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Maura
    I hope this doesn’t turn into another one of Lydia’s man bashing parties, Maura thought, on her way to pick up the ham. Elaine was the worst. Maura loved her but sometimes she could be so unattractively bitter. And why? Elaine had had a real career. She’d traveled! But she said the meanest things sometimes. And she got so angry. She said things to Maura like
Maybe if you were more pissed off I wouldn’t have to be
. Maura usually just said
Let it go
. Or
Who do you think you are, my mother?
    They argued about Roy. Elaine had even met him once—Maura had introduced them. What a mistake. Elaine had called him Uncle Roy to his face. Elaine was her best friend but some things were hard to forgive. Like that crack she’d made about sitting next to his wife at the funeral. Elaine knew Maura hadn’t gone.
    Still, Maura looked forward to seeing everyone tonight, some more than others. She always looked forward to seeing Lydia. Though Lydia was usually too busy to talk much at these things. The last time Maura had seen her at school, where she still took the occasional class, Lydia hadn’t looked well. Maura almost said
Are you OK?
But then she didn’t. Cafeteria lighting could make anyone look terrible, even Lydia.
    Maura had offered to bring the main dish this year, so Lydia wouldn’t have to cook. She’d told her she had a new chili recipe she wanted to try out at the shelter and said she could double it and bring half to the party, but Lydia had said no. She’d bought some expensive pot online, she’d said, and wanted to use that. Maura had even offered to come early and dump her chili into the pot—no one would know—but Lydia said no, people would wonder why she’d changed the menu. Besides, she wanted to cook.

Lydia: 10:30 A.M.
    Lydia could hear Spence downstairs, whirring something healthy in the blender. She hoped he’d clean up the inevitable green mess before he left. At least there was no danger he’d snack on party food. He was single-mindedly devoted to nutrition these days.
    Lydia was back upstairs, rooting through her closet, looking for the tablecloth she hadn’t been able to find in the pantry, where she thought she’d last stashed it. Already she was tired. Maybe a quick rest, she thought, check her e-mail.
    She shuffled the few steps to the tiny room under the eaves that she called her office, formerly her studio. There, among quarter-hourly news updates from Ted about the progress of his meatballs and a lengthy correspondence between Jayne and Maura about who was bringing which side dishes, was a message from Norris. Lydia supposed it meant she wasn’t coming after all but when she clicked it open she saw that Norris had forwarded her a gallery announcement for some show she was in, with a note that said,
thought you’d find this amusing don’t bother to go I don’t plan to. see u tonight.
    Norris was the most successful artist Lydia knew, and Lydia wasn’t sure why she felt the need to keep her informed of her increasingly eventful career. Not that Lydia wasn’t happy for Norris—she was! It was just that the arrival of these announcements could still, on a bad day, arouse in Lydia an uncomfortable mix of gratitude, for being remembered at all, and its bitter aftertaste, envy.
    It was a lot to accept—the rave reviews, the awards, the
museum
shows, and in all the right places. The way she’d just waltzed away from that job offer that had meant so much to Lydia the way you’d leave a restaurant you didn’t like the looks of, assuming there’d be something better down the street. Of course, for Norris, there always was. She’d stayed at their little school three semesters. Lydia saw now that even then, she’d felt it was beneath her.
    Lydia reread the message, trying to be glad rather than just flattered that Norris was coming tonight. It would take some diplomacy, though—she knew her other guests would prefer that Norris