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but it’s what I really want to do.” I recalled the time Sheila and I had run into each other at Copley Place and then gone to lunch at Legal Seafood. We’d talked about a woman who lived in the building next to us who had lost her husband in a drowning accident. He was thirty-eight. It had been almost seven months, and Sheila and I—it chilled me to remember it—had apparently decided that the time for mourning was up. No more grieving; Annie needed to get
out there.
“I mean, couldn’t she take a cooking class or something at the Cambridge Center?” I’d said. I saw it as though it were yesterday, the two of us having our sanctimonious lunch at Legal Seafood, the restaurant’s blinds pulled against the bright sun, a table full of businessmen next to us, exulting over their
frutti di mare.
“They have wonderful classes there,” I’d said, “and you get to eat the dinners. And it’s too early for her to date, I suppose, but she could make some new friends.” And Sheila had said, “Well, of course. Or go to a movie with a girlfriend, or shopping, or anything but continue to stare at your own bedroom walls.” “Exactly,” I’d said. “This is just too long to . . . well, I don’t know if
wallow
is the right word.” “I think it
is,
” Sheila had said, around her bite of lobster roll. How cruel we’d been, sitting there with our shopping bags full of new fall clothes, deciding how someone else should repair the rent in her own heart. I wondered whether I would be able to live up to my own ruthlessly dictated standards.
    In a more conciliatory tone—Sheila was, after all, only trying to help—I told her, “I can always move back if it doesn’t work out.”
    “But not here. Not to this house. This is a beautiful place. I thought about buying it myself.”
    “Oh?” I looked at her, not quite sure how to respond, and we both laughed.
    “I’m sorry,” Sheila said. “That must have sounded—”
    “It’s okay,” I said. And then, “Well, so . . .”
    “Right.” She slid her hands into her pants pockets. It was clear to both of us that there was nothing more to say. Again we smiled awkwardly at each other, and Sheila moved to the door. She started to open it, then turned suddenly to face me. “I just want to say . . . you know, I wish I could be more
with
you in all this. I wish we were closer. You’re kind of hard to get to know—not your
fault,
I don’t mean that, but you and John were sort of . . . well, you were complete unto yourselves. I guess that’s what I’d say. We wanted to invite you to more things—other people did, too—but—”
    “I know. I know how insular we were. I thought of calling you sometimes, to actually plan something, you know—lunch, a matinee . . .”
    “I would have liked that. I know neither you nor John have family. It just seems like it might help, now, for you to have some really close friends. I mean, you have no one, right? Randy and I—”
    “John and I do have really close friends, actually. They just don’t live here.”
Lie.
But this kind of talk was only making me feel worse. I wanted to go to bed. Well, I wanted John.
    “Oh! Well, I’m
sorry
! I guess I never saw anyone—”
    “Mostly we visited them.” Again a function of writing fiction. In my mind’s eye, I began seeing these friends clearly: friendly-looking people, all with good teeth. Permanent residents of Martha’s Vineyard; we liked riding bikes with them there.
    “I see. Well. I’d better go. Keep in touch.”
    “I will.”
Lie.
    “Do you have a phone yet?”
    “No, not yet. But I’ll call you when I get a number.” I doubted I’d even do that.
    “Okay, so . . . good luck, Betta.”
    “Thank you.” I closed the door behind Sheila and watched her walk home. There was nothing wrong with her. She was a perfectly nice woman. I had seen her carrying things into her house that I’d wanted to ask her about sometimes: a footstool I liked, a potted plant with