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deny the pang of truth that came with it.
    Deirdre had been watching Cree in the mirror again and must have seen her expression change. "Sorry," she began, "I didn't mean to - "
    "No, it's all right. I'll call her. Thanks for the heads up."
    They let it settle for a moment. Deirdre finished the carrots and set Cree up to slice them as she went to work on the fish. The girls were laughing together upstairs.
    "Stay for dinner?" Deirdre's light tone sounded a little forced. "Don will be home soon — "
    "I don't know . . ."
    "Cree - "
    "Really, Dee, it only hurts when I laugh. Just a little stitch, right here."
    Cree grimaced and put her hand on her heart. Pushing it all one level deeper in an effort to let Deirdre off the hook. "Okay?"
    "Okay," Deirdre said, smiling again. "But it would still be nice if you stayed for dinner."
    When the salad was washed, the rice on to boil, and the fish ready for the oven, Deirdre poured them each a glass of chardonnay. They sat on the tall kitchen stools, relaxing. Deirdre looked as though she deserved a moment to let her shoulders down.
    "So when's Mom supposed to go in for the angioplasty?" Cree asked.
    "Three weeks."
    "Good - I'll be back by then." At Deirdre's questioning look, Cree explained. "I'm going to New Orleans, flying out later this week. Just got a fat retainer for a preliminary investigation, probably only take four or five days. I'm looking forward to it — I've always wanted to go there."
    "You know Don and I went once," Deirdre said. "Back before the girls were born. Our wild youth - we thought it would be fun to go for Mardi Gras."
    "Right, I remember. How was it?"
    "Hmm. Strange, actually." Deirdre's pretty forehead drew into a small frown.
    "How so?"
    "It was really . . . well, wild. We went down there to party, but this was more than we'd bargained for. It's like the whole city goes crazy. Everybody's in costume. Everybody's wearing a mask. It's got a lot of morbid overtones, and it's very . . . pagan. And it's amazingly uninhibited — I mean, literally, people screwing in the streets and on the balconies. Seriously, in full view!"
    "That's the whole point of masks - license. If your identity's hidden, nobody can hold you accountable for your behavior - you can act the way you'd really like to." Cree swigged her wine and chuckled. "I didn't know you had such a prudish streak, Dee!"
    "No, really, Cree. We found it a little, I don't know . . . sinister. The city has this doubleness. Don started calling it 'the city of masks.' I don't mean just the parades. The whole town puts on a show, a welcoming facade, but it has another face: poverty, resentment, crime, corruption. Race issues. Nothing is quite what it seems. Even the woman who ran our b-and-b - charming, matronly Southern hostess, we got to know her pretty well, even went out for drinks with her? We were there for three days before I came into the bathroom and saw her with her wig off, shaving her chest. She was a man!"
    "So?"
    Dee snorted. "So nothing. Except that he took the opportunity to make a pass at me! And I'm standing there, still trying to put it together, and I just blurt the first thing that comes to my mind? I tell him, 'No, thanks so much, but I'm not a lesbian!'"
    They both laughed, and then the phone rang.
    Deirdre answered it, listened. "Sure, just a moment." She went to the hallway and called, "Hy - telephone!" She covered the mouthpiece with one hand and whispered to Cree, "Boyfriend!" She listened until Hyacinth picked up. Sober again, she told Cree, "I don't mean to rain on your parade. It's a fascinating place. You just have to, you know . . . watch yourself, that's all."

4
     
    T UESDAY WAS A SCATTERSHOT day. Cree felt like a dragonfly, darting and flitting as she prepared for the trip: getting airline tickets and hotel and rental car reservations, checking wardrobe, juggling appointments, and making phone calls to carve out the time away.
    Aside from the routine travel preparations, there