Sue Wilson said, “He didn’t even tell anybody. Janet saw him. She thought he went to get something in his car, but he got in and drove away. I call that rude.”

Bev said, “Peter isn’t rude.”

“He left his sled,” said Catherine. A restlessness came over her, and she thought how irritating and boring all these people were, and this kitchen, and this universe, and above all, above all, those little straight pretzels. Why weren’t they the three-ring kind?

“It’s about time!” said Bev. She tipped up the cover and Catherine saw a kernel burst into flower. Bev banged the cover down and shook the pan; there was a crack-crack-cracking. Catherine went over to the den and looked in quickly. Then she turned, walked across the kitchen, and went downstairs.

Through the half-open door of the playroom Catherine saw drifting smoke and the corner of a couch. She went into the workroom and put on her coat, fumbling with the plump buttons, shaped like half-globes. Pulling on her boots, and tying her kerchief under her chin, she strode through the garage.

When she stepped outside she saw that some of the party had returned to the slope. She had thought only of escaping from the house, and now she was standing in the floodlight, exposed. She felt like putting her hands over her face. The only private place was the leaning pine. She climbed the slope at the back of the house, away from the sledding path, and headed across the deep snow toward her tree. Under the moon and the dark blue sky the snow was luminous and tinged with blue.

Catherine stopped; in the open space of the pine she saw Bob Carwin, standing with one arm against the trunk as he leaned over Bonnie Baker, who sat on a low branch. Catherine turned back angrily into the upper yard. There was no place where she could be alone. There were people at the willow, people at the bottom of the sledding path, people in the pine. There were people in the playroom, people in the kitchen, people in the den. The party was spreading; soon it would flow across the yard, over the hedge, and into the next yard. It would flow across the town. It would spread into the dark blue sky, all the way to the snowy moon.