"All right," Nancy said. "What's everyone going to do today? First you, young lady."
"Yes ma'am!" Amanda shot me that quick, mischievous glance and raised her fork like a baton. "You see, George Segal's zipping by in his Learjet and we're going to buzz over to the Cannes Film Festival."
"George Segal!" Peg said. "I'd think you'd want Robert Redford."
Amanda stuck out her lower lip and eyed her older sister and then Ron Dalrymple, who was ladling into his scrambled eggs. Amanda takes after me; her face is homely in a way, bones too prominent -- my genes -- but unlike me she's never let it bother her. The kids are so much more assured these days, I can never get over it. Then she blinked and gave a shivery little giggle. "We'll see, that's because my tastes are kind of kinky."
"Don't use that word, Amanda!" Nancy said in her Regimental Adjutant voice.
"Why? What's wrong with kinky? Kinky's just --"
"We've been over this before. It's offensive."
"Your mother feels it has lascivious connotations," I said, remembering a moment long ago.
"No, but suppose George Segal did swing by in his Learjet. How would you play it?"
Her mother watched her a moment. "You're barely sixteen. That's an academic question."
"But pretty soon it won't be. You know?" And she gave me that merry, defiant look again -- the one that enchanted and scared me at the same time.
"Amanda, please." Nancy shifted to her Circuit Court voice. "I've things to do, and I need to know."
Amanda stuck out her lip again -- then gave it up. "I'm going over to Ginny's and mess around. Play records...I don't know. Okay?" She picked up the paper and started reading.
"George, how about you?"
I looked at Nancy over the coffee cup's rim. That rounded, well-bred face, still smooth (though some of that was moisturizing cream, of course, applied each night and morning with the precision of a chemist); her hair graying now, a rather pleasing silvered blond, perfectly in place -- she was the only one of us dressed and ready to go this raw February morning; she was always the only one -- her brows raised in that curious expression of expectancy. First college date, wife of my bosom, mother of my children. Ordering, organizing, planning. For what? Still, she'd asked Amanda first, me second. That meant she had plans for Peg; maybe even for Ron. There was always a pattern behind her order of interrogation.
"Oh, Dad's going out to the old workshop," Amanda said, turning the pages of the Globe. "As usual."
"Yes, as a matter of fact I believe I will." Actually, I hadn't planned anything at all. It was that time of year free of pressures around the place -- no wood to cut or leaves to rake. There wasn't even any snow to shovel. A Saturday hanging between seasons, a dead-center time.
Nancy nodded. "Well. I'm going in to town. There's a sale on at Stewart's." She clasped her hands under her chin and I knew what was coming. "How about you, Peg. Want to come along?"
"I don't know, Ma. Maybe." She gazed across the table at Ron, who was mopping up a second helping of eggs. That boy must be hollow right down to the heels. He raised his eyes to Peg and smiled with that special intimacy of theirs, but gave no other sign I could detect, though I'm not entirely up on today's nuances. I did know they'd talked till after two, down in the living room.
"Ron: how about you?" Nancy was smiling pleasantly enough, but her voice had that faint, firm edge to it. Nancy had just about given up on Peg and Ron. She insisted on maintaining the fiction of separate bedrooms although they'd clearly been sleeping together for some time now. We'd had an argument about it two nights before -- her voice, hissing...
