“Come,” said Pru, and drew me away to a showy washroom.

A black woman had been hired to sit watch in here. She seemed an installation of scorn. She wore a crisp tailored uniform and a paper hat pinned to her hair.

“What am I supposed to do?” Pru asked.

“About what?” I said. “Raymond?”

“I didn’t ask him to love me. I didn’t say, ‘Leave your wife and kid.’ And I sure don’t want you mad at me, Paige. But suddenly Raf’s decided I’m home-wrecking scum. And yet, just before we came in here, Raymond grabbed me and went, ‘Let’s do it all. Fuck it. Let’s go for broke.’ ”

“Get married he means? I don’t know, Pru. Raymond’s awfully drunk. Why don’t we just play through tonight and say it doesn’t count? Nothing that happens tonight goes on anybody’s scorecard.”

Pru got a Raggedy Ann doll look of helplessness and hurt.

She pulled me to her and gave me a trembling embrace. “Please don’t turn on me,” she said, her cheek warm on mine.

I stepped back, aware of the attendant’s view of our runners-up-in-a-beauty-contest hug, and leaned my shoulders against a brilliant tile wall. I lifted and flexed both my feet, which were straining from the steep arch of the borrowed high heels.

Pru was examining her mirror image. She smoothed the satin over her stomach; tugged the skirt, adjusted it on her hips.

“A lot of these people here hate me because they invested in my daddy and he got rich on their dough and blew. They think I’m just a climber and that I should’ve left town with him. Even Lilith’s father pulled out on me.”

“So you’re kind of like Trish Nixon still hanging around D.C. after Watergate,” I said.

“Don’t compare me to a Republican, but yeah. I come to these festivities out of contempt. To goad the men, spook the women. You’re the last woman friend I have, Paige. And now Raymond’s jeopardizing that, and Raf’s poisoning your ears. You want Raymond, don’t you? That’s what’s really bothering you.”

“Even if I did, Pru, that package is wrapped up and ribbon tied and your name’s on it.”

We were in the cosmetic-repair area now, where, at a vanity counter, two older women balanced on rotating stools, their chins raised as they curved lipsticks on their O-shaped mouths.

Pru seized me with both hands, seized my shoulders. “We can fix it with Raymond so that it’s you he wants!”

“No, no,” I said.

“You don’t want Raymond then?” She shook me by the shoulders and woggled me on the high-heel sticks.

“No,” I said, and the word came out in three wavy syllables.

“I’m sorry. Jeez-oh, I jiggled off one of your fake eyelashes,” Pru said.