It’s true Murray and I once had a fling, but that was history so ancient there weren’t even any archaeological remains to look through. Far from pining over him, I’d realized after a few weeks that going to bed with someone that competitive had been a colossal mistake. Who the hell had even cared enough to tell Regine Mauger? Murray, out of spite toward me for not being enthusiastic enough about his debut? “Took to the camera like fleas to a dog,” I said savagely.

The story reminded me that Alexandra Fisher said she’d gone to law school with me. While Mr. Contreras continued his slow study of the ads, I went to the hall closet and pulled out the trunk where I keep bits and pieces of my past. On top, wrapped in cotton sheeting, was my mother’s concert gown. I couldn’t resist taking a moment to pull back the sheet and finger the silver lace panels, the soft black silk. The fabric brought her to me as intensely as if she were in the next room. She wanted me to be independent, my mother, not to make the compromises she did for safety, but holding her gown I longed to have her with me, guarding me against the great and little blows the world inflicts.

I resolutely put the dress to one side and rummaged through the trunk until I found my law–school class directory. We’d had a Michael Fisher and a Claud, but no Alexandra. I was snapping the booklet shut when I saw the name above Claud’s: Sandra Fishbein.

The photograph showed a petulant, wide–mouthed face with a mop of wild curls a good six inches thick. She’d been number two in our class and what the faculty called a rabble–rouser. I remembered her chewing me out for not joining her proposed sit–in over women’s bathrooms at the law school.

You’re a blue–collar girl, she harangued me with a speech she’d used before, you should know better than to let the establishment stand on your face. I remembered the scene vividly—she came from the kind of family where children got European travel as high–school graduation presents. For some reason the fact that I was a blue–collar girl, maybe the only one in my class, made her feel she needed my support or approval or respect, I was never sure which.

It’s your establishment, and your face, I’d replied on that occasion, which only wound her up tighter. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, she’d snapped. Oh, all that old–time rhetoric. She’d applauded my going to the public defender, while she went off to clerk for a judge on the tony Sixth Circuit.