“Friends,” I said. “They’re my friends.”

“Funny group of friends, if you ask me.”

And then the dream blinked, changed.

“I have to tell you something,” I was saying to Amy.

“I don’t think I want you to,” she answered in a small, worried voice.

We were walking at the base of the Belleayre ski lift, her hands holding my arm. The night was cold, bright. Above us, stars sizzled like fireworks.

“I have to say it,” I told her.

She stopped walking and looked at me. I thought she already knew. I thought that Carter had told her.

“Carolyn’s coming to visit me.”

She did not speak for a long time. She looked away, over the valley. She pulled her hands from my arm and pushed them into her coat pocket. Finally, she asked, “When?”

“The end of next week.”

She still did not look at me. “How long have you known?”

“Since last week. Remember when Joey came into Arch’s to tell me I had a phone call? It was Carolyn.”

“Did you ask her to come up?”

“No. I didn’t know anything about it. It was something my mother arranged. They’re riding up with my brother.”

She sniffed and turned her back to me. “I knew something was wrong,” she whispered. “I asked Carter, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, begging her to believe me. “I didn’t expect it. It’s not something I—”

She turned to me. She was crying.

“Will you hold me?” she said.

I embraced her. Her body shuddered against me.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“You know I can’t be here,” she said quietly. “Not for that. I couldn’t see… that. I couldn’t.”

And then I was standing in front of Arch’s and I saw Raymond’s car slowing to a stop on the street, and I saw Carolyn through the window of the car. She was waving and smiling happily, like a child arriving at a party. I saw her open the car door and rush to me. She threw her arms around me and crushed me with gladness. Across the street, in the doorway of The Cave, Carter smoked a cigarette and watched me. He wagged his head sorrowfully and spit the cigarette from his mouth.

Amelita Galli-Curci was singing. I could hear her voice rising in the air and I could see her standing on the porch of Sul Monte. Avrum was sitting on his bench below her, holding his bouquet of roses. His head was bent back, his eyes were closed, his lips mouthed the music.

Carter crowded close to me in the kitchen dressing room, which smelled of perspiration and body talc. He was whispering, “Bobo, I’ve got to tell you what you’re going to see when you walk out in the dining room. You’re going to see Adam.”

“Who?”