.

these are real cute,” Annie exclaimed with enthusiasm at seeing the several elegant trays filled with the appetizers Doris had slaved over. “What are they?”

      Doris approached the table with a proprietary air. “They’re canapés,” she replied, enunciating carefully and establishing her superiority at knowing such things.

      Annie’s eyes flashed with amusement and something else that Doris refused to acknowledge as pity. “No, I mean, what’s in them? Is that shrimp or crab? I’m allergic to crab.”

      Doris blanched but smiled again and replied through thin lips, “Crab.”

      Doris watched as Annie reached for a spinach quiche and nibbled it in mincing bites while looking around the room with thinly disguised boredom.

      “Have you seen Eve?” began Doris. “She’s not coming tonight, you know.”

      “I know,” Annie confirmed, dabbing her mouth with one of Doris’s grandmother’s damask napkins as though it were paper. “I tried to drag her over, but you know Eve when she’s got her back up.”

      “Well, I hardly think she’d need to be dragged over to my house. She’s been here many times, for many years.”

      “Oh, it’s not that,” Annie replied quickly.

      Doris was pleased to see her retreat. Eve was her friend, after all.

      “She has to be dragged anywhere,” Annie continued.

      “You know how she’s been lately—isolated. She’s got to snap out of it.”

      Doris raised one brow. “That’s an interesting way to describe a woman’s period of mourning. I’d always assumed a year was appropriate.”

      Annie skipped a beat and when she spoke again, her normally low voice dropped an octave. “I wasn’t referring to mourning. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that Eve’s been having a hard time of it. She’s not herself and I’m worried about her.”

      “Depressed? Our Eve?” Doris tsked. “She’s just going through a bad spell. She’ll be fine.” She reached out to pat Annie’s arm in a condescending manner.

      Annie held herself erect. “I know she will. I’ll see to it.”

      “Is that part of your job description, too?” Doris asked with a steady smile.

      Annie’s eyes narrowed as she studied Doris’s face with the focus of a cat eyeing a plump canary. Silent and still, but lethal. Doris returned a rigidly polite smile.

      The doorbell rang again, sounding to Doris like the bell of a boxing ring. She promptly excused herself, feeling breathless and numb, as though she’d just received a solid right hook but hadn’t yet hit the mat. It was only the first round. She was relieved beyond words to find Gabriella and Midge at her threshold, almost hauling them into the house with shrill welcome.

      They entered laughing, shaking off snow, explaining as they removed their winter coats how they’d managed to “chow down” some pasta in Little Italy before heading out to the Book Club, which worried Doris tremendously. “I hope you’re still hungry.”

      They hurried to assure her they were as they each flopped large leather bags crammed full with manila folders and type-filled papers onto the floor. They each pulled out well-worn paperback copies of Madame Bovary. Gabriella’s had dozens of yellow sticky slips poking out and Doris smiled, knowing that when Gabriella prepared, the discussions were always lively.

      As they moaned about their harried day, Doris listened quietly with her hands folded thinking to herself, Two more working women. She knew this, of course, but tonight, on the verge of her fiftieth birthday, it hit her differently, like another punch from another angle. They seemed so very busy, so very alive. They seemed to have such purpose.

      Midge was a therapist and an artist. Gabriella was a nurse and a mother. That’s how they described themselves, each giving emphasis to the conjunction and. Both worked at the University of Illinois which fostered the close friendship they shared. The Odd Couple, Doris always called them because they couldn’t be more different.

      Midge was unmarried, a feminist who wore her long, dark skirts and artsy sweaters like a uniform. She was boldly antifashion, or as Doris once whispered behind her palm to Eve, a reverse snob. Secretly everyone in the Book Club admired Midge’s scrubbed, handsome looks, her unmade-up face and nails and her long, striking mane of natural pepper-and-salt that she defied dying and wore as proudly as a flag flapping loose around her straight shoulders. Not that any of them would choose that style for themselves, but they all agreed it worked for Midge with her tall, willowy, flat-tummied body and her complicated, fierce intensity.

      Gabriella, in contrast, was all accommodation and smiles. This amused Doris, who couldn’t imagine how anyone could be so cheerful working a part-time job with four children at home. Gabby’s flat, round face was carved in half by the smile that always dominated it. Her smile revealed a mouthful of large white teeth and squeezed her dark-brown eyes into small half-moons over enormous round cheeks. Gabriella wore little makeup either, but she loved color and swathed her plump, short body in bright oranges, shocking pinks and sunny yellows in swirling patterns. With her golden skin she resembled a soft, ripe pear.

      Now that everyone had arrived, the group slipped into the comfortable pattern of prediscussion chitchat. First they complimented Doris on her clever French menu while she preened and pressed them each into making the most critical decision of the evening: red or white wine. While they nibbled and drank, they poured out good feelings and mutual affection as liberally as the wine. This phase finished, they eased into catching up with what had happened in each of their lives during the past month.

      Doris was boasting shamelessly about Bob Jr.’s exploits at Georgetown. “He made the crew team. Just think how much fun it will be to visit him in Washington D.C. this spring, when the cherry trees are in bloom! Can’t you just see my Bobby on one of those cute little rowboats on the Potomac?”

      “A scull,” corrected Midge dryly. She’d lived and studied in Boston, and delighted in pricking pomposity.

      Doris flushed furiously, feeling another punch.

      Gabriella’s husband still hadn’t found another job. Each month that passed, Gabriella had added more hours to her schedule at the hospital. Now she was working at least thirty hours a week. Fernando was growing increasingly depressed and anxious, so it fell to Gabriella to not only work harder, but to be cheerful and make everyone in the family happy and relaxed.

      “Fernando is looking for just the right position,” she said with a wide smile that assured everyone it was just a matter of time and not to worry—she wasn’t! Only Midge knew the truth and she met Gabriella’s gaze with a reassuring nod.

      Midge’s mother was coming for a visit from Florida next week and she didn’t know how she was going to stand it. “The woman drives me crazy,” she moaned, shaking her head. “She thinks she has to make this maternal pilgrimage every year to visit her single daughter. All she wants to know is when I’m going to get married again.” She reached one of her long arms over to grab a canapé. Waving in the air to make a point, she added, “You’d think she’d get it into her head she’s not going to be a grandmother.”

      “Why not? Just because you’re not married doesn’t mean you can’t be a mother,” said Annie.

      Midge held the canapé still in the air and looked at her like she was nuts. “For God’s sake, Annie, I’m fifty years old!”

      “So what? You’re fit, you eat well, you’re in prime physical condition. Who says you can’t have a baby? There are lots of older women having babies today.”

      “I say I can’t have a baby. I’m not the nurturing type.” She popped the appetizer into her mouth. “Besides, why would I want to breastfeed and change diapers at this point in my life? I’ve worked hard to find out who I am and I don’t want to look back. Hooray for fifty, I say.”

      Doris leaned closer