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with profound ineptitude, a cocker
spaniel streaking through the yard, gleefully terrorizing chipmunks
and squirrels, a toddler roaming across the grass on fat, wobbly
legs; a girl of about eight standing beneath a crab-apple tree,
hollering to someone hidden in the branches above her. Beneath
another shade tree Diana and her boyfriend stood, holding hands and
watching the chaos with wary amusement. On the patio, Mrs. Stroud
was arranging bottles of ketchup and mustard at the center of a
long table, which was covered with a festive red-checked table
cloth and several citronella candles. Mr. Stroud held court over a
huge barbecue grill, armed with elbow-high hot mitts and
long-handled utensils and sporting an apron with the words “Treat
Me Right Or I’ll Burn Yours” printed across it.
    Shelley’s father wouldn’t be caught dead
wearing an apron like that. On Mr. Stroud, though, it looked cute.
A tall, robust man with a full head of silver hair and a pleasantly
lined face, he was the kind of person who could wear the silliest
things and not look silly. That, Shelley believed, was true
class.
    Mrs. Stroud finished setting up the condiments
and turned. Spotting Shelley and her mother, she beamed, waved and
hurried over. “Hi! Shelley, and—Mary, is it? I’m so glad you could
come!”
    Shelley’s mother relaxed a little bit. “It was
so nice of you to invite us. Here, this is for you.” She handed
Mrs. Stroud the wine.
    “Oh, my, you shouldn’t have! Well, thank you so
much!” Mrs. Stroud cupped her hand around Shelley’s mother’s elbow
and ushered her away, chattering enthusiastically.
    Shelley let out a long breath. This was going
to be fine. Her mother was going to enjoy herself. They both were
going to survive this weekend without her father. They were going
to prove to themselves—and to him, too—that they didn’t need him to
have a good time.
    Reassured that her mother was all right,
Shelley searched the yard for Kip. She recognized his bare feet
dangling from the branches of the crab-apple tree.
    He jumped down to the grass below with the
gracefulness of a trained acrobat. He had on a kitsch Hawaiian
print shirt, cut-offs and his new sunglasses, and he was holding a
Frisbee. Like his parents, he seemed utterly at ease about himself
and his appearance. Shelley envied his confidence.
    She approached him as he and the girl emerged
from the tree’s shade. “Now listen,” he instructed the girl,
“you’ve got to throw the Frisbee level or it’s going to go up in
the tree again. Can you do that?”
    The girl shrugged.
    “Because the next time it gets stuck in a tree,
you’re going to have to get it. Hi, Shelley.” Kip grinned at her.
“This is my cousin Becky. Wanna play Frisbee with us?”
    “Sure.” She circled the yard with her gaze.
“Are all these other people your cousins, too?” she
asked.
    “Some of them. Sally—the baby—and Michael—the
kid whose shoelace my mother’s tying—are.”
    “And so is the dog,” Becky declared
solemnly.
    “Hey, the dog may be your brother, but he’s not
my cousin,” Kip teased. “The gray-haired lady chugging beer
straight from the bottle is my grandmother, and those kids stuffing
their faces with potato chips are the Sussmans--they’ve got a
summer place up near Grove Point. Their mother is that lady pouring
lemonade, and their father is the one demonstrating golf swings to
my Uncle Ned. And last but not least...” He shot a swift, sidelong
glance at Diana and her boyfriend. “There’s the man in the
spotlight.”
    “He looks like the man in the shadows,” Shelley
observed.
    Kip chuckled. “He can run, but he can’t hide.”
He turned to Diana and her boyfriend and beckoned them with a wave.
“How about it, guys? Wanna join us for a game of
Frisbee?”
    Diana shook her head, but after a quick
conference her boyfriend said, “Count me in,” and jogged across the
lawn to them.
    “Shelley, Mark. Mark, Shelley,” Kip said
briskly,