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can’t happen. It won’t happen. Nobody could possibly . . .
    She frowns then, unsettled by the sudden memory of this morning’s soccer match, and the person she saw—or thought she saw—standing on the edge of the field.
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    â€œWant another white wine?”
    Stella glances at her husband, then at the half-full glass in her hand, and the empty one in his.
    She contemplates a playful wink, but settles on a suggestive grin. “Are you trying to get me drunk so you can have your way with me later?”
    â€œChrist, Stella, what kind of thing is that to say?” Kurt’s brown eyes are not amused. He looks over one suit-clad shoulder and then the other, as if he half-expects to find one of the bank’s board members eavesdropping.
    Embarrassed, Stella sips her wine and fights the urge to glance again at her reflection in the mirrored pillar beside them. She knows her cocktail dress won’t be a size bigger and her hips won’t be a size smaller than the last time she checked. Black is supposed to be slimming, and she skipped lunch so that she’d be able to get the zipper up without straining. But she can’t stave off a self-conscious awareness that her dress is too snug, not to mention too dated. The other women in the banquet room—some of them bankers’ and doctors’ and lawyers’ wives; many of them bankers, doctors, lawyers themselves—seem infinitely more slender and fashionable.
    â€œI’m going to get another drink,” Kurt says. “I’ll be right back.”
    She refrains from telling him to go easy on the whiskey. He’s already striding toward the bar.
    But he has to drive them home. She can’t see well enough in the dark to drive on the highway. Night blindness, Daddy used to call it.
    Kurt calls it bullshit. He says that if she wears her glasses, she should be able to see just fine.
    Stella sips her wine, silently cursing her husband, missing her father. It’s been almost a year since Daddy’s heart attack, but she still forgets sometimes that he’s gone. Every moment that she remembers is a moment when she feels newly robbed. There is one less person in the world who loves her unconditionally.
    But you still have Mom. And the girls. And . . . Kurt.
    But Kurt doesn’t love her unconditionally. Sometimes she wonders if Kurt still loves her at all.
    She sips more wine, her eyes searching the three-deep crowd in front of the bar. Kurt is waiting for his drink, chatting animatedly with an older couple. His pale hair is receding at the temples and he, too, has put on a few pounds in the past few years, but he’s still handsome. Back when she met him, she thought he looked like a Nordic ski instructor: tall, blond, gorgeous.
    The same flattering adjectives could have described Stella, back then.
    And they still do. You’re still tall, still blond, still . . .
    No. She’s not gorgeous by any stretch of the imagination. These days, other adjectives crop up whenever she glimpses her reflection. Less flattering adjectives: dumpy, flabby, faded, weary.
    No wonder Kurt doesn’t want to get her tipsy and have his way with her. No wonder she caught him eyeing their beautiful teenaged babysitter tonight with more interest than he’s shown his wife in years.
    Caught up in her lousy self-image, it takes Stella a moment to realize that the faint sound of a ringing cell phone is coming from her black beaded evening bag. She hurriedly snaps the purse open, fumbling inside. The cap has come off the lipstick she tucked in earlier, and the hand that emerges with the cell phone is streaked in red. Lovely.
    â€œHello?” She must have dropped her cocktail napkin. Damn. There’s no place to wipe her hand.
    â€œMrs. Gattinski?”
    It’s Jen. The connection is underscored by static, but the sitter’s voice is unmistakable, higher-pitched than usual. It sends a ripple of alarm through