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  “Where are you from?” I said.

  “From?” he said.

  “What country are you from?” I said.

  “My cauntry,” he said with a smile, “ees bery beautiful.”

  I nodded. He nodded. I nodded. He nodded. So much for marrying foreigners, I thought. So much for my vow not to have marital fantasies about strangers.

  I took an aisle seat on the plane, put Sam in the middle, and saved the window for Mark. He turned up a few minutes later and handed me the early edition of the Daily News. There was Vanessa, on page one, coming out of the police precinct; she looked wonderful. Inside was a riveting story about the glamorous group and the robbery. The story identified me as a “cookbook author,” which always irritates me a little bit since they aren’t merely cookbooks, but at least it didn’t say that I was a distraught, rejected, pregnant cookbook author whose husband was in love with a giantess. According to the article, Sidney and Dan not only discovered each other’s last names at the police precinct but also discovered that they were distant cousins. I wasn’t sure what the readers of the Daily News were going to make of that detail, but I was positive my group would waste hours discussing its possible relevance. In fact, it seemed to me it might make sense to disband the group entirely, since we were bound to be spending so much time in the next year talking about the robbery and its effect that we would never again have time to discuss anyone’s actual life. I wondered whether Mark had read the story, but I knew that if I asked him what he thought of it he would simply use it as yet another occasion to insult my adventures in psychoanalysis in order to punish me for insulting his. I looked over at him. He was immersed in Casa Vogue. It was as if he were pretending he wasn’t with me, that I was just some hopeless woman who didn’t even bother to space her pregnancies, much less respond properly to sitting in the same row with important Washington journalists who are trying to concentrate on home-decorating tips. And I’ll tell you the capper. The stewardess came down the aisle to collect the fares. Now, Mark and I always split things up. I paid my way; I always paid my way. We both earned money, and the money we earned went to pay for what we did. But wouldn’t you think that on this night of all nights he ought to have put my shuttle fare on his credit card? Well, he didn’t.

  I looked at him and was about to say something, when Meg Roberts poked her head over the back of the seat in front of us.

  “I thought I was going to see you at Betty’s the other night,” she said.

  “Fare, please,” said the stewardess.

  I fished in my bag for my credit card and handed it to her.

  “At Betty’s?” I said.

  “At her birthday party,” Meg said.

  “Omigod,” I said. I looked at Mark. He shook his head; he had forgotten, too. I was off in New York crying my eyes out, and he was in Washington fucking his brains out, and we had both forgotten Betty’s thirty-ninth birthday party. The only way Betty would ever forgive me would be for me to tell her why, and if I told her why she’d tell everyone in Washington, and then everyone in town would know something about our marriage that I didn’t want them to know. I know all about Meg Roberts’ marriage, for example, because Meg confides in her friend Ann, who confides in Betty, who confides in me. What I know is that Meg Roberts sleeps with presidential candidates, and her husband sleeps with presidential candidates’ press secretaries’ secretaries. They seem very happy.

  “How was the party?” said Mark.

  “Wonderful,” said Meg, and popped back down.

  Actually, there is no possible way a seated dinner party in Washington can ever be wonderful. After only half an hour of drinks, you are seated, seated forever, trapped between two immensely powerful men who think it’s your function as their dinner partner to draw them out. You draw them out. You ask them about the Salt talks. You ask them about the firearms lobby. You ask them about their constituencies. You ask them about the next election. Dinner ends and everyone goes home. It always amazes me that women like Meg Roberts ever manage to get anything sexual going in Washington, although obviously she knows something about drawing men out that I don’t.

  Sam threw up on Mark’s new blazer.

  “Shit,” said Mark.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Sam started to cry. There was a kind of odd murmur in the seats around us, as the smell began to penetrate to the adjoining rows. At any moment the murmur would probably build to a hiss, and then to a chorus of boos, and ultimately Sam and I would be stoned to death with Bic pens.

  “What am I apologizing for?” I said. “It’s not my fault.”

  “I know it’s not,” said Mark. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault either,” I said.

  “This whole thing is my fault,” he said.

  “If you really believed that, you would have paid my shuttle fare,” I said.

  I picked up Sam and stood up to go to the bathroom with him. Mark began to wipe off his blazer with his handkerchief.

  “You bought that blazer with Thelma Rice, didn’t you?” I said, and started for the back. I didn’t even have to hear the answer. Mark’s impulse to fall in love is always accompanied by his impulse to purchase clothes with the loved one looking on. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had spent half my marriage in the men’s department watching small white-haired tailors on their knees making chalk marks on Mark’s trouser cuffs.

  I went back to the bathroom and laid Sam on the top of the toilet seat to change his clothes. Toilet seats in airplane bathrooms are not even big enough to change baby piglets on. Sam’s head kept flopping off the cliff sides of the toilet seat as I changed his overalls and T-shirt and diaper. When I finished, I checked out the mirror to see if I looked older, or sadder, or wiser. I didn’t; I just looked tired. Well, I was going home. I was going home with my husband. I loved my husband. The city of New York was a wonderful place, but it seemed terribly unimportant next to my marriage. So much for sorrel soup. I had never thought my marriage could survive an infidelity, but it would. It had been unrealistic of me to expect that the situation would never come up. They say all marriages go through something like this. I became dizzy as the clichés raced through my head. I put Sam on the bathroom floor and threw up. In the main cabin, the pilot was announcing our descent to the Washington area. Yes indeed, I thought. I wiped myself off and went back to my seat.

  eight

  I see that I haven’t managed to work in any recipes for a while. It’s hard to work in recipes when you’re moving the plot forward. Not that this book has an enormous amount of plot, but it has more plot than I’ve ever dealt with before. My other books just meandered from one person to the next, whereas this one has a story with a beginning and an end. That’s one of the things that makes it different from most of what has happened to me in my life: I know when it began and when it ended. When my first marriage collapsed, I made a lot of notes about the hamsters and the fight over the coffee table, but I could never be sure whether the end of my marriage to Charlie was the beginning of a story or the end of one. But the story I’m telling here began the day I discovered the affair between Mark and Thelma, and it ended exactly six weeks later. It has a happy ending, but that’s because I insist on happy endings; I would insist on happy beginnings, too, but that’s not necessary because all beginnings are intrinsically happy, in my opinion. What about middles, you may ask. Middles are a problem. Middles are perhaps the major problem of contemporary life.

  In any case, all I meant to say was that because this book tells a story, there aren’t as many recipes in it as there are in my other books, so if you bought it because you thought there were going to be lots of recipes in every chapter, I’m sorry.

  On the other hand, I’ve gotten to the point in the story where I return to Washington, and that brings me to the Siegels, finally to the Siegels; and therefore it brings me to the linguine alla cecca recipe. The four of us went to Italy a few years ago, and Julie Siegel and I managed to wangle the recipe from the proprietor o
f a restaurant in Rome. We also spent quite a lot of time after that trip working in pesto, because we went to Italy in 1977, and in 1977 everyone was eating pesto. As Arthur Siegel said one day: “Pesto is the quiche of the seventies.” Arthur had a way of saying things like that—of summing up the situation so perfectly that you never wanted another spoonful of pesto again—and whenever he said something like that, Mark always ran off with it and turned it into a column. Arthur used to complain bitterly about having his best remarks stolen, but the truth is he rather liked it; he was a running character in Mark’s columns, and he enjoyed a certain notoriety at Georgetown Law School, where he taught criminal law while waiting for the Kennedys to return to power. As for the linguine alla cecca, it’s a hot pasta with a cold tomato and basil sauce, and it’s so light and delicate that it’s almost like eating a salad. It has to be made in the summer, when tomatoes are fresh. Drop 5 large tomatoes into boiling water for one full minute. Peel and seed and chop. Put into a large bowl with ½ cup olive oil, a garlic clove sliced in two, 1 cup chopped fresh basil leaves, salt and hot red pepper flakes. Let sit for a couple of hours, then remove the garlic. Boil one pound of linguine, drain and toss with the cold tomato mixture. Serve immediately.

  Arthur and Julie and Mark and Rachel. The Siegels and the Feldmans. It’s not just that we were best friends—we dated each other. We went steady. That’s one of the things that happens when you become a couple: you date other couples. We saw each other every Saturday night and every Sunday night, and we had a standing engagement for New Year’s Eve. Our marriages were tied together. We went to Italy, we went to Ireland, we went to Williamsburg, we went to Montreal, we went to St. Martin, and Mark drove and I navigated and Julie suggested wrong turns and Arthur fell asleep. Then, when we got to wherever we were going, Mark wanted to eat and I wanted to see the market and Julie wanted to go to the museum and Arthur wanted to take a crap. We had flat tires together and we ran out of gas together; in some fundamental sense, we were always on the road, merrily on our way to nowhere in particular. Two of us liked dark meat and two of us liked light meat and together we made a chicken.

  I suppose that I honestly believed that if I couldn’t save our marriage, the Siegels could. Which is why I called them from New York the night I discovered Mark’s affair. They were shocked. They were astonished. There was consternation in every syllable they uttered. All of this was a relief to me—suppose they’d known! Suppose they’d known and hadn’t told me! Suppose they’d known and told me!

  “With Thelma Rice?” Julie said on the phone. “Omigod.”

  “Julie, what am I going to do?” I said.

  “Pick up the phone, Arthur,” said Julie. “It’s Rachel.”

  “Hello,” said Arthur.

  “I’m sorry to call so late,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” said Arthur. “Obviously you’ve finally figured out who Thelma Rice is having the affair with and you’re calling to tell us, and I appreciate it even if it is one in the morning.”

  “It’s Mark,” I said.

  “Did something happen to Mark?” said Arthur. “Jesus Christ, Rachel. What is it?”

  “Arthur,” said Julie, “Thelma Rice is having the affair with Mark.”

  “He says he’s in love with her,” I said.

  “He told you this?” said Arthur.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why did he tell you this?” said Arthur.

  “I found a book she’d given him with an inscription in it, and when I confronted him, he said he was in love with her.”

  “He said he was in love with her or he said he was fucking her?” said Arthur.

  “He said he was in love with her but he said he wasn’t fucking her,” I said.

  “Where are you?” said Julie.

  “In New York,” I said. “At my father’s.”

  “Where’s Sam?” said Julie.

  “With me,” I said.

  “Does he know what’s happening?” said Arthur.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve been crying for eight hours now, and he hasn’t even noticed.”

  “I know,” said Julie. “When Alexandra was two I cried for eight months and she never noticed.”

  “Does Mark know you’re there?” said Arthur.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “That fuckhead,” said Arthur. “He’s gone crazy.”

  “That’s what I said to him,” I said. “But he denied it.”

  “Of course he denied it,” said Arthur. “That’s the truest sign of insanity—insane people are always sure they’re just fine. It’s only the sane people who are willing to admit they’re crazy.”

  “Did you know about this, Arthur?” said Julie.

  “Of course I didn’t know about it,” said Arthur. “How could you think I would know about it and not tell you?”

  “I told him he had to stop seeing her,” I said.

  “And what did he say?” said Arthur.

  “He said he wouldn’t. And he said I should stay with him anyway and have the baby. He said, ‘I am in love with Thelma Rice. I still have feelings about you, of course, and we are going to have another baby, so I suggest we just get from day to day.’ ”

  “Oh, shit,” said Julie.

  “Listen, Rachel, sit tight,” said Arthur. “I’m going to talk to him.”

  Arthur and Julie will go over there and beat some sense into Mark, I thought when I hung up the phone. Arthur and Julie will glare at him until he withers under the moral opprobrium of their gaze. Arthur and Julie will take the power of our friendship and club him into submission. This was not exactly the romantic scenario I had had in mind—I would have preferred Mark to have a more voluntary kind of blinding vision—but it would have to do. After all, Mark might be willing to give me up, and my vinaigrette, but he would never give up the four of us. And Thelma would never fit in. For one thing, she was too tall. Arthur and Julie and Mark and I were all approximately the same size, which is one reason we traveled so well together. It’s hard to walk in lockstep with people a lot taller than you are, because they take longer strides, and you always feel like a little puppy scampering to keep up. For another thing, Thelma Rice really didn’t care about food—that was clear from her gluey puddings—while the four of us had a friendship that was a shrine to food. We had driven miles to find the world’s creamiest cheesecake and the world’s largest pistachio nut and the world’s sweetest corn on the cob. We had spent hours in blind taste testings of kosher hot dogs and double chocolate chip ice cream. When Julie went home to Fort Worth, she flew back with spareribs from Angelo’s Beef Bar-B-Q, and when I went to New York, I flew back with smoked butterfish from Russ and Daughters. Once, in New Orleans, we all went to Mosca’s for dinner, and we ate marinated crab, baked oysters, barbecued shrimp, spaghetti bordelaise, chicken with garlic, sausage with potatoes, and on the way back to town, a dozen oysters each at the Acme and beignets and coffee with chicory on the wharf. Then Arthur said, “Let’s go to Chez Helene for the bread pudding,” and we did, and we each had two. The owner of Chez Helene gave us the bread pudding recipe when we left, and I’m going to throw it in because it’s the best bread pudding I’ve ever eaten. It tastes like caramelized mush. Cream 2 cups sugar with 2 sticks butter. Then add 2 ½ cups milk, one 13-ounce can evaporated milk, 2 tablespoons nutmeg, 2 tablespoons vanilla, a loaf of wet bread in chunks and pieces (any bread will do, the worse the better) and 1 cup raisins. Stir to mix. Pour into a deep greased casserole and bake at 350° for 2 hours, stirring after the first hour. Serve warm with hard sauce.

  For the most part, Arthur Siegel is remarkably content. Once when we played Do You Have Any Regrets, the only thing he could come up with was that we hadn’t ordered some fried onion rings at Chez Helene along with the bread pudding. When we played What Do You Wish You Were Named, I wanted to be named Veronica because it’s luscious and I’m not, Julie wanted to be named Anthea because it’s thin and she’s not, Mark wanted to be named Sash
a because it’s dashing and he’s not, and Arthur thought it over and said it seemed to him his name suited him just fine. It does. Arthur is chunky but solid, as an Arthur should be, and he has a red handlebar mustache that almost compensates for the fact that he is almost completely bald. I’ll tell you how sensible Arthur is: he doesn’t even mind being bald.

  Arthur and Mark had grown up together in Brooklyn. They went to Columbia, and then Mark went to journalism school there and Arthur went off to law school at Yale. They both ended up in Washington. Julie was a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill when Arthur met her. She has curly blond hair and goo-goo-googly eyes and big pearly teeth like the girl in the Coca-Cola ad, and every so often Arthur stares across the room at her as if he cannot believe she’s his. All of this is mystifying to Julie, who believes she’s just a fairly average plump girl from Texas who snagged a nice Jewish husband solely due to what she calls shiksa madness.

  The Siegels got married and moved into a two-bedroom apartment on Connecticut Avenue, and Mark would bring his girl friends to breakfast on Sundays. The first Jewish Kimberly passed through their lives. Then more girl friends. Then Mark turned up with me, and suddenly there we were, the four of us. Together. We would sit around, doing nothing, nothing at all, lazy Sundays with clouds in the coffee and papers all over the living room and dusty Sunday light coming through the color-coordinated Levolor blinds. Arthur would say that the trouble with Washington was that there wasn’t a decent delicatessen. Julie would say that the trouble with Washington was that there weren’t any late movies on television. I would say that the trouble with Washington was that it was so goyish. Mark would say that the trouble with Washington was that too many people there spent too much time figuring out what the trouble with it was. We would all say these things as if we had never said them before, and argue over them as if we had never argued over them before. Then we would all decide whether we wanted to be buried or cremated. Then we would move on to the important matters. Should they paint their living room peach? Should they strip down their dining table? Should they buy a videotape recorder? Should they re-cover the couch?