At first Bru was sympathetic. He held her that first night, until she was able to fall asleep. But the following night, when he began to stroke her thigh and she didn't respond, he turned away, hurt. He didn't get it. He thought it had to do with him. The next time the tears began they were in the truck, just crossing into Virginia. "Here we go again a" he said, pulling off at a rest stop. He jammed on the brakes. "You want anything?"

She shook her head.

He was gone for a long time. When he came back he handed her a cranapple juice and a bag of pretzels. "Whatever it is, get over it, Victoria a just get over it, okay?"

By the time they got to Boston and she was still at it he was angry. "I don't know you anymore."

"Maybe you never did."

"Yeah, right a but either way this is getting a" He turned away from her. "I think we need a break."

If he expected her to argue he was mistaken. She nodded her head calmly and just like that, with no discussion, no questions, no anything, they separated.

Bru HE'S ALWAYS WAITING and worrying she's going to end it. Always looking for signs, expecting the worst. So he jumps the gun, says it out loud before she can. She doesn't even cry. Nothing. That proves it, doesn't it? Jeez a she cries all the way home, then he tells her he needs a break and she just sits there like she's made of stone. After he drops her off he's shaking so bad he has to pull off the road, afraid he'll plow into somebody if he doesn't.

Back on the Vineyard he has a beer with his uncle. Unloads his problems with Victoria. His uncle keeps nodding. Tell me about it, he says. They say one thing, they mean another. No way to understand them. I know it hurts but there's other fish in the sea. And they'll be jumping for you before long.

Star comes on to him, suggests they get together. So they do. In the storeroom of her shop, on the floor, between cartons of chewable vitamin C and ginseng. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are small and lopsided. She makes animal sounds as she comes. There are other fish in the sea, he keeps telling himself.

Do me again, Star says, an hour later. So he does her again.

But when he falls asleep, he dreams only of Victoria.

31.

ON JANUARY28, the Challenger shuttle blew up during takeoff, killing all the astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, and that night Vix fell apart, crying uncontrollably, banging her fists against the wall. What was the point? You worked your a.s.s off, you struggled to get someplace, and wham! just like that, it could all come crashing down. Nothing made sense.

She'd suppressed her feelings about Bru until that moment. But just like the shuttle, their love had come crashing down, over in a flash. Maybe the Countess was right after all. Live for the moment. There might be no tomorrow. And even if there is, n.o.body really gives a d.a.m.n.

Her hysteria frightened Maia, who ran down the hall to find Paisley. When the truth came out, she and Paisley exchanged such looks! "You broke up with Bru and you didn't tell us?" Maia asked. "How could you keep something like that to yourself?"

But she was a master at keeping it all to herself. She'd learned at the feet of an even greater master, hadn't she? Deny a deny a deny a When they'd returned from vacation they'd had two weeks of reading time, two weeks to prepare for exams. She couldn't tell them about Bru then, couldn't allow herself to think about it. And if the shuttle hadn't blown up she might have made it through the semester without confronting reality. "We didn't exactly break up," she explained. "We're taking time off." That was the truth, wasn't it? They hadn't broken up. No one ever said they were breaking up.

"Whose idea a his or yours?" Maia asked.

"We agreed."

"Who suggested it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Just tell me, okay a"

"He did."

"Then he's an idiot and you're better off without him."

Maia VICTORIA CAN BE so secretive! It doesn't make being her friend easy. But for better or worse, they are friends. And friendship is what's on her mind as she sits alone at the medical clinic waiting to be seen. She's not going to stand back and watch Victoria flush it all down the toilet because of some guy. She's not going to let her jeopardize her scholarship. They have two cla.s.ses together and she happens to know Victoria hasn't been keeping up with her reading. She'll do whatever's necessary to help a"if only she doesn't have cancer, because she's discovered a dark spot on her foot that she's almost sure is a melanoma. She just hopes it's not too late.

When her name is called she steps into the cubicle where a young doctor holds a magnifying gla.s.s to her foot and examines the spot. He doesn't think it's anything, he tells her, but he measures it anyway, then draws its shape on a page in her medical record. Come back in a month, he tells her, sooner if you notice any change.

You're not going to do a biopsy?

There's really nothing to biopsy at this point. He reads the concern in her face. You don't have cancer if that's what you're thinking. So relax a How can he be so sure without a biopsy?

Are you stressed-out? he asks.

What, is he kidding? Of course she's stressed-out. She's a junior at Harvard, isn't she?

CAITLIN CALLED from L.A. on a bl.u.s.tery winter day. "I couldn't take another minute in London. It's been so gray, so damp. I thought I'd never feel warm again. I'm visiting Sharkey. He's so involved with whatever it is he's studying he barely has time to see me, which is just as well because you'll never guess who I ran into out here."

"I can't imagine."

"Tim Castellano."

"Tim Castellano!" She hadn't thought about him in years, not since high school. The story broke just a couple of months after the summer they'd baby-sat Max. It made the cover of People. Tawny brought a copy home from the supermarket. "Did you have any inkling while you were working for them, Victoria?"

"No," Vix had lied, thinking of the hardness inside his pants when she'd thrown herself over the seat and landed on his lap.

"Imagine having an affair while your wife is pregnant a and walking out on her the day you bring the baby home from the hospital. Despicable. I'll bet this ruins his career."

It didn't. He'd left TV behind for feature films, while Loren's career just fizzled.

Vix had brought the magazine to school to show Caitlin. "An eighteen-year-old model?" she'd cried. "He left Loren for some eighteen-year-old from New Zealand when he could have had me?"

"Aren't you glad he didn't?"

"I just wanted to have s.e.x with him, Vix. I didn't want him to leave his marriage. And I still think he'd have been a good one for my first. At least he'd have known what he was doing."

Vix thwacked her across the b.u.t.t with the magazine. Caitlin said, "Someday I'm going to finish what I started with him."

And here she was, six years later, finishing what she'd started.

"I didn't have to seduce him or anything," Caitlin told her. "All I had to say was *Remember me?' and he said, *How could I forget, Spitfire?' So we met for a drink a I was wearing white, everybody wears white out here, and one thing led to another."

"So how was it?" Vix asked, angry at herself for caring.

"Actually, the first time was fantastic a we were both so hot we hardly had a chance to take off our clothes a and G.o.d, Vix, he's got an incredible Package a but once I'd satisfied my curiosity a well, we didn't have that much to say to one another. Two weeks was more than enough."

Vix looked out the window. It was still snowing. And she had a cold that wouldn't go away. She also had two papers due. So she didn't want to think about Tim Castellano's Package or how warm and sunny it must be in L.A., or why she was killing herself at school while Caitlin was running around in something white, making it with movie stars.

"It's so weird out here. There's so much insecurity. You wouldn't believe how insecure most of these people are." She took a breath. "Why are you sniffling that way? Do you have a cold?"

"Everybody here has colds."

"You should transfer to a school out here. It's eighty-something today. Then we could room together. It would be like the old days."

"I'm a junior, Caitlin. You don't transfer at the end of your junior year."

"I forgot."

"Anyway, it'll be spring soon."

"Not soon enough from the sound of your voice." Another big breath. "So, how's Bru?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

She wasn't going to tell her they were taking time off, that she'd heard from Trisha he'd already found another woman, Star, the owner of the health food store. "I mean I have two papers due and I've got a job working three nights a week so how am I supposed to find time for a social life?"

"I'll call you next week when you're in a better mood, that is, if you think you'll be in a better mood next week."

"Try me in two weeks."

"Fine. Two weeks."

Sharkey HE DOESN'T HAVE time to worry about her. He's at the lab eighteen hours a day. Why'd she have to come to L.A. now?

How about an introduction? his lab partner asks.

I don't think so.

Come on a she's your sister, isn't she?

She's not available, he tells him.

She puts out vibes, man a Forget about it! he says like he means it.

Okay, sure a no problem.

She lures him away for dinner one night, to some place on a hill with fancy prices. It's been a long time since he's been to a real restaurant. At this rate you're going to fly through your money, he tells her.

She finds that funny. You worry about money, Shark?

Let's put it this way. I don't spend twenty-five bucks on a solo pizza.

That's sweet.

Don't play cute with me, Caitlin. I'm your brother, remember?

Are you trying to tell me something?

Get a job a go back to school. Do something with your life.

I am doing something, Sharkey. It's just different from what you're doing.

32.

VIX AGREED to go home with Maia over spring break, to the white clapboard house in Morris Township with the pool and the tennis court. She found Maia's family warm and welcoming, intellectually stimulating. So how come Maia was always complaining? "They're controlling," she told Vix. "And the sibling rivalry is so intense."

She and Maia took a drive to the sh.o.r.e, to Maia's cousin's house. He and his friends were out on the beach, tossing around a Frisbee. She wouldn't let herself think of other games of Frisbee on other beaches. Andy was a second-year medical student at Penn, short, compact, with good shoulders and arms, blond hair, light eyes. He was funny, a gabber, the opposite of Bru in every way.

"He's going to have a good bedside manner," Maia said, "don't you think?"

Yes, Vix thought, a good bedside manner. When he grabbed her arm and led her away from the others, when he whispered, "I am insanely hot for you," she could feel something stirring inside her.

Maia said, "A doctor, Victoria. You could do worse." Then she laughed. If anyone needed a doctor in the family it was Maia. She'd begun to worry that every spot, lump, or b.u.mp meant cancer. That if her parents couldn't find their gla.s.ses or house keys they were developing Alzheimer's, that her sister or brother would behave recklessly and have s.e.x with someone infected with that new virus.

Vix had never made love with anyone but Bru and at first she was hesitant. "Hey, you think it's any different for me?" Andy asked. "It's new every time." For once she was following her Power, not her heart, and it didn't feel that bad.

Maia HALLELUJAH! Victoria's finally taken the plunge. Better late than never. Now maybe she'll see there are other fish in the sea. She just wishes Victoria would quit dropping lines about what a decent guy Bru is and how she drove him away. She and Paisley are constantly reminding her to stop blaming herself. It wasn't her fault.

You weren't there, were you?

You want him back? Is that it?

I don't know what I want.

Welcome to the club!

IF SHE HADN'T HAD a job lined up she wouldn't have returned to the Vineyard that summer, and G.o.d knows, Maia and Paisley tried their best to get her to change plans.

"Going back is just begging for trouble," Maia said.

"I make enough in a summer on the Vineyard to get through the school year," she said, making excuses. "Plus I'm building my nest egg for after graduation."

Paisley said, "What about Bru?"

"What does Bru have to do with it?"

"Only everything," Maia said.