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  “He sends his love,” Grace said.

  “We got an e-mail from him. He was so sorry to be missing the holiday,” her father added.

  “You got an e-mail from Laz?” Grace asked.

  “From my favorite son-in-law. Just this morning.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said to save him some leftovers,” he answered. Grace felt like running to the computer to see if he’d sent her one, too.

  “Just like his father,” Laz’s mother said. She looked Grace up and down. “I see you’re wearing the outfit I bought you. They love me at that thrift shop. I know the good stuff when I see it.”

  “It’s secondhand?” Bert inquired, having spent so many hours waiting for Francine to emerge from the Loehmann’s dressing room that he considered himself an authority on women’s fashions. He felt Grace’s pants. “Like butter.”

  “I knew Gracie would appreciate that the money went to a worthy cause. Lung cancer or juvenile diabetes, I can’t remember which. It doesn’t really matter. Just so she feels she’s making a contribution.”

  Grace’s father returned from the front hall and began the carving process, sharpening the electric carving knife on a flint stone before determining the exact direction of the grain, as if following a topographical map, and giving out samples as he went along. By the time they sat down, they were already fairly full.

  “The stuffing is wonderful, Paulette,” Francine said, spooning gravy over her plate.

  “Thank you. I used matzoh meal this year instead of bread crumbs.” The stuffing and turkey, along with Grace’s cranberry relish, were the only things not from one of Francine’s containers.

  “Makes all the difference,” Francine agreed.

  Grace got up from the table to refill the water pitcher.

  “Looking a little thick, Grace,” Bert said. “Around the middle.”

  “Bert!” Francine snapped at him. “I knew you shouldn’t have had that second Campari. Grace is like a feather! Very willowy.”

  Grace returned with the pitcher and placed it on the table. The leather pants had not yet stretched out. The two helpings of stuffing she’d had, which were not technically vegetarian, along with a generous serving of sweet potatoes, had not helped the situation. She hadn’t had any appetite whatsoever for the soy turkey loaf her mother had prepared for her. She excused herself, saying she needed to check her messages. What she really needed was to lie down. It wasn’t so much the stress of having to pretend in front of everyone, it was that just sitting upright was cutting off her circulation.

  She walked down the hall to her childhood bedroom and closed the door. Everything in the room—from the green-and-pink checkered curtains and bedspread, to the grassy-green carpet and pink ceiling—could not have been better preserved. On the walls were posters by Peter Max and Degas. Even the pink terry cloth robe on a brass hook by the door was in its proper place, as if Grace had just come home for a snack after junior varsity volleyball practice.

  Grace looked at herself in the mirror. She turned sideways, inhaling and holding in her stomach. Bert was right, the pants were not all that flattering. In fact, from the right angle, there was a striking resemblance between herself and the pale underside of her mother’s Butterball, trussed and laced and about to burst.

  As she was standing before the mirror, she had a flash of Laz wearing the pink terry cloth robe the first time he’d met her parents. Grace and Laz had been walking across the park on their way to the Metropolitan when they were caught in a sudden downpour. Grace had suggested they dry off at her parents’ apartment, which was only a few blocks from the museum.

  No one was home when they arrived, and Grace and Laz dripped all over the floor by the back door as they toweled off. Grace put everything in the drier and changed into a pair of old hip-hugger jeans with heart pockets on the back and a baseball shirt that were hanging in her closet. She offered Laz the robe to wear while his clothes dried. She suppressed giggles, although he seemed to be completely comfortable, sashaying around, as if he might seduce her.

  A few minutes later, they heard sounds from the front hall. Laz quickly retied the robe, Grace tucked in her shirt, and they went out to greet her parents.

  “Nice to finally have the pleasure, Laz,” her father said, as he shook Laz’s hand, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his daughter’s new boyfriend was wearing women’s clothing. “It’s torrential out there.”

  Grace’s mother nudged her in the ribs and whispered, “I like him. We’re not going to let this one get away. Nice legs, too,” and then went off to make a pot of coffee, which they drank out on the glass-enclosed terrace as they watched the rain.

  GRACE SAT DOWN on the bed. It was a white captain’s bed with two deep drawers underneath. She hadn’t opened the drawers in years. They contained that part of her life that she referred to as pre-Lazarus, but which she really thought of as pre-Grace. Whatever was in the drawers was now obsolete, or beside the point.

  Grace unlaced her pants and rested her head on the bolster. She’d never really liked her room, but as she gazed up at the pink ceiling, snow falling lightly outside, the sounds of plates and silverware being cleared in the dining room, she wished she could stay there forever.

  “WHO WANTS SOME Muscato in honor of Laz?” Grace heard her father say as she returned to the dining room table and sat down.

  “Would you like a glass?” her father inquired, offering her a fluted glass filled almost to the top.

  “None for me, thanks,” Grace answered.

  “How about an espresso macchiato? Or a latte?” Her father had recently purchased a deluxe cappuccino maker from Zabar’s. She shook her head.

  “Any word from Laz?” he asked.

  “He says he’ll be home by midnight.”

  “Glad to hear it,” her father said. “Tell him he was missed.”

  “Pie?” Grace’s mother asked, displaying a pecan pie in front of her as if she were on Let’s Make a Deal. Grace looked at the caramelized pecans and the dark syrupy center. Normally, she wouldn’t have been able to resist. She glanced over at Bert who was spooning pineapple sections and melon balls onto his plate.

  “I think I’ll pass,” she said, trying to take a deep breath. She couldn’t wait to get home, check her e-mail, and change into something elastic and comfortable. And then she remembered she’d promised to meet Kane later.

  “More for us,” her father said. Grace looked at her watch and then at those assembled around the oval table. There was little changed or missing from previous years, except for Laz, and his absence seemed hardly to make a difference.

  “I have to get going. I’m meeting Kane in an hour,” Grace said after dessert was finished. Grace’s mother ran to the kitchen and returned with a shopping bag filled with leftovers. Laz’s mother put out her cigarette in the remains of her pie and turned to Grace.

  “I’ll give you a ride. The car’s downstairs.” Grace’s mother gave Francine Sugarman a knowing look.

  Even if Grace had stayed another five hours, it still wouldn’t have been enough. She stood up from the table and gave her mother a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Call us when you get home to let us know you’re okay,” her father said.

  “And don’t forget about Mambo Night,” Bert reminded her. “Polish up your dancing shoes.”

  “I won’t,” she said, looking at her father. “I mean, I will, Dad.”

  ON THE RIDE HOME Grace stared out the window, running her finger over the fogged-up window in squiggles. Laz’s mother lit a cigarette and turned to Grace. “Word has it Kane’s in a relationship,” she said, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “Someone named Greg.”

  Grace found it astonishing how casually Laz’s mother was relaying this information, as if she were telling her instead that Kane had just changed his address and not his sexual orientation.

  “Greg?” Grace asked, incredulous. Kane had dated many women off and on over the course of the years, a
nd the idea that Kane was gay was unimaginable to Grace.

  “His mother told me at the conservancy luncheon last week. It sounds serious. Heaven knows how long he’s been keeping this one from us,” she said, blowing a stream of smoke out of her lips.

  “He didn’t mention anything to me,” Grace said.

  “Well, he’s not exactly forthcoming in matters of the heart, you know.”

  Grace’s mind raced, shuffling information around in her head and trying to piece it back together. The yellow roses and the lack of amorousness on Kane’s part toward her when they were dating now made more sense, but nothing else did. Grace wondered whether Laz knew. Certainly he would have said something to her if he did. The ride through the park was suddenly making her feel queasy. The car stopped in front of Grace’s building. As she was getting out, Laz’s mother put her hand to her mouth and blew Grace a kiss.

  “Kisses, darling. And I’m counting on you for the origami tomorrow at ten. I’ll meet you at our usual spot. By the way, we need you to head up the solicitations for the auction at the Historical Society again. I told them you’d love to do it.”

  Laz’s mother was a docent at the American Museum of Natural History, along with her other charitable duties for which she was always volunteering Grace. She had once overheard Laz’s mother tell someone, “Oh, Grace will do it—she has nothing else to do.” Every Christmas, Grace helped with the origami tree ornaments because she was, as Laz’s mother said, so good with paper. Between her bookbinding class and cochairing of various committees, Grace “did nothing” for more than twenty-five hours a week.

  “Much love to Lazarus,” she said, tilting her head. Grace touched her hand to her mouth and watched as the darkened window closed. It might be quite some time before Laz’s mother realized her son was gone.

  Upstairs, as she put the container of meatballs next to the other containers of meatballs in the freezer, Grace wished she’d had that glass of Muscato after all.

  9

  BOTTOMS UP

  The carpet was barely visible through the clothes that Grace had flung around the bedroom, and it looked as if a giant pressure cooker of blouses and pants and skirts had exploded on the plum-colored Einstein Moomjy. The leather pants were inside out on the floor, having put up quite a fight. Grace wondered what the statute of limitations was on returning things to a thrift shop.

  She had given Marisol the following day off, which she now sorely regretted. The room was in a state of complete disarray. She’d quickly checked to see if there was an e-mail from Laz when she got home, but her mailbox was empty. Now nothing she put on felt comfortable. Even her standby outfits, like the clingy Vivian Tam midnight-blue netted dress that came to her ankles and always made her feel just right, looked as if it had hung too long on the wrong hanger, misshapen and suffering from low self-esteem because it had just awakened in a stranger’s bed and didn’t have the cab fare home.

  Kane didn’t care about how she looked, she knew that, and Tap A Keg was a dark, smoky bar even in daylight, but Grace was in a frenzy. She gathered the clothes, stuffed them into her walk-in closet, and closed the louvered doors. Then she opened Laz’s closet and pulled out a pair of his most worn jeans along with a pale gray cashmere sweater.

  The closet was getting dusty. Where the dust was coming from, Grace had no idea, but it was beginning to settle on the tops of the wooden hangers, the collars of Laz’s fine wool suits, and his shoes. Laz was asthmatic and could not tolerate dust, an affliction that exempted him from serving jury duty, but which didn’t stop him from smoking, often a pack or two a day. Sometimes Grace found herself taking labored, shallow breaths in synchrony with his.

  The jeans felt good as she pulled them over her hips and fastened the button fly. They were too large for her, soft and frayed from many washings—in some places almost white.

  As soon as Grace buttoned the sweater, she felt immediately calm. She could smell Laz faintly through the knitted cashmere. She brushed her hair and pulled it back, fastening it with a clip. Then grabbing Laz’s favorite leather jacket, she left to meet Kane, amazed that she was nearly on time—a sign that everything was still somewhat under control. The mess in the closet was now quite out of sight, soon out of mind. Now if only she could just shove Kane back into the closet as well.

  KANE WAS SITTING at the bar, impeccably dressed as always in flat-placket pants and a navy roll-neck sweater, chatting amiably with the bartender. He smiled when he saw her and put his arms around her.

  “Grace,” Kane said, looking her up and down, “is it Halloween? Or are you just in drag as Laz? I don’t miss him that much.” Grace felt Kane’s clean-shaven cheek against hers as he kissed her, inhaling his citrusy smell and all the while gauging her reaction to him now that she had the new information about him. Her reaction was the same as it had been when they’d been quasi-dating. Nice, but no jolt. She thought she must have a sense about these things.

  “The usual?” he asked. Grace nodded. Kane reached into his pocket and took out a folded cocktail napkin that he’d picked up in Nantucket at a bar where he swore they made the best cosmopolitans. On it was written exact instructions for making the drink. Kane placed the napkin on the bar for Pete, the bartender. Grace watched as the bartender went through each step ceremoniously: wetting the rim of two chilled cocktail glasses with cranberry juice, then dipping them in granulated sugar; adding ice in the shaker; pouring in the measured amounts of vodka, cranberry juice, lime, and a dash of Cointreau; then shaking it twice and straining it into the martini glasses.

  The bartender placed two napkins on the bar and, with a great flourish, presented them with two sparkling-pink cocktails. He looked like a kid, wearing baggy jeans and a backwards baseball cap, the antithesis of how neatly Kane was dressed. Kane’s hair was cut considerably shorter than at the anniversary party, brushed forward. It looked so shiny and soft, almost velvety, and Grace had an urge to pet him.

  “What’ll it be this year?” he asked. “Quarters? Whales, Tales, Prince of Wales? Flotsam and Jetsam?” Grace glanced around the room. The jukebox was playing “Monkey in Your Soul.” Laz loved Steely Dan. Grace took a deep breath before answering. She did not want to get drunk. She’d play a couple of rounds and then make some excuse for going home early.

  “How about I’ve Never?” she suggested, mostly because it was a game that involved sips, not shots.

  “A lightweight, huh? We’ll just see about that,” Kane said, motioning to the bartender that they were ready for their second round, even though they hadn’t touched their first drinks. The bartender agreed to join them, although he preferred club soda. The three of them clinked glasses and Grace did her best to drink down to the bottom. The bartender waited for the verdict. “Perfection,” Kane announced. It was their ritual to start all drinking games after one preliminary drink; Grace could nurse the next one if she played well. Laz was known to be ruthless in these games, but Kane would take it easy on her. If she got drunk, she wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to do the same for him.

  “I’ll start,” Kane offered, rubbing his chin with his hand. He was pretending to be deep in thought as if the weight of the next few words he uttered could alter the universe as they knew it. “I know,” he started slowly. “I’ve never snuck into a movie.”

  Grace lifted her glass to her mouth and took a sip, as did the bartender. Kane feigned a state of shock, leaving his glass on the cocktail napkin.

  “Why, Gracie, I’d never have guessed,” he teased, finally picking up his glass.

  Usually, Grace was the only one left semisober after this game, because she was not the type to overstep bounds. Now nothing was out of bounds.

  “You got lucky that time,” Grace admitted. She thought for a moment, and then said, “I’ve never read someone else’s mail.” Kane laughed.

  “This game’s rigged,” he said, taking a large gulp. “Do you have surveillance equipment set up at my mailbox?”

  “I just had a feeling you
were the type.” Kane looked from Grace to the bartender who left his glass untouched as did Grace.

  “It was only a Christmas card, for goodness’ sake. And it was an accident,” he muttered, pretending to be hurt. It was the bartender’s turn.

  “I’ve never told someone I loved them to get them to sleep with me,” he said with a grin.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Kane seemed amused, taking another sip of his cosmopolitan. “But I thought I meant it at the time,” he added.

  Grace left her glass on the bar, shooting Kane what she hoped was her most penetrating and punishing glare, but the more she looked at him, the more disconcerted she began to feel. Images darted through her mind like dragonflies. It wasn’t the idea of Kane with a man that was hard to accept, but rather the realization that the person to her right, whom she considered one of her closest friends, and who was now tossing mixed nuts into his mouth willy-nilly, had kept something this vital from her. He seemed like a virtual stranger. That fact was indeed harder for Grace to swallow than the triple sec. In one smooth motion, she lifted her glass, closed her eyes, and drank the contents down. Kane’s jaw dropped open.

  “Tell me it isn’t so,” he said.

  “Maybe I was just thirsty,” she said coyly.

  “That’s not in the rules,” he protested. Grace felt the radiating heat in her chest from the alcohol, penetrating her mother’s usually impervious stuffing.

  “Okay, so I’m guilty,” she said. Any images of Kane and Greg that Grace may have been entertaining in her mind were now significantly dulled. Pete refilled their glasses and topped his off as well. Grace hadn’t bothered to keep tabs on whether the bartender—Pete, as he had to continually remind her, as she seemed to show a preference for calling him Larry—had drunk on that last round. It was of little concern to Grace. In fact, surprisingly, little at that moment went beyond the Oh, well. Who cares? level of importance.