By mid-January she had taken a job demonstrating kitchenware in department stores. The ad in the newspaper promised on-the-job training, opportunities for advancement and contact with the public. Hazel submitted to a short, vague, surprisingly painless interview, and was rewarded the following morning by a telephone call telling her she was to start immediately. She suspected she was the sole applicant, but nevertheless went numb with shock. Shock and also pleasure. She hugged the elbows of her dressing gown and smoothed the sleeves flat. She was fifty years old and without skills, a woman who had managed to avoid most of the arguments and issues of the world. Asked a direct question, her voice wavered. She understood nothing of the national debt or the situation in Nicaragua, nothing. At ten-thirty most mornings she was still in her dressing gown and had the sense to know this was shameful. She possessed a softened, tired body and rubbed-looking eyes. Her posture was only moderately good. She often touched her mouth with the back of her hand. Yet someone, some person with a downtown commercial address and an official letterhead and a firm telephone manner had seen fit to offer her a job.

Only Hazel, however, thought the job a good idea.

Brian’s mother, a woman in her eighties living in a suburban retirement center called Silver Oaks, said, “Really, there is no need, Hazel. There’s plenty of money if you live reasonably. You have your condo paid for, your car, a good fur coat that’ll last for years. Then there’s the insurance and Brian’s pension, and when you’re sixty-five-now don’t laugh, sixty-five will come, it’s not that far off-you’ll have your social security. You have a first-rate lawyer to look after your investments. There’s no need.”

Hazel’s closest friend, Maxine Forestadt, a woman of her own age, a demon bridge player, a divorcee, a woman with a pinkish powdery face loosened by too many evenings of soft drinks and potato chips and too much cigarette smoke flowing up toward her eyes, said, “Look. You’re not the type, Hazel. Period. I know the type and you’re not it. Believe me. All right, so you feel this urge to assert yourself, to try to prove something. I know, I went through it myself, wanting to show the world I wasn’t just this dipsy pushover and hanger-oner. But this isn’t for you, Haze, this eight-to-five purgatory, standing on your feet, and especially your feet, your arches, your arches act up just shopping. I know what you’re trying to do, but in the long run, what’s the point?”