Charlie, the joint in one hand, a cigarette in the other, was going on about summer and how great it was going to be, how stoked he was, and how it was never too early to start making plans—“Beyond the seminars, I mean. Are we going to do anything for May Day, the summer solstice, the Fourth . . . Or what, Flag Day?” Fitz was watching the smoke fume round Charlie’s face, a kind of rippling effect that might or might not have had anything to do with flashbacks—it was the light, the movement of the smoke, the transformative nature of the world of appearances, I see, therefore I am. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Joanie lift the wineglass to her lips, drain it and set it back down again, and he felt her eyes on him and turned to look at her. It might have been the drink—his glass was already half empty—but he saw something unconquerably sad in her eyes, his own wife unhappy, deeply unhappy, and whose fault was that? “You’ve had your drink,” she said. “I’m going up to bed.”

And what did he say? “Sure. Okay. Great. I’ll be right there.”

But as soon as she left, as soon as she’d pushed back her chair and weaved through the room and out the door without saying a word to anybody, he reached for the bottle and topped off his glass, and by the time it was empty there were only three people left at the table—Charlie, Alice and Diana—and he realized he hadn’t heard a word of the conversation because Alice was asking him something and he had to say what? twice before he could respond. The question was about Ken Kesey’s first novel: What did he think of it?

“I don’t think anything,” he said. “I haven’t read it.”

“Oh, you’ve got to read it—it’s amazing. Like nothing else you’ll read this year. Especially for a psychologist.” Alice leaned into the table, her elbows planted, her hair aflame. “Plus, rumor is he’s coming out with a new one this summer and it’s going to be huge. I mean, I’ve got a copy of Cuckoo’s Nest up in my room—actually Lori gave it to me, because, I mean, everybody was talking about it when we were up in Cambridge, but somehow I never got around to it. It’s top-notch, isn’t it, Charlie?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, “yeah, absolutely. Top-notch.”