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arrived. Valerie looked beautiful, and she kissed April on the cheek with a broad smile and then sat down.
    “Sorry I’m late. I had a busy morning. I’m trying to lock down our Christmas show. Happy birthday! I hope it’s been a good one so far.”
    There was no way April was going to tell her mother the truth. Maybe eventually, but certainly not now. She had to digest it first herself, and figure out what to do. Maybe she’d never tell her at all.
    “It’s been okay. I was at the fish market and the produce market at the crack of dawn. We’re starting white truffle season tonight. They came in two days ago. You should come for dinner this weekend.” She smiled at her mother. They had a good relationship, and always had, and they liked each other even better now as adults. And April would always be grateful to her for making her dream come true and lending her the money for the restaurant. It had been an enormous gift to her. “Happy birthday to you too,” she added.
    Valerie ordered champagne for both of them and lowered her voice as she looked at her daughter across the table. “They announced my age on the radio today,” she said, looking as unhappy about it as she had been all morning, since she heard it.
    “I know. I figured you’d be upset. I’m sorry, Mom. It doesn’t matter. No one would believe it. You hardly look older than I do.”
    “Thank you for saying that,” Valerie said ruefully, “but now everyone knows the truth.”
    “You can say they made a mistake.” April tried to console her, but she was too shaken up herself to be very reassuring.
    “I can’t believe I’m sixty,” Valerie said, as April smiled at her.
    “I can’t believe I’m thirty,” and pregnant, she silently added. Thirty wasn’t the end of the world, but getting pregnant by a man she didn’t know or love was about as bad as it could get.
    “You don’t look it either,” Valerie said, smiling at her, “especiallywith your hair in a braid and no makeup.” She had long since given up trying to get her to wear any. April said it made no sense with her job and lifestyle. Although their features and their figures were strikingly similar, the two women couldn’t have been more different. One looked as though she had stepped off the pages of Vogue , and the other was a totally natural beauty. With Valerie’s careful attention to her appearance, they could almost have been sisters.
    They sipped their champagne, and the waiter took their order. He greeted Valerie warmly and wished her a happy birthday. She told him it was April’s birthday too, and he smiled. Valerie ordered crab, and April sweetbreads; she loved how they did them. It struck her then that she had had no nausea in the past two months, and not a single symptom from what had happened, just a little tenderness in her breasts, which she had assumed was because she was late. Now she knew what had happened, and it was hard to think of anything else. Impossible, in fact. She kept missing two-thirds of everything her mother said. The waiter poured her another glass of champagne and April drank it. She was trying to be in denial about being pregnant. She was feeling a little dizzy by the time lunch came. And finally, when they finished, Valerie looked at her with concern. April was looking dazed and had been worried and distracted all through lunch. And she had gotten just a little tipsy.
    “Are you upset about your birthday or is something wrong?” her mother asked her gently, and April shook her head and tried to smile.
    “No, I’m fine. I think thirty just hit me harder than I expected. And so did the champagne.” They had been drinking Cristal, which was their favorite. April didn’t carry it at the restaurant; it was much too expensive for her clients. Nor did they carry the Château d’Yquem that the waiter poured each of them after the meal as a gift. It was the best sauterne there was, and April didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so she drank