Ben poked at the lasagna, waiting for everyone to be served. He glanced nervously from Angela to Hudson.

“We had to read The Pearl,” said Caddie, startling her father into looking at her. She was spooning green beans from a bowl onto her plate.

“What did you think of it?” Hudson asked her.

“I thought it was interesting,” said Caddie. “You know, the whole thing about getting what you think you want but it not being enough. Isn’t that what happens to all of these rock stars and movie stars? But in the novel it happens to people who don’t have anything. It’s like he was trying to show that people are all the same.”

“I think Steinbeck was saying that sometimes you don’t know what you already have until someone takes it away from you,” said Hudson. “They have each other, and their baby. Then, because of the pearl, they almost lose it all.”

“All I know is that I got a C-minus on the paper I wrote,” Angela commented. “I haven’t read anything else by Steinbeck since then.”

“Hudson is also interested in Ed Ricketts,” Ben said quickly.

Angela’s face brightened. “Now he was an interesting man,” she said.

She began to talk about Ricketts with Hudson. Ben, pleased that he had turned the conversation around, sat and ate quietly, watching the two of them converse. It was a few minutes before he realized that Caddie hadn’t said a word in some time. He looked at her and discovered her picking at her food. From time to time she cast dark looks at Angela.

Ben groaned internally. In averting one disaster, he had created another. Caddie was clearly jealous of the attention Hudson was paying to Angela. Can’t she see that he wouldn’t be interested in her? Ben wondered. He marveled at the inability, or reluctance, of young women to see that someone wasn’t at all right for them. He supposed men did it too, but not nearly so often or so spectacularly.

“How was your day?” he asked his daughter, hoping to coax her into conversation.

“Fine,” Caddie said shortly.

“What did you do?” Ben pushed.

“Nothing much,” said Caddie. “Walked around town a little.”

“That sounds fun,” Ben said brightly, receiving nothing in reply.

“So, Caddie, what are you doing this summer?” Hudson asked, taking a break from discussing Ed Ricketts.

Ben watched the transformation come over Caddie. The look of petulance disappeared, replaced by bright-eyed enthusiasm. “I haven’t really decided,” she said. “Do you have any ideas?”