Among the guests at the party, besides the Rofranos, were a couple of movie executives, the mayor of Burbank, the president of the Lockheed Aviation Company, and the editor of the Los Angeles Times. George was nothing if not methodical about his guest lists. They were all sympathetic to Irene. She had to explain the accident five times, had to describe the injury to her arm, had to express enthusiasm for the upcoming lecture tour, had to chitchat over four courses served in the dining room by the housekeeper.

She was used to all this. George and Irene entertained guests three or four nights a week when they were home, and of course a lecture tour meant countless fried chicken dinners with mayors and aviation enthusiasts and the ladies of the town lecture committees and their curious banker husbands. In response, Irene had invented a character named Irene Foster, Aviatrix, who could make patient, polite conversation with all these people and win glowing reviews for her All-American character wherever she went. Irene played this character night after night, like an actress in a long-running Broadway play. She played it now, even though she was exhausted and sick with worry about a man she had loved eight years before.

Only Sophie Rofrano knew the effort it cost her. But then Sophie Rofrano was eight and a half months pregnant and her husband was extremely protective of her. They sat next to each other at the other end of the table, where Irene cast envious glances. She had always envied the Rofranos. Without being attached at the hip or anything like that, they were deeply and affectionately in love. Octavian Rofrano was a reserved man, not easy to talk to. His face, as he made conversation with the woman on his left, crinkled earnestly, as if he were in pain. But when his wife asked him a question from his other side, his expression changed. He turned to her and bent his head—Sophie Rofrano was a small woman—and it was obvious that the rest of the room, the rest of the world maybe, held not the slightest pinprick of interest next to what his wife was saying, at that moment.

Then his expression changed again. He stood and walked around the table to murmur something in George’s ear, and George jumped up and said Of course! Irene looked at Sophie and Sophie looked at her and pointed, smiling, to her middle. Irene rose and went to Sophie, reached her just as Octavian reached her, and together they helped Sophie from her chair, though she tried to brush them away, laughing that she had done this before, she was perfectly capable of walking to the car. The news rippled around the room. Luckily they were just finishing dessert, and the party ended by everyone waving off the Rofranos on their way to the hospital to have their baby, just like they were newlyweds.