Isabel turns to Yvonne, her hazel eyes flashing. Yvonne squirms. "Well, yes, but-"

"And since I helped you move your furniture around the other day, I thought you'd be happy to extend the same courtesy to me, a fellow neighbor in need." Bettie blinks innocently.

"You could have at least called . . . Wait, how did you even get in here?" A look of consternation crosses Isabel's face. "I am hiding my key in a new place, Bettie!"

"For the record, I did call, as Yvonne will attest, but there was no answer," Bettie says smugly.

"Because I was at work!"

"Well, I don't have your work number, now do I? You should give it to me for next time."

"Never." Isabel is gritting her teeth and Yvonne notices that there's a gallon of mint chip ice cream on top of all the groceries in her shopping bag. Yvonne's stomach gives a growl.

"Goodness, poor Yvonne is starving. You go put your groceries away, Isabel dear, and you can join us. We have plenty of food."

Isabel is struggling to keep her composure as the other women look on. "I was looking forward to a quiet dinner," she says under her breath. "So if you could please tell everyone to leave-"

Bettie reaches into Isabel's bag and plucks out a TV dinner. "Really, Isabel," she says with a tsk. She tosses it back in Isabel's bag. "I'm going to fix you up a plate. You can sit with Yvonne. She's new to the Society, too." Bettie gasps. "You can be sc.r.a.pbooking sisters!"

Ew. Yvonne cringes. By the look on Isabel's face, she doesn't care much for it, either.

"I should be going," Yvonne says. As hungry as she is, she's had enough drama for one day. She just wants to go home.

Isabel finally looks triumphant. "Thank you," she says smugly. "Now if everyone else could-"

"Girls," Bettie says. Her voice is suddenly serious. "I think you would both do well to sit. We're late as it is and the food's getting cold." The women hovering around them stop talking and raise their eyebrows. A second later, they've scattered to different parts of the room.

Isabel and Yvonne are about to protest again but Bettie says again, much more sternly and loudly, "SIT."

Both women sit.

Bettie takes the grocery bag from Isabel and heads to the kitchen. "Lorna," she calls, her voice sweet again. "Can you get the girls some food, chop-chop? Make sure they get some of that lovely purple cabbage slaw. And Sue Pendergast's tomato salad. Sue, you have got to give me that recipe. I always put in too much balsamic vinegar and it turns the whole dish!"

The two young women watch as Society members descend upon the buffet, commenting on the different dishes, pouring cups of iced tea, then depositing two paper plates in front of them laden with food.

"I don't believe this," Isabel is muttering. Her fists are clenched.

Yvonne wants to be sympathetic but really, what's the big deal? Obviously Bettie and Isabel are chummy enough because Bettie seems to know her way around Isabel's house. Either way, it's not her business. She picks up her fork, not interested in debating this particular topic with Isabel, with anyone. "Well, cheers," she says, holding up her paper cup of iced tea.

Isabel turns and looks at her, then reluctantly picks up her own cup, knocking it halfheartedly against Yvonne's. Yvonne quickly downs her iced tea and starts in on the food. "Wow, this is really good," she says with a happy sigh. Everything tastes fresh and delicious. "I haven't had a home-cooked meal in a long time."

Yvonne is so engrossed in her food that she doesn't notice Isabel slowly unfurling her fists and reaching for a fork. And then, like her tablemate, Isabel begins to eat.

Chapter 5.

"Attention! Attention! The August meeting of the Avalon Ladies Sc.r.a.pbooking Society is now in order." Bettie holds a wooden mallet decorated with sequins and fabric sc.r.a.ps. She bangs it several times on a block of wood painted hot pink and decoupaged with printed tissue paper.

A hush sweeps the room. All eyes are trained on Bettie as plates of food are quickly finished and disposed of. The women move swiftly to their chairs, their faces all business.

Bettie peers at her notes over her reading gla.s.ses. "I'm pleased to welcome new members Emily Spiller, Thelma Talley, and Trudy Hughes. Many thanks to Bev Smitts for sharing her alb.u.m, 'The Great Outdoors,' where she sc.r.a.pbooked about husband Roosevelt's hunting trip last fall. And Georgia Wellington's alb.u.m, 'A Day at the Zoo,' gave us lots of wonderful ideas on how to incorporate found objects into our pages-I thought the peac.o.c.k feather was a particularly nice touch. Edie's feature of last month's meeting in the 'Out and About' section of the Avalon Gazette was well received, thank you, Edie. Based on an eighty-three percent response from Society members we saw a rise in the use of distressed ink, a decline in the use of patterned brads. Now on to the Treasurer's report . . ."

Isabel takes a bite out of the remaining cracker on her plate. Several heads turn around and frown.

Annoyed, Isabel puts down the cracker and mutters, "Well, I'm done. Think I'll go home now." She gives the women in front of her a pointed look. "Oh wait. I am home."

Yvonne stifles a laugh.

". . . And finally, I'd like to thank Isabel Kidd for opening up her home to us tonight. Isabel, stand up so we can give you a round of applause!" Bettie gestures for Isabel to stand up.

"Pa.s.s," Isabel says flatly, a disinterested look on her face.

"Oh, come on," Yvonne says, grinning. "It won't kill you." A few women seated around them nod in agreement.

Isabel gives Yvonne an incredulous look but reluctantly stands up. The women clap heartily and Isabel sits back down. Yvonne gives her a pat on the back and Isabel smiles sheepishly.

"Okay, we have a lot to do today and I know I promised that we'd get to the new fall layouts." Bettie peers out at the group. "Anyone? Anyone?"

There's an excited buzz as hands immediately shoot up.

"Didn't you say we'd be working with chipboard? I've been waiting to make one of those coaster alb.u.ms for the grandkids. And have you seen the new Pebbles Chips? They're adorable!"

"I'm hoping we'll be making page pockets and incorporating family mementos. I want to sc.r.a.pbook my sister's baby shower before she delivers."

"The Jenni Bowlin alpha letters in oranges and browns would be perfect. Oh, and the new Prima flowers . . ."

Isabel exchanges a bewildered look with Yvonne.

"It's Greek to me," Yvonne says. "But I have to admit, I'm curious. I overheard someone saying they paid over two hundred dollars for a cricket. Is that for real?"

"A Cricut, a die-cut machine," someone whispers from behind them. "You can cut anything with it. Paper . . ."

"Fabric . . ."

"Vinyl . . ."

"Felt . . ."

"Yes, we get it, thank you," Isabel says.

"Bettie hosts swarms twice a year," the woman continues. "It's like a crop, when we all get together to sc.r.a.pbook, except a swarm is when we share our Cricut machines and cartridges with sc.r.a.ppers who don't have them. You can cut any shape or pattern, letters, and in every size . . ."

Isabel closes her eyes and pretends this is all a bad dream while Yvonne listens with interest.

Claribel Apple, a neighbor from down the street, digs through her bag and hands something to them. "I made this card at the last swarm. I'm giving it to my husband for our anniversary next month."

"If you don't end up keeping it for yourself," her friend chuckles.

"I know!" Claribel exclaims. "I love it so much I don't know if I can give it away. You know he'll just stuff it in his sock drawer."

Yvonne nudges Isabel and nods at the card. "Hey, this isn't so bad. Look."

Reluctantly Isabel looks over. The card's a bit sappy ("In your arms is my favorite place to be . . .") but she has to admit it looks all right, like an expensive card you'd buy in one of those stationery stores in the city. "Nice," she mutters.

Yvonne hands it back to the woman and turns back toward Bettie, her eyes glowing with renewed interest.

"Those were all good guesses but we're going to have even more fun," Bettie is saying. She pauses for effect and her eyes grow wide, the women in the room leaning forward in nervous antic.i.p.ation. "We're st.i.tching our layouts this month!"

There's a delighted gasp and another round of applause.

Isabel claps her hands over her ears and looks at Yvonne. "I'm going crazy."

"Now, I have six-page layout packages here for those of you who want to take a shortcut," Bettie is saying as she walks around the room. "It includes borders, tags, paper, some adorable brads and rub-ons, cutouts, and of course suggestions for how to lay everything out and then st.i.tch it up by hand or machine. Otherwise you're welcome to use your own papers and ideas. The kit is free to Society members and $9.99 for guests." She stops in front of Isabel and Yvonne and hands them each a pack, then places a finger over her lips in a secretive smile. "We have extra tools at our Sc.r.a.p Station over there . . ."

Isabel glances over. "My dining room table, you mean?"

". . . and don't forget to swing by the swap table. Members bring supplies they no longer need or want and swap them for something that might work better. Most of the time people are glad to get rid of stuff so help yourself if you see something you like." Bettie turns and hollers, "Okay, ladies. We have two hours left. Let's get sc.r.a.ppin'!"

The women begin to a.s.semble themselves around makeshift tables. Rolling file boxes and organizers are opened and items immediately placed on the table-cutting boards, pens and markers, adhesives, plastic containers of embellishments, stacks of paper, loose photos.

"Are we cropping or sc.r.a.pping?" Yvonne whispers. "I'm confused."

"Maybe we're c.r.a.pping," Isabel suggests, but no one bites. She looks at the packet in her hand. "Oh, sc.r.a.p! I don't have any pictures." She snaps her fingers, feigning disappointment.

"You live here." Yvonne helps open a portable camping table and sets it up in front of them. "I'm sure you have something. Don't you have a big box of unsorted photos somewhere? Everyone does."

Isabel does have a box like that but it went into the attic when Bill left, along with all the photo alb.u.ms and framed prints. When he died, Isabel could only bear to be up there long enough to find a good photo for the memorial. She hasn't looked at the boxes since then and doesn't intend to anytime soon. Instead she says, "I just painted so I moved a bunch of stuff around. I can't remember where I put anything."

"You can always put the layout together and add your photos at another time," Lorna says as she walks by. "That's what most of us do anyway. You can't get it all done in one evening, after all. What would be the fun in that?"

There's a chortle of laughter as Lorna walks on.

"It took me a whole weekend to sc.r.a.pbook the trip Jazz and I took to the San Diego boardwalk last year," Cyndi Bloom remembers.

"I love San Diego!" Yvonne exclaims. "How long were you there for?"

Cyndi is looking through an a.s.sortment of edged scissors. "Three days."

"Wait," Isabel says. "It took you the same amount of time to sc.r.a.pbook a trip you went on?" Isabel can think of lots of things she can do in a weekend, and sc.r.a.pbooking isn't one of them.

Cyndi thinks about it. "You're right, it took me longer. I spent two days power-planning my pages before I started. But I don't really count that because I usually watch TV at the same time."

Isabel shakes her head, incredulous, and looks to Yvonne for confirmation about how nuts this whole sc.r.a.pbooking thing is. But Yvonne is already hard at work, strategizing with one of the ladies about whether she should cut a mat for a photo and, if so, whether it should be vertical or horizontal.

"I can't decide," Yvonne says, more to herself than anyone else. "I think most of my pictures are horizontal, though." She looks up at Isabel and begs, "Come on, don't make me do this by myself. It's fun!"

A smart retort is on the tip of Isabel's tongue when she sees her neighbor across the room bend down to pick up a piece of paper that's fallen to the ground. Despite her age Bettie is quick on her feet, but for a second Isabel sees something else, a look of confusion crossing her face, a sudden intake of breath as she glances around the room, her brow furrowed. No one else is paying attention as Bettie is frozen for a moment, lost, the piece of paper still in her hand.

And then she's back, striding across the room at a clip, tossing the paper into the trash, giving suggestions and helping people rearrange different sc.r.a.pbooking elements on their pages.

"Isabel?" Yvonne is looking at her. "Come on. You game?"

"What?" Isabel looks back at Yvonne, probably the only other person in the room that she has any interest in talking to and who seems to be fine talking to her. Isabel sneaks one more look at Bettie but she's laughing now, holding up a paper flower and pointing to one of the petals, demonstrating some kind of technique with a needle and thread. Maybe she was imagining it, but Isabel can't be sure. Either way, Isabel has no place to go until this whole thing is over and done with. Resigned, she breaks the seal on the cellophane packet and spreads the contents on the table in front of her.

Max is asleep in Ava's bed. Ava tries not to make a habit of it, knows that the parenting books say it's a big no-no, but she loves having him snuggle up next to her, his soft skin, his little fingers winding around hers. The closeness is rea.s.suring for both of them and it's such a small thing.

Today was another hard day at preschool. The teacher told her as Ava was buckling him into his car seat, and Ava was livid that they hadn't called her, hadn't given her a chance to come and pick him up, to make it all better. The teacher didn't see what happened, a squabble over some plastic blocks that ended up with one child hitting another. Max, in the middle, didn't get hurt but was upset. He stopped talking for the rest of the day, didn't eat his lunch, didn't want a snack. He did nap, the teacher said, brightening. As if that made it all better.

Ava listens to her son breathe, his breaths short and even. He's pressed against her, not trusting her to roll even an inch away before he reaches out for her again.

Ava sighs in the dark. This is the hardest part for her, the part that makes her turn away when she sees families where both parents are there and engaged, backing each other up and tag teaming. She belonged to a moms' group for a while but dropped out because she couldn't stand hearing the other women complain about their husbands and what they didn't do. What about what they did do, however small? It'd have to beat being on your own all the time, having it all come down to you and you alone. No one to talk to, to bounce ideas off of, to formulate a parenting strategy. There's no room to get sick, to take a break, to have a major meltdown.

After an hour Ava is able to carefully slip out of the bed. She tucks pillows around Max and gently closes the door, leaving it open a crack. She needs to unwind, needs to put her unsuccessful day of job hunting behind her. The Jeep died again today, and fortunately someone was able to give her a jump. Her savings are at an all-time low and she doesn't know what she'll do when they officially run out of money.

She makes her way into the living room, to the corner farthest away from the bedrooms. She switches on a small lamp clipped to the side of the makeshift bookshelf and feels herself relax as she looks at the s.p.a.ce around her. Her creative corner. It's small, but it's hers. It's the one place where she can lose herself.

Dishes of colorful, gleaming bottle caps are lined up on a shelf, waiting to be transformed. Ava sits down, turns on the small radio, and preps her worktable. When it's ready, she begins.

She places a bottle cap on a steel bench block and begins to flatten the edges with a rubber mallet. It's satisfying, especially after the day she's had, but it goes by fast-only a few seconds around the rim and then again on the other side. After ten minutes she has a nice pile and even though she could do more, she stops.

She's going to be making hair clips and bookmarks tonight, and maybe a bracelet if she has time. A lot of the local gift shops are trying to source products locally instead of having them shipped in. Ava knows she probably can't make a living doing this, but it's something she can do on her own time and doesn't cost her a lot of money.

She's always had excellent fine-motor skills-it was one reason being a dental a.s.sistant came so easily to her-and there's a simple precision that comes with jewelry making. She has good technique and an eye for color, even though she can't put much into her inventory. She's gone beyond simple magnets and earrings, and has found ways to make bottle-cap jewelry look good.

Ava knows it would solve a lot of their problems if she could find a way to go back to work as a dental a.s.sistant, but the truth is she hasn't even tried. After Bill died, Ava wondered if people knew about what had happened. She felt certain that news of their affair circulated among the other dental offices in the area. Her own embarra.s.sment kept her from applying at first, and now too much time has pa.s.sed. Any dental office she applies to will want job experience and a recommendation, and there's only one person who can give her one, the one person Ava hopes she'll never have to see again. Bill's partner, Dr. Strombauer.

She reaches for a plastic s...o...b..x, pops off the lid. Inside she has bags of images, sorted generally by color, already cut in one-inch circles. She doesn't overthink this part, will use whatever calls out to her. A hummingbird, a music note, a man on a bicycle. She'll drop a few beads into the resin, knowing that they'll float around until the resin sets. Ava likes the randomness, likes how you don't know how it will turn out until it's all done. Ava chooses a handful of possibilities and fans them out on the table.

Her favorite part is next. Her fingers glide through a plastic container of beads, mostly gla.s.s, some lampwork, some seed, some crystal. They sparkle under the light, small bursts of color that seem so hopeful, so happy. Look at us, they seem to say. She scoops out a thimbleful and pours it carefully onto her bead mat.

She works quickly, quietly, her ear trained to the bedroom as the local Avalon station plays late-night favorites. A familiar song comes on and she stops, pliers in hand, as she listens and remembers. Smiles. Laughter. Love. This same song playing in the background, piped into the dental office from the stereo in back, a selection of hits that they got in the mail each month.

She misses Bill.

The thought stops her, paralyzes her. Ava forces herself to breathe, not wanting the emotion to take over, but not wanting to forget, either. She can't ever forget him.

Bill, the man she loved, the man who gave her Max. She wishes Bill could have seen his son, held him once, had a chance to brush his lips against Max's sweet brow. She wishes she could give that to Max, that little piece, but she can't. Bill died before Max came into the world. Max will never know his father.

Ava closes her eyes.

And it's not just Max, it's her, too. She wishes Bill was here, wishes he was still making plans with her, telling her it's going to be all right, that they're going to find a way, that things are going to work out fine-no, better than fine. Great. Beyond expectation. A new life for both of them, together. He'd said this, and she'd believed him.