woman four and a half feet tall, in the kitchen of the hotel where she worked in Chandigarh. Until she came to America, it was the biggest kitchen Neena had ever seen. This kitchen, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, thirteen stories in the air (it had taken some time to explain to her family back home why the address was the fourteenth floor), had a six-burner gas range, a refrigerator that dispensed ice crushed or cubed, and a wine rack so full that taking a bottle home now and then was like taking a pin from a pin- cushion. The boyfriend (he was not a boy, but he was dressed like one, in sandals and cutoff jeans and an untucked Hawaiian shirt) was opening the second bottle of the evening. He refilled his glass and then Neena’s, spilling a puddle of wine on the counter. “Looking good, girl,” he said with a whistle, at either Neena or the lamb, and, taking the bottle, drunkenly exited the room.
Stepping into the air-conditioned parlor, away from the aromatic, ovened kitchen, Les saw that the guests had arrived and were arranging themselves on various pieces of furniture. Eliza sat on the ottoman beside a pyramid of gifts, Johnny and Jude in the pair of wingback chairs. “Wow,” said Johnny, who was wearing, of all things, a linen sport coat, “your home is really beautiful, Ms. Urbanski.” He took in the claw-foot coffee table, the baby grand posed like an open-jawed shark. He was eyeing the painting hanging over the piano, the backside of a reclining male nude.
“That’s Pierre,” Les explained.
“Thank you, Johnny.” Di draped herself over the divan. She was wearing jeans and ballet slippers and an indigo-colored leotard, which swept low on her very fine back, and she was balancing a wineglass in her many-ringed fingers. This left Les standing at the margin of the room, but he was glad to keep his distance. Di hadn’t looked at him since earlier that afternoon, when she’d sent him out to pick up her order at the bakery.
He was content being her errand boy: that was how he atoned, how he returned to her good graces. He had done his best this afternoon, and now the living room was festooned with the pink wishes of the Upper East Side’s finest merchants—bouquets of balloons; crimped streamers; sixteen frosted cupcakes from Payard, plated in wedding cake tiers and bedecked with silver bullets. It looks like a baby shower, Di had remarked to Eliza. Doesn’t it?
Eliza was shaking one of the gift boxes now. For her birthday dinner, she had belatedly taken Les’s advice and chosen a dress, a strapless, coral-colored dress with a ruffled skirt and pumps to match. Full, but not full enough. She looked as though she’d swallowed one of those big, curvaceous autumn squashes. “Gucci,” she guessed.
“Nope. Go ahead and open it,” said Di. Eliza did, not taking her time. Inside was a silver watch, slender as a bracelet.
“Ooh, Tiffany’s!”
Eliza was a thrift store hound; she was not one to exclaim over costly gifts. Di wasn’t really one to give them, either. They were putting on a sick sort of show, bending over backward to please each other. Eliza leaned over and placed her wrist on Johnny’s knee, and Johnny fastened the watch for her. Then she trotted over to kiss her mother’s cheek. It was unbearable, watching a person who was in the dark, especially when it was you who had put her there.
“Going to check on that lamb,” Les said, mostly to himself, and returned to the kitchen.
Eliza balled up the wrapping paper, tossed it at Jude, and tied the ribbon around Johnny’s thigh. “Thanks,” he said.
“It’s a garter,” she explained.
“Would you boys care for wine?” Di asked, picking up the open bottle that Les had left on the table.
Jude and Johnny declined. “They’re straight edge,” said Eliza in a mock whisper.
“Of course. I forgot. Eliza?” She lifted the bottle. Eliza shook her head, crossed her legs, and stared at her shoes.
“I’m feeling kind of yucky,” she said and patted her belly heartily. At this, Jude could not help but direct a desperate glance at Johnny. What was that about? And what was with the getup? She was nearly five months pregnant.
Di stood up, walked over to her daughter, and held the back of her hand to her forehead. “You don’t have a fever, darling.”
“Something smells good,” Jude said loudly.
“It really does,” Johnny agreed.
“Neena’s doing a lamb,” Di said.
“Mother, you