"Seafood Night. How funny. Did you know Kit was coming here tonight?"
"Oh, I knew." She began to examine herself in the butter knife, then looking resolutely over the glint of the blade at her sister, as if daring Annie to contradict her: "I had a premonition."
"Wait . . . you and Kit haven't been in touch? Except by premonition?"
But Miranda was no longer listening to her sister. The musical trio had begun to bang out a rendition of "Love Shack." Miranda could see the top of Kit's head across the room. She rose to her feet. Everything would be fine now. It was a wonderful world, a world full of premonitions and seafood and bar mitzvah music, a world in which you could walk across a dance floor, dodging old ladies and young pansies, and rest your hands on a man's shoulders and lean forward and give him a friendly kiss on the head and watch him turn toward you in a flutter of confusion and then smile.
Smile awkwardly.
And stand up and shake your hand.
And say, "Miranda! What are you doing in Palm Springs?"
In a cold, cautious voice.
"Kit!" She heard herself laugh nervously. Kit released her hand. She noticed the hand, free, pale, floating in the air like a bird. It flew to her face. "It's so good to see you," she said. "Where's Henry? I hope I get a chance to see him, too." She was speaking too fast. She took a breath.
"Henry?" Kit said, as if they were talking about some acquaintance.
Again she laughed nervously.
"Henry's with his mother."
"Oh."
"So that's that," Kit said.
"Oh," Miranda said again. Little Henry. Little Henry had a mother.
"Henry?" asked the woman sitting in the chair next to him. She turned her beautiful face to Miranda for a second. Not quite as young as the others at the table, she thought. Why was she so familiar? College? An editor? Then Miranda thought, She is an actress. A famous actress.
Kit bent his head toward the woman and smiled as if to say, Nothing, nothing.
Miranda glanced around for an empty chair she could pull up. She saw Kit's fingers curl around the back of his own chair protectively. She caught his eye, about to be amused, to make a joke about stealing his chair, but his expression told her this was not a funny moment. His face was rigid with effort. Effort at what? He took a breath, slanted his head away from her; his eyes flickered shut, open, shut, back toward her. Something was very wrong. Something was very important. She had a premonition.
Kit took the hand of the famous actress and drew her to a standing position.
"Miranda Weissmann, I'd like you to meet Ingrid Chopin . . ."
Miranda smiled and held out her hand and felt the woman's cool fingers as Kit finished his sentence, ". . . my fiancee."
The woman smiled back at her, a gorgeous, ravishing, impersonal smile, then gracefully withdrew her hand. Miranda's hand was suspended in the air. Kit was saying, "Well, it really was lovely to see you." Later, she noted the past tense, the dismissal. Now, as if she were operating in slower motion than the rest of the room, she noted only that she had already opened her mouth, about to speak, the words all assembled, ready to go: God, I'm so happy for you, all your success . . . and now this wonderful news . . .
But those words, like people loitering in a line, were pushed aside by other words, nasty pushy little words that could not wait their turn.
"You little fuck," she said.
It must have been quite loud, for heads turned.
She was aware of her own stillness, standing as if posed, as if thinking, her hand now again lightly resting on her cheek. She began to pivot slowly away, then pivoted slowly back again. I forgot something, she thought. There's something I forgot. She moved the hand that had been resting on her cheek, lifted it high in the air, then brought it across Kit's face with a loud whack. That was better. That was much better. As she walked deliberately away, her face shone above the room as white as the cold moon.
"Oh Jesus," Annie said when she heard Miranda shout at Kit. "Oh Jesus," she said when she saw Miranda give him a crack across the face.
"What, dear?" her mother asked, turning from an animated conversation with Lou. "Is something the matter?"
"No, no," Annie said, standing to block her mother's view.
Roberts, who had clearly seen the contretemps, looked up from his chair at Annie standing above him, a pained expression on his face.
The band broke into a rousing rendition of "That's Amore."
"Oh, I love this song," Betty said. "Where's Miranda?" she added, looking around.
Miranda was standing very still beside a glistening cliff of oysters, weeping.