You look great. But_ _bring your coat.\"_\n\n_And then they were off, leaning into the cold Texas wind,_ _threading their way carefully down sidewalks clotted with soldiers_ _and shopgirls. Alma was glad to be in the company of_ _Raymond and Monty. She had never seen so many men publicly_ _intoxicated and behaving so badly. Even a woman walking arm-in-_ _arm with a man was likely to be subjected to crude remarks_ _and propositions._\n\n_Their first stop was a restaurant large enough to be a dining_ _hall, and it too was crowded with soldiers. Casa Robles was unlike_ _any eatery Alma had ever been in. Its walls were painted_ _the color of mustard, brown-skinned waiters scurried about carrying_ _enormous serving trays, and the general din made conversation_ _next to impossible. Alma wanted to suggest they find a_ _quieter place to eat, but before they were even seated at a table,_ _Raymond and Monty ordered beers. Alma rarely drank beer,_ _and they were served a brand she had never heard of. She said_ _she'd prefer Coke._\n\n_Monty shook his head. \"Not with Mexican food. Coke_ _won't put the fire out.\"_\n\n_Raymond agreed. \"Pretty spicy.\"_\n\n_Alma couldn't eat more than a few bites of her meal, but the_ _heat wasn't the problem. She had told the men that she didn't_ _like spicy food, so they had studied the menu carefully, trying to_ _find something mild for her. But the food's textures were all_ _wrong\u2014mealy and soft\u2014and the restaurant made no effort to_ _separate one item from another on her plate. Neither of the men_ _noticed how little she ate._\n\n_Raymond didn't finish his food either. He pushed aside his_ _half-eaten tamales and lit another cigarette. Alma still could not_ _get used to the sight of him smoking. He had taken up the practice_ _when he'd joined the service because, he said in a letter,_ _smokers were given extra breaks. He wrote about his \"new_ _habit\" in a joking way, but there was nothing lighthearted in the_ _grim, resolute way he pulled smoke deep into his lungs._\n\n_They had entered Casa Robles in the full sunlight of afternoon,_ _but when they exited, the streetlamps had all come on._ _This too shocked Alma. So many miles separated Texas from_ _North Dakota\u2014yet December dark came as early to one place_ _as another._\n\n_Monty announced their next destination, and its name_ _sounded more exotic and interesting than it turned out to be._ _The Alhambra was nothing but a bar, small, smoky, and dimly_ _lit to hide its dirt and disrepair. After a couple of drinks they_ _walked to another bar, Vic's Place, but since it was so similar to_ _the one they'd just left, Alma wondered why they had bothered_ _to move. She supposed it might have been to meet Monty's girlfriend,_ _yet he had made no effort to survey either establishment_ _for her presence. He didn't even bother turning to look when_ _the door rattled open with new customers and a breath of cold_ _wind._\n\n_After their second round of drinks was served\u2014the men had_ _switched from beer to rum and Coke\u2014Alma asked, \"What does_ _this girlfriend of yours look like, Monty?\"_\n\n_\"A Mexican. But she's not. And I told you, she's not my_ _girlfriend.\"_\n\n_\"Your date, then. Dinah.\"_\n\n_\"Why do you ask?\"_\n\n_\"That girl over there is up on her tiptoes looking around,_ _and I wondered if she could be Dinah.\"_\n\n_Monty shook his head._\n\n_With his index finger Raymond nudged Alma's drink, a_ _Schenley's and Seven, closer to her. \"You're not drinking,\" he_ _said. \"You want something else?\"_\n\n_\"It's fine.\" She was disappointed that he didn't seem to remember_ _how little taste she had for either liquor or its effects._\n\n_\"You got to drink up, Alma,\" Monty said. His ruddy_ _cheeks, part of his soft, youthful good looks, became even more_ _flushed as he drank. Even in the bar's gloom she could see his_ _ears glowing bright red. \"This is a celebration!\"_\n\n_\"What are we celebrating?\"_\n\n_\"Why, that you made the trip! Welcome to Texas!\"_\n\n_Alma glanced at Raymond to see if Monty spoke for both of_ _them._\n\n_But Monty wasn't finished. \"And I never had a chance to_ _drink to your marriage.\" He raised his glass again._\n\n_\"We didn't have any alcohol at the reception,\" Alma said._\n\n_Raymond raised his own glass but only inches off the table,_ _and he addressed Alma's earlier question. \"Because we haven't_ _shipped out yet,\" he said. \"Because we can still breathe the_ _open air, and we're not trapped in a tank somewhere waiting to_ _get blown all to hell. Not yet.\"_\n\n_\"Jesus Christ, Ray,\" Monty said._\n\n_Alma put a comforting hand on her husband's wrist, but he_ _misunderstood her gesture. He obviously thought she was trying_ _to keep him from bringing his drink to his lips, and he twisted_ _away from her touch._\n\n_\"I'm just saying what we're all thinking.\"_\n\n_\"That doesn't mean you have to say it. It's going to happen_ _or it isn't. No point in dwelling on it.\"_\n\n_Monty's view on this matter was Alma's, too. She dreaded_ _the possibility of spending these days with Raymond and having_ _him fill the hours with talk of all the horrible things that could_ _happen to men in war. She'd prefer they spend every moment_ _together in complete silence rather than have to listen to her_ _husband's hideous, hopeless thoughts. Did that make her a bad_ _wife? She didn't care if it did._\n\n_\"Can we go back to the hotel?\" Alma asked apologetically._ _\"I couldn't sleep much on the bus.\"_\n\n_She directed her request to Raymond, but Monty rose as_ _well. He, in fact, reached into the pocket of his khakis and_ _brought out a money clip with a tight packet of folded bills. He_ _tugged loose a dollar and dropped it carelessly onto the table._ _Alma had never seen a man keep his currency in anything but a_ _billfold, exactly where Monty had kept his during their time together._ _What strange practices men adopted when they left their_ _homes._\n\n_They did not walk directly to the hotel. Monty Burnham insisted_ _on stopping at a liquor store, and Alma and Raymond remained_ _outside on the sidewalk. Alma hoped the frigid air_ _would help sober her husband, who had slipped into a slow-blinking,_ _slack-jawed silence. He looked as though he could fall_ _asleep leaning against the liquor store's brick wall._\n\n_She tugged on the sleeve of his uniform. Without her gloves_ _she could feel how rough was the wool of his jacket. \"Ray._ _Have you ever met this Dinah?\"_\n\n_\"I dunno. Maybe.\"_\n\n_\"Well, have you or haven't you? She was supposed to meet_ _us, but there's no sign of her. I'm beginning to wonder if she's_ _just one of Monty's stories.\"_\n\n_Either her question or his effort to answer her seemed to_ _sober him momentarily. \"You know him better'n I do. He seem_ _like the sort who needs to make up a woman?\"_\n\n_There was no right way for Alma to respond. She stepped_ _away from her husband and looked up the street as if she were_ _the one expecting to meet someone. On a wire above the street_ _hung two slices of tin cut in the shape of Christmas bells. In the_ _wind the tin bells had slid out of place on the wire and were rattling_ _against each other. Why, Alma wondered, had the town_ _not had to donate those tin decorations to the war effort? Back_ _in Wembley the townspeople had already collected enough tin_ _cans to build a tower as tall as a house. She turned back to Raymond,_ _thinking she might put him in an improved humor with_ _this observation about their hometown, but he had already_ _drifted back into his drunken trance._\n\n_Then Monty burst out of the liquor store, his smile wide, his_ _cheeks as red as his ears had been earlier. \"Let's go,\" he said._ _\"Let's show these folks how North Dakotans celebrate!\"_\n\n_But his remark made no sense, since they proceeded directly_ _back to the hotel and to Raymond and Alma Stoddard's room,_ _where, once the door was closed behind them, no one would_ _know whether the people inside were raising their glasses in celebration_ _or hanging their heads in despair._\n\n_Monty pulled the cork on the newly purchased bottle of_ _rum, and using a bottle opener screwed into the wall next to the_ _bathroom sink, he levered open a bottle of Coke. The room had_ _only two glasses, so after mixing drinks for Ray and Alma, he_ _poured rum into the Coke bottle for his own drink. \"I didn't_ _make yours quite so strong,\" he said to Alma. \"As I recall,_ _you'd just as soon not taste the liquor.\"_\n\n_She didn't want another drink at all, but she accepted it_ _without comment or complaint. The day had been so filled with_ _the unexpected that she hadn't even been surprised when Monty_ _followed them to the room and walked right in behind them._\n\n_\"To the newlyweds!\" Monty said._\n\n_\"Hardly,\" Raymond said, and sat down heavily on the edge_ _of the bed, which gave out a stiff-springed rusty groan._\n\n_Alma didn't raise her glass either, but Monty was undeterred._ _\"I can't imagine a couple better than the two of you!\"_\n\n_In order not to hear the demurral that she feared Raymond_ _might make, Alma excused herself, went into the bathroom, and_ _closed the door behind her._\n\n_Alma took out her cosmetics from her overnight case and_ _lined them up on the back of the sink. Some of the makeup was_ _newly purchased, never opened, and she had brought them from_ _North Dakota with a specific plan in mind. In Wembley she_ _would never dare venture out in public wearing much more_ _makeup than a little rouge and lipstick. \"You're pretty enough_ _all on your own,\" her mother used to tell her. \"You don't need_ _that gunk.\" Alma had never doubted that she was pretty, but_ _what she had in mind wasn't simply to make herself more attractive._ _She wanted to transform herself into a woman who_ _would be regarded as\u2014she didn't even know what term men_ _used. Not \"pretty.\" Not \"a diversion.\" Some word or phrase_ _that had more than appreciation in it, that expressed not just a_ _woman's looks but a man's desire. All she could think of were_ _the words from movie magazines. \"Glamorous.\" \"Stunning.\"_ _\"Alluring.\" Not the language that a man would use when a_ _woman with a certain look passed, and he'd nudge his friend_ _and say\u2014Well. Even if Alma couldn't put a word to it, she_ _knew what the look was. And she set about giving it to herself._\n\n_With her rouge she made her cheeks look as if they were_ _flushed with passion. With lipstick she not only darkened her_ _lips, she swelled their outline as well. With her eyelash curler_ _and eyebrow pencil she gave her eyes what she considered a_ _cruel, dramatic look. She believed that no one but Raymond_ _would see her this way. Soon Monty would leave, and then she_ _would walk out of the bathroom, startling her husband with her_ _new glamorous look. She and Raymond would spend most of_ _the remainder of her visit in their hotel room\u2014_ alone _in their_ _hotel room\u2014and if he wanted her to use her makeup to recreate_ _this movie star mien, she would happily do so. Or if he preferred_ _her scrubbed as clean as the morning of their wedding_ _day, that would be fine, too._\n\n_Alma put her ear to the bathroom door. She couldn't hear_ _any drunken voices or clinking glasses or matches being struck._ _She supposed it was possible that Monty had left when she was_ _running water in the sink and therefore she hadn't heard the_ _door open and close, but then why wouldn't Ray call out to her_ _and tell her they were alone? Deciding that she'd simply wait a_ _little longer, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub._\n\n_During this visit Alma had hoped to discuss with Ray a matter_ _that had been weighing heavily on her. She was living in her_ _mother's house, and since Alma was married to a serviceman,_ _she thought it was perfectly legitimate to affix a gold star to her_ _mother's window. Then, just last week, when Raymond's parents_ _learned that Alma would be traveling to Texas, they invited_ _her over for supper and to give her a small package to carry to_ _Ray. As Alma stepped onto the Stoddards' front porch, she saw_ _a gold star shining in the corner of their living room window._\n\n_Was this all right, Alma wanted to ask Ray, two homes and two_ _stars yet only one serviceman? But somehow, in the miles between_ _North Dakota and Texas, the dilemma had lost its importance._ _In fact, if she were to tell Ray about it now, she was_ _certain he would laugh at the foolishness of her concerns._\n\n_At the bathroom door came two soft knocks and Alma_ _jumped up to answer. When she opened the door, however, it_ _was Monty Burnham's face that peered into the room._\n\n_\"Well, I got him tucked in,\" Monty said. \"And he's on his_ _stomach just in case\u2014don't want him gagging on his supper. I_ _put that wastebasket beside the bed, too.\"_\n\n_Monty announced all this as if it had been done according_ _to some plan worked out with Alma in advance of the evening._ _She didn't know what to say but thank you._\n\n_Because Monty was wearing his officer's cap, Alma assumed_ _he was about to leave, but he tilted the cap back on his head,_ _stepped into the bathroom, and reached for a cigarette. He_ _leaned back against the door until it shut softly. The room was_ _tiny, and Alma backed up until her legs touched the cool porcelain_ _of the bathtub._\n\n_Monty blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, and in a_ _voice barely more than a whisper said, \"Old Ray. He's holding_ _on but barely.\"_\n\n_If this was to be a conversation about her husband's state of_ _being, Alma would welcome it. \"I believe he's lost weight.\"_\n\n_\"That ain't the half of it.\" He cocked his head as if the bathroom's_ _bright light allowed him to see Alma in a new way. \"But_ _you\u2014you're looking prettier than ever, Alma. And that's saying_ _something.\"_\n\n_\"Pretty,\" he had said, but she realized that her face was_ _made up in that other way, and she stepped quickly to the sink_ _with the intention of washing immediately._\n\n_Monty must have misunderstood her movement. He came_ _up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. \"Alma? You_ _okay?\"_\n\n_She nodded but turned on the faucet and began to splash_ _water on her face._\n\n_\"Thought you were gonna be sick or something.\"_\n\n_\"I'm fine.\"_\n\n_Monty didn't move away but started to rub Alma's back, his_ _hand caressing a small circle high between her shoulder blades_ _and on her neck up under her hairline._\n\n_\"When I saw you today . . . ,\" he said, \"well, it just started_ _up all over again. I mean, not that they ever went away, my feelings_ _for you. But Jesus Christ, I was a fool to let you go.\"_\n\n_Let me go? Alma believed she had been the one to walk_ _away from their relationship, fed up with the number of times_ _he'd stood her up because he preferred hunting or fishing with_ _his friends or drinking beer and shaking dice at Sugar's Bar to_ _being with her. But there was no point arguing with him. He_ _obviously had his own version of their breakup._\n\n_\"What makes me so damn mad,\" Monty continued, \"is that_ _I'm a better man now. Stronger, more sure of myself. Now I_ _could put up a helluva fight for you, Alma. A helluva fight.\"_\n\n_He was fairly murmuring these words in her ear, bent over_ _her back, his hands braced on the sink on either side of her._\n\n_\"If I could make Ray straighten up and treat you right, I'd_ _cut the orders tomorrow.\"_\n\n_This remark she might have disputed, but by now Monty's_ _hand was at the front of her throat, softly stroking its length as_ _if he were trying to help her swallow his words._\n\n _It would not have been accurate or honest for Alma to pretend_ _that what happened in that hotel bathroom was completely_ _without her acquiescence. But neither would it have been far_ _from the truth._\n\n_She may have been mistaken in thinking that what was happening_ _was happening in discrete stages, that the process that_ _had been set in motion could easily be halted or altered at anytime,_ _one moment easily snipped away from the moment that_ _preceded or followed it. But Monty's seduction was, like so_ _many events in life, composed of units of action and time linked_ _inextricably to one another._\n\n_And then, of course, what was occurring was not entirely_ _unfamiliar to Alma. During their time together Monty had often_ _touched her here and here, like this and like this, and he had_ _tried to touch her there and there. What was different now was_ _that it was now . . . and Monty was soon doing what Alma_ _didn't know could be done._\n\n_But a woman doesn't allow herself to be fucked standing up_ _and holding on to a bathroom fixture just to satisfy her curiosity_ _or dispel her disbelief. She must have been willing. . . . She_ _must have been. . . ._\n\n_Because she certainly could have stopped it with a scream or_ _a violent twist of her hips, or she could have grabbed his hand_ _and wiped it across her face so he could feel her tears or maybe_ _it would have been enough to lift her head so he could see her_ _reflection in the mirror. . . . As his thrusts increased in force and_ _frequency, the sink's plug, a black rubber stopper hanging from_ _a little chain looped over the spigot, began to move back and_ _forth. Alma watched it closely, and as it swung from side to_ _side, she imagined it was swinging between the poles of her_ _life\u2014North Dakota, Texas, Texas, North Dakota, Raymond,_ _Monty, Monty, Raymond. . . . Even after Monty gasped and_ _staggered back from her, she kept her focus on the chain and the_ _plug. Soon it was motionless again, hanging above a drain circled_ _with a rusty stain from a faucet that must have dripped for_ _years with no one bothering to fix it._\n\n _The following morning, as the first light of a cold Texas dawn_ _found its way into the room, Alma stared up at a blotch on the_ _ceiling. It was about the size of a pumpkin, and its irregular_ _shape was outlined in the same rust-orange color as the stain in_ _the bathroom sink. Only moments before, Raymond had finally_ _roused from his rum-steeped stupor, and now, as she lay under_ _his weight, it was all Alma could do not to interrupt her husband's_ _grunting efforts to ask him if he thought water was leaking_ _in the room above them._\n\nIn the original version of this story, the characters were named Donald and Lois Culpepper and Nick Anschutz. Otherwise the story is exactly as it appears, under the title \"A Mild Winter,\" in my MFA thesis and later in _The Bozeman Review,_ a now discontinued literary magazine once published at Montana State University. I have never included it in any collection.\n\nReaders sometimes ask me where I get my ideas, and I'm seldom able to provide a satisfactory answer, so vague and various are the sites where most of my fiction is born. But if I were asked about \"A Mild Winter,\" I could provide a number of answers, all true and all inadequate, as explanations of creative work so often are.\n\nOn one of the few occasions when Gene, Marie, and I were together in the Stoddard house (after his father's death, Gene seldom invited anyone into his home), we looked through the Stoddard family photo albums. One black-and-white photograph, blown up to an eight-by-ten, depicted a small gathering of casually arranged laughing soldiers standing in fresh snow, and Raymond Stoddard, with his lopsided smile and eyes squinting against the sun, stood in the back of the group. The back of the photo carried the penciled caption \"761st Tank Battalion, Camp Hood, Texas, December '42.\" If Monty Burnham was in the picture, I didn't recognize him.\n\nIn addition to what the photo provided, I had, in the writing of \"A Mild Winter,\" my parents' recollections of life during the war (as I recall I cut a passage of dialogue between \"Donald\" and \"Lois\" about ration cards), a little research (also eliminated was a brief mention of mixing egg yolks with margarine to give it the color of butter), and of course the date and year of Marcia Stoddard's birth. And, more than anything, I had the stimulus\u2014or the irritant\u2014of that Lee Mauer remark I alluded to earlier.\n\nOn a warm summer evening I was sitting on our front porch watching for a group of friends to drive up and take me to an American Legion baseball game. My father and Lee Mauer were in the kitchen and, though they kept their voices low and the window screen sifted out parts of their conversation, I heard enough to know they were talking about, as usual, the why of Raymond Stoddard's last day on earth. Months had passed, and the event had exceeded most people's attention spans but not my father's and Lee Mauer's. Their interest was undiminished, and a new season simply brought new theories, as when Mr. Mauer said, \"That Miss Stoddard\u2014am I the only one who sees a helluva resemblance between her and a certain state senator?\"\n\nJay Garner's Plymouth pulled up to the curb, so I didn't hear my father's response, but I had eavesdropped on the two men often enough to know what pattern their talk would follow. Soon one or both of them would be speculating on what might have happened if it were determined that Marcia Stoddard was Monty Burnham's child.\n\n_And suppose Ray found out?_\n\n_But how could he? After all this time?_\n\n_Same as I did. He looks at the girl one day, and god_ damn _\u2014_ _he knows. He just_ knows.\n\n_A man makes a discovery like that\u2014he's sure as hell going to_ _get himself a gun._\n\n_Sure as hell._\n\nI never saw the likeness that seemed so obvious to Mr. Mauer, nor do I know if my father did. At one point, years after his remark, I went so far as to lay open two high school yearbooks, one with Monty Burnham's senior picture and the other with Marcia Stoddard's. I couldn't see any resemblance besides youth and the unlined optimism that so often attends it.\n\nWriting \"A Mild Winter\" didn't purge me completely of the idea that Monty Burnham was Marcia's father, but at least I was finally able to do something useful with one of the many notions that kept bubbling to the surface of my thoughts over the years. Far more plentiful are the false starts, the abortive attempts, the unrealized fragments that have accumulated in my notebooks and journals, fading and yellowing in filing cabinets and manila folders.\n\nMy father not only had a need to know what had happened with and to Raymond Stoddard, he also felt an obligation to Raymond's family. Perhaps that began when Gene discovered his father's body and decided my father was the person to call for help. From that day forward, he was ready to provide any support the Stoddards might need, whether it was jump-starting a car, providing legal advice (adding to the bureaucratic complications that can accompany a death was the fact that Raymond didn't leave a will), helping with lawn care or household repairs, or offering sympathy. My mother certainly helped Alma Stoddard too, but her aid was perhaps less obvious since it was consistent with the kind of comfort that women generally provide for each other. Lee Mauer was a handier man than my father, and eventually\u2014I think it began with an electrical wiring problem\u2014my father recruited Lee Mauer to join him on those missions to make Alma Stoddard's life easier. By the time summer came around\u2014and Marcia Stoddard returned to Bismarck\u2014the two men were as likely to be doing chores at the house down the block as they were to be sitting in our kitchen drinking beer.\n\nThe amount of time my father\u2014and Mr. Mauer\u2014spent at the Stoddards' finally led to a quarrel between my parents.\n\nMy father and mother had been to a hardware store and had returned with samples to help them decide what color to paint the house. They walked from back to front, holding those little rectangles of color against a sunlit wall and then a shaded one, but they were talking about much more than tints of blue.\n\nThey had obviously been arguing for a time when I heard them, their voices raised near my bedroom window.\n\n\"Are you jealous?\" my father asked. \"For Christ's sake, are you _jealous_ of Alma Stoddard? After what she's been through?\"\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous. Although I am curious to see whose storm windows get taken down first, mine or Alma Stoddard's. No, you know what's bothering me: Your reason for being down there. If I could be sure you wanted nothing more than to help someone whose life has turned into hell on earth, I'd say fine, wonderful. But if you're just down there to spy on that poor woman\u2014that I can't forgive.\"\n\n\"Spy . . . ?\"\n\n\"Oh, don't pretend. Please. You know what I'm talking about. You and your newfound friend would like nothing better than to discover some kind of secret down there. Playing detective. . . .\"\n\nI heard a faint scraping sound, as though one of them were flicking the siding with the cardboard paint sample.\n\n\" _Playing?_ Is that what you think we're doing? Jesus. . . .\"\n\n\"What I call it or what you call it isn't the issue. Alma Stoddard deserves some peace in her life. And the two of you intend to use her for your own\u2014\"\n\nMy mother stopped then, but if I could finish her sentence, my father certainly could as well. _Pleasure._ My father and Lee Mauer wanted to use Alma Stoddard for their own pleasure.\n\nAs it has been tiresomely noted, the early 1960s were a sexually repressed era, at least as far as public expressions were concerned. The teenage males of that time\u2014I include myself\u2014were starved not only for sexual experience but for sexual knowledge, but since so much was denied us, almost any phrase that had\u2014or could be twisted into having\u2014a sexual connotation was titillating. To get inside. To enter. To penetrate. And we had somehow learned that \"to know\" had the archaic meaning of \"to have sexual intercourse,\" so that verb too was an occasion for sly smiles or outright ribald laughter.\n\nYet when I overheard my mother scold my father, the denotative and connotative meanings of words suddenly collapsed onto themselves, tangled, and could not be teased apart.\n\nI knew, on an imaginative if not an experiential level, what it meant to use a woman for one's own pleasure\u2014it certainly involved _know_ ing her\u2014but my mother accused my father and Lee Mauer of using Alma Stoddard for knowledge of the epistemological rather than the sexual sort. They wanted to get inside, to enter, to penetrate the Stoddard house, the Stoddard psyche, in order to know.\n\nMoments after my mother's sentence fragment, the front screen door slammed. I peered out of my bedroom and saw that it was my father alone who had walked away from their argument and back into the house.\n\nAnd whether it was the result of my mother chastising him I couldn't be sure, but in the house was where my father was soon more often to be found. His fellow spy, however, the real detective, began to log more hours at the Stoddards'. In fact, instead of parking in front of our house and sauntering up our walk with a six-pack under his arm, Lee Mauer was now more likely to pull up to the Stoddards' curb, and while his presence there was often visible\u2014edging the sidewalk, sealing cracks in the driveway, cleaning the window wells\u2014on as many days and nights he couldn't be seen. But his car was there. Explanations that he was working out of sight in the backyard or in the basement or garage could last only so long, and with my new awareness of sex and secrets conflated, I soon concluded that Mr. Mauer was there for reasons other than being a Good Samaritan.\n\nIt wasn't quite the same as when I looked out the window on that January day and wondered why my father's car was parked at the Stoddards', but I was still curious about why Lee Mauer was so often there. And since my interest was prurient, I was reluctant to ask my parents or Gene Stoddard, the people who would best be able to satisfy my curiosity.\n\nI decided I'd ask Marie Ryan, and of course what I was really doing was using my concern as an excuse to call her.\n\nWhen I telephoned and told her that I wanted to talk about the Stoddard family, I tried to imply that the matter was serious enough that we shouldn't discuss it over the telephone. My strategy worked. She invited me to meet her at Elks Swimming Pool during the evening hours set aside for family swimming. She would be there with the two children she was babysitting that summer. Gene had a job with his uncle's construction crew, and when the weather was good he worked late.\n\nHere is how memory can deceive: I know perfectly well that in North Dakota the summer sun sets late, and for much of the season, darkness doesn't descend until close to ten o'clock. I showed up at the swimming pool at around six\u2014an hour when sunlight was unabated. Yet it seems to me that when I stepped out of the locker room and saw the lovely, voluptuous Miss Marie Ryan sitting on the concrete at the edge of the pool, she was washed in the golden light of the setting sun. Perhaps I misremember reality because of the way her tanned skin replied to the sun's glow\u2014and still more radiance caught in her hair, turned amber in that light. At the sight of her I must have gasped just as I had seconds earlier when I'd walked through the cold shower on my way out to the pool. So let's allow this trick of memory to stand\u2014it creates something truer than the inexpressive, unalterable fact of the hour and minute when the sun sinks below the horizon, and reminds us that we see with more than our eyes.\n\nMarie's swimsuit was the color of lime sherbet, and it didn't have straps but a loop that circled her neck and left her sweet shoulders bare and unmarked. She was toweling the blond hair of a chunky sunburned little girl who was shouting an accusation of some sort at her brother, who was still in the water. The flesh of Marie's back was as smooth and unblemished as the little girl's. Marie didn't see me approach, for which I was grateful. I wouldn't have wanted her to scrutinize my gawky, sharp-shinned, long-boned pale body the way I examined hers.\n\nAs I squatted down next to her, I felt as though I were there merely to present a contrast in geometry\u2014my abrupt angles alongside her luxuriant curves. I also noticed that though Marie was sitting at the pool's shallow end, not all the footprints around her were child-size. Men and boys must have made up any excuse they could in order to walk out of the water near where she sat.\n\nWe couldn't make anything but small talk with the little girl on her towel between us, but when the child fussed to go back into the water, I was only too glad to lead her by the hand and help her wade out to where her brother was trying to keep a beach ball submerged. Again and again it exploded back to the surface, and he acted shocked every time. His sister lent her weight to his, and while they worked on sinking the ball for good, I told Marie about what was on my mind.\n\n\"Has Gene said anything about that police detective hanging around all the time? His car is there almost every evening.\"\n\nShe kept her eyes on her charges in the water, so I couldn't glean much from her expression as she spoke.\n\n\"He thinks something is going on, all right. A few nights ago he came into the house through the side door, and his mother and Lee Mauer were sitting at the kitchen table. But side by side. And close. Gene thought maybe his mother rearranged her blouse when he walked in.\"\n\nI didn't have to feign shock. \"She's fooling around with Lee Mauer? Her husband hasn't been dead a year!\"\n\n\"Gene doesn't know that for sure. But he said that ever since then Mr. Mauer has been real buddy-buddy to him. He even asked Gene if he wanted to drive his police car.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Stoddard and Lee Mauer? I can't believe it!\"\n\nMarie obviously didn't find it so hard to believe. She merely shrugged.\n\nOur talk had turned frank enough that I could share with Marie my theory that Lee Mauer was trying to get close to Mrs. Stoddard because he thought that she, and perhaps the Stoddard house itself, was holding back a secret that would explain why Raymond had behaved as he had.\n\nThis line of speculation didn't particularly impress her either. She said matter-of-factly, \"Men are always trying to see what they can get.\" The knowing smile that Marie turned on me said that she knew this generalization could apply to me as well. I was flattered and chagrined to be one of her specimens, but she had me so neatly pinned I couldn't do anything but sit and squirm.\n\nWhen I finally found my tongue, I asked, \"What does Gene think about all this?\"\n\n\"He acts like he doesn't care. His mother has her life, and he has his. That's what he says, anyway. But he doesn't like it. The house feels strange enough without having a stranger in it.\"\n\nI nodded eagerly. \"That's sort of what I thought. I'm hardly ever around the house anymore, though.\"\n\nMarie held me in her gaze. \"Whose idea is that?\"\n\nWhen I didn't answer, she released me. \"He sure as hell doesn't care about driving a police car.\"\n\nTo cover my discomfort I stood and stepped into the pool, pretending as though the children's play needed correction. Someone needed to show them what to do with a beach ball.\n\nWith my instruction and encouragement the kids eventually took to batting the ball back and forth rather than trying to drown it.\n\nWhen I splashed out of the water, I found Marie was not alone. Standing over her, blocking her sun and probably trying to look down her swimsuit, was a lifeguard. I knew him, or at least knew his reputation. Tim Townley had just graduated from Bismarck High School and in the fall would be heading to St. Olaf to major in music and to compete on the college swim team. Slender, tanned, sun-bleached blond, and handsome, he had, so gossip had it, been successfully seducing the city's girls for years. He usually targeted females a few years younger than himself, no doubt believing that they would be especially susceptible to the attentions of an older boy.\n\nThat was probably his strategy with Marie, but when I came closer, I heard her sternly say, \"I'm going with someone.\"\n\nTim Townley turned in the direction of my wet feet slapping on the concrete. When he saw I was coming toward Marie, he looked questioningly at her. She said nothing to correct his impression, and Tim Townley shook his head and walked away. A profound gratitude instantly augmented my already considerable love for Marie Ryan.\n\nShe signaled the kids to come out of the pool and began to gather up their towels. I asked her if I could give them a ride home, but she told me that Mrs. Linstrom would be picking them up.\n\nBefore we parted, she said, \"You know, you could have asked Gene about all this yourself.\"\n\nHer remark sounded like a mild reproach, and I took it in that spirit. But I had never received a scolding that came accompanied with a smile like the one Marie Ryan shone on me.\n\nIf the purpose of Marie's observation had been to suggest that I could be a better friend to Gene, it was right on the mark. I know it now, and I knew it then, yet I couldn't seem to find the actions that corresponded to that knowledge. I knew how not to hurt but not how to help.\n\nI can think of only one occasion when I did something that, in a small way, might have aided Gene during that difficult time.\n\nHe and I were at a party at Jay Garner's house, and though Jay's parents were out of town, the gathering wasn't a large or wild one\u2014just six or seven of us, all males. The month was April, but in North Dakota that's often nothing but a calendar page. While the temperature had been in the seventies the week before, that night a wet snow was falling, fat heavy flakes filling up the window well right outside the basement rec room where we sat drinking beer, our empty cans carefully stacked atop Jay's father's bar. Just below the ceiling's acoustical tiles blue smoke pooled from our cigarettes and cigars (someone had stolen a box of White Owls). Most of our conversation I can't recall, but I'm still certain of what we talked about: athletic skills and how they could be improved; cars and how they could be altered to run faster; and girls and how they could be induced to put out. As predictably as the belches that accompanied our beer drinking, those subjects came up whenever our group gathered. On other occasions we might also have talked about why Raymond Stoddard had killed Monty Burnham, but since Gene was present that night, the topic had to be avoided, even if the sight of Gene was enough to bring the question to mind all over again.\n\nOn that evening, however, the taboo was violated, and while I was there to witness the occurrence, I'm still not quite sure how it came to pass. We were at Jay Garner's house, and perhaps he believed that privileged him. Or maybe he was too drunk to observe the usual restrictions. Whatever the cause, at some point in the evening, Jay asked Gene if he had a theory about why his father had done what he'd done. Jay asked the question politely enough, and he seemed motivated, at least initially, by nothing but curiosity. For his part, Gene simply tried to deflect the question. \"Sorry, I don't.\"\n\nWe were all relieved when Gene's shrugged apology seemed to close off the subject, and we quickly returned to our discussion of carburetors.\n\nBut Jay got drunker, and as he did, he resumed his interrogation. At least an hour had passed since his impertinent question, but Jay picked up right where he had left off. \"That's fucking hard to believe,\" Jay said to Gene. \"That you don't have a clue about why he did it. I mean, he was your dad, for Christ's sake.\"\n\n\"Hard to believe or not,\" Gene said, \"it's true. Sorry.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying you know for sure. I'm asking for a fucking hunch. A goddamn guess. A hypothesis. You sure as shit have one. Everybody does.\"\n\n\"But I don't.\"\n\nJay turned to the rest of the group, most of whom were staring uncomfortably into their beer cans. \"You know what we ought to do? We should torture him until he tells us what he knows. What do you say?\"\n\nSomeone, it might have been Bill Forston, said, \"Why don't you give it a rest.\"\n\nBut something\u2014or someone, and maybe it was Gene's passivity\u2014had opened a vein of meanness in Jay Garner. And, typical of a drunk, he was now taken with his own sadistic idea. He scraped the ash from his cigar, then blew on the tip until it glowed red-orange. \"If someone'll hold him down, I'll administer the pain.\"\n\nNo one moved, but Bill Forston said, \"I know you're just trying to be funny, but you're not. You're not fucking funny.\"\n\nJay continued to contemplate his cigar.\n\nI looked over at Gene, expecting him to tell Jay where he could stick his cigar, but Gene said nothing and didn't move. It seemed to me, however, and here perhaps I gave myself more credit than I deserved, that his eyes were taking on the first glisten that would eventually lead to tears.\n\n\"I have a better idea,\" I said. I stood and walked over behind Jay. \"How about Chinese water torture?\" And with that I poured beer on his cigar.\n\nThe cigar hissed, Jay yelped and jumped back from the beer streaming down on him, everyone laughed, and the moment's tension, along with all talk of torture and truth-telling, was extinguished.\n\nAs I was returning to my chair, Gene rose and walked silently past me.\n\nI couldn't give myself too much credit for bailing out my friend. After all, I hadn't directly confronted Jay on his stupidly cruel comments; instead I had tried to use a joke of my own to defuse the situation. And had it been compassion for Gene that finally prompted me to act, or a wish to save him, me, all of us, from the embarrassment that would have followed if he had begun to cry? This for a young man who should have been understood and forgiven if he broke down in tears every single day.\n\nTime passed and it became apparent Gene had not merely gone to the bathroom or to get another beer, so I drained the remainder of my beer, conspicuously shook the can to demonstrate that it was empty, and then left the room.\n\nI couldn't find him anywhere, not in the bathroom, not in the laundry room, where the beers chilled in a cooler, and not in any of the upstairs rooms, generally understood to be off-limits to us. I would have assumed he'd left the party altogether, but his coat was still draped over a kitchen chair.\n\nAs I turned to go back downstairs, I glanced out the back door and saw him.\n\nGene was standing on the small porch, unsheltered, the adhesive spring snow cloaking and capping him.\n\nI opened the door and stepped out, and he didn't even turn to see who had joined him. Maybe he assumed all along that I'd come after him.\n\n\"Hey, Garner's an asshole,\" I said. \"Everybody knows that.\"\n\nGene nodded. If I was looking for an expression of gratitude, it was not to come.\n\n\"I thought maybe you'd take that cigar and put it out on his forehead.\"\n\nWe both knew how out of character that would have been, and he didn't bother responding to my suggestion. Instead, he turned to me and through the veil of the falling snow said, \"I don't know anything. I _don't._ \" The tears that I believed I saw forming in his dark eyes earlier were now in his voice. \"If he doesn't stop, I'll . . . I'll . . .\"\n\nIf there was a threat behind his words it wasn't intended for Jay Garner but for Gene Stoddard himself.\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, putting my hand on his shoulder and then bringing it back cold and wet with snow. \"Okay. I'll say something. Now let's go back inside. I'm freezing my ass.\"\n\nWe both went back into the house, but Gene didn't follow me down the stairs. Behind me I heard the door open and close again. Gene was not driving that night, but I felt certain that if I checked on the direction of his footsteps in the snow, they wouldn't track north, toward his home and mine, but south, toward Marie Ryan's, only three blocks away and where he'd find comfort that he couldn't in the company of his oldest friend.\n\nAs a way of honoring my promise to Gene, I said to Jay, upon rejoining the party with a fresh beer, \"Lay off Gene, why don't you.\" I might have added but didn't\u2014Besides, what makes you think you can conceive of a torture more painful than his daily life?\n\nThis happened, as I said, in April, months before Marie delivered her mild reprimand at the swimming pool, and though I didn't bother trying to defend myself to her, I might have pointed out that the distance between Gene and me had been increasing for some time. He soon had an entirely new set of friends, and between those companions and Marie, he probably didn't have much room left in his life for me.\n\nAdolescents have always been adept at categorizing (even as they resent it being done to them), and nowhere are systems of classification as rigorously imposed as upon high school populations. Over the years there have been jocks, preps, greasers, and hoods, nerds, brains, foxes, and studs, gearheads, metalheads, losers, and geeks\u2014and that's without even venturing into the innumerable sub-genres. Yet Gene Stoddard's new friends were a kind of featureless mix that defied designation.\n\nToday they might be characterized as slackers, but back then we had no term for them. They were heavy drinkers, and if drugs had been available then, I'm sure they would have been among the first users. They were poor students yet did enough to get by. None was on an athletic team or belonged to an extracurricular organization. They lacked the dark-hearted malice of the hoods, yet they were in and out of trouble mostly because they were inattentive or not clever enough not to get caught. Most of them worked, but only so they'd have money for gas, booze, or cigarettes. They lived in their cars but did nothing to customize or personalize them. Their usual gathering spot was the gravel lot behind a Mobil station on the east end of the city, and from there they drove endless circuits of Main Avenue. A few girls, plain and anonymous, hung out with them, but I think Gene was the only one who had a steady girlfriend. Gene's cousin, Del Shumate, provided the entr\u00e9e to the group, and a similar family connection, Del's father and Gene's uncle, arranged for Gene's summer job with Harbring Construction.\n\nFrom my perspective they seemed an apathetic bunch, but perhaps that was precisely what made them attractive to Gene. Your father was a murderer?\u2014We don't care. You found him hanging in the garage?\u2014Who gives a damn. You caught your mother with another man's hands on her?\u2014It doesn't matter. Your past looms so hugely and darkly over your life that even the light of the future can't find its way in?\u2014Shut up and have another beer!\n\nI had never shunned my friend, but I'd be a liar if I didn't say that a certain relief flowed in to fill the widening gap between Gene and me. There'd be no further possibility of confusion between us, and no more uncomfortable questions that assumed I had some insider's knowledge of the Stoddard family.\n\nBut while the diminution of a friendship didn't concern me greatly, something else did. Without Gene I'd have fewer opportunities to get close to Marie Ryan. No more double dates (there had been only a few), no more tagging along with them to a school function or sporting event, and no more hanging out with them at a party. After my swimming pool meeting with Marie\u2014ostensibly about my unease over Lee Mauer\u2014I couldn't manufacture another reason to call. Gene, however, just as he had on the occasion of his father's funeral, unwittingly provided a means by which I could have access to Marie Ryan.\n\nIt was close to eleven o'clock on a hot summer evening when the telephone rang. My mother and I were the only ones up\u2014we were watching _Lost Horizon\u2014_ and after she answered the phone, she handed it to me with a disapproving twist of her eyebrows.\n\nIt was Marie, and her first words were, \"Is he with you?\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Who else? Gene.\"\n\n\"He's not here. I haven't seen him today.\" Or this week and maybe not even this month, I might have added. I'm not sure why I couldn't admit that I seldom saw him. Hadn't Gene told Marie that our friendship had dwindled to almost nothing?\n\n\"That figures. I should have known. He told me that you two were doing something together and then he'd be here before ten. Well, guess what. He missed.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"He didn't even bother talking to you first so you'd cover for him? Stupid bastard. Stupid, stupid, _stupid._ \"\n\n\"You called his house?\"\n\n\"Twice. Even though his mother gets pissed off when I do. Your mom probably isn't too happy I called either.\"\n\n\"No, it's okay.\" From the kitchen I could see into the living room, where my mother sat on the couch. Anyone else might have believed that all her attention was focused on _The Channel_ _Twelve Late Show,_ but I could see signs that indicated otherwise. She exhaled cigarette smoke with a little more force than usual, and one tanned leg bounced impatiently. \"Look, do you want me to go down to his house and see if he's there? Maybe he went in the side door, and his mom doesn't even know he came home.\"\n\n\"Don't bother. I know where he is. Out drinking with those low-life friends of his.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"That's the second time you've said that. It's not your fault. Don't apologize for him.\"\n\n\"There must have been some kind of mix-up. . . .\"\n\nHer laughter came through the telephone line as if it traveled on its own impulse of energy. \"He doesn't _have to_ set up anything with you beforehand,\" Marie said. \"You make excuses for him all on your own.\"\n\nWhen I returned to the living room and Ronald Colman's dilemma, my mother said, \"Rather late for telephone conversations, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Sorry. That was Marie Ryan. Gene stood her up, and she wondered if he was here.\"\n\n\"Is she worried?\"\n\n\"Just hurt, I think. And mad.\"\n\n\"Are those two serious about each other?\"\n\n\"I think it's mostly one way.\" And then I added, as if clarification were necessary, \"Marie for Gene.\"\n\nSo much time passed before my mother spoke again that I thought she was entirely engrossed in the movie. Then she leaned forward to stub out her cigarette, and said, \"Plenty of that going around.\"\n\nThe next day Marie apologized for having called so late, but over the coming weeks we had a few more similar conversations about Gene's whereabouts, though they were usually held after the fact. If she saw me on a Saturday morning, for example, she might ask if Gene had been with me the night before. I couldn't lie to her, yet I still felt some residual loyalty to my friend. Or maybe the loyalty wasn't to Gene but to my gender, an allegiance still strong in adolescence. \"Was he supposed to be?\" I had learned to ask.\n\nShe would return my smile. \"You just answered me.\"\n\nBut on a night in August this matter took a turn that neither of us could joke about.\n\nI was sound asleep when I heard my name being called, but rather than wake me, the sound insinuated itself into my dream, and in that dream I strained to hear who was summoning me. It seemed as though the voice were faint because it had to travel over a distance not of space but of time, as though someone far in the past or in the future were trying to gain my attention. The voice's persistence finally cracked my slumber, and I woke with the realization that someone was outside my bedroom window.\n\nIt was Marie, hissing my name and scratching the screen.\n\nI slept in nothing but my briefs, so I dragged the sheet with me as I got out of bed and crouched down by my window.\n\nMore than her presence at that place and time, her somber expression and tear-spangled eyes told me that something was seriously wrong.\n\n\"What is it? What's happened?\"\n\n\"Gene . . .\"\n\n\"Is he\u2014? What happened?\"\n\nShe shook her head violently. \"I don't know. I don't know. He's . . . I don't know where he is!\"\n\nBehind her, every window in every house was curtain-drawn and dark, and the street down which police cars had once careered was empty and quiet. The night was hot and still, and Marie's urgency and distress seemed one with the steamy air.\n\nI glanced back at the clock. It was almost two o'clock. \"Can you tell me what happened?\"\n\nWe both leaned forward, and as she began to whisper to me, her lips were barely more than an inch from mine, but of course the screen was between us.\n\nGene and Marie had gone out that evening, one of their first dates in weeks, first to a movie and then to Teen Canteen, where they danced until the lights were turned up and the club closed. Her father and mother believed Marie was sleeping at Donna Petracca's house that night, and since Donna's parents wouldn't notice or care when\u2014or if\u2014Marie came in, she and Gene could stay out as late as they liked.\n\nThey drove around for a while and then parked behind the museum on the capitol grounds. She didn't tell me what they were doing there, but she didn't have to. I no longer had reports from Gene on how far he was getting with Marie, but I had no reason to think his sexual progress had slowed or halted. She was wearing a sleeveless white blouse that fastened up the back.\n\n_She shrugged her shoulders forward, the blouse fell onto the_ _floor of the car, and Gene tossed it into the backseat. He_ _reached behind her and unclasped her brassiere with a deftness_ _that surprised her. Usually he groped clumsily for so long that_ _they both had to make a joke\u2014Mr. Fumble Fingers!\u2014before_ _Marie went ahead and did the job for him. Was it possible that_ _being drunk made him more dexterous rather than less?_\n\n_So she was naked to the waist as she lay back across the_ _front seat, and that was often enough for him, but this time his_ _hands dove almost immediately for the waistband of her shorts,_ _and rather than try to squeeze his hand inside, he tried to tug_ _them down. She decided to allow it, though when she felt her_ _panties slipping off with her shorts, she reached down to grab_ _them and keep them on._\n\n_\"Those too,\" Gene said, his voice so husky the words almost_ _seemed croaked._\n\n_In the future when Marie Ryan thought or felt or said she_ _was ready for sex, she would almost always mean nothing more_ _than physiologically ready, and in the front seat of that Ford her_ _body was certainly as ready as it would ever be\u2014her own panting_ _breaths came echoing back to her from the little cavern_ _under the dashboard, and she was moist everywhere with her_ _own heat and the night's. But at sixteen she was not simply a_ _body._\n\n_Was it the smell of bourbon on his breath, distressingly similar_ _to her mother's when she would bend over Marie's bed, ostensibly_ _to wish her good night but really to scold Marie once_ _more for that day's minor misdeed? Was it that Gene, in this_ _moment of sexual exigency, had stopped kissing her and his caresses_ _had become unimaginatively monotonous, as if he were_ _counting repetitions before moving on to another part of her_ _body? Was it that her sweating skin was sticking to the upholstery_ _and made a vulgar sucking sound whenever she shifted positions?_ _Was there some symbolism in the location where they_ _were parked that made it impossible for her to relax into the experience?_ _They were secluded behind the museum, yet nearby_ _was the state capitol, at seventeen stories the tallest building for_ _hundreds and hundreds of miles, its rectangular height insistently_ _phallic, its rows of windows inscrutably watchful, and_ _when Marie lifted her hips to let Gene pull her shorts off, she_ _tilted her head back and saw\u2014or imagined she saw\u2014the building_ _and knew that what was happening was within its energy_ _field. Or did the building cause her to make connections that_ _could override even the oblivion-inducing ardor of sex? In that_ _structure a man was murdered. I am practically naked in the_ _murderer's car. The murderer's son's hand is between my legs\u2014_\n\n_Whatever the cause, Marie pushed Gene away\u2014_\n\nThey had a quarrel, about what, Marie didn't say, but just before Gene walked away, he said, \"Maybe my dad had the right idea.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" I said. \"Had he been drinking?\"\n\nMarie nodded.\n\n\"Didn't you go after him?\"\n\n\"I couldn't. Not right away. When I did, I couldn't find him.\"\n\n\"Maybe he went home.\"\n\n\"I checked. I looked in his window. He's not there. I know it.\"\n\n\"Did you look\"\u2014I swallowed hard before asking this\u2014\"in the garage?\"\n\nShe nodded again.\n\n\"And he walked away from his car?\"\n\n\"I didn't know if I should drive it or leave it there. Then I decided that where I was going to look for him I couldn't drive. If he'd walked off into the trees on the capitol grounds, I'd have to be on foot to find him.\"\n\n\"The trees? Why would he\u2014\" Suddenly I realized what she was telling me: Gene had threatened to hang himself, and the first opportunity that would present itself would be from the branch of a tree on the capitol grounds.\n\n_Usually no matter how much Gene Stoddard drank, he_ _could keep the world in focus, but as he looked down at the_ _nearly naked Marie Ryan, her outline kept blurring._\n\nMy next question was a coldly practical one: \"Was he wearing a belt?\"\n\n_He had the most difficulty with the borders on her body_ _where her tanned flesh gave way to the pallor her swimsuit had_ _created. But sometimes she had the straps down, or they shifted,_ _or she wore longer shorts, or she borrowed a swimsuit from a_ _friend and that allowed the sun to shine where before it had_ _been forbidden, and the lines weren't as sharp as they used to_ _be. And the front seat of the car was dark, and Marie was moving_ _sinuously under his touch and sight, and all that made it still_ _harder to know where something left off and something else_ _began. He could eliminate the problem by closing his eyes, but_ _then even the darkness would shift and sway and he was liable_ _to get sick. Besides, he couldn't get enough of the sight of her\u2014_ _the sudden flash of white as her eyelids fluttered briefly open,_ _the dark circles of her nipples, the faint shadows as her belly_ _sank below her ribs, the brighter swell of her thighs. . . . He had_ _to stare, yet the harder he stared the more unfocused everything_ _became. It reminded him of being in first grade, when he was_ _trying to learn how to read. He knew being able to read would_ _come only from looking at those letters, yet he looked and_ _looked and they would not yield what he needed from them._\n\n_It occurred to him then that his difficulty might be arising_ _not from bourbon but from desire, swirling in him like those_ _powerful currents that were said to rule the Missouri just below_ _its murky surface. He unbuckled his belt._\n\nMarie nodded, and with her index finger began to rub her lower lip, a gesture that meant\u2014as I would have ample opportunity to learn in the future\u2014that she was trying not to cry.\n\n\"Just a minute. I'll get dressed and come right out.\"\n\nIn my youth I was as modest as they come, yet at that moment I heedlessly dropped the sheet that covered me and reached for the clothes I had thrown onto a chair.\n\n_They had done this often enough that Marie knew what he_ _wanted\u2014or thought she did\u2014and reached inside the waistband_ _of his briefs._\n\n_\"Huh-uh,\" Gene said. \"Not tonight. More. I want more.\"_ _He knew that wasn't the way he should say it\u2014it wasn't the_ _way he_ wanted _to say it\u2014yet when he tried to improve it, he_ _only made it worse. \"Not with your hand.\"_\n\n_She propped herself up on her elbows. \"What?\"_\n\n_He pushed her back down. \"You know.\"_\n\n_And when her eyes closed again and her head lolled to the_ _side, and when she lifted her hips off the seat and let him pull_ _down her shorts, Gene believed he would have what he had to_ _have. But then she grabbed the waistband of her panties to keep_ _them from slipping off with her shorts._\n\n_\"Those too,\" he said in a voice that he barely recognized as_ _his own, but before she could answer or act, he lay down on top_ _of her, hoping that his volume, his entire being, pressed down_ _upon her would convey to her the urgency and import that his_ _words couldn't carry._\n\n_She lay unmoving under him for so long that Gene wondered_ _if she had fallen asleep. Then it occurred to him that perhaps_ _her stillness was a kind of permission. But he hadn't done_ _anything more than move his hand a few scant inches down her_ _side when she spoke, and she obviously had no trouble locating_ _the language or voice she needed._\n\n_\"No,\" Marie Ryan said._\n\n_Maybe, he told himself, she was talking out of a dream, and_ _he kept her pinned under his weight._\n\n_But another single word issued from her\u2014\"Off!\"\u2014and this_ _time action accompanied it. Somehow she got her hands between_ _her chest and his and thrust him upward. He had been_ _working on a construction crew that summer, and his own_ _strength had increased significantly. Furthermore, he knew what_ _the repetition of each task\u2014lifting plywood sheets, carrying_ _bricks and buckets of mortar, hoisting lengths of lumber\u2014had_ _done to harden each group of muscles, yet Marie's strength astonished_ _him, and Gene wondered what she had done over and_ _over again in her life to give her the power to push him off her_ _with what seemed to be such ease._\n\n_But Gene wasn't about to give up. He knew, however, that if_ _he was going to get what he desired, it would have to be with_ _language. Up until that night Marie had let him have what he_ _wanted, and all he had had to do was reach for it. But now_ _what was he supposed to say? I want to fuck you, screw you,_ _sink my cock into you? That was the vocabulary of his friends,_ _of the men he worked with, and of his own mind, yet he knew_ _that those words would get him nowhere._\n\n_Then Gene glanced out the window, and when he did, a_ _better idea occurred to him. A short distance away was the_ _capitol, its height hovering over them as if it were a spaceship_ _slowly landing in that area. He usually tried not to look at the_ _building\u2014next to impossible since it loomed over the city and_ _could be seen from every direction\u2014because he couldn't stop_ _thinking of it as the place where his father's life ended. Gene_ _knew that wasn't literally true\u2014his father died in the garage\u2014_ _but if it weren't for what had happened in the capitol . . ._\n\n_He opened the car door and stepped out, then bent down_ _and leaned back in. He would have thought she'd cover herself,_ _but she sat up unashamed of her nakedness. Boys in the locker_ _room were more self-conscious about their bodies than Marie_ _Ryan._\n\n_\"Maybe,\" he said, \"just maybe my dad had the right idea.\"_\n\n_He turned then and began to walk away, knowing that she'd_ _call him back, knowing that by the time he climbed back into_ _the car, she'd be lying back down, her panties off, her legs_ _spread as wide as the front seat would allow\u2014_\n\nI stayed close to the wall as I crept past my parents' and sister's bedrooms, knowing that the floor could creak and give me away if I walked down the middle. The screen door opened noiselessly, and then I was free, ready to join Marie in her search.\n\nFor the first few blocks as we walked, we watched for motion\u2014Gene's form under the light of a streetlamp or his silhouette against a house's white wall or his shadow stretching toward us as he was backlit by the headlights of the occasional car\u2014but once we entered the dark aisles of trees on the capitol grounds, we were on the alert for stillness\u2014his lifeless body hanging from a low branch.\n\nIt was Marie's idea that we search separately so we could cover a larger area in less time, and while I didn't argue with her, I wasn't convinced that was the best strategy. I didn't want to be alone when I found him, and I didn't want her to be either. We agreed that we'd shout out for the other if we saw Gene, no matter what his state.\n\nAnyone walking through the North Dakota capitol grounds and its paved arboretum trail today would find the trees widely spaced and clearly labeled. Plaques set into the earth at the base of every bush or tree identify the Russian olive or the ponderosa pine or the Chinese or American elms or the green ash or the cottonwood. But on the night I hunted for my friend, the trees were more thickly planted, and they were simply trees\u2014black vertical shapes whose trunks could be mistaken time and again for the hanging figure of a young man. Although the summer had been dry, the earth was soft and loamy underfoot, and I stumbled more than once because it was impossible to see where I was stepping. I was further slowed by having to walk hunched over, the only posture that allowed me to look upward and distinguish dark forms by examining them against the lighter darkness of the night sky. Had I had any foresight at all, I would have brought a flashlight, but then someone driving past or gazing out a window across the street might have seen a beam of light moving through the trees and called the police. More than once I wondered if that was exactly what we should have done.\n\nOccasionally I could hear Marie, just a corridor or two away from me, and I could tell she was moving much faster than I, but then being in love equips us well for moving blindly through the dark.\n\nThose of you who have been with me for these many pages must possess by now a sense of the man behind these words and of the boy behind that man. It should come as no shock or surprise to learn that I was ambivalent about my friend's possible fate. I can't say that I hoped to find him dead\u2014to contemplate that prospect was not just horrifying and sorrowful but grisly\u2014but I certainly calculated the advantages that might accrue to me if Gene were no longer alive. Marie would require solace, and I would be there to provide it. Furthermore, Gene would no longer block my path to Marie. But I also knew that loss can preserve love forever in a present state\u2014seal it, as it were, in amber\u2014and turn the loved one into a timeless ideal with whom no living human can compete.\n\nAfter searching for close to two hours and not finding Gene, Marie and I finally gave up. But in a curious application of faith\u2014belief in things unseen, as it is defined in the Old Testament\u2014having not found him, we became convinced that he was dead. If not in the small night forest where we were searching, then hanging from another branch, beam, or rafter for someone else to find. We debated whether we should take his car back to his house, but decided that it would be too upsetting\u2014to say nothing of mysterious\u2014for Mrs. Stoddard to see the Ford parked in the driveway yet with her son nowhere to be found.\n\nMarie wanted to check his house one more time, so we walked together away from the capitol and toward Keogh Street. As we stepped out of the trees and into the light, I dared put my hand on her shoulder, a gesture that I hoped she would read as intended only to comfort.\n\n\"God, your hand's sweaty,\" she said, and I took it away.\n\nWe were crossing Keogh, still a couple blocks from Gene's house and mine, when a car approached. I've often wondered, since Marie and I turned toward the car simultaneously, what she saw and heard that caused her to begin running immediately toward its headlights. However, I too must have soon perceived the truth of the situation, because I never called out or ran after her, even when the car kept coming at her.\n\nIt was Gene, and by the time the car pulled alongside me, Marie was already inside. I looked in the open passenger window and saw that she was practically curled into his lap, and Gene had one hand on the steering wheel and the other arm casually draped around her. Marie's face was turned from me, but I guessed tears of joy and relief were staining his shirt.\n\n\"Hey, man,\" Gene said. \"You want a ride?\" It was difficult to imagine that anyone so cheerful might have been considered capable of suicide.\n\nI shook my head and waved them on their way. They didn't try to argue with me but sped off. I stood and watched the Ford's taillights until they disappeared around the dip and curve that Keogh Street makes where it intersects with Cooke Avenue. Then I walked home, but when I got there I didn't go inside.\n\nInstead I sat on our front porch step. From there I could see when Gene returned home, no matter which direction he came from, yet it was unlikely he would notice me keeping my vigil. Time passed slowly, and every hour Gene didn't appear made the next hour longer.\n\nDawn finally came, light suffusing the block so subtly and gradually that even the most attentive observer would have found it impossible to name the instant when darkness gave in to day. One moment the numbers on the house across the street couldn't be read, and the next moment there they were. Preceding any visible glow was the chirp and twitter of birds, but they were soon in full-throated song, gloating or sighing that they had made it through another night. Gene had still not driven past, and that fact alone provided me with all the information I needed. I gave up and returned to my bed.\n\nI tried many times to write a story about that night, but every effort frustrated me. Because there was so much backstory\u2014the film term that my writing students invariably use when referring to almost anything in the past\u2014I finally decided to limit the narrative by concentrating on what happened in the car between the two lovers, to write, in other words, a seduction story. Neither the male nor the female quite worked as the focus of narration, so I alternated points of view. Still the story wasn't what I hoped it would be. Perhaps, as so often happens in life, the present has too little meaning when it's not attached to the past, the past with its power to clarify and distill. And perhaps that story was simply not meant to be because it was willed into existence\u2014over and over again\u2014not by a desire to make something artful and true but by a compulsion to lacerate myself with my own imagination.\n\nBut while the Ford's absence that night and early morning took on such importance in my psyche, the car's actual appearance had, for another viewer, significance of quite a different sort. A friend of my father's believed it explained Monty Burnham's murder.\nAs law students at the University of North Dakota, Ross Wilk and my father roomed together, and while both eventually found themselves practicing law in Bismarck, Ross Wilk was a more financially successful attorney than my father. Mr. Wilk did a great deal of work for the oil companies that swarmed over the state in the 1950s, and though the boom didn't last long, by the time it was over, Ross Wilk was a wealthy man and a partner in one of the city's top law firms. He would gladly have brought my father into the practice, but my father always refused, citing as reason not his stubborn independence but that he didn't \"look good in a cowboy hat.\" The remark made sense only to those familiar with Ross Wilk's appearance and then only barely. Ross Wilk wore expensive, hand-tooled boots and wide-brimmed Stetsons, attire that wasn't\u2014and isn't\u2014especially unusual in Bismarck. (In his _Travels with Charley,_ John Steinbeck said that the West began at the Missouri River, and Bismarck was built on the river's eastern bank.) Ross Wilk, however, had no Western roots or cowboy experiences in his past. He came from a small town in northwestern Minnesota where his father had been a dentist. But he knew, in a way my father never did, how a persona could be shaped and projected for one's personal gain. An insider in state and local politics, Ross Wilk had considerable influence in both circles (largely through the Republican party). My father generally trusted his friend's take on issues, believing they were arrived at by Mr. Wilk's keen intellect and by his access to information that most citizens didn't have.\n\nOnce or twice a year my parents had the Wilks over for dinner, and that was the occasion that brought Ross Wilk to our living room on a warm October day in 1961, nine months after Monty Burnham's murder. Mr. Wilk looked down the street and saw the Stoddards' Ford outside their house, and at the sight of the car, Ross Wilk tapped his index finger against our window. Along with his hat and boots, Ross Wilk affected a kind of Gary Cooper laconism, and he turned to my father (the wives were in the kitchen) and simply said, \"There's your answer.\"\n\nThe men had not been talking about Raymond Stoddard or Monty Burnham, and Ross Wilk's comment was made without preamble, but in Bismarck during that period\u2014and nowhere was this more true than on Keogh Street\u2014that subject was close enough to the surface of every conversation that it needed no introduction. Neither did Ross Wilk need any encouragement to give voice to his theory.\n\n\"For some reason when I learned that Raymond Stoddard had recently purchased a new Ford, I kept thinking that had to be important. I just didn't know how. And then when I had a talk with the governor, who was mad as hell about the prices Bob Borglund was charging to make repairs on state vehicles, it all started to make sense.\"\n\nRobert Borglund owned a very successful Ford-Mercury dealership in Bismarck, and for years he had the contract for providing\u2014and servicing\u2014vehicles to the state. The arrangement seemed to work to everyone's satisfaction until North Dakota elected a Democrat as governor. Then George Bartell, the new governor, found out that Borglund Ford-Mercury was charging the state exorbitant rates for routine repairs to its vehicles. When the governor began to look into that irregularity, he discovered an even greater one: The state was not receiving a particularly favorable price when it purchased its new cars.\n\nNow what state agency, Ross Wilk wondered, would be able to find out what the bill was for a new car? Why, Accounts and Purchases, of course, the department that employed Raymond Stoddard. And who would notice that what the state paid for a new Ford was out of line? An employee who had recently bought a car for himself, that's who. And that employee might then point out this discrepancy to his superior, who in turn would report it to the governor.\n\nFurthermore, the governor learned that the connection between the state's purchase of new Fords and state politicians was even tighter than first suspected. Robert Borglund was not only a heavy contributor to the Republican party, he was often mentioned as a future candidate for political office, perhaps the governorship. He was ambitious and wealthy; he was comfortable in front of the cameras (he appeared in all his own television commercials for Borglund Ford-Mercury); and he came across as confident, cheerful, honest, and direct. He was, in other words, a man cut from the same cloth as Monty Burnham.\n\nAccording to Ross Wilk, the men were more than similar personality types. They shared a political philosophy built on thrift, self-reliance, patriotism, and tough attitudes toward criminals and foreign governments. In practical terms most of these lofty values translated into little more than attempts to keep taxes low, to balance budgets, and to reject social programs. Both Monty Burnham and Bob Borglund liked to pretend\u2014or perhaps they believed\u2014that they had risen to stature and success on nothing more than strength of character and hard work. In truth, both men stepped into prosperous, established family businesses, and the businesses were the same\u2014selling cars, specifically Fords.\n\nRoss Wilk believed that Monty Burnham had somehow influenced the system that awarded the contract for state vehicles\u2014sales and service\u2014to Borglund Ford-Mercury. Bob Borglund returned the favor by donating generously to Burnham's campaigns and by sharing a portion of the state contract with Burnham Motors (also a Ford dealership), all on an unofficial basis, of course. And once again, Ross Wilk pointed out, a man with a new car (purchased at Borglund Ford-Mercury), a man who worked in the state's Accounts and Purchases department, would be the one likely to discover and then unravel these strands of corruption.\n\nBut if this man had his own connection to Senator Burnham\u2014as Raymond Stoddard had\u2014then he could perhaps be brought in on the plot. So instead of an employee who informed his superior of the corruption, there's someone who, by virtue of his position in Accounts and Purchases, was able to contribute to the scheme. He could hide or alter documents, manipulate figures\u2014he'd be a perfect partner. And maybe it was no recent discovery. Maybe it had gone on for years, an operation successful because many people benefited\u2014maybe Raymond Stoddard's new Ford was a payment for his participation\u2014and so few people were harmed. Who would have thought this new governor would get so worked up over something as minor as what the state was being charged for an oil change? One discovery leads to another, and before long you have a man taking his own life to avoid the humiliation of being uncovered as a crook. And, Ross Wilk concluded, he takes down with him the fellow who talked him into being a part of the plot. Or maybe he wants to put a bullet in the good senator because he knows that the senator will sell him out to save his own hide.\n\n\"I'm not convinced,\" my father said.\n\n\"Because the man was your friend, and you don't want to believe it of him. But people don't commit murder for noble reasons. And they kill themselves out of desperation. Shame. Even embarrassment. You know that.\"\n\n\"It just doesn't feel right.\"\n\n\"Feel? What do feelings have to do with anything? What would old Professor Saint Clair say if he heard you talking like that? Evidence. Logic. Reasoning. That's how guilt and innocence are determined. If you like, I can keep digging. I have no doubt the evidence is out there.\"\n\n\"Not necessary,\" my father said, waving his hands at his old friend as if in surrender. \"Not necessary.\"\n\nLater that evening, after our guests had gone home, my father summoned my mother and me to the living room. My mother was in the midst of putting away the good china she had used for that day's meal, and ordinarily she would have preferred to finish that task, but something in my father's voice must have told her this matter couldn't wait.\n\nHe sat back in his overstuffed chair while my mother and I perched on the edge of the sofa's cushions. He related Ross Wilk's theory about the plot to overcharge the state, and with Raymond featured as a willing accomplice it was a convincing presentation. Nevertheless, as my father finished talking, he wore the same distressed look as when he had begun.\n\nMy mother, on the other hand, received this latest hypothesis with a mixture of exuberance and relief. \"Well, that's as plausible as anything I've heard,\" she said.\n\n\"I suppose.\"\n\n\"What's wrong? You act as if you're disappointed. Why\u2014because you didn't crack the case? You and your detective friend?\"\n\nHer remark struck me as cruel, yet my father didn't flinch or attempt to defend himself.\n\nIn the absence of any further comment from my father, my mother turned to me and volunteered her own explanation of where we had now arrived. \"This is exactly why your father gets in trouble with some of his cases. He identifies too much with his client, and then when the verdict doesn't come out the way they'd hoped, he takes it personally.\"\n\nShe rose and walked over to sit on the arm of my father's chair, leaning her weight seductively against him and running her fingers through his hair. He stared straight ahead. \"You probably thought,\" my mother continued, \"that your dad was only interested in finding out the truth of that awful day. What you didn't know, what none of us knew, was that he had taken on Raymond Stoddard as a client. An unwilling client, of course. Since Raymond was dead, he was in no position to retain counsel. But in your father Raymond had a devoted advocate, an attorney working pro bono. Not only without pay but without even being asked. And an attorney who wouldn't be satisfied with any verdict except one that found his client innocent.\"\n\nWithout saying another word, my father pushed himself to his feet and stalked out of the room.\n\nFor another moment my mother remained balanced on the arm of the chair, and the fingers that had been combing my father's thinning hair now scratched at the chair's nubby upholstery. \"I guess I got a little too close,\" she said, and I knew she wasn't talking about physical proximity. Then she rose too and left the living room, but while my father had gone down the hall toward the bedrooms, she went back to her kitchen.\n\nIf I hadn't known it before, that scene between my parents tried to teach me the lesson: Lies can unsettle us and send us angrily from the room, but the truth can do the same.\n\n_Because time seems to have speeded up\u2014and if it seems so, isn't_ _it so?\u2014you feel as though you must act swiftly. Were you not so_ _pressed for time, perhaps you would evaluate your options carefully,_ _and with that care you might be more realistic. Instead,_ _once you happen upon a workable strategy, you must commit to_ _it unequivocally._\n\n_For that reason you decide early on that it will be necessary_ _to take your own life. You contemplated life in prison only for a_ _moment, and perhaps not even for that long. You recalled a_ _Sunday drive in the country, a mild March day when uncharacteristic_ _warmth bumped against the cold of unmelted snow and_ _a fog rose that made mid-afternoon as dusky as, well, dusk. The_ _car swept around a curve and there it was\u2014the state penitentiary,_ _its walls burning their way blackly through the vapor, its_ _stone towers too solid for a mist to cover. That was enough._ _Though on that day guilt had not yet encumbered your life, you_ _stored away a realization unrealized until now\u2014you could_ _never handle life in prison. Not for a year and certainly not for_ _ten._\n\n_Besides, it might be that your suicide will be regarded not as_ _an admission of guilt, an attempt to escape the inescapable, but_ _as an expression of frustration and exhaustion\u2014_ because he couldn't convince the world of his innocence, he took the only way out available to him.\n\n_But you are not innocent. Oh, no. Even in those moments_ _when you treat yourself most gently, when you interpret your_ _actions as generously as possible, even in the depth of self-pity_ _or at the height of indignation and self-justification, you still_ _must admit: You are guilty._\n\n_When your brother-in-law\/old friend\/former classmate came_ _to you with the scheme to fix prices\/misappropriate funds\/embezzle\/_ _steal\/conspire, you knew what was being asked of you._ _Yes, yes; he talked you into it. Nothing was your idea, not initially._ _Only when you became necessary to a successful outcome,_ _only then did you contribute what only you could_ _contribute. But right from the start you knew. You knew and_ _you assented. No matter that you were a minor (but essential)_ _functionary in the plan; that role only adds pathos to your guilt;_ _it does nothing to absolve you._\n\n_Odd, how familiar it all is. Until recently, you've led a fairly_ _respectable life, you've committed no previous criminal acts, yet_ _this feeling of being ensnared, guilty, caught, trapped, culpable,_ _is one you know. You took fifty cents from your mother's purse._ _You stole a pack of your father's cigarettes. You lied and told_ _your girlfriend you wouldn't be there, but then you were and so_ _was she. The teacher compared your answers and your friend's_ _and found them the same. You denied, you dissembled, you_ _cheated, you pilfered, you pretended. . . . And you were caught._ _The scale so different, the potatoes so small, yet the feeling the_ _same, as if now you are fulfilling your entire life's promise, finally enacting what you have rehearsed so long. Though now it_ _may be the police\/congressional committee\/investigative journalist\/_ _government agent closing in on you, it feels no different from_ _trudging home from grade school when you knew the phone_ _call from the principal would arrive before you. It seemed then,_ _as now, that the world was about to end._\n\n_Now you know of course that it will be over only for you._ _Or . . . ?_\n\n_It's the only question that remains. Should you take your_ _brother-in-law\/old friend\/former classmate\/colleague out with_ _you? To do so would be murder, an act of rage, retribution, revenge,_ _or, less grandly, of petulance, but murder without question._ _Yet it would also contain an element of justice. It's quite_ _possible that your death will end the investigation, close the_ _case, stop the proceedings. Once, after all, a guilty party is identified_ _and found, no one feels quite the same need to uncover_ _another. So, who, if not you, can guarantee punishment to the_ _blameworthy? In this you may well have a mission, a meaning,_ _a reason for being that you never had when your life was innocently_ _your own. . . ._\n\nThat story, if it can be called that, was published in _Epiphanies,_ another now-defunct publication. It was one of the longest pieces ever to appear in the avant-garde magazine; many of the \"discoveries and revelations,\" as the editors said they featured in their pages, were no more than a paragraph. The story's McInerney-fashionable (at the time) second-person point of view probably gave it special appeal to the _Epiphanies_ staff, but its source, of course, was that conversation between Ross Wilk and my father when Mr. Wilk speculated that in the corruption of the workplace Raymond Stoddard's murderous intention was born.\n\nIt would not be accurate to say that I was able to observe an actual lightening of my mother's spirit after the Wilks' visit, but I think it's fair to say that Mr. Wilk's rendition of the murder-suicide and what led to it satisfied my mother. I never again heard her express any curiosity about those awful circumstances, and if she didn't broadcast the Wilk theory to others, it was only because she didn't believe it was hers to share.\n\nMy father, on the other hand, resisted his friend's interpretation and, to some extent, actively lobbied against it. I know because I was one of those he tried to dissuade from believing that Raymond Stoddard murdered Monty Burnham and then killed himself because he was involved in a political scandal.\n\nEvery Halloween my father tried to organize his family for an evening of jack-o'-lantern decorating, an activity for which only he had any aptitude or enthusiasm. That year, however, I, unlike my mother and sister, was unable to come up with an excuse in time and so found myself sitting at the kitchen table alongside my father, both of us up to our elbows in pumpkin innards.\n\nHe introduced the subject of Ross Wilk as abruptly as Mr. Wilk had begun talking about Raymond Stoddard just a few weeks earlier.\n\n\"Ross Wilk is a helluva bright man,\" my father said, \"but he's making the mistake a lot of people make. Just because something happens in a particular location doesn't necessarily mean the location has anything to do with it. They see Monty Burnham being murdered in the capitol as important, and since the capitol is a government building, they think the murder must have to do with politics. But for legislators and state employees it's the place they work, simple as that. Raymond knew Senator Burnham was in the building. Nothing more to it, as far as I'm concerned. If you want an explanation of why, you can't allow yourself to be distracted with where.\"\n\nMy father was not being disingenuous; he believed that. But another set of beliefs was also at work in him and leading him away from Ross Wilk's account. My father didn't want place to figure at all in what Raymond Stoddard had done because my father wanted to dissociate his city and state from the crime.\n\nAlthough he didn't belong to any service organizations\u2014no membership in the Kiwanis Club or the Rotary Club\u2014and though he found embarrassingly superficial and hollow the Babbittry of many of the community's and state's boosters, my father took second place to no one in his love for North Dakota. He cherished its homesteading heritage of hard work and stoicism, its paradoxical high-plains ethic of both self-reliance and neighborliness, its lack of pretense, and its unspoken credo of honesty and forthright plain speech. He was neither hunter nor fisherman, but he loved the state's empty, almost featureless spaces, its shadowed valleys and sunlit prairies. Even North Dakota's fabled extremes of weather were for my father nothing but the tests that made us all stronger for having passed them. He couldn't stand the thought that people might see a connection between the state he loved and its most famous crime. It was bad enough that he and Raymond Stoddard and Monty Burnham shared a hometown\u2014tainted forever by the murder\u2014but he hoped that attempts to determine cause would concentrate on the murderer's psyche and not the place where he pulled the trigger.\n\nI sympathized with my father's position, but I couldn't agree with it. I feebly believed at the time\u2014and time has only firmed my belief\u2014that what happens can't be pulled apart from where.\n\nIf we had been carving our pumpkins fifteen years in the future, my father's jack-o'-lantern might have been characterized as wearing a Jimmy Carter grin. As it was, I couldn't help but look at that horizontal, symmetrical smile and think of a Ford's small-toothed grille.\n\n_Every year the lawyer's wife suggested that he draw the face on_ _the pumpkin before he began to carve, but he always disregarded_ _her advice. Instead he proceeded freestyle, cutting into_ _the hollowed-out pumpkin with one of his tools of choice, a fish_ _fileting knife or an old paring knife, both of which could be_ _sharpened to a razor's edge. Once the jack-o'-lantern's first features_ _took shape\u2014a wolfish smile, an astonished eye, a flared_ _nostril\u2014he invented from that beginning, sometimes letting an_ _accidental slice dictate the entire design. It was as close as he_ _came to improvisation, to art, or perhaps even to spontaneity._ _Certainly nothing in his professional life\u2014his specialty was advising_ _oil companies on how to deal with western states' land_ _use policies and regulations\u2014allowed him to act without a well-defined_ _sense of outcome and consequence._\n\n_The telephone rang, and though it was only a few feet from_ _where he sat at the kitchen table, he called out to his wife to an_ _swer it. In explanation he held up his hands, still wet and slippery_ _from scooping out the pumpkin's stringy pulp._\n\n_She had been engrossed in an episode of_ Ben Casey, _but she_ _rose from her chair in the living room and soon held out the_ _phone to him, mouthing the words, \"It's Lee.\"_\n\n_It was not a call the lawyer wanted to take, but he felt he_ _had no choice. While he washed his hands, his wife patiently_ _dangled the phone from its cord as if it were an object she didn't_ _want to bring near her mouth or ear. Just before he took it from_ _her, she whispered, \"He wants to ask for a favor.\" Then she left_ _the kitchen and returned to her television program._\n\n_\"Lee. What can I do for you?\"_\n\n_\"I hate to take you out of your house on a night like this\"\u2014_ _the day had not been only cold, but once the sun had set, the_ _wind occasionally tore loose a shower of fine-grained snow\u2014_ _\"but I could sure use a hand. Can I get you down here?\"_\n\n_The lawyer sighed, hoping the sound traveled through the_ _wire. He knew he would say yes to the request, but he wanted_ _Lee Mauer to hear his reluctance. \"Can you give me a clue,_ _Lee?\"_\n\n_\"It's not something I'm eager to discuss over the phone.\"_\n\n_The lawyer might have been puzzled, even worried, if someone_ _else had made that statement, but Lee Mauer, a former police_ _lieutenant, never missed an opportunity to dramatize or add_ _intrigue to almost any situation. \"I'll be there in a few minutes.\"_\n\n_\"Just come in the back door. I'm in the basement.\"_\n\n_Since he was only crossing the street and walking a few_ _houses down the block, the lawyer didn't bother with a jacket._ _And he was familiar with the home he was visiting. His friend_ _Raymond Stoddard had lived there until he had taken his own_ _life the previous January, but it was still home to Raymond's_ _wife and son. Lee Mauer originally began visiting the house, in_ _the lawyer's company, to help the widow with yard work and_ _light household repairs, but the lawyer's wife believed that a_ _romantic\u2014and sexual\u2014relationship had now developed between_ _Mrs. Stoddard and the former police officer. The lawyer,_ _however, seldom committed himself to belief without substantial_ _evidence._\n\n_Although he was uncomfortable walking into the house_ _without knocking or ringing the bell, the lawyer did as Lee_ _Mauer requested. Just inside the door, however, the lawyer_ _called out, \"Hello?\"_\n\n_From the darkened stairway came a feeble \"Down here.\"_\n\n_The Stoddard basement was only partially finished. The_ _laundry and storage rooms, separated by only a wall of widely_ _spaced two-by-fours, had concrete walls and floors and exposed_ _ceiling joists. Before his death, however, Raymond Stoddard_ _had made progress on a recreation room. He had installed ceiling_ _acoustical tiles and recessed lights, and he had laid flooring_ _with the markings for a shuffleboard court. On one paneled_ _wall was a gun rack, though Raymond Stoddard owned no guns_ _himself. Protruding from another wall were the pipes that were_ _supposed to connect to the fixtures of a future wet bar._\n\n_In spite of Raymond's plans for the room, it had, as basements_ _inevitably do, gone over to storage. The lawyer was sure_ _that the cardboard boxes, the mildew-spotted suitcases, the_ _dresser missing a few drawer pulls, and the cedar chest were all_ _full. Similar items in his own basement certainly were. Positioned_ _almost in the center of the room was a space heater, its_ _bars glowing orange and giving off the odor of hot dust. The_ _appliance must have been running for hours. The basement was_ _so warm that the lawyer felt immediately the onset of sweat_ _prickling at his hairline._\n\n_And in a darkened corner, lying flat on his back on a rollaway_ _bed's bare mattress, was Lee Mauer. Mauer was wearing_ _nothing but briefs, yellowed with age, and above the waistband_ _rose the great mound of his belly, a shape like an overturned_ _bowl. His stomach, chest, and shoulders were thickly covered_ _with dark hair, and the pink nipples peeking through the thatch_ _were an incongruous sight, looking as though they belonged on_ _the body of a woman in an oil painting from another century._ _His round face was moist and flushed, and though he smiled at_ _the lawyer, pain lined his forehead._\n\n_\"Thanks for coming.\"_\n\n_\"What can I do for you, Lee?\"_\n\n_\"My back's gone out.\" He twisted his lips as though the_ _words themselves hurt._\n\n_\"I'm sorry to hear that.\"_\n\n_Mauer weakly waved away the lawyer's sympathy. \"It's happened_ _to me for years. There's a doctor who thinks he can fix it,_ _but that'd mean surgery. You know me\u2014no knives.\"_\n\n_In fact, the lawyer didn't know Mauer well at all, and the_ _revelations about both the man's back problems and his dread_ _of surgery came as news to the lawyer._\n\n_\"Usually,\" Mauer continued, \"if I just take it easy for a couple_ _days, the pain eases and then I'm okay until the next time it_ _happens. Not that I have any choice in the matter. I can't do_ _much more than lie flat.\"_\n\n_\"Okay.\" The lawyer was not a fastidious man\u2014he had,_ _after all, recently had his hands covered with pumpkin slime\u2014_ _but he guessed that Lee Mauer was going to ask for his help in_ _getting dressed and moving, perhaps up the stairs, and the_ _lawyer wasn't eager to put his arms around the fat man's sweaty_ _body._\n\n_\"So there's some things I just can't do for myself when I'm_ _in this condition. Goddamnit.\"_\n\n_All right, here it comes, thought the lawyer._\n\n_\"If you'd drive my car, I'd sure appreciate it.\"_\n\n_The lawyer wasn't prepared for that request, but then he_ _was thrown further off balance by something that hadn't occurred_ _to him earlier. If Lee Mauer couldn't get up, how had he_ _made the telephone call that brought the lawyer to where he_ _now stood?_\n\n_\"Your car, Lee?\"_\n\n_\"It's in the driveway.\"_\n\n_\"I saw it. . . .\" But the lawyer would have to use his own_ _car to take Mauer home, wouldn't he? Unless Lee wanted the_ _lawyer to keep Mauer's car until he was up and around. And_ _while the lawyer was trying to puzzle through this matter, the_ _answer to an earlier question was provided. Just under the rollaway_ _was the black shape of a telephone, and from under the_ _foot of the bed snaked the telephone cord. The long cord ran to_ _a wall where it was plugged into a phone jack, not secured but_ _hanging from the outlet by its wires. Raymond, Raymond, to_ _leave with so much undone . . ._\n\n_Mauer said, \"I wouldn't want the neighbors to see the car_ _here all night.\"_\n\n_Would the neighbors be likely to conclude something if they_ _saw the car parked there at seven_ _A_ _._ _M_ _. that they didn't conclude_ _now when they saw it late at night? The lawyer supposed they_ _would. After all, he had withheld his own judgment until, as he_ _put it, all the evidence was in._\n\n_Just at that moment, as if she had read his thoughts on matters_ _of proof, Alma Stoddard walked into the room. She was_ _wearing an old flannel bathrobe, and from the way her breasts_ _moved beneath the worn fabric, the lawyer guessed that she was_ _naked under the robe. He also surmised that she had been in the_ _room recently, and that its warmth was what had caused tendrils_ _of her hair to stick to her perspiring forehead._\n\n_\"His back . . . ,\" Alma said. She crossed her arms and held_ _her elbows. \"If you could just . . .\"_\n\n_The lawyer held up his hands. \"It's not a problem.\"_\n\n_She smiled gratefully and then, to save them both further_ _embarrassment, hurried from the room. Perhaps she had made_ _an appearance as a way of confessing to the nature of her relationship_ _with Lee Mauer. Your life is your own, the lawyer_ _would have said to her; you live it as you see fit. You don't owe_ _me any explanations._\n\n_As soon as she was gone, Lee Mauer said, \"I was thinking_ _you could just park the car a couple blocks away. In the lot over_ _at First Presbyterian, maybe. Then if I'm up and around tomorrow,_ _I'll go get it. You wouldn't even have to come back here._ _You could just leave the keys on top of the right rear passenger_ _tire. An old cop trick . . .\"_\n\n_The lawyer wondered what kind of trick that was supposed_ _to be, but he didn't ask. Just as he didn't ask why Alma couldn't_ _drive the car._\n\n_\"Where are your keys, Lee?\" The lawyer preferred to get on_ _with the mission and return to his home. He planned to describe_ _this scene to his wife and allow her the satisfaction of having_ _her suspicions confirmed._\n\n_\"Pants pocket.\" He pointed to the clothing draped over a_ _rocking chair with a torn cane seat._\n\n_The lawyer picked up the trousers and carried them to Lee_ _Mauer._\n\n_Before he turned the car keys over to the lawyer, Lee Mauer_ _separated them from the rest of the keys on the chain. Holding_ _out the keys, he said, \"Park it under the light, if you can.\"_\n\n_The lawyer was able to leave the car just where he had been_ _instructed to park it, but before he reached inside the wheel well_ _to put the keys on top of the tire, he surveyed the area. Most of_ _the nearby houses were dark, and where there was a lighted_ _window, he saw no human form looking out. When he was as_ _certain as he could possibly be that he was not observed, he left_ _the keys and walked away. Snow was falling continuously now,_ _and though the flakes were still widely spaced and airy, by_ _morning the car would be veiled in white._\n\n_There were two routes he could take back to his home and_ _his waiting pumpkins. He could walk north and then east, staying_ _on sidewalks all the way, until he came to his own block, or_ _he could plot a diagonal course, which would allow him to_ _come up through the Stoddards' backyard. That was the most_ _tempting because it would allow him to peer into the basement_ _where Lee Mauer lay and where, perhaps, he and Alma had resumed_ _their sexual frolic. After all, for what other reason would_ _Lee insist that the lawyer not bring the car keys back to the_ _house?_\n\n_But the lawyer had not traveled far in that direction when a_ _number of thoughts stopped him. And it was not just his twined_ _senses of pride and propriety that held him back. Enough snow_ _had fallen that his footsteps across the lawn would be revealed,_ _and he couldn't do anything to cover or conceal his tracks. Besides,_ _Lee Mauer's injury, Alma Stoddard's sweaty forehead\u2014_ _whatever the act they had been engaged in, they were doubtless_ _finished by now. And if not, Lee's back would prevent them_ _from resuming._\n\n_So the lawyer took the longer route, staying on the sidewalks_ _that still held enough of the day's heat that the snow_ _couldn't accumulate on the concrete. He wished now that he_ _had worn a coat. The web of dark hair covering Lee Mauer's_ _torso probably would have done as much to keep out the cold_ _as the lawyer's white shirt did._\n\n_Besides, even if the lawyer had indulged in that brief_ _voyeuristic impulse, even if he had looked in that window and_ _seen Lee and Alma naked again on that narrow bed, the sight_ _wouldn't have satisfied his real curiosity about those two. He_ _may not have been particularly knowledgeable or sophisticated_ _when it came to sexual practices, but neither was he na\u00efve; he_ _was aware of a range of carnal activities that men and women_ _could engage in, some more likely than others to cause a man's_ _back to go out. But the question that most tormented the_ _lawyer couldn't be answered by peeking through a window._ _What truly perplexed him had to do with the fully clothed Lee_ _Mauer and Alma Stoddard. How could a fat, bald cop, a loud,_ _vulgar man with two chins and no charm persuade an attractive_ _woman\u2014a woman less than a year into her grief\u2014to disrobe_ _and . . . and . . . what? To love him?_\n\n_Once the lawyer's house came into view, he picked up his_ _pace to hurry toward its warmth. On his block, from front_ _porches and kitchen windows, his neighbors' jack-o'-lanterns_ _grinned, leered, or stared in cross-eyed disbelief at him as he_ _passed. His own pumpkins were of course still without expression._ _He had gotten no further than cutting open their skulls_ _and scooping out the tangled mess inside._\n\nThat story eventually appeared in _The North Coast Fiction Review._ My father is, of course, the model for the lawyer protagonist, and Lee Mauer (Ken Crowder in the fiction) did injure his back and call on my father for assistance. That incident occurred not on Halloween but in the week before Christmas, and beyond the fact that my father returned home shaken, I never knew what happened when he went to Lee Mauer's aid. If he told my mother, she never told me.\n\nA little more than a year after I sat in an almost empty First Lutheran Church for Raymond Stoddard's funeral, I attended another ceremony in the same building. Once again, few were present, and again, a Stoddard was the reason we were gathered. This time, however, the sparse turnout was predictable. Alma Stoddard had not invited many people to witness her marriage to Lee Mauer. Furthermore she must have decided that since it wouldn't be possible to keep her dead husband out of people's thoughts, she might as well go ahead and recite her vows in front of the same altar where his coffin had been so recently stationed.\n\nAnd those of us there . . . I have no doubt we all spent our time in the pews in the same manner\u2014by trying to determine what had been in Alma Stoddard's heart and mind in the days, weeks, and months leading up to the wedding. What, we wondered, moved her to say yes to Lee Mauer's proposal? Among the countless varieties of human love was there one that explained what the widow of a murderer and a suicide might have felt for a fat policeman?\n\nFor her part, my mother didn't believe affection of any kind was involved. When she learned of the impending marriage, she had a simple explanation.\n\n\"She needs protection,\" my mother had said.\n\nMy father scoffed. \"In Bismarck? On Keogh Street? Protection from what? From whom?\"\n\n\"You're a man,\" my mother answered. \"I wouldn't expect you to understand.\"\n\n\"Enlighten me.\"\n\n\"If you're lying in bed alone at night, and you hear something, it's no help to tell yourself there's nothing to be afraid of. You feel what you feel. And perhaps for Alma, having Lee Mauer beside her is preferable to having that feeling.\"\n\nAs he had in his conversation with Ross Wilk, my father rejected someone's theory of human motivation. And again, he had no formulation of his own to put in its place, for when my mother pressed him\u2014\"All right, then. You tell me. What's behind this? Has your friend taken you into his confidence? You seem awfully incurious about the upcoming nuptials.\"\n\nMy father answered with a question of his own. \"Is that what you've felt, when I've been out of town? Afraid?\"\n\n\"I'm not Alma Stoddard,\" my mother said, thereby ending both lines of inquiry.\n\nI wasn't sure why my parents insisted that I attend the wedding. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to swell the congregation. Perhaps they wanted to bring home to me, through the unmistakable parallelism of the two Stoddard rites, a lesson about the cycles of human life. If that was the case, it was wasted on me. I did observe that after the funeral and the wedding, similar fare\u2014ham sandwiches and date bars\u2014was served in the church basement, but I had no insight into the nature of the rituals that attended grief and joy.\n\nAfter only a few minutes of milling around at the reception, Gene nudged me and asked, \"Want to grab a smoke?\"\n\nI seldom smoked, and Gene and I had reached the point where we rarely said more to each other than a passing hello in the halls at school, but I followed him out of the fellowship room. How could I refuse him on the day when his mother had married a substitute for his father?\n\nIt was too cold to go outside, so we made our way over to another section of the church basement, the darkened wing where we had both once attended Sunday school classes.\n\nInside the boys' lavatory, with its undersize porcelain fixtures for its undersize patrons, Gene offered me a Camel. We lit up and before I had taken my first timid drag, he asked his question.\n\n\"Would you be my best man?\"\n\nSince my father had just served as Lee Mauer's best man, I assumed that Gene was asking me a hypothetical question, that the occasion had revived in him some of the affections of our once-close friendship, but I hadn't even formed a response on that basis when Gene added, \"Marie's late.\"\n\nI thought Gene meant that Marie was supposed to attend the wedding\u2014I had wondered about her absence\u2014but that her tardiness had caused her to miss the ceremony.\n\n\"And she's never late.\"\n\nStruck suddenly by the full force of what Gene was telling me, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying what a na\u00efve, self-deceiving, heartbroken parent might say _\u2014how could this_ _happen?\u2014_ as if the only consolation left was in learning that it was the result of a single, mindless, aberrant moment.\n\nBut Gene addressed the matter without my question, not that his response offered any satisfaction. \"I don't even know how the hell it happened. . . .\"\n\n\"Oh, come on.\"\n\n\"Really. We hardly even\u2014Oh, what the hell.\" As long as I had known him, Gene had had a nervous little habit of tugging at a lock of his hair right at the hairline. When he did that now with the same hand that held the cigarette, I expected to hear the sizzle of burning hair. But, deftly, he managed the maneuver by pinching his hair with his thumb and little finger. \"If that's the way it is,\" he said, in a phrase I had never heard him use before, \"that's the way it is.\"\n\nI knew I was supposed to commiserate with him and his predicament, but at that moment it was my own anguish I was concerned with. As coolly as I could, I said, \"So, when's the wedding?\"\n\nSmoke tumbled out of his mouth with his sardonic laugh. \"How about as soon as I get out of the hospital? Because that's probably where I'll end up if her old man finds out I knocked up his daughter. Unless he has a heart attack before he can kick my ass.\"\n\n\"Jesus, I don't envy you.\" In truth, I would have traded places with him in an instant. Even if a beating were a part of the exchange.\n\n\"Yeah, and then good old Lieutenant Mauer would probably want to get his licks in because I'd have upset his precious new bride.\"\n\nGene backed up and wedged himself into the space between the sink and the towel dispenser, a position that was doubtless a physical analogue for how cornered he felt in his life.\n\n\"How far along is she?\" It may have seemed the most natural thing to ask, but I was still desperate to hear something that would make this news easier to bear _\u2014I know exactly how pregnant_ _she is because I got her drunk and raped her on\u2014_\n\n\"Fuck if I know. She's supposed to keep shit like that figured out.\"\n\n\"You don't sound like you're ready to be a daddy.\"\n\n\"Ready? I haven't even . . . Yeah. Raymond Stoddard's kid has a kid. . . . What a fucking joke.\"\n\n\"And this is for sure? You're getting married for sure?\"\n\nHe scraped the ashes from his cigarette on the edge of the sink. \"If she told me she wanted to go to the Florence Crittendon Home, I sure as hell wouldn't argue. Or if she'd go live with her sister in Minneapolis and have the kid there. Or if she'd just . . . Hell, I don't know.\"\n\nThat did it. When Gene spoke of his wish to escape from a predicament I would have given anything to be in\u2014I became enraged.\n\nAnger, however, almost always renders me inarticulate, and I couldn't come up with anything more to say than, \"Find another goddamn best man.\" A part of me must have sensed how inadequate that line was, because I accompanied it with a gesture, and for once action and intention matched. I flicked my cigarette at Gene, and the butt struck his lapel, spraying sparks down the front of his suit.\n\nMaybe, I thought, as I walked out of the lavatory, the next time he puts on his suit\u2014on his and Marie's wedding day, perhaps\u2014he'll see a burn mark or two and remember this occasion.\n\nBut as I was walking home from the church in the glittering January sunlight, after having told my parents that I was leaving, I realized that Gene probably didn't have any idea why I was angry. Why would he? I'd certainly never told him how I felt about Marie, and nothing in our shared history would lead him to believe that I was the sort to become furious over his unchivalrous attitude. Then again, he was Raymond Stoddard's son, and no training in the world could have better prepared him for the irrational behavior of others.\n\nLee Mauer not only married Raymond Stoddard's wife and moved into Raymond's house, like Raymond he brought the sound of sirens to Keogh Street.\n\nThis happened a few years after I moved from my parents' home, but my sister remembered the incident vividly. Late on a Saturday night she was in the bathroom, scrubbing off her makeup and trying to stop singing to herself the songs from _Brigadoon,_ the fall musical put on by Bismarck High School and in which she had performed.\n\nThe water was running, and that may have prevented her from hearing the siren earlier, but once she did, she knew it was coming toward Keogh Street. I didn't disbelieve her account, but my sister sometimes tries to wring more drama from a moment than it actually holds. She is also prone to claiming powers of prescience that are nothing more than a storyteller's hindsight.\n\nBut whether my sister's premonition at the time was fictional or authentic, the siren was real and fast approaching. And just as it had years before, the ambulance pulled up to the Stoddard house. But this time, my sister noted, when it sped away, its siren was wailing as loudly as when it had arrived.\n\nLee Mauer had had a heart attack, and as so often happens, there had been clues that such an event could occur and they had been ignored. For weeks he had been experiencing bouts of nausea, excessive sweating, and pain in his chest, in his neck, and between his shoulder blades. Like many men, however, he rejected the seriousness of his symptoms and treated himself with Bromo-Seltzer. But that night his heart clenched for good, and Lee Mauer was dead by the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital.\n\nAlma Stoddard Mauer would once again sleep alone, but she was not the only woman on Keogh Street who had her bed to herself. When the siren came for Lee Mauer, the sound did not disturb my father's rest. He was sleeping 140 miles away in Wembley in the house that had once belonged to his parents and where he was then living with his brother.\n\nMy parents first separated, or so they both told it, when my father began traveling frequently to Wembley to assist his brother with a project that required a lawyer's skills. Uncle Burt had decided that the land that was his parents' homestead when they first came to North Dakota should be restored to the family. With my father's assistance, my uncle determined where the original house and acreage had been, and he negotiated to buy the property from its present owners. Before long, the brothers were working to remodel the dilapidated farmhouse where their parents had briefly lived before they'd moved into town.\n\nGradually more and more of my father's life was spent in the town he grew up in. Along with the small farm, he and his brother owned the house in Wembley, and after a time they were both living in the rooms that had been theirs as boys. Through that small real estate venture with the homestead, my father found other work in and around Wembley, and soon his services were more in demand there than in Bismarck. (I should add here that just as I was no longer living on Keogh Street when Lee Mauer died, neither did I make my home there when my father's relocation became permanent. His business trips to Wembley started when I was in college, and we never again dwelt under the same roof.) But had the advantages of my father relocating to his hometown been only financial, my parents would have found a different solution. My mother and sister would have moved to Wembley, if not immediately, then upon my sister's graduation from high school. Or my father would have said his Bismarck income was sufficient. No, something else kept him in Wembley and apart from his wife of twenty-plus years.\n\nBut neither of my parents ever talked much about the dissolution of their marriage, and when they did, it was only in the most general way. Their silence on the subject added more mystery to the way life was once lived on Keogh Street, that stretch of houses that had\u2014pre\u2013Raymond Stoddard\u2014seemed emblematic of ordinary, predictable human existence.\n\nAnd if I believe that Raymond Stoddard's fate played a role in the breakup of my parents' marriage, then I must also believe that their marriage began to crack very soon after that January day when the police cars skidded down Keogh Street. That meant I was there to observe the breakup in its first if not final stages.\n\nAdolescents, however, are notoriously limited in their ability to see anything that lies outside their immediate concerns, and in that regard I was not merely a typical representative of my age group, I was probably worse. As an adult, I realize how frequently my self-involvement impaired my vision. For example, during part of the period when my parents' marriage was no doubt diminishing, all my powers of observation were instead keen for signs of growth. Specifically, I was watching for evidence of Marie Ryan's pregnancy, and I finally saw what I was looking for on a Friday night in late March.\n\nJulie Benske's parents were out of town, and in their absence Julie decided to hold a party. She tried to keep the numbers down, but to no avail. By the time my friends and I arrived, cars practically circled the block, and the house pulsed with the sounds of a hi-fi turned to full volume and with the shouts of teenagers who were either drunk already or intent on getting there. The neighbors must have been very tolerant, or else they believed Dr. and Mrs. Benske had sanctioned the party.\n\nI hadn't been there long when I saw Marie. And I heard her before I saw her. As soon as I entered the kitchen, I caught her laughter. She was with a group standing around a makeshift bar, and her gaiety traveled across the room as easily as her laugh. Why, I wondered, would she be as happy as she seemed to be, given her circumstances? Perhaps she and Gene had settled on what they'd do about their predicament, and what I saw as happiness was merely relief, even if for Marie Ryan a solution meant taking on the name more notorious than any other in the state. The crowd made it impossible to get closer to her, and I wasn't sure that I dared to anyway. I hadn't spoken to her since Gene had told me she was pregnant, and who knew how he had represented my boys' room behavior to her? I couldn't see Gene anywhere at the party, and I wasn't eager to.\n\nWhile the hard liquor was upstairs in the kitchen, the beer was in the basement, and that was where my friends were headed. Without taking off my coat, I followed them.\n\nGene wasn't downstairs either, and then it was my turn to feel relieved. Which may be the reason I drank as much as I did. Or maybe it was because I was at the same party as Marie, though she might have dwelt in a different universe for all the good it did me.\n\nSo I huddled on the rec room floor and guzzled beer after beer, rising only when my bladder was full.\n\nAnd I was on my way back up to the first floor\u2014the downstairs bathroom was occupied\u2014when I again caught sight of Marie.\n\nIn Bismarck in 1962 the markers signifying the status of the community's wealthier members were few and subtle. Even the city's doctors, lawyers, and business owners lived in modest houses that didn't stand apart much from the homes of their less prosperous neighbors. But there were differences, and I was standing on one of them.\n\nThe Benskes' home was plushly carpeted, even the stairs, and just as I was ascending them, Marie Ryan was coming down, and I stopped a few steps below her. The softness underfoot was such an uncustomary sensation that I felt for a moment as though I might keep sinking until I dropped from view, something I might have hoped for, so flustered was I by our meeting.\n\nShe laughed and, spreading her arms and legs wide to block my passage, said, \"You can't get past unless you say the secret word.\"\n\nI've never been quick-witted, and, then as now, drink only increases my tongue's sluggishness. No reply, clever or otherwise, came to mind.\n\nBut perhaps my being tongue-tied had another cause. With the three steps between us, Marie's waist and abdomen were right at my eye level. I did some mental arithmetic, difficult in my condition and further complicated by my ignorance of some matters of reproduction and anatomy. Gene had asked me to be his best man in January, and Marie was what\u2014two or three months pregnant then? It was March now, which meant she could be at least four months along. . . . But she was wearing a white blouse tucked into a snug skirt, and if a pregnancy had swelled her tummy in the least, wouldn't it have been visible by now? Even clothed, however, wrapped tight in a girdle's spandex, a skirt's tight wool, a brassiere's hooks and straps, and a blouse's buttoned-up cotton, it was apparent that her body's sensual configuration was exactly what it had been the previous summer in a bathing suit.\n\nSuddenly I had a new theory for her high spirits. She wasn't pregnant\u2014she couldn't be, not looking like that\u2014and perhaps she had only recently learned of her true condition. She wasn't celebrating her upcoming marriage\u2014she was jubilant because it wasn't necessary.\n\nElated as I was to make this discovery, I kept my happiness tamped down. Not difficult, since in the essential way, her circumstances hadn't changed. \"If you're looking for Gene,\" I said, \"he's not down there.\"\n\nShe relaxed her stance, leaning against the stair railing. The pose was seductive, although I'm sure that was not how she intended it. \"I know where he is. And isn't. He chose not to come tonight.\"\n\n\"Not his kind of party?\" The question was legitimate. None of Gene's newer acquaintances was likely to be at a gathering at the Benskes', no matter how much alcohol was present.\n\n\"He's at home.\"\n\n\"Is he sick?\"\n\n\"He's fine. But considering the occasion, he didn't feel like going to a party.\"\n\n\"The occasion?\"\n\nShe tilted her head and gave me a sidelong flirtatious look, or so I perceived the gesture. She probably wasn't sending that message, but she couldn't help how I received it.\n\n\"Think about it,\" Marie said. \"It's Gene's dad's birthday.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah. I forgot.\"\n\nThe date had never had any purchase on my memory, even though on one awkward occasion I was a part of Raymond Stoddard's birthday celebration.\n\nMaybe there were Bismarckers of that era who dined out often, but that certainly wasn't true of my parents\u2014we could count on fewer than four or five such experiences each year, and those always occurred spontaneously, when my mother decided at the last minute that she didn't care to prepare the family's meal\u2014and it was even less true of the Stoddards. But five years earlier, Gene had asked me if I'd like to come along with him and his family for a birthday supper at the Wagon Wheel, a restaurant on the city's east side.\n\nThe Wagon Wheel was not a supper club or steak house. It was a small diner, more likely to be patronized by truck drivers than Bismarck families. I wasn't sure why we went there, but it seemed to have something to do with Mr. Stoddard's preferences, some belief he held that the Wagon Wheel's chili or fried chicken was superior to any other restaurant's.\n\nYet his unhappiness at being there became obvious almost as soon as we slid into our booth. A cold rain had begun to fall, and Mr. Stoddard worried that it might freeze on the streets, making even the short drive back to Keogh Street treacherous. The food was not to his liking\u2014\"grease, nothing but grease,\" he complained\u2014and the waitress failed to bring the full order.\n\nMrs. Stoddard tried to cheer him up. \"Birthday boy,\" she persisted in calling him. \"Let's see a smile from the birthday boy.\" His mood only darkened, and before the meal was finished, he fell into a trancelike silence. Seated next to the window, he stared out at the puddles gathering in the parking lot's gravel. At one point he pressed the heel of his fist to the glass and rubbed small hard circles, as if the window were frosted or fogged and needed to be cleared. It did not, but we soon looked away, certain that we couldn't see what Raymond Stoddard saw, no matter how transparent the surface.\n\n\"But I just decided,\" Marie said, \"no matter what day it is\u2014I'm going out. I'm going out and I'm going to have a good time. Just because March thirtieth is a bad day for him doesn't mean everyone else has to suffer along with him.\"\n\n\"That's right. Your name isn't Stoddard.\" It was as close as I dared come. Now, if she wished, she could say, But soon it will be.\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"Did you say all this to Gene?\"\n\n\"More or less.\"\n\n\"How did he take it?\"\n\nSomething in her shrug told me they had probably quarreled over the matter.\n\n\"So,\" I said, \"you're taking the day off.\"\n\nShe smiled, apparently pleased with the notion. \"Sort of.\"\n\n\"How's your vacation going so far?\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nWho knows what went into the mix that caused me to consider what I was about to say? Was it her good spirits? Our staircase rapport? Her disenchantment\u2014even if only for the night\u2014with Gene? The beers I'd drunk certainly contributed. But no matter what the reason, I decided I'd tell her about Gene's crude remarks about her condition\u2014at least what they thought her condition was at the time.\n\nBefore I could frame the words, however, Doug Bauer appeared suddenly at the top of the stairs. \"Cops!\" he said. \"In the driveway!\"\n\nI froze, but Marie acted instantly. She hurried down the stairs, sweeping me along with her.\n\nThe Benskes had a walk-out basement, and we scurried toward that door. Somehow, even without an explicit warning, everyone downstairs knew that the party was being raided, and there was much scrambling to get out. Together Marie and I pushed our way through the door and out into the backyard. People scattered in every direction, and if they were like us, they had no real destination in mind. We just knew we had to get as far from the Benske home as we could and in so doing stay away from the streets and streetlights.\n\nMarie had to be cold\u2014she had left her coat behind\u2014and her low heels kept slipping on and breaking through the crusted snow we had to run across, but I heard only laughter from her and not complaint.\n\nEventually we decided that it would be safe to return to the sidewalks, so we cut through a yard, traveled down an alley, and came out on a street blocks from the Benskes'. At a stop sign just ahead we saw Rick Withers's car, jammed with fugitives from the party, and we ran to join them.\n\nThey made room for us, which meant that I was squeezed against the back door. As tight as the fit was, I didn't mind because Marie was forced to sit on my lap. I felt her shivering subside as the car's heater and all the bodies\u2014there must have been nine or ten people in the car\u2014generated their warmth. I smelled the sweet musk of her perfume and the slightly medicinal scent of vodka on her breath. When she turned her head, strands of her hair brushed across my face. I would have gladly remained in the back of that old Chevrolet forever!\n\nBut Rick Withers wasn't interested in driving around. Like almost everyone else who had been at the party, he was still shaken over his close call. He wanted to know where he should drop off his passengers, and sadly, Marie's house was nearby.\n\nHe pulled into her driveway, and she jumped out immediately. \"Thanks for the ride,\" she said to Rick. And to the rest of the car, she added softly, \"I'll bet we wouldn't have been as tightly packed in jail!\"\n\n\"Wait!\" I said. \"I'll walk you.\"\n\nI was still a little drunk, but fear and cold had sobered me somewhat. Fear . . . I _had_ been afraid. If I had been arrested that night, my parents would have been angry and disappointed, and they certainly would have decreed a penalty of some kind. But it would have been relatively mild. They were not nearly as strict or severe as, for example, Marie's parents were. Yet throughout our getaway and flight, she had displayed no fear. In the car she hadn't gone on, as some of the partygoers had, about how narrow their escape had been or about how awful their punishment would be if they were caught.\n\nWas Marie Ryan brave because she had once stood loyally beside a Stoddard as that family went through their terrible ordeal, and in the process had she acquired a courage that would serve her forever after, no matter what the situation? Or had she always possessed the kind of bravery that allowed her to step forward and stay when almost anyone else would have hung back? But even if the source of Marie's courage might have been unknowable, the fact of it was without dispute.\n\nAnd perhaps I took a cue from her character and elevated my own courage that night, for I attempted something that was for me uncharacteristically bold.\n\nOnce again we were in her garage, darker now than it had been on the day I had walked her home from Raymond Stoddard's funeral, and once again she stood on the step above me just where she'd be when she'd kiss Gene good night.\n\n\"Do you mind if I kiss you?\" I asked.\n\nAt least I asked, though I leaned forward with the hope I'd get the answer I wanted.\n\nShe didn't say no. Neither did she laugh at me or slap me or turn away in disgust. She had too much grace for any of those actions. Instead, she gently said, \"Do you think that's a good idea? I'm still going with Gene.\"\n\nWhat could I say to that\u2014let me make my betrayal complete? She was offering me the opportunity to be better than I was.\n\nWithout saying another word I hurried from the garage. The night's cold couldn't touch me, burning as I was with my own shame.\n\n_Monty Burnham considered making his confession on the day_ _when the Sherman tank he commanded was mired in black volcanic_ _ash, and Japanese artillery fire was shrieking all around._ _He believed then that it was only a matter of time before one of_ _the armor-piercing 150-millimeter shells found its target and he_ _and his crew of five were incinerated in their vehicle. For good_ _reason the tanks had been nicknamed \"Ronsons.\" And with_ _death imminent wouldn't it have made sense to blurt out a soul-cleansing_ _statement right at that time, especially since the man_ _whose wife Burnham had fucked was right there in the tank_ _with him? And if the confession weighed down one soldier at_ _the same time that it unburdened another, so what? They were_ _all doomed anyway._\n\n_He tapped his friend, Corporal Raymond Stoddard, the_ _tank's loader, on the shoulder with the full intention of owning_ _up to what had happened between him and Raymond's wife,_ _Alma. Yet when Stoddard turned toward him, Burnham_ _couldn't speak. He and Stoddard had attended the same high_ _school in Wembley, North Dakota, and they had played football_ _together, and at that moment his former classmate, his features_ _almost erased by grease and dirt, looked, in his leather tank helmet,_ _just the way he had looked on the playing field. Monty_ _Burnham shook his head and waved away Raymond's inquiring_ _glance. He could have confessed to a fellow soldier, a subordinate,_ _but not a former teammate._\n\n _Two weeks later, at their island camp, Monty and Raymond_ _Stoddard were sitting outside on planks placed on top of_ _stumps, watching_ The Affairs of Susan _with a hundred other_ _men. For the hour before the movie began, Monty and Raymond_ _Stoddard had been drinking, passing back and forth a_ _pint of Four Roses with two other members of the tank crew. So_ _maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was something Joan_ _Fontaine said to George Brent up on the screen. Whatever the_ _cause, the impulse to confess returned, and Monty Burnham_ _nudged Raymond Stoddard. As casually as he might comment_ _on something happening in the movie, he said softly, \"Hey. I_ _fucked your wife, you know. Back in Texas.\"_\n\n_The rain that had been falling steadily for days had subsided_ _now to little more than a mist, just enough to keep the moviegoers_ _wet but doing nothing to cool them. Monty and Raymond_ _were sitting apart from everyone else, in a back row near the_ _projector, and in its flickering beam the drizzle separated into_ _individual droplets that looked like tiny bits of silver floating in_ _the light._\n\n_Raymond Stoddard didn't acknowledge Monty's remark in_ _any way, but when Monty leaned in to repeat his disclosure,_ _Raymond said, \"I ain't deaf. I heard you.\"_\n\n_Someone else obviously heard as well, and not just Raymond's_ _response. From one of the rows ahead a soldier said,_ _\"Christ. There's a buddy for you.\"_\n\n_Immediately Monty wanted to seek that man out, to explain_ _that he and Raymond's wife had a history, that they had dated_ _throughout high school, and that she had all but acknowledged_ _that marrying Raymond had been a mistake. First, however, he_ _had to make Raymond understand._\n\n_\"It's not like I planned it,\" Monty whispered._\n\n_\"If you say so.\" Raymond kept his eyes focused on the_ _screen. On a tropical night like this one, how you could tell_ _whether the moisture on a man's face was rain, sweat, or tears,_ _Monty had no idea._\n\n_\"It's not like it was even my idea. Not entirely.\"_\n\n_\"Uh-huh.\"_\n\n_\"It was just something we had to get out of our systems._ _Both of us.\" Monty had now returned comfortably to the mental_ _script he had prepared well in advance of this occasion._\n\n_Raymond Stoddard, however, didn't offer any of the lines_ _that Monty had rehearsed on Raymond's behalf. Without saying_ _another word, Raymond slid off the plank, as if it were one of_ _Dennis O'Keefe's remarks that upset him rather than Monty's_ _confession. Monty almost shouted out an order\u2014Soldier, get_ _back here!\u2014before he realized that would not be the appropriate_ _tone for the transaction he was trying to conduct with Raymond_ _Stoddard._\n\n_From boyhood Monty Burnham had known that in his nature_ _ran two parallel streams. One was the pleasure he took in_ _inflicting pain. Oh, not serious pain\u2014just teasing that sometimes_ _went on a little too long, roughhousing that might cross a_ _border but still didn't venture far into the territory of hurt, or_ _joking that had a jagged edge. The other current running_ _through him was the need to be liked and the need to overcome_ _any prejudice, animosity, or grudge someone might hold against_ _him. Occasionally these two streams could converge, and_ _Monty Burnham would find that the person whose goodwill_ _had to be restored was exactly the person he had insulted, injured,_ _or grieved. When this occurred, when he had to persuade_ _a girl he had stood up to let go of her anger or a soldier he had_ _ridden too hard to give up his resentment, Monty would attempt_ _to set things right with talk, with charming, candid talk._ _He would usually be able to accomplish this without explicitly_ _asking for forgiveness or apologizing, but he knew he always_ _had those in reserve. And Monty Burnham could not be contented_ _until approval was once again flowing his way._\n\n_This was why Monty Burnham left the movie to find Raymond_ _Stoddard. The theater, however, had been set up near a_ _small forest whose trees had provided the stumps for movie_ _viewing. If Raymond wandered into that dense, dark grove,_ _Monty might never track him down._\n\n_He was standing at the entrance to the trees, trying to look_ _down their lightless corridors, when he heard the clank of a_ _Zippo lighter off to his left. There was Raymond Stoddard,_ _lighting a cigarette and shielding it expertly to keep it burning in_ _the rain._\n\n_\"I had a few more things I wanted to say,\" Monty said._\n\n_\"And you think I want to hear them.\" Raymond stood next_ _to a knee-high pile of brass\u2014anything above .50 caliber in_ _size\u2014that only days before the infantry had been forced to pick_ _up from the battle lines. The rain brought a dull glint to the_ _shell casings._\n\n_\"I guess I figure you have a right to know.\"_\n\n_\"About you and Alma. I know all about it. She told me.\"_\n\n_\"What happened back in Killeen? She told you that?\"_ _Monty considered the possibility that Raymond now only pretended_ _to know about what had gone on in that hotel bathroom,_ _in order to save face. Monty decided to test him._ _\"Everything? She told you everything?\"_\n\n_\"Enough.\" The smoke Raymond Stoddard exhaled seemed_ _to hang in the air as if it couldn't make its way through the drizzle._ _From the nearby forest came the hisses, chirps, scrapings,_ _whines, and pipings of strange insects and even stranger birds._ _If Monty stepped even a few feet into the jungle, some of those_ _calls would cease immediately while others would become_ _louder and more rapid._\n\n_\"Then I suppose you know I had her like you never did.\"_ _The streams in Monty had diverged once again, and there was_ _no doubt which current was running strongest now. He did find_ _it odd that war hadn't satisfied that need to hurt. Then again,_ _maybe it had only stirred the desire._\n\n_Raymond Stoddard, however, was not outwardly perturbed._ _\"You mean I never had her like that_ before. _I sure as hell did_ _after.\"_\n\n_\"Glad I could show the way.\"_\n\n_To that Raymond Stoddard said nothing. He simply raised_ _his hand to his forehead in a parody of a salute. God_ damn, _would nothing rile this man?_\n\n_\"I don't know,\" Monty said, \"how a man can talk about his_ _wife like that.\"_\n\n_Again, Raymond said nothing, but this time he snorted_ _softly, and the sound coincided almost exactly with a burst of_ _laughter that came from the rows of soldiers staring up at the_ _screen. Was Raymond even listening to him, Monty wondered,_ _or was most of his attention focused on the movie?_\n\n_Monty took a step back and straightened his shoulders._ _\"Well. I just needed to get that off my chest. I can't imagine it_ _was too easy to hear. You probably feel like taking a poke at_ _me. Can't say I blame you. Officer or not, I'd probably slug a_ _man who told me a tale like this one.\"_\n\n_\"Take a poke at you? Take a_ poke _at you?\" This time Ray_ _mond's laugh came out as sharp as a dog's bark. He flicked_ _away his cigarette and stepped so close to Monty that Monty_ _could smell the rank, curdled odor of tobacco and whiskey on_ _Raymond's breath. \"I never climbed into a tank with you but_ _that I thought this would be the time I pulled the pin on a_ _grenade and blew the both of us to kingdom come.\"_\n\n_\"And every other soldier in there with us?\"_\n\n _In the summer of 1935 Monty Burnham was eleven years old_ _and returning from a morning spent fishing in Ripley's Creek,_ _just outside Wembley. He was less than a mile from his home_ _when he came across an excavation site near an abandoned_ _farm. Curious as to why a sizable hole had been dug out there_ _in the country, Monty climbed to the top of the pile of dirt and_ _sod in order to survey the entire scene._\n\n_He guessed someone was digging the foundation for a_ _house, but the hole was crudely, unevenly dug, and Monty saw_ _no sign that any work had been done recently. While he was_ _wondering how he might have missed this alteration to the_ _landscape on the other occasions when he'd walked out to Ripley's_ _Creek, three boys approached. Monty didn't notice them_ _until they were right behind him, and then they caught his attention_ _by throwing a dirt clod that barely missed his head._\n\n_Monty turned quickly. The three had spread themselves out_ _at the base of the mound as if they planned to attack him from_ _different directions. From their similar high foreheads, close-set_ _eyes, and dirty, ragged overalls Monty guessed they were brothers._ _The oldest was probably a year or two older than Monty,_ _but he was so skinny Monty figured he could handle him. The_ _other two might have been twins, and though they were smaller_ _and younger than Monty, they had a determinedly nasty look_ _that said they would have been trouble even in a fair fight. And_ _three against one wouldn't be fair. . . ._\n\n_\"Hey,\" Monty said in a voice as friendly as any he owned,_ _\"you live around here?\"_\n\n_\"Yeah,\" the oldest one said, \"and you're trespassing.\"_\n\n_Monty pretended to look over the surrounding countryside._ _\"Nothing says this land is posted.\"_\n\n_\"Well, now you know.\"_\n\n_One of the twins kicked at the fishing pole Monty had set_ _down before he'd scrambled up the dirt pile. \"And you ain't_ _fishing the creek no more without our say-so.\"_\n\n_\"All this is our property now,\" the other twin added._\n\n_\"Not the creek. Nobody can buy the creek.\" Monty gestured_ _toward the water, and as he did, as if on cue, a red-winged_ _blackbird whistled its three notes from that direction._\n\n_\"Like hell,\" the oldest said, and when he reached down to_ _pick up a dirt lump, it was plain he'd had enough of oral argument._\n\n_Monty tried once more to extricate himself from the moment_ _with words. \"So if I ask first from now on, you'll let me_ _fish in your creek?\"_\n\n_The twins were silently sorting through the dirt at their feet._ _Their feet were bare. They were searching for rocks._\n\n_Because of the hole on the other side, Monty couldn't take_ _flight down the hill away from the brothers, yet if he tried to_ _run in any other direction, he'd only charge right at them. And_ _maybe, he decided, that was exactly what he should do. Charge_ _them, swinging wildly all the way, and hope that he could get_ _past them onto the road and then outrun them. Even if he took_ _a few punches in the process, that would be better than standing_ _here and allowing himself to be a target for their rocks and dirt_ _lumps._\n\n_Before he could put his plan into action, however, someone_ _else appeared on the scene._\n\n_From out of a field of tall grass came a boy Monty's age. He_ _too was carrying a fishing pole, and as he walked, grasshoppers_ _leaped in arcs all around him. It was Monty's friend Raymond_ _Stoddard, and he must have been fishing upstream from Monty,_ _near the bend in the creek where the cottonwood trees shaded_ _the water._\n\n_Raymond said, \"Hey, Morris. What the hell are you and_ _your snotnose brothers up to?\"_\n\n_Morris dropped his dirt clod, but the twins continued to_ _gather stones._\n\n_\"This fella's trespassing. . . .\"_\n\n_Raymond also positioned himself at the bottom of the dirt_ _pile, but he stood apart from the other three. \"You're the ones_ _trespassing. Just because you moved into that old barn don't_ _mean you own the place.\"_\n\n_\"We're gonna build here. My dad says\u2014\"_\n\n_\"Your folks are nothing more than squatters. That's what_ _my old man said.\" He set his fishing pole down carefully. To_ _Monty he said, \"What do you say. You want to come down here_ _and help me beat the shit out of these assholes? Maybe that'll_ _send 'em back where they came from.\"_\n\n_Monty, however, could not call up a desire for brutality on_ _such short notice. Furthermore, he could not abandon so_ _quickly his earlier strategy, which was to escape through charm._\n\n_\"Where are you boys from?\" he asked his enemies._\n\n_Raymond answered for them. \"Iowa. Lost their farm down_ _there and now they're gonna mooch off their North Dakota relations.\"_ _To Monty he explained, \"Their mom and my mom are_ _sort of cousins.\"_\n\n_Monty believed that conversation would now ensue among_ _the five of them, that goodwill would be the rule all around,_ _and that if he ever needed the aid or service of the dull-witted_ _Morris or the malicious twins, they would be available._\n\n_But Raymond had other ideas. He lurched threateningly_ _toward Morris and the other two, stamping his shoe in the dirt_ _as if they could be frightened off like animals. \"Go on,\" he said._ _\"Get the hell out of here. Crawl back in your holes and stop_ _making trouble for folks.\"_\n\n_And that was all it took. The three of them backed away_ _slowly, gradually moving together like birds in flight resuming_ _their formation. Side by side they walked back down through_ _the field. Monty noticed, however, that the twins had never_ _dropped the stones they'd collected. Sure enough, once they_ _gained some distance, the twins turned and heaved them at_ _Monty and Raymond. They were out of range, however, and the_ _two older boys just laughed as the missiles did nothing but kick_ _up dust at their feet._\n\n _The boy who saved Monty on that day had grown into the man_ _who now made his own confession. Once Raymond Stoddard's_ _laughter subsided, he said, \"That's right. I didn't give a shit who_ _I took with us.\"_\n\n_\"So what stopped you?\"_\n\n_Raymond shrugged. \"Figured the Japs would do the job for_ _me.\"_\n\n_\"You know, I could have you court-martialed for what you_ _just said.\"_\n\n_\"But you won't.\"_\n\n_\"Don't be so sure, Soldier. Don't. Be. So. Sure.\"_\n\n_The two men were still standing so close together that Raymond_ _Stoddard had to raise his hand right in front of his own_ _face in order to give Monty the finger._\n\n_Now Monty understood. Raymond wanted Monty to swing_ _at_ him. _A man who was willing to take the consequences that_ _might come from leaving his wife alone with an old boyfriend_ _would certainly be willing to take a punch just to get his superior_ _officer in trouble._\n\n_\"You know what, Ray? I feel sorry for you. I surely do.\"_\n\n_Raymond Stoddard's only response was to dig into his_ _pocket for another cigarette. As Monty walked away, he heard_ _again the clink of Raymond's lighter. And was there a similarly_ _distinctive sound, Monty wondered, when the pin was pulled_ _from a grenade? And would he ever be able to stop listening for_ _either sound, whether in war-or peacetime?_\n\nOf my many fictions, and fictional efforts, that had their origins in the Stoddard-Burnham saga, the preceding narrative (\"Got a Light?\" as it was titled when it appeared in _Blue Parchment,_ a Seattle magazine) was the only one that featured Monty Burnham (Tony Kroll in the published story) as a protagonist and point-of-view character. While there was never a point of personal contact\u2014an observed gesture, an overheard remark\u2014that allowed me to conjure that character's inner life (or to imagine an entire series of fictional episodes in which he played a prominent part), and while there's little reason to believe \"my\" Monty Burnham bore any resemblance to the actual one, I've always felt that my early attempts to imagine my way into the real Raymond Stoddard's mind (and only after the man's death) inevitably led me to try to enter others. And disposed me to create fictions more concerned with the motives behind actions than with the actions themselves.\n\nDuring my senior year I signed up for Introduction to Psychology, a course that had never been offered before at Bismarck High School. Edith Ehrlich taught the class, and I suspect she was given the assignment as a reward for having taught for almost fifty years in the city's school system. Miss Ehrlich looked forward to the prospect of spending months with us exploring \"the mysteries of our mental processes,\" but the semester had barely begun when her health forced her out of the classroom and out of the profession altogether. Miss Ehrlich had a stroke that deprived her of the power of speech, probably the only infirmity that could have kept her from taking her place in front of rows of students.\n\nThe school was in a quandary. No one else was willing to step forward and take over Miss Ehrlich's class, yet something had to be done with the students who were enrolled. We couldn't simply be given credit and sent on our way, and the semester was too far along to place us in other courses. The administration took the unusual step\u2014for this they must have needed a special dispensation from the board of education\u2014and hired an outsider, a non-teacher, to take over Introduction to Psychology.\n\nThat was how I came to know Frances Fenzer, Ph.D. Dr. Fenzer was a Bismarck psychologist, and someone on the school board apparently thought he would be a perfect substitute for Miss Ehrlich. And it worked out exactly as hoped. On a Wednesday, Miss Ehrlich was taken to the hospital. On the following Thursday and Friday, our Introduction to Psychology class was turned into a study hall, but when we showed up on Monday, we were met by a pink, plump, smiling man in a rumpled brown suit.\n\nWe were immediately pleased with the new development. Rather than stand behind a lectern, Dr. Fenzer sat on top of the desk. He straightened and twisted paper clips while he talked, and he freely admitted that this nervous behavior was caused by having to go an entire hour without a cigarette. Best of all, Dr. Fenzer didn't so much lecture as gossip. He refused to use the textbook that Miss Ehrlich had ordered, and instead structured the class around case histories\u2014culled from his own experience. Furthermore, we knew that the patients\u2014the neurotics, the compulsives, the depressives\u2014were almost surely Bismarck residents. He never used real names, but hadn't his entire professional career been spent in North Dakota? From what other sources could he be lifting those examples? He even teased us occasionally with a remark like, \"Now, this is behavior you've all had a chance to observe, especially if you've spent any time at all in a certain local establishment.\" Talk like that probably violated the standards of his profession, but we felt fortunate to be in his class and privileged to be taken into his confidence.\n\nHe favored us\u2014a few of us\u2014further by inviting us to his home, a small stucco house not far from the high school and surrounded by gardens unlike any other in Bismarck. \"Flowers and imported cigarettes,\" Dr. Fenzer said, \"my indulgences.\" Some of the students were invited to visit him after school; others in the evening.\n\nI went, along with Mike LaPorte and Joe McDonald, on a rainy night in April. I remember the weather conditions so well because Dr. Fenzer unapologetically required us to remove our wet shoes before we stepped on any of his rugs.\n\nThe house was as elaborately furnished as any I had ever been in. I realize now how much time and money Dr. Fenzer put into his home\u2014the walls were covered with paintings and prints, objets d'art were everywhere, a grand piano filled a sunporch, and every piece of furniture was covered with rich fabrics or made of heavy, polished woods\u2014but to my adolescent sensibility it all seemed fussy, ostentatious, and uncomfortable.\n\nDr. Fenzer was a gracious host, providing us with soft drinks and potato chips and encouraging us to smoke if we were so inclined. I sank into the corner of a brocade couch and lit a cigarette, eager to hear what kinds of anecdotes the psychologist would tell outside the school's walls, since his narratives in the classroom could often be outrageous.\n\nSomehow we began talking about suicide, a subject that any psychologist, even one practicing in a community as stolid and stoic as Bismarck, could hold forth on for hours. Dr. Fenzer told us that, contrary to the belief that attempted suicides were cries for help, many of these people were quite determined to die. What did he do when he had a patient with that resolve? he asked rhetorically. After a dramatic pause, he said, \"I watch the obituaries.\" Then he moved to the case closest to all our hearts.\n\nDr. Fenzer said, \"Take for example that fellow who murdered the legislator and then took his own life. . . . I've believed all along that the crime was puzzling to so many people because they couldn't figure out why he'd want to kill the good senator. But perhaps they couldn't come up with an answer because they'd asked the wrong question. They should have looked into why the fellow wanted to take his own life.\n\n\"Suicides are often motivated by a sense of worthlessness, of smallness, and more than one man has taken his own life thinking that at last he is doing something large, something dramatic. This chap may have felt as though he'd always been anonymous, overlooked, misunderstood. So he decided he'd do something that would finally cause people to notice him. He'd perform some act, commit some deed, that couldn't be disregarded. As a result, he'd become famous. The pathogenesis is really quite remarkable. These people feel so insignificant, yet they grow these monstrously large egos. . . .\" Dr. Fenzer looked around at his rapt, slightly shocked audience. \"Well? Have you any thoughts?\"\n\nAfter Dr. Fenzer's brief monologue, the conversation, which had been lively in its back and forth until then, fell silent. The doctor didn't know that Raymond Stoddard's son was our classmate, much less that I had a special connection to the family. Mike and Joe looked to me in deference to my Keogh Street address. This was my moment to shine, to show off my insider status, and to impress Dr. Fenzer, all of which I thought I wanted.\n\nPresented with the opportunity, however, I merely shrugged and said, \"Makes sense, I guess.\"\n\nDr. Fenzer must have sensed something in my recalcitrance that I didn't wholly comprehend myself. He quickly changed the subject, and for the rest of the evening I had no responsibilities but to listen and keep my cigarette's ashes from drifting to the floor.\n\nTwo days later, however, at the end of the school day, Dr. Fenzer stopped me in the hall as I was on my way out of the building. \"Do you mind if I walk with you?\" he asked.\n\nThe day and its sudden changes were typical of spring\u2014warm when the sun was shining, chilly when clouds obscured the sun. Dr. Fenzer lit a cigarette as soon as we stepped outside the school, but we didn't walk far. We stopped at a fairly new white Lincoln Continental, easily the grandest car in the faculty parking lot. \"All right,\" he said, smiling sheepishly. \"Flowers and cigarettes aren't my _only_ indulgences.\"\n\n\"It's nice.\"\n\nSmall talk finished, he got down to business. \"The other night at my house, I might have caused you some discomfort with my remarks, and I wanted to apologize. After you left, Joe mentioned that you were a close friend to the Stoddard boy and a neighbor to the family. I had no idea. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"That's okay.\"\n\n\"That friendship must have weighed you down at times.\"\n\nEven as a callow adolescent I knew that to accede to that point would represent a failure of proportion. No matter how much I had come to dislike Gene, I had to admit that I could never own troubles that remotely rivaled his. \"Not really.\"\n\nDr. Fenzer was a good six inches shorter than me, so he stood on his toes and leaned forward to force me to look him in the eye. \"Perhaps your experiences are something you'd like to talk about. Sometimes we're so focused on someone else's pain that we lose sight of the fact that we're hurting too. We somehow think that we're not entitled.\"\n\nI was not a tough kid, not physically or emotionally, but like most males of my era, I knew how to fake it in certain situations and with certain people. \"It wasn't that big a deal.\"\n\nWith that, Dr. Fenzer gave up. He stepped back, bowed, and made a sweeping motion, a gesture that indicated both my dismissal and his defeat.\n\nDr. Fenzer invited me neither to his home nor to a private conversation with him again. In Introduction to Psychology I received a B, in spite of what I was sure was a poor performance on the final exam.\n\nThe night I graduated from high school was warm for May, and for weeks we had had no rain. As a result, my life took a turn that would not have been possible had the temperature been ten degrees cooler or the Missouri River six inches deeper.\n\nThe river's sandbars used to be (for that matter, perhaps they still are) a favored location for parties. We gathered there day and night, playing football or softball in the sand, swimming in pools and potholes, building bonfires, and drinking beer no matter what the hour. Depending on the river's height, we either drove out to one of those stretches of sand or trekked through a channel of icy, muddy, fast-flowing water. The Missouri was notorious for its treacherous currents and invisible drop-offs, and every summer it seemed to claim at least one drowning victim. Only someone very drunk or unfamiliar with the river and its reputation tried to swim through the main waterway. And the Missouri didn't care who it swallowed.\n\nBut the sandbars' remoteness and inaccessibility were exactly what made them so popular with the area's young people. Only the sheriff and his deputies had jurisdiction on the river (and the matter of jurisdiction was complicated by the fact that the river separated Burleigh and Morton counties), and even on the rare occasion when the law did try to patrol the area, we could usually spot them coming from a long way off.\n\nSo of course the river was a logical place for Bismarck High School's class of 1962 to hold its graduation party, and since the spring had been so dry, the river was low, which meant we could easily drive out to a sandbar southeast of the city for the night's festivities.\n\nI'd had family obligations earlier in the evening that prevented me from appearing at the river until well after dark, and by that time, hundreds of cars were parked in a line the length of at least two football fields, and bonfires of various sizes burned along the water's edge. The stage for the party itself was the long, narrow strip of sand between the cars and the river. Kids were everywhere, saying hello and goodbye to their fellow graduates, offering one another a beer or a drink from a bottle of hard liquor, throwing chunks of driftwood onto one of the fires. Many people were already drunk by the time I arrived, and the jubilation and delirium that traditionally accompanied the occasion had been replaced in some cases by belligerence\u2014rumor had it that kids from Mandan were among our number, and a group of wrestlers and football players were patrolling for party crashers\u2014and lust: Couples had not only gone off into the backseats of cars, but were also making out in full view. Among this second group I saw Gene and Marie. They were leaning against his car, tightly, passionately, locked in each other's arms. Marie stood on a case of beer\u2014whether the cans were empty or full, I couldn't tell\u2014the additional height facilitating their deep kisses and allowing their bodies to mesh in a way no doubt special to them. It was probably a fair approximation of the difference in height provided by the step inside Marie's garage. I walked close to them, testing not only their oblivion (it was complete) but also my vulnerability.\n\nTo say I was unaffected by the sight of them would not be true, but neither was the pain as sharp as it might have been. The entire evening I had been feeling a bit above it all, and not just in a metaphoric sense. Before I joined the party, I drove around for a while, at one point crossing the river and returning over the Memorial Bridge, whose height allowed me to look down on the sandbar and my classmates, at the dark glimmer of their cars and the blaze of their fires.\n\nHigh school was over, and I had only a few months left in the city. In the fall I would be attending the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, where, as far as I knew, nothing would mark me as a Bismarcker. I had done a fair job of convincing myself that I would enjoy living in a place where I wouldn't have an identity that I'd have to share with anyone or anything Stoddard. Of course I had also often wondered how far the notoriety of the Stoddard name had spread and what subtle methods might be available to me to let others know that I had dwelt on Bismarck's Keogh Street during that stretch of pavement's most infamous hour.\n\nEven though I was moving at thirty miles per hour, my position on the bridge looking down at my classmates below provided a fitting emblem for my character. Did he wish to join the party or stay above it? Did he wish to be involved or ignored?\n\nMetaphors and symbols aside, any thought I might have entertained about living a lofty (in both senses of the word), solitary, or isolated existence no longer had to be merely theoretical. I now had my own car.\n\nEarlier that day, at a private graduation party to which only family and neighbors were invited, my parents presented me with a 1947 Studebaker Commander Regal DeLuxe. It had a flat-head six and a balky manual transmission, and though its original color had been red, the finish had oxidized over the years until it was a dusty pink. My father bought the car (or more likely accepted it in lieu of a fee) from a client\u2014a literal little old lady\u2014who lived in Sterling, a small town east of Bismarck. It was, in short, a car so obviously uncool that I felt an instant, inexplicable affection for it.\n\nI was certainly not embarrassed to be driving it, though when I finally decided to unite with my classmates down on the river, I didn't park on the sandbar but in a stand of cottonwoods farther up on the bank. The walk down gave me more time to consider what, if anything, I wanted from the night.\n\nAs I said, the party was in full progress when I arrived, and for the first hour I did nothing but stroll the sand and observe. As a result of some odd, unthought-through notion that self-denial could uplift my character, I opted not to drink that night, which meant I had to say no to any number of freely offered cups, cans, and bottles. I had to stay away from my friends, since a simple refusal would not have been enough for them. They would have insisted on an explanation for my abstinence, and I knew I couldn't make them understand what I couldn't understand myself.\n\nEventually I settled into a conversation with Bob Mullen and Diane Burgie, boyfriend and girlfriend and both planning to attend Carleton College in Minnesota in the fall. We stood near the biggest bonfire, which had in turn attracted the largest crowd to its fiery border. Nearby a smaller fire failed in its attempt to compete for people's attention. Someone had thrown an inner tube onto that fire, and as it burned it not only gave off the stink of scorched rubber, but its smoke rose black, even against the night sky. Bob and Diane weren't drinking either\u2014in fact, I was surprised to see them at such a gathering; I don't think I had ever seen them at a party before that night\u2014and the three of us made sad, ironic comments about our classmates' drunken behavior and what it portended for their future. Right in front of us, for example, a shirtless Mickey Lawson was lying flat on his back and trying, without anyone's help, to bury himself in the sand. He had barely covered his torso when he heard\u2014we all heard\u2014the persistent bleat of a car horn. That sound was accompanied by the roar of an engine. Everyone looked to the right, and Mickey did more than look\u2014he scrambled to his feet, the dry sand showering from him while the wetter stuff fell in clumps. A car was coming right toward him, churning its way along the open strip between the water and the line of parked cars. It lurched and wallowed through the soft sand and finally stopped near the largest bonfire, very near the space where Mickey had lain only moments earlier.\n\nWell before the driver came into view, I knew who he was. I had recognized those headlights and that grille coming out of the dark on another occasion. But before I looked to confirm that Gene was driving, I checked for passengers. He appeared to be alone.\n\nOnce the car stopped, the crowd that had pulled back, unsure of the car's direction and intent, surged forward, so when Gene opened the door and stepped out, he was surrounded by many of his fellow graduates. He tugged at his T-shirt, stuck to him with sweat\u2014both his and Marie's, I couldn't help thinking\u2014and combed his fingers through his dark hair. Smiling widely, he raised his arms over his head in that gesture that's supposed to quiet an assemblage but just as often serves to excite it. With everyone's attention focused on him, Gene stepped up onto his car's back bumper and proceeded to clamber from there onto the trunk and then to the roof of his car. I wondered what Gene's father would have said if he'd found the finish of his car scratched from Gene's shoes.\n\nBacklit by the bonfire's flames, he raised his arms again and shouted, \"Stew-Dents! Stew-Dents!\" Just that word, pronounced with two distinct, equally accented syllables, was enough to bring laughter and applause from the crowd. One of Bismarck High School's most eccentric and unintentionally comic teachers was the large-bosomed, blue-haired Miss Bonner, and when she needed to restore order in her sophomore English classes, she waved her arms and cried out, \"Stew-Dents!\" The previous year we were afforded even more opportunities to hear her hail us in her singular way: She was promoted on an interim basis to vice principal, and she often delivered announcements over the PA system and settled the crowd at school assemblies. She always began with \"Stew-Dents,\" though the volume at which she spoke the word varied.\n\nGene continued with his imitation. \"I have an announcement to make . . .\" It was not just this extravagant, attention-seeking public display that told me Gene was drunk; if I'd had no other evidence to go on but the toothy width of his smile, I would have reached the same conclusion.\n\n\". . . to all the wonderful, important, special, _special_ members of the class of '62.\" Now his impression of Miss Bonner turned into an imitation of Mrs. Harway, a school counselor who used the same approach in trying to help every student who came into her office, no matter what his or her problem. Mrs. Harway praised them, fawned over them, and told them what wonderful, unique individuals they were and how, if they could just accept that about themselves, their troubles would soon fade away. Mrs. Harway was decades ahead of her time.\n\n\"And you know what makes you so special?\" Gene cooed to us. Had he somewhere along the way spent enough time in Mrs. Harway's presence to work on this impression? Was it possible that he'd asked for Mrs. Harway's help when he was worried that Marie was pregnant? That possibility I rejected quickly. After all, he'd completely scorned the suggestion, right after his father's suicide, that he should see the school counselor, and if he wouldn't visit Mr. Wallich's office, he was not likely to seek Mrs. Harway's counsel. Then again, there had been so many ways that my friend had astonished me over the course of the previous year. Why couldn't a gift for mimicry simply be another surprise?\n\nGene was drunk, of that there was no question, but everything\u2014his entrance, his impressions, his timing\u2014spoke of someone confidently at ease in front of that drunken throng, someone who knew he had everyone's attention and was now able to toy with it. Here was a Gene Stoddard I had never seen before.\n\nHe turned first in one direction and then quickly pivoted to face another, almost as if he were expecting an attack.\n\n\"Do you?\" Gene asked again of the young people clustered around his car. \"Do you know why you'll always be a special, special member of Bismarck High's class of '62?\"\n\nI attributed Gene's out-of-character behavior to his drunkenness. If he weren't drunk, I reasoned in my sober state, he wouldn't have been able to act like that. And his drunkenness, I had concluded long before that night, was due to his being Raymond Stoddard's son. Father had bequeathed to son not only a penchant for alcohol but also a reason for drinking it. But as I watched Gene sway and balance on the roof of his car, another thought came to me. What if alcohol played no part in the alteration of his personality? What if the change in him occurred entirely because he lived inside the walls of a stucco house where a man had hanged himself? Surely that life-transforming event sent out ripples well beyond the walls of that home, ripples that rocked the neighborhood, the city, the state. . . . But if the lives closest to Raymond Stoddard were most affected, wasn't it logical to suppose that those next closest were the next most changed? Could there be a way to calculate closeness other than physical proximity? Was there a method that would allow another Keogh Street resident to believe that he was who he was through the strength or weakness of his own will rather than the accident of his address? Was it the weight of realizations like those that Dr. Fenzer had wondered if I needed help carrying?\n\nBut though such thoughts were earth-unsettling enough to make the sand underfoot feel solid by comparison, I set them aside when I saw Marie running down the beach.\n\nShe appeared to have her bathing suit on, and over it she wore cutoff jeans and a man's shirt, which, unbuttoned, fluttered whitely about her as she ran. She pumped her arms strenuously and lifted her knees high to keep from bogging down in the sand, and by the time she reached Gene's car\u2014her obvious destination\u2014her chest was heaving for oxygen. But she was not about to let shortness of breath keep her from her mission. \"No,\" she cried out. \"Gene, _please_!\"\n\nUp until that moment, I had tried to appear as nonchalant as possible at the spectacle of my former friend on top of his car. I hung back from those crowding forward and, unlike them, did nothing to cheer him on. But Marie's presence always quickened my interest, and now I was torn. Did I take her side in wishing he'd stop whatever he was doing or did I want more than ever\u2014because someone wanted him not to go on\u2014to hear what he had to say? Was it possible that he intended to announce something about his father that had never before been revealed? With that thought I considered trying to pull Marie back from the car myself.\n\nHer pleas did nothing to deter him, however. He drew himself up to his full, unsteady height, and answered the question he himself had posed. \"Because of me, that's why. Me. Because you graduated in the same class as Gene Stoddard, son of Raymond and Alma Stoddard.\"\n\n\"Don't do this,\" Marie begged. \" _Please,_ Gene.\" She moved closer, and now she too was both shadowed and illuminated by the flames behind her. In their flickering light her reddish hair took on a coppery glow.\n\n\"I made you all famous,\" Gene said. \"No matter where you go, you can always say, 'I went to high school with\u2014' \"\n\nHer spoken appeal ineffectual, Marie took action. Following the same route that Gene had taken, she began to climb onto the car. She had barely stepped from the bumper to the trunk, however, when Gene turned to repel this encroachment on his territory.\n\n\"God _damn it_!\" he said. \"Let me do this\u2014this is mine!\"\n\nGene had stepped toward Marie, and she obviously believed he was coming to help her up to his post. She reached out to him, but rather than grab her open hand and pull her to him, Gene pushed her.\n\nHer balance on the car was precarious, so not much force was necessary to send her reeling backward. She fell in two stages. First she groped behind her with one foot, trying to find a stable step, and for an instant it seemed as though she might regain her balance as she teetered on the bumper. But then she half-slid, half-fell from that perch, toppling sideways to the sand. If her arms had not been reaching in Gene's direction, she might have been able to break her fall. As it was, she struck the earth with a thud as audible as Gene's shouted curse.\n\nBut her tumble brought only laughter from the throng. They were glad she'd failed. They were enjoying Gene's performance and wanted it to continue.\n\nHer fall\u2014her fall and Gene's cruelty\u2014must have knocked the breath from Marie, but she was soon on her feet and shoving her way through the crowd and away from her boyfriend's car.\n\nGene meanwhile barely missed a beat. \"As I was saying . . .\" Cheers now accompanied the laughter.\n\nAs fascinating as I found Gene's performance, I had to turn away to see where Marie was headed. As she wove her way through the rows of parked cars, I had a moment of panic when I lost sight of her, but her white shirt soon reappeared. She was obviously walking away from the party and by the most direct passage available.\n\n\"No matter where you go,\" Gene continued, \"you can say, 'Remember that guy who shot the senator\u2014' \"\n\nAhead of Marie I could see glinting in the darkness a channel of the river that cut into the sandbar. If she walked right through the water, she'd have a head start that I'd have difficulty overcoming. As determined as she was, however, she still circled around, and I took that to be a sign. I pushed back from the crowd, and ran after Marie. Before Gene's voice faded completely from earshot, I clearly heard, \". . . the assassin's son!\"\n\nUp ahead, Marie had a steep grassy bank to negotiate, and for some reason I believed I had to get to her before she struggled to the top. That meant I had to go through the water, and as I approached the channel, I looked for the furrowed shadows of car tracks\u2014their presence would mean that it was shallow enough to run through. I saw none, but by then I had made my commitment. I went in at a full run, and initially at least, the footing was firm.\n\nMy third stride, however, carried me to a point where the bottom dropped away sharply, and I splashed face-forward and went under so suddenly and completely it seemed for an instant as though the elements had become mixed up and it was the sky that had turned to river water and night that had closed over my head. To further the confusion the icy water tasted like dirt.\n\nI must not have truly believed I would drown because I was able to appreciate the irony of the moment: You are going to drown chasing after a girl who belongs to someone else. . . . Within that inlet the river didn't seem to have sufficient power to do anything but steal my breath with its cold. No current tried to pull me down or push me out into the main channel, and I soon adjusted to my situation enough to probe for the bottom. It was near and firm enough that I could thrust back to the surface. When I came up I was soaked, sputtering for air, and missing my shoes, but half-paddling and half-running, I continued after Marie.\n\nShe had heard the splashing behind her and had stopped, no doubt hoping it was Gene pursuing her. From the top of the bank she gazed down at me, and it seemed as if she were about to say something, but in the dark it was hard to tell. Before I could climb to her height, she turned and disappeared.\n\nEach step I took came with more difficulty since both sand and water weighted down my socks, but I kept on and my perseverance was rewarded. Up on level ground, not far from the cottonwoods where my car was parked, Marie had paused to empty sand from her tennis shoes.\n\n\"What's the matter,\" I said to her, panting my way through the line I had rehearsed in case I caught up to her, \"didn't you want to stay back there and be famous with Gene?\"\n\nFor a long moment she stared, unsmiling, at me. The sounds of the party could still reach us, but they were nothing compared to the belching, trilling songs of frogs coming out of the surrounding darkness.\n\nThen Marie turned to go, and I quickly called after her, \"Wait! I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.\"\n\nI hobbled after her and was soon at her side.\n\n\"Did he send you after me?\" she asked. \"That would be just like him. . . .\"\n\n\"No, no. I came . . . I came on my own.\" Considering what I felt for her, those words seemed like a declaration of love.\n\n\"That asshole,\" she said, assuming we were both interested in discussing Gene Stoddard's character. \"I told him not to do something like that. I told him he'd just make a fool of himself and say something that tomorrow he'd regret. But no. _Famous . . ._ That's exactly what he thinks he is. Or should be. What a stupid _shit._ \"\n\n\"He's drunk\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't make excuses for him.\"\n\n\"I meant it as more of a question.\"\n\n\"He's drunk so often it's not even worth asking.\"\n\nShe began to walk away again, and now I noticed that she seemed to be favoring her right side. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Away from here. Home, I suppose.\"\n\nThe city and her house were miles away. \"You can't walk. Let me give you a ride.\"\n\n\"I'm not going back down there.\" She nodded in the direction of the party and the rows of parked cars. From where we stood the largest bonfire was still clearly visible, its flames licking even higher than before. Someone must have found another source of fuel.\n\n\"You don't have to. My car's right over there.\"\n\nAs we moved through the trees, I watched Marie carefully. Yes, she was injured, of that there could be no doubt. She kept her right arm pinned tight to her side.\n\nI pointed to her shoulder, which was slumped down and forward. \"What happened? Are you hurt?\"\n\n\"When I fell off Gene's car, I landed kind of hard.\"\n\nI almost corrected her _\u2014you didn't fall; you were pushed\u2014_ but I let it pass.\n\nWe arrived at my car, and I announced, \"This is it. All mine. A graduation present.\"\n\nMarie squinted through the darkness. \"Pink? Is it _pink_?\"\n\n\"More like a pale red. When it's washed, it'll be easier to tell the real color.\"\n\nWe both laughed at my defense of the car. \"Okay. Have it your way. But it's a _very_ pale red,\" she said.\n\nI had another little clutch of fear when it occurred to me that the keys might have fallen out when I tumbled into the water, but they were still in the pocket of my jeans. I unlocked Marie's door and held it open for her.\n\n\"You'll get your car seat wet.\" She waggled her finger up and down in my direction to indicate my drenched condition.\n\n\"Oh well.\"\n\n\"You don't have anything to put on the seat? Gene always keeps a blanket in the car.\"\n\nHer statement nicked me, but I loved her all the more for it, and in the process learned one more lesson about the inextricability of pain and love. And another lesson about my own character. Some other boys\u2014most other boys?\u2014in my place would have followed up Marie's remark with a wink and salacious question of their own\u2014Yeah? What was the blanket for? And I have no doubt she would have answered.\n\n\"It's not like it's a new car or anything,\" I said.\n\nWhen she entered the car, I noticed again how carefully she moved, and now she was supporting her right arm with her left hand.\n\n\"Is it your arm? Or your shoulder?\"\n\nJust the question was enough to make her wince. \"Shoulder, I guess.\"\n\n\"Can you lift your arm?\"\n\nShe made an effort, but it brought a gasp from her. \"Not very well. It feels like something's grinding in there.\"\n\n\"Can I take a look?\"\n\nI stepped back, and she slowly, gingerly, extricated her right arm from the shirt. Once that was done, she sat back against the car seat to facilitate my examination.\n\nLeaning over her, I caught the faint but unmistakable odor of Old Spice. I knew it so well because it was my father's aftershave, and I seldom stepped into the bathroom in the morning without smelling it. But I hadn't thought Gene used it. Finally I concluded that the white shirt must have been her father's, and the scent imbedded in the collar his.\n\nMarie's breasts swelled above her swimming suit, the top of which had slipped down just enough to expose a line of paler flesh. . . . I forced myself, however, to attend to the duty I had volunteered for, and I concentrated on her right shoulder, which, even though she was sitting back, was still hunched forward.\n\nThe car's dome light was not very bright, and shadows extending from the hollow of her throat made it difficult to be certain, but it looked as though she had a distinct bump on her collarbone and perhaps the start of a bruise there as well.\n\n\"I should take you to the emergency room. In case something's broken.\"\n\nThat suggestion caused her to crane her neck in an attempt to look down at herself, and that movement brought only another grimace to her face. Then, in order to prove to me her injury wasn't severe, she quickly smiled and tried again to lift her arm. That failed too. \"Shit,\" she said softly but angrily.\n\n\"Here. Let me try something. Can you take your shirt off all the way?\"\n\nIf she was skeptical or suspicious, her expression didn't show it. Nevertheless, to demonstrate the purity of my motives, I stepped back again and looked away while she struggled out of the shirt. Once she was free of it, I took it from her, unrolled the sleeves, and knotted them together. I folded the fabric until it was in the approximate shape of a sling, which I then slipped over Marie's head. Now both the strap of her bathing suit and the sleeves of the shirt were looped around her neck.\n\n\"Try this,\" I said. \"If it's too long or short, I can adjust it.\"\n\n\"Much better,\" she said, smiling her gratitude.\n\n\"All that Boy Scout training . . . finally good for something.\"\n\n\"You're a Scout?\"\n\n\"Not really. Was. A Cub Scout. I quit after a couple years. The knot-tying always gave me trouble.\"\n\n\"I didn't think you were a Scout or an Explorer or whatever they call themselves. Troop 109 tried to make me their mascot or an honorary member or something. I think it was just a ruse to get me to go on their overnight camping trips with them.\"\n\n\"Can't blame guys for trying.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Marie said, adjusting her sling slightly. \"I never blame them for trying. Guys wouldn't be guys if they didn't try.\"\n\nAs I backed the Studebaker out of the cottonwood grove, it was with a gladdened heart and a relieved conscience.\n\nWhen we arrived at the hospital, Marie insisted she didn't have to go in. Her shoulder felt better, she said, and she was sure her injury wasn't severe. To destroy her argument I only had to ask her to lift her arm. When she couldn't do that, I pulled into the emergency room bay.\n\nI helped Marie from the car, and then said, \"I'll park the car and be right in.\"\n\nMy father and mother wouldn't be waiting up for me\u2014staying out all graduation night was a tradition that many parents honored\u2014and Marie didn't have to worry about coming in late either. Her parents were out of town, and the older sister who was staying with Marie and her younger brother didn't care what time Marie came in. We were both free to spend as many hours at the hospital as might be required, hardly where either of us had believed we'd end up on that night.\n\nAs if in a concession to the lateness of the hour, the emergency room area was hushed and dimly lit. The only hospital employee I could see was a nurse behind a high counter, and Marie was speaking to her when I walked in. When I took my place alongside Marie, the nurse, a sour-faced older woman with tiny eyes, stared intently at me. I must have made quite a sight\u2014barefoot, clothes soaking wet, and wearing a smile probably rare in those surroundings. But then the other people who came into the hospital didn't make the trip in the company of Miss Marie Ryan. But I could clearly read the inquiry in the nurse's gaze: Who are you? Since I had no answer for the question, I simply grinned a little harder and tried to appear as though I was exactly where I belonged.\n\nThe nurse pointedly addressed Marie. \"You can wait over there. Someone will be with you shortly.\"\n\nWe had barely sat down when Marie said, \"His problem is he can't get out of his head the idea that something, _something,_ good should come out of what his dad did. This stupid show he put on tonight _\u2014God!\u2014_ that was just his latest crazy idea. Famous . . . He'll be famous, all right.\"\n\nSince we'd left the river, Marie had not once spoken Gene's name.\n\n\"Yeah, they'll be talking about that for a long time,\" I said.\n\n\"I've tried to tell him, you're never going to forget what happened. Never. But you have to stop pulling the past up to the present. Let it stay back there. Let the days keep putting more distance between _now_ and _then._ \" She shook her head and grimaced, and I couldn't be sure if her expression of pain came from her injury or this renewal of her frustration at trying to help Gene and failing. \"You can see how much success I've had,\" she said ruefully.\n\nShe looked up at me, and I had the sense that she was waiting for me to confess my own inability to aid my friend through his life's worst period. What could I say? I have stopped short of openly professing my love for his girlfriend. . . .\n\n\"He'd be worse off without you,\" I said. \"A hell of a lot worse off.\"\n\nThe height to which her eyebrows rose indicated that my words had failed to persuade her. I couldn't summon any enthusiasm, however, for extending the argument. Besides, the worsening pain in Marie's shoulder was commanding all her attention. Suddenly light-headed, she bent forward in her chair in order to lower her head and keep from fainting.\n\n\"Should I call the nurse?\" I asked.\n\nMarie shook her head, but just then the nurse came out from behind her desk to take Marie to an examining room. That didn't however, mean a diagnosis or treatment would be forthcoming. Hospitals today of course are staffed around the clock with emergency room physicians and support staff, but in 1962 Marie couldn't be attended to until a doctor on call was notified and an X-ray technician was wakened and summoned to the hospital. I saw both of them arrive. The tech, a sleepy, slow-moving, dark-haired, handsome young man not much older than Marie and I, showed up first, and not long after, Marie was ushered away, but more than an hour passed before the doctor appeared. I recognized him as Dr. DuFresne, an older physician famous in Bismarck for his elegance, his encyclopedic medical knowledge, and his vinegary disposition. He stopped just inside the door and took a last drag on the cigarette poised at the tip of his long fingers. When he thrust the butt into the ashtray's sand, it was a gesture performed with impatience. I worried that Marie would not be treated gently or compassionately, at least not in his hands.\n\nOnce the requisite medical personnel were in attendance, however, the wait for Marie was still long. And frustrating. Since we were both trapped in the hospital, why couldn't we be allowed to pass the time in each other's company?\n\nAt one point I leaned back in my chair and dozed off, an act that would likely be noted in fiction only because it would present an opportunity to reveal a character's dream. But in life we remember few of our dreams, and those we do recall are usually not tied to a time or a place. Dreams\u2014and more commonly nightmares\u2014create their own settings, and override our waking sense of our surroundings. But since so many of the moments of that time in my life have, as I recollect them, dreamlike qualities\u2014unpredictable, emotionally intense yet ambiguous, imagistically vivid\u2014I feel as though it's appropriate to make up a dream to accompany that scene in the hospital's waiting room.\n\n_I've been led into a ward with a long row of beds or gurneys,_ _each separated from the next by a gauzy cloth curtain. I suspect_ _that Marie is just on the other side of the partition, and soon that_ _suspicion hardens into certainty. I can see her, albeit only in silhouette,_ _but a shadow is enough for me to know it's her. She's_ _moving around, dancing perhaps, and occasionally a part of_ _her\u2014her forehead, a leg, an elbow, her entire torso, especially her_ _breasts\u2014presses against the fabric, strains against it, almost as_ _though she is trying to tear through. I don't understand whether_ _I'm being invited to touch her through the cloth or whether she_ _doesn't even know I'm there. My dilemma is complicated when I_ _hear her voice. The sound of it is so faint that I can't make out_ _any words, yet its murmur has a rhythm\u2014rising and falling,_ _louder and softer\u2014that tells me she's speaking in sentences. But_ _again, I don't know if she's talking to me. I'm paralyzed with the_ _fear that if I reach out or speak to her, only to learn that her_ _speech and movements are intended for someone else, someone_ _whose shadow I can't see, I'll not only embarrass myself\u2014something_ _I'm willing to risk\u2014but also frighten and alienate her when_ _I'm revealed as an eavesdropper. Suddenly from over the top of_ _Marie's side of the partition something is thrown\u2014again,_ _whether accidentally or purposely I can't know\u2014over to my side._ _I can't tell what the object is, but it's right overhead, floating at_ _first, then falling at great speed. I stretch out my hands to catch_ _it, and in so doing startle myself awake._\n\nSunrise was less than an hour away when Marie finally reappeared. She was wearing a sling, just as she had been when she went in, but not the jury-rigged version I had knotted from her father's shirt. This one was made for its purpose. Canvas, it cradled her arm completely, and its work was supplemented by Ace bandages elaborately swathed around her, immobilizing her arm and shoulder. The elastic extended diagonally from the base of her neck to below her breasts and wound around her chest. To accommodate the wrap, the top half of her swimming suit was pulled down and bunched around her waist, while her shirt was draped around her shoulders.\n\nShe looked tired, but the color that pain had siphoned away earlier had returned to her cheeks. She smiled at me and asked, \"Have you dried out yet?\"\n\n\"Almost.\" In truth, only a little dampness remained in the creases of my clothes. \"How about you? Can you leave or are they going to check you in?\"\n\n\"No, I can go.\" Her glance over her shoulder made me wonder if she was escaping rather than being released.\n\nJust at that moment Dr. DuFresne emerged from the small office behind the nurse's desk. \"Remember, young lady,\" he said sternly, \"you're to check in with your family doctor next week. He'll want to see how that bone's healing. I'm not convinced that surgery isn't called for.\"\n\nMarie nodded curtly at his admonition, and kept moving toward the door. I rose and followed her, catching a glimpse, on my way out, of Dr. DuFresne's look of disgust at my damp, disheveled, barefoot appearance.\n\nMarie's collarbone was broken, and if the combination of the wrap and the sling didn't work, then it would be necessary, in Dr. DuFresne's view, to knit the bone back together with a surgical screw. For the next six weeks she was to use her arm as little as possible and to keep that beautiful body tightly bound.\n\nThe hours she spent inside the hospital were not all devoted to treatment of her injury. The first delay occurred because her sister had to be telephoned and her permission given for Marie to be treated. Her sister was willing to give that but wondered if she should come to the hospital herself, something she didn't want to do because their younger brother couldn't be left alone. Marie assured her that wouldn't be necessary and that someone was there who could bring her home. Next, both the X-ray technician and the doctor were called away to attend to other patients. The first was an old woman already in the hospital who fell attempting to go to the bathroom on her own. The technician wasn't supposed to read the X-rays, much less reveal what he saw on them, but he told Marie that the old woman had broken her hip. Dr. DuFresne, on the other hand, said nothing about the patient he was called away to see, but he was even more curt with Marie when he returned.\n\n\"Grumpy old bastard,\" Marie said as we drove away from the hospital. \"Why would anyone who hates people as much as he does want to be a doctor in the first place?\"\n\n\"How did it feel getting all trussed up like that?\"\n\n\"It hurt like hell.\"\n\n\"Well, there's your answer.\"\n\nWe were both tired, Marie was in pain, and the eastern sky's night blue was already surrendering its darkest hue to morning's lighter tint, but Marie didn't want to go home. Not just yet. \"Take the long way,\" she said.\n\nI wasn't sure what that route would be. If I drove all around the city's perimeter, the trip probably wouldn't take more than fifteen minutes. Then it came to me. Marie wanted to be driven past Gene's house.\n\nWhile I drove, Marie worried out loud about how her life would accommodate a broken clavicle. She was supposed to start her summer job at J. C. Penney's in the next week\u2014would they want a clerk who could use only one arm and who would have to wear blouses with an empty sleeve? Who was going to change her Ace bandage and wrap her up again? Marie would prefer asking that favor of her sister rather than her mother, but her sister might attend summer school in Minneapolis. How often could she bathe? She wouldn't be able to wear a bra or shave her armpits for weeks!\n\nShe fell silent, however, when I turned up Keogh Street. Within the distance of a couple blocks\u2014there could be no doubt about the direction in which we were headed\u2014she raised the hand of her uninjured arm as if she were blocking traffic. \"I want to go home,\" she said. \"Now.\"\n\n\"Is something wrong?\"\n\n\"Just turn at the corner.\"\n\nI did as I was told.\n\nBy the time I parked in Marie's driveway and walked her to the door, doves somewhere overhead muttered their _ooh_ s and _aah_ s over the hour we were coming in, and there was sufficient light to read the address on the house across the street. That was the same test I had subjected dawn to on another occasion. This time I knew where Marie was.\n\nI held the door to the garage open for her. \"Will your sister be waiting up?\"\n\n\"I doubt it. When I talked to her from the hospital and convinced her I was okay, she just told me to come in quietly.\"\n\nOnce again we were standing at her back door. Once again she thanked me for escorting her through a difficult time. Once again I thought of what it must be like to stand in this place and be more than Marie Ryan's friend.\n\nThen, abruptly, she said, \"Okay. Now.\"\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\" _Now_ you can kiss me.\" She laughed at how her statement sounded like a regal command. \"Said the queen.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure that would be such a good idea. Gene\u2014\"\n\n\"Forget about Gene. You must know that he and I are finished.\"\n\n\"He's gone through so much\u2014\"\n\nShe clapped her hand over my mouth. \"Stop it. Stop defending him.\"\n\nHer hand slipped away, but its sensation\u2014softness, warmth, a faintly antiseptic smell from the hospital\u2014lingered. Once I could form words again, I continued to try to talk my way out of the moment that I had desired more than any other. \"Down at the river tonight . . . that wasn't the real Gene. He would never\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't you think I know by now who and what the real Gene is? And better than you? Now, are you going to take me up on my offer? You don't want to make a girl feel rejected.\"\n\nBefore I could answer, she hooked her fingers inside the collar of my T-shirt, pulled me close, and kissed me.\n\nI had kissed a few girls before Marie, but her kiss, with its wide openmouthed intensity, its ability to at first be hard and then yield to pliancy, was astonishing. Because of her injury she had to withhold most of her body, yet her entire being still seemed behind her kiss.\n\nOur lips came apart, and immediately I went back for more, to confirm both my good fortune and my physical impressions.\n\nThe next kiss was amazingly deeper, firmer, and softer than the first, and eventually I had to step back, breathless, unbelieving, and a little frightened that I couldn't match her passion.\n\n\"Whew!\" was all I could manage, and with that, Marie laughed and sent me on my way, albeit with the admonition that I had best call her the following afternoon.\n\nI parked the Studebaker in front of the house and was surprised to see both my father and mother hurry down the front walk to meet me. It was still too early for them to have gotten up, especially on a Saturday, so obviously they had been waiting for my arrival. The night before, they had cheerfully given me their permission to stay out as long as I liked, but as they approached, their expressions were drawn tight with anything but approval. Just as sunrise's gradual light brings to view one feature of the landscape after another, I saw, dawning across my parents' faces, anger, worry, and relief, all within the span of seconds.\n\nMy father put his arm across my shoulders, an action that should have seemed an expression of affection; instead it seemed as if he were gently restraining me. On my other side, my mother also walked close, ready to block my movement in the other direction. Together they herded me toward the house, but neither said anything; that was left to Uncle Burt, who came out onto the porch as we approached.\n\nUncle Burt had driven down from Wembley for my graduation, and he had stayed the night. He too must have been waiting for me. His cigar had burned down to a stub, and the coffee cup in his hand was probably not his first of the morning.\n\nHe said, in that voice that was always a strange combination of delicacy and heartiness, \"Your folks have been worried about you. As you might know, your classmates had a party down on the river last night, and there was an accident, a drowning.\"\n\nI couldn't hear any more. I twisted away from my father's loose embrace and tore off across the lawn. I must have heard one of my parents\u2014both of them\u2014yell after me, \"It wasn't Gene! It wasn't Gene!\" just as I must have concluded, once I saw his car parked in front of the Stoddard house, that he could not have been the drowning victim, but I ran on and didn't stop until I came to that car and saw, faintly in the early morning light, the dusty outlines of footprints on the trunk, rear window, and roof, evidence of its having been used as Gene's stage. I ran my hand along the rear fin, not far from where Marie had fallen. I backed away from the Ford. In its wheel wells were traces of sand.\n\nMy mother had followed me down the street, and now she caught up to me. Gently she turned me back toward our house. \"Sshh. That's okay,\" she said, as if I had been crying and needed to be quieted. \"He's all right.\"\n\nI certainly didn't argue with her, but I might have said, He is not all right, he is definitely not all right, and soon he will be worse. . . .\n\nBack in the house, I allowed myself to be comforted and reassured. My parents were convinced that I had broken away out of fear and concern for my friend. In truth, what had panicked me _was_ fear, and a familiar one. I had felt it on the night when Marie and I searched the branches of the trees for Gene's hanging body, and my fear then was that his death would preserve Marie's love for him. How much worse would it have been if on the night when Marie and I had exchanged our breaths, he lost his forever. She would never have recovered.\n\nAs it turned out, neither Bob Mullen nor Diane Burgie attended Carleton College in the autumn of 1962. Diane enrolled at Bismarck Junior College, and her decision to remain in her hometown was largely determined by her fragile emotional state at the time. And Bob? Diane's boyfriend and fellow scholarship winner was the young man who drowned in the Missouri River on the night of our high school graduation.\n\nShe blamed herself for what happened, and Bob likely would not have had it any other way. After I left the party in pursuit of Marie, after Gene slid off his car at the end of his act (as it turned out, his performance was mostly complete at the time of my departure), Diane was persuaded to drink a can of beer. The person who talked her into consuming alcohol for the first time was: A football player from Mandan High School; A trumpet player from St. Mary's Central High School; A farm kid from a small town west of Bismarck. All three accounts made the rounds, but probably the important detail, present in every version, was that this young man was someone who had been Diane's playmate in childhood. He had moved to another town or another neighborhood.\n\nIt doesn't matter. He was, as narratives so often require such a character to be, an outsider, the other. Diane was pleased to see him. Or at least she pretended to be. She and Bob had quarreled. He apparently had wanted to leave the party, but she had wanted to stay. The attention she paid the new boy, as well as the beer she drank (and another and another followed the first), was calculated to anger Bob and to demonstrate to him that she didn't have to shape all the contours of her life to his.\n\nHer tactic worked. Or was it a tactic? Perhaps she allowed herself, under the influence of alcohol or not, to be attracted to someone other than Bob. Perhaps the occasion, an end and a beginning, prompted her to consider alternatives that she had previously barred from consideration.\n\nBob, desperate to win back her attention\u2014or to garner the attention of others and in so doing demonstrate that he didn't need Diane's\u2014began to do front and back flips on the sandbar. Bob was known for his conscientiousness, his seriousness, his intelligence; he was, in other words, someone who readily gained the respect and admiration of adults while he had few qualities that made him cool or popular or attractive among his peers. He wasn't an athlete, at least not in any of the sports that had audiences or followers. But Bob Mullen participated in gymnastics throughout high school, and it was that training that enabled him to impress the drunken crowd at the sandbar. In addition to his flips, he did a somersault off the roof of a car. But that was not his most impressive performance. He twisted through the air; he landed on the earth. But then he needed to bring the other elements into play. For fire, he launched himself over one of the bonfires, landing with a perfect roll on the other side of the flames.\n\nBob Mullen backed up from the river and then took a run at it. When his feet touched the waterline, he catapulted himself into the air, flipped, and came down right into the river's main current. Had he been heavier and less skilled at hurling his body, perhaps he would not have been able to propel himself so far from the sandbar. Had he been taller, perhaps he would have landed where he could touch bottom and still keep his head above water.\n\nAlmost immediately the laughter and shouts of encouragement that had accompanied Bob's attempt to entertain his classmates died when they saw him swept away\u2014from light, the fire's flickering orange reflection on the water, to darkness, the river's true night face\u2014the instant he splashed down.\n\nAnd yet something\u2014drunkenness, disbelief, all those years of parental warnings about the river's treacherousness, something\u2014paralyzed the witnesses. A long moment passed before anyone stepped into the river for a rescue attempt. By then it was already too late. Most people said he vanished immediately into the black water, pulled under by a current that wouldn't permit him to surface even for a second to wave or shout for help. At least that's what most people said. But Karen Conroy, who had been standing right at the river's edge, told me she caught one final glimpse of Bob Mullen. She said she could see his pale form tumbling through the water, as if he were still doing his somersaults and flips while the Missouri rushed him off.\n\nHis body was discovered two days later, tangled in the driftwood and brush at a bend in the river fifteen miles south of Bismarck.\n\n_Although Bob Mullen died with a mouth full of water, the_ _taste of dirt was on his tongue._\n\nThe previous sentence appears in one of my journals, but the line never found its way into a poem, story, or novel. For the insight\u2014if it qualifies as such\u2014on that sensation, I had my own tumble into a Missouri River pothole to thank.\n\nWhy have I bothered to relate the Bob Mullen story when it is a tributary that never joins the main narrative? Because while I know\u2014rationally, logically, sensibly, I _know_ that Raymond Stoddard's deeds had nothing to do with that young man's drowning, I can't separate them emotionally. Everything that occurred near that place and time seems somehow to owe its causality to Raymond Stoddard and his murder of Monty Burnham. Raymond Stoddard? He set the universe in motion.\n\n_The slain politician's son doesn't want to board the train._\n\n_His mother and his uncle, however, remind him that being_ _sent away is not a punishment but a privilege, a reward for_ _being a good student and a respectful, dutiful boy who has_ _borne up under difficult circumstances. His mother kisses his_ _forehead, and when she embraces him, he suddenly thinks he_ _has a legitimate excuse for not getting on the train. He's ill! In_ _his throat he feels that scratchy constriction that's often the first_ _sign of tonsillitis. But that thought is enough to carry him back_ _from the verge of tears, and with that retreat the sensation vanishes._\n\n_Just as he lifts his foot onto the step stool that will carry him_ _into the train car, his uncle hisses into his ear, \"Don't stay in the_ _bathroom longer than you have to.\" Another passenger comes_ _up behind him, so the slain politician's son doesn't have time to_ _ask his uncle the question that seems so obvious:_ Why would I?\n\n_He walks down the train's aisle, looking for a seat on the_ _side of the train that won't force him to look out on the platform_ _where his mother and uncle will be standing, and as he_ _does, his feeling of banishment is complete. He is being sent to a_ _strange country whose customs, population, even food, will be_ _alien to him. He is on his way to spend two weeks at Camp_ _Way-Tah-Ga in northern Wisconsin, and he knows that the congregation_ _of First Lutheran Church chose him to go, rather than_ _a boy from a poor family as in years past, because the congregation,_ _indeed the entire town, feels sorry for him. But why not_ _leave, he thinks, since he is obviously no longer understood in_ _his own land. Otherwise why would his mother, who has always_ _been perfectly attuned to his likes and dislikes, his enthusiasms_ _and fears, believe that living with boys he has never met_ _would be anything but punitive?_\n\n_Further evidence of this estrangement he comes upon two_ _hours into his journey when he unwraps the ham sandwich his_ _mother prepared for his lunch. The bread has been spread_ _thickly with butter. Mustard\u2014he likes mustard only. He dislikes_ _butter on everything but pancakes and then only the thinnest_ _film, which must melt completely. He folds the sandwich back_ _into its waxed-paper wrapper and then tucks it inside the copy_ _of_ Boys' Life _that he's already read. He lays both on the empty_ _cushion beside him and tries to act as though they belong to the_ _person who will soon return to his seat. If the sandwich has_ _done nothing else, it has replaced some of his despondency with_ _disgust. Adults\u2014they act as though they understand, but they_ _fall so far short you wonder why they even bother with the pretense._\n\n_Once the slain politician's son actually goes to the bathroom,_ _he believes he understands his uncle's warning. The toilet_ _flushes with such swirling force and the water pours into the_ _washbasin so swiftly that it's a temptation to linger, turning the_ _water off and on, filling the sink and watching it drain, listening_ _to the way the toilet's formless_ whoosh _contrasts with the train's_ _rapid but still rhythmical rush. He feels as though he's on the_ _edge of a discovery about the essential difference between liquid_ _and machine, but remembering his uncle's words, he returns to_ _his seat. By the time he next visits the restroom, his sorrow and_ _self-pity have returned, and he no longer has any interest in insights_ _or discoveries._\n\n _When he disembarks in Wisconsin, he is met by a tall, sunburned,_ _redheaded young man, a counselor from the camp who_ _already has in his company a boy who rode the very same train_ _as the slain politician's son. Jimmy Hogan boarded the train in_ _St. Paul, but unlike the slain politician's son, Jimmy is an _experienced_ traveler and he roamed from one car to another, searching_ _for boys he remembered from his previous years at camp._ _The slain politician's son saw the fat boy repeatedly waddle_ _down the train's aisle, but the slain politician's son was too shy_ _to speak to anyone._\n\n_Once they are in the station wagon that will take them the_ _thirty miles to Camp Way-Tah-Ga, Jimmy Hogan suggests to_ _the counselor that in the future the camp should send special_ _caps to campers, something that the boys could wear on their_ _way to Camp Way-Tah-Ga and in that way identify their common_ _destination to one another. The counselor, a high school_ _senior or college student, the slain politician's son guesses,_ _doesn't acknowledge Jimmy's suggestion. Instead he lights another_ _Camel, which he keeps bouncing between his lips with his_ _vigorous gum-chewing._\n\n_Into the silence, the slain politician's son cautiously says to_ _Jimmy, \"That's a good idea. The caps.\"_\n\n_And with that, the two boys become friends. For the rest of_ _the ride, Jimmy tries to educate the slain politician's son about_ _the camp's culture and conventions. He begins, of course, with_ _the food. The hamburgers might look good, but they're usually_ _dried out and barely warm. The macaroni and cheese is okay if_ _you get a serving from the middle of the tray. The best breakfast_ _is French toast. The best dessert is the butterscotch pudding. He_ _advises the slain politician's son to arrive at the archery range_ _early when they have target practice, or else he'll get one of the_ _bows that's so tight he'll hardly be able to pull the string back._\n\n_Don't get in a canoe with the thirteen-year-olds because they_ _won't even let you paddle. Don't sit on the side of the campfire where the big trees are because the wind always blows sparks_ _and smoke in that direction. \"Chapel\" means the same thing as_ _\"church.\" \"Hike\" and \"nature walk\" mean pretty much the_ _same thing. Don't wear shorts to play baseball or you won't be_ _able to slide. And whatever the slain politician's son does, he_ _should make certain he doesn't piss off Castle, the oldest counselor_ _at the camp. Castle is always in a foul temper, but no one_ _is quite sure why. Some say it's because he's a junior high_ _teacher during the year, and by the time summer rolls around,_ _he's sick of kids. Another theory has it that Castle is an alcoholic_ _who is kept from drink during the camp sessions. A more_ _forgiving, romantic explanation of Castle's dark moods suggests_ _that he once had a beautiful wife who was killed in an automobile_ _accident. As Jimmy finishes his list of admonitions, he_ _glances up at their gum-chewing driver, who says only, \"Yeah,_ _Castle's a prick.\" The obscenity delights the boys._\n\n _The slain politician's son soon learns, however, that because of_ _the way the camp is set up, he and the redoubtable Castle are_ _unlikely to have much contact. Castle works mostly with the_ _younger boys, and the slain politician's son belongs with the_ _Wolverines (the ten-and eleven-year-olds), a group with whom_ _he quickly grows quite comfortable. Thanks to Jimmy, the slain_ _politician's son is assigned a bunk in Jimmy's dormitory, and_ _Jimmy introduces the slain politician's son to the other boys_ _their age and makes sure he is always gathered into the group_ _before any activity\u2014flag races, hikes, swim instruction, candle_ _making, or woodworking\u2014begins. The slain politician's son becomes_ _so close to these boys that he wonders if he should reveal_ _to them how he is different from every one of them and always_ _will be. Finally he decides against it. He won't share with the_ _Wolverines his unique history, one that includes newspaper_ _headlines and reporters in the kitchen extinguishing cigarettes in_ _his mother's coffee cups. Indeed, though the slain politician's_ _son is the only Wolverine who has never before attended Camp_ _Way-Tah-Ga, his family owns a cabin on a small lake in North_ _Dakota, and in his mind the slain politician's son substitutes_ _those experiences for the not dissimilar ones the other boys have_ _had in previous summers. Ironically, it is Jimmy Hogan who believes_ _he has an identity unlike anyone else's; Jimmy is not only_ _fat, he is left-handed and he has had his appendix removed._\n\n _Most of the boys have been looking forward to the day when_ _they'll be allowed to fish in the swift-flowing waters of the_ _Goose River. Since they arrived in camp they've been allowed to_ _fish only in the lake, and even then only with bamboo poles,_ _tiny hooks, red worms, and bobbers. They never catch anything_ _but crappies, bluegills, and sunfish. Today, however, they're_ _being driven to a location where the river suddenly straightens_ _its course and runs fast and frothy over and around a series of_ _big rocks. There the boys will be handed real fishing rods with_ _artificial lures and treble hooks and given instruction on how to_ _cast their lines into the pools and eddies where the big fish\u2014_ _bass and walleye and northern and even muskie\u2014lie. But before_ _any of them can wet a line, they must sit through fishing lessons,_ _even if they've been doing this kind of fishing for years._\n\n_On that day, the Wolverines are divided and assigned to_ _other groups, and the slain politician's son is placed with five_ _boys who will have_ \u2014oh, shit!\u2014 _Castle as their teacher. They_ _gather near the pilings of a railroad bridge. The river there has_ _shrunk back from the tree line, and they have a wide beach on_ _which to line up and listen to their teacher's advice. The sand_ _the slain politician's son sits upon feels simultaneously warm,_ _soft, and damp, a new and peculiar sensation, and he adds it to_ _the collection of never-felt-before that he has been compiling for_ _the past seven months._\n\n_As it turns out, Castle, in spite of his profession in the non-summer_ _months\u2014it's been verified; he is a junior high school_ _teacher\u2014has no aptitude for or interest in instruction. He simply_ _tells the boys, \"Watch how I do it.\"_\n\n_Next he performs a series of movements so rapid that none_ _of the boys understands exactly what he's doing or why. He_ _clicks something on the reel\u2014the bale? Did he lock the bale_ _back? Did he do something with the drag? He brings the rod_ _back, then flings it forward, and the lure\u2014a spinner with a tuft_ _of fur attached to its end\u2014whirs out across the water. Did he_ _have a target in mind? How did he direct it there? Almost immediately_ _after the lure splashes down, Castle reels it in swiftly,_ _straightening the rod's tip from time to time. \"The action has to_ _be like this,\" he says, \"so the fish will want to hit it.\"_\n\n_The last thing the slain politician's son wants at that moment_ _is to be handed the rod and reel and told to duplicate the_ _instructor's act, but he doesn't have to worry. Castle has apparently_ _forgotten both his charge and his charges. He's just a man_ _fishing on a summer day, casting over and over again to that_ _boulder-blocked expanse of water where the river seems to back_ _up on itself._\n\n_Suddenly there is a small eruption right where Castle's lure_ _splashes down. It looks as if sunlight has not just spangled the_ _water's surface but burst up from beneath it. Castle jerks back_ _on his rod, and then it's plain\u2014he's hooked a fish and the fish is_ _leaping into the air._\n\n_Castle hasn't addressed the boys, but even without being_ _asked, they all rise from the sand and stand behind him. From the_ _expressions on their faces it's obvious that none of them believed_ _that today's lessons could truly lead to an outcome like this._ _That's a real fish, large enough to bend the rod and create its own_ _wake as it fights across the current, the line, and Castle's strength._\n\n_The fish must lose of course, and by the time Castle has_ _reeled it in close to the shore, it can no longer leap clear of the_ _river or even shake itself on the line. And why, the slain politician's_ _son wonders, would the fish try to escape in the first place_ _by leaving the water for the air, the element it can't survive in?_\n\n_One of the boys steps forward with the net, but Castle_ _brushes him aside. Holding the rod in one hand, he steps into_ _the river, bends down, and pulls the fish from the water. To the_ _slain politician's son it appears that Castle grabs the fish by the_ _lip, but that can't be. Fish don't have\u2014Then he sees. Castle has_ _hooked the fish again, this time with his finger, right under the_ _fish's mouth._\n\n_A boy more knowledgeable about fish than the slain politician's_ _son whistles softly and says, \"A walleye!\"_\n\n_\"What a pig!\" Castle says. \"That sonofabitch has gotta be_ _twelve pounds.\"_\n\n_The fish twists and wriggles so slowly in Castle's hand it_ _seems as if it might be moving in the breeze rather than by its_ _own muscle and will. Castle quickly and deftly unhooks the_ _walleye, sets down his rod and reel, and holds the fish aloft with_ _two hands. Its pale belly sags as if it were weighted with stones._ _Its eyes look as though they have been cut out of aluminum foil._ _\"You pig,\" Castle says again, this time almost affectionately._\n\n_Castle finally acknowledges the boys who have been gazing_ _at him as if he had been enacting a play for their entertainment._ _\"One of you want to put him in the catch bucket?\"_\n\n_Like the other boys, the slain politician's son raises his hand_ _and jumps into the air. He is sure that only he, however, has no_ _interest in the fish. Instead he wants to do what no other boy_ _has been able to do\u2014to win Castle's approval and esteem._\n\n_And it is that purity of motive, the slain politician's son believes,_ _that separates him from every other ten-year-old bouncing_ _up and down on the sand, and that causes Castle to reach_ _the fish out toward him and say, \"Hold him tight. And watch_ _out for the fins. They're sharp as razors.\"_\n\n_Once the slain politician's son holds the fish, with its heft_ _that doesn't match its light silver slickness, he can smell it, and_ _that odor brings back his past\u2014the family cabin, the heat that_ _seemed to rise every morning from the lake's algae-choked_ _shoreline, the grown-ups with their skinny pale legs bare the_ _way they never would be in town, and their loud laughter, the_ _hollow thunk of oar and boat, and the little panfish strung on a_ _line as if they were beads run through with a sewing needle, and_ _smelling like, like, like nothing else. . . . Is that past only a single_ _summer removed from the slain politician's son? Is that possible?_ _The memory seems as if it has to struggle an exhausting_ _distance back to him. The walleye's gill yawns open so slowly it_ _must be for the last time. For a moment the slain politician's son_ _glimpses the fish's blood-red interior, and the sight appalls him_ _so that by a laborious process\u2014he slides the fish slowly across_ _his shirt front\u2014he shifts the walleye to his other hand and now_ _holds the fish backward, its head and dead eyes and awful_ _starving gills facing the other way._\n\n_While he wades into the water and opens the lid of the catch_ _bucket, the slain politician's son has to squeeze the fish tightly_ _but not too tightly, because he can feel how with just a little_ _more pressure it could squirt from his hand._\n\n_The river water inside the bucket looks like weak tea, and_ _for an instant the slain politician's son wonders if he is making a_ _mistake. No, he is doing exactly what Castle asked of him, and_ _there is no other way to gain the man's favor. He lowers the fish_ _into the bucket._\n\n_It all happens so fast that afterward the slain politician's son_ _can't be sure of the precise sequence\u2014did Castle first cry out,_ _\"Not tail first! Not tail first!\" or did those shouted words come_ _after the fish, instantly revived when the cold water washed_ _over it, with one sudden sinuous effort, burst from the bucket_ _and escaped into the river's current?_\n\n_No matter what the chronology, the consequence is unchanged._ _The walleye, a flashing golden shimmer, swims away,_ _and Castle grabs the slain politician's son by the collar of his_ _T-shirt and pulls him backward with such force that the boy_ _lands heavily on the sand, his breath flying out of him so completely_ _that he might as well have been shoved underwater._\n\n_\"That was a trophy fish!\" Castle shouts. \"A goddamn trophy_ _fish!\"_\n\n_He looms over the slain politician's son, who believes that_ _the physical threat from Castle hasn't passed. The boy rolls_ _across the sand until he can be certain Castle can't reach him,_ _even with a kicking foot._\n\n_But Castle isn't interested in pursuit. He simply stares down_ _at the slain politician's son in disgust. \"Can't even put a fish in a_ _bucket,\" Castle says. \"Jesus. What a moron. What a little_ _moron.\"_\n\n_And then the slain politician's son makes the situation_ _worse. He laughs, though his lack of breath soon causes his_ _laughter to change into a fit of coughing._\n\n_It is the laughter that provokes Castle into grabbing the_ _slain politician's son by the hair, shaking him, and then throwing_ _him back toward the sand. It is the boy's helpless coughing_ _fit that convinces the camp authorities that Castle's harshness_ _can no longer be tolerated and that the man must be dismissed_ _from working at Camp Way-Tah-Ga._\n\n_After the incident, the slain politician's son explains to his_ _new friends why he couldn't keep from laughing. That was the_ _summer of the \"little moron\" jokes\u2014Why did the little moron_ _throw his alarm clock out the window? Because he wanted to_ _see time fly. Why did the little moron put his father in the refrigerator?_ _Because he wanted cold pop\u2014and when Castle insulted_ _him with that very phrase, laughter bubbled uncontrollably_ _from him._\n\n_In truth, the slain politician's son's laughter came from the_ _sudden realization, insofar as such a thing can be realized by a_ _ten-year-old boy whose bony ass is denting the sand of a river_ _beach, that he had no special standing on this earth and that he_ _was therefore subject to the same vagaries of reward and retribution_ _as every other human being. He was no different from_ _any other Wolverine._\n\nThis story came into being from an assignment of sorts. A friend, to whom I had been complaining of a personal publishing drought, suggested that maybe I needed to try writing fiction that was removed from my own life, times, and circumstances. \"The Slain Politician's Son,\" which appeared in _The Stopped Clock Review,_ was my attempt to follow that advice, and while it may not have seemed to most readers like such a radical divergence from my usual concerns, it was. I knew that Monty Burnham, like Raymond Stoddard, had a son, so I tried to invent a life for him. Believe me, any turn that took me away from the murderer's existence\u2014and Keogh Street\u2014and toward the victim's was a radical one.\n\nI had ample opportunity to observe Diane Burgie in the aftermath of Bob Mullen's death because I was in two of her classes, biology and psychology, at Bismarck Junior College. But while she chose to stay close to home because her guilt-ridden, grief-stricken state left her too weak to stray far, I attended a community college in order to be close to Marie Ryan. By the end of summer 1962 she and I were going steady, and since she had a year of high school left, I decided that enrolling at the university in Grand Forks could wait. I say \"I decided,\" but really, there was no decision to be made at all.\n\nIn fact I sometimes wondered why, since we were in classes together, Diane Burgie and I weren't used for an academic demonstration. The biology or psychology teacher\u2014the demonstration would have worked for either subject\u2014might have displayed both of us in front of the classroom and said to the other students, \"Look closely at these specimens. They illustrate what love can do to a human being.\" Pointing to Diane, the professor might have noted the hair, once blond, bright, and shining, now lusterless and lank; the complexion, pocked and sallow; the expression, dour and despairing; the entire being, enervated and drawn inward. I, on the other hand, could have been used as an example of love's power to vitalize, to fulfill, to bestow happiness and hope. In fact, had my state of bliss not been so complete, Diane Burgie's doleful presence might have made me a little embarrassed over my great good luck.\n\nMarie's broken collarbone did not require surgery, but it was slower in healing than originally projected. Not until the end of July was she able to remove for good the sling and elaborate webbing that had held her body tight to itself. By that time J. C. Penney's had assigned her to work in their credit department, so her temporary handicap didn't affect her ability to do her job. It did, however, have a strange effect on our burgeoning relationship.\n\nIt should go without saying that I could not get enough of Marie Ryan, yet her physical condition, coupled with my timidity, imposed a restraint on what we could do. While I could kiss her for hours, because of her Ace bandage binding, there was no possibility that we could go beyond kissing (or so I believed; I had a very clear notion of what should be the natural progression of sexual intimacies). Furthermore, she could put no more than one arm into an embrace, and my own passion had to operate with a governor on it\u2014squeeze too hard or press too close and she might flinch with pain.\n\nThe eventual removal of the wrap and the sling freed Marie in ways that went beyond the ability to raise her arm or twist her torso or draw an unencumbered deep breath. After those weeks of control, her ardor could suddenly match mine.\n\nThe night of the day the doctor pronounced her healed we were parked on a hill west of Bismarck. The sun had barely gone down when the moon, full and antique yellow, rose to claim the sky. If we looked out Marie's side of the Studebaker, we could see the dark reflection of the Missouri unspooling itself far below. If we looked out my side, we could see the random cluster of the city's lights. Over the entire town the capitol building towered, each of its four sides presiding over a compass point. But notice I say \" _If_ we looked out, we could see . . .\" Our eyes were fixed on nearer things. For the first time we were able to embrace with all the strength we owned, and we pressed ourselves together as if we were determined to seal our bodies to each other in spite of the resistances of clothing, skin, muscle, and bone.\n\nDuring one of the brief moments when our lips and tongues were not twinned and twined, I mentioned how strange it was to feel Marie's actual flesh beneath her blouse rather than a bandage. Laughing, I added, \"And you're wearing a bra for the first time!\"\n\nIn response to a request I did not make, Marie unbuttoned her blouse and wriggled herself free of it. She twisted around so her back was to me. \"I still have trouble reaching around,\" she said. \"Unhook me.\"\n\nMy trembling, inexperienced fingers eventually managed to accomplish the task. Then, with a movement so subtle and deft I didn't quite understand how she performed it, Marie allowed her brassiere to fall off.\n\nShe turned back to me, her crossed arms covering her breasts. She let her hands fall away and at the same time reclined across the Studebaker's front seat.\n\nIn these pages are examples aplenty of my inventive powers (or deficiencies). There is evidence as well of how my imagination is as likely to lead to misapprehension and mistake as to truth and understanding. Let me merely say at this point that I could more successfully imagine my way into a murderer's mind than anticipate the wonder of Marie Ryan's perfect breasts exposed to my sight and touch.\n\nMarie, however, had no patience with my awe. She extended her arms, beckoning me to lie down with her, and just in case I didn't understand the invitation, she whispered, \"Come here.\"\n\nThe sight of the almost-naked Marie Ryan was intoxicating, but even more thrilling\u2014and astonishing\u2014was the feel of her. Her skin was warm and amazingly soft to the touch\u2014silk right off the ironing board.\n\n_\"Now,\"_ she said.\n\nWhen my kisses became too long and too intense, Marie turned her head to the side. As if to expand her body and its openness to pleasure, she extended one arm out under the dashboard and with the other reached up and pressed against the seat.\n\nIf the months-later occasion when we finally had intercourse was somewhat less ecstatic, mark it down to my overeagerness and awkwardness. The act occurred in the unfinished attic of Marie's parents' home. The attic entrance was through the garage, and we were frequently able to climb up there undetected. Under the slanting roof and the cobwebbed timbers, lying on our makeshift pallet (flattened cardboard boxes covered with winter coats and old clothes), we explored our bodies and their secret delights, and finally, on a warm April day that was warmer still in the attic, we went all the way. That was the phrase in currency at the time (and perhaps it still is), and while I felt its accuracy\u2014I had plainly gone somewhere I had never been before\u2014I also sensed its inadequacy: I knew there were further realms to travel to, and one journey was barely finished before I wanted another to begin. And gradually, with Marie's help, I overcame the ineptness of that first time. In sexual matters, she knew my nature better than I, and she taught me that the greatest pleasures came from being controlled by the moment rather than trying to control it.\n\nAcross from Marie's parents' home was an elementary school, and I remember being in the attic once when the shouts and laughter of children at play rose to our height. We had just finished making love, and while Marie still lay on our \"bed,\" I rose and went to the high, small window to try to take advantage of what little ventilation it might provide.\n\nThe day, like so many on North Dakota's calendar, was breezy, and just enough air moved through the window to cool my sweating body. I couldn't see the children, but I could hear them, and the sound was enough for me to imagine their activity, their play. . . . What Marie and I had been doing was, of course, playful, yet just as certainly it was different. I didn't at that time have Frost's phrase\u2014\"play for mortal stakes\"\u2014but it applied. In our stifling garret Marie and I played together. Life and death depended on it. Whose, I couldn't be sure.\n\nI didn't keep from my parents the fact that I was going steady with Marie Ryan, but neither did I go out of the way to advertise the relationship. I was concerned, a worry probably without foundation, that they might display an unseemly interest in what Marie might know about Raymond Stoddard. And though I say \"they,\" I really mean my father. A year and a half after the murder-suicide he was still seeking the truth behind it. His quest was no longer very active, but he was not yet satisfied with any of the theories that might have settled the minds of others. My mother, as I said earlier, was content with the version that Ross Wilk had presented to my father.\n\nBut though I didn't want anyone else to try to take advantage of Marie for her inside information on the Stoddard family, I had no compunction myself about seeking to learn any secrets she might possess. I often questioned her about her memories of Mr. Stoddard and for any theories she might have had about his behavior. Marie, however, had little to offer, and not only because she had observed almost no examples of behavior that would lead one to conclude that the father of her then-boyfriend harbored murderous impulses.\n\nAs she made plain as far back as the day of Raymond Stoddard's funeral, she believed that the man was obviously deranged, if not legally insane. His acts were, ipso facto, evidence of that condition. The minds of such people couldn't be understood. Furthermore, pragmatic to her core, she thought it futile to try.\n\nAnd though she wouldn't hold up any memory to explain Raymond Stoddard, she did tell me about an incident that corroborated her conviction that he was mentally ill.\n\nMarie first met Raymond and Alma Stoddard when Gene invited her to a family picnic in September 1960. The day was windy, cold, and overcast, and to make matters worse the picnic site wasn't a Bismarck park but an unsheltered prairie hilltop north of the city. Mr. Stoddard, however, insisted that the spot, which he chose, was perfect. They spread their old wool blanket over buffalo grass so wiry and stubborn the stubble poked right through the fabric. Stones and the picnic basket weighted down the cloth at the corners and kept it from blowing away. The paper plates had to be heaped with food immediately, or the wind would tear them away like dry leaves.\n\nAnd the food was not standard picnic fare. It was leftovers, and not particularly impressive ones at that. Chunks of cold (though previously overcooked) pot roast, unheated potatoes and carrots, apples (for weight, if nothing else), and buttered bread. Two thermoses\u2014one filled with coffee and the other with milk.\n\nOdder still was Marie's introduction to Mr. Stoddard. Shortly after meeting her, he wanted to know where she lived. When she told him, Mr. Stoddard said he knew the neighborhood well. When he first came to Bismarck, before he found an apartment for his family, he stayed with Mrs. Hills, who lived on Marie's street but had once lived in Wembley and was a friend of his grandmother's. Did Marie know Mrs. Hills?\n\nYes, she knew the old woman.\n\n\"How unfortunate,\" Mr. Stoddard said, \"that she's no longer with us.\"\n\nMarie didn't understand. \"Not with us?\"\n\n\"Why, she had a stroke,\" Mr. Stoddard said. \"She passed away.\"\n\nShe wanted to make a good impression on her boyfriend's parents, but Marie Ryan couldn't allow this misinformation to stand. \"No, she's alive. She lives just down the street from us.\"\n\n\"You're mistaken. She's no longer with us.\" Mr. Stoddard kept using the same phrase. No longer with us.\n\nAnother teenage girl might have backed down in the face of an adult's certainty. \"She's alive,\" Marie reiterated. \"Alive. I saw her recently.\"\n\nMr. Stoddard never stopped smiling or insisting. Mrs. Hills had had a stroke. She had passed away. He was sorry he hadn't attended her funeral.\n\nEventually, like the relentless prairie wind, he wore her down. Marie didn't submit to his belief, but she stopped arguing.\n\nWhen Marie related this anecdote, I confessed that I didn't quite understand. So he had made a mistake; I didn't see how that was evidence of derangement.\n\nMarie shook her head strenuously. It wasn't just that he was wrong\u2014though that could have been a sign that he was delusional in his convictions\u2014but that he wouldn't admit to doubt. He was so certain of the rightness of his belief.\n\nThat sounds, I suggested, as though you're describing someone religious.\n\n\"Okay,\" Marie said. \"I don't have a problem with that. If you add 'zealot.' \"\n\nYet for the most part, Marie resisted my efforts to pry from her any inside information on the Stoddard family, especially as such information might relate to Raymond Stoddard's pathology. In fact, she was critical of my curiosity.\n\nI remember very well an evening when we sat in the darkened kitchen of her parents' house, facing each other across the table where the Ryan family ate their meals. I had been questioning her again about her memories of Mr. Stoddard and what Gene had told her about his father.\n\n\"Why,\" she wondered, \"is it so important for you to know why he did what he did?\"\n\nOne psychology class in high school and another in college provided me with a suitably high-minded and personal response. \"If we can understand people like Raymond Stoddard\u2014their, you know, their motivation\u2014then maybe they can be stopped before they kill.\"\n\n\"Do you really believe _knowledge_ can keep people from killing each other?\" Marie had a gift for phrasing matters in such a way that the ground under your argument began to erode even before it was built. \"Or that we can ever understand people like him?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"But there was only one Raymond Stoddard. And he did what he did. And he'll never do it again. Why not just let it all go?\"\n\n\"Isn't it human to be curious? To want to know?\"\n\n\"It just seems so pointless. Even if Raymond Stoddard had lived and he could tell us why he did what he did, we'd still only have a madman's word to go on.\"\n\nI could never formulate an effective refutation to Marie's position, yet I never took that inadequacy to mean that my own beliefs were flawed. She was, I told myself, simply a better debater than I. So there was no reason for me to cease my interrogations, no matter how they might exhaust and exasperate her.\n\nLet me offer just one more of Marie's memories of Raymond Stoddard, and I present it not as evidence of anything but simply to share an image that was lodged in her mind (and therefore in mine).\n\nMarie never had that many occasions to observe Raymond Stoddard, and that was a consequence of the age as much as anything. In the early 1960s a boy might spend plenty of time at his girlfriend's parents' house, but she might never enter the interior of his. We all understood this, even if the _why_ of it escaped us.\n\nBut Marie was there a few times (and if anyone was likely to defy the more idiotic strictures of the era, it was she), and on one occasion she and Gene were sitting on the living room floor in front of the black-and-white console television that I myself spent so many hours watching.\n\nMrs. Stoddard sat on the sofa and Mr. Stoddard was in his easy chair, but he was certainly not at ease. At one point he swiveled suddenly toward the living room window and the darkened night beyond and said, \"Did you hear that?\"\n\n\"Hear what?\" Mrs. Stoddard calmly asked.\n\nSuddenly embarrassed, Mr. Stoddard said, \"Nothing. It's nothing.\"\n\nYet from where Marie sat, she had a clear view of him, and for the rest of the evening he seemed on alert, as if he were listening for that sound to repeat itself and its message that no one else could hear.\n\nIn the weeks and months after Marie and I started dating, not a word passed between Gene and me. From others I learned that for most of the summer and fall he was working out of town, continuing in the employ of his uncle's construction company. But Keogh Street was still his home, and occasionally I saw him drive by, now in a white Chevrolet convertible that he'd started driving about the time I acquired the Studebaker. His car was newer, faster, and cooler than mine, and he probably bought it with his own money. His job, according to all accounts, paid well.\n\nWas I worried about how he would react to Marie and me being a couple? Yes. Was that worry intensified because he was Raymond Stoddard's son? Yes. And the worry played out on a daily basis as suspense, so while I was happy with Marie, happier than I had ever been, I was continually looking over my shoulder, constantly on the lookout for an attack from a wounded, enraged, drunken Gene Stoddard.\n\nBut Gene troubled my life in another way. As odd as it might seem, I missed him. He had been a part of my almost daily existence for years, while for only months had our friendship changed, so I couldn't quite adjust to the idea that now we were\u2014what were we? Enemies? Rivals? Whatever term might have applied, the fact was we no longer had that regular, casual contact _\u2014Did you understand that algebra assignment? Are you_ _going to play touch football on Saturday? Do you want to get a_ _burger at Jack Lyon's?\u2014_ that had for so long been a feature of both our lives. Are you going to play poker at Billy's on Friday? Do you want to drive or should I? Got an extra cigarette? _Want_ _to know what Marie let me get away with last night?_\n\nPerhaps, then, it was both a wish for reconciliation and a desire to eliminate the tension that I was living with that made me do what I did.\n\nOn the Friday after Thanksgiving 1962, snow began falling shortly after sunrise. By evening, close to a foot had fallen on the city. The snow was the dry, downy sort, so its effect was fairly benign. It was relatively easy to shovel, too light to snap branches or power lines, and since the wind was calm, flakes didn't stray far from where they fell. Still, even in a land as accustomed to winter's challenges as North Dakota, twelve inches of snow has an effect, and as I drove home late from Marie's, the streets were largely deserted. Snowplows had not cleared the streets, and I had to steer through the ruts left by cars that had earlier passed that way.\n\nI had just turned onto Keogh Street when I saw Gene Stoddard trudging through one of those furrows. He had probably stepped out into the street because on that section of the block most of the sidewalks were unshoveled, the owners probably away for the holiday.\n\nCould I have simply driven past? Certainly. And that option would have been in keeping with what our relationship had become. But as I said, the suspense had gotten to me, and this seemed an opportunity to address it, if not eliminate it altogether. Besides, he would recognize my car.\n\nI stopped in the middle of the street and asked him if he wanted a ride.\n\nGene was hatless, gloveless, and wearing only a light jacket. His shoes must have been soaked through. Nevertheless, he hesitated before finally shrugging and climbing into the Studebaker.\n\n\"Remember Thanksgiving last year?\" I said. \"Sixty degrees.\" An innocuous remark about the weather seemed like a safe way to begin, even if it would allow him the opportunity to comment on how many other things were different a year ago.\n\n\"How about that time it snowed on Halloween? Who was the kid whose trick-or-treat bag got so wet it tore open and all his candy fell out? And then he went home crying, so we kept his candy?\" Gene asked.\n\n\"Jerry Blessum.\"\n\n\"Jerry Blessum. Yeah.\" Gene was wearing aftershave or cologne, but its aroma was faint next to the stale but still overpowering smell of cigarette smoke and liquor. Was he drunk? Probably. \"Fucking North Dakota. Snow on Halloween. . . . Why does anyone live here?\"\n\nWhat was I supposed to say\u2014in order to be close to Marie? I changed the subject. \"Where's your car?\"\n\n\"Sitting in the driveway at Vicky Morhoeffer's. The battery's so fucking dead it won't even turn over.\"\n\nFor a moment I considered offering to drive him back there and help him start his car. In my trunk I kept, at my father's insistence, a set of jumper cables. They were there not only so I could get myself out of trouble, but so I could help others, as my father had done with the Stoddard vehicle on the second morning after Raymond Stoddard had hanged himself. I lacked, however, my father's Samaritan spirit. Indeed, it was hardly even an impulse to goodness that had prompted me to invite Gene into my car in the first place.\n\nAnd in the general direction of that topic was where I ventured next, albeit with trepidation. \"Vicky Morhoeffer, huh?\"\n\n\"What can I say\u2014she's a fucking slut. But she'll do anything. _Anything._ And her folks are hardly ever home.\"\n\nI took that to mean that, unlike in a previous relationship, love was not involved. I understood as well that I was free to ask what Vicky Morhoeffer was willing to do. Instead, I headed for safer terrain. \"She's a junior?\"\n\n\"A junior? Yeah, I guess.\" We were on our block now, and he pointed toward his house. \"Don't pull in the driveway. You'll pack down the snow, and it'll be harder to shovel in the morning.\"\n\nI stopped under a streetlamp across from his house. I hadn't scraped the windshield very well when I left Marie's, and frost stars glittered on the glass under the light's glow. A few weightless flakes still floated in the air.\n\n\"Hey, you got any smokes?\" Gene asked.\n\nI reached into my shirt pocket for my pack of Chesterfields and handed it to him.\n\nHe shook out two cigarettes. \"A couple to get me through the night?\"\n\n\"Take all you need. Keep the pack, if you like.\"\n\nWithout warning, he grabbed my wrist.\n\nI stiffened and that might have prevented Gene from pulling me toward him. But maybe moving me was not his intention. Using my weight as an anchor, he drew himself closer to me. I could smell the rank, curdled odor of tobacco and whiskey on his breath.\n\nStrangely, having my wrist in Gene's grasp didn't so much feel like a physical threat as it reminded me of a time in our childhood when we had taken each other's measure in quite a different way.\n\nDuring one of the summers of our Little League play, Gene and I embarked on a strenuous program to improve as ballplayers. We practiced long hours, hitting fly balls and grounders to each other, pitching, batting (and sprinting after the batted ball), and with the help of instructional, inspirational articles in _Baseball_ _Digest_ and other publications, tried to strengthen our baseball muscles. Following the example of Hank Aaron's success, we tried to build stronger wrists by squeezing tennis balls and rolling weighted bars back and forth. To gauge our success, we were constantly calibrating each other's wrists, hoping to feel that increase in circumference that would indicate muscle growth.\n\nGene's grip on my wrist tightened, and when he spoke, the urgency of what he said seemed as much an appeal for validation as an expression of menace. \"I had her first, you know. I had her first and I can have her back anytime I want. Any fucking time.\"\n\nFear might have motivated my reply. I was\u2014I am\u2014easily intimidated, and while I'm not eager to confess to cowardice, my commitment to honesty in this narrative won't let me back away from it. Nevertheless, I believe that something else was working on me. I felt sorry for Gene. And I leave to others the question of whether I betrayed Marie with my reply. Since I never reported this conversation to her, I can't report on her reaction.\n\nTo Gene I said simply, \"I know.\"\n\nHe released me, and then he and my cigarettes were gone.\n\nLying in bed that night I felt none of the fear of Gene Stoddard that I had been experiencing for months. Instead what kept me awake was fear that flowed the other way. Would the day come when I, perhaps like Gene's father, could no longer live with the worry that someone was loose in the world who might at any time take my love from me? What was _I_ willing to do to keep her close?\n\nThose were my thoughts on a snowy night when almost nothing followed the path prepared for it.\n\nAs if to prove how fickle the climate of the northern plains could be, the next year's November gave us a day so fair it seemed a gift from the gods. The temperature was mild, the sky was a pale and limitless blue, and Marie and I drove right through the day's benevolent heart.\n\nWe had left Grand Forks, where by that time we were both students at the university, early on a Friday morning, and we were pointed toward Minneapolis. Marie's sister had extra tickets for a Brothers Four concert, and we planned to stay with her for the weekend. We not only had the concert to look forward to, we would have two days to take in the city's attractions, and if that weren't enough, there was also the possibility that Marie and I would be allowed to share a bed. For an entire night. The prospect was tantalizing, for while we were having sex often, we never had the chance to _sleep_ together. To literally sleep through the night in each other's arms, head to dreaming head, took on an importance comparable to those earlier sexual milestones that marked the advance of our relationship. We both lived in dormitories at that time, but we were already making plans for the next school year. I was going to rent an apartment, and though I'd need a roommate or two to share rent, the apartment would provide a haven for Marie and me. Maybe she'd occasionally be able to check out of the dorm for a night or even a weekend, and we could truly live together.\n\nAs we drove through central Minnesota's gentle undulations\u2014turn your hand palm-up and raise it to eye level and its contours should provide an analogue for that landscape, a relief after the pancake flatness of eastern North Dakota\u2014Marie and I felt as though we could pass for husband and wife. We had stopped at a diner and refilled our thermos, and we passed the single cup back and forth. Marie lit my cigarettes for me. Our conversation was as familiar, comforting, and unrestricted as the sky. No longer living under our parents' roofs, our lives seemed completely and happily our own. Had we passed a highway sign announcing that the road we were traveling on would go on forever, it would have only deepened my contentment.\n\nBut what we passed, at intervals just regular enough to be puzzling, were cars pulled over to the side of the road. Eventually, I slowed for one, and the sight of the family inside, with identical expressions of confusion and grief on the faces of father, mother, and three children, alerted us to the possibility that something might be happening in the world that had nothing to do with conditions along Highway 10.\n\nMarie snapped on the radio\u2014and it was never off again when we were in the car\u2014and we learned what in the instant of knowing it suddenly seemed strange not to have known: The president had been assassinated.\n\nDid I steer the Studebaker onto the shoulder of the road? I must have. Yet the force of the radio news seemed sufficient to propel the vehicle's tons without any help. That same force moved Marie and me into an embrace.\n\nFor a moment we debated whether we should go back to Grand Forks, or perhaps even drive to our hometown. Certainly Bismarck would find this news especially upsetting, considering its own history of assassination. But not every vehicle had pulled over. Cars and trucks continued to whiz past us, and Marie and I thought we had already learned the lesson. Deliveries had to be made. Appointments had to be kept. Rituals had to be observed. Leaves had to fall. Clocks had to tick.\n\nIn fact, America was still unsure, in the autumn of 1963, what it should do and what it should postpone. The Brothers Four concert was canceled, but the National Football League played its scheduled games. Of course, before the decade was over, the country would have its protocols for post-assassination behavior well established.\n\nMarie and I were allowed to sleep together that weekend, at least after a fashion. Her sister kept her bedroom and her bed for herself and gave Marie the couch. I unrolled my sleeping bag on the floor next to her.\n\nAs we lay in our makeshift beds, Marie reached her hand down to me. I took it, though I didn't pull myself up toward her or tug her down to me. Her sorrow, I assumed, canceled her desire to make love. I was well aware of the line that ran from sex to pleasure. I even knew of the connection between sex and pain. But of the power of sex to heal or affirm, I was ignorant and would remain so for years to come.\n\nDuring the drive back to Grand Forks on Sunday, Marie was quiet. She was no doubt thinking about what had happened in the nation in the days just passed and how unsettled and unsettling the future now seemed. And perhaps that uncertainty caused her to question other matters\u2014how many of us in those days of late November suddenly let go of assumptions and never picked them up again? So Marie may also have been given over to contemplation of what life would be like in the company of a boy\u2014a man\u2014who could not guess her need. And wouldn't ask.\n\nAfter the assassination, however, Marie and I were no different from most Americans: We resumed the lives we'd expected to lead and acted as though the future was once more in our control. We continued with our studies, Marie as an education major who hoped to teach elementary school, and I as an English major with the intent to teach as well. My ambition to write I kept to myself.\n\nJust as I had planned, at the start of my junior year I moved off campus. I found a dark, damp, two-bedroom basement apartment close enough to the university that I could walk to class. For the necessary roommate I recruited Rob Varley, an acquaintance from Bismarck. Rob was quiet, solitary, and dedicated to his studies. A chemical engineering major, he spent almost all his spare time either at the university's new computer center or in a laboratory. His focus on the future rendered the past of little interest, so we seldom reminisced about our hometown or our high school years. As I recall, Rob made only a single comment about Monty Burnham's murder. The entire episode in the city's history was, he said, \"stupid,\" an unsurprising assessment from someone who was interested only in problems that had solutions. When Rob was home, he was sleeping or studying, usually in his bedroom with the door closed.\n\nIn other words, Marie and I had plenty of opportunities for privacy, and though the university had a regulation prohibiting female students from visiting men in off-campus housing, the apartment's entrance was on an alley and was blocked from general view by a garage and a shed, allowing Marie to come and go undetected. She probably spent as much time at the apartment as Rob, and she was responsible for whatever touches the place had that made it feel like something other than an underground cell. She hung curtains on the tiny windows that looked not so much out as up. She found a bookcase at a yard sale, painted it white, and arranged Rob's and my books on the shelves. She threw a blue checked tablecloth over the lopsided, rusting table at which we ate our morning cereal. On the wall above the sagging couch she hung framed prints of Alpine scenes. As part of her dormitory contract she could eat in a campus dining hall, but she often prepared meals for us in the apartment, using the groceries we shopped for together at the local Piggly Wiggly. From those years two images dominate because of their frequency. The first\u2014Marie, walking away from my bed after lovemaking, heading for the bathroom with a sheet awkwardly wrapped around her, her lovely back and backside exposed. And Marie and me on the couch, both of us reading; she's lying down, her skirt is above her knees, her legs are across my lap, and I am absentmindedly rubbing her feet.\n\nWe were so comfortable and established as a couple that we could, like real husbands and wives, presume permanence in our relationship without discussing it. So it was only natural that Marie should walk into the apartment one October day and announce, as a wife would to a husband, \"I think I'm pregnant.\"\n\nHere is what I should have done. I should have turned off the radio (the Yankees were playing the Cardinals in the World Series), walked over to her (she was standing at the entrance to the tiny kitchen, one hand on each side of the door frame, as if she were bracing herself for my reception of the news), taken her in my arms, and said, Wonderful. Terrific. Let's go talk to Pastor Shoup over at Christus Rex right now and tell him we want to get married. You don't need your parents' permission, and I know I can get either my mother or my father to say yes without any trouble. And then we'll go on with our lives and nothing will change except we'll be married and that's what we're going to be anyway. No attempts to be clever or eloquent. Just simple, straightforward talk, without pose or artifice.\n\nBut though Marie's announcement should have come as no surprise\u2014we had always been inconsistently careful about birth control, and during the previous year we had become even more lax about the matter\u2014I was shocked. In my contentment I had become complacent to the point of intransigence\u2014I liked things just the way they were. Fittingly, I remained seated while Marie stood less than two yards away. In attempting not to demonstrate that I had been jolted, I tried for cool.\n\nI asked the question that men have asked for millennia, and, next to \"Is it mine?\" it must be the one that women hate most to hear. \"Are you sure?\"\n\nHer shrug said that she would try for a nonchalance to match mine.\n\nThere was still time for me to say or do something that would help close the distance between us. But there was another reason for my cool, and it came out in my next question. \"Is this any different from before?\"\n\nMarie cocked her head quizzically. \"Before?\"\n\n\"You know. With Gene. What happened that time?\"\n\nNow it was Marie who stepped closer, but while she sat down across from me, she kept her arms and hands off the table, perhaps to prevent me from reaching over and touching her.\n\n\"That time?\" she asked warily. \"I'm not sure I know what we're talking about.\"\n\n\"Hey, it's okay. I know all about it. He told me on his mom's wedding day. Asked me if I'd be his best man. He wasn't exactly overjoyed at the prospect of being a father, but he was ready to do the right thing.\"\n\n\"Was he?\"\n\n\"So when did you realize you . . . you know, that you weren't pregnant. That time.\"\n\nMarie pointed to my cigarettes. Instead of just taking one from the pack, she said, \"May I?\"\n\n\"Help yourself.\"\n\nFor the next few moments Marie did nothing but bring the cigarette to her lips and inhale and exhale, directing forceful plumes of smoke toward the low ceiling. I suppose I might have said something, but it seemed as though the right of next comment had been reserved in her name. Throughout this silent time she often stared right at me, and rather haughtily it seemed to me, something I was prepared to note if a quarrel broke out.\n\nShe eventually looked away\u2014into the cracked and chipped soup bowl we used for an ashtray\u2014and that was the moment when she began to speak.\n\n\"It took me a moment to remember when the wedding was . . . when you say Gene told you. But it's coming back to me. Yes, I was once late with my period, and that could have been the time. That was unusual for me. And I'd been having pains and problems with my period. Something that still happens from time to time, not that you've noticed. I had an appointment to see a gynecologist. So Gene must have let his fear override his brain. After all, he was accustomed to things going badly in his life. But he knew where babies came from, so he had to have known I couldn't have been pregnant. _Could not have been._ \" She leaned over across the table, and the urgency of her words seemed to lift her from her chair. \"Do you understand? _Not possible._ He should have known that . . . that we hadn't done anything that could result in pregnancy. But maybe he had some confused notions about human anatomy or reproduction. Maybe he believed in virgin birth. Maybe he was simply making up a story just for you, something to impress you. Or depress you. But I do recall that for a few days he wore this look like his world was about to end. Not unlike the look you have right now.\" She sat back down.\n\n\"The Yankees are losing. Maybe that's what you see.\"\n\n\"That's very funny.\"\n\nI lit a cigarette of my own.\n\n\"But all jokes and sports talk aside, I have to make sure: You understand what I'm telling you, don't you? I could not have been pregnant. _I could not have been._ Not then. Not anytime Gene and I were together. It was not possible. We did some things . . . and we would have done more if he had had his way. God knows he tried. But you were the first. Do you understand? The first. The _only._.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Maybe you need to know what Gene and I did? What happened that might have let him think\u2014wrongly, stupidly\u2014that I could have been pregnant?\"\n\n\"That's okay.\"\n\n\"No, that you wouldn't want to know, would you? Instead of the truth, you'd rather have your own version of things. Your own fantasies. After all, you could have asked me anytime. God knows you've asked me enough questions about the past. But you've always cared more about what was impossible to know than what you could know. You're as haunted by the past\u2014part of the past\u2014as Gene was. But _his_ ghosts were forced on him. He didn't choose them.\"\n\nIf it weren't for that remark, I might have allowed myself to be chastened, and, repentant, I might have done exactly what the moment called for\u2014apologized and asked for Marie's forgiveness. After all, I believed her. There was never a moment when I didn't believe her. Never. But when she compared me to Gene, I became angry.\n\n\"Okay. So now I have two versions of the past. Another chance to choose.\"\n\nShe crushed her cigarette out so forcefully the bowl jumped and skidded across the table. Long after the cigarette was extinguished she kept jabbing the butt into the ashes. When she finally looked up, her eyes were flaring with fury, and even her tears had no power to put out the blaze. \"You know what?\" she said. \"Fuck you. Just _fuck you._.\"\n\nBefore I could make a move to stop her, she pushed violently back from the table, and stood, toppling her chair in the process.\n\nEarlier I mentioned images that branded themselves on my memory because of their frequency. Here is one I carry because of its singularity: The apartment is tiny, but Marie manages to gain running speed as she heads toward the door. Although her progress is nothing but forward, away from me, her shoulder-length hair\u2014brown in her first few strides but closer to red as she dashes through a shaft of sunlight that has found its angled way through a ground-level window\u2014waves from side to side as she runs. Similarly, the motion of her plaid wool skirt is lateral as she runs.\n\nWounded pride and self-righteous anger kept me tethered to the apartment for an hour or two, and then I left in search of Marie.\n\n_Because of what happened at his tenth high school reunion,_ _Raymond Stoddard did not want to attend his twentieth. But in_ _the first week of January, the representatives of Wembley High_ _School's class of 1941 sent out invitations to their forty-six fellow_ _graduates, and Raymond's wife, Alma, immediately marked_ _off on their calendar the days in August when the reunion_ _would take place. Raymond knew he could do nothing to dissuade her from making plans for them to attend, or to make her_ _understand why he didn't want to go._\n\n_Right from the start everything about the ten-year reunion_ _had been wrong, wrong, wrong. First of all, the planners decided_ _to hold the event in conjunction with the Catholic high_ _school's reunion, and in the process ignored the fact that the_ _two schools had been rivals, not allies. Next, the band, such as_ _it was\u2014piano, bass, drums, and trumpet\u2014played music popular_ _during the war years, neglecting the obvious fact that in the_ _spring of 1941 the United States' entry into the war was seven_ _months away. Over the course of the evening, Raymond noted_ _renditions of, among others, \"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree,\"_ _\"You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To,\" and \"They're Either_ _Too Young or Too Old.\" His fellow classmates, however, applauded_ _those songs as if the songs had actually furnished the_ _score to their high school years. Twice the band played \"Skylark.\"_ _Raymond knew that song had come out in 1942, because_ _he remembered exactly where he was when he first heard it. He_ _had left Wembley on the train with a small group of friends and_ _acquaintances, new recruits like himself, and all of them bound_ _for Kansas and basic training. The train had a stopover in St. Paul, and Raymond got off to stretch his legs. He had never ridden_ _a train for that distance before, and he had never been that_ _far east. He walked up and down the platform, never straying_ _more than three cars from his own, breathing in the odor of_ _diesel fumes, and listening to a song that came from somewhere_ _inside the station. Its melody was both melancholy and expectant,_ _and in that regard served as the perfect signature for his_ _state of being. He would hear the song often enough in the fu_ _ture that he would soon know its name and composer, and the_ _versions he favored. While he stood on the platform listening, a_ _thin, cold rain fell, and Raymond felt as if he were already in a_ _foreign country._\n\n_It was raining on the night of the ten-year reunion dance_ _too. The preceding week had been exceptionally warm and the_ _summer of 1951 exceedingly dry, so when the rain began, it was_ _treated as another cause for celebration on a night when most_ _people's spirits were already high and their moods festive. The_ _dance was held in the high school gymnasium, and not only the_ _gym's doors but the school's outer doors were thrown open to_ _take advantage of the rain-cooled air. In fact, couples almost_ _immediately began dancing their way out of the gym and into_ _the cooler, darker school corridor, often swaying in time to the_ _music right next to the double doors propped open to the night._\n\n_In Raymond's view the weather was to blame for what occurred_ _that night, though he was willing to concede that things_ _might have ended as they did even without the rain._\n\n_Throughout the evening, in dance after dance, partner-switching_ _had been customary. Not only men but women too_ _felt free to cut in on other couples, and the intent behind this activity_ _was often to restore couples who had dated in high_ _school. The husbands and wives who were not from Wembley,_ _and the unmarried men and women, good-naturedly went along_ _with the constant realignment of couples._\n\n_For most of their high school years, Alma had dated Monty_ _Burnham, the most popular boy in school. Their relationship_ _was so long and durable that their classmates assumed that_ _Monty and Alma would someday marry. But the romance_ _foundered, for the rumored reason that Monty \"got too serious.\"_ _And though they each went on to marry other people\u2014_ _Raymond and a girl from Grand Forks\u2014there still seemed_ _something fated about them\u2014the class president and the prettiest_ _girl\u2014being together._\n\n_That would certainly explain why, when Monty cut in on_ _Raymond, laughter, cheers, and applause spontaneously erupted_ _from their classmates._\n\n_Playing to the approving crowd, Monty danced off with_ _Alma, whirling, spinning, exaggeratedly swinging their arms,_ _moving them off together with speeded-up, elongated steps, as if_ _they were waltzing around a nineteenth-century ballroom,_ _though Monty paid no attention to the rhythm of the actual_ _music. The song in fact was, as Raymond remembered well,_ _\"Begin the Beguine,\" one of the few instances when the band_ _accurately matched the music to their high school years, though_ _not to the year of their graduation. Alma's expression\u2014her unrestrained_ _smile, her astonished laughter\u2014made it plain that she_ _enjoyed being part of the show._\n\n_Once they exited the gym, they kept right on going, into the_ _night, into the steady rain. Other couples followed their example,_ _and soon half the reunion crowd was dancing exuberantly_ _on the high school's soggy lawn. Out there they certainly_ _couldn't hear the music anymore, but it didn't matter. Their_ _laughter would have drowned out the band anyway._\n\n_Raymond stood in the doorway, dry and watching it all. Or_ _trying to. The rain was a heavy veil that made it difficult to tell_ _one dancing couple from another. He thought he was able to_ _keep track of Monty and Alma, but he couldn't be sure\u2014so_ _many of the men wore dark suits and white shirts, and Alma_ _was one of three women who came to the reunion in a light_ _blue dress, and that blue turned dark when it became wet._\n\n_Finally, Raymond turned away. He didn't want to do what_ _he felt like doing\u2014running out into the rain, grabbing Alma by_ _the arm, and hauling her away from Monty Burnham and the_ _entire reunion. Behavior like that would only reveal him to be_ _more or less what he was\u2014a humorless, jealous fool._\n_Instead, putting on an expression that he hoped would be_ _read as sophisticated nonchalance, he strolled back to the gym,_ _shaking his head in amusement over his classmates' antics._\n\n_He walked to the refreshments table. There, two identical_ _punch bowls were set up. One container of pink liquid, however,_ _had been spiked with Everclear, and Raymond assumed_ _this was the nearly empty bowl. He hadn't had anything to_ _drink all evening, but now he scooped out a full cup, lit a cigarette,_ _and waited under the backboard of one of the gym's two_ _baskets for his wife to reappear. The net had been removed_ _from the rim, and Raymond wondered if that had been done_ _just for this occasion or if it had been taken down for the summer._ _The cr\u00eape-paper decorations that had been hung the length_ _of the court had gone limp from humidity._\n\n_At the other end of the gym stood a cluster of men talking,_ _Raymond was sure, about the war and their roles in it. Raymond_ _was entitled to join the group, but he had tired of war_ _stories and their distortions before the war was even over. On_ _more than one occasion he had listened to accounts of battles_ _on the very day they'd been fought, battles that Raymond himself_ _had been in, and he invariably found those reports, like the_ _songs played at the reunion, false. Yet those storytellers weren't_ _necessarily lying; they were simply trying to make sense of the_ _senselessness they'd lived through, and in the process warped_ _the truth for the sake of their tales._\n\n_His cigarette burned down to the filter. Raymond had been_ _willing to flick his ashes onto the gymnasium's floor, but he_ _didn't want to crush out the butt on the varnished hardwood. He considered returning to the outside door. There he could_ _throw his cigarette out into the rain and hope that it might seem_ _his only reason for going there. Instead he walked over to the_ _water fountain outside the locker room door and deposited his_ _cigarette there. There must have been twenty butts already_ _sticking wetly to the porcelain._\n\n_Monty and Alma were by now the only couple who had not_ _yet returned from their dance in the rain. Raymond surveyed_ _the gym for Mrs. Burnham, wondering if she was as troubled_ _and curious over her spouse's absence as Raymond was. She,_ _however, was involved in a raucous conversation with four_ _other women, one of them so pregnant she looked as though_ _she might give birth at any moment. In what must have been a_ _joking reference to her condition, the woman opened her eyes_ _wide and puffed out her cheeks. The other women laughed uproariously._\n\n_The band began to play its rickety rendition of \"Moonlight_ _Serenade,\" another of the few examples of songs that really_ _were popular when they were in school, though Monty and_ _Alma would have been more likely to dance to it than Raymond_ _and Alma._\n\n_And just at that moment Alma entered the gym. Her dress_ _was soaked, and while its skirt was wrinkled and shapeless_ _below her waist, the fabric above clung shamelessly to her_ _torso. Her hair hung down in wet tendrils. Alma wore a bewildered_ _expression, and perhaps she'd been crying, but then again_ _the rain might have created that effect. In each hand she carried_ _a shoe. Raymond made no move to approach her or signal his_ _presence._\n\n_Eventually of course Alma saw him standing under the basket,_ _and she began to hurry toward his end of the gym. Alma_ _had not been a cheerleader in high school, but she ran across_ _the gym floor just as she might have after leading a cheer for the_ _home team. And Mrs. Burnham and the other women in her_ _group regarded Alma as coolly as high school girls might have_ _watched a cheerleader for a rival team._\n\n_Before Alma reached him, Raymond decided that she had_ _allowed Monty Burnham to fuck her somewhere out there in_ _the rain. When she came close to him and stood on her tiptoes_ _to kiss his cheek, Raymond looked over her shoulder, examining_ _the back of her dress for mud or grass stains, evidence that she_ _had been lying on her back on the wet ground. The fabric was_ _only wet, but Raymond told himself that didn't mean anything._ _She and Monty might have done the deed in the backseat of a_ _car or leaning up against the school's bricks. Not that it mattered._ _. . . In his mind Raymond had moved into the realm_ _where neither logic nor fact was necessary for belief to be sustained._\n\n_Because she might admit it, he didn't ask Alma if she had_ _just had sex with Monty Burnham. And he didn't ask her because_ _she might deny it. From that moment forward, Raymond_ _Stoddard would live as a man of faith._\n\n_A few minutes later, Monty entered the gym. He stood at_ _center court, gazed expectantly up at the ceiling, and turned up_ _both palms. It seemed to Raymond that men especially found_ _Monty's act humorous._\n\n _For ten years Raymond did nothing in thought or action that_ _might alter his conviction about what had happened between_ _his wife and Monty Burnham. Indeed, he learned how he could_ _make practical use of it, particularly in his sexual relations with_ _Alma. If he felt no desire for her he could justify his rejection of_ _her by reminding himself that she had been unfaithful to him. And when that same thought\u2014Alma being fucked by another_ _man\u2014oddly stirred Raymond, he could make love to his wife_ _with a passion that was equal parts passion and anger. Have sex_ _with him, will you\u2014take that, and that, and thatthatthat. . . ._\n\n_So of course Alma wanted to attend the twentieth reunion What other opportunity would she have, since they had left_ _Wembley and moved to Bismarck, to renew her relationship_ _with her former lover? And of course Raymond was determined_ _that they not go. He could not face the possibility that another_ _man would once again dance off with his wife. Yet without_ _speaking to Alma of his belief, what could he possibly say or do_ _that would explain his unwillingness to reunite with his classmates?_\n\n_For months he worried the problem. Then, one night while_ _he was watching an episode of_ Peter Gunn, _a solution came to_ _him. He had been drinking beer since he'd come home from_ _work, and alcohol in any form often allowed his thoughts to_ _travel into orbits they could never reach when he was sober. It_ _was so simple, really. He could get a gun, Raymond reasoned,_ _and kill Monty Burnham. The notion had barely formed itself_ _when he laughed out loud at its ridiculousness. Alma heard him_ _and came in to ask him what was so funny. Raymond gestured_ _vaguely in the direction of the television._\n\n_Barely a week later that coldly murderous thought revisited_ _Raymond. He was sober this time, and though he laughed once_ _again, after a few seconds his laughter halted as abruptly as if a_ _hand had clutched his throat. The next time, he didn't laugh at_ _all._\n\nThis story could be read as another chapter in the lives of the Monty Burnham and Raymond and Alma Stoddard that have been revealed through the other fictions in these pages. Indeed, those fictional characters perhaps have more substance than the real people. The stories allow access to their inner lives, something that life generally won't offer. But notice that \"Reunion\" (published in the magazine _Windsong_ ) says nothing about Killeen, Texas, and what occurred in the fictional bathroom of a fictional hotel between a fictional Monty Burnham and a fictional Alma Stoddard. It contains no reference to a wartime confession or a confrontation between two soldiers, and of course I have no evidence that either event occurred. In fact, the narrative has no basis in any reality I'm aware of except that Raymond, Monty, and Alma graduated from the same high school in the same year. But I suspect that the story had its origin in the emotions I experienced that October when Marie vanished so suddenly from my life.\n\nAfter Marie ran from my apartment, I looked everywhere but couldn't find her. Not in the library, not in the student union. Not in the registrar's office, where she had a work-study job. Not on the banks of the English Coulee, where she sometimes sat and watched the water's slow swirl and flow. I phoned Blackmore Hall, Marie's dorm, but was told she wasn't in her room. I called Jackie Rickinger, Marie's friend from Bismarck who lived in another dormitory. She hadn't seen Marie since their Educational Psychology class that morning. I went to Neville Hall, the home of the education department, and walked up and down the corridor where the faculty had its offices, believing that she might be conferring with a professor. After I made all those rounds, I went back and visited or called each site again. And then again.\n\nIn spite of my search's futility I was confident that I'd find Marie and sure that she would accept my apology. Because he had once meant something to both of us and because of his hard-luck history, I had always been careful to temper any remarks I made about Gene Stoddard. But no more. As part of my contrition I would gladly portray him as a lout and a liar. Further, I was certain that I could convince her, because this was now my belief, that I regarded the news of her pregnancy as cause for celebration. If I found her soon enough, I'd propose that we commemorate the occasion with a steak dinner at the Bronze Boot.\n\nBut when the curfew for women arrived at ten o'clock (men had no restriction on their hours), I was pacing the sidewalk in front of Marie's dormitory, and I still hadn't seen her or heard from her.\n\nThe receptionist at Blackmore Hall was in my Shakespeare class. Phyllis. Stout, stringy-haired, earnest Phyllis Orr . . . After flattering her with questions about _King Lear_ and the upcoming exam, I finally persuaded her to reveal that Marie had checked out of the dorm hours earlier. On the form where she signed out, she listed her parents' address and phone number as her location until Sunday afternoon at five o'clock.\n\nMarie had no car. No train ran between Grand Forks and Bismarck, and the bus left much earlier in the day. It seemed unlikely that anyone with whom Marie could ride would leave for Bismarck on a Thursday afternoon or evening. Those factors helped me decide: I wouldn't drive to Bismarck that night\u2014no matter how hard I pushed the Studebaker, I wouldn't arrive before three A.M.\u2014but if I didn't hear from Marie before morning, I would leave then.\n\nI slept little that night, so when dawn came, I didn't waste any time. I tossed a hastily packed suitcase into the trunk and hit the highway. Less than five hours later, I was in Bismarck, and before I went to my own home, I drove to Marie's.\n\nAs soon as Mrs. Ryan answered the door, I immediately knew my being there was a mistake. I had not only Marie's accounts but the evidence of my own eyes to know how Mrs. Ryan had struggled with alcohol over the years. A nervous, high-strung woman, she used her worries, real or imagined, as her justification for drinking, so when I asked if Marie was there and Mrs. Ryan's eyes widened with her answer\u2014\"Isn't she in Grand Forks? With you?\"\u2014I realized that I simultaneously had caused her to be apprehensive about her daughter and had given her a reason for pouring herself a stiff drink. Stammering, I tried to say something that would allay her concerns. \"I-I'm sure that's where she is. But when I told her I was coming to Bismarck for the weekend, she said maybe she'd follow me here. I was sure she was joking, but I thought I'd check just to be sure. I'm sorry I bothered you.\" Mrs. Ryan habitually chewed her fingernails to the quick, and before I backed away from the door, she had the tip of her little finger between her teeth.\n\nMy mother too was skeptical of my reason for coming home. \"I needed a little break,\" I told her. \"You know, sleep in my own bed. Eat a home-cooked meal.\"\n\nBy that time my parents were living apart, and my mother had perhaps developed the ability to read the signs of a troubled heart in the faces of her family's men. \"Are you and Marie having difficulties?\" she asked.\n\nI couldn't manage a response any more convincing than, \"Nothing serious. We'll work it out.\"\n\nThroughout the day I drove by Marie's house, hoping I'd see her in the yard, in a window. When I wasn't driving, I was back at my mother's house or in the phone booth next to the Mobil station, calling Grand Forks\u2014Marie's dorm, Jackie Rickinger's room, my apartment. I gave my roommate my mother's telephone number and ordered him to phone there immediately if Marie, if any female, should call. Finally, late in the afternoon, self-conscious of my many circuits of the Ryans' block, I parked a short distance away and continued my watch from the car.\n\nI'm not sure how long I sat there but it was with no sign of Marie. In the gutter in front of his house a neighbor of the Ryans' burned a pile of prematurely fallen leaves. The air was still, and since the block was canopied with trees, the leaf smoke didn't rise very high. It hovered over the street until evening dusk arrived, and then, mingling, the smoke and the dusk completed the task of bringing autumn darkness to the block. I drove away in defeat.\n\nSince it seemed as though it had lately become my habit to distress mothers and mothers-to-be, I decided to risk disturbing one more. After parking my car in front of my mother's home, I walked down to the house that would always be the Stoddards' to me.\n\nAlma Stoddard\u2014I could never get used to her as Mrs. Mauer\u2014answered the door, and I had barely uttered a word of greeting, much less offered a reason for my visit, before she embraced me and ushered me inside.\n\nThe living room was little changed from the room I had spent so many hours in as a child. The console television was now a color set _\u2014The Wild Wild West_ was on\u2014and on top of the TV, Gene's graduation portrait joined his sister's. In place of the wing-backed chair where Mr. Stoddard used to sit there was now a Naugahyde recliner. This was where Gene's mother insisted I sit. She pulled up a footstool and sat at my feet.\n\nShe was even thinner than when I had last seen her, and the vestiges of her beauty had vanished with those pounds. Her dark hair was shot through with gray, and her eyes were sunken and dim, like a votive candle's flame guttering in its own liquid before it goes out. Creases ran down from the corners of her mouth. The smile she struggled to shine on me, however, seemed genuine, and genuine too seemed her interest in my college career.\n\nAfter I told her about the courses I was taking and my possible plans for graduate school or law school (no longer a serious ambition but one I still occasionally expressed, especially on Keogh Street), she said, \"I hope Gene changes his mind and applies for college one day.\"\n\n\"He still has time. There's a woman in my Modern Drama class in her sixties.\"\n\n\"I remember when the two of you used to sit at the kitchen table and work on your arithmetic together. . . . He's certainly smart enough to attend college. . . .\"\n\n\"Sure, he is.\"\n\n\"But he doesn't have the discipline. And you need discipline, don't you? Brains and discipline?\" She bent toward me, eager for confirmation of her theories on educational success.\n\n\"I suppose. . . .\"\n\n\"A chemist. I always thought Gene would make a good chemist.\"\n\n\"He would. . . .\"\n\n\"But when he and the Ryan girl broke up, something went out of him. He just couldn't get himself back on track.\"\n\nHer sense of causality was off. Gene's derailment coincided with his father's suicide and subsequent notoriety, but I didn't correct her.\n\nMrs. Stoddard turned and gazed toward the kitchen, remembering perhaps the hours Gene and I had spent hunched over our homework there. Her choice of subject was appropriate; while math problems stubbornly resisted my efforts to solve them, numbers gave up their secrets quickly to Gene. Then she sat up straight on her stool and coolly said, \"And your life is on track, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I guess.\"\n\n\"Completely on track. Of course it is. College. Plans for the future. A girlfriend. She's still your girlfriend, isn't she?\"\n\nAlthough at the moment I was unsure of that fact, I nodded.\n\n\"He kept calling her. . . . My God, how long did he call her, trying to talk her into taking him back?\" She looked again in the direction of the kitchen. Their telephone, I recalled, hung on the wall next to the cupboard. \"It reached the point where I thought of calling her myself. Can you imagine that? I don't know what I would have said. . . . And I even suggested that he call you, his old friend.\" Alma Stoddard turned a mirthless smile in my direction. \"But he wouldn't do that.\"\n\nI couldn't think of anything to say in my defense.\n\n\"Only later did I realize how foolish that suggestion was. Because you weren't his old friend anymore, were you? You weren't about to help him with _that_ problem, were you?\"\n\nI stood abruptly. \"I have to go, Mrs. Stod\u2014Mrs. Mauer. I'm home for the weekend, so I thought I'd see if Gene might be here. Does he have his own place here in town?\"\n\nAlma Stoddard didn't rise. She cupped her chin in her hand as if she were bracing herself. \"He's living in Minot now. Working for his uncle's construction company up there.\" She quite deliberately did not look at me.\n\nI thanked her and without escort left the house. Keogh Street in those years was largely treeless, yet just as in Marie's neighborhood, someone in the vicinity was burning leaves. I could smell the fire, though I couldn't see smoke or flames. Why that smell is regarded so fondly is beyond me. It is, after all, the odor of endings.\n\nThe following day, Saturday, I was once again on the road soon after sunrise, driving up Highway 83 from Bismarck to Minot. The early start was necessary. I wasn't sure how I'd find Gene, but I was prepared to drive up and down every street in the city until I sighted that distinctive white convertible of his. And when\u2014or if\u2014I came upon it? Then I would seek out its owner, and determine if he had recently driven to Grand Forks in response to a call from a Miss Marie Ryan, who required rescue or refuge from the fool who had fathered her child.\n\nAs it turned out, Gene was not nearly as difficult to locate as I'd feared. I stopped at a gas station on the south end of the city, opened a telephone directory, and there it was: G. Stoddard, 17051\u00bd Arapaho, KL5-2232. The station attendant provided directions to an avenue on the city's hilly north side.\n\nWe were no longer friends, Gene and I, but our lives continued to parallel in odd ways: We both continued to live in North Dakota, not in our hometown but in cities in the state's northern half, and we had both rented basement apartments. His white Impala was parked in front of a stucco house that had a covered apartment entrance built into its side like a chute.\n\nThe convertible's top was down, and when I peered into its interior, I guessed that it had been left down all night. The day might have been warm for October, but the night had been cool and the car's dashboard and upholstery were, at that late morning hour, still beaded with dew. Gene must have had matters more important than his car's welfare on his mind when he pulled to the curb.\n\nWith my palm still wet from where it swiped a path through the moisture on the car door, I marched on. The leaves littering the stairwell clattered like castanets as I kicked through them on my way down the steps to the apartment. I had not quite reached the door when I tried to formulate a plan that good sense would have said I'd needed well before I got that far.\n\nIf Gene admitted that Marie was inside\u2014or if his denial was unconvincing\u2014I was prepared to push past him and . . . and what? Haul her bodily from the apartment? Carry her to my car and transport her back to Grand Forks against her will? I could as well put what love she might still have for me on a chopping block and butcher it before her eyes.\n\nBut I had gotten that far, and I heard in the apartment's interior someone moving toward the door in answer to the buzzer I had already pushed twice and was about to lean on again.\n\nIt was probably not my desperate, bloody thoughts that somehow showed in my features and frightened the young woman who came to the door. More likely it was simply the sight of a stranger.\n\n\"Yes?\" She peered around the door she was willing to open only inches. I guessed her to be close to Gene's and my age. Her blond hair was tousled, she wore no makeup, and her eyes were still heavy-lidded from sleep.\n\n\"I'm looking for Gene, Gene Stoddard?\"\n\nNothing in my manner apparently conveyed goodwill, because she didn't open the door any wider or alter her guarded expression. \"He's at work?\"\n\n\"I saw his car. . . .\"\n\n\"Len picked him up? Like always?\"\n\nShe made every sentence into a question, a mannerism I adopted as well. \"I'm a friend of his? From Bismarck?\" In my case, however, the tone matched my dubiety.\n\nEither the word \"friend\" or \"Bismarck\" convinced her of my harmlessness. She opened the door and stepped back, an invitation for me to enter.\n\nMy mission to Minot was completed. Marie and this young woman could not have both been at 1705\u00bd Arapaho. Nevertheless, I felt too foolish at that point simply to walk away. I stepped into Gene Stoddard's home.\n\nHis place was not furnished any better than mine, but without Marie Ryan's touch, it had nothing to raise it above the level of slovenly, threadbare utilitarianism. The couch was covered with newspapers. Empty Hamm's beer cans littered the top of the coffee table. A bent coat hanger served as an antenna on the television that sat on a chair. The room smelled of cigarette smoke and motor oil\u2014Gene must have been operating heavy equipment for his uncle's company.\n\nThe young woman reached out her hand. \"I'm Joy?\" After we shook hands, she stepped quickly back and folded her arms across her chest, self-conscious because nothing covered her ample breasts but her pink cotton pajama top. Her plaid pajama bottoms didn't match the top and barely reached her ankles. Joy and Gene slept together. In the same bed. All the night through. Head to dreaming head.\n\nJoy had a pretty round face and a plump, shapely figure. She was self-conscious about her hair, but whenever she made a tentative move to reach up and pull her fingers through the tangles, she had to quickly bring her arm back down to cover her breasts.\n\n\"Are you from Minot, Joy?\"\n\nShe nodded eagerly. \"I work at First National? Bank?\"\n\n\"And Gene's working for his uncle?\" Raymond Stoddard, I recalled, also once worked for the construction company owned by Alma's brother.\n\n\"He really likes it? He says it reminds him of when he was a kid? Digging in the dirt with his toy Caterpillar?\"\n\nHis play must have been solitary. I had no recollection of the two of us on our hands and knees pushing dirt around.\n\n\"What will he do when winter comes?\"\n\nHer shoulders rose as automatically as the ends of her sentences, an embarrassed shrug that made me think she and Gene didn't talk much about the future.\n\n\"Well. Winter. It's not here yet, is it?\" That mention of time, though it was to a season rather than the hour, provided me with the opportunity to make my exit. I pretended to look at the watch I didn't wear. \"I have to hit the road. I was just driving through Minot, and I thought I'd take a chance and see if I could catch Gene.\"\n\n\"He'll be sorry he missed you?\"\n\nYes, that was open to question.\n\nI was halfway out the door when I realized I had left something unsaid. \"I hope you and Gene have a very, very happy life together.\"\n\nThat sentence I had no difficulty ending on a dying note of conviction.\n\nUpon the new planks and between the freshly painted columns, my father stood, hands on hips, a happy man on the porch of the house he and his brother had worked so hard to restore. His smile was as wide as any I'd ever seen cross his face, and though it was turned in my direction, I would learn soon that I was not the reason my father was beaming as if lit from within.\n\nThe highway that led from Minot back to Grand Forks ran right through Wembley, so I'd phoned ahead and asked my father if I could stop there and spend the night with him and Uncle Burt. Of course, of course, he said; it would be wonderful to see me and hear firsthand how I was doing in college.\n\nWhile I carried my suitcase up the front walk, Uncle Burt came out too, and both brothers watched me approach. Whether it was Burt or my father who was in charge of preparing their meals, the food must have agreed with my father. Since he and my mother had separated, he had gained weight, and now the brothers truly looked brothers\u2014a matched pair of tall, smiling, balding big-bellied men. There it was, I thought, the body of my future.\n\nMy father and uncle were both eager to show me the work they had done on the house, but before we went inside, we had to walk around the outside of the house so they could show me what was _not_ there but had been in their youth\u2014the outhouse, the poles that first brought electricity and then telephone service to the house, the huge garden whose harvest fed them throughout the year, the pit and the barrel in which the family burned much of its trash, and the barn where their father stabled his horse and the small buggy it pulled through the streets of Wembley.\n\nUpon entering the house, I was immediately taken on another tour, and as we moved from room to room, the brothers continued to take turns telling me about the remodeling work. They had even tried to furnish the house according to their memories. My father, who had never shown the slightest interest in the way my mother decorated our home, now boasted about how the iron bed frame in the largest bedroom was just like the one that once held their parents' mattress, which had also been covered with a blue coverlet. The rocking chair in the parlor was a duplicate of the one their father had sat in while reading the _Wembley Daily_ _News_ after working all day at the drugstore.\n\nThen, once I had been shown the claw-foot bathtub, the wainscoting, the newel post, the coved ceiling, the brass doorknobs, and the leaded glass windows, the three of us sat down at the dining room table (its mahogany surface gleaming like a mirror). For the first time in my life, my father offered me a beer. I accepted, and then as we three men who shared a last name raised our bottles of Budweiser, my father revealed that he and his brother had at long last solved the mystery of Raymond Stoddard's motivation for murdering Monty Burnham, or so they believed.\n\nRaymond's father, I was reminded, had worked for the railroad, a job that didn't make him wealthy but provided a steady income and a comfortable life for his family. In fact, they were sufficiently well fixed that the senior Mr. Stoddard was able to purchase a vacation place, rare indeed among North Dakotans of that generation. Their little cabin was on a lake in northeastern North Dakota, not far from Wembley.\n\nI recalled that Gene often lamented having to spend two weeks of his summer at Lake Liana. It meant he had to miss part of the Little League season, and to make matters worse, there was nothing he particularly liked to do at the lake. Fishing didn't appeal to him, and that was the activity his grandfather and father engaged in from dawn to dark. Whenever Gene's grandmother saw him idle, she would put him to work, doing everything from hauling water to picking blueberries. His grandparents were strict and insisted that the lights be turned out early every evening and that everyone go to bed in order to rise early the following morning. For Gene, the time spent at the cabin was more punishment than vacation.\n\nGene's feelings about the place were not, however, the family's feelings. Everyone else loved the cabin, no matter how dilapidated it was or how primitive living conditions were there. After his retirement from the railroad, the senior Stoddard managed to spend as much time there as in Wembley.\n\nUntil, that is, his and his wife's health began to fail. She developed a heart condition that made even walking across a room a venture that taxed her to the limit. His bones became brittle; he fell and broke a hip. A coughing fit cracked a rib. He shrunk and stiffened; bending down or raising an arm overhead was next to impossible. Then, as if to make his diminution complete, his wife died, and his spirit shrunk to match his body.\n\nGiven those circumstances, his beloved Lake Liana might as well have been on the far side of the moon, so inaccessible was it to him. Others now spent vacations at the cabin that he had worked to make livable, and upon their return he had to listen to their reports on how many fish they'd caught, how many glorious sunsets they'd witnessed, how bracing was the morning air.\n\nHis health worsened. Pneumonia put him into the hospital, and as he lay in the room he believed he might never leave alive, a visitor came and presented Mr. Stoddard with a business proposition.\n\nSince the old man would never again cast a line into Lake Liana or spend a night under the cabin's roof, and since he could not divide the place equally among his sons and daughter, who were in any event liable to squabble over the property after their father was dead, wouldn't Mr. Stoddard prefer to sell it himself and thereby exercise some control over the cabin's future? If you sell it to me, the visitor argued\u2014pleaded\u2014you can be sure that the cabin will be as well cared for\u2014as loved\u2014as it has been with a Stoddard as owner. The visitor even shed a few tears as part of his petition.\n\nThe old man was sufficiently selfish and grudging that this appeal worked on him. From his hospital bed he signed the papers that deeded the cabin and the waterfront land on which it sat to his visitor. The salesman\u2014swindler, some might have it\u2014who talked Mr. Stoddard into this transaction paid the dying old man exactly what the original purchase price had been.\n\nWhen Raymond learned of the sale, he was furious, but though plenty of people told him he could have the deal nullified\u2014an enfeebled old man in a hospital, for God's sake!\u2014Raymond refused to do anything. If his father was going to be that petty, then he, then the entire family, would have to live with the consequences.\n\nLike his father, Raymond had loved the cabin, and as long as his father was alive, Raymond blamed him for what he had done. Once the senior Stoddard died, however, Raymond transferred his rage to the man who had talked the old man out of his property. That smooth-talking son of a bitch was none other than Monty Burnham.\n\nMy father sat back, and then it was left to my uncle to explain the sources and the evidence that they had uncovered and relied on in piecing together their story.\n\nTheir research started, strangely enough, on the occasion of my high school graduation. Burt had been at our home when the news came of Bob Mullen's drowning at the river, and the tragedy brought back to him his own graduation celebration. It too had been held by a body of water, though one much more benign than the Missouri River. The family of one of his classmates had a cabin on a lake about forty miles from Wembley, and they convened there for a night of bonfires and beer drinking. Burt could recall many of the specifics of that evening\u2014including an altercation between two classmates\u2014but for the life of him, he couldn't remember whose family owned the land that was the site of the celebration. Ordinarily he might have been able to live with his curiosity unsatisfied, but for some reason this little mystery nagged at him.\n\nHe went for long drives in the country around Wembley, searching for the cabin or the lake. Finally, on the shores of tiny Lake Liana, he found what might have been the site of his graduation night celebration. The cabin, however, looked much different from the way he remembered it, and he might have marked that down to another of memory's inaccuracies, except that memory usually tricks us by enlarging the buildings of our past. We return to our elementary school classroom or high school auditorium, and we're shocked to discover how small it is. Then Burt realized what had caused the disjunction between memory and reality. The cabin had recently been remodeled and was almost doubled in size because of an additional story having been added.\n\nDorling was the little town nearest Lake Liana, and a gas station attendant there was able to tell Burt who owned the cabin. It was the Burnham family. Of course\u2014that made sense. After all, Monty was in the same graduating class, so it would stand to reason that the Burnham cabin could have been used for the party. Burt had a vague memory of Monty on that occasion\u2014was he involved in that fight with another classmate? Burt also seemed to recall that it was Monty who departed early from the party. But he wouldn't have left his own family's cabin, would he?\n\nBut Burt had to live with these uncertainties and inconsistencies until quite recently when he had a chance encounter with another member of the Burnham family. Monty's cousin, Irv Schmitz, came into the pharmacy to have a prescription filled, and Burt asked him what had happened with the cabin. Oh, it was still in the family, Irv said; Monty had been so proud of the deal he'd made to acquire the cabin that no one would ever consider selling it. Monty's sister and her husband had completely remodeled the place, and all the branches of the family took their turns vacationing at Lake Liana. Not much questioning was needed to get Irv to divulge the particulars of Monty's negotiating coup. \"There was nothing,\" Irv said, \"that old Monty appreciated more than talking someone into or out of something.\"\n\nAt that point Burt pushed his chair back, just as my father had earlier when he'd finished his portion of the narrative. And there the brothers sat, two aging fat men finally contented that yesterday was fixed, its mysteries solved, its story complete. Of course any explanation for Raymond Stoddard's behavior that had him acting to avenge the loss of an ancestral property would be especially satisfying to those two. They were, after all, living in their own reclaimed, restored past.\n\nDarkness, which on dwindling autumn days hasn't much patience anyway, could wait no longer and now filled the room. As if any movement required enormous effort, my father partially lifted from his chair, reached up, and twisted on the light above the dining room table before sitting heavily back down. For a moment, we squinted at one another in the sudden illumination as if we were verifying the company we kept. The brothers smiled at me to see that I was one of them.\n\nWith the same abruptness but none of the violence with which Marie rose from my table only days before, I stood. \"I have to go,\" I said. \"Back to Grand Forks.\"\n\n\"You're spending the night,\" my father said. It was not a command but a gentle reminder. My suitcase already stood in the bedroom that had always been reserved for guests.\n\n\"I can't stay.\"\n\nThe brothers regarded me quizzically. I hadn't time to concoct an excuse because I had nothing more than a spontaneous impulse to flee. Yes, the more time that passed with no word from Marie, the more my fear and concern increased, but something additional was working on me\u2014in me\u2014and trying to push me toward the door. I hadn't sufficient time or maturity or wisdom to absorb the lesson Marie had tried to teach me, but perhaps without her recent angry words on the subject I wouldn't have sensed anything wrong in how those brothers lived.\n\nI repeated my words, \"I have to go,\" and both my father and my uncle looked at me strangely, an indication, I hoped, of what I was to them, a stranger, not their kind, not someone who dwelt in the past, whether refashioned or otherwise.\n\n\"We were thinking,\" Uncle Burt said, \"that we'd walk downtown for supper. Get some steaks at the Windmill.\" He spoke so calmly, so mildly, that he must have perceived me to be in an agitated state.\n\n\"I can't. There's . . . there's a . . .\" I started to explain, to _try_ to explain, that a girl was out there somewhere, a girl I had to find. But I stopped short when I realized that I was speaking to men unlikely to understand. My father had left the woman he loved\u2014didn't he? didn't he still love my mother?\u2014for this, this boy's life. And Burt? Well, in the previous few minutes I had suddenly moved much farther down the road toward comprehending my uncle's nature, something that I wouldn't have full understanding of for years to come.\n\n\"I can't stay.\"\n\nThe brothers looked at each other again, and maybe in that instant they both recalled something about youth that they had forgotten, no matter that they were living in the house where they must have first felt youth's passions. \"I'll get his suitcase,\" Burt said.\n\nOr perhaps Burt left us alone so that we could have a father and son talk, during which I would disclose what was troubling me. But I was not interested in anything that might delay my departure.\n\nMy father was the one to snap the silence stretching tauter between us, and he did it with the question that was always his easiest substitute for intimacy. \"Do you need any money?\" He stood and reached for his wallet.\n\nThat question might have been my entr\u00e9e to say, Money? I do indeed need money, and lots of it. I'm getting married and soon. But I had already determined that the distance I had closed that day between my father and me was for nothing more than traveling convenience. \"I'm okay,\" I said.\n\n\"Gas? I believe the only station open today is the Conoco you passed on the way into town.\"\n\n\"I filled up in Minot.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"The Studebaker still does well on mileage?\"\n\n\"Almost as good as your old Rambler.\"\n\nHis faint smile told me that I had pleased him by recalling one of his vehicles. His pleasure would have been diminished if I'd told him that I remembered that car, would _always_ remember that car, because it had been parked in the Stoddards' driveway on that day. I hadn't a single image in my memory cache of his emerald-green Rambler in front of our house.\n\nBurt clumped into the room with my suitcase, I took it from him, and my father and I walked out into the October evening's chill. I opened the trunk and lifted the suitcase in.\n\n\"That theory you have about Monty Burnham cheating old Mr. Stoddard out of his cabin . . . did you tell Mom about it?\"\n\n\"That subject wouldn't be . . .\" He paused, as though his concern for the precision of language was coming back to him. \"An area of interest for her. Not any longer.\"\n\nWhen I drove away, my father was gazing up into the bare branches of a maple tree that overhung the house and no doubt dropped a good many of its leaves onto the roof and into the rain gutters every year. If that tree had been there when he was a boy, it couldn't have been more than a sapling.\n\nBack in Grand Forks I resumed my search for Marie, phoning, driving by, and looking into all the places I had tried only a few days before. I even tried some new locations. Since it was Saturday night, I checked a few bars, though Marie disliked them and their atmosphere. There were undoubtedly parties throughout the city, and while Marie was not averse to attending them, I had no way of knowing where they might be held.\n\nIt was well past midnight when I gave up and returned to my apartment. My roommate was not there, but that was not unusual. Somewhere on campus there was a laboratory he could get into and study in, no matter what the hour. I checked the kitchen table and the stand the telephone sat on to see if he had left a note informing me that Marie had called. There was nothing.\n\nFor many of the hours since Marie had run out, I had been in motion, and that had enabled me to keep my anxieties under control. But once I stopped moving, with no destination or mission but to get up the next morning and begin again, my fears leaped to the fore, and though they had no specific form, that didn't mean they didn't have the power to rattle me right to the core. I didn't believe that Marie would try to harm herself. A quarrel like ours would never be enough to shake her love of and commitment to life. Similarly, she would never contemplate ending the life inside her, even if that had been possible, and, need I remind you, in 1964 abortions were not only illegal but generally unavailable. And while those beliefs might have had their birth in her Catholic background, it wasn't the church that sustained them. She and I had both forsaken the religions we grew up in, and besides, Marie's strongest faith had always been reserved for the values and certainties of her own character. But my fear didn't need sharp definition. I had only to imagine the permanence of what was presently true _\u2014Marie was lost to me\u2014_ to experience a dread unlike any other.\n\nDuring the days and hours and minutes of my futile hunting for Marie, I had begun increasingly to feel like a failure, not as a searcher but as a lover, a mate. I was sure of my love for her, yet I questioned its power\u2014shouldn't it have been strong enough to lead me to her, no matter where she might be?\n\nOn Sunday morning I added a new location to my search circuit. I drove past Saint Michael's Cathedral, making sure I passed when crowds of congregants were exiting. No luck. I had tried libraries, bars, and churches, hometowns and old boyfriends; I had staked out her family and her dormitory, and nothing, not the personal or the institutional, had yielded results. By mid-afternoon the October sky had darkened to a stony gray and a cold autumn wind had begun to blow. I decided to go back to my apartment to try the telephone for a few hours.\n\nAnd there she was. In my kitchen.\n\nMarie Ryan was sitting in the same chair that she had knocked over in her haste to get away from me. On the table in front of her was an educational psychology textbook. A cigarette was burning in the ashtray, and an open Coke was near at hand. She was wearing a floral print blouse and tan corduroy slacks. She had kicked off her shoes.\n\n\"Rob let me in,\" she said. \"And I helped myself to a Coke. I hope you don't mind.\"\n\nI had driven her away by failing to respond as I should have to the news she had brought me, and now I was failing again and knew it even while it was happening. She had brought herself to me\u2014back to me\u2014and rather than overturning the table\u2014or any other obstacle standing between Marie Ryan and me\u2014and wrapping her in my arms, I remained where I was across the room, noting her brand of cigarettes, the angle of her shoes under the table, the pallid green of the Coke bottle contrasting with the living green of her eyes. In my life there have been so many times when, rather than like a hand opening and reaching, I have been a fist, closed and tight. I have never told my writing students this, but I have long known there are two ways to make use of yourself in your fiction: You may stand back and notice, as Saul Bellow says is our human purpose, or you may live fully and store up experiences that may one day find their way into your art. The cigarettes were Pall Malls. The toes of her loafers were scuffed because when she sat in a chair, she usually folded her legs under her, with her toes touching the floor.\n\nAt least I had the good sense\u2014or was it so?\u2014not to immediately demand where she had been or to try to shame her with all the searching I had done.\n\n\"Look,\" I said, \"I'm sorry. I've had time to think about it. And really, it's good news, you being pregnant, and we\u2014\"\n\nShe waved off my little speech. \"Forget it. My mistake. False alarm. Aunt Bertha's back.\" It was a phrase Marie and her friends used as their euphemism for menstruating.\n\n\"You're sure?\"\n\n\"Please. Give me some credit. Yes, I'm sure.\" She crushed out her cigarette and closed her textbook. \"Relieved?\"\n\nAnd I knew enough not to answer that one. \"I was worried about you.\"\n\n\"I know, I should have called you. I was pissed off. What can I say? I've just been so on edge lately. I think it's that statistics class\u2014it's _killing_ me.\"\n\n\"So where were you?\"\n\n\"A girl down the hall from me was driving to Minneapolis, so on a whim I said I'd ride with her. I stayed with my sister.\"\n\nI hadn't thought to call there. \"I was worried. . . .\"\n\n\"I should have called. I _know_ that. I'm sorry.\"\n\nWe might have continued like that, mired in my guilt-inducing expressions of worry and her subsequent apologies, but Marie saw a way out. She walked over to me, looped her arms around my neck, and kissed me vehemently enough to loosen\u2014slightly\u2014my clenched self.\n\nIf you have never experienced simultaneous passion and relief, I recommend it; the concoction is powerful and obliterating. It mattered then only that I was holding her again.\n\nAfter a few moments of breathless kissing, I turned Marie around 180 degrees and pulled her tight to my chest. She reached up and back and again put her arms around my neck. This exposed her exactly as I wanted, allowing me to unbutton her blouse and caress those magnificent breasts. Gradually I ran my hands down the concavity of her stomach and dipped my fingers inside her waistband. Since her slacks rode low\u2014hip-huggers, in the parlance of the day\u2014that move brought me very close to where I wanted to be.\n\nWhen I reached down a little farther, however, Marie dipped and twisted her torso, and I had no choice but to pull my hands away. \"Huh-uh,\" she said, and between quickened breaths added, \"I told you. I have my period.\"\n\nShe spun around another 180 degrees, kissed me again, and asked, \"Or was that a test?\"\n\n\"I forgot. For a moment.\"\n\n\"You have a very short memory.\" She tugged at my belt. \"We could do something else. . . .\" Now it was her hand squeezing its way inside my waistband.\n\n\"That's okay.\"\n\n\"What's the matter\u2014afraid of accumulating debts you can't repay?\"\n\nOh, how well she knew me! \"I'm just happy to have you back.\"\n\n\"I can feel how happy you are,\" she said.\n\nSince early childhood, the existence that has held the most appeal for me is one of unruffled routine, and almost immediately after those sirens came wailing down Keogh Street, I wanted things to revert to what seemed to me the calm of what had been. Taking the wrong lesson from those tumultuous days, I wanted\u2014or so I believed\u2014a return to a life in which I could take certain things for granted. This desire for placidity is perhaps too strong in me, and as a consequence I have often convinced myself it's present when in fact something is still roiling below the surface.\n\nNevertheless, it seemed to me that once Marie came back from her brief trip to Minneapolis, our lives quickly returned to what they had been, and it seemed that that was what we both wanted. We soon resumed having sex, although for a few months we were a bit more cautious. We were both busy with work and our studies, but we were together as often and, if questioned I would have said, as happily as before. When the semester ended, we packed up the Studebaker and drove together back to Bismarck for the holidays.\n\nWhere I promptly fell ill with strep throat, and for a few days I lay in bed with a fever and a throat so sore I could barely swallow. By Christmas day I felt better, but I still used my sickness as an excuse not to attend church with my mother and sister. After church they would go to the Christmas luncheon held every year by the Burnett sisters, another ritual I was pleased I could pass on. For a few hours I would have the house to myself.\n\nI poured myself a cup of coffee, lit the first cigarette I could smoke in days, and, still in my pajamas, sat up in bed with the copy of _The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway_ that Marie gave me for Christmas. (The book, the Scribner's paperback edition priced at $2.95, is still on my shelf.) I had barely begun to read when someone knocked on my bedroom door. I'd thought I was alone in the house, and I hadn't heard the doorbell, but I wasn't startled for long. The door eased open, and there was Marie's smiling face.\n\n\"Are you feeling up to company?\"\n\n\"Yours\u2014yes.\"\n\nShe was skipping out of church too, she said, and when she took off her coat, I could see she was dressed for mass in a wool skirt and a turtleneck.\n\n\"I think God will forgive me,\" she said, \"if I spend the morning tending to the sick.\"\n\n\"Not necessary. I'm feeling much better. Really.\"\n\nThrowing back my blankets, I started to get up, but Marie pushed me back onto the bed. \"I told you. I'm here to nurse you back to health.\" She took my cigarette from me, inhaled, and then put it out.\n\n\"The first thing I have to do,\" she said, pulling my T-shirt off, \"is make sure your lungs are clear.\" She put her ear to my chest, but any pretense of listening soon fell away as she covered my torso with kisses.\n\nShe sat up. \"Your heart _seems_ sound, but I wonder . . . can it stand up to a little excitement?\"\n\n\"I'm willing to risk it.\"\n\nWithout any more talk, Marie kicked off her shoes, pulled her sweater off over her head, unhooked her brassiere, wriggled out of the girdle that she needed only to hold up her nylons, and stepped out of her panties. She made no effort to fold or neatly stack her garments, but left them all lying in a small pile on the floor. Then, wearing nothing but her skirt, she climbed onto my narrow bed.\n\nI reached for her, but she brushed my hands away. \"We can't have you exerting yourself. Not in your weakened condition. You lie still and let me\"\u2014she pulled her skirt up to her hips and straddled me\u2014\"take care of you.\"\n\nWhat was happening in that bedroom that had been mine when I was a boy was of course a boy's fantasy\u2014a beautiful girl enters his room and gets into his bed. Inevitably I remembered when Marie had come to my room in quite a different way and for quite a different purpose\u2014the night when, scratching on my screen, she woke me, and we went out together to search for her boyfriend. And suddenly through that tiny fissure of memory Gene squeezed his way into the bedroom.\n\nBut only for an instant.\n\nWith Marie moving rhythmically above me, her eyes half-closed, her breasts rising and falling, how could I think for long of anything but her? She leaned forward, pinning down my wrists and reminding me that I wasn't to grab or touch. Then she sat back, putting her hands on her own buttocks. When she bent down again her hair fell forward over her face and mine, and within that tent every breath I took was full of her heat and essence. Then, arching back up, she tossed her head and shook her hair back over her shoulder, but in the room's furnace-dried electric air, a few strands still floated free. Having taught me what I must not do, Marie now caressed her own breasts. The winter wind gusted hard and rattled the storm window in its frame, and when I came, it was with the same kind of shudder and gasp I might have displayed had I been dropped naked into snow. Marie's orgasm was a less dramatic trio of softly uttered _oh_ s.\n\nMy memory of what happened is reliable, but occasionally my brain tries to put something _before_ when in fact it was _after._ The mind performs these reversals or alterations no doubt because it has a narrative sense that life lacks and wants its stories to be as dramatic, harmonic, emphatic, and orderly as possible.\n\nFor example, I keep wanting to remember that it was on that Christmas Day that Marie, lying in my arms, us sharing a post-coital cigarette, announced that she was transferring to the University of Minnesota. But I know that wasn't so. I know it. She received notification before Christmas that she had been accepted into a special, experimental program that would allow her to seamlessly combine the completion of her undergraduate degree with teacher certification and admission to graduate study. When I traced my finger along her naked clavicle, feeling for that tiny irregularity where the bone broke, I knew\u2014we both knew\u2014that a separation lay ahead for us. We had already had our discussions of the difficulties that would pose, but we always concluded those conversations quickly with assurances that our love would overcome any problems.\n\nAnd I know that when we made love in that narrow bed it was not for the last time. I know that. Just as I know that our relationship didn't end that day. But perhaps because the mind wants the symmetry of a story that would both begin, as this one did, and end on Keogh Street, it tries to force my memory to delete the remaining six months of our relationship. Maybe I misremember the end of our life together so I can make Marie's educational opportunity responsible rather than my own behavior on the day when she told me she might be pregnant. And maybe something in the way Marie and I made love that day\u2014made love and made memory\u2014tinged it with valediction, a farewell fuck for each to remember the other by. It may have been nothing more than what seemed a game that day _\u2014don't use your_ _hands!\u2014_ but perhaps it was in fact Marie's wish, still unconscious at that point, not to be contaminated by my touch.\n\nBut however false my memory tries to play some facts, it situates precisely in time and place\u2014Christmas Day 1964, my bedroom\u2014what Marie said after she rose from my bed and unself-consciously dressed in front of me. The little tale she told had probably been thrust to the forefront of her consciousness by the nearness of the Stoddard home, just across the street and down the block. Had she opened the curtains and looked out, she could have seen it from my window.\n\n\"Did you know,\" she asked me, \"that Gene didn't call your father immediately after discovering his father's body?\"\n\n\"Yeah. He tried to phone Marcia first. And then when he couldn't reach her\u2014\"\n\nClasping her brassiere, Marie shook her head. \"There was a little time between those calls. Did you know that? What he did before he called your dad?\"\n\n\"I don't believe I do.\"\n\nShe adjusted her breasts within the brassiere's cups. \"First, Gene got two pans from the cupboard, one he filled with hot water and laundry detergent and the other with hot water and Pine-Sol.\"\n\nWhen Marie pulled her sweater over her head, static electricity again gave her hair a will of its own, and the strands stuck out in a way that reminded me of the graduation night party when she tried to coax Gene down from the roof of his car, and the bonfire backlit her and gave her hair that same look of coppery filament. Once again she lifted her skirt, this time to pull on her panties and shimmy her girdle into place. \"Mr. Stoddard had . . . When he died he . . . wet and soiled himself, and Gene wanted to clean up his father and the garage before anyone else came on the scene.\"\n\nShe adjusted her nylons, smoothed down her skirt, and stepped into her shoes. \"He did a decent job on the garage floor, and the tires his father had stood on Gene just threw into the backyard. He couldn't clean his father's trousers, though, and for a minute Gene considered taking them off and finding a clean pair of pants. But in the end he just couldn't make himself do it. He couldn't undress his dad.\"\n\nMarie put on her coat, gold wool and double-breasted, and buttoned it to her throat. The heat our bodies had made had cooled. She pulled her collar as high as it would go. I reached for the T-shirt she had pulled off me. Christmas services were over. Marie had her own family dinner to attend.\n\n\"You're right,\" I said. \"Gene never told me that story.\"\n\n\"Why would he?\" she asked on her way out the door. \"He wasn't trying to seduce you.\"\n\nIn addition to the Hemingway collection, Marie also gave me a Rooster tie and a copy of _The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,_ the album with the cover of Dylan and Suze Rotolo arm-in-arm in the middle of a slushy New York street. I have that album still, like the Hemingway, although I no longer own a turntable to play the record on. I hadn't asked for the album, the book, or the tie, but Marie was well enough attuned to my tastes and desires that it would have been reasonable for me to expect any of those gifts.\n\nAnd while I didn't expect the little anecdote she told about Gene, in a way it too was a gift. Here, she might have said, I know this is something you'll like. And in giving it to me perhaps she was trying to get rid of it\u2014Here, I don't want this and I know you do. I present it to you, confident that you'll never lose it and that one day you'll find a use for it.\n\nYes. How well she knew me and my desires. And perhaps since she could not face a life with a man who would never stop hungering for exactly what she wished to divest herself of, she had to choose a life apart from his. I've often wondered\u2014did Marie Ryan ever tell the man she eventually married anything about Raymond and Alma Stoddard? About their son, Gene? About both the boys who once lived on Keogh Street? It would not surprise me to learn that she didn't. Nor would I blame her.\n\n_Since Marie W. remembered the past with such clarity, she wondered_ _why its appearance in her dreams was so muddled and_ _confused. Even by the surrealistic standard of dreams, hers_ _seemed to operate on the far edge of unreason, especially in_ _matters of chronology._\n\n_For example, no matter how many decades had passed since_ _she'd lived under her parents' roof, her dreams never played_ _themselves out in the home she currently lived in\u2014nor in any_ _house or apartment she had once called home\u2014but in the Bismarck,_ _North Dakota, dwelling she grew up in. No matter how_ _old her four sons were, they were almost always infants or, at_ _most, grade-schoolers in her dreams. Her parents, of whom she_ _never dreamed when they were alive, once deceased appeared to_ _her regularly. They were alive and in the fullness of health in_ _those dreams, yet they commented often on the inconveniences_ _of being dead._\n\n_Marie's own age fluctuated in her dreams but within a narrow_ _range. She was always an adult, no matter the age of her_ _parents or children, but she couldn't find any means, not her appearance,_ _not external events, that enabled her to locate her age_ _precisely._\n\n_But the greatest confusion came from three males, a_ _boyfriend from high school, a boyfriend who followed the first_ _and with whom she had a relationship that began in high school_ _and went into her college years, and her husband. These three_ _were as different as could be. The first was a brash, opportunistic,_ _unpredictable boy. The second was sensitive but shy, brooding_ _and often remote. And her husband was a confident,_ _ebullient, unshakably cheerful man. Yet these three freely_ _changed identities in her dreams. She might be driving somewhere_ _with her husband and their children only to find, upon_ _arrival, that it was her first boyfriend who lifted her son out of_ _the backseat, and her second boyfriend who held open the door_ _to the house they were visiting. The oddity wasn't, however,_ _that all three males were present. There was only one man but_ _with an identity that wasn't fixed. One would suddenly become_ _another, and with no discernible transition, and no matter how_ _strange these shifts were to her waking mind, within the dream_ _they were unremarkable._\n\n_Of course the reason for this shape-shifting, this identity_ _swapping, was within Marie, yet she had no idea what curl or_ _twist in her brain or psyche might be causing it. Any explanation_ _she came up with seemed pedestrian and inadequate. Yes,_ _these were three males to whom she had professed love. Yes,_ _she'd had sexual relations (but not intercourse) with all three. Nothing in those facts, however, explained the phenomenon. She didn't pine after former boyfriends or even possess much_ _curiosity about them. She didn't feel she had made a mistake in_ _severing her relationships with them. She loved her husband and_ _lived a contented life with him. She had a forceful, well-defined_ _personality\u2014others said it of her, and she felt its truth as well\u2014_ _and she had never sublimated her own identity to any male, not_ _to her father, her husband, her sons, or to an old boyfriend. In_ _the end, no amount of self-analysis brought her an answer or_ _decreased the frequency of the dreams._\n\n_Then Marie received notice of her high school's twentieth reunion,_ _to be held in Bismarck in mid-August. Both those_ _boyfriends of her youth graduated in the same class as Marie, so_ _though it was by no means a certainty, it was possible that if_ _Marie and her husband attended the reunion, the three men_ _who exchanged identities within her dreams might be in the_ _same room at the same time. She'd had no interest in attending_ _her ten-year reunion, but now it seemed to her that this social_ _ritual had the potential of correcting the confusion of her dream_ _life._\n\n_As soon as her husband came home from the Minneapolis_ _clinic where he had his pediatric practice, she presented the letter_ _of invitation to him. \"What do you think?\" Marie asked._\n\n_\"Feel like driving to Bismarck in August?\"_\n\n_He laughed, but something in her demeanor must have told_ _him she was serious. \"Why not? Will I get to meet your old_ _boyfriends?\"_\n\n_Marie had told him nothing of her dreams, and though his_ _question, both eerie and prescient, jolted her, she tried not to_ _show it. Instead, she attempted to match his jaunty tone. \"Get_ _to? I'll insist on it.\"_\n\n_He rubbed his hands together in gleeful imitation of a_ _scheming silent movie villain. \"At last\u2014I'll find out if you always_ _made that little mewing sound when the back of your_ _neck is kissed, or if that's only for my benefit.\"_\n\n_She took the invitation from his hand. \"That's just for you,_ _baby. Just for you.\"_\n\n_In truth, Marie came into the marriage with little in the way_ _of sexual history, especially compared to her husband's, but_ _what she had, or hadn't, done before they met was of no consequence_ _to him. Had Marie told him about her dreams, she was_ _sure he would find them only amusing. He was not a jealous_ _man, nor was he given to angst or introspection, and until the_ _dreams began, Marie had always felt her spirit was a match for_ _his._\n\n _The first of the reunion weekend's events was a mixer at the_ _Sheraton hotel. Marie and her husband were staying at a Holiday_ _Inn on the city's opposite end, and once they settled their_ _sons in their adjoining room and reminded them they were limited_ _to a single Spectravision movie, the couple set out for the_ _evening._\n\n_In the parking lot, Marie's husband tossed her the car keys. \"You drive,\" he said. \"It's your town.\" And then he launched_ _into a falsetto rendition of the J. D. Souther song. \"It used to be_ _his town, it used to be her town. . . .\"_\n\n_Her town . . . yes. A town whose streets and avenues were_ _once as familiar to Marie as the halls and rooms of her own_ _home, yet that night she had trouble finding the hotel. Over the_ _years, the city's hotels had changed hands; what was once a_ _Sheraton was now a Radisson, and the new Sheraton was on a_ _street that had been changed to a one-way. Eventually, Marie_ _had to park two blocks away because she couldn't figure out_ _how to negotiate her way to the hotel's block._\n\n_As they walked toward the Sheraton, a solitary man kept_ _pace with them on the opposite side of the street. He was wearing_ _a white shirt, dark slacks, and cowboy boots, and though_ _Marie didn't recognize him, she assumed he was on his way to_ _the reunion too. Why couldn't he be one of her former_ _boyfriends? Twenty years was more than enough time for bodies_ _to shrink and expand, for hair to grow out or fall out, for_ _features to flesh out or seam in ways that would make people_ _look nothing like their yearbook portraits. Why did Marie believe_ _she would know either of those boyfriends on sight? Did_ _she think that the intimacies of love were a kind of imprinting,_ _rendering her able to identify them by instinct? Or was she_ _counting on them to recognize her and then announce themselves?_ _For that matter, what process had her mind followed to_ _make those boys appear as men in her dreams? Did her unconscious_ _have a talent, Marie wondered, like a police sketch artist,_ _to produce accurately aged portraits of someone she knew two_ _decades before?_\n\n_Once again, her husband seemed to know her thoughts. \"Now, those old boyfriends,\" he said, \"any chance there might_ _be some residual bad feelings? Should I be ready to defend your_ _honor or fight for the right to take you home?\" He bobbed and_ _feinted and threw phantom jabs into the night air._\n\n_Marie laughed in spite of herself. If nothing else, this little display of his demonstrated how different he was\u2014with his_ _buoyant spirit and his always-ready willingness to take himself and everyone else lightly\u2014from her previous too-serious boyfriends, and she wondered again how it was possible that they could be confused or conflated, even in a dream. She felt a_ _sudden rush of love for this man she'd married, and she stepped_ _inside his boxer's stance, raised up on her tiptoes, and kissed_ _him on the long, clean line of his freshly shaven jaw._\n\n_He dropped his hands, running them languorously down her_ _back. When he reached her buttocks, he squeezed and pulled_ _her tightly to him. \"Or should I\"\u2014he assumed his comic British_ _accent\u2014\"find other ways to demonstrate my rights of conjugal_ _primacy?\"_\n\n_\"You're doing a pretty good job of that right now.\"_\n\n_He squeezed harder, and she pivoted away from his embrace._ _\"Before we go in there,\" she said, \"maybe we should set_ _up signals. You know, if we need to be rescued from someone_ _boring, or if the whole evening is just too excruciating.\"_\n\n_\"Good idea,\" he said. \"How about an erection? If you see_ _that I've got a hard-on, you'll know that means we've got to get_ _back to the hotel right away.\"_\n\n_\"I was thinking more along the lines of a tug on the earlobe.\"_\n\n_\"A page from the Carol Burnett playbook. Okay. I like_ _mine better, but the earlobe tug will work, too.\" He pushed_ _open the door of the hotel. \"Let us go among them.\"_\n\n_The mixer was being held in a large banquet room, and_ _Marie hesitated before its open doors. The room was dark but_ _for candles on tables, and the flickering light gave everyone inside_ _a spectral presence as they moved in and out of the wavering_ _shadows. Marie had no more than glanced inside when her_ _heart instantly misgave her, and she was ready to give up on the entire enterprise. But what could she say? Minneapolis was 450_ _miles away, their night's accommodation had already been paid_ _for, and her husband was standing expectantly by her side._\n\n_A plump scowling woman who must have been from_ _Marie's class but whom Marie did not recognize sat at a long_ _table just outside the doors. With obvious consternation, she_ _said, \"They haven't provided me with any of the registration_ _materials, so just write your name on one of these labels and_ _stick it somewhere on yourself.\"_\n\n_Marie's husband, for whom any unsmiling countenance was_ _a challenge, said, \"Any place visible, you mean.\"_\n\n_She looked at him blankly._\n\n_\"Because I could stick it on my chest,\" he said. \"Under my_ _shirt.\" He reached inside the gap between his buttons and_ _tapped his fingers in imitation of a beating heart. He bestowed_ _upon her the irresistible smile that he swore he never practiced._\n\n_Grudgingly returning his smile, she said, \"Someplace_ visible.\"\n\n_He pretended to slap the label onto his forehead, and the_ _plump woman allowed her grin its full release. She asked him_ _the question she never asked Marie. \"Do I know you?\"_\n\n_He pointed to his wife. \"She's a senior. I already graduated.\"_\n\n_As they walked away from the registration table with their_ _names pasted onto their clothes over their hearts, Marie asked,_ _\"Must you charm everyone?\"_\n\n_The question's petulance surprised Marie\u2014it had leaped_ _from her before she could stop it\u2014but her husband seemed not_ _to take offense. \"I must! I will not cease from my labors until_ _every man, woman, and child is charmed!\"_\n\n_At the bar, Marie ordered a white wine and her husband_ _asked for a light beer, and while they stood with the sweating_ _containers in their hands, two couples approached them. Marie_ _wasn't sure how it happened, but almost immediately after the_ _introductions were made an invisible partition descended on the_ _group. The men drifted off, talking, as near as Marie could tell,_ _about the brown suits Ronald Reagan wore, and Marie was left_ _in the company of two women she only vaguely remembered_ _from high school but who now pretended as though they had all_ _been closer than they really were._\n\n_Neither of the women had aged well. Rhonda Veach, now_ _Rhonda Schneeberg, had been a raucous, overweight tag-along_ _in high school, and while she was still heavy, she apparently believed_ _her pounds now worked to her advantage. She had_ _squeezed herself into a tight, low-cut dress that revealed an embarrassing_ _abundance of cleavage. Janice Schmidt, n\u00e9e Kalsow,_ _with whom Marie had been closer in elementary school than in_ _later years, was also wearing a low-cut dress, but she was so_ _thin and darkly tanned that the skin of her neck and chest_ _looked, even in the poor light, like paper that had been crumpled_ _and then smoothed out._\n\n_While they were catching up\u2014an activity that largely consisted_ _of an enumeration of children's names and ages\u2014another_ _woman joined them. Peggy Pilquist and Marie_ had _been good_ _friends, and their embrace was spontaneous and genuine. Peggy_ _looked disturbingly similar to the way she'd looked in high_ _school\u2014pretty in a wide-eyed, well-scrubbed way. Her blond_ _hair was still carefully waved around her face just as it was in_ _her graduation portrait._\n\n_The group's talk soon became a recitation of notorious high_ _school incidents\u2014the cow smuggled into the gymnasium, the_ _bowling ball rolled down the stairs, the principal's car pelted_ _with eggs\u2014that challenged no one's memory. When they began_ _to speculate about certain individuals\u2014the boy arrested for_ _stealing tires, the girl pregnant at prom, the algebra teacher and_ _the phys ed instructor found out in an affair\u2014Marie felt herself_ _tested. But her memories seemed to coincide with everyone_ _else's. The conversation gave her no reason to believe that the_ _confused identities in her dreams had anything to do with a general_ _disorientation about the past. Perhaps if Marie could separate_ _Peggy from the others, Marie could ask her if she ever_ _dreamed about old boyfriends or if the present and the past ever_ _exchanged themselves in dreams._\n\n_And just at that moment an old boyfriend stealthily approached._ _For a good portion of high school Janice Schmidt had_ _dated Randy Oslund, and that was exactly who now loomed_ _behind her. Randy's index finger in front of his wide grin_ _warned Marie and Peggy not to give away his presence._\n\n_Randy was over six feet tall, and even thinner than he'd_ _been in high school. He had close-set eyes and fine blond hair_ _that looked windblown even indoors, and when he raised his_ _arms over Janice Schmidt, he looked like a predatory bird. His_ _white shirt and dark trousers gave him away as the man Marie_ _had seen earlier walking toward the hotel._\n\n_Janice must have sensed he was there, because she whirled_ _about. When she saw who it was, she shrieked, and instantly_ _they fell into each other's arms._\n\n_No, not a bird. A vampire, for Randy Oslund pronounced,_ _in his Transylvanian accent, \"I haff come for you, my darling.\"_\n\n_Their embrace went on so long that Marie imagined they_ _were giving their bodies a chance to remember the sensations of_ _the past. Even when they broke their clinch, they still kept their_ _arms around each other._\n\n_Janice pretended to punch Randy in the ribs. \"And where_ _were you planning to take me?\"_\n\n_\"The Haystacks, of course!\" That was an area north of_ _town whose dirt roads and isolated groves had once provided_ _teenagers a private place to park. Marie had spent her share of_ _time in cars with fogged windows out at the Haystacks, and on_ _one occasion her and her boyfriend's passions ran so hot that as_ _their bodies pressed and undulated against each other, they_ _didn't notice that her glasses had slipped from the armrest and_ _gotten trapped under them. In the car's muffled silence the snapping_ _of the plastic frame made a sound like a breaking bone. Marie had no trouble recalling the incident or the boyfriend in_ _whose arms she'd rolled around on the car seat._\n\n_Laughing, Janice said, \"I'm ready to go. But won't your_ _wife wonder where you are?\"_\n\n_\"Hell, we'll be back before she knows I'm gone.\"_\n\n_\"So, Speedy Gonzales, I guess that hasn't changed.\"_\n\n_Randy Oslund affected a stricken expression and clapped_ _his hands over his heart, but Marie could tell Janice's remark_ _caused him no real pain._\n\n_In spite of the jokes, Marie recognized that their feelings for_ _each other were genuine, though the emotion likely had more to_ _do with history and nostalgia than with still-fresh desire or affection._ _The intimacy of their display, however, no matter that it_ _was feigned or performed for an audience, shocked Marie. Was_ _there a door to the past that she had somehow left open, and_ _did that explain her dreams? Or had the dreams pushed open_ _the door?_\n\n_But while Randy and Janice shocked Marie, she also envied_ _them. She could easily imagine her husband acting like Randy_ _Oslund with an old girlfriend. And inviting Marie over to meet_ _the woman. Unlike Marie, he talked openly about women with_ _whom he once had relationships, even to the extent of describing_ _their sexual behavior. Marie had once accompanied her husband_ _to an Austin, Texas, medical conference, and he_ _introduced her there to a woman he had dated during his first_ _year of medical school. A neonatologist, she soon excused herself_ _to attend a seminar, and then Marie's husband told Marie_ _about how the woman had never seemed to warm to him during_ _their time together, and how she'd preferred to make love on_ _all fours, a position that no doubt suited her because it didn't_ _require her to touch him or look at him. And that anecdote reminded_ _him of another woman who, from that same position,_ _would reach back and grab his testicles, a move that once_ _brought a yelp of pain from him that she mistook for ecstasy._\n\n_Even when such frankness embarrassed Marie, she knew it_ _signaled his confidence with her, and she had to admit it was_ _preferable to a husband who hoarded and cherished his memories_ _of other women._\n\n_Her husband detached himself from the group of men and_ _returned to Marie's side. \"Babe, I'm going to join these gentlemen_ _up in their room. Someone needs a physician's second opinion.\"_ _He pressed the tips of his thumb and index finger together_ _and, bringing them to his lips, inhaled audibly. Although he_ _had, in deference to his status as a physician and a father,_ _stopped buying marijuana years ago, he could not turn down an_ _invitation to smoke someone else's._\n\n_\"Be careful,\" Marie said. \"Please.\"_\n\n_As he walked away grinning, he said, \"If you can't trust the_ _class of '63, who can you trust?\"_\n\n_Rhonda, Janice, and Randy also walked away, leaving_ _Marie with her old friend._\n\n_Peggy leaned close, bringing with her the scent of cigarette_ _smoke and hair spray. \"Guess who's here\u2014and he's looking for_ _you?\"_\n\n_Marie felt herself blush. \"How can anyone be looking for_ _me? How does anyone know who's here and who isn't?\"_\n\n_\"Okay, asking. He's_ asking _if you're here.\"_\n\n_\"I have no idea.\"_\n\n_\"Just think for a minute. I believe you know.\"_\n\n_\"Oh, please, Peggy. This isn't junior high. Just tell me.\"_\n\n_Peggy smiled coyly. \"I don't believe I will. Anyway, keep_ _standing right here. I'm sure he'll find you.\" As if she were enacting_ _an exit she had rehearsed, Peggy bowed and backed_ _away._\n\n_One of them was looking for her. . . . Marie tried to determine_ _which former boyfriend that was likely to be. She couldn't_ _believe that shy young man would seek her out. Instead, he_ _would stake out a position, just as he had on that winter night_ _when he'd stood on a street corner and watched the house\u2014was_ _it Peggy's?\u2014where Marie was attending a slumber party. It was_ _after midnight when someone saw him out there and told_ _Marie. She stepped into her shoes and ran out to him in her pajamas._ _While they both stood shivering under a streetlamp, he_ _explained that it wasn't that he hadn't trusted her when she'd_ _told him she'd be there, but his worry caused his faith to tremble._ _So perhaps he was watching Marie now from some dark_ _corner, waiting for her to notice him, then approach him, and_ _say, \"I've been dreaming about you.\"_\n\n_When Marie finally severed the relationship with him, both_ _he and she shed tears. Finally, however, his moodiness, his inaccessibility,_ _and his passivity wore her out. She felt she expended_ _so much energy in closing the distance between them, in sending_ _out signs of affection so he could learn through imitation to_ _match them with his own, in fulfilling the needs he could not or_ _would not articulate for himself, that she was losing too much_ _of herself. Simply put, he exhausted her._\n\n_Yet he was not the likeliest candidate to be searching for her._ _No, if someone was sorting through the assemblage, checking_ _name tags and staring into faces until he found Marie's, it was_ _probably her first boyfriend, that smiling, intense, determined-to-_ _get-what-he-wanted-at-any-cost young man. Why wouldn't_ _he cross identity boundaries in her dreams? He could seldom be_ _restrained in the time he and Marie were together._\n\n _When Marie was sixteen, she traveled with her family to a Minnesota_ _lake for their summer vacation. Marie hadn't wanted to_ _go. Although the summers of her adolescence seemed long, two_ _weeks apart from her boyfriend was a deprivation too much to_ _bear. She wrote him twice a day, and she promised him, almost_ _to the minute, when they would be reunited. Her father pulled_ _into the driveway, and Marie jumped from the car. She ran into_ _the house, heading for her basement bedroom from where she_ _would telephone her boyfriend and tell him she was back\u2014_ Come over right away!\n\n_But he was already there, waiting for her just inside her bedroom_ _door._\n\n_Once Marie's fright subsided, her joy at seeing him\u2014after_ _fourteen days and nights!\u2014took over and she launched herself_ _into his arms. In the busyness of unloading the car and unpacking_ _suitcases, Marie's parents didn't notice that her boyfriend_ _was already there when the family arrived; they assumed he had_ _hurried over in record time to see Marie._\n\n_Over the next few weeks, Marie learned that that had not_ _been the only day he'd taken the key from under the pot of_ _geraniums and let himself into the house. He confessed that he_ _had been in there almost every day, and as evidence he had hidden_ _little notes throughout her room. She put her hand under_ _her pillow and found a note; she opened a drawer and found_ _another. He put one in her jewelry box and tucked another inside_ _a high school yearbook. None of the notes said anything_ _more than \"Hi there!\" \"It's me!\" \"Surprise!\" and initially Marie_ _found them endearing. But when she came across one taped to_ _the back of a framed photograph of her parents, she suddenly_ _felt a chill. The site of that note\u2014\"It's me again!\"\u2014was certainly_ _more innocent than the drawer where she kept her pajamas,_ _nylons, brassieres, panties, and slips, but the note on her_ _bureau changed everything that surrounded it. Suddenly Marie's_ _room felt less like hers; it had been transformed into a space_ _anyone might occupy. The bedroom door fit poorly in its frame_ _and only with great effort could it be pushed or pulled to shut_ _tight, and even then the door had no lock. Not that it mattered._ _As those little scraps of paper\u2014\"Guess who!\"\u2014demonstrated,_ _Marie had no threshold she could cross where the world_ _wouldn't follow. When Marie broke up with him a few months_ _later, she told him it was because they were becoming too serious,_ _a phrase that back then almost always meant the girl no_ _longer knew how to restrain her boyfriend's sexual demands or_ _how to keep her own desire from duplicating his._\n\n _Marie hadn't finished her glass of wine, but she made her way_ _back to the bar. From there she thought it would be easier to_ _not only see someone approach but also to read the history in_ _any face's features._\n\n_In fact, Marie had barely reached out her glass to the young_ _bartender to ask for a refill when a man unexpectedly thrust his_ _face in front of her and demanded, \"Why'd you break my_ _heart?\"_\n\n_Startled, Marie pulled back, and when she did, she saw who_ _was confronting her. Fortunately, she caught herself before she_ _made matters worse and spoke the words that came first to her_ _tongue. Oh, Terry, it's only you._\n\n_Instead, Marie greeted that pop-eyed, mock-belligerent face_ _with, \"Hello, Terry. It's nice to see you.\"_\n\n_\"Why? So you can rip my heart out and stomp on it and finish_ _the job?\"_\n\n_They both knew what he was jokingly referring to. Throughout their grade-school years Terry Bart had had a crush_ _on Marie. He plagued her on the playground, following her_ _everywhere, teasing her, making her his special target in dodge-ball;_ _he went blocks out of his way just so he could walk past_ _Marie's house after school. Finally, when they reached junior_ _high, he became bold enough to ask Marie if she would go with_ _him to a school dance. \"I'm sorry,\" she told him, \"but I'm_ _going with Danny McCabe.\" Danny was an eighth grader and_ _someone with whom Terry knew he could not compete. In the_ _next few years Terry learned to make a joke of the rejection, but_ _Marie knew his sense of defeat and disappointment had been_ _real. In high school when she was briefly between boyfriends,_ _Marie consented to attend a party with Terry, and though she_ _tried to make it clear to him that he would never be more than a_ _friend, he still tried, drunkenly, roughly, persistently, to kiss her_ _at the party. Marie eventually pushed him away and left the_ _party, walking home through four inches of fresh snow in kitten_ _heels._\n\n_\"Do you still live in Bismarck, Terry?\"_\n\n_\"You mean you haven't kept track of my every move? Denver._ _We've lived in Denver for the last seven years.\"_\n\n_\"We?\"_\n\n_\"My wife. We met at Augustana. She's right over there.\" Terry pointed across the room, but in the dim light his direction_ _was useless. \"Can you wait right here? I'll go get her. She'd love_ _to meet the girl who broke my heart. God knows she's heard_ _enough about you.\"_\n\n_The idea of being introduced to Mrs. Bart in that context_ _held no appeal for Marie, and as soon as Terry left, she slid_ _away from the bar. She wanted to head toward the door and_ _then wait for her husband over by the elevators, but that meant_ _stepping into the light. Anyone looking for her, whether an old_ _boyfriend or an aspirant like Terry, would find her easier to spot_ _if she left the banquet room's shadows._\n\n_She circled behind the bar, back by the troughs of iced beer_ _and soda and the stacked boxes of inexpensive wines and_ _liquors. One of the bartenders, a young man not much older_ _than Marie's sons, looked at Marie and raised an eyebrow conspiratorially_ _in her direction. Just as Randy Oslund had done_ _earlier, Marie raised her finger to her lips, and the bartender_ _smiled and nodded in understanding. But what, Marie wondered,_ _did the young man believe he understood?_\n\n_What if Terry Bart, and not one of Marie's ex-boyfriends,_ _were the anonymous seeker Peggy had told her about? Wouldn't_ _that make sense? Terry was there; he had obviously been looking_ _for her. Perhaps Marie was fleeing from a rendezvous she_ _had already had. . . ._\n\n_Ceiling-to-floor draperies encircled the room, and Marie_ _moved close to the heavy dark fabric. She had no idea what the_ _curtains were for, but she was ready to adapt them for her own_ _purposes, to step inside a fold or opening and vanish from sight._ _As unobtrusively as possible she began to move around the_ _room, all the while glancing back at the entrance so she_ _wouldn't miss her husband when he returned._\n\n_As soon as he came into view, she planned to run to him_ _and tell him they must leave immediately, that it had been a mistake_ _to come there, that she wanted nothing to do with the past_ _and certainly wanted none of its scenes enacted ever again. It_ _wasn't feasible to leave Bismarck tonight, but she'd insist they_ _leave first thing in the morning. She couldn't bear the thought of_ _being in the city in the full exposure of daylight._\n\n_Just ahead a small knot of people stood in Marie's path. She_ _could try to go around them, a move that would necessitate_ _leaving the available cover and possible escape route of the_ _draperies; she could go back in the direction from whence she_ _had come; or she could stop right where she was and wait, hoping_ _she wouldn't be noticed and that they would soon disperse_ _and clear the way ahead. She stood still._\n\n_Someone in the group ahead must have said something_ _funny, because every one of them either threw their head back_ _or bent over with laughter. Almost as if they were in on the_ _joke, the people at the table nearest her also began to laugh uproariously._\n\n_Suddenly, through the sounds of all that merriment and beneath_ _the room's general din, came a voice, barely more than a_ _whisper, and from right behind her. A man said\u2014she_ thought _she heard him say\u2014\"Would you like to go to Paris with me?\"_\n\n_Marie didn't recognize the voice, but given the room's noise_ _and its poor acoustics, how could she? It could have been her_ _husband speaking to her and she wouldn't have been able to_ _identify him._\n\n_And perhaps the man wasn't even addressing her. If she_ _waited for just a moment before turning around, he would certainly_ _repeat his question and then she would know exactly who_ _was there and why._\n\n_The question never came again, but eight years later, when Marie stood on the Pont des Arts with the man she loved, she_ _was sure that, in spite of her dreams' efforts to confuse her, her_ _decisions in life had been the right ones. At that moment in_ _Paris, however, who was beside her seemed of less importance_ _than the fact of the May sun warming her back and lighting the_ _gilt of a building that looked to her like a wedding cake._\n\nAlthough the relationship-cancer that eventually put an end to the us that was Marie and me may well have been in place on that Christmas Day when she came to check on my health\u2014indeed, maybe it was present from the very beginning\u2014we continued to see each other after she transferred to the University of Minnesota. I drove to Minneapolis, she rode the bus to Grand Forks, or we met in Bismarck when we both went back there for one school vacation or another. But in none of our meetings, letters, or many telephone conversations did we ever make arrangements for permanence, and eventually the simple fact of the 315 miles between us may have been too much to overcome. When we each began to find excuses not to make the journey\u2014an exam to study for, a paper to write, a lecture to attend, a party not to be missed, a snowstorm predicted, a car with a fussy carburetor\u2014our life together was all but over. We both decided to attend summer school at our respective institutions (one of us, I don't remember who, must have been the first to make that choice, and the other no doubt followed suit out of spite). Our breakup, like my parents', was not the result of a single explosive incident but more a gradual loss of the energy relationships use for fuel. By autumn of 1965 we were finished.\n\nAt first I told myself that was all right. My pride had been wounded\u2014Marie didn't have to transfer to another school. Then another girl briefly captured my interest. A creative writing professor overpraised my poems and stories and told me I could be admitted to the University of Iowa's MFA program. He was wrong, but the damage was done; my head was turned. When I graduated, I, like Marie, left North Dakota for an adjoining state, but she headed east and I went west, to the University of Montana and its new graduate writing program. Once there, I was, I told myself, exactly where I wanted to be and ready to begin realizing my deepest literary aspirations. The mysteries of the human heart could be known, and I would devote my life to the careful search for words to convey that knowledge.\n\nThen on a winter morning, after three days of warm Chinook winds rolling down the Rockies, after a night of drinking in a Missoula, Montana, bar with a group of students who shared my na\u00efve ambitions, I woke with a profound hangover and a refrain running through my brain as if on a perpetual circuit: _I need_ _Marie, I need Marie, I need Marie, I need Marie, I need Marie . . ._ the vowels _\u2014eye ee ah ee eye ee ah ee eye ee ah ee\u2014_ sounding for all the world like the siren of a Parisian police car. The words may not have come to me previously in quite that form, but the emotion that underlay them, I realized, had never left me and never would. That feeling, as if it too had been covered in snow, surfaced in January's thaw.\n\nSunk though I was that morning in self-pity and despair, my sense of irony was still intact. When Marie and I were together, I used to worry that someday I would lose her to Gene because, while I could make and state the case that I _wanted_ her, he could make the stronger claim by asserting that he _needed_ her. Now, however, it was too late for both of us. I had lost touch _\u2014wonderful_ _phrase!\u2014_ with Marie, and though this is another sequence I can't be entirely sure of, she may have already found the man she would marry, a man who, unlike the boys of Keogh Street, would answer _her_ wants and needs.\n\nAs long as my mother was alive\u2014and it took many years before her two-packs-a-day habit caught up to her\u2014I returned to Bismarck every year. Once I married (more of that soon) and eventually started teaching, largely because I needed to find work that provided benefits and brought in a paycheck larger and steadier than the erratic royalties and option money that came my way, those annual returns to my hometown were usually in the summer. At decade-long intervals, however, I made _certain_ that those trips were in the summer. Specifically, I made it a point to be in Bismarck during the days when the class of 1963\u2014Marie's class\u2014held its reunion.\n\nBut as far as I knew, she never returned. And why would she? In the late 1960s Marie's father was transferred, and her family moved to Illinois, and even if Marie had had enough pleasant memories of the city and her time there\u2014enough, that is, to overpower her association with the lurid, tragic Raymond Stoddard affair\u2014she had never been attached to the past. A writer I revere, William Maxwell, once said, \"I don't think I have outlived any part of my life, it all seems to coexist,\" and while I could say the same thing about my life, that sentiment was never Marie's. Remember her advice to Gene? He had to \"stop pulling the past up to the present.\" Besides, had she come back to Bismarck, for a high school reunion or any other reason, what good would it have done me? She would have been in the company of the man she'd married, a doctor she met in Minneapolis when she was in graduate school and he was interning. To this day they live in Edina, a Minneapolis suburb, with their four sons.\n\n(Incidentally, my informant on matters Marie has usually been the wife of my college roommate, Rob Varley. After earning a master's degree from the University of North Dakota, Rob returned to Bismarck to work for a utility company, and he married Karen Holmes, a former friend of Marie's. Karen was the secretary of their high school class, and she's been in charge over the years of keeping track of classmates and issuing invitations for reunions.)\n\nFor many years that wife I mentioned earlier accompanied me on trips to my hometown. A native of Billings, Montana, she was a nursing student when we met in Missoula. A soft-spoken, sincere, pretty woman, it would never have occurred to her trusting nature that on any occasion when we were in Bismarck, I was constantly scanning the streets in the hope that Marie Ryan might also be back in town and I could catch a glimpse of her. A glimpse. I told myself that I wanted nothing more. Just something to satisfy my curiosity, to see if she was as lovely as ever (and as lovely as Karen, who visited Marie in Minneapolis, said she was). She was my first love, an adolescent obsession. Many such youthful infatuations stay with men and women. Sometimes for years. They're normal. Harmless. That was what I told myself. Then, just when I thought I had convinced myself that all those things were true, the refrain would begin again, its vowels wailing through my brain _\u2014eye ee ah ee eye ee ah ee eye ee ah ee._ _I need Marie, I need Marie, I need Marie, I need Marie, I need_ _Marie. . . ._\n\nDuring the years of our marriage my wife never suspected that I was in love with another woman. Why would she? I never lied to her about where I was or who I was with. How could I love someone I hadn't seen for five years . . . for ten . . . for twenty? When our marriage inevitably ended, it wasn't because I had been caught in an affair. But my emotional remoteness, my inaccessibility, finally exhausted my wife.\n\nI remember the occasion when the end came. We were in the car together, running errands or going out for lunch. The circumstances don't matter. I might have said something, but it's more likely that I didn't. My silences were more common, and more wearing, than any speech, even of the wounding sort. She suddenly let her head fall back against the headrest, and said, without a trace of anger or vitality in her voice, \"I've had it with you.\"\n\nIndeed she had. Caring for the sick or injured was more than her profession; it was her natural disposition. For months, for years, she had tried to revive our marriage, willing to do almost anything to bring it back to health. \"What do you want from me?\" she used to ask. I didn't take advantage of her invitation. What was I supposed to say _\u2014be someone else?_ And since I was unwilling to be anyone other than who I was\u2014joyless and remote\u2014our marriage expired.\n\nEven when I was no longer making those annual pilgrimages to Bismarck in the company of a wife, I was usually not traveling alone. We had twin daughters, and the divorce didn't diminish their willingness\u2014their eagerness\u2014to make the trip to Grandmother's house and to the city that had been their father's boyhood home.\n\nWhen the girls were nine or ten, I decided to take them on a tour of the state capitol and its grounds. One of our first stops was the building's legislative wing, the art deco Great Hall where Raymond Stoddard murdered Monty Burnham. I planned to show them the banquette where the senator had been sitting when the assassin approached, the floor that had once been stained with blood, its red swirling into the marble's pattern. I intended to give them a lesson in history. . . .\n\nI couldn't do it.\n\nWhile the scene and the story probably would have been to them nothing more than a bit of gruesome Bismarck trivia, I couldn't take the chance. What if a detail\u2014as slight as the bullet-pocked stone floor or as large as the connection to Keogh Street and their ancestry\u2014lodged in my daughters the way the details had made a home in me? Of some matters ignorance is preferable to knowledge.\n\nI've brought the matter of Raymond Stoddard and his motivation about as far as I can. If I haven't made the choices clear, let me present them one more time. You might choose to believe, as my mother did, that Raymond Stoddard killed to avoid a scandal involving his job with the state. You might side with my father and think that resentment and anger over the Stoddard family's being cheated of a dwelling and acreage was enough to make Raymond buy a gun and use it. It may be your conviction that murder always proceeds from a deranged mind whose purposes are never available to us. Your character, your experiences, your values, your worldview\u2014all these will cause you to favor one theory over another. Have you ever succumbed to an irrational impulse? Could jealousy corrupt your soul? Have you ever acted with nothing but bitterness behind the behavior? My own hypothesis doesn't require much beyond what's known of the principals' lives\u2014that and the knowledge that nothing has a power quite like love to tilt us toward murder and self-destruction.\n\nI imagine\u2014and it hardly seems appropriate to term this theory the product of imagination, so plausible does it seem to me\u2014that _Raymond Stoddard had always known that his wife loved_ _another man before she loved him. For years, this was a source_ _of satisfaction for him. He regarded himself as blessed that_ _Alma Shumate chose him; he had a special pride that he possessed_ _what others wanted. In economic terms, her value increased_ _according to how strongly she was desired by others. However, just as the rich man worries that he will lose his treasure,_ _so Raymond Stoddard's anxiety eventually outpaced his_ _happiness._\n\n_Maybe Raymond's doubts needed nothing to grow but his_ _own insecurities, and maybe they began with a casual remark, a_ _comparison his wife made between him and other men. It might_ _have been a perfectly harmless observation. Why, Alma asked_ _her husband when he reached for his money to pay the restaurant_ _bill, do you always carry your wallet in your jacket pocket?_ _Every other man I've known\u2014my father, my brother, Monty,_ _Pastor Lundgren, Bill McCutcheon\u2014carries his in the back_ _pocket of his trousers. Monty. Only a first name was necessary. They both knew of whom she was speaking. Or maybe it_ _started with Monty Burnham's rise to prominence. One evening_ _he was featured on the news, a brief segment showing him at_ _the dedication of the Lewis and Clark monument overlooking_ _the Missouri, and Alma leaned farther forward than she ever_ _did for an act she liked on_ The Ed Sullivan Show _or with more_ _interest than she showed in any episode of_ The Loretta Young Show, _her favorite program._\n\n_And that was all it took._\n\n_She still thought of Monty Burnham. She knew Monty_ _Burnham, knew him and his habits well enough to recollect_ _without effort how he carried his wallet. He wasn't only part of_ _her past; he was in her present. She might be looking out a window,_ _but she wasn't seeing the snow falling or the wind sweeping_ _away the fallen leaves, she was thinking about Monty_ _Burnham. He was more real to her than the sunset pinks and_ _lavenders of the horizon._\n\n_Who is to say where worry crosses over to fear and then_ _hardens into agonized belief? We either have the ability to talk_ _ourselves out of our fears or we don't. And Raymond Stoddard_ _reached the point where he suspected that anytime Alma left the_ _house it might be for the final time. Her suitcase was packed,_ _and around the corner her lover was waiting. Of course he forgot_ _that Wednesdays were her days for working at the church or_ _that she had told him that she was walking over to Mrs. Morton's_ _house for coffee or that she said she'd stop at Super Valu;_ _he believed that anytime she left the house it was for another_ _assignation._\n\n_Over the years Raymond Stoddard had tried various mea_ _sures of self-treatment to salve his perpetually wounded pride or_ _to alleviate his misery. He had always drunk, but at some point_ _the act become purposeful, determined. The benumbed man,_ _after all, feels no pain. Anger too can be a narcotic, and though_ _he was never able to use it as successfully as bourbon, the few_ _times his rage burst forth, Raymond found himself oddly released_ _from pain. For that matter, his own reveries could sometimes_ _offer him relief, even when the object of contemplation_ _was his wife in the arms of another man. He pictured so vividly_ _the scenes of Alma in bed with Monty Burnham that Raymond_ _was briefly taken outside himself; he was no longer a man in_ _agony, he was an impersonal creator, a visionary, a vehicle for_ _his own lurid imagination._\n\n_None of his strategies for relieving his pain lasted for long,_ _however. It always returned, and frequently redoubled. Finally_ _in January of 1961\u2014and how many residents of the northern_ _plains have come to a life-altering conclusion in deepest winter,_ _as though something in their brains could crystallize and take_ _form just as their breath does in the frigid air\u2014Raymond Stoddard_ _concluded it all had to stop, even if his own life was subsumed_ _within that \"all.\"_\n\n_Marcia Stoddard's semester grades arrived, and they were_ _not good. A C in Introduction to Drama. A C_ \\- _in biology, and_ _they went down from there. A D in Spanish, and an F in Educational_ _Psychology._\n\n_Her father was furious. \"She had to attend the university,\" he said, slapping the printed grade form down on the kitchen_ _counter. \"She had to graduate early from high school, and then_ _junior college wasn't good enough for her. Oh, no. It had to be_ _the university. And I'm shelling out good money for grades like_ _these?\"_\n\n_Alma tried to calm her husband and to keep his ranting_ _from being overheard by her son and his friend watching television_ _in the living room. \"Shhh. You know she was struggling. She said so at Thanksgiving.\"_\n\n_\"This isn't just struggling. See this. F. That's failing. Not_ _struggling. Failing.\"_\n\n_\"She promised she'd do better. It was a bad semester.\"_\n\n_\"She promised. And does she know how she'll do better? I'm going to have a talk with her.\"_\n\n_\"What do you think that will accomplish? She's let us down._ _She knows that. She's let herself down.\"_\n\n_\"If she doesn't have a plan for how she's going to improve, I_ _might have a few suggestions for her.\"_\n\n_\"I really don't think that's what she needs to hear right_ _now.\"_\n\n_\"What she needs . . . Maybe what she needs isn't the important_ _thing right now. Maybe\u2014just a minute. Are you telling me_ _that I shouldn't speak to my own daughter? Is that what you're_ _saying? Because\u2014\"_\n\n_\"Oh, for God's sake. Will you stop? You're not going to_ _solve this with a talk. You've never bothered talking to her before,_ _about her grades or anything else._ You _. . . you're barely a_ _father to her.\"_\n\n_Because Raymond couldn't quite comprehend what his wife_ _had said to him\u2014_ he wasn't Marcia's father? _\u2014he looked elsewhere_ _for assistance. The boys in the living room\u2014if they'd_ _heard Alma's statement, surely they would register its shock,_ _wouldn't they?_ What the hell? Dad isn't\u2014? Mr. Stoddard isn't Marcia's father? _And Raymond's son was rising to his feet\u2014was_ _he coming out to the kitchen to demand the truth of_ his _paternity?_ _But Gene merely walked to the television set and with a_ _half turn of the horizontal hold stopped the picture from_ _rolling. His friend never took his eyes off that week's episode of_ Gunsmoke. _Was it Raymond who had misunderstood? Had his_ _wife merely offered a comment on him as an insufficiently attentive,_ _barely engaged father, and in that regard not very different_ _from every other father? That interpretation was certainly_ _available._\n\n_Yet Raymond rejected it and chose instead to take Alma's_ _blurted remark as revelation, the confession he had dreaded and_ _longed to hear._\n\n_His wife had not just loved another before she loved him\u2014_ _that he could handle and indeed in some moments could even_ _gloat about\u2014but she had had sex with that man. That was_ _harder to bear. Of course she had never stopped thinking about,_ _caring about Monty Burnham\u2014the reminder of him, of them_ _and their love for each other, was constantly present in Marcia. Their child. And that was, quite literally, a fact he could not digest._ _He bolted from the kitchen on his way to the bathroom,_ _but when he saw his son and his son's friend, Raymond turned_ _around. He ran to the garage and there he lurched to the trash_ _can just in time: He vomited onto the sack of garbage that he_ _had put there only an hour earlier._\n\n_What was he to do? He thought he had known what his_ _darkest worry was\u2014that Alma constantly, secretly compared_ _him to another man and found her husband wanting\u2014but Ray_ _mond realized now that even in his bleakest, most pessimistic_ _self-pitying moods he had not imagined circumstances as black_ _as these._\n\n _With the new year, the legislators invaded the city for their biennial_ _session, and soon their plans to create or thwart new laws_ _became the news that dominated local and state media. Newspapers_ _and television news programs could be counted on to_ _carry articles and interviews in which senators and representatives_ _lobbied, through the press, for or against the projects and_ _issues closest to or furthest from their hearts. Monty Burnham_ _was a rising star in the Republican party, and whether he sought_ _the attention of the cameras or the cameras looked for him is irrelevant;_ _he was a reliable media presence, as close to famous as_ _any North Dakotan was likely to come during the first cold,_ _snowy days of 1961._\n\n_On its six o'clock nightly news broadcast, Bismarck station_ _KFYR televised a brief interview with Senator Burnham on the_ _contentious subject of the state's property tax, and as it happened,_ _Raymond Stoddard, who usually favored the news on_ _KXMB, the CBS affiliate, was watching KFYR during the Burnham_ _segment. Had Raymond's wife been in the room at the_ _time, Raymond might well have turned to her, pointed at the_ _screen, and issued his ultimatum: Him or me\u2014which is it? Right now, make your decision. No deliberation, no discussion,_ _no denials, no explanations, no lists of pros and cons. Right_ _now\u2014him or me._\n\n_But the only other person in the room was the teenage boy_ _who lived up the block, waiting for Raymond's son so the two of_ _them could attend that evening's basketball contest\u2014Bismarck_ _High School versus its in-town rival, St. Mary's. They wanted to_ _leave early enough to be in time for the junior varsity game as_ _well._\n\n_But what if Alma had been there? It wouldn't have mattered._ _Raymond knew what she'd say. He was foolish, imagining_ _things. The past was past. She might profess her love for_ _Raymond, depending on whether he'd angered or touched her_ _with his accusation. But Raymond Stoddard now lived in a_ _realm where neither protest nor proof, nor protestations of love_ _or innocence, could reach him. Nothing of the usual life of humans_ _could affect his faith. Alma loved another man, and Raymond_ _knew it. The only thing left was to leave this life with_ _nothing behind but this message to his wife:_ I know.\n\n_Raymond tried composing a suicide note to Alma, a letter_ _that would make it clear that he was aware that she loved someone_ _else and always had. But every attempt to write this communication_ _failed. Sheet after sheet he tore up or crumpled and_ _tossed aside. He couldn't get the tone right. He wanted to sound_ _noble, self-sacrificing, yet he also felt that he was entitled to be_ _angry and aggrieved\u2014her contempt for him finally became too_ _much to bear. He wanted to outline the relevant background to_ _his suicide, yet any attempt to go into the past enlarged the_ _scope of his note and soon he was writing page after page of_ _personal history. He didn't want to write an autobiography. Indeed,_ _any account of his life only served to emphasize how_ _undistinguished it was. Yet he had to find a way to leave a message_ _for Alma, something that would tell her that he knew_ _about her feelings for another man, and that he could no longer_ _go on living with this knowledge._\n\n_He purchased a .45 automatic, the make and model of_ _sidearm that he and Monty Burnham trained with during the_ _second World War. In the privacy of the basement laundry room_ _Raymond filled the clip to capacity with cartridges, slammed_ _the clip into place, and pulled back on the automatic's slide to_ _chamber a bullet. Then he clicked on the pistol's safety. Although_ _he hadn't picked up a gun since his years in the service,_ _the feel of the weapon in his hand was so familiar that he_ _thought its loading and operation might well belong in the same_ _category as riding a bicycle\u2014once learned, never forgotten. He_ _put the .45 into the pocket of his overcoat\u2014first wrapping it in_ _a dish towel so its shape wouldn't give itself away\u2014and each_ _day he carried it to work with him. That was the extent of his_ _plan; the rest would be improvised as chance presented itself. He couldn't be sure when he'd see Monty Burnham, but Raymond_ _knew when the senate was in session and where the legislators_ _were likely to be when they were not in chambers. Raymond made it a point to visit the legislative wing frequently._\n\n_The day soon came when he saw Monty Burnham sitting on_ _a red leather banquette outside the senate, which was in recess. Raymond wished the man had been alone, but he could hardly_ _afford to let the opportunity pass. Who knew when he'd have_ _another? He returned to his office and put on his overcoat with_ _its familiar weight on the right side. Into his left pocket he_ _placed the envelope containing the folded, signed confession_ _that he had typed days before. That communication he had had_ _no trouble composing; it came out exactly right the first time,_ _and he was quietly proud of its straightforward\u2014yet still_ _slightly enigmatic\u2014uncomplaining acknowledgment of guilt._\n\n_His decision to say nothing about his motive before shooting_ _Monty Burnham was governed by the same logic, if it can_ _be called that, that decided Raymond against leaving a note for_ _Alma. He didn't know what to say because he didn't know what_ not _to say. But if the act itself was going to tell her everything_ _that needed to be said, then the sight of the .45 pointed at_ _Monty Burnham would have to be sufficient explanation for the_ _senator._\n\n_Only the actual sound of the gun going off was Raymond_ _unprepared for. That long hall, those high ceilings, the walls and_ _floors of stone\u2014the .45 boomed and echoed like none ever had_ _during his years of training and combat. He knew the gun_ _would jump in his hand and send a jolt all the way up his arm\u2014_ _he was heedful to aim his second shot as carefully as the first\u2014_ _but the noise, the noise! For a moment his hearing was affected,_ _and shouting and screaming reached Raymond's ears as if they_ _came from a much greater distance than from the men and_ _women scattering around him. Then, as his hearing gradually_ _improved, the noise from those same people grew louder, as if_ _they were now coming closer, when in fact everyone wanted to_ _move away from the man with the gun._\n\n_After shooting the senator, Raymond walked away calmly\u2014_ _his calm was a pleasant surprise\u2014away from the scene, away_ _from the man twitching and jerking and clutching at his throat_ _as if his death couldn't come fast enough and he wanted to_ _choke off his last breath, away from the blood-smeared stone_ _floor, away from the panicked onlookers who weren't sure of the_ _direction in which to run. At an even pace, Raymond exited the_ _building through the south door, and not until he was negotiating_ _the icy steps leading down from the building was he even_ _aware that he was still holding the gun, and even then his awareness_ _wasn't of a weapon, an instrument with which he had just_ _committed murder, but of weight, and that awareness led to another:_ _He was a fugitive, fleeing a crime, and fugitives needed_ _neither the extra weight nor evidence connecting them to the_ _crime. No matter that Raymond Stoddard had no expectation of_ _escape from capture or incrimination, as he walked away from_ _the capitol, he instinctively lightened his load by flinging the gun_ _away, and when it landed in a snowdrift, it had not only its_ _weight to help it sink through the snow but also the heat it still_ _held from Raymond's hand and from being so recently fired._\n\n _Raymond Stoddard's Ford was not the only car leaving the capitol's_ _parking lot. As he waited at the stop sign for his turn to_ _pull out onto Fourth Street, he counted five cars ahead of him,_ _all employees who had probably heard\u2014or heard about\u2014the_ _shooting and were driving away from the grounds as quickly as_ _possible. Surprises kept multiplying. He was shocked and somewhat_ _indignant that he could make his escape\u2014although he hesitated_ _to think of it in that way; after all, he had no hope, no_ _desire, of a permanent getaway\u2014with so little difficulty. Shouldn't the entire capitol building and grounds be sealed as_ _quickly as possible to prevent the assassin's flight?_\n\n_He drove the few blocks to his home, and once he arrived_ _there, he pulled into the driveway and automatically got out to_ _open the garage door in order to park the car inside. Then he_ _stopped himself, remembering that he needed the garage's empty_ _space for what lay ahead. He entered his house through the_ _front door, walked unhesitatingly through the living room and_ _kitchen, and exited into the garage._\n\n_The tires were piled in a corner, waiting to be put on the_ _Ford once winter's snow and ice melted from the roads. Raymond_ _reached inside the dark well of the heaped tires to bring_ _out the coiled clothesline rope. He tested again the knot that he_ _had tied days before. It held tight, as he knew it would. The_ _knot was a variation of one he tied in fishing line when he was a_ _boy. Seven twists and then circle through\u2014it looked more like a_ _noose than the actual noose would. He threaded the other end_ _of the rope through the loop but left an open circle. When he_ _reached up to gauge whether it was large enough to fit over his_ _head, he knocked off his hat, which under the circumstances_ _struck him as hilarious, the setup to a joke without a punch_ _line: Did you hear the one about the man about to hang himself?_ _He forgot to take off his hat. . . ._\n\n_Continuing to move quickly yet deliberately, Raymond unfolded_ _the stepladder and climbed high enough to toss the rope_ _over a crossbeam, a process he repeated a few times. He wanted_ _to make certain the rope wouldn't slide from side to side. The_ _other end of the rope he anchored by tying it to one of the legs_ _of a built-in workbench. With the stepladder still in place he_ _brought the tires over and stacked them under the knotted rope,_ _the height of which had to be adjusted one more time. The ladder_ _would enable him to climb up to the top of the pile of tires. He'd loop the rope around his neck\u2014making sure to take off_ _his hat first!\u2014and then he could push the ladder and send it_ _crashing to the floor. He'd have to balance only long enough to_ _kick the tires out from under him, and only two would have to_ _fall away to guarantee that his decision would be irrevocable._\n\n_Once all these preparations were in order, Raymond went_ _back inside the house. He didn't have a lot of time, but he could_ _have one more cigarette and warm up a bit. Working in the_ _garage had been almost as cold as it would have been to work_ _outside. He sat down at the kitchen table. He took the typed_ _confession from his pocket and put it under the ashtray. No_ _need to remove his hat or overcoat. He wouldn't be here long._\n\n_One small matter was still plaguing him. Those failed attempts_ _to write a suicide letter\u2014had he thrown them all away? Raymond was sure he had. But had he only crumpled them up_ _before tossing them into the wastebasket, or had he torn them_ _to pieces? Had he emptied that basket into the garbage can in_ _the garage? He thought he remembered taking those precautions,_ _but if he hadn't, someone could retrieve those sheets\u2014_ _some of them containing no more than a few words, others_ _filled with clumsy crossed-out sentences that were supposed to_ _explain his life and why he chose to end it as he did\u2014smooth_ _out the paper, decipher his scrawled handwriting, and believe_ _they had the answer to Raymond Stoddard._\n\n_Well. Let them try. If the papers were there, they were there._ _Raymond didn't have the energy to walk down the stairs and_ _climb back up again. Not when he still had those ladder steps to_ _negotiate. And now he heard the sirens that he had been listening_ _for, though he couldn't determine if they were moving_ _toward him or if they were still speeding toward the capitol_ _building. But if they weren't coming his way yet, they would be_ _soon._\n\n_He wondered from how far away they could be heard. Or,_ _put another way, how far his fame had already traveled. If Raymond_ _could hear the sirens from his kitchen, certainly they_ _could be heard in the homes of his neighbors on Keogh Street. People in the older houses and apartments in the center of the_ _city could probably hear them. And farther away? Could they_ _hear the sirens in those expensive homes on the western hills? In_ _the run-down houses south of the tracks? In the offices of his_ _brother-in-law's construction company out on Airport Road\u2014_ _could they hear them there? In the Frontier bar on Main Avenue?_ _His wife and son\u2014could they hear them? And was_ _everyone within earshot asking, as people so often do at the_ _sound of a siren, what's happening? What's wrong? Raymond_ _hoped they were heard everywhere and that to every ear they_ _would inspire the same questions, not just today but every day_ _hereafter. What happened? What went wrong?_\n\n_He had just lit his second Old Gold when Raymond heard_ _the front door open. He had an impulse\u2014an absurd, ridiculous,_ _impossible impulse\u2014to rush to the garage to complete his mission_ _before Alma or Gene\u2014no one else, not even the police,_ _would enter without knocking, ringing the bell, or shouting_ _their presence\u2014discovered him, but then Raymond relaxed. He_ _still didn't have to hurry. Not yet. The garage was his domain;_ _he could walk out there at anytime and neither his wife nor his_ _son would have any curiosity about what he might be doing out_ _there on a winter's day._\n\n_It was his son, his son and his friend who lived up the_ _street, their faces red and their noses running from their walk_ _home from school. Before Gene could ask his father why he_ _was sitting at the kitchen table rather than at his desk in the_ _capitol, Raymond put a question to his son. \"Where's your_ _mother?\"_\n\n_\"I'm pretty sure she works at the church library on Wednesdays.\"_\n\n_Raymond nodded. \"Wednesday. That's right. It's Wednesday.\"_ _In his mind he added to the day a calendar notation, calculating_ _the date that would for years after bear his mark and_ _name more than his birthday ever had. \"What time will she\u2014\"_\n\n_But Gene was already turned to the refrigerator, reaching inside_ _for the milk he would swig from the bottle. The neighbor_ _kid, however, kept watching Raymond, and with the gaze of_ _someone who doesn't recognize what his gaze fixes upon._\n\n_And perhaps Raymond did look different. He was, after all,_ _someone he hadn't been the last time these two young men had_ _seen him. Why wouldn't his appearance be altered\u2014what identity_ _had more strength and power than \"murderer\"? For that_ _matter, Raymond hadn't, he realized, looked at himself since_ _he'd left the capitol. Perhaps before he went into the garage he_ _would seek out a mirror for a quick self-inspection, just to see if_ _he could see what this kid saw. Then again, why bother? He had_ _never known who he was better than at this moment._\n\n_He tilted his hat back and took a last drag on his cigarette. Look all you like, kid; Raymond Stoddard will never be anything_ _but a mystery to you._\n\nSince my mother's death, and instead of those regular visits to her and my hometown, I've been making a very different journey. As a result of my friendship with a French editor, I'm able to live for a few weeks in Paris. His apartment is in the Latin Quarter, my Montana home is near a number of first-class trout streams, and because he is a fanatic fly fisherman, he is more than happy to swap residences every summer.\n\nHis apartment, in a building dating to the seventeenth century, has much to recommend it. Rue Xavier Privas is a quiet street, but only steps from the Seine, the Saint-Michel Metro stop, Notre Dame, and from wonderful bridge views. Boulevard St.-Germain is close enough that I hear those distinctive French police sirens regularly. Shakespeare & Company is nearby, and I browse its shelves frequently. Two or three evenings a week I eat dinner at Chez Pento, a wonderful tiny restaurant that has been feeding diners for over a hundred years. But those are the attractions that Jerome might list in a brochure if he were interested in subletting to any American. Only to me might he mention the slanted ceilings with their exposed beams . . . which remind me of the attic where Marie and I first made love. I can stand at the window, and though I am looking down at a cobbled courtyard where children play and my neighbors greet one another, those sights are not as poignantly real as the remembered image behind me. After lovemaking, Marie lies unashamedly naked on our makeshift mattress, and the late afternoon sun slants through the window, lighting her just so and revealing the sheen of perspiration that covers her from head to foot. She glistens. She shimmers. She shines. She glistens. She shimmers. She shone, shone, shone. . . .\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nFor their advice and support I am deeply grateful to my agent, Ralph Vicinanza, and my editor, Bruce Tracy. I am fortunate indeed to work with these consummate professionals and to count them as friends. For the information and insights they provided about the past, heartfelt thanks to Bruce and Barb Evanson and to Mark Miller. Special thanks to Eben Weiss and Bara MacNeill. Thanks also to Jennifer Hershey, Laura Ford, Beth Pearson, Ryan Doherty, and everyone else at Random House for their expertise and enthusiasm. Finally, for her love and inspiration I owe a debt that can't be repaid to my wife, Susan, who is present on every page of this novel.\nSundown,  \nYellow  \nMoon\n\nLARRY WATSON\n\nA Reader's Guide\nA CONVERSATION WITH LARRY WATSON\n\n**Random House Reader's Circle:** You tell the story through a timid and unnamed narrator. Was he modeled after anyone? At times he is likeable, yet ultimately he betrays his best friend. What relationship did you have with the narrator while writing? How do you think the reader should react to his actions?\n\n **Larry Watson:** I'm strongly tempted to duck this question, because the narrator\u2014timid and traitorous, as the question suggests\u2014is based on me. We grew up in similar neighborhoods in Bismarck, North Dakota. We both lived within view of the state capitol building, and in childhood came to know that distinctive structure well. We both graduated from Bismarck High School. (He's from the class of 1963; I'm from 1965.) We both attended the University of North Dakota, and we both became fiction writers. Each of us in adolescence fell in love with a girl who had been dating our best friend. In fact, the narrator is one of two characters in the novel with a real-life counterpart. Anyone who knew my wife, Susan, when she was younger (or, for that matter, who knows her now) will almost certainly identify her as the model for Marie Ryan. I seldom base my characters so closely on people from life, but these two characters in _Sundown, Yellow_ _Moon_ are exceptions.\n\nI suppose I could console myself because the question also applies the word \"likeable\" to the narrator, but I've already read reviews, met with book clubs, and heard from readers who have said they find the narrator unlikeable. I can live with those opinions, and I understand why readers respond to the narrator in that way. He lives too much in his head and too much in the past. He is calculating and self-absorbed. But he is also punished for his failings. The man who looks back on his life and tells this story\u2014these stories\u2014is haunted and anguished. I, of course, escaped his unhappy condition. I never broke up with my Marie Ryan; my wife and I have been happily married for more than forty years. There are other essential differences. I never had a neighbor who was an assassin and committed suicide, or had a friend who was a murderer's son, and no matter the extent to which fictional characters might be based on real people, they can't be the same people when their experiences are different.\n\nThis is a long way of saying that the narrator is and isn't me. Even when a writer works from the actual, the very act of writing produces an aesthetic and an emotional distance that guarantees the written version will differ from its real-life analogue. The narrator and I also share a reverence for the writer William Maxwell who wrote in _So Long, See You Tomorrow_ that \"in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.\" That strikes me as a little strong, since \"lie\" to me suggests an intent to deceive. It would be more accurate, in my view, to say that our memory always lies to us. But then fiction is a lie to get at the truth.\n\n **RHRC:** The entire town of Bismarck, North Dakota, becomes obsessed with Raymond's murder and suicide and, of course, his motives. You grew up in Bismarck. Was it how you portrayed it in the book? Was there an instance in your youth that inspired this story? What is it about this landscape that you wanted to bring to the reader?\n\n **LW:** The correlation between the Bismarck of the novel and the \"real\" Bismarck is similar to the correlation between the narrator and me. I wrote about a place that resembled a real place but whose true existence was in my imagination. For the purposes of the novel I altered a few facts about the city, and I'm sure my memory altered others. Nevertheless, the real Bismarck of the early 1960s was, I believe, comparable to the Bismarck of the novel in that they were both fairly conservative, largely middle class, and somewhat repressed homogeneous communities, removed in many respects from the rest of the nation by climate and geography. One of the ironies of the novel is that Bismarck is brought out of its isolation and anonymity by an act of violence. There have been, unfortunately, too many real-life instances of communities made famous, however briefly, by the violence that has occurred within their borders. In that regard, it should be noted that _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ takes place not only in a small city on the northern plains but also in America. From the political assassinations of the 1960s to last year's insane slaughter on the Virginia Tech campus, Americans have had event after gruesome, grievous event that have forced us to ask again and again who we are as a people and why we live in such a culture of violence.\n\n **RHRC:** First loves, first lovers, childhood friendships, and people's past relationships are big themes in this book. How do you think each relationship affects the next? Which relationship in the story was primary for you? Which one did you feel contained the crux of the story?\n\n **LW:** I do believe in the power and durability of first love, but whether that early relationship lasts, as my wife's and mine has, or doesn't, it's still capable of forming a template that many people apply to subsequent relationships. These people spend a good part of their lives seeking to find a partner with whom they can recapture the passion, purity, and intensity of a youthful love affair. This is the predicament of the narrator of _Sundown, Yellow_ _Moon_. Because of that, I regard his relationship with Marie Ryan as the crux of the story. To the end of his days the narrator will long for something he once had but can never have again. And he knows it.\n\n **RHRC:** Raymond Stoddard's motives for the murder of Monty Burnham and his suicide are never revealed. Do you believe there is a single motive? Did you write it with a clear answer in mind? The protagonist seems to believe it was jealousy. Do you agree? Do crimes always need motives?\n\n **LW:** I didn't write _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ with an answer in mind as to Raymond Stoddard's motive. I never doubted that he would have one, or more than one, but the desire to know what is ultimately unknowable\u2014what was going on Raymond Stoddard's heart and mind\u2014obsesses not just the narrator but other characters in the novel.\n\nJealousy is plausible as a motive, but of course, the narrator is drawn to that as an explanation because he himself is prone to jealousy. I had hoped that one of the ways readers would participate in the novel would be through examining their own personalities and by speculating on how that examination would lead them toward certain explanations. But it would be a brave, introspective reader willing to do that.\n\nYes, I believe that crimes always have motives, no matter how irrational, crazed, twisted, or inadequate they may be.\n\n **RHRC:** _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ contains many short stories written by the protagonist, who is a writer himself. How did you come up with the idea?\n\n **LW:** Almost immediately after the murder and suicide, the narrator struggles to comprehend what has happened. Such acts are beyond puzzling; they're inexplicable. But that doesn't stop people from trying to understand and explain them. Reason won't provide answers, so the narrator tries to imagine his way into lives that are otherwise closed to him. At first this activity takes place only in his mind, but that signals the beginning of his life as a writer. It made sense to me that he would continue to do that throughout his life, though, as for any artist, at some point the aesthetic demands of making a good art object\u2014a short story, in this case\u2014takes precedence over the personal stimulus that initially moved him toward making that object in the first place. Artists are, in my opinion, people finally more interested in making than knowing. The narrator of _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ has a dramatic past that provides him with all the raw material he needs for a lifetime of stories. I thought that, by including his stories in the text, readers would be able to see how his imaginative mind works. Do we know him any better through reading those stories? I believe we do.\n\n **RHRC:** When you began writing this story, what were you hoping to accomplish? What did you want to find out or share with your readers? You also speak directly to the reader. What did you set out to accomplish with this technique?\n\n **LW:** I could never be classified as a postmodernist, fabulist, or metafictionist, but anyone who writes fiction as long as I have is bound to notice some self-consciousness about the practice creeping into his thoughts. And while I'm dug in too deeply in the realist trenches (and am too devoted to story) to write a novel that is entirely a self-reflexive riff on the nature of narrative, I am interested in conducting fictional experiments and in attempting to see whether I can challenge the borders of fiction\u2014without losing readers in the process, of course. In _Orchard_ I tried a nonchronological form. And in _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ I tried to address some fundamental questions about stories, such questions as Where do stories come from? Why do humans need them? What uses do we make of stories? How do fictional truths differ from other varieties? What is the relationship between memory and imagination? So in the writing of _Sundown, Yellow_ _Moon_ I was aware that I was a writer remembering and imagining his past and in the process writing about a writer remembering and imagining his past. But I didn't want this to be an exercise in academic theorizing or in navel-gazing; I wanted, as I always want, a story that would engage, entertain, and move readers, and in the process provoke some thought. Addressing readers directly was a way, I hoped, to indicate that they and I were in this together.\n\n **RHRC:** Do you have a writing routine or any rituals surrounding your work? How long was it after you first had the idea for this story before you started writing it?\n\n **LW:** I don't have routines or rituals that must be followed\u2014no necessity for twenty sharpened pencils or a pot of Earl Grey tea. I can work in any place and at any time as long as I have the materials at hand. But I do make sure that I work on a novel\u2014producing new material, not just reworking old\u2014every day. I will probably also make a journal entry, and I might work on a poem, an essay, or a short story. But I must work on a novel every day without fail. I began writing _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ almost as soon as the idea came to me.\n\n **RHRC:** What are you working on now?\n\n **LW:** I've been working on a novel set, once again, in the early 1960s, and for this novel, whose working title is _The Doctor's Boys_ , I've returned to Montana. A teenage boy has become infatuated with a woman a few years older than he. In pursuing her, he finds himself in competition with a charismatic, powerful man, a doctor in the community. \nQUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION\n\n1. What does _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ say about the nature, source, and durability of young love?\n\n2. Of the available possible explanations for Raymond Stoddard's actions, which do you favor and why?\n\n3. Each character seems to favor a particular explanation. What does that preference reveal about his or her character?\n\n4. Does the explanation you favor reveal something about your character and experience?\n\n5. The narrator writes stories to explain and understand what happened in his neighborhood. Is that a universal human response, or does it stem from his personal nature?\n\n6. Does _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ say that storytelling is a basic human impulse?\n\n7. The narrator doesn't emerge as an entirely likable character. Why? Is he made less than sympathetic because of what he says and does, or because of what he thinks and feels? Or because of what he writes?\n\n8. What does _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ say about the nature of memory? Of memory and imagination?\n\n9. In some respects, the narrator is stuck in the past. What prevents him from living in the present?\n\n10. How is the setting, both the time and the place, important to the action in the novel?\n\n11. Because of the many stories within stories, it's not always possible to determine what \"really happened\" in the narrative. How does that uncertainty figure in the novel's themes?\n\n12. If you knew the narrator based only on the stories he's written, would you characterize him in the same way you would based on his behavior, speech, thoughts, and emotions?\n\n13. Do you have a favorite character?\n\n14. There have been many assassinations and attempted assassinations of politicians in the United States. How does this novel comment on the social, psychological, and cultural response to such events?\n\n15. What does _Sundown, Yellow Moon_ say about violence in America?\n\nLARRY WATSON is the author of _In a Dark Time,_ _Montana 1948, Justice, White Crosses, Laura,_ and _Orchard._ He has won the Milkweed Fiction Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association Regional Award, and numerous other literary prizes. He lives with his wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Visit www.larry-watson.com.\n\nALSO BY LARRY WATSON\n\n_In a Dark Time_   \n_Montana 1948_   \n_Justice_  \n_White Crosses_   \n_Laura_  \n_Orchard_\n_Sundown, Yellow Moon_ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.\n\n2008 Random House Trade Paperback Edition\n\nCopyright 2007 by Larry Watson Reading group guide copyright 2008 by Random House, Inc.\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nPublished in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.\n\nRANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.  \nRANDOM HOUSE READER'S CIRCLE and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.\n\nOriginally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2007.\n\nGrateful acknowledgment is made to Ram's Horn Music for permission to reprint an excerpt from \"If You See Her, Say Hello\" by Bob Dylan, copyright \u00a9 1974 by Ram's Horn Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   \nWatson, Larry.  \nSundown, yellow moon: a novel \/ Larry Watson.  \np. cm.  \nLegislators\u2014Crimes against\u2014Fiction. 2. Suicide victims\u2014Fiction. 3. Children of suicide victims\u2014Fiction. 4. Teenage boys\u2014Fiction. 5. Bismarck (N.D.)\u2014Fiction. I. Title.  \nPS3573.A853S57 2007  \n813'.54\u2014dc22 2007000031\n\nwww.randomhousereaderscircle.com\n\neISBN: 978-1-58836-819-5\n\nv3.0\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nTable of Contents\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright Page\n\nDedication\n\nPART I - Changing Courses\n\nCHAPTER 1 - We'll Always Have Paris\n\nCHAPTER 2 - What Would Julia Do?\n\nCHAPTER 3 - The Secret Language of Kitchens\n\nCHAPTER 4 - It's Not About the Knife\n\nCHAPTER 5 - A Matter of Taste\n\nCHAPTER 6 - Fowl Play\n\nCLASS BREAK - Cruise Control\n\nPART II - A Bit About Meats, Bread, Pasta, Salads, and Vinaigrettes\n\nCHAPTER 7 - The Bread Also Rises\n\nCHAPTER 8 - Tossed Salad & Scrambled Eggs\n\nCHAPTER 9 - Udder Confusion\n\nCLASS BREAK - The Red Velvet Dinners\n\nPART III - Seafood, Soup, and the Importance of Leftovers\n\nCHAPTER 10 - The Pleasures of the Fish\n\nCHAPTER 11 - What's in the Box?\n\nCHAPTER 12 - Waste Not, Want Not\n\nCHAPTER 13 - The Power of Soup\n\nCHAPTER 14 - Kitchens, Revisited\n\nExtra Recipes\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nSelected Bibliography\n\nRecommended Reading\n\nIndex of Recipes\n\nALSO BY KATHLEEN FLINN\n**ALSO BY KATHLEEN FLINN**\n\n_The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School_\nVIKING\n\nPublished by the Penguin Group\n\nPenguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. \u2022 Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) \u2022 Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England \u2022 Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) \u2022 Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) \u2022 Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi\u2013110 017, India \u2022 Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) \u2022 Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa\n\nPenguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England\n\nFirst published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 Kathleen Flinn, 2011\n\nAll rights reserved\n\n_Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals._\n\n_Photograph credits_\n\nPage 5: Maggie Savarino; 125: Kathleen Flinn; 183: Jeff Maness\n\nLIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA\n\nFlinn, Kathleen.\n\nThe kitchen counter cooking school : how a few simple lessons transformed nine culinary novices into fearless home cooks\/Kathleen Flinn.\n\np. cm.\n\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.\n\nISBN : 978-1-101-54451-8\n\n1. Cooking\u2014Study and teaching\u2014Anecdotes. 2. Flinn, Kathleen\u2014Anecdotes. 3. Cook books. I. Title.\n\nTX661.F57 2011\n\n641.507\u2014dc23 2011016222\n\nWithout limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.\n\nThe scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.\n\n<http:\/\/us.penguingroup.com>\n_For my mother, Irene_\n\n_For encouraging me to find joy in everything, not just cooking_\n**Author's Note**\n\n In theory, the story presented herein represents a year of my life teaching one round of lessons to nine volunteer students. In reality, it's the result of numerous additional kitchen visits, scores of interviews with cooks, researchers, and cooking teachers, plus my own teaching experiences in the year since the project ended.\n\nI recorded every home interview and most of the original classes, resulting in about fifty hours of video and two hundred pages of handwritten notes. I've done my best to portray events accurately, but consolidated or shifted events and comments in some situations. In a few scenes, the dialogue in classes was built from memory. The names of some of the volunteers and their children have been changed to protect their privacy.\n\nWhen it comes to the techniques taught here, ardent foodies or culinary professionals may debate the \"right\" method to roast a chicken or some other technique. I might even look back on these lessons to find that I have changed the way I teach the same recipes. That's one of the great things about cooking; there's more than one way to skin a fish. As long as an approach yields good, nourishing food, it isn't \"wrong.\"\nPROLOGUE\n\n**The Woman with the Chicken**\n\n_\"You teach best what you most need to learn.\"_\n\n\u2014Richard Bach, _Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah_\n\n  Normally, I do not stalk people in grocery stores.\n\nI confess to the occasional practice of supermarket voyeurism. But who doesn't sometimes notice the curious collections of fellow shoppers, then contemplate what they may reveal about them?\n\nWhat goes on in the home of a hunched, graying woman with nineteen cans of cat food, iceberg lettuce, a family pack of steaks, and a copy of _In Style_ magazine? Or a young woman in full stage makeup oblivious to the world outside her headphones, a pack of tofu hot dogs among the contents of a hand basket nestled in the crook of her tattoo-littered arm? Or an elegant man with a perfect manicure who lingers over the imported cheese counter, his cart filled with organic greens, expensive olives, and four bottles of champagne? Every grocery cart tells a story.\n\nLate on an otherwise average Tuesday afternoon, a sight near the canned tuna stopped me dead in my tracks. The cart sat as if abandoned in the middle of the aisle. It contained two dozen haphazardly piled boxes of dehydrated mixes for pasta, casseroles, rice, and stuffing and dubious jars of gravy. Despite being half full, the cart contained no _real_ food. As I stood contemplating its contents, a heavyset woman in her late thirties, casually attired in an eggplant-colored fleece, claimed the cart. Her preteen daughter twirled impatiently around her, quietly singing a Lady Gaga song under her breath.\n\nWould it be wrong if I followed her to find out what else she might buy?\n\nSmall basket in hand, I trailed behind her to stealthily observe. I feigned interest in various items along the aisles as she stocked up on packaged waffles and pizza pretzel bites, a collection of frozen dinners, chicken potpies, and a family-style package of pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy.\n\nBy the time we hit the meat department, I suspected she was onto me. Hugging my shoulders against the damp chill and trying to avoid inhaling the vague smell of chlorine, I clumsily relied upon my peripheral vision to spy her selecting a heavy family-sized pack of ground hamburger at the other end of the case. She pushed her cart in my direction. I pretended to peruse the plastic-wrapped turkey options. \"Can you believe how expensive chicken breasts are these days? Crazy,\" she said out loud, to no one in particular. She reluctantly tossed a package into her cart.\n\nI seized the opportunity to say something. \"Whole chickens are on sale,\" I said. \"Ninety-nine cents a pound, I think.\"\n\nShe chuckled. \"Thanks, but I would have _no_ idea what to do with a whole chicken.\"\n\nIt hit me. After a year deboning chickens and stuffing meat with other meats at a famous Paris cooking school, I had information this woman needed. For some reason, at that moment, I felt compelled to give it to her. \"Come with me. I'll get someone to show you how to cut up a chicken.\"\n\n\"Ah, no, thanks,\" she said. A reasonable response given that I was a complete stranger who had followed her for twenty minutes through the maze of grocery store aisles.\n\nSomehow I assured her that I was not trying to sell a time-share in front of the turkey kielbasa. She shrugged and said, \"Okay, why not?\" We headed over to the butcher.\n\n\"Sure, I'm happy to show you how to cut it up, no problem,\" the butcher said as I handed him the chicken. The woman peered over the glass case to his thick white cutting board as he sectioned the bird deliberately. He stopped to show her how each cut was done. As he finished, he crackled fresh butcher paper around the pieces.\n\n\"So just how much is that whole chicken?\" she asked.\n\nHe looked at the tag. \"Let's see, it's on sale, so $5.20.\"\n\n\"How much would that go for if you sold me the pieces all cut up and packaged, like those breasts over there?\" She waved toward the meat case.\n\nHe looked up, mumbled abstractly under his breath, counting on his fingers. \"Well, breasts are out at $5.99 a pound, the thighs at $2.29, so I'd say about $10 or so.\"\n\n\"Get out!\" she exclaimed. \"So I pay twice the price to buy it as separate pieces? Well, who knew that!\" She smiled broadly.\n\nHe winked and passed her the freshly wrapped chicken. It landed heavy in her hand. She looked thoughtful. \"What is it?\" I asked.\n\nShe looked around, leaned forward, and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, \"I don't know what to do with the other parts of the chicken. I only know how to cook the breasts.\" She shrugged, embarrassed. \"But thanks for your help.\"\n\nAs she pushed her cart away, her daughter in tow, I stopped her. I could not let this woman go without knowing what to do with the rest of her chicken. By chance, this supermarket happened to be carrying the paperback of my first book. I fetched a copy. I flipped to a recipe for braised chicken thighs with mustard and then to one for stock.\n\nAt first, she didn't believe it was my book. I showed her my driver's license. \"I'm not trying to sell you a book,\" I assured her. \"I'm happy to buy it for you. I can't explain it, but I just really want to help you.\"\n\nFor the next hour, I led her around the store, making notes in the margins and writing new recipes in the notepad that I always carry in my purse. We discussed why she bought so many boxes and cans, and as we did, I slowly convinced her to clear out most of them from her cart and replace them with the real food that the boxed versions attempted to replicate. A three-pound beef roast replaced four shelf-stable individual pot roast dinners. When rounded out with inexpensive vegetables, the roast would yield a dozen servings for the same price.\n\n\"You know, I can't thank you enough for all this,\" she said earnestly as we made our way to the checkout, where, as promised, I bought her the book. \"At first, I thought you were some crazy person. But this feels like Wonder Woman stopping to help fix a flat tire.\" She and her daughter waved an enthusiastic good-bye. I didn't even get her name.\n\nThat afternoon stayed with me. It awakened a curiosity that I hadn't realized I had. Somehow, I knew this chance encounter was going to change my life.\n**PART I**\n\n**Changing Courses**\n\n_\"For most people, the only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.\"_\n\n\u2014Julia Child\n\n**Terri, Trish, Shannon, and Sabra practice knife skills**\nCHAPTER 1\n\n**We'll Always Have Paris**\n\n_\"They say that time changes things but you actually have to change them yourself.\"_\n\n\u2014Andy Warhol, pop art icon\n\n  Standing on the stage delivering the graduation speech at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris is not the optimal time for an existential crisis.\n\nYet there I stood in my simple black dress, speech in hand, dwarfed by the vaulted gilded ceilings of the opulent ballroom in Le Club du Cercle just off the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es. Two years earlier, I had awaited my diploma sitting right where this year's graduates were now.\n\nThe school knew that I would be in Paris to lead a culinary tour and asked if I would speak. I'd said yes, flattered, before thinking the whole thing through. The applause at my introduction drifted away during the eternity it took to walk to the podium. I silently surveyed the rows of the immaculately dressed audience. In the front sat two of the many young Japanese women in full celebration kimonos, their small hands carefully folded in their laps. Behind me, a dozen instructor chefs in tall toques spanned the width of the stage in a single row, waiting. I hid my panic behind a manic smile.\n\nWhat was I doing here? What words of wisdom could I possibly offer when I wasn't sure what to do next with my _own_ life? At age thirty-seven, I had realized my lifelong dream to graduate from the world's most famous cooking school. But what was I supposed to do now?\n\nI kept hearing two questions again and again, often from the same people. \"You graduated from culinary school, where is your restaurant?\" and \"When are you two having kids?\" I had no answer for either.\n\nA lot had happened since I'd left school. I'd settled into married life in Seattle while my husband, Mike, had joined a start-up company. We'd experienced the usual stuff of life as it marched unrelentingly onward; friends and relatives got married, others divorced, a few had children, and a couple got sick. I dealt with the curious, feast-andfamine life of authorship. Two days after I read to a packed crowd at the James Beard House in New York, I stood before an audience of three at a bookstore event in San Francisco, and _that_ included two of the store employees. The next week in Milwaukee, a quirky woman wearing her sweater inside out asked me to sign a book\u2014to her cats. I wrote, \"Dear Mr. Hinkel and Winkie Pie, I hope you enjoy the book, especially the parts about the fish.\"\n\nAbout three weeks before this trip to Paris, Mike had a strange premonition. \"I'm going to join my dad on his vacation in Mexico after all. I can't explain it, but I feel that if I don't go, I'll never see him again.\"\n\nWithin minutes of Mike's arrival at his dad's time-share, something went wrong. His dad, Floyd, pawed awkwardly against the dresser and suddenly fell heavily forward. Mike caught him and they tumbled to the floor. A doctor arrived on the scene and said Floyd had suffered a small stroke. A standard procedure to break up the stroke-causing clot led to a massive brain hemorrhage, sending Floyd into a coma. Mike arranged for an airlift to a Miami hospital for possible surgery. After an agonizing thirty-six-hour wait, doctors declared that nothing could be done. Over the next week, we watched helplessly as Floyd slipped away.\n\nOn a clear May afternoon, Mike broke down as he delivered the eulogy at a packed church in Spokane, Washington. \"He was my best friend . . . the best man at my wedding and . . .\" Mike stopped, fighting back tears. His sister came up and took his hand. \"I always wanted to grow up to be just like him.\"\n\nWe left for Paris three days after the funeral. When the seat belt light dinged, we finally exhaled. We felt a strange sense of relief, as if leaving the grief and stress behind.\n\nStanding at the podium with all this fresh in my mind, I cleared my throat as I surveyed the audience sitting in quiet expectation. I unfolded my speech. The sharp crinkling of paper echoed loudly in the vast room. I looked at Mike just offstage, proudly gripping a video camera. He tipped his head forward in a nod of encouragement. I folded my speech back up.\n\n\"So, today you've earned your culinary degree. What are you going to do with it?\" I asked. \"How many of you know? Raise your hands.\" A small group held their arms aloft.\n\n\"Here's what some of my classmates did with theirs.\" I talked about the friends I'd met at Le Cordon Bleu. Sharon had labored at Internet start-up companies, but now resided as a chef and kosher caterer in her hometown of Tel Aviv. Lely had traded corporate marketing to run a cooking school in Jakarta. Jose had left his job selling shoes to attend Le Cordon Bleu and was now an apprentice in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Madrid. Isabella, a former psychologist, had worked as the private chef for a Russian paper baron and later moved to Los Angeles, where she taught cooking classes in French to Hollywood celebrities' kids. Chinese-born and British-bred LP had been an attorney in London, but she now managed a French wine import business in Shanghai. Another friend had returned to work as a management consultant, but did pro bono work analyzing food distribution issues to combat hunger in places such as Mozambique.\n\n\"People ask, 'What can you do with a culinary degree?' The reality is that you can go anywhere and do anything,\" I continued. \"You're only limited by your passion and your imagination. Be open to the possibilities, take chances. Your career doesn't have to be traditional. It doesn't even have to be in a restaurant or even in a kitchen.\n\n\"For some reason, your passion for cooking and your desire to nourish people led you to this moment and place in time. Consider for a moment what success looks like when passion enters the equation. Is it money? Is it fame? Or is it having the strength to follow that passion? To have the will to go down a path you never thought you'd venture?\"\n\nI looked at the students' faces. Most were impossibly young. \"No matter what, remember that life is short, shorter than you think.\" I looked at Mike again. I thought back to our final moment in the Miami hospital with his father, to the last time I saw my own dad when I was thirteen, and the tear-filled interviews that I conducted writing obits in my early twenties. \"It can be gone just like that,\" I continued, and snapped my fingers in front of the microphone. The sound echoed like a stone dropping into a well. \"You think you'll figure it out someday, only to find that someday never comes.\" My throat caught on the words. \"One thing that I hope you'll do is try not to focus on what other people expect from you. At one point in my life I was so concerned about the next rung on the corporate ladder, and only later realized I missed the entire point of the climb. Find something _you_ believe in. Then, just do it. That's what matters.\"\n\nThe crowd applauded, but the toques rustled behind me. _\"O\u00f9 est la traduction?\"_ Where is the translation? I heard a chef ask. Between the funeral and being unsure of what to say, I'd turned in the speech too late for an official translation. Everyone agreed that if I did it on the fly in my paltry French, we'd be there all night. For once, most of the chefs couldn't understand _me_.\n\nAt the reception, as I was clutching my champagne, a radiant young woman approached. Her silky yellow-orange robes and sequined headdress perched atop her jet-black hair reminded me of an extra from the Elizabeth Taylor version of _Cleopatra_. Hessa hailed from Bahrain, but she spoke English in an accent more befitting a midwestern college sorority sister with a twinge of Valley Girl. \"I, like, really identified with your speech. I'm such a question mark. How do people figure out what they want to do? What are you doing? Do you have a restaurant?\"\n\nBefore I could answer, the fabulously suave Chef Savard arrived at my side. He had changed from his chef's whites into a tan suede blazer and black turtleneck to striking effect. After kissing me on both cheeks, he asked, \"So, _ch\u00e9rie,_ tell me, what are _you_ doing with your culinary training? Are you and Mike going to have any children?\"\n\nI downed my champagne.\n\nDespite our emotionally fragile states, the trip started well. Fresh from our flight, Mike dropped our bags in the tidy rental apartment near Rue Moufftard in the 5th arrondissement and immediately went downstairs. He returned with a pair of warm, fresh baguettes and a small bag of goods from a nearby _alimentation,_ the Parisian equivalent of a convenience store. We ripped greedily at the still-warm bread, slathering it with sweet French butter and finishing each bite with a sip of cold, bracing Chablis.\n\nJet-lagged, we napped mightily until dinnertime. We awoke, disoriented, to the sticky summer heat and crimson twilight, the distinct wail of French ambulances drifting through the open shutters. Half awake, we slipped outside to experience the city as if in a dream. The wide sidewalks reflected the heat of the day as we reacquainted ourselves with the marvels of seventeenth-century architecture and the brazen yet sophisticated female nudity of modern French advertising. We saw Parisians sitting at small round tables, sipping tiny espressos or glasses of wine. We walked the streets to the Seine, drew in deep breaths of its earthy scent, and looked out over the late summer sunset. We felt strangely at home.\n\nThe speech occurred at the start of our trip, but our primary reason for being there was to lead a vacation tour organized by the American Automobile Association. It was billed as a \"culinary tour of Paris\"; Mike and I agreed to take a group of Americans through an abbreviated version of our life in the city. The week the tour started, we met Sabine, the tour operator in Paris. \"It is a small group, yes, but the people here have all read your book and are very excited to meet you both.\" The group was a diverse mix that ranged from a paralegal to a flight attendant to a wealthy Florida homemaker who wielded a diamond ring the size of a baby food jar.\n\nTo kick off the tour, Mike and I led a walking tour of our former neighborhood near Les Halles. Among a smattering of meals and sightseeing, the itinerary included a tour of the wholesale food market Rungis, followed by a lunch buffet of impeccably fresh fish delivered only hours earlier to the massive seafood hangar across from the restaurant. The next day, we headed north in minibuses to Rouen, best known as the place where Joan of Arc was imprisoned by the English, then burned at the stake. Our visit was for dinner at an equally important landmark, at least for me: La Couronne, the restaurant where Julia Child ate her first meal in France. Julia Child is my longtime hero. After earning her diploma, she threw herself into writing _Mastering the Art of French Cooking,_ an effort that turned into a decade-long project that defined the later part of her life. I met Julia at the edge of an earlier existential crisis when I was twenty-three years old, shortly after I first began longing to study at Le Cordon Bleu but kept my desire secret. She was among the first people to whom I revealed what seemed like an impossible dream then: to study cooking in Paris.\n\nEach evening after dinner, the weeklong agenda descended into the \"where will Mike and Kathleen take us drinking?\" tour. If there's one bright spot in my French-speaking skills, it's my ability to navigate the delicate rigors of ordering a round of beverages. One evening Mike led an impromptu \"Introduction to Calvados\" lesson at the hotel bar. Another night, we familiarized our group with French beers and martini blancos at a place near the Palais Royal.\n\nWe enjoyed the group so much that we organized a dinner with them on the one free evening on the itinerary. As we dined on the patio of a small bistro on Rue Moufftard, we began to notice workers carrying fake hams and rubber lamb shanks passing by our table. Our waiter told us that scenes from the film version of _Julie & Julia_ would be shot on the street the next day.\n\nBy the next morning, a small army of prop designers and carpenters finished transforming the corner into a street market from the 1950s. Workers installed brand-new signs designed to appear weathered above the doors. They brought in aging handcarts, dozens of barrels, antique cash registers, and even a 1940s-era delivery truck. A few extras walked around in 1950s garb, smoking and talking on their cell phones, careful to avoid the thick tangle of cables that led to a massive camera and lighting setup choking the small street's intersection.\n\nMike and I watched Meryl Streep, dressed as Julia, wandering the market during Julia's early days learning to cook in Paris as a student at Le Cordon Bleu. Even from a distance, we could see a radiant smile as \"Julia\" took it all in with delight.\n\nBy chance, the tour ended the next day with its advertised highlight: a private class at Le Cordon Bleu. As we entered the familiar glass doors, I felt pangs of stress, as if I were still a student, a living version of an anxiety dream from which I'll probably never awaken. Just as I began a brief tour, one of my toughest teachers, the Gray Chef, appeared from around the corner. He had once scolded me mercilessly for a too-sweet duck \u00e0 l'orange sauce, prompting me to flee the kitchen in tears. I introduced him, first in stuttering English and then in clumsy French. Recognizing his name from the book, the group descended as a hungry pack on the man\u2014who now seemed much shorter than I remembered\u2014circling for a photo. I offered to take it. Suddenly, the once-imposing Gray Chef looked vulnerable and intimidated. I felt overwhelming tenderness for him. _\"\u00cates-vous c\u00e9l\u00e8bre maintenant?\"_ he asked gingerly. Are you famous now?\n\n_\"Non, chef, vous \u00eates,\"_ I told him sweetly. No, you are. He smiled broadly and then spread his arms around the group, confident again. I clicked the photo.\n\nAfter the rest of the group departed the next morning, one person remained for an extra day. Holly was an affable silver-haired flight attendant from Orlando in her early sixties. Holly had come to Paris with a secret mission. As we stood on the historic Pont Neuf bridge, she confessed that she had been discreetly leaving bits of her late sister's ashes on the trip.\n\n\"She wanted to visit Paris all her life, but she always found reasons not to do it,\" Holly said. My mind went to Floyd. We'd invited Mike's dad to visit us when we lived in Paris and even offered to buy him a spot on the AAA tour. He always declined, although he promised he'd visit \"someday.\" Just then, as the Eiffel Tower erupted in a sparkling display of strobe lights, Holly reached into her pocket, pulled out a small bag, and emptied it into the Seine. \"Now she finally got to come here, and stay,\" Holly said. Just before her sister died, they watched the movie _Something's Gotta Give,_ starring Diane Keaton, whose character visits Paris every year on her birthday to dine on roast chicken at a bistro called Le Grand Colbert. \"She was going through chemo, and she kept saying, 'I'm going to get through this because I want to eat at that restaurant in Paris.' The idea of that meal and coming to Paris got her through all of it, at least mentally. But finally, her body just gave up.\"\n\nThat night, the three of us dined at Le Grand Colbert. As we bid farewell to the gilded decor, Holly deposited a bit of her sister in a potted fern near the bar.\n\nMike and I had arranged a week to ourselves in Paris after the tour group ended. We thought that we'd be relieved to have the time alone, but Mike and I missed the enthusiasm of the group. Spurred on by that dinner with Holly, to make up for their absence and to avoid thinking of Mike's dad, we ate.\n\nWe began by haunting our favorite bistros. Curiously, a disproportionate number of their names contain _cochon,_ the French word for \"pig.\" At Au Pied de Cochon at Les Halles, we ordered steaming bowls of arguably the best French onion soup in Paris. We made a game of digging into the hot crust of Gruy\u00e8re and pulling the oozing, salty cheese with our forks a foot off the table as the pungent-yet-sweet aroma of onion-scented beef stock wafted around the room like a heavy cloud. At Aux Trois Petits Cochons, we started dinner with thick slabs of foie gras, spreading it like the smoothest butter onto crisp toasts. Au Cochon de Lait in the 19th arrondissement, a nondescript yet welcoming place that once served the workers of the slaughtering trade that operated nearby, had the aroma of grilled steaks, campfire, and stale red wine. The only foreigners in a sea of regulars, we ordered their specialty, l'Onglet Villette, a wickedly tender hanger steak topped with a buttery heap of caramelized onions splashed with red wine and a side of knife-cut crisp fries. We both closed our eyes to chew, and opened them to find our waitress automatically refilling our _pichet_ of red wine with a knowing smile.\n\n\"I wish that my dad had come to Paris, at least once. He would have loved this,\" Mike said. Neither of us wanted to talk about the empty place in our hearts that would greet us when we left the distractions of Paris.\n\nOn our last night in the city, in lieu of a standard author reading at a bookstore, I presented a knife skills demonstration at WHSmith, a splendid English-language bookstore at Place de la Concorde, the intersection of the grand boulevards and the former site of the ghastly guillotines of the French Revolution. Being in a city most famous for its food, I worried that my demonstration on basic cuts would be too remedial, but the crowd stood transfixed.\n\n\"I've always thought that if I could hold a knife properly, it would change my whole life,\" a South African woman in the crowd commented. \"I feel like I just never really learned. I always assumed that I'm doing it wrong.\"\n\nI had four chef's knives with me. I gathered everyone into groups and taught the fundamentals of holding a knife and drilled them on the basics of dicing, slicing, and julienne. Simple stuff, but then I realized that I'd learned the same fundamentals only a couple of years earlier. As the crowd disbanded, the South African woman pumped my hand in thanks. \"I know this sounds totally stupid, but I don't cook at all and you've just inspired me to learn. I thought this whole knife thing was so much more complicated. I feel like I've had a complete epiphany! Have you ever thought of teaching?\"\nCHAPTER 2\n\n**What Would Julia Do?**\n\n_\"You have to give yourself that dream assignment. No one is going to give it to you.\"_\n\n\u2014Penny de los Santos, photographer\n\n  How quickly we shifted back into our regular lives in Seattle. Still, after that moment on the stage, what _was_ my regular life? The notion weighed heavily on me. So did my weight. In France, we ate as if training for an Olympic eating event. Yet I returned weighing a few pounds less. So did Mike. Less than a month back in the United States I gained nearly ten pounds. How? Sure, we walked more in Paris. But what was it about being back in the States that led us to gain weight?\n\nThe French eat less in general and lean toward more fresh food and few snacks. As in other European cities, Parisians shop more often for groceries. Some of it is cultural, but most of it is practical. When I first moved to London in 1999, I had to completely shift my thinking about grocery shopping thanks to the dorm-room-sized fridge in my minuscule kitchen. I couldn't \"stock up\"; I had no physical space. My freezer was only slightly larger than the size of a paperback novel. Plus, I knew that I had to carry home with me whatever I bought. Since I shopped frequently, I chose mostly fresh food and prepared it that night. In Paris, we did the same thanks to the easily accessible street markets. Even so, I saw a lot of shoppers buying frozen quiche Lorraine in Parisian supermarkets, not to mention the customers who flocked to American-style fast-food outlets. While it might once have been true that French women don't get fat, more recent surveys show that as the French adopt more American-inspired habits of eating, notably consuming long-shelf-life products, their national weight steadily increases.\n\nContemplating all this not long after we returned from Paris, I wandered over to my local supermarket, a vast sixty-thousandsquare-foot store that's open twenty-four hours a day in the urban Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. When it comes to diversity and cart voyeurism, it's hard to beat the collection at my local grocery.\n\nThat was the day I met the woman and her daughter, the one with the cart full of boxed and frozen ultraprocessed food products. She was shopping in a store with a bakery, a full-service deli, a sushi bar, a large meat department with trained butchers, a seafood counter replete with water tanks featuring live crabs and lobsters, plus signs bragging that the store carried 129 different varieties of produce, a third of them organic. With all those options, why did she actively select mostly food in boxes and cans?\n\nWe started talking after the butcher demonstrated how to cut up a chicken. \"When I make stuff from a box, it always turns out right,\" she explained. \"I never really learned to cook. Mom made dinner when we were young, but by the time I was in high school, she worked a lot, so my brother and I ate a lot of frozen dinners.\"\n\nShe picked up one box of pasta, the kind that makes a side dish in a few minutes. \"I know that Alfredo sauce is made with cream, but I would have no idea how to make it.\"\n\nI spent a year in culinary school learning endless variations on cream sauce. I explained a simple technique\u2014boil cream until it reduces and then extend it with a bit of the cloudy water left over from cooking pasta. \"That's it? Oh, wow, I thought it was a lot more complicated.\"\n\nShe agreed that if I wrote down the recipe, she'd give it a try. Out went the nine boxes, and in went two packages of whole wheat pasta, a quart of cream, and a small wedge of Parmesan cheese\u2014for roughly the same amount of money yet enough to make twice as many servings.\n\nThis result made her curious about what else we could replace from her cart. Boxes of Hamburger Helper were swapped for ingredients to make simple skillet dishes\u2014onions, garlic, peppers, canned tomatoes, and a block of Cheddar cheese. We visited the bulk herbs and spices area and stocked up on several, including a Cajun blend, chili powder, mixed herbs, oregano, thyme, and red pepper flakes. Her daughter, initially bored by our conversation, took over filling and labeling the plastic bags of spices and herbs. \"This is fun, Mama,\" she said as she sealed one bag. \"We should do this every time we shop.\"\n\nReal potatoes picked out by her daughter (along with a pink peeler) replaced the dehydrated variety. As we stood in the produce section, the woman looked around feebly. \"I know that I don't make vegetables enough,\" she said. \"I'm not very good at figuring out what to do with them. I kind of avoid anything that requires a lot of cutting something up. I see those chefs on TV and it looks so easy. I guess I'm not very good at it, and it always feels like it takes a long time.\" We bought a few bags of a precut broccoli and cauliflower mixture on sale that day, a bottle of olive oil, and some lemons. I wrote down instructions for how to steam and roast the vegetables, then top them with some lemon or a bit of her new herbs and spices.\n\nI couldn't stop thinking about that afternoon. I was certain I had overwhelmed her with information. She seemed like a smart woman and a good mom, but when we talked about cooking, she was discouraged, frustrated, and convinced that shortcuts remained the only path she had the time or skill to navigate.\n\n\"I don't mind boxed mashed potatoes\" was not the sort of comment that crept into my usual conversations. As a food writer, I'd slipped into what I call \"the foodie bubble,\" a magical place where everyone talks about ramps, perfect local peaches, and smoked duck prosciutto. People casually name-drop obscure chefs and discuss how many recipes they've tried from _The French Laundry_ _Cookbook_. Don't get me wrong: Life is _great_ in the bubble. It's just that most people don't reside there. Normal people live and shop in the center aisles of the grocery store, just like the woman I met. That afternoon, I decided it was time to abandon the bubble.\n\nI stumbled upon a TV interview with English chef Jamie Oliver a few days later in which he talked about why the United Kingdom had been gripped by an onset of obesity. \"The thing, I think, is that as people stop cooking, they get less healthy, yeah? People are going by the chippie to pick up dinner, but chips aren't dinner.\" Without realizing it, Jamie got animated, even upset, his adorable East London accent growing even more pronounced. \"If there was one thing that I could do, one thing that I could change, it would be to get people to just realize that cooking isn't that tough. It's a walk.\"\n\nHis words rang in my head. The woman and her cart of boxed food . . . the idea that cooking is too difficult . . . the refrain from the woman in Paris about knife skills. Ever the reporter, I started to conduct research on how they all related. Several studies back up Jamie's assertions that the less a person cooks real food, the more they rely on processed or convenience foods, whether at home or in the fast-food line, and the more weight-related health problems they experience. To a large extent, the more you cook, the less you weigh.\n\nWhat intrigued me was that the woman I met felt that she _was_ cooking. To her, opening a box and doing something with it was creating a meal. I disagree. Yet neither of us is right or wrong. Researchers can't even seem to agree on the definition of _cooking._ While a lot of food writers bemoan the loss of home cooking, I found surprisingly little research into the matter. Sure, various studies examined the amount of time people spend cooking, such as one led by a Harvard team that found people spend about twenty-seven minutes a day preparing food, about half the time spent in the 1960s.\n\n\"There's this notion that there is some kind of decline in cooking and that people aren't doing it anymore. But that's not so clear. It's just that there are so many other choices on what they can do to get food,\" said Dr. Amy Trubek of the University of Vermont, a food historian and researcher who has spent more than a decade studying how people cook. \"People aspire to cook what they believe is good, healthy food. But then they find the food environment very complex. There's also a strong sense of 'time poverty' in the American culture, this sense that you don't have time. Cooking is a thing many people perceive they don't have time to do.\" She equated it with going to the gym. \"Everyone knows that you should exercise, so they say that they will go five days a week, but when it comes down to it, they don't.\"\n\nThe woman in the supermarket lacked confidence and skill when it came to cooking. She wasn't sure how to turn whole foods into dinner, and as a result, she found her choices were limited. But that's the issue. If you can't cook, you put yourself at the mercy of companies whose interests are overwhelmingly financial.\n\nFrances Short, the author of _Kitchen Secrets: The Meaning of Cooking in Everyday Life,_ says that while consumers may want to eat healthy and even actively seek out this information, it doesn't have much effect if they can't act on it. \"Advice to, say, grill or steam food can only be followed if you know how to grill or steam,\" Short noted.\n\nTrubek told me that what I probably gave to the woman in the supermarket was awareness, a good start. \"But awareness is no good unless you have repetition associated with it. That's how knowledge becomes practice and practice becomes habit.\"\n\nOne reason that Julia Child made such a formidable impact was her unique ability to inspire people to get off their couches and go into their kitchens. While viewers watched her make _potage parmentier,_ they often took a crucial step\u2014they made it themselves. They searched out leeks, chopped potatoes, and maybe even crafted their own chicken stock. But somewhere along the line, people stopped getting off the couch. Cooking turned into a spectator sport. While Julia demonstrated how to fillet a fish or wrestle the bones out of a roast, most modern cooking shows fall into what industry experts refer to as \"dump and stir\" shows or reality-based competitions such as _Iron Chef_. While some viewers may follow along, even executives for the network admit that they focus more on entertainment and less on instruction.\n\n\"I watch Wimbledon but it has no relationship to my ability as a tennis player,\" Trubek said. \"It's beautiful and aesthetic, but practice is the only thing that is going to help my backhand.\"\n\nBack in the 1960s, Julia battled the idea that adding some ingredients to a box or heating something up somehow constituted cooking. Mike's late mother, pressed for time while working the night shift as a telephone operator on a military base, relied heavily on convenience foods. In fact, when we first married, he waxed so fond about something called Noodles Romanoff that in my dizzy honeymoon state, I spent three full days trying to track down either a box or a recipe for it. It turns out Betty Crocker ceased selling Noodles Romanoff in May 1994. I'm sure it's a coincidence, but that's the same month the FDA required manufacturers to include nutritional labels on food products. (I ended my quest when I learned that faithful replication of Noodles Romanoff required a portion of an orange flavoring packet from Kraft macaroni and cheese and commercial powdered mayonnaise.)\n\nWe live in a world where experts and the government preach that we should all eat leafy green vegetables, but then we're bombarded with messages that sugar-laden cereals are part of a \"nutritious breakfast,\" and commercials present Subway sandwiches as the holy grail to weight loss. TV cooking show host Sandra Lee cheerfully suggests that \"gravy is too hard to make, so just buy jars of gravy\" and advises viewers to buy jars of garlic because \"mincing garlic just takes too long.\"\n\nTo be fair, I think her voice is just one in a cathedral-worthy chorus shilling the idea that convenience is the _most_ important asset when it comes to eating. No wonder we've forgotten that the most essential thing we do is to feed ourselves and the people we care about. When I saw the stuff the woman had in her basket, it struck me as _antinourishment_.\n\nConsider the ingredient list for a brand-name box of a pasta Parmesan side dish. The goal of the product, a company spokesperson told me, is to approximate the flavor of pasta tossed with a bit of Parmesan cheese and olive oil. In order to do it, they used the following:\n\nrefined bleached wheat flour, partially hydrogenated palm oil, salt, whey, reduced lactose whey, corn syrup, natural flavors, palm oil, monosodium glutamate, cultured nonfat buttermilk, Parmesan cheese (cow's milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), sodium caseinate, modified corn starch, freeze-dried parsley, nonfat milk, onions, spices, lactic acid, ferrous sulfate, niacin, soy lecithin, yellow 5, yellow 6 lake, yellow 6, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid\n\nThat's twenty-seven ingredients, mostly chemicals, in place of three real items. To make this palatable, it's loaded with corn and so much monosodium glutamate and cholesterol-agitating palm oil that they had to list all three at least twice. All this to simulate the flavor of three ingredients: pasta, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese.\n\nI believe that everyone has it within them to boil pasta, add olive oil, and grate a little fresh Parmesan cheese over it. I believe that anyone can learn to chop up garlic in less than a minute. So how do companies get consumers to buy a box filled with chemicals, dehydrated milk, and pasta fused with deeply fattening oils so that it will cook two minutes faster? Or to buy products that are little more than dressed-up military rations? They do this by convincing people that making pasta tossed with some olive oil and cheese falls beyond their culinary grasp.\n\nDecades of savvy marketing conspired to make the woman I met at the supermarket believe that a simple cream sauce fell outside her abilities, and who could blame her?\n\n\"As a culture, there's a lack of balancing cost as opposed to actual value,\" Trubek said. \"We surrender our best interests for the sake of seeming convenience. By failing to understand what's involved in certain kinds of basic food preparations, American consumers have been duped.\"\n\nAll of this thinking converged when I stumbled on the show _What Not to Wear_ on cable TV one night. The immaculately coiffed host and hostess went through the weekly guest's wardrobe, critiqued her normal choices, and then tutored her on what to wear. That week, they transformed a frumpy housewife into a smartly turned-out woman with a chic haircut with particularly striking blond highlights. They visited her two months later to see if she'd stuck to her new look. She had, plus she'd lost her \"last ten pounds\" and radiated enthusiasm. \"You just gave me a push, the confidence I needed to make the changes that I knew I should make for myself. I feel proud of myself.\"\n\nI bolted upright on the couch.\n\nArmed with a yellow notepad, I interrupted Mike in the other room as he worked on a kitchen redesign for one of our rental apartments.\n\n\"I have this crazy idea . . .\" I started.\n\n\"Oh, no. Not another one,\" he joked. He put his pencil down. \"You hungry?\"\n\nWe talked as I sat on a stool while he made dinner, his specialty, chicken and vegetable Thai curry with brown rice. I gave him the rundown.\n\n\"I want to try to understand what could motivate people to cook more often. I want to give people different cooking lessons and see which of the things they learn might stick with them.\" But before we started, I told him, I needed to educate myself on what people had to work with at home and get a sense of the choices they had already made. So I would go into homes and look into fridges, freezers, and cupboards\u2014the culinary equivalent of auditing their closets. \"I'll have them make a dish they usually make, so I can see how they cook. Then I'll put together some lessons around the skills I think they're missing. Afterward, we'll follow up and see how they're doing.\" He poured the coconut milk into the curry. \"Well, what do you think?\"\n\n\"Exactly where are you going to find people willing to let a stranger come into their house?\" Mike asked.\n\n\"Well, I don't know. I haven't figured that part out yet. I thought of this just now.\"\n\nThe smells of coconut and curry filled the kitchen, now so quiet that I could hear the metal spoon dinging around the bottom of the wok as he stirred.\n\n\"Our kitchen is too small for lessons,\" he said, concentrating on his dish. \"What about the commercial kitchen your friend Ace is using?\"\n\n\"So you think it's a good idea?\" I asked, relieved.\n\n\"Well, it's an admirable notion, anyway. You can't force people to cook differently. It's like that old joke, How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?\"\n\n\"One,\" I answered. \"But the lightbulb has to _want_ to change.\"\n\n\"Exactly. If you approach this as a way to encourage people and give them a few skills, maybe it could motivate them. But remember that everyone's life is different and complicated, and people are smart enough to know if they are willing to change.\" I nodded. He handed me a bowl of red curry chicken and brown rice. \"Now eat.\"\n\nAs part of my author duties, I was scheduled to be a guest on a longrunning local radio show hosted by Seattle celebrity chefs Tom Douglas and Thierry Rautureau. I've known both since my days as a restaurant critic in the 1990s. The owner of a group of popular restaurants and an _Iron Chef America_ winner, Tom balances the titles of culinary icon and astute businessman, yet for all his success he's remarkably down-to-earth. Thierry reminds me of my chefs in France. He started as a classic apprentice in French restaurants at age fourteen and worked his way up. He now owns the impeccable French restaurants Rover's and Luc, plus hosted a radio segment on NPR called _What's in the Fridge?_ Listeners called in and described ingredients in their pantries and refrigerators, and he'd coach them on the possibilities. They both have won the James Beard award for Best Chef in the Northwest, plus seemingly every other culinary award possible. If that's not enough, they've both appeared on _Top Chef_.\n\nAs I pulled on headphones in the pleasant, cluttered studio, Chef Thierry offered me a glass of a nice French red he had brought in to sip during the show. I told them about the woman in the supermarket and what I'd been learning about home cooking. Tom and Thierry were intrigued.\n\n\"This is a person you just met out of the blue?\" Thierry asked.\n\n\"She went along with you, in this cold call in the grocery store?\" Tom asked incredulously.\n\nI threw in a few statistics that I'd picked up. Americans waste about a third of the food they purchase, for instance. I told them about the project and that I wanted to include some of their listeners.\n\n\"How long do you think it would take to find a person who can't boil an egg and change them into a person who can open up a fridge door and figure out how to make something from what they find inside?\" Thierry asked.\n\n\"I don't know, I guess we'll find out,\" I said.\n\nTom nodded behind the tangle of microphones. \"Also, maybe they can realize that cooking can be fun, and a good way to spend your time.\"\n\nThen we took a call. \"I used to listen to these radio shows and the old-time commercials were thrown in,\" the caller said. \"I remember there was one for what to make with evaporated milk. That woman must have rattled off various recipes in a minute or so. It struck me that no one could understand those recipes today. No one would even understand the vocabulary. We've moved into a place where people don't understand basics of cooking and food.\"\n\nTom thanked the caller. Then he looked at me. \"How do you plan to address this lack of knowledge?\"\n\n\"That's an interesting point,\" I said. \"You know, recipe writers don't use certain words anymore, like _braise._ Instead, they write, 'Cover and simmer in the oven,' because people don't know what _braise_ means. There's a loss of language specific to the kitchen, and it's evaporated just like that milk.\"\n\n\"But it's not just _braise,_ \" Tom said. \"I mean, people are uncomfortable with the idea of a pinch of salt. What's a pinch?\"\n\nWe talked about the demise of home economics in public schools and the notion that many Americans are two generations away from knowing how to cook.\n\n\"I think you can trace a lot of those skills back to Madison Avenue and the ad agencies,\" Tom said. \"They're the ones who sold us the idea that you didn't need to cook, you could simply buy products instead.\" He looked at the clock on the wall. \"Well, thanks for coming on the show. I'm excited to see how it goes. And you know what? In a funny way, I'm interested to see what you get out of it.\"\n\nWhen I got home from the show, I found two dozen messages waiting in my e-mail inbox. More streamed in over the weekend.\n\nAs I read through them, I realized that the conversation on the air had appeared to touch a nerve. I glimpsed moments of guilt, embarrassment, and downright melancholy.\n\n\"When I was nineteen, I was asked to make the salad at my boyfriend's parents' for Thanksgiving. I didn't know where to start, and they all made fun of me. It made me never want to try to cook anything ever again,\" wrote one woman.\n\n\"I rely on boxed products because it's easy, but I don't want to. I have NO idea how to butcher anything. I can't fillet a fish, cut up a chicken, etc. When I look at an artichoke . . . well, I just walk right on by,\" wrote Cheryl, a thirty-three-year-old mother of two young sons. \"I'd like to learn how to make 'real' food, more food from scratch and what I have on hand, rather than pulling out a frozen pizza for my family.\"\n\n\"My mother never let me in the kitchen; she thought I was in the way,\" wrote Shannon, thirty-two, also a mother of two. \"When I read about little girls cooking side by side with their mothers . . . it makes me so sad for what I missed.\"\n\nAnother wrote, \"I grew up with a grandmother that could make a meal out of nothing and make it taste as good as any five-star menu. I've lived for years on frozen dinners and anything that is easy or fast.\" She considered herself \"addicted\" to cooking shows. She watched them all\u2014 _Top Chef, Iron Chef, The Next Food Network Star,_ Alton Brown, Giada, Emeril. \"But then I am totally lost when it comes to knowing what to do when I try to fix anything. I've watched Gordon Ramsey while eating Tuna Helper. I'm so ashamed.\"\n\nIn the end, I selected ten people for what I began to refer to simply as \"The Project.\" They shared little in common in terms of background, except that they all identified themselves as a \"poor cook\" or an \"aspiring cook\" who relied regularly on processed or fast foods. I told them little about what to expect, other than a few dates and times. I wasn't trying to be mysterious. I didn't really have a plan.\n\nIn retrospect, I'm not sure what I was thinking. I'm not an academic type or a researcher; I had taught only a couple of informal cooking classes. My thoughts on what lessons I'd teach were murky. I would have to make it all up as I went along.\n\nThe first stop was a generic apartment building in the rustic former logging town of Granite Falls, Washington. After three hours, I climbed back into our Mini Cooper and leaned my head against the steering wheel. \"What did I get myself into?\"\nCHAPTER 3\n\n**The Secret Language of Kitchens**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**What Really Lurks in Cupboards, Fridges, and Freezers**\n\n#  **SABRA**\n\n\"This is what you call White Trash Garlic Bread,\" announced Sabra, a lovely, fair-haired twenty-three-year-old young woman clad in a skin-tight blue shirt and strategically ripped jeans. \"This is one of the few things that I learned about cooking from my mother.\" She slathered one-half of a soft hamburger bun with Gold 'n Soft margarine, added a few hearty shakes of generic garlic salt, and topped it with dried Parmesan cheese from a can. After repeating the process with a half dozen buns, she slid the baking sheet into her immaculate white oven.\n\nSabra was the first volunteer I met. She shared an apartment in a basic but pleasant complex with her boyfriend in a sleepy former lumber town an hour north of Seattle. Her standard-issue kitchen was small but tidy. In the living room, a tiny kitten she had rescued the day before took halting steps on the black leather sectional, her occasional mewing competing with the big flat-screen TV tuned to a poker tournament that Sabra wasn't watching.\n\nWhile the buns lingered under the broiler, Sabra alternated between sips of Red Bull and peach schnapps mixed together in an orange plastic tumbler while waxing poetic about her favorite food. \"I _love_ Gold 'n Soft,\" she said, holding up the half-full one-pound plastic tub of margarine. \"If it had Gold 'n Soft in it, that's what my mother and I ate growing up. Now pretty much everything I eat has Gold 'n Soft in it. Anything else, especially butter, just doesn't taste right.\"\n\nThe \"garlic bread,\" combined with Stouffer's five-cheese lasagna, straight from thirteen minutes in the microwave, constituted her lunch. As the microwave counted down, she and I finished the inventory of her cabinets, freezer, and fridge. Among the goods: nine varieties of Stouffer's frozen dinners, six boxes of Hamburger Helper, a five-pack of mac and cheese, half a case of Cup Noodles, and the remainder of a case of Red Bull, all of it from a recent warehouse-store haul. Sabra and her boyfriend dedicated the rest of the pantry to an impressive liquor assortment that featured thirty-eight bottles, everything from bitters to vodka and five varieties of schnapps.\n\nIn the fridge, newly purchased bundles of broccoli and cauliflower filled the crisper drawers to capacity, a change for her. A recent pap test found precancerous cells, curable but a worrying sign that she inherited a familial propensity for cancer. A doctor suggested Sabra overhaul her diet to include more fruits and vegetables. \"We found a fruit stand near here, and it's cheap. We got three pounds of cauliflower for three dollars,\" she said. \"I couldn't get Cheetos that cheap.\"\n\nSabra was nominated for the project by her stepmother, my friend Lisa, a culinary school graduate, a part-time chef, and the kind of woman who routinely makes her own mayonnaise. Back in 2006, I decided to hire someone to help test recipes for my first book. I put an ad on Craigslist describing appalling pay and erratic hours. Within twenty-four hours, eighty-five people had applied. Many sent r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and long pleas for the position. Lisa had assumed that I was a man and responded with a snarky \"Is this a dream job or are you looking for a date?\" When we met, the intense, briny smell of cheese preceded her. She walked into my office and handed me a bag. \"My mom owns a cheese shop. If you hire me, there's more where this came from.\"\n\nLisa quickly became one of my best friends. She tested recipes, helped me organize various events, and Mike insisted she play Clinton Kelly from _What Not to Wear_ when I went shopping for clothes to wear on book tours. (\"You want jewel tones, no pencil skirts, and at least two pairs of Spanx.\") When I told her about the project she said, \"That sounds like a ton of work. If you're really going to do it, I'm all in.\"\n\nOver the years as we worked together, Lisa relayed stories of frustration in terms of food as it related to her relationship with Sabra. When she married her husband in her early twenties, he had primary custody of Sabra, then six years old. When Sabra was a child, Lisa would make dinner, such as roast chicken with vegetables and a salad. Sabra would sit back in her chair with her little arms crossed over her chest and refuse to touch it. After rejecting dinner, Sabra would run from the table to call her mother, who lived less than a mile away. Lisa would overhear the litany of complaints about the fare Sabra said she'd been served. Invariably, they'd hear a honk from the driveway minutes later\u2014it was Sabra's mother, there to take her to McDonald's.\n\nAfter a couple of years of this, Lisa bought a case of ramen noodles. If Sabra didn't want what she made for dinner, fine. But no more McDonald's, not for dinner. Sabra could eat ramen instead, which she liked, but she had to make it herself. After four nights of noodles, Sabra started eating dinner with them again.\n\nI asked Sabra about all of this, and she nodded, taking another long pull on her drink. \"Oh, yeah, I _love_ McDonald's. When I was a kid, that's how my parents showed me they loved me after they were divorced. Who took me to McDonald's the most? That's who loved me the most.\"\n\nI pondered this as Sabra checked on her garlic bread. How much of this was about the food? Or did that trip to McDonald's mean time alone with her parent, forced to focus only on her as she swung, slid, and ran around the colorful play area?\n\nAs part of the kitchen visit, I asked each volunteer to prepare a lunch or dinner, something that they routinely ate, so I could get a sense of their kitchen skills and eating habits. Could they hold a knife? Did they taste as they cooked? What kind of portions did they serve up? Frozen dinners were Sabra's go-to dinners. Breakfast involved toaster pastries and half a can of Red Bull. \"That's because I don't drink coffee,\" she explained. The Cup Noodles was her midmorning snack. She hit McDonald's for lunch. Throughout the day, she consumed a few soft drinks. \"And there's the constant grazing on a lot of chips and popcorn. There's always a bowl of something on my desk,\" she added.\n\nRed Bull for breakfast isn't as unusual as you'd think for someone her age. It has roughly 70 percent of the energy-drink market, a narrow but influential wedge of consumers between ages fifteen and thirty. At age sixteen, Mike's niece, Michelle, lived primarily on various energy drinks for three months. The caffeine gave her energy, while the high sugar content\u2014roughly equivalent to a glazed doughnut\u2014kept her from feeling hungry. She drank several every day. Her doctor commanded her to quit. \"You're not getting any nutrients,\" he said. \"You're starving yourself.\"\n\nSabra offered some bright spots. The guy at her liquor store introduced her to a woman who supplied fresh eggs from a nearby farm. As a downside, Sabra warned me that she didn't want to spend more than twenty minutes making dinner. \"If it takes longer than that, I'll just get fast food.\" Plus, there was her devotion to Gold 'n Soft.\n\nWe sat down for lunch. To me, the lasagna had a vaguely sweet tomato flavor. The \"garlic bread\" was an exercise in blandness. I asked her how she liked the lasagna. \"Well, this brand has really good deals, like, you can get four for ten bucks sometimes,\" she started.\n\n\"No, what I mean is, do you like its taste? The flavor, I mean.\"\n\nShe thought about it. \"I don't know. I like it better than some of the other frozen lasagnas.\"\n\n\"But how does it compare to homemade lasagna?\"\n\nShe tilted her head to one side. \"I don't know. I've never thought about it. I like it, but I mainly buy it because it's cheaper than the other ones.\"\n\nLater, I calculated that over the course of a typical day, Sabra consumed a cup and a half of sugar. Sabra's food choices were motivated by money, ease, and that refreshing live-forever mentality that grips so many of us in our twenties. Who has to worry about their diet when they're so young? Isn't youth enough to overcome a high-sugar, high-fat, high-salt diet? She represented the dark side of \"taste memory\" that comes from the early adoption of unhealthy foods such as fast foods. Everyone has their comfort food, that flavor that harkens back to a time in childhood that they felt safe and loved. This explained her fondness for Gold 'n Soft and McDonald's. But it was clear that she put more thought into creating cocktails than into developing dinner.\n\n#  **TRISH**\n\nOur next stop offered insight into a whole different generation. Trish was a sixty-one-year-old psychologist living in a modest condo on the edge of the affluent Madison Park neighborhood. She fretted when Mike and I showed up with a small video camera in hand to record the proceedings.\n\n\"I'm sure that I'm going to be doing everything wrong,\" she said, a tinge of defeat in her voice. She literally wrung her hands. Mike kept the camera low, out of her face, and joked with her to keep her talking as she gave us a tour of her comfortably modern apartment dominated by obviously inherited antique furniture, dark yet luminous with a patina developed through many decades of careful polishing. Trish wanted to feel like she belonged in the kitchen. \"I want to feel at ease. I want to feel like I can make meals for my friends who are good cooks.\" She pounded her fist into her palm. \"I want to like cooking!\"\n\nTrish grew up outside Washington, D.C., in what she describes as a \"fairly typical\" 1950s suburban family. Her grandmother played an important role in their lives. She taught Trish and her siblings to bake, read \"old-fashioned\" cookbooks, and lent a formal but friendly note to the family dinners and conversations. In Trish's house, dinner was served at six o'clock sharp on a table set with silver and china. Despite her grandmother's baking prowess, her mother wasn't much of a cook; she relied on _The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book_. Dinners starred a meat, supported by some kind of potato and at least one canned or frozen vegetable cooked to the point of gray. Her mother's star turn was fried chicken.\n\n\"I remember some truly awful stuff, such as spaghetti sauce made from tomato soup!\" Trish said, laughing. \"I guess I was kind of a picky eater. I loved the mahogany furniture, the chandelier, the silver and china, but I never cared about eating.\"\n\nTrish's cabinets and fridge offered a striking contrast to Sabra's, with baking supplies, cans of beans, tomatoes, tuna, salmon, and chicken, boxes of organic soup and broth, jars of pasta sauce, salsa, pickles, jams, salad dressings, and artichokes, oils and vinegars, dry pasta, spices and herbs. \"For a meal, we usually open a can, a box, or a jar,\" she said. But most of it was real food, just preserved. She had the same kinds of stuff in her cupboard that I had in mine at home.\n\nShe climbed on a stool and pulled down three flat silver boxes. As she opened one, a strong smell of curry mingled with cinnamon escaped. Inside she kept carefully marked small flat disks filled with spices and dried herbs. \"I got these storage things somewhere years ago,\" she said. She shrugged while looking at them. \"I wish that I knew how to use all these spices better.\" She closed the box and put it back up on the shelf.\n\n\"I guess I can cook, but I'm not very pleased with the results. I've never learned to cut or chop things properly. Lots of times I try a new recipe but the results are disappointing. It's hard to get enthusiastic about cooking a meal that's going to take more than thirty minutes to make and it doesn't usually turn out well.\"\n\nWhen I asked about recipes, Trish took us over to her well-ordered bookcase. She pulled out volume after volume of excruciatingly organized recipes, categorized and neatly maintained in a series of white binders, another marvel of organization. I gazed in wonder. A protective plastic sheath housed each clipping. As a Gemini and a creative type who can barely keep track of bills, I could never imagine having done such a thing.\n\nShe pulled out a binder labeled \"Entrees.\" She flipped through it. \"Yeah, this turned out sort of bland. And this one, I did something wrong, the chicken was tough.\" She flipped a few more pages. \"Oh, this one, it came out all right. I was kind of surprised.\"\n\nAs I looked through the recipes she'd clipped from magazines, I recognized the names of a couple of food writer friends, including the dish she referred to as bland. I later talked to the author about it. \"Oh, I know the recipe she's talking about,\" she said with a sigh. \"I was only allowed to include six ingredients in the list. So I cut out at least four from my original version. Plus, I had fresh basil in the dish, and that really made it work. But my story got bumped from August to November, and since basil isn't seasonal then, the food editor cut the basil. It's funny, home cooks think recipes turn out bland because it's their fault. The reality is that there is so much pressure to make recipes short that food writers have to cut out steps or ingredients to make them look simpler, or, in the case of the basil, less expensive.\"\n\nFor lunch, Trish made ratatouille. She chopped an eggplant in a curious moment of butchery with a blunt paring knife. \"Knife skills,\" I wrote on my notepad. Next she opened a couple of cans of tomatoes. As it cooked, she talked. Mike kept filming her discreetly. She and her husband avoided fast food, red meat, and pork for health reasons. Trader Joe's was their main stop for groceries. \"We don't have a budget for food, but, then, we don't have extravagant tastes either. We're coming close to retirement age, and, like most everyone else, there is less money now.\" She broiled the occasional fish fillet in the toaster oven or baked sweet potatoes. Her husband made the nightly salad. She bought a lot of bottled salad dressings. I made another note on my pad: \"Teach vinaigrette.\"\n\n\"In terms of seasonings, they're basic. I sprinkle a little balsamic vinegar on green vegetables, lemon on the fish, and butter and salt on potatoes. That's what I know how to do.\"\n\nAs we sat down for lunch, she fussed, setting the table with expensive antique dishes, embroidered white cloth napkins, and real silver. Her ratatouille was good, just a little undersalted, which made sense as Trish seemed absolutely terrified of salt.\n\nAll this made me curious as to how a smart, organized woman who possessed the basic building blocks of cooking had ended up so tentative. When asked a question, she'd invariably answer, \"I don't know, is that right?\" Yet she's a psychologist, a professional paid for thoughtful commentary and insight into others' lives. She had so much emotional baggage wrapped up in cooking that I kept stifling my urge to say, \"And Trish, how does that make you feel?\"\n\n#  **SHANNON**\n\nThe next day, Lisa and I pulled up to a classic 1960s-era ranch house with a white picket fence in a quiet working-class neighborhood. Toys in various states of repair languished on torn-up sod in the front yard. Shannon was a thirty-two-year-old stay-at-home mom with two kids. She had recently purchased a couple of chickens to keep in her backyard and grew a small patch of vegetables. Shannon subscribed to food magazines and combed Internet sites for recipes. None of it made her feel what she called \"kitchen confident.\"\n\nHer mother answered the door. \"I don't know what you're going to teach her,\" she said dismissively to Lisa and me, turning away as soon as we entered. \"She burns everything.\" Shannon appeared behind her, a trim, pretty brunette with an easy smile and a pixie haircut, a lean baby girl balanced on her hip. Visibly irritated by her mother's remark, she let it pass. Shannon handed her the baby and took us into her kitchen, a large sunny space with pale Formica countertops and a classic suite of nondescript white appliances. She kept a row of cookbooks on one shelf, something of a rarity in the kitchens we visited.\n\nShannon has an easygoing way about her, occasionally punctuating sentences with flinging arms or wide-eyed expressions or a curious rolling-winking of one eye, an endearing tic. \"I'd describe my cooking skills as pretty basic,\" she started. \"I can bake pretty well but cooking has always kind of escaped me. I can read a recipe and follow it, but most stuff turns out pretty bland. I make a lot of casserole-type dishes, which aren't very popular in my house.\" Cue eye-rolling tic.\n\nUnlike the other cooks I would meet in the project, Shannon did try to plan meals before she hit a grocery store. \"My problem is when I'm making up the menu for the week. I just run out of ideas and end up cheating by filling up two days with burritos and spaghetti.\" By \"spaghetti\" she meant a jar of sauce. \"Oh, yeah, that's it. I've never made it from scratch. Sauces, that kind of thing, it's all just kind of beyond me. I buy those or get a seasoning packet.\"\n\nOtherwise, a meal to her included a meat-plus-veggie-plus-starch combination. \"I'm not very good at cooking meat. I'm scared to death of uncooked chicken so it's usually super overdone.\" Pork chops are pretty easy, she said, but she usually did the same seasoning every single time, a mix of salt, garlic powder, and pepper. \"I try to fit in fish once a week, but it is always a boring night because I really don't know what to do with fish.\"\n\nShe budgeted about seven hundred dollars a month for groceries and meals out. Given they're a family of five, restaurant trips were a rarity. Her big splurge was a sushi place near her house. \"At the beginning of the month, things are good. By the end, the meals get increasingly basic as I try to stick to the budget.\"\n\nI asked about her mother's remark. \"Oh, my mom.\" Her cheeks flushed, a wince flashed across her face. \"My mother started every single meal with a can of soup. She cooked but she never really wanted me in the kitchen, so I didn't learn much. I want to teach my kids to cook when they're older, but since I don't really feel like I know what I'm doing, what am I going to pass on?\" Shannon would occasionally make variations on the stuff her mother had served her, such as Parmesan chicken, sweet and sour beef with egg noodles, and tuna casserole, even though she now considered it \"old lady food.\"\n\n\"I am so interested in cooking, but I find it frustrating. I can't look at a recipe and conceptualize how it will taste. I can't figure out what is necessary in a recipe and what can be left out. I wish that I were one of those people who could look at my cupboards and my fridge and just improvise something. Or go to a restaurant and eat something I like and then replicate it at home. I don't feel like I have the skills to do that, you know?\"\n\nShannon had the desire, motivation, and time to cook but felt she lacked the core competencies. Like so many people, she didn't learn to cook from her mother, nor did she learn any cooking skills in school. By contrast, women of her mother's generation had multiple opportunities to learn\u2014from their own mothers and in high school back in the days when home economics enjoyed a more robust place in the curriculum. She struck me as similar to a frustrated aspiring musician who just wanted to get the scales down so that one day she could riff.\n\n#  **DRI**\n\n\"Welcome to the hood,\" Dri said, spreading her arms wide in a welcome as we walked up the neat path to her well-tended apartment building in the city's Central District. In theory, this is the \"rough\" part of town, but in recent years much of it has been undergoing serious gentrification. When there's a Starbucks on a nearby corner, it's tough to think you're in a ghetto, even in Seattle.\n\nVivacious and good-natured, Dri had the air of a nervous comic about her. She kept a smile fixed on her face for almost the entire visit. Dri planned to move soon into a condo she had bought in another part of town. \"Good-bye, eight-by-six-foot kitchen!\"\n\nDri was dressed entirely in black, possibly an effort to hide the extra fifty-plus pounds she carried on her tall, sturdy frame. She had recently started hitting the gym. \"But the whole food piece is just kind of missing,\" she told Lisa and me as she started to empty the contents of her cupboard. Her kitchen was so small, only she could fit in it; I stood in the doorway and watched.\n\nShe was as delighted as a kid at Christmas by the first thing she dug out\u2014a caked packet of spices. \"Oh, here's the magic herb mix that they gave me [at the food co-op] to make pot roast one time. Once. I only did it once. How sad.\" She dropped it dramatically on the counter. Dri pulled down aging jars of paprika and curry, a bulk jar of peppercorns, catering-sized jugs of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. \"Every time I make a real meal I seem to buy new spices. I usually buy them in bulk, so, hello\"\u2014she pulled down another quart container. \"Give a hearty Dri's Kitchen\u2013style welcome to another stupidly large container of cinnamon!\"\n\nAlthough she lived alone, Dri bought a lot of her food at a warehouse store. It's a habit she adopted from growing up in a family with seven kids. Her kitchen seemed so small yet food kept coming out of the cupboards like clowns from a circus car. At one point, she produced industrial-sized boxes filled with granola bars and instant oatmeal. \"For breakfast,\" she said. \"Oh, here's five pounds of cheap not-very-good-for-the-world kind of rice.\"\n\nDri described her \"vicious circle,\" one that will likely resonate with a lot of people.\n\n\"Okay, so I go to the grocery store and I have all these great intentions. I think, Okay, I'm going to make my lunch every day this week! I see all these great greens and I stock up on them. But then it's late when I get home, I'm tired. I promise myself that I'll eat them the next day. By then, I'm back in my routine that doesn't involve a lot of food preparation.\" Eventually, she finds a big, wilted, green stain at the bottom of the drawer. \"So I throw away a LOT of food. It's tragic how much I waste.\" A statement she followed up by noting that she has a degree in environmental studies; she now works in urban planning. \"I try to buy organic because sustainability is important to me, as a life choice.\"\n\nHer fridge was nearly empty. I suspected that she'd cleaned it out for my visit, but she insisted that wasn't it; she was going out of town the next day. On first inspection, it appeared immaculate save a few organic condiments, a half dozen eggs, and a solitary green pepper.\n\nIn a dairy drawer, she had the remnants of a large package of feta cheese. She sniffed. \"Ewww. Okay, this cheese is probably bad. That's the problem with bulk, right? It's cheaper to get a big thing than it is to buy a small one at the co-op. So I get it, eat part of it, and then the rest goes bad.\" She closed the fridge door and shook her head. For a moment, her permanent smile faded. \"It makes me feel terrible.\"\n\n\"Hey, you know, food waste is really common,\" I said. \"They say that people waste a third of what they bring home.\"\n\nDri pulled her mouth to one side. \"It's not very sustainable behavior, is it?\" she said flatly. She spent a quiet moment in self-judgment. Then she brightened. \"Want to see the freezer?\"\n\nShe pointed out artichoke hearts purchased months ago for a recipe that she never made. \"I'm not sure what to do with them now,\" she mused. She had organic hamburger as well as individual chicken breasts wrapped in plastic sleeves and several bags of random food that she didn't recognize. As with other people we visited, the freezer often became The Land of Food That Time Forgot. \"I like leftovers for one day but I don't want them on day two. So I think, I'll freeze them. And then they just sit in there until I move or the next millennium rolls around.\"\n\nWe moved on to a cupboard featuring what she referred to as her meager baking supply area. \"I bake so infrequently that I forget that I have stuff and buy it again.\" As if to prove her point, she uncovered fifteen pounds of white sugar.\n\nFor dinner, she decided to make a staple meal: spaghetti with a jar of tomato sauce. That's what she ate at least a couple of nights each week. As she waited for the water to boil, she explained that while growing up, her mom's cooking repertoire had relied heavily on pot roast and taco salad. \"We ate a LOT of taco salad,\" Dri said. \"We often had fend-for-yourself kinds of nights. Dad was a contractor, so we had very irregular hours.\"\n\nIt wasn't until she moved away from home that Dri realized her mother's food was, well, boring. \"If she went crazy, she used a bit of Lawry's seasoning salt. She doesn't believe in garlic, which I now believe is critical to life. Depending on where our family was financially, she would use stuff like powdered milk. I remember there would be times when she canned fruit and cooked much more from scratch. But there were a lot of frozen things in our lives.\"\n\nDri put the pasta into a bowl, a portion large enough for at least three people. \"You know, I fall back on pasta because, well, it doesn't take long, I can't screw it up, and I don't have to plan for it. But I want to have more options. I want to feel like I'm an adult who can feed herself. Sometimes I still feel like a kid in the kitchen; I'm just not sure what I'm doing. I mean, what am I going to do with those artichoke hearts in my freezer?\"\n\nTo me, Dri represented someone who was relying on old behaviors (shopping at a warehouse store when she lived alone) and couldn't stick to new ones that she wanted to adopt (eating more vegetables, cooking more often). There's nothing wrong with either, but how could she find strategies to do both and still fit in with her personal philosophies around sustainable food? I wondered.\n\n#  **JODI**\n\nA cute Japanese American with a quick laugh and a dimpled smile, Jodi lived in a comfortable split-entry house on a quiet suburban cul de sac. Her house was among the more upscale I visited, with expensive overstuffed furniture and a kitchen equipped with marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. At five feet two inches, she weighed about 135 pounds. \"I could probably stand to lose fifteen or twenty pounds,\" she admitted. \"It's funny, in America, I look pretty normal. But I went to Japan to visit my relatives recently. They all say\"\u2014she did a fairly pathetic Japanese accent here\u2014\" 'You so fat! You just sooooo faaaat!' \" They took her shopping and nothing fit. The shopkeepers looked at her and shook their heads. \"She too fat.\"\n\nJodi purposely never learned to cook. \"My mother has spent her life basically being my father's slave. It's part of Asian culture. So I figured that if I couldn't cook, then I couldn't be forced into that role.\" Jodi grew up with wildly conflicting maternal advice. The expectation cycle went something like this: Study hard, get good grades, get a good job, then get married. Wait, now you're married, why are you still working? My grandson is in day care? You're a horrible mother! You should quit your job.\n\nJodi married a good-looking, strikingly tall Thai American man with a flair for cooking. From the very start of their relationship, he cooked most of their weekend meals and dinner once a week. The rest of the time, they ate out or ordered takeout, an arrangement that satisfied them both\u2014until she was laid off from her job with a high-tech firm. Suddenly, they had half the income, plus a fussy three-year-old who refused to eat much of anything. Newly unemployed, tight for cash, and at home all day, she felt that the least she could do was to cook her husband dinner and feed her kid. They had long shopped at warehouse stores for food, where the savings held huge appeal. As a result, they bought a second fridge for their garage.\n\n\"All this food takes up so much space!\" she lamented, as food items fell out of her freezer when she opened the door. We pulled it all out: a vertical stack of twenty-plus breaded chicken cutlets, steaks of multiple shapes and sizes, a vacuum-packed whole beef tenderloin, dozens of individually wrapped boneless chicken breasts, and catering-sized bags of frozen vegetables.\n\nA closer inspection told an interesting tale. This penchant for bulk buying was not a new habit; a few steaks were four years old, and the chicken breasts had a sell-by date of two years prior. As she dug farther, she found whole salmon fillets and ribs bought for a camping trip three years earlier. \"Oh, wow, I forgot we had these!\"\n\nJodi and her husband infrequently made anything from the freezer, yet they kept buying food to put into it. Only two items had a good rotation: fish sticks and breaded chicken cutlets, both items her son would eat, and she could cook them easily on a tray in the oven. Their fridge was similarly packed. They purchased most condiments in industrial-sized jars. The mayonnaise in a hearty gallon jug had a sell-by date of a year earlier. \"I hate to throw it out, though, there's so much left. I guess we don't really eat that much mayonnaise.\"\n\nThe crisper drawer had three browning heads of iceberg lettuce. \"Oh, I hate it when this happens,\" she said. \"We always throw out lettuce. It's hard to go through it. They come five to a pack where we shop.\" Then she led us to the pantry, a closet larger than the kitchen of either Dri or Sabra, and we found it stuffed floor to ceiling with enough boxes and cans to last through the start of a nuclear winter: cases of soup, canned vegetables, boxed pasta dishes, instant ramen noodles (\"kid food\"), microwavable cups of mac and cheese, and a twenty-pound sack of white rice. \"There's more in the garage, too,\" she said.\n\nMany of her evening meals consisted of the \"brown and stir\" variety, some kind of sauce that involved adding a protein, usually chicken. For lunch, she worked up her most ambitious dish: cooked strips of chicken and chopped-up onion and red pepper in a skillet, flavored by adding a cube of \"golden curry\" seasoning. \"This is a Japanese household standby,\" she said, showing off the shimmering brown, gelatinous cube before she dropped it into the pan. She added water and stirred. Like a miracle, it thickened and created a thick, shiny brown sauce. She boiled water for Minute rice. \"I'm such a bad Asian! But our rice cooker has been broken for ages,\" she confessed.\n\n\"So how often do you eat rice?\" I asked.\n\nJodi cocked her head to one side, stirring her dish. \"Pretty much every day,\" she said thoughtfully. Then she laughed. \"I guess we should fix it, huh?\"\n\nI looked at the golden curry package. One serving, a mere quarter cup, contained 41 percent of the recommended sodium intake. The cube's flavor came primarily from monosodium glutamate. I told her it affects many people like a toxin. \"It's funny, now that you mention it, I always get a headache after I eat this stuff,\" she said. Although the package claimed five servings, Jodi said that she and her husband usually split a package\u2014each eating two and a half servings. Or 120 percent of the recommended daily sodium intake and 60 percent of the recommended daily fat intake, which didn't include the oil needed to stir-fry the chicken and vegetables. As she sat at the table, she fell into her chair with a heavy sigh.\n\n\"I didn't know all that. I guess I shouldn't make it anymore.\" But what would happen to the six packages in her pantry? Plus the curry remained one of the few things that her son, Koji, would eat. \"He will eat a little of the chicken and sauce sometimes, but not the rice and definitely none of the vegetables,\" she said. Like many toddlers, Koji was a wildly fussy eater. He eschewed vegetables. Unpleasant scenarios occurred when they tried to force him to eat anything other than chicken nuggets, pizza, fish sticks, or mac and cheese. \"It all started with day care. That's what they feed him there. Now he won't eat anything else. I worry about him. I mean, that can't be healthy, right?\"\n\nResearch studies have found that an increasing number of American children may get enough food to eat yet remain undernourished due to overreliance on foods that are high in fat, salt, and sugar yet lack the fundamental nutrients. A 2004 study found that nearly a third of the calories in a typical American child's diet came from junk foods, defined as ultraprocessed foods with little nutrition.\n\nIt's hard to blame kids, according to Dr. David A. Kessler, the author of _The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite._ Many of the foods on the common kid-food list\u2014chicken nuggets, powder-based mac and cheese, fish sticks\u2014have been engineered to stimulate pleasure centers in the brain. Studies found that as a result, rats can become addicted to junk food in the same way that they do to cocaine or heroin. Just as with drug addictions, rats often reject their standard \"rat chow\" and starve to death when denied junk food. That may explain the difficulty\u2014or sometimes impossibility\u2014of trying to force broccoli into a four-year-old in place of dinosaur-shaped pizza bites.\n\nAn acquaintance of mine took her fussy, plump toddler to the doctor when she noticed he had become grumpy and started to gain weight. The doctor described his condition as \"a sort of starving.\" He was dehydrated, an unsurprising fact given that he shunned water and insisted on sugar-spiked fruit juices or flavored milk. When she tallied up his collective meals from day care and at home, she was horrified to realize that he was subsisting on juice boxes, chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, French fries, and hot dogs. She couldn't place the last time she had been able to make him eat a vegetable. I told Jodi that story.\n\n\"It's not like she was a bad mother,\" I said. \"She started realizing that wherever they went, the children's menu invariably included mac and cheese, fries, pizza, hot dogs, and hamburgers. It gives people the message that that's how kids should eat.\"\n\nThe normally bubbly Jodi stared at the counter. \"That pretty much describes what Koji eats, too.\" She stared into her coffee. \"I'm the one who is supposed to take care of him. I know that I shouldn't give him that kind of stuff. Sometimes, though, I come home and I think, I will make him eat a healthy dinner. I look in the cupboards and the fridge and pull out some vegetables and think, I don't even know how to actually cook these. Do you boil them?\" She appeared suddenly defeated. The golden curry had seemed like a good option because at least it wasn't breaded or fried. \"I never even thought to look at the label. Is that something you could make without a cube?\"\n\n#  **TERRI**\n\nTerri was a soft-faced, strawberry-blond-haired forty-six-year-old who had ditched a law career in the wake of a crumbled marriage and battles with alcoholism a dozen years ago. She managed a small tourism business from her one-bedroom condo. Due to the sedentary nature of her work, plus a recent broken ankle, she figured she was forty pounds overweight. She was battling high blood pressure, among other health problems.\n\nAccumulated papers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, bills, and unopened junk mail rose like a small mountain off her dining room table, with a portion of the pile cascading like a glacier into a puddle on the floor. Her kitchen remained pristine. \"That's because I don't use it that much!\" she said, laughing nervously.\n\nTerri struggled to find the motivation to cook for herself. Dinner tended to be takeout oriented. \"I rely on Chinese food and baguette sandwiches from a local bakery,\" she said. \"I make far too many runs to McDonald's and Jack in the Box for burgers, shakes, that sort of thing.\" Most weeks, she ordered a large pizza and ate it over the course of two or three days.\n\n\"The thing is that I like vegetables, but I don't feel like I cook them very well. I also tend to go overboard at the farmers' market and then I find all this stuff dead in my fridge.\" The previous summer, she had signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) basket filled with fresh produce direct from a farmer. \"Even though I got it every other week, it was still too much for one person. I felt even worse when that went bad.\"\n\nHer fridge was a graveyard of expired condiments, a heavy vine of aging grapes, and a container of Greek yogurt with an eightmonth-old expiration date. She pointed to a few jars with unidentifiable goo in them. \"Attempts at making vinaigrette,\" she said, nodding. \"I make too much so it stays in there forever.\"\n\nThe freezer was equally stark; one of its few contents was a four-year-old turkey dinner. \"That's from a Thanksgiving when I decided I couldn't deal with my family,\" she said, then laughed nervously again. On Thanksgiving, she went to McDonald's. She looked a bit sad at the memory as she shut the door on the frozen-food tour.\n\nHer shelves were nods to healthy eating and falls from grace of it. Next to the quinoa (unopened) there was a shelf-stable microwavable meatloaf dinner and cracked bulgur next to fried onions (\"for green bean casserole,\" she interjected).\n\nFor her meal, she boiled whole wheat pasta and tossed it with olive oil. \"I would have no idea how to make pasta sauce,\" she said, grinding sea salt onto her pasta. \"I'm feeling kind of virtuous today because I'm not using Hamburger Helper or a jarred sauce.\" She'd been relying on them less after she learned that she had high blood pressure. As she sat down with her pasta in a beige La-Z-Boy chair in her living room, she talked wistfully about the days when, as a newlywed, she tried her hand at cooking. She made holiday roasts and even hosted dinner parties.\n\n\"I lost interest in cooking after I stopped drinking,\" she said honestly. \"But I'm realizing now that by not cooking I'm hurting myself, probably more than I realize. I want to be excited by it again,\" she said. \"I don't want to be on a diet. I just want to change the way I eat. But I don't know where to start or how to sustain that, you know?\"\n\nTerri struck me as a tough case. For high blood pressure, the best step she could take would be to cook more often. The vast majority of average Americans' sodium intake\u2014nearly 80 percent\u2014comes from fast food or ultraprocessed fare. By comparison, only 5 percent of sodium comes from home cooking. She mentioned time as an issue, but then talked about a lot of trips to physically pick up food and eat out, time that she might use to make dinner instead. I feared that what she wanted wasn't cooking lessons, but a magic bullet.\n\n#  **DONNA**\n\nIn Tacoma, we met Donna, a shy, sweet-faced twenty-six-year-old newlywed who resided in a row of modest starter homes. Her hair reminded me of Shirley Temple's, dark and spiraling down just above her shoulders. In a tinny, little-girl voice she asked, \"Do you want any iced tea? I have some in the garage.\"\n\nDonna was gosh-darned adorable. She and her husband had purchased the house two years earlier the week before they got married, a symbol of their mutual gung-ho commitment. Her pleasant kitchen looked as if it came directly out of a scene from _Mad Men,_ replete with canary-colored retro appliances. The fridge sported an extra door, presumably child-sized, built into the front. \"Isn't this weird? It's kind of a midget door or something. We want to redo it,\" Donna trilled brightly. \"But it's so darned expensive. Sure you don't want any tea?\"\n\n\"Do you have any vodka?\" I asked, only partly in jest.\n\nDonna laughed. \"Of course not, silly!\"\n\nDonna worked long hours in communications for an international aid organization that helps families in Africa. \"We should have two people to do my job, but of course it's a nonprofit so they just work you to the bone. But it's very rewarding.\"\n\nWhen Donna and her husband married, they agreed that he would cook and do dishes and she would do all the laundry. \"But now I realize that I can't rely on my husband to cook, or that what he makes will be healthy,\" she said. \"He goes back and forth about eating healthy, but when it comes down to it, he just eats what he wants. He says that he'll be more interested in it as I lose more weight, but right now he's not much of a good sport.\"\n\nAlthough Donna dutifully attended Weight Watchers for months, she'd lost only five of the fifty pounds she wanted to lose. She can cite the program's \"points\" for anything. But she finds they're not helpful when eating out, and lately they've been eating out\u2014a lot.\n\n\"My husband and I fight to the death about this. He doesn't eat all day or all afternoon. So he's supposed to be the cook in the family, but then by the time we're driving home together, he's starving. He stops and gets fast food or he wants to go out. Then he snacks all night. He thinks this is supposed to help him lose weight?\"\n\nShe revealed that just before they got married two years ago, he'd lost ninety pounds. Since then, he'd gained it all back.\n\n\"I guess back then he had to find a girl to impress,\" she said wryly. \"One reason that I want to learn to cook is because I can cut down on calories all day, but I when I get home from work, it's like a freefor-all. I don't know how to cook; it's not my element, so I am kind of at the mercy of whatever he wants to do.\"\n\nShe recently learned she's allergic to soy, and has long had an unusual reaction to raw vegetables. In the first cupboard, we hit abandoned cans of Slim-Fast. \"Oh, right, I forgot about those,\" she said sheepishly. \"It's got soy in it, so it's going to have to go.\"\n\nFrom the next one, she pulled out boxes for a hamburger-based skillet casserole. \"I grew up eating it, so I bought those when we were first married, but my husband hates it because he didn't grow up on it,\" she said. \"These might even be expired. I don't know, does Hamburger Helper have an expiration date?\" She examined the box. \"November 2008. Funny, I wonder what's in it that could expire?\"\n\nIn the same cupboard she found dehydrated mashed potatoes, boxes of Jell-O, and a block of Velveeta cheese. \"This I use for a dip when guests come over. You mix it with a can of chili.\" She dug in and pulled out an assortment of spices, many of them duplicates. \"Oh, we have three or four of the same kinds of spices. When we find a recipe we buy all the ingredients, not realizing that we already have the same herb or spice until we get home.\"\n\nOn a higher shelf, she had multiple bags full of flour, sugar, and other baking goods. \"I'd like to think that I do a lot of baking, but I don't. I think most of the stuff in this cupboard we haven't touched in more than a year.\"\n\nShe moved on. Condensed soup, cans of black olives, kits to make Mexican food, tins of tuna, a jar of pineapple chunks. \"We bought these for shish kebabs for camping,\" she said. As she pulled out more cans, she made a discovery. \"Here's the pineapple chunks from last year.\" She found many cans of turkey chili. \"We put them on Fritos or things like that for a snack.\"\n\nFrom another cupboard, she set out eight boxes of cornbread mix. \"You just add water, it's easy.\" I asked why she had so many boxes of the same items.\n\n\"We spend so much at this one warehouse store that they told us to upgrade to the business level because we would save money.\" Another cupboard revealed cases of granola bars and microwavable brown rice, an echo to Dri's shopping habits. A low drawer had a cache of hundred-calorie snacks. She picked up a small puffy bag of Cheez-Its and handled it disdainfully. \"Yeah, I was into these but they don't work for me. I'm kind of an addictive personality so I can't have just one. I can't think of anything else until I have another bag.\" She dropped it back into the drawer and quickly slammed it shut.\n\nWithout a word, she moved on to the fridge. A gallon of some pink drink dominated the top shelf. \"Yeah, my husband bought this. I didn't want to throw it away, so I've been drinking it.\" She looked at the label. \"I mean, this looks bad. I know anything that ends in - _ose_ is probably bad, or if the additive has an _x_ in it.\" She put it back.\n\n\"This is why I want to be educated, so that I can make better decisions.\" She bought books on nutrition, but rarely made it past the first couple of chapters. \"I buy a lot of cookbooks but I never really use them.\" She's made only one recipe from a book, a chicken dish from _Fresh Food Fast_ by _Cooking Light_ magazine. \"I was disappointed that it was so bland. My chicken was too dry, and I don't know why.\"\n\nIn the rest of the fridge, we found bricks of butter and a drawer devoted to an array of low-fat cheeses. A food chemist once described the process of making fat-free cheese as a complicated puzzle, one that typically required a lot of chemicals, gums, sugars, and added salt to solve. \"Do you ever wonder what they do to make them low-fat?\" I asked.\n\nShe cocked her head to one side. \"No, I guess I've never thought about it.\"\n\nWe moved on. There was a lot of packaged fruit, including some in small clear plastic containers. \"Oh, yeah, I stopped eating the grapefruit since it doesn't expire until next year. That kind of scared me. Isn't fruit supposed to expire?\"\n\nWhen she opened a crisper drawer, a putrid, vinegar-like odor escaped. She'd purchased a dozen apples in bulk, and half of them sat rotting in the bin. \"I totally forgot about those.\" Polite Donna looked visibly mortified. \"My husband thinks that if you can get it cheaper in bulk, you should buy it even if you throw half of it away.\"\n\n\"But you look upset,\" Lisa said, training the small video camera on her.\n\n\"I don't have an opinion on it,\" she replied. But then the color rose in her cheeks. She continued with the fridge tour. We discussed expired condiments and a rainbow of diet sodas. Then she discovered two browning heads of lettuce in another drawer. She clenched her jaw. She picked one up and examined it, not unlike Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull.\n\n\"You know, I grew up not having much food in our house,\" she said, talking more to the head of lettuce than to us. \"We went to a lot of food banks as a kid. For me to throw away food, that's kind of sacrilegious. And, well, I work with starving kids in Africa.\" Her voice ratcheted up an octave. She dropped the lettuce back into the bin. \"So, yeah, it does bug me that we're throwing food away as if it's not important. That we're wasting anything.\"\n\nLisa and I looked at each other. We'd tapped something deep. \"You know, Donna, earlier you said that you didn't have an opinion,\" I said gently.\n\nShe started to drum her fingers against the door, avoiding our gaze. \"Apparently, I do have an opinion.\" She banged the door shut. She paused and purposefully slowed her breathing. Then she opened the freezer door.\n\nBig bags of frozen fried snacks dominated the freezer. Among them was a family-sized bag of Any'tizers, differently shaped and stuffed fried chicken products from Tyson. \"Those are my husband's.\" I asked Donna how many they normally eat at once. \"Oh, he'll make half the package for us to eat as a snack after dinner while we watch television.\" That's six servings, or 1,280 calories and 66 grams of fat.\n\nShe moved quickly on to the many bags of frozen vegetables, but they never used them because they didn't cook with vegetables. \"I know that I don't get enough fruit and vegetables in my diet. I don't know how to make them taste good.\"\n\nPart of the appeal of frozen vegetables is that they come precut. \"My husband makes fun of me when I cut things. Whenever I cook, I screw everything up and then I lose my courage.\" Her brother used to tease her if she helped in the kitchen. \"He'd say, 'Oh, you're not going to cook, are you? You're going to do it wrong and we're all going to die.' It wasn't actually all that funny.\"\n\nShe went quiet for a bit, organizing the elements of the meal she planned to cook. When she spoke, it was almost as if she were simply saying her thoughts aloud. \"I think it could be fun to cook. When I watch people cook, I get inspired. When I do it myself, I just get really freaked out. I panic. I don't want to cook for anyone. I used to lack confidence in everything in my life, and now I think I have confidence about everything else except cooking.\"\n\nFor her meal, she decided on \"El Paso Casserole,\" a menu staple she learned from her mother that featured canned tomato soup, canned turkey chili, canned cream-style corn, and shredded Cheddar cheese. As she used the can opener to open the chili, I noticed her hands shaking. Sweet Donna. This must have been so hard for her, to have not one but two people come into her kitchen, ask nosy questions, and film her while asking about the one thing she felt she didn't do well.\n\n\"Hey, I screw things up and I went to culinary school,\" I said, approaching her. I gave her a quick hug around the shoulder. \"I burned toast this morning. I overcooked a steak the other night. I mean, it happens. Even Julia Child screwed up sauces and dropped potatoes, right on TV.\"\n\nShe smiled at me thankfully and offered a polite laugh, but then went quiet as she started to brown a pound of hamburger. I decided to shift the conversation to how she would remodel her kitchen. Her mood lightened. As she topped the layered casserole with Cheddar cheese, she offered some final thoughts.\n\n\"I have friends who say, 'Oh, cooking is so easy, let me show you.' But to me, it's so intimidating. My friend comes over, and she's an amazing cook, she makes it all look so fun. But when she comes over and wants me to cook, I say, Let's go out. I'm too self-conscious.\"\n\nShe thinks some of it stemmed from growing up in a household where cooking was looked on as a chore rather than a rewarding act of creation and sharing. \"We go to my in-laws' house and you can tell that the women in his family love to cook. Everything my mother-in-law makes is wonderful and tastes great. But at my house, my mom and my grandmother, they don't really cook. Everything is very bland and heavy. Kind of unhealthy and artificial.\" She looked down at the dish she had just put together. \"Well, just like this casserole.\" She shoved it into her canary-colored retro wall oven.\n\n\"More than anything, I wish that cooking could become natural to me. I've come to realize that it's important for me to find options around food that I don't feel I have right now. If I'm going to eat right, I have to finally learn to do it myself.\"\n\nCooking seemed like a minefield to Donna, in terms of both her own relationship to food and the power struggle she felt in her relationship with her husband. He could cook, she couldn't, and that unfortunate balance led her to a place where she felt uncomfortable and out of control in the heart of her own home. She described it as \"his kitchen\" and commented that she didn't even know where to find some utensils and pans. She worked fifty-hour weeks trying to help feed kids in Africa, and her husband's buying decisions meant that she ended up wasting a lot of food. Yet she had clearly hit a point in her young life where she realized that she needed to make a change. Of all the people I visited, I felt that Donna had both the most to gain and potentially the most to lose.\n\n#  **ANDRA**\n\n\"I'm sorry, it's going to be so hot!\" Andra apologized repeatedly as she walked us up the stairs to her apartment. Edging toward the nineties, it was unseasonably hot for early June. \"I have no AC, so I hope you don't mind, but it's just too hot to wear a bra.\"\n\nThe life of Andra, a forty-three-year-old paralegal, had clearly taken some curious turns. Raised in an affluent family, she lived in what she called \"a sort of a slum,\" a complex of low-slung apartments that offered subsidized housing adjacent to the airport. In the wake of the economic meltdown of 2008, her firm slashed both her hourly rate and her hours during a major round of cost cutting. On a good week she took home $180 after taxes. For the past four months she'd been using food stamps for the first time in her life, a fact she kept secret from her colleagues and from her parents living nearby in an upscale suburb. \"They have a personal chef now,\" she said, an edge of what could have been either jealously or dismay in her voice. She hadn't seen them in three weeks, not since she sold her ten-year-old Honda Civic to keep up with her rent and cover her daily living expenses.\n\nLarge furniture overwhelmed the small apartment. A curious collection of knickknacks gave the impression that she had moved here from much larger quarters, and that perhaps not all of her decor originated from the same place. Expensive handmade Venetian masks hung on one wall, while pink-cheeked sweet Hummel characters and Franklin Mint\u2013style woodland critters cluttered shelves not far from items emblazoned with Harley-Davidson logos. Crescent moons and astrological symbols decorated everything from pillows to a faux wall tapestry, and an inflatable celestial globe hovered in the corner of her dining room. On her coffee table, there was an inexpensive plaster cast of a bald eagle clutching a struggling fish in its claws. The beaded curtain separating the living room and kitchen somehow did not seem out of place.\n\nAndra apologized for not having much on hand. \"It's the end of the month, and my food stamps don't kick in until the first.\" She had visited the food bank in the past week, where they had given her a package of frozen boneless chicken thighs. \"I'm really not sure what to do with those,\" she said, thumping the hard pack with her wrists.\n\nIn stark contrast to Jodi, she had absolutely nothing in most of her cupboards. In one, she had just four items\u2014a bottle of dried Italian herbs, a small jar of mustard, a bottle of Wesson oil, and half a package of dried egg noodles. In another, she had just two cans, cream of celery soup and beef ravioli in sauce, both marked with bright orange \"Damaged\u2014Half Off!\" stickers. Equally lacking, her fridge had only a few items, mostly condiments and a head of iceberg lettuce. For dinner, she planned to make the only other item in her freezer: miniature frozen pizzas that she had purchased at a supermarket outlet store. \"They have good deals there, but it's sort of a long time to get there by bus,\" she said.\n\nAs she placed the hard disks on a cookie sheet, Andra said that she believed people can eat well inexpensively but she hadn't yet figured out how. \"I used to have enough money that I never had to think about what to eat. That's changed dramatically. My options are much more limited. It's especially true now that I don't have a car. There's nothing near here in terms of food shopping, really.\"\n\nShe evaded questions about her past, but alluded to having lived a much different lifestyle not that long ago. \"I used to have money, but no time. Now I have time, but no money. When you have the funds, it's a lot easier if you don't know how to cook. You can go out to dinner, or you can get good takeout. But when you're strapped for cash like me, you end up eating Domino's pizza or stuff like that. It's cheaper to eat badly, or at least it seems that way, especially if you're a poor cook like me.\"\n\nMost people don't realize that the average food stamp recipient receives about a dollar per meal, roughly twenty-seven dollars per week. Andra's assessment of her situation struck me as accurate. Knowing how to cook does stretch food dollars. For the price of pizza delivery (at least ten dollars), it's possible to make a whole roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and a side of vegetables. But it requires access to a grocery store, plus enough knowledge to improvise dishes, take advantage of sales, and avoid wasting leftovers.\n\nThe speed with which Andra's lifestyle had collapsed was striking. Economists say that many Americans are only two paychecks away from being homeless. Andra had a roof over her head, but little more. She was willing to do what it took to weather the economic storm and hope for a better horizon.\n\n#  **CHERYL**\n\nBy the time we met the final two volunteers, strong themes had come through. Most volunteers were terrified of raw chicken and bemoaned their inability to make palatable vegetables. Bulk shopping and overzealous trips to the produce section or farmers' markets led to a lot of wasted food when combined with a lack of insight or inspiration for what to do with leftovers.\n\nCheryl, thirty-two, was the mother of a four-year-old boy and an infant son. She lived in an upscale home on the edge of a bay with commanding water and mountain views in a town well north of Seattle. Cheryl was a quiet, rail-thin woman with large, expressive brown eyes who hailed from a remote town in Canada. She focused on buying organic food and made a point to drive forty-five minutes to a local co-op.\n\nYet on the day we met her, she made herself a can of soup in her large, well-appointed kitchen with wide granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. When I asked if she'd ever tried to make soup, she smirked. \"No. Well, okay, once, but it didn't go well so I never tried it again.\"\n\n#  **GENEVIEVE**\n\nThe final volunteer, Genevieve, was a pretty twenty-five-year-old brunette who lived with three roommates in a spacious house in the city. Among them was John, who had become her boyfriend. She made one of the few dishes she knew, a combination of store-bought Asian slaw combined with a bottle of teriyaki sauce. Gen wanted to learn to cook in advance of a big life transition\u2014she and John were planning to move into a place of their own. \"I have friends who cook. It's like they belong to a sorority and I somehow never got asked to pledge, and now they seem to be guarding their secrets, you know?\"\n\nBoth Cheryl and Gen came from homes in which their mothers cooked, yet neither learned much before leaving home. \"It's so easy not to cook,\" Cheryl said. \"You can always pull out a frozen pizza. But I don't want to do that. I want to feel like I'm nourishing my family, not just giving them food to subsist on.\"\n\nGen echoed her comments. \"I guess I never felt compelled to learn because it feels like you could go your whole life without learning to cook. But as I've gotten older, I've just started to realize that seems like the least healthy way to go through life. I want to be able to control what I'm eating. You really just don't know what's in stuff anymore.\"\n\nThe goal for both of them, and for all the volunteers, was something that felt remarkably elusive. Cheryl articulated it well. \"I want to be one of those people who can open up the fridge, look inside it, and come up with a meal. I simply cannot do that now. It's like some kind of magic to be able to do that.\"\n\nI thought about what I had learned in the course of the week. It wasn't what I had anticipated, although, admittedly, I hadn't been sure what to expect. But I could not have predicted the residue and damage that a lack of cooking skills had on people's daily lives. Among the boxes and cans, I found a larger story of perceived failure that left them struggling with guilt, frustration, and a stinging lack of confidence.\n\nThe themes that I found in these kitchens were echoed in the others we visited. The women were so different in terms of age, background, and socioeconomic status, but they struggled with similar issues. A lot of them struggled with their weight. Lack of planning led them to rely on processed food or to stop for fast food. Some purchased too much and the wasted food made them feel bad. All of them talked about their mother, spouse, or grandmother and their ability or inability to cook, and how it impacted them as adults. None of them could hold a knife properly; then neither did I before culinary school.\n\nFrom the moment I learned of Sabra's devotion to margarine, I worried that I'd gotten myself into something far too complicated. In Donna's home, meals were an emotional riptide that represented more than brown lettuce, but involed morals, money, and worldview. Jodi struggled with how to balance her fears of succumbing to Asian wife stereotypes and trying to feed her son something other than chicken nuggets. Andra represented those most affected by the economic breakdown in 2008, her comfortable life turned upside down by an unexpected downsizing that shifted her from a comfortable living to food stamps within less than six months through no apparent fault of her own. For all her good intentions, Dri ultimately lived on massive portions of starch while her greens suffered a slow death in her fridge.\n\nI had started this on a whim, and it wasn't until I actually visited them that I realized how much courage it took all these women to allow a stranger into their homes, to poke and pry and play voyeur, then to sit in judgment of one the most intimate human acts. If you don't think of eating as intimate, think of those quiet moments you've stood alone in a kitchen, the wedge of light leaking from an open refrigerator door, seeking to satisfy a craving.\n\nConsider a doughnut. Everyone knows that doughnuts aren't good for you. They're sugar and white flour fried in fat and traditionally topped with more sugar. But it's hard to deny the lure of the delicate aroma of a warm doughnut and the guilty pleasure of sinking your teeth into the mushy, powerful sweetness of a freshly glazed bear claw. Moments later, you feel the sugar rush, subconsciously knowing that it's too strong to last and that it's only a matter of time before the inevitable crash. How many of us have had relationships like that? The tug of something forbidden and giving in only to experience joy, disappointment, and, ultimately, regret.\n\nAs I looked over my notes and started to review the video of those visits, I wondered what my cupboards would reveal.\n\nUnable to sleep, I slipped out of bed at two A.M. and conducted an inventory of my own kitchen. I found boxes of partially used pasta, mostly whole wheat. Three bags of white sugar. Really? Stacks of canned tomatoes, artichokes, olives, imported tuna, and locally packed clams hid two expired cans of foie gras and p\u00e2t\u00e9 from France. Damn, how did I forget they were there? Plastic bags with various grains I'd experimented with once or twice that Mike didn't like, so they remained untouched. Half jars of protein-shake mix from an ambitious gym period. A messy drawer crammed with tired spices, some labeled in foreign languages. In the cupboard, dying vinegars, Wondra gravy thickener, green peppercorns, a box of Krusteaz crust mix, and a couple of boxes of macaroni and cheese.\n\nCondiments dominated the fridge, a curious collection that ranged from Baconnaise to fish sauce to four varieties of mustard. Two small takeout boxes of Thai food sat on the middle shelf next to plastic containers filled with duck fat, bacon fat, and expired yogurt. Despite efforts to diligently use produce, I found a moist green bag of what had been organic mesclun salad, and next to it, decomposing zucchini, and a handful of molding limes lurking in the crisper drawer under fresh bundles of Swiss chard. Tucked in the back was an abandoned year-old bag of decaf coffee bought after a fertility specialist suggested that I give up caffeine. In the freezer, bones for chicken stock mingled next to vodka-spiked ice pops, a bag of white pork fat (a gift from Lisa), ready-to-cook chicken dumplings from a place in Chinatown, half-used bags of spinach, frozen blueberries from two summers ago, and the remnants of an undated batch of chocolate chip cookie dough.\n\nI was in a battle with myself. It seemed that I had as much to learn as any of the people I'd just visited.\nCHAPTER 4\n\n**It's Not About the Knife**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**Kitchen Tools, Basic Cuts, and Why You**\n\n**Really Need Only a Couple of Knives**\n\nOn a balmy June evening, the volunteers straggled into the kitchen one by one. To each we handed an apron, a notebook, and a cloth diaper.\n\n\"They make the best side towels,\" Lisa explained of the diapers to the puzzled volunteers. \"The middle is padded, so it's like an oven mitt. You use it to pick up hot pans and stuff.\" Neither of us said it, but they're also dirt cheap.\n\nShannon picked one up and laughed. \"I have these exact same diapers at home. I just don't picture them in a kitchen.\"\n\n\"I swear, these are new,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, I believe you,\" Shannon said, worried that she'd offended. \"I just think it's funny.\"\n\nDiapers in hand, they wrote their names on pieces of masking tape because I had not thought to get name tags. They took it in stride and slapped the masking tape to their chests.\n\nAs Mike noted, our Seattle kitchen was too small to teach more than a couple of students at a time. If you've never tried, finding a kitchen that can accommodate a dozen students proves a bit more complicated than you might expect. Only a few days before the first class, I managed to secure the use of a kitchen owned by a catering company. I discovered the place via Anne-Catherine, one of my fellow classmates at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, affectionately known as \"Ace.\" \"I can't wait to move to Seattle. It's where I want to spend the rest of my life,\" Ace told the group while sipping _vin rouge_ on a crisp fall Parisian evening out with our fellow students at a beaux arts bistro near Les Halles. My dream transported me to Paris, while hers was to settle in Seattle. Ace served as the executive chef of the catering company for a time and held a series of communal dinners in the kitchen's small dining room before she left to open her own restaurant.\n\nThe owner required a business license, insurance, and state health cards in order for us to rent her place. Lisa and I sat through a threehour kitchen sanitation and safety class with several hundred aspiring kitchen workers. The short version: Wash your hands often for at least twenty seconds, roughly the time it takes to sing \"Happy Birthday\" twice, and don't defrost meat in the trunk of your car.\n\nEverything secured, the owner handed me the first set of keys that I've ever had to a commercial kitchen. It wasn't _Top Chef_. The kitchen is housed in a 1950s storefront, most recently the site of a pizza joint. The extremely canted windows bring to mind the architectural works of Mike Brady. The trapezoid-shaped room feels as if it started life as a coin-operated laundry or perhaps a dry cleaner. The neighbors include a jumble of houses, a Chinese food joint, used-car dealerships, old-school mini-malls, and a Cuban place known for its mojitos.\n\nSomehow, the owner made this spot work. A rugged six-burner gas stove anchored one wall, flanked by a grill and a pair of well-worn pastry ovens. A matching set of handsome stainless steel refrigerators lined the other wall to complement a six-by-eight-foot walk-in cooler. Organization reigned in the chrome industrial racks around the room, piled with the stuff you'd expect to find in a catering kitchen: stacks of plates, serving pieces, industrial-sized jars of oils, vinegars, condiments, and spices, plastic bins, bottles, pitchers, boxes of glasses, cooking utensils, stacks of pans and bowls. It smelled vaguely of floor cleaner, residual cooking odors, and the lavender growing in the front planter box.\n\nThe owner left Post-it notes stuck throughout the kitchen. The tone varied from shrill to verge-of-hysteria warnings: \"For catering use ONLY!\"; \"DO _NOT_ FORGET TO TURN OFF LIGHTS!\" Despite its quirky charm, or maybe because of it, I felt lucky to have found this place.\n\nTheir hands washed after multiple renditions of \"Happy Birthday\" and their diapers tucked into their white aprons, the volunteers stared nervously at the pile of knives.\n\nEach volunteer hauled in her own knives from home as instructed. The cutlery cluttered the stainless steel tables pushed together in the center of the room. With that, the project officially began.\n\nI toured the selection. Sabra had purchased her serrated-knife block set with five knives for twenty dollars because \"they looked cool,\" she said. Trish had a set of Cutco knives custom made to fit into a shallow drawer in a house she no longer owned; she admitted that she used only a blunt vegetable knife for all tasks. Donna showed off a wedding present, an eleven-piece set from the Pampered Chef, kept pristine in the original protective covers. Cheryl brought in her knives, drawer and all, which featured everything from a few antique Ginsus to some classic all-carbon cleavers to her husband's assortment of hunting knives. Shannon had a set of expensive German knives, a wedding present from years earlier. Andra took three buses from Sea-Tac to get to the kitchen. \"Sorry, I left the bigger ones at home. I didn't want to carry a big bag of knives on the bus,\" she said.\n\n\"Okay, show me your favorite knife, the one you use most of the time. Hold them up.\" They raised their knives aloft, like tentative knights at a medieval feast fearing their swords would not pass muster. Most held a vegetable or a paring knife. Only one person lifted a chef's knife. I had them put their arms down. I asked why more people didn't use a chef's knife.\n\n\"That kind of knife scares me,\" Trish said. \"It's so big.\"\n\nSabra shrugged. \"What different does it make? A knife is a knife.\"\n\n\"Most of these knives look pretty expensive,\" Andra said, perusing the collection.\n\n\"Your mileage will vary,\" I replied. In an effort to present the spectrum, Lisa had raided a restaurant supply store and purchased several Mundial plastic-handled chef's knives, the default tool of restaurants everywhere. I had picked up a twenty-five-dollar OXO knife at Target and a ten-dollar knife at IKEA. I set them out next to my own collection of knives, a United Nations\u2013style parade of metallurgy made by W\u00fcsthof, Shun, Henckels, Global, and Sabatier and a ceramic number by Kyocera, among others. \"Since I wrote a book with the word _knife_ in it, people give me knives,\" I explained. \"Maybe my next book title should include _diamonds, cash,_ or _Learjet_.\"\n\nWe went through Knife Anatomy 101, starting with the obvious. \"As you can guess, the blade is the sharp part. The blunt back of the blade is a spine, just like a book. Many knives sport a raised lip edge near the handle known as a bolster.\n\n\"See this W\u00fcsthof?\" Like a hand model, I stroked the length of the knife. \"This is what we call a 'full tang' because the blade extends all the way to the butt of the knife. It's held together by rivets. A bolster is heavy, designed to help balance the knife.\" I put it down and picked up one of the inexpensive restaurant knives. \"See? I bet the tang extends about an inch into the handle. Second, no bolster. It's flat.\" That means that the knife has been stamped out of a sheet of metal, kind of like a cookie cutter. To make a knife with a bolster requires forging, a more complicated process that requires human interaction, and so it's always more expensive.\n\n\"Take two key considerations into account when buying a knife. The steel and 'the feel.' You want a knife with the kind of steel that can take an edge and hold it.\" Not all steel is created equal. Harder steel takes an edge better, resulting in a sharper knife. But particularly hard steel can be brittle and trickier to maintain.\n\nThere's a complicated measure of hardness, but for most retail knives the main concern is carbon content. \"Carbon makes steel stronger. If you look for the phrase 'high-carbon steel,' that's a start.\" For instance, the knives from Victorinox, of Swiss Army knife fame, are made from high-carbon steel, and their chef's knives start at around thirty dollars.\n\n\"Marketers don't talk about steel since most consumers don't care,\" Lisa chimed in. \"Instead, their job is to try to blind you with a lot of features. They know that people like value, so they will pack a set with all kinds of cheap knives, but the reality is that you don't need them all.\"\n\n\"Okay, here's what I use.\" I picked up an eight-inch extra-wide German knife. \"I used this one throughout my training at Le Cordon Bleu. It's heavy, but I have small hands, and for some reason, the extra weight just feels good to me. How a knife fits into your hand is the 'feel.' Go to a place that has a good selection of knives, such as a cookware store, cutlery shop, and some department stores or restaurant supply places. Feel the subtle differences in the weight and the grip of the handle. A comfortable knife is a highly personal thing.\n\n\"Next, buy only the knives you'll use. Start with a good chef's knife. Supplement that with a paring knife and a bread knife.\" I picked up my German-made bread knife. \"With care, good knives last for a long time. My mom bought me this for my birthday nearly twenty years ago. Other than my life, still arguably the best gift she ever gave me.\"\n\nTrish asked, \"What about a vegetable knife?\"\n\n\"Honestly, I don't know what you would do with a vegetable knife that you couldn't do with a chef's knife or a paring knife,\" I told her. \"I use a chef's knife at least ninety percent of the time. I use a paring knife once in a while. I have a boning knife and a cleaver from my set from Le Cordon Bleu that I break out a few times a year. I haven't used my fillet knife in months. My chef friend Ted has four knives: a chef's knife, a paring knife, a bread knife, and a fillet knife. That's it. He was a professional chef for twelve years.\"\n\nDri raised an eyebrow and nodded her head. \"All of this is good to know,\" she said. \"My budget can handle getting one good knife. I was looking at three hundred dollars for a block set and thinking, There's no way.\"\n\n\"You can get a decent knife for thirty to fifty dollars, and that's a better deal than buying a cheap block set,\" I said. \"But honestly, if you spend money on anything in your kitchen, invest it in the best knife that you can afford. If you take care of it, you'll have it for twenty or thirty years.\"\n\nI looked at the clock. \"Okay, no more looking. Find a chef's knife and pick it up. You can use any of mine, too.\" The women stirred, staking out a spot at the stainless steel table.\n\nCheryl reached for a Henckels knife close to her. She had her infant son, Liam, strapped to her bosom in a BabyBj\u00f6rn. \"I couldn't get a sitter,\" she had explained at the start of class. \"Don't worry. I cook with him like this all the time.\" It is not every day that you see a baby next to a pile of a hundred knives. Liam reached for the shiny, pretty things. Cheryl kissed his head as she pulled his small hand back, \"Oh, no, sweet pea, those are not for you.\"\n\n\"Show me how you hold a knife.\" All of them held it the way that I had before I went to culinary school, by making a fist around the handle.\n\n\"Don't strangle your knife,\" I said. \"You want to sort of shake hands with it. Place the handle across your palm. Wrap your hand around it. With your thumb and index finger, pinch the juncture where the blade meets the handle. This will be on the bolster, if your knife has one. This should leave your other three fingers tucked around the handle.\"\n\nI watched as they all tried this out, a study in collective awkwardness and furrowed brows. Lisa and I walked around the table, inspecting and adjusting holds here and there. It reminded me of my first day in the kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu, when the pleasant Chef Bruno Stihl walked through and stopped to correct my own grip on my brand-new knife. _\"Non,\"_ he said as he gently unwrapped my fist and carefully reworked my fingers into the correct position. He held my hand in his as he demonstrated the rocking motion to use when cutting. _\"Oui, comme \u00e7a. Un couteau doit \u00eatre une extension de votre main,\"_ he said, smiling, and then walked away. Loosely, the phrase translates to 'Your knife should be one with your hand.' Once I figured out that phrase in French, I never forgot it. I never thought a knife demo could make me so nostalgic.\n\n\"How does that feel?\"\n\n\"Weird,\" Sabra said. Other people nodded.\n\n\"It's a little bit like how you hold a golf club,\" Trish observed, looking at her knife as if it had somehow just become miraculously attached to her body.\n\n\"The reason you want to hold it like this is that you'll have more control over the blade,\" I said. \"Plus, your hand won't get as fatigued. Okay, now hand your knife to the person on your right, handle first. _Carefully_.\"\n\n\"This one is a lot heavier,\" Sabra said. She had been holding an inexpensive knife from her own block and shifted to a Japanese brand. \"This is, like, well, a real knife.\"\n\n\"This is why it's great if you can test out a knife before you buy it. A comfortable knife will prompt you to chop more, which will encourage you to cook, and that's the whole point,\" I said.\n\nSomeone asked where to store knives without a block, so I pulled out a simple black plastic sheath that clipped on to the blade. \"This is a knife cover. Slip it on like this\"\u2014I clicked it in place over a blade\u2014\"and voil\u00e0. It will protect your knives and your hands from the blade when fumbling around in a drawer.\" Magnetic strips on a wall work great. Mike ingeniously snapped powerful bar magnets from IKEA on the inside of our stainless steel stove hood. Knives snap solidly to the outside, up and out of the way. \"I wash them by hand as soon as I use them, and then bang! They snap right to the magnet, high and out of the way.\" That brought up an important point.\n\n\"Always wash knives by hand. Never, ever, put a knife in the dishwasher. Steel is tempered with heat. The high heat from your dishwasher will damage the steel, dull the edge, and probably not do much for your handle either. Knives should never go into the dishwasher. Ever. Say it, everyone.\"\n\n\"Knives should never go in the dishwasher,\" they said in unison. \"Ever.\"\n\n\"One more thing to remember: Knives are like dogs. They need occasional grooming. Get them sharpened at least once a year. Most cookware or cutlery stores will either offer this service or can tell you where to take them. It will set you back a few bucks per knife, but it's so worth it,\" I said.\n\n\"But doesn't this thing,\" asked Dri, holding up a honing steel, \"sharpen your knife? Can't you do that at home?\"\n\nLisa jumped in. \"No, this is called a steel. When you run a blade across this, it's more like a fine-tuning by taking away bits of metal that collect on the edge. It keeps it straighter. But the metal should be a little bit magnetic to work and a lot of the steels aren't magnetized. So they're just for the finishing touch, really.\" It's the difference between brushing your dog and having it professionally groomed.\n\nWith that, we got down to business. We distributed thick cutting boards and settled a wet paper towel under each to keep it from slipping, a trick I learned from the French chefs. Then Lisa and I made sure each person had a proper chef's knife.\n\n\"Proper cutting technique involves sticks and cubes. That's about it.\" I grabbed a zucchini from the table. I cut it in half lengthwise and then cut each half into four vertical strips. \"Remember that ad that said a Ronco-something-or-other could make julienne fries and you wondered what they were? Well, they're sticks. That's how you do it.\" Next, I took three sticks and cut them into cubes. \"This is diced. The thinner the stick, the smaller the dice.\"\n\nI diced another four sticks. \"Notice that I'm not chopping down like a guillotine. Instead, I'm starting with the tip of the knife on the cutting board and then bringing the blade down. It should feel like a rocking motion.\"\n\nNext, a stalk of celery. \"It's always the same,\" I said, slicing it into two vertically. Then I diced it. \"Always curl your fingers under to avoid cutting them. Then use the flat of your knuckles like a guide for the blade. If you get into that habit, you'll cut yourself a lot less often.\"\n\nWith a grunt, Lisa banged a five-gallon bucket containing thirty pounds of zucchini onto the table. The group stood back and stared in disbelief.\n\n\"Uh, that's a lot of zucchini,\" Jodi observed. \"What do you want us to do with that?\"\n\n\"I want you to practice,\" I said. \"A lot of practice. So let's go.\"\n\nEach person grabbed a zucchini and made her first tentative cuts. After a bit of chatter, the room settled into an air of quiet concentration. I saw Trish struggling to get a grip on her knife and went over to her. \"Is everything okay?\"\n\nShe said quietly, \"I cut myself really bad when I was eight years old and so I have always been afraid of the blade. I think that's why I have always felt so unsure with a knife.\"\n\nI placed the chef's knife back in her hand and held it as she made her first cuts. I could tell it was hard for her. \"You know, years ago I badly cut one of my fingers trying to saw through a frozen bagel. See my scar?\" I held out my finger. \"I completely understand. But if you hold your knife back and keep your fingers out of the way, you're going to be fine.\" She nodded and grabbed a zucchini. I watched her deliberately slice it and then slowly carve sticks from one of the halves. When she diced her first batch, she looked relieved.\n\nBy her second zucchini, Trish moved more quickly. Soon, the regular thump-thump of knives filled the room like a healthy heartbeat.\n\n\"After a while it gets so much easier,\" Shannon said as I came around her side of the table to collect some of her diced vegetables. \"I feel like I have more control over the knife.\"\n\nWith that, the mood shifted into one of cordial focus. The women chatted sporadically yet kept their eyes on their cutting boards. Halfway through her final zucchini, Jodi insisted that everyone look at the perfection of her dice. \"I can't believe that I am doing this. People, I want you to know that I have never so much as peeled an apple in my life.\"\n\nWithin a half hour, the pile of zucchini disappeared, having been diced and then swept away into a massive thirty-two-quart pot on the six-burner stove. Then we handed each person two large yellow onions.\n\n\"When you cut an onion the classic way, it's easier, faster, and you cry less. But it also impresses people,\" I said. \"First, cut the onion in half across the root so that a portion of the root stays intact on both pieces,\" I said. \"If you cut it correctly, you should see _le c\u0153ur d'un oignon,_ or the heart of the onion. It looks like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting. It's usually easier to peel onions after they've been cut.\" I pulled the papery skin away. \"Now cut a vertical slit down the middle, but don't cut through the root. Make two more slits on either side.\" I picked it up. \"It should look a little like a fan if you pick it up and spread the slits open. Now just slice it across at the end, the way you might normally slice an onion,\" and the cubes of onions tumbled onto the cutting board.\n\n\"Cool!\" Sabra said. The group looked impressed. A few even golfclapped.\n\nSabra, a quick study with a knife, tackled an onion first. I coached her on keeping her neon-green fingernails tucked back. \"Hey, I'm totally getting this!\" Sabra yelled to everyone victoriously, showing off her chopped onion. \"I'm actually _good_ with a knife! Who knew? This is _sooo_ cool.\"\n\nI watched Donna quietly study her onion at the corner of the table. She bought her vegetables frozen and precut to avoid having to chop in front of her husband, who mocked her. I walked around the table and picked up a bit of her chopped onion. \"This looks great; perfect, actually.\" She flashed a quick, proud smile. \"Nice job on your grip, too.\"\n\nMost people got it. Terri struggled and reverted back to a modified choke hold; she made a clumsy knife wielder.\n\nThe nutty smell of saut\u00e9ing zucchini drifted toward the worktable. Months earlier, Lisa had traveled to the south of Italy, where she had a remarkable pasta dish at a donkey farm. She went into the kitchen to pry the recipe from the woman who had cooked it, a professor of ancient studies at the university in Palermo. The woman spoke no English. Lisa's Italian is limited to what she refers to as \"Tarzan Italian.\" The discussion went something along the lines of \"Me want recipe. You give recipe?\"\n\nEventually, she learned that the dish consisted of zucchini slow-cooked in olive oil, then paired with al dente pasta and finished with a lot of salt and pepper. As an extra bonus for that night, Lisa caramelized the chopped onions and added them to the zucchini. At the end of class, we handed out takeout boxes of the Italian-inspired zucchini pasta. Everyone seemed enthused and the volunteers left in a group, chattering excitedly.\n\nWe had reached the end of the first official cooking class, and it had gone without major slip-ups. We'd both been on our feet for at least six straight hours by the end of it, and an hour of cleanup remained. I searched one of the fridges marked with a \"For Catering Use ONLY!\" Post-it and dug out a bottle of pinot grigio. \"You want some?\" I asked Lisa. We feared breaking one of the glasses in the catering inventory, marked with a Post-it screaming, \"Do NOT use any of the wineglasses except for DINNERS!\" So we found a couple of small water glasses and clinked. \"Do you think any of it sunk in?\" I asked her.\n\nShe shrugged. \"We'll find out.\"\n\nIt was time to wrap up. We divvied up the tasks. I pulled out the rolling mop and bucket. She resigned herself to the dish-cleaning area in the back. As part of my first job at age sixteen, I often helped mop the restaurant floors at night. Just as I started to sink into the memory, I noticed something on a side counter. Sabra had left behind her knife block set. I texted her.\n\n\"I won't be needing them,\" Sabra responded.\n\nI debated what that meant. Was she not coming back to the class next week?\n\nThe next day, Sabra sent another text: \"So excited! Got new chef's knife! Full tang, good steel, great feel for $45! See you Monday!\"\n\n#    **Rustic Italian Farmhouse Zucchini \"Sauce\" with Penne**\n\n_This recipe is based on one developed by my friend Lisa Simpson after a meal at a picturesque Sicilian donkey farm. The slow-cooked zucchini takes on a nutty, earthy flavor and the pasta water \"melts\" the vegetables in a sort of thick sauce. This dish is best prepared in a stainless steel or cast iron pan to effectively caramelize the vegetables. Cook the pasta to not quite al dente so that it will finish cooking in the zucchini and absorb more flavor. Brown rice works well in place of pasta. Season the final outcome with liberal doses of coarse salt and ground black pepper. I sometimes add cooked Italian sausage, fresh basil, or pine nuts at the end of cooking. This pasta pairs well with a creamy white wine, such as Chardonnay._\n\n**SERVES 2 TO 3 AS A HEARTY MAIN DISH, 4 AS A SIDE**\n\n3 tablespoons olive oil   \n3 pounds zucchini, chopped into   -inch dice   \n6 ounces dried whole wheat pasta, such as penne   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \n1 cup caramelized onions (optional) (See note below.)\n\n  In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the zucchini and toss to coat evenly. Stir frequently over medium heat. Depending on your pan, the heat level, and the size of the dice, it should take 12 to 25 minutes until the zucchini browns and starts to fall apart.\n\n  Meanwhile, add the pasta to boiling salted water. Cook 2 minutes less than the package instructs. Before draining, _carefully_ scoop out 3 cups of the hot pasta water. Add 1 cup to the browned zucchini. Bring to a soft boil, adjusting the heat if necessary, stirring to scrape up any browned bits. Add another half cup of water and repeat the process until the zucchini takes on a thick, almost creamy consistency.\n\n  Add the cooked pasta, at least a couple of pinches of coarse salt, and plenty of freshly ground black pepper to the zucchini. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the pasta softens. If using caramelized onions, stir them in along with the pasta. After removing the skillet from the heat, taste again to see if the dish needs salt or pepper before serving.\n\n_**Note: Caramelized Onions**_\n\nCaramelized onions are an easy way to add a lot of flavor to a dish. I make a big batch and freeze it in 1-cup portions. A large ten-ounce onion cooks down to about a half cup, or five ounces, of caramelized onion. _Basic technique:_ Thinly slice 2 onions. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the onions until softened, then lower the heat to a simmer and gently brown them for about 25 minutes.\nCHAPTER 5\n\n**A Matter of Taste**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**Why You Must Taste, Taste, Taste**\n\n\"This tastes weird, like a chemical,\" Jodi said, rolling her tongue around her mouth. The rest of the students nodded, murmuring agreement. The subject? Iodized table salt. \"Gosh, it never occurred to me that salt could taste different from one another.\"\n\nI planned to focus on vegetables for the second class, a major culinary blind spot for the volunteers. Yet I could not shake the ongoing references to bland recipes and the sense of inadequacy that I'd heard in regard to their palates. The simple phrase \"Season to taste\" was greeted with the enthusiasm of a tax audit.\n\n\"I hate it when a recipe says that,\" Shannon said when we visited her. \"What does that mean? Whose taste? Mine? How do I know what tastes right?\"\n\n\"I find it daunting,\" Trish said of the equally vague standard recipe phrase \"Check seasonings.\" \"Check for what? I don't know what I'm trying to make it taste like, you know? What if my palate is just way off?\"\n\nOne of the most crucial lessons at Le Cordon Bleu\u2014and for any cook\u2014is the concept of taste, taste, taste. The chefs admonished us to taste or sniff every ingredient _before_ we added it to a dish, and then to taste the dish during the cooking process, and then to taste it yet again before serving. \"How can you tell how your dish will turn out if you don't taste the ingredients you're putting into it?\" a chef would say. If you wait to taste a dish when it's done, it's often too late to fix anything wrong.\n\nOne reason the woman in the supermarket relied on boxed or frozen food was that \"it always turned out.\" Most of the volunteers reported that even careful attention to some recipes yielded bland results. Both stemmed from a fundamental lack of understanding of flavor. Gen had described a recipe for a simple steamed broccoli dish. When I asked if she'd considered adding something extra, say, some lemon or extra black pepper, she shook her head. The recipe didn't say to do it, and she feared \"messing it up.\"\n\n\"Slavish followers of recipes, who treat them as gospel instead of guidelines, make the mistake of putting more faith in someone else's instructions than they do in themselves,\" note Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, authors of _The Flavor Bible._ \"Many people would do better in the kitchen if they _didn't_ blindly follow recipes.\"\n\nOne key is to start with good ingredients, understand their affinity with other flavors, and go from there. Some flavors naturally go together, such as basil and tomato, fig and bleu cheese, or even chocolate and peanut butter. The key here would be to figure out a way to convince the volunteers that spending a bit extra for flavorful quality ingredients was worth it. Most said that when it came to food, cost trumped any consideration of flavor, echoing Sabra's comments that most frozen meals tasted the same to her, so she went for the cheapest options.\n\nThis focus on cost versus flavor was not limited to the group or even to this generation. In her 1937 story \"Pity the Blind in Palate,\" M. F. K. Fisher lamented that many Americans shovel in the same fare with dogged regularity, rarely stopping to think about what they are eating. \"We eat, collectively, with a glum urge for food to fill us,\" she wrote. \"We are ignorant of flavor. We are as a nation taste-blind.\" But Fisher acknowledged that if a person sampled a variety of things, stopping to ponder the sensations and subtle differences, then hope existed to awaken the palate.\n\nBut how would I get this point across? As I often do when I've got something to think about, I went to the supermarket.\n\nAt nearly 10:30 P.M., the place was relatively quiet, with few shoppers. The scent of floor wax drifted over to the canned-goods aisle. I started to spend more time in the center aisles, where I had met the woman with the chicken, hoping to run into her again.\n\n\"Mommy, which kind of canned tomatoes do you want?\" I turned, hoping it was her daughter. Instead, it was a preteen with braces in a pink fleece sweater over a pink dance outfit and pink sneakers.\n\nHer mother, staring down at her phone, answered without looking up. \"Whatever's the cheapest, sweetie. It doesn't matter. They're all the same.\"\n\nThe girl tossed two cans of diced store-brand tomatoes into their cart and the pair rolled away. I stood contemplating the wall of tomatoes featuring nineteen different brands that offered them whole, diced, peeled, fire-roasted, organic, imported, and packed with basil.\n\n_Do_ they taste the same? I thought of M. F. K. Fisher's argument and of the chefs who made us taste everything in order to develop what's often referred to as \"taste memory.\" I thought of the book _The Tasting Club_ by Dina Cheney. Essentially, the book suggests comparative tastings of olive oil, cheese, olives, coffees, teas, and the like as a centerpiece for social gatherings. Why not comparatively taste canned tomatoes? I selected nine different varieties of diced and took them in my arms to the checkout. \"Someone likes tomatoes,\" the checker said blithely as he ran them across the scanner.\n\n\"Taste is personal. We all taste very differently,\" Cheney told me later. \"We have different sensory thresholds and different taste memories. Ultimately, it's about finding out what we like and trusting our own palates. That's all that matters.\"\n\nA veteran of more than 150 comparative tastings across the country, Cheney discovered that people are frequently taken aback by how much variety exists within one category of food or drink. In her experience, she found that people remain loyal to one brand or dedicated to the notion of buying the cheapest option, but rarely consider tasting different brands or varieties back to back. \"When people do, they're surprised at how many differences there are between, say, various brands of seventy percent dark chocolate bars or canned tuna. They might realize the brand to which they've been so loyal is actually mediocre and they much prefer another one. That's why tastings often change our buying habits.\"\n\nFor the next week, I studied everything that I could find about the issue of taste and flavor. Taste is physical. Our tongues detect only five options: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami, a savory sense of earthiness equated with soy, meat, and mushrooms. Flavor happens in our brains, determined by what we perceive from our senses. Not everyone tastes the same. Some \"supertasters\" experience certain tastes more intensely than others, particularly salt and bitter. At the other end of the spectrum fall the \"nontasters\" with a dulled ability to distinguish individual tastes. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. Most scientists believe genetics is a factor.\n\nSo our ability to distinguish taste is nature. But preference is nurture; what flavors we like is something we learn. None of this is new to the wine world, where it's long been accepted that you can \"train your palate\" to appreciate minute subtleties in wine. That in turn leads to the confidence of someone declaring he's detected flavors such as \"black currant,\" \"rotted wood,\" or \"gym socks\" after taking a cursory sip from a glass of Cabernet Franc.\n\nPrompted by Cheney's book and my cache of canned tomatoes, I constructed a series of blind tastings with everyday cooking ingredients: olive oil, salt, Parmesan cheese, the tomatoes, and chicken stock. Lisa and I raided our own pantries and then hit a couple of grocery stores. We walked through the aisles and tossed various cans and bottles into the cart.\n\nWe arrived at the teaching kitchen in time to meet up with Lauri Carter, a local chef who had heard about the project and offered to volunteer to teach a lesson on vegetables. Lauri is an energetic petite brunette with deep dimples and a cheerleader-like can-do spirit. I half expect her to break out into a cheer at times, and I mean that in a good way. That summer, Lauri faced her own existential challenge. After four years as the chef and owner of her popular bistro, Moxie, her landlord unexpectedly broke her lease. She found herself covering shifts at a fashionable Spanish wine bar downtown, trying to figure out what to do next. She's smart, a gifted cook, and a good explainer. If anyone could inspire people about vegetables, Lauri could do it. She took the sudden addition of a tasting to her planned vegetable lesson in stride.\n\nAs the students wandered in from one of the first sunny Seattle summer days, they looked around, puzzled. Clusters of small plates took up every open countertop. Lisa and I labeled each with a letter or number. As they put on their aprons and grabbed a diaper for their side towels, we handed each person a small yellow legal pad.\n\n\"We'll explain what these are for once we cover some vegetable basics,\" I said. I introduced Lauri and she took my spot at the center of the worktable. She started first with potatoes: russet, red, white Idaho, Yukon Gold, and even purple. The volunteers examined them raw. \"The purple ones are so pretty!\" Gen said.\n\nTo prepare the potatoes, Lauri went on to demystify a commonly misunderstood term\u2014 _saut\u00e9._ Based on the French word for \"jump,\" _saut\u00e9_ simply means to cook something quickly in a bit of oil at high heat. \"So, where the jump comes in is from the way professional chefs cook. I'll show you.\" The crew huddled around the big six-burner stove. The skillet looked comically large in her small hand. \"First, add some oil to a pan and let it get hot,\" she explained. \"When you saut\u00e9 food, it should sizzle when it hits the pan.\" Lauri tossed in a handful of sliced potatoes that hissed when they hit the hot skillet. She shook the pan as soon as they landed. \"Shake it right away, enough so that the food moves a bit, and then it won't stick during the rest of cooking.\" Lauri added a couple of pinches of coarse salt from a small ramekin by the stove.\n\n\"So notice the salt in the dish,\" she said, holding it overhead. \"Chefs have dishes with salt rather than shakers. You know why?\" The group collectively shook their heads. \"If you shake salt from a shaker, you can't see the salt. It's hard to tell how much you're putting in. But with salt in a little dish, you can literally grab a pinch of salt.\" An \"ahhhh\" went over the group.\n\nLauri tugged at the pan's handle and tossed the potatoes in the air, and they fell back into the pan.\n\n\"Jump. It makes sense now,\" Jodi said.\n\nLauri had each volunteer do at least one shake of the pan. \"You want to cook the vegetables until they start to brown. That's known as caramelizing, which just means the heat has drawn out some of the natural sugar in the vegetables. That's when they start to turn tasty.\"\n\nTo practice their knife skills from the week prior, we then dumped about ten pounds of potatoes on the counter. The students huddled around Sabra as she showed off her new knife, purchased from a restaurant supply store.\n\n\"Oh, that's a smart idea. I didn't think about shopping at a restaurant supply store,\" Jodi said. \"I thought they might card me at the door or something.\"\n\nThe students dived into the task, peeling and chopping the potatoes. Everyone except Terri held their knives correctly. \"Oh, hey, do you want me to show you how to hold a knife again?\" I asked her.\n\n\"No, I just prefer to hold it this way, but thanks,\" she said, with a choke hold on the end of the knife. Huh, I thought. I didn't have much experience teaching. Should I force her to do it my way? I decided to let it go.\n\nSoon a rhythmic chopping and light banter filled the room. Lauri demonstrated how to cut a leek, chopping off the hard dark-green ends and then the stubby root. She cut the light green and white portions lengthwise (sticks) and then diced them (cubes). \"Leeks sometimes trap dirt between their layers,\" she advised. \"So once they're chopped up, we're going to toss them in a big bowl of water to clean them off.\"\n\nThe potatoes and leeks were destined for a classic _potage parmentier,_ potato and leek soup. \"Basically, it's always the same,\" Lauri said. \"We're going to saut\u00e9 the rinsed leeks in some butter and olive oil. Once the leeks soften, we'll toss in potatoes and chicken stock. Once they're soft, we'll puree them and stir in some cream.\"\n\n\"That's it?\" Shannon asked.\n\nLauri nodded. \"That's it. You could do a variation of it with almost anything. You could use leeks and asparagus, or onions and broccoli, shallots and cauliflower, onions and carrots. It's just a simple formula. If you've got kids who think they don't like vegetables, I've found they often will eat them when they're made into soup. They'll also eat more vegetables in the form of a soup than they would raw. It's easier for them to eat and digest.\"\n\nWe went through the basics of other common ways to cook vegetables. The volunteers chopped up cauliflower and Brussels sprouts and shoved them into one big collective pan with some olive oil to roast. We set up four portable burners on the worktable and paired the students together to saut\u00e9 Swiss chard and diced potatoes. The room turned lively. Pans clanked, oil sizzled, people laughed or shrieked, as the smells of the vegetables erupted around the table.\n\nOn Gen and Sabra's corner, some potatoes escaped as they shook the pan. \"Watch out, we're flying potatoes over here!\"\n\nTrish fretted at first. \"Am I doing this right?\" she asked tentatively as Lauri checked her status saut\u00e9ing potatoes. \"I don't usually cook over high heat.\"\n\n\"Looks perfect to me,\" Lauri said. Trish seemed pleased with herself.\n\nI brought in my electric steamer. \"This sounds cheesy, but it's one of the few things I leave on my counter. Simply add some water, pile in some vegetables, and turn on the timer. It's hands-off; you can forget about them until the timer dings. They never overcook and pretty much any vegetable can be steamed.\" I threw in baby artichokes and small cobs of corn.\n\nThen Lauri explained what Julia Child called \"cooking vegetables the French way.\" The method aims to keep the color and bite of vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, green beans, and peas. We brought a pot of water to a boil on one of the portable burners. I set a bowl of ice water next to it.\n\n\"Briefly cook the vegetables in the boiling water until they're softened but still a little firm,\" Lauri said, dropping a handful of green beans into the pot. After a couple minutes, she pulled them out with a slotted spoon. \"Then plunge them into the ice water. Actually, cold tap water is fine, too. It slows the cooking process, and it keeps the chlorophyll intact. When you keep boiling them, the chlorophyll evaporates and you get . . .\"\n\n\"The gray vegetables that my mother used to serve,\" Trish said.\n\n\"Exactly,\" Lauri replied. She offered a green bean to everyone around the table.\n\n\"These are nice, crisp, and so green,\" Trish said. \"So fresh tasting. If my mother would have served me these, I might have thought I liked vegetables growing up.\"\n\nDone with the vegetables for now, we shifted from cooking to tasting.\n\nI said, \"Okay, all this stuff you see laid out around the room? We're going to taste all of them. There is no right or wrong. Just taste each ingredient and write down your impressions. Compare all the olive oils to one another, then the chicken stock, and so on.\"\n\nAt first, people were tentative. A light dip here, a scribble there, but no talking. Then came a chorus of \"I don't know if this right\" and \"I don't know what I'm supposed to taste\" and \"This just tastes like salt.\"\n\nAfter fifteen minutes, they grew bolder. They started to compare notes. The room grew louder, busy with voices. \"Did you like number six in the olive oils? No? Me neither.\" \"Didn't that chicken stock taste odd?\" \"Yeah, I thought so, too.\"\n\nPeople dodged from the nine types of olive oil to the eight types of chicken stock to the twelve cans of tomatoes, comparing notes. The salt was the hardest, and in retrospect we overdid it by offering nine varieties: standard table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, French gray sea salt, _fleur de sel,_ black salt, and salt substitute, plus a handcrafted sea salt made from Puget Sound water. The salt tasting led to a lot of water drinking and spitting.\n\nAt one point, Shannon sat down. \"I'm just seriously overwhelmed,\" she said. \"I don't know if I can taste anymore.\"\n\nWe passed around an \"aroma wheel,\" a multicolored circle designed to help wine drinkers articulate what they experience when tasting wine. Soon the students were consulting it after various tastes. This changed the discussions. \"That stock was kind of yeasty, don't you think?\" \"I found those tomatoes astringent.\" \"I'm definitely getting something metallic in this salt.\"\n\nThen we unveiled what had been tasted and compared notes.\n\nWe started with the salt. The expensive artisan salt made from Puget Sound water won best flavor overall. In second, a gray _sel gris_ that a friend had brought back from France. The inexpensive coarse kosher salt was deemed \"exactly what I think salt should taste like,\" Andra said. Collectively, the group disliked two of them. First was the salt labeled \"E.\"\n\nEveryone thought it tasted odd. \"It's just got a strange taste,\" Jodi said. \"It's harsh and like a chemical.\"\n\n\"It tastes too salty but also kind of like metal,\" Sabra said.\n\nThe dreaded E turned out to be standard iodized table salt.\n\n\"Oh, that stuff is awful,\" Shannon said, shaking her head. \"I am not using that anymore. I had no idea that salts could taste so different.\"\n\nThe other loathed salt was option D, which most of them referred to as harsh and bitter. Lisa developed a chemical burn on her tongue after tasting it. \"What I think a car battery would taste like,\" someone wrote.\n\n\"The weird thing is that it doesn't really taste like salt at all,\" said Gen, the young woman with roommates. She'd been relatively quiet up to that point. \"It's like fake salt.\" The culprit: salt substitute.\n\n\"I would not have believed this if I had not seen it for myself, but let me read this line on the label,\" Lisa said. \"Consult a doctor before using this product.\"\n\nNext we looked at the winners in the canned-tomato taste test. Both Hunt's and Cento scored high. \"Those two actually taste like tomatoes,\" Cheryl said. \"They're kind of sweet, but not so salty.\"\n\n\"I'm so relieved,\" Lauri whispered into my ear. \"I used to use Cento tomatoes in my restaurant. I was worried they wouldn't be any good.\"\n\nThe biggest loser was also the most expensive, a brand of San Marzano tomatoes from Italy. I didn't like them either after a direct comparison to the others. \"It's like they had a slightly sour flavor that left a strange aftertaste,\" Shannon said.\n\nIn the olive oil category, the winner was the delicate flavor of an expensive Italian extra virgin olive oil. \"Fruity, subtle,\" Cheryl said, reading her notes.\n\n\"Very delicate, not overly oily,\" Trish said.\n\n\"It's like white grapes,\" Gen said. \"Almost a little bit like honey.\" Lauri and I looked at each other. We tasted it again. Now that she mentioned it, we picked those flavors up, too.\n\nOlive oil is made by pressing olives to extract their natural oil. The first time olives are processed for oil is known as \"extra virgin\" and accounts for about 10 percent of all the olive oil produced. Each subsequent pressing extracts less flavor, from \"extra\" to \"pure\" to just plain olive oil.\n\n\"Use extra-virgin olive oil in something uncooked, like a salad dressing,\" Lauri said. \"It's better to buy good oils in small quantities. People think that oil lasts forever, but it has a shelf life of six months. Keep it in a cool, dark place and _not_ next to or above your stove! Heat breaks it down.\"\n\n\"You can use a less expensive kind of olive or vegetable oil for everyday cooking. If you use that a lot, then you can get a bigger size.\"\n\nUnfortunately, the bulk olive oil that I had bought for class was unpopular. \"It just tastes oily and bland,\" Dri said. \"Funny, I have this kind at home and I never realized that I don't like it. I have a lot of it, too.\"\n\nThe Parmesan cheese comparison required a brief education. \"The real deal is called Parmigiano-Reggiano,\" explained Lisa, who had done this spiel a million times at her mom's cheese shop. \"It's kind of like champagne. You can't call it Parmigiano-Reggiano unless it's from one of five provinces in Italy. To get the name, the cheese makers have to follow very strict guidelines. So that's why everything else is Parmesan.\"\n\nThe difference extends beyond the name. Commercially produced Parmesan is aged a shorter time and due to its production methods can contain up to 70 percent more sodium than the Italian variety. Most of the Parmesan found in supermarkets is mechanically processed to wrest out extra moisture, which extends its shelf life.\n\nThe winner in the category was an aromatic wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano from Lisa's mother's shop. Shavings of it were stacked up against the pale slices of an American brand and three versions of grated cheese, including the familiar canned variety. Results went as expected.\n\n\"This tastes like soap,\" Sabra said of the exact brand of cheese she had used on her White Trash Garlic Bread. \"But this stuff, it rocks,\" she said, picking up another slice of the Italian cheese.\n\n\"The thing about something like Parmigiano-Reggiano is that, yeah, it's more expensive to buy a piece of that,\" Lisa said. \"But it has so much more flavor that a little goes a long way. In the end, you'll use less, so it's a better value than you think.\"\n\nWe concluded by tasting the various chicken stocks.\n\n\"I always just thought chicken stock was chicken stock,\" Shannon said, verbalizing what several had murmured during the class. \"There's so much difference, it's amazing.\" Dri described one as a \"salt lick.\" Others were not \"chicken-y.\"\n\nOne had a strange flavor. \"It's like how orange juice is so orange-y,\" Gen said. \"It's almost as if it is chicken stock made from concentrate. It's also weirdly salty.\" That one turned out to be stock made from a bouillon cube.\n\nOnly one person favored my lovingly handcrafted homemade stock. \"It's nice and chicken-y, and it has a good body to it, but it's bland,\" Trish said.\n\nAs usual, I hadn't added any salt to it. They were comparing unsalted homemade stock against mostly heavily salted prepared stocks, some of which had more than a third of an adult's daily sodium intake in one cup. Swanson and Pacific got the thumbs-up, and after a dose of salt was added to the homemade stock, the group preferred that one, too.\n\n\"I guess the thing is that after tasting them all, I'd only buy ones with lower sodium,\" said Trish, her taste buds sensitive to salt because she avoided it. \"I use one of these brands and, my goodness! I never realized just how _salty_ it was until I actually tasted it here tonight.\"\n\nEveryone nodded. \"One thing to remember, you can always add salt, but you can't take it out,\" I said. \"This is also why you should taste things before you cook with them. Taste the olive oil you're using before making a dressing. Sample a bit of the cheese before you add it to pasta. Try a bit of that chicken stock before you put it into a soup.\"\n\nWith that, Lauri and Lisa unveiled the final test of the night. In the middle of the table sat five bowls of leek and potato soup. Three were the newly crafted _potage parmentier_ split into different bowls, one with no salt, one mightily oversalted, and the final bowl seasoned to Lauri's taste. The other two bowls also contained leek and potato soup, one from a condensed-soup can while the other was an expensive dehydrated \"gourmet\" version.\n\n\"Select the one you think tastes best,\" Lauri challenged. Everyone selected the moderately seasoned soup. \"What's wrong with soup A?\" she asked. Too much salt, everyone agreed. \"What's wrong with D?\" Not enough salt, the group said. \"So now when you see a recipe that says 'Salt to taste,' that's all it means. If it doesn't have enough salt, like D, then add some. Just make it taste good to you.\"\n\nThe group pondered the remaining two bowls.\n\n\"Ugh, I can taste the iodized salt in both of these,\" Jodi said.\n\n\"Yeah, how weird, me, too,\" Shannon replied.\n\nThe canned soup generated a range of intriguing descriptions: \"strange mouthfeel,\" \"feels fatty on the back of my tongue,\" \"strange aftertaste,\" \"not particularly leek-y or potato-y,\" and just plain \"yuck.\" The dehydrated version fared better, but was still described as \"too salty,\" \"tastes like chemicals,\" \"odd spices,\" and\u2014my favorite\u2014\"kind of like a bowl of liquid blah.\"\n\nAs she took off her apron, Jodi quietly admitted to Shannon that she had a case of the canned soup back at home. \"If I had known it was so easy to make, I wouldn't have bought it, you know?\"\n\n#    **Five Marvelous Ways to Cook Vegetables with \"Flavor Splashes\"**\n\n_You just need to know the meaning of four words:_ saut\u00e9, steam, roast, _and_ grill _. Vegetables are done when they are tender but still crisp. Err on the side of undercooking. You can also toss in a vinaigrette from chapter 8 or a flavor splash (below), or toss with a handful of grated cheese and broil for a minute or two. There's nothing wrong with plain frozen vegetables. Flash-frozen on harvest, they're often as fresh as or fresher than their produce-aisle cousins. Frozen vegetables do best saut\u00e9ed or steamed._\n\n_**Saut\u00e9 or Stir-fry**_\n\n  Virtually all vegetables lend themselves to being quickly cooked over high heat in a bit of fat. Cut them into   -inch pieces, get a skillet hot, and add 1 or 2 glugs of vegetable, olive, peanut, canola, or coconut oil. Add the vegetables and stir a few times. Most take less than 10 minutes. Firm vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots, take the longest, up to about 15 minutes. Cook greens such as Swiss chard and spinach with a bit of chopped garlic until wilted. Finish with salt and pepper. If you mix firm vegetables with softer ones, be sure to add the harder ones first.\n\n_**Roast**_\n\n  This is simple yet yields great flavor. Line an oven-safe pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Cut the vegetables into uniform 1-inch or smaller pieces. Toss them generously with oil or butter, and add salt, pepper, and maybe a sprig of thyme. Roast at high heat (475\u00b0F) and stir a couple of times while cooking. Once diced, sliced, or otherwise broken down into smaller pieces, the following vegetables will cook in less than 15 minutes: asparagus, beets, bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, eggplant, green beans, leeks, mushrooms, parsnips, white and sweet potatoes, diced squash (hard outer skin discarded), and zucchini.\n\n_**Steam**_\n\n  This is a no-fat way to cook utilizing a multitude of setups. Cut up larger vegetables into 1-inch or smaller cubes. Use an electric steamer, or add vegetables to a pan with a tight-fitting lid filled with an inch or two of water, or simply microwave a small batch of vegetables with a bit of water in a bowl covered with a plate. Cook until just tender. Add salt and pepper after steaming. This method is recommended for asparagus, green beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, corn, kale, kohlrabi, onions, parsnips, peas, potatoes, spinach, diced squash, Swiss chard, cubed turnips, and zucchini.\n\n_**Grill**_\n\n  If you grill often, invest in one of those square grill pans with holes. Cut vegetables into 1-inch pieces, and toss them with generous doses of oil, salt, and pepper. Put in the basket over hot coals, cover, and stir regularly until they are tender.\n\n##  **FLAVOR SPLASHES**\n\nJust mix the ingredients together in a small saucepan, heat briefly, pour onto vegetables, and toss to coat. Each recipe coats enough for about four side servings of vegetables. (For more ideas, see the \"Cheat Sheet\" to Flavor Profiles in the Extra Recipes section at the back of the book.)\n\n_**Asian Ginger Lime**_\n\n  Warm 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, then add 1 teaspoon of fresh grated ginger or a couple of pinches of dried ginger, a few squeezes of fresh lime juice, and   teaspoon of soy sauce. Heat through for about 3 minutes.\n\n_**Cajun Oil**_\n\n  Warm 2 teaspoons of olive oil, add 3 finely chopped green onions, and cook until tender, then add 1 teaspoon of Cajun spice blend, a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice, and a couple of drops of hot sauce.\n\n_**Garlic Citrus Butter**_\n\n  Heat 2 tablespoons of butter, add 2 small cloves of minced garlic, a bit of fresh thyme or mixed dried herbs, and 1 teaspoon of lemon or orange juice, and saut\u00e9 for a couple of minutes, until the garlic softens.\n\n_**Herb-Lemon Oil**_\n\n  Warm 2 teaspoons of olive oil, then add the zest of   lemon and 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs such as rosemary, oregano, tarragon, thyme, or basil. Heat through.\n\n_**Thai-Style**_\n\n  Heat 2 teaspoons of peanut oil, then add 2 finely chopped green onions, 1 tablespoon of crushed peanuts, a couple of squeezes from a fresh lime, and a bit of hot sauce. Gently heat through.\nCHAPTER 6\n\n**Fowl Play**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**The Value of Learning How to Use a Whole Chicken**\n\n\"If there's one skill that I think people need to learn, it's how to cut up a whole chicken,\" said Rick Rodgers, the author of thirty-five cookbooks. \"Roast chicken is iconic, we all love it and that's a great skill to learn, but being able to do something with all the various parts of chicken is something even more people need to know in terms of how it fits in with their daily life.\"\n\nKnowing your way around a chicken is a valuable thing to learn. On average, a whole chicken costs about the same as a package of boneless skinless chicken breasts, whether it's a standard supermarket chicken or a more expensive organic variety. Used efficiently, a single chicken can provide the goods for two or three meals.\n\nThe breast can be left on the bone and baked, a boneless breast can be quickly saut\u00e9ed, the thigh meat can be cut up for a stir-fry, the legs oven-fried, and the wings collected and frozen for snacks. If you decide to roast the whole bird, the meat can be used in a seemingly endless parade of dishes: salads, pasta, burritos, casseroles, sandwiches, and so on\u2014virtually any recipe that calls for cooked chicken. As Rodgers notes, you get not only the eight chicken pieces but all the bones, the back, and the giblets, too. Given that popular brands of stock average about $2.50 per quart and remnant bones from just one chicken can yield up to two quarts, one chicken can provide about $5.00 worth of stock.\n\nIn culinary terms, it's hard to beat the importance of chicken. It's the number one search term on recipe sites such as Epicurious.com, Allrecipes.com, and Foodista.com. On Google, worldwide traffic for \"chicken recipes\" dwarfs requests for beef, fish, or vegetarian recipes. Americans consume an average of 60 pounds of chicken annually, edging out beef as the nation's preferred meat. American chicken growers process 38 million chickens daily\u2014one for every man, woman, and child in the state of California every single day. That's 43 billion pounds each year, says the American Meat Institute, equivalent to the weight of 860 luxury cruise ships.\n\nThe students arrived, donned their aprons, grabbed a diaper, and selected a chef's knife from the box before heading to the worktable. They were getting to know one another and chatted amiably. I overheard snippets of small talk.\n\n\"I threw out all of my iodized salt. I had two of them . . .\"\n\n\"Yeah, me, too.\"\n\n\"I went through my cupboards and found most of my oils were rancid . . .\"\n\n\"I made kale, and my boyfriend was like, 'This is so good! Where did you get the idea to make _kale_?' \"\n\nHelping out that day was my friend Maggie, a thirtyish streetwise Sicilian American beauty from Chicago with jet-black hair and dragonfly tattoos cascading down each arm. A kitchen veteran turned culinary consultant, Maggie agreed to assist with some of the more complicated classes. Just as the students were filing in, she arrived, aggravated from a day at her cupcake client. The small-baked-goods industry appears to be a surprisingly ruthless affair. Her client was locked in a battle for cupcake dominance with an arch competitor and the stress had prompted cutthroat internal politics. That day, she had had to snap at someone, \"Does this kind of attitude belong around cupcakes!? I don't think so.\"\n\nBuoyed by the apparent success of the initial tasting evening, I decided to start each class with one. Today we set out small plates featuring five varieties of Dijon mustard. Now they knew the drill. Each person daintily dabbed a bit of mustard onto a small appetizer plate with a tiny espresso spoon. As each jotted down notes on a small yellow pad, they made thoughtful faces. We talked about flavors and words to describe them. The most common: _sour, spicy, bitter, smooth_. No one liked the cheapest store brand. \"It's like chalk,\" Gen said.\n\nGrey Poupon was the easy favorite, even beating out Maille, a pricey classic French import. \"You can taste the white wine in both, though,\" Jodi said. An expensive organic brand was written off as bland. Shannon summed up the group's general thoughts. \"The more that I taste, the more it makes me want to pay attention to what I used to just take for granted.\"\n\nAlthough it was past seven P.M., the warmth of the late-June day remained trapped in the room, intensified by the heat of the commercial ovens. Cars buzzed by outside the door, which was propped open in a futile attempt to draw in fresh air. Before we moved on to taking apart the chickens, I rounded up the group around the worktable set with a patchwork of colored cutting boards. Maggie passed around glasses of ice water as we talked chicken.\n\n\"Okay, I have a few questions. Have you ever cut up a chicken?\" Universal shakes of the head.\n\n\"Do you know what _braise_ means?\" One person ventured a guess.\n\nI asked if anyone had ever roasted a whole chicken. Only Trish raised her hand. \"I have, but I've mostly bought them that way,\" she said.\n\nI lined up four chickens, \u00e0 la Julia Child in a famous episode of her 1960s TV show, _The French Chef_. In that scene, she described the differences between a broiler, fryer, roaster, capon, stewer, and \"Old Madam Hen.\" Instead of different ages, I presented differently raised chickens, all broilers weighing three to four pounds. Two were supermarket chickens, a commercially raised standard variety and a free-range bird that cost just less than a dollar more per pound. The third was a certified organic free-range chicken from a butcher. The last was a pasture-raised chicken purchased directly from a local farmer.\n\nThe supermarket chicken felt wet, and the breast was noticeably heavier than that of the rest of the chickens. The organic chicken from the butcher and the pasture-raised chicken, which didn't come prepackaged, felt dry. When I sat all four up as if they were lounging upright, the supermarket and the free-range chickens fell forward, propelled by the weight of their overbuilt breasts. I sliced a breast off each one. I held up the largest, from the least expensive supermarket chicken.\n\n\"How much do you think this weighs?\" They all ventured a guess: six ounces, eight.\n\n\"How many servings do you think this is?\" Everyone agreed that it was one serving.\n\nCheryl nuzzled Liam in his baby carrier. \"A half a serving in my house. Yeah, Daddy could eat two of those, couldn't he, sweet pea?\"\n\n\"How much do you think a serving should weigh?\"\n\nDonna, knower of all things Weight Watchers, piped up. \"About four ounces,\" she trilled brightly. \"A chicken breast is three Weight Watchers points.\"\n\nI put the breast on a scale. It tipped in at more than a pound. \"So this one breast ought to provide four servings.\" More than two-thirds of the weight of this chicken came from the breast alone. The breast from the pasture-raised bird from the butcher weighed the least, about nine ounces.\n\nAs Michael Pollan noted in his book _The Omnivore's Dilemma,_ commercial poultry growers have researched how to engineer chickens through breeding to grow significantly greater portions of breast meat. From a monetary point of view, it makes perfect fiscal sense. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts fetch as much as six dollars per pound\u2014roughly five times the retail price for whole chickens and at least twice as much as the other portions of the bird. The downside? To maximize profits chickens are often confined to massive barracks where they are provided an endless supply of feed around the clock but given little exercise. As depicted in the documentary _Food Inc.,_ some birds grow so big so fast, they ultimately cannot support themselves under the weight of their mighty breasts and fall down. Detractors of the industrial poultry process say that the system ratchets up the stress level for the chickens and breaks down their immune systems, thus requiring mass poultry growers to use a lot of antibiotics.\n\nBy comparison, organic farmers aren't supposed to give their chickens any antibiotics or feed containing pesticides.\n\n\"So what does it mean when the package says 'all natural,' like this guy here?\" Dri asked, pointing to a supermarket chicken.\n\n\"In theory, it means that the chicken doesn't have any artificial flavor, but in practice it's a little meaningless,\" I said. Chickens are natural products, just like beef or pork. They don't make synthetic chickens, at least not yet. \"With some companies, free-range is kind of similar, since the USDA requires only that the chicken have access to a door should it want to go outside, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it ranged anywhere, free or not.\" The only way you can know how chickens are raised is to know the poultry grower, or if your butcher knows the grower. \"Some free-range chicken growers really make an effort to treat the chickens humanely. The farm where this guy was raised,\" I said, patting the pasture-raised chicken, \"they make a point to physically transport the chickens to a grassy grazing area. But he's also triple the cost of a standard supermarket chicken.\"\n\nA small puddle had formed under the first chicken. Dri pointed. \"Um, did that one need the ladies' room?\"\n\n\"That's probably saline.\" Producers sometimes inject chickens with water or brine. It keeps the meat moist, plus it adds more weight, adding cost, even though it's water, not meat.\n\nA whisper went through the group. \"That's bullshit,\" Sabra said. \"They shot it up with water so I could pay more?\" She shifted from one foot to the other and crossed her arms. She looked ready to kick some commercial-chicken-growing butt.\n\n\"Listen, I am not going to say that you should never buy a supermarket chicken because that's just not realistic. But look up the poultry grower at the supermarket where you shop. Ask questions of the butcher in your market. If you don't want your chicken injected with water, tell them. If consumers care about something, it changes the kind of products offered. I try to buy from my butcher because I trust that they know their suppliers, but I don't always do that. Remember, if you're buying something cheap, but then you don't use it all, then it's not quite the good deal it seemed when you bought it.\"\n\nI didn't want this class to just be about _cooking_ chickens. One of the things that I had come across in our kitchen visits reinforced what researchers already know. Most people don't associate chicken, especially in the form of boneless, skinless chicken breasts\u2014with a physical animal. In three kitchens, we found packages of chicken meat well past their sell-by dates in the fridge. \"Oh, no, I forgot about those,\" one of the volunteers had said of a family-sized package of chicken breasts. She picked them up to look at the date and shrugged, then tossed it into the trash. \"I hate wasting money like that.\"\n\nChickens are living creatures, a lesson that I learned early in life growing up on a farm in Michigan that has never left me. I told the volunteers the story about it.\n\n\"On the farm where I grew up, we kept chickens,\" I started. A slightly askew chicken coop graced the far corner of the barnyard, and shortly after buying the house in late winter, my folks went to get some chicks from the local farm-supply store. The weathered old man who owned the place suggested that they purchase 125 chicks to start. \"And I'll tell you what\"\u2014he rolled a piece of hay around with his dark teeth. \"You buy that 125, I'll give you 125 for free.\"\n\nAn hour later, they packed five crates with 250 wildly cheeping chicks into the back of Dad's battered Chevy pickup. My brothers and sisters loved the chicks, but lost interest in them after about a month. About the same time, my parents began to realize that the chicks had been a great deal\u2014for the guy who sold them. He made his real money off chicken feed. My parents stopped by to purchase massive bags every few days to satisfy the voracious chickens. The adorable yellow balls of fluff grew at a startling pace. As adults, they turned into a massive and noisy gaggle of feathers that moved as a single wavering blanket of white.\n\nAfter a couple of months, panic set in. \"We were going broke feeding them,\" my mom told me later. They traded some chickens for seed to start the garden and gave others away. It didn't put a dent in the flock.\n\nThe day after school let out for the summer, Mom rounded up the kids. She set up the chickens into a production line in the barn. A teenage neighbor caught the birds, and then held them down as she whacked off their heads, gutted them. Then she handed the carcasses to my oldest brother, Milton, to plunge into her huge canning pot filled with boiling water to loosen the feathers. He was only eleven years old. The other kids sat around for days plucking, the feathers sticking to their sweaty legs and arms in the Michigan heat. In one day, they killed and gutted twenty chickens. They would take a three-day break, and then fell another twenty more days later. Within two weeks, they killed one hundred and twenty chickens.\n\nWhen you've got that many birds in the freezer, you make a lot of chicken. Roasted, braised, saut\u00e9ed, ground up for spaghetti in place of hamburger\u2014Mom did it all. But one thing she always did was avoid waste. \"Oh, no, not after all that work. And besides, I could remember when that chicken was still walking around. I would feel too guilty,\" she said.\n\n\"When you're starting with a whole chicken, it helps to remember something important\u2014that this was a live animal. For a lot of people, knowing that makes it harder to throw parts of it away.\" The group nodded somberly. That was a buzz kill, I thought.\n\nDiscussion over, we got to work. Lisa pulled a huge plastic bin heaped with chickens from the walk-in. She set one in front of each student.\n\n\"First, we'll break them down,\" I said, glancing at the clock. \"Do this once or twice and it gets easier.\" I could sense the resistance. \"Go ahead, touch it. Don't be afraid.\"\n\nThe volunteers stood in a semicircle around the worktable, apprehensively eyeing the whole chickens resting on their cutting boards. Sweet Donna pulled back and curled her hands against her chest. Dri tentatively poked hers with an index finger. Even Cheryl's eightmonth-old, Liam, stared at the chicken suspiciously from the safety of his Bj\u00f6rn carrier. \"C'mon, you're not going to get salmonella from touching it. If you're going to cut up a chicken, you're going to have to put your hands on it.\"\n\nSabra went first, caressing the pale skin of the breast with neon-green fingernails that matched her eye shadow du jour. \"It kind of reminds me of Thanksgiving, you know, when you've got the whole turkey,\" she said. \"But instead, it's a chicken. Like a little turkey. Kind of sweet, really. I've never felt a whole, raw chicken before.\"\n\nIt's not surprising that none of them had ever handled a whole chicken. When Julia Child debuted in the early 1960s, shoppers purchased more than half of all retail chickens whole. Now it's around 10 percent, and that's with an uptick in sales in the midst of a recession. As the students stared at their chickens without touching them and the clock ticked down, I worried that perhaps the night's agenda was a little too ambitious.\n\nI started by holding up one of the legs and pulling it away from the body. Then I turned it upside down, and the leg splayed away. Using my knife, I cut around the \"oyster,\" the soft, tender round of meat tucked at the top of the thigh joined at the back. As I cleaved the leg from the body, I explained that the French think the oyster is the best part of the chicken. \"They even have a phrase for this, _le sot-l'y-laisse,_ which means 'only a fool leaves it behind.' \" Then I slid the tip of the knife along the breast bone and carefully sliced against the rib cage until the breast fell free. I felt for the shoulder joint that pins the wing to the bird and located the soft spot to push the knife through.\n\nOn the other side, I put my blade atop the sternum and leaned with my weight on top to crack it open, leaving the bone attached to the breast meat. With pressure on my knife, I cut through the rib bones on the side of the bird around the breast until it detached. The wing came off the same way, and thunked solidly onto the cutting board.\n\nNow it was their turn. Brow furrowed, knife in hand, each volunteer gamely attempted to cut up her chicken. Donna held the wings ever so daintily, trying to minimize her contact. To my left, Gen cut the leg right off, perfectly. \"I did it! Look!\"\n\nElsewhere around the table there were varying levels of success. Maggie, Lisa, and I circled the table offering advice. Terri, the one most resistant to the ways of a knife, started to saw with vigor into the backbone. Trish tried to hack through the leg bone, missing the joint completely.\n\n\"Okay, wait. If you find a bone, stop. Take a deep breath. Pull your knife back. You shouldn't get that much resistance if you're doing it right.\"\n\nIt's hard to teach what's become second nature. How do you articulate the feeling of knowing you've hit the joint at the right angle, so it comes off easily? Then I had a morbid idea.\n\n\"Touch your knuckle,\" I commanded. Everyone touched their first knuckle with their other hand. \"Now feel down at the leg joint on your chicken. Can you find a similar knuckle? Feel around for it.\"\n\nTerri poked around the leg joint until she found it. \"Now take your knife and cut through it.\" She hit the joint and it fell away easily. I observed as Donna followed the curve of the leg and in one quick motion separated it. Without realizing it, she let out a quick squeal of delight and threw her hands overhead in a cheer. \"I did it!\" Then she looked around and pulled her arms back down, embarrassed.\n\nLegs separated, we shifted to the breast area. The sound of cracking filled the room as the volunteers cut through the bones. Lisa brought over a big bowl for each cut of meat and a plastic container for the mound of remnant bones.\n\nKnives down, Maggie whisked the cutting boards to the dish area and the students rotated through the hand-washing station, merrily belting out various renditions of \"Happy Birthday.\" I eyed the clock; half an hour behind already and we hadn't even started cooking. The goal for the night was to demonstrate roasting, baking, saut\u00e9ing, grilling, and braising.\n\n\"First, we'll roast a whole chicken and a few individual pieces. You'll want some kind of fat, maybe butter, olive oil, or sesame oil, plus some seasonings. A little bit of acid is nice, too, maybe some lemon, lime, vinegar, or white wine.\"\n\nTo demonstrate, I took the organic chicken and set it on my own cutting board. Starting with the breast area, I carefully stretched my fingers between the skin and the meat to loosen the membrane between them. In the cavity created, I rubbed in a mix of chopped garlic, fresh herbs, and olive oil, then topped the skin with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a bit of cayenne pepper and rubbed it in. To finish, I wedged pieces of lemon into the center cavity along with two cloves of garlic.\n\n\"Forget the idea that you need a lot of complicated cooking equipment,\" I said. \"All you need is an ovenproof pan with sides at least one inch high that is not too much bigger than the chicken. You can even use a skillet, as long as it can go in the oven.\" A roasting rack can make life easier, but it's not necessary. In this case, we used a simple rectangular pan from the catering supplies. I scattered a few hunks of carrots, celery, and onions on the bottom and then perched the chicken on top. \"The vegetables should elevate the chicken a bit, allowing fat to drain off. Plus, they keep it from sticking.\"\n\nDri raised her hand. \"Okay, so it seems like Julia Child was always trussing a chicken. It was all truss, truss, truss.\"\n\nEveryone laughed. \"You know, at Le Cordon Bleu, we learned a complicated way to truss that stitched the whole thing up like a tight little football. But you don't need to do anything, really. I like to at least tie the feet together to help it keep its shape, but it's not mandatory.\"\n\nThere's heated debate among chefs around the \"best\" roasting technique. I keep it simple. \"Put it in at high heat, about 425 degrees. When it occurs to me, I turn it over after forty minutes to brown the other side, but if you're not so keen on getting tongs out to turn over a hot chicken, by all means leave it alone. Lisa doesn't turn hers, do you?\" Lisa shook her head. \"See? Some cookbooks advise roasting at 350 degrees, others at 400 degrees. This isn't science, it's more of an art. After an hour, check it with an instant-read thermometer to see if it registers close to 175 degrees, or if the juice that runs off when you pick it up looks clear. Pink? Put it back. Clear? Take it out. Let it rest for a few minutes, lightly covered with foil.\"\n\nMeat will continue to cook for several minutes after leaving the oven. It's called \"carryover cooking.\" Sitting also allows the juices to reabsorb into the meat.\n\n\"What if you undercook poultry?\" Shannon asked, bringing up something we had talked about in her kitchen. \"I am always worried about it, so I just cook it and cook it and then cook it some more. I think that's why mine always turns out so badly. I mean, you're supposed to cook chicken pretty much to death, right?\"\n\n\"Suggested cooking temperatures tend to be higher than what's really needed to kill off any latent bacteria,\" I said. \"Cooking it past that point isn't going to do anything. It's kind of like trying to get more pregnant. If you're really worried about undercooking chicken, just spend a few dollars and get a meat thermometer. It will take out the guesswork.\"\n\nA blast of hot air hit the worktable as I shoved the chicken into the upright oven to roast.\n\nNext, I grabbed a whole chicken breast with the rib bone still attached and set it on my cutting board. \"Again, it's what gets put under the skin, just like a whole roast chicken. You need a bit of fat and a bit of flavor.\" As a demonstration, we used a recipe from Ina Garten of _Barefoot Contesssa_ fame that involved smearing a bit of goat cheese under the skin and then sliding in a couple of whole basil leaves. I drizzled the top with olive oil, coarse salt, and pepper. Everyone did the same, and we put all the breasts onto a sheet pan topped with parchment. We put them into the kitchen's other oven at 375\u00b0F. \"These will stay in for about a half hour.\"\n\nWe moved on. \" _Braise_ simply means cooking something covered at a low heat with a bit of liquid.\" Lisa and I started with the big bowl of thighs and legs. We had settled on a classic mustard chicken dish, utilizing some of the Dijon from the tasting.\n\n\"Dark meat is great for braises because it can take long, slow cooking,\" I said. The volunteers gathered around the commercial stove as Lisa added oil to a large pot and waited for it to heat. \"First, we're going to brown the meat. Getting a nice, dark color makes a big difference. What you want is a hot pan with hot oil,\" I said as Lisa set up a large pan to demonstrate. \"Then add your food and give the pan a shake, just like Lauri demonstrated last week. That's how you keep food from sticking.\"\n\nLisa put a thigh into the hot oil with long tongs. As if in protest, the pan crackled with a loud persistent sizzle. I added a few more pieces.\n\n\"Do you hear that?\" I asked. This was an important lesson. \"Don't cook just with your eyes. Teach yourself to cook with your ears. Listen. It's loud, it's sizzling and sounds sort of angry. That's what you want. Most home cooks are afraid of high heat. Don't be. Smell this chicken right now.\" Lisa waved them closer. \"Seriously, get close and take a whiff. What does it smell like?\"\n\nDonna, Shannon, Terri, and Sabra leaned close to the pan and wrinkled their noses. In unison, they said, \"Hot oil.\"\n\n\"Exactly. When it starts to smell like chicken, then you're getting somewhere.\" We shifted back over to the worktable, where Maggie had replaced the cutting boards and set out big bowls of onions, carrots, and celery. Lisa stayed at the stove to tend to the chicken as we moved on to chopping the vegetables. Only two weeks after the knife class, the volunteers grabbed onions, sliced them in half, peeled, and chopped as if they had been working a restaurant line for ages. Only Terri struggled. Maggie tried to help her again with holding a knife. Terri nodded and thanked her. When I checked back after a few minutes, she had reverted again to her former hold. Was this willful resistance or a deep need of remedial instruction? I didn't know. It troubled me.\n\nI asked if anyone was practicing at home. \"Oh, yeah! Did I tell you that I got my knife sharpened? It's so great. It goes so much faster now,\" Shannon said.\n\n\"I haven't bought baby carrots since that class,\" Jodi said proudly, without even glancing up from her cutting board. \"My husband likes carrots in stir-fry and my son will eat them now, so I am going through about two or three pounds of carrots a week. So instead of paying two dollars a pound, I'm paying sixty cents or something. It saves a lot.\"\n\nI walked to the end of the table where Donna was chopping. During Donna's home visit, she had said that her husband often mocked her when she used a knife. In their relationship, food seemed like a feast of control issues. I noticed that she'd brought in her own knife today. I casually asked how it was going at home.\n\n\"My husband and I made dinner the other night and guess what? I cut up all the vegetables.\" She looked up and smiled, dimples flaring. \"Now that I've been coming here, I can say, Hey, I know what I'm doing. Leave me alone.\" She chopped silently for a minute. \"I told him that I was going to start shopping.\"\n\n\"How did that go?\" I ask.\n\nShe kept her high-pitched voice low. \"We're still discussing it.\" Her face flushed crimson. Something in Donna brought out my maternal instincts. I wanted to hug her, but I settled for patting her shoulder instead.\n\nAs we finished the last of the vegetables, a powerful smell of chicken hit the worktable. The group looked up, as if they could see the scent hovering overhead. \"The chicken . . .\" Shannon said, thinking out loud.\n\nWe gathered around the stove as Lisa pulled out a piece with the tongs. After ten minutes, it had taken on a dark brown hue, the skin a bit shrunken and crinkly.\n\nCheryl raised her hand. The baby looked up. \"So does that seal in the juices, when you brown it like that?\"\n\n\"A culinary myth,\" I explained. \"Heat actually releases juices inside the meat, not seals them in. You brown the meat to caramelize the exterior of the meat, drawing out sugars and extra flavor in the process.\"\n\n\"Or, in other words, browning equals delicious goodness,\" Lisa said, and turned to put the thigh back into the pot.\n\n\"Exactly,\" I said. \"Braising is always the same. First, you brown. Add some vegetables and enough liquid to cover the meat halfway, cover the pan, and simmer. That's it. Brown, vegetables, liquid, cover, and simmer. Learn this one technique, five words, and you can cook almost anything.\"\n\nI removed the chicken to a bowl and tossed the onions, celery, and carrot that we'd just chopped into the pot. While they softened over the heat, we returned to the worktable. Each volunteer brushed a browned chicken piece with some Dijon mustard. We put them back into the pan and added some chicken stock, a few herbs, a bit of white wine. I covered the pot and set it inside the oven to simmer.\n\n\"The biggest problem with cooking chicken breasts is that while the poultry industry strives for a bigger breast, it hasn't developed them into a uniform shape or thickness. So they tend to be much thicker in the middle and thin on the ends.\n\n\"Here's a trick that I do at home.\" I laid a boneless breast on my cutting board, then sliced it through the center horizontally, resulting in two thinner fillets. I held them up. \"Now the chicken breast is half as thick and more uniform, so it'll cook more evenly. Not to mention, it's a more realistic serving size.\"\n\n\"That's a great tip,\" Shannon said. \"Usually the center isn't cooked all the way through while the edges are overcooked and tough.\"\n\nTo give breasts a bit of flavor, I showed them a lesson that I learned years ago from an aging Italian grandmother during a cooking class outside Florence. \"She called it a _'bacio di sapore,'_ or a kiss of flavor.\" I combined a bit of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and dried thyme in a bowl. I added my two slices of breast meat and mixed them together. \"Let this sit for a few minutes. Then it's onto the heat.\"\n\nWe circled around the stove. I grabbed a small saut\u00e9 pan and added oil. Once it was hot, I slapped the breasts into the pan with a pair of tongs, was greeted by a hearty sizzle, and gave the pan a shake. I turned them after three minutes. After three more minutes, I added a hearty splash of stock, turned down the heat, and covered the pan for a few more minutes. \"At a restaurant where I once worked, the chef added some liquid like stock or wine at the end of cooking and I do that all the time now,\" I said. \"It infuses it with both flavor and moisture.\"\n\nMaggie handed out forks for everyone to take a bite. \"This is great,\" Shannon said, using the edge of her fork to cut off another bite. \"I mean, it tastes good, it's not dry. Mine never turn out like this.\"\n\nTrish had also commented on tough chicken during our visit. \"Neither do mine. I wonder if it's because I usually cook them at lower heat and longer,\" she mused. \"Well, a lot longer.\"\n\n\"Now it's your turn,\" I said. While I'd been cooking, Maggie and Lisa had assembled a collection of oils, vinegars, garlic, herbs, and spices from around the kitchen. From the walk-in, they had gathered jars of pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, gingerroot, lemons, and limes. The selection now sat as a jumble in the center of the worktable. Each person had a small bowl.\n\n\"First, you'll slice a breast in half like I did. One part we'll saut\u00e9, the other we'll grill,\" I said. Maggie walked around the table distributing chicken breasts from the chickens we had broken down earlier. \"Then make your own kiss of flavor. Think of what chefs call 'flavor profiles.' These sound all chef-y, but they're easy. For instance, what flavors does Asian food have in common?\"\n\nJodi raised her hand. \"Sesame oil, soy sauce, maybe rice wine vinegar?\"\n\n\"Great,\" I said. \"Put those together. What does Italian food taste like?\"\n\nDonna ventured a guess. \"Olive oil, Italian herbs, maybe pesto?\"\n\nAnd so it went. Caribbean? Jerk seasoning, hot sauce, limes, a bit of coconut oil. Tex-Mex? Corn oil, chili powder, garlic, and cumin with a bit of lime. The group erupted briefly in unmanageable enthusiasm. \"This is actually fun!\" Jodi said. \"I mean, I can do this!\"\n\nOne key is to evaluate the flavor of each ingredient. \"Smell or taste the oil and the vinegar, try a bit of the spice. As you taste each one, think how it will interact with the others you're using.\"\n\nThe volunteers started to pick up various bottles and jars, sniffing and sometimes tasting with one of the dozens of small spoons set in a plastic shoebox on the counter. A couple looked tentative, watching the others for clues. The three of us wandered around the table offering suggestions until each volunteer came up with a flavor kiss in which to briefly bathe her two chicken breast halves. Maggie put small bits of masking tape with their names on dinner plates. As each person finished saut\u00e9ing one of her breast halves, it went on her plate. Then they moved to the gas grill adjacent to the stove.\n\n\"The thing to remember about grilling chicken breasts is to avoid placing them directly over a flame. The meat's too fragile. An easy trick for grilling chicken is to cover it with a metal bowl. It will surround the chicken with heat, making it cook more quickly and keeping it from drying out. Use tongs to put it in place and lift it up so you don't burn yourself.\"\n\nThe grilled chicken went onto their plates. The baked chicken came out of the oven, and everyone claimed their pieces. The roast chicken emerged deeply brown and highly fragrant.\n\nBack at the worktable, clutching knives and forks and giddy with anticipation, everyone took a bite of their chicken.\n\n\"This is so good. And it took what? Less than ten minutes?\" Shannon said. \"I don't know why I never thought of cutting it like that or just putting a bit of oil and seasoning on it first.\"\n\nSabra jumped up and down after tasting her saut\u00e9ed chicken. \"Seriously! This is awesome. Taste mine.\" She offered her plate to Gen. It gave me an idea.\n\n\"Hey, everyone shift to the right,\" I said. \"I want you to taste everyone else's.\"\n\nLike a continuous Chinese fire drill, the students shifted from plate to plate to plate. The consensus: Donna and Sabra had the besttasting saut\u00e9ed chicken of the bunch, while Jodi and Trish won the baked chicken round. Cheryl had not wanted to get near the stove with baby Liam in the carrier but had seasoned all of her food and Lisa had cooked it. Her spicy Tex-Mex combo won rave reviews.\n\nMaggie retrieved the mustard braise at nearly ten P.M., as everyone was preparing to leave. The dish had the classic elements of a good braise, deeply flavored and so tender it fell off the bone. We packed up the leftovers and a full meal's worth of braised chicken in takeout containers that Lisa had picked up at a local restaurant supply store.\n\nSabra could barely contain herself. \"This is the best class ever! I've done stuff tonight that I've never done before!\"\n\nAs she clutched her takeout box, Trish lingered, reluctant to leave until she was the final volunteer in the kitchen while Maggie, Lisa, and I started to clean up. \"What is it?\" I asked her.\n\nShe wiped her eyes. \"Tonight I learned things that I really ought to have known. Why didn't I ever just learn it?\"\n\n\"Julia Child said she didn't learn to cook until she was thirty-two. Until then, she just ate. So you see, it's never too late.\" I gave her a hug and then handed her a takeout box. \"See you next week.\"\n\n#    **Your Basic Roasted Chicken**\n\n_Chefs around the world continually debate the best possible way to roast a whole chicken. Don't overcomplicate it. You don't need a fancy roasting pan. Any kind of ovenproof pan, skillet, or saut\u00e9 pan with sides one inch or higher in which the chicken fits comfortably will work. A rack is nice, but you can just roughly chop up carrots, onions, and potatoes to spread them across the bottom and balance the chicken on top to allow the juices to drain. Include some kind of fat such as oil or butter, plus salt and pepper, and baste it at least once. I prefer to start the bird breast side up and then, using tongs, turn it over for the last twenty minutes of cooking to brown the other side, but that's optional._\n\n##  **BASIC TECHNIQUE FOR A WHOLE CHICKEN**\n\n  Preheat the oven to 425\u00b0F. Mix up some flavorings. Remove the giblets from inside the chicken cavity.\n\n  Gently ease your fingers under the chicken's skin to separate it from the bird, creating a cavity across the top of the breast and around the legs. Shove your flavoring under the skin. Smear a bit over the top and generously season the skin with coarse salt and ground pepper.\n\n  If you want to, tie the legs together with some string; this will help the bird keep its shape and cook evenly.\n\n  The larger the bird, the longer it will take to roast. Depending on your oven and your bird, a standard 3-pound chicken will take about an hour; allow about 10 minutes for each additional half pound. After half an hour, baste it by using a spoon, pastry brush, or bulb-style baster to collect the juices from the pan to moisten the skin.\n\n  If desired, turn the chicken over for the last 20 minutes of cooking. Baste again.\n\n  See if it's done. The best method is to insert an instant-read thermometer into the thigh meat and again into the breast, avoiding the bones. It should read close to 180\u00b0F, but double-check by pulling the thigh away. If the juices that ooze out are clear, it's done. If they are pink, baste the chicken again and put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Repeat as needed.\n\n  Let your chicken rest for about a few minutes before serving.\n\n##  **TEN WAYS TO FLAVOR ROAST CHICKEN**\n\n  Add coarse salt and pepper to each combination, and be generous with the oil, butter, or other type of fat; the excess will run off and it will help to keep the meat moist. Mix each into a paste before applying it to the bird. You can't go wrong shoving some fresh herbs, some lemon, a wedge of onion, or a couple of cloves of garlic inside the bird's cavity, along with some salt and pepper.\n\n_**Lemon-Herb Butter**_\n\n cup fresh lemon juice; put the leftover lemon inside the cavity 3 tablespoons butter, softened\n\nHandful of chopped fresh tarragon, thyme, or rosemary\n\n_**Italian Herb Oil**_\n\n3 tablespoons olive oil   \n2 teaspoons grated Parmesan cheese   \n2 garlic cloves, chopped   \n2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herbs, such as thyme, oregano,   \nparsley, or basil (or about 2 to 3 teaspoons dried herbs)\n\n_**French Dijon**_\n\n3 tablespoons butter, softened, or olive oil   \n1 tablespoon red wine vinegar   \n3 tablespoons Dijon mustard   \n teaspoon red chili flakes   \n1 teaspoon dried thyme\n\n_**Soy Ginger Oil**_\n\n2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil   \n1 tablespoon sesame oil   \n2 teaspoons soy sauce   \n1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar   \n1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger\n\n_**Pesto-rama**_   \n  cup any kind of pesto (basil, sun-dried tomato, etc.)\n\n_**Goat Cheese with Prosciutto and Herbs**_\n\n1 ounce finely minced prosciutto or pancetta or crumbled cooked   \nbacon   \n2 tablespoons goat cheese   \n3 tablespoons olive oil   \nHandful of chopped basil or 1 teaspoon dried oregano\n\n_**Thai-Style**_\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil   \n1 teaspoon sesame oil   \n1 tablespoon finely crushed peanuts   \n3 tablespoons fresh lime juice   \n2   teaspoons Thai curry paste   \n2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil or cilantro\n\n_**Greekesque**_\n\n  cup plain yogurt   \n4 garlic cloves, minced   \n1 tablespoon chopped dill   \n2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice\n\n_**China Spice**_\n\n3 tablespoons sesame oil   \n1 tablespoon orange juice   \n1 tablespoon Chinese 5-spice powder   \n4 green onions, minced   \n3 garlic cloves, minced   \n1 teaspoon soy sauce\n\n_**Tex-Mex**_\n\n3 tablespoons vegetable oil or butter   cup lime juice 1 teaspoon chili powder 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 teaspoon dried oregano   teaspoon ground cumin\n\nPinch or 2 of cayenne or a few drops of hot sauce\n\n##  **FOR INDIVIDUAL CHICKEN PIECES**\n\n  You can add any of these flavorings to individual pieces to roast separately. Again, press the flavorings under the skin. Put the pieces on a baking sheet atop aluminum foil or parchment or in an ovenproof baking dish in an oven preheated to 375\u00b0F. Thighs and legs will take about 45 minutes, bone-in breasts about 30 minutes, and boneless breasts about 15 minutes, depending on the thickness and your oven. Aim for a final internal temperature of around 165\u00b0F. If roasting mixed pieces, remove them as they're done and keep them warm by covering them with foil.\nCLASS BREAK\n\n**Cruise Control**\n\n_We Interrupt This Project for a_   \n_Cruise to the Mediterranean_\n\n  The morning after the chicken class, I received a frantic call. \"Can you be in Rome next Tuesday?\" a woman's voice said. \"A chef canceled. Ten-day cruise on the Mediterranean. It would _really_ help me out.\"\n\nSuch things never happened in my corporate life. Months earlier, Holland America had invited me to work for a week on one of its ships as a \"guest chef.\" When Mike and I joined the cruise on the _MV Amsterdam_ for its final leg from Honolulu to San Diego, we met Erika, the manager of \"culinary entertainment\" for the cruise line. Mike and I liked her instantly and bonded with her over the short trip. Back on land in Seattle, we kept in touch. Now she was in need of a replacement guest chef for one of the line's culinary-themed cruises\u2014stat. \"I'm racking my brain thinking about who could go on such short notice,\" she said. \"We'll pay your airfare.\" She called not realizing the trip would fall during our fifth wedding anniversary and Mike's forty-fifth birthday. We'd have to reschedule two weeks of classes, and I worried about losing momentum with the project, but then I looked at the itinerary: Rome, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Tunis, Palermo, and Naples, with three days at sea during which I was expected to entertain cruisers with cooking demonstrations and hands-on classes.\n\nI immediately called Mike. \"I know you've been planning something for our anniversary, and this is so crazy last-minute. But what do you think?\"\n\n\"I don't think I can top that,\" he said. \"Let's do it.\"\n\nWithin four hours he'd sorted flights and scored a last-minute deal on a hotel room in Rome. Just three days later, swarms of buzzing Vespas escorted our death-defying taxi ride from the airport into the city center. We abruptly turned off a main road to creep along a narrow, ancient street to the Hotel de Ville nestled at the top of the Spanish Steps.\n\nIt felt decadent jetting into a foreign city with no itinerary on short notice. On our first night, we walked arm in arm to dinner at the restaurant Tulio. Mike ordered us each a glass of champagne to start. We eavesdropped on conversations around us and flirted across the table. I ordered the day's special, handmade fettuccine pasta dosed heavily with eggs. Mike splurged on a bottle of earthy Italian wine. As the immaculate waiter shaved slices of black truffle onto my plate of handcut noodles, I jumped up and down in my seat, giddy with anticipation.\n\nMike took my hand across the table and twisted his fingers in mine. \"I love that you can get this worked up over pasta,\" he said, and tenderly kissed the back of my hand. The scene was impossibly perfect: a romantic candlelit restaurant in Italy, Mike in a smart jacket, my complete disregard for carbohydrates.\n\n\"You want to hear something?\" I whispered. He leaned in across the table. \"I would marry you all over again just for this one moment with you.\"\n\nThe waiter cleared his throat. We had failed to notice his return. He stood over us with the bottle of red. We politely waited for him to pour while my heart pounded. I picked up my fork to start on my pasta. I stole a quick look up, assuming Mike would be tending to his plate of osso bucco. Instead, he was looking at me. Without a word, he picked up his glass of wine in a toast.\n\n\"To five more years,\" I offered.\n\n\"No, wait.\" He stopped me as I held my glass up in midtoast. \"I believe we agreed to forever.\" We clinked glasses.\n\nThe next morning, he lazily threw an arm around me as we started the slow ascent of waking from our jet lag. He nuzzled his chin against my hair. \"You still smell like truffles,\" he murmured softly.\n\nBeing a guest chef on a cruise ship is not quite work, but it's not exactly a vacation. To earn my passage, I had to perform two live cooking demonstrations before an audience, and then conduct two hands-on classes for a small group of guests. The demonstrations took place in the ship's Culinary Arts Center, a no-expense-spared TV studio\u2013style demonstration kitchen set atop a stage in front of about three hundred plush upholstered audience seats. Huge plasma screens showed the action live to the audience, while the audio-visual crew pumped the \"show\" into every single stateroom on the boat. So it was more like planning two forty-five-minute live cooking shows with an unfamiliar kitchen crew plus cooking a tasting for hundreds of audience members. Piece of cake.\n\nOn the _MV Noordam,_ guest chef activities were coordinated by party planner Linda. Fun spirited and high energy, she spoke in a throaty northern England accent and was a dead ringer for Patsy from _Absolutely Fabulous,_ although the similarity ended there since she's not a shallow drunk. Guest chef status provides access to parts of the ship most cruisers never see. Behind the gilded mirrors and velvet wallpaper exists a maze of kitchens and prep areas that span five decks. Linda led me to Chef Don, the executive chef in charge of the kitchens. He noticed my bare head and fished a paper chef's toque out of a drawer. I'd never worn a tall toque before. It didn't quite fit and kept falling off as I walked through the sea of Indonesian and Central American kitchen workers, all 337 of them male. Women kitchen workers, much less chefs, are a rarity. The sea of workers parted as they saw me. They smiled sweetly and nodded furiously. \"Oh, _hello_ , Lady Chef.\"\n\nChef Don and I zigzagged through the vast kitchens stacked on multiple floors. The scale of the operation overwhelmed. The _MV Noordam_ served eleven thousand meals a day from five separate restaurants, plus busy stateroom room service and special events. One area equipped with a floor mixer the size of an impressive Jet Ski turned out nothing but the morning pastries and evening desserts. Rows of tables stood at the ready in one prep room awaiting the hundreds of plates the crew assembled each day. Don took me through two baking kitchens and an entire floor dedicated to _garde manger_ that managed cold foods such as salads and refrigerated desserts. A full-time butcher worked in a walk-in cooler the size of my first apartment tucked deep belowdecks. During meals, the kitchen buzzed at a frantic yet practiced pace. At ten A.M., it might be quiet in the fine dining kitchens, but the crew of the Lido Deck buffet\u2014the hub of breakfast onboard\u2014was just clocking out. \"At every hour of the day, there's someone working somewhere,\" Chef Don said. \"We never really close, we just slow down production.\"\n\nOn our tour, Chef Don asked, \"You want to see something?\" We took an elevator down to the cargo hold in the belly of the ship. In front of us, pallets the size of double-wide trailers held tons of produce. \"We have a crew who spend their days getting the food off the pallets and moving it to the right parts of the kitchens,\" he said. \"It goes faster than you can imagine.\"\n\nChef Don explained that the complexities of the supply and thin profit margins of the operation required a delicate balancing act. \"Managing our food supply is one of the most critical things that we do. We can't go through it too quickly or we will run out before our next port. But we can't afford to let it go bad or waste too much food either,\" he explained. \"We try hard to figure out how to maximize everything yet never run out.\" My thoughts went to the volunteers and to my own kitchen, and to the larger issue of wasted food. Just how many wilted vegetables in our crisper awaited my return?\n\nIn the elevator heading back up to the kitchen, Chef Don glanced again at my demonstration list. \"Paella? I can't wait. You have much experience with it?\"\n\nAs it happens, for a girl from Michigan, paella has odd prominence in my life. It was the subject of the first food story I ever published back in the early 1990s. Days after we got engaged in Spain, Mike and I happened upon a paella-making competition in the heart of Valencia, home of the classic rice and seafood dish. Knowing that, our chef friend Ted built a custom-made box and shipped his three-foot-wide paella pan across the country from Seattle to Florida for our rehearsal dinner on Anna Maria Island. If that's not friendship, I don't know what qualifies. The pan was so massive that Ted rented a portable commercial four-burner stove to ensure adequate heat. Our seventyfive guests hovered, clutching cocktails in the sweltering Florida night, as he browned chicken, cooked sausage, saut\u00e9ed onions, and added the rice and stock, stirring with a spoon the size of an oar. To finish, he tossed in a plethora of Gulf-fresh seafood from Cortez, a historic fishing village nearby. As a tradition, we've made paella every year to commemorate our wedding; it's as much a ritual in our lives as turkey at Thanksgiving. By fate or sheer coincidence, my last demonstration was scheduled for the Fourth of July, our fifth anniversary\u2014right after we'd visit two ports in Spain. We both agreed that I had no choice but to make paella, and to pick up a pan along the way.\n\nHowever, we arrived in Barcelona on Sunday and most of the stores were closed. Instead, we hung out at La Sagrada Familia, the famous unfinished church designed by artist Antoni Gaudi. Before that trip, I'd seen the church only from a distance; the spires always remind me of tapered candles left out too long in the sun. It's impressive on many levels. But what I admire most is that Gaudi started a church that he knew he would never live to see finished, perhaps the ultimate definition of faith.\n\nThe next day, the ship docked at the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca. We stepped up our hunt for a pan. Mike confirmed that standard paella pans are crafted from carbon steel and thus would not work on the induction burners in the ship's Culinary Arts Center. The best way to tell if a pan will work on an induction burner is to see whether a magnet will stick to it. Mike sent me on my way and headed into town on his hunt armed with a tourist magnet from the Sagrada Familia. I'd booked a day-long excursion to watch a Spanish chef make paella over a blazing fire in the countryside. A bus delivered me and two dozen cruisers to a restaurant set up in a stone farmhouse.\n\nUnder a small wooden pavilion, the chef's crew commenced with threading three whole baby pigs onto monstrous wrought-iron poles. The poles hooked into a medieval-style spit device over a row of white-hot fires. The distraught look on some of the cruisers' faces signaled that many had likely never seen a whole pig, much less witnessed an iron rod jammed up one's backside. Only a cruise passenger skewered and put onto the spit could have yielded more horrified stares.\n\nAs the crew tended to the pigs, the chef worked the paella. He started with hacked-up pork bones on a flat, shallow pan nestled above another bracing fire in the 102-degree heat. Chef tossed out points in Spanish to his young Catalan assistant, who caught and translated them for the group. \"Chef says that he likes to start with bones because the marrow will caramelize and add richness to the dish,\" she said. The pork crackled and snapped as the pool of fat slowly widened and the remaining meat on the bones darkened with its own sugar.\n\nChef stooped over the heat to place two dozen white chicken thighs into the pan. Each sputtered as it hit the oil. Then he tossed in bowls of chopped onions, tomatoes, peppers, and rice, one by one. Finally, he poured in a bucket of dark chicken and fish stock. The watching crowd sat mesmerized, most slightly drunk from drinking sparkling wine in high heat at midday. Chef handed a long paddle to a clean-shaven midwestern guy in a golf shirt. He eagerly took it. Everyone took a turn stirring, including an eighty-four-year-old man in Sansabelt trousers who teetered over his walker as he pushed the oar around in the rice.\n\n\"Dad, are you okay?\" his concerned daughter asked, approaching. \"It's pretty hot over these coals. Maybe you should sit down.\"\n\nHe waved the paddle at her, nearly falling off his walker. \"Back off! I'm having a good time,\" he said gruffly. \"That chef isn't much younger than me, you know. This is the first time I've cooked anything in years and I'm liking it.\" She slunk away.\n\nThe area took on a meaty smell that mingled with the aroma of charred onions and peppers, joined later by the sweet scent of massive, lobsterlike langoustines, the final addition by the chef near the end of cooking. When finished, the pan was substantial enough with the rice and other ingredients that it required four strapping Spaniards to haul it away. Armed with fireman-style gloves, they squatted in unison and with a collective grunt hauled the pan up and walked it inside the dining room like pallbearers.\n\nAs the food arrived, I noticed that even women who had been aghast at the sight of the skewered pigs now happily gnawed on the pieces of roughly cut pork. The room went silent as everyone concentrated on lunch. The chef's assistant emerged from the kitchen with one last tip. \"Try a bite of paella and then a bite of the raw green pepper slices you'll find on the table. It enhances the flavor.\" He was right. It drew out the earthy, soft, and sweet flavor of the saffron rice and the light sea-scented stock.\n\nThe bus dropped us back in Palma, a town filled with beautiful Spanish architecture and populated by women dressed in beach attire even in the middle of downtown. Mike alerted me to meet him in the kitchen section of the department store El Cortes Ingl\u00e9s. He'd located two paella pans that he thought would work on the ship's burners. After some debate, we purchased both. We then boarded a bus whose destination was \"Airport\/Harbor.\"\n\nMike asked, \"Are you going to the harbor?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the driver replied.\n\nAfter a few stops, we realized that we were heading out of town to the airport. We nervously looked at our watches.\n\nAt the airport, Mike talked to the driver again. \"Are you going to the port next?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the driver said.\n\n\"With the ships?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Do you go to the moon?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the driver answered, nodding.\n\nMike waved me off the bus. \"Let's take a taxi back to the ship.\"\n\nThe night before, we'd barely made it onto the ship in Barcelona before the crew pulled up the gangway. Once again, we ran through the port, this time each of us clutching a paella pan.\n\nThe next day, I told the story of our chef friend Ted and our wedding. \"Oh, it's not fair that you have to work on your anniversary,\" a woman from Asheville, North Carolina, said.\n\n\"Are you kidding? If I was at home, this is exactly what I'd be doing, making paella.\"\n\nWhen we recounted the trip back home, we both measured the days in meals and countries: lunch in Monte Carlo overlooking a white sand beach populated with beautiful topless French women (crisp salad Ni\u00e7oise thick with anchovies, roasted whole fish with fennel and tomatoes); in Barcelona, a late bite just off Las Ramblas (spitroasted rabbit, broiled mussels with garlic and parsley sauce); the hike to a hillside cliff for hot, sweet tea above Tunis (sugary dateheavy Tunisian pastries); a bite in an ancient square in Palermo, Italy, after being overcharged by a crafty seventeen-year-old Sicilian cartand-buggy driver (handcrafted pizza with fresh tomatoes, grilled squid with sweet fennel sausage); and, finally, the best _pasta vongole_ (pasta with clams) of my life high above the harbor on the island of Capri.\n\n#    **Paella Valenciana**\n\n_Paella sounds complicated, but it's just a casserole that originated as a poor fisherman's supper designed to use up scraps left in the nets. Make it once, and then adapt the technique to make a one-pot dish that's simple or extravagant based on what you've got on hand. Just keep intact the base aromatics known as the_ sofrito: _onions, garlic, and tomatoes. I've made paella with and without meat, with green beans, asparagus, fresh corn, rabbit, garbanzo beans, scallops, andouille sausage, littleneck clams, and even Dungeness crab._\n\n_Paella takes its name from the traditional pan, a wide, flat-bottomed carbon-steel double-handled skillet with flared sides. This recipe is designed for paella pans from twelve to fifteen inches wide. If you don't have one, a twelve-inch or larger shallow skillet or similar-sized pan will work. In Spain, paella is often cooked over an open fire, but it can be cooked on a stovetop and finished in a 450\u00b0F oven or over a large, round barbecue. Lovely with a rioja, either red or white._\n\n**SERVES 6 TO 8**\n\n_**Shrimp-Flavored Stock**_\n\n1 pound medium shrimp, deveined, shells reserved 1 quart chicken stock\n\n_**Seasoned Chicken**_\n\n6 chicken thighs and\/or legs   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \n1 teaspoon dried thyme   \nCouple of pinches of cayenne\n\n_**Basics**_\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil   \n8 ounces chorizo, cut into bite-sized pieces   \n4 garlic cloves, minced   \n1 large yellow onion, diced   \n1 green pepper, diced   \n2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped   \n2 bay leaves   \n1   cups uncooked Bomba, Arborio, or other short-grain rice   \nPinch of saffron threads (about   teaspoon crushed)\n\n_**To Finish**_\n\nOne 14-ounce can artichokes   \n1 cup frozen peas, thawed   \n2 ounces diced pimento   \nAbout 1 pound mussels, bearded and scrubbed   \n2 or 3 lemons, cut into wedges   \nStrips of green pepper\n\n Combine the shrimp shells and chicken stock in a pan, and simmer until needed.\n\n Season the chicken pieces with generous doses of coarse salt and pepper, the thyme, and the cayenne.\n\n Heat the pan over medium-high heat or a hot grill. Add the oil and saut\u00e9 the chorizo until it is partially cooked, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken to the pan and brown it well, turning occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Remove the chorizo and chicken and set aside. Add the garlic, onion, and green pepper to the pan and cook until the vegetables are softened and starting to brown. Add the tomatoes and bay leaves and cook another 3 minutes. Meanwhile, strain the shrimp shells from the stock.\n\n Add the rice to the vegetables and cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes, until gently toasted. Add the strained stock, saffron, several cranks of black pepper, and 3 pinches of salt. Stir as the mixture comes back to a boil.\n\n Return the chicken and chorizo to the pan. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and keep at a bubbling simmer for about 25 minutes, until the rice is tender. If excess liquid remains, remove the foil and cook until it is absorbed. Scatter the artichokes, peas, and pimentos on top of the rice, then press the shrimp and mussels into the hot rice. Cover again until the seafood cooks through, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand, covered, for a few minutes before serving. Discard any mussels that are not open after cooking. Remove the bay leaves before serving. Serve with the lemon wedges and strips of raw green pepper.\n**PART II**\n\n**A Bit About Meats, Bread, Pasta, Salads, and Vinaigrettes**\n\n_\"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.\"_\n\n\u2014M. F. K. Fisher\n\n_\"How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?\"_\n\n\u2014Julia Child\n\n**Trish makes bread**\nCHAPTER 7\n\n**The Bread Also Rises**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**No-Knead Artisan Bread, Simple Pasta Sauces**\n\nOn the farm, my parents made bread twice a week. In one of my earliest memories I perched atop a wooden chair in the hot farmhouse kitchen on a snowy winter's day. I drew hearts on the steamy window, my small fingers cold against the pane of glass as my father shaped and patted loaves of dough into four pans.\n\nDad moved a chair over to the table. \"Time for sugar!\" he said. I leaped up on the chair and pressed my tiny right hand on top of each petal-soft loaf and he drew an outline of my hand with a butter knife. My tiny handprint, Dad said, replaced any need for sweeteners. I helped him fold laundry warm from the dryer while the yeasty sour fragrance grew fierce as the bread finished baking. Dad turned the pans upside down and shook the still-warm loaves from them with a thump. He smeared half a stick of butter across the top of each one, the butter creeping into my handprint, distorted by the heat, like a melting clock from a Salvador Dal\u00ed painting.\n\nBy lunchtime at school, such pleasant memories faded fast. Taking sandwiches with thick slabs of homemade bread to school made kids of my era look both poor _and_ distinctly uncool. By first grade, I longed so desperately for soft white store-bought bread that I saved up for a month to buy a loaf with my allowance, assuming it would taste like candy. Compared to our bread, it had the flavor of what Julia Child once described as Kleenex. The bread did offer remarkable sculpting qualities when softened with water, so it wasn't a total loss. I molded tiny statues rather than eat it.\n\nWhen I was in first grade we moved from the farm into the town of Davison, a suburb of Flint, Michigan. An early sign of our improved social standing: store-bought bread. When Mom discovered a series of barely touched PB and J's in my Scooby-Doo lunchbox, she assumed I'd developed a sudden dislike of the entire concept of sandwiches. It wasn't that; I missed my parents' homemade bread. But they seemed too busy to make it anymore, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. She abruptly started to shove quarters in my hand every morning for hot lunches. I would sit with my hard plastic tray eating soggy Tater Tots and stare at the kids in the bagged-lunch ghetto unwrapping their thickly sliced sandwiches. As they sometimes had to risk dislocating their jaws to open their mouths wide enough to take a bite, I turned away, distressed by the depth of my envy.\n\nDespite my inherent love for homemade bread, I never mastered it. Single life in a series of tiny kitchens, with a deficit in counter space, and dodgy ovens did not inspire many forays into bread making. The curriculum at Le Cordon Bleu merely glanced at the subject. In France, _boulangerie_ equates to both a high art and a culinary science that warrants its own focused study, like butchery or patisserie. My personal reference to homemade bread made the whole thing feel so intimidating\u2014until I came across no-knead artisan bread.\n\nMost people became aware of the no-knead bread phenomenon thanks to Jim Lahey of the Sullivan St Bakery in New York when food writer Mark Bittman documented his method in a 2006 story for _The New York Times_. As Bittman noted, breakthroughs are rare in something as fundamental as bread making, so developing a strategy to transform freshly made bread into almost a convenience food counted as a groundbreaking achievement. I tried Lahey's version, and later versions from various books on the subject. The result: a crusty, artisan-style loaf for about sixty cents. Mike loved the stuff, and he adopted the role of primary baker for our small household.\n\nFor the next class, we'd focus on pasta (since I'd just been in Italy) and no-knead bread. \"You sure? It's going to be crazy hot in there with burners and that oven going full blast,\" Lisa said over the phone. I could hear her starting to sweat at the thought. \"Also, something's up with Maggie. I don't know if she's going to be able to help out for a while.\"\n\nDuring my absence abroad, the ongoing cupcake battle consumed Maggie's schedule. \"You won't even believe what I'm going through,\" she said on the phone, pained. The company was on the brink of opening its third store in two weeks and had scheduled three events back to back that involved handing out thousands of samples. I had heard that a major film being shot in Seattle might feature cupcakes. Maggie said nothing, but if this was true, I imagined pursuit of cupcake placement in a film held the possibility of bloody intrigues worthy of film noir. \"I've got to go back to the samples now,\" she said with a weary voice. I felt bad for Maggie. The idea of a business consultant having to help frost thousands of mini-cupcakes struck me as one of Dante's circles of Hell.\n\nI hung up and wandered downstairs to find Jeff. In an odd confluence of events, my former upstairs neighbor in London arrived in Seattle ready to relocate, but in the brutal job market of 2008 had yet to find work. Mike and I live in a 1902 Dutch Colonial that had been rebuilt into a duplex thirty years ago by an architect and his son. We live upstairs and rent out the larger main level. Mike was in the middle of an extensive remodel of the kitchen in the downstairs unit. Jeff arrived as our renters moved out, so Mike set him up in the place for free but warned him that he would be without a kitchen for at least a couple months. That didn't bother Jeff.\n\n\"Sure, I'll help out with your project. You know, you should teach risotto. I made it in a hotpot in the bathroom last night,\" he told me as he ironed his trousers. \"It came out pretty well.\" He seemed genuinely pleased with his ingenuity. \"I think you should write a whole book about cooking in the bathroom with a hotpot. I bet _that's_ never been done before. Oh, hey, I've got pinot gris chilling in a bucket in the bathtub. Want some?\"\n\nBy lunchtime on the day of the bread-making class, the air refused to budge outside. It was even hotter inside the kitchen; the catering crew had the ovens and commercial stove at full blast for most of the day. When we arrived, the kitchen's thermometer registered 101\u00b0F. After we set up most of the gear, we needed a break. Mike and I headed for the walk-in cooler. Jeff followed with a cold bottle of sauvignon blanc and three glasses. We perched on produce boxes and sipped wine to cool down. \"This is really nice,\" Jeff said, sitting with his legs crossed atop a crate of cabbage. \"Maybe we can do the whole class in here.\"\n\nThe door flew open. \"What, there's a party in the walk-in, and nobody told me?\" exclaimed Lisa, who looked wilted from a hot, horrible commute. We got her a glass before the four of us returned to the hot vat of a kitchen.\n\nShannon and Cheryl were the first to arrive, the latter without baby Liam. \"I'm liberated!\" she said. \"I'm ready to get near the big stove, and of course it's too hot outside to want cook anything.\"\n\nWithout a word, the early arrivals put on their aprons, grabbed a diaper, and headed to the hand-washing area. Then they found a spot at the table to start chopping. As each person arrived she joined in, like a bystander jumping into a moving parade. \"Hey, are there any more vegetables?\" Terri asked. After her initial struggles, she seemed to finally get the hang of it and made quick work of a few zucchini. \"We've run out of things to chop.\"\n\nI scoured the table. \"Nope, that's it. Today we're going to make pasta and sauces as promised, and we're also going to make bread.\" Half fanned themselves limply with copies of the recipes we'd handed out at the start of class. As I said the word _bread,_ most instinctively looked at the commercial ovens. I could almost hear what they were thinking. _Bread? In this heat? You've got to be kidding._\n\nTraditional bread has just four ingredients: flour, salt, yeast, water. I started the class by revealing a plastic sleeve from a loaf of supermarket bread. I read the ingredients out loud:\n\nRefined white flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% or less of: wheat gluten, soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, monoand diglycerides, exthoxylated mono- and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness)\n\nI stumbled through the polysyllabic words. I was familiar with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the heavily processed sweetener made from starch-rich corn. HFCS is common in baked goods, as it helps stave off spoilage and keep breads soft. Recent studies have linked high intake of HFCS to childhood obesity and diabetes. But in research that I conducted for the class, I was surprised to learn that soybean oil is so ubiquitous, a leading researcher has stated that some nutritionists believe it makes up as much as 20 percent of all calories consumed in the United States. Diglycerides are simply fancy names for fatty, often hydrogenated oils or trans fats.\n\nBy the end of it, the sweaty crew stood with their mouths agape. \"Some bread is healthier than this one. Read labels. Consumers have a voice in a free market. If people buy bread without a lot of additives, you'll see more bread without them. Or you can make your own. You can control what's in it, and it's way cheaper.\"\n\nJeff settled a big plastic container with flour on the worktable. \"Okay, first we're going to talk about the right way to measure flour. Don't dig a measuring cup into it. Instead, use one measuring cup to fill another.\" I spooned flour into a stainless steel cup measure. \"When full, use a knife to scrape it level across the top.\"\n\nTrish raised her hand. \"So I've always heard that, but why do you do it?\"\n\nJeff fetched a kitchen scale from a side table. I set a metal bowl on top and zeroed out the scale. I measured a cup of flour as I'd just demonstrated and plopped it into the bowl. \"Okay, 150 grams.\" I poured it back into the flour bin, set the bowl atop the scale, and zeroed the scale again. This time, I dug the scoop directly into the flour and scraped the top. \"This is 190 grams. If you add 40 grams on each cup, you'll completely ruin a baking recipe. In baking, weight is more precise than volume. That's why most professional recipes are outlined in weight, not cups.\"\n\nDri slapped the table. \"I think this explains most of my baking failures.\"\n\nYeast went in next. \"Any yeast will do. You can buy fresh yeast in the supermarket, like this,\" I said, holding up a cube of fresh yeast. \"Or you can use instant yeast in the packets or jars. If you think you'll make a lot of bread, buy a block of yeast at a warehouse store. Then invite a couple of your friends over, show them how to make this bread, and divvy up the yeast with them.\"\n\n\"Yeast is a living thing, be nice to it,\" I continued. I reached for a pitcher of warm tap water on the table and measured out a cup and then stuck an instant-read thermometer into the water. It registered 100\u00b0F. I handed it to Cheryl. \"Feel this and pass it around. It should feel lukewarm. If it's too cold or too hot, you'll kill the yeast. Go for around body temperature.\" The little metal cup went around the table as each person dutifully stuck a finger into the water. As it got to Donna, she shook her head.\n\n\"And _this_ explains a few of _my_ baking failures. I think sometimes my water is too hot,\" she said, passing the cup back to Jeff, who drained it into the sink.\n\nI measured the water, yeast, and salt and added them to a large bowl, dumped in the flour, and stirred. The dough became a stiff, lumpy, sticky, and moist mass. \"That's it. Here, pass it around. Smell, touch it, so you can remember what it's like.\" Everyone peered into the bowl, sniffed, and tentatively poked a finger into it. As it made the rounds, I pulled out a five-quart clear plastic bin.\n\nEarlier, I'd made a double batch of the same dough recipe. We'd left it in the back of our car while we shopped for ingredients for class, a point that reminded me of the state health exam and the question about not leaving meat to defrost in the trunk of one's car. It had shifted from a dense, gloopy mass to a bubbling, airy beige blob three times the size. I took back the original bowl and compared them side by side. \"So this is 'The Blob.' It's what it looks like after it has risen.\" The volunteers looked suitably impressed. \"Now we're going to shape some loaves.\"\n\nEveryone grabbed a hunk of the risen dough with floured hands and slathered it in a cloak of flour. Mike, our resident baker, stopped videotaping the class for a moment. \"The point is to cover it lightly all over,\" he advised. \"I think of it like creating the shape of the top of a mushroom by smoothing and stretching the dough out and tucking it under the loaf.\" He and I went around the table helping everyone mold their little grapefruit-sized balls of dough into round _boules_. The volunteers smiled and patted their blobs tentatively at first, and then with a bit more gusto, rather like kids making mud pies. Jeff carefully set up trays lined with parchment paper and cast a generous handful of cornmeal on each to keep the loaves from sticking. I watched as Dri set her loaf on the sheet and wrote her name next to it on the parchment paper. She gazed at it wistfully. If no one had been watching, I wondered if she might have kissed it. I knew the feeling. Baking can do that to you. The loaves needed at least a half hour to rise, so we moved on to pasta.\n\nPasta earned its place as a household staple in the space of a generation. Italian immigrants started commercially producing the tender, pleasantly neutral-tasting white pasta known to most diners in the early twentieth century, back when it was considered an ethnic food. In the United States and Canada, pasta consumption doubled between 1975 and 1995. Even with the rise of low-carb diets and an increased appetite for gluten-free foods, dried pasta is still a nearly $2-billion-a-year business. Ever since the major food companies took notice, they've found big profits trotting out various forms of flavored, prepackaged pasta dishes. We may have a vision of a group of Italian grandmothers in some countryside locale turning out noodles, but the retail arena is controlled by a handful of multinationals. In the 1990s, Hershey's was the largest pasta manufacturer until it divested itself of a couple of brands to focus more on its main business, chocolate and confectionaries.\n\nOne of my longest conversations with the woman in the supermarket was around her presumed inability to make a simple sauce. Pasta was a staple in the diets of all the volunteers, more ubiquitous than even chicken. But not all pastas are made the same. For that day's tasting, I had compiled a wide selection, including traditional white spaghetti and a couple of gluten-free alternatives, but mostly focusing on whole wheat options, mixing expensive and inexpensive brands. Shifting from white semolina pasta to 100 percent whole wheat pasta can double the fiber and nearly triple the protein of any dish.\n\nWhile we were all playing with dough, Lisa tended six pots of boiling water, preparing to cook the twelve different types of pasta to the same exact level of al dente and keep track of them all. On its face, this seems a simple task. Some had to cook for six minutes, others fourteen. As the rest of us worked on the bread, I could hear her clanging around in pots to dig out pasta to settle into colanders and slapping down a dozen small plates on the stainless side table.\n\nBy the time we were ready to taste, Lisa looked ready to melt. The walls behind the stove dripped condensation. \"Okay!\" she said, blowing out a huge sigh. \"Ready?\" As everyone circled the plates, she disappeared into the walk-in cooler and shut the door behind her. I'm fairly sure that Jeff was already in there, possibly with the wine.\n\nEveryone nibbled. The results intrigued. Favorites included the store-brand whole wheat pasta from a warehouse store. \"It's got a nice nutty flavor to it,\" Terri noted. The least favorite was a national whole wheat brand that I had bought months earlier but left untouched after Mike insisted on referring to it as \"dirt pasta.\" I used to give him a hard time for not liking it, but then I discovered no one else did either.\n\n\"No, it really does taste like dirt,\" Shannon said earnestly. \"I mean, it's got a strange grit thing going on. My kids would never eat that.\" She set down her small plate and pushed it away.\n\nMike leaned out from behind the video camera. \"See?\" he said, vindicated.\n\nTrish pointed at some brightly colored rotini on her plate. \"What are these colored pastas? They're kind of odd tasting.\" They were pasta spirals flavored with vegetables, another pasta reject from my household. \"Oh, yeah, I bought these for our friend's kids who come over to visit a lot. Neither of the girls were crazy about it, though.\"\n\nTasting one of the two white pastas, Donna said that she detected something fishy. \"It's like tuna. I mean, that's probably not right. That's just me.\" Then we looked at the package. It contained omega-3. That would explain the fish flavor. No one else had picked it up, but on tasting it again, it was obvious.\n\nShannon seemed enthused. \"This is a great tasting to do,\" she said. \"I'm going to start buying a couple of different pastas and trying them out with my kids. In some ways, I think this was my favorite tasting so far since it's something that I cook all the time.\"\n\nWhen it comes to cooking pasta, a few tips make or break the whole experience. First, be sure that you use plenty of water. Second, the pasta will take on the flavor of the water that it's boiled in. One classic way to add flavor to pasta is by salting the water. \"The water for pasta should taste salty, kind of like the sea,\" said Lisa, who was back and looking refreshed from a turn in the walk-in. Finally, don't overcook it, especially whole wheat pasta.\n\n\"Don't rinse the noodles,\" I added. \"Sauce will stick better to drier pasta.\"\n\n\"Why do they say to rinse it, then?\" Terri asked.\n\n\"As long as it's hot, it will keep cooking,\" I replied. \"In fact, if you're going to put pasta into a sauce, which you will be doing in a couple of dishes, undercook it a bit. It will cook a little bit as it cools down and a bit more when it sits in hot sauce.\"\n\n\"Did any of you know that?\" Dri asked the group. They shook their heads and kept listening intently. \"Okay, good, I thought maybe it was just me.\"\n\n\"Pasta can be a fridge-clearing powerhouse,\" I explained. \"Clean out your crisper drawer, chop up the contents, saut\u00e9, steam, or boil them, and add them to a bowl of pasta. Add a little olive oil and some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese or a classic tomato or Alfredo sauce, and voil\u00e0, dinner.\"\n\nWe began with a basic cream sauce. Having worked in a restaurant that served a popular Alfredo dish, Lisa grabbed a whisk and a pan and took over. \"Okay, I know it's hot, but everyone over to the stove,\" she commanded. \"You know that fifteen dollars you pay at the Olive Garden for Alfredo pasta? Here's what they start with,\" she said, and she poured two cups of cream into a pan atop the six-burner stove. \"It's just cream reduced with a little bit of pasta water. It's such a simple recipe that you'll wonder why you ever bought it in a box with a flavor packet.\"\n\nThe stove still radiated massive heat from the earlier pasta cooking. She pointed at the cream gurgling in the pan. \"See how it's starting to bubble? When this happens, add in half a teaspoon of salt.\" She kept stirring. Large glassy bubbles popped then died on the surface slowly and then quickly until it resembled slow and lazy foam. The smell changed from bland milk to a strong, intoxicating, almost cheeselike scent. \"Smell that? Now let it keep doing that until it thickens.\" After a minute, she took a spatula and pulled it across the bottom of the pan, painting a wide swath in the stainless steel. She grabbed a spoon from a holder near the stove and stuck it into the sauce, then held it up. The cream cleaved thickly to the back of the spoon, melting in a glacial slide of goo.\n\n\"When the sauce thickens enough to cover the back of a spoon or leaves a clean line in the bottom of the pan, it's time to add some pasta water.\" She dug a ladle into one of the still-hot pots of pasta water and splashed it into the pan with the cream. She simmered it over medium-high heat until bubbles erupted again. \"Now add a little bit more cream, heat it through, and then add some shredded cheese, maybe some garlic, and a few cranks of pepper. Jeff, can you hand me some of that cooked pasta?\" Jeff brought over a colander of cooked linguine. She took hearty grabs with tongs and swirled the strands into the sauce.\n\n\"And that's it. Cream, pasta water, some cheese, maybe some garlic. Easy, right?\" She poured it into a pasta plate. \"That's just a start. Add in some leftover chicken, some ham, peas, saut\u00e9ed mushrooms, steamed asparagus, cooked shrimp, and chopped basil, whatever. Just think of dishes you've seen on restaurant menus when you're looking in your fridge thinking, Huh, what could go into pasta? You want to make macaroni and cheese? After the cream reduces, just add shredded Cheddar cheese and macaroni.\"\n\nShe brought the warm pasta with the Alfredo sauce to the worktable. Jeff ladled out a serving to each person on a small plate. For comparison, I had asked Jeff to prepare a boxed version of fettuccine Alfredo. The fresh Alfredo was white with a velvety texture and had a faint scent of garlic in the warm cream. The boxed version had a thin sauce and an unnatural sheen; it smelled strongly of cheese.\n\n\"Don't make us eat that,\" Jodi said sternly, screwing up her face. I knew from the inventory that I had made of her overstuffed pantry that she had at least half a dozen boxes of this exact same stuff.\n\n\"Oh, come on,\" I said. \"You need to taste the difference.\"\n\nShe sniffed it. \"I can actually smell the iodized salt in it.\" She took a bit and put it on her plate, then lifted it to choke down a bite.\n\nThe rest of the group tentatively picked up a single ribbon of the boxed pasta. \"This doesn't taste anything like that,\" Donna said, motioning to the freshly made sauce. \"It's not terrible, but it's not good, especially compared directly to the real version we just had. I never thought to do that.\"\n\nI tried both, too. The cream sauce had a luxurious, fat mouthfeel with the slightest spikes of pepper and garlic. By comparison, the boxed version had an almost overpronounced sweet cheesy flavor at first bite that vanished into a salty aftertaste. It was an obvious knockoff, like an inexpensive purse attempting to stand in for an authentic Italian leather bag.\n\n\"Oh, wow, look at the bread!\" Dri said as we set the first of the baking trays onto the worktable. In the half hour that had passed, the raw loaves that they had left to rest had plumped and softened. Mike grabbed a chef's knife and slashed three diagonal slits lightly across the top of the loaves as I explained: \"Scoring the bread allows a bit of steam to escape during baking, resulting in a better crumb and a prettier loaf. You can do a pattern if you want.\"\n\nArmed with their knives, the women found their loaves and exchanged murmurs. \"It's so soft!\" and \"Look, it's starting to look like bread.\" Most carefully sliced slashes in theirs; Sabra branded hers with a star. Jeff waved everyone away from the oven and pulled open the doors. The heat blast felt almost like a physical punch. I slid the two sheets of bread into the oven. Earlier, I had set a small pan in the bottom. I poured water into the hot pan. As it hissed and steamed violently, I slammed the door shut. The steam helps the dough \"spring\" in the oven with a sudden burst of heat.\n\nAs it baked, we moved on to a basic tomato sauce. Many jars and cans of spaghetti sauce include significant amounts of added sodium and sugar. Also, given that a sauce is little more than some aromatics, seasonings, and tomatoes, it's often less expensive to make at home. During the Alfredo lesson, Jeff had set up five portable electric and propane burners from the kitchen's inventory around the table; it was simply too hot to keep cooking over the big stove.\n\n\"Who wants to demonstrate?\" Gen raised her hand. She skipped around the table and grabbed the spoon. \"Okay, Gen, warm some olive oil in a pan. Add some garlic, onions, and herbs until the onions are soft.\" While she stirred I opened a can of diced tomatoes, and when the vegetables were ready, Gen plopped them into the saucepan along with a couple of pinches of red pepper flakes and salt, some water, and a bay leaf. She brought it to a boil and then reduced the heat to a simmer. \"And let's have a big hand for Gen and her sauce!\" I said. Everyone clapped. Gen took a bow.\n\nAs the sauce bubbled lightly, we shifted to another burner for a quick _pomodoro,_ or fresh tomato sauce. I took off my watch and asked Cheryl to time the process. The sauce started with heating olive oil, then adding chopped garlic, sliced cherry tomatoes, and a splash of the pasta water. We let it simmer briefly and then added two handfuls of cooked linguine to the sauce along with a toss of chopped basil. Start to finish, the sauce clocked in at less than five minutes. By the time it was done, so was the spaghetti sauce.\n\n\"Now it's your turn.\" I waved my hand over the center of the worktable, where bowls sat holding the vegetables chopped at the start of class, along with some cream, various cheeses, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, cilantro, parsley, and lemon. Lisa brought over bowls of cooked spaghetti, penne, and macaroni. Everyone shifted into action, grabbed a pan, found an empty burner on the table or stove, and settled in to work.\n\nI observed their selections. Each person made something completely different. Terri faithfully replicated the _pomodoro_ sauce. Sabra made creamy macaroni and cheese. Jodi saut\u00e9ed all the vegetables quickly, then added the penne, chopped basil, and olive oil and lovingly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over the top. With a graceful, seemingly practiced move, she dropped it into a pasta bowl, then she stood back to admire her work. \"Wow, look at this,\" she said to herself. Then she turned to Shannon. \"Can you believe that I made this? It's so pretty.\"\n\nDing! We retrieved the dark blond loaves from the oven. Although it's best to let bread rest and cool, the smell insisted that we try one loaf almost immediately. Steam escaped as Mike held a hot loaf in a diaper and broke open the crust. \"I like to rip bread,\" he said. \"It's not the same if you slice it.\" The kitchen went quiet as everyone lingered, dipping the still-hot bread into small bowls of olive oil laced with herbs and garlic. The crusts of the other loaves crackled as they cooled on a nearby counter. \"I could do this, I could really do this,\" mused Jodi. \"I bet my son would eat this, too.\" Jeff brought out a bottle of white wine and poured short glasses. Everyone sampled one another's pasta sauce, plus the _pomodoro_ and spaghetti sauces. The room erupted into a series of \"mmmm's\" and \"yumm's.\"\n\n\"It's all good, I mean really good,\" Dri said. \"It's kind of surprising, really, all the different dishes you can do with a few ingredients.\"\n\nThe group collected their pasta and still-warm loaves to take home. Sweating under my own apron, I wished everyone a good night. Mike took my hand and led me across the street. We sat on the curb cloaked in shadow in the cooling night air. Late on a Monday, the normally busy thoroughfare was quiet. A waning moon lit the sky. \"It's amazing,\" Mike said. \"Last week we were on the other side of the world looking up at the moon, remember?\" I leaned my head on his shoulder.\n\nThen we heard a voice, a familiar one. \"I made bread. Yes, me. Yes, really.\" Donna emerged, balancing her cell phone on her shoulder, holding a box of pasta and a loaf of bread in her arms. \"I have pasta, too.\" Pause. \"No, _I_ made it. Yes, _me_. Don't sound so surprised!\" She got into her car and drove off into the night.\n\n#   **No-Knead Artisan Bread for Busy People**\n\n_This recipe is adapted from the master recipe in the excellent book_ Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day _by Jeff Hertzberg and Zo\u00eb Fran\u00e7ois. It's simple to prepare and the dough keeps in the fridge for up to two weeks. I often add a tablespoon of dried thyme, rosemary, or herbes de Provence to the water to infuse the bread with extra flavor. The recipe was designed to work on a baking stone, but I get similar results with a shallow cast iron skillet. A cookie sheet will work, but your loaf may not get quite as brown and crusty. You can find the original recipe plus helpful photos and variations atwww.artisanbreadinfive.com._\n\n**YIELDS ABOUT FOUR ONE-POUND LOAVES**\n\n3 cups lukewarm water (about 100\u00b0F)   \n1   tablespoons yeast   \n1 tablespoon kosher salt   \n6   cups (32 ounces\/900 grams) unsifted unbleached all-purpose   \nwhite flour   \nAdditional flour to create loaves   \nCornmeal\n\n Combine the water, yeast, and salt in a 5-quart bowl or plastic food container with a lid. Stir to mix. Add all of the flour at once and mix with a wooden spoon until the dough is wet and sticky with no dry patches. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap, but do not seal airtight. Let it rise for about 2 hours at room temperature. If you are not using it immediately, refrigerate the dough, covered, for up to 2 weeks.\n\n To make a loaf, lightly sprinkle some flour onto the dough's surface. Scoop up a handful the size of a grapefruit, and cut or tear it away from the remainder. Rub the dough with a layer of flour while gently stretching the top around to tuck the sides into the bottom to form a round, smooth loaf. Put the loaf on a pizza peel or cutting board dusted with cornmeal to prevent sticking. Let it rise, uncovered, for at least a half hour or as long as 90 minutes. The loaf will plump but not change radically in size.\n\n About 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450\u00b0F. Place a broiler tray or other metal pan on the bottom rack of the oven. Put the baking stone or cast iron skillet on the middle rack.\n\n Dust the loaf liberally with flour. Slash the top with a cross or three lines with a sharp knife and slide it onto the preheated baking surface. Carefully pour about 1 cup of hot water into the broiler tray or metal pan and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the crust is browned and the loaf feels light and hollow. Cool to room temperature.\n\n_**Note**_\n\nFor a \"lazy sourdough,\" mix the next batch in the same container without cleaning it first. You can substitute 2 cups of whole wheat flour for the white flour if desired.\n\n#   **Basic Alfredo Sauce**\n\n_This is a great way to use up leftovers such as shredded chicken, cooked shrimp, grilled vegetables, and so on. Just toss them in near the end of cooking. Use cream, not milk. Start cooking the pasta before you begin the sauce. As an easy shortcut, toss chopped vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, peas, artichokes, and the like into the pasta water to cook them briefly; frozen vegetables work well. Add cooked chicken, vegetables, diced ham, cooked shrimp, and whatever you have on hand with the pasta and heat through._\n\n**MAKES 3 TO 4 SERVINGS**\n\n8 ounces cooked pasta   \n2 cups heavy cream (2 tablespoons reserved)   \n  teaspoon salt   \n cup grated Parmesan or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese   \n1 garlic clove, minced (optional)   \nFreshly ground black pepper\n\n Prepare the pasta according to package directions. Carefully reserve one cup of the pasta water to use in the sauce. Over medium-high heat, add all but 2 tablespoons of the cream to a saut\u00e9 pan or skillet. When it bubbles, add the salt. Small bubbles will erupt into larger bubbles. Stir. When the sauce thickens enough to cover the back of a spoon or leaves a clean line in the bottom of the pan when you pull a spatula across it, add the pasta water. Cook over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes, until it bubbles again and the sauce thickens. Add the reserved 2 tablespoons of cream, heat through, and then add the cheese, garlic (if using), and a few cranks of pepper. Taste, and add more salt if needed. Add the cooked pasta and any additional ingredients and stir well to coat.\nCHAPTER 8\n\n**Tossed Salad & Scrambled Eggs**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**Salads and Omelets as Vehicles for Leftovers, and the Miracle of Vinaigrette**\n\nThe autumn before I started the project, I donated the first of several cooking-class dinners to charity. A sweet couple forked over seven hundred dollars to a worthy cause for my services, blissfully unaware that, at the time, I had never taught a cooking class.\n\nAs Lisa and I arrived at the door clad in chef's jackets and armed with cooking gear, an elegant woman with a bob of highlighted blond hair holding a white wine spritzer opened the door. \"Hi, we're all so excited!\" she greeted us enthusiastically. \"Yep, it's the chef. She's here!\" she yelled over her shoulder to her guests. She kept one hand on the doorknob and waved us inside with the other clasped firmly on a flute of champagne. She smelled vaguely of Chanel No. 5.\n\nHer guests gathered around the granite-topped kitchen island littered with wineglasses. The house was a well-decorated atomic-era ranch style with an expansive backyard blanketed with lush green grass and ringed by evergreens. The friends stood around in casual summer attire, the women in capris and the men in Dockers and button-down short-sleeved shirts. Two of the men put down their drinks and left to help Lisa lug in the rest of our cooking gear from her truck. As I exchanged pleasantries with the hosts, a dark-haired fellow holding a gin and tonic cheerfully asked, \"So, Chef, where's your restaurant?\"\n\nUgh, that question. \"I don't have one. I'm a food writer,\" I replied.\n\n\"Oh, so you're not a real chef,\" he said, a little confused.\n\nThe hostess interjected, \"Don't put her on the spot. Of course she's a real chef! She went to culinary school. In Paris, no less!\"\n\nBooze comes in handy for dodging questions. \"Oh, hey, I almost forgot! We brought champagne to make kir royales.\"\n\nAfter I made a round of cocktails, I opened the fridge door to put the remnant champagne inside. Three dozen bottles of vinaigrette clanked like wind chimes caught in a Category 1 hurricane. \"That's quite a lot of dressing you've got in there,\" I said to the hostess. \"Why don't you make your own?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'd have no idea how,\" she said, fingering her pearl earrings.\n\n\"Do you have a jar?\" I asked.\n\nWe ransacked the cupboards, pulling a motley collection of barely touched bottles of oil and vinegars of seemingly every shape, size, and flavor and set them on the kitchen island. \"Okay, everyone, gather around,\" I said. As I explained the impromptu tasting session of oils and vinegars, the guests exchanged dubious glances.\n\n\"But are those even edible alone?\" a woman asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" I said. \"You need to know what each tastes like so that you'll have an idea when you put them together.\"\n\nWe started with the oils, a variety of olive, canola, safflower, and sesame and a small aging bottle of walnut. We set aside a bottle of olive oil that had turned rancid. \"Oils don't have the shelf life most people think,\" I said. \"It's, like, six months, and less if you store them over the stove like you're doing here because the heat breaks down the oil.\" Lisa and I had everyone taste the good oils and then the bad oil. \"Rancid oil isn't bad for you, but the unpleasant flavor and acrid taste will ruin whatever you decide to do with it.\" We moved on to the vinegars, which ranged from cider to white wine to red wine to balsamic.\n\nThen Lisa explained that vinaigrette dressing is just a simple ratio. \"It's generally three to one,\" she said. \"Three parts oil, such as olive oil or sesame oil, to one part acid, such as vinegar or citrus juice.\" The hostess and I measured three tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar into her empty jar. We added some salt and pepper. I gave it to the hostess to shake fiercely.\n\n\"Now what do we do?\" she asked excitedly.\n\n\"Congratulations. You just made vinaigrette,\" I said. She looked proud and held it above her head as if she'd won a trophy at Wimbledon. Everyone cheered. A month later, she sent an e-mail thanking me for the class, adding, \"I haven't bought a bottle of salad dressing since that night. This sounds crazy, but it changed my life. It made me start to wonder what else I have been buying that I could just be making myself.\"\n\nI printed out that e-mail and brought it to the next class. I told the volunteers the story, and then read the e-mail aloud to them as they gathered around the worktable. Only one short week after the numbing heat of the pasta and bread class, the kitchen temperature was nearly twenty-five degrees cooler.\n\n\"That woman had everything she needed to make vinaigrette,\" I said. \"She was missing only one ingredient: the know-how to make it.\"\n\nVinaigrette is one of the more expensive products to buy by weight at a grocery store. A sixteen-ounce bottle of dressing can run anywhere from $3.60 to more than seven dollars. At an average of thirty-two cents an ounce, that's nearly forty-one dollars per gallon. Yet it's one of the easiest and cheapest things to make at home.\n\nAfter the story, we circulated copies of a basic vinaigrette recipe. At the top of each page: \"oil + acid = yummy.\"\n\nLisa and I led the volunteers on a raid around the kitchen to collect oils, vinegars, soy sauce, jams, chutney, fig paste, cheeses, garlic, dried coconut, gingerroot, spices, red wine, lemons, limes, olives, and some of the Dijon mustard from the chicken lesson. We broke the class into two-person teams. \"If you can think of something you had eating out, consider the flavor profiles, the way we did in the chicken class. What flavors make something taste Italian? Name them.\" We went around the table: Parmesan cheese, oregano, red wine, tomatoes, basil.\n\n\"Thai?\" Basil, coconut, curry, lime, hot chilies.\n\n\"I usually buy a strawberry balsamic. How would I make that?\" Shannon asked.\n\n\"In summer, you can add mashed-up fresh strawberries. The rest of the time, you can just use a bit of strawberry jam,\" I said, an answer that generated a collective \"ah\" of enlightenment.\n\nThe group went to work tasting and talking, a cacophony of whisks in motion, stopping and tasting again. Jodi and Dri made an Asian version with sesame oil, grated gingerroot, soy, and lime. Another team crafted a balsamic with fig paste and bleu cheese. Sabra and Gen made classic mustard and white wine vinaigrette with fresh thyme thrown in.\n\nThen we stopped everyone. \"Okay, whisks down!\" Lisa commanded. She and I had bought a couple of packages of mixed greens. We set them on the table. \"Pick out different salad leaves and dip them into your vinaigrette. You want to see how the flavor pairs with your lettuce, since all lettuces taste different,\" she explained. \"Remember, there is no right or wrong answer. Whatever tastes good to you is all that matters.\"\n\nEveryone stopped and delicately selected a few leaves\u2014radicchio, butter lettuce, romaine, arugula, fris\u00e9e among them. The group chatted and murmured. \"This one's bitter.\" \"This one doesn't go with the ginger.\" \"Huh, it's great with the arugula but terrible with that red leaf.\"\n\nThen each pair rotated around the table, tasting the other teams' creations with all manner of lettuce. They were all good, but the fig and bleu cheese balsamic knocked it out of the park. I made a mental note to try it myself.\n\nEveryone had such a great time with the salad and vinaigrette lesson that it was tough to pull them away from it. But it was time to move on to the eggs.\n\n\"Omelets don't get the respect they deserve,\" says Jamie Oliver. He's so right. An omelet is inexpensive, easy, satisfying, and a good way to use up leftovers. Plus, who says that eggs are only for breakfast? A famous food writer, Elizabeth David, wrote a whole story about the beauty of an omelet and a glass of wine for dinner.\n\nOne of my chefs at Le Cordon Bleu used to say, _\"Apprendre \u00e0 faire une omelette et vous n'aurez jamais faim.\"_ If you learn to make an omelet, you'll never go hungry. He told my Intermediate Cuisine class a legendary story about Napoleon Bonaparte. His army was traveling in southern France and spent a night in a small town, Bessi\u00e8res. The owner of the inn where Napoleon stayed made him an omelet. He had never had one before and found it so wonderful that the next day he requested the townspeople to gather up all the eggs in the village to prepare an enormous omelet for his army. They won the battle, of course. If they hadn't, no one would make omelets.\n\n\"Omelets are great for leftovers because, well, you can put almost anything into them and serve them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner,\" I said. \"I've made omelets filled with every possible leftover including steak and bleu cheese. Otherwise, the method is always the same.\"\n\nI put a seven-inch nonstick skillet over one of the portable burners and dropped in a dollop of butter. As it warmed, I cracked two eggs into a bowl, added salt, pepper, and a bit of thyme, and whisked. The eggs made a \"shhhh\" sound as they hit the surface of the warmed pan. I turned the heat to low, then tilted the pan around to assure that the egg coalesced evenly. Once it had cooked through, I added a bit of cheese, folded it over with the edge of a spatula, and slid it from the pan. Voil\u00e0.\n\nEach volunteer made an omelet. There may be nothing more gratifying than watching someone make an omelet for the first time. Some came out better than others, but student after student had the wide smile of accomplishment as she watched hers fold onto her plate. Andra openly chuckled. \"This is so easy! I don't know why it never worked when I tried them. I'd start out with an omelet but end up with scrambled eggs.\"\n\n\"Funny you mention that\u2014making scrambled eggs is the last lesson of the day.\"\n\nThe trick to great scrambled eggs is to start with a cold pan. Add a couple pats of butter and the eggs, and then turn the heat up to medium-low and stir regularly. It's a longer process but yields a softer result than the classic high-heat version in which the eggs take on an elastic flavor and a rubbery consistency. Lisa whipped up some cream and added a bit of cayenne to it, then spooned it over the scrambled eggs, a variation on a recipe by famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. \"This is so good; I could eat a mountain of these eggs,\" Andra said.\n\nI had been worried that everything we taught was too simple. Yet that day I was reminded that in an unsure world, few things are invariably as good and true as a humble omelet, a simply dressed salad, and a glass of wine. Later, Gen told me that shortly after the class, she found herself without a plan for dinner one night. \"But I realized that I had eggs, so I made an omelet. I chopped up some leftover asparagus and threw it in. My roommate was so impressed. She was like, 'Wow, I can't believe that you just made an omelet, just like that.' So I taught her how to make one, too.\"\n\n#   **DIY Vinaigrette**\n\n_Vinaigrette is among the simplest things to make yourself, yet one of the most additive-riddled items in the supermarket. Extra vinaigrette will keep for a few days in an airtight container in the fridge. Experiment. Use leftovers for inspiration. If you hate it, you've wasted thirty cents in ingredients. Some lettuces reduce an acid tang while others amplify it, so taste your concoction with a leaf or two to taste before serving._\n\n_Here's the basic formula:_\n\n1 part acid + 3 parts oil = fabulous stuff\n\n In a bowl, combine the one part acid, a pinch of coarse salt, and a few grinds of fresh pepper, then whisk in the three parts oil, or add them all to ajar and shake vigorously. Taste. Congratulations, you've made vinaigrette. If it's too acidic, add oil. If it's too sour, add a little sweetener. If it's too oily, add more acid. Just add very small amounts until it tastes balanced and good to you. If you have time, let it rest for at least 15 minutes, then taste again.\n\n Acid and oil don't like to stay mixed, so you can add an emulsifier, like an egg yolk or a dab of mayonnaise or mustard or honey, before adding the oil. Additional seasonings to consider include some minced shallots or garlic, herbs, or spices.\n\n Want fancy designer gourmet vinaigrette? Raspberry balsamic, for example? Add a handful of berries, fresh or thawed from frozen, or a teaspoon of berry-based jam. Asian vinaigrette? Try some combination of lime juice, ginger, garlic, miso, sesame oil, peanut oil, soy sauce. French? Dijon mustard, shallots, tarragon, white wine vinegar. For more help developing vinaigrette flavors, check out the \"Cheat Sheet\" to Flavor Profiles in the Extra Recipes section at the back of the book.\n\n#   **Your Basic Omelet**\n\n_Omelets cook quickly, so assemble any fillings that you want to add before you start. For a two-egg omelet, you can use a seven-inch nonstick skillet; bump it up a size for three eggs. Otherwise, all you need is a small bowl, a fork, and a spatula. I like to use a dab of olive oil and butter to give the omelet a little bit of flavor. If you want to use vegetables such as onions, peppers, or mushrooms, you may want to precook them briefly._\n\n2 or 3 eggs   \nSalt and freshly ground black pepper to taste   \nA pinch of dried thyme or mixed herbs (optional)   \nA splash of milk or water (optional)   \nAbout 1 teaspoon oil (such as canola or olive), cooking spray, and\/   \nor a pat of butter   \nIngredients to fill your omelet, such as cheese, ham, vegetables,   \netc.\n\n  Combine the eggs in a small bowl. Add a pinch of salt, a couple of grinds of pepper, and the dried herbs, if using. Add a bit of milk if you want a fluffier omelet. Whip using a fork or a whisk. The longer you whip, the fluffier the omelet.\n\n Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the oil, cooking spray, or butter. Add the egg mixture. Tilt the pan around so that the egg runs to the open areas of the pan to form a consistent layer. Let the egg cook through briefly and then carefully use a spatula to pull up one side and let the remaining uncooked egg go under the omelet to the pan's surface. Once the egg layer thickens, lower the heat and add the other ingredients, such as cheese, vegetables, and cooked meat or seafood. Heat the omelet just until the egg is cooked through, but not too browned on the bottom. Using the spatula, carefully tuck around the edges to ensure that the omelet will slide freely from the pan.\n\n Fold your omelet in one of two ways. Carefully fold it in the pan using your spatula, and then slide the finished omelet onto the plate. Or put a serving plate on the counter and carefully tilt the omelet toward it. Once the edge of the omelet hits the plate, use the spatula to guide the other edge over in a fold.\nCHAPTER 9\n\n**Udder Confusion**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**When It Comes to Meat, It's Worth Knowing**   \n**Your Butt from Your Round**\n\nNot long after I moved to London in the autumn of 1999, I scanned newspaper headlines while waiting for a bus at Oxford Circus on a dreary winter's morning. TWO MORE DEATHS LINKED TO MAD COW, screamed one headline. TODDLER ORPHANED! blared another.\n\nLike a lot of people living in the United Kingdom in the wake of the BSE epidemic, I stopped eating red meat. The problem wasn't limited to British beef, although the issue had the greatest impact in the United Kingdom. I swore off poultry and pork, too. What tripped me up were the crispy, fragrant ducks hanging in the windows of the city's small Chinatown area that I passed by on my way home from work. I tried changing my route, but the ducks, shiny as if varnished with a chestnut-colored lacquer, called to me like an artful siren luring the unsuspecting to treacherous rocks.\n\nI relented the way I imagine alcoholics fall off the wagon. I went into Lee Ho Fook's alone late one night. I'll just get a few steamed pork dumplings, I told myself. I can stop anytime I want. Everyone knows that dumplings are a gateway food. Before I knew it, I'd inhaled half a duck. I sorted through the remnants, prying tiny bits of dark meat from the bones with the enthusiasm of someone who has just returned from a space mission and subsisted on nothing other than gel packs and Tang for months. I walked home through the busy environs of Chinatown with my head down. I swore that it would never happen again. The next night, I went back. Settled in a discreet booth and wearing dark glasses, I broke the land speed record for consuming a full order of moo shu pork. After that, the floodgates opened. I bought my first whole chicken in more than three years and I never looked back.\n\nAll this transpired not long before I started studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I felt particularly unprepared for the routine dismemberment of lambs, ducks, chickens, and beef that was de rigueur in the course of culinary school.\n\nEven more than chicken, beef comes with baggage. So many people buy chicken in nonoffensive white breast meat hunks that it's ubiquitous enough that the \"meat thing\" doesn't even factor into the discussion. It's kind of like that scene in _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ when an aunt, on hearing that the main character's fianc\u00e9 is a vegetarian, cannot fathom that it's an issue. The aunt replies, stunned, \"He don't eat no meat?! What do you mean, he don't eat no meat? Oh, that's okay, I make lamb.\"\n\nDuring the kitchen visits, many of the volunteers expressed that the meat department in their local supermarket was often a place of confusion. How to tell what cuts work for different types of cooking? \"I look at packages of meat and it's just baffling,\" Shannon said. \"I know that a T-bone is a good steak, but I am not sure what should be roasted and what should be grilled. And what the heck is chuck?\"\n\nCheryl shopped at a local food co-op. The labels confused her. Choice? Prime? Natural? Pasture-raised? Grass-finished? She didn't know what they meant.\n\nThey're all good questions. I didn't know the answers to many of them either, especially around meat classification. So I did some research.\n\nUnsurprisingly, beef is big business. The United States produced nearly 27 billion pounds of it in 2008, the result of processing about 33 million head of cattle. On average, Americans consume about 54 pounds of beef per capita each year. That's nearly one Quarter Pounder from McDonald's for every man, woman, and child in the United States every day of the year. More than 40 percent of all cattle raised meet their destiny as hamburger.\n\nI wanted to break the lessons out of the grind, so to speak, so I felt it was time for another guest teacher. I'd recently met Robin Leventhal, the former chef\/owner of Crave, a minuscule wedge of a restaurant in my neighborhood that specialized in beautiful comfort food. For the past few years, Robin had been winning a battle against two forms of lymphoma, yet lost the lease on her popular restaurant after a protracted negotiation with her landlord.\n\n\"It was both devastating and liberating,\" she said on reflection. \"For once, I wasn't a slave to my phone twenty-four hours a day.\" Released from the pressures of a restaurant, on a whim she auditioned for _Top Chef_ and earned a place as a cheftestant in the sixth season of the series from a field of thousands of candidates. Over a couple of celebratory cocktails, we ended up chatting more about her background. She started life in the art world, earning a master's degree in ceramics. \"I didn't want to be a starving artist,\" she said. Instead, she went to work feeding people. In food, she found a creative outlet that paid the bills and that was as emotionally satisfying as art. \"For me, feeding people is primal and maternal. It's arguably the most satisfying experience in the world.\"\n\nA week later, thinking about her comment, I called to ask if she would be willing to teach a class. Among the best dishes that I'd had in years were her simple braised specials at Crave. She agreed. For her class, we'd focus on cuts of meat, how to prep them and get the most from inexpensive cuts. But I hoped some of the ethos that Robin felt about cooking and her passion to nourish people would come through in the lesson as much as anything she could tell the volunteers about shoulder roasts.\n\nWhen I told Lisa and Maggie that Robin was coming in to teach, they had identical reactions. \"No freakin' way,\" Maggie said. No cupcakes would keep her from that class. \"Seriously, whenever I would go to Crave, the waiter would start to rattle off specials, and once he said 'braised whatever,' I'd just say, 'I'll take that.' The server would say, 'Don't you want to know what it comes with it?' I'd say, 'Uh-unh. Don't know, don't need to know. Just bring it.'\"\n\nThe day of the class, Lisa and I raided a local supermarket to collect twenty-two packages of beef, lamb, and pork, essentially clearing out the \"manager's special\" discounted area. We had ribs, round steak, tri-tips, oxtails, London broil, T-bones, beef shanks, lamb shanks, lamb steaks, pork shoulders, and something called chuck Denver steak. We dragged nearly forty pounds of meat into the teaching kitchen. To witness that much meat in one place is both impressive and disturbing. The students filed in, and as each one approached the table she stopped dead in her tracks. \"Oh, wow, that's a lot of meat,\" Cheryl said, summing up the group's reaction.\n\nRobin has stores of quiet energy, yet a big personality. She's also physically impressive, a square-jawed, solid woman with dark, olive skin and black eyes. Her black short-sleeved shirt accentuated hard biceps. Whenever I saw her, I made a mental note to check out Pilates and never to cross her because, frankly, she could take my pale carcass in a fight without breaking a sweat. She stood demurely behind me as I introduced her. \"In two days, she'll be on the first episode of this season's _Top Chef,_ but tonight she's going to be teaching something very important\u2014meat.\"\n\nEveryone seemed suitably impressed. She was going to be on TV! We handed out diagrams of cows and pigs with dotted lines to demarcate various cuts. Even at the paper version Trish recoiled a bit. As Robin talked, Trish pulled me aside between two towering metal racks of dried goods and tableware as everyone took turns washing their hands. \"So, this is kind of awkward,\" she said, literally wringing her hands, the way she had when I visited her kitchen. She cast a glance back at the dense collection of red meat on the worktable. \"We don't eat much meat now, so I may not be able to stay for the full class.\" Her anxiety was palpable. I assured her that I understood and told her of my fling with vegetarianism.\n\nWe started with a basic lesson on recognizing cuts. The July heat crept into the kitchen. Two minutes into the explanation, half the class started fanning themselves with the meat diagrams. Their collective eyes started to glaze over as Robin and I began to discuss chuck and sirloin. I looked at Maggie and Lisa. We all sensed we were losing the audience already. Lisa bent over abruptly.\n\n\"So, everybody, look at me, I'm a cow,\" she said loudly. Possible comebacks rattled around my brain. The students exchanged glances and snickered. Lisa waved a finger good-naturedly at the group. \"No wisecracks!\" she warned. \"Okay, see my shoulder? It gets a lot of work. Feel your shoulders and arms. There's a lot of muscle there. It's tough. This is where chuck comes from,\" Lisa said. The group snapped out of its stupor. Each person started to feel her own shoulders.\n\nThen Lisa slapped her thighs. \"This is where shank and brisket come from, and you'll want to braise them the way we did with the legs and thighs in the chicken class. We'll do another one tonight.\" The class kept their eyes on her, feeling their upper legs. \"The meat near the ribs is tender. It isn't used as much. This is where you get your prime rib and rib-eye steaks.\" She put her hands on her lower back. \"Behind the ribs are the short loins and then sirloin. That's where the most expensive cuts come from. Think tenderloin, filet mignon, that kind of thing.\"\n\nAs they prodded their own backs and ribs, it struck me that while effective, there was something curiously macabre about demonstrating meat cuts using the human anatomy.\n\nLisa took one last fling as a cow and put her hands on her buttocks. \"Feel your butt. Round, right? That's where round comes from. It works a little harder than the back, so it's tougher.\" Then she bolted upright. \"Okay, I can't believe that I just did that,\" she said, laughing. Everyone clapped, and she took an embarrassed, quick bow.\n\nThen we quizzed them. \"Where is your short loin?\" The group tentatively reached to their lower backs.\n\n\"Round?\" Looking at one another and stifling giggles, they grabbed their buttocks.\n\n\"Your chuck?\" They pointed to their shoulders.\n\nWe then looked over the vast assortment of meat on the table. Maggie videotaped the class as Lisa, Robin, and I started to pick up various packages and explain how to prepare them. We grouped them by cuts. Robin took over. \"Most people know steaks or ribs, so we're just going to focus on the lesser-known cuts. Anything that says chuck is tough, so these are great for stews, pot roast, or braising.\n\n\"The other one is round,\" Robin continued. \"If it says round, just think of that as a cue to marinate it before you cook it. For instance, London broil is a cut from round, and normally you marinate that and then grill it.\"\n\nEvery so often, though, you may run into a cut you've never heard of. \"For instance, let's discuss this Denver chuck steak,\" Robin said as I picked up a vacuum-packed oblong cut of beef. It turned out to be one of the \"new\" cuts developed by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The good folks at the Cattlemen's Association dedicated $1.5 million and five years to finding new ways to market lesser cuts of meat. Cuts that might have normally found their way to hamburger had been salvaged as whole pieces, including the Denver, an inexpensive, well-marbled piece of chuck that could be cooked like a steak.\n\n\"This piece used to be ground into hamburger. You'd pay three or four dollars a pound or whatever for it. Now that they call it a steak, they can charge seven to twelve dollars a pound. I'm not saying that it's a bad cut of meat, it's just that meat producers are always coming up with new things, so don't get discouraged if you don't recognize it.\"\n\nRobin picked up two T-bones. \"But this is a good example of why you should learn a little about meat cuts, or get to know your butcher,\" she said. \"This should have meat on both sides of the bone. One side is a strip steak, and the smaller part is the tenderloin. But the butcher cut off the tenderloin and left just the strip steak. The difference?\" She selected another package of meat. \"Here's a New York strip. It's $8.99 a pound. This T-bone is $12.99 a pound. But you didn't get half the T-bone, or the most expensive part of the steak. It's hard to know if this was a mistake or if it was on purpose. But if you bought this, you'd have been robbed.\"\n\nEveryone had questions. Among them, what the difference is between organic and \"natural,\" two common distinctions, and the controversy over grain-fed beef.\n\nTo start, it's worth knowing what's in commercially produced meat. About 70 percent of all the antibiotics produced in the United States are fed to healthy livestock, including pigs, chickens, and cows. Most commercial beef breeders in the United States and Canada inject their cattle with hormones designed to promote rapid growth. The beef industry maintains that the hormones have been vigilantly tested for safety. Critics argue that hormones cause everything from early onset of puberty to increased predisposition for certain types of cancer.\n\nMost commercially produced cattle start on an individual farm but are \"finished\" in a feedlot by being fed copious amounts of corn and grain, foods that cows are not physically designed to eat. But much of that stems from consumer demand; many people prefer corn-fed beef and its more heavily marbled texture to the leaner flavor and mouthfeel of grass-fed beef.\n\nBy contrast, organic beef farmers are prohibited from giving their charges antibiotics, growth hormones, or anything other than organic feed. The \"natural\" description for beef allows more flexibility, but generally the beef must be free from growth hormones and antibiotics and minimally processed, although in some cases it simply means that it wasn't ground into hamburger.\n\n\"A lot of smaller farms that produce grass-fed beef don't meet organic requirements, and some organic beef comes from cattle raised in feedlots that are just fed organic corn,\" I said. \"I sound like such an old saw on this, but the only way you know the difference is to know the company that developed your beef. Look up the companies that supply your supermarket or butcher. Ask them questions.\"\n\nRobin chimed in. \"Meat isn't cheap. Look at your grocery bill for a month. How much are you spending on meat? It's probably a bigger investment than you think. So it's worth thinking about.\"\n\nBeyond cooking, I wanted to instill the idea of considering the provenance of meat, not just its cost. So I told them the story of Betsy, the one and only cow we ever had on the farm growing up in Michigan. Betsy was a gentle bovine with a lazy disposition and impossibly long eyelashes. When we named her, my mother was not pleased.\n\n\"Don't name the cow,\" Mom said.\n\nMy brother, a gifted artist, drew a loving portrait of her. \"Don't draw any more pictures of the cow,\" Mom said.\n\nThe kids spent hours taking turns walking her through our ample meadows blanketed with clovers and petting her rough brown coat. \"Don't pet the cow,\" Mom said.\n\nOne day in autumn, a man in faded gray overalls showed up at the farm with a trailer. Dad said that he was going to take Betsy to a nice farm for the winter. Betsy docilely filed past the kids, who stared, stunned, and then, as if on cue, started bawling in unison. My sister couldn't take it. She tore herself away from my dad's leg and ran over to her, dramatically throwing her small arms up toward the cow's neck. Sobbing, she kissed her good-bye. \"We'll miss you, Betsy! I will dream about you every night until you come back next spring.\" My father gently pried her away.\n\nAbout two weeks later, my sister discovered new paper-wrapped parcels in the chest freezer in the barn. The first night we had spaghetti made with beef, she looked up at my brother's charcoal sketch of Betsy and then stared back down at her plate. She ate it anyway.\n\nHalf the class looked mortified. \"You ate your cow,\" Donna said flatly.\n\n\"Yes, and all this\"\u2014I waved my hand over the remainder of the meat we'd moved to the side table, still covered in plastic wrap\u2014\"was once a Betsy,\" I said. \"But we knew what _she_ ate; she didn't get any antibiotics or hormones. She also didn't eat any corn. She just ate grass, which is what cows are supposed to eat. So the closer you can get to meat from a cow like Betsy, the better.\"\n\nAlthough we could have talked about beef all night, the clock was ticking. We set out bowls of onions, carrots, and celery. Everyone plowed through their mirepoix as if they'd been doing it for years. What would have taken a half hour in the first class took less than ten minutes. \"Wow, you guys are good,\" Robin observed as Lisa and I collected it all in bowls. I felt like a proud stage mother.\n\nThen we shifted to pork to practice on a cut no one in the class had ever purchased: pork shoulder. Robin, Lisa, and I handed a hunk of pork shoulder to each student. Robin guided them through breaking down the larger pieces, feeling for bones and removing unwanted pieces such as gristle, tough sinew, and hard tracts of white fat.\n\nTrish, the gentle sixty-one-year-old part-time vegetarian, gave it her best. I watched her from across the room. She looked anguished as she held her chef's knife poised above her pinkish meat. But then she calmly set it down, stood back from the table, and purposefully took off her apron. Trish walked over to where I stood near the door. \"I'm sorry, but this is just too much meat for me,\" she said apologetically. She picked up her purse and left.\n\nThe rest of the class, however, seemed transfixed. While they had seemed so squeamish around the chicken, they had no such inhibitions with beef or pork. Most had never tackled a chunk of meat, and who could blame them? Given this era of prepackaging, you can go your whole life never having to cut anything beyond the bite-sized portions required for mastication. No reason exists to explore the sinew, to feel the complexities of muscular development, or to feel the stiff line of a bone giving way to softer flesh unless you plan to break it down as we were doing that day. Dri, who had been so reluctant to touch her whole chicken, now maneuvered her knife with the laser focus of a passionate scientist. Jodi explored the flesh with her fingers, massaging it and trying to understand the contours.\n\nRobin wandered around the table inspecting, offering advice and quiet support. \"Exactly, let your blade follow the line of the meat,\" she told Shannon. Cheryl had seemed a bit intimidated to start. Robin literally held her hand. \"Just like that. You're doing really well. See? You can do it.\" Cheryl asked if she'd learned about meat in culinary school. \"Oh, no, I didn't go to school,\" Robin said. \"I kind of fell into cooking. A chef took me under her wing and I never looked back.\"\n\nStanding next to Cheryl, Shannon overheard the conversation. \"Was your mother a big cook?\" she asked without looking up as she tenderly cut her meat into cubes. I thought of Shannon's response on her initial questionnaire, that her own mother had invariably shooed her out of the kitchen.\n\nRobin let out a robust hoarse laugh. \"Ha, no! My mother is a terrible cook. Her ideal house would contain no kitchen. I think part of the reason I started to cook was to rebel against her.\"\n\nWe shifted to start the evening's braise. This time, we handed out a two-quart saut\u00e9 pan to each person and gave her the option of a single gas or electric burner at stations around the kitchen. \"We can also have at least two people at the big six-burner stove,\" I said. Like a shot, Dri moved into position before anyone could take it away from her. During the classes, some of the students had seemed intimidated by the high heat emitted from the commercial stove. Not Dri. She seemed almost ready to trade her urban planning job for a spot on a restaurant hot line.\n\nAs we had for the chicken, we started by searing the pork in hot oil to brown, nearly crispy. Then each volunteer added the mirepoix, some stock, wine, and some herbs. The air took on a heady, meaty fragrance. One by one, the volunteers covered their pans and shifted them into the oven, holding the hot handles with their diapers. \"Remember where you put it in the oven, so you can remember which one was yours,\" I advised as we slammed the oven doors shut.\n\n\"Great!\" Robin said. Aware of the time, she moved swiftly onward. She heated a large skillet on one of the electric burners and waved everyone to join her around the worktable.\n\n\"One simple way to add a lot of flavor to any cut of meat is to coat it in a spice rub,\" Robin began. Spices have a shelf life of about a year, less if exposed to light or heat. Spices left intact in their original form, such as allspice berries, cinnamon sticks, or whole nutmeg, last significantly longer. \"I'm as guilty as the next person. I've got ground oregano that I've had for twenty years in my cupboard. I'm sure it tastes like nothing. But one thing you can do, either with whole spices or those that you've kept around a little too long, is to bring out the flavor by toasting them.\"\n\nShe demonstrated by adding cardamom to the pan. A common ingredient in Indian curry, cardamom pods resemble sunflower seeds shrouded with a light green or dark brown papery exterior. \"Notice I'm not using any oil,\" she said. \"We're just dry-toasting them.\" She swirled them around in the pan. After a minute, everyone started to sniff at the air as the pods released their strong licoricelike scent.\n\n\"I can smell that, totally,\" Sabra said. Everyone nodded.\n\nRobin smiled. \"Mmmm, doesn't it smell great? After a last swirl, she dumped the pods onto a plate. \"Next, I'm going to do the same with cumin. A lot of people know it from making chili and usually buy it ground.\" She tossed the oblong, ridged, beige-hulled seeds into the pan. Again she swirled them over the heat. \"Just heat until you can smell them and dry them a bit further.\" Cumin has a distinct scent, at once reminiscent of a pot of chili and falafel. It's a common ingredient in both Tex-Mex and Middle Eastern cuisine, arguably one of the few things those two regions have in common.\n\nWhen the toasting was over, Robin grabbed the large gray marble mortar and pestle from the kitchen's spice rack. She combined a few pinches of both the toasted cardamom and the toasted cumin in the heavy bowl along with some coarse salt and whole peppercorns. \"Who owns a mortar and pestle?\" she asked. \"These are a great investment,\" she said as she put her weight into the pestle, crunching and crushing the whole seeds into the bottom until they crumbled into dust. \"You know, you can get one for about ten bucks. You can buy whole spices and then grind them up. They'll store longer and taste fresher. Plus it's therapeutic, a great way to take out the frustration of a bad day.\"\n\nRobin put a spoonful of the powder on a plate. She instructed them to smell or taste it and passed it around the table. \"It's really powerful, almost pungent,\" Shannon said. \"That's just something that I would never have thought to do.\"\n\n\"Now we want you to make your own,\" Robin said. \"Just think of flavors you like. Your taste is something to listen to. Trust your instincts,\" she said. In many ways, it was a reprise of the vinaigrette lesson, but this time without oil or vinegar. \"Be bold,\" Robin advised. \"Experiment. Strong flavors make good rubs.\"\n\nAs she talked, Lisa and I had gathered up all the various dried herbs and spices in the kitchen and put them into a jumble on the worktable. At Robin's invitation, the women exploded with activity, grabbing for jars and canisters, inhaling deeply, rejecting or selecting one here and there to spoon onto their plates. A few took turns at the mortar and pestle. Everyone seemed happy and talkative yet mindful of their own creative mission, rather like kindergartners at art time. \"Taste it,\" Robin said. \"If it's strong or spicy, just put a tiny bit on the end of your tongue.\"\n\nDri and Jodi looked at each other as they daintily tasted a dab and started laughing at the sight of their outstretched tongues. \"Tongues are _so_ not attractive,\" Jodi said, once she regained her composure. \"But this cumin tastes yummy.\"\n\nEach person coated a small piece of steak or a pork chop with her spice rub. One by one they rotated through the grill. \"The key to grilling something like this is to start it hot,\" Robin said, swirling her tongs around the preheated portion of the commercial grill. \"You want to sear it on one side until it's slightly caramelized with a good brown color, but then move it off the fire to a cooler spot and cover it. Do the same for the other side.\"\n\nGen shrugged. \"That explains why I always end up with charred meat. I must be leaving it on the actual fire for too long,\" she said, which led to a lot of discussion around grilling mishaps.\n\nOnce again, Maggie put a piece of tape with each person's name onto a plate. As the meat came off the grill, each of the volunteers took a bite of her own and then passed it on. The rubs varied from a fiery combination of cumin, cayenne, and oregano to a sweet one seasoned with cardamom, brown sugar, and cinnamon. \"The great thing about rubs is that you can use them on anything, even vegetables. They're good for last-minute seasoning and they can be simple or complex. Just trust yourself,\" Robin said.\n\nOne by one, Lisa and I pulled the hot pans with the braised pork from the oven. The heat from the center of the table felt as if we'd set a fire. Each person claimed hers and tasted.\n\n\"This is great,\" Jodi said of the pork. \"It tastes . . . I don't know, like _home_. Does that make any sense?\" Everyone went quiet, eating. She noticed. \"Wow, this must be good. No one is saying anything.\"\n\n\"This is better than food that I've had at a restaurant, and I made it. I mean, really made it, from scratch. Cutting up the meat, everything,\" Dri said. \"It makes me feel like I'm cooking _Top Chef_ food or something.\" It was an offhand reference, but particularly amusing given that we had a cheftestant teaching the class.\n\nEveryone thanked Robin profusely. As she packed up her knives and we cleaned, we tried to pry some gossip about the season from her. Robin wouldn't share anything other than that she was the only contestant who didn't have a culinary degree. In past seasons, that had always been an obstacle. No one without a culinary degree had ever won. Robin had never worked in fine dining, nor did her r\u00e9sum\u00e9 include a stint under a famous chef.\n\n\"All I can say is that my food is heartfelt and not pretentious because that's who I am, so that's the way that I cook. That's what you'll see.\"\n\nThat season I watched Robin struggle on _Top Chef_. Her lack of culinary training did put her at a disadvantage at times when challenges called for complex dishes with tactics such as deconstruction or refined haute cuisine techniques. She was criticized more harshly by her fellow contenders than she was by any of the celebrity judges. At one point, I cringed when a chef in his twenties referred to her as \"Grandma\"; Robin and I are around the same age. Another complained that she wasn't even \"a real chef.\"\n\nWhat defines a chef, anyway? What defines any of us? I had a culinary degree, but Robin had spent a dozen years cooking in the culinary industry and owned a successful restaurant for five of those. If lack of a culinary degree disqualifies, what about all the Michelinranked chefs who worked their way up the food chain as apprentices?\n\nIt takes guts to go on a national reality show, especially one essentially devoted to fetishizing the entire concept of cooking. It was that foodie bubble all over again. In my kitchen, she was generous with her knowledge, patient, and encouraging. It struck me that in a curious way Robin could be a stand-in for home cooks looked down on by culinary elitists.\n\nI thought back to the original questionnaires. Shannon's mother had snipped that she burned everything, but in the space of six weeks, I'd seen no evidence of anything other than someone with terrific curiosity and an unrealized natural talent in the kitchen. Another person had admitted that she ate Tuna Helper while watching Gordon Ramsay. When I pressed her for a reason why, she responded that cooking felt beyond her reach and not worth attempting. She was so discouraged by her cooking skills that she declined to be a part of the project\u2014and it was _free_.\n\n\"I think that one of the things that has ruined home cooking are the TV cooking shows,\" said veteran cookbook author Rick Rodgers. In his life, he's taught more than five hundred cooking classes and met his share of struggling cooks. \"First, the majority of the shows teach lots of stuff but cooking is not one of them.\" When he sees twentysomethings obsessing about foam or rushing around the kitchen in a competitive cooking challenge, \"it's kind of like watching pornography. I think I'd love to do that, but I'm afraid I'll throw out my back.\"\n\nI suppose that's what made Julia Child so endearing. Not long after the meat class, I looked up the episode of _The French Chef_ in which she attempts to flip a pan-sized disk of potatoes. \"When you flip anything, you just have to have the courage of your convictions,\" she stated, even though she looked less than convinced that the whole thing was going to work. She gave the pan a shake and a hearty flip, but rather than landing neatly back in the pan, half of its contents fell and splattered on the stovetop. As she investigated the fallen pieces, she explained what went wrong. \"When I flipped it, I didn't have the courage to do it the way I should have. You can always pick it up.\"\n\nThen came the moment that sealed her fans for a lifetime: \"Besides, if you're alone in the kitchen, who is going to see?\"\n\n\"Julia's little kitchen catastrophe was a liberation and a lesson,\" wrote Michael Pollan in a story on the decline of home cooking in _The New York Times_ in 2009. She offered a simple but obvious observation. \"The only way you learn to flip things is to just flip them! It was a kind of courage\u2014not only to cook but to cook the world's most glamorous and intimidating cuisine\u2014that Julia Child gave my mother and so many other women like her.\"\n\nPerhaps that was her greatest contribution. She didn't limit herself to offering instructions on how to execute a particular dish, but instead imparted a more generalized sense of courage for cooks willing to navigate unfamiliar culinary terrain.\n\nHow often are we rewarded for going off the map anymore? Or given the freedom to trust ourselves and the permission to make mistakes, cooking or otherwise? My mother has many phrases, two worth noting here. \"Who says you can't?\" with emphasis on the \"who\" was her invariable refrain whenever any of her kids alleged that something simply couldn't be done. The other: \"In a hundred years, no one will know the difference.\"\n\nSo _who_ says you can't cook? Not every meal has to be from scratch, nor does everything you consume have to be organic, locally sourced, and pasture raised. Try to find a comfortable place somewhere between Tuna Helper and _Top Chef_. If you burn, scorch, drop, overcook, undercook, underseason, or otherwise put a meal together that's less than a success, in the end it doesn't matter. It's just one meal. You'll make another one tomorrow. In a hundred years, no one will know the difference.\n\n#    **Your Basic Braise**\n\n_The term \"braise\" promotes much confusion, yet it simply means to cover and simmer something with a bit of liquid so that it cooks slowly with moist heat. Braising can yield comfort foods on many levels; a traditional pot roast is a simple braise; so is beef bourguignon._\n\n_There are plenty of reasons to add braising to your bag of culinary tricks. Long, slow cooking provides great meals from the most inexpensive cuts of meat by gently breaking down the connective tissue, yielding a tender, flavorful result. Second, once you put it in the oven, it's pretty much on autopilot, leaving time to devote to other tasks or pleasures. Braises provide a star turn for entertaining, as most can be made a day ahead and reheated. Leftover braised meats can be used in a variety of ways, from inclusion in tacos or burritos to folding into omelets or scrambling with eggs, or they can be added to soups, beans dishes, salads, pasta, or sandwiches. Braising infuses great flavor into vegetables for side dishes, too, notably carrots, asparagus, green beans, onions, leeks, and Brussels sprouts. In a skillet, lightly brown vegetables in butter or oil, add a bit of water, stock, or wine, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes or until tender._\n\n_**The Basic Technique**_\n\n  Season the main ingredient with coarse salt and ground pepper.\n\n  Brown the meat thoroughly in oil over medium-high heat.\n\n  Saut\u00e9 a mix of aromatics, such as onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, carrot, or celery, or even fruit, such as apples or pears, in some oil.\n\n Add some liquid, such as water, stock, or wine. Stir to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan; this is known as \"deglazing.\"\n\n Return the meat to the pan and cook until thoroughly tender, from 2 to 5 hours.\n\n If desired, take out the meat, vegetables, or fruit from the pan and remove any extraneous fat. Thicken the sauce by boiling it until some evaporates; this is known as \"reducing.\"\n\n_**A Few Tips**_\n\n Use a heavy pan with a tight-fitting lid (see note on Dutch ovens on page 171).\n\n Don't use bouillon cubes in place of stock; the result will be too salty. If you don't have stock, use water instead.\n\n Tougher cuts of meat, such as shoulder roasts, short ribs, brisket, and shanks, work best for braising. Whole chickens or dark poultry braise beautifully; boneless chicken or turkey breasts tend to overcook and stiffen.\n\n You can simply focus on braising meat, or extend it with vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbage, carrots, leeks, parsnips, or squash. Vegetables cook faster than the meat, so add them during the last hour of the cooking process. Here's an example:\n\n#   **Braised Pork with Potatoes and Cabbage**\n\n_Not enough people braise pork, yet it's an inexpensive dish resulting in deeply useful leftovers. You can replace the pork with beef, chicken thighs, or even a couple of meaty lamb shanks. If the meat is on the bone, leave it. If you start with a larger piece, just try to cut the meat into chunks roughly the same size so that they cook evenly, and trim off excess fat. This can be served alone or pairs nicely with wide pasta noodles or mashed potatoes._\n\n**SERVES ABOUT 6 WITH GENEROUS LEFTOVERS**\n\n3 tablespoons vegetable oil   \nAbout a 3-pound piece of pork shoulder or picnic ham, cut into   \n1- to 2-inch cubes   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \n1 large onion, chopped (about 1   cups)   \n2 carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)   \n2 stems of celery, chopped (about 1 cup)   \n4 garlic cloves, peeled   \n1 bay leaf   \nSeveral sprigs fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried thyme   \nAbout 1   cups chicken stock or water\n\n_**Vegetables**_\n\n  head cabbage, shredded or sliced thin (about 8 ounces)   \n2 to 3 large tomatoes, diced, or one 14-ounce can diced tomatoes   \n1 large potato, peeled and cubed (about 1   cups)\n\n  Preheat the oven to 325\u00b0F. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a 5-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season the meat with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. When the oil is hot, add the cubes of pork, working in batches if needed to avoid crowding, which will steam the meat rather than brown it. Brown well, about 3 to 6 minutes per side. Remove all the meat from the pan and set aside. Add or remove oil so that there are about 2 tablespoons in the pan. Reduce the heat to medium.\n\n Add the onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and thyme. Saut\u00e9 until the vegetables are soft. Add the browned pork and enough stock or water to come to the top of the meat. Stir and scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Cover and put the pot into the oven to simmer for about 2 to 2   hours, or until the meat is tender enough to cut with a fork.\n\n Add the shredded or sliced cabbage, tomatoes, and potatoes to the pot, then return it to the oven for about 35 to 45 minutes, until the cabbage is tender. Remove the bay leaf before serving. Taste to see if it needs salt and pepper before serving.\n\n_**A Note on Dutch Ovens**_\n\nA Dutch oven is a squat, thick-walled cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. You can buy an enamel-coated steel number for as little as fifteen dollars, but for the quality and longevity, I recommend cast iron. A standard black preseasoned five-quart version can be had for thirty dollars, while enamel-coated cast iron varieties start at sixty dollars. Both varieties will last a lifetime with proper care.\nCLASS BREAK\n\n**The Red Velvet Dinners**\n\n_To Pay for the Classes, I Invite You to a Series_   \n_of Unusual Communal Dinners_\n\n  By the end of July, the bills for the class project started to mount. The rent for the Post-it notes kitchen, the barely above minimum wages for Lisa and Maggie, and the costs for food, business insurance, and even linens such as cloth diapers added up to a couple of thousand dollars. Meanwhile, I'd donated more cooking-class dinners to charity; one fetched thirty-four hundred dollars. The dinners promised to combine elements of the project, including a brief cooking or tasting lesson and dinner. Of course, since they were donations, all those same costs would apply\u2014out of our pocket\u2014to the tune of a few hundred dollars per dinner. Mike and I had a discussion about the mounting costs.\n\n\"It's a nonprofit research endeavor,\" I said, making the case for the project. \"And those dinners are for good causes.\"\n\n\" _We're_ not a charity,\" Mike said. \"How are we going to cover all this?\"\n\nMy culinary-school friend who had led me to the teaching kitchen, Anne-Catherine, had offered communal dinners in the space and had made a small profit. Another friend had done the same on Vashon Island. A communal dinner simply means that everyone shares one big table. No tables for two or four, but rather tables for twelve or twenty or thirty-two, with one menu shared family style. I decided to try a few dinners to raise money for our little charity project. We'd ask people to bring their own wine and suggest a donation. The first was nothing short of a haphazard affair.\n\nMike arranged the tables and chairs the catering company used for events. Jeff ironed white linen tablecloths to an immaculate finish and artfully crafted bits of the lavender growing outside into small glasses and littered the table with tea lights. The result resembled a _Martha Stewart Living_ magazine spread.\n\nBy coincidence (or fate?), we held the dinner on what would have been Julia Child's ninety-seventh birthday. I expected fourteen guests, yet twenty-two showed up. I forgot to add salt to the dough, so even though Mike led a great lesson on fashioning lovely loaves, the final bread had little flavor. My chef friend Ted and I hustled to cook the food, but the scene took on a strange Keystone Kops aura. We bought six dozen oysters but forgot to pack an oyster knife. The pilot light went out on the stove and we struggled to figure out how to relight it. Once Ted and Mike got started, my side towel caught fire. I dropped a huge vat of cooked green beans on the floor. The sole meuni\u00e8re fell into pieces as we started to cook it. We served the final dishes around eleven P.M.\n\nDue to the steady stream of wine, few seemed to mind the lateness of the dinner as most everyone was hammered by the time the food hit the table. Due to clumsy execution, we collected less than we needed to cover the cost of the food, much less earn anything toward the project.\n\nJulia Child consoled chefs by reminding them that they were alone in the kitchen, but this was not true in ours. The small dining room was open to the entire kitchen, so there was no escape. Before the next dinner, Mike engineered ceiling-to-floor-length inexpensive red velvet curtains from IKEA along the length of the kitchen to separate the cooking area from the tables. As he stood back to evaluate whether he needed to improve the torque to keep the heavy curtains level, Jeff stood next to him. Mike asked him whether perhaps he needed a turnbuckle, a piece of hardware, to keep the line straight. Jeff responded that the drapes needed more pleats.\n\n\"Pleats?\" Mike's voice scaled up.\n\n\"Oh, yeah, I think they're tight enough, they just need more pleats. I can take care of it,\" he said. \"My sisters and I used to put on musicals when we were kids. My job was always fixing the sheets so they looked a bit fuller when we used them as curtains. If the pleats aren't even, they look cheap.\" He borrowed our car to hit a store for small clamps and then spent the next ninety minutes moving a stool along the length of the curtain, painstakingly adding perfect pleats. I have to admit, the result looked fabulous. With that, the Red Velvet Dinners were born.\n\nAfter the dubious start, I strategized the next dinners as if executing a battle plan. In earlier years, I'd been known for over-the-top dinner parties, and even then I planned the menus weeks in advance. Invariably, though, the party buzzed in the kitchen, drinks took prominence, and dinner arrived on the table late, often very late.\n\nWhen someone pays for a meal, it's different. An entr\u00e9e served hours late isn't charming; it simply shows you failed to plan. The French chefs would not be pleased. Learning as we went along, we became more proficient at performance. Maggie and Jeff, both experienced kitchen hands, agreed to help prep food and manage the tables. I made time lines, schedules, and multiple versions of the menu. I even started to litter the kitchen with my own Post-it notes. \"Do NOT touch dough. For RVD only!\" The menu for the first series included the following:\n\n _Salt tasting_   \n_Calvados and peach sorbet (palate cleanser)_   \n_Fresh sweet corn soup with chili oil and seared scallops_   \n_Pear and lemon verbena sorbet_   \n_Artisanal beef tasting_   \n_Seasonal green salad with local goat cheese and cherry vinaigrette_   \n_A cheese tasting with savory tart and fresh fruit_\n\nThe red curtain invited something . . . sexy. We decided to add an \"entertainment\" to the dinners. \"What about burlesque to go with the steaks? Kind of fits, doesn't it?\" asked my friend Deirdre. She'd recently directed a documentary on the neoburlesque movement, and she knew all the best performers in town. She helped me arrange for The Shanghai Pearl, a nationally known burlesque artist, to perform during a break in the dinner.\n\nFor the beef tasting, a friend organized a variety of grass-fed beef options. Ted set his own Weber grill on the sidewalk in front of the storefront, tasked with cooking twelve steaks from four different purveyors to exactly the same degree; it was so complicated, it would likely have been easier to dribble three basketballs at once.\n\nThe lovely Shanghai was no diva. The first night, she arrived at the back door in jeans and a simple T-shirt, an odd combination with her intense stage makeup, which included bright blue drag-queenlike eye shadow and glitter lipstick, and a complicated updo. \"I'm so sorry, I've lost my voice,\" she whispered hoarsely. She held up a bulky garment bag. \"Where can I change?\" I directed her to the bathroom. \"Oh, here's my music.\" She went to change. I turned to give the CD to Mike, who was managing the audio. Instead, I bumped into Ted, lurking in the rear of the kitchen with a postgrilling glass of Syrah in hand.\n\nHe looked awestruck. \"Uh, wow, she's, um . . . ravishing.\"\n\nMoments later, Shanghai emerged in a scarlet-sequined hip-slit burlesque costume strutting in five-inch heels with two large red plume fans balanced in one hand. A massive blood-red flowery ostrich plume sprouted from the side of her head. Ted tried to look casual as she readied herself behind the red velvet curtain. She turned to him. \"Do you think you could hold these fans and hand them to me on cue?\" she whispered hoarsely. \"When I've stripped, can I hand you my dress? Do you mind?\"\n\nTed stared at her and nodded without blinking. \"Yes, I think I can handle that.\"\n\nHe took the job seriously, watching transfixed as the dancer bumped, grinded, and charmed the tiny audience around the long table while she strutted through her set. As she discarded gloves, garters, and portions of her dress, Ted dutifully caught them and carefully smoothed them over his arms. She concluded by removing a tiny red silk bra to reveal bright silver pasties and bowed in time to finish with her music. The dinner guests exploded in cheers. Nothing completes a dinner like a beautiful naked woman. As she returned behind the curtains, Ted handed her back her dress and accoutrements. \"I can do this anytime you want,\" he assured her earnestly.\n\nMaggie, Jeff, and I watched from the sidelines, clutching tumblers of wine. As her act concluded, Maggie leaned in to me. \"I'm fairly sure that after The Shanghai Pearl, no one is going to remember any of the food,\" she said. \"I mean that in a really nice way.\"\n\nEmpowered by that success, we developed more dinners. Demand overwhelmed the seats available. At first, the dinners were open to friends only, then friends of friends. Then we invited people to get on \"the list.\" Within a week, we had 370 names.\n\nSix of those with reservations could opt to come early to help prepare dinner via a cooking lesson. After they chopped vegetables, plated the cheese course, or made pasta, they then sat with the rest of the patrons for the five- or seven-course dinner. All of them followed a variation of the first dinner: a main course that featured a comparative tasting, such as oysters, salmon, or differently raised types of poultry. Each featured an entertainment\u2014usually live music, but once we brought in a tarot card reader.\n\nFor Halloween, we took the Red Velvet Dinners on the road to the upper floor of the Richard Hugo House, a literary center set in a rambling 1902 Victorian that once served as the city morgue. The house has been featured in news outlets from ABC's _Nightline_ to National Public Radio for one simple attraction\u2014it's haunted.\n\nI did not know this minor fact when I rented a writing cubicle situated in the former morgue. I heard whispers past midnight. Doors slammed when no one was around. At two o'clock one morning, I caught the sound of what sounded like silverware rattling atop something metallic. It's such a clich\u00e9, but the hair on my neck did, in fact, stand straight up. Later, I understood the sound when I heard the clang of medical instruments atop a tray at my dentist's office. The next day, I put my name in to transfer to a different writing office.\n\nFor the masquerade dinner, we shifted the drab six-foot classroom tables into one comically long dining tabletop set with three-foot-high candelabras, immaculate linens, and the ramshackle mismatched thrift-store plates, forks, and glassware from the center's own kitchen. All twenty-eight guests arrived in costume and character for a mystery dinner, masks intact. Hugo House doesn't have much of a kitchen, so we stuck to an elegant yet simple menu:\n\n _Trays of figs, duck liver p\u00e2t\u00e9, olives, assorted soft cheeses_   \n_Cassoulet with duck confit, garlic sausage, and braised lamb_   \n_Autumn green salad with Riesling-soaked pears_   \n_Apple tarte Tatin with brandy sauce_\n\nThat night's cassoulet dinner by candlelight had an air of sensuality. Champagne flowed. People flirted behind their masks. As everyone dug into three steaming vats of the traditional French white bean casserole and started to eat, the room went eerily quiet. A door slammed somewhere unexpectedly. Everyone suddenly looked around, startled. \"I think I left a window open in the other room,\" I said. Everyone returned to their dinner.\n\nI never left a window open. But how do you tell people that it might be the sign of a ghost signaling his displeasure at failing to get an invite?\n\nThe last of the series featured an Italian theme. The evening included an olive oil and olive tasting, plus handmade pasta in a fragrant saffron broth with shrimp and tomatoes, a reprise of something I'd taught during the hands-on classes on the cruise earlier that summer. The scheduled entertainment was an opera singer performing excerpts from the works of Italian-born composer Giacomo Puccini.\n\nIt was a last supper, so I invited all the guests into the kitchen early to cook, and more than a dozen of them took me up on it. I'd developed the recipe as a lesson on tackling that issue so often mentioned by the volunteers: How do you keep a recipe from tasting bland?\n\nAfter everyone helped to make the pasta and left it to dry on trays stacked on the counter, I discussed some classic seasoning points from Italian cooking. \"Buy a basil plant and keep it in your kitchen window all year long,\" I started. \"You can just pull off a few leaves at a time and it will add freshness to the end of a dish, and it won't die in the bottom of your crisper. While you're at it, consider getting a thyme plant, too.\" Next tip, keep lemons or limes on hand; the acid brightens flavor. Garlic adds bite and hot chili adds punch.\n\nI made one very bland plate of pasta and let everyone taste it. Then we divvied the pasta into three bowls and let them experiment with shifting the flavor by adding lemon, fresh herbs, and hot chili. In another batch, this time dosed with garlic. \"Wow, this is pretty boring without garlic,\" one guy said.\n\n\" _Life_ is boring without garlic,\" replied another.\n\nAfterward, as the \"cooks\" took off their aprons to take their seats at the tables with the other guests, a woman approached me. \"I can't get over how the lemon and the garlic changed everything,\" she said. \"I can't tell you how often I make a recipe and it's kind of blah. It will need _something,_ but I can't figure out what, and, well, I've always been kind of afraid to add anything because I'm afraid I'll screw it up.\"\n\nAs a little girl, I used to play restaurant, and in some ways, this was simply the big-girl version. With each dinner, I gained more confidence in the kitchen. I managed a regular crew, and we bonded in our kitchen camaraderie, quietly plating entr\u00e9es behind the curtains. The dinners required developing menus, managing food costs and budget, and the full responsibility of what went right or wrong. For the first time, I felt like I was starting to earn the title of chef, whatever that meant. The odd thing was that just as I thought that I might warrant it, I decided it wasn't all that important anymore.\n\n#   **Spicy Shrimp in Saffron Tomato Sauce**\n\n_To appear short, many recipes for \"quick\" meals often leave off steps that would upgrade the flavor. This recipe utilizes four important concepts to awaken otherwise bland dishes: fresh herbs, acid, garlic, and spice. Frozen shrimp is a great freezer staple, but try to opt for wild-caught North American shrimp over Asian farmed varieties. If you can find only peeled shrimp, c'est la vie. This recipe cooks quickly, so be sure to prep and measure all the ingredients in advance. This is equally charming served over fettuccine pasta, basmati rice, or saffron rice. No shrimp? You can substitute bay scallops (take care not to overcook them), a solid white fish (such as cod), extra-firm tofu, or boneless chicken breasts cut into half-inch cubes. You can substitute turmeric for saffron and dill or cilantro in place of the basil._\n\n**SERVES 4**\n\n1 pound uncooked large shrimp   \n cup chicken stock or water   \n2 teaspoons plus 1   tablespoons olive oil   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \n teaspoon red pepper flakes   \nHalf a lemon   \n cup dry white wine or vermouth   \nPinch of saffron threads   \n2 or 3 large garlic cloves, minced   \n1 tablespoon tomato paste   \nOne 14   -ounce can diced peeled tomatoes in juice   \n1   teaspoons dried oregano or mixed Italian herbs   \nHandful of minced basil or flat-leaf parsley\n\n Peel the shrimp. Add the shrimp shells to the chicken stock or water and simmer until needed. Toss the shrimp with 2 teaspoons of the olive oil, a couple of pinches of coarse salt, a few grinds of black pepper, the red pepper flakes, and a squeeze of juice from the lemon half. Combine the wine and saffron.\n\n  Heat 1   tablespoons of olive oil in a large saut\u00e9 pan over medium-high heat. Cook the shrimp until they are opaque, about 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer them to a bowl with a slotted spoon or tongs. Add a bit more oil to the pan if necessary. Cook the garlic for about 1 minute, then add the tomato paste and the wine and saffron, and cook for about 3 minutes, until some of it evaporates.\n\n Remove the shells from the stock with a slotted spoon and add the liquid to the sauce. Next add the tomatoes and dried herbs. Continue to cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes, until it is reduced to a saucelike consistency. Taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper.\n\n Add the cooked shrimp and simmer until they're heated through, about a minute or two. Remove from the heat, then stir in the minced basil or parsley and add a few squeezes of lemon over the top. Serve over hot pasta or rice.\n\n_**Easy Habits for Good Flavor**_\n\n_These \"tricks\" are the kinds of things chefs do to elevate what could be a bland dish into something much more satisfying:_\n\n  Preseason protein with a few simple seasonings before cooking, such as a bit of olive oil, coarse salt, pepper, simple herbs or seasonings, a squeeze of citrus, or a splash of vinegar.\n\n Use fresh garlic. It adds punch the way jarred garlic doesn't. Some markets offer cloves of peeled garlic as a time saver; they are commonly used in professional kitchens.\n\n Spice it up. Many cuisines add spicy ingredients as an inexpensive way to add a sassy, satisfying note to otherwise simple dishes.\n\n Finish dishes with a \"bright\" flavor at the end. Normally this is a bit of acid and\/or an herb, in this case lemon and fresh herbs. Small amounts of vinegar, especially flavored ones, can add a lot of flavor in a finished dish.\n**PART III**\n\n**Seafood, Soup, and the Importance of Leftovers**\n\n_\"So long, and thanks for all the fish.\"_\n\n\u2014Douglas Adams\n\n**Donna and Dri with their fish**\nCHAPTER 10\n\n**The Pleasures of the Fish**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**How to Buy Fish, Plus Plenty of Ways to Cook It**\n\nOne of the first things I discovered about Mike was that he didn't like fish. Sure, he was a fan of fish and chips, but most people would probably eat a brick if it was deep-fried. In Paris, when I brought home a complicated dish from culinary school featuring monkfish stuffed with delicate crab meat and wrapped in prosciutto coupled with a beurre blanc sauce, he simply said, \"It's not bad. It tastes like chicken.\"\n\nIn the years since, he's warmed up to fish. But the reasons for his initial resistance were often expressed by many of the volunteers. They felt uncomfortable selecting seafood, and I suspected this led to the inadvertent purchase of lower-quality fish. They told tales of fish stinking up kitchens and relentlessly overcooked fillets that turned out too tough, too oily, or too bland.\n\nNorth Americans eat relatively little seafood, about sixteen pounds total per capita per year, a paltry showing compared to the sixty-plus pounds of chicken we consume each year. Just 7 percent of our diet includes fish and shellfish. By comparison, it makes up more than 25 percent of that in Asian countries. Most health-care experts suggest increasing fish consumption to ensure adequate levels of omega-3 fatty acids. A growing body of research suggests that omega-3 can help deflect everything from heart disease to stroke, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and even clinical depression.\n\nI was gung ho on teaching a class about fish\u2014until I went to see a screening of the utterly depressing documentary _The End of the Line._ If you're unfamiliar with this, it focuses on the havoc wreaked on various fish species due to commercial overfishing and is often referred to as _An Inconvenient Truth_ for the oceans. Overfishing happens based on consumer whims. Take the blackened redfish craze that gripped the nation in the 1980s. To feed the extraordinary and sudden demand from restaurants and retailers, commercial netters caught redfish by the millions, devastating the species within the space of a few years. When Chilean sea bass ended up on every menu years later, the same thing happened. More than twenty species are included on various overfished lists.\n\nSo my initial enthusiasm shifted into a dilemma: Should I even do a class on fish? Most of the students commented that they might eat more if they knew how to make it.\n\n\"Are you kidding? You have to do a class on fish,\" Lisa said. \"This is Seattle. The airport has bronze salmon embedded in the floor. Why don't you bring in Ted as a guest teacher? He's a total Jedi master when it comes to fish.\"\n\nI mention my chef friend Ted often but fail to point out that he trained at the Culinary Institute of America and spent a dozen years in the industry. His early career during the 1980s involved catering for the PBS channel in Boston. As a result, two of the regular visitors to his kitchen were Paul and Julia Child. \"She'd come in and ask, 'What are you making, Chef?' But then she'd have to go out and mingle,\" he told me. \"You could tell she'd rather have been in the kitchen.\" Although he's now a financial consultant to the tech industry, Ted never lost his appetite for the kitchen.\n\nSeveral of the volunteers arrived early. I took it as a chance to catch up with them as Ted, Jeff, and Maggie set everything up.\n\n\"So we've started to buy vegetables regularly from this farm stand near our house,\" Gen said. \"We told them we were going to a Mexicanthemed party that night. Seriously, you should have seen the reaction from the owner!\" She seemed anxious to tell the story. \"He and his wife went back and forth, insisting that we had to make this amazing sangria from a recipe his grandmother brought from Peru.\"\n\nThe farm-stand owners gave Gen the recipe and helped the pair organize all the stuff to make the sangria. Just when they wondered if perhaps it was a grand marketing ploy to persuade them to purchase extra produce, the owner asked if they wanted any tamales. \"They were making tamales for this big party. We said sure, we'd try some. They gave us this huge bag of tamales for free.\"\n\nGen and her boyfriend rushed home. \"We were using this big wine jug for the sangria, trying to shove the fruit through the ittybitty hole at the top,\" she said, pantomiming the scene and laughing. \"It was kind of chaos. We had to cook all these tamales and make the sangria and rush to the party.\" But they were the hit of the night. People were impressed.\n\n\"It's funny, but that made me realize that there's a whole world beyond the supermarket,\" Gen said. \"That kind of interaction would not happen at a grocery store. I feel like I've made friends with them. We're part of this little community. It's really kind of cool, and I don't know, this sounds sort of dorky but it makes me feel like, wow, cooking can be fun in a way I never imagined.\"\n\nJodi had arrived in time to hear the end of Gen's story. She joined the discussion.\n\n\"That's so crazy you just used the word _fun,_ \" Jodi said. The past weekend, her friend had come over to cook to see what she was learning from the project. \"After an hour of cooking together, my friend turned to me and said, 'Hey. What's up with you? I can just feel the tension! You are like a madwoman. Cooking is supposed to be fun!' \"\n\nJodi said that she looked at her friend, sipping wine and relaxing. \"It just kind of hit me. I realized that cooking is not supposed to be so stressful. Why do I put myself through all this anxiety? There was always a part of me that worried about screwing something up. But at that moment, I don't know, I just had this moment of clarity.\" She paused a minute. \"God, I sound so confessional!\"\n\nJust then, Maggie clapped her hands. \"Ladies? We have some salmon for you to taste.\"\n\nTed had saut\u00e9ed five pieces and placed them in a line from least to most expensive: farm-raised Atlantic, keta, sockeye, coho, and king. Side by side, they looked remarkably different. The keta and Atlantic versions appeared pale, while the sockeye was a vivid orange-red, its denser meat marked by thick waves. The coho was almost magenta. Meanwhile, the king had the deep color of a ripe peach with a softer texture.\n\nThe group was torn on their favorite. Some preferred the \"classic\" salmon taste of the sockeye. Others thought the coho was more complex. \"The king tastes buttery, if you can say that about a fish,\" Dri said. The keta and the farm-raised Atlantic were judged \"meh\" by the group.\n\nAs a group, we contemplated the uncooked salmon, halibut, and black cod fillets set out on the table atop a bed of ice. \"The most important thing to remember is that fresh fish doesn't smell fishy,\" Ted said. \"Take a whiff. What do you smell?\" All the women leaned in. Among the responses: cucumbers, cantaloupe, sea air, the brine of an oyster. \"See? No one said 'fishy.' Those are all nice, clean fragrances. That's how fresh fish should smell,\" he said.\n\nWhether you buy fish at a grocery store or a dedicated market, you should ask to smell the fish first. If it's still whole, you should be able to touch it.\n\n\"If the guy at the counter doesn't grant letting you smell it without question, find another place to buy your fish,\" Ted said. \"Since smelling it is so important, try not to buy it wrapped in plastic. Ideally, you want to eat fish the day you buy it.\" If you must store whole fish, put it belly down in crushed ice, and remove the water as it melts to keep the fish relatively dry. \"If you don't live somewhere where you can get good fresh seafood, fish that's been flash-frozen on the boat is a great option. That's true of shrimp, too.\"\n\nAs consumers, we can be part of the problem or part of the solution based on what we opt to buy. I handed out copies of the pocket guide to buying fish from Seafood Watch. The card offers suggestions ranked as \"Best Choices,\" \"Good Alternatives,\" and \"Avoid.\" Everyone perused the cards. We reviewed the fish on the table in front of us. Good choices included the wild-caught Alaskan salmon and halibut and the trout. Bad choice? The farm-raised Atlantic salmon.\n\nI told the group that former _Gourmet_ editor Ruth Reichl made a comment at a conference I attended that stuck with me. \"You only get to vote for a president once every four years,\" Reichl said. \"But you get to vote three times a day, every day, with your dollar.\"\n\nTed picked up on that. \"Exactly. Ask questions. Ask them, 'Is this fresh? Is it frozen? Where is it from? How is it caught?' I personally try to avoid eating shrimp from Asia if I can help it. If that's the only kind of shrimp available, I change my meal plans.\"\n\nSomeone else asked about the constant refrain that eating too much fish leads to mercury poisoning. Longer-living large fish such as tuna tend to be more susceptible to mercury contamination. \"I recently heard that one good rule is to avoid eating any fish that's longer than your arm,\" I said. \"Smaller fish are good both for you and for the environment. Anchovies and sardines are wicked good for you.\" As with the beef discussion, we could have gone on all night. But it was time to cook. First, the crew dutifully spent a few minutes chopping up all the necessary vegetables for the class. As they did, they chatted.\n\n\"Oh, you'll find this funny,\" Jodi said, clearly fine with her confessional mode now. \"We were cleaning out the garage and we found one of those appliances to make roast chicken. I had forgotten about it. But now it seems strange to think that we once bought a _machine_ to make roast chicken knowing what I know now.\"\n\nSabra said that she and a friend had started to cook together once a week. \"Yeah, it's pretty cool. My friend comes over and we cook. This week we made beef stew and it was pretty awesome.\" Then she looked around. \"Oh, is that it? No more vegetables?\"\n\nWe started with a dish that I learned from an Italian friend I met in London. In a roasting pan, I added handfuls of freshly sliced red pepper, onion, asparagus stalks, garlic, and chopped black olives and covered them generously with olive oil, salt, and pepper.\n\n\"Basically, you just roast a whole bunch of vegetables, and then you nestle some fish into it,\" I said. \"I've done it with chicken breasts, too.\" I put them in a hot oven to roast. \"Okay, Ted, you're up.\"\n\nHe slapped his hands together. \"Now let's fire up some fish!\" He grabbed a saut\u00e9 pan and heated it over one of the portable burners on the worktable. As with chicken, it's key to start it on high heat and cook it quickly to get the center hot. Ted turned up the heat on the burner and added a small pool of oil to the skillet. He coated a small halibut fillet in some flour. \"This will help release it from the pan.\" He slapped the fillet into the skillet and it popped and hissed loudly as it hit the oil. Ted talked loudly over the sizzle. It sounded like incessant static. \"Always cook the presentation side first. If there's skin, then you put the side _without_ skin down first. It will get the most even heat and so it will be nicely browned.\"\n\nHe gave the pan a quick shake. \"I'm sure you've heard this before, but if you shake right after you put it in, then it's not going to stick.\" He watched it closely. After about five minutes, the bottom and edges of the translucent white fish shifted to opaque. He flipped the fillet over, covered it, and turned off the heat. \"For a fillet that's less than an inch thick, the heat of the pan will cook it through. Let it continue for about the same amount of time you did the other side.\"\n\n\"Now you need just one tool to see if the fish is done,\" he said, and held up his right index finger. Theatrically and with great purpose, he slowly brought it down to the top of the fish.\n\n\"It should feel firm in the center and hot to the touch.\" He took a fork and pulled off a section \"When it comes away in layers like this, that's called 'flaking.' That's what you want.\" He slid the fish onto a plate.\n\n\"Now we'll make a quick sauce in the same pan.\" He turned the heat back on. \"See, there's flour stuck to the bottom of the pan.\" He held it up for everyone to see. \"This is what we call ' _fond_.' It means foundation in French. This stuff has a lot of flavor.\"\n\nHe poured in a bit of white wine and it steamed immediately. \"When you put cold liquid into a hot pan to release the fond, it's called 'deglazing.' I'll tell you a trick, too. It's also a way to clean out a pan that's got a lot of gunk stuck to it.\" He added some sliced onions, zucchini, and red bell pepper, then seasoned them with salt and pepper. After a couple of minutes, he poured it over the fish. \"And bang! It's done.\" He clanged the pan down onto the counter. He topped the fish with some chopped basil.\n\n\"This is simple and fast. Learn to do this and you can cook a sauce from stuff in your fridge in fifteen minutes. If you don't drink wine or don't have it, a little stock, extra lemon juice, or lime juice will work, too.\"\n\nEveryone tasted his dish. \"Delicious!\" Trish said. \"I normally find halibut so boring. This is nice. And moist; the sauce really adds to it.\"\n\nDri asked if the flavor kisses we learned for chicken could work, too.\n\n\"Sure, it's the same concept,\" I said. \"You can try it out right now. Everyone, get a partner.\"\n\nWatching people cook week after week, I observed something interesting. On their own, the volunteers seemed tentative. When asked to pair in teams, the lesson went quickly and they experimented more freely. Perhaps it was the collaborative nature of cooking with someone else, or maybe it just felt like a safety net for any gaps in knowledge or confidence, or possibly both. It made me wonder if perhaps people ought to cook together more often, to spend some time socializing as they tackle a recipe. Sabra had mentioned that she had started to cook with a friend once a week. Perhaps we should all be meeting for a \"cooking break\" rather than coffee? Maybe mothers could cook together while their children have playdates.\n\nMy attention went back to the activity of the kitchen as each team grabbed a skillet. They carefully selected fillets as if they were either precious jewels or plastic explosives. Dri again took up residence at the big stove, with Donna working by her side. Dri felt confident with the high heat. When she saw Donna shrink back, Dri encouraged her to take over cooking the fish. They finished, each testing it with their index finger. Then they made a quick sauce with garlic, green onions, and sticks of red pepper and zucchini. As they poured it atop their fillet, they could not contain their enthusiasm.\n\n\"Check this out! We made this. It could be in a magazine.\" They were so proud, I got my camera and took their photo.\n\nSabra and Gen finished their fish so quickly that I never even saw them cook it at all. \"We're just pros, that's why,\" Sabra explained as they nibbled at their fish. Jodi and Andra took the endeavor seriously, carefully navigating each of the steps. Ted teamed up with Trish.\n\n\"But how will I know when it's done? I don't know what it's supposed to feel like,\" Trish asked him. He advised that touching it regularly as it cooked to feel how the fish firmed helps to \"train\" the ever-sensitive index finger. Like anything, the way to cook fish well is to just do it.\n\nAs everyone finished their saut\u00e9, I pulled the roasted vegetables from the oven. They'd been in for about ten minutes. \"So here's the deal. The vegetables are partially cooked. Now all you have to do is place a piece of fish on top and cover it with some hot vegetables.\" I laid a long piece of halibut in the center and scooped some of the vegetables over it. \"We'll let it roast for another fifteen or twenty minutes and then see how it's doing.\"\n\nNext, we moved onto cooking _en papillote,_ or cooking in paper, a technique wildly overlooked in American households as a simple and fast cooking method, not to mention that it requires no pans, and leaves no dishes to clean. The process is simple. Put a little oil on a large piece of parchment or foil, then add some salt and pepper. Lather a thin fillet of fish with oil or butter and salt and pepper, and then add finely sliced or diced vegetables, some herbs, a bit of wine, perhaps some citrus or vinegar. Fold the parchment or foil in two and crimp the edges tightly. Put it in the oven for fifteen minutes at 400\u00b0F. This also works for thin slices of chicken.\n\n\"You want to keep the vegetables small so they cook quickly and keep the fish or chicken sliced thin,\" Ted explained. Then he demonstrated how to close the sides by thoroughly pinching and squeezing the edges together with his fingers. \"Be sure to get a nice, tight seal so that the moisture stays trapped inside. It bakes and steams at the same time.\"\n\nEach team went to work. I wandered around the table to see what they assembled with their choice of thin fillets of black cod, salmon, or snapper. Jodi and Andra added lime, ginger, shallots, rice wine vinegar, a touch of fish sauce, and chopped basil. Jen and Sabra flavored theirs with diced cherry tomatoes, finely chopped zucchini, minced garlic, chopped dill, and lemon. Dri and Donna debated. \"Hmmm, would balsamic work or would it be too strong a flavor?\" Dri mused. Donna thought about it.\n\n\"Let's think about what we like. The olives look good. What would go with them?\"\n\n\"Tomatoes,\" Dri offered. From there, they each took some of the sliced vegetables to chop them even more finely. Their fish looked beautiful topped with diced olives, red peppers, onions, shallots, and basil and christened with wine and a touch of white balsamic vinegar.\n\nEach team wrote their names on their paper packets and slid them onto a baking sheet. I pulled out the vegetables with fish and set them on the side table. \"Wow, that looks amazing,\" Andra said. \"Smells good, too.\" I slid the trays with the parchment into the oven.\n\nEveryone chatted, tasting one another's food and the vegetable-roasted fish. \"It's all so good, and so easy,\" Gen said as she sampled her own saut\u00e9ed piece. \"I think that I am truly going to start tackling fish more often.\"\n\nAbout fifteen minutes later, Maggie pulled the paper-cooked fish from the oven. Each team carefully retrieved their hot portion and settled it onto a plate. On my signal, they opened their packets in unison by slashing them with a knife. Steam escaped from each and the collective smells burst around the room. Donna clapped her hands in delight.\n\n\"It's like opening a tasty present!\" she exclaimed. Then the room went quiet as everyone ate. \"I'm definitely doing this again!\"\n\n\"No kidding, I'm doing it, too,\" Cheryl said. \"My husband will be knocked out by this.\"\n\nThat evening made me think of that old saying \"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.\" That always struck me as such a clich\u00e9, but as I cleaned up that night I realized that these days, catching the fish isn't the issue, so teaching someone to simply cook it might accomplish the same thing.\n\n#    **Fish en Papillote, or Baked in Paper**\n\n_Simple enough for weeknights and elegant enough for guests, the smell that escapes when opening the package is reason enough to try this. To ensure thorough cooking, use thin fish fillets or chicken breast slices; this works well for salmon and mild-flavored white fish such as snapper and cod. It works best in parchment paper, but you can also use aluminum foil. Use sheets at least eight by twelve inches for each individual packet. Change up the ingredients. For instance, use sesame oil in place of olive oil and add lime, cilantro, and ginger to the package for an Asian flavor. Consult the \"Cheat Sheet\" to Flavor Profiles in the Extra Recipes section at the back of the book for more ideas._\n\n**SERVES 2 WITH INDIVIDUAL PACKETS**\n\n1  tablespoons olive oil   \nSalt and freshly ground black pepper   \nTwo 4- to 6-ounce pieces of fish or thinly sliced chicken breast   \nFew sprigs of a fresh herb (dill, basil, thyme, rosemary, or cilantro)   \nFew thin lemon or lime slices or a dash of vinegar   \n  cup white wine, water, or stock\n\n_**Vegetables**_\n\nAbout   cup finely chopped or sliced vegetables (such as shallots, onion, garlic, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, fennel, mushrooms) for flavor and garnish\n\n  Preheat the oven to 400\u00b0F. Start with two pieces of parchment paper (or aluminum foil), about 10 by 12 inches each. Fold the pieces in half. On one side of the middle crease of each piece, drizzle the olive oil and add a pinch of salt and a couple grinds of pepper. Add the fish or chicken and turn over to coat. Place the herbs, lemon, wine, and vegetables on top of the fish. Fold the parchment or foil over like a book and crimp the edges securely to avoid allowing any liquid or steam to escape from the package during cooking. Place the package on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Allow to sit at least 2 minutes. Open carefully by unraveling the edges to ensure the fish or chicken is cooked through, then serve.\nCHAPTER 11\n\n**What's in the Box?**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**Why It's Worth Cooking Outside the Box**\n\nA fancy KitchenAid stand mixer dominates the kitchens of most food writers I know. In an online tour of her kitchen, famous food author Amanda Hesser introduces her handsome gray model by saying, \"I sometimes think of this as my third child. I use it for everything.\"\n\nBy contrast, we have a simple yet heavy chrome 1960s-era Hamilton Beach stand mixer. No pasta hook, no paddle, and certainly no pasta-maker attachment. Ours is limited to a set of standard beaters; its capabilities peak at \"heavy mixing.\" The mixer is one of Mike's most cherished possessions and one of the few items inherited from his late mother. He fondly recalls scraping batter from the bowl forty years ago as the two of them made chocolate chip cookies or\u2014his favorite\u2014yellow cake with chocolate frosting. He cracked the eggs into the bowl. She gave him the spoon to lick. (Yes, with raw eggs. As a nation, we used to be less fastidious about such things.) It was their special time together and remains a sweet memory. Sure, the cake came from a box and the frosting came from a can, but the cake itself wasn't the point: His mother set aside time for him. His emotional connection outweighs any of the functionality that we might gain from fancy attachments. As a mixer, it works great. Although Hamilton Beach gave up on the model two decades ago, Mike lovingly maintains it, sourcing replacement parts from an obscure outpost in Ohio. So we won't be replacing the mixer, and that's absolutely fine by me.\n\nOne night after Mike got a little too worked up watching his alma mater's football team take a sound drumming, he snapped off the TV. He abruptly arose from the couch where I sat sifting through a stack of food magazines and announced, \"I'm going to make a cake.\"\n\nThis did not surprise me. Whenever he's upset, Mike needs something constructive to do with his hands. He might disappear to rebuild a carburetor, replace a light switch, or, as in this case, bake a cake. He started to ransack the cupboards. \"Hey, don't we have any cake mix?\"\n\n\"We have all the stuff for cake,\" I replied without looking up. \"Just look up a recipe.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Mike asked. \"You mean you can make a cake without a mix?\"\n\nA few minutes later, after looking up a recipe, Mike called out, \"So what's in the box?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\nHe brought a printout of a recipe for yellow cake into the living room. \"You've got to see this. So get this, it's just flour, eggs, baking soda, milk, sugar, and butter. But with a box you already add eggs, milk, and oil, so what's in the freakin' box?\" He was agitated. \"Just flour, sugar, and baking soda?\"\n\nA fundamental truth had hit him: You don't need a box to make a cake.\n\nFor the first time in his life, Mike made a cake from scratch with his mother's forty-five-year-old mixer. \"So that's it? This doesn't take any longer than doing it from a mix.\"\n\nAs the cake baked in the oven, he had another revelation. \"That's ALL that's in frosting? Seriously?\" Another first for Mike with the mixer: chocolate frosting from scratch, made with confectioners' sugar, butter, vanilla, cocoa, and milk.\n\nI'm among the minority of women who aren't keen on chocolate and cake isn't my thing, but I had to try the results. The flavor and texture of the cake were more interesting and varied than the onenote sugar sensation from a mix. \"It's good, don't you think?\" Mike asked as we stood at the counter contemplating the flavor. His voice had a spark of pride, and for good reason. His cake _was_ good.\n\nBut that led to a great question: What _is_ in the box? I went back to the supermarket.\n\nSugar, enriched bleached wheat flour (flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), vegetable oil shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, propylene glycol mono- and diesters of fats, mono- and diglycerides), leavening (sodium bicarbonate, dicalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate). Contains 2% or less of: wheat starch, salt, dextrose, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, cellulose gum, artificial flavors, xanthan gum, maltodextrin, modified cornstarch, colored with yellow 5 lake, red 40 lake.\n\nCuriously, in the boxed version, sugar is the ingredient in the largest quantity. Compare that list to the ingredients from the recipe Mike used for his cake:\n\nUnbleached flour, sugar, milk, eggs, unsalted butter, vanilla, baking powder.\n\nThe label for the frosting was equally unsettling:\n\nSugar, water, vegetable oil shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, mono- and diglycerides, polysorbate 60), cocoa powder processed with alkali, corn syrup. Contains 2% or less of: cornstarch, salt, invert sugar, natural and artificial flavors, caramelized sugar (sugar, water), caramel color, acetic acid, preservatives (potassium sorbate), sodium acid pyrophosphate, citric acid, sodium citrate.\n\nMike's frosting contained only five ingredients:\n\nConfectioners' sugar, cocoa powder, butter, evaporated milk, vanilla extract.\n\nAgain, there's no oil and no corn syrup in the recipe. The cost for the raw ingredients is roughly the same. Cake mixes aren't even big time savers. Multiple studies conducted from the 1950s onward comparing the time it takes to make a cake from scratch versus a boxed version have found that the average time savings ranges from one to six minutes. So why make cake from a box at all? As it happens, cake illustrates an interesting story about what we think about food and cooking. After World War II, food manufacturers had to figure out other ways to market all the food-science technology developed during the war for army rations. The end of the war meant the loss of a massive market. So instead they focused their sights on our mothers and grandmothers, starting a not-so-subtle decades-long campaign to convince people that at least some elements of cooking were not worth the effort, says Laura Shapiro, author of _Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America_.\n\n\"The food industry created a basic assumption about cooking generations ago, and it's now fully settled into place as reality. Cake mixes exist, therefore they are easier than real baking, therefore real baking is hard,\" Shapiro said. \"Another factor might be that we have frozen and boxed versions of things that really _are_ hard\u2014frozen croissants, for instance\u2014so perhaps the very fact of packaging something gives it that aura of being out of reach.\"\n\nThe difference between a real cake and a cake-mix cake was apparent to most women baking for their families in the fifties. \"But as generation followed generation, the number of home cooks recognizing that difference dwindled,\" Shapiro added. Bluntly put, consumers not only get used to but prefer the flavor of the artificial version, not the real thing.\n\nMany people believe that women started to use convenience foods in droves in the 1950s. But as Shapiro documents, women then as well as now were responsible for the vast majority of meals in homes, and they initially avoided many prepared foods for fear that they'd appear to be shirking their duty as housewives _._ Boxed cake mixes were a prime example. When they first hit the scene in the 1950s, a homemaker needed to add only water. Women dreaded the guilt of serving such a cake, not to mention the depressing faux egg flavor. So despite initial interest, sales remained stagnant. Researchers found that cooks wanted more involvement with their cakes in order to have the necessary pride of ownership that goes with baking. Food scientists never cared for the outcome of cakes using dried egg whites anyway, so they changed the formula so that home cooks could participate by adding eggs. How delightful! Women could have their boxed cake and contribute, too. With that subtle change, the sales of cake mixes skyrocketed.\n\nEven now, many boxed foods require the addition of eggs, milk, butter, oil, or margarine, even though it's unnecessary given the state of food science. But by requiring those ingredients, they give the perception of \"cooking\" without too much fuss.\n\nHowever, the \"shortcut\" of boxed cake mixes typically includes twenty-two to thirty-three ingredients, many of them polysyllabic chemicals. A friend of mine majored in chemistry in college and later went to work for a major food company. To this day, he refuses to eat ultraprocessed foods. One reason is that the method to approve food additives requires that individual ingredients be tested and weighed in isolation, and as a result no one has any idea how they all interact together.\n\n\"When it comes to food additives, we're the mice,\" he said.\n\nThat isn't all bad. Scientists love mice. Well, they make great subjects, anyway. In _The End of Overeating,_ author Dr. David A. Kessler documents the decades-long pursuit of scientists working for food manufacturers to fine-tune heavily processed and fast-food fare. Their goal: to hit a \"sweet spot\" of the holy trinity of fat, salt, and sugar, trying to turn just the right keys to unlock a dopamine response in your brain. Dopamine triggers neurotransmitters to provide an artificially enhanced pleasure response. Finding that combination for them is like the scene in old movies where a guy uses a stethoscope to listen for clicks in a huge bank vault. Suddenly, he hears the last click and, voil\u00e0! The safe opens.\n\nThe goal of food science isn't flavor but consumption. \"When scientists say a food is palatable, they are referring primarily to its capacity to stimulate the appetite and prompt us to eat more,\" Kessler noted.\n\nFor example, eat a handful of blueberries and you're easily satiated by the natural sugar. Not so with an ultraprocessed frozen blueberry waffle. Even the scent that escapes the toaster has been carefully orchestrated to heighten your anticipation. Perhaps you don't even think it tastes great, yet you still want another one . . . and perhaps another one. This odd response triggered in the brain led researchers to find that rats fed a steady diet of junk food quickly become addicted to it. Waiting for their dopamine fix from high-sugar, fatty, and salty treats, they rejected their normal \"rat chow.\" Some of them starved to death. Notably, serious habit-forming drugs such as cocaine or heroin trigger the same response in the rats.\n\nTargeting this reaction is the reason why more than three-quarters of the sodium that Americans consume comes from ultraprocessed convenience and fast foods. Does a cup of soup really need 38 percent of an adult's recommended daily salt intake to taste good? No. Does a piece of frozen lasagna need three teaspoons of sugar, the equivalent of the amount in a glazed doughnut? No. But both do if the manufacturers want you to buy more soup and more lasagna.\n\nThis explains cravings for potato chips or fast food. It's also why some children reject nonprocessed food. It takes very little time for tiny haywired brains, hungry for dopamine, to reject anything other than what might match the high-fat, high-salt, and high-sugar makeup of chicken nuggets, a frozen pizza, or a box of macaroni and cheese. Jodi's son came to mind. \"It's so hard,\" Jodi told me about trying to feed her son something other than his preferred kid's diet. \"I do my freakin' best to be patient, but then we have these scenes. So I admit it, a lot of the time I just give in and give him what he wants.\"\n\nMany nutritionists believe toddlers should consume no more than 1,000 milligrams of sodium a day; the USDA cites 1,500 milligrams. Yet one can of Campbell's condensed alphabet vegetable soup contains 2,100 milligrams. That cup of soup has a teaspoon and a half of sugar, the same amount that's in a slice of apple pie.\n\nMost packaged foods are engineered to mimic a pharmacopoeia of flavors, even if you're expected to consciously taste only one. The more complex the flavor, the more you'll eat. This explains complicated variations of fried chicken or dipping sauces for chicken nuggets. But research suggests that when one or two flavors dominate, people eat less.\n\n\"There's the obvious fact that the single most important thing about food is taste,\" says Dr. David Katz, author of _The Flavor Point Diet._ \"If we know that limiting food to simple flavors causes people to fill up faster, it really makes sense that having a wide variety of flavors engineered into foods would make people fill up slower and need to eat more. If you are choosing simpler foods . . . you will fill up faster on fewer calories.\"\n\nAll of these are great reasons to learn to pay attention to labels and focus on cooking simple foods. So for the next class, I brought in Beve Kindblade. She had been a nutritionist for nineteen-plus years and I liked her pragmatic approach. The crew wouldn't be cooking, so I lured them in with dinner. But what to serve for dinner when a nutritionist comes calling? We made lentil soup and organic greens topped with a quick strawberry vinaigrette and baked up some fresh whole wheat baguette that Mike was experimenting with at home.\n\nBeve started by casually asking the group some questions. \"So just what brings you to a class like this?\"\n\nGen went first. \"So it's kind of funny, but my mother was insulted when she found out that I was taking a cooking class,\" she said. Growing up, her mother had asked her to make dinners on Monday nights. \"She said, 'I taught you how to cook! Why do you need a class? What did I do wrong?' So I had to say, 'Oh, yes, Mom, you're right, you taught me. I just wasn't listening.'\"\n\n\"Did she teach you anything?\" Beve ask.\n\nGen thought about it. \"The only thing that I really remember was tuna curry. It's a can of tuna mixed with curry powder and sour cream. But I still don't know how to make that either.\"\n\n\"That sounds kind of disgusting,\" Terri said.\n\n\"It kind of was,\" Gen said. \"That's probably why I didn't learn to cook from her.\"\n\n\"I enjoy going out a lot more than I like cooking,\" Terri told Beve. \"I feel like the hassle of cooking for just me isn't worth it. But now that I've got high blood pressure, my doctor wants me to cut sodium, and that's hard to do if you eat a lot of fast food, which I do.\"\n\n\"I know what you mean,\" Dri said. \"I don't eat a lot of fast food, but I have to say that when I cook, I tend to make a lot. Maybe it's from growing up in a big family. Then I eat too much of it or I have leftovers forever.\"\n\nBeve listened to all their stories with genuine interest. Then she spoke about herself, her voice full of Southern twang. Her decision to go into the field came from her own \"What's in the box?\" moment. Growing up in North Carolina farming country, Crisco was a pantry staple used for everything. \"Heck, I even won the Crisco is Cooking Award and still have the trophy! So why would a _shortening_ get me interested in nutrition, anyway? Because I asked one simple question: How is it made?\" She learned that Crisco was a man-made product that shifted natural liquid plant oil into a solid that doesn't really exist in nature. \"My response was, If it doesn't exist in nature, how does my body know what to _do_ with it? But no one then could really answer my question. That's how my career got started.\"\n\nThe group paid rapt attention to the down-to-earth Beve. \"My goal is to bring people back to the joy of eating. The best medicine for you is good food. I have eight hundred patients, and when I see most of them, they're wiped out.\" Her youngest patient is three years old; her oldest, ninety-one. She orders labs to find nutritional issues such as those involving blood sugar, vitamin D, or potassium. A couple of people nodded. Terri noted that she'd heard about vitamin D on _Oprah_. \"It's funny, this kind of stuff has to get on _Oprah_ or _Dr. Oz_ before people start to believe it, doesn't it?\"\n\nSome of Beve's information was new to me. \"If you consume coffee, you should wait an hour before you eat anything because the caffeine will stall your body from getting nutrients from the food,\" she said. \"Increasing fiber is one of the best things you can do in your diet. If you eat pasta, make it one hundred percent whole grain. Fiber helps drop your sugar. I have one client whose weight can fluctuate by sixty pounds just based on how much rice he eats.\"\n\nMost people have cravings due to deficiencies. \"If you increase protein in your diet, cravings for carbohydrates and sweets go away. It doesn't matter if the protein comes from meat, fish, or beans.\" For people who eat meat, she suggests consuming half as much, but spending the same amount of money to buy better quality. Grass-fed beef doesn't hike up cholesterol or estrogen levels and includes more omega-3 fatty acids than traditional beef. \"If you normally use a pound of ground beef in spaghetti or eat an eight-ounce steak, halve the amount and buy grass-fed beef instead.\"\n\nShe advocated reading labels on everything. \"A 'health nut muffin' sold at a coffee shop near my office had more sugar than cake does,\" she said. But the name would lead one to believe that it's healthy. \"You want muffins? Make your own and cut down the sugar. Learn to make your own salad dressings, too.\"\n\n\"We did that! I make vinaigrette all the time now,\" Gen piped up. \"It's so easy.\"\n\nBeve nodded. \"Yes, it is. By learning to make some simple things you'd normally buy prepared, you'll be amazed at how easily you can avoid ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, the hydrogenated oils, sodium, that sort of thing. We consume way too much soy in our diet, especially soybean oil.\"\n\nDri took a lot of notes. She had been practicing every lesson at home. Weight had been an issue for her for years, and part of her interest in cooking was to simply eat a healthier diet. \"I'm finding that as I make more of my own food, I don't want some of the things that I used to eat. I mean, I look at boxes of pasta or rice dishes and I think that doesn't even appeal to me anymore.\"\n\nTerri nodded. \"The thing with me, though, is that I would probably not be good at memorizing a lot of rules, or I don't want to change what I'm eating too much. I mean, after listening to all this, I'm thinking that fast food, for sure, simply has to go.\"\n\nBeve's basic rules were simple. \"My clients can eat almost anything as long as a serving exceeds three grams of fiber and has less than six grams of sugar and more than six grams of protein. That pretty much eliminates ninety percent of the prepared stuff you find in the supermarket.\"\n\nMost convenience foods fall short of the fiber requirement not only due to the nature of processing but also because the ideal shelf-stable foods lack fiber. Their softer state makes them easier to freeze and ship, as well as faster to consume. Plus fiber fills. That's not good for manufacturers who want you to eat a lot. That's their profit margin.\n\nI had seen a presentation called \"Sugar: The Bitter Truth\" by Robert H. Lustig. He argues that sugar in any form is bad news. \"When god made the poison, he packaged it with the antidote. Sugarcane is a stick. You can't even chew it,\" he said.\n\nWhen I mentioned that to Beve, she agreed that everyone consumes too much sugar, often without knowing it. \"Food labels don't help.\" Sugar is listed in grams on nutrition labels, and there's no \"daily requirement\" for sugar. \"Why not? You don't really need fructose. You can get all the sugar you need from carbohydrates, dairy, and fruit. The last thing you need is sugar added to food. But if you're going to eat something like cake, make it from scratch, not a box.\" Her reasoning, in part, is that you'll see the sugar you're creaming into the butter. \"Most sugar is so hidden that you never know it's there.\"\n\nLisa had been sitting next to me. She got up and started looking at the labels on various items in the kitchen. She quietly came back, sat down, and whispered, \"How much sugar is in a gram, anyway?\" I didn't know. I later checked. Four grams equals a teaspoon of sugar, so a tablespoon is twelve grams. As I began to routinely note the sugar on every can, jar, or bottle I picked up, I was surprised to find the sugars lurking in foods I didn't necessarily consider sweetened, such as granola bars, yogurt, or even ketchup; a tablespoon of the latter contains a full teaspoon of sugar.\n\nBeve fielded a hail of questions. Are frozen fruits and vegetables a good choice? \"Sure,\" Beve answered. \"Sometimes frozen vegetables are actually better than fresh vegetables, as they haven't been shipped a long distance and may have more nutrients still intact.\"\n\nWhat about fat? \"Fat isn't necessarily bad. Some fats are good. I think everyone could use eating half an avocado every day,\" she said. \"Trans fats, anything that's hydrogenated, that's not good. But you're better off eating a little fat than eating a lot of something that's nonfat. Often nonfat stuff has additional sugar in it.\"\n\nHer final conclusion: It's your life. No one will judge you for ordering in a pizza every so often or if you have the occasional hit of ramen noodles for lunch. \"But when it comes right down to it, Michael Pollan had it right. Don't eat anything that your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food, or at least don't eat it all the time,\" Beve said. \"Just eat simply. If you cook more and you think about it, even just get in the habit of reading labels, you're more than halfway there.\"\n\n#    **Mike's Yellow Cake**\n\n_Most off-the-shelf cake mixes are filled with excessive sugars, hydrogenated oils, and other additives. Considering that a boxed cake requires getting out a mixer or beater to add at least three ingredients, consider trying one from scratch. You can use a mesh or small-holed colander to sift the flour if you don't have a sifter. You just want to get rid of lumps and add some air. It's best to measure the f lour after you've sifted it. Cake flour will yield the best results, but all-purpose flour will work if you don't have it, or make your own as noted below. Just be aware that plain all-purpose flour will result in a denser, flatter, and pale-colored cake. This is based on a recipe from the folks at Wilton, the baking and cake decorating goods company._\n\n3 cups sifted cake flour (300 grams), or 2  cups sifted all-purpose   \nflour (300 grams)   \n2  teaspoons baking powder   \n  teaspoon salt   \n1  cups sugar   \n6 tablespoons unsalted, softened butter (  cup or 150 grams)   \n1  teaspoons vanilla   \n2 eggs   \n1  cups milk\n\n  Preheat the oven to 350\u00b0F. Grease the bottoms of two 8-inch round cake pans; line the bottoms with wax paper or parchment paper. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.\n\n  With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the sugar and butter together until they become light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. Add the vanilla, then beat in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly incorporated, about 4 minutes.\n\n  Next, add one-third of the flour mixture, then half the milk, then more flour mixture, then the rest of the milk, and end with the rest of the flour mixture, beating well after each addition. When it's all combined, beat for one more minute.\n\n  Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pans. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from the pans. Cool completely before frosting.\n\n_**Note**_\n\nYou can make your own version of cake flour by sifting   cup all-purpose flour (84 grams) with 2 tablespoons cornstarch (15 grams) for each cup of cake flour called for in a recipe.\n\n#    **Creamy Chocolate Frosting**\n\n_Making your own frosting eliminates heavy doses of corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils, which form the bulk of most canned frostings. If this gets too slippery for frosting a cake, toss it in the fridge for a few minutes to let it thicken. Don't skip the sifting of the sugar and cocoa as that would change the texture of the frosting. Don't bother using fancy cocoa powders or blends here; plain cocoa powder such as Hershey's will provide the best outcome._\n\n2  cup confectioners' sugar   \n6 tablespoons cocoa powder   \n6 tablespoons butter, softened   \n5 tablespoons evaporated or 2 percent milk   \n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n  Sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa; set aside.\n\n  Using a mixer or a beater, cream the butter until smooth. Gradually shake in the sugar-cocoa mixture, alternating with the milk. When all is combined thoroughly, add the vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. Add more milk or cocoa powder if needed to adjust consistency and to taste.\nCHAPTER 12\n\n**Waste Not, Want Not**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**Using Your Leftovers Can Save Money and Help the World**\n\nFor the four years I lived in London, I held a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Most people outside North America seem confused by the whole concept. An English friend once asked, \"So what does Thanksgiving have to do with the Fourth of July again?\" It may take the isolation of expatriation to appreciate the curious nature of Thanksgiving. We commemorate a holiday prompted by the most puritanical of Christians with one of the seven deadly sins, gluttony.\n\nThe reason for the original Thanksgiving, at least the one attributed to the Pilgrims, was to celebrate bounty in a time otherwise gripped by hunger, since the Puritans spent the bulk of their time and resources figuring out how to avoid starving to death.\n\nMany things interest me about Thanksgiving. It's one of the rare opportunities when most people give genuine thought to meal planning, cook a whole animal, make a lot of food from scratch, and celebrate the use of leftovers. Part of the experience of the holiday is the nature of the feast, each person assigned a role, from setting the table to mashing potatoes to crafting a pie.\n\nOf course, that's before everyone falls asleep in a tryptophan haze in front of the television. As my husband likes to point out, the occasional Cowboys and Redskins football games scheduled on the day demonstrate just how far we've drifted from the whole concept of that first Thanksgiving with our Native American hosts.\n\nEven as they bemoan food prices, American consumers are generally unaware that they spend less of their wages on food than any other country in the world; just under 10 percent of their paychecks. Compare that to 1900, when 40 percent of wages went toward food. Around 1960, the first time the amount spent on food was no longer the biggest expenditure, the figure was about 25 percent. The declining cost comes with the rise of industrialization of farming practices and the shift of everything we eat\u2014from pigs to cows to orange juice\u2014into mass-produced merchandise.\n\nPerhaps it's the lack of investment that leads to a cavalier attitude toward food. We may give thanks for our bounty once a year, but then as a country we collectively waste about 40 percent of the food produced for consumption the rest of the time. Anthropologist Timothy Jones spent more than a decade studying food waste. His research finds that some crops sit abandoned or unharvested in the fields where they're grown. Supermarkets or suppliers discard another few percent dismissed as too imperfect for retail. The rest\u2014about 25 to 30 percent\u2014we throw away at home. That food goes into landfills to rot, where it emits clouds of methane, a greenhouse gas more toxic and damaging than carbon monoxide.\n\n\"By treating edibles as a disposable commodity, we teach our children not to value food,\" says Jonathan Bloom, author of the book _American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)_. He puts the figure on what we waste at more than $100 billion annually. This jived with what I found in the interviews with the volunteers and the kitchen visits and what I observed in my own house and in the homes of friends. A few of the volunteers agreed to keep a journal of what they bought, ate, and threw out for two weeks. The result? They reported less waste due to the guilt they felt knowing they had to write it down, but even then, an average of 18 percent of their grocery bills went into the trash.\n\nBut why do we waste so much? Both Jones and Bloom offer some interesting insights.\n\nFirst, people often shop for the life they aspire to, not their real one. Everyone knows that they're supposed to eat fruit and vegetables, so we stock up on perishables. Since most people don't plan meals for the week, those beets or greens that looked so great at the farmers' market sit untouched as we end up eating convenience foods. With proper planning, buying in bulk or loading up on twofor-one deals can be a genuine money saver; without a plan, it's just a recipe to double or triple the amount of food tossed away.\n\nDr. Trubek from the University of Vermont has studied the activities of home cooks for years. To her, the greatest lack of skill when it comes to cooking isn't the inability to wield a knife. \"Planning menus is the greatest skill that we've collectively lost,\" she said. \"That, and what to do with leftovers.\" Fortunately, I found two people to help out with both subjects.\n\nAs part of my search for volunteers, I had been a guest on a radio show with celebrity chefs Tom Douglas and Thierry Rautureau. A week after the show, Chef Thierry e-mailed me. \"I'm curious about your plan. Would you like some help?\" As I noted earlier, Thierry hosted a regular radio segment called _What's in the Fridge?_ Callers would dial in and discuss the contents of their kitchen, and Chef Thierry would offer suggestions. Thierry had walked callers through using everything from slivers of avocado to too much zucchini to half a turkey. If anyone could inspire someone to use leftovers, he was the man.\n\nChef Thierry walked into our kitchen in shorts, a tasteful tropical shirt, and flip-flops, his expensive chef's jacket flung over his shoulder.\n\n\"I am here!\" he announced with a flourish, smiling and extending his arm in a wide embrace. Thierry has the classic dark coloring of a Frenchman and immediately owns a room. \" _Mes ch\u00e9ris,_ do you have anything for a cocktail? Tonight is my night off.\"\n\nThat week, people were crazy from the heat. The temperature spiked up to 103 degrees\u2014a record. Lisa went to five places looking for ice and found a lone bag stranded at the bottom of an ice case at a gas station. We chiseled an area out of the packed stand-up freezer for our sacred bag. We presented him with a bowl of it and led him over to the fridge. Jeff and Mike moved around the table and chairs to set up an ersatz demo area as Thierry demonstrated his first use of leftovers, a pitcher of cocktails from remnant vodka, vermouth, and limes. He held up his glass and smacked his lips after tasting his creation. \"Ah! _Fantastique!_ Now I can talk leftovers!\"\n\nFor him, teaching people not to waste food is personal. He grew up on a small farm in the Muscadet region of France in an area where cows and chickens outnumbered people. His family cooked only what they grew, and as the oldest child, Thierry routinely took on the task of helping with dinner. His family ate meat only once a week, usually on Sundays. He remembers many lean times. At age fourteen, he started an apprenticeship with a local restaurant, training that eventually took him throughout France, to Chicago, and ultimately to Seattle. One of the best meals I've had in my entire life was at his restaurant Rover's. The simple roasted squab sat in a warm bath of seafood _nage,_ a kind of light broth. I qualify that meal as a near sexual experience; it was embarrassing to eat in front of the two people with me at the table. This kind of reaction may account for the popularity of his restaurants.\n\nWith a celebrity chef as a teacher, the volunteers turned up in force, a few bringing along friends or family members. As the crowd spilled in, Thierry put his chef's jacket over his shirt and downed his drink. \"Ah, the chef must stay hydrated,\" he said as he poured another.\n\nI welcomed everyone in. \"No diapers today, you are just going to watch.\" Everyone took a seat.\n\n\"But I want Chef Thierry to see my knife,\" Sabra said, disappointment in her voice, as she sat down next to Gen.\n\n\"Oh, speaking of that, I got a new knife,\" Gen said. \"And I just bought a whole chicken yesterday. It was so much cheaper than buying the chicken breasts already separated. My boyfriend was pretty confused about how I am going to turn this whole chicken into fajitas, but he shall soon see how it's done.\"\n\nDri piped in. \"Oh, I buy them all the time now. I'm getting so fast at it. I mean, they're not the most beautiful pieces of chicken, but they taste the same, right?\"\n\n\"I roasted a chicken, too,\" Shannon added. \"And I have to say that I've rarely done that because I was so scared of undercooking it. We have two meat thermometers and neither seemed to work. One said it was 130 degrees and the other one said it was 230 degrees. I was like, What's going on with this chicken? So I pulled the legs away toto check on the juices and pierced the thigh to tell if it was done. My husband was like, 'How did you know to do that?' It was like a Jedi trick or something.\"\n\n\"Hey, have any of you made the bread?\" Trish asked. Jodi, Shannon, Dri, and Cheryl said they had at least once. \"Mine didn't turn out. I wonder if my yeast was bad.\" As they started to discuss their various bread experiences, Chef Thierry clapped his hands at the demonstration table. Almost immediately, sweat beaded on his neck. It felt about a thousand degrees in the kitchen.\n\n\"I'm not going to turn on the stove since it's a record heat day here, yes?\" said Thierry, the seasoned charmer. \"So _What's in the Fridge?_ is based on a very simple idea that happens in every home, even mine.\" People buy ingredients for a recipe but don't use them all. Or they're left with bits of random food. It's easy to throw those out.\n\n\"In America, we have a full fridge and it's so full that we can't even close the door. People look inside at this stuffed fridge and think, There's nothing to eat! I always wonder, What are you waiting for? A hand to hold out a sandwich for you? But one of the most important things to learn in life is to nourish yourself and those around you. I've been doing it for thirty-five years, which is amazing considering that I am only thirty-nine years old!\"\n\nI mentioned to him that I had just taken part in a challenge posted by a food writer friend, Kim O'Donnel, as part of the national movement called \"Eating Down the Fridge.\" The idea is to avoid buying groceries for a week, and instead try to use the remnant food instead.\n\n\"I love that!\" Thierry approved. He suggested putting a favorite photo in the back of the fridge and freezer. \"You'll want to see it, and if you can't, there's something wrong. Your fridge shouldn't be that full.\"\n\nUsing up older products first is known as rotation in restaurants. Home cooks need to learn it, he said. \"Buy one pepper, not three. Buy three potatoes, not three pounds. You'll have less waste and it will help you as a cook.\n\n\"If you have less food in your fridge it will actually push you to cook better. You will have to make something different. It will force substitutions. You think, I don't have a green pepper but, oh, wait, I have a zucchini, so I will try that. It's a good thing. That's how you learn.\"\n\nPeople give up on food too easily. They throw out a whole apple due to one dent that could easily be cut away. \"That zucchini that looks a little soft today? It's like anything, like paying bills. The more you avoid it, the worse it gets. It will never look any better. It will just look worse in a week when you get around to throwing it out.\"\n\nThierry has some fundamental strategies. \"Soup is a gift for leftovers. In the summer, I love to make cold soups; in the winter, I make hot soups.\" He will unload all the unused vegetables from his fridge. \"Get half an onion, caramelize it, add your leftover vegetables, some water or stock; it does not take long to make.\" Salads are big with him. \"It is easy, and it's almost like not really cooking.\" With that, we went to the fridge.\n\nEveryone shifted off their seats to the set of handsome upright commercial fridges. By this point, we had accumulated leftovers from all the various classes. We had also asked people to bring in leftovers. Sabra brought in the remnants of a cheeseburger and fries; someone else brought in a hard-boiled egg; another, leftover chicken salad.\n\n\"Wow, this is so well stocked, we will eat like _cochon_ tonight,\" Thierry said, tossing out the French word for \"pig\" as he pawed through the bounty, which included mushrooms, basil, garlic, eggs, lemon halves, bell peppers, a red onion, and various cheeses. \"Wow, this is fun, but this is probably a lot more food than you have at home. Most of you have things more like that,\" he said, picking up the bit of chicken salad. \"Oh, look, here's some zucchini.\"\n\nSome volunteers traded glances. \"We've cut up a _lot_ of zucchini,\" Terri said.\n\nJeff set down a big bowl for Thierry to collect his choices from the fridge. He started dropping the produce into it. Then he came to some cream left over from last month. \"Oh, this doesn't go into dinner. This should go into a museum!\" he said.\n\nHe stumbled onto tomatoes. \"Oh, no, tomatoes in the fridge.\" Uh-oh, I put those in there. \"Never do this, do you know why?\" he asked the group.\n\nTrish raised her hand. \"Because it kills the flavor?\"\n\nThierry pointed at her and then slapped his hands together in affirmation. \"Yes! Lemons shouldn't really go in the fridge either.\"\n\nHe concentrated again on the fridge and took out a nearly empty jar of mustard. He turned to the group. \"Love it. This is great. You get to the bottom of a jar of mustard, you add some lemon\"\u2014he picked up half a lemon from the bowl\u2014\"and then some olive oil and shake it up. Voil\u00e0, you have vinaigrette. Or just add some vinegar and canola oil. Use what's in your house; that's the name of the game.\"\n\n\"We learned to make vinaigrette, but I love the tip about the mustard jar,\" Shannon said. \"You could do that with the end of the jam in a jar, too.\"\n\n\"Or the end of a bottle of olive oil, since there's always some on the sides,\" Dri added.\n\nI conjured up many options: the bottom of a jar of pesto, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, or sesame oil. \"That's a great tip, Chef,\" I said.\n\nHe stumbled onto a bouquet of parsley. \"Greens, store them like flowers, the stems in some water. And a batch of parsley like this?\" He held up a bunch of the green stuff. \"It is a massive amount for a couple of people. Make a kind of pesto sauce with it. Chop it up in a food processor with olive oil, garlic, perhaps walnuts. Freeze it in ice cube trays. It will be a frozen cube of green. You can then take some hot, drained pasta and toss in a cube of the pesto, or you can add it to the top of steamed or roasted vegetables. You will look like Martha Stewart!\"\n\n\"That could be a great flavoring for chicken,\" Dri observed.\n\nHis inventory complete, he brought his choices back to the demonstration table and everyone sat down again. Lisa circulated more ice water. The traffic was loud outside, so we closed the door so that Thierry could be heard, but the heat became unbearable. Thierry waved for us to open the door and just talked louder.\n\n\"It's so tempting to overbuy, but discipline yourself,\" he said. \"Don't buy enough fruit for the next two months. Buy it just for the next two days. Just because you can buy something doesn't mean you should. That half flat of raspberries? Yes, it looks great. But that's six pints, it's a lot. You need a Plan A _and_ a Plan B _and_ a Plan C on what to do with that much. We've lost the art of preserving and of canning, the whole idea of harvest,\" he said. \"There is seasonality to food, but we don't feel it. There was a tradition to get as much as you could from the harvest and save it for the year.\"\n\nI thought about that point. We live in a time when you can get peaches in January in Cleveland thanks to an international transportation system that can ship food long distances. In America, food comes from sunnier states such as California and Florida, Mexico, or Central or South America. In Europe, the food comes from Spain, Turkey, or various African countries.\n\nThierry advised that if you buy too much, you can do home IQF, which stands for \"individually quick frozen.\" Spread berries or vegetables on a tray, freeze them, and when frozen, put them into a plastic bag. \"In January, you can pull out a handful onto your pancakes and it's summer again.\" He took a sip of his cold drink and mopped his face with a diaper.\n\nAll the volunteers had small legal pads. He noticed. \"I see you writing. Here's an assignment. Go home. Open your fridge. Take everything out. Toss out only the truly bad expired stuff. Then come up with a plan to use what's left.\"\n\nThis is especially true with spices, he said. \"Most people have a museum of spices. If you have spices that are more than two years old, toss them out. Find a place that sells spices in bulk and buy one ounce of all the spices you think you'll use. After a year, see how much you've used. When you have fresh spices, you'll notice. Everything will taste so much better. You will taste cinnamon, not dust.\"\n\nThen Chef made a salad. He started to discuss onions. \"I like to caramelize them; it adds so much flavor.\" He picked up a knife and got ready to chop. \"Do you all know how to chop an onion? Does anyone want to come up and chop with me?\"\n\nSabra bolted her hand in the air. \"We're professionals at that,\" she declared. She jumped up to cut with the chef. Thierry chopped his onion, a fluid motion. Sabra then chopped hers quickly and confidently. Thierry raised his eyebrows. \"Ah, you do know how to chop an onion. I am impressed.\"\n\nChef showed Sabra how to skin a bell pepper, a tricky technique that involved sliding the knife under the pepper. Sabra did it. She raised her hands over her head in victory. Gen and Shannon highfived her as Sabra returned to her seat. \"You all are very good. You must have a good teacher,\" he said, and winked at me.\n\nNot to be outshone by a twenty-three-year-old prodigy, Chef finely sliced a tomato into paper-thin slices and then curved them into a circle, a classic French technique. He briefly saut\u00e9ed the onions, adding strips of the peeled red pepper. He placed them artfully into the center of the sliced tomato and topped the dish with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, chopped basil, and a sprinkle of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Finally, he topped it off with two anchovies.\n\n\"It is nice to really think about different ways to make salad. You do not necessarily need lettuce, see? It doesn't take too many components to make it work. It's funny, most people are afraid of messing up their kitchens by cooking. I want to ask, How do you feel about your bedroom?\" he said, raising an eyebrow.\n\nThen he presented his dish. It was beautiful, with the deep red of the tomatoes set against the green of the basil and zucchini and the velvety caramelized onions.\n\n\"Trust yourself. Yes, I am a chef, but I am like all of you. I just want something good to eat after a long day working,\" he said. \"I believe all of you can do it. Prove me right.\" With that, the chef took a bow, tipped his hat, and the crowd applauded. \"You know what I have for dinner some nights? Fresh bread, jam, and hot chocolate. You don't have to cook every night. Just eat real food.\"\n\nThen he looked at his glass. \"Oh, no, this is empty. Is there any more . . . water?\" With that, I understood why he wanted a _clear_ cocktail.\n\nI knew that Chef Thierry would be a hard act to follow. But the way to avoid a lot of leftovers in the first place is to plan meals. So the next week another guest speaker came to talk to the group. Jenny, the supermarket chef, waddled into the kitchen eight months pregnant. A fair-skinned blonde who was likely a waif in her less exaggerated state, she looked tired when she arrived. \"I'm so excited to teach tonight, but do you have a stool? I can't stand up for more than eight minutes.\"\n\nJenny started her culinary career working in restaurants (at one time for Chef Tom Douglas, in fact). But she decided that she wanted to make more of an impact on how people cook at home. Her present position was as a chef with a high-end grocery where she interacted daily with shoppers and home cooks. Most people acquire their food through supermarkets and Jenny knows how markets work.\n\n\"Strategists figure out how to use every single inch of a supermarket to get the most profit out of it,\" she said. \"Nothing is left to chance.\"\n\nFew of us realize that we shoppers are mice in a complex retail maze. Supermarkets spend a vast amount of money to figure out how shoppers behave. Every detail is purposeful, from the music they play to the size of the font declaring sales. For instance, you probably notice that it's chilly in a supermarket. I used to think that was because the chill helped to preserve the food. In fact, cold triggers hunger. If you're hungry, you'll buy more. The first thing that you run into in a supermarket is the produce section. The tactile experience of touching food and the bright colors get you in the mood for shopping. The milk, flour, and cereal are invariably spaced far apart. Why? Supermarkets are designed to slow you down. The longer you spend in the maze of a store trying to find staples, the more likely you'll buy something on impulse. Food manufacturers pay for premium shelf placement at eye level, or, in the cereal aisle, at the eye level of children.\n\n\"God, that explains why I hate the cereal aisle!\" Shannon said. \"I dread it. My kids will come up to me and say, 'Why can't we have this cereal, Mommy, it's got Cinderella on it? Most of the time, I will be like, Where did you get that? I didn't even see it.\"\n\n\"Manufacturers also pay for premium space at the ends of aisles, known as the end caps,\" Jenny said. \"Sometimes this stuff is on sale, sometimes not. A lot of times the best deal is not on the end cap but around the corner in the aisle.\"\n\nTerri nodded and took notes. She had said during her kitchen visit that she loathed shopping. \"I have never felt like a very savvy shopper,\" she said. \"I always want to get in and get out and I could never figure out why it took so long or why sometimes I would pick up stuff that I thought was on sale, like on the end stands, and then it wasn't.\"\n\nLike Thierry, Jenny pulled leftover items out of the fridge. While Thierry was classically trained via the rigors of the French apprentice system, Jenny had earned her degree from a well-respected program at a local community college. Yet much of their messages were the same.\n\n\"If you want to save money and eat well, worry less about buying in bulk or what's on sale,\" Jenny started. \"The number one way to save money on your grocery bill is to not waste food. You can buy in bulk, within reason, on nonperishables, but for the fresh stuff, just buy less and shop more often.\"\n\nSmart shoppers plan meals and use thorough lists. They also stock up on basic staples. The meal plan doesn't have to be a strict \"tuna casserole on Tuesday,\" but a looser structure that simply means planning five or six meals for the week.\n\n\"There's nothing wrong with eating the same things routinely. The goal is to feed yourself and the people around you with real food. Cook on the weekends and use leftovers during the week. If you'll eat the leftovers, cook twice as much as you'll eat and put the rest aside for lunches. Or cook twice the amount you'll eat and feed your neighbors once a week and have them do the same for you.\"\n\n\"For nights you have no plan, I tell shoppers to figure out a few simple strategies that are quick and use up the bits of food you've got in your fridge. Some require very little cooking. I have some strategies that I call 'Desperation Dinners.' \"\n\nThe first involved a whole wheat flatbread. \"You can do this with naan or tortillas, too.\" From our leftovers, she added a handful of mozzarella, cut-up tomatoes, some garbanzo beans, some chopped red onion, half a red pepper, and then she cracked an egg in the middle. \"I am a trained chef, but you know what I cook with most on weekdays? Our toaster oven.\"\n\nShe slid the flatbread and egg into the kitchen's toaster oven. She made three different versions using the leftovers: a bit of ham, sliced Parmesan, chopped leeks, zucchini, sliced mushrooms. On each she cracked an egg and then chucked it into the toaster oven. When they emerged, the egg whites and yolks cooked, she topped them with a handful of arugula lightly dressed in olive oil. \"It's an easy way to use up bits of greens, and kids like anything that looks like a pizza. Tortillas or flatbreads keep well, or you can always freeze them and then quickly thaw for a few seconds in the microwave.\"\n\nNext she demonstrated \"Desperation Pasta.\" She seasoned the water with salt and pepper. As the pasta started to cook, she cut a few florets of broccoli off the stem and crafted strips of carrots with a vegetable peeler. \"I like to do this with carrots. They cook quickly, and they add some nice color.\" She dropped both into the water as the pasta finished cooking. After two minutes, she drained the pasta and dropped it into a bowl and tossed it with a handful of greens and grated cheese. \"Now I'm just going to top it with some olive oil, some vinegar, and taste to see if it needs more salt and pepper. Vinegar is wildly overlooked. It's great to add flavor, and it has no calories, plus it has great shelf life. Really wakes up food.\"\n\nShe explained the concept of dinners as \"layers.\" Her daughter will eat the first layer, say, plain pasta with grated cheese and maybe some broccoli. For Jenny and her husband, she'll \"finish\" the dish with pine nuts, chopped chilies, greens, saut\u00e9ed shrimp, and so on. \"If your kids are fussy, you don't have to make a completely different dish. Just evolve it into something more suited for adult tastes.\"\n\nThe class asked about gadgets. She doesn't use many. \"A microplaner is great. You can use it to grate cheese, garlic, gingerroot, just a ton of stuff.\" We handed out slices of her Desperation Pizzas and Pasta. While everyone ate, she discussed more shopping tactics. Make a list of foods with strong flavors that store well in your pantry\u2014things like capers, artichoke hearts, beans, dried mushrooms, and olives, that sort of thing. Buy basics in bulk, and buy fresh sparingly until you routinely use _all_ of your produce, and then add more. \"For produce, I look for what's fresh, in season, and hopefully on sale. We buy a whole chicken every time we shop. Sometimes I break it down but usually I just roast it for dinner that night. I have learned endless uses for it. Salads, pasta, burritos, chicken potpie, chicken salad, risotto. The list goes on. Then I make chicken stock, which also has endless uses.\"\n\n\"Oh, and a basil plant is a great investment,\" she said. \"Any herbs that you buy regularly, consider keeping those plants in your kitchen window. You can get an herb plant at a nursery for the same price as a package of herbs at a grocery and just use what you need.\"\n\nLike Thierry, she advocated trying to force using the last elements in the fridge. \"Try this: Open your fridge. Take out three ingredients that sound like they go together. Put them into the search engine of a recipe site that you trust. If it turns out terrible, well, it's just one meal.\"\n\nJenny summed up the evening with one message. \"You have to define what value is to you in your food. Is it cheap? Or are you going to get a lot of enjoyment from it? Maybe I'll splurge on some great flank steak, but then we'll get three meals from it. But the key thing is to think of food as money. You wouldn't toss a five-dollar bill in the garbage can, would you? If you throw a head of lettuce and some dead cucumbers in the trash, it's exactly the same thing. It adds up.\"\n\nShannon took a lot of notes. She had told us that she spent about seven hundred dollars a month on food, which turned out to be average for a family of four, according to the USDA. But she was always looking for ways to extend her budget. \"Everything that we've been learning in class has been so helpful, but thinking about this whole leftover piece is a big thing for me. I've never been one of those people who could open the fridge and figure out stuff to make from it. I think that's how stuff goes bad, by not knowing what to do with it. This is all super helpful.\"\n\nTrish had been trying to plan more meals, but she had recently figured out the problem. \"My husband likes to be spontaneous. I'll have dinner halfway done, and then we'll go to yoga. Afterward, he'll say, 'Let's go out.' But I have dinner half-finished at home. So that's still a challenge for me.\" On the positive side, they rarely throw away food thanks to his fearless approach to sell-by dates. \"Oh, he'll eat everything, even stuff with mold on it!\"\n\nThe morning after Jenny's class, I took everything out of my fridge, from the condiments to the last remnants of vegetables from the crisper. I remembered the heavy use of Post-it notes throughout the commercial kitchen. I estimated the cost of every item and tagged each with a price on a Post-it. In the course of two weeks, if I had to throw an item away, I'd take the Post-it note and stick it to an area inside one of my cabinet doors.\n\nAlmost immediately, tossing something signaled defeat by surrender. My mind-set changed: Oh, no, I don't want to put that Post-it for this bell pepper on my door. Hmmm, what can I do with it? At the end of two weeks, I'd thrown out about sixteen dollars in food, less than usual but still nothing to make me proud. Among the culprits: remnants of hummus of unknown origin, the estimated cost of leftover bits from dinners, the end of a bag of red grapes, a smudge of mesclun salad left in the container, a nearly full package of sour cream, half a lime that turned brown, leftover chicken salad, half a sandwich brought home from a restaurant that got pushed behind our bread dough, and crumbled bleu cheese that had taken on a disturbing consistency. But the exercise forced me to use some items that I might have tossed: bits of bread pulverized into bread crumbs, the last of a jar of horseradish added to mayo for a spread for sandwiches, black bananas pur\u00e9ed into a kind of ice cream, limp carrots and green onions forced into duty in stock, wizened apples cut up and baked and topped with brown sugar on top of oatmeal, and half an avocado whipped with olive oil and sparkling water for a kind of dressing. One came directly from Jenny, her ersatz \"pizza,\" with the last half handful of just-starting-to-wilt spinach.\n\nDuring the process, I started to read _More-with-Less Cookbook_ by the late Doris Janzen Longacre, a classic cookbook developed in the early 1970s with the Mennonite Central Committee that's still in use twenty-five years later. Longacre preached avoiding heavily processed foods, eating simple meals and more whole grains, and relying less on meat. She advocated shortening the shopping list and developing a stable of recipes on which to rely rather than trying to reinvent the culinary wheel for every single meal. In an opening scene, she describes a four-color advertising pitch she received in the mail for a new recipe-card set that promised to \"make cooking easier and more exciting than ever before!\" The ad stunned her sensibilities. \"The pitch indicates again how we try to turn eating into a super-experience,\" she wrote.\n\nIt reminded me of an old issue of a food magazine that had offered a week of \"fast meals.\" The lineup included a shrimp curry, Moroccan spiced lamb chops, a Mediterranean fish saut\u00e9, a beef stir-fry, and seared scallops with braised cabbage. The shopping list next to it contained more than fifty ingredients. Sure, some people might have some of the ingredients on hand as staples, but I examined the recipes closer. If you made all those dishes, among the leftovers you'd be left with half a head of cabbage, half a can of coconut milk, the remainder of bunches of cilantro, parsley, and basil, among other things. So what exactly to do with all of those extra remnants of food?\n\nWhen I thought about Longacre's views, why would I take on a set of menus that would leave me with so much? Does anyone need lamb, scallops, beef, fish, and shrimp all in the space of five days?\n\nChef Thierry, Jenny, and Longacre all had a point. While exploring my crisper drawer, I found a nearly full two-pound bag of organic carrots tagged with a four-dollar Post-it. Half an onion beckoned. Rosemary sprigs sat waiting on my counter. Rosemary and carrots together? I would never have thought of that combination if I had not been forced to figure out how to use them up. The result was a savory yet sweet chilled soup. I didn't know what the volunteers had learned through these classes, but I had learned something important. We all can do more with less.\n\n#    **Velvety Chilled Rosemary Carrot Soup**\n\n_This savory and sweet soup can be served at any temperature, but it's excellent chilled. Immersion, or \"stick,\" blenders are great for soup because you can plunge them directly into the pot. Hot soup can create a vacuum in conventional blenders, so if you use one, let the soup chill slightly first, and then take the cap off and cover with a towel. Running soups through a food mill is a low-tech option. If you have none of the above, simply mash the softened vegetables with a fork or potato masher; it will lend a rustic feel to the finished product. Add the rosemary, branch and all, but be sure to remove it before pureeing._\n\n2 tablespoons olive oil   \n1 medium onion, chopped (about 1  cups)   \n2 leeks (white and light green parts), chopped   \n1 pound carrots, diced   \nSeveral fresh rosemary sprigs   \n1 bay leaf   \n2 quarts chicken or vegetable stock   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \nPinch of cayenne (optional)   \n  cup quality plain yogurt (optional)   \nCroutons (optional)\n\n  Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart or larger saucepan. Add the onion and leeks and saut\u00e9 until softened. Add the carrots, rosemary sprigs, bay leaf, stock, a couple of pinches of coarse salt, a few grinds of coarse pepper, and a pinch of cayenne if using. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to simmer until the carrots soften, about 1 hour.\n\n  Remove from the heat. Discard the rosemary and the bay leaf. Puree until smooth. Add additional water if necessary. Return to the pot. Check the seasonings, adding salt, black pepper, and cayenne to taste. Serve warm or cooled. Garnish with a scoop of yogurt or croutons if desired.\nCHAPTER 13\n\n**The Power of Soup**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**It Turns Out That** _**Supper**_ **and** _**Soup**_   \n**Come from the Same Place**\n\nMy mother always said that if you can boil water, you can make soup. Chef Thierry had remarked that it's a gift for leftovers. From the beginning, I planned a class on stocks and soups as the last class, knowing that we'd end with a fridge full of leftovers.\n\nAs the volunteers filed in to claim a diaper and an apron, they all fretted about the night being the last. \"It's going to be so strange not to see everyone each week,\" Gen said. I asked what people had been up to in their kitchens.\n\n\"You know, I've been thinking a lot about what the nutritionist said,\" Dri said. \"It's funny, we hear so much about how fats are bad, but then she talked about the difference between good fats and bad fats, and how olive and coconut oil are good, but, then, palm oil isn't so good. So I went through everything in my cupboards and I looked at all of the labels.\" She considered the impact of feeding bad fats not only to herself but to her nieces and nephews who visit regularly. She was surprised by what she found in her wares, already edited significantly as part of her recent move. \"Really, after the Alfredo versus Alfredo night, I just kind of decided to ditch most of that stuff anyway. I've just decided that I simply will not eat out of a box anymore.\"\n\nThe comment spurred a lot of conversation. \"I never thought I'd be like that but I'm getting there,\" Jodi said. \"I went to make pancakes the other day and I looked at the label. It was basically just flour, hydrogenated oil, corn syrup, and baking soda. I thought, Do I really want to feed this stuff to my son? I looked up a pancake recipe in a cookbook and thought, That's it?\" She had whipped up the batter and then mashed in an overripe banana. Her face took on an obvious look of pride when she reported that her son loved them. \"He was like, 'Mommy, these are the greatest pancakes!' \"\n\nCheryl was baby-free again this week. Of all the classes, she confessed that this was a big one for her. When we visited her kitchen, she had made a can of soup for lunch. \"I buy a ton of soup,\" she admitted. The organic kinds can be expensive and often still come packed with salt. \"I want to master soup so that I can cut down on how much I buy. After all these cooking classes, it feels a little lame to be opening a can.\"\n\nFew nutriments date back as far as soup, which likely debuted shortly after cavemen discovered the joys of boiling water. The word _soup_ stems from the same Germanic word that led to the English word for \"supper,\" writes Alan Davidson in _The Penguin Guide to Food_. \"From that came a noun, _suppa,_ which passed into the Old French as _soupe_. This meant 'piece of bread soaked in liquid' . . . which ultimately led to the word 'sop.' \" So the words for _supper, soup,_ and _sopping_ up the soup with bread all derived from the same source.\n\nBy the late 1600s, soup was so beloved, people didn't want to leave home without it, resulting in the development of \"portable soup,\" which was meat stock boiled so long it reduced to a thick paste that was dried and cut into strips. The strips were then reconstituted with hot water. Davidson quotes a portable soup enthusiast from 1736 who referred to it as \"veal glue.\" Mind you, those were words used by someone who _liked it_. The term _restaurant_ stems from the French verb for \"to restore,\" a reference to the shops that sold soup in the late nineteenth century. To complete the cycle in something of an ironic twist, modern restaurants make \"soup du jour\" from leftovers of their nonsoup menus items. I knew that Lisa had a story about the trauma of soup du jour and asked her share it.\n\n\"My very first job cooking, I spent a year making soup,\" Lisa started. She reported to work on the lunch shift with a chef who had worked in the industry for nearly forty years. She was impressed by his seemingly laissez-faire attitude toward soup du jour. Broccoli looked a little shaky? He'd whip up cream of broccoli soup. Too much cabbage? He'd ask Lisa to shred it and then add some ham, white beans, and carrots. The owners fired the chef without warning a few days after she started. In her first week out of culinary school, she found herself managing a lunch shift for a sixty-four-seat restaurant all by herself.\n\n\"It felt like being thrown out of a plane with a scribbled five-point list on how to complete a parachute jump,\" Lisa said. In addition to a hundred other tasks that she had to complete the morning she first worked alone, she had to come up with the soup du jour. In the walk-in, she found a Thai curry base used for a seafood dish. She thinned it with chicken stock. A revelation! Sauce is thick soup!\n\nAlthough she got a handle on the rest of the job after she figured out that there would be no replacement for the axed chef, she fretted about the soup. It kept her awake at night. \"The very nature of it, that it can be _anything,_ just freaked me out,\" she told the group. You could feel her tension in the room. Lisa studied culinary school textbooks and looked up recipes trying to combat her soup angst. \"But then I would get to the kitchen and find that I didn't have all the ingredients, so I'd panic.\"\n\nThen a friend gave her _The Daily Soup Cookbook_ by Leslie Kaul and Bob Spiegel. This simple book offers straightforward instructions on two hundred soup recipes organized by ingredient or theme, such as tomatoes, beans, or gumbo. She showed off her battered copy to the class.\n\n\"I would pile up my dying ingredients on a counter, and then flip through this book to find recipes that would fit. I could make something like minestrone or a tortilla lime soup, but not exactly. I would have hamburger and not sausage, or sausage but not chicken.\" At first, this struck her as the culinary equivalent of forcing a square set of ingredients into a round hole. But she discovered that no matter what she changed, as long as the flavors seemed to go together, the soup always turned out anyway.\n\nThe soup du jour changed her perspective as a cook. \"All those substitutions taught me that I do not have to be a slave to a recipe, or even to convention,\" she said. \"It also taught me something critical. You don't have to buy ingredients for soup.\"\n\nWith that, we all ransacked the fridge, pulling out vegetables and the remnants of a chicken I'd roasted the day before. \"Soups generally follow the same formula,\" I began. \"You saut\u00e9 some aromatics, usually chopped garlic or leeks, and then you add in vegetables, meat, or poultry that needs some time to cook. Add in stock or water. That's a good time to add a bit of salt, some herbs and spices. Simmer for at least an hour. Give your soup some time to develop.\" Foods that don't take much time to cook, such as shellfish or pasta, go in at the end. \"Then taste it. Add salt or whatever it might need to pep up the flavor. That could be lemon, vinegar, maybe minced garlic or fresh herbs.\" Garnishes such as croutons or grated cheese are great but unnecessary.\n\nWe started two pots, then split up the volunteers into teams and let them figure out a soup from the leftovers. One team settled on chicken noodle soup, the other on a variation of minestrone. Each built an initial layer of flavor by saut\u00e9ing onions and leeks. Team Chicken added carrots, celery, fresh corn, and a fistful of fresh thyme and parsley tied together, along with the remains of the roasted chicken. Team Minestrone added zucchini, green bell pepper, cauliflower, garlic, red pepper flakes, a can of tomatoes, and the rind of some Parmigiano-Reggiano.\n\n\"You can also just start any pot of soup with half a roast chicken, whether you've bought it or you've made it, and go from there. It's an easy shortcut,\" Lisa said. \"If you keep your pantry stocked with some basics it's super easy to pull together a soup with minimal effort. I usually have canned tomatoes on hand, coconut milk, curry paste, rice, some type of pasta, dried beans, bacon, fresh herbs, stock, onions, carrots, celery, some dried chili pods. That's about it, that's most of my pantry. Everything else is accessories.\"\n\nOften, the difference between boring soup and fabulous soup is just time. Soup almost always has to simmer for at least an hour, usually two. It takes time to draw all the flavors out of the components. \"Trying to boil it like mad for a half hour is not going to trick the laws of cooking into thinking it's simmered for two hours,\" Lisa said.\n\nWe left each pot to simmer as we turned our attention to the notion of stocks.\n\nAs if on cue, Ted sauntered into the kitchen. \"I heard there was some stock action going on in here,\" he said. Ted is a stock aficionado; he once penned a two-thousand-word missive on the subject. \"Thought I'd just drop by and have a look.\"\n\nI waved him in. \"So, stock is the extra bonus from a roast chicken,\" I started. \"You can just simmer the bones with some vegetables. One chicken can generate a couple of quarts of stock. Considering that you pay two or three dollars for a quart of chicken stock, it's worth it not to throw them away. When it comes to the vegetables for stock, some of them can be odds and ends or trimmings you might normally throw away, like the hard heel of celery, scraps of onion, and the tough green tops of leeks. Those can all go into stock.\"\n\n\"So it's basically free,\" Sabra commented. \"That's cool.\"\n\nThe roasted chicken version is an easy shortcut, but applies the same principles of all stock. \"Now we're going to start with some bones.\"\n\nOver the weekend, I had rounded up plastic bags marked \"For chicken stock\" and \"For beef stock\" from my freezer. I never let a bone go, whether it comes from a chicken I've broken down, hot wings that I made at home, or even leftovers from restaurants.\n\nNot long before the class, we ate at the Space Needle Restaurant with friends from out of town. Mike and his friend Bill ordered the day's special, a twenty-five-ounce steak that had a _Flintstone_ s-style bone jutting from the meat. The server looked at me like I was a crazy woman when I told him I wanted to take home the bones, but he good-naturedly wrapped them up in a takeout bag. As we waited for the elevator, the Italian ma\u00eetre d' asked what was in the bag. His face lit up. \"Ah, now, that's a smart cook! I never understand why people leave without them! My nana would kill for bones like that.\"\n\nI'd roasted all the bones and made most of them into stock. I kept a small pan of each set of bones to show off the result of roasting. The chicken bones had a crisp quality and a mahogany color in some places where the bone was exposed, and wept brown puddles of caramelized goodness onto the pan. The beef bones looked dried and nearly charred, like trees in a forest recently ravaged by fire.\n\nI had Ted take over the explanation. For chicken, beef, veal, or other meat-based stock, the method remains the same. \"You can just simmer chicken in water with the vegetables. That's known as white stock,\" Ted said. \"But you'll get more flavor if you roast the bones first. You want your oven nice and hot, around 400 degrees. The goal is to caramelize the bones a bit. About a half hour or forty-five minutes is usually enough. When you can really start to smell them, that's when you're getting somewhere.\"\n\nI waved everyone over to the big stove. \"Okay, here are the two pots of stock that I made from the rest of the bones. They've been simmering about two hours. I want you to smell it and taste it.\"\n\nLisa handed everyone a spoon. Each person dutifully sniffed the gurgling liquids, then dipped her spoon in and sipped a taste. They looked thoughtfully at one another. \"It reminds me of the stock tasting,\" Cheryl said. \"It's more meaty and chickeny.\"\n\n\"So you take the browned bones, put them in a pot, and cover them with cold water. It's great to add some water to the roasting pans while they're hot and scrape up any browned bits left in them,\" Ted said. \"It will clean your pans and boost the flavor of your stock. Add vegetables, typically onion, carrot, and celery. The usual ratio is one pound of vegetables for every three pounds of bones. Add a bay leaf, some thyme, parsley. Some people like to add whole peppercorns and some garlic.\"\n\nThe point is to simmer them for as long as it takes for \"the bones to give their all,\" as Julia Child once wrote. For chicken, that's usually two to four hours; for beef, about double that.\n\nTed pulled a ladle from among the coterie of utensils and demonstrated a key technique. First he skimmed off a slight oil slick on the top of the stock, and then tackled an island of bubbling foam. \"Skimming simply means to do a seek-and-destroy of any foam or fat on the surface,\" Ted said. \"It makes a world of difference to both stock and soup. It keeps it from being greasy, for one thing.\"\n\nTed had a few other points on meat-based stocks. \"Try not to boil it or it will turn cloudy. What you want to do is get it superhot and then reduce the heat until you get the occasional, or 'lazy,' bubble. Don't add salt. As the water evaporates, the salt flavor will concentrate and it can be too salty.\"\n\nSince Lisa had brought in her soup book for show-and-tell, I opened a copy of _Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone_ by Deborah Madison. During my fling with vegetarianism, I started to make vegetable stocks, a habit that I keep up. \"They're built the same way. Roast the vegetables and then simmer for about a half hour. This book has a great section on vegetable stocks.\" I flipped through the section. \"There's a whole breakdown of vegetables to use by season, stocks for stirfries and curries, mushroom stock, and even tomato-style stock. You just want to avoid strong flavors such as cabbage, beets, broccoli, or, as she puts it, 'funky or spoiled' vegetables that you wouldn't eat.\"\n\nNext, we moved on to fish stock. In French, it's known as \"fish fumet,\" a common foundation in chowders and seafood dishes. I had bought two pounds of fish bones for a dollar from my regular fishmonger, an assortment of fragile skeletons and thick pieces of white bones from larger fish.\n\n\"A lot of recipes will call for clam juice, but what the food writer really wants you to use is fish stock.\" Personally, I loathe clam juice. Most supermarket varieties are simply too brackish. \"Even the cheap stuff is almost three bucks for eight ounces, so you're paying twelve dollars for a quart. You want white fish without too strong a flavor. No mackerel, no salmon.\" I combined some onion, celery, half a lemon, a bay leaf, a few sprigs of parsley, and the fish bones in a pot with cold water.\n\n\"You can do the same thing with shrimp, crab, or lobster shells, too. I sometimes get Dungeness crab shells from my fish market. They're free and it's awesome in gumbo,\" I said.\n\nTogether, Ted and I strained the pot of gurgling chicken stock. \"If you've got a big pot, don't try to pour it out. Remove the bones with tongs, and then ladle the liquid out.\" He ladled the stock through a mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth over a massive bowl. \"This is traditional but a colander with a coffee filter works, too.\" After the chicken, he strained the fish fumet.\n\n\"I'm totally not digging that smell,\" Dri said of the fumet. \"I mean, I guess it's good for chowder, but it's pretty fishy.\" Sabra nodded. She wasn't into it either.\n\nA hot steaming pot of stock cools slowly and has a tendency to linger in what food safety types refer to as the \"danger zone,\" or temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. \"You want to make sure your stock stays out of the danger zone by cooling it quickly,\" Ted said. \"You can do a few things. Take the stock and put it into an ice bath in the sink and keep stirring. You can pour it into a shallow pan, like the bottom of broiler. Or you can wait until the stock cools below 180 degrees and then plop plastic bags filled with ice into the stock. Whatever, once it cools to room temperature or below, put it into the fridge right away.\"\n\nThe other option is the remarkably low-tech \"cold porch\" method, Lisa added. \"In winter, I just put a big pan of stock outside uncovered and stir it every so often until it cools down.\"\n\nShannon signaled a time-out. \"Okay, I'm a little confused. What's the difference between stock and broth?\"\n\n\"Stock is made from bones, broth is not. Technically, there's no such thing as vegetable stock. But since people aren't sure, a lot of things are called stock interchangeably with broth.\"\n\n\"All these years, and I never knew that,\" Shannon said.\n\nWe went back to the soups. Team Chicken finished theirs by tossing in handfuls of pasta left over from the pasta class, shredded cooked chicken, and chopped fresh parsley and oregano. Team Minestrone added chopped tomatoes, a can of red beans, then garnished each bowl with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and chopped basil.\n\nThe streetlights came on outside. Each person slurped the various soups. Lisa produced a bottle of cava from the fridge. With great drama, she launched the cork and we all toasted.\n\n\"Here's a toast to you,\" Dri said to Lisa, Ted, and me. We clinked glasses.\n\n\"Here's to all of you and your willingness to chop zucchini!\" I said. Clink.\n\n\"To zucchini!\" Sabra said. Clink.\n\n\"To diapers!\" Shannon said. Clink.\n\nThen the mood turned bittersweet as the volunteers reluctantly took off their aprons and dropped their diapers into the bag we hauled around for the dirty laundry.\n\nAfter they left, Lisa, Ted, and I did a final cleanup in the kitchen. I stayed behind to mop. Alone in the kitchen, I dragged the bright yellow roller and swished the mottled gray-yarn mop across the black-and-white tile. I was deep into the Zen of the rhythmic motion when my phone rang.\n\n\"It's Eddie,\" my mother said.\n\nMy stepfather, Eddie, had suffered from an impressive string of maladies in the past dozen years. A recent surgery had left him weak, and since then he'd been falling. That morning, he collapsed and broke a chair. My mother tried for forty-five minutes to get him up. An ER doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia, a serious illness for a seventy-eight-year-old who already had enough health problems.\n\nThis time I heard something different in my mother's voice: sheer exhaustion. He'd barely slept for a week. I knew that as his caretaker, she hadn't either. \"Mom, I'm coming home,\" I told her. She insisted that it wasn't necessary. I hung up and called Mike, then I finished mopping the floor. By the time I got home, Mike had booked me a ticket to leave the next afternoon.\n\nWe had set up a couple of makeup classes for the following week. I called Lisa. \"Oh, no, should we reschedule?\" she said.\n\n\"No, you're going to teach them,\" I said.\n\n\"I can't teach them by myself,\" she replied quickly. \"Let's reschedule.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding? _I've_ learned stuff from you. So of course you can. I have total faith in you.\"\n\nIn Florida, the relief on Mom's face said it all. She looked as if she'd aged years. Eddie's gaunt appearance threw me. A thin guy by nature, he'd lost twenty-five pounds. His cheeks had an unhealthy hollow. As I hugged him, I asked, \"What can I do for you, Eddie?\"\n\n\"Make me dinner?\" he asked. \"It's not like I travel now. The highlight of my day is hitting Walgreens for prescriptions. Food is all that I have to look forward to.\"\n\nThat week, my sister, Sandy, and I spent two full days making huge vats of food, from spaghetti with meatballs to beef stew to scalloped potatoes. Fresh from the soup class, I cleared out my mother's fridge to make three different varieties, including chicken noodle, Eddie's favorite. Ever competitive, Sandy made Eddie's all-time favorite meal, a classic full-on Thanksgiving spread replete with turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, and homemade stuffing. We diligently labeled and froze all of it into portions sized for two\u2014enough for two months' worth of meals.\n\nDoing this gave my exhausted mom a break from both shopping and cooking. She rested, and we took long walks on the beach together. The stockpile of varied foods kept Eddie interested in eating. Each morning, she'd open the freezer and ask what he wanted. \"How about we have the turkey gumbo for lunch and the cassoulet for dinner?\" He gained back some weight and his condition improved. Before leaving for the airport, he gave me a lingering hug as he thanked me for the meals. \"I can tell with every bite that you love us.\"\n\nAs I sat on the plane back to Seattle, I thought about the power of cooking to nourish, to comfort, and to heal. It was the fourth time in one year that I had contributed meals to people's freezers in the midst of a crisis: Mike's sister had gone through chemotherapy for breast cancer, a friend's husband had had surgery to remove a brain tumor, and our friend Amy had suffered life-threatening complications after the birth of her son.\n\nIt's a simple act, but to bring someone chicken soup when they're sick is not just about a meal, it's a tangible and physical sign of caring. If you buy a chicken and make it from scratch, the message is completely different from bringing over a can. It says, \"You're important, and I care about you enough to take the time to help restore you.\" Like laughter, soup is not the same when it's canned.\n\n#    **Blissfully Simple Chicken Stock**\n\n_Gather up all the bones from a roast chicken after you've wrested all possible use from the meat. Depending on how much water you add and how long it simmers, the yield will be six cups to three quarts._\n\nBones from 1 roast chicken   \n  medium onion, quartered   \n1 celery stalk, roughly chopped   \n1 large carrot, chopped   \nFew sprigs of fresh thyme and\/or parsley   \n1 garlic clove   \n1 bay leaf   \n4 to 5 quarts cold water\n\n  Put the chicken bones, onion, celery, carrot, fresh herbs, garlic clove, and bay leaf into a 5-quart or larger pot. Add 4 to 5 quarts of cold water. Bring just to a boil and then turn the heat down until it simmers. Let it simmer for at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours. Skim any foam or fat from the top with a spoon. Drain it in a colander or mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth or a coffee filter into a large bowl. Cool, then refrigerate or freeze until needed.\nCHAPTER 14\n\n**Kitchens, Revisited**\n\n  **LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:**\n\n**What Effect Did the Classes Have on the Volunteers?**\n\nNot long after the last class in early September, an acquaintance shared a most discouraging quote. Her grandfather used to say that he'd \"rather try to change someone's religion than change the way they eat.\"\n\n\"I'm only telling you this so you're not discouraged if your project didn't work,\" she said. I may have defriended her on Facebook.\n\nAlthough the signs had seemed encouraging over the summer, that conversation dogged me. What if I had spent all this time and effort\u2014not to mention the work of everyone else\u2014yet it had no impact? I waited until after Thanksgiving to follow up. As we had the first time, we'd audit their cabinets and ask them to prepare a meal that they ate regularly. I wanted the distance of time to see what, if anything, had stuck.\n\n#  **SABRA**\n\nSix months after our first visit, a frigid November wind wailed outside as I stood in Sabra's warm kitchen with Lisa and Sabra's dad. He was just as curious as we were. Sabra had assembled a casserole in a new pan, one of many recent additions to her kitchen. \"I got this idea from Stouffer's. It's a Cheddar and potato casserole with broccoli and bacon,\" she said, sliding the prepared dish into oven. \"I can make twelve servings of this for the same price as a couple of dinners, it tastes way, way better, and I know what's in it.\"\n\nI asked what her biggest takeaway was from the course. \"Confidence,\" she replied quickly. \"I can look at any recipe and know that I can make it now. I never thought that before.\" She picked up her chef's knife from the counter and handled it with reverence. \"Learning knife skills changed everything. One reason I used to get intimidated by cooking was I'd see a bunch of stuff to cut up, but now I know that's not a big deal. I actually like that part.\"\n\nFrom the minute we arrived, Sabra seemed eager to show off her freezer. \"You ready?\" she asked. We all nodded. With a flourish, she flung it open. \"Notice there are _no_ frozen meals in here,\" she said proudly. Two whole frozen turkeys took up the space once occupied by stacks of frozen dinners. \"They're a Thanksgiving gift from my dad's business,\" she explained. \"I haven't made them yet because I don't have a pan big enough, but I've asked for one for Christmas,\" she said, eyeing her dad sitting at the kitchen counter.\n\nRounding out the freezer were bags of tortellini, vegetables, and individual portions of various leftovers. \"Those are lunch,\" she explained. \"Oh, look!\" She grabbed a plastic bag and shook it. \"Chicken bones! For stock! I made some, but I'm out.\"\n\nIf the project had succeeded in nothing else, Sabra, the young woman who had served us frozen lasagna and White Trash Garlic Bread a mere six months ago, no longer wandered the frozen-foods aisle looking for dinner.\n\n\"While they're cheap, I just realized they aren't such a good deal after all,\" she said. \"I find that if I cook a couple of times a week, then there's always something my boyfriend and I can eat, which is cool. It's just like convenience food, except you make it.\"\n\nAvoiding frozen dinners wasn't the only shift in Sabra's habits. She found herself shopping more often, hitting a farm stand nearby for vegetables. Whenever she buys food, she always does so with at least two meals in mind. \"I think we're spending about the same on groceries but less on food overall because we eat less takeout. We waste a lot less food, too.\"\n\nSabra used to eat Hamburger Helper every other week. She admitted that she hadn't made it since July, about midway through the project. Her remaining box of the stuff had been banished to a high shelf to make way for new additions to her modest pantry. \"It's funny, a lot of things expire that I never thought about, like oils, flour, and spices.\" She had used up the rest of her expired flour, had replaced her dead spices, and now buys smaller doses of everything. \"Now when I buy something like olive oil, I get the smaller size even though it's more expensive. But I know that it will stay good until I can use it all.\"\n\n\"Oh, and check it out!\" She reached into the dairy drawer of her fridge to retrieve a paper package. She unwrapped a bit to expose the tip of a hard wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. She hadn't seemed that engaged in the tasting class, but she reported that it had had a powerful effect on her. \"The tastings made me really think about what I buy. People can say you should go and spend the extra money and get real cheese, but until you taste it for yourself, it's almost impossible to know that it's worth it.\"\n\nHer fascination with McDonald's had subsided, too. \"It's funny how if you eat well and then you go eat fast food, you can really feel it. It kind of sinks in my stomach, and I can hear my body saying _whoa whoa whoa,_ what the . . . ? I don't want this.\" She held her stomach and groaned.\n\nThat comment, it must be noted, came from the woman who equated love with McDonald's and who told me that if cooking dinner would take more than twenty minutes, she'd go out for fast food.\n\n\"Oh, yeah, I know I said that. But a big thing I got out of it was that cooking is worth my time,\" she said. \"Homemade stock is basically free and you can make so much stuff out of it. Although I cut myself twice in class when I first started learning to use a knife, it was so worth it,\" she said with a laugh. \"The chicken class was important because I was afraid of chicken, that whole salmonella thing. And I'm going to be honest, I was kind of freaked out by cutting up the whole chicken at first. But that made me rethink food in a lot of ways. You're right, it's easier to remember that it was once, well, a chicken.\"\n\nYet for all these strides, some things she cannot let go of, White Trash Garlic Bread among them. \"But that's more about the memory of that, since I ate it growing up with my mother. But I use the good cheese now, not the stuff from a can.\"\n\nThe other untouchable? Gold 'n Soft. \"I can't give that up because butter still tastes funny to me,\" she admitted. \"But I use less, probably because I use olive oil more now.\"\n\nIn a way, Sabra was railroaded into this project by her stepmother, Lisa. I would not have faulted her if she had attended, feigned polite enthusiasm, and resumed her life in the fast-food lane. Instead, she embraced it and made extraordinary changes. Given all that, how could anyone deny her a few tastes of her childhood? I certainly could not.\n\n#  **TRISH**\n\nWhen I first visited Trish, Mike filmed the proceedings. This time around, Lisa came along. Like me, she marveled at Trish's collection of immaculate white binders filled with recipes she'd been clipping for decades, each encased in its own plastic sheath.\n\nShe exuded a sense of calm on this visit. \"So I don't think what I've bought or cooked has changed as much as something has changed in _me,_ \" she started. \"I'm more relaxed and I'm not so hard on myself.\"\n\nShe gave the recipes in the binders as an example. She pulled out one that said \"appetizers\" and started to flip through it. \"I went to all this trouble to put these together, but then I really didn't make many of the recipes. I was so intimidated and worried that they wouldn't work out. So I used to just look at them. Now I'm actually _cooking_ out of them. I make notes, and the ones that I don't like or don't work, I throw them away.\"\n\n\"So did you keep recipes that didn't work out before?\" I asked. She nodded. \"Why?\"\n\n\"I thought there couldn't be anything wrong with the recipe and so whatever went wrong was my fault,\" she explained. This led her to a bigger realization. \"I have this psychological thing that if I can do it then it must not be special or good. Plus, my mother didn't like to cook. She thought she was terrible at it and I absorbed that,\" she said. \"Now I think I may not be the greatest cook, but I know that I _can_ do it. I am not afraid of it.\"\n\nHer mother was the one who owned the _I Hate to Cook Book,_ a title that sold three million copies. The premise of the book was that women should get the whole cooking thing over with, thus avoiding any more drudgery in the kitchen than was absolutely necessary. This advice was couched in humorous terms by the author, Peg Bracken, who also advised women not to throw too much angst into meals either. Trish's mother managed to pass down the dislike of cooking, and not Bracken's ultimate message, which was that, in the end, cooking isn't that big of a deal. The irony was that of all the initial kitchen visits, Trish's ratatouille was probably the best food I ate, certainly the healthiest, and the only one made with whole foods. She slipped the binder back onto the shelf and we went into the kitchen.\n\nShe started to organize the makings of a vegetable and bean stew from _Feeding the Whole Family_ by Cynthia Lair, which is, incidentally, one of my favorite cookbooks.\n\nTrish set up her cutting board on the counter, carefully placing a wet paper towel underneath. She showed off her two new knives, a seven-inch chef's knife and a santoku, a Japanese-style design characterized by its curved spine and small indents in the blade. She set out her metal bowl for scraps. \"There are little things, like using a bowl for scraps, that have made a big difference. My kitchen stays cleaner and I feel more organized.\"\n\nShe cut an onion perfectly. \"I had a big aha over the onion,\" she said. \"In the knife skills class, I thought, So that's the secret! She used to use a garlic press. \"I stopped using that because now I like cutting, and that just dirties the garlic press.\" She turned to a six-quart stainless steel pot\u2014another recent purchase\u2014and tossed the vegetables into hot oil.\n\n\"Oh, and the other thing, I made stock.\" She opened the freezer and showed off a collection of carefully marked blue-lidded plastic containers. She pulled one out to show us.\n\n\"Wow, Trish, check you out!\" I said.\n\nShe looked proud. After she tucked the container back in the freezer, she went to the stove and held up a small blue handmade glazed ceramic box with a lid. \"I had wondered for years what to do with this. My son made it. Now I keep my coarse salt in it so I can pinch salt. That's another little thing. It seems silly, but trying to figure out a pinch with a shaker is hard!\"\n\nShe ticked off items she'd tried since the summer. \"I'm still terrible at cutting up chicken, but I love to do it.\" She regretted leaving the meat class early. \"I should have stayed. I would have liked to learn more about braising.\" She had enjoyed learning to make the vinaigrette but rarely did it. \"I don't know, buying it in the bottle is just so easy.\"\n\nOf the other classes, she used the soup class the most. \"I now have a sense of how to make soup from just about anything, and we love soup.\"\n\nOnce again, she set the table with beautiful dinnerware, a sculpted silver breadbasket in the center of the table, and immaculately ironed cloth napkins. The stew was light yet savory and brightened with the flavor of cilantro. It was the perfect lunch for a cold, rainy day. The timer dinged for the pear tart she had made for dessert. \"When I made it the last time, I took it to my friend's house and she had a perfect silver oblong pan and it looked so pretty. Everyone said, 'Wow, Trish, you're so good in the kitchen.'\n\n\"And this may seem silly, but it was a big moment for me. I was proud of something that I cooked.\" Her eyes got a little misty at the memory. \"No one expected that from me. I didn't expect it from myself. It is remarkable that at my age I can still change, and that I can still surprise myself.\"\n\n#  **JODI**\n\nWhen I met Jodi, she had found herself suddenly a stay-at-home mother after being laid off from her high-tech job. She had gone back to work again that autumn, juggling her home life with a three-year-old and trying to keep up with expectations in her new job. When I learned that she had gone back to work, I worried that whatever momentum Jodi had gained in the project might have dissipated.\n\nAs soon as I walked into her kitchen, I realized I didn't need to worry. Jodi could barely contain her excitement when we arrived. It was as if she had a secret that she just couldn't wait to share. It was a remarkable shift from the air of defeat and tentativeness I had felt on the day that she made Japanese curry from a cube.\n\nBy contrast, she was smiling and relaxed as she told us she was planning to roast a chicken. She showed off the simple roasting pan that she had bought for twenty dollars at a restaurant supply store. \"Oh, yeah, I do this all the time now,\" she said about the chicken. \"I've learned that as long as the chicken isn't too big, it takes right around an hour.\" She has made a hobby of finding uses for the leftovers. \"I made chicken Alfredo and it was _so_ good,\" she gushed. \"I make the fresh tomato sauce so often that I think I'm going to have to take a break from it because my husband and son might be getting sick of it, but I still really like it.\"\n\nShe had Brussels sprouts that had somehow gotten overlooked at Thanksgiving. She'd never made them before, but she figured she'd give them a saut\u00e9. We could smell bread baking in the oven. Jodi opened her fridge door to reveal a plastic bin with dough nestled into the center. \"I've used more flour in the last three or four months than I've ever used in my entire life! I got a couple of big plastic containers for white and whole wheat flour, and I'm refilling them all the time.\"\n\n\"I make a version that's kind of half wheat and half white now. My son likes it and I like to make it. I find it rewarding to pull hot bread from the oven, and it's something that I can make after work at least a couple of times a week.\"\n\nShe proudly showed off her new copy of _Joy of Cooking._ \"This summer completely changed the way that I think about cooking and nutrition, especially around processed foods, you know? I have tried a ton of recipes, which I would have _never_ done before. Also, we buy way more organic now and I read the labels on everything. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not making mayonnaise from scratch or anything like that, but I've come a long way.\"\n\nOn my earlier visit, the small walk-in had been packed with cases of canned and boxed goods stacked in piles on the floor. Now it looked organized and functional, and notably absent were ultraprocessed foods, save for a few boxes of macaroni and cheese. \"I tried to eat through a lot of things like canned tomatoes, but some of the stuff I cleared out and took to a food bank.\"\n\nHer fridge was similarly less cluttered. In her fridge door was a jar of parsley pesto, a tip she had taken from Chef Thierry. She was still working on eating through the freezer.\n\nInventory over, she went back to her cutting board. She tenderly separated leaves from a few sprigs of rosemary, chopped garlic, and effortlessly seasoned her chicken as she talked. She seemed as if she had been doing it for years. Even so, she still feared falling into the gender role that had trapped her mother in what Jodi viewed as a life of voluntary servitude.\n\n\"I don't mind cooking, as long as my husband and I both agree that it's a partnership and it's not just _my_ job,\" Jodi said. \"I think that it should be about who gets home first rather than the assumption that I'm supposed to do it, even if, to be honest, I rather like to cook now.\"\n\nInterestingly, her newfound interest in the kitchen both gave her equal footing and threatened the delicate balance of the power that had existed when her husband was the main cook in the family.\n\n\"We've had a couple of arguments about cooking, but that's probably because I never used to have an opinion.\" She now rejected suggestions and debated technique. Recently, she made a dish that left a layer of food stuck to the bottom of a skillet. Her husband kept scrubbing and complaining. \"I said, 'Hey, it's no big deal. Just deglaze it.' He was all 'What?' I said, 'Get the pan hot and add some liquid. It will come right off.'\" He kept scrubbing and finally threw the pan in the sink in disgust. \"I went to the stove, got it hot, and added water, and it was clean like that,\" she said, snapping her fingers. \"Ha, so I knew that, and he didn't.\"\n\n\"So, this is funny,\" she said in an obvious move to change the conversation. \"I have been trying to find a recipe for Japanese curry that doesn't use a cube. But all the Japanese people I asked say they use the dang box! I'd say, 'Hey, don't you know what's in that?'\" She laughed. \"So I asked a food writer friend who is Asian, and she thought it was a great question. So she's going to research it and I'm going to help with recipe testing.\"\n\nSo while she still makes golden curry, she's thinking about it more and making it less. \"I know this sounds dumb, but I used to think that the stuff in a box was something you couldn't make. Now I know they all just mimic real foods, so if it's in a box, there's got to be a way to make it for real. If you go to a good restaurant in Japan, then they'll have this same curry and it's amazing. So I guess that's my holy grail now. One day I will learn how to make that same curry _without_ the darn cube!\"\n\n#  **DRI**\n\nDri had moved from the hood into a comfortable condo in a leafy urban neighborhood. \"The greatest thing? I'm just across the street from Mutual Seafood,\" she said, naming one of the city's most respected seafood outlets.\n\nDri seemed happy and relaxed. She also looked as if she'd lost a bit of weight. Compared to her former one-cook-is-too-many-sized kitchen, her new one seemed vast and luxurious with its open plan, dark maple wood cabinets, and stainless steel appliances. \"It's great. I sometimes wake up in the morning and think, Wow, I live here. I feel like such a grown-up.\"\n\nShe had a basket on her counter filled with the kinds of stuff that she had discussed abandoning in the final class: dehydrated soup mixes, pasta side dishes, broccoli soup mix, and corn muffins among the lot. She blushed, a bit embarrassed.\n\n\"So this is awkward,\" she said. \"I did a favor for my friend and as a thank-you gift she gave me this lovely basket with all this packaged stuff.\" She could not stifle her laughter. \"It was such a nice idea, but I thought, I just don't do that anymore. I guess for some people it's a treat, but now I know better.\"\n\nLike a lot of people who live on their own, Dri reported that she found it hard to get motivated to cook for one. \"The project amplified the importance of taking time to cook and actually to make it a priority,\" she said. \"Plus it changed the way that I plan and stock my kitchen by about 175 million percent. I know that's a really big number, but it's true.\"\n\nShe opened a cabinet to show off a collection of oils and vinegars. \"I got most of this stuff after our lesson in salad dressings.\" She'd stocked up on red wine, balsamic, and champagne vinegars, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a good extra-virgin olive oil. \"One big takeaway was that you don't need to go out and buy something specific, but use what you've got. I can make an almost endless variation of dressings. I used to eat plain steamed vegetables, which are pretty blah and hard to get excited about. Now I think, Huh, what can I put together to make those actually taste _good_?\"\n\nThe contents of Dri's French door\u2013style stainless fridge resembled those of other volunteers, with a bouquet of greens in water and a plastic container with bread dough. \"I don't shop for meals as much as I shop for basics, which I consider onions, carrots, celery, garlic, lemons, limes, and a few other ingredients. I always have those on hand now,\" she explained. \"I feel like I can make most anything from these staples.\"\n\nThis is radically different from the way she used to shop. \"I used to go to the grocery store or a farmers' market and I'd see all these various things and think, Oh, that looks good, this looks good. I'd buy a whole bunch of random stuff. But then I wouldn't really have anything in mind about what to do with it. That's where a lot of my food waste came from.\" Dri said she made many decisions with Thierry's voice in her head. \"Now when I look at something highly perishable, I think, Okay, if I buy that, then what am I going to do with it in the next two days?\"\n\nAs she chatted, Dri started dinner. She moved with calm purpose as she chopped vegetables for a curried cucumber salad with a new chef's knife and pulled a beautiful small loaf of bread from her oven. Where Dri had dubiously poked at her chicken only a few months earlier, that night she demonstrated how to \"spatchcock,\" a technique in which the backbone is removed to butterfly a whole chicken so that it lies flat to cook faster and more evenly. \"I learned this from _Cook's Illustrated_. The editors use poultry shears, which I don't own. It's a little tricky with a knife but it works.\"\n\nShe put her weight down on the backbone to break it. Using the tip of her chef's knife, she made a surgical-like outline around the length of the spine. With one big tug, she ripped out the backbone and set it aside. She turned the chicken over and placed her hands one over the other as if to perform CPR on the bird. Instead she put her weight down on the sternum to break it with a mighty crack. \"Funny, I remember not being terribly thrilled by the sight of a chicken in that class,\" she said. \"I guess it doesn't bother me now, huh?\" She placed the chicken on a cushion of thinly sliced potatoes lining the bottom of a roasting pan, \"to soak up the yummy sauce,\" she explained. She seasoned it simply with fresh thyme, olive oil, and salt and pepper before shoving it in the oven.\n\nDri cooks one big meal during the week and a pot of soup on Sunday. With leftovers, that covers meals for at least four days. Other nights, she makes a quick salad, sandwich, or pasta with staples she keeps on hand. \"I still suffer from this issue of cooking for one and trying to get portions right. I try not to have _too many_ leftovers. I don't mind them on day two, but on day four? I usually can't go there. Sometimes I just take all the leftovers out of my fridge and bring them to work. I'll say to somebody, 'Hey, you want some chicken? I brought you lunch.'\"\n\nI didn't realize in the first visit that behind her quirky, smiling exterior, Dri's innate desire to make a radical life shift ran deep. \"When it came to how I approached food, I knew that I needed to change course, but I had no idea where to start.\"\n\n#  **ANDRA**\n\nAndra seemed in good spirits when we met her in December at her apartment in Sea-Tac. She looked more rested and her face seemed thinner. When I mentioned that I thought she looked like she'd lost weight, she laughed. \"Oh, that's so nice of you to say! I can't say that I've lost a ton of weight but I definitely feel like I'm eating better.\"\n\nI'm endlessly fascinated with her apartment. This time, I noticed that the entire length of the fridge was plastered with a mosaic of different magnets. A dress covered up a magnetic statue of David in the top right-hand corner; magnetic poetry spelled out \"Yes, a shadow wakens.\"\n\nAfter the project, Andra made a concerted effort to add more fruits and vegetables to her diet and to cook more. \"As usual, money is tight, but it's getting better now because I'm working more. Of course, the holidays are always a bit of a drain financially.\" She relied on public transport instead of a car. \"Sometimes I'm on ten buses in one day. It's exhausting, but that's my choice. I've started to take the new light rail train, which is nice. But some nights, I get home exhausted from all the travel.\"\n\nDue to the maze of buses that makes up her daily commute, she now relied on sandwiches or other foods that are easy to eat en route. She avoided the inexpensive burger joints that she used to frequent for lunch. \"Fast food is not a good value. I am hungry not long afterward and I don't feel good after eating it.\" She timed both to confirm that it took longer to stand in line to order than it took to make a sandwich and pack an apple at home. \"It's less money, less time, and healthier. It just takes planning.\"\n\nAndra missed more classes than any of the other volunteers. A shame, because as we talked, it was apparent that she took away a lot from the ones she did attend. As the others agreed, the knife skills class proved to be the most useful. Shortly after the last class, she made her first roast chicken. \"It was just me and my cat, but she seemed to really like it!\" Roasted chicken thighs and vegetables had become dinner staples, and she regularly made artisan bread. She sometimes cooked salmon in paper. In a pinch, she relied on scrambled eggs. \"I've cooked for some of my friends and I have had no complaints.\"\n\nAt Thanksgiving, she made stuffing from scratch with her mother and helped cook the turkey. \"She noticed my new chopping skills, and that felt good. I even made the vinaigrette for the salad.\" She was impressed by tasting different types of lettuce. \"I confess that I buy bags of salad, but that's a big move for me. I wouldn't have bought greens before at all.\"\n\nHer cupboards were more filled out this time, with whole wheat pasta and cans of tomatoes, beans, and soups. She selected one of the small plastic bags of herbs she'd purchased in bulk to use in the eggs she was making for lunch. \"I think about what your chef said, that if you don't have anything else, you can make an omelet. I make scrambled eggs more often, but an omelet feels more like a meal.\" We watched her crack the eggs into a bowl, quickly whisk the yolks together with salt, pepper, and a bit of thyme, and then pour them into a pan. She added a bit of grated cheese to the center, and then slid the omelet to fold it onto a plate. It was perfect.\n\nIt struck me that her omelet was a world away from the hyperprocessed pizza bites that she had made the first time I visited. I asked her about the contrast as she cut the edge of her eggs with a fork. \"I don't know if I would buy those now,\" she said. \"I think more about value rather than just cost.\" A big bag of greens costs the same as a fast-food dinner, she observed. She searched out places to buy vegetables less expensively than in a conventional supermarket, such as a local farm stand. \"I've got limited money for my food, so I need to get the most out of it that I can.\n\n\"Now that I can cook better, I don't have to settle for crappy food. It's been ages since I ordered a pizza, and those guys used to know my voice on the phone.\"\n\n#  **TERRI**\n\nTerri had finally tossed her four-year-old frozen turkey dinner. \"I didn't want you to come back and find that it was still there!\" she said with a nervous laugh. Her fridge was still relatively bare. \"I've gotten rid of all the science experiments,\" she admitted. Little else had changed in her cabinets. \"I find that I'm going grocery shopping more often, which is funny since I actually hate grocery shopping,\" she said. \"But I also don't want to waste food, so I usually just buy enough for a day or two and that's why I don't have a big stock of it here.\"\n\nShe had signed up as a client with Beve, the nutritionist. Her counter was lined with brand-new bottles of vitamins she'd been assigned to take after Beve had Terri's medical doctor run various tests. Like most people who live above the thirty-seventh parallel, Terri was wildly deficient in vitamin D; the sun is too weak most of the year for most people to produce it naturally. She had shifted to eating shredded wheat for breakfast to up her fiber intake and relied on scrambled eggs at lunch to help increase her protein.\n\nOn my first visit, she had made whole wheat pasta with a bit of olive oil. She'd advanced to adding the fresh tomato sauce from class, something she made at least twice a week. \"I'll be honest. I don't mind eating the same thing all the time. I kind of like routines,\" she said. \"It's also something that I don't really have to plan for. I always keep whole wheat pasta, tomatoes, and garlic around.\"\n\nTerri was the only one who didn't chop an onion as demonstrated in class. Instead, she cut off the ends, quartered them and dropped them into a food processor, and gave them a quick whirl. \"I know, I know, I'm cheating,\" she apologized. \"I find myself reverting back to old habits.\"\n\nWell, not all of them. Terri used to eat fast food for dinner up to four times a week; now it was down to less than once every couple of weeks. She had cut back on another indulgence, regular visits to Starbucks for breakfast or lunch, although that had as much to do with money as with nutrition.\n\nOf all the people in the study, self-employed Terri had the most enduring sense of \"time poverty.\" I heard a lot about \"time\" in the first round of visits with the volunteers. In the second round, the issue was noticeably less significant. When I later reviewed the videos, Terri mentioned the word _time_ on twenty-two occasions in both her first and second kitchen visits. Like the White Rabbit, she seemed invariably late and rushed, even as she mentioned that her tour business more or less ground to a halt during the off-season.\n\n\"I'm glad to know about how to cut up a chicken, although I don't think I will do it myself,\" she said. \"It was just a little too . . .\" She struggled for a word. \"I guess that I'm just squeamish, and it doesn't help that I am not that crazy about chicken in the first place.\"\n\nOf all the classes, she liked the meat class with Robin best; it involved cutting up red meat and pork, but that bothered her less. \"Learning to make rubs was helpful because pork chops are one of my standards, although I haven't made a rub yet. I liked the soup class and I plan to try that one day. The vinaigrette lesson was useful in terms of thinking about flavor combinations, but I don't make salads at home, I only eat them when I go out. As you can see, I don't keep a lot of food in my fridge, so leftovers aren't that big of a deal for me.\"\n\nBut she explained that this didn't mean that for her the project wasn't successful.\n\n\"It did help me to realize that I should think more about what I eat, but not necessarily worry about what I cook.\" Terri had slashed her fast-food runs from twenty to two per month. By doing so, she had eliminated 195,000 mostly empty calories in the course of a year, the equivalent of 550 hours on a treadmill. She explained that while some people can change their habits overnight, she learned while overcoming alcoholism that time and routine are critical for her. \"When I try to change everything at once, that never works. I feel like I have started to develop a foundation and I have to be happy with where I'm going.\"\n\nGiven all that, so what if she used her food processor to cut onions to make something healthier at home? More power to her.\n\n#  **CHERYL**\n\nAt Cheryl's, the Christmas tree fell down on her four-year-old son. He had pulled on an ornament, sending the tree straight down. He started wailing.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Lisa and I raced over to rescue him. As we righted the tree, Cheryl grabbed her son. She conducted a quick inventory for injury before clutching him to her chest tightly. Then she held him out at arm's length. \"I told you to stop playing with the tree!\" she rebuked. \"I want you to sit on the couch and read your books while Mommy finishes her visit.\" Her son grabbed two picture books off the coffee table and dutifully climbed up onto the brown leather sofa.\n\nOn our first visit, Cheryl had opened a can of organic soup for lunch. This time, she made a pot from scratch, a fragrant curryscented number with coconut milk and vegetables. \"It's really easy,\" she said. \"I make one pot and then my son and I eat it for a couple of days for lunch. My husband's in construction, so he takes it in his thermos. I freeze the rest in small portions for lunches later.\"\n\nWe watched her efficiently chop an onion, carrots, and celery for her soup. Baby Liam scooted around the kitchen floor at her feet. She had recently had all her kitchen knives sharpened. \"It makes a huge difference having a super sharp knife. I can cruise through chopping.\" She tossed the vegetables into her pot and started to simmer them.\n\nHer husband hunts and brings home a motley assortment of game. She used to struggle about how to prepare it. \"I used to think, What do I do with a pheasant?\" she said. \"Then I learned to braise! Now a lot of my cooking is braising, braising, braising. I have to say that my braised pheasant is a big hit.\"\n\nShe picked up Liam, who had grown noticeably bigger, and balanced him heavily on her slight hip. \"The class definitely changed some fundamental basics about how I cook,\" she said. \"I make more sauces, soups, and meals from scratch. I am more confident in the kitchen because I just have more faith in my skills. I think the class not only helped me learn new things but also taught me not to be afraid of cooking and trying new things on my own.\"\n\nCheryl had been fairly label conscious and the class had just made her even more so. \"For instance, I rarely buy bread.\" She opened her fridge to reveal two containers of bread dough, one white and one whole wheat. \"My husband is the official baker in the family. He experiments with all kinds of versions. You know, I've gotten to the point that I just want to know what's in everything that I feed my family now.\"\n\n#  **SHANNON**\n\nShannon is endlessly up for a challenge. \"It's funny, I made some applesauce. I had all these apples,\" she said, holding her arms out wide to indicate a massive crate of apples. \"Weirdly, it was really fun. I was totally cruising through chopping them.\" She smiled broadly. \"My hand was a little sore after doing it, but I totally dug the Zen of getting into it.\"\n\nBy this point, the volunteers had some consensus on the efficacy of classes. Knife skills, the chicken class, stock, soup, no-knead bread, and learning to cook fish in parchment came out as strong themes. Shannon was no different. But I was interested in her takeaways. She was the mother of two young children and someone who carefully watched her food budget.\n\nSome things she'd been less hip to. \"I've made my own stock and I really like it, but sometimes I just can't get there,\" she said. \"It's hard to compare my own stock against supermarket stock because it's just so different. But if I buy it, I totally check the sodium. I get it as close to unsalted as I can. I found a brand that has only three grams of sodium that I like.\"\n\nOne class that she doesn't remember fondly was the tasting class. In retrospect, eager to offer a lot of options, I may have presented _too_ many and pushed a couple of volunteers into sensory exhaustion. Nine types of salt were probably six too many. \"I remember leaving that class feeling that I had been physically beaten.\" She liked the later classes in which we did a single tasting at the beginning of class. \"Don't get me wrong, I liked comparing tastes of things that I actually cook with, such as pasta and canned tomatoes and chicken stock. It was just too much at one time.\" Even so, she was the first student to announce she had tossed her iodized salt. She had seen a notice online for the comparative beef tasting at a Red Velvet Dinner. \"That's something I'd be interested in, the whole grass-fed versus corn-fed, or the taste of organic chickens versus the kind from the meat department.\"\n\nAs far as the fish class, the emphasis on hitting a separate store didn't factor into the complexities of being a mother and a cook. \"While I'd love to go to a fish market, the reality is that at the end of the day I have only so many trips in me. I've got to guide a baby and a young child and sometimes it's all I can do to just get milk. So I buy fish from the higher-end supermarket where I know they have good fish and I buy some of my other stuff there, too. Honestly, the reason why I like the parchment is because it always turns out. I can prep it in advance while they're napping and there are no dishes.\"\n\nWho could argue with Shannon? She had the information and weighed her options based on a frank and realistic set of expectations for her life right now. For instance, nurturing a pot of stock for hours wasn't a priority, but she didn't want to add the liquid equivalent of a salt lick to her food. So her decision to seek out unsalted chicken stock seemed like a completely reasonable solution. I'm sure the list went on.\n\nThat has not kept her from exploring new culinary territory, in part based on the confidence and information she gained from the classes. \"I've always been kind of scared of my Crock-Pot. I don't really understand it,\" she said. But she had dragged it out of a closet and dropped a couple of lamb shanks into it recently. \"When I came back in the meat was separated from the bones and I thought, Yes, that's right, that's what Robin said was supposed to happen. It tasted really awesome.\"\n\nIn June, Shannon noted that she felt uncomfortable cooking without a recipe. So it was a surprise when she shared the provenance of her lunch. \"I had a lamb ragout in a restaurant when we were on vacation,\" she started. \"It was so yummy! Oh, my God, it was so good! So then I wondered how I could re-create it. I looked online and found some recipes for ragout, but they all used ground lamb, which wasn't what they used. But I realized, Oh, that's just a braise. So I got a lamb shoulder and I cut it up into pieces and braised it. For the polenta, I made it from cornmeal and threw some cheese into it to make it gooey and yummy and it all worked.\"\n\nHer family approved. \"We were like, 'Oh, yum!' The funny thing about that story is that before class, I just don't think I would have ever thought to tackle something like that. Now, I can. I feel like I deserve a pat on the back for that one.\"\n\nAt that moment, I realized that not only had Shannon passed Cooking Basics 101 with flying colors, she was probably ready for a 301 class.\n\n#  **GENEVIEVE**\n\nDue to moving schedules and life in general, it took us months to catch up with Genevieve. She had been living with three roommates in a comfortable rental house when we met her, but she had since moved into a new condo with her boyfriend, John. The sleek kitchen boasted dark cherrywood cabinets, gray slate floor tile, a black man-made quartz countertop, and stainless steel appliances. \"It's funny, part of what we liked about this place was the cabinets, but it turns out some are super shallow.\" She demonstrated by showing that a canister she uses for tea barely fits inside. \"Oh, well, they look nice.\"\n\nThe shallow cabinets included a healthy roundup: wheat pasta, cans of tomatoes, artichokes, and olives, brown rice, and a collection of oils and vinegars. \"It turns out that I really like vinegar,\" she said. \"I was kind of surprised. Now I'm all over them. My latest favorite is tarragon. It is super tasty.\"\n\nIn her fridge was a spectrum of colored vegetables, a wrapped packet of fish, some greens, organic milk, white wine, prepackaged Jell-O pudding, and leftover butternut squash soup from the weekend. She kept cilantro in a small glass of water like flowers, as Thierry had suggested. In her cheese drawer was a wedge of real Parmigiano-Reggiano. Among the items she kept in her freezer were frozen strawberries, pot stickers, and a couple of frozen pizzas, plus some butter because she doesn't use it often.\n\n\"One thing that's I've changed is my buying habits. I don't buy premade packages of stuff, like those frozen pasta dinners with the sauce. I used to get those a lot. But now I realize that it's no comparison to what I can make fresh, plus the list of ingredients kind of turned me off. I find it hard to order pasta in a restaurant. I think, Twenty dollars? I could totally make this for three.\"\n\nShe and John hit a farm stand a couple of times a week rather than stocking up at the grocery store and sought out a stand-alone butcher and fishmonger. \"I rely less on getting my food from one place.\" Shopping together, they both try to rotate the goods in their fridge to avoid food waste. \"A couple of times a week I do a sweep of the fridge for what needs to be used. Whether it's leftover chicken or vegetables or herbs, I'll just chop them up and add them to a salad and then make vinaigrette. Sometimes that's dinner.\"\n\nOn her counter rests a small bowl filled with avocados and tomatoes. Beve, the nutritionist, had made a comment that everyone could eat more avocados, a source of healthy fat. So Gen had learned to make guacamole. John chimed in. \"I have to say, her guac is great.\"\n\nDuring our first visit, Gen combined a bag of prepared cabbage slaw with a jar of teriyaki sauce. On the follow-up visit, she made wild-caught Alaskan salmon cooked in parchment paper and roasted asparagus. \"I make this pretty often. I've even taught the paper trick to a couple of people. I remember when you asked how many portions a big chicken breast made, and then you weighed it and it was more than a pound, so it was really four servings. I use that as a reason to buy better meat or fish but eat less of it.\"\n\nShe reminded me of something that I'd said offhand in class. \"You said, 'No one is going to make you pack your knives and go home if a dish doesn't turn out.' I think about that a lot. That kind of attitude makes me more confident, and that's why I enjoy it more. It allows me to try things without getting worked up about it.\" A week ago, she had been saut\u00e9ing a piece of fish and decided to make a sauce with diced apple, rosemary, and white wine. \"I thought, What the heck? I'll give that a try. You know what? It was really good.\"\n\n#  **DONNA**\n\nOf all the volunteers, I was most intrigued by Donna. I genuinely liked her and was sympathetic to the power struggle over food and cooking in her new marriage. We never managed a date for a second home visit. After a few months, I sensed that the project had had no lasting effect on her and she was simply too polite to let me down.\n\nFinally, a year after the project ended, we caught up on the phone. \"Honestly, I didn't change my lifestyle much right after the classes,\" she started, my initial suspicions confirmed. \"But there's one phrase that repeats in my head, even to this day. When you were at my house, you said, 'Do you ever wonder what they do to foods to make them low-fat?' I guess I never cared before. Crappy food had always been a fact of life. But then I started questioning things, although not much else changed.\"\n\nThen, a few months earlier, she had started to cook on Sundays. \"I'm not sure how it started, but I just decided that Sunday was the only real time that I have to cook.\" She made three or four meals, and then wrapped them up in individual servings to eat for lunch or dinner throughout the week. She favored vegetable-centric dishes that pack well; vegetarian chili was a standard in her rotation. In the three months since she'd started, she'd lost ten pounds.\n\n\"After years of trying to find the 'secret' to battling my weight issues, I seem to have found it in cooking,\" she said. \"I'm an emotional eater. Taking my food with me to work and eating the same things has helped me maintain that food is fuel and not luxury or reward.\"\n\nShe doesn't come home ravenous anymore, a good thing because her husband lost all interest in cooking, a major shift in the original context of their relationship. \"He eats mostly frozen food now,\" she said. \"I don't want that for myself but I don't want to fight him about it either. If he cooks, that's okay, but I don't rely on him to do it anymore,\" she said, adding that he's still about ninety pounds overweight. \"Now if we eat something homemade, I make it. The thing is that he hasn't changed, I'm the one who has changed,\" she said. You could hear a surge of independence in her voice. \"It's pretty exciting, really.\"\n\nWhen we first met, her husband selected most of their groceries, but his shopping ethos troubled her. He'd buy five heads of lettuce at a warehouse store, only to throw away three. It conflicted with the values from her day job working with an African aid organization. Now she shops for her food, and he shops for his.\n\n\"So I still buy a lot at the warehouse store because they have good deals, but now I go with a friend from work. We shop together and then we split it. Doing that has helped me save money but waste less food. It's fun, too. My friend and I trade recipes and catch up.\" For fruits and vegetables, she hits a farm stand near her house two or three times a week. \"I've been trying to eat organic, too. I am now okay with paying a little more to get something local or organic. My husband thinks I'm crazy but he supports me.\"\n\nAs Donna made the same recipes over and over again, she found herself experimenting with them. \"I used to follow everything to the letter. Now I'm not a slave to a recipe. I trust my taste more, and I'm getting better at knowing when a dish needs something and what that might be.\"\n\nAs with the other volunteers, small bits of information had had an impact. \"I didn't realize spices expired! I thought they lasted forever. I think it's crazy to make a pasta dish from a package. It's about the same amount of work and mine tastes so much better.\" She'd even made gnocchi from scratch, something I personally have yet to master. \"I had a lot of potatoes and I thought that I could probably figure it out. I've done it a few times and I'm getting really good at it now.\"\n\nNot long ago, she made her mother-in-law's classic white rolls. The first time she tried them, they turned out well. When Donna made them at her mother's house, they burned. \"In the past, I would have thought it was my fault. See? This is proof that I can't cook. But this time I thought, Oh, well, I can make these, it's her oven, and this isn't about my ability. It's a bigger shift in my own self-worth.\"\n\nShe credits a chicken with some of her confidence.\n\n\"I had wanted to roast a chicken, but I always felt intimidated.\" A few months ago, she had bought her first whole chicken. She delighted in the sense of victory when it turned out perfectly. Now roast chicken is one of her staples. \"A week ago, my friend came over and she said, 'Wow, look at you, you're an amazing cook.' And I thought, What? It's just a roast chicken.\" Then she remembered that not that long ago that was a big deal.\n\n\"So I've encouraged people around me to cook. I know that it makes such a difference. Small changes put together can be big enough to change your whole life,\" she said. \"I have a friend who always bought her vegetables precut. When I asked why, she said she was scared of knives. I was, too, before this started. So I showed her how it's done, so she could get past her fear.\"\n\nThis, she said, was the greatest lesson. \"You get so afraid of things and then you do them and think, What was I so afraid of? You just have to do it.\"\n\nHow had I changed? My spice drawer is immaculate, thanks to the Great Spice Cleanout of 2009. Our freezer is lined with pasture-raised beef, pork, and chicken, a nod to the various classes on the subject and, in a way, a circle back to my early life on the farm in Michigan. I make soup at least once a week now to clean out my fridge. As Thierry suggested, we have a photo in the back of our fridge, an image of Mike and me embracing in Paris, taken by Holly during the AAA tour.\n\nI often think of that speech I gave at the Cordon Bleu graduation. In a blur of anxiety and grief, I urged the graduates to find something they were passionate about and just go for it. What I didn't realize then was that I needed that advice as much as anyone in the audience, and I learned as much as or more than any of the volunteers over the course of the project, including unexpected things I didn't even know needed to change.\n\nNot long after the project ended, Mike announced that he was going to make Alfredo sauce. I hovered. \"Maybe you should add some garlic,\" I started. \"You might not want to stir it so much.\" Then, \"Oh, hey, you know, you could add some of the chicken stock in the fridge. It's a different way to do it, but . . .\"\n\nMike handed me the spatula. \"Fine, you finish it the way you want it.\"\n\n\"But I was just trying to be helpful,\" I told him.\n\n\"This is why I don't like to cook with you in the kitchen,\" he said heatedly. \"You know why I always make Thai food? You never try to correct me on it.\" I knew how he felt. It replayed a similar scene from earlier in the summer.\n\nWhen we moved back to the United States in 2005, I hadn't owned a car for six years. Mike would sit in the passenger seat and offer me \"helpful\" tips. \"Kat, there's a pedestrian over there.\" Then, \"Oh, you'll probably want to slow down, there's a sharp turn coming up.\" Or, if he felt that I was going too slowly, \"You know the speed limit is forty-five here, right?\"\n\nIt made me so nervous, I'd second-guess myself. Even if he didn't say a word, I felt him silently critiquing my every move. Only weeks before the Alfredo episode, I had pulled over, unbuckled my seat belt, and said, \"Fine, you drive.\" His shock at my response was the same as mine to his irritated resignation about the pasta.\n\nIn the midst of a project designed to encourage people to cook, it seemed I thwarted the person closest to me. I learned to back off, to let him explore his own tastes and give him the reign of the kitchen now and then. As a result, he flourished as a cook. Now we routinely cook together.\n\nBut that's the thing about teaching. You find lessons you never expected beyond the ones you've taught. I'm grateful for that existential crisis onstage in Paris. Sometimes we need a good shake-up to remind us of who and where we are in life and to prompt us to change courses. Am I a chef? Not really, but how well does a single word define us? Julia Child never needed or wanted the title of chef. I write, I cook, I teach. I know that I'm the sum of those passions.\n\nWith that, I'm off to take a class on canning with Shannon. She recently earned her \"Master Canner\" designation. Last summer, Shannon didn't know how to hold a knife. Tomorrow, she will teach me how to preserve pears. It's the most fitting close to the circle that I can imagine. We live, we learn, we teach one another. Isn't that the way it should be?\n\nClick here for more books by this author\n**Extra Recipes**\n\nIn this section, you'll find a few other recipes taught in or developed as a result of the project. Most are meant to replicate items frequently purchased. Go ahead, give them a try.\n\n#    **Baked Chicken Nuggets**\n\n_My sister and I started making this alternative to the ubiquitous ultraprocessed fried chicken nuggets for my niece Sarah a decade ago. Store-bought bread crumbs can be stale and loaded with sodium, so try making your own. Toast two slices of bread, let them cool, and process them into crumbs in a small food processor. You can also use panko, Japanese bread crumbs, or toss in ground cornflakes for extra crunch. Cooking the chicken on a cooling rack allows the dry heat to crisp both sides, but if you don't have one, simply coat a parchment or foil-lined cookie sheet with cooking spray, and turn the chicken pieces over after ten minutes. Try to use real cheese rather than a canned variety; it will make a big difference in flavor._\n\n**MAKES ABOUT 2 DOZEN NUGGETS**\n\n1  pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts or tenders   \n1 cup bread crumbs   \n  cup grated Parmesan cheese   \n  teaspoon kosher salt   \n1 teaspoon dried thyme or mixed herbs   \nPinch of cayenne (optional)   \nFreshly ground black pepper   \n1 egg   \n  cup skim milk, yogurt, or buttermilk   \nCooking spray\n\nPreheat the oven to 400\u00b0F. Place a cooling rack in the center of a cookie sheet. Set aside.\n\n  Cut the chicken breasts into 1 -inch pieces. In a shallow bowl or a large plastic bag, mix together the bread crumbs, cheese, salt, dried herbs, cayenne (if using), and a few grinds of black pepper. Combine the egg and milk in a small bowl. Dip the chicken into the milk mixture and then coat it well with the bread crumb mixture, either in a bowl or by tossing it inside the bag. Place the coated chicken pieces on the cooling rack and put the cookie sheet into the oven. Depending on your oven and the size and thickness of the chicken, the pieces will take 15 to 20 minutes until firm and cooked through. Spritz the chicken lightly with cooking spray and then place the cookie sheet under the broiler for 1 to 2 minutes, until browned, if desired.\n\n#    **Cream of Mushroom Soup**\n\n_Many \"cream of\" condensed soups are little more than simple white sauces easily replicated at home. The result tastes better and contains far less sodium, preservatives, and fat than you'll find in the canned variety. You can use any variety of dried mushroom that fits your budget and taste, but avoid shiitake, as its pronounced flavor may throw off many recipes. For best value, buy mushrooms in bulk; you can find them online and in warehouse stores. Mushroom bouillon can be found in health-food stores, Italian food specialty stores, or online._\n\n**YIELDS ROUGHLY THE EQUIVALENT OF AN 11-OUNCE CAN**\n\n  ounce dried mushrooms (about 1 tablespoon)   \n8 ounces hot water   \n1  tablespoons butter   \n1  tablespoons flour   \n  cup cold milk   \n  teaspoon mushroom or beef bouillon   \nSalt and freshly ground black pepper\n\n  In a bowl, steep the dried mushrooms in the hot water until they soften according to the package directions. Remove the mushrooms with a fork, reserving the dark liquid, or \"tea.\" Chop them finely, and set aside.\n\n  Heat the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Once it's melted, add the flour. Whisk continuously as the mixture bubbles for about 2 minutes, until it smells like popcorn, then remove the pan from the heat. Whisk in the cold milk until blended. Return to the heat and add the steeping liquid, the chopped mushrooms, and the bouillon. Add a pinch or two of salt and a few grinds of coarseground pepper. Bring to a light, bubbly boil and then simmer for about 5 minutes over medium-low heat, until it thickens. Taste, and add more salt and pepper if desired.\n\n_**Variation: Cream of Chicken**_\n\n  Use 8 ounces of chicken stock in place of the dried mushrooms and water and   teaspoon chicken bouillon in place of the mushroom or beef varieties.\n\n#    **Easy Spaghetti Sauce**\n\n_Less expensive, tastier, and healthier than most jars of pasta sauce, this can be made in roughly the time it takes to boil pasta and toss a quick salad. As a bonus, you can add fresh or leftover vegetables or other flavorings. This also makes a terrific pizza sauce._\n\n**SERVES 4 WITH PASTA**\n\n4 tablespoons olive oil   \n  onion, finely chopped (about   cup)   \n1  teaspoons dried mixed Italian herbs   \n3 garlic cloves, chopped   \nOne 14-ounce can tomato sauce   \nPinch of red pepper flakes (optional)   \n  cup water   \n1 bay leaf   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \n1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (optional)\n\n  In a saucepan over medium heat, warm the oil, then cook the onion and herbs until tender. Add the garlic, stir, and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomato sauce, red pepper flakes, water, and bay leaf, plus a couple of pinches of coarse salt and a few cranks of black pepper. Bring just to a boil, and then immediately lower the heat to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, on low heat for 15 minutes. Add the vinegar, if using, and cook an additional 2 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Remove the bay leaf before serving.\n\n_**Consider adding the following:**_\n\nAbout   cup green and\/or black olives with the onions for a   \nputtanesca-style sauce   \nHandful of finely chopped mushrooms with the onions   \nRed wine in place of the water just before simmering for a   \ncabernet-style sauce   \nA tablespoon or two of chopped fresh herbs, such as basil, oreg-   \nano, or parsley, at the very end of cooking   \nAbout   pound cooked hamburger or cubed chicken with the   \nonions   \n3 tablespoons vodka and   cup cream 5 minutes before the end of   \ncooking\n\n#    **Pomodoro (Fresh Tomato Sauce)**\n\n_Be sure to have the pasta cooking and all the ingredients ready before starting the sauce; this is ready more quickly than you'd expect. Flavorful fresh tomatoes make all the difference here; cherry tomatoes work especially well and they're available year-round. Just cut them in half. Carefully scoop out a bit of the pasta water to finish the sauce._\n\n**MAKES ENOUGH FOR ABOUT 4 SIDE PORTIONS OR 2 MAIN-DISH SERVINGS**\n\n8 ounces dried pasta, such as penne or linguine, or 12 ounces   \nfresh pasta   \nCoarse salt   \n1 tablespoon olive oil   \n2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced   \nAbout 12 ounces tomatoes, chopped   \n  cup Parmesan cheese, grated   \nPinch or two of hot pepper flakes   \nHandful of chopped parsley or basil   \nFreshly ground black pepper to taste\n\n  Boil water for the pasta. Add at least 1 tablespoon of salt to the water; it should taste slightly salty. Cook the pasta according to the package directions; reserve about   cup of pasta water after cooking.\n\n  Meanwhile, add the olive oil to a saut\u00e9 pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute; be sure not to burn it or you'll need to start over. Add the tomatoes and any other vegetables (see below), and cook until the vegetables are softened, about 3 to 5 minutes for tomatoes on their own, longer if you add other vegetables.\n\n  Add the reserved pasta water and cook until the sauce is reduced slightly and the rest of the ingredients begin to break down, about another 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the cheese, red pepper flakes and parsley or basil (if using), several cranks of fresh black pepper, and salt if needed.\n\n_**Consider adding the following:**_\n\nSplash of cream at the end of cooking for a more creamy texture\n\nHandful of additional chopped vegetables, such as zucchini, artichokes, olives, and\/or asparagus, to extend the sauce and offer additional flavor\n\nShrimp or diced cooked chicken with the tomatoes (Shrimp can be added raw, but be sure to cook them thoroughly; they should turn white throughout and curl up tightly.)\n\n#    _**Potage Parmentier**_ **(Leek and Potato Soup)**\n\n_This is inexpensive French soul food. If leeks aren't available, try sweet onions. Makes about four to six servings._\n\n3 medium leeks   \n2 tablespoons butter   \n1 pound potatoes, peeled and diced   \n1 bay leaf and   teaspoon dried thyme, or a bouquet garni   \n2 quarts water or chicken or vegetable stock   \n  cup whipping cream, or 2 tablespoons butter, softened   \nCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper   \nCayenne to taste (optional)   \n3 tablespoons minced parsley or chives\n\n  Prepare the leeks by discarding the roots and the tough green upper stalks. Slice, then rinse them in water to remove any residual dirt. In a 4-quart or larger saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter, then saut\u00e9 the leeks for about 5 minutes, until they are softened and translucent. Add the potatoes, bay leaf and thyme or bouquet garni and water or stock. Simmer for about 40 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.\n\n  Remove from the heat. Discard the bay leaf. Break down the vegetables with a fork or a potato masher, or puree in a blender. Return to the heat. Add the whipping cream or 2 tablespoons butter. Taste. Add salt and pepper if needed, and a bit of cayenne if desired. Garnish with chopped parsley or chives and a couple of cranks of black pepper.\n\n#    **A \"Cheat Sheet\" to Flavor Profiles**\n\n_What makes something taste Italian or Cajun or Moroccan? Whether crafting vinaigrette, seasoning chicken, or developing a soup, understanding the flavors of ingredients that help to define various cuisines can be deeply useful._\n\n_Every cuisine has its regional variations; Basque cuisine is vastly different from the classic dishes from Provence, but they're both French. So consider this a shorthand reference to a few culinary stereotypes. Don't overdo it. Try incorporating two to four ingredients from a cuisine group to tilt a flavor profile in that general direction._\n\n_**Cajun\/Creole**_\n\ndark roux, onions, celery, green pepper, tomatoes, parsley, cayenne, Cajun spice blends, blackening seasonings, lemon, scallions, andouille sausage, crab, shrimp\n\n_**French**_\n\nbutter, shallots, onions, celery, carrots, thyme, tarragon, herbs de Provence, bay leaves, chives, chervil, capers, red and white wine, truffle, soft cheeses, Dijon mustard, mushrooms, cream\n\n_**Indian**_\n\ntandoori spices, garam masala, curry, yogurt, coconut milk, basmati rice, tamarind, cardamom, cumin, coriander, cilantro, fennel, garlic, saffron, fenugreek, dried chilies\n\n_**Italian**_\n\ngarlic, onions, celery, basil, pesto, prosciutto, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, mozzarella cheese, pine nuts, tomatoes, artichokes, olives, olive oil, oregano, lemon, fennel, flat-leaf parsley, red pepper flakes, rosemary, white beans, balsamic vinegar\n\n_**Japanese**_\n\nmiso, sesame oil, sesame seeds, rice vinegar, sake, soy sauce, wasabi, ginger\n\n_**Mediterranean\/Greek**_\n\noregano, lemon, olives, tuna, rosemary, bay leaves, thyme, olive oil, lamb, garlic, feta cheese, tomatoes, red onions, fish, shellfish\n\n_**Mexican\/Tex-Mex**_\n\ncumin, chili powder, hot sauce, green peppers, oregano, lime, garlic, onions, celery, cilantro, tomatoes, scallions, black beans, Cheddar cheese, avocado\n\n_**North African**_\n\nmint, lemon, harissa, saffron, turmeric, parsley, cilantro, honey, olives, almonds, dates, raisins, chickpeas, eggplant, green bell peppers, carrots, lentils, onion, ground ginger, paprika, cumin, cayenne, figs\n\n_**Central\/South Asian**_\n\nginger, garlic, scallions, shallots, lemongrass, Thai basil, cilantro, fish sauce, shrimp paste, soy sauce, coconut milk, sesame seeds, sesame oil, rice or sweet wine vinegar, cilantro, lime, oyster sauce, galangal, hot chili peppers\n**Acknowledgments**\n\n  First, here's a nod to the crew at Viking Penguin, including my wonderful editors, Stephen Morrison and Rebecca Hunt, publicist Lindsay Prevette, editor Beena Kamlani and copy editor Randee Marullo. I'm thankful for the wisdom and support of agent Larry Weissman through this project.\n\nNine volunteers opened up their hearts, kitchens, and lives, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I'm beholden to the volunteer teachers, chefs Thierry Rautureau, Robin Leventhal, Lauri Carter, and Jenny Nichols, plus nutritionist Beve Kindblade. Life wouldn't be the same without my chef friend Ted Lawrence.\n\nI couldn't have done this project without my friend Lisa Simpson, who soldiered with me through kitchens and chickens and taught me a lot along the way. I'm indebted to pals Maggie Savarino and Jeff Manness for lending their remarkable talents and energy.\n\nMany people lent their time offering feedback on this work while it was in progress, among them Deirdre Timmons, Laura Evelev, Cherie Jacobs Featheringill, Lee Mohr, Jackie Donnelly Baisa, Cindy Kane, and Philip Lee. Shalini Gujavarty came on board as my assistant during the writing of the book and contributed research, recipe testing, and beyond. Jamaica Jones did a bang-up job double-checking my research. My resident knife expert, Bill Magee, kept my blades sharp and my cutlery facts straight. My Le Cordon Bleu classmate Anne-Catherine Kruger led me to the catering kitchen owned by Kristine Pottle. I'm grateful to Zo\u00eb Fran\u00e7ois and Jeff Hertzberg for their terrific no-knead bread recipe.\n\nI recruited more than 150 recipe testers to try out and provide feedback for recipes in this book. The most active included Adrian Amo, Lauren Robinson, Marie Asselin, Susan Baird, Jane Bonacci, Libby Brill, Eric Compton, Deb Coupland-Porter, Glenn Dettwiler, Jessica Friedman, Michele Gartner, Lisa Glatt, Alka Goyal, Seika Gray, Scott Harbour, Eric Himan, Julie Hinson, Lindsey Hunt, Lee Mohr, Dayna Quick, Maria Raynal, David Rojas, David St. Clair, Jenise Silva, Shannon Valderas, Michael Wagner, Brenna Wilson, and Diana Wisen.\n\nI relied heavily on my education from the chefs at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and I know now that I'll be forever indebted to that famed institution. I'm grateful to the many people in the food-writing community who contributed directly or indirectly to this project and whose work and research inspires me, including Ken Abala, Pam Anderson, Jonathan Bloom, Dina Cheney, Amanda Hesser, Lia Huber, Deborah Madison, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Michael Ruhlman, Jamie Oliver, Ruth Reichl, Rick Rodgers, Jon Rowley, Kim Severson, Laura Shapiro, Frances Short, Andy F. Smith, Virginia Willis and among many others. The late Julia Child never fails to motivate me.\n\nPetra Martin developed the Whidbey Island Writing Refuge, a quiet place in the woods where I wrote portions of the book. David John and Linea Anderson lent me the use of their sailboat. Both spaces were in addition to my usual shelter at the Richard Hugo House.\n\nI'm thankful to the woman in the supermarket for having the faith to let a stranger help her out with a chicken. I hope someday she knows how that afternoon changed my life.\n\nFinally, my deepest, heartfelt appreciation goes to Mike Klozar, partner in everything, writing coach, editor, technical guru, idea man, husband, and love of my life. There aren't enough words in any language to thank you.\n**Selected Bibliography**\n\nBlaylock, Russell L. _Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills_. Abingdon, England: Health Press, 1996.\n\nBrackman, Pat. _The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book_. New York: Bantam, 1988.\n\nCheney, Dina. _Tasting Club: Gathering Together to Share and Savor Your Favorite Tastes_. New York: DK Publishing, 2006.\n\nChild, Julia. _The French Chef Cookbook_. New York: Knopf, 2002.\n\nChild, Julia, Simone Beck, and Louise Bertholle. _Mastering the Art of French Cooking_. New York: Knopf, 1961.\n\nDavid, Elizabeth. _An Omelette and a Glass of Wine_. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot, 1997.\n\nDavidson, Alan. _The Penguin Companion to Food_. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002.\n\n_The End of the Line_. Director, Rupert Murray; producer, Arcane Pictures. Dogwood Pictures, 2009.\n\nEttingliner, Steve. _Twinkies Deconstructed_. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2002.\n\nFisher, M. F. K. _Serve It Forth (Art of Eating)_. New York: North Point Press, 1989.\n\n\"Food 52\" Kitchen Tour with Amanda Hesser. Producer, Food 52.com, 2009. <http:\/\/vimeo.com\/5133553>.\n\n_Food, Inc._ Director and producer, Robert Kenner. Magnolia Pictures, 2009.\n\nGladwell, Malcolm. _Outliers_. New York: Little, Brown, 2008.\n\nGladwell, Malcolm. _The Tipping Point_. New York: Little, Brown, 2002.\n\nJacob, Dianne. _Will Write for Food_. New York: Da Capo Press, 2010.\n\nKallam, Tawra Jean, and Jill Cooper. _Dining on a Dime_. Temple, TX: T & L Group, 2004.\n\nKatz, David L., and Catherine S. Katz. _The Flavor Point Diet: The Delicious, Breakthrough Plan to Turn Off Your Hunger and Lose the Weight for Good_. New York: Rodale, 2005.\n\nKeller, Thomas, and Deborah Jones. _The French Laundry Cookbook_. New York: Workman Publishing, 1999.\n\nKessler, David. _The End of Overeating_. New York: Rodale, 2009.\n\n_King Corn_. Director and producer, Aaron Woolf. Mosaic Films Inc., 2007.\n\nKriger, Ellie. _The Food You Crave_. Newtown, CT: Taunton, 2008.\n\nKurlansky, Mark. _Salt: A World History_. New York: Penguin, 2003.\n\nMillstone, Erik. _The Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, and Why_. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008.\n\nMitchell, Margaret. _Gone with the Wind_. New York: Scribner, 1936.\n\nMoulton, Sarah. _Sarah Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.\n\n_My Big Fat Greek Wedding._ Director, Joel Zwick. Gold Circle Films, 2002.\n\nOliver, Jamie. _Jamie's Food Revolution_. New York: Hyperion, 2009.\n\nPatel, Raj. _Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World's Food System_. London: Portobello Books, 2007.\n\nPeterson, James. _Splendid Soups_. New York: Bantam, 1993.\n\nPollan, Michael. _In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto_. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 2008.\n\nPollan, Michael. \"Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.\" _New York Times Magazine,_ July 29, 2009: MM26.\n\nReichl, Ruth. \"The New Culinary Order.\" Keynote, IACP Annual Conference, April 22, 2010.\n\nRuhlman, Michael. _The Elements of Cooking_. New York: Scribner, 2007.\n\nSanders, Laura. \"Binging Rats Get Hooked on Junk Food.\" _Discovery News_ 21 (Oct 2009).\n\nShapiro, Laura. _Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America_. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004.\n\nShort, Frances. _Kitchen Secrets: The Meaning of Cooking in Everyday Life_. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, 2006.\n\nSmith, Andrew F., _Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine_. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.\n\nSmith, Andrew F. _Souper Tomatoes: The Story of America's Favorite Food_. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.\n\nStaten, Vince. _Can You Trust a Tomato in January?_ New York: Touchstone, 1994.\n\nWeber, Karl. _Food, Inc: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer\u2014and What You Can Do About It_. New York: Public Affairs, 2009.\n\nWilder, Laura Ingalls. _Little House on the Prairie_. New York: HarperCollins, 1971.\n**Recommended Reading**\n\n#  **General Cookbooks**\n\nBittman, Mark. _How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food_. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008.\n\nChild, Julia. _The Way to Cook_. New York: Knopf, 1989.\n\nBetter Homes & Gardens, _Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book._ 15th ed. New York: Wiley, 2010.\n\nRombauer, Irma S., et al. _Joy of Cooking_. New York: Scribner, various editions.\n\n#  **On Learning to Cook Intuitively**\n\nAnderson, Pam. _How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart_. New York: Broadway Books, 2000.\n\nPage, Karen, and Andrew Dornenburg. _The Flavor Bible_. New York: Hachette USA, 2008.\n\nRuhlman, Michael. _Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking._ New York: Scribner, 2009.\n\n#  **Reinventing Family Dinners**\n\nDavid, Laurie, and Kristin Uhrenholdt, et al. _The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids One Meal at a Time._ New York: Grand Central Food & Style, 2010.\n\nLair, Cynthia. _Feeding the Whole Family._ Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books, 2008.\n\n#  **References for Every Kitchen**\n\nHerbst, Sharon Tyler, and Ron Herbst. _The New Food Lover's Companion._ 4th ed. New York: Barron's Educational Series, 2007.\n\nJoachim, David. _The Food Substitutions Bible: More than 5,000 Substitutions for Ingredients, Equipment and Techniques_. Toronto, ON: Robert Rose, 2010.\n\nQA International, _The Visual Food Lover's Guide_. New York: Wiley, 2009.\n\n#  **Cooking for One**\n\nYonan, Joe. _Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One._ Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2011.\n\n#  **Knife Skills**\n\nWard, Chad. _An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives\u2014How to Buy Them, Keep Them Razor Sharp, and Use Them Like a Pro_. New York: William Morrow Cookbooks, 2008.\n\n#  **No-Knead Bread**\n\nHertzberg, Jeff, and Zo\u00eb Fran\u00e7ois. _Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day_. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007.\n\nBaggett, Nancy. _Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads_. New York: Wiley, 2009.\n\n#  **Strategies to Save Money on Groceries**\n\nDacyzyn, Amy. _The Tightwad Gazette_. New York: Villard, 1992.\n\nLongacre, Doris Janzen. _More-with-Less Cookbook_. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2000.\n\nPennington, Amy. _Urban Pantry: Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable and Seasonal Kitchen_. Seattle, WA: Skipstone Press, 2010.\n\n#  **Soup**\n\nKaul, Leslie, Bob Spiegel, et al. _The Daily Soup Cookbook_. New York: Hyperion, 1999.\n\nBlake, Susannah. _500 Soups: The Only Soup Compendium You'll Ever Need_. Portland, ME: Sellers, 2007.\n\n#  **Modern Food Issues**\n\nBloom, Jonathan. _American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)_. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2010.\n\nFussell, Betty. _The Story of Corn._ Albuquerque, NM: University of Mexico Press, 2004.\n\nNestle, Marion. _What to Eat_. New York: North Point Press, 2006.\n\nPollan, Michael. _The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals_. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.\n\n#  **Understanding Nutrition Labels**\n\nFarlow, Christina Hoza. _Food Additives: Shopper's Guide to What's Safe & What's Not_. Lafayette, LA: KISS for Health Publishing, 2007.\n\n#  **Vegetarian Cooking**\n\nDragonwagon, Crescent. _The Passionate Vegetarian._ New York: Workman Publishing, 2002.\n\nMadison, Deborah. _Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone_. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2007.\n\nO'Donnel, Kim. _The Meat Lover's Meatless Cookbook_. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2010.\n**Index of Recipes**\n\n##\n\nA \"Cheat Sheet\" to Flavor Profiles\n\n##\n\nBaked Chicken Nuggets\n\nBasic Alfredo Sauce\n\nBlissfully Simple Chicken Stock\n\nBraised Pork with Potatoes and Cabbage\n\n##\n\nCream of Chicken Soup\n\nCream of Mushroom Soup\n\nCreamy Chocolate Frosting\n\n##\n\nDIY Vinaigrette\n\n##\n\nEasy Spaghetti Sauce\n\n##\n\nFish en Papillote, or Baked in Paper\n\nFive Marvelous Ways to Cook Vegetables with \"Flavor Splashes\"\n\n##\n\nMike's Yellow Cake\n\n##\n\nNo-Knead Artisan Bread for Busy People\n\n##\n\nPaella Valenciana\n\nPomodoro (Fresh Tomato Sauce)\n\n_Potage Parmentier_ (Leek and Potato Soup)\n\n##\n\nRustic Italian Farmhouse Zucchini \"Sauce\" with Penne\n\n##\n\nSpicy Shrimp in Saffron Tomato Sauce\n\n##\n\nVelvety Chilled Rosemary Carrot Soup\n\n##\n\nYour Basic Braise\n\nYour Basic Omelet\n\nYour Basic Roasted Chicken\n\n**ALSO BY KATHLEEN FLINN**\n\n_The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School_\n\nAlso known as wild leeks, a trendy vegetable among the foraging and farmers' market set.\n\nA small shop that sells inexpensive fried fish and fries.\n\nFrench fries.\n\nSodium caseinate is another name for monosodium glutamate (MSG).\n\nMSG is a chemical derived from the monosodium salt of the amino acid glutamic acid. It's made by processing fermented starch, corn, sugar beets, sugar cane, or molasses. Like aspartame, it's an excitotoxin that stimulates the neural system's \"pleasure\" cells, resulting in increased appetite. When researchers studying obesity need to fatten up lab rats, they dose the animals' food with MSG.\n\nPartially hydrogenated palm oil is on the hit list of many nutritionists; although cheap, it's considered a major artery clogger by several food scientists.\n\nTom was a judge on season six of _Top Chef,_ while Thierry was a cheftestant on _Top Chef Masters_.\n\nI originally selected nine women and one man, but the token male dropped out before the first class.\n\nThe Weight Watchers points system uses predetermined scores for food based on its nutritional value to help members avoid overeating.\n\nI learned later they're plastic cans, a miracle of modern packaging science. The contents do not need to be refrigerated, but to make the product feel \"fresh,\" the marketers sell it that way.\n\nAnne-Catherine took it in stride that she was edited out of my first book. She runs A Caprice Kitchen, a restaurant in Ballard, Washington. You should give it a try.\n\nForging is a means of shaping metal to produce a piece that is stronger than an equivalent cast or machined part, generally through the use of heat and pressure. Think hammer and anvil.\n\nMetallurgists measure relative hardness on the Rockwell Hardness Scale, or HRC. Most knives score in the 54 to 60 range. Japanese brands tend to be harder than European brands. So a Japanese-crafted Shun or Global knife might score 61 HRC, while a German-made W\u00fcsthof rates 56 HRC. In addition to hardness, there's carbon content. The most common steel recipe for knives worldwide falls into grades of 440 A, B, or C. The lowest, 440A, tends to be a soft steel that dulls easily, but it's cheaper and easier to manufacture than the higher-carbon variety, so most cheap knife blocks are 440A. That explains why so many bad knives exist in the world.\n\n\"Supertasters\" is a term coined by Yale University researcher Linda Bartoshuk, who stumbled on the notion that people's ability to taste varies widely while doing studies on saccharin. Supertasters readily taste a bitter synthetic compound found in saccharin known as 6-n-propylthiouracil. Nontasters can't detect it at all.\n\nIf you've ever wondered what was inside the chicken, the \"giblets\" include the neck, the liver, and the heart. They're traditionally stored inside the bird's cavity. Poultry producers often sell chickens without these bits because consumers don't know what to do with them. Rodgers suggests simmering them with a few veggies in a quart of water for an easy chicken broth.\n\nDetermining accurate numbers for meat consumption is something of a dark art; the USDA puts the figure at sixty pounds per person annually, while the American Meat Institute says it more like one hundred pounds, with others putting figures somewhere in between. No matter the source, chicken beats beef.\n\nThe primary difference is in the age of the chicken, which in turn determines the weight and tenderness of the bird. A broiler\/fryer weighs around three and a half pounds and is about ten weeks old. Roasters that tip the scales up to five pounds can be up to eight months old, while stewing fowl are even older. The odd bird out in her lineup was the capon, which historically was created by castrating a rooster to cause it to become a plump, tender bird; later, synthetic sex hormones were used for the same effect. Due to the industrialization of poultry, capons, stewing chickens, and older hens are rarities.\n\nThe Center for Science in the Public Interest reports that water or brine can account for as much as 15 percent of the weight in a package of chicken, and estimates that this practice generates $2 billion in added revenue per year for the poultry industry.\n\nInduction works through magnetic transference; one molecule excites another through direct physical contact. When I was asked this question the first time during a demonstration, I thrust the microphone at Mike. He was forced to define it on the spot. It sounded quite sensual.\n\nPresumably due to bad press, in 2010 the HFCS lobby asked the Food and Drug Administration for permission to shift its name to corn sugar.\n\nDiammonium phosphate, also known as DAP, used as a yeast nutrient here, is also used as a fertilizer, to enhance the flavor of nicotine in cigarettes, and is widely added to fire-fighting agents.\n\nBy the end of 2008, more than 184,500 cases of BSE had been confirmed in the United Kingdom, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In humans, the disease manifests primarily as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJd), and as of October 2010, a total of 217 cases of vCJd had been reported in eleven countries. In the United Kingdom, the epidemic peaked in 1999. In North America, twenty-one cases of BSE had been reported by mid-2010, three in the United States and eighteen in Canada.\n\nDenmark has the highest consumption of ground beef internationally.\n\nThis figure is based on studies by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which argues that heavy antibiotic use in animals may be a contributing factor in the rise of antibiotic resistance in humans who eat commercially raised meat.\n\nThe European Union is not so keen on North American beef. A blanket import ban has been the subject of intense political and legal wrangling. The World Trade Organization probably wishes the whole thing would just go away.\n\nCorn is so complex that entire books and films are devoted to the subject. Two I recommend are the documentary _King Corn_ and the book _The Story of Corn_ by Betty Fussell (University of Mexico Press, 2004).\n\nThe reason why the term \"natural\" is less meaningful for chickens is because growth hormones are prohibited in poultry in general; the USDA allows minimal antibiotic use in \"natural\" chickens but doesn't specify the amount.\n\nPork shoulder is also known as pork butt or Boston butt, a historical reference to the butchering style used by Boston-area butchers that left more meat and less bone on the shoulder cuts. The pieces were typically shipped in casks or barrels, colloquially known as \"butts,\" hence the term.\n\nOn page 200 of my first book, _The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry,_ I call for Chilean sea bass in a recipe. I suggest you try another responsibly caught whitefish instead. Thanks.\n\nFarm-raised salmon is controversial. It takes three pounds of wild fish to grow one pound of farmed salmon, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Most are farmed in open pens and cages in coastal waters, and it's easy for waste, parasites, antibiotics, and diseases from the penned fish to seep into open water. (Imported farmed shrimp has similar issues.) If you buy farmed salmon, try to stick to those that are referred to as \"tank-raised\" or \"tank-farmed.\"\n\nKeta is the salmon formerly known as \"chum.\" In terms of quality, it's generally considered at the bottom of the salmon totem pole.\n\nRegional guides are available for download at <http:\/\/seafoodwatch.org>.\n\nIssues with food chemicals can crop up years after approval, yet the FDA lacks much power to investigate or pull approved chemicals off the shelves. Since it was introduced in 1993, consumers have filed more than four thousand complaints to the FDA about aspartame, more commonly known as NutraSweet. This chemical accounts for 70 percent of all complaints received by the agency for a variety of health claims. It remains a controversy, with each side claiming the other doesn't have enough proof.\n\nThere are other claims to the \"original\" Thanksgiving, both in Canada and by the Spanish in St. Augustine, Florida.\n\nThe U.S. Department of Labor reports that in 2008, the average American spent 5.6 percent of his or her wages on food eaten at home and 4 percent on food eaten in restaurants or fast-food joints, or a bit more than 9.6 percent total.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nAlso by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick:\n\nA Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York\n\nas editor\n\nDorothy Parker: Complete Broadway 1918\u20131923\n\nThe Lost Algonquin Round Table: Humor, Fiction, Journalism, Criticism, and Poetry from America's Most Famous Literary Circle\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2013 by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.\n\nLyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.\n\nProject editor: Meredith Dias\n\nText design: Sheryl P. Kober\n\nLayout: Lisa Reneson\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nFitzpatrick, Kevin C., 1966-\n\nUnder the table : a Dorothy Parker cocktail guide \/ Kevin C.\n\nFitzpatrick.\n\npages cm\n\nE-ISBN 978-1-4930-0203-0 (ePub)\n\n1. Cocktails\u2014United States. 2. Parker, Dorothy, 1893-1967. 3.\n\nUnited States\u2014Social life and customs\u20141918-1945. I. Title. II. Title:\n\nDorothy Parker cocktail guide.\n\nTX951.F53 2013\n\n641.87'4\u2014dc23\n\n2013024383\n\nI love a martini\u2014\n\nBut two at the most.\n\nThree, I'm under the table;\n\nFour, I'm under the host.\n\nContents\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nForeword by Allen Katz\n\nIntroduction: Stirring the Life of Dorothy Parker\n\nCocktails 101\n\nTHE DRINKS\n\nSidebars\n\nProhibition and the Eighteenth Amendment\n\nDorothy Parker in Hollywood\n\nA Toast to the Algonquin Round Table\n\nA Guide to Speakeasy Slang\n\nPhoto and Illustration Credits\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nFurther Reading\n\nAbout the Author\n\nIndexes\nForeword\n\nIt was just one of those things . . .\n\nI was introduced to the acerbic wit of Dorothy Parker in college. Studying the lyrics of Tin Pan Alley, I came across the elegant patter of Cole Porter. \"As Dorothy Parker once said\" immediately piqued my curiosity. Of the musical numbers from 1935's Jubilee, I would sooner take \"Begin the Beguine,\" but of all the characters in \"Just One of Those Things\" only Juliet and Romeo were familiar to me. In those days, before the dawn of the Internet age, there was no Google search, so I hit the stacks and came upon The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker. \"Ballade of a Talked-Off Ear\" still stands out.\n\nBy the time I graduated\u2014Dorothy Parker Stories a fitting commencement gift\u2014I was on my way to New York to seek fame and fortune. I didn't know at the time that a future in drinks and the wonderfully fitting American culture of cocktails awaited me, but in short time, absorbed by the rush of history and the pleasure of a well-made Manhattan, suddenly her name appeared again: Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table. The Round Table itself, long before Mad Men, provided an interesting social concept: literati and the three-martini lunch. Instantly I was less interested in the hard talking and more interested in the hard drinking!\n\nDorothy Parker came of age in an era when men and women in urban America didn't socialize at bars. The saloons of the pre-Prohibition era offered taps for men of varied walks of life to blow off steam, share a story or two, and imbibe. Once in a while an establishment might have a side door or a ladies' entrance, but the idea of a woman lunching and drinking with men in a professional scenario was sadly a rarity. Parker helped change that, contributing, if you will, to the democratization of drinking culture\u2014and what more democratic place should there be than a bar?\n\nIn a time of restless brilliance, her national celebrity sprang from the sharp, biting humor of both her incisive poetry and her widely quoted quips. Regularly seated at the famed Algonquin Round Table, she took center stage in the city's cultural and intellectual beating heart. No one could have been a more interesting drinking companion, and our Dorothy Parker American Gin celebrates her unconventionality in all its glittering facets.\n\nUnder the Table gives us a glance at a bygone era and at Dorothy Parker herself: drinker, for certain, but writer, raconteuse, and provocateuse as well. Not just a reminiscence, it acknowledges a rejuvenation of cocktail culture, the importance of patience and the art of conversation, and the myriad rewards of a well-made drink.\n\n\u2014Allen Katz\n\nCofounder of the New York Distilling Company\nIntroduction\n\nStirring the Life of Dorothy Parker\n\nNo other American writer has a reputation quite like the one Dorothy Parker earned. Almost fifty years after her death, her numerous wisecracks live on, such as her advice to a friend who needed to euthanize an old cat: \"Try curiosity.\" Or about a boyfriend: \"His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.\" After she learned that President Coolidge had died, she remarked: \"How can you tell?\"\n\nBut Mrs. Parker did more than crack wise and create bad puns. The American Academy of Arts and Letters admitted her to its ranks not for telling jokes but for the achievements of her poetry and short stories. She went into the New York Writers Hall of Fame alongside Herman Melville and Willa Cather. Not a day goes by that her name doesn't pop up on the Internet, in the umpteenth pop culture reference of the day's news cycle.\n\nShe's also renowned for writing about booze, talking about drinking, and loving a cocktail or two herself. Along with her dogs and expensive clothes, Mrs. Parker also enjoyed her cocktails. She imbibed at speakeasies in New York, mansions in Beverly Hills, and villas on the French Riviera. A friend once said, \"You've got to expect public recognition like that. After all, you're an international celebrity.\" To which Mrs. Parker replied, \"Yeah, that's me, the toast of two continents\u2014Greenland and Australia.\"\n\nDorothy was born to New Yorkers J. Henry and Elizabeth (n\u00e9e Marston) Rothschild on August 22, 1893, at their summer beach cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey, near present-day 732 Ocean Avenue, facing the beach. Her father worked in the garment business, making men's cloaks and suits. The comfortably upper\u2013middle class family had housekeepers and cooks but weren't considered wealthy.\n\nWhen Dorothy Parker walked into a kitchen one morning, her host asked what he could make for her breakfast. \"Just something light and easy to fix,\" she said. \"How about a dear little whiskey sour?\"\n\nHer childhood on Manhattan's Upper West Side was an unhappy one. Young Dorothy attended a Catholic grammar school, then a finishing school in Morristown, New Jersey. Her formal education ended abruptly at age fourteen. A voracious reader, she often wrote poems for her father. Both her mother and stepmother died when she was young; her uncle, Martin Rothschild, perished on the Titanic in 1912, and her father died the following year.\n\nIn 1914 Mrs. Parker sold her first poem to Vanity Fair. At age twenty-one, she took an editorial job at Vogue. She couldn't believe how overdecorated the offices were, though. \"Well, it looks just like the entrance to a house of ill-fame,\" she remarked later. She continued writing poems for newspapers and magazines, and in 1917 she joined Vanity Fair, taking over for P. G. Wodehouse as drama critic\u2014making her the first female critic on Broadway. That same year, she married stockbroker Edwin Pond Parker II. The marriage proved tempestuous, though, and the couple divorced in 1928.\n\nDorothy Parker in the 1920s \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nIn 1919 Mrs. Parker became a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal gathering of writers who lunched at the Algonquin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The \"Vicious Circle\"\u2014which was the nickname of the group rather than the piece of furniture around which they gathered\u2014included Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George S. Kaufman, and Edna Ferber and earned a reputation for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary. In 1922, Smart Set published Mrs. Parker's first short story, \"Such a Pretty Little Picture.\"\n\nOne year after ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol, National Prohibition went into practice in January 1920. Mrs. Parker was twenty-six. She and her friends frequented the local speakeasies, particularly on West Forty-ninth Street, where Rockefeller Center stands today. There was no drinking at the Algonquin Hotel, however. General manager Frank Case took the bar out during World War I, keeping the restaurant in operation by serving tea and coffee. The Vicious Circle luncheons were \"dry\" affairs.\n\nWhen The New Yorker debuted in 1925, Mrs. Parker was listed on the editorial board. Over the years, she contributed poetry, fiction, theater criticism, and book reviews as \"Constant Reader.\" Her first collection of poetry, Enough Rope, appeared in 1926 and became a best seller. Her two subsequent collections were Sunset Gun in 1928 and Death and Taxes in 1931. Her collected fiction came out in 1930 as Laments for the Living.\n\nReviews were good, and her popularity swelled. Mrs. Parker traveled to Europe several times, befriending Ernest Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and socialites Gerald and Sara Murphy, among others. In the 1920s she contributed articles to The New Yorker and Life. While her work garnered her success and regard for her wit and conversational abilities, she suffered from depression and alcoholism and attempted suicide.\n\nIn 1929 Mrs. Parker won the O. Henry Award for her semi-autobiographical short story \"Big Blonde.\" She wrote short fiction in the early 1930s, and in 1931 she returned to her role as a Broadway critic, subbing for Robert Benchley for several issues of The New Yorker while he was in California. She delivered a particularly stinging put-down to a Channing Pollock drama: \"I may mutter only that The House Beautiful is, for me, the play lousy.\"\n\nIn 1934 Mrs. Parker married actor-writer Alan Campbell in New Mexico. The bride was forty; the groom twenty-nine. The couple relocated to Los Angeles and became a highly paid screenwriting team. They labored for MGM and Paramount on mostly forgettable features. Of the nearly forty screenplays that Mrs. Parker worked on, only a handful are available today on DVD. The highlight of her film career was an Academy Award nomination for A Star Is Born in 1937. The couple divorced in 1947 and remarried in 1950.\n\nMrs. Parker was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959. Following her husband's death in 1963, Dorothy returned to New York City. On June 6, 1967, she was found in her Upper East Side apartment, dead of a heart attack at age seventy-three. A firm believer in civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Martin Luther King Jr. On his assassination, less than a year later, the estate was turned over to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her remains were cremated and her ashes interred in a memorial garden at the NAACP headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.\n\nWithin twenty of years of her death, three biographies appeared, which opened the taps for a new generation to discover Dorothy Parker. In the 1990s her short fiction and poetry were collected in new editions and became steady sellers. Mrs. Parker's work was translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. For the centennial of her birth, a commemorative postage stamp was dedicated not far from where she was born on the Jersey Shore. The 1994 feature film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, directed by Alan Rudolph and featuring an all-star cast, with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the lead role, was a critical success. In 1999 the Dorothy Parker Society (DorothyParker.com) was launched to promote the work of and introduce new readers to Dorothy Parker (and have as much fun as possible). Today the society has more than five thousand members worldwide. As the fiftieth anniversary of Mrs. Parker's death approaches, more of her poems, fiction, and essays are available now than when she was alive, and her reputation as one of America's most original voices is solidly established.\nCocktails 101\n\nThis is a quick overview of basic bartending equipment, a glassware glossary of basic cocktail glasses, and some key mixing tips and tricks.\n\nEquipment for the Bartender\n\nYou can find the essential equipment for preparing these recipes in a home goods shop, restaurant supply store, or online auctions for vintage bar tools. Part of the lure of mixing cocktails derives from the paraphernalia and equipment needed. Just locating a vintage cocktail shaker and bar spoon will put you in the mood to start mixing drinks. These are the top pieces of essential bar equipment:\n\nbar spoon: Many drinks require the use of a long-handled flat-head spoon. Find one with a twisted shaft if possible, which feels better when stirring a drink.\n\nchannel knife: A lemon peel is cut into long spirals using this sharp, small knife. It is a flat piece of steel with an opening to cut the peel evenly.\n\nchef's knife: Best used for slicing large fruit such as lemons and limes. Keep it with a small cutting board.\n\ncocktail shaker: This is the most important tool you'll need to make a cocktail. Heavy stainless steel cocktail shakers guarantee the coldest drinks. Hunt around for antique sterling silver models of the \"silver bullet\" variety. The cocktail shaker will serve your needs for both shaking and stirring mixed drinks.\n\ncocktail shaker, Boston: The bottom half of a Boston cocktail shaker is stainless steel, and the top is made of glass. It also doubles as a mixing glass.\n\ncocktail strainer: Also called a Hawthorne or Lindley strainer, this has coils around the sides and is placed over the cocktail shaker.\n\ncorkscrew: You can choose from various models, but look for a vintage waiter's style corkscrew with a folding knife attachment (all the better for cutting foil and labels around the necks of bottles). The modern rabbit type with a lever pull is excellent, but the cheap ones quickly wear out with regular use.\n\ndishware: A few nice porcelain or china pieces are perfect for placing olives, limes, and garnishes on the bar. Conversely, obtain some good plastic containers in which to store your perishables overnight.\n\nice bucket and tongs: Keep your ice cubes handy in a bucket. Long tongs to grab ice cubes are more classy than a spoon (or your fingers).\n\nice spoon: Also known as a julep strainer, this spoon is semi-flat with holes in it and is placed over the cocktail shaker.\n\njiggers and shot glasses: These are indispensable for measuring that perfect drink. Some 2-ounce jiggers have markings for 11\u20442, 1, and 1\u20442 ounces. Shot glasses can come in these sizes as well.\n\njuicer or reamer: A juicer or reamer has holes to catch the seeds and pulp of fresh fruit. Use a bowl to collect the juice.\n\nmeasuring cups and spoons: Just like a kitchen set, measuring cups from 1\u20442 cup on up. A set that has tablespoons and teaspoons as well is key.\n\nmuddler: This is a rod, similar to a pestle, used for crushing or \"muddling\" fruit. It has a broad, rounded, or flat end. Get a wooden one because it won't scratch glass. You cannot make a Mint Julep without a muddler.\n\nopener: Many recipes require juices and mixes that require a bottle or can opener.\n\nparing knife: All bars need this indispensable knife. It should be 4 inches long and thin and have a spear tip. Keep it sharpened.\n\npitcher: Find a beautiful glass pitcher and use it for all stirred cocktails. It will look impressive when filled with ice cubes while also delivering drinks properly chilled.\n\nGlassware\n\nNot all glassware was created for the same purpose. You don't serve a Sidecar in a beer mug. A short list follows from among the two dozen or more types of bar glasses. It ignores the whole army of wine glasses and goblets and instead sticks to the glasses you will need to make the drinks in this guidebook. All cocktails are served in these basic types of glassware. Thinking about using a plastic cup? You should be ashamed.\n\nchampagne (4 to 10 ounces): The expected glass to serve Champagne is tall and graceful, also called a tulip and a flute. The reason for its shape? The smaller surface allows fewer bubbles to escape.\n\ncocktail (3 to 10 ounces): This is the classic stemmed glass for drinks served without ice. For larger drinks the bowls have become wider. Also called a martini glass.\n\nCollins (10 to 14 ounces): Slimmer and taller than a highball glass, the name of this glass derives from the Collins family of drinks.\n\ncoupe (5 to 10 ounces): Traditionally a small round bowl on a long stem\u2014often used for Champagne\u2014this glass is shallower than a wine goblet. The French claim it was modeled in the shape of Marie Antoinette's left breast. It's back in vogue for cocktails that don't require ice because the long stem prevents body heat from transferring to the drink. It's utterly classic.\n\nhighball (8 to 12 ounces): This is the most common bar glass for drinks with ice cubes. A lowball is half this size.\n\nNick & Nora (6 to 8 ounces): A smallish glass with a modest stem, this classic shape has a cult following that insists it's the best glass for serving Martinis. It takes its name from a pair of cocktail-loving gumshoes created by Dashiell Hammett; Nick and Nora Charles first appeared in his 1934 detective novel, The Thin Man. Other writers transferred the couple to radio, motion pictures, television, and Broadway shows. It's perfect for any cocktail served straight up.\n\nold-fashioned (4 to 8 ounces): It takes its name from the eponymous cocktail and is usually a short, squat glass used for drinks with ice. Also called a rocks glass or whiskey glass.\n\nsour (5 to 6 ounces): Used for sours and juice drinks of all kinds. Also called whiskey sour glass, Rickey glass, fizz glass, or a Delmonico, after the old New York restaurant.\n\nWine (4 to 8 ounces): From goblets to Reidel, each shape is for a different relationship between volume and surface area. Tapered bowls are designed for the free circulation of the wine to allow the vapors to \"breathe\" more.\n\nMixing Tips and Tricks\n\n  * \u25c6 There isn't a cocktail in this book that doesn't have one key ingredient: ice. In the old days bartenders took blocks of ice and cut off pieces to suit the drink. In our more modern age, ice is more plentiful, and you can use more of it. (Don't ever reuse ice cubes from one cocktail shaker to the next, though; never use the same ice twice!) If a recipe calls for \"cracked\" or \"shaved\" ice, take a good amount of cubed ice and wrap it in a clean, dry bar towel. Then, using a wooden mallet or heavy spoon, beat the heck out of it and drop the ice into the cocktail shaker. For drinks that are shaken, use cracked ice. The longer you shake it, the colder the drink.\n  * \u25c6 Cocktail shakers and mixing glasses are essential to superb cocktails. In his book, Imbibe!, bartender historian David Wondrich clarifies when to shake and when to stir: \"Modern orthodoxy dictates that one should shake any drink with fruit juices, dairy products, or eggs and stir ones that contain only spirits, wines, and the like. This is based partly on the fact that shaking clouds up liquids by beating thousands of tiny bubbles into them.\" Cloudy drinks come from the shaking, which is why a Manhattan or Martini that's crystal clear is stirred, not shaken. A muddler requires a lot of work, but the effort of mashing the ingredients between your palm and a wooden stick are worth it when making your concoctions by hand.\n  * \u25c6 When straining a drink made in a mixing glass or cocktail shaker, keep the ice out of the glass by holding a cocktail strainer or julep strainer over the top of the shaker or mixing glass. Carefully pour the drink into the glass, and the ice won't fall in.\n  * \u25c6 If a recipe calls for a float, this means pouring one liquid atop another. To do this, pour the first spirit in the glass. Then, hover a bar spoon upside down just over the surface of the drink. Pour the second, floated spirit slowly over the back of the spoon so it drips on top of the first.\n  * \u25c6 Cold cocktails? Of course. Always use chilled glassware. Store them in a refrigerator or freezer for at least an hour before use. Another trick is the \"flash chill,\" which means filling them with crushed ice for 15 minutes. Always handle the glasses by the stem or bottom, not the sides, so your body heat doesn't transfer to the drink. Always serve mixers such as soda and fruit juice cold. Never pour them warm from a bottle or can.\n  * \u25c6 Finally, make it and serve it. Your cocktails have to be served immediately to be any good. London bartender god Harry Craddock was once asked the best way to drink a cocktail: \"Quickly,\" he replied, \"while it's laughing at you!\"\n  * \u25c6 Use this book as a manual to plan your own speakeasy parties or to serve vintage drinks at your bar.\n\nIn 1928 fellow poet William Rose Ben\u00e9t wrote: \"What the devil can you do with such a girl? You can be moved to sympathy by some expression of evident distress, or to admiration for some gallantry of attitude, or to gravity at an occasional tenderness\u2014and then she flips a last line at you like a little carmine fire-cracker exploding under your nose. And it is all Dorothy Parker.\"\n\nThe Acerbic Mrs. Parker\n\nThe Shanty, Brooklyn\n\nNo shortage of bartenders wants to honor Mrs. Parker with a namesake cocktail. Countless recipes have been created and named for her around the globe, from the Algonquin Hotel to a popular discoth\u00e8que named Club Dorothy Parker in Rio de Janeiro. This one came to life in Brooklyn, created by Allen Katz, general manager of the New York Distilling Company. The Portable Dorothy Parker, which he picked up in college, instantly had him hooked. At their wedding, he and his wife exchanged vows and read \"Here We Are\" to each other. Katz pressed his business partners to launch Dorothy Parker American Gin as one of the company's first brands. He created the Acerbic Mrs. Parker in the Shanty, the little bar next to their Brooklyn distilling operation.\n\ncollins glass\n\n2 ounces Dorothy Parker American Gin\n\n\u00bc ounce Combier orange liqueur\n\n\u00bd ounce hibiscus syrup\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lemon juice\n\nSeltzer\n\nLemon twist\n\nShake all liquid ingredients except the seltzer over ice; strain into a Collins glass filled with fresh ice. Top with chilled seltzer and garnish with a lemon twist. Serve with a straw.\n\nAlexander\n\nThe Algonquin Round Table met for the first time in June 1919 to welcome Alexander Woollcott back to New York after serving in the army for two years. The rotund Times critic and Dorothy Parker shared the distinction of being born on the New Jersey Shore. Woollcott famously said, \"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening.\" In 1922 he took up residence in a Hell's Kitchen townhouse with one of the married couples of the Vicious Circle, editor Harold Ross and journalist Jane Grant. Mrs. Parker named their house Wit's End. When Woollcott moved out a few years later, he took with him the housekeeper, his family's silver, and the house's nickname. He always claimed the Brandy Alexander was named for him, but that was a fib. This recipe comes from bartender Hugo R. Ensslin's 1916 collection Recipes for Mixed Drinks.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Cr\u00e8me de Cacao\n\n1\u00bd ounces brandy\n\n1\u00bd ounces fresh cream\n\nShake all ingredients over ice; strain into a cocktail glass.\n\nAlexander Woolcott called Dorothy Parker \"a blend of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth.\" \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nAlgonquin Cocktail\n\nLong before the Vicious Circle began meeting around the Algonquin Round Table, the hotel, located at 59 West Forty-fourth Street, had a reputation for attracting actors and writers. Upstate gambler Albert T. Foster began the enterprise, the first guests checking in on November 22, 1902. A standard room and bath cost two dollars a day, while a three-bedroom, three-bath suite with private hall, sitting room, dining room, and library ran ten dollars. The best move Foster made was hiring Frank Case as general manager. Case ran a tight ship and ran the hotel for twenty-five years before buying it. News of the sale ran on the front page of the New York Times. The hotel has changed hands a half a dozen times over the last century, but its history and traditions remain. There are several variations of the Algonquin Cocktail, but this is how the bartenders mix them in the hotel's elegant Blue Bar.\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces rye whiskey\n\n\u00be ounce dry vermouth\n\n\u00be ounce pineapple juice (unsweetened)\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nStir the rye whiskey, vermouth, and juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or over ice into an old-fashioned glass. Garnish with the cherry.\n\n\"I bought the Algonquin because I love it and the associations that go with it and the people who have helped me by their patronage to make it what it is,\" said Frank Case in 1927. In an era when actors and actresses were considered little more and treated little better than prostitutes, Case warmly welcomed theater folk. He also attracted writers and editors from the nearby publishing offices of city newspapers and magazines, including Parker and the Vicious Circle.\n\nThe Round Table Room in the Algonquin Hotel \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nAngel's Tit\n\nDorothy Parker was no angel, and she reveled in it. When asked why she preferred hotels to owning a house, she replied that all she needed was \"room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.\" While she was living at the Algonquin Hotel, general manager Frank Case suspected her of breaking a house rule and telephoned her suite.\n\n\"Do you have a gentleman in your room?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Just a minute,\" Mrs. Parker answered. \"I'll ask him.\"\n\nDuring the 1920s, this popular after-dinner drink proved a delight to order and to imbibe. Its naughty name derives from the placement of the garnish.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces maraschino liqueur\n\n\u00be ounce fresh cream\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nPour the maraschino liqueur, such as Maraska or Luxardo, into a chilled cocktail glass. Float the cream on top. The cherry garnish must be perfectly placed on top, and in the center, for the full effect. Alternately you can use equal parts liqueur and cream, whipping it into a sculpted froth\u2014but that's a lot of work.\n\nThe play rather pines away later on, however; there are long stretches when the only thing that rivets your attention to the stage is wondering at what moment the shoulder straps of Julia Bruns' green gown are going to give up the unequal struggle and succumb to the strain.\"\n\n\u2014Mrs. Parker's review of The Blue Pearl in Vanity Fair, October 1918\nAuntie Jo-Jo's Jalape\u00f1o Bloody Maria\n\nDoc Holliday's Saloon, New York City\n\nThe Martini and Bloody Mary vie for the title of most popular cocktail in America. If the Martini lubricates sophisticated Friday evening conversations, the Bloody Mary colludes with your Saturday morning steak and eggs. Legend has it that barman Pete Petiot of Harry's New York Bar in Paris created the concoction around 1921. When Prohibition ended, the Hotel St. Regis lured him to Manhattan, and by World War II the Bloody Mary was everywhere. Nearly a century later the drink has transformed as often as the city itself.\n\nOn a noisy corner in Manhattan's East Village lies Doc Holliday's, a neighborhood shot-and-beer joint. Facing Tompkins Square Park on Avenue A, Doc's serves oceans of the hard stuff, its clientele preferring tequila, whiskey, and vodka. For twenty years Joanna Leban has wielded the stick at Doc's. A savvy poker player, witty raconteuse, and an encyclopedia of drinks, she developed this variation on the drink, serving it on weekend brunch shifts.\n\npint glass\n\nMakes six 16-ounce servings\n\n3 cups tomato juice\n\n2 jalape\u00f1os, seeded and finely chopped\n\n1 tablespoon freshly grated horseradish\n\nJuice of 1 lemon\n\nJuice of 1 lime\n\n1 teaspoon original Cholula hot sauce\n\nSplash of balsamic vinegar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon salt (more to taste)\n\n\u00bc teaspoon Cajun spice\n\n1 cup Tanteo jalape\u00f1o-infused tequila\n\n3 jalape\u00f1o-stuffed olives\n\n1 celery stalk\n\n3 pickled Cajun green beans\n\n1 lime wedge\n\nTo make the Bloody Maria mix, combine the tomato juice, jalape\u00f1os, horseradish, lemon and lime juices, hot sauce, and vinegar. In a separate container, combine the salt and Cajun spice; rim glass with the mixture. Combine the Bloody Maria mix and tequila and pour over ice into rimmed pint glasses. Split celery stalk lengthwise, place halves off center inside glasses. Garnish with olives spiked on a mixing stick. Add pickled beans as a garnish, and add lime wedge to the rim.\n\nNote: Joanna's Jalape\u00f1o Bloody Maria is so popular that she makes them six at a time. If you can't find jalape\u00f1o-infused tequila, substitute a good silver tequila. You may also substitute jarred horseradish if you can't find fresh. For a twist, try Effen cucumber vodka, and you get Auntie Jo-Jo's Jalape\u00f1o Cool as a Cucumber Bloody Maria.\n\nWhat makes a bartender great? The ability to adapt to each customer's needs. It's all strategy. It's like poker: \"Play the player, not the game.\" When a customer asks what time it is, I tell him, \"It's time to drink.\" Being a bartender is like hosting a party every night.\n\n\u2014Joanna Leban, East Village, New York City\nAviation\n\nDuring the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909, thousands cheered as Wilbur Wright made two round-trip flights from Governors Island in New York Harbor, one around the Statue of Liberty and the second up the Hudson River to Grant's Tomb and back. When Charles Lindbergh returned to New York after his historic solo flight to Paris in 1927, a crowd of four million attended his tickertape parade on Broadway. In 1932 Amelia Earhart returned from her own transatlantic flight an instant national icon. The Aviation cocktail captures the flying spirit of the era. It was a favorite at the Hotel Wallick, a landmark 400-room Times Square hotel on the corner of Broadway and Forty-third Street. The hotel's manager, German-born Hugo R. Ensslin, had the foresight to collect his favorite cocktail recipes before Prohibition began. Published in 1916, Recipes for Mixed Drinks made the Aviation take off.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur\n\n1 teaspoon Cr\u00e8me de Violette\n\nJuice of 1 lemon\n\nIn a cocktail shaker, pour all the ingredients over cracked ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: The Cr\u00e8me de Violette is the key but often-missing ingredient that also nicely turns the drink a sky-blue color. Use just a little.\nBailey\n\nDorothy Parker counted Gerald and Sara Murphy among her dearest friends, but she wasn't the only one. Jazz Age artists and literati from Dos Passos to Picasso enjoyed the company of the American expatriate couple. Their Cap d'Antibes house, Villa America, hosted legendary parties when they lived in France from 1921 to 1929, and the couple inspired the characters Dick and Nicole Diver in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night. Mrs. Parker lived with them for six months in Switzerland when their young son was fighting tuberculosis. \"Sara is in love with life and skeptical of people,\" said Gerald Murphy, a gifted painter and writer. \"I'm the other way. I believe you have to do things to life to make it tolerable. I've always liked the old Spanish proverb: 'Living well is the best revenge.'\" To that end, Gerald's drink-mixing skills proved formidable. Using gin, he created what he called a Bailey: \"invented by me,\" he wrote to Alexander Woollcott, \"as were a great many other good things.\" Mrs. Parker remained lifelong friends with the couple, and, when she returned home to Manhattan from Los Angeles in 1963, she moved into Sara Murphy's apartment building on the Upper East Side.\n\ncocktail glass\n\nMint sprigs\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh grapefruit juice\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lime juice\n\nGerald Murphy's instructions: \"The mint should be put in the shaker first. It should be torn up by hand as it steeps better. The gin should be added then and allowed to stand a minute or two. Then add the grapefruit juice and then the lime juice. Stir vigorously with ice and do not allow to dilute too much, but serve very cold, with a sprig of mint in each glass.\"\nBathtub Gin\n\nJane Grant's recipe\n\nOne of the forgotten stars of the Jazz Age, Round Table member Jane Grant cofounded The New Yorker with her husband, Harold Ross, at their kitchen table at 412 West Forty-seventh Street in 1925. The Hell's Kitchen townhouse still stands, once the scene of raucous parties attended by the Vicious Circle, Ethel Barrymore, Irving Berlin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others. But those parties put Grant in a fix because her guests required more alcohol than her bootleggers could provide. She started distilling her own gin from a recipe that she claimed came from the ma\u00eetre d'h\u00f4tel at the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. (\"If the Waldorf could fool the customers, I could impress my friends, and I would not be exposing them to a fate worse than death.\") But first she needed pure alcohol. \"I finally found a reliable bootlegger who would deliver it in ten-gallon cans\u2014nothing less. At first that was a little staggering. My recipe called for equal parts water\u2014and twenty gallons of gin seemed like a lot of gin to me . . . My supply was consumed with true speakeasy gusto\u2014I soon found that twenty gallons of gin was not an extravagant amount for 412.\"\n\n1 quart pure grain alcohol\n\n8 drops oil of juniper\n\n1 to 1\u00bc quart distilled water\n\nMix alcohol and oil well several times for 30 to 36 hours, then add the distilled water. Mix well for 20 to 24 hours.\n\nNote: Grant recommended shaking the bottles every day for a week, much to the chagrin of her friends. \"Not one of the wretches would give me a hand, preferring, as they said, sudden blindness, or even death, to such labor . . . Everyone else, they pointed out, just mixed the ingredients and served\u2014I was much too fussy.\"\n\nBathtub Gin in Chelsea\u2014which serves many of the drinks in this book\u2014creates a fun simulacrum of a speakeasy experience with the Stone Street Coffeehouse exterior. Bathtub Gin has been adopted as the name of modern speakeasies located today in New York City, Seattle, and Mooresville, North Carolina.\n\nThe birthplace of The New Yorker was on the second floor of this Hell's Kitchen townhouse. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nBetween the Sheets\n\nDorothy Parker and Alan Campbell divorced in 1947, ending twelve rocky years of marriage. Both took up with others almost immediately, but the two were so codependent that they reunited three years later. One wag said of Campbell, \"He was sweet-tempered when sober, with an endearing sort of wanting to be helpful. He was Dorothy Parker's helpmate in nearly every sense of the word.\" They remarried in a splashy Beverly Hills ceremony in 1950. On the morning of their second wedding day, Dorothy and Alan lay in bed together. She pulled the sheet over her face. \"No peeking,\" she said. \"Mustn't see the bride before the wedding!\" The Between the Sheets cocktail dates to the 1920s in two competing recipes. The first version comes from the 1937 Caf\u00e9 Royal Cocktail Book, published in London, with two competing liquors as the base.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce brandy\n\n1 ounce rum\n\n1 ounce Cointreau\n\n1 dash lemon juice\n\nShake all ingredients over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: Use a premium white rum for best result. You can substitute the brandy with Cognac.\n\nThe second recipe comes from Havana, where this 1935 Cuban version from Bar La Florida tastes sweeter but just as delicious.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce Cognac\n\n1 ounce Cr\u00e8me de Cacao\n\n1 ounce sweet cream or half-and-half\n\n1 dash Angostura bitters\n\n1 teaspoon sugar\n\nLemon peel\n\nShake all ingredients except lemon peel over plenty of cracked ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon peel.\n\nThe second wedding of Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell took place in 1950. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nBlood and Sand\n\n\"I hate Husbands; They narrow my scope,\" Dorothy Parker wrote in one of her notorious \"Hymns of Hate,\" adding:\n\nThere are the Home Bodies;\n\nThey are seldom mistaken for Rudolph Valentino;\n\nThe militia has not yet been called out to keep the women back.\n\nOne of the first drinks to come out of Hollywood was the Blood and Sand, named for the 1922 Rudolph Valentino film of the same title. The biggest film celebrity of the decade, Valentino died in 1927 in New York, aged just 31. Two female fans tried to commit suicide in front of his hospital, and more than 100,000 people thronged the streets around Frank Campbell's Funeral Chapel during his wake. Harry Craddock served this drink at the Savoy Hotel in London during the 1920s.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n\u00be ounce Scotch\n\n\u00be ounce cherry brandy\n\n\u00be ounce sweet vermouth\n\n\u00be ounce orange juice\n\nShake all ingredients over cracked ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nValentino and Dorothy Parker had something in common: Both of their memorial services took place at Frank Campbell's funeral home. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nBoulevard\n\nThe 1940 US Census found Dorothy Parker living next to Robert Benchley on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood at the Garden of Allah, a collection of tiny villas grouped around a swimming pool. The bungalow rentals proved popular with movie and radio celebrities because the development was affordable, semiprivate, and a short drive to the studios. Alla Nazimova, the first actress billed as a movie star, had built what became the Garden of Allah in the early 1920s as her country home. Sunset Boulevard the rural roadway quickly transformed into The Strip, and Nazimova carved the property into twenty or thirty villas. For two decades stars such as Bogart, Fitzgerald, Garbo, Hemingway, and Welles lived there. During World War II Benchley offended a man in uniform at the bar at the Garden of Allah by addressing him as a lieutenant.\n\n\"I happen to be Captain So-and-So of the US Navy,\" the man said haughtily, \"and may I ask who you are?\"\n\n\"Me?\" said Benchley. \"Oh, just call me a destroyer.\"\n\nThe Garden of Allah was demolished in 1959, and a shopping center stands in its place. The Boulevard offers a time-honored variation on a dry Manhattan.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces bourbon\n\n\u00bd ounce dry vermouth\n\n\u00bd ounce Grand Marnier\n\n2 dashes orange bitters\n\nOrange peel\n\nStir all ingredients except orange peel with ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with flamed orange peel. Hold a match under the peel side of a quarter-inch orange peel, over the drink. Twist and squeeze over the drink. Rub the peel on the rim of the glass and then drop it in.\n\nNote: Another variation calls for substituting rye whiskey for the bourbon.\nBronx\n\nJane Grant and Harold Ross, cofounders of The New Yorker, often served this cocktail at their Hell's Kitchen townhouse in the 1920s. At the couple's housewarming party in 1922, Mrs. Parker and her boyfriend at the time, Charles MacArthur, hired ponies for the neighborhood kids. At one memorable party, Ethel Barrymore and Alexander Woollcott improvised a scene from Romeo and Juliet for a crowd in the backyard. The Bronx originated at the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, created by bartender Johnny Solon after visiting the Bronx Zoo. Apparently the animals reminded him of some of his regulars. The hotel served so many Bronx cocktails that cases of fresh oranges were delivered daily.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces gin\n\n\u00bd ounce dry vermouth\n\n\u00bd ounce sweet vermouth\n\n1 ounce fresh orange juice\n\nShake all ingredients well with ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nBulldog\n\nDorothy Parker took her dogs everywhere, from speakeasies to Broadway playhouses. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nDogs played starring roles in every part of Dorothy Parker's life. They populated her stories, poems, and plays. She never didn't own one, taking her puppies, mutts, and strays with her everywhere. They traveled on luxury transatlantic steamships, curled under her chair at speakeasies, and perched on her lap whenever a portrait photographer came calling. Dogs figure into many of the best Mrs. Parker tall tales. At a party her dog vomited on a rug. Trying to apologize to the hostess, Mrs. Parker said, \"It's the company.\" A more famous shaggy dog story is told about the time her pet had an accident in the Beverly Hills Hotel lobby. A manager came after her: \"Miss Parker! Miss Parker! Look what your dog did!\" But she stared him down: \"I did it.\" And she walked out. The Bulldog recipe comes from the oft-forgotten pre-Prohibition bartender Hugo R. Ensslin.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces cherry brandy\n\n1 ounce rum\n\nJuice of half a lime\n\nShake all ingredients over cracked ice, strain, and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.\nBywater Cocktail\n\nArnaud's French 75, New Orleans\n\nIt's claimed that Tennessee Williams once said: \"America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.\" A cocktail mecca sits a few paces off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, tucked inside a hundred-year-old Creole restaurant, and you don't need to take a streetcar named Desire to reach it. \"On a much smaller scale, I've often thought of the neighborhoods of New Orleans like the boroughs of New York City,\" says Chris Hannah, bartender at Arnaud's French 75 on Rue Bienville. \"I've always compared New Orleans's Bywater to Brooklyn, so, when finally able to serve the Brooklyn Cocktail to guests at my bar, after cultivating Jamie Boudreau's Amer Picon Replica, I decided to create the Bywater Cocktail following the Brooklyn's direction. Swapping an aged rum for rye whiskey and Falernum and Chartreuse for the maraschino, I came up with a balanced cocktail worthy of the Bywater neighborhood's anomalousness.\"\n\ncoupe glass\n\n1\u00be ounces aged rum\n\n\u00be ounce Amer Picon or Amer Picon Replica\n\n\u00bd ounce Chartreuse\n\n1 teaspoon Falernum\n\n2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters\n\n2 dashes orange bitters\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nStir all liquid ingredients straight up and garnish with a cherry.\n\nAmer Picon is a bitter aperitif produced in France with a distinct orange flavor. Falernum is a sweet syrup. Peychaud's Bitters, distributed by Sazerac, dates to around 1830, created by Antoine Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Peychaud, a Creole apothecary in New Orleans.\nCablegram\n\nBefore e-mail and text messages, the world communicated electronically with telegrams and cablegrams. Telegrams were delivered via wires to be delivered to recipients; cablegrams were transmitted internationally via underwater cables. Dorothy Parker was a master at both. In 1923, when Robert E. Sherwood's first wife was expecting their child, Mary Sherwood let everyone at the Round Table and New York know she was pregnant. To offer her congratulations on the birth of Mary's daughter, Mrs. Parker sent a telegram: \"Good work, Mary, we all knew you had it in you.\" She sent it collect. To fellow Vicious Circle member Ruth Hale, spouse of Heywood Broun and a passionate feminist: \"To Ruth Broun from Dorothy Rothschild.\" In 1945, Mrs. Parker sent one to her editor at Viking Press: \"This is instead of telephoning because I can't look you in the voice. I simply cannot get that thing done yet never have done such hard night and day work never have so wanted anything to be good and all I have is a pile of paper covered with wrong words.\" The Cablegram cocktail was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. This recipe was collected by Harry Craddock in his 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book.\n\nlowball glass\n\n2 ounces whiskey\n\n\u00bd tablespoon powdered sugar\n\nJuice of half a lemon\n\nGinger ale\n\nShake all ingredients except ginger ale over ice; strain into a lowball glass. Add ginger ale.\n\nIn 1934 Dorothy Parker sent this wedding announcement to her sister on Long Island. It's signed by one of Mrs. Parker's dogs. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nChicago\n\nThe glue that held the Algonquin Round Table together wasn't, as you might think, Alexander Woollcott, the number one theater pundit in town. It was Franklin P. Adams, dean of the group and the most successful newspaper columnist of the bunch. Known by his initials F. P. A., Adams was born, raised, and educated in Chicago. He moved to Manhattan in 1904 and was extremely popular for forty years, his \"Conning Tower\" column required reading. He ran many of Dorothy Parker's most popular poems for no charge. She adored F. P. A. (\"He raised me from a couplet.\"), and they coauthored a book together. F. P. A. had his glory years on the Pulitzer-owned New York World. \"Nothing makes me so angry as to hear somebody say, 'That is too good for a newspaper; it is good enough for a magazine,'\" he wrote. \"I have never seen anything too good to appear in a newspaper.\" He generated millions of words over the course of his career, but he was known for his light verse. One Valentine's Day he wrote:\n\nThe ink is red,\n\nThe rent is due,\n\nMy hope is dead,\n\nAnd how are you?\n\nThe Chicago is an old drink served in a wine glass. If you omit the Champagne it's called a Chicago Cocktail.\n\nwine glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces brandy\n\nDash Angostura bitters\n\nDash triple sec\n\nDry Champagne\n\nHarry Craddock's 1930 recipe advised: \"Shake well and strain . . . Frost edge of glass with castor sugar, and fill with Champagne.\" The Chicago is much more glamorous than the Cincinnati Cocktail, which Hugo R. Ensslin described as \"Half a glass of beer, fill up with soda water, and serve.\"\n\nDorothy Parker's mentor, Franklin P. Adams \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nProhibition and the Eighteenth Amendment\n\nIt's easy now to shake our heads and crack smiles when talking about Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment, but the legislation enacted in 1919 destroyed businesses, wrecked lives, upended the economy, and still affects us today. The common misconception portrays glamorous flask-carrying dilettantes and hapless bootleggers running from the Keystone Kops, but, in reality, murderous thugs were delivering illegal substances to common Americans all too eager to break the law.\n\nThe Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages in America proved a disastrous failure. During the thirteen years that it was on the books, it was widely ignored. National Prohibition went into effect at midnight on January 16, 1920, exactly one year after the amendment was ratified. Support for Prohibition often went hand in hand with the desire by native white Protestants to control European Catholics, Native Americans, Asian immigrants, and, especially in the South, blacks, giving police officers an excuse to arrest any of them on the pretext of intoxication. The \"drys\" blamed alcohol as the root cause of the nation's ills, and politicians took notice of European immigrants gathering in beer halls, becoming powerful voting blocs, and thought that by taking away these local bars they could destroy the newcomers' cohesiveness, their trade unions, and their voting power.\n\nPublic safety director Smedley \"Duckboards\" Butler chops open barrels of beer and pours them into Philadelphia's Schuylkill River in 1924. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nOne of the main supporters of the dry laws, the Anti-Saloon League had its eyes on New York City for a key reason: It hoped (miraculously) that the millions of foreign visitors to the busiest city in America would see Prohibition working, return to their home countries, and preach for the banning of alcohol there as well. The powerful National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, another pillar of the movement, pushed for social reform, citing the example of women and children afflicted by drunk ne'er-do-well husbands, and used women's new right to vote (as of August 1920) to lobby politicians to pass the amendment. The US Supreme Court allowed the Volstead Act, which implemented the Eighteenth Amendment, to stand, agreeing, five to four, that nothing in the Prohibition laws contravened the rights of the states.\n\nIn New York City the number of places to purchase liquor doubled, ironically, from 15,000 legal spots to more than 32,000 illegal ones. By the time Repeal went into effect on February 20, 1933, an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of illegal hard liquor had been sold nationally during those thirteen long years. Many of the bartenders whom Prohibition put out of work sailed for opportunities in Paris and London. Harry Craddock, who had tended bar at various luxury hotels in New York, went to London, where he had a long career at the Savoy Hotel. In 1930 he authored a cocktail guide that included many of the American recipes of the day.\n\nAs speakeasy culture grew, it attracted a new group to illegal backroom bars and basement saloons: women. According to Stanley Walker, the great city editor of the New York Herald Tribune:\n\nSoon after 1920 great, ravening hordes of women began to discover what their less respectable sisters had known for years\u2014that it was a lot of fun, if you liked it, to get soused. All over New York these up and coming females piled out of their hideaways, rang the bells of speakeasies, wheedled drugstores into selling them gin and rye, and even in establishments of great decorum begged their escorts for a nip from a hip flask. It was all very embarrassing.\n\nLandlords turned a collective and remunerative blind eye to the speaks, which had colorful names such as the Royal Box, the Jungle Room, the Club Chantee, and the Little Club. They sprang up in private homes, in walk-up apartments, and inside shuttered restaurants. Suppliers were everywhere and easy to find: Cigar shops, delicatessens, drug stores, shoeshine parlors, and even clothing stores offered bottles to thirsty customers. Women could walk into a department store looking for whiskey and gin using code names like \"red stockings\" and \"white stockings.\"\n\n\"Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Not Touch Ours\"\n\n\u2014popular slogan carried by the National Women's Christian Temperance Union\n\nThe profits and success for the speakeasy trade proved lucrative. Walker recounted one underground bar-restaurant with a menu \"slightly heavy and Germanic, but it was tasty and filling.\" It was also an illegal speak. \"Twenty-four men could belly up to the bar without undue crowding, and in 1927 and for more than two years thereafter the line was sometimes two deep. Jim's profits were staggering. In one year he cleared, after all expenses, bad checks, bribery, and charity, almost one hundred thousand dollars.\" That's about $1.3 million today.\n\nOrganized crime soon inched its fingers into the booze business in a major way, leading to an increase in gangster activity across city and state lines. Bloody shootouts and revenge killings splashed across the nation's front pages. News reports daily played out the crimes, stories that effectively helped end the liquor ban. Following Black Tuesday and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, many Americans organized protests and local campaigns to end the Volstead Act. A series of measures, first allowing the sale of watered-down beer and wine, led to a shift in the tide.\n\nA three-year investigation ordered by President Herbert Hoover confirmed in 1931 that most states weren't enforcing the amendment. In 1932 Democrats officially supported its repeal. The overwhelming Democratic victory that year encouraged Congress to pass the Twenty-First Amendment, repealing the Eighteenth, on February 20, 1933. On March 22 the Volstead Act was amended to permit the sale of 3.2 percent beer and wine. Once Congress ratified the Twenty-First Amendment the following December, the Volstead Act became void.\n\nThe first legal drink served in the White House by FDR was a martini.\n\nCuba Libre\n\nAuthor Charles H. Baker wrote in The Gentleman's Companion (1939) that one of the top high-society drinks of the era was the Cuba Libre, forerunner to today's Rum and Coke. The drink originated in Havana around the time of the Spanish-American War (1898), when a captain ordered a rum with Coca-Cola and a wedge of lime. As one drinks aficionado remarked, this became the world's most popular cocktail, uniting the staple liquids of two nations. One tall tale says Teddy Roosevelt and his Roughriders shouted \"Por Cuba Libre!\" (\"Free Cuba!\") as they toasted.\n\ncollins glass\n\n1 small lime\n\n1\u00bd ounces Bacardi white rum\n\nCoca-Cola\n\nQuarter the lime and strain the juice into a Collins glass. Scrape the peel clean and cut into pieces. Add peel pieces to the glass and then add the rum. Muddle so that the liquid coats the sides of the glass. Add ice cubes and fill with Coca-Cola.\n\nCol. Theodore Roosevelt and the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry regiment atop San Juan Hill, Cuba, July 1898. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nDeath in the Afternoon\n\nIn 1926 Dorothy Parker dropped by the office of friend Franklin P. Adams after returning from France, where she spent time with Ernest Hemingway. F. P. A. asked Mrs. Parker if she knew the novelist's age. \"Well, I don't know,\" she replied. \"You know, all writers are either twenty-nine or Thomas Hardy.\" Three years later she wrote the first profile of Hemingway to appear in The New Yorker. \"People so much wanted him to be a figure out of a saga that they went to the length of providing the saga themselves,\" she wrote. \"And a little peach it is.\" Hemingway's Spanish bullfighting classic Death in the Afternoon appeared in 1932. A few years later, a celebrity cocktail guide, So Red the Nose, received this contribution from the future Nobel winner.\n\nchampagne flute\n\n1 ounce absinthe\n\nChampagne\n\nAccording to the original recipe, Hemingway wrote: \"Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.\"\n\nThe only cure for a real hangover is death.\n\n\u2014Robert Benchley\n\nJack Dempsey started boxing professionally in 1914, calling himself \"Kid Blackie.\" Damon Runyon nicknamed him the \"Manassa Mauler\" in 1916. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nDempsey\n\nIn 1921 the Colorado-born world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey defeated French prizefighter Georges Carpentier in a fourth-round knockout in Jersey City for professional boxing's first $1 million gate. Two years later at the Polo Grounds, the legendary baseball stadium of the Giants and Yankees, Dempsey knocked down Luis Angel Firpo nine times in two rounds to retain his title. After retirement, Dempsey and his wife ran a Midtown Manhattan bar that featured an eighteen-foot painting by James Montgomery Flagg of the boxer clobbering Jess Willard. The painting now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Mayor Ed Koch officially designated Forty-ninth and Broadway Jack Dempsey Corner in 1984. This recipe\u2014which appears in the Savoy Cocktail Book, published in London in 1930\u2014will deliver a punch like Dempsey if you go too many rounds with it.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce gin\n\n1 ounce Calvados\n\n2 dashes absinthe\n\n2 dashes grenadine\n\nShake all ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: You can substitute another apple-y brandy, such as Applejack, for the Calvados and Verte de Fougerolles for the absinthe.\nDolores\n\nThe Follies captured New York's heart and Dorothy Parker's, too. As a critic, she adored the show for its catchy songs, campy humor, and fantastic costumes. She also admired the beautiful showgirls. Writing for Vanity Fair in 1918, she said, \"I was delighted, too, to hand it to the chorus, who fully live up to the advertisements of 'a chorus of forty under twenty,'\u2014in most of the season's musical shows, it has been just vice versa.\" Former typist Kathleen Mary Rose, a statuesque British model, ranked among the first and most famous hired by Florenz Ziegfeld. He gave her the stage name Dolores, and she became a star as a stage \"mannequin\" who didn't sing, dance, or talk. Acclaimed as \"the loveliest showgirl in the world,\" Dolores never cracked a smile onstage. In Follies spectacles such as \"The Episode of Chiffon,\" she stood onstage as the Empress of Fashion. Dolores appeared in Ziegfeld productions from 1917 to 1921, including the Midnight Frolic of 1919 in which she wore a white peacock costume with a ten-foot train. Afterward, she quit the stage, moved to Paris, and married a millionaire in 1923. This drink, when properly made, tastes like candy.\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Spanish brandy\n\n1\u00bd ounces cherry brandy\n\n1\u00bd ounces cr\u00e8me de cacao\n\nStir all ingredients over ice; serve on the rocks.\n\nStunning costumes were fashioned for Dolores as a Follies star. Decades after she left Forty-second Street, fans still remembered her beauty. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nDubonnet Cocktail\n\nThe Algonquin Round Table collectively zeroed in on Great Neck, Long Island, in the early 1920s. Its members visited the homes of fellow writer Ring Lardner and the powerful executive editor of the New York World, Herbert Bayard Swope. At Swope's incredible dinner parties, croquet matches and all-night dancing took place. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald rented nearby, and Swope's parties became the inspiration for the Gatsby soir\u00e9es. At a dinner one night with Governor Albert Ritchie of Maryland, the guests were quizzing the politician on the state of the union. Suddenly, a man deep in his cups burped loudly. A brief embarrassed hush ensued\u2014until Dorothy Parker, a frequent Swope guest, deftly broke it: \"I'll get the governor to pardon you,\" she said sweetly. The Dubonnet Cocktail, a popular Prohibition drink that originated in France, certainly appeared on the Swope table and is excellent today as an aperitif.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces dry gin\n\n1\u00bd ounces Dubonnet\n\nLemon peel\n\nShake all ingredients over cracked ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and add a twist of lemon peel.\n\nNote: There is no substitute for Dubonnet in this cocktail.\nEl Presidente\n\nOne of the best vacations in the speakeasy era of 1920 to 1933 was sailing to Cuba. On that island, home to the Bacardi factory and countless bars and nightclubs, many Americans discovered cocktails made with rum for the first time. These recipes soon made their way back to the States. Among the most popular was the El Presidente, created at Bar La Florida in Havana for a now mostly forgotten president of Cuba, General Carmen Menocal.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce Bacardi light rum\n\n1 ounce dry vermouth\n\n1 teaspoon grenadine\n\n1 teaspoon Cura\u00e7ao\n\nOrange peel\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nFill a tall mixing glass with cracked ice; add rum and vermouth. Pour in the grenadine and Cura\u00e7ao, stir, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Carefully twist the orange peel over the side of the glass; its orangey oil should float on the surface of the drink. Drop in the orange peel and a maraschino cherry.\n\nEmperor Norton's Second Mistress\n\nElixir, San Francisco\n\nEight years after California was granted statehood, a bar opened on the corner of Sixteenth and Guerrero in San Francisco's Mission District. More than 150 years later, Elixir continues its proud history of crafting cocktails. Proprietor H. Joseph Ehrmann, president of the Barbary Coast Conservancy of the American Cocktail, helps run San Francisco Cocktail Week and wanted to create a drink to honor a famous local figure. \"Emperor Norton was a classic San Francisco icon from the Victorian era, declaring himself 'Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico.' He walked San Francisco between 1849 and his death in 1880, distributing his own currency (accepted by many) and invited foreign royalty to visit him. If he came into the saloon and I was behind the stick, I'd have served him.\"\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\n4 medium California strawberries\n\n1\u00bd ounces Cyrus Noble bourbon\n\n\u00be ounce Tuaca\n\nIn a mixing cup, muddle 3 strawberries to juice. Add bourbon and Tuaca and fill with ice. Shake hard to dilute and then Hawthorne strain into a large old-fashioned glass filled with fresh ice. Slice 1 strawberry halfway and place on rim to garnish.\n\nOne of Emperor Norton's prophecies was a bridge linking San Francisco and Oakland. Locals still remember him fondly. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nEspionage\n\nEastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks, Boston\n\nThe FBI file on Dorothy Parker runs three inches thick. Nearly half a century after her death, many portions remain redacted. The only city where Mrs. Parker ever got in trouble was Boston (see the Ward 8 recipe, page 118), so she'd be happy to know about the Espionage, dreamed up in the Kenmore Square neighborhood. \"A guest was looking for a Manhattan-style cocktail, but with vodka,\" says manager Kevin Martin. \"Since Fair Quinoa vodka carries the weight of a whiskey, it was the choice base spirit. Mixed with the floral chartreuse, multiple bitters, and two garnishes, the cocktail was born. Named for its deceiving flavor, this vodka cocktail drinks like a whiskey cocktail.\" Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks is a neighborhood brasserie with charm, knowledgeable bartenders, a wide mix of regulars\u2014and is home to the Espionage.\n\nlowball glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Fair Quinoa vodka\n\n\u00be ounce yellow chartreuse\n\n\u00bd ounce Cynar liqueur\n\n\u00bd ounce Amaro Montenegro Italian liqueur\n\nLemon twist\n\nOrange twist\n\nMount liquid ingredients into a mixing glass filled with cracked ice, stir until properly diluted, strain into a chilled lowball glass, and garnish with in-and-out lemon and orange twists.\nFlorodora\n\nFlorodora, a musical show of six beautiful showgirls, entertained turn-of-the-century audiences. Always a sextet averaging five feet, six inches tall, the Florodora girls were huge celebrities when Theodore Roosevelt was president. Traveling shows played towns from coast to coast, and the cast was treated like royalty. The young women became major stars, and their exploits filled gossip columns. In 1920 the show was revived on Broadway at the Century Theatre, and Dorothy Parker panned it in Ainslee's, writing, \"There has been an amazingly well-preserved glamour about Florodora. Perhaps it was a reflection of the radiance shed by those original six, the girls who 'put the sex in sextet,' as you might say.\" When the revival came out, so did a tasty gin cocktail that became all the rage in speakeasies.\n\nhighball glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lime juice\n\n\u00be ounce Framboise (raspberry liqueur)\n\nSplash ginger ale\n\nLime wedge\n\nIn a highball glass filled with ice, build the gin, lime juice, and raspberry liqueur. Top with ginger ale and garnish with a lime wedge.\n\nNote: Framboise, the French word for \"raspberry,\" can also be used to refer to any alcohol distilled from fruit. Because of the fruit, this cocktail has the aroma of raspberries. While Framboise usually is served in a Champagne flute, rhe Florodora breaks the tradition.\nFrench \"75\"\n\nOnly a few days after the 1917 wedding of Dorothy Rothschild and Edwin Pond Parker II, war separated the newlyweds. Eddie went to New Jersey for army training and then shipped out to France as a driver in the 33rd Ambulance Corps. Dottie didn't get him back until 1919. During the Great War, a number of future members of the Algonquin Round Table served in uniform, including Franklin P. Adams, Herman Mankiewicz, Harold Ross, Robert E. Sherwood, Laurence Stallings, and Alexander Woollcott. Vicious Circle civilians in Paris included Heywood Broun, Jane Grant, Ruth Hale, and Neysa McMein. Doughboys brought back the popular French \"75,\" named for the 75mm M1897, a French field gun. Irvin S. Cobb went to the front as a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post and two decades later recalled his experience of a French \"75\"\u2014\"I had my first of these in a dugout in the Argonne. I couldn't tell whether a shell or the drink hit me.\"\n\nchampagne flute\n\n1 ounce gin\n\nJuice of 1 lemon\n\n1 teaspoon powdered sugar\n\nChampagne\n\nPour the gin into the Champagne flute. Add the lemon juice and sugar. Fill the remainder of the glass with chilled Champagne.\n\nFrench army officers share a drink in the field, circa 1915. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nGene Tunney\n\nBeginning in 1922, Harold Ross, Jane Grant, and Alexander Woollcott lived together at 412 West Forty-seventh Street, a Hell's Kitchen duplex. Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table were frequent guests, along with top writers, cartoonists, actors, musicians, and other cultural figures. Gene Tunney was world heavyweight champion from 1926 to 1928. His two victories over Jack Dempsey remain among the most famous bouts in boxing history. The drink named for him\u2014practically a Martini, with a little juice added\u2014proved popular on both sides of the Atlantic.\n\nIn Ross, The New Yorker, and Me, Grant's account of the era, she relates the following story. One night, two drunks, thinking the house a speakeasy, tried to push their way in. Grant's friend tried to block their way.\n\n\"The kids told us it was a speakeasy,\" the men told her friend.\n\n\"Well, it isn't,\" he said, \"and you'd better get out.\"\n\n\"Who's going to put us out? You can't,\" one of the drunks replied as he tried to push the friend aside.\n\n\"Well, maybe I can't, but Gene Tunney can. Hey, Gene,\" the friend called out.\n\n\"Aw, quit kidding,\" the bigger of the intruders said. Just as he was about to barge in, the heavyweight champ walked toward them, and they scattered.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces gin\n\n1 ounce French vermouth\n\nDash of orange juice\n\nDash of lemon juice\n\nLemon peel\n\nShake liquid ingredients well over cracked ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lemon peel.\n\nGene Tunney was born in New York City's Greenwich Village. He beat Jack Dempsey for the world heavyweight championship in 1926 in front of 120,500 screaming fans in Philadelphia. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nThe pop culture icon of 1900, the Gibson Girl came from the pen of Charles Dana Gibson. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nGibson\n\nFor many years cocktail historians have debated where the Gibson originated. It could be a cousin to a pre-Prohibition drink, the \"onion cocktail.\" The (mostly) accepted story holds that the Gibson is named for magazine illustrator Charles Dana Gibson and was created at Gramercy Park's Players Club, a society founded in 1888 for men in theater, music, and literature. In the 1880s, Gibson joined the staff of the old Life (not to be confused with the Henry Luce publication), a monthly humor magazine. In the 1920s, Life employed Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Robert E. Sherwood, and many other Algonquin Round Table members. Gibson earned his renown for drawing alluring women in illustrations of high-society scenes. In 1890 he created a haughty beauty with upswept raven hair that became a symbol of the Gay Nineties: the Gibson Girl. His renditions of stylish, athletic, and alluring girls made Gibson rich. Life proved wildly popular through World War I, and it was Mrs. Parker's bread and butter. The New Yorker, debuting in 1925, was modeled partially on Life. Although the Gibson bears a striking resemblance to a Martini, it should not be considered just a Martini with an onion in it\u2014and no onions, please. This is the classic World War I version.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n1\u00bd ounces dry vermouth\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nIn a mixing glass filled with cracked ice, add the liquid ingredients. Stir slowly and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.\nGimlet\n\nDorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott shared an abiding affection for mysteries, murder, and crime stories. One of the best practitioners of the genre, Raymond Chandler has his detective Philip Marlowe drink Gimlets in The Long Goodbye. Chandler said, \"Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.\" A proper Gimlet always includes Rose's Lime Juice, first patented in 1867. The Gimlet became a standard speakeasy drink because it was simple and fast to make, and the lime juice easily covered imperfections in what might be a bad batch of gin. Legend holds that the drink originated in the Royal Navy when ship's doctor T. O. Gimlette prescribed the drink as a medicinal tonic. Apparently Dr. Gimlette thought he was fighting scurvy by adding lime juice to the sailors' gin rations. According to the British, the only good Gimlet is a cold one, thoroughly mixed with cracked ice before serving.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces gin\n\n1 ounce Rose's lime juice\n\nSlice of fresh lime (optional)\n\nShake liquid ingredients over ice; strain into a cocktail glass. Add optional slice of lime.\n\nNote: You can serve the drink neat or over ice. In the 1920s soda water was often added. If you substitute fresh lime juice for the Rose's Lime Juice, add 1 teaspoon confectioner's sugar. For effect, frost the rim of the glass by dipping it into lime juice, then granulated sugar. Chill the sugar-frosted glass in the refrigerator before preparing the drink.\nGin Fizz\n\nThe first time Dorothy Parker saw Paris, she was thirty-two and broke. She sailed from New York in early 1926 with Robert Benchley and Ernest Hemingway aboard the President Roosevelt. Her visit to the French Riviera provided Mrs. Parker with a wealth of material for many years. In 1929 The New Yorker published a short piece by her set on the Mediterranean, a boozy conversation between a couple of Gin Fizz\u2013guzzling Americans, a ridiculous playboy and a silly socialite. In \"The Cradle of Civilization\" the young man orders another round of drinks in his bad French. \"Oh, gar\u00e7on. Encore deux jeen feezes, tout de suite,\" he said. \"And mettez un peu more de jeen in them cette fois, baby.\" Fizzes are sour-based cocktails with mandatory additions of club soda and lemon juice. A Gin Fizz is served in a highball glass of 8 to 12 ounces, topped with club soda.\n\nhighball glass\n\n2 ounces gin\n\n\u00be ounce fresh lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon superfine sugar or simple syrup\n\nClub soda\n\nMint sprig\n\nShake the gin, lemon juice, and sugar over cracked ice and strain into a 10-ounce highball glass filled with ice. Fill the remainder of the glass with cold club soda. Garnish with mint.\n\nNote: There are dozens of variations of the Gin Fizz. Add a whole egg for a Royal Fizz, or add \u00be ounce orange juice and 1 teaspoon simple syrup to make a Texas Fizz. A teaspoon of cream in the drink makes it a Cream Fizz.\nGin Rickey\n\nIn The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan serves four Gin Rickeys on a blazing hot afternoon on Long Island. The cocktail is perfect on a summer day, and in the book Jay Gatsby serves the drink often at his Gold Coast estate, employing a cadre of bartenders to mix them for his gala parties. As F. Scott Fitzgerald writes, \"Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York\u2014every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves.\" The Gin Rickey was one of the most popular drinks of the era. Its creation traces back to Joe Rickey, a Capitol Hill lobbyist, to whom the drink was served at Shoemaker's, located on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the 1890s.\n\ncollins glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lime juice\n\nClub soda\n\nLime wedge\n\nPour gin and lime juice into a Collins glass filled with ice cubes. Fill with cold club soda and stir. Add the wedge of lime and serve.\n\nNote: This drink has countless variations; for any substituted potable, the drink is then called by the liquor used, such as a Rum Rickey and so on.\n\nDorothy Parker in Hollywood\n\nDorothy Parker's first trip to Los Angeles came in late 1928, when she signed a three-month contract with MGM for $300 a week. A gossip columnist reported that December on Mrs. Parker's transition to screenwriter:\n\nNo movie contract could keep her at work by merely cloistering her in a remote office at the far end of the longest corridor in a dismal Culver City office building. She has managed to turn this cell into quite a salon by a device that many lonelyhearts might find helpful. When the sign painter arrived to put her name on the door, she bribed him to leave it off and substitute instead the simple legend: GENTLEMEN.\n\nWhen her contract ended and with no screen credits to her name, Mrs. Parker returned to New York City.\n\nShe stayed away from the West Coast for five years. In 1934, following her marriage to actor-writer Alan Campbell, the couple moved to California on a temporary basis. They arrived in a state of semi-destitution in an open-topped Ford with two dogs. Within a week, they were signed to a studio for $5,000 a week and living in a friend's huge home in Beverly Hills. The couple lived in rented mansions in Beverly Hills, stayed in the Ch\u00e2teau Marmont and Garden of Allah on Sunset Boulevard, and, when funds ran low, they moved into a not-so-great West Hollywood bungalow at 8983 Norma Place.\n\nAs a writing team, they worked on more than thirty pictures. In Hanging On in Paradise, author Fred Lawrence Guiles described their partnership, with Campbell playing a key role:\n\nIt was he who sat at the typewriter and did the real work of putting down on paper the technical and special language of the scriptwriter. Dorothy would sit nearby, often knitting, as Alan might ask, 'Shall we make the mother a washerwoman,' and Dorothy might say, 'Oh yes, by all means, a washerwoman.' Then she would read over what Alan had written and edit it and write in some witty dialogue, elevating the competent to the penetrating and, sometimes, the splendid.\n\nIn 1935 Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell were signed to Paramount Pictures as a screenwriting team. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nDorothy and Alan earned their only Academy Award nomination as a team for the original screenplay to A Star Is Born, since remade twice. They were nominated for best screenplay in 1937, along with Robert Carson, but the Oscar went to The Life of Emile Zola.\n\nDottie on DVD:  \nFive Films She Co-Wrote\n\nHands Across the Table (1935)\n\nSuzy (1936)\n\nA Star Is Born (1937)\n\nThe Cowboy and the Lady (1938)\n\nSmash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947)\n\nThe couple worked steadily into the 1930s, but the experience proved rocky. Stories of Mrs. Parker's conflicts with the studios are legendary. After being scolded by Samuel Goldwyn, who told her, \"You haven't got a great audience, and you know why? Because you don't give people what they want,\" Mrs. Parker softly replied: \"But Mr. Goldwyn, people don't know what they want until you give it to them.\" Goldwyn exploded, saying, \"Wisecracks. I told you there's no money in wisecracks. People want a happy ending.\" To which she responded: \"I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.\"\n\nAfter Campbell joined the army, Mrs. Parker lived in Hollywood and New York, working on short stories and screenplays. After a period of separation, divorce, and remarriage, the couple worked on a handful of scripts in the 1950s. After her husband's death, Mrs. Parker returned to New York, at the age of seventy.\n\n\"You just don't know how I love it\u2014how I get up every morning and want to kiss the pavement . . . Hollywood smells like a laundry,\" she told Ward Morehouse of the New York World-Telegram and Sun. \"The beautiful vegetables taste as if they were raised in trunks, and at those wonderful supermarkets you find that the vegetables are all wax. The flowers out there smell like dirty, old dollar bills.\"\n\nIn 1941 her friend Budd Schulberg wrote What Makes Sammy Run? about screenwriting. Mrs. Parker said, \"I never thought anyone could put Hollywood\u2014the true shittiness of it\u2014between covers.\"\n\nThe Happy Herbie\n\nThe Edison, Los Angeles\n\nWalt Disney himself tapped two Algonquin Round Table members to appear in animated feature films. Deems Taylor narrates the classic Fantasia (1940), and Robert Benchley plays himself in The Reluctant Dragon (1941). Disney artist and \"imagineer\" Herbert Ryman art-directed Fantasia and Dumbo, and in the 1950s Disney tapped Ryman to draw the concept art for Disneyland, which became the blueprint for the amusement park. Inside a hundred-year-old former power plant in Downtown Los Angeles lies The Edison, a lounge that evokes the city's romantic past. John Maraffi, director of spirits, created the Happy Herbie for a fundraiser for the Ryman Foundation (Ryman.org), which provides fine art training to teenagers. \"Although it's a twenty-first-century cocktail, the flavor and color evoke the style of a classic cocktail,\" says Barbara Jacobs, who runs The Edison. \"It sends the guest to Disneyland, with apples and oranges rounding out the vision of the Happiest Place on Earth.\"\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces Templeton rye whiskey\n\n\u00bd ounce GreenBar jasmine liqueur\n\n\u00bd ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n\u00bd ounce simple syrup\n\n3 dashes Bar Keep apple bitters\n\nOrange peel\n\nShake all liquid ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange peel.\nHemingway Daiquiri\n\nBar La Florida Style\n\nDorothy Parker never made it to Cuba, but her frenemy, Ernest Hemingway, famously did. The two writers did sail to France aboard the same cruise ship in early 1926, however. One story of that journey holds that Hemingway had forgotten his portable typewriter, so Mrs. Parker loaned him her Underwood. For whatever reason, he pitched it over the side of the ship. After Hemingway began his love affair with Cuba, he named Bar La Florida\u2014located on Obispo and Montserrate Streets and still in operation\u2014his favorite Havana watering hole. Hemingway welcomed friends such as Gary Cooper and Spencer Tracy there, and in 2003 a life-size statue of the writer was installed in his favorite spot. Bar La Florida, in existence since 1819, claims to have invented the Daiquiri. Hemingway preferred his served as a double, over a single serving of ice, or frozen. This recipe comes from the bar's own 1935 menu.\n\nhighball glass\n\n2 ounces Bacardi white rum\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lime juice\n\n1 teaspoon grapefruit juice\n\n1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur\n\nFill a blender with 2 cups crushed ice, add all the ingredients, and blend. Pour into a chilled highball glass.\n\nNote: Using a blender makes the daiquiri frozen or frappe.\nHighball\n\nThe name for this drink comes from the nineteenth-century railroad days, when raising a signal\u2014a ball on a long pole\u2014meant engines could proceed at full steam. When New York bartender Patrick Duffy invented the drink in the 1890s, it was taken to mean how fast the drink could be assembled. All highballs are meant to be simple to mix, to be served over ice, and to refresh. In a tall glass it's a Highball; in an old-fashioned glass, it's a Lowball.\n\nhighball glass\n\n2 ounces Scotch, bourbon, or rye\n\nClub soda or ginger ale\n\nLemon twist (optional)\n\nThe key to a good Highball is building it. Start with the alcohol. First, pour the whiskey into a chilled glass filled with ice cubes. Top with cold club soda or ginger ale, stirring gently. If desired, drop in a lemon twist.\n\nThis is a nice highball, isn't it? Well, well, well, to think of me having real Scotch; I'm out of the bush leagues at last. It will be nice to see the effect of veritable whisky upon one who has been accustomed only to the simpler forms of entertainment.\n\n\u2014from Dorothy Parker's classic 1928 short story, \"Just a Little One,\" about a night in a speakeasy, published in The New Yorker\nHorse's Neck\n\nTexas Guinan was a larger-than-life speakeasy owner and performer. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nJust one speakeasy proprietor earned the sobriquet \"Queen of the Nightclubs,\" and that was Texas Guinan. A larger-than-life bottle blonde with a big smile and bigger personality, Texas was beloved by boozehounds and newspaper gossip columnists. The authorities were constantly hauling her off to jail, which only added to her reputation. She wore a necklace made of handcuff keys, and during raids she asked her band to perform \"The Prisoner's Song\" as she was led out. Because Texas supplied the ginger ale if her customers brought the booze, here's a famous Jazz Age cocktail that depends on it. This recipe comes from Rob Chirico's Field Guide to Cocktails.\n\nhighball glass\n\nOrange peel\n\n2 ounces bourbon\n\n4 ounces ginger ale\n\nCarefully carve a long piece of peel, 1\u00bd inches wide, from the orange, then wrap the spiral around several ice cubes in a highball glass. Some of the excess peel should hang over the side of the glass, like a horse's neck. Add the bourbon and cold ginger ale and stir.\nJack Rose\n\nIn The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes has a Jack Rose while waiting in vain for the \"damned good-looking\" Lady Brett Ashley in a Paris hotel bar. Ernest Hemingway added the reference when the drink was popular in the 1920s. Hemingway was in Paris with the Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Bu\u00f1uel. \"If you were to ask me if I'd ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail,\" Bu\u00f1uel said, \"I'd have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.\"\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces applejack or Calvados\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lime or lemon juice\n\n2\u20134 dashes grenadine\n\nShake all ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: Applejack is the American term for 80 to 100 proof apple brandy aged two years in wooden casks. Calvados comes from France and is also a popular apple brandy.\n\nJean Harlow\n\nThe connection between the original blonde bombshell and Dorothy Parker is a strong one. Mrs. Parker and her husband, Alan Campbell, wrote one of Jean Harlow's best films, the 1936 MGM comedy Suzy. One of the pivotal scenes depicts Harlow and Cary Grant, playing a cabaret singer and a pilot, trading wisecracks in a French bistro over little glasses of Cointreau. This namesake drink offers a variation on the Martini, and this recipe allegedly was Harlow's favorite cocktail.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces white rum\n\n2 ounces sweet vermouth\n\nLemon peel\n\nPour the rum and vermouth into a shaker filled with cracked ice. Depending on your preference, you can either shake or slowly stir it. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the lemon peel.\n\nJean Harlow, Cary Grant, and George Davis in Suzy. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nJosephine Baker\n\nFreda Josephine McDonald was born poor in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1906, but by the time of her death in 1975, the dancer had attained global recognition as one of the most sought-after black entertainers. McDonald changed her name to Josephine Baker when she was nineteen and moved to Paris, where her audience was almost exclusively white. Historian Ann Douglas says in Terrible Honesty that Baker\n\nliked to turn up in a Poiret gown, but this was never her primary look. Onstage and off, she was noted for something close to nudity, nudity accentuated by a belt of bananas around her hips or a long feather curling provocatively between her legs, and at the most unexpected moments she would start mugging: she'd cross her eyes, throw her bronze limbs akimbo in a comical kaleidoscope of fractured motion, turning on the glamorous and provocative image she'd created but a moment before.\n\nThis recipe comes from the 1935 menu of Havana's most popular bar-restaurant, La Florida.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Cognac\n\n1\u00bd ounces port wine\n\n\u00be ounce apricot brandy\n\n1 teaspoon sugar\n\n1 egg yolk\n\nCinnamon\n\nLemon peel\n\nShake all the liquid ingredients and sugar well over ice. Strain into a large cocktail glass filled with cracked ice. Spread a pinch of cinnamon on top of the drink and garnish with a lemon twist.\n\nNote: The original recipe calls for Soberano Cognac, a Spanish brand not easily available in America. You can substitute Hennessey V.S. (\"very special\").\nThe Knickerbocker Cocktail\n\nThe grand old Knickerbocker still stands in Times Square, but, no longer a hotel, today it's an office building and a storefront for selling T-shirts. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nWashington Irving, New York's first professional author, wrote his classic History of New York in 1809, penned by the pseudonymous \"Diedrich Knicker\u00adbocker.\" Over time the name came to signify natives of the city or state of New York. On the southeast corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway, millionaire real estate scion John Jacob Astor IV built the lavish fifteen-story luxury Hotel Knickerbocker, which opened in 1906. Broadway regulars loved its swanky bar and restaurant. Astor commissioned Maxfield Parrish to paint a mural for the bar, and the thirty-foot-wide Old King Cole now hangs over the bar in the St. Regis, another Astor hotel. The Algonquin Round Table often attended midnight parties in the Knickerbocker, which was often home to theater stars such as George M. Cohan. The red brick beaux arts building, with its eye-catching copper mansard roof, is the only grand hotel left in Times Square. It was gutted long ago for office and retail space, a victim of the Great Depression, but the Knickerbocker Cocktail carries on the bar's name.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces rum\n\n1 teaspoon raspberry syrup\n\n1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice\n\n2 dashes Cura\u00e7ao\n\n1 chunk pineapple\n\nStir liquid ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drop in the pineapple chunk.\nThe Last Word\n\nThe year 1916 saw the founding of the Detroit Athletic Club News for the 10,000 members of the private club in Michigan. During the Jazz Age, the DAC News bought freelance pieces from some of the top humorists in the country: Robert Benchley, Ring Lardner, Groucho Marx, Dorothy Parker, Frank Sullivan, and James Thurber. The DAC, which is still going strong, has a fabulous bar where the Last Word was created by vaudeville star Frank J. Fogarty, a native of Red Hook, Brooklyn. In 1912, Fogarty, a comedian and performer for twenty-five years, had won the New York Morning Telegraph contest for most popular performer in vaudeville. After retiring, he went to work for the Brooklyn borough president. On his deathbed in 1925, Fogarty's last words were a request to hear \"Fanny Dear\" on the radio. He lost consciousness before WEAF could broadcast the song, but the song was played at his funeral. This recipe comes from Zelda magazine.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce gin\n\n1 ounce maraschino liqueur\n\n1 ounce green chartreuse\n\n1 ounce fresh lime juice\n\nShake all ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\nLoud Speaker\n\nWhen radio broadcasting became popular, producers tapped the talents of the Vicious Circle. Among the early radio stars was Franklin P. Adams\u2014\"I don't understand the principle of the radio, nor for that matter the telephone or the telegraph. Don't explain it to me; I don't get it.\"\u2014who served as a weekly panelist on the hit quiz show Information Please. CBS hired Deems Taylor to present classical music programming, and Alexander Woollcott, in a smooth transition in the 1930s from newspapers to radio, also broadcast coast to coast. Round Table writers found their material easily adapted to radio scripts: Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy Parker all cashed nice checks from radio networks for broadcasting their short stories. Naturally a cocktail was dreamed up to celebrate the new medium. The Loud Speaker appeared in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book in London.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n\u00be ounce dry gin\n\n\u00be ounce brandy\n\n\u00bc ounce Cointreau\n\n\u00bc ounce lemon juice\n\nShake all ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nAlong with this recipe came the following admonishment: \"This it is that gives to radio announcers their peculiar enunciation. Three of them will produce oscillation, and after five it is possible to reach the osculation stage.\"\nLove Cocktail\n\nShe made her bones by writing light verse about her broken heart, and it's on her poetry that most of Dorothy Parker's reputation stands. Just a few titles give a sense of her devotion to the subject: \"Love Song,\" \"Men I'm Not Married To,\" \"One Perfect Rose,\" and \"Song of a Contented Heart,\" the last of which tellingly predates \"Song of a Hopeful Heart\" by a year.\n\nMrs. Parker's 1933 Anacreontic poem \"The Lady's Reward\" ends with:\n\nBe you wise and never sad,\n\nYou will get your lovely lad.\n\nNever serious be, nor true,\n\nAnd your wish will come to you\u2014\n\nAnd if that makes you happy, kid,\n\nYou'll be the first it ever did.\n\nThe Hotel Wallick in Times Square served this cocktail in 1917.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces sloe gin\n\n1 egg white\n\n1 teaspoon lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon raspberry syrup\n\nShake all ingredients over cracked ice. Strain and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: No substitutions allowed for this drink, because these ingredients, when mixed properly, create a drink that comes out blood red.\nYou know how you ought to be with men? You should always be aloof, you should never let them know you like them, you must on no account let them feel that they are of any importance to you, you must be wrapped up in your own concerns, you may never let them lose sight of the fact that you are superior, you must be, in short, a regular stuffed chemise. And if you could see what I've been doing!\n\n\u2014Parker's advice to the fairer sex in 1928\nMamie Taylor\n\nAround the time William McKinley was in the White House, a ballerina asked for a drink at a summer resort on Lake Ontario, and the legend of how the beautiful Mamie Taylor took in hand a whiskey and ginger ale pick-me-up entered the cocktail history books. Legendary publisher James Gordon Bennett ran the recipe in the New York Herald, considering it news. In 1921 the New York Times published a Prohibition lament: \"If we ever build a wall in America it will most likely be along the Canadian and Mexican borders for the purpose of keeping such objectionable characters as John Barleycorn and Mamie Taylor from leaving The Land of the Spree and Home of Knave and contaminating our own glorious Hearth of the Home brewed Hootch.\" Highballs formed a huge part of speakeasy culture, so the Mamie Taylor proved popular. Miss Taylor isn't remembered for anything else except this cocktail, and this recipe comes from a 1936 collection of whiskey highball recipes.\n\nhighball glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces American blended whiskey\n\nJuice of half a lime\n\nGinger ale\n\nFill a highball glass with cracked ice. Pour in the whiskey and lime juice, then fill with cold ginger ale.\n\nManhattan Cocktail\n\nA classic\u2014and completely New York creation\u2014is the Manhattan Cocktail. It comes from the Manhattan Club, a gentlemen's social club that opened in 1865 on Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. Its most famous member was August Belmont Jr.: grandson of Commodore Perry, the sportsman who transformed horseracing into a high-stakes industry as well as financed construction of New York's first subway line. The Manhattan Cocktail came into being, the story goes, while he served as club president, and it became wildly popular during Prohibition. The drink appears in Truman Capote's famous novella Breakfast at Tiffany's as one of Holly Golightly's favorites, and Marilyn Monroe drinks one in Some Like It Hot. This recipe comes from a 1936 guide by Irvin S. Cobb, who called it \"one of America's greatest contributions to civilization. If the recipe given is too dry for you, make the drink half and half, whiskey and Italian vermouth.\"\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces rye\n\n1 ounce sweet vermouth\n\nDash Angostura bitters\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nStir liquid ingredients with cracked ice, strain, and garnish with the cherry.\n\nNote: To make a Cuban Manhattan, substitute rum for the rye and add another ounce of vermouth.\nThe Marquis\n\nFl\u00fbte, New York\n\n\"Texas Guinan, in her fashion, during the boom times of the twenties combined the curious and admirable traits of Queen Elizabeth, Machiavelli, Tex Rickard, P. T. Barnum, and Ma Pettingill,\" wrote Stanley Walker, city editor of the New York Herald Tribune. \"She was known as Queen of the Night Clubs. Her greeting 'Hello, sucker!' became the watchword of boobtraps from Wall Street to Hollywood.\" One of \"Queen of the Nightclubs\" Texas Guinan's regular spots was Club Intime, at 205 West Fifty-fourth Street, which operates today as Fl\u00fbte. Down a flight of stairs off Broadway lies an intimate lounge opened by Herv\u00e9 Rousseau and run with a tradition of flowing Champagne and Prohibition parties featuring vintage drinks. Ne'er-do-well bartenders at Fl\u00fbte invented a drink and named it for another Frenchman who liked a good time, the Marquis de Sade. Topped with Champagne, it makes for a grand tribute in the spot once occupied by Texas and her showgirls.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce Grand Marnier\n\n1 ounce full-bodied red wine\n\n1 ounce orange juice\n\n\u00bc ounce lime juice\n\n\u00bc ounce simple syrup\n\nChampagne\n\nOrange slice\n\nShake Grand Marnier, wine, juices, and simple syrup well over ice and pour into a large cocktail glass. Top with Champagne and garnish with the orange slice.\n\nNote: You can substitute another orange-flavored brandy liqueur for the Grand Marnier.\n\nStanding on a piano and waving a police whistle and noisemaker, Texas Guinan welcomes her customers in an illustration by Joseph Golinkin. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nMartini\n\nMore ink has been spilled about the Martini than any other cocktail. It's the king of all mixed drinks, and there are entire books devoted to it. Beverage historians argue the history of the Martini with the kind of passion usually exhibited among Civil War reenactors. Into the middle of Martini lore falls the little woman from the Upper West Side\u2014an avowed Highball fan\u2014commonly believed to be the number one proponent of the Martini in the Jazz Age. But the fact is, Dorothy Parker never mentions imbibing a Martini in any of her poems or fiction. In none of her books does the famous gin-soaked quatrain appear:\n\nI love a martini\u2014\n\nBut two at the most.\n\nThree, I'm under the table;\n\nFour, I'm under the host.\n\nIf she did in fact generate these twenty words, the text certainly isn't under copyright. Which is good news for the Martini tchotchke industry, which regularly slaps it on glasses, coasters, and T-shirts. But that hardly matters to Martini fans, who eagerly raise their glasses to their favorite version of the gin classic. (We're talking gin only\u2014vodka is for heathens.) The Martini, with just two ingredients, has been beloved since the late nineteenth century, depending on which of the many origin stories you want to believe. It has made countless appearances in novels such as A Farewell to Arms and vintage films including The Thin Man. In the Oscar-nominated screenplay to Smash-Up, which Mrs. Parker and Frank Cavett wrote, Carleton Young tells a crowd, \"The rest of you can get your noses out of those martinis for a minute!\" The Martini has survived changing tastes across two world wars, the Great Depression, and the wildly changing culture at the end of the last century.\n\nCocktail napkin from the Blue Bar of the Algonquin Hotel. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\ncocktail glass\n\nMARTINI\n\n2 ounces gin\n\n\u00bd to 1 ounce dry vermouth\n\nDRY MARTINI\n\n2 \u00bd ounces gin\n\n1 tablespoon dry vermouth\n\nDIRTY MARTINI\n\n2\u00bd ounces gin\n\n1 tablespoon dry vermouth\n\n1 teaspoon olive brine\n\nEXTRA-DRY MARTINI\n\n2\u00bd ounces gin\n\n1 teaspoon dry vermouth\n\nSWEET MARTINI\n\n2\u00bd ounces gin\n\n1 ounce sweet gin\n\n1 ounce sweet vermouth\n\n1 dash orange bitters\n\n1 dash Cura\u00e7ao\n\nFor any Martini, shake ingredients well over cracked ice. The more you shake, the colder the drink will be. Strain into a cocktail glass\u2014chilled if possible in a freezer\u2014and always serve straight up. Garnish with a twist of lemon peel or olive. The gin-to-vermouth ratio determines the dryness of a Martini; the less vermouth, the drier the drink. In the 1930s the Martini had much more vermouth, and in the 1940s the gin-to-vermouth ratio was 2:1.\n\nWhy don't you slip out of that wet coat and into a dry martini? I'd offer you a whiskey sour, but that would mean thinking up a new joke.\n\n\u2014Robert Benchley to Ginger Rogers in the 1942 motion picture The Major and the Minor\n\nThere is something about a Martini,\n\nEre the dining and dancing begin,\n\nAnd to tell you the truth,\n\nIt is not the vermouth\u2014\n\nI think that perhaps it's the gin.\n\n\u2014Ogden Nash, A Drink with Something in It\n\nMary Pickford\n\nMary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, a power couple and the biggest stars of the silent film era, were also longtime residents of the Algonquin Hotel and close personal friends of general manager Frank Case. Robin Hood opened in 1922, and the couple rented a suite at the hotel when the film premiered in New York. Fairbanks brought along his bow and arrow and\u2014to the delight of newspaper reporters and shock of his wife and Case\u2014showed off his shooting skills on the hotel roof. Pickford, America's first sweetheart, made almost 250 films from 1908 to 1935. The drink that bears her name was a sensation from coast to coast and in Europe, but this recipe comes from Havana's Bar La Florida 1935 cocktail guide.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce Bacardi rum\n\n1 ounce pineapple juice\n\n1 teaspoon grenadine\n\n6 drops maraschino liqueur\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nThis drink must be very cold to be good, so shake liquid ingredients well over enough cracked ice to fill three quarters of the shaker. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the cherry. When Gourmet wrote about this drink in 1943, it was already called an \"old favorite.\"\n\nMary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks married in 1920, a year after they founded the United Artists film studio in partnership with Charlie Chaplin and D. W. Griffith. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\n\"Mary Pickford has three good ears,\" Frank Case wrote. \"She can sit at the table, hear what the man to her right is saying, follow the conversation at the left, and when you, at the extreme other end, try to sneak in a remark you don't want her to hear, she will call the entire length of the table, 'I'll see you later about that.'\"\n\nA Toast to the Algonquin Round Table\n\nWhen publicists Murdock Pemberton and John Peter Toohey took New York Times drama critic Alexander Woollcott to lunch at the Algonquin Hotel, they just as easily could have opted for someplace else. The Astor Hotel lay closer to the Times offices on West Forty-third Street, and the Knickerbocker was fancier\u2014but they picked the Algonquin . . . which, granted, stood across the street from where they worked, the now demolished Hippodrome Theater. The Algonquin also had a pastry chef on staff named Sarah Victor, and Woollcott had a sweet tooth.\n\nThe publicists wanted to get their new show into the newspaper. Woollcott had just returned from France, where he'd spent the previous eighteen months in an ill-fitting army uniform. By June 1919 most of the veterans had resumed their old jobs, and Woollcott delighted in telling war stories in the restaurant. Pemberton and Toohey struck out with getting press for their show, but they did hatch a plan. Going back to their office and with the help of another publicity genius, William B. Murray, they concocted a welcome-home luncheon for the rotund critic. They invited writers, editors, publicists, and actors. The group went to the Pergola Room (today the Oak Room) at the Algonquin and had a roaring good time. Woollcott, who always loved being the center of attention, was in his element. Jokes, stories, and laughs filled the room. As the friends left the hotel to go back to work, someone asked: Why not do this again?\n\nFor the next six or seven years, about six times a week, the Vicious Circle met at the Algonquin Hotel, managed by Frank Case, who lived on the top floor and was raising two teenagers. He discerningly saw the value of so many famous New Yorkers coming to the restaurant each day, so he moved the group to the main restaurant on the north end of the lobby. Case set up a large round table that could seat approximately sixteen. Some thirty members of the Round Table came and went over the years, and eleven of them appear in the 2002 painting by Natalie Ascencios that hangs in the hotel today.\n\nThe writers Franklin P. Adams, Robert Benchley, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, Jane Grant, Ruth Hale, George S. Kaufman, Margaret Leech, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Dorothy Parker, Robert E. Sherwood, Laurence Stallings, Donald Ogden Stewart, and Frank Sullivan joined editors Beatrice B. Kaufman, Harold Ross, and Arthur H. Samuels. Poet John V. A. Weaver married one of the actresses of the group, Broadway star Peggy Wood. Margalo Gillmore, who starred in early Eugene O'Neill plays, was another actress at the table. Harpo Marx joined in 1924, leaving his brothers out.\n\nNeysa McMein, the most sought-after magazine cover artist of the era, hosted the group at her studio. Broadway producer Brock Pemberton, who later cofounded the Tony Awards, was invited by his younger brother, Murdock. John Peter Toohey was another press agent at the table, as were William B. Murray and David A. Wallace, and among the most popular members was composer and music critic Deems Taylor.\n\nThe group swiftly became the most-remembered gathering of literary figures of the twentieth century. But why do we remember them at all? Most wrote for daily newspapers, and what they said or talked about appeared very quickly, courtesy of their fellow columnists. Adams, best known by his initials, F.P.A., helmed a daily column that relied on contributions. When he ran poems and stories by the group, attention followed immediately. Wire services picked up the wisecracks and repartee from the columnists, and their words appeared in hundreds of newspapers nationwide. Herewith some of the best:\n\n\"Don't think I'm not incoherent.\" \u2014Harold Ross\n\n\"Repartee is what you wish you'd said.\" \u2014Heywood Broun\n\n\"Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.\" \u2014Edna Ferber\n\n\"When I was born I owed twelve dollars.\" \u2014George S. Kaufman\n\n\"My friends will tell you that Woollcott is a nasty old snipe. Don't believe them. [They] are a pack of simps who move their lips when they read.\" \u2014Aleck Woollcott\n\n\"It took me 15 years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.\" \u2014Robert Benchley\n\nThe Round Table also gave us The New Yorker, dreamed up at the hotel by Harold Ross and Jane Grant. The couple launched the magazine in February 1925, using their Round Table connections and listing the magazine's \"editorial board\" as Adams, Benchley, Mrs. Parker, and others, when no such group existed. Mrs. Parker wrote drama reviews for the debut issue and sold fiction to it until the 1950s, and most of the group contributed to it in some way.\n\nThe Vicious Circle wrote best-selling books and hit plays. Some of them worked in silent films, radio, talking pictures, and even early television. They left their collective mark on all areas of mass media in ways both large and small. Mrs. Parker takes credit for coining \"What the hell?\" while Kaufman and Connelly, needing an imaginary product in their play, dreamed up the \"widget.\"\n\nThe Algonquin remains the most renowned literary hotel in New York City for good reason. At the Plaza lived a children's book character; the Chelsea rented rooms to writers of all stripes. But the Algonquin offered a place for collaboration, admiration, and networking that persists today. Walk into the lobby, and you won't know who they are, but editors and writers are sitting in those chairs.\n\nMatilda\n\nAlgonquin Hotel, New York\n\nThe tradition of a lobby cat at the Algonquin Hotel began in 1930, according to hotel lore. At the time, Frank Case owned the hotel, and legendary actor John Barrymore was a longtime and favorite resident. Barrymore's sister, Ethel, kept a suite in the hotel, and their uncle, actor John Drew, lived in the hotel for nearly twenty years. According to the story passed down by the staff, one day Case adopted a stray. Barrymore told Case that since the Algonquin had a literary and theatrical clientele, he couldn't give the feline a common name, so Case called him Hamlet, after Barrymore's most famous stage role. Since then, all male cats that live at the hotel have been named Hamlet; years later a female was acquired and christened Matilda (nobody knows why). Since the 1990s a succession of Matildas has ruled the Algonquin. The hotel has promoted the cat to executive status; she has her own e-mail account, Twitter account, and gets fan mail. You can usually spot Matilda on the front desk, behind the warm desktop computer, or on a luggage cart. Every August the hotel throws a birthday party for the cat, raising money for animal adoptions in front of the building. The breed, ragdoll, means she is quite content to be petted. The Matilda cocktail has been a favorite in the Blue Bar for many years.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces vodka\n\n2 ounces Cointreau\n\n1 ounce orange juice\n\n1 ounce lime juice\n\nChampagne\n\nOrange slice\n\nShake vodka, Cointreau, and juices well over ice; pour into a cocktail glass. Top with Champagne and garnish with the orange slice.\nMetropolitan\n\nThe long-vanished Metropolitan Hotel opened at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street in 1853 in what is today Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. The six-story building in the Italian palazzo style, the city's second luxury hotel, boasted hot and cold running water in its 500 rooms. In its ballroom entertainer P. T. Barnum hosted the 1863 wedding reception for General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, who stood two feet, eight inches tall. The Modern Bartender's Guide, written by O. H. Byron and published in 1884, included a brandy and vermouth Metropolitan cocktail. It is sometimes attributed to the city's most famous bartender, \"Professor\" Jerry Thomas, hired by the hotel after the Civil War. The Metropolitan was demolished in 1895, but its namesake cocktail lives on.\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces brandy\n\n1\u00bd ounces sweet vermouth\n\n\u00bd teaspoon simple syrup\n\n1\u20132 dashes Angostura bitters\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nShake liquid ingredients over cracked ice; strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice cubes. Garnish with the cherry.\n\nNote: Don't confuse this drink with any modern recipes that share its name, including the 1990s variation on a Cosmopolitan.\nMillionaire\n\nDid anyone write more about money than Dorothy Parker? \"I hate almost all rich people but I think I'd be darling at it,\" she allegedly uttered. \"If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at who he gave it to,\" is another gem often attributed to her. She didn't grow up with it; she was born Dorothy Rothschild but famously said, \"We didn't know those Rothschilds.\" Her father was in the rag trade, making suits and cloaks in what is now SoHo. She didn't marry for money, either. In both of her unions, she earned more than her spouse did. When she had money, she spent it extravagantly on hats, fur coats, and expensive perfume. Mrs. Parker sailed to Europe in style, once booking passage on the grandest steamship of all, the French Line's Normandie. She might have enjoyed drinking a Millionaire\u2014even if she never became one. Harry Craddock captured two different recipes for the Millionaire in his 1930 collection, The Savoy Cocktail Book. Be a multimillionaire and try both variations.\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\nMILLIONAIRE #1\n\n1 ounce sloe gin\n\n1 ounce apricot brandy\n\n1 ounce Jamaica rum\n\nJuice of 1 lime\n\n1 dash grenadine\n\nMILLIONAIRE #2\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n1\u00bd ounces absinthe\n\n1 teaspoon triple sec\n\n\u00bc teaspoon grenadine\n\n1 egg white\n\nFor the first version, Shake all ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nfor the second version, Vigorously shake all ingredients over cracked ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or an old-fashioned glass filled with ice cubes.\n\nNote: The original recipe for the second version called for absinthe, which can be difficult to find. You can substitute with Pernod or another anise-flavored liqueur. Another variation substitutes bourbon for the gin.\nMint Julep\n\nWriting of the mint he put in his julep, Irvin S. Cobb said, \"Like a woman's heart it gives its sweetest aroma when bruised.\" \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nA friend of the Algonquin Round Table but never a member, author and newspaperman Irvin S. Cobb boisterously commanded the American literary scene for two generations. H. L. Mencken compared him to Mark Twain, and Cobb's sixty books were best sellers. Born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky, Cobb was so admired that in his lifetime a hotel and bridge were named for him. (The hotel is long gone, but the 1929 span from Paducah across the Ohio River to Brookport, Illinois, is still in use.) A Louisville distillery tapped the humorist in 1936 to produce Irvin S. Cobb's Own Recipe Book. In it he waxed poetic about his home state's most famous mixed drink: the Julep. He explores its Kentucky creation as carefully as a heart surgeon explaining how to operate on a patient. \"So great has been the argument on this subject that often the controversy could only be solved by recourse to pistols at dawn,\" Cobb wrote, and he believed that the addition of nutmeg prompted Kentucky to join the Civil War: \"It was brought on by some Yankee coming down South and putting nutmeg in the Julep. So our folks just up and left the Union flat.\"\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\n12 sprigs fresh mint\n\nPowdered sugar\n\n3 ounces Kentucky whiskey\n\nPlace 10 mint sprigs in a bowl, cover them with powdered sugar and just enough water to dissolve the sugar, and crush with a wooden pestle. Pour half the crushed mint and liquid into an old-fashioned glass or in a sterling silver or lead-free pewter tankard. Fill glass half full of finely crushed ice. Add the rest of the crushed mint and liquid and fill remainder of the glass with crushed ice. Add whiskey to the brim. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour\u2014but ideally 2 or 3 hours if you can wait that long. Dust remaining sprigs of mint with powdered sugar, place as garnish, and serve.\n\nNote: According to Cobb, \"The majority of Kentuckians, the folk of Chicago, the middle and far west, Texans, Missourians and Louisianans swear by holy Bourbon, but all the deft technicians, wheresoever found, agree that the liquor must be old, mellow whiskey\u2014the blandest in its savor, the richest in its perfume, the most lingering in its softly-expiring after-aroma.\"\n\nOne group holds that the bruised mint should be left in the potion. But my grandfather always insisted that a man who would let the crushed leaves and the mangled stemlets steep in the finished decoration would put scorpions in a baby's bed.\n\n\u2014Irvin S. Cobb's Own Recipe Book\nMonkey Gland\n\nIt's an understatement to say that Dorothy Parker disliked flappers, sheiks, and youth culture. \"I hate the Younger Set. They harden my arteries,\" she wrote in one of her hymns of hate.\n\nThere are the Male Flappers;\n\nThe Usual Dancing Men.\n\nThey can drink one straight Orange Pekoe after another,\n\nAnd you'd never know that they had had a thing.\n\nFour d\u00e9butante parties a night is bogie for them,\n\nAnd their talk is very small indeed.\n\nIn the Jazz Age many adults suddenly acted like teenagers, and one of the legacies of that shift is a cocktail with an odorous name that hints at a gruesome practice. In the 1920s, Harry MacElhone, proprietor of Harry's New York Bar in Paris, took note of the spirit of the age and named this drink for a Russian nutcase, Serge Voronoff, who infamously transplanted tissue from the sexual organs of monkeys into humans to slow the aging process. This is the recipe used in London's Caf\u00e9 Royal and Hotel Savoy in the 1920s.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces dry gin\n\n1\u00bd ounces fresh orange juice\n\n3 dashes absinthe\n\n3 dashes grenadine\n\nShake all ingredients and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: If you can't find absinthe, substitute Pernod or B\u00e9n\u00e9dictine, a Cognac-based liqueur from Normandy.\n\nA young woman models flapper fashion from head to toe in 1922. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nNew York Cocktail\n\nMany exult E. B. White's 1950 paean to Gotham, Here Is New York, as the ultimate love letter to the city. But \"My Hometown,\" a long-overlooked article by Dorothy Parker published in McCall's in 1928, is equally moving and touching. It's also the best statement Mrs. Parker ever wrote about why she loved the city. In fewer than one thousand words she masterfully distills its majesty. The New York Cocktail was a favorite in speakeasies that served rye and bourbon. This recipe dates from 1930.\n\n2 ounces rye whiskey or bourbon\n\n\u00be ounce fresh lime or lemon juice\n\n2 dashes grenadine\n\n1 teaspoon powdered sugar\n\nOrange peel\n\nShake liquid ingredients and sugar over cracked ice, strain into a chilled old-fashioned glass, and garnish with an orange twist.\n\nLondon is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something particularly good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. There is excitement running in its streets. Each day, as you go out, you feel the little nervous quiver that is yours when you sit in a theater just before the curtain rises. Other places may give you a sweet and soothing sense of level; but in New York there is always the feeling of \"Something's going to happen.\" It isn't peace. But, you know, you do get used to peace, and so quickly. And you never get used to New York.\n\n\u2014Dorothy Parker, \"My Hometown,\" 1928\nOld-Fashioned\n\nIn Dorothy Parker's Oscar-nominated screenplay for Smash-Up (1947), cowritten with Frank Cavett, former gin joint chanteuse Angelica Evans (played by Susan Hayward) announces: \"I'm going to have a little drink. Make me something . . . Come on, we'll both have one. An Old-Fashioned. Only no sugar, no vegetables, and go light on the ice. Why corrupt good liquor?\" The Old-Fashioned is one of the oldest of all American cocktails, and it has earned its name by being more than 200 years old. This whiskey cocktail has been reinterpreted many times, but this is the traditional recipe from the speakeasy era.\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\n1 sugar cube or 2 teaspoons simple syrup\n\n1\u20132 dashes Angostura bitters\n\n1 teaspoon water\n\n2 ounces whiskey\n\nLemon peel\n\nOrange slice\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nIn an old-fashioned glass, muddle the sugar cube or simple syrup, bitters, and water until sugar dissolves (if using a cube). Fill glass with ice cubes and stir in whiskey and lemon twist with a spoon. Garnish with the orange slice and cherry.\n\nSusan Hayward received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role as an alcoholic lounge singer in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman. Dorothy Parker was also nominated for the screenplay. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nOrange Blossom\n\nRobert Benchley was Dorothy Parker's best friend and a charter member of the Vicious Circle. He was also a teetotaler who made it through four years at Harvard and then seven years in newspaper and magazine publishing before touching a drop of alcohol. Benchley then fell into the bottle and never emerged. Along with Mrs. Parker and fellow writers Donald Ogden Stewart and Marc Connelly, Benchley frequented Tony's, a speakeasy on West Forty-ninth Street. Proprietor Tony Soma, formerly of the Hotel Knickerbocker, liked to stand on his head to delight customers. The story goes that a Tony's bartender once asked Mrs. Parker what she was having. \"Not much fun,\" came her quick reply. Benchley didn't start drinking until his thirties. \"The first social drink he took was an Orange Blossom,\" his son, Nathaniel, recounted in a biography of his father. \"He tried one sip, then put the glass down and looked around the room, 'This place ought to be closed by law,' he said and everybody fell off their chairs with laughter.\" This recipe for an Orange Blossom comes from the Robert Benchley Society.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce gin\n\n1 ounce fresh orange juice\n\n1 teaspoon powdered sugar\n\nOrange peel\n\nShake gin, orange juice, and sugar over ice; strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with flamed orange peel.\n\nNote: This cocktail has also been called an Adirondack Special, because of the homemade gin made in the region, as well as the Florida, due to the orange juice.\n\nA 1912 graduate of Harvard, Robert Benchley wrote for magazines and newspapers before becoming a radio and motion picture star. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nThis \"old-wives\" superstition that a cup of black coffee will \"put you on your feet\" with a hangover is either propaganda by the coffee people or the work of dilettante drinkers who get giddy on cooking-sherry. A man with a real hangover is in no mood to be told \"Just take a cup of black coffee\" or \"The thing for you is a couple of Aspirin.\" A real hangover is nothing to try out family remedies on. The only cure for a real hangover is death.\n\n\u2014Robert Benchley, My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)\nRay Hitchcocktail\n\nFor five solid years, from 1918 to 1923, Dorothy Parker wrote theater criticism for Vanity Fair and Ainslee's. The Hotel Wallick in Times Square named a drink for one of her favorite stage comedians, Raymond Hitchcock, who appeared in shows with W. C. Fields, Fanny Brice, and Mary Eaton. He toured with the Ziegfeld Follies before moving into silent films, and Mrs. Parker always gave him a glowing review. In 1918 he was in a show called Hitchy-Koo, about which Mrs. Parker wrote,\n\nNo matter what the show may be, if Raymond Hitchcock is in it, it's a success. He runs at top form from the moment he clubbily makes his appearance in the orchestra, welcoming the incoming audience, to the final thud of the curtain . . . Miss Ray Dooley gathers in a large share of the laughs of the evening, particularly in one delicate scene where she plays an obstreperous baby whom Mr. Hitchcock, as the proud father, silences with a blackjack . . . even though I do wear shell-rimmed glasses on occasion; there is always something about a gentleman hitting a lady over the head with a stuffed club that causes me to rock with happy laughter.\n\nA clever bartender honored Raymond Hitchcock with the cleverly named Ray Hitchcocktail, so remember Old Broadway with this one.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 pineapple slice\n\nJuice of half an orange\n\n2 ounces sweet vermouth\n\nDash Angostura orange bitters\n\nIn a shaker, muddle the pineapple and orange juice. Add the vermouth. Shake well with cracked ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Add dash of bitters.\n\nRaymond Hitchcock was a star on Broadway and in silent pictures. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nThe Rob Roy was invented here, the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Demolition started in October 1929 and lasted twelve weeks. The 16,000 truckloads of debris were dumped in the ocean off Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The Empire State Building rose in its place. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nRob Roy\n\nThe Herald Square Theatre, a 1,300-seat playhouse on the corner of Broadway and West Thirty-fifth Street, opened in 1883 and showcased musicals and light operas for a quarter century. In 1894 Rob Roy opened there, based on the life of Scottish outlaw and folk hero Rob Roy MacGregor. With music composed by Reginald De Koven and a book by Harry B. Smith, it was a smash success. The New York Times called the operetta \"clean, frank, manly, bright, and winsome\" and praised star William Pruette. At the time, the old Waldorf Hotel\u2014its bar and restaurant a famous destination for well-heeled theatergoers\u2014lay just a short walk east, where the Empire State Building stands today. Bartenders at the hotel honored the cast and show by naming a Scotch cocktail for the production. The Herald Square was converted to the city's first movie theater in 1911. The theater was razed four years later and the hotel demolished in 1930, but the Rob Roy has thrived for more than a century. Try one on November 30, St. Andrew's Day. This recipe appeared in the 1937 Caf\u00e9 Royal Cocktail Book.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2\u00bd ounces Scotch\n\n\u00be ounce sweet vermouth\n\n\u00be ounce dry vermouth\n\n3 dashes Angostura bitters\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nShake the Scotch, both vermouths, and bitters over cracked ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the cherry.\nSeersucker Punch\n\nThe Velveteen Rabbit, Las Vegas\n\nLas Vegas never hosted Dorothy Parker at its gaming tables, but she did love playing card games. A bridge fiend, she wrote about that game often, and other members of the Round Table were degenerate poker players: Heywood Broun lost his house at the table, and Harold Ross was gutted of $30,000 in one night. In that spirit, we turn to Bryn Esplin, creative director at The Velveteen Rabbit, a lounge in the Las Vegas Arts District. She created Seersucker Punch. \"The word originates from the Persian shir o shekar, meaning 'milk and sugar,' probably from the resemblance of its smooth and rough stripes to the smooth texture of milk and the bumpy texture of sugar,\" Esplin said in Zelda magazine.\n\nWhen it was first introduced in the United States, the seersucker suit was considered to be a poor man's suit. It wasn't until Princeton students in the 1920s, in an ironic fashion statement, began to wear the fabric, subverting the economic associations. Hollywood actors were spotted in seersucker suits, and Life deemed it acceptable to wear in the northern part of the U.S. Writers would proudly wear it in beach settings, and dapper men made it their new go-to summer suit.\n\nFollowing its tradition of breaking boundaries, Seersucker Punch can be served either hot or cold.\n\nlowball glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces bourbon\n\n\u00bd ounce Frangelico\n\n\u00bd ounce root liquor\n\n1 teaspoon brown sugar simple syrup\n\n\u00bd ounce almond milk\n\nDash of cinnamon\n\nStir all the liquid ingredients together, pour over shaved ice in a lowball or punch glass, then add the cinnamon. To serve the punch hot, heat to taste, stir, and top with a dash of cinnamon.\nSidecar\n\nThe Lost Generation that swept into France following the Great War included many American expats. Dorothy Parker joined them, making her first journey in 1926. There she befriended Gerald and Sara Murphy, while socializing with F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Ernest Hemingway. She did almost no work in Europe. Instead Mrs. Parker spent her vacations at luxury hotels, cafes, and\u2014a world away from Long Branch\u2014the beaches of the C\u00f4te d'Azur. Along with the French \"75,\" the Sidecar also came back from World War I to America. Cocktail enthusiasts believe it was created in Paris at Harry's New York Bar for a regular customer\u2014a military officer of some stripe\u2014who was usually delivered to the establishment via motorcycle (with sidecar attached). It was popular during Prohibition but later lost its footing to new vodka and rum drinks. This recipe comes from the 1937 Caf\u00e9 Royal Cocktail Book compiled by London bartender William Tarling.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1 ounce brandy\n\n\u00be ounce Cointreau\n\n\u00be ounce fresh lemon juice\n\nShake all ingredients over crushed ice; strain into a cocktail glass.\n\nNote: The Cointreau adds all the pop to this drink, so the brandy doesn't need to be an expensive or premium brand.\n\nReginald Vanderbilt was a millionaire dilettante who didn't accomplish much in his life except purchasing race cars and racehorses. He mixed Stingers for his friends in Newport and New York. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nStinger\n\nThe Stinger first came into fashion during the Gay Nineties for upper-class New Yorkers, when the chief ingredient was always brandy. Cognac and other spirits were substituted later. It always had a reputation as a rich-person's cocktail and was the preferred drink of W. Somerset Maugham, the sophisticated English author and playwright who wrote a tender introduction to The Portable Dorothy Parker in 1944. The Stinger was also a favorite of railroad scion Reginald Vanderbilt (father of Gloria, grandfather of Anderson Cooper). Reggie Vanderbilt had a home bar and mixed his own Stingers every afternoon for friends. In the 1960s, Gloria Vanderbilt and her fourth husband, Wyatt Cooper, took Mrs. Parker under their wing; some of the last parties that Mrs. Parker attended were with the glamorous society couple\u2014maybe having Stingers.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2\u00bc ounces Cognac\n\n\u00be ounce white cr\u00e8me de menthe\n\nStir the brandy and cr\u00e8me de menthe with ice; strain and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: You can replace the cognac with brandy, gin, or bourbon\u2014but white cr\u00e8me de menthe is key. If you order this drink, don't let the bartender reach for a bottle of the green stuff.\nStone Fence\n\nSmash-Up earned two Academy Award nominations in 1947: for best actress in a leading role, to Susan Hayward for playing a boozy nightclub singer, and for screenwriting team Dorothy Parker and Frank Cavett. The Stone Fence dates to the Colonial period and was made by farmers in the winter using hard cider. This is the most common recipe, which uses brandy, just like Angie drinks it onscreen, but substitutes apple cider for her rye.\n\nold-fashioned glass\n\n2 ounces brandy\n\n2 dashes Angostura bitters\n\n\u00bd ounce lemon juice\n\nClub soda or fresh apple cider\n\nPour brandy and bitters into a chilled old-fashioned glass filled with cracked ice. Add lemon juice. Top with club soda or apple cider. Stir gently.\n\nNote: If you prefer, you can replace the brandy with applejack, bourbon, rum, rye, or Scotch, and the cider with club soda.\n\nIn one of the best scenes in Smash-Up, Susan Hayward's character, Angelica Evans, walks behind the bar in her Sutton Place apartment and grabs a bottle of brandy. The dialogue is pure Parker.\n\nAngie: Hey, you know what a Stone Fence is? (smiling)\n\nMike: You mean a Stone Wall.\n\nAngie: I mean a Stone Fence, brother. It's sort of like an ice cream soda, with conviction. Bartender, will you please get me a cocktail shaker with some shaved ice, and some brandy, and some whiskey, and some Cointreau? What you need, Mike, is a Stone Fence. Just about the most colossal drink you've ever drunk. Drank. It puts poise in apathetic people, if you know what I mean. And after the second one your spine turns to solid platinum. You take one part brandy and two parts rye . . . (she drinks a jigger of rye).\nSure Shot\n\nDeath & Company, New York City\n\nThe Martinez of the 1880s was super sweet and called for a whopping amount of vermouth. It gradually morphed into today's Martini (depending on which history book you believe). In bars across the country, the fashion of reinventing classic drinks has taken hold. Hidden behind a heavy wooden door on Manhattan's Lower East Side you'll find Death & Company, a relative newcomer but a go-to spot for sampling updates to century-old cocktail recipes. \"The Sure Shot is a classic Martinez variation,\" says Jillian Vose, head bartender. \"The Martinez is one of my favorite drinks. When making it, I love using a split base of different Old Tom gins so that it isn't too sweet. So I thought, Why not do a split with Old Tom and Genever? I love me some Bols Genever! We were messing around doing a workshop for a bunch of Bols brands, and we had picked up a bunch of herbs and spices. Ancho chile was one of them, and it all spiraled to deliciousness from there.\"\n\nNick & Nora glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Hayman's Old Tom Gin\n\n\u00bd ounce Bols Genever\n\n\u00be ounce Ancho Chile\u2013Infused Dolin Rouge Vermouth\n\n1 teaspoon Galliano Ristretto\n\n\u00bd teaspoon Demerara Syrup\n\n1 dash orange bitters\n\nPour all the ingredients into a mixing cup filled with ice and stir. Strain into a Nick & Nora glass. Do not garnish.\n\nNote: If you can't find a Nick & Nora glass, use a cocktail glass instead.\n\nA Guide to Speakeasy Slang\n\nSpeakeasy culture was born with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and with it a whole new lexicon of slang sprang up. What has come down to us from that time forms a collection of English as colorful today as it was in 1920.\n\nAnything very good was the cat's pajamas, the cat's whiskers, or the bee's knees. To be called Four-O was to get the highest possible rating from your friends. An oil burner was a gum-chewing girl. If you were from the country, you were a Young Otis; traveling salesmen and out-of-towners were the Butter and Egg Man. A young woman carried mad money, the cab fare in her purse in case she got into a row with her sweetheart. Ritzy also came into vogue courtesy of playwright George S. Kaufman in 1921 in the New York Tribune:\n\n\"The Crock of Gold\"\n\nShe's got a Hickson model walk\n\nAnd a line of Ritzy talk\u2014\n\nSimple little Katie from old Ire-land\n\nA flapper who couldn't keep in the swim was a dud, a Dumb Dora, or a dumb bunny. A wallflower was a sinker, and, oh no, any flapper over thirty was deemed a flat tire. Guys who always picked up the tab were darbs; men who never went out with girls were tabbed Red Mike. A cake eater or cakie was self-indulgent and often decadent. A cakie who squired around a different girl every night was a snake.\n\nIf you were in the rumble seat of a 1926 Franklin Sport Coupe, you may have engaged in snugglepupping, which is the same as petting or spooning. Robert E. Sherwood may have won the Pulitzer Prize four times, but he gave us a very important expression in a 1931 play: \"I think it's time for me to announce that I'm not going to bed with you.\" Sherwood also gets credit for another famous two words: indecent proposal. Dorothy Parker\u2014first to coin \"what the hell?\" and \"ball of fire\"\u2014has three other great relationship phrases to her credit: \"to mess around,\" \"one-night stand,\" and \"daisy chain.\"\n\nThe toast \"Here's looking at you\" came into vogue in 1928 in a book by Joseph March:\n\nThe drinks were placed,\n\nGus withdrew.\n\n\"Well\u2014\" said Tony:\n\n\"Here's lookin' at you!\"\n\nDrinkers carried hip-flasks. To be intoxicated was to be jammed, but loaded didn't mean drunk; it meant someone had good information. Getting ossified needs no explanation, nor does to the gills. For the first time, hair of the dog, an alcoholic drink taken to alleviate the effects of alcoholic drink, was on tap. Maybe that drink was giggle-water?\n\nBootleggers also used fantastic jargon. \"On the slough\" was what happened when the law found a speakeasy and the proprietors had to lie low for a few days. Motherships were vessels used to transport illegal booze from port to port; smaller tugs and watercraft then ferried the cases from the motherships to dry land. Crooks had nicknames for the law: a harness bull for a uniformed policeman, while plainclothes cops were sleeves. Detectives were dicks (possibly derivative from the London slang, Richard), and cops were elbows, as the New York Times reported in 1924, \"Possibly because the elbow is prominent in the process of collaring.\"\n\nDonald Ogden Stewart, an early member of the Algonquin Round Table, dreamed up one of the best phrases about a big night out: \"To drink you under the table.\"\n\nIllustrator John Held Jr., captured the spirit of the Roaring Twenties. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nA Helpful Guide to 1920s Slang\n\nand how: emphatic agreement\n\nbee's knees: something extraordinary, the ultimate\n\nbeef: complaint\n\nbeeswax: business\n\nbluenose: prude\n\nbreezer: convertible car\n\nbum's rush: ejection from an establishment by force\n\ncash: kiss\n\ncat's meow: something splendid or stylish\n\ndick: private investigator\n\nducky: very good\n\ngams: woman's legs\n\ngiggle water: alcohol\n\nglad rags: going-out clothes\n\nhair of the dog: alcoholic hangover drink\n\njoint: club, usually selling alcohol\n\npill: unlikable person\n\nwhoopee: good time\n\nAfter we threw on our glad rags and hopped in the breezer, we found a joint with giggle water that was just ducky. We were minding our own beeswax, making whoopee, when some bluenose with beef\u2014probably a dick\u2014gave us the bum's rush! What a pill. Anyway, some hair of the dog would be the cat's meow. And how!\n\nThree Miler\n\nThis drink, also known as the Three-Mile Limit, took its name from the distance offshore that bootleggers ferried hootch during Prohibition. It was believed the smugglers were in international waters\u2014incorrectly as it happens. For the Coast Guard, though, this was serious business. In New York waters, cutters enforcing the Volstead Act fired on pleasure boats that then sank, occasionally with loss of life. Smugglers used motherships past the three-mile limit, then transferred the cases of liquor to smaller and faster boats. Two of the most popular products were rum and brandy, both used in this Prohibition-era recipe.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Bacardi rum\n\n\u00be ounce brandy\n\n1 teaspoon grenadine\n\n1 dash fresh lemon juice\n\nLemon peel\n\nShake all liquid ingredients over ice; strain into a cocktail glass. Drop in a lemon twist.\n\nTimes Square Cocktail\n\nDorothy Parker spent the majority of her life within striking distance of Times Square. Except when writing screenplays in Hollywood or making a brief stab at domestic life in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Parker was never more than a short taxi trip to the crossroads of the world: where Broadway, Forty-second Street, and Seventh Avenue converge. As a child she lived fewer than thirty blocks north and accompanied her father and sister to Broadway shows on a constant basis. Her years as a dramatic critic brought her to the Times Square theaters five and six nights a week. Her office jobs at Vogue and Vanity Fair were a block away, as were the offices of The New Yorker, her publishers, and the office she rented with Robert Benchley. Mrs. Parker hobnobbed at the Astor Grill atop the Hotel Astor (Forty-fifth Street) and laughed at the Midnight Frolic on the roof of the New Amsterdam Theatre (Forty-second Street).\n\nBut if she came back today, she wouldn't recognize Times Square. Since her death in 1967, soaring office towers have replaced all four corners of \"The Deuce,\" most of the theaters have been razed, and nearly every former drinking establishment has become some chain restaurant or ho-hum retail space. The Times Square Cocktail evokes an era when streetcars were on Broadway\u2014not costumed characters from Sesame Street.\n\nwine glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces Southern Comfort\n\n1\u20443 ounce sweet vermouth\n\n\u00bd ounce grenadine\n\nChampagne\n\nOrange wheel\n\nShake Southern Comfort, vermouth, and grenadine over ice. Strain into an ice-filled wine glass. Add chilled Champagne to the brim and stir gently. Garnish with the orange wheel.\n\nThe New York Times gave Times Square its name; the former newspaper office is where the ball drops on New Year's Eve. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nTippy Canoe\n\nThe Violet Hour, Chicago\n\nDorothy Parker and T. S. Eliot both wrote poetry in the 1920s, and both shared a bleak outlook on many subjects. The similarities end there. While Mrs. Parker sold her pieces to popular magazines, Eliot worked at an English bank. Mrs. Parker never penned a monumental poem, but in 1922 Eliot authored \"The Waste Land,\" in which he wrote:\n\nAt the violet hour, the evening hour that strives\n\nHomeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,\n\nThe typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights\n\nHer stove, and lays out food in tins.\n\nA Chicago poetry fan plucked out \"the violet hour\" to christen a Wicker Park cocktail lounge, with a tip of a chilled glass to Eliot, born 300 miles away in St. Louis. The menu of The Violet Hour\u2014known for its fresh juices, homemade syrups, in-house bitters, and a dedication to minimalist cocktails\u2014changes seasonally, as does the fa\u00e7ade of the building. One drink on the menu is the Tippy Canoe, \"a riff on a classic daiquiri,\" according to bar manager Robert Haynes. \"When working with fewer ingredients, balance is extremely important. Bonal is a French gentian and quinine-forward aperitif. This one is simple and accessible.\"\n\ncoupe glass\n\n\u00be ounce Smith & Cross Jamaica Rum\n\n\u00be ounce Bonal aperitif wine\n\n\u00be ounce apricot syrup\n\n\u00be ounce fresh lime juice\n\n1 dash Angostura bitters\n\nLime wheel\n\nCombine all liquid ingredients in a shaker, add 5 ice cubes, and shake vigorously. Double strain into a coupe glass and garnish with the lime wheel.\n\nNote: Fresh lime juice is a must. Also, The Violet Hour serves the drink in a coupe, but you can use a cocktail glass.\n\nHow to Make Apricot Syrup the Chicago Way\n\nAccording to Robby Haynes of The Violet Hour, making your own apricot syrup is quick and easy. Take 13 ounces of apricot preserves (such as Bonne Maman) and add four cups of granulated sugar and one quart of warm water. Stir to incorporate. \"A stick mixer or handheld will make your life a little easier,\" Haynes advises. \"If not, a little elbow grease should do it.\" Strain through cheesecloth. It will keep for two weeks.\n\nThe Windy City and the Vicious Circle\n\nAfter New York City, Chicago has the strongest ties to the Algonquin Round Table. The dean of the group, Franklin P. Adams, was born there. The artist Neysa McMein attended art school in Chicago before moving to Manhattan and launching a brilliant career. Poet John V. A. Weaver, a native, worked for the Chicago Daily News, and it was there that H. L. Mencken discovered him. Dorothy Parker's biggest crush, the scoundrel Charles MacArthur, was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago. However, the biggest link to the city comes via Edna Ferber, who penned Chicago's greatest novel, So Big, after living there in the early 1920s. Ferber's timeless story of truck farmers and the American dream won the Pulitzer Prize in 1925.\nTom and Jerry\n\nDuring the Great Depression, Seagram's took out splashy two-page ads in mass-market magazines. It was no doubt a copywriter's dream account. \"At the bar, at the club or at home\u2014Be Sure of Finer Taste.\" Each ad included a half a dozen simple recipes for the company's gins and whiskies for the home bartender, and with each the company exhorted: \"Think before you Drink . . . say Seagram's\u2014and be sure!\" This recipe ran in Life in 1937: \"A fine warming drink for 'after the game.'\" The Tom and Jerry takes its name from characters created by English writer Pierce Egan in Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom (1823).\n\ncoffee mug\n\n1 egg\n\n1 tablespoon sugar\n\nDash of vanilla extract\n\n2 ounces whiskey or rum\n\nHot water\n\nSeparately beat white and yolk of the egg, then gently mix together. Stir in sugar and vanilla and pour mixture into a coffee mug. Add whiskey or rum, then fill with hot water.\n\nNote: The original recipe called for brandy.\nTom Collins\n\nThe convoluted history of this drink dates to nineteenth-century London. Returning doughboys brought their love of the Tom Collins back from Paris in 1918, and, with gin becoming one of the main bootleg liquors of Prohibition, the easy-to-make Tom Collins caught on. The drink was originally called a John Collins and appeared in Jerry Thomas's 1876 bartending guide. Served in a big glass, this \"gin punch\" proved popular at speakeasies, lawn parties, and summer resorts.\n\ncollins glass\n\nJuice of 1 lemon\n\n1 teaspoon powdered sugar\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\nClub soda\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nIn a tall 16-ounce Collins glass, place 3 or 4 ice cubes. Pour in the lemon juice and sugar, add the gin, then fill to the top with cold club soda. Stir and garnish with the cherry.\n\nNote: Replacing the gin with another potable changes the name of the drink: Pedro Collins (rum), Mike Collins (Irish whiskey), John Collins (bourbon). A Mojito is also a variation: Substitute good light rum for the gin and the juice of a lime instead of a lemon. Garnish with sprigs of mint.\nTwentieth Century\n\nYou can capture the romance of a prewar railroad journey in a glass when you mix up a Twentieth Century cocktail, named for the New York Central Railroad service between Manhattan and Chicago. Passengers traveled in luxury Pullman cars\u2014rolling drawing rooms, bedrooms, compartments, dining cars, lounges\u2014for the sixteen-hour trip. In 1938 the Twentieth Century Limited locomotives debuted a streamlined Art Deco look in two shades of gray with aluminum and blue stripes. Traveling those thousand miles made for a luxurious adventure lost on us today. (You can get a feeling for it, though, in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest.) Trainspotting author and gourmand Lucius Beebe adored the Twentieth Century Limited, writing that he \"slept the sleep of the unjust, awash with Hennessy Three Star and Upmann Coronas.\" This cocktail replaces his beloved Cognac with gin and a French twist.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n\u00be ounce Lillet Blanc\n\n\u00bd ounce white cr\u00e8me de cacao\n\n\u00be ounce fresh lemon juice\n\nLemon peel\n\nShake liquid ingredients over ice for 20 seconds, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a lemon twist.\n\nNote: Lillet Blanc is the key ingredient for this cocktail. A French aperitif, it should always be served chilled, never warmer than 46\u00b0F.\n\nTo celebrate the centenary of Grand Central Terminal, the 20th Century Limited returned to New York in 2013. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nWard 8\n\nDorothy Parker and her friends had a rocky relationship with Boston, Massachusetts. Mrs. Parker's only arrest happened there in 1927, when she was protesting the planned execution of accused anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Robert Benchley was born and raised in Worcester, forty-five miles away, and graduated from Harvard, across the Charles in Cambridge. Fellow Round Tablers Robert E. Sherwood and Heywood Broun were also at Harvard.\n\nOne of the city's finest cocktails also originated there. A variation on the classic whiskey sour, it was a natural shoo-in for the rye-loving Vicious Circle. Its history begins at the Locke-Ober restaurant in the Hub. Bartender Tom Hussion concocted the drink in 1898 to celebrate an Election Day victory by Democrat Martin Michael Lomasney, boss from the Eighth Ward, who was running for state office. As fate cruelly had it, though, Lomasney later supported Prohibition, and the Locke-Ober suffered. The restaurant reopened and thrived for many years before being shuttered again for good. The Ward 8 lives on, though, as Boston's most famous cocktail export.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces rye whiskey or bourbon\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh lemon juice\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh orange juice\n\n1 teaspoon grenadine\n\nMaraschino cherry\n\nShake all liquid ingredients over cracked ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with the cherry.\nWhiskey Sour\n\nMagazine writer Joe Bryan claims that Dorothy Parker requested a dear little one of these\u2014one of her avowed favorites\u2014for breakfast. Drinks guru David Wondrich credits the popularity of this drink, an all-American cocktail that predates the Civil War, to being simple and flexible. \"From roughly the 1860s to the 1960s,\" he says, \"the Sour, particularly its whiskey incarnation, was one of the cardinal points of American drinking and, along with the Highball, one of the few drinks that could come near to slugging it out with the vast and aggressive tribe of cocktails in terms of day-in, day-out popularity.\" This recipe comes from a 1936 whiskey drinks guide published by Frankford Distilleries in Louisville, Kentucky.\n\nsour glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces American blended whiskey\n\n\u00bd teaspoon powdered sugar\n\nJuice of half a lemon\n\nSeltzer\n\nSlice of orange, pineapple stick, or red cherry (garnish)\n\nShake whiskey, sugar, and lemon juice over cracked ice; strain into a sour glass. Add a little seltzer water and decorate with fruit if desired.\n\nWill Rogers\n\nWill Rogers in Handy Andy (1935). \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nOne of the biggest Broadway stars of the pre\u2013World War I era was a laconic cowboy from Oklahoma. Will Rogers got his start onstage in 1912 at the Victoria Theatre in a Wild West show, delivering dry comedy lines alongside lariat tricks. Florenz Ziegfeld initially disliked having a cowboy in his refined productions, but the well-oiled crowd loved Rogers's gentle barbs at rich people in the audience. Rogers starred in the Midnight Frolic on the New Amsterdam rooftop shows and became a national star when he moved into the Follies. In a 1918 review, Dorothy Parker wrote, \"The life of the evening is Will Rogers, who, to me, is one of the Greatest Living Americans.\" Rogers went on to become a radio and movie star and a beloved newspaper columnist in hundreds of newspapers\u2014until he died with friend Wiley Post, who crashed their plane into an Alaskan lake. The Oklahoma Hall of Fame honors both men, and both have airports named after them, but of the two we drink only to Will Rogers.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n1\u00bd ounces gin\n\n\u00bd ounce dry vermouth\n\n\u00bd ounce fresh orange juice\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons triple sec\n\nShake all ingredients over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nCommunism is like prohibition, it's a good idea but it won't work.\n\n\u2014The Autobiography of Will Rogers\nYale Cocktail\n\nDorothy Rothschild never made it past the tenth grade, but she talked herself into the Ivy League in a manner of speaking. One of her most notorious quips\u2014which she denied ever uttering\u2014followed her to the grave and is particularly loathed around New Haven. Alexander Woollcott, in the \"Our Mrs. Parker\" chapter of While Rome Burns, recounts \"that wholesale libel on a Yale prom. If all the girls attending it were laid end to end, Mrs. Parker said, she wouldn't be at all surprised.\" In 1924 she wrote, \"I hate College Boys; They get under my feet,\" adding:\n\nThey list all the d\u00e9butantes\n\nIn Grades A, B, and C,\n\nAnd proceed accordingly.\n\nOnce they get into their stride,\n\nThe Opposite Sex hasn't a prayer.\n\nDuring World War I, bartender Hugo R. Ensslin collected the Yale Cocktail into his slim collection of drink recipes.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces dry gin\n\n1 ounce French vermouth\n\n1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur\n\n1 tablespoon simple syrup\n\n3 dashes orange bitters\n\nStir all ingredients in a mixing glass with cracked ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.\n\nNote: Other Ivy League recipes of the era are the Harvard Cocktail (brandy and bitters) and the Princeton Cocktail (a dry Martini with two dashes of lime juice).\nZiegfeld\n\nFlorenz Ziegfeld still ranks among the most brilliant showmen to light up Broadway. His productions glamorized American women, as no one else had, in glittering musicals that were the toast of the town for twenty-five years. His career began in 1893 in Chicago, before he went to Europe, where he found vaudeville acts to import back to America. He launched the Follies in 1907, and it became an annual institution at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Stars of the Follies became known as the most dazzling women in Manhattan. Dorothy Parker asked, \"Where the Ziegfeld girls come from will always be one of the world's great mysteries; certainly, one never sees any like them anywhere around.\" The show launched scores of major names, including Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, W. C. Fields, Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, Sophie Tucker, and Mae West. Ziegfeld's widow, Billie Burke, one of the most famous actresses of the 1920s, contributed this recipe to the Stork Club Bar Book in 1946.\n\ncocktail glass\n\n2 ounces gin\n\n1 ounce fresh pineapple juice\n\n\u00bc ounce simple syrup\n\nPineapple slice\n\nShake liquid ingredients over half a cup of ice cubes; strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the pineapple slice.\n\nNote: The original recipe for this cocktail didn't include simple syrup but was probably made with sweetened pineapple juice. Simple syrup is also known as pure cane sugar syrup and open kettle molasses and has about sixty calories per tablespoon.\n\nA costume sketch by the great John Held Jr., for the Follies includes instructions for the designer. Invented in Italy in 1890, crosswords became a big fad in the 1920s. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nZombie\n\nThe 1939 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens, was a sensation. With \"Building the World of Tomorrow\" as its theme, the fair pushed the premise that science and technology could provide economic prosperity and personal freedom. The fair also offered a ray of hope between two of the darkest events in the nation's history: the Great Depression and World War II. The fairgrounds stretched 3.5 miles long and in some places a mile wide, hosting approximately 26 million people the first season. To convey its message, the fair used icons, symbols, demonstrations and, best of all, exhibitions. The Trylon and the Perisphere\u2014a 700-foot-tall spire and globe as large as a city block\u2014became the fair's focal point and instant symbols of the machine age. The must-see Futurama exhibit at the General Motors pavilion presented a 36,000-square-foot model of a future America in 1960. Of the many theme restaurants, shops, and pavilions, the Hurricane Bar stood out by serving this drink. \"Why people drink them I don't know,\" according to Vic Bergeron (aka Trader Vic). \"Personally, I think they are too damn strong.\" Donn Beach of Hollywood's Don the Beachcomber fame (and who also invented the tiki bar) created the most beloved version of the Zombie. It's a lot of work to make\u2014and exceptionally potent.\n\n1 ounce white rum\n\n1 ounce golden rum\n\n1 ounce dark rum\n\n151-proof rum\n\n\u00bd ounce brandy (apple, cherry, or apricot)\n\n\u00be ounce fresh pineapple juice\n\n\u00be ounce fresh papaya juice\n\nJuice of 1 lime\n\nPineapple slice\n\nIn a shaker filled with cracked ice, shake all liquid ingredients except the 151-proof rum. Strain into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice, float a spoonful of 151 on top, and garnish with the pineapple slice.\n\nThe World's Fair of 1939\u201340 was one of the biggest events in New York City history.\u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\nPhoto and Illustration Credits\n\nPage Numbers Refer to the Printed Book\n\nAuthor's collection: xii, 5, 17, 22, 27, 29, 41, 54, 59, 61, 71, 73, 84, 91, 93, 107, 120, 123\n\nPhotos by the author: 7, 15, 128\n\nDon Spiro (donspiro.com): pp. xv\u2013xvi\n\nShutterstock.com: pp. xvii\u2013xviii\n\nPublic domain: p. 19\n\nCourtesy of Joan Grossman, Susan Cotton, and Nancy Arcaro: Cablegram, p. 25\n\nUS Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division: pp. 32, 34, 37, 45, 47, 48, 63, 77, 87, 95, 96, 100, 111, 125\n\nVincent Gong, p. 117\n\nDevon Quinn (author photo), p. 140\n\nDesign images licensed by Shutterstock.com. \nAcknowledgments\n\nThis book came together as easily as a Russian nesting doll for many reasons. To start off, I thank the friends I've met and made through the Dorothy Parker Society (DPS). When a few of us got together over drinks on Dorothy Parker's birthday in 1999, I had no idea I'd be running the busiest literary society in New York all these years later. As I often say, we're a drinking club with a book problem, and we've had monumental tabs at some of the finest drinking establishments in the city. Through the DPS, I met Diane Naegel and Don Spiro. They started Wit's End, a monthly party to celebrate vintage cocktails, hot jazz, and period attire. It was through them that I started drinking many of the recipes in this book. Don says they launched Wit's End because they wanted to go to a party like it, and after five years the fun continues. The DPS doesn't have meetings, it has parties, and the ones with Wit's End are always the greatest.\n\nI started the research for parts of the book more than ten years ago while writing the walking tours of the former haunts of Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table. This book gives me a chance to share with a larger audience a lot of the knowledge that I usually only impart as I walk backward in Times Square or the Upper West Side. I thank the Dorothy Parker researchers who went before me: Randall Calhoun (Dorothy Parker a Bio-Bibliography), Marion Meade (Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?), and Stuart Y. Silverstein (Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker). Stuart's extensive notes on Mrs. Parker's life proved particularly helpful. In addition, the staff of the Algonquin Hotel, led by general manager Gary Budge, has always been supportive and taken a keen interest in the history of the hotel. Mr. Budge really does carry on the tradition of Frank Case, and it's a privilege for me to bring people to New York's best literary landmark.\n\nFor contributing modern-day speakeasy-style recipes, thanks go to: Alice de Almeida (Algonquin Hotel), H. Joseph Ehrmann (Elixir), Bryn Esplin (The Velveteen Rabbit), Chris Hannah (Arnaud's French 75), Robby Haynes (The Violet Hour), Barbara Jacobs (The Edison), Joanna Leban (Doc Holliday's Saloon), Kevin Martin (Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks), Herv\u00e9 Rousseau (Fl\u00fbte), and Jillian Vose (Death & Company). My goal is to visit each of the establishments I've not yet been to and have these bartenders serve me these drinks in person. I can't wait!\n\nIf I could thank and acknowledge all of my favorite bartenders in New York, my publisher would need to add many extra pages to this book. These are a few who are special to me, and whom I'll never forget for the great times we've shared together: Andrew Bennetch, Mark Evangelista, Michele Gascoigne, Adam Gerston, Tracy Helsing, Timmy Hever, Chaundra Hugel, Carmit Israeli, Sara Walter, and Laurieanne Williams. Thanks for all the buybacks.\n\nTwo people who have had a huge influence on my love of cocktails are my parents, Don and Val Fitzpatrick. I'll never forget watching them order Martinis in a cozy pub in Tipperary, Ireland. They were handed tiny glasses of vermouth\u2014while I had a fantastic pint of Guinness. My parents have had a Martini at six o'clock for most of their fifty years of marriage; on trips my mother packs her own Tanqueray, and it's my father's job to find the ice. At a family wedding one October, I ordered a gin and tonic, much to my mother's chagrin. \"That's a summer drink,\" she sniffed. Ever since, I've had whiskey highballs after Labor Day.\n\nExtra-special thanks to Christina, who supported me during the production of the book. My wife kept our rambunctious two-year-old busy as I plugged away measuring ounces and teaspoons of liquor. Christina is always supportive of my (numerous) side projects.\n\nSterling silver jiggers the author's parents have put to great use for forty years. \u25c6 \u25c6 \u25c6\n\nBig thanks to my editor, James Jayo, and all the good people at Lyons Press. The first time I met James, I put an Aviation in his hand, and we toasted to the success of this book. Thanks also to Allen Katz for writing the wonderful foreword. Allen gets my everlasting gratitude for naming a product after Mrs. Parker, and I believe the New York Distilling Company will get Dorothy Parker American Gin into all fifty states!\n\nFinally, I want to thank the legions of Dorothy Parker fans who take her to heart. You keep reading her stories and poems, producing shows based on her work, even recording your own music set to her words. The way to sustain an author's popularity after his or her death is to keep that legacy strong. Mrs. Parker now has a cocktail guidebook to go on the bookshelf with the biographies and collections of her work. Hopefully this book will draw even more new fans to learn about Mrs. Parker and lead some of them to her books.\nFurther Reading\n\nBooks\n\nBenchley, Nat and Kevin Fitzpatrick. The Lost Algonquin Round Table. New York: Donald Books, 2009.\n\nChirico, Rob. Field Guide to Cocktails. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2005.\n\nCraddock, Harry. The Savoy Cocktail Book. London: Pavilion Books, 1930, 2011.\n\nFitzpatrick, Kevin. A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York. Berkeley, CA: Roaring Forties Press, 2013.\n\nMeade, Marion. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? New York: Penguin Books, 2007.\n\nParker, Dorothy. Complete Stories. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014. Complete Poems. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 and Kevin Fitzpatrick. Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway 1918\u20131923. New York: Donald Books, 2014.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 and Stuart Silverstein (editor). Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker. New York: Scribner, 1996.\n\nTarling, W. J. The Caf\u00e9 Royal Cocktail Book. London: Pall Mall, 1937.\n\nWaggoner, Susan, and Robert Markel. Vintage Cocktails. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2000.\n\nWondrich, David. Imbibe! New York: Perigree, 2007.\n\nWebsites\n\nThe Dorothy Parker Society: DorothyParker.com\n\nThe Algonquin Round Table: AlgonquinRoundTable.org\n\nThe Museum of the American Cocktail, New Orleans: MuseumOfTheAmericanCocktail.org\n\nSavoy Stomp: SavoyStomp.com\n\nTales of the Cocktail: TalesOfTheCocktail.com\nAbout the Author\n\nKevin C. Fitzpatrick is an independent historian who founded the Dorothy Parker Society in 1999. He is a graduate of Northeast Missouri State University and served in the U.S. Marine Corps. After his hitch he entered journalism and worked in newspapers, magazines, advertising agencies, and television in New York. He is a licensed New York City sightseeing guide and gives walking tours of city landmarks, literary sites, watering holes, cemeteries, and unusual locations. Fitzpatrick frequently is a guest speaker at libraries, salons, and private clubs. In his spare time, he enjoys genealogy, collecting comic books, and dedicating bronze plaques for dead people. He and his family divide their time between the Upper West Side and Shelter Island.\n\nAllen Katz is cofounder and vice president of the New York Distilling Company, which makes Dorothy Parker American Gin. The director of spirits education and mixology for Southern Wine & Spirits of New York, he also hosts The Cocktail Hour, a weekly program on Martha Stewart's SiriusXM channel. A past chairman of Slow Food USA, he serves on the board of directors for the New Orleans Culinary & Culture Preservation Society and the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, an annual four-day, four-borough celebration of the intersection between cocktails and culture. He and his family live in New York City.\nGeneral Index\n\nAdams, Fra\n\nnklin P. (F.P.A.), 26, 27, 33, 44, 65, 79\u201380, 112\n\nAlgonquin Hotel, xiii, 3, 6, 7, 8, 73, 76, 78, 80, 81\n\nArnaud's French 75, 23\n\nAscencios, Natalie, 79\n\nAstor Grill, 110\n\nAstor Hotel, 78, 110\n\nAstor IV, John Jacob, 63\n\nBaker, Charles H., 32\n\nBaker, Josephine, 62\n\nBar La Florida (Havana), 17, 39, 57, 76\n\nBarleycorn, John, 68\n\nBarnum, P. T., 70, 82\n\nBarrymore, Ethel, 14, 21, 81\n\nBarrymore, John, 81\n\nBeach, Donn (Don the Beachcomber), 124\n\nBeebe, Lucius, 116\n\nBelmont, Jr., August, 69\n\nBenchley, Nathaniel, 92\n\nBenchley, Robert, xiii\u2013xiv, 20, 33, 49, 51, 56, 64, 65, 74, 79\u201380, 92, 93, 110, 118\n\nBen\u00e9t, William Rose, 2\n\nBennett, James Gordon, 68\n\nBergeron, Vic (Trader Vic), 124\n\nBerlin, Irving, 14\n\nBlue Bar, The (Algonquin Hotel), 6, 73, 81\n\nBogart, Humphrey, 20\n\nBoston, Massachusetts, 42, 118\n\nBrice, Fanny, 94, 122\n\nBronx Zoo, 21\n\nBroun, Heywood, 24, 44, 79, 98, 118\n\nBroadway, xi, xiii, 12, 35, 44, 63, 70, 82, 94, 95, 97, 110, 120, 122\n\nBrookport, Illinois, 84\n\nBryan, Joe, 119\n\nBu\u00f1uel, Luis, 60\n\nBurke, Billie, 122\n\nButler, Smedley \"Duckboards\", 29\n\nByron, O. H., 82\n\nCaf\u00e9 Royal (London), 86\n\nCaf\u00e9 Royal Cocktail Book, 16, 97, 99\n\nCampbell, Alan, xiv, 16, 17, 53, 54, 61\n\nCantor, Eddie, 122\n\nCarpentier, Georges, 35\n\nCarson, Robert, 54\n\nCase, Frank, xiii, 6, 8, 76\u201378, 81\n\nCather, Willa, x\n\nCavett, Frank, 72, 90, 102\n\nChandler, Raymond, 50\n\nChaplin, Charlie, 77\n\nChelsea, The, 80\n\nChicago, Illinois, 26, 112, 122\n\nChirico, Rob, 59\n\nClub Intime, 70\n\nCobb, Irvin S., 44, 69, 84, 84, 85\n\nCohan, George M., 63\n\nConnelly, Marc, 79, 80, 92\n\nCoolidge, Calvin, x\n\nCooper, Anderson, 101\n\nCooper, Gary, 57\n\nCooper, Wyatt, 101\n\nCapote, Truman, 69\n\nCraddock, Harry, xx\n\nCulver City, California, 53\n\nDavis, George, 61\n\nDeath & Company (New York City), 104\n\nDe Koven, Reginald, 97\n\nDempsey, Jack, 34, 35\n\nDepression, the, 63, 72, 114, 124\n\nDetroit Athletic Club, 64\n\nDisney, Walt, 56\n\nDoc Holliday's Saloon (New York City), 10\n\nDolores (Kathleen Mary Rose), 36, 37\n\nDooley, Rae, 94\n\nDos Passos, John, 13, 99\n\nDouglas, Ann, 62\n\nDrew, John, 81\n\nEarhart, Amelia, 12\n\nEastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks (Boston), 42\n\nEaton, Mary, 94\n\nEdison, The (Los Angeles), 56\n\nEhrmann, H. Joseph, 40\n\nEliot, T. S., 112\n\nElixir (San Francisco), 40\n\nEmpire State Building, 96, 97\n\nEnsslin, Hugo R., 4, 12, 22, 26, 121\n\nEsplin, Bryn, 98\n\nFairbanks, Douglas, 76\u201377\n\nFerber, Edna, xiii, 65, 79, 112\n\nFields, W. C., 94, 122\n\nFirpo, Luis Angel, 35\n\nFitzgerald, F. Scott, xiii, 13, 14, 20, 38, 52, 99\n\nFitzgerald, Zelda, xiii, 38\n\nFlagg, James Montgomery, 35\n\nFlushing Meadows, Queens, New York, 124\n\nFl\u00fbte (New York), 70\n\nFogarty, Frank J., 64\n\nFoster, Albert T., 6\n\nFrankford Distilleries, 119\n\nFrench Quarter, 23\n\nGarbo, Greta, 20\n\nGibson, Charles Dana, 48, 49\n\nGillmore, Margalo, 79\n\nGimlette, T. O., 50\n\nGolinkin, Joseph, 71\n\nGovernors Island, 12\n\nGrant, Cary, 61, 61\n\nGrant, Jane, 4, 14, 21, 44, 46, 79\u201380\n\nGreat Gatsby, The, 38, 52\n\nGreat Neck, Long Island, 38\n\nGreenwich Village, 47\n\nGriffith, D. W., 77\n\nGuiles, Fred Lawrence, 53\n\nGuinan, Texas, 59, 59, 70, 71\n\nHale, Ruth, 24\n\nHammett, Dashiell, xviii\n\nHarlow, Jean, 61, 61\n\nHarry's New York Bar (Paris), 10, 86, 99\n\nHarvard University, 92, 93, 118, 121\n\nHavana, Cuba, 17, 32, 39, 57, 62, 76\n\nHaynes, Robert, 112, 113\n\nHayward, Susan, 90, 91, 102, 103\n\nHeld, Jr., John, 107, 123\n\nHemingway, Ernest, xiii, 20, 33, 51, 57, 60, 99\n\nHerald Square Theatre, 97\n\nHippodrome Theater, 78\n\nHitchcock, Ray, 94, 95\n\nHollywood, 18, 53\u201355, 110, 124\n\nHoover, Herbert, 31\n\nHotel Wallick (New York City), 12, 66, 94\n\nHussion, Tom, 118\n\nIrving, Washington, 63\n\nJacobs, Barbara, 56\n\nKatz, Allen, 3\n\nKaufman, Beatrice, 79\n\nKaufman, George S., xiii, 79\u201380, 105\n\nKoch, Ed, 35\n\nLake Ontario, 68\n\nLardner, Ring, 38, 64\n\nLas Vegas, Nevada, 98\n\nLeban, Joanna, 10\n\nLeech, Margaret, 79\n\nLife (magazine), xiii, 49, 98, 114\n\nLindbergh, Charles, 12\n\nLocke-Ober (Boston), 118\n\nLomasney, Martin Michael, 118\n\nLondon, England, xx, 16, 18, 30, 35, 65, 86, 89, 99, 115\n\nLong Branch, New Jersey, x, 99\n\nLouisville, Kentucky, 84, 119\n\nMacArthur, Charles, 21, 112\n\nMacElhone, Harry, 86\n\nMacGregor, Rob Roy, 97\n\nMachiavelli, 70\n\nManhattan Club, 69\n\nMankiewicz, Herman J., 44, 79\n\nMaraffi, John, 56\n\nMartin, Kevin, 42\n\nMarx, Groucho, 64\n\nMarx, Harpo, xiii, 79\n\nMaugham, W. Somerset, 101\n\nMcDonald, Freda Josephine, 62\n\nMcKinley, William, 68\n\nMcMein, Neysa, 44, 79, 113\n\nMelville, Herman, x\n\nMencken, H. L., 84, 113\n\nMenocal, Carmen, 39\n\nMetropolitan Hotel, 82\n\nMonroe, Marilyn, 69\n\nMorehouse, Ward, 55\n\nMorristown, New Jersey, xi\n\nMrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (film), xiv\n\nMurphy, Gerald, xiii, 13, 99\n\nMurphy, Sara, xiii, 13, 99\n\nMurray, William B., 78, 79\n\nNash, Ogden, 75\n\nNational Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 31\n\nNazimova, Alla, 20\n\nNew Amsterdam Theatre, 110, 120, 122\n\nNew Jersey Shore, 4\n\nNew Orleans, Louisiana, 23\n\nNew York Morning Telegraph, 64\n\nNew Yorker, The (magazine), xiii\u2013xiv, 14, 15, 21, 33, 49, 51, 58, 80, 110\n\nNorton, Emperor, 40, 41\n\nO'Neill, Eugene, 79\n\nPaducah, Kentucky, 84\n\nParis, France, 10, 12, 30, 36, 44, 51, 60, 62, 86, 89, 99, 115\n\nParker, Edwin Pond II, xiii, 44\n\nParrish, Maxfield, 63\n\nPemberton, Brock, 79\n\nPemberton, Murdock, 78\n\nPerry, Commodore, 69\n\nPetiot, Pete, 10\n\nPettingill, Ma, 70\n\nPeychaud, Antoine Am\u00e9d\u00e9e, 23\n\nPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, 29, 47\n\nPickford, Mary, 76, 77, 77, 122\n\nPlayers Club, 49\n\nPlaza, The, 80\n\nPollock, Channing, xiv\n\nPortable Dorothy Parker, The (book), 3, 101\n\nPost, Wiley, 120\n\nPrinceton University, 98, 121\n\nPruette, William, 97\n\nQueen Elizabeth I, 70\n\nRecipes for Mixed Drinks (book), 4, 12\n\nRed Hook, Brooklyn, 64\n\nRickard, Tex, 70\n\nRickey, Joe, 52\n\nRitchie, Albert, 38\n\nRob Roy (operetta), 97\n\nRogers, Will, 120, 122\n\nRoosevelt, Franklin D., 31\n\nRoosevelt, Theodore, 32, 32\n\nRose, Kathleen Mary, 36, 37\n\nRoss, Harold, 4, 14, 21, 44, 46, 79\u201380, 98\n\nRothschild, Elizabeth (Marston), x\n\nRothschild, J. Henry, x, xi\n\nRothschild, Martin, xi\n\nRousseau, Herv\u00e9, 70\n\nRyman, Herbert, 56\n\nSacco, Nicola, 118\n\nSamuels, Arthur, 79\n\nSan Francisco, California, 23, 40, 41\n\nSan Juan Hill, Cuba, 32\n\nSandy Hook, New Jersey, 96\n\nSavoy Hotel (London), 18, 30, 86\n\nSchulberg, Budd, 55\n\nSherwood, Mary, 24\n\nSherwood, Robert E., 24, 44, 49, 79, 106, 118\n\nSmash-Up (film), 72, 90, 91, 102\u20133\n\nSmith, Harold B., 97\n\nSmithsonian Institution, 35\n\nSo Big (book), 112\n\nSolon, Johnny, 21\n\nSoma, Tony, 92\n\nSt. Louis, Missouri, 62, 112\n\nSt. Regis Hotel, 10, 63\n\nStallings, Laurence, 44, 79\n\nStatue of Liberty, 12\n\nStewart, Donald Ogden, 79, 92, 106\n\nStork Club Bar Book, The, 122\n\nSullivan, Frank, 64, 79\n\nSun Also Rises, The, 60\n\nSwope, Herbert Bayard, 38\n\nTarling, William, 99\n\nTaylor, Deems, 56, 65, 79\n\nTaylor, Mamie, 68\n\nTender Is the Night, 13\n\nTerrible Honesty, 62\n\nThomas, \"Professor\" Jerry, 82, 115\n\nTracy, Spencer, 57\n\nThurber, James, 64\n\nThumb, General Tom, 82\n\nTimes Square, 12, 63, 63, 66, 94, 110\n\nToohey, John Peter, 78\u201379\n\nTony's (New York City), 92\n\nTucker, Sophie, 122\n\nTunney, Gene, 46, 47\n\nValentino, Rudolph, 18, 19\n\nVanderbilt, Gloria, 101\n\nVanderbilt, Reginald, 100, 101\n\nVanzetti, Bartolomeo, 118\n\nVelveteen Rabbit, The (Las Vegas), 98\n\nVictor, Sarah, 78\n\nVictoria Theatre, 120\n\nViolet Hour, The (Chicago), 112\u2013113\n\nVoronoff, Serge, 86\n\nVose, Jillian, 104\n\nWaldorf-Astoria Hotel, 14, 21, 96, 97\n\nWalker, Stanley, 30\u201331, 70\n\nWallace, David A., 79\n\nWarren, Lavinia, 82\n\nWashington, D.C., 35\n\nWeaver, John V. A., 79, 112\n\nWelles, Orson, 20\n\nWest, Mae, 122\n\nWhite, E. B., 88\n\nWillard, Jess, 35\n\nWilliams, Tennessee, 23\n\nWodehouse, P. G., xi\n\nWood, Peggy, 79\n\nWoollcott, Alexander, xiii, 4, 5, 13, 21, 26, 44, 46, 50, 65, 78, 80, 121\n\nWondrich, David, xix, 119\n\nWorld War I, xiii, 49, 99, 120, 121\n\nWorld War II, 10, 20, 124\n\nYale University, 121\n\nZelda (magazine), 64\n\nZiegfeld Follies, 94, 120, 122, 123\n\nZiegfeld, Florenz, 122\nIndex by Main Ingredient\n\nAbsinthe\n\nDeath in the Afternoon, 33\n\nMillionaire #2, 83\n\nApplejack\n\nJack Rose, 60\n\nBourbon\n\nBoulevard, 20\n\nEmperor Norton's Second Mistress, 40\n\nHighball, 58\n\nHorse's Neck, 59\n\nNew York Cocktail, 88\n\nSeersucker Punch, 98\n\nWard 8, 118\n\nBrandy\n\nAlexander, 4\n\nBetween the Sheets, 16\n\nBlood and Sand, 18\n\nBulldog, 22\n\nChicago, 26\n\nDolores, 36\n\nLoud Speaker, 65\n\nMetropolitan, 82\n\nMillionaire #1, 83\n\nSidecar, 99\n\nStone Fence, 102\n\nCalvados\n\nDempsey, 35\n\nJack Rose, 60\n\nCognac\n\nBetween the Sheets, 16\n\nStinger, 101\n\nCointreau\n\nMatilda, 81\n\nCr\u00e8me de Cacao\n\nBetween the Sheets, 16\n\nJosephine Baker, 62\n\nDubonnet\n\nDubonnet Cocktail, 38\n\nGin\n\nAcerbic Mrs. Parker, The, 3\n\nAviation, 12\n\nBailey, 13\n\nBathtub Gin, 14\n\nBronx, 21\n\nDempsey, 35\n\nDubonnet, 38\n\nFlorodora, 43\n\nFrench \"75\", 44\n\nGene Tunney, 46\n\nGibson, 49\n\nGimlet, 50\n\nGin Fizz, 51\n\nGin Rickey, 52\n\nLast Word, The, 64\n\nLoud Speaker, 65\n\nMartini, 72\n\nMillionaire #2, 83\n\nMonkey Gland, 86\n\nOrange Blossom, 92\n\nSure Shot, 104\n\nTom Collins, 115\n\nTwentieth Century, 116\n\nWill Rogers, 120\n\nYale Cocktail, 121\n\nZiegfeld, 122\n\nGrand Marnier\n\nMarquis, The, 70\n\nGreen Chartreuse\n\nLast Word, The, 64\n\nMaraschino Liquer\n\nAngel's Tit, 8\n\nLast Word, The, 64\n\nPort Wine\n\nJosephine Baker, 62\n\nRum\n\nBetween the Sheets, 16\n\nBulldog, 22\n\nBywater Cocktail, 23\n\nCuba Libre, 32\n\nEl Presidente, 39\n\nHemingway Daiquiri (Bar La Florida Style), 57\n\nJean Harlow, 61\n\nKnickerbocker Cocktail, 63\n\nMary Pickford, 76\n\nRum Rickey, 52\n\nThree Miler, 109\n\nTippy Canoe, 112\n\nTom and Jerry, 114\n\nZombie, 124\n\nRye Whiskey\n\nAlgonquin Cocktail, 6\n\nHappy Herbie, The, 56\n\nHighball, 58\n\nManhattan Cocktail, 69\n\nWard 8, 118\n\nScotch\n\nBlood and Sand, 18\n\nHighball, 58\n\nRob Roy, 97\n\nSloe Gin\n\nLove Cocktail, 66\n\nMillionaire #1, 83\n\nSouthern Comfort\n\nTimes Square Cocktail, 110\n\nTequila\n\nAuntie Jo-Jo's Jalape\u00f1o Bloody Maria, 10\n\nVermouth\n\nRay Hitchcocktail, 94\n\nVodka\n\nEspionage, 42\n\nMatilda, 81\n\nWhiskey\n\nCablegram, 24\n\nMamie Taylor, 68\n\nMint Julep, 84\n\nNew York Cocktail, 88\n\nOld-Fashioned, 90\n\nTom and Jerry, 114\n\nWhiskey Sour, 119\nIndex by Category\n\nOld Favorites\n\nAngel's Tit, 8\n\nBetween the Sheets, 16\n\nGibson, 49\n\nGimlet, 50\n\nGin Fizz, 51\n\nGin Rickey, 52\n\nHighball, 58\n\nManhattan Cocktail, 69\n\nMartini, 72\n\nMint Julep, 84\n\nOld-Fashioned, 90\n\nRob Roy, 97\n\nSidecar, 99\n\nStinger, 101\n\nStone Fence, 102\n\nTom Collins, 115\n\nTom and Jerry, 114\n\nWhiskey Sour, 119\n\nZombie, 124\n\nVintage Cocktails\n\nAlgonquin Cocktail, 6\n\nAviation, 12\n\nBailey, 13\n\nBathtub Gin, 14\n\nBlood and Sand, 18\n\nBoulevard, 20\n\nBulldog, 22\n\nBronx, 21\n\nCablegram, 24\n\nChicago, 26\n\nCuba Libre, 32\n\nDeath in the Afternoon, 33\n\nDubonnet Cocktail, 38\n\nEl Presidente, 39\n\nFlorodora, 43\n\nFrench \"75\", 44\n\nHorse's Neck, 59\n\nJack Rose, 60\n\nKnickerbocker Cocktail, 63\n\nLast Word, 64\n\nLoud Speaker, 65\n\nLove Cocktail, 66\n\nMetropolitan, 82\n\nMillionaire, 83\n\nMonkey Gland, 86\n\nNew York Cocktail, 88\n\nOrange Blossom, 92\n\nThree Miler, 109\n\nTimes Square Cocktail, 110\n\nTwentieth Century, 116\n\nWard 8, 118\n\nYale Cocktail, 121\n\nCelebrity Cocktails\n\nAlexander, 4\n\nJosephine Baker, 62\n\nDempsey, 35\n\nDolores, 36\n\nJean Harlow, 61\n\nHemingway Daiquiri, 57\n\nRay Hitchcocktail, 94\n\nAcerbic Mrs. Parker, 3\n\nMary Pickford, 76\n\nWill Rogers, 120\n\nMamie Taylor, 68\n\nGene Tunney, 46\n\nZiegfeld, 122\n\nModern Classics\n\nThe Acerbic Mrs. Parker, from The Shanty, Brooklyn, 3\n\nAuntie Jo-Jo's Jalape\u00f1o Bloody Maria, from Doc Holliday's, New York City, 10\n\nBywater Cocktail, Arnaud's French 75, New Orleans, 23\n\nEmperor Norton's Second Mistress, from Elixir, San Francisco, 40\n\nEspionage, from Eastern Standard Kitchen and Drinks, Boston, 42\n\nHappy Herbie, from The Edison, Los Angeles, 56\n\nMatilda, from the Algonquin Hotel, New York City, 81\n\nMarquis, from Fl\u00fbte, New York City, 70\n\nSeersucker Punch, from The Velveteen Rabbit, Las Vegas, 98\n\nSure Shot, from Death & Company, New York City, 104\n\nTippy Canoe, from The Violet Hour, Chicago, 112\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nPublished by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39-41 North Road, London N7 9DP  \nemail: info@iconbooks.com  \nwww.introducingbooks.com\n\nISBN: 978-184831-777-2\n\nText and illustrations copyright \u00a9 2013 Icon Books Ltd\n\nThe author and artist have asserted their moral rights.\n\nOriginating editor: Richard Appignanesi\n\nNo part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.\nContents\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nThe Luckiest Man in the Universe\n\nThe General Theory of Relativity\n\nNewton: The Concept of Force\n\nFour Kinds of Force in the Universe\n\nThe Principia: Describing Newton's Universe\n\nNewton and Hawking\n\nThe Concept of Mass\n\nAlbert Einstein, the Saviour of Classical Physics\n\nEinstein and Hawking\n\nEinstein's Happiest Thought\n\nFinding the Right Equation\n\nThe Field Equations \u2013 What do they mean?\n\nVisualising Curved Space: the Rubber Sheet Model\n\nThe Bending of Starlight: Eclipse of 29 May 1919\n\nSolving Einstein's Equations: Hawking's Starting Material\n\n1) The Schwarzschild Geometry\n\nThe Critical Radius\n\n2) Friedmann: the Expanding Universe\n\nPrecursor to the Big Bang: Lema\u00eetre's Primordial Aim\n\n3) Oppenheimer: on Continued Gravitational Collapse, 1939\n\n1 September 1939\n\n1942... A Turning Point in the Story\n\nThe Death of Einstein\n\nThe Hawking Era\n\nThe Unselfish Thesis Supervisor\n\nSomething You Need to Know: What is a Singularity?\n\nThe Evolution of the Universe\n\n1965: a Big Year for Hawking\n\nAn Unstoppable Mind\n\nThe Sixties Revolution\n\nDallas 1963\n\nSomething You Need to Know: the Electro Magnetic Spectrum\n\n1963: Quasars\n\n1965: the Cosmic Background Radiation\n\nSomething You Need to Know \u2014 Thermal Radiation\n\nHistory of the Universe\n\nBlack Holes \u2014 Wheeler Gives the Media a Buzz Word\n\nThe Age of Black Holes\n\nWhat is a Black Hole?\n\nThe Birth and Death of Stars\n\nHow Stars Collapse to Form White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars & Black Holes\n\nObservational Evidence for Black Holes\n\nThe 1970s: Hawking and Black Holes\n\nHawking's Eureka Moment\n\nThe Laws of Thermodynamics\n\nNow Back to Black Holes...\n\nControversial Birth of a New Idea\n\nAugust 1972, Les Houches Summer School on Black Hole Physics\n\nThe Uncertainty Principle & Virtual Particles\n\nFebruary 1974, The Rutherford- Appleton Laboratory, Oxford\n\nHawking and the Vatican \u2013 a Modern Day Galileo\n\nHawking and the Early Universe\n\nWhy Do We Need Quantum Theory?\n\nQuantum Cosmology\n\nQuantum Gravity or TOE\n\nQuantum Cosmology and Complex Time\n\nWaves and Particles: Nature's Joke on the Physicists\n\nThe Strange World of Quantum Mechanics\n\nQuantum Cosmology: Applying Schr\u00f6dinger's Equation to the Universe\n\nDAMTP: 17 February 1995\n\nInflation\n\nInflation and Quantum Fluctuations\n\nThe Anthropic Principle\n\nHawking's Nobel Prize\n\nCOBE: the Greatest Discovery of All Time (?)\n\nFurther Reading\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nIndex\n\n## **The Luckiest Man in the Universe**\n\nOn 19 October 1994, the author of this book interviewed Stephen Hawking. He began with a question that might seem daring, if not impertinent. Did Hawking consider himself lucky?\n\nWHAT A QUESTION! CONFINED TO A WHEELCHAIR FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS AND UNABLE TO WRITE OR SPEAK... LUCKY? WHO WOULD AGREE WITH THAT... EXCEPT POSSIBLY STEPHEN HAWKING HIMSELF!\n\nLet's go back a bit...\n\nEveryone knows of Hawking's bad luck. It began one afternoon in the spring of 1962 when he found it very difficult to tie his shoelaces. He knew something was drastically wrong with his body. That year he had talked his way into a first degree at Oxford University and was accepted as a postgraduate student at Cambridge. But he had contracted **amyotrophic lateral sclerosis** , ALS for short, the motor neurone disease. It is incurable and fatal. Doctors gave him two years to live.\n\nAs the tabloid press and the paperback biographies would have us believe, Hawking spent the next several months in deep depression in his university digs, drinking and listening to Wagner. To add to his bitterness, he was told that he would not have the famous cosmologist Fred Hoyle (b. 1915) as his research adviser, the reason he chose Cambridge in the first place.\n\nBut immediately his luck began to change. A young woman, Jane Wilde, he met on New Year's Eve 1962 had taken a genuine interest in him, and the Cambridge Physics Department had assigned him to Dennis Sciama (b. 1926), one of the best-informed and most inspiring research advisers in the world of relativistic cosmology.\n\nOnce it is accepted that Stephen William Hawking's physical capabilities were severely limited by the tragic disease of ALS, a whole series of fortunate events seemed to have taken place in the early 1960s which enabled him to fulfil his destiny as one of the leading cosmologists of modern times.\n\nFirst of all, for the profession he had chosen \u2013 theoretical physics \u2013 the only facility he **absolutely** needed was his brain, which was completely unaffected by his illness. He had met a helpful partner in Jane Wilde and been presented with a sympathetic thesis adviser, Sciama.\n\nSoon he would meet Roger Penrose (b. 1931), a brilliant mathematician working on black holes, who would teach him radically new analytical tools in physics. Penrose would help him solve a research problem that would not only save his doctoral dissertation but also bring him directly into mainstream theoretical physics.\n\nThe help of these three people at such a critical time in Hawking's life is perhaps more than anyone can hope for.\n\nHe had another appointment with destiny at about the same time. A theory which had been developed almost fifty years earlier \u2013 Einstein's general theory of relativity \u2013 was only just being widely applied to practical problems in cosmology. It seems that predictions based on this theory were so bizarre that it had taken decades for it to be accepted. Now in the early 1960s, a golden age of research in cosmology based on general relativity was about to begin. Fate had waited for Stephen Hawking. The secretly ambitious \u2013 though by then slightly crippled \u2013 theoretical physicist was ready. He didn't know how long he had to live... but he was certainly in the right place at the right time.\n\nMAYBE HE WAS LUCKY.\n\nStephen Hawking is called a **relativistic cosmologist.** This means he studies the Universe as a whole (cosmologist) and uses mainly the theory of relativity (relativistic).\n\nAs Hawking has spent his entire career as a theoretical physicist \u2013 from the early 1960s to the mid 1990s \u2013 working with Einstein's general relativity, it might be a good idea to know what it's about.\n\n## **The General Theory of Relativity**\n\nBerlin, November 1915. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) had just completed his theory of general relativity, a mathematical structure in which curved space and warped time are used to describe gravitation. All modern cosmology began two years later, when Einstein published a second paper called **Cosmological Considerations** in which he applied his new theory to the entire Universe.\n\nGeneral relativity is difficult to master, but the relatively few people who understand the theory agree it is an elegant, even beautiful theory of gravitation.\n\nDescribing a set of equations as beautiful doesn't help much in understanding how Einstein's theory differs from that of Isaac Newton (1642-1727). But an example of how each of the two theories describes gravity in the same physical situation might do the trick.\n\nWhy does a, cosmologist have to study gravitation?\n\nCosmology is the study of the whole Universe and much of the subject is based on wide-sweeping hypotheses. Gravitation determines the large-scale structure of the Universe or, more simply, keeps the planets star and galaxies together. It is the most important concept for work in this field.\n\nUntil recently, the subject of cosmology was considered to be a pseudo-science reserved for retired emeritus professors. But in the last three decades, more or less coinciding with Hawking's career, two major developments have changed the subject dramatically.\n\nTHE COMPLETE STORY TAKES IN NEWTON, THEN EINSTEIN, THEN HAWKING FIRST, NEWTON.\n\n  * First, major breakthroughs in observational astronomy \u2013 reaching out to the most distant galaxies \u2013 have made the Universe a laboratory to test cosmological models\n  * Second, Einstein's general relativity has been proven over and over again to be an accurate and reliable theory of gravitation throughout the entire Universe.\n\nRemember, physics is a cumulative subject. New theories are built on previous ones, keeping the ideas that stand up to experimental test and discarding those that don't. Our final goal is to understand the contributions of Stephen Hawking who has taken Einstein's gravitation theory to its ultimate limit.\n\nIt is important to understand the notion of _partial theories._ For example, Newton's Law of Gravitation is very accurate only when gravity is weak \u2013 and must be replaced by Einstein's general relativity in strong gravitational fields. Similarly, relativity must be replaced by quantum mechanics when examining interactions on a microscopic scale, such as the big bang singularity, or at the edge and centre of a black hole. Hawking is generally recognized as the theoretician with the best chance of combining general relativity and quantum mechanics to produce quantum gravity, ill-named by the media as **Theory of Everything.**\n\n## **Newton: The Concept of Force**\n\nNewton introduced the concept of a gravitational _force_ of attraction and stated that the mutual pull of attraction between two objects is proportional to the **mass** of each object (i.e. the amount of matter the object contains) and inversely proportional to the square of distance between them.\n\nNOW DON'T PANIC IT'S A VERY SIMPLE EQUATION! I CALL THIS MY LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION. \"IF THE MASS OF ONE OR THE OTHER OF THE TWO OBJECTS DOUBLES! THE FORCE DOUBLES! BUT IF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE TWO OBJECTS IS DOUBLED, THE FORCE IS REDUCED BY A FACTOR OF FOUR, DUE TO THE SQUARED TERM IN THE DENOMINATOR. \"THUS THE FORCE DECREASES RAPIDLY AS THE TWO OBJECTS ARE MOVED A PART.\"\n\nGravitation is the weakest force in nature as seen by the magnitude of the gravitational constant Gin practical units:\n\n**G = 6.67 \u00d7 10 -11 Newtons-metres2 \/ kilograms2**\n\nA Newton is a scientific unit of force, equal to about a quarter of a pound.\n\n## **Four Kinds of Force in the Universe**\n\n**The Electromagnetic Force:** keeps atoms together and is the basis for all chemical reactions.\n\n**The Strong Nuclear Force:** binds the neutrons and protons together in the nucleus. This force is important in nuclear reactions like fission and fusion.\n\n**The Weak Nuclear Force:** determines radioactive decay, i.e. the spontaneous emission of alpha and beta particles from inside the nucleus.\n\n**The Gravitational Force:** responsible for large-scale structure of the Universe, the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets.\n\nThe four known forces separate and become individually distinct during the earliest moments of the Universe.\n\nWhen two Sumo wrestlers (mass about 135 kilograms) get close to each other in the ring (say a metre apart), the force pushing them **towards each other** is minuscule... about 10,000 times less than the pull necessary to pick up one square of toilet tissue! To convert the answer to pounds multiply Newtons by 0.225.\n\nBut the force pulling each of them **towards the floor** is much larger. That's because the other object attracting each **downwards** is the Earth, whose mass (5.98 x 1024 kilograms) must be put in the numerator of Newton's equation. The Earth's radius (6.37 x 106 metres) goes in the denominator. Try the calculation yourself with an electronic calculator and don't forget the conversion factor to get your answer in pounds.\n\n## **The Principia: Describing Newton's Universe**\n\nNewton was chiefly concerned with the force of gravity between the Sun and planets, i.e., the solar system. The immediate impetus for the publication of his theory of gravitation, the **Principia** , arose from a discussion at the Royal Society in 1684 between the astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), the architect Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) and Newton's arch rival Robert Hooke (1635\u20131703).\n\nWE THINK AN INVERSE SQUARE LAW OF ATTRACTION IMPLIES ELLIPTICAL ORBITS FOR THE PLANETS. BUT WE CAN'T PROVE IT. I CAN BUT I'M KEEPING MY PROOF SECRET!\n\nI'LL JOURNEY TO CAMBRIDGE AND ASK NEWTON'S OPINION... WELL, I'M OFF TO ST PAULL'S TO BUILD MY CATHEDRAL.\n\nAN INVERSE SQUARE LAW DOES INDEED PRODUCE ELLIPTICAL ORBITS A RESULT WHICH I'VE DEMONS TRATED MATHEMATICALLY. THIS IS VERY EXCITING! CAN YOU SHOW IT TO ME?\n\nEH WELL... I CAN'T FIND THE CALCULATION.\n\nHalley returned to London frustrated, but 3 months later he received a 9-page paper in Latin, **De Motu Corporum** or **On the Motion of Bodies in Orbit** , in which Newton described the elliptical paths of the planets in terms of his Law of Gravitation and his Laws of Motion. This was the precursor of his world-famous **Principia** (1687) which presented a complete mathematical description of his ideas.\n\n## **Newton and Hawking**\n\nThe media often compares Stephen Hawking with other famous physicists like Newton and Einstein, much to the alienation of scientists and, in particular, historians of science. No single individual will ever dominate his era as Newton did, whereas Hawking is one of a small group of \u00e9lite scientists at the cutting-edge of today's cosmology.\n\nYet, some of these comparisons are very interesting.\n\nNewton spent his entire scientific career at Cambridge with his residence and laboratories at Trinity College. Hawking has been at Cambridge since his postgraduate student days in 1962, except for a few sabbatical years abroad.\n\nThey have both attempted to explain the observable physical Universe using theories of gravity: Newton using his own theory, and Hawking using mainly Einstein's general relativity.\n\nBoth have held the same distinguished position at Cambridge, the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics.\n\nThe wide range of applications for the gravitation law which Newton presented in the **Principia** is quite extraordinary. The theory was an immediate success and found to be applicable to all motion in the solar system, including the Moon and comets as well as the planets. It was so accurate that it was used to discover the planet Neptune, which could not even be seen with the telescopes available at the time.\n\nBUT I'M WORRIED! QUIET! YOU DON'T EXIST YET!\n\nExcept for one small problem. The orbit of Mercury wasn't quite right. But as Mercury is so close to the Sun and very difficult to view, the discrepancy was thought to be due to observational errors and excused by everyone in the 17th and 18th century. The orbits of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn were spot on. No one was worried.\n\nMany may find it surprising to learn that putting a man on the Moon, some half-century after Einstein, did not require any modification of Newton's theory. NASA engineers were using the **Principia** when they programmed their rockets at Cape Kennedy in 1969.\n\nWHY NOT USE EINSTEIN'S THEORY? ISN'T IT MORE CORRECT THAN NEWTON'S? YEP, IT IS... BUT WE DON'T NEED IT AT NASA.\n\nBut the difference is negligible, unless measurements are being made very close to a massive gravitational object. For orbits around the Sun and the planets, in fact throughout most of the entire solar system, Einstein's relativistic effects can be ignored and Newton's theory is fine.\n\n## **The Concept of Mass**\n\nConsider the miracle method for losing weight: a trip to the Moon! When an object is transported in a spaceship to the Moon, its weight decreases by about a factor of 6! This weight loss can be demonstrated very simply, using Newton's gravitation formula to compare the force of gravity of a body at the surface of the Earth (i.e. its weight) with that on the surface of the Moon. Just plug the numbers into the equation and see the dramatic weight loss. But watch how you use mass.\n\nThe mass of the astronaut is about 60 kilograms (determined by a scale balance and standard masses); the **mass of the Earth** is 5.98 \u00d7 1024 kg and the **radius of the Earth** is 6.37 \u00d7 106 metres. If we use these values in Newton's equation, we find her weight to be (with 1 Newton = 0.225 lb):\n\nNow what will she weigh on the Moon? Use the same method but this time use the **mass of the Moon** = 7.34 \u00d7 1022 kilograms and the **radius of the Moon** = 1.74 \u00d7 106 metres\n\n**Weight = 97 Newtons = 21.8 lb.**\n\nEven the Sumo will only weigh 50 lb.\n\nI'M ONE \u2013 SIXTH OF MY WEIGHT ON EARTH! REMEMBER... POUNDS ARE A MEASURE OF WEIGHT, BUT KILOGRAMS ARE A MEASURE OF MASS.\n\nBut the **mass** of the astronaut doesn't change on the Moon. She has lost none of the **matter** that makes up her body. Thus, her physical appearance and size are unaffected by the change in the gravitational field.\n\nMass is a tricky concept. No doubt about it. It is not only difficult to understand, but, until Einstein, it was also horribly ambiguous. Think of that property of a body that causes it to be attracted by another body, as in Newton's Law of Gravitation.\n\nThen think of the property of a body which gives it resistance to a change in speed, as in Newton's second Law of Motion;\n\nClearly a larger inert mass will result in a smaller acceleration for a given force. Is there any difference between these two quantities, **gravitational** mass and **inertial** mass? Newton has confused us.\n\nNEWTON'S A GIANT OF PHYSICAL THEORY. I'M PLEASED TO VIEW THE UNIVERSE FROM A TOP HIS SHOULDERS. BUT I'M WORRIED ABOUT MASS... AND A FEW OTHER THINGS!\n\n## **Albert Einstein, the Saviour of Classical Physics**\n\nIt was left to a single man to clear up the leftover inconsistencies of classical physics, Albert Einstein. The great Victorian physicists had decided that only trivial problems remained. Yet, Einstein proceeded to turn Newtonian physics upside-down.\n\nImagine Newton's theoretical structure as a house of cards. It's true, Einstein only removed two of these cards. They just happened to be at the base of the structure.\n\nI DISCARD NEWTON'S CONCEPT OF UNIVERSAL TIME AND ABSOLUTE SPACE....OOPS!\n\nTo do this, it was necessary to postulate that nothing can travel faster than the **speed of light** , which Einstein said was always observed to be the same. This work he called the **Special Theory of Relativity.**\n\nEinstein's first papers were about electrodynamics and concerned with light signals and moving clocks. But he soon began worrying about gravitation and was troubled by its bewildering property of **action at distance.**\n\nAccording to Newton, if the Sun disappeared in an instant, so would its gravitational field at the Earth, millions of miles away. Yet light from the Sun, with its finite speed, would continue to travel towards the Earth for another eight minutes. This troubled Einstein. So did the concept of mass.\n\nWHY SHOULD INERTIAL AND GRAVITATIONAL MASS BE THE SAME?\n\nFor Einstein, such notions were paradoxes to worry about for years and years. He already knew as a young man that the hand of God was in the **details.**\n\nEinstein the Worrier began to consider if there might be another way to explain gravity. Maybe it is not a force at all. Since the motion of a freely falling object does not depend on the object's mass or composition (as Galileo discovered in the 15th century), gravitation might be due to certain properties of the **medium** it's falling in, that is, **space** itself.\n\nBy a series of remarkably creative and idiosyncratic steps, Einstein decided that space is not flat but **curved** , and the local curvature is produced by the presence of mass in the Universe. Consequently, bodies moving through curved space do not travel in straight lines but rather follow the path of least resistance along the contours of **curved space.** These paths are called **geodesics.**\n\nIf this is true, there would be no need for a mysterious \"force of gravity\" which is transmitted **instantaneously.** Nor would it be necessary to explain the odd coincidence that inertial and gravitational mass are exactly equal.\n\nEinstein was setting out to rescue classical physics from these inconsistencies and finish the task started by Galileo, Newton and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79).\n\nAH! ONE OF GALILEO'S CANNON \u2013 BALLS!\n\n## **Einstein and Hawking**\n\nMost great works in physics have come from those who combine miraculous physical intuition with sound mathematical skills. The former is far more important than the latter.\n\nEinstein was not a pure mathematician and neither is Stephen Hawking. They both learned the mathematics they needed to do their physics, formulating their ideas in the most efficient way possible.\n\nEinstein hassled his friend Marcel Grossman to learn the techniques of Riemann geometry in order to handle curved space. Hawking, anxious to probe the secrets of black holes in the early 60s, questioned Roger Penrose to exhaustion learning the new topological methods of singularity theory.\n\nBut both had a nose for the most interesting problems.\n\nEinstein's idea of curved space had some plausibility, but it was not clear how to quantify such a new approach. So he started dreaming up more of his famous _gedanken_ (thought) experiments, as he did with Special Relativity.\n\nHis sketchy qualitative ideas of curved space were to become a set of equations which gave the precise amount of curvature for a given amount of mass. This development is said to be one of the most creative examples ever of the power of pure abstract thought.\n\nThe main idea which got him started he called, **The Happiest Thought of My Life.**\n\n## **Einstein's Happiest Thought**\n\n_Sitting in a chair in the Patent Office at Berne (in 1907), a sudden thought occurred to me. \"If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight.\" I was startled and this simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me towards a theory of gravitation. It was the happiest thought of my life._\n\n_I realized that... for an observer falling freely from the roof of a house there exists_ \u2013 _at least in his immediate surroundings \u2013 no gravitational field. If the one who is falling drops other bodies (e.g. Galileo's cannon balls), then these remain relative to him in a state of rest or of uniform motion independent of their particular chemical or physical nature. (Of course, we are ignoring the effect of air resistance.)_\n\n_The observer therefore has the right to interpret his state as at rest or in uniform motion..._\n\nHe continued...\n\n_Because of this idea, the uncommonly peculiar experimental law_ \u2013 _that in the gravitational field all bodies fall with the same acceleration_ (this is another way of saying that gravitational mass is the same as inertial mass) \u2013 _attained at once a deep physical meaning. If there were to exist just one single object that falls in a different way than all the others, then with its help the observer could realize that he is in a gravitational field and is falling in it. However, if such an object does **not** exist_ \u2013 _as experience has shown with great accuracy starting with Galileo in 1590_ \u2013 _then the observer lacks any objective means of perceiving himself as falling in a gravitational field. He has the right to consider his state as one of rest and his environment as free of gravity. Therefore, the fact that the acceleration of free fall is independent of the nature of the material involved is a powerful argument that the relativity postulate can be extended to coordinate systems which are in **non-uniform** motion._\n\nEinstein's thought that a person falling freely does not feel his own weight seems rather simple. Yet from this starting point, he squeezed every possible drop of insight, removing all the inconsistencies of Newton's theory that his intuition and the laws of physics would allow. He transformed the _simple picture of someone falling through space_ into a _small laboratory in which gravity did not exist._\n\nHe could then analyse the effect of gravity on such phenomena as the bending of a light beam or the slowing of a clock by simply replacing the gravitational field with simulated accelerated motion.\n\nSimply by thinking about a man jumping off a roof in Berlin (or so the story goes), Einstein was able to replace gravity by acceleration and discover his **principle of equivalence.**\n\nEinstein could now use the powerful principle of relativity \u2013 that the laws of physics should not depend on any particular reference frame \u2013 to test his new laws of space curvature. He also had the principle of equivalence (gravity equals acceleration) to get started. And he had one more useful bit of information, this one experimental.\n\n**The Perihelion of Mercury: from a Problem to a Solution**\n\nRecall that scientists in Newton's time were not worried about the small discrepancy in Mercury's elliptical orbit, even though it did not return to the same starting point in each cycle. By Einstein's time, astronomers were more than worried, they needed an explanation. The discrepancy had been carefully measured to be 43 seconds of arc per century and it would not go away. Einstein could now use the perihelion result to test his curvature law. (Perihelion, from the Greek peri meaning close to and helios, sun).\n\n## **Finding the Right Equation**\n\nEinstein used the \"3 Ps\" to test his equations...\n\nHe went on producing sets of equations (mentally exhausted and trying to ignore the First World War)...\n\nUNTIL MY EQUATIONS FINALLY PRODUCED...\n\nThese latest equations also predicted a deflection of 1.7 seconds of arc for starlight passing near the edge of the Sun and incorporated his earlier prediction of gravitational time dilation, the warping of time.\n\nEinstein presented this final form of his general relativity law of curved space and warped time to the Prussian Academy on 25 November 1915.\n\nThen he sat down and wrote a letter to a close friend, the Dutch physicist Paul Ehrenfest.\n\n\"I WAS BESIDE MYSELF WITH ECSTASY FOR DAYS. \"IMAGINE MY JOY THAT THE NEW LAW OF CURVATURE OBEYS THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY AND PREDICTS THE CORRECT PERIHELION MOTION OF MERCURY.\n\n...THE YEARS OF SEARCHING IN THE DARK FOR A TRUTH THAT ONE FEELS BUT CANNOT EXPRESS \u2013 THE INTENSE DESIRE AND THE ALTERATIONS OF CONFIDENCE AND MISGIVING UNTIL ONE BREAKS THROUGH TO CLARITY AND UNDERSTANDING \u2013 ARE KNOWN ONLY TO HIM WHO HAS EXPERIENCED THEM HIMSELF!\"\n\n## **The Field Equations \u2013 What do they mean?**\n\nThe 36-year old professor had produced a set of mathematical equations which gave the details of the relationship between the curvature of space and the distribution of mass in the Universe. Einstein found that matter tells space _how to curve_ and then space tells matter _how to move-_ a new way to describe gravitation. **No forces.** A mind flip is necessary to jump between the two pictures of gravitation.\n\nContained within these miraculous equations is the explanation of the perihelion shift of Mercury, the degree of bending of starlight, the existence of gravitational waves, information on the singularities of space time, the description of the formation of neutron stars and black holes, even the prediction of the expansion of the Universe.\n\nThat's the good news.\n\nThe bad news is that the mathematics is extremely difficult. There are some 20 simultaneous equations with 10 unknown quantities. The equations are almost impossible to solve except in situations where symmetry or energy considerations reduce them to simpler forms.\n\nIf we ignore the cosmological constant _lambda_ (which doesn't belong there anyway) and consider free space where the mass tensor is zero, the equations can be written very simply...\n\nThis form was made famous by a well-known photograph of Einstein lecturing on the theory in the 1920s. Looks easy!\n\n## **Visualising Curved Space: the Rubber Sheet Model**\n\nEinstein's gravitation is quite unusual, compared to other field theories like electricity or magnetism, in that the description of motion (i.e. how an object moves) is already built into the field equations (how space time is curved. This can be understood with the help of a simple model \u2013 call it the rubber sheet picture.\n\nConsider a billiard table with the slate top and felt cover replaced by a taut thin rubber sheet which is highly stretchable. If a light object (e.g. a ping-pong ball) is rolled across the sheet, it will move more or less in a straight line. This simulates _flat_ space and the ping-pong ball's path corresponds to the straight line motion of _special_ relativity.\n\nNow place a heavy billiard ball in the centre of the sheet, causing it to become curved with a depression at the centre. The model now simulates the curvature of space near a central mass as described by general relativity.\n\nThe simplest case (other than a straight line) is when the depression just captures the moving object to produce a circular orbit. Note this occurs without the need of any _centripetal force_ to keep the object in orbit, as in Newton's picture.\n\nThe object would like to move in a straight line, but the space is curved, so it moves in a circle around the centre. It is simply moving along a path of least resistance in the curved space. This is general relativity's representation of how a planet is captured in an orbit around the sun.\n\nIf the object is moving on a line directly towards the centre, it falls right into the depression and accelerates into the attracting centre. This is a representation of a meteorite crashing into the Sun or the Earth.\n\nWith such diagrams it is now possible to visualize the distinct and utter difference between Newton and Einstein. Einstein has replaced Newton's **gravitational force** with **curved space.**\n\nAt the time of publication, the new theory met with scepticism. Many did not wish to see the Newtonian scheme abandoned. These sceptics needed more evidence.\n\n## **The Bending of Starlight: Eclipse of 29 May 1919**\n\nFour years later, the scientific world awaited the verdict of an experiment which Einstein himself had suggested in the original paper, the bending of starlight during a solar eclipse. The theory predicted that starlight passing just at the edge of the Sun would be displaced by 1.7 seconds of arc from its true position. It was the first real test of the theory.\n\nThere was to be a total eclipse of the Sun on 29 May 1919, smack in the middle of a bright field of stars in the cluster Hyades. These were most unusual and optimal conditions for such an experiment.\n\nThe English astronomer **Arthur Stanley Eddington** (1882\u20131944) led an expedition to the island of Principe off the coast of Africa to photograph the eclipse.\n\nEddington found that light rays which had left the surface of stars thousands of years ago and had been bent by the curved space near the Sun only eight minutes previously, passed through the lens and exposed the photographic plates just where Einstein said they would. One of the most remarkable experiments in scientific history had been completed.\n\nThe two dimensional rubber sheet drawing of the star displacement makes it look so very simple.\n\nThe results of the eclipse expedition were presented by the Astronomer Royal at a meeting at the Royal Society on 6 November 1919, and Einstein became an international hero overnight. Headlines in the _New York Times_ suggested that a new Universe had been discovered... and this time the newspaper hype was not exaggerated.\n\nA world weary from war embraced the quiet and eccentric scientist, sitting in his study in Berlin with a pencil and pad, who had figured out the great plan of the Almighty for the entire Universe.\n\nMany critics said the results were inconclusive, that the possibility of error in the star measurements was too great... so the scepticism continued.\n\n## **Solving Einstein's Equations: Hawking's Starting Material**\n\nIn the 25 years between the publication of Einstein's general relativity and the outbreak of the Second World War, several solutions to the field equations were produced which have been fundamental to Stephen Hawking's work.\n\nIT IS A REMARKABLE FACT THAT ALL OF THESE RESULTS WERE IGNORE OR RIDICULED WHEN THEY WERE PUBLISHED; PARTICULARLY BY THE CREATOR OF THE THEORY HIMSELF, ALBERT EINSTEIN. THE FIRST OF THESE SOLUTIONS APPEARED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY.\n\n## **1) The Schwarzschild Geometry**\n\nIn 1915, the same year as Einstein's publication, the German mathematician Karl Schwarzschild sent a paper to Einstein. Schwarzschild used elegant mathematical analysis to produce an exact solution to the equations for an arbitrary spherical body, like a star. The solution intrigued Einstein greatly because he himself had only been able to arrive at an **approximate** solution to his own equations and thought that an **exact** solution of the equations would never be found.\n\nSchwarzschild's solution was quite an achievement because of the technical manipulation required to solve a system of ten equations connecting twenty quantities, resulting in hundreds of terms. These are not simple algebraic equations, but second order, non-linear, partial differential equations \u2013 the bane of all graduate students in physics.\n\nToday, a room full of electronic computers are utilized to find such solutions. But Schwarzschild had produced this first one with a pen and paper. A _tour de force._\n\n## **The Critical Radius**\n\nSchwarzschild's mathematics showed how the space curvature around an object of any arbitrary mass varied as a function of the distance from the centre of the object, i.e. along a **radial line.**\n\nHis results produced a very strange geometry. There seemed to exist a critical point at which the curvature was so strong that matter could not escape. This critical point is now known as the **Schwarzschild Radius** and depends only on the mass of the object. (G is the gravitational constant; c is the speed of light)\n\nThere was no immediate concern about this critical point, since the interior of stars and planets could not be investigated anyway. But there was speculation as to what might happen if a star or planet existed which satisfied this equation. The gravitational forces would be so great that the object would collapse indefinitely and **nothing** would be able to resist the self-gravity caused by the extreme space curvature. All the matter would be compressed to a singularity \u2013 a single point at the centre.\n\nPlanets as massive as the Earth would have to be compressed to absurd dimensions \u2013 to the size of a garden pea or the Sun to a diameter of about 3 kilometres. Ridiculous, they said. The calculation was a mathematical fluke. In any case, nobody wanted to think about it. Least of all, Einstein.\n\nNEIN! NEIN! NEIN!\n\n## **2) Friedmann: the Expanding Universe**\n\nSome years after Schwarzschild, another controversial solution to Einstein's equations appeared. In 1922, the Russian Alexander Friedmann (1888-1925) made the simplifying assumption that the Universe was **uniformly** filled with a thin soup of matter. (Modern measurements have shown this assumption of uniformity to be quite reasonable in spite of the formation of stars and galaxies.)\n\nFriedmann found that general relativity predicted the Universe to be unstable and the slightest perturbation would cause it to expand or contract. He corrected a mistake in Einstein's 1917 paper on cosmology to reach this result. (Any wonder Einstein didn't like **this** prediction.)\n\nRecall that Einstein had introduced an artificial term _(lambda_ , the cosmological constant) into his field equations essentially to \"stop the expansion\". At the time, astronomers were telling him that the Universe was static, so he wanted to guarantee the theory would agree with observations. Later, he called this \"cosmological constant\" the biggest mistake of his life.\n\nFriedmann dropped the _lambda_ from the equations and got an **expanding universe** , which, of course, Einstein did not like. This was another solution of his own equations which he ridiculed.\n\nBIG MISTAKE, THAT LAMBDA!\n\nFriedmann's predictions for the expansion of the Universe can be summarized by considering three different values for the mass of the Universe in terms of a ratio \u03a9 (omega).\n\n**\u2022Mass density of the Universe is greater than the critical value**\n\nIn this case, the expansion rate is slow enough and the mass great enough for gravity to stop the expansion and reverse it. A Big Crunch would eventually occur with all the matter in the Universe pulled back to a single point. \u03a9 > 1 (greater than... )\n\n**\u2022Mass density of Universe is less than the critical value**\n\nThe Universe expands much more rapidly. Gravity can't stop it, but does slow the rate of expansion somewhat. \u03a9 < 1 (less than... )\n\n**\u2022Mass density of the Universe is equal to the critical value**\n\nThe Universe expands just fast enough not to collapse. The speed at which the galaxies recede from each other gradually decreases, but galaxies always move apart. \u03a9 = 1 (equal)\n\n## **Precursor to the Big Bang: Lema\u00eetre's Primordial Aim**\n\nThe Belgian cosmologist **Abb\u00e9 Georges Lema\u00eetre** (1894-1966) was the first to use Friedmann-type solutions to formulate a model for the beginning of the Universe which he called the Primordial Atom or Cosmic Egg.\n\nLema\u00eetre was a visionary. Not only did he anticipate that the expanding Universe would be confirmed by looking for red shifts in the spectra of galaxies, but he even suggested that it might be possible to detect remnant radiation from the primordial atom. These two ideas dominate contemporary Big Bang cosmology in this last decade of the 20th century.\n\nYEP, IF THEY'RE NOT RIGHT, I AM!\n\nBy 1929, the astronomer **Edwin Hubble** (1889-1953) had used the 100-inch Hooker telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California to discover galaxies and confirm that the Universe **is** expanding. But he knew nothing of Einstein's theory or Lema\u00eetre's cosmology.\n\nAt last in 1931, Lema\u00eetre cornered Hubble and Einstein at Caltech and gave a seminar on his model Universe.\n\nTHE UNIVERSE AT ONE TIME EXISTED IN A VERY SMALL SPACE BEFORE AN EXPANSION TOOK PLACE SEVERAL BILLION YEARS AGO. IT IS STILL EXPANDING TODAY!\n\nTHIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DESCRIPTION OF THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE I'VE EVER HEARD.\n\nOOPS!\n\n## **3) Oppenheimer: on Continued Gravitational Collapse, 1939**\n\nThe third solution of Einstein's equations, important to modern cosmology and Stephen Hawking, was published by the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) and one of his students, Hartland Snyder in 1939. They took up the problem of the Schwarzschild geometry in spite of the criticism by Einstein, Eddington and just about everybody else. The paper, which was published in _The Physical Review_ was titled, On Continued Gravitational Collapse\".\n\nStars may eventually burn out and begin to collapse under gravitational contraction. In the idealized model of a spherical contracting star, a squeezing phenomenon can occur which could bring the star to the critical radius Rc. Catastrophic gravitational collapse would take place for the critically collapsed star.\n\n\u2022Space curvature would be so severe that light rays emitted from the star's surface would bend into the star's interior, sealing off events from external observers.\n\n\u2022Light rays at the surface would be infinitely red-shifted, i.e., the light would have no energy.\n\n\u2022A one-way event horizon would form in which particles, radiation, etc. could enter the star, but nothing could be emitted.\n\n\u2022A space-time singularity would ultimately form, not at the critical radius, but at the centre of the star. All the physics is continuous for an observer falling in with the collapsing star's surface.\n\nNEIN! NEIN! NEIN!\n\nEinstein again resisted. He ridiculed the Oppenheimer result vigorously in print.\n\nHe even refused to accept that relativity could describe collapsed stars which did **not** become critical \u2013 called neutron stars \u2013 in spite of independent predictions by the eccentric Fritz Zwicky (1898-1974) at Caltech and the highly respected Lev Landau (1908-68) in Moscow.\n\n## **1 September 1939**\n\n\u2022Publication date for the **Physical Review** issue containing article by Oppenheimer (and Snyder) describing the gravitational collapse of a star.\n\n\u2022In the same issue, another article by Neils Bohr (1885-1962) and John Wheeler (b. 1911) explained the mechanism for nuclear fission (reaction used in the atom bomb).\n\n\u2022 On the same date, Hitler's troops invaded Poland, triggering off the Second World War.\n\nWhen nuclear fission was discovered by the Germans Otto Hahn (1879-1968) and Fritz Strassman (b. 1902), physicists and politicians in Western democracies became alarmed that the Germans were developing an atom bomb to turn the entire world into a Nazi empire, a Third Reich ruling with the threat of nuclear devastation.\n\nIt is easy to see why work on cosmology was postponed. Contemplating the mysteries of the physical Universe in such severe political crisis was a luxury the free world could not afford.\n\nNEIN! NEIN! NEIN! OUT WITH SCHWARTS CHILD FRIEDMANN AND OPPENHEIMER!\n\nIn addition, the originator of the general theory had opposed all the radical cosmological predictions of his own equations as developed by Schwarzschild, Friedmann and Oppenheimer. It would be 20 years before this work was resumed and the consequences of these solutions appreciated.\n\n## **1942... A Turning Point in the Story**\n\nIn 1942, physicists began to focus on deadly practical projects. Oppenheimer, one of the heroes of early cosmological research, left the heady intellectual climate of Berkeley for the barren flats of Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. In December 1942, the Italian Enrico Fermi (1901-54) and his team at the University of Chicago achieved the first controlled nuclear chain reaction.\n\nAnd at the beginning of that same year, on 8 January, Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford. His mother had just moved from London to escape the nightly pounding by the German Luftwaffe.\n\n_Research on collapsing stars was abandoned for over twenty years, enough time for Stephen Hawking to grow to maturity, finish his degree at Oxford and enrol as a postgraduate student at Cambridge University._\n\n## **The Death of Einstein**\n\nAlbert Einstein died on 18 April 1955 in Princeton, a small college town in New Jersey, USA. His wish was to be cremated so that \"no one will worship at my bones\". In spite of his wish, unethical doctors performed an unnecessary autopsy and made off with his brain and his eyes \u2013 an insidious invasion of privacy.\n\nEinstein had left Europe for the USA in 1933 with his real creative work behind him. During the last 22 years of his life, he did not work on any of the important cosmological questions which came out of his general relativity theory. For years he stuck slavishly to the task of trying to unite the field equations of general relativity with Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field and ignored quantum mechanics.\n\nHis unified field theory calculations were found by his bedside.\n\nTwo other physicists who also lived in Princeton mourned the death of the great scientist. Oppenheimer, no longer affiliated with the war effort, was director of the Institute of Advanced Studies (where Einstein had an honorary position) and John Wheeler was Professor of Physics at Princeton University. Wheeler had recently finished critical years of development on the hydrogen bomb and was now returning to basic research in cosmology, with particular interest in collapsing stars.\n\nHow fitting that these two physicists should live on **opposite** sides of the same street in this small academic community. They had vastly different views of the Universe **and** of American political life which placed them on opposite sides of controversial issues, like national security and nuclear weapons. Soon they would confront each other again on the question of general relativity and gravitationally collapsing stars.\n\nIn 1958, three years after Einstein's death, they both travelled from Princeton to attend an international conference in Brussels on modern cosmology. Wheeler had been invited to give a talk reviewing the current state of research.\n\nOF ALL THE IMPLICATIONS OF GENERAL RELATIVITY, THE QUESTION OF THE FATE OF GREAT MASSIVE STARS IS ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING. BUT IMPLOSION AS CALCULATED BY OPPENHEIMER IN 1939 DOES NOT GIVE AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER. WHY NOT? IF HEAVIER THAN THE SUN REALLY OCCUR IN STELLAR EVOLUTION, THEN I BELIEVE THEIR COLLAPSE CAN BE DESCRIBED IN THE FRAMEWORK OF GENERAL RELATIVITY.\n\nWOULD NOT A SIMPLE ASSUMPTION BE THAT SUCH MASSES UNDERGO CONTINUAL GRAVITATIONAL CONTRACTION AND ULTIMATELY CUT THEMSELVES OFF FROM THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE?\n\nOPPIE, YOUR MODEL IS JUST TOO IDEALISED. REAL STARS UNDER CONTRACTION WOULD PRODUCE NUCLEAR REACTIONS, SHOCK WAVES, HEAT RADIATION AND MASS EJECTION... ALL SORTS OF UNPREDICTABLE PHENOMENA!\n\nIF ONLY I'D KEPT THOSE COMPUTER SIMULATIONS ON THE EXPLOSION OF THE HYDROGEN BOMB, WE COULD HAVE REWRITTEN THE PROGRAMS TO SIMULATE THE IMPLOSION OF A MASSIVE STAR. HMMM... THEY STILL HAVE BOMB DESIGN EXPERTISE AT LOS ALAMOS AND AT LIVERMORE. MAYBE THEY WOULD HELP WITH THE CALCULATIONS.\n\nA few years later, Edward Teller phones Wheeler from the Livermore Radiation Labs in California.\n\nJOHN, DR COLGATE AND HIS TEAM HAVE COMPLETED THE SIMULATION OF COLLAPSING STARS YOU REQUESTED. IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN A STAR IS SMALL, A SUPERNOVA IS TRIGGERED AND A NEUTRON STAR MOST LIKELY FORMS. BUT FOR STELLAR MASSES GREATER THAN TWICE THE SUN'S MASS THE COMPUTER SIMULATIONS PRODUCE CONTINUED GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE, AS PREDICTED BY THE RELATIVITY THEORY. GREAT, JUST LIKE OPPIE SAID. WAIT TILL HE HEARS HE WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL.\n\n**Five years later, Wheeler lectured at a special meeting in Dallas, marking the discovery of quasars.** _\"Computer simulation shows that the collapse of a burnt-out star is remarkably similar to the highly idealized one computed by Oppenheimer and Snyder. \"_\n\n_As seen by an outside observer, the collapse slows down and becomes frozen at the critical radius. But as seen by an observer moving with the star's surface, the collapse is continuous right through the critical radius and on inward without hesitation._\n\nOPPIE, COME ON IN WHEELER IS SHOUTING YOUR PRAISES ON COLLAPSING STARS. HE'S BEEN CON \u2013 VERTED. PLEASE, DON'T BOTHER ME. CAN'T YOU SEE I'M MEDITATING ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA!\n\nWheeler was heartsick that Oppenheimer had lost interest in collapsing stars. But Oppie was worn out by years of political intrigue \u2013 directing the Manhattan Project, dealing with the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accusations of disloyalty to his country, and ignominiously losing his security clearance. Like a burnt-out star, the former **wunderkind** was himself collapsing into his own world, cut off from the rest of the Universe.\n\nBut for Wheeler, a new chapter in the history of physics had begun. _\"Whatever the outcome of our studies, one feels that at last in stellar implosion we have a situation where general relativity dramatically comes into its own and where its fiery merge with quantum physics will be consummated. \"_\n\nAt that time, in 1962, Stephen William Hawking arrived at Cambridge University. Hawking was destined to take the first step in Wheeler's dream scenario of combining general relativity and quantum mechanics. But he was already feeling the symptoms of a disease that would, in ten years time, put him in a wheelchair and, in twenty years, destroy his ability to speak.\n\n## **The Hawking Era**\n\nA visitor to the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) would find a large photograph of the present Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Stephen Hawking, permanently displayed in DAMTP's modest reception area beside the portraits of two giants of mathematical physics who had previously held this post, Sir Isaac Newton and Paul Dirac \u2013 world-renowned for his work on relativistic quantum mechanics.\n\nAn original copy of Hawking's thesis of 1965 is tucked away, with a few hundred others, in the first-floor library of DAMTP, with most of the equations written in his own hand. This manuscript represents the beginning of a new era in modern cosmology.\n\nHawking had come to Cambridge from Oxford to study with the world-famous cosmologist, Sir Fred Hoyle. But he was disappointed.\n\nWith his characteristic intellectual bravado, Hawking called his doctoral thesis, **Properties of Expanding Universes.** Already in the second line of the thesis abstract, there is a reminder of Hawking's early days at Cambridge. He summarized...\n\nCHAPTER ONE SHOWS THAT THE EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE CALSES GREAT DIFFICULTIES FOR THE HOYLE NARLIKAR THEORY OF GRAVITATIN.\n\nFred Hoyle was the best-known of the three authors of the steady state theory of the Universe, along with Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, two refugees from Nazi Europe.\n\nTHIS MODEL PROPOSES THAT MATTER IS CONTINUOUSLY BEING CREATED AS THE UNIVERSE EXPANDS, IN UTTER DISAGREEMENT WITH THE BIG BANG NOTION OF AN INFINITELY DENSE INITIAL STATE.\n\nIn the early 60s, the steady state model was probably accepted by more astrophysicists and cosmologists than the big bang. Hoyle was particularly upset by aspects of the opposing model. On a BBC radio show in 1950, he had the ignominious distinction of being the first to call it the **Big Bang** \u2013 in derision, of course.\n\nTHIS INSTANTANEOUS CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE IS LIKE A PARTY GIRL BIRTHDAY CAKE, IT'S RIDICULOUS, I CALL IT THE BIG BANG. NOW, ON THE OTHER HAND, MY OWN STEADY STATE THEORY...\n\nTwelve years after this jibe, Hoyle was still developing aspects of gravitation theory at DAMTP, with a postgraduate student named Jayant Narlikar, to support the steady state model.\n\nHawking, who was floundering with his own research in his first months at Cambridge, became interested in Narlikar's calculations and began hanging around his office in the spirit of DAMTP's policy of free inquiry, open discussion and sharing of ideas. Hoyle knew nothing of this.\n\nI WOULD LIKE TO HELP YOU WITH THESE EQUATIONS. THEY ARE FASCINATING. BESIDES, I HAVEN'T FOUND A THESIS PROBLEM YET. I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP STEPHEN, BUT AREN'T YOU WORRIED ABOUT YOUR OWN WORK?\n\nHawking had become more and more involved in Narlikar's difficulties with the project Hoyle had assigned.\n\nAn experienced publicist, Hoyle would often present his ideas in advance of publication, before the work was refereed, in order to keep his name in the newspapers and the research grants coming in. He scheduled a talk at the prestigious Royal Society to discuss his latest ideas based on Narlikar's calculations.\n\nARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS?\n\nTHE QUANTITY YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT DIVERGES. HE MEANS, ANY CONCLUSIONS BASED ON THIS QUANTITY ARE MOST LIKELY WRONG!\n\nOF COURSE IT DOESN'T DIVERGE.\n\nIT DOES!\n\nHOW DO YOU KNOW?\n\nBECAUSE I WORKED IT OUT.\n\nHoyle was furious, as an embarrassed laugh passed through the room. It was a dramatic confrontation between one of the world's best-known cosmologists and the student he had rejected. The session was quickly adjourned.\n\nHawking was indeed right about the divergence of Hoyle's equations, and the new approach was abandoned. Hoyle had essentially had his work \"refereed\" in an open forum by an unknown postgraduate student.\n\nLater, Stephen wrote a paper summarizing the mathematical methods he had used, which established him as a promising young research.\n\nNOW ALL I'VE GOT TO DO IS DECIDE ON A THESIS PROBLEM!\n\nWas this arrogance... or just naked ambition? If it was the latter, it certainly worked. Stephen William Hawking was no longer an unknown postgraduate student.\n\n## **The Unselfish Thesis Supervisor**\n\nDennis Sciama turned out to be a committed thesis supervisor, in the true tradition of the unselfish tutor who stimulates his charges to look for ways to increase their experience.\n\nI KNEW OF STEPHEN'S ILLNESS BUT TREATED HIM LIKE ANY OTHER. WHICH IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT!\n\nHe refused to speed up Hawking's doctoral programme, even when pressured by Stephen's persuasive father.\n\nI STILL WONDER IF STEPHEN WILL EVER FIND A SUITABLE TOPIC FOR HIS THESIS...\n\nSciama developed a unique style of supervising his postgraduate students. He would not share in their work, as many other professors did around the world (he has hardly ever written any joint papers). He does not even choose their topics.\n\nOne of Sciama's important activities was to arrange for his students to attend important seminars. He always seemed to know what was going on. In the mid 60s, the Cambridge group became interested in the work of a young applied mathematician, Roger Penrose, then based at Birkbeck College in London.\n\nAfter graduating from Cambridge and research in the US, Penrose had begun to develop ideas about **singularity theory** , which matched well with the ideas of the Cambridge research group.\n\nALTHOUGH PENROSE WASN'T ONE OF MY FORMER STUDENTS, I DID SEDUCE THE PROLIFIC MATHEMATICIAN INTO WORK IN COSMOLOGY DURING THE LATE 1950 S...\n\nIt was only a few years after John Wheeler had accepted Oppenheimer's solution and the existence of black holes, that Sciama started sharing his enthusiasm with some of his colleagues and students. Penrose, already one of the world's top mathematicians, got a flash of inspiration about these exotic objects from Sciama in a Cambridge coffee shop.\n\nDENNIS, I'M SURE I CAN APPLY MY NEW MATHEMATICAL METHODS IN TOPOLOGY TO THE PROBLEMS OF COLLAPSING STARS...\n\nPenrose was soon able to show that if a star collapses beyond a certain point, it could not re-expand. Within the framework of general relativity, the star could not avoid becoming infinitely dense, i.e. it would form a **singularity** at its centre.\n\nIt was not true \u2013 as many insisted \u2013 that the matter of that star would \"fly past itself\" and expand again. Instead, a singularity of space-time would occur, a point at which time came to an end and the laws of physics broke down. It was the first **singularity theorem.**\n\n## **Something You Need to Know: What is a Singularity?**\n\nGenerally speaking, a singularity is a point at which a mathematical function cannot be defined. The function is seen to diverge to infinitely large values.\n\nFor example, the simple algebraic equation Y = 1\/X has a singularity for value X = 0. If we make positive values of X arbitrarily small, then Y is arbitrarily large in the vertical (or positive) direction.\n\nIf we then plug in arbitrarily small negative values of X, we find Y has an arbitrarily large negative value. Thus, for the smallest change imaginable in the variable X, say from +0.000001 to -0.000001, Y changes from +1 million to -1 million. Clearly at X equals 0, something has gone wrong. This is a mathematical singularity.\n\nIn general relativity, a singularity is a region of space-time in which the curvature becomes so strong that the general relativistic laws break down, and presumably the laws of quantum gravity take over.\n\nIf an attempt is made to describe a singularity using general relativity alone, an incorrect result is obtained: mainly that the curvature and the tidal gravity is infinite at that point. Quantum gravity probably replaces these infinities with \"quantum foam\" \u2013 and merges with the laws of general relativity.\n\nBut this does not mean that singularity points cannot be studied and the physics near these points understood. There are certain singularity theorems that yield important qualitative information under certain conditions. For example, if the mathematics are handled carefully, the proof of the existence of a true singularity can be a result with physical meaning. Thus, the singularity theorems of Penrose and, later, Hawking.\n\nIn the Schwarzschild solution of Einstein's field equations, the critical radius is not a real singularity (in spite of its early description as the Schwarzschild singularity). The physical processes are continuous across the boundary, and a simple change in the mathematical coordinates removes the divergence.\n\nA group of Sciama's students were at Penrose's London seminar when he announced that he had proved that **a singularity definitely exists when a star collapses to form a black hole.**\n\nStephen Hawking was not at Penrose's seminar that day. But the news reached him immediately and made a deep impression.\n\nPENROSE'S RESULTS ARE VERY INTERESTING. I WONDER IF THEY COULD BE ADAPTED TO UNDERSTANDING THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE; THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE AS A GIANT COLLAPSING STAR IN REVERSE. YOU MEAN BY REVERSING THE SENSE OF TIME...\n\nYES. MAYBE THE SAME CONSIDERATION APPLIES AS IN HIS THEOREM FOR STARS. I'M GOING TO TRY TO ADAPT HIS RESULT TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS. OKAY IT SHOULD BE VERY INTERESTING.\n\nHawking had just one year left as a research student, and only now did he have a challenging problem. To adapt Penrose's method, he had to work hard, learn the mathematics involved and write it up as the last chapter in his thesis \u2013 his first singularity theorem for the **beginning of the Universe.**\n\nHawking had shown that if general relativity is correct, there must have been a singularity in the past which was a beginning of time.\n\nA tradition in British universities allows for PhD students to have their thesis examined by their supervisor and another Outstanding external expert chosen by their supervisor.\n\nANYTHING THAT MIGHT EXIST BEFORE THAT SINGULARITY COULD NOT BE CONSIDERED PART OF THIS UNIVERSE. A BRILLIANT PIECE OF WORK. SO GUESS WHO SCIAMA CHOSE TO EXAMINE STEPHEN'S THESIS \u2013 THAT'S RIGHT, ME!\n\nHawking passed and received his PhD in 1965. There were some complications \u2013 like infinite and non-infinite universes \u2013 but over the next few years he developed new techniques to remove these problems.\n\nThis has become generally accepted and today everyone assumes that the Universe started with a big bang \u2013 a highly dense and hot initial state. This is Hawking's major contribution to big bang cosmology, a major result for which he was to become known worldwide. Thus by 1970, five years after receiving his PhD, Stephen Hawking was an internationally known cosmologist.\n\nStephen Hawking has been a proponent of the big bang model since his early days as a postgraduate student. His PhD thesis which criticized Hoyle's steady state model and his proof of a big bang singularity link his name with the success of the latter for all time.\n\nIt is interesting to imagine the recent history of cosmology (or at least the recent history of Stephen Hawking), if his application to study with Hoyle at Cambridge had been approved.\n\nToday, Hoyle and his former student of 30 years ago, Jay Narlikar, are still patching up the steady state model. But it is a dead duck. The world of cosmology has moved on. Perhaps this is best shown by the **Scientific American** article in the October 1994 special issue on the Universe, which promises to become the accepted description of our understanding of the Universe into the next millennium.\n\n## **The Evolution of the Universe**\n\n_Understanding of the evolution of the Universe is one of the great achievements of 20th-century science. This knowledge comes from decades of innovative experiments and theories. Modern telescopes on the ground and in space detect the light from galaxies billions of light-years away, showing us what the Universe looked like when it was young. Particle accelerators probe the basic physics of the high energy environment of the early Universe. Satellites detect the cosmic background radiation left over from the early stages of expansion, providing an image of the Universe on the largest scales we can observe._\n\n_Our best efforts to explain this wealth of data are embodied in a theory known as the standard cosmological model or the big bang cosmology. The major claim of the theory is that in the large-scale average the Universe is expanding in a nearly homogeneous way from a dense early state._\n\n_At present, there are no fundamental challenges to the big bang theory, although there are certainly unresolved issues within the theory itself. Astronomers are not sure, for example, how the galaxies were formed, but there is no reason to think the process did not occur within the framework of the big bang. Indeed, the predictions of the theory have survived all tests to date. **(Scientific American** , October 1994)._\n\n## **1965: a Big Year for Hawking**\n\nHawking married his sweetheart Jane Wilde in Trinity Chapel at Cambridge in July 1965. Though he was now hobbling more and more on his cane, he had his PhD, a devoted and intelligent wife and new mathematical skills to use in cosmology. He also received a fellowship at Caius College to continue work at DAMTP. He was no longer depressed.\n\nAnd still that cocky, determined look on his face which said... I can do anything. Nothing can stop me, not even ALS.\n\n## **An Unstoppable Mind**\n\nStories abound of Hawking's prodigious mental abilities, already apparent in his Oxford undergraduate years.\n\nSeveral fellow students had spent weeks on a major assignment, some thirteen problems from a difficult text, _Electricity and Magnetism_ by Bleaney & Bleaney. They were told to do as many as possible. Most managed to complete only one or two in the time allotted. Characteristically, Hawking left it to the last day. After spending the morning in his room, he emerged to say he was only able to complete the first **ten** of the problems!\n\nOne of the Oxford tutors supervising Hawking's work in statistical physics had assigned several problems from a textbook which Stephen disliked. At the next tutorial he returned, not with the work completed, but with all the mistakes in the textbook marked out. The tutor quickly realized that Hawking knew more about the subject than he did.\n\nNear the end of his term at Oxford and no doubt beginning to feel the effects of ALS, Hawking took a terrible fall down a staircase in the university hall. As a result, he temporarily lost his memory. He could not even remember his name.\n\nAfter several hours of interrogation by his friends, he finally returned to normal but was worried about possible permanent brain damage. To be sure, he decided to take the Mensa test for individuals with superior intelligence. He was delighted to find that he had passed with flying colours, scoring between 200 and 250!\n\nNothing, not even the dreadful illness of ALS, could stop that mind.\n\n## **The Sixties Revolution**\n\nIt is debatable whether or not social historians of the 21st century will continue to analyse and report the decade of the 1960s as a period of great social upheaval and radical change on the Earth.\n\nBut it is certain that historians of science will view the same period as a time of radical change in our understanding of the cosmos. It is already being referred to as the golden age of relativistic cosmology \u2013 and **relativistic cosmology** is where it's at!\n\nHeroes of the 60s \u2013 from the moppet-headed Beatles to the crowd at Woodstock \u2013 have become familiar icons. Similarly, the revolution in cosmology also has its heroes, but they are mostly unknown to the general public.\n\nThe 60s was a time of remarkable progress in observational astronomy, due mainly to major advances in technology and instrumentation. All sorts of observed unusual phenomena led to new models of celestial objects, which can only be described as a revolution in cosmology. The beginning of this revolution can be traced to a crucial meeting at a time and place indelibly marked in the history of the 20th century \u2013 but for a different reason.\n\nIf you ask a sample of over people over fifty years old if they remember **Dallas 1963** , most will immediately describe exactly what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas on 22 November.\n\nBut perhaps one small subset of that group might give an ambiguous response. Of course, they would remember Kennedy's tragic death. But **Dallas 1963** would have another _special_ connotation for the group of three hundred astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmologists and relativists who attended the **First Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics** to mark the discovery of quasars. The symposium was held in Dallas, 16\u201318 December 1963, only three weeks after JFK's assassination.\n\nThe **relativists** , odd-ball specialists who spent their working lives playing around with Einstein's equations, had been invited to join real astronomers and astrophysicists in a dialogue. At last, 25 years after the famous Oppenheimer and Snyder paper on collapsing stars, general relativity was being suggested as a possible explanation for a new physical phenomenon that **had actually been observed by practical working astronomers**.  \nIt was thought that gravitationally collapsed stars (soon to be called black holes) might be producing the massive energy necessary to explain observations on the new and exciting objects called quasars.\n\nThomas Gold, one of the developers of the Steady State Universe, gave the after-dinner speech at the Dallas Symposium.\n\nTHE DISCOVERY OF THE QUASARS ALLOWS ONE TO SUGGEST THAT THE RELATIVISTS AND THEIR SOPHISTICATED WORK ARE NOT ONLY MAGNIFICENT CULTURAL ORNAMENTS BUT MIGHT ACTUALLY BE USEFUL TO SCIENCE! EVERYONE IS PLEASED; THE RELATIVISTS \u2013 WHO FEEL THAT THEY ARE BEING APPRECIATED AND ARE EXPERTS IN A FIELD THEY HARDLY KNEW EXISTED \u2013 AND THE ASTRO \u2013 PHYSICISTS WHO HAVE ENLARGED THEIR EMPIRE BY THE ANNEXATION OF ANO \u2013 THER SUBJECT. GENERAL RELATIVITY. IT'S ALL VERY PLEASING, SO LEFT US ALL HOPE THAT IT IS RIGHT.\n\nIt did turn out to be right, as Hawking himself modestly admits 30 years later.\n\nThere has been a great change in the status of general relativity and cosmology in the last thirty years. When I began research in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at Cambridge in 1962, general relativity was regarded as a beautiful but impossibly complicated theory that had practically no contact with the real world. Cosmology was thought of as a pseudo-science where wild speculation was unconstrained by any possible observations.\n\nThe position today is very different, partly due to the great expansion in the range of observations made possible by modern technology, but also because we have made tremendous progress on the theoretical side.\n\nThis is where i can claim to have made a modest contribution.\n\nBut observations on quasars required completely new observational techniques. So before describing the excitement about quasars, it might be a good idea to review **something you need to know.**\n\n## **Something You Need to Know: the Electro Magnetic Spectrum**\n\nThe **electromagnetic spectrum** sounds very technical because the two words are seldom used outside physical science. The first term, _electromagnetic_ , just means that the waves we will speak of (light, radio, infrared) are made up of vibrating electric and magnetic fields. The second term, _spectrum_ , refers to the range of sizes of the waves, i.e. their wavelengths.\n\nThe EM spectrum refers to all the possible wavelengths of radiation existing in nature. Different-sized waves have different properties and are generated by different physical processes. Furthermore, they must be detected by completely different equipment. The invisible radiation coming from stars and galaxies (in addition to the visible or optical band) gives useful information, though it can't be seen with the unaided eye.\n\nThe wavelengths cover a wide range of values from X-rays (smaller than the distance between atoms) to radio waves (several kilometres in length). The waves all travel at the same speed as light and there is a remarkably simple relationship between the wavelength, the frequency of the source emitting the waves and the speed of transmission:  \n **(wavelength) x (frequency) = (speed of light)**\n\nBefore the 1960s, observational astronomy meant optical (or visible) astronomy only \u2013 looking through telescopes composed of glass lenses or reflecting mirrors and observing with the eye or with very sensitive cameras. Special films did extend measurements into the invisible infrared band with longer wavelengths than visible light.\n\nBut during the late 1950s and 1960s, nearly the whole electromagnetic band became detectable to observational astronomers, such that now we have _radio_ astronomy, _microwave_ astronomy, _infrared_ astronomy, _optical_ astronomy, _ultraviolet_ astronomy, _X-ray_ astronomy and even _gamma-ray_ astronomy.\n\nThe great discoveries of the 1960s came from these extensions of observations outside the visible range, particularly to the longer wavelength microwave and radio bands. **Quasars** and **pulsars** were discovered in the **radio frequency band** and the **cosmic background radiation** was detected in the microwave band. And in the 1970s, **X-ray astronomy** , at the other end of the spectrum, produced the first evidence for the existence of black holes from observations of the constellation Cygnus X-1.\n\nMY ELECTRO \u2013 MAGNETIC THEORY, IN 1867, PREDICTED THE EXISTENCE OF ALL THESE WAVES.\n\n## **1963: Quasars**\n\nCareful observations by radio and optical astronomers in the years 1960 to 1962 showed that there were over a half-dozen bright objects in the sky which were small enough to be stars but had a weird light spectrum \u2013 not like any star seen before.\n\nEveryone was puzzled until 5 February 1963 when astronomers Maartin Schmidt and Jesse Greenstein at Caltech made a discovery.\n\nWE REALIZED THAT THE HYDROGEN SPECTRAL LINES IN THE LIGHT FROM THESE OBJECTS (AN EASY-TO-RECOGNIZE SIGNATURE IN THE SPECTRUM OF A STAR)......HAD BEEN SHIFTED BY A VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE TOWARDS THE RED (LONGER) WAVELENGTH.\n\nMeasurements indicated that these _quasi-stellar objects_ (later to be named _quasars)_ were moving away from the Earth at enormous speeds and therefore must be very, very far away.\n\nTHIS CONCLUSION COMES FROM THE SAME METHODS I USED IN THE 1930 S TO DISCOVER THAT THE UNIVERSE WAS EXPANDING.\n\nThey were first thought to be stars in the Milky Way galaxy, but their discoverers soon argued that these objects were moving away from the Earth as a result of the Universe's expansion. At the enormous distances calculated, their brightness implied they were radiating 100 times more energy than the **most luminous galaxy ever seen.**\n\nWHEN I STARTED THE EARTH WAS NOT EVEN FORMED.\n\nThe only possible explanation for such energies seemed to be the gravitational collapse of stars. That meant general relativity.\n\n## **1965: the Cosmic Background Radiation**\n\nIn 1965, an accidental discovery of mysterious microwaves from outer space turned out to be the first experimental indication that the Big Bang model might be correct. Until that time the model was thought to be something of a joke. Here's how it happened...\n\nThe picture of the Universe as a primordial atom (\"cosmic egg\") by Abb\u00e9 Georges Lema\u00eetre in 1927 led some cosmologists to picture the early universe as a hot, dense, rapidly evolving plasma. One of the more imaginative of these theorists, a free-thinking Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 to the USA named George Gamow, considered the effect of the cooling of this plasma as the Universe expanded.\n\nHe then made one of the most important predictions in the history of science.\n\nTHE UNIVERSE MAY TODAY BE FILLED WITH A COSMIC BACK GROUND RADIATION COMPOSED OF ANCIENT PHOTONS RELEASED BY THE BIG BANG. AFTER CORRECTIONS OF SOME ERRORS IN MY ORIGINAL CALCULATION, IT WAS SHOWN THAT THE TEMPERATURE OF THIS RADIATION SHOULD TO-DAY BE ABOUT FIVE DEGREES ABOVE ABSOLUTE ZERO.\n\nTwo of Gamow's colleagues Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman actually predicted that this radiation could still be detected.\n\nAll hot bodies (i.e. any object which has a temperature) give off continuous electromagnetic waves called thermal radiation, **even** if the temperature is only 5 degrees above absolute zero. The question was how to measure the radiation \u2013 which wavelength band to search.\n\nTo follow this part of the story, there is _**Something Else You Really Need to Know!**_\n\n## **Something You Need to Know \u2014 Thermal Radiation**\n\nCURRENT PHYSICS TEXTBOOKS DEVOTE HARDLY MORE THAN ONE OR TWO PAGES TO IT. YET, TWO VERY IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF MODERN COSMOLOGY REQUIRE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THERMAL RADIATION: THE COSMIC BACKGROUND RADIATION AND STEPHEN HAWKING'S MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERY, BLACK HOLE RADIATION. YOU MUST UNDER \u2013 STAND THERMAL RADIATION.\n\nThe underlying physics of thermal radiation is quite simple, although it did require a radical hypothesis (which began the quantum theory) by Max Planck in 1900 to explain the details. His theory showed how the relative rate of emission of radiant energy (electromagnetic waves) depends on wavelengths at different temperatures. Planck's theoretical curves show that the radiation spreads out and the peak shifts to **longer** wavelengths as the temperature **drops**.\n\n  At 800 degrees centigrade, enough visible radiation is emitted to appear red hot, though most of the energy emitted is in the infrared band.\n\n  At 300 degrees centigrade practically all of the energy emitted is carried by waves longer than red light and are called infrared, meaning _beyond the red._ No radiation is emitted in the visible band.\n\n  At 5 degrees above absolute zero (or minus 268 degrees centigrade) the radiation is completely beyond the infrared in the microwave band and special microwave receivers are required to make the measurements.\n\nSince the shape of the curve is uniquely determined by the temperature of the emitting bodies, measurements at different wavelengths can infer the temperature of the body emitting the radiation. Conversely, if the temperature of the emitting body is known, then the shape and the distribution of the radiation can be predicted from theoretical formulae.\n\nKEEP THIS INFORMATION IN MIND. THIS SIMPLE PHYSICS IS CRUCIAL TO UNDERSTANDING THE RADIATION FROM THE COSMIC BACKGROUND AND FROM BLACK HOLES.\n\nReturning to Gamow's prediction, the theoretical curve for the _thermal radiation distribution_ at 5 degrees above absolute zero indicated that the peak radiation should be in the **microwave** region of the electromagnetic spectrum.\n\nWhile other groups were in the process of planning experiments to look for Gamow's microwaves, they were discovered accidentally by two researchers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, at Bell Telephone Laboratories in northern New Jersey, USA.\n\nDON'T BLAME US! ROBERT, WHAT'S THAT PERSISTENT HISS WE'RE PICKING UP ON OUR MICROWAVE HORN ANTENNA? YEAH, ARNO, IT'S BUILT FOR SATELLITE COMMUNICATION. MUST BE THOSE DAMN PIGEONS?\n\nThe white-hot fireball of the big bang had thinned out and been cooled by the expansion of the Universe. The radiation was still there, though its wavelengths had been stretched by the expansion all the way to the microwave band \u2013 where Penzias and Wilson discovered it.\n\nThough they could only make measurements at a single wavelength, Penzias and Wilson won a Nobel Prize for being the first to experimentally confirm this unique evidence for the Big Bang.\n\nA whole new field of research in cosmology was opened up by this discovery \u2013 studying the origin of the Universe from the **cosmic background radiation.**\n\nThe discovery of the microwave background in 1965 ruled out the Steady State Theory and showed that the Universe must have been very hot and dense at some time in the past. But the observations themselves did not exclude the possibility that the Universe bounced at some fairly large but not extremely high density. This was ruled out on theoretical grounds by the sigularity theorems that Penrose and I proved. We published That Singularities of Gravitational collapse and Cosmology, an all-purpose singlarity theorem which showed that the classical concept of time must have a beginning at a sigularity in the past (i.e. the Big Bang). This theorem also implied that time would come to an end for at least part of spacetime when a star collapsed. Most of my work since then has been concerned with the consequences and implications of these results.\n\nRadio astronomers continued finding many more radio galaxies (i.e. galaxies emitting electromagnetic waves primarily in the radio waveband).\n\nThen in 1967, a Cambridge postgraduate student named Jocelyn Bell detected highly regular sharp pulses at 3.7 metres wavelength from one of these galaxies. The Cambridge radio astronomers thought they had contacted an extra-terrestrial civilization!\n\nGENTLE \u2013 MAN, THESE ARE NO ORDINARY PULSES. IT'S GOTTA BE FROM SOME ORGANISED SOURCE... GOOD LORD! YOU MEAN,. YES LITTLE GREEN MEN!!\n\nThe pulses were very narrow. This meant that the emitter had to be very small, because you can't have a large body emitting short, sharp pulses. The travel time of the radiation from its different parts would smear out the signal. It had to be something highly compact; an object smaller than a few thousand kilometres in size, yet at the distance of a star.\n\nAs the Cambridge radio astronomers announced their results, the DAMTP theorists, Sciama, Hawking, Rees sat smugly at the seminar.\n\nSURELY ANOTHER DISCOVERY WHICH IMPLIES GRAVITATIONAL-LY-COLLAPSED STARS AND GENERAL RELATIVITY. THEY CLEARLY HAD TO BE VERY COMPACT OBJECTS WHICH WERE ROTATING, BUT IT WASN'T CERTAIN WHETHER THEY WERE WHITE DWARFS, ALREADY KNOWN TO ASTRONOMERS, OR WHETHER THEY WERE THE SO CALLED NEUTRON STARS \u2014 VERY MUCH MORE COMPACT THAN WHITE DWARFS, ALMOST IN THE BLACK HOLE STATE.\n\nIt took a few months of discussion before it became clear. Tommy Gold, who had worked earlier on the steady state theory, was the first to make the argument clear.\n\nPULSARS ARE ROTATING NEUTRON STARS AND CAN'T BE ANYTHING ELSE. RADIO WAVES BEAMING OUT OF THE NEUTRON STAR REACH THE EARTH INTERMITTENTLY AS THE STAR ROTATES, SIMILAR TO A LIGHT-HOUSE.\n\n## **Black Holes \u2014 Wheeler Gives the Media a Buzz Word**\n\nAs the 1960s were coming to a close, everyone was talking about _gravitationally collapsed stars._ The **partially** collapsed stars \u2013 white dwarfs and neutron stars \u2013 had become everyday objects to astronomers. But John Wheeler was interested in **massive stars** which collapse **completely.**\n\nI GOT FED UP SAYING \"GRAVITATIONALLY COLLAPSED STARS\". AT A MEETING ON SPACE PHYSICS IN NEW YORK CITY IN 1969, I SIMPLY STARTED CALLING THEM BLACK HOLES.\n\nIt had a magic effect. Everybody immediately began using the term. Even specialists could now know they were speaking about the same thing. In Moscow, Pasadena, Princeton and Cambridge, black holes replaced \"gravitationally completely collapsed stars\".\n\n## **The Age of Black Holes**\n\nThe media went nuts. At least they could encapsulate all this new complicated physics and astronomy in two simple words which fell easily into newspaper columns. Writers picked up on the new buzz word and books appeared on the popular science and sci-fi shelves. On TV, _Star Trek_ had exotic new destinations for its space ships. At dinner parties, scientists were put on the spot to explain black holes to friends. Black holes had become household words... but did anyone really know what they were?\n\nWAS IST EIN SCHWARZES LOCH? ? QUE ES UN AGUJERO NEGRO? WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE? QU' EST-CE QU'UN TRON NOIR?\n\nJUST WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?\n\nBUT HOW DOES NATURE SQUEEZE THOSE ENORMOUS OBJECTS IN THE SKY?\n\nYOU KNOW, I'VE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT STARS WERE MADE OF AND HOW THEY GIVE OFF LIGHT.\n\n## **The Birth and Death of Stars**\n\nStars are formed when the mutual gravitational attraction between molecules floating in space, mostly hydrogen gas, causes lumps to form. As these aggregates coalesce, gravity presses the molecules closer and closer together until they interact under high pressure causing an increase in temperature.\n\nThis process continues until the gas begins to glow and produce EM radiation of all different wavelengths. As the compression increases, the interaction intensifies until the radiation pressure is great enough to stop further gravitational contraction.\n\nThe star then reaches a dynamic equilibrium and shines brightly for several billion years.\n\nBUT WHERE DOES THE STAR GET THE ENERGY TO CONTINUOUSLY HEAT THE MOLECULES AND PRODUCE THE RADIATION?\n\nThis problem was first solved by the great English scientist (perhaps the world's first astrophysicist) Sir Arthur Eddington. His famous monograph **On the Internal Constitution of Stars** explained how a star can be fuelled by a reaction at its core providing the energy to heat continually the gas atoms.\n\nHOWEVER AT THAT TIME I DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS AT THE STAR PRODUCING THE RADIATION. IT WAS LEFT TO THE NUCLEAR PHYSICIST HANS BETHE IN 1938.\n\nI SHOWED THAT A NUCLEAR FUSION REACTION (COMBINING HYDROGEN AND DEUTERIUM TO FORM HELIUM) PRODUCES THE ENERGY. MY MASS\/ENERGY EQUATION E=MC2 SHOWS HOW MUCH ENERGY COULD BE PRODUCED AS SOME OF THE STAR'S MASS IS CONVERTED INTO HEAT AND RADIATION, GRADUALLY BURNING ITS FUEL.\n\nAND THEN WHEN THE FUEL IS EXHAUSTED, GRAVITY TAKES OVER AGAIN AND CRUNCHES THE STAR INTO A BLACK HOLE, RIGHT?\n\n## **How Stars Collapse to Form White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars & Black Holes**\n\n**White Dwarf** (radius-1 ,600 miles)\n\nIf M is less than 1.4, star contracts until gas atoms overlap. Electron repulsion force is enough to stop contraction.\n\n**Neutron Star**  \n(radius\u201316 kilometres)\n\nIf M is greater than 1.4, gravity overcomes electrons' heroic stand and pushes them down into the nucleus. The electrons combine with protons to form neutrons. Neutron repulsion stops contraction if M is less than 3.0.\n\n**Black Hole**\n\nIf M is greater than 3.0 (three times solar mass) nothing can stop the contraction. The star collapses completely and disappears from view. A black hole forms.\n\nTraces of some White Dwarfs have been photographed and blips of rotating Neutron Stars can be detected with radio telescopes. But black holes will never be seen directly.\n\nIn the black hole case, the space curvature is so extreme that, at a particular radius (called the event horizon), the light from the star's surface is bent in on itself, i.e. the rays actually go _into_ the star instead of away from it. The star disappears from view to an outside observer.'\n\nThese circles of decreasing size show how a very massive burnt-out star, as its diameter decreases, passes through an event horizon to form a black hole, ultimately becoming a singularity at its own centre.\n\nThe illustration below presents the same information in a 3-dimensional diagram which includes **time increasing** in the vertical direction.\n\nThis shows the bending of the light paths and indicates how the star's surface has shrunk all the way down to the singularity (right through the event horizon) as the star collapsed.\n\nIt is very important to understand the **path** of the light rays from the surface of the star as it passes through the event horizon.\n\n**Just before the horizon forms** , light rays are bent strongly by gravity and only just leave the star's surface.\n\nA few moments later, when the star is **just inside the event horizon** , the light rays are pulled into the interior of the star towards the singularity at the centre.\n\nBut between these two points, when the star **has just reached the event horizon** , gravity is too strong to let light escape but not strong enough to pull the rays into the interior of the star. The light rays hover just at the surface and this defines the event horizon.\n\nWhat would happen if someone flew into a black hole?\n\nEinstein and the relativists have an answer that outdoes science fiction. According to the Oppenheimer and Snyder solution, anyone who goes through the event horizon must eventually hit the singularity with disastrous results.\n\nHe will be pulled and squeezed \u2013 until, at the centre of the black hole, his body would be stretched infinitely long and his width squashed to zero like a length of spaghetti!\n\nEven the atoms in his body would do the same!\n\nSERVES HIM RIGHT! MY THEORY WASN'T OFF BY THAT MUCH... HOW DO WE KNOW THESE BLACK HOLES EXIST IF WE CAN'T SEE THEM? NOW THAT'S A REALLY GOOD QUESTION...\n\n## **Observational Evidence for Black Holes**\n\nStephen Hawking says there are thousands and thousands of black holes in the Milky Way galaxy alone. But until the day an astronomer is lucky enough to see a well-known star disappear, indirect methods must be used \u2013 such as observations on a binary star system with one visible and one invisible (i.e. the black hole) component. John Wheeler has an interesting metaphor for such a system.\n\nHAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A BALL AND WATCHED THE YOUNG MEN DRESSED IN THEIR BLACK MEN DRESSED IN THEIR BLACK EVENING TUXEDOS AND THE GIRLS IN THEIR WHITE DRESSES WHIRLING AROUND IN EACH OTHER'S ARMS... AND THE LIGHTS ARE TURNED DOWN LOW SO THAT ALL YOU CAN SEE ARE THE GIRLS? WELL, THE GIRL IS THE VISIBLE STAR AND THE BOY IS THE BLACK HOLE. YOU CAN'T SEE THE BOY, BUT THE GIRL WHIRLING AROUND GIVES CONVINCING EVIDENCE THAT THERE MUST BE SOMETHING HOLDING HER IN ORBIT.\n\nIn December 1970, the X-ray satellite _Uhuru was_ launched from the coast of Kenya. Astronomers were about to use still another part of the EM spectrum \u2013 X-rays \u2013 to probe the heavens.\n\nWithin two years, over 300 sources of X-rays were detected. One of these in the constellation Cygnus (now called Cygnus X-1) looked like just the binary-star system the black hole enthusiasts were waiting for.\n\nWith good estimates of the mass of HDE 226868 and reliable observations of the period of revolution, astronomers could calculate the mass of the invisible component -10 times as massive as the Sun. **Too big to be a neutron star, it had to be a black hole.**\n\nTheorists quickly developed a model to explain the X-rays. They believe that the black hole is sucking off matter from its visible partner, forming an accretion disk around itself. The hot inner regions, moving close to the speed of light, produce intense bursts of X-rays shortly before the spiralling matter disappears down the hole.\n\nSince the discovery of Cygnus X-1, a second X-ray satellite launched in 1978 called Einstein has mapped out over 1000 X-ray sources. Only two or three are good candidates for black holes, whereas hundreds more have been identified as neutron stars. Nature seems to prefer the stable neutron state to that of the catastrophic black hole.\n\nX-RAYS BLACK HOLE ACCRETION DISC VISIBLE COMPONENT\n\n## **The 1970s: Hawking and Black Holes**\n\nBy the early 1970s, general relativity and black holes were definitely here to stay. Hawking, by now needing a four-legged walker to get about, was nevertheless poised and ready for action. He was working independently, choosing co-workers from all over the world. He was applying the advanced mathematical techniques introduced by Penrose \u2013 mainly from topology\u2013to the properties of black holes. John Wheeler's group at Princeton, Zeldovich and his students in Moscow and Kip Thorne \u2013 Wheeler's prot\u00e9g\u00e9 now at Caltech \u2013 could not keep up with him. He managed to master these new methods and stay a step ahead. His name became synonymous with black hole research.\n\nThorne became a close friend of Stephen and watched his development very closely.\n\n_In November 1970, Stephen Hawking was just beginning to reach full stride as a physicist. He had made several important discoveries already, but he was not yet a dominant figure. As the 70s began we watched him become dominant. With his severe disability, how has Hawking been able to out-think and out-intuit his leading colleagues\/competitors, people like Roger Penrose, Werner Israel, and Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich?_\n\n_They had the use of their hands; they could draw pictures and perform many page-long calculations on paper \u2013 calculations in which one records many complex intermediate results along the way, and then goes back, picks them up one by one, and combines them to get a final result; calculations that I cannot conceive of anyone doing in his head._\n\n_Hawking's mental pictures and mental equations have turned out to be more powerful, for some kinds of problems, than the old paper-and-pens ones, and less powerful for others, and he has gradually learned to concentrate on problems for which his new methods give greater power, a power that nobody else can begin to match. By the early 1970s, Hawking's hands were largely paralyzed; he could neither draw pictures nor write down equations. His research had to be done entirely in his head. But because the loss of control over his hands was so gradual, Hawking has had plenty of time to adapt. He has gradually trained his mind to think in a manner different from that of the minds of other physicists. He thinks in new types of intuitive mental pictures and mental equations that, for him, have replaced paper-and-pen drawings and written equations._\n\n## **Hawking's Eureka Moment**\n\nOne of the problems on which Hawking has used mental pictures to gain insight was his study of the surface area of black holes. What started as a rather esoteric problem in black hole dynamics, eventually led to his greatest discovery in physics.\n\nAs with Einstein's \"happiest thought\", Hawking too can remember exactly what he was doing when the germ of his best idea came to him.\n\nOne evening in November 1970, shortly after the birth of my daughter Lucy, I started to think about black holes as I was getting into bed. My disability makes this rather a slow process, so I had plenty of time.\n\nHe saw in a flash that **the surface area of a black hole can never decrease** , by considering the paths of light rays hovering just at the event horizon of two black holes. He did not need paper and pen, nor a computer \u2013 the pictures were in his head.\n\nSO MUCH SO THAT I LAY AWAKE MOST OF THE NIGHT.\n\nThe rays of light that form the event horizon, the boundary of the black hole, can never approach each other. Consequently, the area of the event horizon _(i.e. the black hole surface)_ might stay the same or increase with time, but it could never decrease.\n\nOtherwise, it would mean that at least some of the rays of light in the boundary would have to be approaching each other... _which is not possible!_\n\nThis statement may not seem so remarkable. Since nothing can get out of a black hole and **anything** can go in, how could a black hole get smaller anyway? But Hawking's idea was more general. Even if **two** black holes combine, the total surface area will always be equal to or greater than the sum of the two. It can never decrease. He published his result.\n\n**The surface area of a black hole can only stay the same or increase, but can never decrease.**\n\n**Hawking's Law of Area Increase**\n\nSuch a statement... _can never decrease_... immediately gets scientists thinking about the quantity called **entropy** which appears in the second law of thermodynamics: **The entropy (disorder) of a system can only stay the same or increase but never decrease (if the system is isolated and left to reach equilibrium).**\n\n## **The Laws of Thermodynamics**\n\nDuring the 19th century, a set of mathematical relationships were developed by chemists, geologists and physicists which combined several seemingly disparate concepts into a few powerful laws. Such quantities as heat and the energy of motion were shown to be different forms of the same thing \u2013 namely energy \u2013 which had already been used to describe electrical, chemical and magnetic effects. **The total energy available in the Universe (the ultimate isolated system) was a constant and one form could be transformed into another.** This became known as the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.\n\nThe **2nd Law of Thermodynamics** is more subtle but just as profound. In a lecture delivered in 1854, Hermann von Helmholtz pointed out that as time elapsed all energy would eventually be transformed into heat at a uniform temperature and all natural processes would cease. This is the concept of the _heat death_ of the Universe based on the principle of the _dissipation of energy._\n\nAnother way of stating this principle was suggested by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius in 1865.\n\nI INTRODUCED A NEW CONCEPT TO WHICH I GAVE THE NAME ENTROPY, DEFINED IN TERMS OF THE HEAT TRANSFERRED FROM ONE BODY TO ANOTHER.\n\nHe showed that the total entropy of **a system always increases whenever heat flows from a hot body to a cold body** It also increases whenever mechanical energy is changed into internal (thermal) energy, as in certain collisions and frictional processes.\n\nA more general definition of entropy was proposed by the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann in 1878.\n\nACCORDING TO MY DEFINITION ENTROPY DEPENDS ON THE PROBABILITIES OF MOLECULAR ARRANGEMENTS. FOR EXAMPLE, IF A STATE HAS A VERY LARGE NUMBER OF DIFFERENT WAYS ITS MOLECULES CAN BE ARRANGED, THEN IT HAS A VERY LARGE ENTROPY.  \nAN EGG FALLS TO THE FLOOR AND BREAKS. IT IS UNLIKELY TO REFORM INTO ITS ORIGINAL SHAPE.\n\nThe principle of the dissipation of energy (generalized 2nd law of thermodynamics) can now be stated very simply: _The entropy of an isolated system always tends to increase._ What does this mean?\n\n_It means \u2013 heat does not flow by itself from cold bodies to hot bodies; a ball cannot bounce higher than its original position by converting heat into mechanical energy; an egg cannot unscramble itself. If the contrary events were to occur, they would not violate any of the principles of Newtonian mechanics \u2013 but they would decrease the entropy of a system and are thus forbidden by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This law tells time which way to go!_\n\nHow important is this 2nd law of thermodynamics? It should be no less familiar to us than any of the works of Shakespeare, as the writer C.P. Snow remarked in his famous book, **The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.**\n\nTHE HUMANISTS GIVE A PITYING CHUCKLE AT THE NEWS OF SCIENTISTS WHO HAVE NEVER READ A MAJOR WORK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, CALLING THEM IGNORANT SPECIALISTS.  \nPROVOKED, I HAVE OFTEN ASKED HOW MANY OF THEM COULD DESCRIBE THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. THE RESPONSE WAS COLD: IT WAS ALSO NAGATIVE.  \nYET I WAS ASKING SOMETHING WHICH IS ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC EQUIVALENT OF ASKING SOMEONE: \"HAVE YOU EVER READ A WORK OF SHAKESPEARE'S?\"\n\nWHO'S C.P.SNOW?\n\n## **Now Back to Black Holes...**\n\nWhen bodies reach thermal equilibrium, they **have a temperature** and therefore must emit **thermal radiation** , exchanging energy with their surroundings as described on pages 98 and 99\n\nBut everyone knows that black holes do not emit anything \u2013 this is the defining characteristic of a black hole. Though anything can fall _into_ a black hole, nothing gets out \u2013 not even light or any other radiation.\n\nSO IT WAS GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD BY EVERYONE THAT IF BLACK HOLES DON'T REDIATE, THEY CANNOT HAVE A TEMPERATURE, AND THUS CANNOT HAVE ENTROPY. BLACK HOLES ARE CUT OFF FROM THE UNIVERSE AND ARE NOT IN THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM...  \nOR SO EVERYONE THOUGHT.\n\nThat is, until a physics postgraduate student working with John Wheeler in Princeton began to cause trouble.\n\n## **Controversial Birth of a New Idea**\n\nPrinceton New Jersey: John Wheeler and postgraduate student Jacob Bekenstein.\n\nJACOB, IT ALWAYS TROUBLES ME THAT WHEN I PUT A HOT TEACUP NEXT TO COLD TEACUP I HAVE INCREASED THE AMOUNT OF DISORDER IN THE UNIVERSE BY LETTING HEAT FLOW FROM ONE TO THE OTHER. I HAVE INCREASED THE DISORDER, THAT IS, THE ENTROPY, OF THE UNIVERSE. ISN'TTHIS RIGHT?  \nABSOLUTELY PROFESSOR WHEELER, IT IS THE SECOND LAW OF THERMO-DYNAMICS.\n\nBUT SUPPOSE I SEE A BLACK HOLE DRIFTING BY AND I DROP BOTH TEACUPS IN THE BLACK HOLE. THE EVIDENCE IS GONE FOREVER BECAUSE BLACK HOLES CANNOT HAVE ENTROPY, RIGHT? AND NOTHING CAN EVER COME OUT OF A BLACK HOLE.  \nLET ME THINK ABOUT THAT, PROFESSOR WHEELER.\n\nI THINK A BLACK HOLE DOES HAVE ENTROPY AND IT IS THE SAME AS THE SURFACE AREA HAWKING HAS SHOWN \u2013 WHICH ALWAYS INCREASES. I THINK I'M GOING TO WRITE A SHORT PAPER IDENTIFYING THE BLACK HOLE SURFACE AREA WITH THE ENTROPY OF A BLACK HOLE.\n\nMeanwhile back at DAMTP, Stephen Hawking and Brandon Carter are talking about Bekenstein's paper.\n\nI AM VERY DISTURBED. BEKENSTEIN HAS MISUSED MY DISCOVERY OF THE BLACK HOLE AREA INCREASE.\n\nOF COURSE HE HAS. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT IF AN OBJECT HAS ENTROPY IT MUST ALSO HAVE A TEMPERATURE. AND IF IT HAS A TEMPERATURE IT MUST GIVE OFF THERMAL RADIATION.\n\nBUT HOW CAN A BLACK HOLE GIVE OFF RADIATION IF NOTHING CAN ESCAPE FROM A BLACK HOLE? RIDICULOUS.\n\n## **August 1972, Les Houches Summer School on Black Hole Physics**\n\nHigh up on a hillside in the French Alps, Stephen Hawking, James Bardeen and Brandon Carter joined forces to deduce from Einstein's general relativity equations the full set of laws that govern the evolution of black holes. When they were finished, they had produced a set of **laws of black-hole mechanics** that bore an amazing resemblance to the laws of thermodynamics.\n\n**S (entropy) = k 1A (surface area of black hole)**\n\n**T (temperature) = k 2G (surface gravity of black hole) k1 and k2 are constants**\n\nEACH BLACK \u2013 HOLE LAW, IN FACT, TURNED OUT TO BE IDENTICAL TO A THERMODYNAMIC LAW, IF ONE ONLY REPLACED THE PHRASE \"BLACK HOLE' SURFACE AREA\" BY \"ENTROPY,\" AND THE PHRASE \"BLACK HOLE' SURFACE GRAVITY\" BY TEMPERATURE.  \nTHE COINCIDENCES WERE PILING UP.\n\nMeanwhile, Jacob Bekenstein was a student attending the summer school, still convinced that black holes have entropy.\n\nWE KNOW THESE LAWS LOOK LIKE THE LAWS OF THERMO-DYNAMICS... BUT THEY'RE NOT! IT'S JUST A COINCIDENCE. BLACK HOLES ARE UNIQUE OBJECTS. THERMODYNAMICS JUST DOESN'T WORK IN THIS CASE.\n\nWHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE GUYS?  \nDON'T THEY REALIZE HOW FUNDAMENTAL AND IMPORTANT THE SECOND LAW IS?\n\nLOOK AT THAT! PERFECT FIT BETWEEN THE TWO SETS OF LAWS \u2013 THE SURFACE AREA IS DEFINITELY THE BLACK HOLE'S ENTROPY.\n\nAfter the summer school, Bekenstein continued to identify the black hole surface area with entropy in the technical journals. Yet he did not assert that a black hole **has a temperature or that it must emit radiation.**  \nBekenstein was being inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics.\n\nHawking, on the other hand, continued to attack Bekenstein's conclusions, but was becoming increasingly troubled.\n\nSUPPOSE BEKENSTEIN IS RIGHT? I HAVE TO SEARCH FOR A MECHANISM WHICH MIGHT PRODUCE RADIATION FROM A BLACK HOLE.\n\nAll the calculations on black holes had been carried out using approximations based on general relativity theory, correct for macroscopic, i.e. large bodies. These approximations ignored any quantum effects, which surely would seem to be negligible in the case of black holes.\n\nTHEN HAWKING BEGAN TO EXPLORE THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE BLACK HOLE AND THE VACUUM OF INTER \u2013 STELLAR SPACE AND WONDERED HOW THE INTENSE GRAVITY AT THE SURFACE MIGHT AFFECT ANY PARTICLES THAT MIGHT APPEAR THERE, WHETHER REAL OR VIRTUAL.  \nWAIT A SECOND, WHAT IS A VIRTUAL PARTICLE?\n\nTime out for **Something You Need to Know.**\n\n## **The Uncertainty Principle& Virtual Particles**\n\nThe uncertainty principle, as elucidated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, states that there are limits on how accurately we can observe certain physical quantities, such as position, momentum, energy and even time. This is not a limit on our measuring instruments but an inherent characteristic of the Universe, which does not reveal **any** quantity with absolute precision.\n\nThink about the vacuum in outer space. We assume it contains absolutely nothing and thus has zero energy. But we can't be sure of this zero energy because of the same argument. Maybe if we look closely enough we can find _some_ energy \u2013 at least for a short time.\n\nTHE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE IN FACT PREDICTS THAT ENERGY CAN CONTINUOUSLY APPEAR AND DISAPPEAR ON A SCALE DETERMINED BY PLANCK'S CONSTANT (WHCIH IS VERY SMALL). BUT BY EINSTEIN'S EQUATION E=MC2, THIS ENERGY CAN TURN INTO PARTICLES AND ANTI-PARTICLES, POPPING IN AND OUT OF EXISTENCE.  \nTHESE ARE CALLED VIRTUAL PARTICLES FLICKERING EVERYWHERE JUST BELOW THE THRESHOLD OF OBSERVABLE REALITY.\n\nHawking considered what might happen at the surface of a black hole (i.e. at the event horizon), where the intense gravitational field interacts with these virtual pairs. He was in effect combining quantum mechanics and general relativity in a single calculation for the very first time. What he found seemed quite remarkable.\n\nI found that black holes are not completely black. They give off radiation.\n\nIt seems the intense gravity at the surface of the black hole can attract one of the particles of the virtual pair into the hole (negative energy), reducing the mass of the black hole, while the other unpaired particle (positive energy) escapes in the form of radiation and can be detected by an outside observer, i.e. an observer not falling into the black hole.\n\nThe most remarkable aspect of this result was the nature of the radiation. It had a perfect _thermal radiation_ spectrum which meant that black holes were just like any other body in the Universe. It was now clear that black holes not only have entropy but a temperature as well and obey the classic laws of thermodynamics laid down in the late 19th century.\n\nThe science writer Dennis Overbye in his classic book on modern cosmology, **Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos** , produced a wonderful metaphor to describe his feelings about Hawking's discovery.\n\nIt was as if Hawking had popped the hood on a Ferrari and found an antique steam engine chugging away inside.\n\nFreeman Dyson, one of the world's top mathematical physicists, was enchanted with the new theory and wrote a popular essay after Hawking visited the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton.\n\nIN HAWKING'S NEW PICTURE, A BLACK HOLE IS NOT A BOTTOMLESS PIT BUT A PHYSICAL OBJECT. A BLACK HOLE IS NOT BLACK BUT EMITS THERMAL RADIATION AT A CERTAIN DEFINITE TEMPERATURE.  \nA BLACK HOLE IS NOT ABSOLUTELY PERMANENT BUT WILL ULTIMATELY EVAPORATE INTO PURE RADIATION.  \nTHUS STEPHEN BROUGHT BLACK HOLES BACK OUT OF THE DOMAIN OF MATHEMATICAL ABSTRACTION INTO THE DOMAIN OF THINGS THAT WE CAN SEE AND MEASURE.\n\nHawking was reluctant to publish and had only shared his new results with a few close associates.\n\nDennis Sciama, visiting Cambridge from Oxford where he had taken an appointment in the physics department, met another of his former students, Martin Rees, then at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.\n\nDENNIS, HAVE YOU HEARD WHAT STEPHEN HAS DISCOVERED? EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED.  \nWHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?\n\nBLACK HOLES AREN'T BLACK ANYMORE BECAUSE OF STEPHEN'S QUANTUM MECHANIC EFFECT, THEY RADIATE LIKE HOT BODIES.\n\nSTEPHEN, WE ARE ORGANISING A MEETING ON BLACK HOLES IN OXFORD IN A FEW WEEKS. WHY DON'T YOU PRESENT YOUR NEW RESULT ON BLACK HOLE RADIATION?\n\n## **February 1974, The Rutherford- Appleton Laboratory, Oxford**\n\nThe chairman, John Taylor, a well-known mathematics professor and writer of a popular book on black holes, introduces Hawking.\n\nSTEPHEN HAWKING'S TALK TODAY IS ON \"BLACK HOLE EXPLOSIONS?\"\n\nI'M SORRY STEPHEN BUT THIS IS ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.\n\n... so black holes are really not black after all. They have a temperature, an entropy and produce radiation just like any other thermodynamic body. Eventually they explode.\n\nTaylor then stormed out of the session. Hawking sat in shocked silence. He knew his talk would be controversial, but he never expected anything like this.\n\nA month after the meeting at Oxford, Hawking published a paper on the new radiation entitled _Black Hole Explosions?_ in the journal **Nature**. The paper became the topic of discussion in physics departments everywhere and many were sceptical.\n\nFour months later, Taylor and Paul Davies, a colleague at King's College, London, published a retort in the same journal, _Do Black Holes Really Explode?_\n\nNOT EVERYONE WAS SO DISMISSIVE OF HAWKING'S NEW IDEA.\n\nFreeman Dyson compares Hawking's formulas to the epoch-making theory of Max Planck in 1900 which led to the quantum theory.\n\n_Now Hawking has written down an equation which looks rather like Planck's equation. Hawking's equation is S = kA, where S is the entropy of a black hole, A is the area of its surface, and k is a constant. But what does it really mean to say that entropy and area are the same thing? We are as far away from understanding this now as Planck was from understanding quantum mechanics in 1900. All that we can say for certain is that Hawking's equation is a clue to the riddle of black holes. Somehow_ , _we can be sure, this equation will emerge as a central feature of the still unborn theory which will tie together gravitation and quantum mechanics and thermodynamics._\n\n_Perhaps the best way to look at Hawking's discovery is to use another historical analogy. In the year 1900, Max Planck wrote down an equation, E = hv, where E is the energy of a light wave, v is its frequency, and h is a constant which we now call Planck's constant. This equation was the beginning of quantum theory, but in the year 1900 this made no physical sense. It only began to become clear twenty-five years later, when Planck's equation was built into the theory which we now call quantum mechanics._\n\nMAYBE HAWKING'S NEW THEORY WILL PROVIDE THE CLUE TO QUANTUM GRAVITY.\n\nIt is unlikely there has ever been a more powerful demonstration of the self-consistency of physics \u2013 a first step towards quantum gravity. It is the unification of three distinct theories of physics which makes Hawking's Radiation so important.\n\nRecognition of the importance of his work came quickly. Only a few weeks after the paper on black hole radiation was published, Stephen received Britain's highest academic honour. Only 32 years old, he was made a Fellow of The Royal Society, an investiture which made him very proud indeed.\n\nSoon after, Hawking was invited to spend a year away from Cambridge at Caltech, in Pasadena, funded by a special distinguished scholarship, to study cosmology with the eminent American theoretician Kip Thorne.\n\nIn a strange way, this award began a shift in his research from black holes to the beginning of the Universe, a subject of great interest to the Roman Catholic Church.\n\n## **Hawking and the Vatican \u2013 a Modern Day Galileo**\n\nThe powerful Roman Catholic Church has a vested interest in scientific theories about the heavens. For centuries the Church promoted the scientific teachings of Aristotle (a good philosopher but a poor physicist) and the celestial system of Ptolemy which both placed the Earth and Man at the centre of the Universe.\n\nFINALLY IN 1992 THE CHURCH APOLOGISED TO ME. A BIT LATE, PORCA MISERIA!\n\nTo safeguard the church's teaching, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for teaching the ideas of Copernicus' **heliocentrism** that the Sun and not the Earth is at the centre of the solar system.\n\nThirty-three years later, Galileo Galilei was forced to kneel before the Inquisition, with chains of torture rattling in the background, and recant his belief in Copernicanism.  \nLater, he was placed under house arrest in his villa at Arcetri for the remainder of his days.\n\nThe Vatican has since adopted a more subtle approach to scientists who attempt to answer the ultimate questions of the Universe. It now seems happy to court Stephen Hawking, a cosmologist from Protestant England. Why is that?\n\nBECAUSE ROME IS PLEASED WITH THE BIG BANG MODEL. IT TROUBLED SIGNOR FRED HOYLE AND EVEN IL PROFESSORE EINSTEIN, BUT IT APPEALS TO US AS A CREATION EVENT!  \nAFTER ALL, WAS NOT THE CONCEPT FIRST PROPOSED IN 1927 BY A BELGIAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, ABB\u00c9LEMAITRE? DID NOT EINSTEIN HIMSELF SAY IT WAS \"BEAUTIFUL\"?\n\nThe Church was quick to accept the idea (i.e. by Vatican standards). On 22 November 1951, at the opening of a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope Pius XII declared that Lema\u00eetre's idea _accorded with the Catholic concept of creation._ Consequently, any scientist supporting the big bang would certainly be a friend of Rome.\n\nOUR YOUNG FRIEND, IL DOTTORE STEPHEN HAWKING, PROVED IN 1970 THAT EINSTEIN'S GENERAL RELATIVITY DEMANDS THAT ALL THE MATTER AND ENERGY IN THE UNIVERSE MUST AT ONE TIME HAVE BEEN COMBINED IN A SINGLE POINT \u2013 THE SINGULARITY PERFETTO!  \nTHAT'S AS CLOSE AS SCIENCE WILL GET TO IDENTIFYING THE HAND OF GOD!  \nSO IT'S ONLY RIGHT THAT THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY SHOULD AWARD THE EXCELLENT HAWKING WITH IT'S POPE PLUS XI MEDAL, NO?\n\nI was in two minds whether to accept, because of Galileo. When I arrived in Rome to receive the award, I insisted on being shown the record of Galileo's trial in the Vatican Library.\n\nBy the late 1970s, Hawking had realized that general relativity is not valid at the moment of the big bang, because of the uncertainty principle, and he was exploring the combination of general relativity and quantum mechanics. He was already beginning to think like a heretic.\n\nBut he was back in Rome in 1981, invited to a conference on cosmology organized by the Vatican. By now he had a new area of research, the beginning of the Universe. The paper he gave had a highly technical title.\n\nMy interest in the origin and fate of the Universe was reawakened when I attended a conference on cosmology in the Vatican in 1981. Afterwards, we were granted an audience with the Pope, who was just recovering from an attempt on his life.\n\nIT'S ALL RIGHT TO STUDY THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE AFTER THE BIG BANG, BUT DON'T INQUIRE INTO THE BIG BANG, ITSELF, BECAUSE THAT'S THE MOMENT OF CREATION AND THEREFORE THE WORK OF GOD.\n\nIn his talk, Hawking suggested that space and time were finite in extent but were closed up on themselves without boundaries or edges. This has become known as the No Boundary Proposal. If this theory is correct, there would be no singularities and the laws of science would hold everywhere, including at the beginning of the Universe.\n\nIt was not immediately obvious that my paper had implications about the origin of the Universe, because it was rather technical and had the forbidding title, 'The Boundary Conditions of the Universe'.\n\nHawking had begun to work seriously on the early Universe, a subject which has dominated his thinking to the present day. In the paper he gave at the Vatican, he introduced the **No Boundary Proposal** , his latest and most radical idea. It was an attempt to apply quantum theory to the singularity at the beginning of the Universe.\n\n## **Why Do We Need Quantum Theory?**\n\nIn the big bang model of the Universe, the general theory of relativity provides a reliable programme for describing the evolution of our Universe from just moments after time = 0 to the present day. However, thanks to Hawking, we now know that, at the starting point, general relativity predicts a singularity and the theory breaks down. It is a _classical theory_ and time and space cannot be described by Einstein's equations when matter is crunched together at such unbelievable densities. **How can physics predict the beginning of the Universe if all the laws break down at the big bang?** Quantum theory must be used.\n\n## **Quantum Cosmology**\n\nStarting with this question, Hawking and his collaborator, Jim Hartle of the University of California, have used the No Boundary Proposal to develop a new idea in **quantum cosmology.** Unlike previous approaches, Hawking and Hartle (hereafter H & H) have used imaginary time to study the singularity at the big bang.\n\nThe reasoning goes like this. At its birth, the Universe is entirely within the quantum state. So H & H treat the Universe as a single quantum system and try to determine its **wave function.** In other words, they are applying standard quantum mechanical principles to the whole Universe \"before\" the big bang starts.\n\nTHIS IS HAWKING'S MOST SERIOUS ATTEMPT TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT EINSTEIN COULD NOT AFTER REACHING THE AGE OF FIFTY, LAY ONE MORE GOLDEN EGG!  \nARE YOU LOST? NO WONDER TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THIS PROPOSAL MAKES THE BIG BANG SEEM LIKE CHILD'S PLAY. BUT LET'S PROCEED...\n\n## **Quantum Gravity or TOE**\n\nThe search is called _quantum gravity_ , or TOE, the _theory of everything \u2013_ a term irritating to most physicists. Attempts so far, by particle physicists and relativists, have yielded few results.\n\nJUST AS I DID WHEN I QUANTIZED THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FIELD INTO PHOTONS IN MY THEORY OF QUANTUM ELECTRO-DYNAMICS.  \nQUANTIZED FIELDS: CAN IT WORK FOR GRAVITATION?  \nRICHARD FEYNMAN (1918 \u2013 1988)\n\nAs usual, Hawking is taking a different approach to the problem. Not **quantum gravity** , but his own **quantum cosmology** , finding the wave function for the Universe. This is based on his No Boundary Proposal.\n\nIt has always profoundly disturbed me that if the laws of physics could break down at the beginning of the Universe, they could also break down anywhere else. That's why we have developed the No Boundary Proposal which removes the singularity at the beginning of the Universe.\n\nBut there is a problem with cosmology because it can not predict anything about the Universe without an assumption about the initial conditions. All one can say is that things are as they are _now_ because they were as they were at an earlier stage.\n\nMany people believe that this is how it should be and science should be concerned only with laws which govern how the Universe evolves in time. They feel that the initial conditions for the universe that determine how the Universe _began_ is a question for metaphysics or religion rather than science.\n\nYES LEAVE IT TO RELIGION, AS I SAID BACK IN 1981!\n\n## **Quantum Cosmology and Complex Time**\n\nSo what's new about Quantum Cosmology? Well, H & H have used the mathematical trick of complex time to examine **all possible** universes that might form from the initial quantum state. Time is divided into two separate components, one imaginary and one real. Unlike real time, the imaginary component does not vanish at the big bang and the theory is thus useful at the singularity. Standard quantum mechanical procedures are then used to arrive at a wave function for the Universe.\n\n### **COMPLEX TIME NEAR THE BIG BANG SINGULARITY.**\n\nBut what are standard quantum mechanical procedures? For that matter, what is a **wave function?**\n\nTHIS MOST LIBIQUITOUS VARIABLE OF ALL MODERN PHYSICS \u2013 THE WAVE FUNCTION COMES DIRECTLY FROM THE EARLY QUANTUM THEORY.  \nIT WAS THE BRAINCHILD OF THE VIENNESE PHYSICIST, ERWIN SCHR\u00d6DINGER.\n\n## **Waves and Particles: Nature's Joke on the Physicists**\n\nExperiments have shown that a wave\/particle duality exists in Nature. For example, a light beam produces interference effects (acts like a wave) but also kicks electrons out of the surface of a metal (acts like a particle). Similarly, electrons exhibit all sorts of particle properties, yet a beam of electrons produces a diffraction pattern (waves) when sent through a fine comb-like grating. This duality is a basic fact of the physical world and we must live with it. It is a consequence of the well-known _uncertainty principle_... or vice-versa.\n\nIn the 1920s, the early heroes of quantum mechanics \u2013 Heisenberg, Schr\u00f6dinger, Bohr and Born \u2013 developed a mathematical language which described both properties \u2013 wave and particle \u2013 at the same time. The most elegant form of this language was an equation due to Schr\u00f6dinger, the solution of which \u2013 the wave function \u2013 determines the behaviour of a system of **particles.**\n\nIF THE FORCES AND BARRIERS ENCOUNTERED BY EACH PARTICLE ARE KNOWN IN THE CLASSICAL SENSE FOR A PARTICULAR SYSTEM, MY EQUATION CAN IMMEDIATELY BE WRITTEN DOWN. THE SOLUTION THEN GIVES INFORMATION ABOUT THE SYSTEM AT ALL POINTS IN SPACE AND AT ALL TIMES.  \nWUNDERBAR, JA!\n\n## **The Strange World of Quantum Mechanics**\n\nBut what is a wave function? What exactly is waving?\n\nHere is what Max Born proposed (ironically, following an idea of Einstein's).\n\nTHE WAVE FUNCTION, WHICH PERMEATES THE SPACE AROUND THE NUCLEUS OF AN ATOM AND DESCRIBES THE BEHAVIOUR OF A SYSTEM OF PARTICLES, IS A PROBABILITY WAVE!IT INDICATES WHERE THE PARTICLES MIGHT BE.\n\nOne of the simplest problems to solve using quantum mechanics is the hydrogen atom. When the Schr\u00f6dinger equation is solved for this case, the resulting wave function determines the probability of each energy state of the atom since it gives the probability of finding the electron at various distances from the nucleus. The nucleus is enveloped in a probability cloud, instead of precise planetary-type electron orbits of the classical atom.\n\nWHERE THE PROBABILITY CLOUD SURROUNDING THE HYDROGEN ATOMIC NUCLEUS IS DENSE, ONE IS MORE LIKELY TO FIND THE ELECTRON, BUT ONE CAN NEVER SAY EXACTLY WHERE IN THE ATOM THE ELECTRON IS LOCATED AT ANY ONE INSTANT. ALL ONE CAN SPECIFY IS THE PROBABILITY THAT IT WILL BE IN VARIOUS PLACES.\n\n## **Quantum Cosmology: Applying Schr\u00f6dinger's Equation to the Universe**\n\nIs Hawking a bold thinker? Instead of **electron orbits** in the atom, think of **cosmological models** of the Universe. General relativity allows a variety of models: some expand from a point to a maximum size, then back to a point again; others expand forever; others expand differently in different directions. Yet all satisfy Einstein's equations.\n\nJust as Schr\u00f6dinger replaced classical electron orbits with wave functions that described the probability of an electron doing one thing or another, so Hawking and Hartle assign individual cosmological models a wave function that indicates the probability of the Universe having one particular geometry or another.\n\nBY CHOOSING ONLY UNIVERSES WITH NO BOUNDARIES \u2013 EITHER IN SPACE OR TIME \u2013 H & H OBTAIN RESULTS WHICH SEEM CONSISTENT WITH OBSERVATIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE.\n\n**Closed** universes satisfy this restriction. They are finite but have no edges, something like the two-dimensional surface of the Earth. They expand, come to a halt, then fall back to the same state like the points on the rim of the bowl shown in the sketch.\n\nDepicted in this way, **closed** universes would have a beginning and an end, and would therefore have boundaries only in **real** time. The imaginary component, however, is continuous. So, H & H make the initial and final singularities of the closed Universe disappear.\n\nThey also demonstrate that **uniform** universes are the most probable and end up predicting that our Universe is both **closed** and **uniform -** finite sphere of space-time with no edges.\n\n## **DAMTP: 17 February 1995**\n\nAs Hawking told the author only six weeks before this book was published...\n\nThe No Boundary Proposal predicts a Universe that starts out in a very smooth and ordered way. It expands by _inflation_ first, then goes over to the standard _hot big bang_ model, further expanding to a maximum radius before collapsing to a _big crunch_ singularity in a disordered and irregular way.\n\nReal time ends at that point, but the universe continues to be.\n\nYOUR THEORY PREDICTS THAT A CLOSED AND UNIFORM UNIVERSE IS THE MOST PROBABLE AND THAT DENSITY VARIATIONS SHOULD EXIST IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE DUE TO QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS.  \nIT SEEMS LIKE THIS NO BOUNDARY PROPOSAL IS YOUR THIRD GOLDEN EGG...\n\nCalculations carried out so far on simple models indicate that a No Boundary Proposal Universe would be very much like our own. In addition, it would incorporate certain important ideas from contemporary cosmology \u2013 such as **inflation** and **quantum fluctuations.** Even the **anthropic principle** seems to fit. If you can understand these last three concepts, you should have a very good picture of Stephen Hawking's Universe. Not bad for a beginner!\n\n## **Inflation**\n\nIn the late 1970s, a new concept of **inflation** was introduced which proposed that the Universe expanded from an initial state smaller than a proton to a macroscopic size about ten metres across in only a fraction of a second. The rate of expansion was enormous. The idea solved two problems which had been nagging cosmologists for years.\n\n**1.** Why is the Universe so flat, i.e. shows no evidence of curvature?\n\n**2.** Why is the cosmic background radiation so uniform?\n\n**1.** The first of these questions implies that the mass density of the Universe is perfectly tuned to the critical value from its earliest expansion, a mind-boggling proposition (see here). But a rapid expansion at the beginning would flatten out the Universe to the critical mass density as a simple diagram can show.\n\n**2.** Inflation can also explain why the background radiation is so uniform. When the Universe was of infinitesimal size, all matter and energy was homogeneous, since everything was connected to everything else. As inflation took place, the homogeneity that existed at that early instant was spread across the much larger Universe, which continued to expand. Thus, when matter and radiation de-coupled about 300,000 years later, the Universe was still amazingly uniform.\n\n## **Inflation and Quantum Fluctuations**\n\nThe inflation that smoothed out the early Universe could also produce small density variations which might explain galaxy formation. Recall from our discussion of virtual particles on page 136 that if we look closely enough at any physical system \u2013 even a vacuum \u2013 we observe the effects of **quantum fluctuations.**\n\nInflation does not erase these quantum fluctuations but establishes them as **density variations** which appear as ripples of matter-energy across space-time. These ripples should then be imprinted on the background radiation as tiny temperature variations.\n\nThese temperature variations are precisely what George Smoot and his Berkeley-NASA team were looking for with the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE) experiment launched in 1989. We need one more bold concept...\n\n## **The Anthropic Principle**\n\nThe anthropic principle is a quasi-metaphysical notion which implies that, if a particular universe does not take on fundamental constants of Nature which allow for the existence of life and the development of intelligence, there will never be anyone to report on its properties. That is why our Universe seems so right to us, it's tuned perfectly.\n\nAlthough many scientists rubbish this idea, no less an authority than Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg (who wrote the seminal book on the early Universe, **The First Three Minutes** ) believes that **quantum cosmology** provides a context in which the anthropic principle becomes simple common sense. **The most probable universe is the one that we're in!** As Voltaire's absurd philosopher Pangloss keeps telling Candide, \"We live in the best of all possible worlds.\"\n\n## **Hawking's Nobel Prize**\n\nStephen Hawking has received just about every award and honour which can be given to a scientist. Naturally, the question arises whether he will be awarded the most famous of all \u2013 an invitation to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics.\n\nONE MAY EVEN ASK WHY HE HAS NOT RECEIVED IT ALREADY.\n\nThere are complications. First of all, the award is only rarely given for work in astronomy or cosmology rather than pure physics. The second obstacle is more serious. Alfred Nobel was a very practical man (he made his fortune from patents on the explosive TNT) and insisted that to be eligible, theoretical discoveries must be verified by experiment.\n\nFor cosmologists like Hawking, whose laboratory extends to the most remote regions of the Universe, experimental verification may never be possible or, at best, take decades.\n\nLet's review Hawking's major theoretical discoveries which might win him the Nobel Prize.\n\n**1.** Using General Relativity, Hawking and Penrose showed that the classical concept of time must have begun with a singularity at the Big Bang and thus the Universe existed at one time in a hot, dense state.\n\n**2.** In 1974, he discovered that black holes radiate like thermodynamic bodies (now called **Hawking Radiation** ) and possess a temperature (proportional to their surface gravity) and an entropy (proportional to their surface area).\n\n**3.** He presented a model for the early Universe called the **No Boundary Proposal** with Jim Hartle which predicts density variations in the early Universe due to quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.\n\nIronically, **Hawking Radiation** , his most significant work, seems an unlikely candidate for the Nobel award as it seems impossible to detect.\n\nHowever, both the Big Bang singularity (hot, dense state of the Universe) and quantum fluctuations (seeds for galaxy formation) could be proved if very accurate **absolute** and extremely sensitive **differential** measurements were made of the cosmic background radiation.\n\nThat is exactly what the COBE project did between 1989 and 1992.\n\n## **COBE: the Greatest Discovery of All Time (?)**\n\nCOBE took twelve years to design and carry out, but the results were nothing short of spectacular. Launched in 1989, the instruments took only 8 minutes to verify the conclusions based on the 1964 measurements of Penzias and Wilson, but this time at many different wavelengths. The data traced out a near perfect thermal radiation curve (see here) for a background temperature of 2.736 degrees C above absolute zero.\n\nThis was COBE I which used an _absolute_ microwave radiometer calibrated by a bath of liquid helium on board the satellite. The results proved without a doubt that the detectors were looking at the remnant of the hot, dense state of the early Universe which we call the big bang. Such a curve would have thrilled Max Planck, as it did the American Astronomical Society when first presented in 1990.\n\n### ****COBE MEASUREMENTS OF BACKGROUND RADIATION.****\n\nBut the big news was still to come. COBE II used a sensitive _differential microwave radiometer_ (DMR) which doesn't measure the absolute temperature of the radiation at a given point in the sky; rather, it measures the **difference** in temperature between two points. The COBE I single antenna gives the answer: \"The temperature at point A is 2.725 degrees.\" But the COBE II dual-antenna _differential_ radiometer gives the answer: \"The temperature difference between point A and point B is 0.002 degrees.\"\n\n### **THE COBE SPACECRAFT**\n\nThis was George Smoot's project \u2013 to look for evidence of ripples in the space-time of the 300,000-year-old Universe. In April 1992, after more than two years of data collecting and analysis, Smoot and his team made a dramatic announcement. The COBE satellite had detected tiny temperature variations of the order of about one-hundred-thousandth of a degree in the background radiation.\n\nACCORDING TO COMPUTER GENERATED PLOTS OF THE ENTIRE SKY, THE TEMPERATURE WAS MINUTELY HIGHER IN THE DIRECTION OF THE LARGE GALACTIC CLUSTERS AND SLIGHTLY LOWER IN THE GREAT COSMIC VOIDS.\n\nIt now seemed possible for theorists to explain some of the structures seen in today's Universe in terms of events which took place billions of years ago. The report was greeted with an enthusiastic media response all over the world.\n\nIF YOU'RE RELIGIOUS IT'S LIEK SEEING GOD.\n\nBoth Hawking and Smoot made statements which together just about covered the two ends of the emotional spectrum. Smoot is a religious man and has accepted the big bang as a creation event. COBE's results moved him emotionally.\n\nHawking sees things differently. To him, the variations in the background radiation seen by COBE are simply evidence for the presence of quantum fluctuations in an inflationary Universe consistent with his No Boundary Proposal. Any wonder he's smiling.\n\nCOBE's success is seen by most scientists to be a stunning confirmation of big bang cosmology. But the game is not yet up. The final solution to the mysteries of the beginning and structure of the Universe may be much more complicated.\n\nThe Earth-centred cosmos of Aristotle and Ptolemy, the Sun-centred system of Copernicus, Le Ma\u00eetre's Cosmic Egg and Hawking's No Boundary Proposal are just steps along the way to deeper understanding of the Universe and our place in it. The journey is everyone's to contemplate, to understand, to enjoy.\n\n**Stephen William Hawking, cosmologist \u2014 an example of _homo sapiens circa_ AD 2000 \u2014 certainly has done his part.**\n\n## **Further Reading**\n\n**Books about Hawking**\n\n**Stephen Hawking, A Life in Science** , Michael White and John Gribbin, New York, Plume Books (Putnam).\n\n**Stephen Hawking, Quest for a Theory of Everything** , Kitty Ferguson, New York, Bantam Books 1992.\n\n**Development of Classical Astronomy**\n\n**The Sleepwalkers** , Arthur Koestler, New York, Grosset & Dunlap 1959. **Coming of Age in the Milky Way** , Timothy Ferris, New York, Anchor Books 1989.\n\n**New Cosmology\/Black Holes**\n\n**A Brief History of Time** , Stephen Hawking, New York, Bantam Books 1988.\n\n**The First Three Minutes** , Steven Weinberg, New York, Bantam Books 1984.\n\n**Black Holes and Time Warps** , K. S. Thorne, New York, W. W. Norton & Co. 1994.\n\n**Black Holes and Warped Spacetime** , W. M. Kaufmann, San Francisco, W. H. Freeman 1979.\n\n**Black Holes** , Jean Pierre Luminet, New York, Cambridge University Press 1992.\n\n**In Search of the Big Bang** , John Gribbin, New York, Bantam Books 1986.\n\n**Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos** , Dennis Overbye, New York, Harper Collins 1991.\n\n**COBE**\n\n**Wrinkles in Time** , George Smoot and Keay Davidson, New York, Avon Books 1994.\n\n## **Acknowledgements**\n\nI was encouraged at the outset by a conversation with Dennis Sciama last summer in Oxford and by the publication of Kip Thorne's book which was heaven sent. John Gribbin's books and his regular column in the _New Scientist_ have been very helpful. Special thanks to John Wheeler, Freeman Dyson, Jacob Bekenstein and Simon Shaffer for useful points of reference and graphics. I discussed quantum cosmology with Chris Isham and he also read a draft manuscript just before going to press.\n\nMy time at DAMTP was essential to develop a fresh insight into the Hawking story. The staff in the department, Ms Sue Masey in particular, were most cooperative with my many requests. Jane Hawking provided some helpful background material and also read the manuscript before publication.\n\nOn the home front my family has been most supportive, especially my wife Pat, who for the past seven months has given me the psychological and intellectual space I needed to tell this story. She knows about such things.\n\nMy colleague Maryke Brecher covered up for my mysterious disappearances when the going got tough and Kathy Black helped me meet (almost) every deadline with her formidable keyboard skills.\n\nA very special thanks to Stephen Hawking who endorsed this project from the beginning and slotted me into his tight schedule on numerous occasions for discussion and advice. Stephen affects most people who work with him and I am no exception. Watching him communicate has taught me to be more concise, more accurate and more clear in everything I do. Also, I hope I shall never allow trivial ailments like a headache or fatigue to interrupt any worthwhile endeavour.\n\nOscar Zarate has made this book different from any other book on physics or astronomy that I have ever seen. The goal was to illustrate every idea I deemed important, no matter how abstract \u2013 to get both sides of the brain working. To achieve this, he read dozens of books on physics and astronomy and listened with rapt interest to my late night discourses as the book's outline took shape. I hope it has worked!\n\nJ.P. McEvoy, London, March 1995\n\nOscar Zarate thanks Judy Groves for her help with the diagrams, Woodrow Phoenix for his lettering, Marta Rodrigues for screening the photos and Bill Mayblin for his advice on the graphics.\n\n**J.P. McEvoy** received his Ph.D. in physics at Imperial College, University of London, 1968. For twenty-five years, active in physics research and teaching at RCA, Clark University and the American School in London, he has published over 50 technical papers and has recently been involved in science journalism and multi-media development for educational television. He is also the author of _Introducing Quantum Theory._\n\n**Oscar Zarate** has illustrated introductory guides to Freud, Quantum Theory, Mind & Brain, Machiavelli, Melanie Klein, Lenin and the Mafia. He has also produced many acclaimed graphic novels, including _A Small Killing_ , which won the Will Eisner Prize for best graphic novel of 1994, and has edited _It's Dark in London_ , a collection of graphic stories, published in 1996.\n\n**Photography by Mark McEvoy and David Simmonds.\n\nTypesetting by Wayzgoose.**\n\n## **Index**\n\nanthropic principle ref 1\n\nBekenstein, Jacob ref 1, ref 2\n\nBell, Jocelyn ref 1\n\nBethe, Hans ref 1, ref 2\n\nbig bang theory ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7,ref 8, ref 9\n\nbig crunch ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nblack holes ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7\n\nfinding ref 1, ref 2\n\nHawking ref 1, ref 2, ref 3ff\n\n_see also_ gravitational collapse\n\nBoltzmann, Ludwig ref 1\n\nBorn, Max ref 1\n\nCatholic Church ref 1, ref 2\n\nCOBE satellite ref 1, ref 2\n\ncomplex time ref 1\n\ncosmic radiation ref 1\n\ncosmological constant ref 1\n\ncosmology ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nDyson, Freeman ref 1, ref 2\n\neclipse ref 1, ref 2\n\nEddington, Arthur S. ref 1, ref 2\n\nEinstein, Albert ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\n_see also_ relativity theory\n\nelectromagnetic spectrum ref 1\n\nentropy ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nequivalence principle ref 1\n\nevent horizon ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nFeynman, Richard ref 1\n\nFriedmann, Alexander ref 1, ref 2\n\nGalilei, Galileo ref 1\n\nGamow, Georges ref 1\n\ngeodesics ref 1\n\nGod ref 1\n\nGold, Thomas ref 1, ref 2\n\ngravitation ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\n_see also_ space curvature\n\ngravitational collapse ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8\n\ngravity ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5\n\nHalley, Edmund ref 1, ref 2\n\nHartle, Jim ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nHawking, Stephen\n\nborn ref 1\n\nillness ref 1, ref 2\n\nintelligence level ref 1\n\nmarried ref 1\n\nNobel Prize? ref 1, ref 2\n\nPope Pius medal ref 1, ref 2\n\nRoyal Society ref 1\n\nthesis ref 1, ref 2\n\nHawking's law of area\n\nincrease ref 1\n\nHeisenberg, Werner ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nHoyle, Fred ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nHubble, Edwin ref 1, ref 2\n\ninflation ref 1, ref 2\n\nKepler, Johannes ref 1\n\nlaw of motion ref 1\n\nlaws of\n\nblack hole mechanics ref 1\n\nthermodynamics ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nLema\u00eetre, Abb\u00e9 ref 1, ref 2\n\nmass ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5\n\nMercury, perihelion ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nmicrowaves ref 1, ref 2\n\nmotor neurone disease ref 1, ref 2\n\nNarlikar, Jayant ref 1\n\nneutron stars ref 1, ref 2,\n\nref 1, ref 2\n\nNewton, Isaac ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nlaw of motion ref 1\n\nNo Boundary Proposal ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6,\n\n_On the Internal Constitution of Stars_\n\nOppenheimer, J. Robert ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\npartial theories ref 1\n\nparticles ref 1\n\n_see also_ virtual particles\n\nPenrose, Roger ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nPenzias, Arno ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nPlanck, Max ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nPlanck's constant ref 1\n\n_Principia_ ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nprinciple of equivalence ref 1\n\npulsars ref 1, ref 2\n\nquantum\n\ncosmology ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nfluctuations ref 1\n\ngravity ref 1, ref 2\n\nmechanics ref 1\n\ntheory ref 1\n\nquasars ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\nradiation ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nrelativity theory ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5\n\nsatellites ref 1, ref 2\n\nSchr\u00f6dinger, Erwin ref 1\n\nSchwarzchild\n\ngeometry ref 1, ref 2\n\nradius ref 1\n\nSchwarzchild, Karl ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nSciama, Dennis ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5\n\n_Singularities of Gravitational Collapse_ ref 1\n\nsingularity ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\n_see also_ black holes\n\nSmoot, George ref 1, ref 2\n\nsolar eclipse ref 1, ref 2\n\nsystem ref 1\n\nspace curvature ref 1, ref 2\n\nSchwarzchild ref 1, ref 2\n\nsingularity ref 1, ref 2\n\nstars ref 1, ref 2\n\nsteady state theory ref 1\n\nTaylor, John ref 1\n\ntheory of everything ref 1\n\nthermal radiation ref 1, ref 2\n\nblack holes ref 1\n\nthermodynamics, laws of ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nblack holes ref 1\n\nThorne, Kip ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nuncertainty principle ref 1, ref 2\n\nuniverse\n\nbeginnings ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nevolution ref 1\n\nexpanding ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nflat ref 1, ref 2\n\nhistory ref 1\n\n_see also_ big bang theory\n\nuniverses, other ref 1, ref 2\n\nvacuum solution ref 1\n\nvirtual particles ref 1, ref 2\n\nwave function ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nwavelengths ref 1, ref 2\n\nWeinberg, Steven ref 1\n\nWheeler, John ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6\n\nwhite dwarf ref 1, ref 2\n\nWilde, Jane ref 1, ref 2\n\nWilson, Robert ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n**Many Introducing Graphic Guides are now available in ebook format - including the titles below. Check in at introducingbooks.com\/ebooks\/ to keep up to date with more titles as they are published in ebook format.**\n\n**9781848317567 - Introducing Psychology**\n\n**9781848317574 - Introducing Quantum Theory**\n\n**9781848317581 - Introducing Philosophy**\n\n**9781848317598 - Introducing Freud**  \n*not available in North America\n\n**9781848317604 - Introducing Postmodernism**\n\n**9781848317611 - Introducing Logic**\n\n**9781848317628 - Introducing Nietzsche**\n\n**9781848317635 - Introducing Marxism**\n\n**9781848317642 - Introducing Particle Physics**\n\n**9781848317659 - Introducing Capitalism**\n\n**9781848317666 - Introducing Chaos**\n\n**9781848317673 - Introducing Ethics**\n\n**9781848317680 - Introducing Buddha**\n\n**9781848317697 - Introducing Foucault**\n\n**9781848317703 - Introducing Relativity**\n\n**9781848317710 - Introducing Linguistics**\n\n**9781848317727 - Introducing Time**\n\n**9781848317734 - Introducing Statistics**\n\n**9781848317741 - Introducing Islam**\n\n**9781848317758 - Introducing Continental Philosophy**\n\n**9781848317765 - Introducing Slavoj Zizek**\n\n**9781848317789 - Introducing Economics**\n\n**9781848317796 - Introducing Melanie Klein**\n\n**9781848317802 - Introducing Critical Theory**\n\n**9781848317819 - Introducing Genetics**\n\n**9781848317826 - Introducing Feminism**\n\n**9781848317833 - Introducing Fractals**\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}