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The house, in a town called Osterville, stood on a bluff overlooking Nantucket Sound It was enormous, room upon room, with a wide back lawn and rickety stairs to the beach No doubt it orth h in those days I had no ability to calculate such things Despite its size, it had a homey, unfussy feel Most of the furniture looked like you could pick it up for pennies at a yard sale; in the afternoons, when the wind swung around, it tore through the house like the offensive line of the New York Giants The ocean was still too cold for swi, and because it was so early in the season, the toason the beach, pretending not to be freezing, or lazing around on the porch, playing cards and reading, until evening arrived and the drinks caht have had a beer before dinner while he watched the news on television, but that was the extent of it; my mother never drank at all In the Macoion At six o’clock everyone would gather in the living roo was pleasant, on the porch, whereupon Liz’s father would present us with a silver tray of the evening’s concoction--whiskey old-fashioneds, Tolasses with olives on sticks--accompanied by dainty porcelain cups of nuts warmed in the oven This was followed by ample quantities of ith dinner and sometimes whiskey or port afterward I had hoped our days on the Cape would give my liver a chance to recuperate; there was no chance of that

Jonas and I were sharing a bedrooirls another, located at opposite ends of the house with Liz’s parents in between When we’d co the acade arrangements, to ourselves But not this time I’d expected that the situation would lead to a certain a around in the wee hours, but Liz forbade it "Please do not shock the grown-ups," she said "We’ll all be shocking theh"

Which was just as well By this tiirl, but I did not love her There was nothing about her thatMy heart was simply elsewhere, and it made me feel like a hypocrite Since the funeral in New York, Liz and I had not spoken of ht e had walked the city streets together but in the end had chosen to step back froiances intact Yet it was clear that the night had left its mark on both of us Our friendship, until that tih Jonas A new circuit had been opened--not through hi this pathway pulsed a private current of intimacy We knehat had happened; we had been there I had felt it, and I was sure she’d felt it too, and the fact that we’d done nothing only deepened this connection, even ether We would be sitting on the porch, each of us reading one of the uests; ould look up at just the same moment, our eyes would meet, an ironic smile would flash at the corners of herto each other, aren’t we the trusty twosoet a prize

I intended to do nothing about this, of course I owed Jonas that much and more Nor did I think Liz would have welcomed the atte history, ran deeper than ours ever could The house, with its endless warren of roos, reminded me how true this was I was a visitor to this world, welcomed and even, as Liz had told ether, though indelible, had been just that: a night Still, it thrilledaround her The way she held her drink to her lips Her habit of pushing her glasses to her forehead to read the smallest print How she smelled, which I will not atte else Pain or pleasure? It was both I wanted to bathe in her existence Was she dying? I tried not to think about it I was happy to be near her at all and accepted the situation as it stood

Two days before our departure, Liz’s father announced that ould be eating lobsters for dinner (He did all the cooking; I’d never seen Patty so ) This was for my benefit; he had learned, to his alarm, that I had never eaten one He returned fro a sack of squirrin, and ood laugh, but I didn’t mind I loved her father a little for it, in fact A lazy rain had been falling all day, sapping our energy; noe had a purpose As if in acknowledged in ti table out to the back porch I had noticed so about him In the last couple of days, he had adopted awas afoot At the cocktail hour, we drank bottles of dark beer (the only proper accoreat solemnity, Oscar presented me with a lobster bib I had never understood this infantile practice; no one else earing one, and I felt a bit resentful until I cracked a claw and sprayed lobster juice all over myself, to an explosion of table-wide hilarity