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second joints. He had shaved, but the rest of him looked as sloppy as ever: plaid lumberjack shirt, unpressed trousers, no jacket. Only Derek and Gert had made an effort, and Gert looked quite splendid in an East Indian skirt and white blouse and filigree earrings two inches long.
    ‘Naa-aow, what were we saying?’ Norm asked, still chewing on a bone. He had a Pennsylvania accent that Edith had learned was typical.
    ‘About Eisenhower – how he did
nothing
about McCarthy,’ Gert said with the same drawl and flatness as Norm. ‘It was Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont who had the guts to make a move against that bastard. “If Eisenhower won’t,
I
will
,”
Flanders said. If you remember, Norm.’
    ‘Hear, hear!’ said Norm, putting down a clean rib. ‘You’re right, dee-eerie, you’re always right.’
    Edith felt comfortable in the conversation, though it was only what she and Gert had said weeks ago. Edith had had almost three martinis, and a warm buzz had risen to her ears. She thought Derek handsome this evening. Doing well in school! If only Cliffie would pull himself together like Derek. Hardly two years’ difference in their ages. Maybe puberty…
    ‘I was wondering, Edith, could you and Brett lend us a hundred dollars for a month?’ Now Gert was in the kitchen, helping to put things away and stack the dishes for washing.
    They’d had coffee. The men were in the living room. Edith didn’t like to say yes without consulting Brett. Or was that a dodge? They hadn’t any extra money now, however.
    ‘It’s the dentist’s bill for Norm,’ Gert went on. ‘His father’s promised to pay it and he will, but the dentist in Trenton is dunning us. We owe more than a hundred,’ Gert said with a frank laugh, ‘but a hundred will shut him up, and we ought to get a couple of hundred from Norm’s father in
less
than a month.’
    ‘Mind if I ask Brett?’ Edith said in a pleasantly conspiratorial tone, which she was at once ashamed of.
    ‘’Course not!’ said Gert. ‘I know how it is. Specially now with – Brett’s uncle on your hands.’
    ‘Oh, he’s contributing to his upkeep.’
    When Edith got Brett in the kitchen alone, she told him what Gert had asked.
    ‘Absolutely not. Don’t start that,’ Brett said.
    ‘All right.’ And it would be up to her to tell Gert, of course.
    ‘It’s the way to lose friends,’ Brett said. ‘An old saying, but true. – Sorry, darling. Tell her we’ve got extra expenses now too.’
    Edith prepared herself to do it.
    ‘Frankly,’ Brett threw over his shoulder in a soft voice as he left the kitchen, ‘I bet they’ve got debts all over the countryside. They’re that type.’
    Edith thought that was very likely true. But alone, she’d have lent the hundred, and maybe regretted it a little when she never got it back.
    In the downstairs hall, where Edith encountered Gert getting something from her coat in the hall, Edith said with a wincing expression, ‘Brett says no. We can’t do it just now, Gert. I’m really very sorry.’
    ‘Oh, that’s all right.’ Gert’s relaxed smile made it seem as if nothing had happened. ‘Where’d the boys go? To Cliffie’s room?’
    ‘Probably. If they’re not around.’ Edith imagined Derek taken aback by Cliffie’s room, which looked like that of a six-year-old: comic books everywhere, a field of toy soldiers on the floor. Edith lifted her head and followed Gert into the living room. Along with Gert, Edith took an unaccustomed nightcap of Chartreuse (expensive, and the bottle must have been with them for a year now), and lit a cigarette.
    ‘How long you staying, George?’ asked Norm from an easy chair, hands behind his head.
    Edith listened with some interest.
    ‘Oh – I dunno. Not as long as my welcome lasts, I trust. Ha-ha! It’s pleasant here – with my nephew and wife – long as I’m not too much in the way.’
    Edith offered people more coffee, served tonight from her silver pot, a present from her