"If you want to put it that way."

"That's the way people put it." Nora thought, drank more beer, thought again. "Got anyone in mind?" she said.

"No," said Francie, feeling Nora's gaze and not even trying to meet it.

A long silence followed. Nora poured the rest of the beer, looking at Francie from the corner of her eye. "Did I ever tell you about my grandmother?" she said.

"Rose? I knew her."

"But did I ever mention the time I called her number, six months after she died?"

"Why?"

"Because there was something I'd meant to tell her." Nora rose. "Good luck, kiddo."

"Good luck?"

"With Anne," said Nora. "In the tournament."

Francie went home. The phone was ringing. She picked it up.

"Francie? Anne Franklin. Hope it's not too late. They just called me with the draw-we play Friday at four-thirty, if that's all right."

"Fine."

"And I was thinking maybe we could set up a practice match before that."

"Sure."

"I've got a court Thursday at six."

"Thursday's out," Francie said.

"I'm sorry-that's the only time they had."

"We'll just have to wing it," Francie said.

Francie went to bed but couldn't sleep. She kept thinking of Nora's grandmother, kept hearing the chill in Nora's voice when she wished her luck. That was unbearable: candor, as they said, was the soul of friendship, and she had let Nora down. There would have to be at least one change in Ned's rules.

6.

Thursday. Francie spent the day in her office, preparing a report (negative) for the acquisitions committee. ". . . menstrual performance, coupled with an installation consisting of outsize Tupperware (e. g., casserole dish-10 ft. diameter) suspended from a . . ." She found she'd already typed that sentence, not once but twice, as a quick scroll through the text revealed. She couldn't concentrate at all. This often happened on Thursdays, but this Thursday more than ever.

The phone rang. Francie reached for it with dread. Once before Ned had called to cancel, at about this same time. But it wasn't Ned.

"Francie? Tad Wagner here."

"Yes?" She'd heard the name but couldn't place it.

"Your insurance agent-classmate of Roger's."

"Oh, yes."

"How're you doing?"

"Fine, thanks."

"So I understand. I saw a nice article in the Globe."

"That was really about the foundation. I wasn't even supposed-"

"I'm impressed. But the reason I'm calling-now that this career of yours is taking off, have you given any thought to a term policy in your own name?"

"A term policy?"

"That's the instrument I'd recommend in your case."

"Are you talking about life insurance?"

"That's my forte." He pronounced it correctly-at least Harvard gave you that.

"I have no dependents, Tad."

Pause. "What about Roger? Word is he's . . ."

What about Roger? Roger had supported her for years. And if they did end in divorce, she could change the beneficiary: to Em. "How much does it cost?"

Tad described different options. Francie settled on a term policy for $500, 000 with Roger as beneficiary and hung up. Tad must have been desperate for business: that Globe article was six months old.

Ten to four. Enough. She saved and printed her report. Then she wrote To Ned, with all my love, Francie on a plain sheet of paper. She stared at the words. They seemed alive on the page.

Francie folded the paper, put it in an envelope, taped it to the rewrapped painting leaning against her desk. She'd never written Ned a note before-written communication was out-but this was special. He could destroy the note if he wished. The pleasure of writing it had been exquisite: it made their relationship real. Francie packed her briefcase, picked up the painting, took the elevator down to the garage.

She drove out of the city under a low and fast-darkening sky, planning what she would say about Nora. It was just a question of making him see how close they were, how trustworthy Nora was. Francie was sure he would understand. Her heart grew light and buoyant-she could feel it, high in her chest, like a bird about to fly. She felt as happy as she'd ever been, at least as an adult, until just across the New Hampshire line, when the car phone buzzed. She realized immediately that she'd forgotten to send the goddamn report upstairs to the acquisitions committee.

"Hello?" she said.

But it wasn't the committee. First a faint background voice, female, said, "Three minutes to air," and then Ned came on. "Hello," he said.

"Ned."

"Hi." He never spoke her name on the phone. There was a pause, and in it Francie thought: Say you'll be a little late. He said, "I'm sorry, but I can't make it today."

"Oh."

"Two minutes to air."

"Really sorry. Something's come up; I'll explain later."

"Something bad?"

"Nothing bad, but I've got to go."

"Bye, then."

"I'll call."

Too late to go back to the office, and Francie didn't want to go home. She kept driving, wishing she hadn't said Bye, then like that. Something coming up had to mean something involving Em-a parent-teacher meeting, a dance recital. Em came first. Em was the reason Ned couldn't get divorced; Em was the reason for secrecy. Francie understood that, accepted it. If she had a child, she would be the same . . . Francie didn't finish the thought. A competing one had risen in her mind, obtrusive: If I had a child, I would never take the risk, not for anyone. She shoved this second thought away, back down into her unconscious or wherever it had sprung from. She didn't have a child: she couldn't know. And how unfair to Ned. He loved her, he loved Em. Did that make him bad?

Francie was almost at Brenda's gate before she remembered the show. Switching on the radio, she caught Ned in midsentence, the signal weak and scratchy with static but audible: ". . . pain will ever go away? Maybe not-that's the truth of it. But it will change into something else, something more manageable. Time may not be a healer, but at least it turns wounds into scars, if you see what I mean."

"I think I do, Ned." The woman was crying. "Thank you."

"Rico from Brighton. Welcome to Intimately Yours."

"Hey. Great show. Can we switch to something different for a second?"

"Thursday, Rico. Anything goes."

"I'd like to talk about the Big A."

"The Big A?"

"The A-word, Ned."

"Adultery?"

"You got it."

"And what's your angle?"

"The scientific angle."

"Which is?"

"You know," said Rico. "Nature's law. It's in a man's best interest to get his genes out there as much as possible and it's in a woman's best interest to have a man around to help with the kids. I mean, that's a contradiction, right?"

"And the implication?"

"That it's not about morality. You do what you gotta do."

There was a long pause, full of static. Then Ned said, "Why don't we throw that out to the listeners-the Big A, a question of-"

Francie lost him completely. Night had fallen now. Her headlights glinted on Brenda's gate. She unlocked it, drove through and up the hill. At the top, she tried the radio again, and Ned came in clearly. ". . . reduce this to a bunch of genes? Let's take another call."

All at once, Francie had a crazy idea. She had a phone, it was a call-in show, she knew the number. Why not call him? He'd never said not to call the show. Free-form Thursday. She picked up the phone and dialed; no chance of getting through anyway.

"Intimately Yours," said a voice. "Who's this?"

"Iris," said Francie. "On a car phone."

"And what did you want to talk about?"

"Genes."

"Mind turning off your radio? You're next."

Francie waited, her heart beating its Thursday beat again. What was the saying? Hide a tree in the forest. Did it apply to what she was doing? Maybe not. Maybe this wasn't such a good- "You're on."

Ned spoke, right in her ear, but with a tone he never used with her: "Iris on her car phone, welcome to the show. What's on your mind, Iris?"

Maybe not a good idea.

"Iris? You there?"

Francie said, "I just want to tell you how much I like your show. Thursdays especially."

Silence. It seemed endless. Then the line went dead. She turned the radio back on, felt herself blushing like a schoolgirl.

". . . lost Iris. Let's take another call." Ned, his voice pitched higher than she'd ever heard it. Not a good idea, not well executed, not funny. Francie pounded her hand on the steering wheel.

Early retirement: an infuriating suggestion. On the computer in his basement office, Roger opened the file containing his resume and made a single change, adding IQ-181 (Stanford-Binet) on the line below the date of his birth. He printed the resume, read it over. The new entry didn't look bad, no worse than a long list of specious awards, for example. Quite professional. He prepared a mailing list of potential employers for the revised resume.

After that, Roger logged on to the Puzzle Club, started the Times of London crossword. Where was he? Hell, in ideal form: that would be dystopia. Seven across, six letters: ugni, sylvaner. He typed in grapes. Ten down, nine letters: loss. Roger paused, sat for a few moments, then went up to Francie's bedroom; their bedroom. He bent, looked under the bed. The painting of the grapes and the skateboarding girl was gone.

Roger grew aware of Francie's clock radio, broadcasting to an empty room; she was like that, leaving on lights, running the tap the whole time she brushed her teeth. "Genes or no genes, Ned, " a woman on a phone line was saying, "it'll always be cheating in my book. "

"Sounds like the first line of a country hit," said a studio voice, gentle and sympathetic: the kind of male tone suddenly common in broadcasting, a tone Roger hated.

"Let's take another caller," the man said as Roger moved to shut him off. "Who have we got? Iris on her car phone, welcome to the show. What's on your mind, Iris?"

A long pause. Roger was unfamiliar with Francie's clock radio; he fumbled for the switch, found the volume instead, turning it louder.

"Iris? You there?"

"I just want to tell you how much I like your show," a woman said. "Thursdays especially."

Roger froze. Time seemed to freeze with him. The radio went silent, until at last the smooth-voiced man cleared his throat and said, "Oops, looks like we lost Iris. Let's take another call."

"Hi, Ned. Can we get off this adultery thing for a minute? I'm having a problem with my-"