In high school, Roberta had never invited Sherri to parties, but Sherri had extended an invitation to Roberta because she wanted to show off her new friends and perhaps even bridge her two worlds. Now she was sorry. She felt responsible when she saw Berta standing alone, and she felt obligated to draw her into conversations that died on the vine. Sherri usually appreciated Roberta’s cynicism and wariness, but not here, not with the Bunnies. Sherri knew Roberta well enough to read her mind, and she could tell that she thought her new friends were shallow. She didn’t know that they had their own aspirations and complicated lives.

“Sher,” Danny said, “think you can arrange for us to take a ride on the pontoon boat?”

Arthur had come outside with a pile of newspapers for the fire—Sherri had thought it was impossibly sexy to watch him read The New York Times from front to back each morning when they were in bed. He interacted with the news, circling articles about the shooting of Pope John Paul II and a story about a Russian cosmonaut who swore he saw a UFO that looked like a transparent barbell. Arthur underlined “transparent barbell” and in the margins he wrote, “What does that look like?” She’d paged through an old New Yorker on his bedside table and saw that he’d underlined some lines from a poem called “Like Wings” by Philip Schultz and wondered with a bit of a thrill if he’d been reminded of her: “I think of the light that opened over you our first morning, / how the glass in my lungs turned to sound, / and I saw you woman and child, and couldn’t breathe, for love.”

“Artie?” she asked, trying out the nickname that fit him like a bad suit. “Can we take the martini boat out?”

“No, sorry. I need to stay here and watch the fire. It’s too close to the house. This place will go down like a bag of sticks.”

“I can drive, I’m a lake guy,” Danny said, patting Arthur on the back. “Your boat is in good hands.”

Arthur still seemed worried. “But she doesn’t even have a name yet. Isn’t that bad luck?”

“Nah,” Danny said. “A boat has to earn her name.”

“Please?” Sherri asked. She ran her hand along the back of Arthur’s neck, knowing it was easy to get him to say yes. “What’s the point of owning a boat if you never use it?”

“I’ll go get the key.”

“I can stay here with you,” Roberta said to Arthur. “I didn’t know I was supposed to bring my suit.” Her tone was accusatory.

“It’s a party, Berta. Nobody’s supposed to do anything,” Sherri said.

“Do me a favor,” Roberta said. “Stop introducing me to these people as your ‘old friend.’”

“But you are my old friend.”