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fantasies it is ten years back, andTom and Jessica get a divorce and she comes out to live in San Francisco. He finds her a pretty apartment on Telegraph Hill and her hair grows beautifully white and she wears nice tweeds and entertains at tea. And Tom and Barbara move to hell—Los Angeles or Mexico or somewhere. Most people who know him assume Devlin to be homosexual; asexual is actually the more accurate description.
    They stand there, that quiet striking group, all blinking in a brilliant October sun that instantly dries their tears; for several moments they are all transfixed there, unable to walk to their separate cars, to continue to the friend’s house where there is to be the wedding reception. (Why this hesitation? Do none of them believe in the wedding? What is a marriage?)
    Five years later, in the early Sixties, Avery drives up to Maine from Hilton, for various reasons which do not include a strong desire to see Tom and Barbara. She has been married to Christopher for four years, and she came out from San Francisco to Hilton to see how it was away from him. Away from him she fell wildly in love with a man in Hilton named Jason Valentine, and now (for various reasons) she has decided that she needs some time away from Jason.
    She drives smoothly, quietly, along the pine-needled road in her Corvair to find no one there. No car.
    But the screen door is unlatched, and she goes in, stepping up from the old stone step onto the long narrow porch, from which the long table has been removed, replaced with a new one that is small and round. (But where did they put the old one?) And there are some bright yellow canvas chairs, new and somehow shocking against the weathered shingled wall.
    Inside the house are more violent changes, more brightnew fabrics: curtains, bandanna-red, and a bandanna bedspread on the conspicuous wide bed. Beside the fireplace is a white wicker sofa (new) with chintz cushions—more red. So much red and so much newness make Avery dizzy; almost angrily she wonders where the old things are, the decaying banners and sepia photographs of girls in Greek costumes. She goes into the kitchen and it is all painted yellow, into what was the large closet where she used to sleep—but a wall has been knocked out between her room and Devlin’s; it is all one room now, a new room, entirely strange, with a new iron bed, a crocheted bedspread, which is white. Is that where they will expect her to sleep? She wishes there were a phone. Tomorrow she will have to drive into town to call Jason at his studio.
    Needing a drink, Avery goes back into the kitchen, and finds a bottle of an unfamiliar brand of bourbon. She gets ice from the refrigerator (terrifyingly new—so white!), water from the tap—thank God, the same old sink. With her clutched drink she walks quickly through the living room to the porch, down to the end. She looks out across the lake with sentimentally teared eyes, noting that it is clear but not quite clear enough to see Mount Washington.
    Being in love with Jason, who is a nonpracticing architect (he would rather paint), who worries about his work (his nonwork), who loves her but is elusive (she has no idea when they will see each other again), has tightened all Avery’s nerves: she is taut, cries easily and is all concentrated on being in love with Jason.
    A car drives up, a Mustang—Barbara is faithful to Fords. And there they are saying, “Avery, but we didn’t
expect
you, we went into
Port
land, for
lob
sters. Oh, dear, how awful, we only bought
two!
” Embracing, laughing. Tears (why?) in everyone’s eyes.
    They settle down, after packages are put away, Avery’sbags in the new guest room, and they watch the sunset: a disappointing pale pastel. And they drink a lot.
    Barbara is nervous, both because of this shift in schedule and because of Avery, whom she regards as an intellectual, like Tom. She is always afraid of what Avery will say—a not unfounded fear. Also, she is upset about the