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for the summer and before they had to go back to school, her cousin Kenny was having his son Jason’s bar mitzvah in Santa Barbara. Kenny had reserved rooms for the weekend for the entire family at the luxurious Four Seasons Biltmore, which was supposed to be like a resort. As usual, Roger was trying to get out of the whole thing.
    “Look, sweetheart,” he said, “there’s no way I can go to California for a weekend. Two long plane trips, and all that money—you know I won’t go steerage—and the hotel. And we’re going to take time off in October.”
    “But Kenny specifically wanted you to come,” Olivia said, feeling the disappointment rise up because she already knew he would have it his way. “He put your name on the envelope and the RSVP card. He knows you don’t go anywhere—he could have written ‘and guest.’ ”
    “Who would you have as a guest?” he asked, teasing.
    “Wozzle. She’ll go anywhere.”
    “Because she’s got no sense. Besides, someone has to stay here.”
    “We’ll get someone. Other doctors take vacations.”
    “I don’t call that a vacation. You go. You’ll get to catch up with your cousins. I’ll be fine.”
    Of course he would be fine, she thought. If he went with her he’d be tired and grouchy, even though to them he would be as charming as he always was. She could understand how he felt about this particular effort, but it was so obvious that Roger didn’t have sentiment for any of the important rites of passage in family life that by now it embarrassed her. Everyone else’s husband was so good, and her boyfriend—lover? companion?—was so different. Pretty soon the family would stop inviting him to anything.
    She hadn’t seen Jason since he was four years old, when Kenny and Gloria had still been married and they had taken a trip to New York. She doubted if she would even recognize him. But that wasn’t the point. You couldn’t let whole lives go by without even trying to look in on them once in a while. They were her blood. She wanted to be there, no matter how much trouble it was, if only for Kenny, and for curiosity.
    * * *
    Kenny was in his first year of medical school when he brought Gloria Weinstein to Mandelay. Olivia already knew he was having an affair with Gloria because he had told her.
    “How is it?” she had asked, because Kenny was so shy he’d never even had a real girlfriend before, or at least none she knew about.
    “She’s not very good,” Kenny said. “But neither am I.”
    He was a young man with a depth of naiveté that was almost childlike, despite having been brought up with money and privilege. Gloria was a plump Bronx blonde with no money, loud and bossy and full of energy, and of course the family didn’t approve of her, but Olivia did. She was a secretary with no particular career ambitions, which in that family was fine, but what they didn’t like was that she was so open about their sexual relationship, going into Kenny’s room and shutting the door and staying there all night, in case they hadn’t already gotten the picture from their afternoon “naps”; and this made them afraid she was going to control his life. When he married Gloria his parents changed their wills, putting everything in trust, already planning for what they considered the inevitable divorce.
    Actually, Kenny and Gloria seemed to be very happy together. She worked while he went to medical school, and when he decided to move to California and make his practice there she was completely agreeable even though it meant she would have to leave behind all her friends. Kenny had only one close friend, a man he’d known since first grade—Gloria was his best friend, his playmate, his confidante. His parents died quite quickly, one after the other, of heart attacks, and then Gloria became his entire world.
    Despite what had been the family’s distrust, Gloria settled into the life of the wife of a successful heart surgeon, pillar of the community, patron of