“He's been working, and I've been busy, and I haven't been home a lot…” Rose hated herself for trying to explain, but she couldn't stop. “I'm probably missing his phone calls,” she added.

“There are plenty of people at the apartment to take a message for you. The maid, the cook, Miss Pearl—”

“I know,” Rose snapped. “He'll call me when he has the time!”

“Of course,” her mother said. But the way she said it reminded Rose of the conversation they'd had the night of the party. Rose felt her fingernails dig into the plush upholstery of her mother's limousine. If he sleeps with someone else after the help I've given him, she thought, I'll let him finish his goddamned musical and I'll tell him I gave it to my mother and she thought it was the worst thing she'd ever read. Then I'll burn it—page by page.

But she knew she wouldn't do that.

THE NEXT DAY Rose let Lu go house hunting by herself. Rose took a taxi to Hershemer's Music Store, where she conned one of the clerks into giving her Bobby's phone number and address.

“I'm an old friend of his cousin,” she said, hoping that was a distant enough relationship. “I want to get in touch with Bobby.”

“Hey, anything for one of Bobby's cousins,” the guy said as he wrote out the information.

“Actually I'm a friend of his cousin,” she corrected him haughtily.

He handed her the invoice with a wink. “Usually it's a sister,” he said.

On her way home, in the taxi, Rose reminded herself that people could mature. They could grow. Especially a man who had finally met the right girl.

That night she called Bobby's apartment. There was no answer. He's working and he's ignoring the phone, she told herself.

Rose called Bobby's number every day for the next week. She called him in the mornings before she and Lu drove off to whatever country manse they were inspecting. She called long distance from pay phones in Bucks County, the New Jersey shore, and Long Island. She called in the evenings after she and Lu had come home. Bobby never answered the phone. Rose went back to Hershemer's Music Store and humiliated herself in front of the winking salesclerk by asking if he was sure he'd given her the right phone number. He assured her with a look full of pity that he had.